Chapter Text
Rosalind Dyer lived for trials. It was so satisfying, for her, to be able to absorb every moment of her crimes over and over again as the know-it-all lawyers entered their evidence, dramatized the facts for the jury, and questioned the people involved with intent to get every last detail out on the playing field. She had to admit, she was disappointed that she didn't have Caleb around anymore to commit crimes on her behalf. Though it thrilled her to be able to relive the crimes that he did commit, again, for her own trial. Her lawyer had tried to convince her to take a plea deal because there was so much evidence against her, it was impossible that a jury wouldn't convict. But she insisted. And neither her lawyer or the DA's office could do anything about it. God Bless America.
She would have loved it more if Officer Lucy Chen had decided to take the stand like she had said she would. She went back on her word, Rosalind noted grimly. Rosalind didn't like that. She understood, though, why the pretty cop decided not to testify. While Rosalind could feel no empathy for another human soul, she still believed to know the inner workings of a human mind better than anyone else. While she would've preferred to see sweet, sweet tears dripping off of Lucy Chen's face while she recounted her time in the barrel, she was aware that there was little chance the officer would put herself in that vulnerable position again, considering Rosalind had tormented her in the prison when she saw her last.
The barrel video shown in evidence was satisfying enough to soften the blow for Rosalind.
What did surprise her—and Rosalind Dyer was hardly ever surprised—was the witness that was currently on the stand. Sergeant Tim Bradford. Sergeant, she noted at some point while they were swearing him in, making him take the sacred oath of the court. He'd been promoted. She wondered if John had, too, but that was a thought for another day.
Chris Sanford, the young rookie ADA that the DA entrusted with her case, began his line of questioning after the Sergeant sat down.
"Sergeant Bradford, thank you for joining us today. Can you state your full name and occupation for the record, please?"
"Timothy Bradford. Sergeant I for the Mid-Wilshire division of the Los Angeles Police Department."
"How long have you been with the LAPD, Sergeant Bradford?"
"About thirteen years. I've been a Sergeant for almost a year now."
Rosalind's eyes narrowed at the objectively handsome cop sitting in the witness box ahead of her. She didn't dare remove her eyes, though she knew that Bradford was skillfully avoiding looking over at her. All the witnesses had, probably instructed by ADA Sanford in an attempt to rile her up. But she could see right through that handsome cop, blissfully aware that there was a hard edge to his tone that meant that he was rattled, on some level, to be up on the stand reliving that day of his life.
Because, like noted earlier, she'd seen the barrel footage. Including the moment that Sergeant Bradford ripped off the lid and tossed it on the ground, showing just a glimpse of his tortured (still handsome) face as he lifted Lucy Chen out of the barrel. When he and Lucy had visited her in prison, too, she noticed the atmosphere between them. It was so obvious, even a serial killer with no romantic bone in her body could see right through their façade.
"Thank you." Chris began, shifting straight into lawyer-mode as he stood at the podium near the witness box. "Let's begin. Why are you here today, Sergeant Bradford?"
"I was part of the team that rescued Officer Chen when she was kidnapped by Caleb—I mean, Ryan Crawford." Bradford said the sentence through his teeth, Rosalind noted, clearly trying not to show any emotion. Ryan was her protégé's real name; although, Rosalind didn't like to use it. Caleb suited him better.
"Did you know Mr. Crawford before he kidnapped Officer Chen?"
"No. We spoke once, at the station, when he gave Lucy—sorry, Officer Chen—his phone number."
"Did you have any reason to suspect that Mr. Crawford was dangerous at the time?"
"No, I didn't." He shifted uncomfortably, recalling the memory. Tim's next words were slower, a crack in his voice that was hardly picked up on by anyone for how well he hid it. "In hindsight, maybe I should have. It was weird that he came down to the station. But at the time, no. And even later that day, Chen checked out his social media profiles to vet him. We didn't know this at the time, but he had created a fake profile with fake photos and videos under the name Caleb Wright, to make him appear trustworthy."
ADA Sanford nodded and continued, "To your knowledge, did Officer Chen go on a date with Mr. Crawford?"
"She did."
"When?"
"The night that Officer Nolan and Detective Harper rescued Nora Valdez from the abandoned zoo. A man named Brian Coleman—who we eventually discovered to be one of Ryan's aliases—had attempted to murder Ms. Valdez by suffocating her in a barrel above ground. That same M.O. had been used on the dead body we found in the grave that the defendant had led us to earlier in the day as part of her deal with the DA. Anyways, it was a long day for all of us, so I...told her that she needed to blow off some steam. She called Caleb—Ryan—that night to go out with him for a drink."
