Hand of Justice (Mara Brent Legal Thriller Series Book 3)

by Robin James

  “Were there signs of a struggle at any of the Sutter homes?”

  “There were most decidedly not. These victims were gunned down at point blank range. They didn’t have a chance to fight back.”

  “Objection!” Elise shouted. “The witness is offering wild speculation.”

  “Speculation, yes,” I said. “But not wild. This witness is an expert at crime scene investigation. He’s qualified to render his educated opinions.”

  “Let’s refrain from hyperbole,” the judge said. “Just answer what you know and can reasonably speculate.”

  “Detective,” I said. “Would you have expected to find tire tread marks at any of the crime scenes?”

  “No,” he said. “All three homes had paved driveways. It had been dry for several days before the murders. We’re not talking about muddy trails at all. And I highly doubt the defendant would have driven to each of the homes to carry out these crimes. They were each less than four acres apart. These homes were on top of each other.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I have no further questions for this witness.”

  “You’re excused, Detective,” Judge Denholm said. “And with that, let’s call it a day.”

  Sam was good. Brilliant. My blood raced with adrenaline. The kind of high I only got when I knew I was winning.

  23

  Grandma George came to court dressed in a sharp royal-blue suit and sensible pumps. Her granddaughter Nikki took her to get her hair done. She had it cut in a becoming bob that framed her round face. She walked slowly, but with a straight back, pausing to grab the sides of the wooden gallery benches for support. One of the bailiffs rushed to her side to offer a hand.

  “I’m all right,” she said. Still, he kept close as she got to the front of the courtroom. It was that last step into the witness box that did her in, though. She gave the bailiff a resigned smile and finally took his hand, needing a hoist into the box.

  Behind me, the Sutters came out in force to support her. Luke sat directly behind my table with his wife Rachel. A contingent of more distant Sutter cousins lined the back wall. Patty Sutter’s daughter Devina came but I’d counseled her to stay out of the courtroom as I might need to call her as a witness later. Instead, her boyfriend Owen took her place in the gallery.

  “Will you state your name for the court?” I asked her.

  She leaned in. Too close. Her first word caused feedback into the mic. She adjusted.

  “Georgette Constance Mahoney Sutter.”

  “Mrs. Sutter,” I said. “How are you related to the victims in this case?”

  This was the primary reason Georgette was here to testify. I needed her to sort through the complex familial relationships of the people who died that day. She could do it better than anyone, and as their grief hardened and became something they all learned to carry, Georgette had done as she always did. She carried on as the rock of the family.

  “My husband is Louis Sutter,” she said. “He’s the youngest of four brothers. There was Ray. Henry. Chet. My Lou. Henry didn’t make it out of World War Two. When they got back, Ray and Chet opened the bait store off I-75. That was the start of it. Lou was just a kid then. Eleven years old. Their mother and father ... in their own way ... didn’t survive the war either. Lou’s dad died of a heart attack not long after his son Henry’s funeral. His mother was never the same after losing her son and her husband. You can imagine. Anyway, Ray ... remember, that’s the oldest brother ... and his wife, Rosemary, took my Lou in and pretty much raised him after that.”

  “Thank you,” I said, trying to gently steer her back to the matters at hand. “Now, what about Chris Sutter and …”

  “I’m getting to that,” she said. I saw a little twinkle in her eye. Georgette had the jury’s attention, but she would tell her family’s story in her own way. Even Elise would be wise not to lob too many objections for relevance. I think she knew it.

  “Ray and Rosemary never had any kids. Henry didn’t either before he passed. Oh, Henry was a pilot. He got shot down. Did I say that? You know, for a while the navy held out hope he’d made it. But he didn’t, of course. I think all of Waynetown came out for his funeral. You can look it up in the paper. I remember him. I was just a little girl, but he was something, Henry Sutter. I had sort of a crush. Don’t tell Lou. Anyway. You wanted to know about Christopher. He was Chet’s boy. Chet was Lou’s next oldest brother. Chet had C.J. and Christopher. One daughter, Claudia, too, but we don’t ever see her anymore. She moved away a long time ago. A couple of her grandkids still live around here. There are some cousins too. Lou’s father had two brothers and they have their kids and grandkids too.”

