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

by Robin James

  Ed Harvey strutted in wearing shirtsleeves and blue jeans. He made a subtle gesture of support to Mickey as he passed by the defense table. A little fist bump. Elise looked straight ahead. She’d clearly counseled Mickey to do the same.

  Behind me, it seemed every Harvey in Waynetown had filled the seats vacated by the Sutter contingent.

  “Your Honor,” I said. “I plan to employ your ruling in my pretrial motion to treat Mr. Harvey as a hostile witness.”

  “Of course,” Judge Denholm said.

  “Mr. Harvey,” I said. “Please explain your relationship to the defendant.”

  “He’s my boy,” Ed said, puffing out his chest. “And he’s being railroaded. Let me get that clear right now.”

  “Mr. Harvey,” Judge Denholm said. “I’m going to warn you, you’re to answer the questions you’re asked. We clear?”

  Ed didn’t look at him. He kept his hard stare on me.

  “Do you have any other children, Mr. Harvey?” I asked.

  “Got a daughter, Ashley,” he said, then added, “but Mickey’s my only boy.” His tone made it seem he felt that meant Mickey was the only child worth anything to him.

  “Where do you live, Mr. Harvey?”

  “On Whittaker Road,” he said.

  “You own the property directly to the east of the Sutter farm, isn’t that correct?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Been in my family for generations.”

  “I understand,” I said. “You haven’t had a very cordial relationship with the Sutters over the years, have you?”

  “They’re all a bunch of trash, parading around like they’re town royalty or something. Liars. Thieves. Cheats. Every last one of ’em.” I hoped it wasn’t lost on the jury that he’d used the same three words Georgette described were graffitied on her trees.

  “So you don’t have a lot of sympathy for what happened out at the Sutter farm in May of this year, do you?”

  “Objection,” Elise said. “Relevance.”

  “Your Honor,” I said. “The environment in which the defendant was raised is relevant.”

  “Sustained, Ms. Brent,” the judge said. “This witness’s feelings about the murders aren’t at issue. Ask your next question.”

  “Mr. Harvey, I’d like to talk about an incident that occurred at the Holman Hardware store in town last year. You were involved in an altercation with Chris Sutter, weren’t you?”

  “Might have been,” he said.

  “The police were called. You were asked to leave the premises. When you refused, two deputy sheriffs had to come out and talk to you, didn’t they?”

  “Wasn’t just me,” he said. “Chris started it. Called me white trash.”

  “What was the fight about?” I asked.

  Ed crossed his arms in front of him and wouldn’t answer.

  “You spray-painted graffiti on trees belonging to the Sutters, didn’t you?” I asked. “Tell the jury what you painted.”

  “Those are my trees,” he said. “They stole that whole area of land west of the creek from me. It’s the best hunting spot on the property.”

  “So you confronted Chris Harvey about that land, didn’t you? After he told you not to go on the property again.”

  He clammed up.

  “Mr. Harvey, there were at least six witnesses to the altercation in the store. What was it you said?”

  “I said they were gonna be sorry!” he shouted.

  “You were humiliated that day, weren’t you?” I asked. “You got served with foreclosure papers right there in the store. Right in front of Chris Sutter, isn’t that right?”

  “They’ve been trying to bring me down for thirty years,” he said.

  “Who has? The Sutters?” I asked.

  No answer.

  “Were you or were you not served with papers on the foreclosure of your business property in downtown Waynetown at Holman Hardware on September 14th last year?”

  “Might have been that day. I didn’t mark it in my calendar,” he said.

  “And it was in front of a full store, people in town who know you. Right?”

  “There were people there, yes,” he said.

  “Chris Sutter was there, and you took your anger, your embarrassment out on him, didn’t you?” I asked.

  “Wasn’t embarrassed,” he said.

  “You weren’t alone that day, were you?” I asked. “Your son Mickey was with you.”

  “Yeah, Mickey was there,” he said.

