Medicine Wheel

by Ron Schwab

  Cam sat nearest the judge’s bench, and Serena at the other end of the table, with Kirsten, attired in mourning black, in between, which gave them each ample access to their client during the course of the trial. Frank Fuller and his tall, pencil-thin deputy were seated at the prosecutor’s table and were engaged in what Cam guessed to be an intense discussion.

  The spectator seats had been packed from the moment court convened, and Cam noted that at least three newspaper reporters had captured front row observation posts and were not surrendering them, apparently having made a mutual defense pact of some kind. If one reporter left the room, the other two tenaciously resisted any effort of another citizen to claim the vacant seat.

  The jury selection had been accomplished quickly. During the voir dire questioning, one elderly self-ordained preacher had gone into a diatribe about wifely obedience and repeated firmly at least three times “an eye for an eye.” The judge had granted Cam’s motion to remove for cause, and two others showing similar proclivities had been likewise removed. The prosecutor was successful in removing four who opposed the death penalty, interestingly, also on religious grounds. The pool was then reduced to “twelve good men and true” by alternating silent strikes by the lawyers crossing off names on the jury list. Cam had stricken the remaining Klansman and the wife beater, as well as another dubious prospect. Fuller had removed the colored men for whatever reason with his peremptory challenges.

  The opening statements had been the briefest Cam could remember. The prosecutor had simply declared the state would prove that Kirsten Brannon had killed her loving husband in cold blood while he slept and that said killing was willful, deliberate and premeditated, requirements of murder in the first degree. Cam had pointed out that the opening statements did not constitute evidence and that the facts had yet to be revealed. He had emphasized several times that guilt must be established “beyond a reasonable doubt.” He alluded to the defendant having been beaten nearly senseless by the deceased, carefully planting the seed of her fragile mental state.

  Cam noted that the bailiff had departed to retrieve the jury and that the judge was straightening the papers on the bench. In a few moments the bailiff returned, escorting the jurors to their seats. During the voir dire, Cam had targeted two jurors for special attention. One, a young bachelor school teacher, had seemed a sensitive, non-judgmental person with an open mind. The other was an elderly farmer, who was the father of five daughters, one of whom—Reva had ferreted out of somewhere—pathetically put up with a wife-beating husband. Serena had singled out another young juror, a young storekeeper who could not take his eyes off of her and gave her shy smiles when they made eye contact.

  Judge Whitmore tapped his gavel lightly on the bench. “Okay gentlemen . . . and lady . . . are you prepared to proceed? Mr. Fuller you’re up first.”

  The county attorney got up and walked around to the front of the table. “The state calls Sheriff Sam Mallery.”

  Mallery ambled up to the witness stand, was sworn in by the judge and sat down. He was an old hand at this, and he seemed confident and at ease. Cam knew him to be an honest man, but he could be a cagey rascal and would have to be questioned cautiously on cross-examination.

  Fuller established the sheriff’s credentials quickly, rattling off the usual name, residence, occupation and experience inquiries. Then he asked Mallery how he came to be at the Brannon house on the day of Max Brannon’s death, and the sheriff explained how Chet Grisham had pounded on his door in the early morning hours and how the circumstances Chet had described convinced him to invite the county attorney along to investigate the scene. The county attorney led him through their arrival at the house and the encountering of Kirsten and members of the Locke clan, carefully avoiding any mention of Kirsten’s injuries. “And did you have cause to investigate the bedroom of the Brannon house?” Fuller asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And will you tell me what you saw?”

  “I found Max Brannon naked in his bed and stone-cold dead.”

  “How do you know the man was Max Brannon?”

  “I’d known him for several years . . . seen him in town a number of times.”

  “Was anyone else in the room with you at this time?”

  “Yes . . . you were.”

  “Do you have an opinion as to what caused Mr. Brannon’s death?”

  “He was shot. There was a hole between the eyes, clean as could be.”

