Barbara Holloway: Desperate Measures Part 24

"Was it closed?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Was the back door itself closed?"

"Yes, it was."

"All right. You approached the closed door, then what?"

His eyebrows drew together again, as if he had to consider what she was driving at, what it meant, or else as if to try to remember. After a moment, he said, "I touched the doork.n.o.b, just to feel it, see if it was hot. Then I pushed the door open and we had to step back a little because a lot of smoke came pouring out in our faces. Then we went inside."

"When Dr. Minick arrived, did he walk around to the back of the house the way you did?"

"No, ma'am. I went to the corner of the house and waved him to come back. He was heading for the front door."

"How did he appear that day?"

"Same as always. Kind of calm and easygoing. He told me to sit down with my head down for a few minutes, and to stay out of that smoke. I was feeling a little sick, I guess."

"Did he stay until the police arrived?"

"No. He said that the driveway was going to be a mess of cars and an ambulance and things like that, and he'd get out of the way. He said to tell them where he was if they wanted him for anything. Then he left."

"In the house, did you touch or move anything?"

He shook his head. "Oh, the telephone book. I used the kitchen wall phone to call Doc Minick, and I had to look up his number first. That's all."

"Did Dr. Minick touch or move anything?"

"No, ma'am. He looked at... He just knelt down and maybe touched the body, and we went back out."

Barbara nodded, then walked to the transparency. "You were at this point when you saw Leona Marchand's car, and several feet beyond it when you saw Hilde Franz's car. How much time pa.s.sed between seeing one and then the other?"

"About a minute," he said promptly. "I said something like that to Harvey, that in the last minute there was more traffic than that road usually got all day long."

"If a car had come from the Minick property and turned east instead of west, would you have been able to see it?"

"Yes, ma'am. We could see a good bit of the road up that way, and we would have heard it. It's real quiet back there. You can hear a car coming or going."

"Both cars headed west," she said. "It's closer to the school if you go east on that road, isn't it?"

"It's closer, but no one drives that way. The road's too bad, with bad curves and steep places. It's faster just to go on out to the new road and use it."

"Everyone says the new road, but actually when was it built?"

"About twenty-one years ago."

"Thank you, Mr. Bakken. No further questions."

When she turned, she caught a fleeting, wary look on the prosecutor's face. She could almost read his thoughts: Why was she confirming the points he had made? What was she up to?

The state's next witness was Harvey Wilberson, who corroborated Bakken's testimony in every detail. Novak finished with him quickly.

"Mr. Wilberson," Barbara said, "was the skillet on fire when you entered the house?"

"No, just smoking a lot."

"Was the skillet covered?"

"No."

"How did you lift it?"

"With an oven mitt. It was on the counter, and I used it."

"Was the skillet red-hot?"

"No. Not yet."

"All right. Then what did you do? You put the skillet down on the porch, then what?"

"I went back in and looked at the stove to make sure there wasn't any fire anywhere."

"What did you do with the oven mitt?"

"I tossed it down on the counter."

"Did you look inside the oven?"

"No. I saw that it was off and I didn't open the door."

"How high was the burner turned on under the skillet?"

He glanced at Novak, then at the judge. Neither offered any help. "I don't know. More than halfway over, whatever that means."

"How much more than half? All the way, nearly all the way?"

"I don't know. I just turned it off and grabbed the skillet."

She nodded. "Did you touch anything else? Or move anything else?"

"No."

When Wilberson left the stand, Judge Mac said, "Thank you, Ms. Holloway, Mr. Novak, for moving this along expeditiously. It is now going on eleven-thirty, and we'll have our lunch recess until one-thirty."

The minute the judge was out of sight, Dolly Feldman leaned forward and across Frank to clutch Barbara's arm. "Why didn't you make those men admit that anyone could have been hiding behind trees, lurking in the shrubbery? You didn't even try! Alexander, for heaven's sake, put on your beret and your gla.s.ses. I'm sure the judge would let you wear them in court if you asked him nicely. Mr. Holloway, why don't you ask him?"

Quietly Dr. Minick said, "Alex?"

"I'm here," Alex said. "It's okay."

"I called Bailey, and he's on his way," Frank said. "Mrs. Feldman, our team has a lot of work to get to during the recess. Will Thaxton has kindly offered to take you and Mr. Feldman to lunch, and escort you back later."

Will Thaxton blinked; he had made no such offer, but he nodded. "That's right," he said. "Let's get out of here before a reporter starts pus.h.i.+ng a mike in our faces."

"No-" Dolly started, but her husband took her by the arm, and said, "Let's go with Mr. Thaxton. You're into real estate and trust funds, I understand," he said to Will, who turned to glower at Barbara behind their backs as they walked out.

Then they formed their human s.h.i.+eld around Alex and walked from the courtroom, out to the corridor, where reporters with microphones were waiting. Frank and Dr. Minick in the lead never slowed their pace, and no one spoke as they left the building with Alex between Sh.e.l.ley and Barbara, out to Dr. Minick's van, which would hold all of them. Bailey had already brought it to the curb.

"My place," Frank said.

They would order food sent in, and have relative quiet for the next hour and a half. Bailey and Alan would keep the media away, and that's how it would be for the next few days. Will would try to keep Dolly away from the media, and the rest of them would try to keep the media away from Alex.

32.

