Truly Married (17 page)

When they finally got to the courtroom the entourage followed them inside, all but the cameras. The din was deafening as Sharon and Fergus took seats at the defense table in front. A few minutes later Ray Quinlan, in his role as co-counsel, joined them. In a matter of seconds the bailiff called for order and declared the court in session. A black-robed judge walked out of chambers and took her seat at the bench.

It all happened quickly, leaving Sharon off balance and confused. The courtroom was packed, but the only people she knew were Fergus and Ray. Were all these curious strangers going to influence whether or not she was charged with murdering Floyd?

It was like a nightmarish circus. Did anyone there care what really happened? Or did they just want to be entertained? To hold off the numbing boredom of their dull lives by watching the wheels of justice grind a likely suspect into oblivion?

Sharon’s case was called, and after some “preliminaries,” as the judge called them, motions that needed to be decided on before the hearing started, an assistant district attorney, a man named John Hollingsworth, stood to make an opening statement.

“Your Honor, on Wednesday of last week, June 15, the police were called to the Starlight St. Louis Hotel, where the defendant, Sharon Sawyer Lachlan, an employee, had been discovered crouching over the body of her immediate supervisor, Floyd Vancleave, clutching a bloody letter opener in her hand. The victim had died of a stab wound in the heart.”

Sharon gasped and grabbed Fergus’s arm. “I haven’t used the name Lachlan since I filed for divorce,” she whispered.

Fergus frowned. “Did you petition the court to have your maiden name restored?”

She tried to think. “I’m not sure. I was too upset to—”

No, she wasn’t going to whine about how totally wiped out she’d been at the time of their divorce. He already knew that, he didn’t need to hear it again.

She stopped and started over. “My attorney handled everything and I asked him to do that. I assumed that he did. I’ve been signing my name Sawyer for the past five years.”

Fergus nodded and stood up. “Your Honor,” he said in his musical baritone voice that was pleasingly pitched but still carried to all corners of the room. “So that there will be no confusion, I’d like it noted for the record that Ms. Sawyer is my ex-wife. We were divorced five years ago, and since that time she has not used my name, but has reverted to her maiden name, Sharon Elisse Sawyer, for all personal and legal purposes. We request that the name Lachlan not be used when referring to her.”

The judge indicated that the record would so show, and the request was granted.

The assistant district attorney frowned at Fergus and continued. “We will show that Ms. Sawyer had ample motive and opportunity, and that she did in fact kill Floyd Vancleave, deliberately and with malice.”

John Hollingsworth sat down, and the judge turned to Fergus. “Did you wish to make an opening statement, Mr. Lachlan?”

Fergus stood. “A brief one, Your Honor. My client is innocent of any and all charges against her. She has been a respected and productive member of this community for the past five years. Before that she was an honor student at Northwestern University in the Chicago area, where she graduated in the top ten percent of her class.”

He put his hand on Sharon’s shoulder and smiled when she looked up. She saw affection and trust in his gaze, and she was grateful for his effort at reassurance.

“Sharon is known to all her friends and acquaintances as a warm and compassionate woman,” he continued, “and it is inconceivable that she would commit an act of violence. She has no criminal record, not even a parking ticket, and it is a travesty of justice that she was ever arrested for this crime.”

He sat down, and the judge turned toward the A.D.A. “Do you wish to present witnesses, Mr. Hollingsworth?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” he answered. “I call Ms. Beverly Maitland to the stand.”

Sharon’s heart sank.
Floyd Vancleave’s secretary.
Her testimony would be the most damaging.

The door at the back of the room opened and Beverly walked down the aisle. She was dressed in a navy blue suit, with matching pumps and a crisp white blouse. Her curly brown hair framed her face and tumbled to her shoulders.

When she got to the witness chair she was sworn in, and as she sat down her gaze met Sharon’s, but Beverly looked away quickly and Sharon couldn’t tell whether she was sympathetic or antagonistic.

Hollingsworth stood and led her through a series of questions that established who she was and her connection with the victim and the defendant. When that was accomplished he changed tactics.

“Now, Ms. Maitland,” he said, “tell us what happened at approximately 10:30 a.m. of last Wednesday, June 15.”

