“Did he attack Joe at your apartment?”
“He tried. We all struggled for a while. I imagine that’s when Joe got my skin under his fingernails. But Joe was bigger and stronger and a much better fighter. Joe pushed him away and made his exit.”
“What happened next?”
“Kirk had a total breakdown. I mean, I’d never seen him like that before in my life. He was screaming uncontrollably. ‘No one treats my sister like that! You turned my sister into a whore!’ Crazy stuff. Crazy. And then he looks at me, with the most horrible expression I’ve ever seen in my life, and he says, ‘Keri, I’m going to kill that bastard. I’m going to cut him up until there’s nothing left.’ ”
The emotional stoicism of her previous testimony had disappeared. Keri’s eyes were wide and alive. Her chest was heaving and her hands were trembling. “I tried to stop him, I really did. But there was nothing I could do. He put on a pair of gloves, then ran into the kitchen and grabbed one of my knives. The D.A. was right—it was my knife, and my chains, too. Kirk took them from my bedroom. I tried to block his way, but he was too strong for me, and, and—” Her voice cracked. “He left ranting about how he was going to kill that faithless son-of-a-bitch cop. How he was going to make him pay.”
“Did you call anyone?”
“No. I wish to God I had. But I didn’t want to get my brother in trouble. Even though he’d been convicted of only minor crimes, he had two on his record. You know Oklahoma law—if he’d been convicted again, he could get twenty years. And I didn’t really think he’d do anything. I thought he would cool off in a few minutes, or he wouldn’t find Joe, or even if he did, Joe would be too strong for him. But Kirk must’ve caught him by surprise and—and—”
She broke down, flinging her head into her lap. “Kirk wasn’t a bad person, he really wasn’t,” she said, sobbing. “He was just confused. So confused. But when I heard what had happened, when I heard how violent it was, how the corpse had been mutilated and ‘faithless’ had been written across his chest in blood, I knew it was Kirk. I knew it.”
Ben paused, giving everyone a breather. “When did you last see Kirk?”
“He never came back to our apartment after the murder. And after my first trial, he disappeared altogether—till he turned up on the roof of the Bank of Oklahoma Tower. I think he must’ve been riddled with guilt about what he’d done. And the fact that he’d gotten me in trouble probably only made it worse. It must’ve been tearing him apart.”
“Which is what led him to kill himself.”
She nodded, her head still bowed. “Poor sweet Kirk. He loved me so much. And now he’s gone. Just like everyone else. They’re—they’re—” All at once, she broke down in tears. The emotional wall she had built to get herself through this testimony crumbled, like ancient masonry. All her sorrow came pouring out.
“I have no more questions, your honor,” Ben said.
D.A. LaBelle, however, did.
“Very well,” Judge Cable said, after giving Keri a few moments to collect herself. “Any redirect?”
“Yes,” LaBelle said, stumbling to his feet. Never in Ben’s life had he seen a man look less like he wanted to do a cross-examination than LaBelle did at this moment. Trying to follow an emotional testament like that one—trying to be hard on the young girl who had been through so much—was not a job anyone could envy.
“Forgive me for saying so,” LaBelle began, “but I can’t help but think that this eleventh-hour confession of someone else’s guilt is terribly convenient.” Ben knew he was trying to be obnoxious, but his heart wasn’t in it. “Your brother dies a tragic death, and then, presto-chango, he becomes the murderer.”
“It’s what happened.”
“I find that very difficult to believe.”
“You weren’t there!” Keri lifted her tear-streaked face. “I was. I saw the look in his eyes.”
“And do you have any proof of his guilt?”
“You have all the proof,” Keri shot back, “but you were so determined to railroad me you missed the obvious. You kept saying only one person had access to the chains, the knife. But two people lived in that apartment—me and Kirk. I couldn’t have killed Joe. I wasn’t strong enough to drag his body around and chain him to a fountain. But Kirk was. And he did.”
