THE HOLDING CELL was a nondescript anteroom where the accused awaited the start of trial, handcuffed and guarded. Mischa was the first one to arrive, for no apparent reason. She didn't know where the others had been kept the last few days. She didn't know much about her friends at all lately.684Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjjRMU6AcGC
They'd barely spoken in nine months, the four of them. The investigating judge assigned to their case had ordered their provisional detention while the murder of the president and his bodyguard remained "under examination," as the French put it. A special judge hearing questions of custody---le juge des libertes et la detention----had upheld the decision to keep them in custody pending the close of the investigation. All of that meant that they weren't going anywhere until trial.
For some of this time, the four of them were detained in separate facilities. The stated reason was our personal security, as they had become rather notorious, to put it bluntly, but Mischa had always figured they wanted to keep them separated so they wouldn't communicate with each other.
Rihanna was the next one in. She looked awful, primarily because she looked so different. Her silky, flowing mane of hair had been replaced with a close crop that hung lifelessly at her shoulders. Her eyes were sunken. Overall there was a withered quality about her: she had lost ten pounds that she, as a pop diva, couldn't afford to lose, and her normally confident, almost regal carriage had been replaced by a defeated, wincing expression and slumped shoulders. It was, to Mischa, as heartbreaking as anything that had happened over the last nine months.
She smiled at her, and she at Mischa. A moment of warmth on a day that was going to be very, very cold.
Lindsay was next, and then Nicole Richie, each looked about as bad as Rihanna. All of them had been run through the wringer, their lives turned topsy-turvy, their dirty laundry aired for all the world to see, their families humiliated, and their futures looking very, very grim indeed. They were scared, frustrated, bewildered and exhausted. And the trial hadn't even started yet!
But they had each other, together in the same room. They didn't speak because they all knew by now that it was prohibited; they'd been to enough court hearings to know the drill. Yet the expressions on the faces of each woman told Mischa that they were still a quartet; they still loved one another.
That was no small chore. The French had done everything in their power to turn them against each other from the first day they were detained. Nicole Richie says it was all your idea. Rihanna kept a lot of secrets from you. Whoever confesses first gets the most lenient sentence. Your friends won't be your friends for very long. The French intelligence officer LaForge, and the Paris cop, Picard, had worn out the groove on those lines for four days straight.
Once the garde a vue had ended, the case was assigned to an investigating judge, whose role was (at least in theory) an impartial one, seeking to discover the "truth" without favor to either the prosecution or the accused. But that judge was no different from LaForge and Picard, urging them to implicate themselves and each other the outset. The only "truth" they could glean from his investigation was that he wanted to confirm their guilt and get his name in the paper as often as possible.
The prosecutor, a strident, ambitious woman named Victoria Barraud, had offered to reduce the charges if they would sign written statements implicating the others. Even Mischa's own lawyer had impressed upon her repeatedly that she should try not to "shield" her friends, that they were on a sinking ship and it was every woman for herself.684Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjA17zId7eo
"Keep a stiff upper lip, ladies," Mischa said to her friends. One of the gendarmes clucked his tongue at her and put a hand on her shoulder. But really, what were they going to do to her---keep her in prison beyond her natural lifetime?"
Don't think like that, Mischa. She had to keep alive some little semblance of hope, some kernel of possibility that there would be a break, that everybody would figure out they had the wrong suspects and they'd walk out of there free women.
"Temps de commencer," said one of the gendarmes, wearing his courtroom-best powder-blue shirt and navy-blue cargo pants. He was carrying a nightstick and firearm on his belt. The four actresses stood. Mischa winked at Lindsay, who looked as though she were about to wilt. Nicole Richie blinked back tears. Rihanna lowered her head and took a deep breath.684Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf2dKvnT7Zb
And then they began the march to the courtroom. Their trial was about to commence.684Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCFc0EcAXU2