  She paused. I tried to gently bring her back to the victims at hand. “So Chris Sutter, he was your nephew, through Chet.”

  “Christopher, Chris, yes,” she began again. “He was one of the ones who was killed last May. So he’s our nephew through Chet. You got that right.”

  The outlines of the three homes, three crime scenes, were still up on an easel near the witness stand.

  “Let the record reflect that Mrs. Sutter has pointed to house number one, being the home situated in the center of the three.”

  “So reflected,” Judge Denholm said.

  “Chris was married to Jenny,” she said. “She died too. They had two kids, Skylar and Luke. Skylar died with them. Luke had moved out of that house long ago to start a family of his own. And I guess Skylar had a friend over. That Ben Watson. I didn’t know him.”

  “What about house number three?” I asked, pointing to Patty’s house to the west of Chris’s.

  “Patty,” Georgette sighed. “Well, dear, sweet Patty. She was C.J.’s second wife. I told you C.J. and Chris were Chet’s boys. Brothers. C.J. died a few years ago. Cancer. He had a rough go of it. Took a couple of years to go through him. Anyway, Patty’s the one who stuck by him. His kids scattered to the four winds. After he died, he left most of what he had to Patty. So, she was living in his house. And she had a new man. Mark.”

  “You’re referring to Mark O’Brien?” I clarified.

  “Yes,” she said. “He’s the one they told me was killed in the bedroom with her.”

  Her voice stayed steady. But we were getting to the hard part.

  “Okay, Mrs. Sutter, how are you related to the last victim?”

  “Objection,” Elise said. “To the extent counsel has characterized Kevin Sutter as the last victim. Detective Cruz testified there is no definitive way to determine which of these victims died first or last.”

  “Sustained, Ms. Brent,” Denholm said.

  “I’ll rephrase,” I said. “Mrs. Sutter, how are you related to Kevin Sutter?”

  She paused. With a shaking hand, she reached for the water bottle the bailiff placed in front of her. She didn’t drink it though. Just held it.

  “Kevin is my grandson. Louie and I were blessed with two kids. Thomas and Tina. We lost Tina to leukemia when she was little. Thomas passed a little over ten years ago in a car wreck. Kevin was Thomas’s boy.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “You live long enough, you deal with tragedy,” she said. “I just ... well, it’s not for me to say what God’s will is. He must just think I can handle a lot.”

  “You have,” I said. “Mrs. Sutter, what can you tell me about Kevin?”

  She let out a long sigh. “I loved that boy. So different from my Thomas, though. Strong-willed. Smart. I really hoped he’d be the one to take over the bait shop one day. For a while he did. But you have to let men ... and women ... find their own paths.”

  “What was Kevin’s path?” I asked. Over my left shoulder, I glanced at Elise. She had a pleasant smile on her face and scribbled notes on a pad. I expected her to object at any moment. For now, I think she understood interrupting Georgette too aggressively might not win her points.

  “Kevin had a disease,” Georgette said, lifting her chin when she did it. “He struggled with drugs and alcohol. It was better when Thoma
s was alive to guide him. Losing his dad just broke part of Kevin. Of all of us. I thought he had it beat. I really did. We tried all the things you’re supposed to try. Tough love, they used to call it. Now I think intervention is the term. He was good, though. For a long time. What happened came as a shock. Losing him and how. But also what ... what we found out.”

  “What did you find out, Mrs. Sutter?”

  “Kevin was using drugs again,” she said. “When he died, they said he was under the influence.”

  I let that sit for a moment. Georgette’s lip quivered and her eyes were red. She took a drink of water and seemed to settle.

  “Mrs. Sutter,” I said. “What did you know about your niece Skylar’s relationship with the defendant, Mickey Harvey?”

  “I knew they were an item,” she said.

  “Did the family approve of him?” I asked.

  Her face went hard. “We did not,” she said.

  “Why is that?”

