by John Foxjohn
Kayla sauntered forward. She didn’t want to make Ballard mad, but she had succeeded with Proctor. His actions showed the jury someone who wasn’t doing his job because he wanted justice—it was personal to the DA and it shouldn’t be.
The judge held a folder up beside his face closest to the jury to help hide his words. Proctor started to speak, but Ballard stopped him. “I’m going to speak, if you don’t mind. Ms. Nugent, that was improper. I had better not have to tell you again, or I’ll hold you in contempt of my court.”
He turned to Proctor and pointed. “Your witness caused that. You need to remind him that his job is to answer questions. Not to question how much the defense attorney knows or doesn’t know.”
The judge’s glare traveled from one to the other. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Your Honor, and I apologize to the court for my statement,” Kayla said.
Proctor didn’t bother to respond. He spun away, again showing the jury an attitude that he shouldn’t. When he flopped down, he scribbled a note and handed it to his assistant, who hurried out of the courtroom.
As Kayla glided back to the table and sat, Marvin leaned over. “How bad of a spanking did you get?”
She almost chuckled, but leaned closer, “A little one, but it doesn’t matter. I got my point across, and the jury won’t forget that one.”
After striking all the remarks from the record, Ballard glanced at his watch. “We’re running late for lunch, and this seems a good time to stop to let tempers cool down.”
When he dismissed the court, McMasters remained seated, waiting for Kayla.
TWENTY-FIVE
Kayla settled in the pew seat in front of McMasters—put her good arm on the back and half-turned. “You drop by for moral support?”
“Not really, I’ve watched you in court before.”
Her eyes widened. That showed how much attention she paid to the people watching the trial. “Really?”
“I told you out at my house you were good and scared Proctor to death. What I don’t understand,” he tapped his finger on his cheek, “I know you get your intelligence from me, but where did you get that vicious streak?”
He leaned forward and put his hand on her arm. “Your mother and Jared would be so proud of you.”
She dropped her gaze and said in a whisper, “What about you?”
His liquid eyes shined. “More than you could ever know, and it has nothing to do with the courtroom. You are a tremendous person.” He forced a smile. “That has nothing to do with me.”
“I appreciate you taking the time to show up today.”
“Are you still determined to resign when this is over?”
She lifted her gaze to meet his. “I have to. I’d have to no matter how this trial turns out. I have always wanted my own office. I want to select clients without thinking about how much money they have, their social position, or who they know. I want to select clients I believe in and don’t care if all they have are chickens to pay me with.”
“You’ll do great at it. I have no doubt of that. However, I have a subject I need to bring up with you and you aren’t going to like it.”
Her eyebrows arched. The way he said that, she had no doubt about whether she’d like it. “What?”
“Until the end of this trial, you still officially work for me. That means I’m your boss and you will do what I tell you. I have someone I want you to meet.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone, called someone named Lester, and told him to come in.
She stood when McMasters did. She didn’t know Lester, but the black man who stooped to enter the door made her gasp. Without a doubt, the man who entered room had to be the largest human being ever put on the face of the earth. At least seven feet tall, he appeared to be seven feet wide, too.
Kayla imagined that his shaved head would shine if anyone could see it. He stuck out a hand the size of a car tire to shake.
She wasn’t about to stick her hand there. She didn’t want to appear rude, but dang. She turned to McMasters and raised an eyebrow. “Who is this, ah—man?”
“This is your bodyguard until this trial is over.” He held up a hand to stop her. “Like it won’t do me a bit of good to argue with you about resigning—it won’t do you a bit of good to argue with me about this.” He pointed at her. “You see, young lady, you did get something from me. I’m as hardheaded as you are. Now, shake hands and meet Lester.”
Lester. She might call him sir, but she sure couldn’t call this man Lester. She closed her eyes and stuck her hand out, envisioning it swallowed like a whale eating a goldfish.
Her eyes popped open when a thought occurred to her. She hoped she didn’t have to feed him.
* * * *
As Kayla dragged herself up the courthouse steps, the media as usual waited for her. With Lester behind her, they didn’t push and shove to get close as they had on all the previous occasions. And unlike the other times, she’d decided to talk to them. “I’ll answer a few of your questions.”
A woman, braver than the others, approached with her a microphone. “Ms. Nugent, do you believe District Attorney Proctor brought this case to court because of political ambitions?”
“There could be no other reason than that. His case has more holes in it than Swiss cheese.”
“Do you think the police department is covering up for one of their own?”
“I can’t answer for the police department and contrary to what you or anyone else might believe, I have a lot of respect for Detective Satterwhite. I believe someone pressured him into this investigation, to hurry it along. Who did that, I’m not going to speculate.”
“Do you think the jury will find your client not guilty?”
Kayla crossed her arms. “I have no doubt about it. They haven’t heard my evidence yet, and neither have you. When it comes my turn, I have some bombshells to drop. However, before you ask, you will need to wait like everyone else.”
“Ms. Nugent, what do you plan when this trial is over?”