  “Could this have been self-inflicted?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know this to be the case?”

  “No obvious powder burns, so there must have been some distance between the gun barrel and his forehead. Take a pistol . . . unloaded please . . . and see how easy it would be to fire the weapon true holding it a few feet away from your head.”

  “Do you have any other basis for your conclusion?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And what is it?”

  “No gun anywhere nearby. None in the room.”

  “Was there a gun on the premises?”

  “Three of them. Two Winchester rifles . . . a Model 1866 and a Model 1876 . . . and an Army Colt revolver hanging in a holster near the door.”

  “And did you observe anything about the weapons?”

  “Well, the rifles weren’t loaded, but the Colt was short a cartridge in the cylinder.”

  “You testified that the only people in the house when you arrived were the defendant and members of the Locke family.”

  “I did.”

  “Was there anyone else near the house?”

  “Cam Locke’s boy was outside . . . he was the only one I seen.”

  Fuller looked at the judge. “That’s all I have for the witness for now, Your Honor.”

  Judge Whitmore widened his smile a bit and nodded at Cam. “Your turn, counselor.”

  Cam got up and approached the witness stand, leaving his notes on the table. “Just a few questions, Sheriff.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You said the pistol was short a cartridge. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And from that you concluded what?”

  “That the pistol was used to kill Max Brannon.”

  “What caliber bullet does the Army Colt use?”

  “It was a .45.”

  “And the coroner removed a bullet from Mr. Brannon’s skull, is that right?”

  “Uh . . . yes.”

  “And what caliber was that?”

  “Well, he thought it was a .45.”

  “He thought?”

  “It was all broke up . . . couldn’t say for sure.”

  “I see. Have you seen a revolver with a bullet or two missing from the cylinder before?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong. But could there not be a lot of reasons for that . . . like firing the weapon to scare off an animal, for instance?”

  “Well, sure but—”

  “So you can’t say with certainty that the missing bullet ended up in Mr. Brannon’s head?”

  The sheriff tossed a look at Fuller as if expecting silent instructions. “Well, not a hundred percent, but it seems likely.”

  “Likely. And you’d hang a woman on ‘likely’?”

  Fuller jumped from his chair. “Objection, Your Honor. Mr. Locke’s leading the witness and he’s asking the sheriff for an irrelevant opinion.”

  Judge Whitmore smiled amiably. “Now, Mr. Fuller, the sheriff is your witness after all. I think the defense has a little leeway here.” Then he turned to Cam. “But that’s about as far as I’ll let you go, counselor. I’d take it kindly if you’d just withdraw the question.”

  “Withdrawn, Your Honor. I do have just a few more questions, though.”

  “Proceed.”

  “Sheriff, I’m having difficulty here grasping a few things. Perhaps, you can help me out.” Cam saw the sheriff eyeing him warily. “Did you see anyone fire the Colt?”

  “No.”
<
br />   “Did you talk to a witness who saw Mrs. Brannon fire the Colt or any other weapon at Mr. Brannon?”

  “No.”

  “But you concluded Mrs. Brannon killed Mr. Brannon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she was the only one there at the house.”

  “When Mr. Brannon was shot?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, who else could have been?”

  “I could list a lot of possibilities, Sheriff. But may I remind you I’m asking the questions?” Cam quickly finished his cross-examination with a few perfunctory questions to nail down his message to the jurors that the evidence against Kirsten was essentially circumstantial.

  47

  SERENA STUDIED THE jurors while the county attorney called the prosecution’s witnesses and laid out his case, followed by Cam’s cross-examination, which she observed was what she called a “strike and withdraw” attack—making his point precisely and then walking away from the witness. Were it not for his family entanglements, he would have had no need for her at the counsel table. This man was capable of combating the giants of the profession.

