Lesser Crimes

by Aitana Moore

  “Who was in the house with you that night?” Williams asked.

  “My daughter Cora Emily Miller.”

  It was as if Lee’s stillness had increased at the mention of Cora, although she had sat motionless through most of the questioning; it was as if she were afraid that a slight movement from her might make her sister materialize in the courtroom, when she was across the ocean in Switzerland.

  William asked, “How old was Cora?”

  “She was eight years old at the time.”

  “What was the relationship between Joe and Cora?”

  “He was her stepfather.”

  “How long had you been married to him at the time of his death?”

  “We had been married two years, but I had known him three. Since Cora was five.”

  “Did she call him ‘Dad’ or consider him her father?”

  April wriggled on the chair, her lips curving downward in disapproval. “No. She couldn’t, you see, because Lynette wouldn’t let her.”

  “Could you clarify that statement? Did the defendant forbid her sister—?”

  “Not forbid. She just kept reminding Cora who her real daddy was.”

  “Who was Cora’s real father?”

  “His name was Nathan Tyler.”

  “Were you ever married to him?”

  “No, ma’am. That’s why Cora’s last name is my maiden name, Miller, just like Lynette’s.”

  “Was Nathan Tyler the reason you moved to Hawkshaw?”

  “Yes. We met in Raleigh, where I was living at the time, but he got a job in Greensboro.”

  “He convinced you to move here?”

  “Yes, when I got pregnant. But he turned out to be a good-for-nothing — lost his job, went off to Texas with someone else and hardly paid child support or visited her at all. And that’s why I thought that Joe was a better father to Cora, but Lynette just kept reminding her that Joe wasn’t her father.”

  Lee wrote something down and pushed it toward Paxton. Her mother’s sharp glance at her was like the sudden flick of a whip, but April’s features quickly resumed their previous docility as Williams went on, “At the time of Joe’s death, then, you had been seeing him for three years, and for the past two you were married. How would you describe your relationship to him?”

  April sighed. “We were very much in love.”

  “But you placed four calls complaining of domestic violence in those years.”

  The woman on the stand shrugged. “We were passionate. We fought, we made up. I didn’t ever press charges, Officer Brooks can tell you that, his partner Noah would tell you that, all the other officers. I never pressed charges; it was just the heat of the moment.”

  “How would you describe Cora’s relationship to him?”

  “Well, in spite of what I said before, that she didn’t call him daddy because of Lynette, I think they had a good relationship. He even took her out sometimes, when she wanted to go to the aquarium or the museum. He was good at math, and he would help with her homework. When we had barbecues, he would always cook corn on the cob — he’d say, ‘That’s what Coralina likes.’ He called her like that, Coralina.”

  “How would you describe the defendant’s relationship to him?”

  For a moment April sat looking at Lee. “It’s hard to say. When Lynn lived in the house …”

  Bennett interrupted her: “Wait, let’s back up a bit. Give us a sense of timing here. How old was the defendant when you met Joe, when he went to live in the house, all that.”

  “All right,” April said, with the eagerness of a teacher’s pet. “I didn’t exactly ‘meet’ Joe, because as Officer Brooks says the town is small — so I’d seen him around by the time we started dating. He moved into the house when Lynette was sixteen, ’cept she was at the hospital. Cora was five, like I said. We got married the year after. And by the year after that, Lynette wasn’t living with us anymore.”

  “Where was she living?”

  “Well, that was 2012, the year Lynette turned eighteen. It was the year she married Billy.”

  FIVE

  Married.

  Married to Billy.

  Who the hell was Billy?

  Why wasn’t Billy in any of the articles, and why hadn’t Paxton told James that Lee was married?

  Why hadn’t Lee told him?

  Paxton threw a glance over his shoulder and gave a small apologetic shrug, as if saying he couldn’t have breached client-attorney privilege. Lee, on the other hand, didn’t move at all. She might have imagined that she couldn’t keep her marital status a secret during an investigation of her life.

  And where was Billy now? Had they gotten a divorce? Was he dead? Gone?

  Bloody hell.

  Out of the corner of his eyes, James spotted Officer Brooks watching him, and he kept calm. In fact, he floated in a sea of calm. There would be an explanation, he was sure; all in good time. And, knowing Lee, there would also be more surprises, and he braced himself for them.

  “All right, proceed,” Judge Bennett told Williams.

  “I was asking you about the defendant’s relationship to the deceased,” Williams told April. “What was it like?”

  “Like I said, Lynette wasn’t really around either when I started dating Joe,” April continued, clearly enjoying everyone’s attention. “She got real sick right before and it was hard for me to take care of her and of Cora at the same time, so her grandma had to step in and take her back to Raleigh. Lynn was in the hospital there a while. When she came home, she did find Joe all installed, you know, and I guess she didn’t expect that. And I guess she was just recovering, too. She was a bit difficult at first, telling me I was making a mistake again, and why couldn’t it be just the three of us girls?”

  “Would you say she was jealous, or felt displaced?” Williams asked.

