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

by Lance McMillian

  “Approximately 7:30 p.m.”

  “What time did you arrive at your house and discover the police there?”

  “Approximately 2:30 a.m.”

  “What were you doing between 7:30 p.m. and 2:30 a.m.?”

  “I went to dinner at The Tilted House, had a few drinks there, then drove to the house of my sister-in law, Lara Landrum.”

  Everyone’s awake now. Judge Woodcomb bangs the gavel to quiet the murmurs. Heads in the jury box swivel from the witness to Lara, sitting behind me just to the right. A disgusted Lara gives a short shake of her head. Millwood allows the excitement to dance for a bit before resuming his questioning.

  “What time did you arrive at your sister-in-law’s house?”

  “Around nine.”

  “What did you do when you arrived?”

  “I let myself in and had another drink. Lara told me she was meeting with some producers and might be late. I waited for her.”

  “And what happened when she made it home?”

  “We had sex.”

  I actually laugh out loud—part performance, part sincere incredulity. I assess Millwood and conclude that even he doesn’t believe the product he is hawking. That’s all the confirmation I need. Barton is lying.

  Lara’s emphatic shaking of her head draws every eye from the jury. The indignation bleeds out of her. She just testified without testifying—refuting Barton’s words in real time.

  The judge has to give her gavel multiple raps to control the crowd this go around. The room is on edge.

  Barton adds, “She can shake her head all she likes, but she knows it’s true.”

  He is back to being a bulldog, and the role suits him. His forceful manner gives him authority. But Lara isn’t an easy one to intimidate. She returns his stare with determination of her own and continues shaking her head in denial. The two of them hate one another, making Barton’s testimony all the more incredible.

  Millwood announces, “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  The judge calls for the afternoon break, and a stampede to the exit follows. The excited media will be speaking in tongues from this shock. Ella, Scott, Lara, and I leave through the side door and congregate in a nearby conference room.

  “It’s not true,” Lara steams.

  The rest of us credit her denial. But we’re not the jury. I lean against the conference table and analyze what just happened. The others nurse their own thoughts in silence. Then I start laughing.

  Ella snaps, “What?”

  I answer, “I mean, it’s a brilliant tactic. I’ll give them that. It’s a bombshell, and titillating to boot, so it grabs everyone’s attention. We can’t disprove it. We have no record of his whereabouts during that time period. It also casts doubt on the strongest witness against them, making the whole trial come down to a ‘he said, she said’ contest. That the ‘she’ is a famous actress only adds to the explosiveness. Who knows how the jury will react to that? We’ve gone from a boring domestic dispute between husband and wife to a possible love triangle involving twins, one of whom is a celebrity. Drama sells. It’s brilliant.”

  Lara moans, “But it’s not true.”

  “Of course not. It’s a Hail Mary pass. It’s desperation. It’s the only thing they could’ve done to have a chance at all. It’s so unexpected and out of left field that now the jury is looking at things with fresh eyes. But at the end of the day, it’s all empty calories. No proof. Nothing. Just the word of a disliked defendant trying to save his neck at the last minute. Don’t worry. Just continue to play indignant. I’ll handle Barton on cross.”

  47

  Most murder defendants avoid the witness box like the Bubonic plaque. A good cross-examiner could make Mother Teresa look guilty as sin. The risk invariably outweighs the reward, and the right to remain silent consequently rules these parts. But now Barton is giving me an opportunity as rare as a unicorn sighting.

  I grew up consuming Perry Mason reruns on TV and dreamed of one day forcing a confession on the stand from a witness powerless in the face of my withering verbal assault. Today won’t be that day. Real life doesn’t work like that, and Barton wouldn’t confess even at gunpoint. Rather, the goal is to remind the members of the jury why they dislike the defendant—no knockout blows, just a series of well-placed jabs that do great cumulative damage over time.

  A liveliness fills the room that was missing earlier. The trial just became interesting from a certain point of view. Barton and I measure each other across the empty space. I pick up a trial transcript and walk to my spot.

  “Mr. Barton, do you remember in opening statements when your counsel said—and I’m reading from the transcript: ‘You won’t like my client. He’s abrasive and arrogant. He cheated on his wife throughout the course of their marriage. He gambles too much, and he acts like a little boy who has never grown up.’ Remember that?”

  “I remember.”

  “Are you abrasive?”

  “Can be.”

  “Arrogant?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you cheat on your wife?”

  “Repeatedly.”

  “Gamble too much?”

  “Probably.”

  “Act like a little boy who never grew up?”

  “I guess so.”

  The game of getting under Barton’s skin begins. Already he shows annoyance. He’s dying to prove that he’s smarter than me, that he won’t fall into my traps. Good. I hope to use his arrogance against him.

  “Do you lie?”

  That’s a tough one for him to answer. He sits there plotting for a critical stretch of seconds.

  “Everybody lies.”

  “We’re not talking about everybody. We’re talking about you. Do you lie?”

  “From time to time.”

