The Accused and the Damned: Book Three, the Eddie McCloskey Series (The Unearthed 3) (19 page)

“Now, it is an absolute tragedy what happened to Mrs. Ketcher, but her own actions led to her death. Do not now compound the tragedy by convicting an innocent man. Anson has suffered enough already. He has lost the woman he loved more than anything, the person he planned to spend the rest of his life with.

“Many of you must think I’m batty. You probably have your preconceived notions about defense attorneys, the scum of the Earth who are willing to say or do anything to help their likely guilty clients beat a conviction. You’ve heard all this talk about ghosts, and psychics, and possessions. I’m not asking you to take my word for it. I’m asking you to consider the credible evidence that we will present and keep an open mind.”

Eddie sat taller in his bench. He was very interested to see how the jury was going to react to Green’s next comments.

“Some of you might think it silly, childish even to believe in ghosts.” Green smiled and paused. “But I ask you, how many of you believe in a higher power? Is there more evidence to support the existence of a god-like being than there is a ghost? Think about that.”

One juror frowned. Another shook his head.

“There is one more fact I’d like you to consider. The District Attorney mentioned that Anson was wounded the night in question. What counsel failed to tell you is that Anson was injured by one of the arresting officers on the scene.”

As the DA had, Green summarized his points and took a seat. Judge Metnick noted the time was one-fifteen and ordered an hour recess for lunch.

Green placed an order with a sandwich shop that made all its business off the courthouse.

“Are we walking or driving?” Eddie asked.

“I asked for delivery. The DA and Gracie’s team will probably be there. I don’t feel like sitting across from them.”

“They didn’t like the religious argument.”

“I didn’t expect them to buy it first thing. We just have to keep working on them. If you hear something enough, you start to take it seriously.”

Eddie shrugged. “Or you tune it out.”

Green smiled. “It’s your job to help me make sure they don’t.”

The food arrived. Eddie and the lawyer shared a fast, quiet meal. When they were done, Green leaned back in his chair and locked his fingers behind his head.

“This is going to be my last trial.”

“How long you been doing this?”

“Too long.” Green smiled. “When I started out, I was barely making a living. There were three other well-known defense attorneys working in the county who gobbled up all the work. They left all the bum collars to the public defender, who was always understaffed and asking for help. I volunteered for all the cases I could to get my experience. Most of them were pro bono. I didn’t make any money for years. I didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. But eventually I got better at being an attorney and soon more clients were coming to me proactively and then two of the three big-wigs retired and I settled in.”

“How long did it take till you were making good money?”

“Four or five years. It was tough but I just kept working at it.”

Eddie had mixed feelings about Green, the attorney, but he admired Green, the businessman.

“It’s tough to grow a business.”

“You’ve only been doing this for less than a year. You’ll be fine. The exposure on this case will help you.”

Eddie nodded but he was thinking about Gracie Barbitok. Soon, he’d take the stand and his reputation would be on trial just as much as Anson’s liberty and life were. It was a make-or-break case for Eddie. He kept thinking about all those bills waiting for him back home.

The lunch hour was over too quickly and they returned to the courtroom. The prosecution put on its case first. The DA began by calling the 911 dispatcher.

Greg Tolliff was a gangly twenty-year-old who wore a poorly-ironed shirt and crooked tie and no suit jacket. He testified that he was unable to determine who’d placed the phone call, but that the first voice he’d heard on the call belonged to a woman’s. Before the trial, Green had explained to Eddie that Spencer wasn’t interested in Tolliff’s testimony. The DA just wanted him to validate the recording of the emergency call. After a short series of questions, the DA admitted the recording into evidence and used a computer to play it for the jury through the courtroom’s speakers.

Tolliff’s voice came on first. “9-1-1 Dispatch. What is the nature of your emergency?”

“... help … stop, stop ...” A woman’s voice, faint.

“Ma’am, what is your name and phone number?”

“Stop …” 

“Ma’am, are you there? Ma’am?”

“Anson … noooo!”

“Ma’am? Are you there?”