  “I guess. I guess she thought he would turn out not to be any good. But Joe was working, unlike Cora’s daddy.”

  “What was his profession?”

  “He was a traveling salesman. He represented some small chemical and plastics companies round here, on a commission basis, and he was bringing money home. So Lynn didn’t know what she was talking about, and I told her to mind her own business.” April seemed to address the room, where only a few curious souls gathered, apart from the other witnesses. “I’m a mother, and I’d do anything for my daughters, but I don’t think I ought to be expected not to marry again, not to love anyone ever again and not to live with a man, especially if he’s a decent man.”

  Williams nodded. “Then you’d say their relationship had its ups and downs.”

  “I would, yes. Sometimes Joe would say Lynn was a good kid. Sometimes he’d say she was a right pain in the ass.”

  That just about summed up Lee, if one were at a loss for words.

  “And were they ever violent to each other?” Williams pursued.

  “You mean physically?”

  “In any way.”

  “Well, when Joe and me got into arguments, Lynn would act up. I told her it wasn’t her business, that men and women fight sometimes. That husbands and wives sometimes fight so bad and so loud, it looks like they’ll kill each other. They can say the worst things to each other at those times and not mean it. But she’d be trying to come into the room, if we were locked up in there. Or she’d scream she was calling the police.”

  “She took the fights seriously then,” Williams observed. “Was there any time that things got so bad that she threatened Joe?”

  “One time he hit me in the kitchen, in front of the girls. He just lost it, you know, and just hit me with the back of his hand. And I don’t know what people who make movies are thinking of, but if a man hits you like that — well, you fly. It’s not like you stand there and your head turns a lil’ bit! I hit the cupboard and I cried out because of my neck, and Joe kept screaming, and my mouth was bleeding, and I just saw Lynn grab a saucepan to throw the food at him. Hot food, too, though not boiling. He got mad as hell and started s
creaming at her, and she wasn’t afraid at all. She was just holding that saucepan and swiping it at him like she’d gone crazy. And he started walking back and back till he was out of the house.”

  James rubbed his lips to hide a smile.

  “What did the defendant say to him then?”

  April had the grace to lower her voice and her eyes. “She said ‘You touch my Mama again and I’ll kill you.’ ”

  Williams cocked her head, as if she had never heard the story. “Then the time when she threatened him, just before the murder, wasn’t the only time she threatened him?”

  “No. No, it wasn’t. There was this time, but I know she was trying to protect me. She thought Joe might hurt me or something.”

  “And when did Joe return?”

  “A few hours later. He just went to the bar and cooled off. And I had talked to Lynn, and told her if she butted out, everything would be fine.”

  “Is that what she did?”

  “For the most part. Sometimes she’d tell me it wasn’t worth being with someone if you didn’t get along.”

  “And they forgave each other for that night?”

  “Yes, everything seemed normal.”

  “Was there another fight between them?”

  “Well, she could never accept that we fought the way we did, but since I had told her to butt out and she’s proud, she’d just walk out of the house when there was trouble and take Cora. Sometimes they wouldn’t come back in a while. They’d go to Billy’s house, I think.”

  “So the next time she threatened him, it was because of Cora?”

  “Yes, and that was huge overreaction. Cora was just being impossible. She kept saying she wanted her dinner, she wanted her dinner. And Joe lost it and pulled her by the arm, pushed her into her room and said, ‘You’ll have no dinner now.’ Cora tells Lynn, and Lynn goes over to the bar, to Nelson’s, and starts screaming in Joe’s face that if he ever touches Cora again she’ll kill him. I mean, really …” She shook her head at Lee. “Really, sweetheart. As if Joe would ever hurt Cora.” April looked around for effect. “That was the day before my husband died.”

  “Could anything have happened between the defendant and the deceased one day later that would have made her really furious at him — furious enough to hit him with a poker as he went down the stairs?”

  April looked startled. “I don’t understand what you’re asking me.”

  “Was there any possibility of your husband acting badly toward either of your daughters?”

  “He never hit them!”

  “I mean, could he have molested them?”

  “Are you crazy? How can you ask me that?” April looked around at the judge, at the stenographer, at the guards as if expecting them to be as outraged as she was. “He wasn’t a pig like that! Lynette, you will please tell them that never happened? My husband was in love with me, and me with him. He wouldn’t touch my children, he wasn’t no degerenate.”

  “Calm down, Mrs. Keane. These are standard questions,” Bennett said.

  The witness sniffled. “That’s just sick.”

  “Then, Mrs. Keane,” Williams said, “if the defendant was living with her husband, William Jonathan Wheeler, at the time of your husband’s death — why was she at your house that night?”

  April still sniffled and answered in a low voice, “I didn’t see Lynn at my house that night.”

  “Let me rephrase that: Lynn went to your house and left her fingerprints on the murder weapon and her shoe prints on the floor and outside, took your car and later abandoned it near the airport in Charlotte. Was there a reason for her to have gone there that specific night?”

  “There was no reason for her to be at my house that specific night, but sometimes she’d drop by. Maybe she wanted to bring Cora or me something, or maybe she needed something that she kept there. She would do that, sometimes. She was free to come and go.”