If Chris wasn't doing his job in that particular moment, he would question the gravity and pain in Tim's voice. But, of course, he was in the middle of a courtroom. This wasn't the time. "Right. Now, when did you discover that Officer Chen was missing?"
"The next morning. Her roommate, Officer West, was worried that she hadn't come home and didn't show up for work on time."
"What did you do then?"
"We ran a background check on Caleb Wright, but the check failed because he didn't exist. We also checked Caleb's social media page that Chen had been looking at, like I said earlier. It had been taken down."
"And how did you connect Mr. Crawford to his alias, Brian Coleman and, by association, the defendant?"
"Objection, your honor. Lack of foundation—Mr. Sanford hasn't yet established how Ms. Dyer is connected to Mr. Crawford," Damn it, Rosalind rolled her eyes at her lawyer sitting next to her. She was annoyed, mostly, because he had interrupted the flow of questioning. She had been so invested in the way that Sergeant Bradford's eyes glared with pain as he recalled the emotions that he felt when his precious Lucy Chen had been abducted. She was certain, too, that he had clearly blamed himself for telling Lucy to go out with Caleb. That only intensified her gratification.
Rosalind thought to herself that her lawyer clearly hadn't taken her seriously when she asked him not to object, given that she wanted the full, uninterrupted experience. And what a silly objection, too. She noticed the ADA open his mouth to respond, but the judge merely looked at Rosalind's lawyer with an annoyance in her eyes.
"That's clearly the point of his question, Mr. Keenan. Overruled. Continue, Mr. Sanford."
"Thank you, your honor," Chris noted as he watched Keenan sink to his seat after the objection had been ruled upon. Bradford appeared to move his arm uncomfortably along his thigh as Chris turned back. "Do you need me to repeat the question?"
"No. Uh, we saw the video footage from outside the bar where Officer Chen was taken. The footage was too steep to see faces, but we ran the license plate of a car that left the scene moments after. Chen's car was still at the bar, so we could assume she was in the car that left. The license plate was reported stolen. Within the circumstances, there was enough evidence to believe that Caleb had abducted Officer Chen and that he was working with the defendant, since there was clearly a link between the killings and the graves that the defendant led us to."
"And how did you come to find the location of where Officer Chen was being held by Mr. Crawford?"
"We found out that the defendant was communicating with the outside world from prison through contraband smuggling, and through that we discovered a man named Jerry Havel was exchanging contraband with the defendant. Jerry Havel had been a guard at Rosalind's prison in 2017. Only, when we tracked Havel down, it turned out that he'd had his identity stolen by Ryan. Just like Brian Coleman. Havel's credit card statements showed a charge for a P.O. box rented in Kern County that was still active. Havel had reported it as a fraudulent charge. The defendant also had a farm in this area. Officer Nolan and Detective Harper found Ryan in the house as he attempted to murder Nick Armstrong, the detective that had worked on Rosalind's original murders. Detective Harper had no choice but to discharge her weapon at Mr. Crawford as he was aiming to fire at Officer Nolan. Mr. Crawford died on scene."
Chris took in a deep breath as silence hung in the courtroom for a moment. He looked down at his notes, letting the air sting so that the jury could process. Eventually, he lifted his head and continued. "Alright. Now, can you tell the jury how Officer Chen was rescued, please?"
Tim turned to the jury to explain. Rosalind could feel the pain in Bradford's chest from all the way across the room and it was so delicious, Rosalind could cry. She leaned back in her seat, despite the chains that bound her. She was going to enjoy this.
"Officer Chen was not inside the house. There were miles of desert to search around the property, so we spread out to find her. It was an impossible task. Officer West and I had gone to the east quadrant to search and split up. At some point before she got into the barrel, Officer Chen had the good sense to drop a ring on the ground near where she was buried. I noticed it on the ground and found the lid of the barrel a few feet away. When I pulled her out, she wasn't breathing. I performed CPR immediately, and thankfully, she survived. I—we got to her...just in time."
Tim brought himself back to that moment. Just in time had meant that her heart stopped beating until he breathed the life back into her. His jaw clenched, thinking about the fact that he had almost lost her. Rosalind noticed all the way from her seat, again. The emotion that handsome man was portraying was so juicy, she felt like she was enjoying a good old fashioned Christmas dinner.
