Crimson Lake Road (Desert Plains)

by Victor Methos

  “So you haven’t talked to her about it?”

  “I don’t think she’d tell me the truth right now. I need to find out what he has planned first.” She finished the wine and put the glass down. “I hate dancing around it when we talk. It feels like I’m betraying her somehow.”

  “Sounds like you’re protecting her.”

  Yardley stared down at her empty glass for a few seconds. “I’m not sure I can anymore.”

  Another night, they spoke on the phone for an hour about anything other than the trial, even having a few laughs over the idiotic things they had done when younger to get the attention of boys. Then there was a long silence in the conversation before River said, “I’m scared, Jess.”

  “I know.”

  “Part of me wants to make plans in case Zachary gets out. Just to disappear. But part of me is still convinced he didn’t do this.” She paused. “I’m going to see him tomorrow.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a great idea.”

  “I don’t care. I need to see him. I miss him.”

  Yardley didn’t argue with her. She wondered if River would resent her if Zachary was convicted. If she would picture the future she should have had with him and think Yardley had taken that away from her. It didn’t matter. At least she would be alive to resent her.

  On the day of the trial, Yardley dressed in a black suit and stared at herself in the mirror. Dark circles had appeared under her eyes, and she looked pale. The coffee had suppressed her appetite, and she barely ate, causing her to lose too much weight on her already lithe frame.

  She arrived in court early and was let through the metal detectors without getting searched. Aster was already there, along with Ricci, at the defense table. He’d replaced his suits with simple slacks and a sports coat, to give the jury an underdog impression. Yardley took her place at the prosecution table and sent out a reminder text to Detective Garrett to make sure he was near the courthouse today. She then took her files and papers out of her satchel and arranged them neatly on the table. A witness list was placed on the far end, and she glanced it over quickly.

  “All rise,” the bailiff said. “Eighth Judicial District Court is now in session, the Honorable Harvey Weston presiding.”

  “Please be seated,” the judge said as he sat down as well. “Parties ready to go?” he asked.

  “We are, Your Honor,” Aster said.

  “Yes, Judge.”

  “Then let’s bring out the defendant and then the jury pool.”

  Zachary was brought out in a crisp black suit and gold watch. He sat between Ricci and Aster before another bailiff brought in the jury pool. Fifty men and women from Clark County. They had filled out questionnaires through the mail, and Yardley picked up her copy from one of the neat piles, along with a sheet of notes she had made.

  The questionnaire was broad: What magazines do you subscribe to? Do you vote? Have you ever been convicted of a crime? Have you ever sat on a jury?

  There were ninety questions in all, and Yardley didn’t think any of them were terribly relevant. Few of those with serious crimes in their backgrounds, mental disorders that affected reasoning abilities, or bias against police or people of different races or religions would be honest, due to the embarrassment they might feel. Yardley, instead of focusing on the answers, liked to focus on their body language as they were asked questions.

  After a roll call to verify all the potential jurors requested had shown up, Weston instructed them that this was a serious matter involving various charges ranging from homicide to assault with bodily injury and gave the floor to Yardley for voir dire.

  Yardley worked through the questions involving the history of the potential jurors’ interactions with the criminal justice system, then their family members’ interactions, and finally their friends’. She then moved on to potential bias, mental or physical ailments that could interfere with reasoning abilities, and then general questions meant to make the jurors a bit uncomfortable so she could see how they responded. Primarily, she watched for fidgeting, glances away from her, shifting in their seats, and folding of the arms across the chest. Indications of untruthfulness or hostility.

  When she was through, it was six in the evening, and the defense began their voir dire in the morning. Ricci was the one who rose and began questioning the panel. She didn’t cover the same areas Yardley had and instead engaged in light banter with the group, discussing various aspects of the case. It was subtle, to avoid an objection, but she was slowly feeding them their theory of the case.

