Harry’s post continued:
So you can see the problem. Fiona’s gone and given her permission to sell the estate, and now it turns out, it’s not her permission to give. Nor are any of the profits hers! The terms of the Trust make it clear: the sale can proceed with the agreement and for the benefit of all direct descendants. And she isn’t one! Maybe she can argue that he treated her like one. But the legal headache! The attorneys are going to have a field day! You thought Pinkhound had trouble before? Nothing like the trouble they’ve got now.
* * *
Mack had given Sol’s camera to Kate Baldwin as part of his brief of evidence. He’d said to her: ‘If they let you play this, you’ve got a conviction.’
He had no way of knowing whether the court would let the jury see it. Jesalyn’s lawyer had vehemently objected and the camera had been locked in Judge Cox’s chambers for weeks while legal argument raged behind closed doors. Mr Weymouth argued that the chain of evidence was broken: there was no way anyone could say for certain whether the recording had been edited or tampered with. Kate Baldwin disagreed, saying she could prove that Sol put it there, and that nobody had touched it before Eden found it.
‘Without it, what do we really have?’ Mack asked Alexa.
Alexa replied: ‘Just a feeling in our guts that we got this one right.’
With some sense of hope, Mack learnt that Judge Cox had agreed to hear from Sol, who could testify as to where she left the camera; and from Eden, who could talk about where she found it. Her Honour would make a decision from there.
‘I guess it’s going to come down to how convincing Sol is,’ said Mack.
They had gone to some trouble to prepare Sol for the trial. It hadn’t been difficult to find her owing to the fact that there were dozens of pictures of Sol on the internet, plus she had a ‘Going Dark’ Instagram page, all with the hashtag #bodymindsol. Mack asked the NYPD to make the first contact. They’d been happy to oblige, but the interview hadn’t gone all that well because Sol kept saying, ‘No, no, I don’t want to talk to the police.’
‘She has to talk to us,’ Mack had said. ‘The camera is key to the case.’
He put in a request for a travel voucher, with Alexa as his support officer. Eyebrows went up but Mack was working within guidelines: Alexa had come to Paso police headquarters to get experience. The coaxing of a reluctant witness was good experience.
The six-hour flight had passed quickly. It was the first time in New York for both of them. They had arranged to stay just one night and had one carry-on and Mack’s zip-up police binder between them. They’d lucked out on views from the plane windows but marvelled as they crawled through Manhattan in a taxi.
‘It’s like being in an episode of NYPD Blue,’ Alexa said. ‘Yellow cabs. Dog walkers. Graffiti.’
‘How do you even remember that show?’ said Mack.
‘Because you never stopped watching it?’
They had arranged to meet Sol and a so-called ‘support person’ at the Courtyard Marriott in Times Square. They alighted the cab and pushed through a group of topless women in feathered head-dresses and stars-and-stripes body paint and groups of short people dressed as Minnie Mouse and Elmo. A woman on the hotel’s reception desk examined their badges, picked up a desk phone and spoke quietly into it. A manager in a dark suit with a name badge had led the way into a conference room.
Sol was already seated with on older stockier woman – her support person was her aunt, a New Yorker called Mrs Maja Bamford, they later discovered – who stood up in an apparent temper as they approached, barking: ‘We don’t want her upset.’
Mack said: ‘We’re not here to upset anyone.’
The blonde Sol was curled into a swivel chair on the opposite side of the smooth conference table. Her weight had plummeted since her trip to Alden Castle. Then slim, she was now wire-thin, with knees like squares in her black mesh leggings. From across the room, Mack could see the fine dusting of fair hair. He didn’t immediately understand but Alexa, who was younger, and more experienced with social media, later explained: a lot of those wellness girls with blogs start out slim, gather approval based on their looks, and end up anorexic.
The aunt understood, which explained her protectiveness. She had dyed red hair and an impressive Swedish bosom. At Mack’s urging, she sat back down in the chair nearest Sol and picked up her niece’s tiny hand. Their attorney, only briefly introduced, sat quietly in an opposite corner, taking notes.