  “Since he was a child, you’ve taught him the Sutter family is your enemy, haven’t you?” I asked.

  “I’ve taught him what’s right. I’ve taught him nobody hands you anything in this world for free. I’ve taught him family are the only people you can trust.”

  “Of course,” I said. “You’ve been in conflict with the Sutters over that strip of land by the creek for as long as Mickey’s been alive, haven’t you?”

  “It’s my land,” he said.

  “But your family went to court over it, didn’t they?” I asked. “That boundary dispute was settled some fifty years ago, right here in this courtroom, wasn’t it?”

  “Don’t care what a piece of paper says,” he said. “There’s right and there’s wrong.”

  “Mr. Harvey, ten years ago, isn’t it true you were charged with criminal trespass on the Sutters’ property?”

  “That never went to court,” he said.

  “It never went to trial,” I corrected him. “Because you agreed to remove three bear traps you set on the Sutters’ property, isn’t that right?”

  “I took them out, yes,” he said.

  “Mr. Harvey, who helped you set those traps?”

  I had the answer in front of me in the form of the original police report. Mickey had been questioned by Detective Ritter and admitted to setting the traps on Ed’s instructions. He’d been just fifteen years old.

  “Mr. Harvey, would you like to look at the police report to refresh your recollection?”

  “No,” he said. “That’s my land. My traps on my land. But I knew the Sutters were gonna keep at it. They’ve had this court in their back pocket since my Grandpa’s days.”

  “Objection,” Elise shouted. “I’d ask that the witness’s last statement be stricken and disregarded. He’s making baseless accusations against the integrity of this court.”

  “Mr. Harvey,” Denholm said, his voice booming and for once matching his Morgan Freeman looks. “I’ve had about enough. You spout off like that again I’ll hold you in contempt. The jury is instructed to disregard this witness’s last statement.”

  It was working beautifully. I had one goal in putting Ed Harvey on the stand. Show the jury how Mickey Harvey’s mind had been poisoned against the Sutters since the day he came into this world. Pure theatre, I knew. But with any luck, it would stick in the jury’s minds for the rest of the trial.

  “Mr. Harvey,” I said. “Let me repeat my last question to you. It was your son, the defendant, Mickey Harvey, who helped you set those lethal bear traps on the Sutters’ property, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Ed hissed.

  “You taught him well from a very early age that anyone named Sutter was his enemy, didn’t you?”

  “I taught him how to be a man,” Ed said. “I taught him about family loyalty!”

  “Family loyalty,” I said. “So you didn’t much like it when he started dating the enemy, did you?”

  “I don’t tell my son where to dip his wick.”

  I recoiled at the crude reference, even as I knew it painted a vivid picture against Mickey. I heard two women jurors in the front row gasp. I gritted my teeth and kept going.

  “Mr. Harvey,” I said. “You divorced Mickey’s mother, Amy, when he was ten years old, isn’t that true?”

  “Sounds about right,” he said.

  “And isn’t it true that part of your divorce decree included a restraining order against you? You weren’t allowed to get within a hundred feet of Amy, were you?”


  “That was a long time ago. And you can go to hell for dragging a dead woman into all this.”

  “Mr. Harvey!” Denholm shouted.

  I pressed on. “You had deputies at your house responding to reports of domestic violence no less than nine times during your marriage to Amy, isn’t that right?”

  “I was wilder in my younger days,” he said. “I don’t deny that. You better believe Amy gave as good as she got. I’ve got the scars to prove it. See this one through my left eyebrow? She hit me with a skillet that time. Thought she’d taken my face clean off.”

  The man actually delivered the line with a wistful humor. My God. He actually seemed nostalgic over a violent argument with his late wife that, from the records, landed them both in the emergency room.

  “Your quarrels with your wife were so bad,” I said, “Mickey was taken into protective custody twice, wasn’t he?”

  “You wanna know who called CPS on me?” Ed shouted. “C.J. Sutter, that’s who. That fat piece of …”

  “Mr. Harvey!” Denholm yelled.