  “The Harveys have blamed my family for every bad thing that has ever happened to them going back about a hundred years.”

  “Do you know why?” I asked.

  “We’re neighbors,” she said. “A long time ago, I think when the first Sutters settled in this area, the Harveys had the adjacent farmland. Then in the twenties, in the last century, Louie’s father bought up some of the Harveys’ land. Way I heard it, old Daniel Harvey lost just about everything in the Crash. The Depression hit his family hard. Well, that was all fine and good but I wanna say it was in the fifties, just a few years before I married Lou. There was a boundary dispute over some of the land the Sutters bought. I know it went to court. The Harveys have been accusing Ray Sutter, Lou’s oldest brother, of buying off a local judge for decades.”

  “Objection,” Elise said. “We’re moving into wild rumors, innuendo, and hearsay.”

  “Your Honor,” I said. “I’m not offering this for the truth of the matter asserted. It establishes the flavor of the relationship between the Harvey family and the Sutters. I’d argue it doesn’t matter whether these rumors are true. It only matters that the families believed they were.”

  “Overruled, Ms. Weaver,” the judge said. “But let’s rein this in, Ms. Brent.”

  “Mrs. Sutter,” I said. “Prior to May 18th of this year, how would you describe the relations between the Harvey family and your family?”

  “They’re nuts, Ms. Brent. Ed Harvey, that’s Mickey’s dad, he still thinks part of our property belongs to him. We’ve found bear traps out by the stream on Kevin’s property. Hidden. I won’t even let Louie go for walks on the trail out there. I can’t trust he won’t lose a leg. He’s shot up a couple of my good barn cats. Ed puts political signs along the property line and over on our side. A year ago, we found graffiti painted on three of our trees.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Liar. Cheat. Thieves. One word on each tree. Such petty stuff. And if we run into each other in town, Ed’ll scream at Lou. Lou ... his mind isn’t what it was. It’s upsetting.”

  “What about the defendant?” I asked.

  “When he was a kid, he was as bad as his old man. I used to have to chase him off our property. Caught him shooting his .22 at two at one of those cats one year. Can’t prove it, but I think he’s the one who killed them. But since he started dating Skylar, I have to admit, I had some hope. I thought maybe once Ed wasn’t around, Mickey and Skylar could turn the page on all that nonsense.”

  “How did Chris and Jenny, Skylar’s parents, feel about that?”

  “Not good,” she said. “They would argue a lot. Chris didn’t want Mickey anywhere near Skylar. I know he threatened to kick her out over it once. But then, I started hearing things that made me uncomfortable.”

  “Mrs. Sutter,” I said. “Why were you uncomfortable?”

  “I saw bruises on Skylar’s arm when she came up to the house earlier this year. She tried to cover them up. But I saw. And she was always checking her phone. If she was with me for more than twenty minutes, she’d call that boy. Like he didn’t trust her. Like he was making her check in.”

  “Objection,” Elise said. “Calls for speculation.”

  “Sustained,” the judge said.

  I paused at the lectern to review my notes. Georgette had done everything I needed from her. Smiling, I met her eyes.

  “Mrs. Sutter, thank you. I have nothing further.”

  She took a sip of water as Weaver traded places with me.

  “Mrs. Sutter,” she said. “Your husband sold his interest in the bait shop to your grandson Kevin and C.J. Sutter, isn’t that right?”

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “Why just those two? You said the bait shop was started by your husband’s brothers and that Chet Sutter had several children. Chris Sutter, one of the victims, for example.”

  “None of the rest of them were interested in running that store,” she said. “To be honest, it was mostly my son Thomas who took it over. He tried so hard to keep Kevin out of trouble. He hoped the store would help with that. It did for a while. But then after Thomas died, well, Kevin started to lose interest. C.J., well, he was a lot like his old man. Wanted to just sit around and socialize while Lou or Thomas did the hard work.”

  “I see,” Elise said. “Again though, if I understand the corporate structure, Chet’s children and yours owned the business together at one point. When did that change?”

