Desperate Measures (36 page)

“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 glasses. 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 pushing 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 shield 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 Shelley 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 Wilcox, 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 Wilcox 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 Wilcox,” 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 doorknob when he left, or possibly he held the knob with something covering his fingers. Mr. Bakken's prints were the only ones we could recover from the doorknob. 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.

“We conducted tests to see how long it would take to burn up two pork chops and gravy. We videotaped the experiments, one with the stove set just above the medium point of the dial, and one a little higher than that. For the lower setting it took twenty-four minutes for the chops to be reduced to cinders and stop burning. In the other test it took twenty minutes for the same final outcome to be reached. From the amount of smoke in the room when Mr. Bakken opened the back door, we estimate that the alarm had been on for about ten minutes.”

Novak nodded, well pleased. “Your Honor, at this time the state would like to show the video that Lieutenant Whorley has produced.”

“Objection,” Barbara said. “We conducted the same test, and stipulate as to the results.”

“You accept the results of the state's tests?” Judge Mac asked.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

He was surprised, and Novak was alarmed—or if not alarmed, then more wary than ever. She smiled at him and sat down.

Novak turned once more to his witness, and Whorley's face never changed a wrinkle or line. Stolid at the start, stolid now, waiting patiently.

“Did you reach a conclusion about which setting was more likely to have been used?”

“Yes, we did.” He talked about the blistering of the cabinet finish, and concluded, “We decided the lower of the two settings was the one that was on.”

“And did this give you an indication of when the time of the murder might have been?”

“Yes, it did. The murder took place between six-thirty and six-thirty-five or six-thirty-six.”

Barbara did not say a word, although Novak paused as if anticipating her objection.

When she rose for her cross-examination, she glanced down at the notebook in front of Alex, and realized he was sketching the lieutenant, drawing a caricature of him. She leaned toward him as if in consultation, and whispered, “Hide that right now.”

He started in surprise and looked down, and she thought he hadn't been wholly aware of what he was doing. He turned the page of the notebook, and she straightened and faced the witness stand.

“Lieutenant Whorley, in your testimony you said the criminologists collected evidence. Did they collect any fibers that could be traced to Mr. Feldman?”

“Not directly.”

“Lieutenant, you've been very precise in your answers. Please be as precise now. Did they collect any fibers that could be traced to Mr. Feldman? Just a yes or no, if you will.”

“No.”

“Did they collect any hair that could be traced to Mr. Feldman?”

“No.”

“Did they collect any physical evidence that could be traced to Mr. Feldman?”

“No, not directly.”

“Is that a no answer?”

“It's no.” He remained as unrattled and stolid as ever.

She nodded. “When you make a preliminary survey of a crime scene and come up with a possible series of events to recapitulate the crime, is that what you put in your early report?”

“Yes, it is.”

“And that guides you and your team in what lines of investigation to follow?”

“It gives us a starting place.”

“If new evidence surfaces, or if there is something that comes to light that you paid little attention to at the beginning, do you modify that report?”

“Yes, always. We go where the evidence takes us.”

“If the new evidence or neglected item doesn't fit your first recapitulation of the crime, do you modify the reconstruction to take it into account?”

“Yes.”

“Even if it means a totally new reconstruction?”

“Yes.”

“Did you modify your report or your reconstruction in this case?”

“No. There was no need to do so.”

“I see. From your observations of the Marchand house, would you say it was well organized, clean and neat?”

“Extremely clean and neat.”

“No clutter of shoes by the door, or clothes out of place, things of that sort?”

“Nothing like that. Everything put away where it belonged.”

“Did you collect evidence in the lavatory just inside the back door?”

“Yes.”

“What did you find there?”

“The usual bathroom items, towel, soap, washcloth.”

“Did your criminologists find anything on the towel or washcloth in the lavatory?”

“The towel had traces of linseed oil. And the water faucets had linseed oil on them.”

“Is it in your report that Mr. Marchand probably washed his hands in the lavatory, and not in the kitchen?”

“No. I didn't see the necessity of including that.”

“All right. Now, back in the kitchen, was everything there neat and orderly?”

“Yes.”

“No dirty dishes in the sink, or scraps of lettuce, anything like that?”

“No. Everything was clean.”

“What about these various items on the table? Would you identify them for the court?” She found the photograph of the entire table and showed it to him.