  A few of the jurors were unsuccessfully trying to stifle yawns, but most were alert and attentive. Several times her young shopkeeper’s eyes met hers and then promptly turned away. She thought rapport with key jurors was potentially helpful, but she did not give the weight to such personal relationships that some lawyers did. There was no substitute for preparation, as far as she was concerned.

  Serena glanced at Kirsten who sat to her left. The young rancher had shown amazing calm and poise throughout the trial. Her demeanor was relaxed, yet appropriately serious. Kirsten appeared to be following the proceedings intently, but she spoke little even during the occasional recesses, letting her lawyers do their work. This woman was deceptively shallow to many at first meeting, Serena thought, perhaps intentionally so. During trial prep meetings, she had come to realize that she was dealing with a person of intellectual depth and exceptional survival skills—“tough as a boot,” as she’d heard her father say in referring to durable, persistent men he’d encountered.

  Dr. Horace Kleeb, the county coroner, had taken the stand for the prosecution, and Serena turned her attention to Cam’s cross-examination. Kleeb, a slight, balding man who appeared to be in his late-sixties, would obviously have preferred to be elsewhere. He fidgeted in his chair and mopped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief as he responded to questions.

  “Now, Mr. Kleeb,” Cam asked, “you testified you have been practicing medicine for nearly forty years. Tell me, what medical school did you graduate from?”

  Kleeb sighed deeply before he replied in a high-pitched voice. “I became a physician by apprenticing with a St. Louis medical doctor many years ago.”

  Cam had gently hammered a small chink in the witness’s credibility. She doubted he would attack aggressively on this front, since the coroner’s main function was to testify that Max Brannon had died of a gunshot wound and no one was contesting that.

  Cam continued. “You testified that you thought Max Brannon was killed by a .45 bullet. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you could not say for certain?”

  “No, the bullet was too fragmented.”

  “Hypothetically, let’s say the bullet was a .45 caliber. Could you match it to a particular gun?”

  “No. I guess there are some gunsmiths and other experts who claim to be able to make a match in some cases, but I wouldn’t have that capability.”

  “How many Colts that fire .45 caliber bullets do you think there might be in Riley County?”

  “I have no idea . . . a lot.”

  “Objection, Your Honor. There is no foundation for this question. It calls for sheer speculation and establishes no basis for the witness’s expertise to respond.” Fuller was clearly miffed at Cam’s quick move.

  “Sustained,” the judge said. “Jury will disregard.”

  Fat chance, Serena thought, but this was just a small building block in the defense case on the journey to reasonable doubt. Cam had no further questions of Dr. Kleeb, and the coroner made a quick exit from the courtroom. The county attorney called Chet Grisham as his next witness, and if the coroner was nervous, the lanky old cowboy was on the edge of breakdown. Serena noted his trembling hands before they grasped the arms of the witness chair and a tick in one eye that kept the lids flapping.

  Frank Fuller led Grisham through his personal relationship with the defendant and the nature of his responsibilities at the C Bar C, before he got to the purpose of the cowboy’s testimony. Finally, he asked, “Mr. Grisham, you acknowledged you were interviewed by the sheriff in the course of his investigation of this case. Did the sheriff ever ask you if Mrs. Brannon ever threatened to kill Max Brannon?”

  “Yes. He did.”

  “And what was your response?”

  “Well,” Grisham replied, his voice shaky, “I told him that Kirsten said, ‘I’m going to kill that son-of-a- bitch’ . . . that was when he didn’t show up to help round up cattle a few months back, but—”

  “And did she repeat this on other occasions?”

  “Not in them exact words, but, yeah.”

  “What were the exact words?”

  “Well, once she said she was ‘going to kill that asshole’ . . . pardon the expression. She might have said that more than once.” Grisham’s face turned scarlet.

  “She and her husband didn’t get along, I take it?”

  “Not for a long spell. Never spoke much to each other when I was around. Or if they did, they was cussin’ each other out about something.”

  Fuller completed his examination by asking the same questions different ways, Serena observed, and then the witness was turned over to Cam.

