The Murder of Sara Barton (Atlanta Murder Squad Book 1)

by Lance McMillian

  “How do you know that?”

  “I took a picture of her bruises.”

  Ella begins the process of authenticating and introducing the photograph of Sara Barton’s bruised back into evidence. Lara describes the scene when she visited her sister shortly after Barton’s attack and confirms that she took the picture to later use in a possible divorce. Barton scowls like a skunk at her the entire time. The photograph is passed from juror to juror. Once the jury has had the time to absorb the evidence of the defendant’s physical abuse, Ella continues.

  “Why didn’t Sara just leave at that moment?”

  “I told her to. She wouldn’t listen. She was still shaken from the attack. She told me she feared that Bernard would kill her before he allowed that to happen. A few months later, she did summon the courage to leave. And then …”

  Wary of the judge’s earlier admonishment not to editorialize, Lara allows the rest of us to complete the thought for her. She sheds a few more tears, the tissue in her hand riding to the rescue barely in time again. In a move of calculated thoughtfulness, Ella gives the witness some time to compose herself—the unsaid accusation still hanging above the courtroom. Barton glowers on, digging his own grave by the second.

  “When was the last time you saw your sister?”

  “The day before she died. We had lunch. She had decided to leave Bernard and was filing the paperwork in a few days. I was happy for her. Sara was hopeful for the first time in years and prepared to take back control of her life. The dark cloud hanging over her was gone.”

  More tears, then Ella announces no further questions.

  ***

  Millwood spies Lara Landrum from across the courtroom as if he doesn’t know what to do with her. After a promising morning, the defense’s fortunes have suffered a hard afternoon. The heaves of Millwood’s chest suggest a profound weariness with both his client and this entire affair. He stands with more effort than the movement deserves. Not much good can come from cross-examining this witness, and Millwood well recognizes the lay of the land. Lara is too sympathetic, too polished, too ready to inflict maximum hurt on one Bernard Barton. He approaches her out of professional obligation and little else. I’m looking at a man that just wants to go home and pour himself a stiff drink. Or three.

  “Ms. Landrum, you weren’t present when your sister was murdered?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t see Sam Wilkins when he arrived at your sister’s house that night?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t see what he did or didn’t do?”

  “No.”

  “You have no personal knowledge whether your sister was alive or dead when he arrived?”

  “No.”

  The focus on Sam is sound. Distract. Highlight what the witness doesn’t know. Introduce elements that the witness cannot possibly speak to. Draw attention away from the angry little man sitting at the defense table. Even when his heart isn’t in it, Millwood knows how to play the game.

  “You don’t know if Liesa Wilkins was there that night?”

  “I do not.”

  “You don’t know if Brice Tanner was there?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t know anything Tanner might have done?”

  “No.”

  “You weren’t there?”

  “Correct.”

  Millwood pauses. He looks down at his yellow legal pad, wondering if he should call it a day. He once told me if you have to debate with yourself whether to ask any more questions, you almost certainly shouldn’t ask them. Just sit down. One question too many has slain every single trial lawyer at one point or another. Millwood remains standing.

  “You weren’t present during the incident when your sister called 911?”

  “The ‘incident’? No, I wasn’t present during the ‘incident.’”

  Lara is the wildest of mustangs, not easily bridled like the vast majority of other witnesses Millwood has wrangled over the years. Her enunciation of the word “incident” drips with honey-coated sarcasm, making her questioner look foolish in his attempt to re-frame his client’s beating of her sister. A slight, yet uncharacteristic, grimace tells me that Millwood wishes he had sat down when he had the chance. But he can’t end his examination on that low point. With the mare still on the loose, he gets his rope out for one more try.

  “You weren’t there?”

  “I wasn’t there. I wish I was.”

  “You didn’t witness Bernard hit your sister?”

  “No. Only the aftermath.”

  “And what you know about that is only what your sister told you?”

