Dread Champion (29 page)

THIRTY-TWO

Dozens of eyes seemed to shoot lasers through Kerra as she and Brett resumed their seats after lunch. It was all thanks to the sound bite–hungry media, Kerra thought with a grimace. She and Brett had quickly become an official item, another fascination to ogle and whisper about as the trial unfolded.

Well, so what? She
was
with Brett. Let the people talk all they wanted.

Kerra had barely floated back to the ground after her two days in Salinas. One vignette after another still shimmered through her head. Sight-seeing with him in Carmel. A picnic dinner at the beach Saturday night, followed by a barefoot walk through the sand as the setting sun gleamed orange red over gentle waves. A drive through the ranch on Sunday, Brett pointing out the different crops. Brett had needed to spend some time with his foreman, catching up on the overall business of the ranch. Kerra had been prewarned and had taken a book along to read. But she never opened it. All she could do, as she lolled on the couch in the spacious family room, was think of Brett, relive her moments with Brett,
feel
Brett. Those two days were like a jewel suspended in time, worries of the trial temporarily pushed aside.

Reality had hit during the drive back to the Bay Area. When Kerra had slid into her bed in Aunt Chelsea's house Sunday night, she'd felt uniquely alone.Not the gut-wrenching aloneness that had claimed her ever since Dave's death but the aching desire of a heart newly awakened and trembling.

Kerra found the crowd at the courthouse that morning both unnerving and fortifying, if that made any sense. She didn't like the glances, the whispers, the reporters sidling up to her with questions she refused to answer.And now the cameras were filming her as well as Brett. But in an odd way, all those troubling ingredients pushed her closer to him. They'd been thrown into the same roiling stew pot, and all the stirring in the world would not keep her from him.

The jury filed in. Of their own accord Kerra's eyes fastened on Aunt Chelsea.Her aunt smiled and raised her eyebrows. The loving expression sent darts into Kerra's chest. She knew she was causing her aunt worry. If only Aunt Chelsea could realize that she felt better and more alive than she had in a long time.

“All rise.” The bailiff 's voice boomed through the courtroom. Judge Chanson settled into her chair and donned her glasses. Kerra cast a look at Brett. He reached over and squeezed her knee.

Dr. Gaston, definitely the nerdiest-looking man Kerra had ever seen, resumed his stance beside the easel and charts, pointer in hand. Stan Breckshire fussed with his notes at the prosecution table before skidding back his chair.

“All right, Dr. Gaston,” the prosecutor said, scratching his jaw, “let's continue where we left off.”

For the next hour Dr. Gaston's thin voice wafted over the courtroom as he displayed one depiction after another of current directions and speed off Breaker Beach. He also talked of wind speed, of how a body would float rather than sink and so was even more susceptible to being pushed out to sea. The testimony weighted the courtroom with its import. According to Dr. Gaston, the body of Shawna Welk would have been carried out to open ocean “unless some other presence in the water, such as a shark, interrupted the process.”

Stan Breckshire paced as he questioned, snatching up his notes and throwing them back on the table, his forehead creased in concentration.

“Now.”He halted abruptly, fingers drumming his chin.“Can you tell us about the tides on the night of February fifteenth and in the early-morning hours of February sixteenth?”

“Certainly.”Dr. Gaston flipped a page on his chart.“Latitude and longitude for Breaker Beach are as follows: 36.8017 degrees north, 121.7900 degrees west. On the night of Friday, February fifteenth, the moon was at what we call the waxing crescent. This is the bare sliver we see as the moon begins a new cycle that will end in a full moon. High tide at Breaker Beach occurred at 1:02 a.m. on February sixteenth. The tide was at 4.20 feet. Low tide occurred at 6:45 a.m. and was at 1.88 feet.”

“Okay. So in five hours and forty-three minutes, the tide receded …”—Stan Breckshire's lips moved silently; Kerra quickly calculated—“about two and one-third feet.”

“That is correct.”

“Which means, if you do the math, that in the space of an hour and a half, the tide would have receded approximately seven inches, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And when the tide recedes, what is the condition of the sand that was previously covered by water?”