There was no answer. In the background, there was a crash and more screaming. Eddie had listened to Green’s copy of the recording so knew it was going to be bad when presented to the jury. With all the screaming and with Alice yelling
No
, it sounded like the married couple was in the middle of a knock-down, drag out fight.

Tolliff’s voice came on again. “Unknown possible medical emergency. 225 Watoga, Cumberland. The nearest intersection is one mile away at Browning Road and Rural Route 57. Repeat, unknown medical emergency.”

On the recording, Tolliff repeated the address once and the DA stopped the playback.

“That was the call you took that fateful night, correct?”

“Yes, sir,” Tolliff said.

“And again, do you know who placed the call?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Thank you, son. Nothing further.”

Before the DA took his seat, Green was out of his. “Mr. Tolliff, you don’t know who placed the call but you know whose phone was used, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And whose phone was it?”

“It was a cell phone registered to Anson Ketcher.”

“Thank you, nothing further.”

The DA then called Officer Billy Towson to the stand.

Billy wore his dress blue uniform and walked to the witness stand with his hat tucked under his arm. He placed the cover on the witness stand, was sworn in, and sat back down. He had a fresh hair cut, a professional-looking shave, and appeared calm.

“Officer Towson, would you start by explaining your professional background to the jury?”

Billy gave a synopsis of his few years on the force, including his current job duties. When he finished, Spencer approached him.

“What happened that night?”

“I received a general call from dispatch. Gary Gronaw was on the line. He reported an unknown medical emergency at 225 Watoga—the Ketcher residence. I was close, sitting in one of my speed traps, so I took the call and stepped on it. I was really worried. Alice is—
was—
my cousin. On the way, I asked dispatch for more information. Officer Gronaw told me they suspected a home invasion based upon the 911 call.

“I arrived in less than five minutes. I was running on pure adrenaline at that point. I didn’t see any forced entry. The front door was open. I entered the residence and went room-to-room. The kitchen was a mess, so was the living room, and I followed the path of destruction to Alice’s studio. There I found her—” Billy’s voice cracked. “—body. I checked her vitals to be sure she was dead. Then I searched the rest of the house and didn’t find anybody.”

The DA folded his hands. “Would you like to take a moment, Billy?”

Billy wiped under his eyes. “I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”

“What happened next?”

“Next I got a call from Officer Grimm. They’d picked up Anson. He’d been running down the middle of the street. They brought him back and Officer Grimm told me what Mr. Ketcher had said. That some ghost killed Alice.”

“What did you do?”

“Exactly what I shouldn’t have done.” Billy shook his head and sounded sincere. “I lost my temper and went after Mr. Ketcher. It was inappropriate and unprofessional.”

“Why did you attack Mr. Ketcher?”

“I didn’t believe his story for one second, and Alice was my cousin. I’d just come from seeing her dead body splayed in her studio … that doesn’t make it right, what I did, but I was highly emotional. I should never have hit Mr. Ketcher.”

The DA didn’t let that last answer hang too long in the mind of the jurors. “Did you say that you found no sign of forced entry?”

“That’s right.”

“And upon your search of the home, you found no one else hiding?”

“Correct.”

“Did you find any physical evidence that someone else had been in the house?”

Green objected. Judge Metnick entertained a sidebar between the lawyers for a brief moment then overruled the objection.

After the lawyers had returned to their places, Judge Metnick turned to Billy. “Officer, you must answer the question.”

“No, I didn’t see any evidence that someone else had been in the house that evening.”

“Were any valuables missing from the home?”

“None were reported.”

“Was the safe intact?”

“Yes. That’s one of the things we always check.”

The DA moved a little closer to the jury. “In your testimony, you said that the kitchen and the living room were a mess. What did you mean by that?”

“There were broken dishes scattered on the floor of the kitchen. The TV in the living room was knocked off the entertainment center, and one of the couches was out of place. These were all signs to me of a struggle in the home.”

The DA went to his table and produced a document. He approached Billy and handed it to him. “I’m handing Officer Towson a document labeled Montgomery County, Police Report, R-1757. Officer Towson, is that the report you drafted following the events you just described?”