‘Everyone knows why we’re here?’ said Mack.
Sol nodded. She was sitting with her face resting on a raised knee, like she couldn’t hold her head up.
With Mack leading the questioning, and with Maja’s help, Sol went through her story. She’d entered the US on a tourist visa. She had to leave every three months to keep it valid. She’d gone to Canada, then down to Portland to visit friends that owned a craft brewery; and from there she’d gone to Los Angeles, where she’d met Fletcher on Tinder.
‘We had a date in Santa Monica,’ she said. ‘He was tall and handsome.’
She’d extended her stay on the West Coast, waiting tables, and working on her website, and in time accepted Fletcher’s invitation to visit his family’s estate.
‘I thought I was in love,’ she sighed. ‘I wanted to learn more about this man and his family. He told me they owned a castle.’
Mack leant forward, and spoke gently. ‘Could I ask you, did you see the family patriarch, Mr Owen Alden-Stowe, when you were there?’
‘Only once. In my family, he would be centre of everything. I know why you’re here. I saw on the news they burnt him up. This stays with me now, forever. Could I stop that if I stayed? I don’t know.’
‘So, you see, my niece had nothing to do with any of it,’ said Maja, forcefully. ‘She wasn’t there when they buried him.’
‘I understand that,’ said Mack. ‘I’m here for a specific reason. But let me ask you, Solveig, do you think somebody on the estate could have killed him?’
Sol paused, her expression thoughtful.
‘I was only there three weeks,’ she said. ‘I saw greed. All the talk was of money. Fletcher told me: we all want to sell this place. And when people objected he got angry. They didn’t care what people in the community thought. It was all money! But I don’t think they killed the old man.’
‘What makes you so sure?’ said Mack.
Sol shifted position in her chair. The way she did it – slowly and carefully – suggested to Mack that she was in pain, and Alexa told him later: when you’re thin like that and you don’t eat and you’re always cold, your bones can ache.
‘They were waiting for him to die,’ she continued. ‘They had a deal that depended on him being dead so they could get their money. But Fletcher’s mother, especially – Fiona – she told me several times that she hoped to have a lot more time on the estate. She wanted to take care of him.’
She lowered her beautiful face into her hands. Maja rose to stroke the bumps along her spine.
‘Have we done enough now?’ she said, speaking as a New York siren wailed in the distance. ‘My niece, as you can see, is a fragile person. We would like all of this to go away.’
‘But there is something I need to show her,’ said Mack. He reached down and unzipped his police binder, took out the manila envelope and then the boxy camera. Sol recognised it immediately.
‘Is that mine?’ she said. ‘I left one inside the castle?’
‘That’s what I came to ask you,’ said Mack. He looked up to make sure Alexa was taking notes. He’d need that testimony.
‘It looks like mine,’ said Sol. She unfolded her bones and leant forward to take a closer look. ‘I put it in a corner of the windowsill of the main room, downstairs. Is that where you found it?’
‘I don’t want to say where it was found,’ said Mack. ‘Can you tell me why you left it there?’
‘By accident,’ said Sol.
‘No, I mean, why did you put it there in the fi
rst place?’
Sol shrugged. ‘I’m a creative person,’ she said. ‘My interest – this was at that time – was time-lapse. A moon rising. A sun setting. A shadow will make a square then a long box on the floor. I did some time-lapse in the castle. Fletcher showed me inside and I set it up in there and then I forgot, and left it behind. Breaking up with Fletcher was hard. I didn’t like to ask for the camera. Is this it?’
Mack put the camera back in the manila envelope.
‘It has a serial number, so if you have a receipt, and we get a match, that would be terrific,’ he said.
Sol leant back in her chair.
‘But why is it so important? What is on there?’ she asked, brow furrowed.
‘I can’t tell you that, Solveig. But I need to ask you: if you’re called to California to give evidence, can you do it?’
‘I can.’
