Marc Kadella Legal Mysteries Vol 1-6 (Marc Kadella Series)

by Dennis Carstens

“Yes, I was involved,” Max admitted.

  “Were you in the van listening to the conversation between Cooper and Mackenzie?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “And a recording of this conversation was made, was it not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Mackenzie Sutherland incriminate herself regarding William’s final Will and her knowledge of it?”

  “No,” Max quietly answered.

  “Cooper Thomas tried to get her to do so, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “In fact, she denied any prior knowledge of the fact William Sutherland changed his Will and did not know what Cooper was talking about, didn’t she?”

  “That’s what it sounded like.”

  “Was a transcript made of the recorded conversation,” Marc asked while looking at Heather Anderson who was staring straight ahead.

  “I don’t believe so, no.”

  “Isn’t it standard procedure to make a transcript of these recordings?”

  “Not necessarily, no,” Max said.

  “Whose idea was it to not transcribe this recording, yours or the prosecution?’

  “It wasn’t my idea. I’m not sure whose idea it was.”

  “Are you aware that if a transcription had been made, that would have to be turned over to the defense?”

  “Objection. He’s a police officer not a lawyer.” Heather said.

  “Sustained,” Carr ruled.

  Marc thought it over for a moment. Even though Carr had sustained the objection, the jury got the message.

  “I have nothing further, your Honor.”

  Heather conducted the state’s exam of Coolidge. She did about as good a job of propping up the investigation as anyone could. There was no reason to suspect anyone else even though the cops knew there were other people with access to William’s computer. And they knew some of these people might have motive.

  “Why were you focused on the defendant?” Heather asked.

  “You have to remember,” Max began looking and speaking directly at the jury, “the Sutherland kids were all in favor of a second autopsy. Only Mackenzie opposed it. Then there was the information I found in Chicago. It was obviously too much of a coincidence that she inherited a lot of money from two husbands who died the same way. Plus, they both changed their Will’s shortly before they died.

  “Then, finally, there were the two computers. Wendell Cartwright’s and William Sutherland’s. Each with searches for the same type of drugs and only Mackenzie had access to both.”

  Heather passed Max back to Marc who asked, “In your analysis, only Mackenzie had access to both computers because you did not go looking for anyone else, isn’t that true detective?”

  “We didn’t believe…”

  “Yes or no,” Marc slammed the door on him.

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  It was almost 11:00 and the clock was rapidly ticking toward Judge Carr’s noon rendezvous.

  Marc called his final witness, Dr. Oscar Johnson, his medical examiner expert. Johnson was almost the exact opposite of Alfredo Nunez. Where Nunez looked to be the epitome of the medical professional, Johnson came across as everyone’s favorite uncle.

  Since the decision of guilty or not guilty could very easily come down to which medical expert was more credible, Marc took a lot of time having Johnson tell the jury his credentials. He had spent twenty-four years with the Dane County coroner’s office, the last ten as the chief pathologist and he still taught pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison medical school. Johnson had published four highly regarded books on the subject and to really impress this Minnesota jury, he routinely lectured and assisted at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

  Marc walked him through the second autopsy of William and the toxicology reports from it. He had also studied William’s medical records and the most recent EKG done a year before his death.

  “Doctor, I want your medical opinion, what kind of medical condition was William Sutherland in?”

  “Poor at best. Apparently Mr. Sutherland had led a fairly hedonistic lifestyle. Eating well, drinking, smoking and obviously disdaining any meaningful exercise. I’m surprised he lived as long as he did.”

  “Would you say, to a medical certainty, that the drug found in small, trace amounts in him, Interleukin 2, caused his heart attack?”

  “To a medical certainty, absolutely not. Look, he was in such bad shape and the EKG of his heart showed it to be weak enough that if someone jumped out of the bushes and yelled ‘boo’ at him, he could have had a heart attack.”

  Stop right now, Marc thought. “Thank you, doctor,” Marc said.

  Heather went after him but Dr. Johnson had testified at too many trials to let her get to him. Try as she might to use Dr. Nunez testimony to discredit him, Johnson would merely shrug, agree that was the opinion of Nunez then stick to his own opinion.

  “Dr. Johnson, why would someone interject Interleukin 2, a cancer drug, into someone who does not have cancer, except to induce a heart attack?”

  “I don’t know,” Johnson answered. “In fact, I don’t know that someone did, do you?”

  Heather tried to sidestep his answer but by now she had done all she could to bolster her expert’s opinion and reduce his.

  She finished right at noon and Carr looked like he wanted to bolt. Instead, Marc stood and rested his case.

  The judge looked thoughtfully at the lawyers for a moment then called them to the bench.

  “What do you say we give the jury a break and have closing arguments Monday morning? Any objection?” When the lawyers said no to the idea of a weekend off for the jury if not themselves, Carr continued. “I’ll want requested jury instructions by ten o’clock Friday morning. We’ll meet again then.”

  Carr adjourned with the usual admonishment to the jury to avoid the news until Monday at 9:00 A.M.