  “That’s not true. I’ve heard the 911 call just like everyone else, and I saw her bruised back with my own two eyes.”

  Millwood actually gives a soft chuckle. She’s good, and he has seen enough witnesses to admire her skill. She bats earnest eyes at him that say she can play this game all day. Again loathe to end on a sour note, Millwood draws his bow one last time.

  “But you didn’t see Bernard bruise her back, you only know what your sister told you?”

  “True. I only know what my dead sister told me.”

  Millwood sits down, giving up the fight. We have no questions on re-direct, and Lara Landrum leaves the witness box having delivered one of her greatest performances. I give her an appreciative nod as she passes. I then whisper to Ella, “Good job.” She whispers back, “Damn right.”

  ***

  The mood during the nightly meeting with Scott and Ella is celebratory. The change in momentum from the low point of the lunch hour to the success of the afternoon is one of my proudest moments as a lawyer. Ella sips a red wine, and Scott gulps a beer. I drink some coffee with smug satisfaction.

  A television in my office is on in the background. One of the nightly crime shows plays the 911 call. An image of Lara on the witness stand accompanies Sara’s pained screams. We all stare at the screen and take in the devastating juxtaposition. The noose around Barton’s neck just got tighter.

  “I hope the jurors are watching,” Scott says. He turns to Ella, “You handled her well today.”

  The response: “I hate that bitch.”

  Scott laughs. Ella doesn’t. She drinks some more wine and avoids looking at me. The hangover from her comment dampens the mood in the room, which is just as well. The trial isn’t over yet.

  Scott asks, “What is Millwood’s play now?”

  “Plea bargain,” Ella proclaims, enjoying her joke a little too much. She may be slightly drunk. But we all know that Barton won’t deal. Nor would I even offer anything less than life in prison at this point. He might as well roll the dice. We’re going all the way to verdict.

  The both of them look at me for my assessment of the opponent’s next move. I lean back in my chair and stare at the ceiling. After being blindsided by Monica Haywood this morning, I try to imagine as many outlandish possibilities as I can envision. But only one viable avenue presents itself to my mind’s eye.

  “Liesa. Millwood has to go after Liesa. She’s the weakest link we have left. He has no other choice.”

  Scott responds, “Has she gotten back to you yet?”

  “No. And she won’t. Too stubborn and proud for her own good. But if she can survive Millwood, we should be home free.”

  43

  The next morning, I stand before Mary Woodcomb and announce in good voice: “The prosecution rests.” Millwood goes through the motions of asking for a directed verdict on the grounds that the State didn’t meet its evidentiary burden. The judge denies the request and informs the defense that it may now put on its case.

  “The defense calls Liesa Wilkins.”

  The momentum of the entire trial against him, Millwood doesn’t waste any time slow-playing peripheral witnesses to begin the mounting of his counterattack. He calls Liesa right out of the box, hoping to land the haymaker that he needs. Nothing about this case even hints at a random attack. Someone chose Sara Barton for a reason, and Millwood needs
a scapegoat.

  Liesa maintains her icy demeanor as she passes me on the way to the witness stand. She then swears her oath with the intensity of an unplugged robot. She hasn’t look at me once.

  Millwood says in that deep baritone of his, “Your Honor, the defense believes that the witness’ late husband, Sam Wilkins, may have been involved in the death of Sara Barton. We contend that the witness was in the vicinity of the Barton residence on the night of the murder, and we intend to aggressively question her as to her whereabouts. We ask, therefore, for permission to treat Mrs. Wilkins as a hostile witness.”

  Judge Woodcomb asks me for a response.

  “Mr. Millwood pulled Liesa Wilkins away from her grieving children and forced her to testify today so he could conduct a fishing expedition. I would be surprised if she wasn’t hostile. But Mr. Millwood cannot assume hostility. Liesa Wilkins is a licensed lawyer and a respected member of the state bar. She understands her duty as a witness, and I see no reason to depart from the typical rules of direct examination.”