* * *
But in the end, she couldn’t. Sol didn’t travel to California for the trial. Her psychiatrist had pleaded with the court to let her testify via Skype, and Kate, when she was shown some photographs forwarded by the clinic Sol attended, had agreed.
Harry Prior was disappointed, but still blogged:
We’re in for a treat today. We’ve got the lovely Sol Bamford giving testimony live from New York City! Most of you won’t know Sol but she was Fletcher’s girlfriend before he decided to stuff his grandpa in an oven. And she’s red-hot, so stand by for pictures.
The lights in the courtroom had been dimmed for her appearance. The jurors turned their faces towards a white screen lowered for the occasion. For a moment, there was nothing, then Sol’s lean face tilted slightly downward in the manner of somebody peering into a laptop screen, appeared before them.
Kate Baldwin rose and introduced herself. She asked Sol to give her full name, and describe her relevance to the case: she was Fletcher’s ex-girlfriend, and she’d visited Alden Castle in the month before Owen died.
Kate said: ‘Thank you for taking the time to give evidence today. We understand that you’ve had issues with your health so we’ll try not to keep you too long. I’m going to show you some photographs, Ms Bamford, and I’d like you to tell me if you can identify any of them.’
Sol’s face on the screen nodded.
Kate motioned towards her junior, who began tapping at a computer keyboard, bringing up one image after another of the Alden-Stowe Estate, both on the courtroom screen and on a screen that only Sol could see.
‘So here we have some pictures of wine barrels,’ said Kate.
‘Yes, I took those pictures,’ said Sol.
‘Here’s a bit of a faded vineyard, some lovely shots of golden sunlight. Here we have the moon rising behind Alden Castle.’
‘Yes, I took all of those,’ confirmed Sol.
Harry, in the audience, picked up the thread:
Readers, you’re going to wish you were here. We’re seeing pictures of Sol in her bikini by the pool deck. We’ve got Sol in short-shorts on a mountain bike, with vapor from jets in the blue sky. I could look at this all day. Like if you agree.
‘What is the point of all this?’ grumbled Mack.
‘It’s to convince the jury it’s her camera,’ Alexa replied.
‘I know that,’ said Mack. ‘I meant the inane commentary?’
‘That’s just Harry,’ said Alexa, shrugging. She flicked on, through his posts.
Okay, now, here’s Sol in yoga pants, by a fence paling. And we have some hashtags, done with some kind of app:
#TheGlassPavilion
#WineCountry
#vacation
#love
‘Yes, they are all my images. I took them with my camera,’ said Sol.
‘And where did you leave that camera?’
Sol, her face still tilted downward, said: ‘I left a camera in Alden Castle.’ And she explained where, and why, and why she’d never sought to retrieve it from Fletcher after they’d broken up.
Kate said: ‘And can you tell us exactly where in the castle you left it?’
‘Yes. In a little nook in the window. I had it rigged up with a motion sensor. There is a big room downstairs. There is a fireplace, and two sash windows. I tucked it into the frame of the window on the right side of the room, as you’re facing the glass.’
Kate said: ‘Thank you,’ and closed the binder in front of her.
Sol, looking confused, said: ‘Is that all you need?’
‘That’s all we need,’ said Kate, and then she thanked Sol again and the screen went black.
* * *
READERS OF THE PASO MONITOR YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE WHO THE NEXT WITNESS IS. It’s Eden Alden-Stowe!!!
Eden’s appearance wasn’t that much of a surprise. It had been widely touted amongst court-watchers, police and other reporters, prompting Mack to say: ‘Has this Harry person got any idea about journalism?’
Alexa raised a shoulder, saying: ‘I told you! It’s the new way, Dad.’
Mack said: ‘He could show people a little respect.’
Eden approached the witness box from the back of the room. The weather outside was warm but she wore a long-sleeved blouse made of gold-coloured silk, simple black slacks and flat shoes. Her hair had grown long enough since the sudden death of her grandfather to tie into a tufty ponytail.
Harry Prior was tapping madly:
Nobody thinks Eden had anything to do with Owen’s murder. But it will be VERY interesting to see whether she thinks her mom did it for money.