Chris, too, noticed the emotion on Tim's face. He said nothing. Again, courtroom. "When she was released from the hospital following the abduction, did Officer Chen tell you that the defendant was involved in her kidnapping?"
"Objection. Hearsay." The objection was firmer this time. Rosalind didn't mind this interruption. It gave her more time to drink in the pain on Sergeant Bradford's face as he relived that moment in his head. For someone that was so sure of himself, keeping his emotions in check all the time, it really was stupid obvious how much he cared about her right in that moment. Rosalind wondered, actually a little frustrated, how he couldn't see it, himself.
This time, the judge nodded in agreement. "Sustained."
Chris flipped his legal pad of notes, barely breaking a sweat over the objection that he knew was going to be called, but he'd tested the waters anyways. He moved on, clearing his throat comfortably. "When was the next time you saw the defendant?"
"A couple months, maybe. The department was concerned over an accusation relating to another officer's conduct. That's unrelated to this case. Officer Chen and I were assigned to visit the prison and review video footage of a discussion Officer Nolan had with the defendant, but there was no audio recording on the footage. So, we decided to speak to her and ask her about the details of that conversation instead."
"Your honor, if I may," Chris turned away from Sergeant Bradford to look at the judge on the bench. "The People would like to play Exhibit 32 for the jury. It's already been entered into evidence."
The judge turned to Rosalind's lawyer for an objection, which of course there was one, but it was ultimately overruled. To Rosalind's delight, of course. Minutes later, the body camera footage was being played, echoing throughout the small courtroom. There was, it should be noted, a small crowd in the gallery behind them. Mostly news reporters and true crime fanatics. Still, Rosalind noted that it was nice to have all of the attention. She hoped that, in the future, she'd have an excuse to come back into the courtroom. Maybe for a more shockingly vile crime, though. This one was a bit lame.
The video played for a few minutes, recounting the conversation between Bradford, Chen, and Rosalind as they stood in her solitary cell. The perspective was from Sergeant Bradford's camera footage. It was hard not to notice when his body clearly tensed on the camera. Rosalind noticed herself give a small smile to Bradford on the footage as she called him Lucy's fierce protector. She smiled to herself, thinking about how smart that comment was.
When the video was over, Chris turned back to Bradford.
"I know we've just watched the video, but can you describe in your own words what happened when you and Officer Chen went to visit Rosalind in prison, Sergeant Bradford?"
"The defendant was teasing Officer Chen." Tim swallowed thickly, his voice hardening with anger. Rosalind recalled it in her memory again, the way the two officers had entered her solitary cell, masking their nervousness to speak with her. "She...sang the song that Lucy had sung in that barrel when she was underground, thinking she was going to die. She told Lucy that the video camera that recorded her in the barrel wasn't for Caleb, it was for the defendant."
Keenan wanted to object, but the body camera footage ensured that Tim's words were not hearsay. Rosalind tried her best not to hum the song under her breath again, thinking about the barrel footage. She closed her eyes and she was right back there, watching it. Pleasure rippled through her and she had to bite her lip hard to keep from giggling in glee.
"Thank you, Sergeant Bradford." Chris turned back to the judge with a hard nod. "No further questions, your honor."
"Mr. Keenan, your witness," the judge muttered as she wrote something down on her notepad absently.
Tim finally turned to Rosalind's lawyer, his eyes unfortunately connecting with the serial killer's for a moment—just a moment. Rosalind felt a thrill in her veins. She knew she was affecting him, even if he wouldn't let her see it. His poor Lucy in that barrel, so close to leaving him. So close to dying. Rosalind could just tell that it was eating him up inside. If she were less of a psychopath, maybe she would even find that sweet.
Before her lawyer stood up to move to the podium to start questioning, Rosalind tapped the old bastard's shoulder to get his attention. The lawyer dipped forward while she whispered in his ear, making sure she was loud enough so that the old man could hear. The lawyer then leaned back in his chair, a confused look on his features, but Rosalind only nodded at him assuringly. Tim furrowed his brows, but tried not to let the slight distraction sway his resolve.
Keenan approached the stand, clearing his throat. He set his legal pad down on the podium and crossed his hands over it.
"Thank you, your honor. Sergeant Bradford, at the time Officer Chen had been abducted, she was your rookie, correct?"
"That's correct."