  Millwood jumps in, “Your Honor, you allowed the State to treat Monica Hayward as a hostile witness. Turnabout is fair play.”

  I counter, “Not so. Monica Hayward lives in the defendant’s house as his fiancée. Mrs. Wilkins is a neutral third-party witness. Apples and oranges.”

  A direct examination would force Millwood to ask open-ended questions that do not suggest an answer, which would increase the difficulty of pinning the witness down. Millwood, instead, wants the questioning to be treated as a cross-examination, giving him enhanced control over the direction of the testimony.

  Judge Woodcomb considers the respective arguments and announces, “I’m going to hold off on a final ruling for now. Mr. Millwood can start with a direct examination, and we’ll revisit the issue if we need to.”

  That’s a bit of good news that I wasn’t expecting. Millwood’s dejection is perceptible if you know what to look for. He brushes the disappointment away and approaches Liesa with resolve ringing in each step.

  “Mrs. Wilkins, were you married to the late Sam Wilkins?”

  “I was.”

  “And what was your husband’s relationship with the decedent in this case, Sara Barton?”

  “Sam was her divorce lawyer.”

  “Was it your husband that discovered Sara Barton’s body and called the police?”

  “That’s what I’m told.”

  “Do you have any reason to doubt that?”

  “No.”

  Liesa’s answer to the question about Sam’s discovery of the body had an undertone of snippiness in it. Millwood met that peevishness head on and put her on the defensive in response. Here’s hoping that Liesa internalizes that lesson. I look at her with meaning, but she still has yet to glance at me since entering the courtroom.

  “Why was your husband visiting Sara Barton at ten o’clock in the evening?”

  “To get her to sign divorce papers to be filed the next day.”

  “Did your husband have a practice of making house calls with female clients late at night?”

  The question drips with unmistakable innuendo. The jurors throw Liesa anticipatory looks, the undercurrent of sex piquing their interest. Liesa doesn’t flinch and answers with cold steel resolve.

  “I wouldn’t call it a practice, but Sam had met with clients in their homes before, both men and women. Mrs. Barton requested that Sam bring the documents over, and he did. Sam expected to make a lot of money off this divorce, so he was willing to accommodate her.”

  Great answer, and I hope the jury processes the full implications of what Liesa just said. Sam wouldn’t have killed Sara Barton because she represented dollar signs to him, and the divorce was going to be an expensive one for Bernard Barton.

  Millwood continues, “Did you consider Sara Barton a beautiful woman?”

  “I didn’t consider her at all. I never met her.”

  “Did you know that Sara Barton was Lara Landrum’s twin sister?”

  Liesa pauses—thinking instead of answering. I hope she says yes even if it’s not true. People are gossip hounds and will assume Sam told her. They won’t believe otherwise.

  “I know now obviously. But I can’t tell you when I learned that, whether it was before Sara Barton’s murder or after. Sam didn’t share many details about his clients with me. He liked to leave his work at the office.”

  “Or at his client’s house that he visited late at night?”

  Woodcomb looks at me, ready to sustain the objection she anticipates. I let it pass. Liesa is holding her own, and if Millwood wants to go sarcastic on a young widow, I’ll graciously keep out of the way. Instinct tells me it doesn’t play well.

  Liesa answers, “That, his office, the courthouse, wherever—the point is that Sam didn’t like to bring his work home.”

  “You say that your husband didn’t like to talk shop with you, yet earlier you testified that you knew the Barton divorce was going to be lucrative?”

  “Oh, we talked about money. Definitely that. I was interested in that—the other details not so much.”

  A few jurors laugh and nod their heads. Married couples talk about money. They usually argue about money. Disagreements over finances are the number one cause of divorce. Liesa’s words ring true, and she just bought herself some extra credibility.

  “How much life insurance are you due to receive on account of your husband’s death?”