LaBelle drummed his fingers on the podium. “Forgive me for saying so, ma’am, but as you yourself pointed out, you’ve been a suspect almost since the crime was committed. You’ve been tried, not once but twice for this offense. If convicted you could be executed. If you knew who the killer was, why on earth didn’t you say so before now?”
Keri looked at him, her eyes wide, tears streaming. “He was my brother.”
After that, nothing LaBelle said mattered. He tried to make a few more points, but no one was interested, not even LaBelle. He soon gave up and sat down.
“Very well,” Judge Cable said. “I assume this completes the defense case.”
Ben shook his head. “Not quite, your honor.”
Christina leaned toward him. “What are you saying? Keri’s testimony was great. I think the jury believes her.”
“We can do better,” Ben whispered back.
“Ben, nothing personal, but don’t screw up what we’ve got here. This is the time to submit the case to the jury. If you call another witness, you just risk—”
“We have one more witness, your honor.” Ben turned to face the gallery. “The defense recalls Andrea McNaughton.”
46
CHRISTINA TUGGED AT BEN’S shirt sleeve. “Have you lost your mind?”
Ben held her at bay. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Ben, she’s the worst witness against us!”
“Which is why we have to bring her back.”
“Ben—”
“I know what I’m doing.”
Judge Cable wrinkled his brow. “Counsel, have you notified Ms. McNaughton that she would be called as a witness today?”
“No, sir. But she is on the witness list—thanks to the prosecution—and she is in the courtroom.”
LaBelle joined in. “Judge, he’s already had an opportunity to crossexamine.”
“True, your honor. But now I want to introduce new topics, not rebut matters raised on direct. And I want to reexamine her in light of the new information that has arisen.”
Cable ran his fingers through his graying hair. “I suppose he has that right. Mrs. McNaughton, would you please return to the witness box?”
In the third row of the gallery, Andrea McNaughton pushed herself up on uncertain legs. “Sir, I … don’t … want to.”
“I’m sorry,” Judge Cable said. “I can imagine the pain this must cause you. But I’m afraid you have no choice.”
“I’ve already said everything I have to say.”
“And if Mr. Kincaid starts repeating matters that have already been addressed, I can assure you I’ll shut him down. But for now I must insist that you come to the witness box. Bailiff.”
On cue, Brent, the bailiff, walked up the aisle beside Andrea. Taking her elbow, he gently escorted her to the front of the courtroom.
The judge nodded. “Thank you, Mrs. McNaughton. I’ll remind you that you’re still under oath.”
“Of course.” Her voice seemed hollow and hoarse.
Ben approached the podium. He had no notes for this cross. He was winging it, pure and simple, which was unfortunate, because he knew that everything depended on what happened next.
“Mrs. McNaughton, you were in the courtroom while Keri Dalcanton testified, weren’t you?”
“Oh yes. I heard it all.” Her voice left little doubt but that she was not persuaded by what she had heard. At the same time, it had a fragile quality, a vulnerability that had not been there before.
“Then you’re aware that her testimony differs from yours on several key points.”
She twisted her neck awkwardly. “Is that really a surprise?”
“No, it isn’t. You and Keri have been
antagonists from the outset. In some respects, this whole case has been a conflict between you and her. But it leaves the jury in a bit of a fix. Because both of you can’t be telling the truth. So they have to determine who is—and who isn’t.”
“She’s lying,” Andrea said. “She’s lying to save her scrawny neck.”
“So you’ve been saying. But something about your story has always bothered me, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Until just a few minutes ago, when I heard Keri testify. When I heard her talk about what a hard life she had after she moved to Tulsa.”
“Is there a question in here somewhere?” LaBelle asked.
“I’m getting there,” Ben replied. He turned his attention to Andrea. “I remembered your account of your visit to Keri’s apartment, just before your husband was found dead. You said she attacked you—”
“She did.”
“—which she denies. In the struggle, you said she threw you down on some kind of exercise equipment and you hurt yourself. The problem is—I’ve been to Keri’s apartment. And there’s no exercise equipment.”