  “Oh, maybe fifteen years ago?” she said. “C.J. bought his brother and sister out. Thomas’s interest passed to Kevin and his sister Nikki, my other grandchild. So for the last few years the bait store was open, Kevin and C.J. were the owners and the managers.”

  “But they sold their interest, didn’t they?” Elise asked.

  “They did,” Georgette answered. “They sold it to Verde. One of those pot dispensaries.”

  “In fact,” Elise said. “They sold it for quite a sum of money. Do you know how much?”

  “It was close to two million dollars,” Georgette answered. “Split between them.”

  “How did the rest of the family feel about that?” Elise asked.

  “It caused some problems,” she said. “I think C.J.’s siblings felt a little cheated.”

  “You’re saying Chris Sutter felt cheated? Because C.J. bought him out years before. Do you know for how much?”

  “I think they each got somewhere around five thousand dollars. At the time, the business wasn’t what it once was. The value turns out was in the land. Prime location right on the expressway and all.”

  “Naturally,” Elise said. “Isn’t it true the fights amongst your family members got violent?”

  Hojo made a noise beside me. I stayed stone still.

  “There were fights, yes,” Georgette said. “C.J.’s kids weren’t the nicest people. I know Chris resented my grandson, Kevin, and his own brother for making that sale.”

  “In fact, you were present at a particularly violent episode the Christmas before last, weren’t you?”

  “I was,” she said.

  “Gary Sutter, C.J.’s oldest son, got into a physical fight with Kevin, your grandson, didn’t he?”

  “They fought,” Georgette said. “Those two were always at each other’s throats. Families are messy sometimes, Ms. Weaver.”

  “Messy,” she said. “Isn’t it true Gary Sutter threatened to kill Kevin that night?”

  “Objection,” I said. “Calls for hearsay.”

  “Ms. Weaver?” the judge said. “She’s right. The witness is instructed not to answer as to what might have been said between the victim Kevin Sutter and this Gary Sutter.”

  “Mrs. Sutter,” Elise continued. “Isn’t it true that your grandson had to go to the emergency room that night?”

  “I took him to urgent care,” she said.

  “He needed ten stitches above his left eye, isn’t that right?” Elise asked.

  “I don’t remember ten. They stitched him up.”

  “Thank you,” she said.
“But that wasn’t the only time your grandson Kevin had a physical altercation with members of his own family, was it?”

  “I already said. Kevin had his demons. Yes. There were times he got violent. Most of the time, it was the drugs though.”

  “Mrs. Sutter,” Elise said. “Are you aware of what happened to your nephew C.J.’s share of the Verde property sale money after he passed away?”

  “I already said,” she answered. “He left most of what he had to Patty.”

  “Patty Sutter,” she said. “One of the victims in this case.”

  “Yes. C.J.’s wife.”

  “How did that sit with C.J.’s kids? Gary and Toby, for example.”

  “They were angry,” she said. “Far as I know they weren’t on speaking terms with Patty or her daughter, Devina.”

  “In fact,” Elise said. “There was a will contest filed, wasn’t there?”

  “They went to court. Or they settled something. That was between them.”

  “Thank you,” Elise said. “That’s all I have.”

  “Ms. Brent? Redirect?” Judge Denholm said.

  “Mrs. Sutter, do you have personal knowledge of the terms of that settlement agreement between C.J.’s sons and Patty Sutter?”

  “They paid C.J.’s kids a hundred grand each. I was there when everyone signed the paperwork. Patty asked me to be. She figured everyone would be on their best behavior if I was in the room.”

  “You’re saying Gary and Toby Sutter, C.J.’s sons, accepted a hundred thousand each to settle their claims against Patty Sutter?”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” she said.

  “Nothing more from me, Judge,” I said.

  “All right. You may step down, Mrs. Sutter. You’re still under oath if you should be called again.”

  Georgette nodded and pulled herself to her feet. As she left, her family rose and closed ranks around her. She took Luke’s arm as she walked out of the courtroom.

  “You may call your next witness, Ms. Brent.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “The state calls Ed Harvey to the stand.”

  24