@perfectsonnets | for matt only if you want lksdjf
“I wasn’t coerced. I won’t say I was coerced.” Murdock hasn’t said anything about coercion, not yet, but Will does. A preemptive strike, so to speak, because it’s the most logical assumption and certainly the most logical defense, regardless of the truth of the thing. A jury might even buy it too, after everything, after Bedelia du Maurier set the precedent with her book tour. It would be easier to think he was drugged or intimidated or simply taken in by a master manipulator, than acknowledge the truth.
He could get up on the stand and lie, could probably even make them believe every halting, tremulous, regret-ridden word. Distasteful. Humiliating. A denial that has no place at the table in this life. And he’ll be damned if he tells any jury that it wasn’t his idea, that he didn’t want it, that abusers and murderers and the corrupt officers down at his old precinct didn’t deserve to die.
Even without any murder charges, he’s facing years in prison. And he expects no leniency if he’s convicted in facilitating the escape of the 21st century’s most notorious serial killer.
Will folds his shackled hands on the table in front of him, looks up at his lawyer with a quizzical expression short of a smile and his head tilted in polite curiosity.
“Are you a religious man, Mr. Murdock?”