  FIFTY-ONE

  The flames were mostly beneath her silently beckoning, waiting for Mackenzie to make a misstep and plunge downward to be consumed for eternity. Occasionally a flame would shoot upward to take the vague shape of a hand and grab at her feet, attempting to grasp her bare ankles and pull her in.

  Mackenzie was on a tightrope. It appeared to be a one-inch steel cable stretched taut from somewhere behind her to somewhere ahead. She was wearing a red silk nightgown although, to her knowledge, she had never owned one. Her arms, the elbows bent, were outstretched on each side for balance.

  Mackenzie looked around at what appeared to be a cave or a large room with a high rounded ceiling that she could barely see. There was light smoke or fog, she wasn’t sure which, drifting around the room making it difficult to discern the true dimensions of it. Mackenzie could not see where the cable ended and looking back, it went into the fog and disappeared. She tried moving forward but her bare feet felt like lead. An inch or two at a time was all the progress she could make.

  Looking down trying to lift her feet and move them along, she finally noticed that the flames gave off no heat. Even when the occasional flame up would lap at the cable, she felt nothing from it. The misty cloud of fog or smoke continued to rise up from the flames and swirl about the room but there was no heat at all.

  Mackenzie continued to inch along the cable making no progress. Feeling a slight, out-of-place vibration in the cable, she looked up to see a dark, gray apparition of some sort. It seemed to be barely five or six feet ahead but she could not make out what it was. The creature, whatever it was, appeared to be large, at least ten feet tall. It seemed to have an almost humanlike form but it was shifting and changing shape making it too difficult to tell what it was.

  Mackenzie continued to watch though it made no threatening gesture. Perhaps that was why Mackenzie felt no fear. Oddly, she realized, she had no fear of any of this. Not the flames or the endless cavern in which she appeared to be nor the phantom ahead.

  Finally, two glowing, red cinders appeared where its eyes should be then it began to shrink and take on a recognizable a
ppearance. After a few seconds, the creature turned into an old man. He was bald, quite wrinkled, gray and totally devoid of color as if he was a character in a black and white movie.

  He was dressed in rags and holding a long chain in his arms. The old man was looking down when he first appeared, floating two or three inches above the cable. After a few seconds, while Mackenzie continued to watch him, her feet on the tightrope, her arms still at her side for balance, the old man slowly raised his head to look at her.

  Mackenzie, immediately recognizing the old man, audibly gasped and said, “You’re Marley! You’re Jacob Marley and that is your chain…”

  “Yes,” the tattered, shabby old man agreed. “I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link and yard by yard.”

  When he continued Mackenzie spoke with him, “I girded it out of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”

  “Why are you here?” Mackenzie defiantly asked.

  “You know why I’m here,” old Marley replied. “Your chain is waiting for you.”

  “I have done nothing that I should not have done,” Mackenzie said with the same defiance.

  While she stared at the old man he began to take on a different form. The dark almost formless apparition returned then began to change yet again. In its place was another man. A dark but extremely handsome man was now before her. He was wearing a black hooded cloak, the hood covering his head.

  Mackenzie could see his face and the top of his head. He had thick, black hair, a well-trimmed mustache and goatee with no trace of gray and perfectly trimmed black eyebrows. He was almost beautiful, Mackenzie thought as she stared, mesmerized by his eyes, deep-set and coal black.

  “What do you want?” Mackenzie asked.

  “You know,” the man answered with a melodious, baritone voice.

  “No, I don’t,” Mackenzie weakly lied.

  “Yes, you do,” the man said as he reached his right hand toward her.

  Mackenzie involuntarily began to reach toward the extended hand with her left one then stopped and looked at it. She quickly jerked her hand back and held it to her breast for the man’s hand was a skeleton; there was no flesh covering it at all.

  “What do you want?” she asked again.

  “It is your time. You must come with me, now.”

  “But I’m not ready,” Mackenzie pleaded.

  “No one ever is,” the man replied. “Your time is up. Old Marley is right. You forged the chain you made in life and it is time to cloak yourself with it and carry it for all of eternity.”

  “I’m not ready,” she quietly repeated.

  “No one ever is,” he repeated as he again extended the fleshless hand to her.

  “Ahhh!” Mackenzie burst out as she suddenly awakened, sat up and gasping for breath, looked around her bedroom.

  After a minute her breathing normalized and she tossed the covers aside, got out of bed and headed downstairs. When she got to the kitchen she put some ice in a glass and filled it with water from the refrigerator door. Still a bit shaken by the dream, Mackenzie drank half the glass of water in one gulp then filled it again.

  Leaning against the counter by the sink, she took two more swallows then said quietly out loud, “That was interesting and pretty obvious what it meant.”

  She sat on one of the stools at the breakfast island, sipped her water and thought about what happened. For the first time in a long time she wondered if her conscience was bothering her. Interesting concept, she thought.

  “Maybe it’s time to put an end to this,” she softly said, holding her forehead in her left hand as she looked down at the granite countertop. I wonder what kind of deal Marc can make for me? she thought. I’d still have money they don’t know about and life after prison.

  Mackenzie sat silently for another two or three minutes contemplating her situation. She came to a decision, finished the glass of water and got up and put the glass in the sink.