  Cam stood but kept some distance away from the cowboy and looked up at the ceiling for a few moments, as if seeking divine inspiration there, before commencing his questioning. Then he turned to the old cowhand. “Tell me, Chet, you testified you’ve worked for Mrs. Brannon for about five years. But you knew her before that, didn’t you?”

  Grisham appeared more at ease now. “Oh, yes, sir. Knowed her since she was a tadpole in Missouri. Worked for her papa, Ben Cavelle. Come to work for Kirsten when she set up her operation here in the Flint Hills. She asked me to come with her, and Ben gave his blessing to it.”

  “In all those years, how many times did Mrs. Brannon say she was going to kill somebody?”

  “Grisham chuckled. Probably hundreds. She was feisty as a bobcat.”

  “And did she?”

  “Did she what?”

  “Kill somebody.”

  Grisham laughed again. “No, hell no, she wouldn’t stomp on a spider. Just has a quick temper, and she’d say things like that lettin’ off steam.”

  “Did you think she intended to kill Max Brannon those times when you heard her say she was going to kill him?”

  Grisham looked surprised. “Well, no, never gave it a thought. She just said things like that. I tried to explain that to the sheriff and Mr. Fuller.”

  Fuller interjected, “Objection, witness isn’t being responsive to the question.”

  “He’s your witness, counselor. Defense has got a little slack in the rope,” the judge responded.

  Cam continued, “Just a few more questions, Chet. Did you ever say you were going to kill somebody?”

  “Probably dozens of times.”

  “Did you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did you ever say you were going to kill Max Brannon?”

  “I don’t recall it . . . but I thought it a time or two. Surprised I didn’t get branded as a suspect.”

  Serena thought Cam seemed a bit taken aback by the witness’s response, but he recovered quickly.

  “Why do you say that?” Cam asked.

  “Well, I was sleepin’ right there on the place. Who’s to say I didn’t slip
in there and pull the trigger on that pistol . . . or my own. I got a Colt just like it.”

  “No further questions.”

  Chet Grisham, wittingly or not, had just furnished an alternate theory that the defense, at Kirsten’s insistence, had been unwilling to exploit.

  48

  JUDGE WHITMORE, AT the county attorney’s suggestion, had adjourned the trial after Chet Grisham’s testimony. Fuller had promised the judge that the prosecution would rest its case by noon this day, Tuesday. Cam and Serena were discussing trial strategy at the dead end of a hallway outside the courtroom, prior to convening of court.

  “You’re still planning to call Chet as a defense witness, I assume,” Cam said.

  “Yes,” Serena replied. “For some reason, Fuller didn’t bring up Chet’s involvement the night of Max Brannon’s death. I suppose he’s avoiding bringing up the injuries to Kirsten. Of course, after Chet’s setting himself up as a suspect, I don’t think Frank had any interest in touching him in rebuttal. I see it as a tactical error on his part. It will just hit with greater impact when we introduce our evidence.”

  “I agree. That’s why I stayed away from it on cross. I’m concerned about Fuller’s next witness . . . the banker, Nigel Baker. I tried to talk with him, but he clammed up and was downright hostile. All I know is that he’s going to say Kirsten had motive to kill her husband.”

  “Well, good luck.”

  “Thanks. It’s pretty much your show after I’m finished with Baker.”

  There was a murmuring of voices and shuffling of feet in the hallway outside the courtroom, signaling that the bailiff must be preparing to announce the judge’s entry. They hurried down the hallway and joined Kirsten, who was already seated at the defense table. Momentarily, the bailiff announced, “All rise.”

  As the judge took his seat, he smiled genially, nodded at each counsel and tapped his gavel, and everybody eased into their own chairs. “Good morning, folks. We’ll have this show on the road in a few minutes, but first I’d like to have all counsel approach the bench.” Cam and Serena and both prosecutors complied promptly.