Death Qualified Part 26

John Kendricks described the ransacking of his house and the car. There still was not a word allowed about the rape murder of the young woman in the woods, or about how the sheriff had come to have the car, but Barbara was satisfied. None of that was within the scope of John Kendrick's knowledge. She took him back over his testimony about Lucas's careful handling of his backpack, which she introduced as evidence, and his fear that he was being pursued. That was where she had intended to lead him all along, where she had intended to end her cross-examination.

When she sat down, she wrote a hurried note. Have B find out when L bought the car, how and when it was paid for, and how many miles on it. She pa.s.sed it to her father without giving a thought to the fact that she was asking for his active help and that without hesitation he was giving it. He glanced at the note, nodded, and left his seat, left the courtroom. She listened to Tony make the same points he had made in his direct examination; he ignored all the new information as if he had not even heard it. But he had a dilemma, she knew. He had to open the case, admit the past, or she would have a good argument that the district attorney's office had not done its job in investigating the murder. By now the jury had been teased so much about the car that not to tell them about it would simply irritate them to the point where they could take their frustration out on Tony and his case. He knew that as well as she.

But he also knew that once opened, the case could blossom like a field of daisies, making it hard, even impossible, to control what else would be introduced. He liked his cases simple: Prodigal husband returns home and is shot by abandoned wife. Simple. Easy to comprehend.

Understandable. Natural. That basic simplicity now threatened to turn into chaos. She was pleased with the a.n.a.logy. That seemed natural to her. From elementary simplicity to chaos.

Tony was badgering John Kendricks; although tempted to start objecting, she resisted. John was a strong witness, not fl.u.s.tered, not visibly angry; he was calm and quiet, and he was making Tony look more boorish with every mid-sentence interruption.

Instead of calling his next witness, Tony approached the bench after John Kendricks was dismissed. Judge Lundgren motioned to Barbara to come forward also.

"Mr. De Angelo has asked for a recess until three this afternoon in order to present his next witness. If you have no objections, that is what we shall do."

"None, Your Honor."

"Very well. You may summon Sheriff LeMans." He nodded to Tony.

That afternoon the courtroom was packed.

"Someone leaked that the murder of that girl will be introduced," Barbara muttered glumly to her father.

"Way it goes," he muttered back.

Sheriff LeMans liked cowboy outfits and apparently saw no reason to dress differently for a court appearance. His boots had amirror finish, and his silver belt buckle gleamed. His shirt was embroidered in rainbow colors.

Barbara had trouble trying to picture him playing Bach in a chamber music group.

Tony had come on like a sophisticate trying to get a simple answer from a slow man when he questioned John Kendricks. With Sheriff LeMans that image yielded to a different one; he was detached and coolly professional as he led the sheriff through the events that led to discovery of the Honda.

When Sheriff LeMans described the injuries suffered by the young woman, there was a collective gasp in the courtroom, as if many people simultaneously breathed, "Finally!"

Tony made him repeat the list: She had been brutally raped. She had been sodomized with a foreign object, probably a stick. She had been badly beaten, her neck broken, her jaw broken, two teeth broken out. Her wrists had been tied with a rope, tight enough to lacerate them severely, and she had been dragged over the lava for hundreds of feet, resulting in further mutilation of her naked body. Cause of death was internal injuries and exsanguination: She had bled to death. Finally she had been dumped in the creek.

Barbara heard Nell's choking gasp at the mention of dragging that girl over the lava, but she did not turn toward her at the moment. When she did, Nell's face was ghastly in its pallor.

"Hang in there," Barbara murmured.

"Do you need a recess?" Nell shook her head, but she looked as if she might vomit any second.

Barbara patted her arm and turned her attention back to the sheriff.

He told about taking the car in and, after the laboratory had finished with it, turning it over to John Kendricks.

Tony had him point out on a map the location of the car, of the landslide that had closed the dirt road, and had him trace how the road used to meander around the mountain until it eventually connected to Old Halleck Hill Road, the same road that Lucas had used to reach the trail down to the ledge.

"Why isn't this case marked closed?" Tony asked sharply toward the end of his direct examination.

"I never close a case until I'm satisfied--" "How long have you known John and Amy Kendricks?"

"--that all the questions have been answered--" "Just answer the question, Sheriff, please."

"I'm trying to do that, Mr. De Angelo but one at a time, like you asked them."

"Your Honor, please instruct the witness to respond to the direct questions."

"I believe he is doing so, Mr. De Angelo Judge Lundgren said.

Tony turned back to Sheriff LeMans, who said in his deliberate way, "I've known John and Amy

Kendricks all my life, and theirs."

"Thank you," Tony said with heavy sarcasm.

"When did they tell you their house had been broken into?"

"In July, the eleventh."

"Ah. Was that when they claimed the car had been torn apart?"

"Yes, it was. And the car was torn apart. I saw it."

"You went out to their house on the eleventh of July to inspect the car? Is that right?"

"Yes, it is."

"And was the house torn up, too, Sheriff?"

He shook his head.

"No. They had cleaned up the mess long before that."

"In fact, you don't know that there was a mess to clean up, do you, Sheriff?"

"Yes, I do. They told me."

"They told you. Did you check the car for fingerprints?"

"Yes, we did."

"And what were the results?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? No prints at all?"

"No, I mean no outsiders' prints. John had driven the car home. We found his fingerprints, his son's, Janet Moseley's, and some of our own people's." Tony stopped soon after that; he was satisfied, the expression on his face indicated. None of this would damage his case, he implied by that expression. So Lucas had done a heinous crime on his way home--that didn't change the events once he got there. He sat down, propped his chin in his hand, and watched Barbara approach the sheriff.