"And she is currently serving as your Sergeant's aide at the LAPD?"
"Yes, that's correct."
"You two spend a lot of time together, right?"
"I'd say so."
"And isn't it true that you're in love with Officer Chen?"
The question came out so fast that Tim was positive that he hadn't heard it right. Sanford, too, felt his mouth drop open in shock as the question rolled out. The entire courtroom, in fact, took a little gasp, the judge even widening her eyes in both alarm and intrigue. The jury's attention had certainly been caught.
Rosalind smiled victoriously, shifting her chained hands so that they were on top of each other as a smug look danced across her face, noticing the way that Sergeant Bradford—who had been, to some extent, relatively calm up until that point—turned into a stuttering idiot.
"W-w-what? That's...that's...I..." Tim trailed off, his heart nearly exploding inside of his chest with how fast it was beating. His eyes quickly darted to Rosalind, then removed them immediately upon seeing the smirk on her lips. He then looked at the judge, almost as if begging for help. The courtroom was in shock, rippling as if there had been a bomb dropped. Words were failing him, Tim realized. He swallowed as he moved to answer, but Keenan interrupted him.
"I'll remind you that you're under oath, Sergeant Bradford."
"I-I..."
"Y-Your Honor!" ADA Sanford finally pulled himself together enough to find the will to stand, a small scoff escaping his mouth as he figured out how to object to the ridiculous question. Tim was thankful for the interruption. So thankful. "Objection...uh, relevance? Any...personal relationship between Officer Chen and Sergeant Bradford is completely irrelevant to the charges against the defendant or the witness's testimony."
Any personal relationship, Chris thought to himself, noting his choice of words. Was there a personal relationship between Tim and Lucy? He would be lying if he said that the thought didn't cross his mind after their weird double date, but Lucy had assured him over and over again that nothing had ever happened. And he believed her, for the most part.
The judge looked intrigued at the line of questioning, though she was still a little in shock. It wasn't every day that someone was asked under oath whether they were in love with another person, particularly not a decorated officer testifying about his former trainee. She turned back to Mr. Keenan with a shrug.
"I mean...Mr. Keenan, I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Sanford on this one. What's the relevance of your question?"
"Your honor, it goes to show that Sergeant Bradford can't be objective when it comes to Officer Chen. Officer Chen has decided not to testify today, for whatever reason, and the ADA is attempting to use Sergeant Bradford's testimony in place of it. If Sergeant Bradford and Officer Chen are in a romantic relationship—or if Sergeant Bradford harbors romantic feelings for Officer Chen in any capacity—this goes to his credibility as a witness."
Rosalind kept her eyes peeled on Bradford the entire time. The twinge of confusion, pain, existential crisis that flooded his face made her so gleeful, she could die of happiness almost. She wondered whether Lucy would find out about that question on the stand. If she would ask about it. What he would tell her. Would he finally confess? Oh, this was better than any murder she could conjure up in her head. The pure torture in his eyes was gift enough.
The judge appeared to contemplate for a moment, sneaking a glance back at Sergeant Bradford, who'd suddenly gone quiet and turned his eyes to the floor. The judge noted that was interesting, but then sighed heavily, realizing that her first duty was to the law, of course.
"Mr. Keenan. The fact is, this witness is a Sergeant at the LAPD with over a decade of experience on the job. The...status of their relationship has no bearing on his credibility, especially since he's testified already that he witnessed her rescue first-hand. This is a courtroom, not a dating show. Although, if Sergeant Bradford wants to answer that question on his own volition, we are all on the edge of our seats."
A small bucket of laughter filled the small room, lightening the mood quickly. The judge glanced at Bradford again from the side, because this was the most interesting question she'd ever heard asked in her courtroom—at least this month, anyway. Sergeant Bradford looked up at the judge with a frown, so she turned back to Keenan.
"Objection sustained. Move on, please."
But Rosalind was satisfied enough that she didn't care what happened for the rest of the trial. She had tugged on exactly the right strings, manipulated the situation in exactly the right way to get what she wanted. She would lie awake at night, reveling over the fact that she had definitely made Tim Bradford question everything about himself. The gratification that came from knowing that he would lie awake at night wondering what he was going to say on the stand—under oath—to the question of whether or not he was in love with Lucy Chen was unmatched. That would keep her going for a while, she was sure.
Court was adjourned later, and Rosalind was brought back to her cell, left to relive the moment over and over.