“I don’t know exactly what it was. One of those fancy high-tech things—”
“You heard how poor she’s been. There’s no way she could afford some Nautilus equipment or rowing machine.”
“She probably thought it was worth the cost to keep up her shapely figure. That’s important when you make your living as a whore.”
Ben took a deep breath. “It’s not there, Mrs. McNaughton.”
“She probably got rid of it after she murdered my—”
“This is a copy of the police inventory,” Ben said, waving a sheet of paper in the air, “taken when the police arrived at her apartment, less than one hour after your husband’s body was discovered. It lists everything they found there. Which is not much. And there is certainly no exercise equipment.”
“Maybe they didn’t think—”
“Here is a sheaf of photos I pulled out of the file,” Ben said, passing them to the bailiff. “The police photographed Keri’s apartment in every room from every possible angle. Standard operating procedure—at the time, they thought the murder might’ve occurred there.” He watched as the bailiff passed the photos to Andrea. “Take your time and look through them, ma’am. There’s a lot to see. But I can tell you one thing you won’t see—exercise equipment. Because she didn’t have any.”
Andrea rifled furiously through the pictures. “Well, maybe it was a table or cabinet …”
“Ah, but now you’re changing your story. Before, it was a fancy high-tech exercise machine.”
“It all happened very quickly. I could’ve been confused.”
“Confused? Is that a way of saying you lied?”
“I did not lie!” Her face flushed. “All right, maybe I did make that part up. I made a mistake.”
Ben shook his head. “You didn’t make a mistake. You invented the exercise equipment because it fit the image you were trying to create, the image of this young husband-stealing bimbo living in the lap of sin and luxury. The problem is—none of it is true.”
“Your honor,” LaBelle said angrily. “He’s speechifying again. He’s already made his point.”
“Have I?” Ben asked. “The point is—she’s admitted she lied once. How can we believe anything else she had to say?”
“Your honor—”
“Given the knowledge that you lied once,” Ben continued, “it’s now easier to resolve all the other conflicts between your testimony and Keri’s. For instance, you say that when you came to her apartment and identified yourself, she greeted you with contempt and hostility. But why would she? Remember—she didn’t even know Joe had a wife. Her principal reaction was shock.”
“That’s her story. If you want to believe it.”
“No one has ever given us any reason not to believe it. Not even you. You say that she attacked you.”
“She did.”
“And Keri says you attacked her. Now which is more likely? That the attack would be initiated by a nineteen-year-old girl who’s just found out her boyfriend is married? Or the betrayed married woman with an acknowledged proclivity for violence? The woman who subsequently attacked Keri twice in front of witnesses. The woman we know has already lied once.”
“That’s not true! I didn’t—”
“I’ve seen you attack Keri myself. You admitted you attacked your husband. And I think you did it in Keri’s apartment, too. You obviously have a problem with your temper, ma’am. And although I’m no psychiatrist, I suspect your problems go even deeper than that.”
“How dare you! You don’t know what happened—”
“I think I do. You claim Keri made a lot of hateful threats to you as you were dragged out of the apartment by her brother. But why would she? She may have been shocked to learn that Joe had a wife, but she had no reason to believe he would leave her. He refused when you first asked him, something you’ve already admitted. And something you told Keri when you were at her apartment. He didn’t change his mind until later—after you worked on him some more. So what reason did Keri have to be making threats to you? None. None at all.” Ben leaned in closer. “I think you made it up, Mrs. McNaughton. You made it up because you hate Keri Dalcanton and you want to see her die.”
“That isn’t true!”
“I think it is. In fact, I know it is. The truth is, Keri has no reason to be telling lies about you. But you have every reason to tell lies about her. Because, as you’ve already admitted to the jury—you hate her.”
“That’s not so!” Andrea rose out of her chair. “Make him stop saying that!”
“You did lie, Mrs. McNaughton. You lied about the exercise machine and the threats and everything else. Anything that would make the police arrest Keri and pursue her relentlessly. Which they did. Because they felt they owed it to Joe’s poor widow.”