Kayla turned and pointed up at Lester. “I’m going to find the person who killed my cat and have Lester eat him.”
She spun away and strode into the building as they fired more questions at her.
With the courtroom filled to capacity, an unhappy detective resumed the stand with the judge informing him that he remained under oath. Satterwhite had to wonder if Kayla would ever get through with him.
Kayla opened her briefcase and extracted some papers. She looked up. “Your Honor, may I approach the witness?”
Ballard nodded, and laid his head on his open hand, supported by his elbow.
Kayla handed the papers to Satterwhite. “Detective, could you tell the court what I handed you?”
Satterwhite rolled his eyes, then glanced at the papers. “This is the police department’s inventory of Michelle McCrery’s home. We had a team who went through and inventoried everything after we processed the scene for evidence.”
She handed the detective another piece of paper. “This is your report about the contents listed from Michelle McCrery’s home. You state in this report at the bottom that there are no apparent missing or stolen items from the home. Is this a correct statement?”
“Yes, ma’am, to the best of our knowledge. We could find nothing obviously missing from the home.”
“What’s the normal procedure for finding out if a home has missing or stolen items?”
“Sometimes, missing items at crime scenes are obvious. We look for items that people normally steal like TV’s, VCRs, jewelry, that type of thing. We attempt to get a close relative to look through the scene or the list and see if we have missing items.”
Kayla strolled back to her table but didn’t sit. “Detective, have you ever experienced relatives going through, or looking at the list and saying nothing is missing, but later finding out they were mistaken?”
“Yes, ma’am. Happens all the time. If it isn’t obvious, it is hard to spot. Besides, their minds a
re occupied by the death of the relative.”
“In this case, detective, who went through the home and said Michelle McCrery had nothing missing?”
Satterwhite leaned forward, frowning. “In this instance, Lieutenant Douglass Faraway with the Houston police department checked the contents.”
“What did Lieutenant Faraway look at when he checked the contents?”
“Like always, jewelry, small appliances, TV’s, VCR’s, that kind of stuff.”
“How about computers and computer equipment like CD’s?”
“Ma’am, I’m sure he did check her computers, but I didn’t ask him specific questions about what he’d checked.”
Kayla had remained standing for this reason. She turned and nodded to Marvin, who used a remote and the large screen in the corner dropped like before. He pushed another button and an enlarged picture appeared on the screen. “Detective Satterwhite, do you recognize the picture?”
He looked at it a moment with his head tilted. “It appears to be the police photo of Michelle McCrery’s desk in her home office.”
“You’re correct. That is the police photo of her desk she sat at when someone killed her. Can you look at what’s on the desk and tell us what’s there?”
“Looks like a computer connection, a metal stand of some sort, a mouse, and some type of computer keyboard.”
“Are you familiar with computers and their components? Do you have them in your own home?”
“I’m familiar with computers, but I don’t know what most of those things on her desk are.”
Kayla moved in front of her table, and clasped her hands behind her back. “That metal stand on the desk is used to hold a laptop computer upright. The mouse and keyboard are wireless and used primarily with laptop computers. Now, do you see a laptop computer on this desk?”
He looked at the picture for a moment as if thinking. “I don’t see any computer on the desk.”
She pointed to the inventory list. “Would you look at the list and tell us, where is Michelle McCrery’s laptop computer?”
While he looked, Kayla turned and Marvin handed her a piece of paper. She smiled and mouthed, “Thank you,” to him. When she turned back to the witness, he still scanned the list.
“Ma’am, I can’t find a listing for a laptop computer. As far as I know, she did not have one. Nor do I remember seeing one in her home.”
Kayla stepped toward the prosecutor’s table and laid the paper in front of Proctor. “Your Honor, the defense would like to present this credit card receipt from Michelle McCrery as defense exhibit A. Two months and three days prior to her death, she purchased a metal computer frame, a wireless keyboard and mouse, along with a Compac Presario notebook, also known as a laptop computer, from Circuit City.”
When Proctor had no objections, the judge entered the credit card receipt into evidence. Kayla had no idea what the missing laptop meant, but wanted it found. She had a hunch it could be important, but if Darren couldn’t find it, the fact that someone took it and the police and DA didn’t know it, showed the jury that their investigation had holes in it.
She had made the point and saw no need to go into it further. She’d pass the witness, but had one more dig she wanted to get in to set up one of her witnesses. She sat at her table and leaned back, arms crossed. “Detective, you said that Lieutenant Faraway looked through the home to see if anyone had stolen anything. Would you consider him the best person to check the contents since he hadn’t lived with his wife in almost three months?”
The question got the response out of Proctor she expected. He leaped to his feet. “Your Honor, this question has no basis with facts in evidence.”
“Your Honor, I will withdraw the question until I place these facts in evidence. I pass the witness.”
Proctor wasted no time on redirect. “Detective Satterwhite, when Ms. Nugent asked you about the paraffin test conducted on the defendant and her clothes, you used the term inconclusive for the test. Ms. Nugent pointed out that the results of the test came back that the lab had not found any evidence of gunpowder residue. Why did you classify the test as inconclusive?”