When they resumed, Novak called the deputy who had been the first officer to arrive at the scene. Thomas Monk was twenty-eight, blond and blue-eyed, and not comfortable on the witness stand. He fidgeted and kept eyeing the sheriff as he recounted his actions. He had been at the school when he was called on his cell phone; these days they always had a deputy on hand when there was a big event. He had entered the kitchen, had taken one look around, then retreated to the back porch, where he stayed until the sheriff arrived. Then he had been sent to the road and the driveway to make certain that only official vehicles drove in.

Barbara asked him the same questions she had asked Bakken and Wilberson: had he touched anything, or moved anything? He said no emphatically. He never glanced at Alex. It was interesting how seldom the witnesses looked toward the defense table, Barbara thought, almost as if they were unaware of the defendant sitting there.

When the sheriff took the stand, he glanced once at Alex, then never looked toward him again. He testified that everything the deputies had done was standard procedure, routines that were to be carried out without specific orders, such as securing the premises, ascertaining if anyone was in the house or the outbuildings or on the property, and so on. He had looked at the remains, then had gone to the porch to wait for the homicide unit.

Barbara started her cross-examination. "Sheriff Wilc.o.x, I understand that all the deputies who responded to that call are answerable to you. Is that correct?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"So if some of those deputies are not in court today, not called as witnesses, you can answer for their actions and take responsibility for them. Is that correct?"

"As far as standard procedure is concerned, that's correct."

"I see. Was Deputy Roger Ames one of the deputies who responded to the 911 call that day?"

Sheriff Wilc.o.x consulted a notebook, then nodded. "He was."

"Is it standard procedure for a deputy to notify the next of kin in the case of a homicide?"

"Objection," Novak said then. "This is immaterial in the case we are trying."

"Your Honor," Barbara said quickly. "Apparently some of the deputies took it upon themselves to act outside the boundaries of standard procedure. I would like to pursue this line for a short time."

Judge Mac gazed at the sheriff for a moment, then nodded. "Overruled. You may continue."

"Do you recall the question?" Barbara asked the sheriff.

"Yes. That is not standard procedure."

"Did anyone authorize Deputy Ames to go find Mrs. Marchand and tell her that her husband had been killed?"

"No, ma'am. He took it on himself to tell her."

"Was Deputy Calvin Strohm one of the deputies who responded to the 911 call?"

"Yes."

"Is it standard procedure for a deputy to visit a neighbor of the victim to ask questions?"

"No, it isn't."

"Was Deputy Strohm authorized to call on Dr. Minick and demand to know if Alex Feldman was at home?"

"No, ma'am. He took it on himself to do that."

"Sheriff Wilc.o.x," she said, walking back to her table to stand and face him, "the call to 911 was recorded at two minutes after seven. The first deputy arrived at seven minutes past seven. Three more arrived in the next few minutes, and you got there at seven-forty-two. In the thirty-five minutes before you took charge, do you have any way of knowing precisely what your deputies were doing?"

"I have their reports," he said stiffly.

She shrugged, then said, "I have no further questions."

The last witness of the day was the lead detective of the investigatory team, Lieutenant Russell Whorley. He was a somber, longfaced man with a receding hairline; although only fifty, he was very wrinkled, his brow creased with deep lines. He ignored Alex completely, Novak had him recite his credentials and years of experience, and then asked him to tell what his team had done that evening when they arrived at the Marchand house.

Whorley was an experienced witness; his account was brief, without a wasted word. The criminologists had collected evidence. They had photographed the crime scene; after the medical examiner had come and gone, and the body had been removed, they had fingerprinted the crime scene. The fingerprints were all of family members and Mr. Bakken and Mr. Wilberson. They had searched the house and outbuildings, and looked around the yard. There had been no sign of a break-in or of a disturbance anywhere else in the house or on the property.

The crime-scene photographs were identified and admitted as state exhibits.

"Lieutenant Whorley, from your observations, can you reconstruct what might have occurred in the Marchand kitchen that evening?"

"Objection," Barbara said. "That's speculation."

"Your Honor," Novak said smoothly, "Lieutenant Whorley has had years of experience at reconstructing crimes. It's part of his job to do so in order to have a starting point for his investigation."

She was overruled.

"The way we put it together," Whorley said then, "is that Mr. Marchand finished a repair job on the porch and entered the kitchen. He put the hammer on the table, then washed his hands."

Novak held up his hand to stop him. "How did you ascertain that he put the hammer on the table?"

"We found traces of linseed oil on the table. The hammer handle had been treated with linseed oil."

"How do you know he washed his hands?"

"He didn't have any linseed oil on his hands." He hesitated until Novak nodded, then he continued. "He went to the stove and turned it on under the skillet, and then someone entered the kitchen. He crossed the kitchen to the table. When he turned his back on the murderer, he was struck in the back of his head and fell to the floor. The killer wiped off the handle of the hammer on a dish towel; there were traces of linseed oil on the towel. He dropped the hammer near the body, and exited the kitchen, closing the door after him. He wiped the doork.n.o.b when he left, or possibly he held the k.n.o.b with something covering his fingers. Mr. Bakken's prints were the only ones we could recover from the doork.n.o.b. Between fifteen and twenty minutes later, the smoke alarm went off, and a few minutes later Mr. Bakken and Mr. Wilberson discovered the body."

"How can you be certain when he turned on the stove, or when the smoke alarm went off?" Novak asked.