by S. E. Lund
I couldn't help but raise my eyebrows at that. He and Claire split?
DRAKE: Understood. Let me know next time you're in New York City and I'll be there.
MICHAEL: Good to hear. I was hoping you'd come with me and start up a robotic surgery unit. I'd love one dedicated to children and since you're doing your fellowship I thought it would be a great fit.
DRAKE: Had to put that on hold, because of the trial. Maybe get back to it after. But starting a pediatric neurosurgery robotic unit sounds like a dream. Don't tempt me like that!
MICHAEL: *tempts you* Seriously, consider it. I have the funding. There's nothing I'd like more than working with you on this. Keep it in mind. Talk to Kate. She'd love it in Southampton. Great weather and city.
DRAKE: I will. Talk later.
MICHAEL: Give her my love. And kiss that baby for me!
I smiled as I put my cell away, and sighed. As much as I would love to go to Southampton and set up a pediatric robotic neurosurgery unit, I couldn't see Kate wanting to move again after we'd only just returned. Besides, she was so happy to be back in Manhattan and close to Ethan, I couldn't see her being willing to move again.
Then John drove me to the courthouse and dropped me off a few blocks away. I waited while he got out of the vehicle so he could follow me a discrete distance behind. I was filled with a sense of wistfulness as I walked to the courthouse, wishing Kate would want to go to Southampton, but I put it out of my mind. It wouldn't be fair to ask her. Not after moving back to Manhattan.
I slipped on some sunglasses so I could blend into the crowds on the street in the hopes that any reporters hanging around the courthouse wouldn't see me and try to get a comment. The sidewalk was crowded outside the courthouse so I tried to avoid the center of the steps leading up to the entrance where the reporters were standing. Court was scheduled to start soon and I wanted to get in and through security as fast as possible so I could find a seat somewhere in the rear of the courtroom. I managed to slip inside without any reporters recognizing me and went through the metal detectors and signed in before entering the courtroom, which was almost filled. I found a space at the back of the court, and took a seat on the bench beside an older couple, who were whispering to each other while they watched the proceedings.
The woman turned to me and smiled, apparently not recognizing me, which was good. I wanted to be as unnoticed as possible. I had even considered growing my beard and had let my whiskers get longer than usual. Plus, I wore a pair of jeans, a baseball cap and my battered leather bomber jacket instead of my usual car coat and scarf. I wanted to look as little like myself as possible. Hopefully, no one would look at me and see anything other than a curious bystander taking in a murder trial. That was my hope, at least. As much as I told Kate I didn't care about the paparazzi, I didn't want to make the news headlines or pictures of me appear in any of the newspapers or websites covering the case. It would only make things worse, so I hoped my disguise as an ordinary, slightly-scruffy Joe off the street worked.
The court filled up and soon, every seat was taken, the rows filled with ordinary people and with a few who were clearly reporters, either dictating into their cells or writing down notes in their notebooks. I leaned back and watched as the assistant district attorney and his staff entered the court, stopping to speak with the guard on their way and then taking their place at the appropriate table. Next to them was the defense's table. The defense attorney was already there when I arrived, with a young man who I assumed was an assistant, seated beside her. Finally, a door at the side of the court opened and Lisa was brought in. She wore a conservative suit with a white blouse, her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, her face devoid of makeup and looking anxious and fatigued. I knew people would feel sympathy for her because she looked frail and in need of protection.
They didn't understand than underneath that facade was a woman who was cold and calculating. Manipulative. Everything about her appearance and demeanor was meant to manipulate the audience, to garner their sympathy for her. Poor abused woman taken advantage of by cruel older men. Her lashing out was in self-defense because she feared for her life.
I knew that would be the approach the defense took. But Derek was just not into violence. If he disciplined Lisa, it was because that was their game. She had sex with other men and played the bad nympho who couldn't get enough. Derek and she both had big orgasms as a result of their game. It wasn't my game. I didn't get off imagining Kate with another man. In fact, it upset me to think of anyone else touching her. But I was liberal enough to understand that it turned some men's and women's cranks. To each his or her own, as long as no laws were broken and it was all consensual.
The defense would have to build a case that Lisa had been coerced and systematically abused so much so that she feared for her life and when confronted by Richardson, Jones had struck out to prevent him from harming Lisa -- and himself. The would argue that Lisa having taken a hammer and striking Derek with it several times after he was already down was just her losing control out of fear.
It was so far-fetched that I couldn't believe anyone would swallow it.
But that was the defense's argument. It was up to the defense to provide evidence to support that contention and the prosecution to knock that evidence down and show that the murder was premeditated. The Assistant District Attorney would argue that Lisa had planned to kill Derek and make it appear as if he had gone out of the country. She and Jones would hide his body and live high off the hog, stealing possessions and selling valuables to fund their own new life.
Only, they didn't count on Derek's staff coming to check on the cabin just in case Derek returned from overseas and wanted to stay there.