“The murder took place at approximately seven-twenty in the evening. Our crime scene unit didn’t conduct the GSR test on Ms. Estes until after noon on the next day. Prior to that test, Ms. Estes had showered twice.”
Proctor leaned forward. “What would two hot showers do to any residue left on a person’s body that had fired a gun?”
Kayla rose. “Your Honor, this question is beyond the detective’s expertise.”
It didn’t surprise her when Proctor withdrew the question. He’d made his point, and he had an expert coming in to verify what Satterwhite told the jury. Besides, she knew what he’d do next, and she had no real way to combat it.
“Detective Satterwhite, exactly what areas did the crime scene unit test in reference to gunpowder residue in regards to the defendant?”
“They used swabs to test her hands, arms, and face for residue, but also took into possession the clothes and shoes she told us she’d worn that night. They transported these back to the lab where they tested them.”
“Did they test just the shoes she said she’d worn or all the shoes she owned?”
“All together, the lab took possession of eight pair of shoes. The pair she said she’d worn and seven others selected at random from her closet.”
Proctor tilted his head. “You didn’t test all of her shoes?”
“No, sir. The lab concluded that they would not have time to test all of them. We didn’t count how many she had, but there had to be over three hundred.”
Kayla put her pen down, crossed her arms, and leaned back in her seat as sun filtered through slits in the Venetian blinds, casting moving shadows on the wall. She dreaded what Proctor would ask next, and she’d gone over this with Loren on several occasions, but the woman would not change her story. Kayla didn’t for a minute believe her. This next part could bite them in the butt.
TWENTY-SIX
Proctor had his assistant bring into the courtroom a suit of black leisure clothes consisting of pants, jacket, and a white blouse in a clear plastic bag. After he had them placed into evidence, he stood and held the clothes up. “Detective Satterwhite, do you recognize these clothes?”
“These are the clothes that the defendant told us she’d worn the night the homicide took place.”
“Where in the defendant’s home did the lab take possession of the clothes the defendant claimed to have worn on the night of the murder?”
“We found them hanging in the utility room on a clothes rack by the washer and dryer.”
Proctor stepped toward the witness stand, and for emphasis, held the clothes up again for all to see. “Detective Satterwhite, did the defendant say why she’d hung the clothes she’d worn the night before in the utility room by the washer and dryer?”
Satterwhite did what any professional witness would at a crucial moment with a question that hurt the defense—he turned to face the jury. “The defendant told me she’d spilled wine on her clothes and took them to the utility room, washed them and dried them, then hung them on the rack.”
Kayla readied for an objection she didn’t want to make but had to.
“Detective, did you find these actions on the part of the defendant inconsistent to what you knew about her?”
“Objection, Your Honor. As far as I know, this witness isn’t qualified to evaluate the sociological aspects of my client.”
Kayla sat when Ballard sustained her objection as she and Proctor knew he would, but the jury, like Kayla, wouldn’t believe that Loren Estes washed her own clothes.
Proctor’s redirect continued in an attempt to repair the damage Kayla had done, and again showed his courtroom ability. When he finished, Kayla had a decision to make, continue with Satterwhite and try to get back some of the edge she lost with Proctor’s redirect, or stay with what she had. In the end, she believed she had done all she could with this witness.
Her goal was to place a smidgen of doubt, to set up what she’d introduce in the defense phase, and she thought she had done that.
Proctor called Mittie Thorne to the stand. Loren leaned over. “Why’d he call that bitch?”
Kayla turned to face Loren. “He called Mittie to stick you in the butt. That’s what happens when you go through life mistreating people.”
When Proctor asked the witness her name, present job, and where she’d worked before, the witness told the court that she’d worked as a maid for Loren Estes for two years before she quit two months ago.
Proctor took her through the duties she’d performed as the maid for Loren Estes.
“Ms. Thorne, in the two years that you worked as a maid for the defendant, did she ever wash any clothes?”
Mittie chuckled. “I didn’t know Ms. Estes knew what a washer and dryer looked like.”
Kayla closed her eyes as laughter engulfed the courtroom. She wanted and needed to object, but didn’t think she should and Proctor knew she couldn’t. Loren glared at her when she didn’t say anything.
Proctor asked several more questions then passed the witness. When he did, Mittie fidgeted on the stand and wrung her hands.
Kayla smiled. “Ms. Thorne, I believe you and I met, once. Do you remember?”
The witness relaxed somewhat. “Yes, Ms. Nugent. I remember you well. Unlike all Ms. Nugent’s other visitors, you were nice to me.”
“I want to continue to do that. I know you don’t want to be here, but I do have a few questions I need to ask you.”
Mittie flashed a grateful smile. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You said that you didn’t have any set duties when you worked for Ms. Estes. You said you did what she told you to do, is that correct?”
When the witness confirmed she’d said this, Kayla asked, “At any time in the two years that you worked for Ms. Estes, did she ever tell you to retrieve something from her cars?”