“Make him stop!” Andrea was screaming; almost out of control with rage. “Make him stop lying!”
“Your honor—”
Ben cut LaBelle off before he had a chance to interrupt. “And you told all those lies, Mrs. McNaughton, you stirred up the whole police department, because you hated that woman, you hated her with every ounce of your body, hated her so much you were willing to do anything—”
“She stole my husband!” Andrea’s impassioned screech reverberated across the courtroom. She leaned across the rail, almost flinging herself out of the box. “She stole my husband!”
Ben allowed the horrible silence following her outburst to fester. Andrea placed her hand against her temple, brushing the hair from her eyes, and lowered herself back to her chair, sobbing uncontrollably.
“And by that,” Ben said, “you don’t mean that she killed your husband, because she didn’t, and you know it. You mean she stole his love. She alienated his affections.”
Andrea’s head was bowed. Her voice was broken, her face shattered. “Whenever I think about the two of them, being together, doing all those disgusting things, I—I—just can’t stand it.”
Ben spoke quietly but insistently. “And so you decided to get back at her, the best way you knew how. By making sure she was Suspect Number One. By making sure the law-enforcement community hounded her relentlessly, never giving up until she had paid the final price for what she did to you. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it, Andrea?”
Andrea’s face was wet and streaked. She looked broken and pathetic. “Was that so much?” she asked. “She took everything from me. Everything.”
Ben nodded, then looked up at the bench. “That’s all, your honor. I have no more questions for this witness. I think she’s been through enough.” He glanced back at the defendant’s table. “I think we all have.”
47
AFTER THE FURIOUS EXCITEMENT of the last two witnesses, closing arguments were almost an anticlimax. LaBelle predictably rehashed all the incriminating evidence, focusing for obvious reasons on the forensic exhibits rather than the testimony of Andrea McNaughton.
He reminded everyone on the jury panel that it was uncontested that the murder weapon had come from Keri Dalcanton’s kitchen, that the chains had come from her bedroom, that her fingerprints were on both. And most compelling of all—that her skin was under Joe McNaughton’s fingernails.
“The defense has been very clever,” LaBelle cautioned them. “They’ve managed to come up with some explanation for almost every incriminating detail. Maybe the skin got under his nails during kinky sex. Maybe there was a fight when he told Keri he was breaking it off. On and on and on. But at some point you have to ask yourself—when do these stop being explanations, and start being excuses? Is it credible that there should be some outlandish, contrived explanation for every item in a mountain of evidence? Or is all of this simply proof of the obvious—that Keri Dalcanton killed Joe McNaughton in a fit of rage when he told her she would never see him again.”
LaBelle left the podium and approached the jury, appealing to them with his calm, logical delivery. Ben could see why he had the reputation he did. He wasn’t showy as such, but showy wasn’t always good in a criminal trial. He was assured and sincere, and in the end run, Ben knew that was much more important to most juries.
“Bear in mind, too,” LaBelle reminded them, “the psychiatrist who testified that Keri Dalcanton fantasized about killing Joe McNaughton long before she did—long before she ever had a reason. Even before his decision to end the relationship, murder was on her brain. Is that the dream of a normal, innocent lover? I should think not. That’s the dream of a twisted, dangerous mind. All she needed was a motive. And when Joe McNaughton finally gave it to her, she made her sick dream a reality.
“When Mr. Kincaid speaks to you, he will no doubt talk at great length about reasonable doubt. For the most part, I’ll leave that to him. But I will suggest to you, that the most important word in that phrase is not ‘doubt,’ but ‘reasonable.’ It is not enough for the defense to create doubts with wild speculations or crazy explanations. It is not enough to provide alternative explanations or—in a particularly crude effort—to pin the blame on the recently deceased who cannot defend themselves. There must be reasonable doubt. If there is no reasonable doubt that Keri Dalcanton killed Joe McNaughton, then you must deliver a guilty verdict. Indeed, you have a duty to do so. A duty you owe not just to me, or this court, but to everyone.”
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