Beverly looked nervously around the room, studiously avoiding Sharon, then cleared her throat. “Well, I... That is, I was sitting at my desk in the reception room of Mr. Vancleave’s office, when the door was flung open and Sharon—uh, Ms. Sawyer, came storming in, carrying a crumpled piece of paper in her hand and headed for Mr. Vancleave’s door. There were several people waiting to see him, and when I realized that she intended to go into his office I called to her to tell her she’d have to wait her turn, but she opened the door, shouted ‘You bastard,’ and walked on in, slamming it shut behind her.”

The secretary looked down and fidgeted with the clasp on her purse.

“Are you saying she was angry?” the A.D.A. prompted.

“Objection,” Fergus said from his seat. “Calls for a conclusion.”

“I’ll allow it,” the judge ruled. “You may answer,” she said to Beverly.

“Oh yes, I’ve never seen her so mad,” Beverly said. “Her face was red, and her eyes were positively spitting fire—”

“Objection,” Fergus said.

“Just confine your answers to the questions asked,” the judge instructed Beverly.

Beverly hung her head and worried her lower lip with her teeth. Sharon couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. She’d probably never been in a courtroom before, and this one was full of spectators. Besides, she was only telling the truth. Sharon knew she’d been breathing fire and smoke.

Hollingsworth spoke again. “What happened after Ms. Sawyer went into the office and shut the door?”

Beverly raised her head. “Well...they started yelling at each other. Everyone in the room heard them—”

“Objection,” Fergus said again. “She can’t know what ‘everyone’ heard.”

Hollingsworth glared at Fergus. “I’ll rephrase the question. Did you hear them yelling?”

Beverly nodded. “Oh yes.”

“And did others in the room indicate that they had also heard?”

“Yes, they did. They were all looking toward the door and shaking their heads. One man even suggested that I should call security, but then the shouting stopped.”

“It stopped?” Hollingsworth asked.

Beverly nodded. “Yes. We... I could no longer hear them. I kept expecting Sharon to come back out, but she didn’t. Quite a bit of time went by, and the people waiting to see Mr. Vancleave were getting impatient—”

“Just a minute,” the A.D.A. interrupted. “Can you be more specific about the time lapse? Was it two minutes? Ten minutes? Twenty?”

She appeared thoughtful. “I didn’t look at my watch, but I’d say not more than ten minutes.”

“Then what happened?”

“Uh...well, like I said, the people waiting in the outer office were getting impatient, and finally one of them came up to my desk to say that she had another appointment and couldn’t wait much longer. I was getting concerned, too, so I got up and walked over to the door and knocked. There was no response, so I turned the knob and opened it. That’s when I saw—”

Beverly’s voice broke, and she closed her eyes and put the back of her hand to her mouth.

“I know this is difficult,” Hollingsworth said sympathetically. “Just take your time. There’s no hurry.”

Sharon could see that Beverly’s hand was trembling, but she opened her eyes and took a deep breath, then continued. “I saw both Sharon and Mr. Vancleave on the floor in front of the desk. He was lying on his back, with his legs sort of crumpled up, and she was crouching over him, with a bloody knife in her hand—”

Beverly’s voice broke again, this time on a sob.

Sharon moaned and covered her face with her hands as the horror of that moment replayed in her mind, like a videotape through a red haze of blood.

Fergus stood. “Your Honor, I suggest a short recess to allow the witness and the defendant to compose themselves.”

The judge nodded. “We’ll take five minutes.” She stood and walked into her chambers.

Fergus sat down and put his arm across Sharon’s hunched shoulders, then spoke softly close to her ear. “Are you all right, love? Do you want to go to the ladies’ room or anything?”

She shook her head. “No, I’ll be okay. Besides, the reporters would corner me if I went out in the hall, and just make everything worse.”

He muttered an oath. “It’s a wonder you haven’t fallen apart. You didn’t get much sleep last night, and you ate hardly anything for breakfast.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “Just hang in there. This won’t go on much longer. I expect Hollingsworth will wrap it up before lunch, then I’ll get you out of here.”