That much had already been leaked over the course of the past year while the prosecution and defense prepared their cases. I'd followed the case of course and had Lara to help me understand the whole process and what each tidbit of evidence that leaked meant.
Lara was sure the jury would convict Lisa of first degree murder as Jones's accomplice, but it was possible that she would succeed in playing the victim card and make it look as if Derek was the deranged madman who had to be stopped before he hurt her even more.
Lara thought that Lisa should accept a plea bargain for a lesser charge of manslaughter, but apparently, Lisa was having none of it. She wanted to prove her innocence.
Ridiculous. I wouldn't be surprised if Lisa decided to act as her own lawyer. She really thought she was smarter than everyone else -- typical of malignant narcissists and sociopaths.
The door at the rear of the court opened and the Judge entered. We all stood and waited until the Judge was seated and the trial began.
After some housekeeping business about the trial and how it would proceed, we listened to the prosecution deliver its opening statement.
I watched Lisa as the Assistant District Attorney gave her statement, detailing the events of the murder and making the argument that the evidence would prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lisa and Jones had conspired to kill Derek Richardson, and then carried out the murder, luring him out to the cabin, killing him, then burying his body in the forest near the cabin. They then lived at the cabin, using Derek's money and stealing his possessions to fund their lifestyle. They used his cell to send messages that made it appear he had gone to Singapore to spend some time vacationing, and would be relocating there, starting a new business. Several transfers of money took place over the next weeks to Jones, and a number of possessions had been sold on eBay including some valuable jewelry and watches.
I thought back to when I contacted Derek the second time about Lisa, after I realized Lisa was going to be a problem. I never heard back from him that second time and had no idea that he was probably already dead.
While people had made inquiries about Derek's whereabouts, Lisa and Jones relied on the fact Derek often took unannounced trips to the far east for business and pleasure and had spoken often of wanting to start fresh somewhere like Singapore. S
o, no alarm bells were raised when Derek left the US and people stopped hearing from him.
Derek was just being Derek -- freewheeling billionaire who left his empire to be run by his money managers. They were only too happy to keep milking their cash cow and didn't care that he only communicated by text and never by phone. That was just Derek wanting to disconnect from all technology while he spent time on the beaches of Thailand, or took a trip on a freighter so he could avoid the news of the day, which he found distasteful and stressful.
Lisa knew him well enough that she could mimic his texts and no one was the wiser that he had disappeared -- permanently.
It was only when a staff member went out to the cabin and discovered that Jones had been living there that the jig was up. At that point, Lisa was in jail awaiting trial for the attack on Kate but Jones was taking orders from her, planning for the day that she got out of jail and they could continue their lavish lifestyle.
According to the prosecutor, those were the facts of the case. There could be no doubt that Lisa and Jones had each struck Derek and that the attack killed him. There could be no doubt that they hid his death and buried his body on the grounds around the cabin. There was no doubt that they used his credit cards and bank accounts to transfer money to themselves and carry on a lavish lifestyle, stealing his identity online to enrich themselves.
The evidence would prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lisa and Jones murdered Derek. They lured him to the cabin and killed him then hid the evidence. The only question was how long of a prison sentence Lisa would get. Nothing else was in doubt.
The defense attorney countered the prosecution's claims, one by one. She argued that although there was evidence that Derek died in the cabin, the evidence would not show whether the death was the result of a premeditated murder or an act of self-defense. She argued that the defense would provide evidence and testimony that Lisa was a battered woman who merely tried to protect herself from a vicious attack when she was found with her lover at the cabin. Derek had become enraged and had attacked first. He had a history of abusing women and the defense had images and videos of spanking women and of engaging in bondage. Derek was active in the BDSM lifestyle. Lisa was afraid of him. Jones had defended her, grabbing a knife on the spur of the moment to stop Derek's attack on a defenseless and fearful Lisa. When she realized Derek was going to attack her, Lisa found a hammer and struck Derek with it to stop him from killing her. She fought for her life. Then, in fear that no one would believe her, she and Jones buried Derek's body and continued to live there, in a fugue state caused by years of abuse at the hands of older men.
Self-defense. A battered woman who had suffered for years under his power and domination.
The opening statements over, the prosecution brought in its witnesses and experts to build the case against Lisa. The first witness was the beat cop who was sent to the premises to check out a B&E reported by one of Derek's security guards after the staff alerted him of someone living in the cabin. The police officer arrived on the scene, called to the cabin by a very distraught security guard, who found Jones at the cabin and was probably very lucky to have escaped with his life. Jones wasn't fast enough or deceptive enough to think of killing him and so the guard was able to call police and even though Jones left and went to stay at his mother's, he was eventually caught. Initially, when confronted with evidence that Jones had been staying at the cabin, Jones claimed that Derek had given him permission to stay there, but the groundskeeper was adamant that Derek had never done so and he always told the groundskeeper and his wife when either he or his guests would be using the cabin.
