Angel of the Dark

“Her psychiatrists could give you a clinical opinion. But from my observations, she was withdrawn, poorly socialized among her peer group, prone to fantasy and self-delusion. Child Welfare Services was aware of her as a problem case. She was moved repeatedly between facilities.”

“Why was that?”

Ms. Darcy turned toward her former charge and said affectionately, “Because no one could handle her, that’s why. No one understood her.”

“But you did?”

“I wouldn’t say that, no. After she turned thirteen, she told her caseworkers that she didn’t want to see me again and we lost touch. I never did know why.”

Sofia Basta was crying openly now, with every TV camera trained on her beautiful, tear-streaked face.

“That must have been hard for you.”

“It was,” Rose Darcy said simply. “I loved her.”

Ellen Watts’s next witness, Janet Hooper, had worked at the Beeches, the home where Sophie lived in her late teens. A heavyset woman, with hunched shoulders and heavy bags under her eyes that suggested she might be one of the chronically depressed, Janet Hooper, it soon became clear, felt none of old Ms. Darcy’s affection toward the defendant.

“She was difficult. Rude. Withdrawn. Kinda snooty toward me and my colleagues.”

“Sounds like a typical teenager.”

“No.” Janet Hooper shook her head. “It was more than that. She traded on her looks in a real cold, cynical way. The records from her previous home said the same thing. Once she hit puberty, the boys were all over her, as you can imagine. But she didn’t discourage it. She reveled in it.”

Ellen Watts frowned. “She became promiscuous?”

“Very.”

Alvin Dubray blinked his rheumy old eyes in Ellen’s direction, as if to say, Just what on earth do you think you’re doing? Calling witnesses who painted her client as a calculating slut was hardly the most obvious way to win a jury’s affections. If anything, vilifying “Sophie” was his job.

But Ellen Watts plowed on, regardless. “I see. And how long did that behavior continue?”

“Until she was around sixteen, I believe. Until she got close to Frankie.” Janet Hooper turned toward Frankie Mancini, who met her gaze with his usual withering disdain.

“Frankie Mancini changed Sophie Smith for the better?”

Alvin Dubray couldn’t believe his ears. Ellen Watts was making his case for him.

“Frankie Mancini changed Sophie Smith completely. She was a new person once she met him. Completely under his control.”

The first warning signals went off in Dubray’s mind.

“Under his…control?”

Janet Hooper nodded. “Yeah. Like Frankenstein’s monster.”

Oh God.

“She worshipped the ground Frankie walked on. Did everything he told her to.”

Ellen Watts smiled smugly at Alvin Dubray. “Can you give us some examples, Mrs. Hooper?”

“Well, changing her name, for a start. It was Frankie who started this whole ‘Sofia Basta’ thing. Convinced her she was a Moroccan princess or some such nonsense. That she had a twin sister who’d been separated from her at birth. He created this whole past for her, this whole identity. I think he got the story from a novel. Anyway, Sophie started acting like it was real. She was out of her mind.”

“Move to strike,” droned William Boyce. “The witness is not an expert and not qualified to comment on the accused’s mental health.”

“Sustained.” Judge Muñoz preened self-importantly for the cameras, pushing back his newly dyed black hair. “Where are you going with this, Ms. Watts?”

“Your Honor, the relationship between Mr. Mancini and my client is key to this case. I intend to show that Mr. Mancini’s grooming of my client was cynical, calculated and started from a young age. That she was as much a victim of Mr. Mancini as the men that he killed. Let’s not forget that during each of these brutal attacks, my client was raped by Mr. Mancini.”