“Well,”Dr. Gaston said, pursing his lips, “it's smooth and packed. And wet.”

“Yes, naturally.” Stan Breckshire glanced at the jury, many of whom were taking notes.

Seven inches of wet sand.
In that instant Kerra's mathematical brain put it all together. Tracey Wilagher's testimony of seeing half a footprint in the wet sand, the rest of it smudged away. The smudged part was where the water level would have been when Shawna left the print. The time of high tide, the time Tracey said she'd been at the beach—it all fit.

As the prosecutor continued his questions, a stillness settled in Kerra' stomach until she practically hummed with it. She fiddled with her pant leg; her neck tensed until it ached. She couldn't help boring a hole with her eyes into Darren Welk's one-quarter profile as he sat at the defense table. As always, he was still as stone, except for those flexing hands.

The strength in those hands.

Ever since the first day of trial, Kerra's mind had been filled with so many things. Her loss of Dave, her disappointment in Aunt Chelsea's being a juror, the initial fascination with the bustling and intriguing courtroom scene. Then Brett. She'd wondered about Darren Welk's guilt or innocence, had even on some rational level decided that he was guilty. But she'd held that knowledge away from her heart. The more her being had sung with the thrill of Brett, the more she'd cringed from that knowledge. Now it hit her full in the face.

Darren Welk had killed his wife on Breaker Beach.Her body had washed out to sea.

Kerra was falling in love with the son of a murderer.

W
OULD THIS DAY'S TESTIMONY
never
end? The words dragged on and on for Brett, implications of the details sagging him in his chair.He surveyed the jury. Even with all the analysis and math, they seemed completely attentive. Tracey and Lonnie had enthralled them with personal, emotional stories. But these details were the facts, cold and clear, the evidence of tides and currents and inches of wet sand adding to the blood analyses, the tooth X-rays. His dad's claim of vague, drunken memories had been irreparably tossed aside, trampled underfoot by the weight of science.

Brett could hardly bear it.He was going to have to do something drastic to save his dad. He needed his father to come home.

Terrance Clyde cross-examined Dr. Gaston at length, but his answers did little to quell Brett's anxiety. Then, to make matters worse, the prosecutor called an expert on sharks. Eric Vanderling, who looked no older than thirty, was from the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation in Santa Cruz. Brett groaned inwardly at what he knew would follow.

Vanderling talked about the three kinds of sharks that attacked people the most—tigers, bulls, and great whites. The great whites had attacked humans more times than had the other two types of sharks put together. Although shark attacks were extremely rare, the California coast around Monterey County, where Breaker Beach was located, seemed a prime spot. Great whites, the most lethal to humans, swam in the cooler waters off the California coast. They were known to eat seals voraciously in the Red Triangle—a hundred-mile area reaching from Bodega Bay to Santa Cruz.

On February 10, five days before Shawna Welk disappeared, a great white shark had attacked a man about a mile off Zmudowski State Beach.

Brett could feel Kerra's tension. Numerous times she shifted in her seat.When Vanderling showed enlarged photos of a great white's open mouth, she gasped quietly.

“Here we have an actual great white shark's tooth.” Vanderling held it up as if it were treasure. “The tooth is about one and three-quarters inches long and razor sharp.”

Carefully, milking the moment for all it was worth, Stan Breck-shire held out his palm for the tooth, then eased over to the first juror, who stoically accepted it. The jurors passed it grimly, some of them gingerly touching fingers to the tip.

“Does the shark have similar upper and lower teeth?”Breckshire prompted. Brett clenched his jaw. Hadn't the point been made?

“Yes, it does.” Vanderling pointed again to his photo. “In fact, a great white shark has multiple rows of teeth. If it happens to lose one, another moves forward to replace it.”

“What about the power of the bite? Has it ever been measured?”

“It's very powerful. A great white can exert pressure of two thousand pounds per square inch.”

Stan shook his head in horror. “Two thousand pounds as sharp as knives.”

“Yes.”

Brett stole a look at Kerra, then allowed his gaze to cruise the courtroom. Everyone was so horrifically fascinated. Shark's teeth formed a human's worst nightmare—being eaten alive.

At least Shawna had already been dead.