‘How do you think she’s holding up?’ whispered Alexa.
Mack shrugged. Kate Baldwin had promised him that she would go easy, and Eden hadn’t come to court alone, but with her old Briar Ridge roommate, Piper, who sat quietly on one of the end seats in the middle row.
‘For the record, could we have your name?’ Kate said.
Eden replied: ‘Eden Warren Alden-Stowe.’
Harry Prior posted: Eden the Ewok. That’s what her cousins used to call her.
‘And your mother is Jesalyn Warren Alden-Stowe, who is on the stand today?’
Jesalyn was staring at Eden, who nodded but did not meet her mother’s gaze.
Kate Baldwin continued, with questions covering basic details: how old was Eden (she was nearly nineteen); and how old had she been when Alden Castle was sold (she’d been seventeen); and had she received any money (not yet because her share of the estate had gone to her mother who was supposedly going to divide it up but that was all up in the air, now that Jesalyn had been arrested).
Kate nodded, then said: ‘And, to be clear, Eden, you were not at the estate when your grandfather died?’
‘No. I was at school. Briar Ridge in San Jacinto. My mother called the school to tell me and I caught the train into Paso.’
‘But you were there for the burial?’
‘I was.’
‘And in the statement you’ve already provided to the police, you make plain that your uncle and your cousins at first tried to cremate your grandfather, and when that didn’t work, he was buried?’
Eden said: ‘Yes.’
‘All right. And it was sometime after the burial – a day later, two days later – that you say you found Solveig Bamford’s camera?’
Kate Baldwin was holding the boxy GoPro aloft.
Eden nodded, and from there proceeded to tell the jury how it happened: her grandfather died on a Thursday, the burial was on a Friday. She’d planned on leaving immediately but her mom wanted her to stay.
‘Go on,’ said Kate.
Eden raised her hand. A stray tendril of hair had escaped her ponytail. She brushed it away from her face.
‘My mother wanted help sorting through some old boxes in the castle,’ she said. ‘That’s when I found it.’
‘Can you tell us exactly where?’
‘To enter the castle you have to go through double timber doors. From there, you are standing in the entrance hall. The main room, where the long table used to be, is to your right. That’s where I found i
t, on a windowsill.’
‘Was it hidden?’
‘No. It was just sitting there. I knew immediately that it was one of Sol’s because I’d seen her set up similar ones all over the estate.’
‘For her blog?’
‘Yes.’
‘And when you found this camera, it had a motion sensor attached to it?’
Yes.’
‘And you … what? Just popped it in your pocket?’
‘Yes. I thought: I’ll give it to Fletcher, to give back to her. But I forgot to do that before he left to go back to LA. So I took it back to Briar Ridge with me, thinking I might send it to him – or to her.’
‘But at some point you watched what was on it?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you didn’t immediately tell anyone what was on it?’
‘No.’
‘But you brought it back to Paso with you, when you came back for your grandfather’s funeral? By which I mean, after his body was found?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because you were disturbed by it?’
Eden paused. ‘I wasn’t sure what to think,’ she said. ‘I can see how it looks. But did I really think my mother was part of a plot to kill my grandfather? That seemed a bit crazy to me. But then I started to find out other things she’d lied about.’
‘And so you gave the camera to Sergeant Helber?’
‘Yes. Because … well, things weren’t right.’
‘What wasn’t right, Eden?’
Eden’s delicate hands gripped the panel in front of her. All twelve members of the jury were staring in her direction, some of them sympathetically. Mack could see what they saw: a tiny, vulnerable young woman under considerable emotional pressure, aware of her mother right there in an orange jumpsuit, eyes boring into her daughter. Eden was barely holding it together.
‘I had a friend on the estate, Earl Sidwell. And I couldn’t find him,’ she said. ‘All anyone would tell me was that he was gone. They’d told him about my dad being his dad, and given him some money, and he’d taken off. But I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t want to speak to me. So I started texting him, and calling him, and he never replied.’
The Lucky One Page 24