  And boom goes the dynamite. The somewhat jovial moment of a second ago transforms with astonishing swiftness into something decidedly somber. Millwood’s gut—honed through decades of trials in this very courthouse—just hit pay dirt. The dramatic shift in the tone and content of his questioning maximizes the attention of everyone in the room.

  “Three million dollars.”

  The answer sounds like a confession of murder, and Liesa’s resolve weakens a touch with the admission. No shame should follow having generous life insurance. But at a murder trial, the imagination of the jurors can do a lot with the thought of $3 million dancing in their heads. Millwood just landed a body blow. I would be more worried if Barton himself didn’t stand to collect $5 million.

  Millwood continues, “Where were you on the night of Sara Barton’s murder?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Millwood’s look of skepticism prowls throughout the courtroom. He senses that momentum is now on his side, and the renewed vigor flowing from this belief creates the feel of kinetic energy in the air. He grabs a file, studies it, takes out a document, hands me a copy, and approaches Liesa with the resolve of an assassin.

  “Mrs. Wilkins, I hand you a document listing all the vehicles that traveled through an intersection close to the Barton—”

  “Object to the word ‘close,’ Your Honor. Mr. Millwood is going outside the document to describe the document, which is an improper characterization. The intersection is over a mile away from the Barton home. Whether that counts as close in a compacted place like Midtown Atlanta is up to the jury to decide.”

  “Sustained. Mr. Millwood, you can ask about the closeness in your questions if you like but not when explaining the contents of the document to the witness.”

  Millwood’s annoyance is mild, but there all the same. His frustrations with the judge add up. If the jury comes back with a guilty verdict, Millwood gets to appeal all the rulings he disagrees with to the Georgia Supreme Court. I hope he gets the chance.

  “Mrs. Wilkins, will you please turn to page three of the document I handed you. In the middle of the page, an entry exists for a Chrysler Minivan owned by Sam Wilkins. Do you see that?”

  “Yes.”

  “What time did this Chrysler Minivan cross the intersection according to this printout?”

  “9:51 p.m.”

  “Detective Scott Moore has already testified that your husband drove a Volkswagen Passat to the Barton home that night. Do you have reason to doubt that testimony
?”

  “No.”

  “Would anyone besides yourself have been driving your family’s minivan on the night of the murder at 9:51 p.m.?”

  “No.”

  “What were you doing out at that time of night?”

  An open-ended question to an adverse witness typically begs for trouble, but Liesa is on record saying she doesn’t remember what she was doing that night. Any departure from that testimony will allow Millwood to hammer her credibility.

  “I imagine I was going home. We live three miles from the intersection. I’m on that road all the time.”

  “And where were you coming home from?”

  “I have no idea. I couldn’t possibly tell you where I was on a particular night that many months ago. I was running some errand probably. I’m a mom. I’m always running errands somewhere.”

  Millwood looks at her contemplatively. He wants to push here but lacks any kind of stick to force her to play nice. He continues to tread a line between the right amount of aggressiveness and going that one step too far.

  “So to summarize your testimony up to this point—on the night of the murder, at around the same time your husband was calling the police, you were in your car close to the murder scene, and yet you have no idea what you were doing out that late. Is that correct?”

  I should object, but don’t—playing a hunch.

  “That wasn’t my testimony. I have no idea how close I was to the murder scene because I have no idea where Sara Barton lived—still don’t know to this day. Sam said he was going to a house in Virginia Highlands. That’s all. I have no idea what I was doing the night before or after the murder, either, except to say I almost certainly drove on that same road those days, too. I resent your veiled hints making me or my husband out to be some kind of murderer. I have children, Mr. Millwood.”

  Powerful. Wrapping herself in the mantle of motherhood, Liesa delivers a dignified response filled with righteous indignation. This Liesa is the one I remember from law school. She should’ve made Sam stay at home with the kids. Unfazed, Millwood doesn’t miss a beat.

  “Permission to treat Mrs. Wilkins as a hostile witness now, Your Honor?”