  I can work with that answer. Barton gritted his teeth in giving it to me. Being on the receiving end of the harsh treatment he has doled out his entire career doesn’t agree with him. Bullies don’t like to be bullied.

  “Speaking of lying, let’s talk about Monica Haywood. Your testimony is that she lied for your benefit without your knowledge?”

  “That’s right.”

  “The morning after the murder, you were at her condo?”

  “I was.”

  “The police were looking for you?”

  “Yep.”

  “Haywood told them you weren’t there?”

  “She did.”

  “Yet you were hiding in the bedroom?”

  Barton pauses for a second, scowls, then contends that he wasn’t hiding, he was just in the bedroom when the police rang the doorbell and that Haywood decided on her own to lie to the police.

  “Did you tell Monica after that to stop lying for you?”

  “Didn’t talk about it.”

  “A few days later, she went to the police station to talk to the police?”

  “She did.”

  “She lied to give you an alibi?”

  “Yep.”

  “You didn’t know she was going to do that?”

  “No idea.”

  He is no actor, that’s for sure. Every answer comes across as curt with a helping of attitude on the side. Barton has been on the stand all day with his literal freedom hanging in the balance. He’s getting tired. He’s getting cranky. I smell blood.

  “And you were in the courtroom when Monica admitted lying to this jury?”

  “I was.”

  “And you didn’t know she was going to lie for you then?”

  “I did not.”

  “The two of you live together?”

  “We do.”

  “Engaged to be married?”

  “Sure.”

  “And you didn’t know that she was again—for the third time now—going to lie on your behalf?”

  “Nope.”

  “But as you admitted earlier, you do lie from time to time?”

  “Just like you, Counselor.”

  He smirks, proud of himself for that one. I smil
e honey back at him. It’s happening. He’s imploding right before my eyes. Millwood, knowing that his client is a lost cause, barely tries to hide his own contempt toward Barton at this juncture.

  “How many women have you sexually harassed in the workplace?”

  Anger replaces the smirk. No “yeps” or “nopes” here. He’s going to have to give an actual answer, and all his possible options on that score hurt him. I await patiently while he struggles to pick his poison.

  “I’ve never intentionally harassed anyone.”

  “How many women have you unintentionally sexually harassed?”

  “None. I don’t think I’ve ever sexually harassed anyone. Everything was consensual, flirting on both sides.”

  “These women wanted it?”

  “I didn’t say that! It was mutual banter between friends.”

  “And the unwanted sexual touching was that also banter?”

  “You weren’t there. You’re twisting things. The touching was friendly, welcomed.”

  “And yet all these women still reported you for sexual harassment?”

  “They wanted money.”

  “They lied for money?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yeah.”

  We are so often in life our own worst enemy. Barton is overheating and leaking oil at the one moment that he needs to be the calmest. The females on the jury flash their disgust. The pattern is clear. Barton blames women for all his problems—Sara for the 911 call, Monica for lying about him without his knowledge, the women he sexually harassed for making stuff up.

  “And Roy Winston—your own witness—was he lying when he said the claims against you were credible and that your conduct was unacceptable?”

  “He was just covering his ass.”

  Someone in the audience gasps. The judge bangs her gavel. The top of Barton’s head collects tiny pockets of perspiration. The courtroom light falls harsh on him.

  “Let’s talk about the gun, Mr. Barton. You bought it a few months before the murder?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sara wanted you to buy it?”

  “She did.”

  “She felt unsafe?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “She wanted the gun for her protection?”

  “Yep.”

  “And that was the gun that killed her?”

  “That’s what I’m told.”

  “Your gun?”

  “Apparently.”

  That bit will make it into my closing argument. The very gun that Sara wanted to protect her life took away her life. That’s a nice narrative hook. But I won’t stop there. The only evidence we have that Barton bought the gun for Sara comes from Barton’s own mouth. But maybe he got the gun because he already planned to kill her. Remember Sara’s own words: “He’s going to kill me!” Based on the evidence, the only person Sara feared was Bernard Barton.

  “At some point you learned about a video of Sara and another man having sex at a firm party with you in the room next door?”

  “I did.”

  “And the man in question was a younger attorney whose office was right down the hall from yours?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “The video made you mad?”

  “I didn’t care that she slept around. I was mad that she got filmed doing so.”

  “You called her a whore in fact?”

  “If the shoe fits.”

  Dear God. Even Judge Woodcomb—the epitome of courtroom decorum—shoots a glance of malice Barton’s way after that one. The meltdown is becoming uncomfortable. Maybe he will confess on the stand after all.

  “Even though you yourself repeatedly cheated on Sara throughout the marriage, you called her a whore?”

  “I guess I’m a hypocrite.”

  “And you were hanging out with your own mistress at the same event?”

  “Same answer.”

  “So you’re angry about the video, go home, and start beating on the locked bedroom door with Sara on the other side?”

  “I wanted to pack some clothes. She wouldn’t let me in.”