  “Mr. Harvey,” I said, going in for the kill. “Back to that foreclosure notice you were served on your property in town. The bank did in fact foreclose on you, didn’t they? You don’t own the building where you used to operate that business anymore, do you?”

  “I let them have it,” he said bitterly.

  “Them?”

  “The bank,” he spat.

  “The bank,” I said. “Better than letting your second wife get it, right?”

  “Objection!” Elise said. I raised a hand, conceding the point.

  “I’ll move on,” I said.

  “Why don’t you tell the court who represented the bank against you in that foreclosure proceeding,” I said.

  “Is this fun for you?” he asked.

  “Please answer the question,” I said. “Who came to court and took your business away from you, Mr. Harvey?”

  “Mark O’Brien,” he muttered.

  “Mark O’Brien,” I repeated. “Thank you. I have nothing further.”

  Elise stood up and straightened her blazer. “Mr. Harvey, you didn’t like Skylar Sutter very much, did you?”

  “Didn’t know her,” he answered.

  Elise looked through her notes. I knew it was for show. “Where were you on the morning of May 18th this year?” she asked.

  Ed snapped his neck upward. The question caught him off guard.

  “You put her up to this?” Ed said, directing it at his son. Mickey shrank into his chair. He was afraid of his father. Sweat beaded his brow.

  “Mr. Harvey,” Elise said. “Where were you on the morning of May 18th?”

  “Home,” he shouted. “Sleeping!”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’m done with this witness for now.”

  “Redirect, Ms. Brent?”

  “Just one question,” I said. There hadn’t been much Elise Weaver could do with Ed Harvey. I knew she wanted him off the stand and out of the jury’s mind as quickly as possible. I also knew a few of them would have asked themselves the question Elise just did. Maybe it was Ed who killed the Sutter family after all.

  “Mr. Harvey, you weren’t alone on the morning of May 18th, were you? In fact, you were one of the first people the police came to question after the discovery of the tragedy at the Sutters’ place. Isn’t that right?”

  “I wasn’t alone, no,” he said. “I was with my girlfriend. Steffi. Steffi Clark. And her mom’s been staying with us. We take care of her. She’s got a broken hip.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’ve got nothing else.”

  Ed stepped down. He’d lost his strut as he passed Mickey’s table.

  25

  I got through my scientific witnesses next. The medical examiner delivered straightforward testimony about the fatal gunshot wounds of each of the victims. I spent the most time on Skylar’s injuries. He found several older and healing bruises on her arms consistent with being grabbed. He found no recently healed cuts that might have alternately explained the bloodstained clothing in Mickey Harvey’s garbage can.

  My bloodstain expert provided damning testimony about that clothing. The most likely explanation? Mickey Sutter came home with bloody hands, wiped them on a shirt and threw it away. Elise scored points showing we couldn’t tell precisely how long that shirt had been in the trash. Also, it was only Skylar’s blood. None from any of the other victims was detected. I planned to argue in closing that perhaps Mickey touched Skylar one last time before she died.

  The M.E. also underscored the illicit substances found in Kevin Sutter’s system. They would become critical later when I called Scotty Jarvis, Sam’s informant. Kevin Sutter was positive for alcohol, oxy, and traces of heroin. The last of which he’d used the night before. The oxy was found partially digested, which meant he’d taken it within an hour or two of being shot.

  Elise’s cross was simple. The M.E. could not determine who had died first either. And he could not conclusively establish whether there had been more than one shooter. I could almost write Elise’s closing for her.

  Questions. She would say. More and more questions with very few definitive answers.

  That was her story. I just prayed the jury would be able to see through it.

  Next, I called my witnesses to Mickey’s physical abuse of Skylar Sutter.

  “How long had you known Skylar Sutter?” I asked Chad Carmichael.

  “Maybe eight years, seven?” he answered. “Sky was close with my girlfriend, Sarah Bosch. We used to double date with Sky and whatever guy she was dating. Went to senior prom together. She was dating a guy from one of the Toledo Catholic schools back then. I think his name was Ted or something with a T.”

