Cactus Island, A Stan Turner Mystery Vol 8

by William Manchee

CHAPTER 46

  TRIAL STRATEGY

  Doubt crept into my mind almost immediately after telling Paula about seeing the spaceship. Was it possible my mind just conjured up the vision because, deep down, I wanted to see it? Was all this simply a figment of my imagination? Paula had believed me, or had she? Maybe she was humoring me because she didn't know what else to do. How could I possibly go into a court of law and with a straight face and allege Cheryl Windsor was innocent because her husband was abducted by aliens or, better yet, was an alien himself? I laughed as I pictured the spectacle in my mind.

  If we were going down this road, we needed some hard evidence, but so far we had nothing but speculation. I needed a photograph of a frogman or one of the aliens. I thought of the big barn at the north end of Possum Kingdom Lake where the cave that supposedly led to Cactus Island should have been. Could the mouth of the cave be inside the big barn? That would explain why nobody had seen the caves. I pondered that for a moment and then decided to send a photographer out to stake out the barn for a few days and see if anyone showed up. If they did, I wanted pictures that I could introduce into evidence.

  Paul returned from Tortola that afternoon and called from the airport to say he'd drop by our offices on his way home. An hour later he made good on his promise and Maria showed him in.

  "So, I hope you've got good news about Walter Johansen," I said.

  "Actually, I do. It seems Mr. Johansen has a lot of enemies and we were able to get some good information from a couple of them."

  "What kind of information?"

  "Well, Paula probably told you she met a couple of bankers at the Sugar Mill Resort."

  "Yes, she mentioned that."

  "They gave us the names of some clients Johansen screwed over pretty good. They were very cooperative in pointing out some of Johansen's skeletons."

  "Impeachment evidence?"

  "Right. He was convicted of money laundering, bribery, and conspiracy in Alabama, but only served one year. The SEC had him under investigation for securities fraud, but no charges were ever filed. He's on their bad boy list. That's probably why he moved to the British Virgin Islands."

  "But nothing directly related to our case?"

  "Well, not specifically. We do know Johansen legally controls a vast network of IBCs, but it's impossible to figure out who all the equitable owners are due to the bank secrecy laws."

  "So, we don't have anything that's going to help Cheryl?"

  "Not a lot, but we haven't stopped looking. We may find something yet."

  "Okay, in the meantime I need you to get someone up to the Possum Kingdom Lake to do some surveillance work."

  I explained to Paul what I wanted and he said he'd take care of it. I tried to think if there were any avenues of investigation we hadn't considered. Thinking of none, I decided it was time to put together my witness list and work on some voir dire questions. The judge had advised us that he wanted us to exchange witness lists seven days before trial, which was only a few days off.

  The final ten days before the trial went quickly. We spent most of our time working on direct examination questions, cross examination points, evidence lists, and our opening and closing statements. Paula made me promise not to bring up the alien invaders unless we had no other choice. Although there was mounting evidence that they were somehow involved in the death of Jimmy Falk and his father's disappearance, the potential loss of credibility that we might suffer if we brought that up was too great a risk to take.

  We decided our best shot was simply to create reasonable doubt by suggesting and producing evidence that Martin Windsor was still alive and his disappearance was just a cleaver ploy to protect his considerable wealth and gain sole custody of his children. Since Cheryl wouldn't allow herself to be hypnotized and had no recollection of what happened on the day of Martin's disappearance, we also decided it wouldn't hurt to put her on the stand. She would deny liquidating any assets and could genuinely express her anger and heartache over her children's kidnapping. This would be important to the success of her defense.