“Yes, sir.”

The DA moved to admit Billy’s report into evidence and without objection from Green the judge accepted it.

Spencer looked over the report for a moment. “Would you read your description of the scene to the jury, please?”

Billy did, word-for-word. Eddie watched the jury closely. Most of them were sitting forward, hanging on his every word.

When he was done, the DA reserved the right to re-direct. Judge Metnick turned to Green, who remained sitting.

“Officer, you don’t like Anson much, do you?”

The DA immediately objected, but the judge just as immediately overruled it. “Mr. Spenser, the defense is entitled to pursue a line of questioning about bias. You know that. Answer the question, Officer Towson.”

Billy Towson didn’t hesitate. “No. I don’t like him. He wasn’t a good husband.”

Green stood. “Did you two ever have an argument?”

“A few times.”

“How about a heated argument?”

Billy hesitated. “One time, a few years ago.”

“What were the circumstances?”

“I didn’t like how he dressed Alice down in front of the family at a party. He told me to …”

“To what, Officer?”

Billy looked at the jury apologetically. “…To go fuck myself.”

“And then you threw the first punch, right?”

“Objection!”

Judge Metnick did not even entertain a sidebar. He shushed the DA and told Billy to answer the question.

“Yes, I threw the first punch but he—”

“So the night of Alice’s death wasn’t the first time you attacked Anson, was it?”

“—he was in my face, I thought he was going to swing.”

The judge banged his gavel and told Billy to answer the question that was asked.

“No, sir. I guess it wasn’t the first time I hit him.”

“And your father is the Chief of Police, correct?”

Billy’s face reddened. “Yes.”

“Did you want Mrs. Ketcher to divorce Anson?”

Billy balked.

“Your Honor, would you direct the witness to answer the—”

“Yes,” Billy blurted out.

Green moved closer to the jury. “Now let’s back up a moment here. Counsel asked you a few minutes ago to describe what happened the night of Alice’s death. Did you leave anything out?”

“No.”

Green frowned. “Weren’t you almost in an accident right after you took the call from dispatch?”

“Oh, that. Yes, that’s true. But I didn’t mention it because it wasn’t relevant to what Mr. Spencer was asking.”

Green smiled. “I think we’ll let Judge Metnick decide what’s relevant or not in this courtroom. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Objection, Your Honor—”

Green waved a hand. “Withdrawn. Officer, why don’t you tell us what happened right after you took the call?”

“I wanted to get there as quickly as possible. I was worried about Alice. As I pulled out onto the road, another vehicle was coming around the bend. It crossed the centerline.”

“What did you do?”

“We both swerved. It was a near miss. I kept going. That’s all that happened.”

“Didn’t you put out a call about the other vehicle that almost hit you head-on?”

Billy frowned again. “I did. I ordered a routine stop on the car just in case it was related to the 911 call. At the time, all I knew was there was some unknown medical emergency at Alice’s house.”

“Do you know if anyone in your department made that routine stop?”

“We had Anson a few minutes later, and he was talking about a ghost.”

“Is that a no?”

“Yes, I mean, nobody made a stop.”

“Let me get this straight. Someone is driving erratically less than a mile from the scene of an unknown medical emergency and nobody followed up on it?”

“Like I said, Anson—Mr. Ketcher—wasn’t saying anything about a home invasion or burglary. He kept saying a ghost did it.”

Green let the jury think about that for a moment. The unknown vehicle was a non-sequitur in terms of the overall defense theory but it painted an unflattering portrait of local law enforcement. If the jury believed them incompetent, it would be less inclined to believe any evidence or conclusions drawn from their investigation of the crime scene.

“The Ketcher house burned down last week, right?”

Two deep lines formed between Billy’s eyes. “Yes, sir.”

“That was on Tuesday, right?”

“Yes.”

“Where were you that day?”

“I was off work. I was home most the day and ran some errands.”

“I see. And before the house burned down, were you aware of what Mr. McCloskey discovered there that morning?”