  “Do you know how long she was dating the defendant?”

  “Maybe a year?” he answered. “Not a full year. Sarah would know that better than me.”

  “All right,” I said. “Did you have occasion to observe the defendant and Skylar Sutter together?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be honest, I didn’t much like Mickey.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Even before he started dating Sky. He just kind of comes off as a jerk. He was a year or two older than me in school and he was just always one of those guys I avoided.”

  “Can you be more specific?” I asked.

  “It seemed like anytime there was a fight at school, Mickey would be in the thick of it. He had a reputation of being a bully. He hung around with a rough crowd.”

  “I see,” I said. “Let’s focus on the last year, then. You said you and Sarah often double dated with Skylar and her boyfriends. Did you double date with Sky and Mickey?”

  “No,” he said. “Sarah wouldn’t. She didn’t like Skylar with Mickey either. He was mean to her. Always putting her down. When Sky was with us, you know, sometimes she’d come over to my place with Sarah. We’d all hang out. She was on the phone with Mickey constantly. And he would upset her.”

  “Over what? Do you know?”

  “No. I couldn’t hear their conversation. But Skylar would get agitated during and after their phone calls. She’d go outside to talk to him in private. When she came back in, a lot of the times I could see she’d been crying. Mickey didn’t like her hanging out with us. With anyone but him.”

  “Was there anything else specific that concerned you about Skylar with Mickey?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “There was the night at the Blue Pony.”

  “Tell me about that,” I asked.

  “Sarah and I went there for burgers one night. Sky and Mickey showed up a little after us. We didn’t plan to meet them. It was a coincidence. Anyway, they were sitting at the bar. Right after their food came, Sky stormed out.”

  “Stormed out?” I asked.

  “Yes. He had his hand on her arm. Sky jerked it away, grabbed her purse and left. Sarah was worried, so she asked me to go after her and make sure she was okay. I did. I saw Sky and Mickey in the parking lot and he had his
hands on her arms. He was jerking her, shaking her. She was crying.”’

  “Could you hear what they were saying?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “But Sky was really upset and Mickey was hurting her.”

  “Objection,” Elise said. “The witness is assuming facts. He just said he couldn’t hear Skylar or Mickey.”

  “Sustained.”

  “Why did you think Sky was being hurt?” I asked.

  “Just the look on her face. And she was squirming, trying to get away from him. Mickey’s a decent-sized guy. He was twisting Sky’s arm to the point she was kind of contorting herself sideways to get away from him. That’s when I tried to step in.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Sarah was right behind me. I ran toward Sky and shouted. I told Mickey to let go of her. Asked her if she needed any help.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Sky seemed shocked to see me. She covered really quickly. She said she didn’t want my help, and she got in her car. I was concerned cuz Sarah was right there. Mickey was angry. He told me to mind my own business if I knew what was good for me. I told Sarah to head back into the bar and wait for me. At that point, a big group of people came out of the bar at once. If they hadn’t, I don’t know. I was getting ready to throw down with Mickey if it came to that.”

  “Do you remember when this was?” I asked.

  “Yes. April Fool’s Day. We went to the Pony for the bash. And it’s the last time I saw Skylar, I think.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Elise confined her cross to a few simple questions. Then Sarah took the stand. She backed up everything Chad said.

  “Sarah,” I said. “Did you ever voice your concerns to Skylar about her relationship with Mickey?”

  “I wished I’d done more of that,” she said. “Sky was ... well ... she didn’t have the best taste in guys. I think she had a self-esteem problem. Over the years, it just got easier for me to stay out of it and let her make her own choices. I regret that. It’ll probably be the thing I feel most sorry for for the rest of my life.”

  “Ms. Bosch,” Elise started on cross. “You said Skylar had a history of bad boyfriends. To your knowledge, were any of her past boyfriends violent with her?”