Sharon lifted her head out of her hands and straightened up, dislodging his arm. The courtroom was no place for signs of devotion, no matter how innocent. She’d never forgive herself if the bar association frowned on Fergus for being too affectionate with a client, even if that client was his ex-wife.

“I’ll be all right now,” she assured him. “I... I lost it there for a minute because I had an especially vivid flashback of that scene she was describing.”

In spite of her determination not to react again she shivered. “I’ll probably have nightmares about that for the rest of my life.”

“Not if you spent the rest of your life with me,” he said tenderly. “I’d hold you in my arms at night and keep the bad dreams away.”

She could see that he was serious, and the thought of being wrapped in his embrace as they slept in the same bed every night filled her with longing. She felt warmed by his loving assurance. He obviously believed what he said, and she wasn’t going to hurt him by telling him that for the past five years
he
had been the source of her nightmares.

The judge returned and the hearing resumed with Beverly again on the witness stand.

“Do you feel up to testifying again now?” the assistant district attorney asked softly.

Beverly looked slightly more relaxed. “Yes, thank you.”

He walked back to his table, picked up something in a plastic bag and returned to the witness stand. “Is this the object the defendant was holding?”

She looked at it, but made no move to touch it. “I...I don’t know. I was too shocked and too far away to notice details. My impression was that she was clutching a knife, but this looks like the letter opener he kept on his desk.”

“It is the letter opener, and it’s also the murder weapon—”

“Objection,” Fergus said grimly. “No foundation. There’s no evidence before this court to substantiate that claim, and the witness has just stated that she doesn’t recognize it.”

“I’d like to submit this letter opener as state’s exhibit A,” Hollingsworth said before the judge could rule on the objection, “and I’ll substantiate it with my next witness.”

“All right, but see that you do,” the judge said sourly.

The A.D.A. nodded and turned back to Beverly. “Tell us what happened after you opened the door and saw Mr. Vancleave’s body lying on the floor and Ms. Sawyer bending over him with a daggerlike weapon in her hands.”

Fergus cursed under his breath and Sharon winced. Had it really been necessary to describe that scene so vividly again? Obviously the man was determined to wring all the drama he could out of the grisly facts he was presenting.

Fergus didn’t object, although he was obviously furious, but maybe he knew the damage had already been done and objecting would only call that much more attention to the gory mental picture of her brandishing the weapon dripping with blood.

Beverly hesitated a moment, as though she, too, was shaken by the image. When she spoke her voice shook slightly. “I...I was too shocked to do anything for a few seconds, then I screamed. After that I’m confused as to just what happened. People crowded around, and there was a lot of talking and hullabaloo, and then the police were there.”

Sharon shuddered. That had been her impression, too. Shock, loud voices, people running back and forth, police asking questions she didn’t understand...

“Just a minute, Ms. Maitland,” Hollingsworth interrupted, “let’s go back a bit. What did Ms. Sawyer do when you opened the door?”

“Objection!” Fergus said angrily. “The witness has already said she’s confused as to what happened then.”

“I just want to lead her through the events step by step and help her sort them out,” the A.D.A. said.

The judge looked from one man to the other. “I’ll overrule the objection, but you’re in a minefield here, Mr. Prosecutor. Be careful that it doesn’t blow up in your face.”

She turned to Beverly. “You may answer the question.”

“She looked up at me,” Beverly said. “I remember that because her eyes had such a wild expression—”

“Your Honor, I object!” Fergus thundered. “This witness is not qualified to diagnose the expression in my client’s eyes. I request that be stricken from the record.”

“So ordered,” the judge said. “That last sentence shall be stricken.”

Hollingsworth continued. “Did Ms. Sawyer say anything?”

“No, but she dropped the knife—uh, the weapon. It fell on the floor between her and the desk. That’s when I screamed, and after that... I turned and tried to leave. People were crowding behind me and I couldn’t get away. I think I kept on screaming. At least somebody did.”

The prosecutor nodded. “Do you recall what she was wearing that day?”

“She wore a light-blue linen-weave dress. The color was very becoming, and I’d commented on it when I saw her earlier. She said it was new, and she was wearing it for the first time.”

“Was there blood on her clothing after Mr. Vancleave was killed?” Hollingsworth asked.