  “All right, so you were not expecting her, but it would not be unusual for her to drop by without warning.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And how was it that you did not hear her that night, or hear the deceased falling down the stairs?”

  “That night I took a sleeping pill. I was fast asleep by eight o’clock and I never woke up till the next morning. And I tell you, if I usually sleep like the dead, with a sleeping pill an earthquake wouldn’t have waked me up.”

  “Why did you have to take a sleeping pill that night, Mrs. Keane — and so early?”

  “I was very upset. Joe and I had a fight. One of the bad ones.”

  “Did the deceased hit you during this fight?”

  “It was one of the worst ones. He did push me around. I pushed him too and threw things at him. Then he slapped me hard across the face a few times. We said we would kill each other.”

  “Who was present in the house during this altercation?”

  “Just Cora. She was in her room all locked up.”

  “What time did this fight take place?”

  “It was a bit ongoing, between six and eight p.m.”

  “And you took the sleeping pill right after?”

  “Right after Joe left the room saying he was going out, yes.”

  “Could Cora have telephoned the defendant to tell her about this fight? Perhaps to say that she feared for her own safety or yours?”

  “Maybe. If she was afraid, I think she’d call Lynn. I think so.”

  Bennett leaned his chin on his hand once more. “Where is Cora right now, Mrs. Keane?”

  “She’s in Swizerland.”

  “Switzerland? The country?”

  “That’s right. She goes to school there.”

  Bennett raised both eyebrows. “I understood you lived with limited means.”

  “A boyfriend of Lynn’s committed to pay for her education.” April motioned in James’s direction. “You saw, she has rich boyfriends. A million dollars in cash is nothing to them, so this other one set up a fund for Cora to go to school.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Almost four years ago. But we speak regularly on Skype.”

  Nodding at Williams, the judge allowed her to continue as he scribbled something on his pad. It would be bad for April if it became known that she had allowed Lee, a fugitive from justice living under a false identity, to be Cora’s de facto guardian. Perhaps Bennett was making a note to have that piece of the puzzle investigated by other authorities, and April craned her neck to see what he was writing. Williams’ next question, however, called her attention back to the podium.

  “And you didn’t hear or see anything else that night?”

  “Out like a light.” April gave a sob, almost as an afterthought. “And I never saw my Joe alive again, and my baby Cora was in the house when murder was done.”

  “What do you think happened that night?”

  “Immaterial,” Paxton protested calmly.

  “Yes, what she thinks happened is immaterial,” Bennett chimed in. “By her own admission, she was out like a light.”

  “Then just one more thing,” Williams told April. “When was the last time you used the murder weapon — the fire poker — or saw it used?”

  The question didn’t seem gruesome to April, who had stopped crying as suddenly as she had started. “Oh, not for a long time. When Joe died, it was just about same time of year as now, and not cold at all. Besides, we have heating! I think it might have been more than a year since anyone had touched it. We didn’t use it much.”

  “Thank you. That’s all from me, Your Honor.”

  Bennett sighed and shuffled papers as Williams took her seat. “Mr. Paxton?”

  Paxton returned to the podium, but this time he seemed to need no notes. “What was the fight about between you and the deceased on the night of his death, Mrs. Keane?”

  April bit her lip and shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember the last fight you had with your husband on the night he died? Let me put it th
is way: was it about another woman?”

  The beautiful eyes on April’s ravaged face flicked toward Lee again. “Sometimes we fought about something like that. But I wasn’t the only one who was jealous.”

  “I’m sure, but that day, the 29th of November 2013, were you the one who was jealous?”

  “What if I was? What does that have to do with anything? You can’t be thinking—”

  “Answer the question, please,” Bennett instructed.

  “I didn’t like that he had been out the night before, and that Jada Phillips had been there. I know her kind, and I was just warning him that I was not going to go ’round town like a fool. I can put up with a lot, but I’ve never been able to put up with that.”

  “I’m sure,” Paxton remarked smoothly. “In fact, you did cause injury to the mistress of your former partner, Nathan Tyler? You did pull her by the hair and bang her face against a door frame?”

  “I did. But I—”

  “And you did several times cause bodily harm to the deceased as well?”

  “Well, look at me, Your Honor! Joe was twice my size!”

  Paxton paced in front of the podium, holding his glasses. “Did you throw a lamp at him on one occasion? On another occasion, did you throw a pair of kitchen scissors at him? Did you hit him on the side of the head with the waffle maker? Did you throw hot coffee at him but missed? Did you run after him with a baseball bat?”

  April shook her head. “How on earth has that become about me when—?”

  “Answer the questions, Mrs. Keane,” Bennett repeated. “Did you do any or all these things?”

  “I probably did. I said we drove each other mad.”

  “Let’s move on, then,” Paxton said. “You say that the fire poker, the alleged murder weapon, had not been used in a year, more or less. That would have been when the defendant still lived in the house?”

  “Could be.”

  “And who normally cleaned the house when the defendant lived with you?”