  “No,” she said looking out the window above the sink. “No, it was just a dream. Besides you started this now see it through.”

  The morning after the Marley dream was the Monday when closing arguments were to be given. Butch Koll and Andy Whitmore picked up Mackenzie and delivered her to the courthouse a little early. They expected a larger than normal media presence this morning and were not disappointed. Butch and Andy literally muscled through the crowd with the help of two deputies to get her in the door to the back hallway. The doors were still locked but the guards let them in.

  Butch helped Mackenzie remove her coat and hung it up on the coat rack along the wall. They had all stopped wearing the Kevlar vests by now. As he was doing this, Marc, along with Heather Anderson and Danica Kyle, came into the courtroom from the back area.

  “Good morning,” Marc said as he fist-bumped with Andy and Butch.

  “Can we talk for a minute?” Mackenzie asked him.

  The two of them went into the small conference room. Mackenzie sat down on one of the cheap plastic chairs while Marc closed the door.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  Mackenzie took a deep breath then said, “I’m a little scared, to tell you the truth. I’ve been okay until this morning.”

  Marc sat down next to her, took her hand and said, “That’s pretty understandable.”

  She looked at him and said, “Tell me everything’s going be okay.”

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” He smiled.

  “Odd, I actually feel better,” she said. “Were you in with the judge?”

  “Yes, going over jury instructions again. We’ll argue some more about them after closing arguments.”

  “Good morning ladies and gentlemen,” Heather began her closing argument. “First of all, I want to thank you for your service and your patience.”

  Heather then took a few minutes to explain what the closing argument is. During a normal trial, unlike TV or the movies, there are rarely any great, dramatic moments where someone tearfully breaks down on the witness stand and confesses. There are no moments when an unknown piece of evidence magically appears to prove guilt or innocence. For the prosecution it is a slow, methodical process where the lawyers build their case one piece at a time from a number of witnesses. Then during the closing argument, those pieces are brought together and presented to the jury. It is also the prosecution’s opportunity to argue to the jury why they must find the defendant guilty.

  “This is a difficult case to prove,” Heather admitted while slowly walking in front of the jury, making eye contact with and addressing each of the jurors. “There was no confession, no smoking gun, no eyewitness to the deed. This is what we call a circumstantial case. Basically, that means the evidence, the circumstances of the crime point to one person.”

  Heather went on to go over the facts that were not in dispute. William Sutherland was essentially poisoned by a cancer drug that, if administered improperly, can lead to a heart attack. There were searches for this drug on his computer. He changed his Will shortly before his death leaving almost his entire estate to his wife, Mackenzie and very little to his sons, daughter and nothing to take care of his grandchildren.

  Heather then shifted to Wendell Cartwright. She was careful to be very upfront and clear that Mackenzie was not on trial for Wendell’s death. Of course, this reminder was done with a figurative wink and nod to make sure the jury could not simply overlook this.

  “Wendell’s death and the circumstances of it was allowed in trial to show a pattern. A much younger woman seduces and marries an older, wealthy man. After a while he changes his Will and the beneficiary of his Family Trust naming this wife and cutting off his family. The wife, who was using a different name and altering her appearance, inherits everything shortly after the Will is changed when Wendell has a sudden, massive heart attack. On his computer are internet searches for heart attack inducing drugs.” While this was being explained, the pictures of Mackenzie as Frances Cartwright and Mackenzie Sutherland appeared, side-by-side, on the
TV.

  Heather spent a half-hour going over what she believed the defense would try to use to create, reasonable doubt. When she finished Marc realized she had been quite effective at deflecting his some-other-dude-did-it defense. On the other hand, he also knew he could rebuild it.

  “The defense tried their best to claim William Sutherland’s heart attack was not caused by the drug found in his body. Their claim was he was a heart attack waiting to happen. Use your common sense, ladies and gentlemen. It was not a mere coincidence that someone introduced small amounts of Interleukin 2 into William Sutherland and then he dies of a heart attack. No matter what their expert said, this is simply too fantastic.

  “The computer searches for the heart attack drug,” Heather said then stopped then looked at each of the jurors. “Despite their attempt to show otherwise, only one person had access to both computers: Mackenzie Sutherland.

  “Remember what I said in my opening statement, ladies and gentlemen. This case was about one thing and one thing only: Greed. Mackenzie Sutherland had more money of her own inherited from Wendell Cartwright, than William Sutherland. No matter. She wanted William’s money too. And according to her lawyer, she convinced William to change his Will then shortly afterward poisoned and murdered him. The medical examiner drew a timeline for you that laid this out perfectly. There is no other rational explanation for what happened here. Beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean beyond all doubt ladies and gentlemen. Again, the only rational explanation is that Mackenzie Sutherland poisoned and murdered her husband for his money. Find her guilty and send her to prison where she belongs.”

  Marc began his closing the same way Heather did, by thanking the jury for their time and service. He then took a few minutes to remind them of their oath, to consider the defendant innocent until proven guilty and to hold the prosecution to their burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. While he did this, he stood still in front of them while using light hand gestures looked directly at each of them until each nodded their head in agreement.