  Could you acquit someone if you believed someone else had committed the crime but there wasn’t a lot of evidence to back up your belief? Would you find someone guilty if you thought they were innocent but other members of the jury did not? How would you feel if you knew the real perpetrator of the crime was going to get away with it?

  Yardley didn’t object, though there were quite a few times Ricci crossed the line. She didn’t want to create a combative impression with the jury just yet.

  Yardley was surprised how quickly they went through voir dire, considering this was a homicide trial. Since she wasn’t asking for the death penalty, the jury didn’t have to be death qualified, which could have taken as long as two or three months.

  Aster asked for only three jurors to be brought back in chambers and questioned, and Yardley only had one. Mostly questions about bias given something in their backgrounds. On the third day of jury selection, when they were through questioning the panel, they sat in the judge’s chambers and went through the list.

  “I would ask to have juror number four stricken for cause,” Aster said.

  “Denied,” Weston said, making a note on the sheet of juror numbers and names.

  “Judge, her dad was a cop.”

  “So what? She isn’t a cop. Denied.”

  “That’s nonsense,” Aster said. “We can’t have the daughter of a cop on the jury.”

  “We can have whoever I say we can have on this jury, Mr. Aster. And I would watch your tone.”

  He shook his head and said, “Fine, I’ll use one of my peremptory challenges and strike them. I would ask then that juror number twelve be stricken for cause.”

  “Denied.”

  “His father died from a drunk driver, Judge, and the man was acquitted. He’s got a chip on his shoulder. There’s no way he’s going to be objective.”

  “Denied. Next.”

  Aster was quiet a second, and the two men stared at each other. “Juror number sixteen needs to be stricken for cause.”

  “Denied.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  “He was a prison guard. Those guys are looking to hang anybody even accused of a crime.”

  “He said he could be objective when you questioned him.”

  “Of course he said that. What’s he gonna say? No, I’m an emotional jerkoff and can’t control myself?”

  “Your motion is denied. Next.”

  “This is bullshit,” Aster said, his voice raised.

  Ricci put her hand on his forearm and said, “Dylan—”

  “What the hell are you doing, Harvey?” he almost shouted. “Are you drunk again?”

  “Hey! Don’t you dare yell in here. I will not tolerate yelling!” he bellowed. “This is my courtroom, and I can do whatever the hell I deem necessary to—”

  “Now you’re yelling,” Aster said.

  “I’m a judge, damn it! The whole reason we become judges is so we can yell at people. Now, this better not be the tone you’re setting for the next five days, or you are going to have a seriously miserable time.”

  Ricci said, “It’s fine, Judge. Let’s just move on.”

  Yardley asked to strike two people for cause, and she was denied as well but didn’t object. Weston seemed in a particularly bad mood, and she guessed he wanted to get this trial over with as quickly as possible. Maybe he thought he was molding a jury that would come to a verdict quickly r
ather than taking days of deliberations?

  By late afternoon, they had argued and compromised their way to twelve jurors and four alternates. Weston said they would break for the day and then start with opening statements in the morning.

  52

  Yardley couldn’t eat breakfast and instead sat at a café across the street from the courthouse and read through Detective Garrett’s reports again. He would be the first witness after opening statements. She got a text from Tara that said, Good luck! It made her grin but also gave her a twinge of sadness. For the next eight days, she would hardly see her daughter. Worse, she wouldn’t be able to keep tabs on her.

  She went to court early and sat at the prosecution table. She watched as the bailiff set up the large portrait of Kathy Pharr she had asked to be put on an easel near the jury. Kathy with Harmony and Tucker at a water park. It was the only photo she could find where all three were smiling.

  When the jury and attorneys were all seated, Weston came out. He cleared his throat, then told the jury that what the attorneys said during the trial was not evidence but only their opinions of the evidence, and the jury could give the statements whatever weight they deemed appropriate.

  “Ms. Yardley, go ahead.”

  Yardley rose. The fatigue came in waves, and she felt sluggish but hoped the adrenaline of the trial would energize her.