Or so he chose to believe.

He shuddered. Kerra flicked him a look of concern. Thankfully, the prosecutor was finally through with his questions.

Erica Salvador rose from her seat like a diminutive general come to calm the troops. She clicked her way around the table toward the jury box and thrust out a hand for the tooth. Juror number twelve obediently dropped it into her palm.

“Thank you.” She swiveled to the court reporter's desk and tossed the tooth upon it. Then turned to face the witness with a deprecating stare.

“Mr. Vanderling, what were those statistics that you mentioned before the prosecutor's little sideshow? The one about how rare shark attacks are?”

Vanderling straightened with the expression of a chastised child. “Well, like I said, last year was an unusually high year for attacks. Ninety-four were reported.”

“And in the year 2000?”

“Seventy-nine.”

“And in 1999?”

Vanderling furrowed his eyebrows. “Fifty-eight.”

“How about 1998?”

“Fifty-four.”

“I see. And this is
worldwide?

“Yes.”

“Would a person have just as much, if not more, chance of being struck by lightning?”

“Yes.”

“Or dying by some freak accident?”

“Yes.”

“How about being eaten by a bear?”

“Well, not in the ocean.”

A nervous titter ran through the courtroom. Erica did not appear amused.

“Mr. Vanderling, is it not true that research indicates that these extremely rare attacks are in fact mistakes on the part of the shark?”

“That's what seems to be the case. Sharks are not out to get humans. They are wonderfully designed creatures who live in a habitat that humans like to enter. Sometimes we get in their way. As for the great white,we think the sharks mistake humans for seals, which are their favorite source of food.”

“And do tell us, sir,what the great white shark does when he realizes his mistake?”

“They tend to spit out whatever they've bitten off.”

“In other words, they don't
eat
an entire person.”

“Usually not, no.”

“Thank you, sir; that is all.” Erica shot a look at the jury, as if to say, “The sky is not falling.”

“Oh, one more thing.” She turned back to Vanderling.“Were you at Breaker Beach the night of February 15?”

He looked surprised.“No.”

“Do you have any idea what happened to Shawna Welk?”

“No.”

“No proof or even the slightest bit of evidence that a great white shark, who doesn't like to bite humans, ate Mrs.Welk but somehow managed to miss one tooth?” The cynicism fairly dripped off her tongue.

“No, ma'am, I don't.”

Erica let the answer hang in the air. Then she marched back to the defense table, stabbing Stan Breckshire with an outraged glance.

The courtroom rustled. Jury members sat back in their chairs. Reporters scribbled. Brett hoped against hope that Erica's disdain-filled tactics would work.

THIRTY-THREE

“The people call Eddie Hunt.”

Chelsea watched Stan Breckshire eye the courtroom door with vindictive determination. The prosecutor was not adept at hiding his emotions. She could tell he was seething from the defense attorney's cross-examination of Mr.Vanderling.

The bailiff pulled the door open. Eddie Hunt, a craggy-faced young man with blond hair, stepped into the courtroom. Chelsea's heart immediately went out to him. Eddie slowly made his way down the aisle, favoring his right leg. Stan Breckshire fastened an empathetic look upon his face as Eddie took the oath, then seated himself awkwardly in the witness chair.

Chelsea headed a new piece of paper with his name.

Stan laced and unlaced his fingers. “Thank you for coming,Mr. Hunt,” he said gravely. “I hope this will not be too difficult for you.”

The young man nodded. “Sure, okay.”

Eddie looked like such a sun-kissed California kid, Chelsea thought. He was probably only a decade older than her own son Michael.

“How old are you?” Stan asked, as if he'd read Chelsea's mind.

“Twenty-three.”

“And what do you do?”

“I work at a store in Santa Cruz that sells surfing and scuba equipment.”

“Do you take part in these activities yourself?”

Pain creased Eddie's face. “I used to surf. I hope someday I can do it again. Right now I don't even go in the ocean.”

“Could you tell us why that is?” Stan asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

Eddie seemed to gather himself. His eyes drifted beyond Stan. Chelsea's pen poised over her pad of paper.“It was on a Sunday earlier this year. February tenth.… ”