  “And you contend that her call to 911 claiming you were about to kill her was some kind of set-up to help her divorce case?”

  “All I wanted to do was get my suitcase. She escalated it. She was going to try to milk me in the divorce.”

  “Except the night before she was due to file her divorce papers she was murdered?”

  He doesn’t provide an answer, and I don’t press him for one. Every person here can do that math. I remember the phrase: “She was going to try to milk me in the divorce.” The jury will hear those words again in my closing.

  “From your work on domestic violence causes, you know that battered women often lie to the police to protect their abusers?”

  “They do.”

  “These women lie because they’re afraid of more abuse if they tell the truth?”

  “Women who are abused, yes. Sara was not abused.”

  “You never hit Sara?”

  “I did not and that’s exactly what she told the police.”

  “Let me get this straight—Sara lied on the 911 call to stick it to you in the divorce, but told the truth exonerating you when the police arrived?”

  He spots the contradiction immediately and stares at me blankly. If Sara Barton had wanted to maximize her leverage in a divorce case, Barton would have left his house that day in handcuffs. He didn’t.

  “I guess she thought better of it.”

  “You don’t think she was ever afraid you were going to kill her?”

  “She couldn’t have been.”

  “Yet she was murdered two months later?”

  “Not by me.”

  “Murdered in your kitchen?”

  “Not by me.”

  “With your gun?”

  “Not by me.”

  “Two months after she told 911 you were going to kill her?”

  “I didn’t kill her!”

  He screams out that answer and earns himself a stern admonition from the judge. A courtroom deputy moves closer to the witness stand just in case. The jurors closest to Barton shift their bodies in their seats to get farther away from him. Veins bulge on his thick neck as they did earlier in the trial. I keep up the attack.

  “You didn’t kill her?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Just like you’ve never sexually harassed any women?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Just like you never instructed Monica Haywood to lie?”

  “Same answer.”

  My body stands parallel with the jury box as I ask these last questions. My eyes rest only on the jurors, not Barton. The audience and I are on the same skeptical page. I allow myself a second or two to enjoy the thrill of what’s happening—to savor the moment. I was born to do this. Life is good.

  “Let’s go to the day of the murder. From approximately 7:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m., you have no proof of your whereabouts?”

  “My testimony is proof.”

  “You don’t have a receipt from The Tilted House for that dinner?”

  “I didn’t keep it.”

  “But you did keep the one from the night of the 911 call when you claim you and Sara went out?”

  “I paid with a credit card that night. I keep those.”

  “You paid cash at The Tilted House?”

  “I did.”

  “You have no receipt or credit card charge that could corroborate your story?”

  “Doesn’t look like it.”

  “And your cell phone can’t be used to track your movements because you left it home that day?”

  “Couldn’t find it.”

  “No phone, no receipt, no credit card purchases, no other witnesses that can back up your claim as to your movements between seven-thirty at night and two-thirty in the morning?”

  “Lara could, but she won’t.”

  “She’d lie about it, just like your wi
fe lied during the 911 call, just like the multiple women who accused you of sexual harassment lied?”

  “Pretty much.”

  The man is a misogynistic marvel. He wears his contempt for women like a badge of honor. Putting on my psychiatrist hat, I bet growing up seeing his father batter his mother internalized in him a hatred of women. When Sara got the better of him with Brice in such a publicly humiliating way, that hatred boiled over. I size him up for one final run.

  “Let’s talk about your testimony about your sister-in-law, Lara Landrum. You never told the police about this alibi, did you?”

  “No. I knew she wouldn’t back me up.”

  “You never told the District Attorney’s office?”

  “Same answer.”

  “You believed she would lie?”

  “Yes.”

  “That if you told the truth to the police, she would lie to the police?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even though, if you’re telling the truth, she would know that you didn’t kill her sister?”

  “That’s right.”

  “She would choose to lie, see you convicted, and her sister’s real murderer go free?”

  “She doesn’t like me.”

  “She doesn’t like you.”

  My words are a statement. The implications of Barton’s answer sink in around the courtroom. If Lara doesn’t like him, then she wouldn’t sleep with him. Perfect. I drop my remaining questions and sit down. Millwood doesn’t even bother with a re-direct. The defense rests, and court adjourns for the weekend.

  48

  Friday night feels heavy. I sit at home alone and assess the state of the case. Unless I put Lara back on the stand to deny Barton’s last-minute alibi ploy, all the witnesses have said their piece. The rest is up to Millwood and me as we deliver dueling closing arguments. I relish the opportunity. Every closing is personal for me—the chance to act as the voice for victims everywhere.

  Barton’s testimony sank him. He came across as a villain, and that’s enough. I wasn’t expecting a confession. The attempt to make Lara his alibi, while brilliant in its way, had little chance of success. I know enough about Jack Millwood to know that he didn’t draw up that play. Lara’s look of revulsion and her well-timed shakes of the head delivered an instant rebuke to Barton’s lies. Calling her back to the stand is unnecessary. The jury heard her loud and clear.