  She glanced toward Zachary and then approached the jury, careful not to stand too close or too far away.

  “I remember before I became an attorney, there was a news story on one night about a man who had robbed a convenience store. There were two witnesses who saw him stick a gun in the cashier’s face and snatch the cash out of the register before sprinting out of the store. There was also a video of him doing it. The news anchor said his case was set for trial, and I remember thinking, Who could acquit him? The evidence is overwhelming.

  “Two months later, I happened to catch a follow-up story. The man had been found not guilty. Someone on the program I was watching, some cable news show, said that our justice system was a farce. This was just a few years after the O. J. Simpson verdict, and so everyone was on edge, thinking that our system didn’t work. I’ve always believed in our system, and I remember having to defend it to people, but I kept hearing that word: farce. Our system was a farce. And that word just wouldn’t leave me.”

  She put her hands together in front of her and glanced over the jury.

  “I thought of that word as I was preparing for this trial. The evidence here is overwhelming. Like it was in the case of the man who robbed that store. You’re going to hear from several police officers, forensic scientists, detectives, and federal agents about the details of this case. And the details are horrific.”

  She turned and looked at Zachary before walking to the portrait of Kathy Pharr.

  “The defendant, Michael Zachary, killed this beautiful woman, Kathy Pharr, in a cabin on Crimson Lake Road not two hours from here. A woman with a husband, a daughter, and an entire life still ahead of her. The defendant was having an affair with Kathy. We don’t know how or why the affair began—people rarely do—but it did. And somewhere along the way, it went bad. So bad that the defendant decided Kathy Pharr needed to die. Maybe it was because she wanted to tell his live-in girlfriend, Angela River, or maybe she wanted to call off the affair and he didn’t . . .” She paused. “Or maybe he simply felt like killing her.” She inhaled and put her hands behind her back. “The fact is we may never know why he killed her. In the end, it doesn’t matter. As I’ve sometimes heard homicide detectives say, dead is still dead.”

  Yardley removed the portrait of Kathy Pharr and replaced it with another. It was the first of Sarpong’s paintings. Then she turned around a whiteboard that had photos of Kathy Pharr’s crime scene neatly arranged over its surface.

  “This is a painting made in 1964 by a painter named Sarpong. You can see that the painting and Kathy Pharr’s scene of death are identical. Kathy Pharr’s body was posed to mimic this painting. She was kidnapped from her work while on a smoke break, injected with ricin, strapped to a table, cut along the brow to get the blood flowing down the face, and then wrapped in bandages and a black tunic like the one in the painting. Then she was sat in a chair, and an industrial-strength medical glue was used to give her the appearance of life. Her arms, thighs, and back were all glued to the chair, and she died there. Alone and afraid, in complete darkness.

  “A month later, a neighbor reported suspicious activity at a different cabin on Crimson Lake Road. The Clark County Sheriff’s Office and an FBI agent rushed to the scene.” She paused. “What they found shocked them.

  “Mr. Zachary’s girlfriend, Angela River, was laid down on a table.” Yardley went to the easel and took down the Sarpong painting, replacing it with the second painting in the series and, next to that, a blown-up sketch of what River looked like when Baldwin found her.

  “The second painting, brought to life again with a real human being, Angela River. This time, however, Mr. Zachary made a mistake. Angela survived. She was ill and near death from the ricin injected into her, but Mr. Zachary had miscalculated the dose, and she was able to fight and survive.

  “A warrant was executed on Mr. Zachary’s property. What the officers and agents found was this.” She picked up several transparent bags from the prosecution table. She then went through the evidence one item at a time, explaining its significance and making sure the jury had a chance to examine it up close. She described Zachary’s lack of alibis and how he’d had the perfect opportunities to commit both crimes. Several times, she glanced to Zachary and saw him staring at her with hatred in his eyes.

  She approached the jury after an hour of going through the evidence and looked each member in the eyes.