Derek had not done so and so the groundskeeper had insisted that the man had no permission to be there. Detectives found some of Jones's possessions, left behind in his haste to escape, and were able to identify him. They traced him to his mother's home in upstate New York through his phone's GPS, when it pinged a tower closer to her house. They showed up at her door asking about Jones's whereabouts and his mother denied he was present, but in panic, Jones bolted, running out the back of the house into a heavily wooded neighborhood. Police chased him and took him into custody and that's when it all came crashing down.
Police got a search warrant to inspect the cabin and grounds, found forensic evidence, including blood and DNA evidence that suggested someone had been seriously harmed in the cabin. When confronted with that forensic evidence, Jones had spilled, laying most of the blame for Derek's death on Lisa's shoulders. He was only too happy to blame her, even telling the police detectives where the body had been buried. The cross-examination of the police officer was minimal, merely going over the details without challenging any of them.
The detective in charge of the case provided his own testimony about the day he interviewed Jones and what the forensic team found in the house and on the grounds when they started to dig. Again, the cross examination was minimal and did nothing to call into question any of the testimony.
The prosecution called the medical examiner to the witness box and she told the court about the condition of the body when it had been exhumed from a shallow grave in the woods surrounding the cabin.
"Mr. Richardson had been beaten and stabbed. He died from blood loss after receiving twelve stab wounds with a very sharp and thin knife and several hammer blows to the head and chest, so his death wasn't immediate. Based on the amount of blood loss and based on the evidence at the crime scene, he took some time to die."
The defense passed on cross examination, apparently not feeling any need to challenge any of the testimony or evidence.
A member of the forensic team that inspected the cabin testified about the trace blood evidence found at the scene. The jury was shown photographs of the floor and walls taken using Fluorescein, which displayed trace evidence of blood even after it had been washed away and wasn't visible to the naked eye. The forensic technician testified that based on the size of the stains and the fact they were spread over a large area in the cabin's main room, Derek had put up a real fight and had been chased, repeatedly being struck with both a hammer and fish boning knife. Both murder weapons had been found at the scene, and while both had been cleaned thoroughly, it was still possible to find trace blood evidence on them, linking them to the murder.
By the time noon came around, the prosecutions first three witnesses had finished their testimony and the defense had cross-examined the witnesses. Apparently, the defense was not going to dispute the physical evidence. They were going to approach the case as one of self-defense. Lisa's lawyer asked each one of the prosecution's witnesses if it was possible to tell from the physical evidence who attacked whom first, and of course, the answer was no. There was no way of knowing, outside of the testimony of those actually present, who attacked whom first. The defense claimed that it was Derek who attacked Jones, from anger that Lisa was involved with another man. Jones was merely defending himself and Lisa against Derek's rage.
Anyone who knew Derek would know right away that he wasn't jealous at all of Lisa. They had no relationship at the time of his murder and hadn't been involved for several years. But it was the defense's contention that they had carried on a secret relationship during those years and that Derek had been obsessed with Lisa, jealous of her every friendship with other men, imagining that she was cheating. He had threatened her before with violence and so she was acting out of fear for her life when she picked up a hammer and attacked Derek with it.
Lisa wept silently when her lawyer cross-examined the forensic tech and medical examiner, making the point that no one could tell beyond a reasonable doubt whether Derek or Jones attacked first. In fact, it was far more likely that Derek did out of jealousy when finding Lisa alone with Jones at the cabin.
"Isn't it true that in cases of domestic violence, it's usually the man who threatens the woman? In your years of experience as a homicide detective, how many cases have you investigated where the husband or boyfriend was the aggressor vs. the wife or girlfriend?" she asked, her tone a
uthoritative.
The detective shrugged. "Only a few, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible. Every year there are a dozen or more cases in which the wife or girlfriend kills their partner out of jealousy or for money."
It was up to the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jones and Lisa conspired to kill Derek. It was the defense's job to create that reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury so that they would fail to convict.
I couldn't imagine that the jury would fail to convict or that the defense would succeed and was surprised that Lisa didn't take a plea and go to jail for a shorter period on a lesser charge, but apparently, she was going for a finding of not guilty.
Was she self-deceived? Did her lawyer really think she could get Lisa off using the battered woman defense?
The court was recessed until the afternoon and so I got up before anyone else did and made my way out of the courtroom and went as quickly as I could down the hallway to the rear exit, hoping no reporters or interested observers recognized me.
"Drake!"
I turned at the sound of Lara's voice, glad that it was her instead of anyone else.
"Phew," I said and wiped my brow dramatically when she got to my side. "I thought you were paparazzi."
"No, thank God. Just your attorney."
"Were you in the court? I didn't see you."
"I slipped in just before the judge."
I texted John so he knew I was coming out and could have the car ready.
"So," I said, opening the door for her. "What do you think so far?"
She smiled. "I think this is going to be a slam-dunk case and Lisa will be put away for the maximum."
"You do?"
We went down the steps to the street, and I was glad to see that the group of reporters were busy talking to their camera people and didn't see me, or didn't recognize me if they did see me.
"I do. I have no doubt the jury will convict. The question is what kind of damage to your reputation will Lisa do in the process?"