"I'd like to start back when you first learned that Janet Moseley was missing. When was that?"

"Wednesday, June seventh. Eleven in the morning."

"And you immediately went to the town of Sisters to start tracing the movements of Lucas Kendricks and Janet Moseley?"

"Sent a deputy, Bob Silverman."

"Tell us what you learned in Sisters, Sheriff."

Tony objected, and Judge Lundgren stood up.

"The hour is getting late, and I'm afraid we're all fatigued. We will have a fifteen-minute recess and resume. Ms. Holloway, Mr. De Angelo in my chambers, if you please." When they arrived at his room, he was standing at a wide window with his hands clasped behind his back.

Heavy mist seemed to press inward against the windowpane.

The room was furnished in delicate-looking French empire antiques; there were two skylights, each decorated with a mobile of hanging plants in silver filigree pots.

Beyond the skylights the gray sky seemed too close.

"I've sent for coffee," Judge Lundgren said.

"Sit down, sit down." He continued to stand at the window until a second or two later there was a tap on the door; it opened to admit a gray-haired woman with a tray that contained a silver pot and very fine Haviland coffee service.

After she left, Judge Lundgren went to the desk to pour the coffee for them, and then took his own around the desk and sat down.

"Mr. De Angelo he said, then paused and shook his head.

"Tony, I am very well aware of what you are attempting.

I appreciate your efforts to keep your case confined to the vicinity and the time of the murder. And, Ms.

Holloway, I am equally aware of your efforts to broaden the scope of the trial. Now, Sheriff LeMans is a qualified officer of the law, well regarded, and highly skilled. He is a competent witness, as competent as the sheriff of this county. I will not permit you to hobble your own witness, Tony. And I intend to keep the court in session until the sheriff is finished with his testimony today, however long that takes. I have no intention of either keeping him in town overnight, or returning him tomorrow from his own county." He lifted his cup and peered at Tony over the rim before he sipped.

"Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir," Tony said without hesitation.

"But this is all a delaying tactic on her part. It has nothing to do with what happened on that ledge."

Judge Lundgren inclined his head slightly.

"At some future time I may concur with that determination, but for now, this aspect of the case has been introduced, and I shall let Ms. Holloway pursue it." He turned his gaze toward Barbara; his pale blue eyes were cool and very remote.

"Are you prepared to make a connection between these events and the death of Lucas Kendricks?"

"Yes, I am, Your Honor," she said steadily.

"Because if I decide that you are introducing conspiracies and muddying the water in order to obfuscate the facts, I shall instruct the jury that they cannot consider in any way any incident that occurred before Lucas Kendricks and his wife confronted each other on that ledge.

Do you understand?"

"Yes, of course. They are connected."

"Very well. One other matter." Looking at Tony again, his voice very formal and proper, he asked, "Mr. De Angelo you are not required to answer at this time, but I should like to know if you intend to introduce the perpetuation of testimony of Dr. Ruth Brandy wine. If you choose not to make that decision yet, very well, but if you have already decided, I should like to know. Also, will that be your last witness, as you have previously indicated?"

Barbara's hands were moist, but she made no motion to wipe them; she did not move as she waited for Tony to answer. He had not expected that, she thought with satisfaction.

He had thought he would have until tomorrow to mull it over, and, of course, he still could. Judge Lundgren would not insist on knowing now, as he had made clear, but not to answer was probably out of Tony's range of possibilities. He was a firm believer in the power of authority, and the judge was on a higher step of the power ladder than he was.

"Yes, Your Honor," he said finally.

"I was hesitating because I didn't see any point in smearing the memory of Lucas Kendricks, but now that this whole other aspect has been brought up, I will introduce the video. And at this time I have no further witnesses to call."

Judge Lundgren nodded thoughtfully.

"Ms. Holloway has filed a formal request for a short recess in order for Dr. Brandywine to be subpoenaed as a hostile witness who was evasive and not forthcoming in her testimony." He drank his coffee and put the cup down.

"I shall make my decision and tell you when court adjourns today. You are both ordered not to divulge this development to the public, or the press, or to allow it to leak." He looked at Tony with a frown.

"I am very unhappy at the direction this case has taken toward becoming a circus. Now, there is very little time remaining of our recess. Thank you both for coming." He stood up, dismissing them.

In the hall outside his door Tony swung around to say harshly, "You really think you can get Brandywine up here to accept a subpoena? You're whistling in the dark. I intend to get your client. In the end she'll be on that stand crying, pleading, saying she's sorry she did it."

"Who do you really want to see crying and pleading, her or me?" she said just as harshly. He stalked away.

There was no time to confer with her father when she returned to the courtroom. She nodded, and he left his seat and the room, and she began to guide Sheriff LeMans through the events starting with the call about the missing girl, on through the ranger's spotting the car, and finding it and the evidence of a crime.

"Exactly what did the ranger report seeing. Sheriff LeMans?"

"Just that he spotted a gray Honda Civic on the forest service road. We had an APB out on the car, a description of the man and the young lady, and her name."

"When did he report this?"

"Late Friday evening, six, seven."

"And then what did you do?"

"I sent two deputies in a jeep to check it out. They took a camera, and their instructions were to interview anyone they found, or take pictures if no one was there, not to touch anything, and then hightail it to a telephone and let me know. That's what they did. I went out with a crew first thing Sat.u.r.day morning."

"And the pictures? Will you identify this packet of pictures, please, Sheriff LeMans?"

"They're the ones," he said, after looking them over.

"They handed in the camera and the department had the film developed and marked each picture."

"Which way is the car headed here?"

He took the picture and looked at it, then handed it back.