  “The defense is going to make this trial about anything they possibly can other than the evidence. They will make it about Kathy Pharr’s husband, Tucker Pharr. He has a previous conviction for kidnapping, something the defense will no doubt bring up several times. He has many tattoos; he works a blue-collar job and doesn’t have an education. The defense will tell you he looks like a killer.

  “They will try to make it about Kathy Pharr’s infidelity, about bias in the prosecution or police . . . they will make this case about everything except for one thing: the evidence. They will tell you that Mr. Zachary is a successful doctor. He’s from the upper strata of society, from the wealthy and elite, and the wealthy and elite don’t commit crimes like this.” She stepped closer to the jury. “Never mind that all the evidence was found inside Mr. Zachary’s garage. Never mind that his alibi doesn’t hold up for either night. Never mind that Sarpong paintings were found in his possession. The defense will tell you never mind all that because someone else looks more like a killer than Michael Zachary does.”

  One of the jurors slightly shook his head, as though in disbelief.

  Yardley put her hands behind her back.

  “I was thinking about the man who robbed that store this morning. My daughter occasionally asks me about my job and about the justice system, and I pictured her asking me, Did you ever see the system fail? And I would say, I had a case where all the evidence was found in the defendant’s possession, where he didn’t have one witness who could verify his alibi, where he was in possession of paintings that were identical to the scenes of the crimes, and the victims were his mistress and his girlfriend . . . but the jury acquitted him because someone else looked more like a killer than the defendant. The system failed those two victims that day. If that happens, ladies and gentlemen, then those people on the cable news show were right. Our system is a farce. Don’t let that be the case. Don’t let the defense make this about anything but the evidence. Michael Zachary killed Kathy Pharr and tried to kill Angela River. Don’t let him get away with it.”

  Yardley sat down. A few jurors kept their eyes on her and then looked away. Weston said, “Mr. Aster.”

  53

  Aster rose and stood in front of the jury. He looke
d them over a moment and said, “Ms. Yardley’s right.” He picked up the bags of evidence from the prosecution table. “All this stuff was found in Michael Zachary’s garage. He was at a conference on the night of the murder of Mrs. Pharr, and no one seems to remember seeing him there. He was asleep at home when his girlfriend was kidnapped, and no one can verify that. So why even bother with a trial? Let’s just read the police reports and stick him in prison. Why bother bringing in a jury and wasting everyone’s time? When they don’t have a decent alibi, let’s just not bother with all this,” he said, waving his arm around the courtroom. “I know a lot of cops that think that way, and hell, maybe they’re right? When the evidence is obvious, let’s just lock ’em up.”

  He looked each juror in the eyes.

  “Why don’t we do that? Because sometimes, appearances are deceiving. Sometimes, sometimes, everything looks like it points one way, when in fact it goes another. Yes, those things were found in his garage, but he will tell you he has no idea how they got there. Ridiculous, right? Just like Ms. Yardley said. Well, ask yourself: Why would he be stupid enough to keep those things in his garage, knowing his girlfriend could stumble onto them? Dr. Zachary’s a respected emergency room physician who went to Stanford Medical School. Would he really be so stupid as to not know that Angela River, who outweighs Kathy Pharr by almost one-third of her body weight, would need more ricin than Kathy Pharr did to cause death? Would he be so stupid as to kill his lover and then kill his girlfriend a month later? Did he not know that he would be the police’s top suspect? Would he really be so dumb as to not establish better alibis?”

  Aster took a step to the side, resting his hand on the defense table close to Zachary.

  “And let’s chat about motive. What exactly is Dr. Zachary’s motive? Did you hear the prosecution even address that? All they said was, ‘Hey, we’ll never know.’ Well, that’s not good enough. Our system is set up precisely for this reason: to tell the government that before you can take a man’s life away, you have to prove what he did. Prove it. You don’t get to shrug your shoulders and say, Well, we can’t know, so convict him anyway. What’s the motive? The fact is there is none. The prosecution will not present a single shred of evidence to tell you why Dr. Zachary would do any of this.”