In Self Defense (24 page)

“People’s forty-four, Your Honor,” Sundstrom declared, picking up the digital recorder with Richard Durant’s message on it, and passing it to Tom Colby, his second chair, who proceeded to play it for the jury.

“Is this that recording?” he inquired of his witness, when the message had been heard in full.

“It is,” Erin replied.

“And in the course of your investigation, Detective Hall,” he asked, laying the groundwork for a future witness, “did you have the recording examined by a voice analyst to confirm the voice was indeed that of Richard Durant?”

Erin nodded.  “We did.”

“What other evidence did you develop that led to the arrest of Mrs. Durant for the murder of her husband?”

“When we went back to the Durant home a few weeks after the incident, and did a reenactment of the crime,” Erin told the jury. “At which point, we realized that the scene had been altered.”

“Altered?  In what way?”

“We believe that Richard Durant was carrying a suitcase when he entered the bedroom that night, and we found reason to believe that the suitcase was removed by the defendant immediately prior to our arrival on the scene.”

“And did you form any conclusion as to why the suitcase was removed?”

“We concluded that Mrs. Durant did not want us to see anything that might have indicated she was aware that someone other than the stalker had entered the bedroom.”

“Objection,” the defense attorney said.  “Calls for speculation.”

“Sustained,” the judge concurred.

“Thank you, I have nothing further,” Sundstrom said.

***

“Detective Hall,” David Johansen began his cross-examination, “where did the idea of a serial stalker come from?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, was the idea that a serial stalker was after my client an idea that she put in your head?”

“No,” Erin admitted.  “The idea that there was a serial stalker on the loose came from my partner and me.  It was based on two previous cases we knew about that seemed to be very similar.”

“Not from Clare Durant?”

“No.”

“She didn’t tell you she was being stalked?”

“Well, not at first.”

“What do you mean -- not at first?”

“It was a friend of hers who originally contacted us.”

“A friend?  Are you saying that the defendant, my client, didn’t file the complaint?”

“No,” Erin conceded.  “She didn’t.”

“In fact, isn’t it true, that when you showed up, unannounced, at her place of work, she asked you to leave?”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“And isn’t it also true,” David pressed, “that although she finally admitted to receiving harassing phone calls, she didn’t want you to do anything about it?”

“Yes, that’s also true.”

“But you insisted?”

“Yes,” Erin responded.  “We didn’t think she understood how serious the matter was.”

“Didn’t understand how serious the matter was?” David repeated.  “Detective, what did you discover in the course of your investigation about Clare Durant’s life in the year prior to the shooting of her husband?”

“We learned that less than a month before the incident, her car was run off the road and she sustained serious injuries,” Erin replied, shifting a bit in her seat.  “Four months before that, she had a near-fatal accident in the Olympic Mountains.  And three months before that, she suffered from a bout of arsenic poisoning caused by contaminated bottled water.”

“In other words, she was having a pretty tough year of it, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes,” Erin replied with genuine empathy, “I would.”

“So let me see if I’ve got this straight -- while she’s somehow managing to deal with being poisoned, almost falling to her death, and then being driven off the road, you come along and convince her that there’s a serial stalker after her?”

Erin shrugged apologetically.  “Pretty much, yes.”

“You put the fear of God into her about what this fellow would do to her, and then you set up this sting, where you used her as live bait to catch this guy -- hopefully, before he could get to her?”

“Yes.”

“Only somehow, you didn’t quite make it in time, did you?”

“No,” Erin was forced to admit.  “We didn’t.”

“And now you want this jury to believe that, when someone did show up in the middle of the night -- just as you predicted he would -- heck, she knew it wasn’t any stalker, she knew it was her perfectly harmless husband coming home early from his business trip -- only it didn’t matter because she was planning to shoot him anyway?”

Erin hesitated.  “I know it sounds crazy,” she said.  “But yes, I think that’s exactly what happened.”

“Very good, Detective,” David said softly, and took his seat.

***

“I thought she was my friend,” Clare said wistfully.  “I thought she understood.”

“She’s only doing her job,” David told her.

***

Eddie Ridenour, the crime scene analyst, took the stand on Monday.  He followed up on Erin’s testimony with the forensic evidence he had assembled, much of it in the form of slides and computer reenactments, which suggested that the victim had been carrying a suitcase when he entered the bedroom and that the suitcase had somehow disappeared by the time the police arrived.

“Mr. Ridenour,” David asked on cross.  “Can you say, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Clare Durant knew who was entering her bedroom that night?”

“What I can say is that she could clearly see that the shape of the man who was entering the room was the same general shape as her husband,” Eddie replied.

“Did she know what the shape of the stalker was?”

The crime scene analyst paused.  “Well, I don’t know about that,” he said after a moment.  “But I have to assume she didn’t.”

“So, if the stalker just happened to have the same general shape as her husband, and Clare Durant had taken the time to find out, she could have been the one who ended up dead by the time the police showed up, couldn’t she?”

“She could see he was carrying a suitcase,” Eddie reminded everyone.  ”That should have given her pause.”

“Yes, about the suitcase,” David said, thoughtfully rubbing his chin.  “Did you have reason to know that the stalker wouldn’t have brought a suitcase with him?”

“No,” Eddie had to admit.  “I had no reason to know that.”

“But you’re the expert, Mr. Ridenour -- you and the police detectives, aren’t you?  And if none of you knew what the stalker looked like, or whether or not he would be bringing a suitcase with him, why would you expect a panicked Clare Durant to know?”

“If it was an honest mistake,” Eddie suggested in his own defense, “why did she remove it before the police got there?”

“Now that’s an interesting point that apparently no one seems to have bothered to investigate, isn’t it?” David countered.

“Objection,” Mark Sundstrom called.  “Argumentative.”

“Withdrawn,” David said as he took his seat.

***

“That’s going to be a real sticking point for the jury, isn’t it?” Clare said with a sigh.  “Why I moved the suitcase.”

“Yes, it will be,” David told her.  “But only for a while.  Then it won’t matter at all.”

***

The voice analyst who had examined the digital recording was called to testify.  He confirmed that, in comparing the message that had been left on Stephanie Burdick’s answering machine, which the jury had already heard, with other known recordings of Richard Durant speaking, he had found sufficient markers to conclude that the jury had indeed listened to Durant’s voice.

“Mr. Abado,” David inquired casually, when the prosecutor had concluded his direct examination, “is there any way for you to determine, from all your analyses, whether Richard Durant was telling the truth on that recording?”

The analyst blinked. “Telling the truth?” he repeated.  “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean, can you testify here in this court today that Richard Durant actually did call his wife and tell her he was going to be coming home that night around midnight?”

“Well, no,” Abado replied.  “Without a recording of such a conversation, there would be no way for me to testify to that.”

“So he could have lied to his mistress when he told her what he was going to tell his wife, or he could have been telling the truth but then changed his mind, for some reason, and decided not to tell her, is that right?”

“Sure,” Abado agreed.

“Thank you,” David said with a smile and a nod.  “I have nothing further.”

***

On and on it went, witness after witness.  Police, analysts, technicians -- all clarifying the technical and observable aspects of the case.

And then, almost two weeks into the trial, Stephanie Burdick was called to testify. All decked out in Givenchy and Prada, she walked purposefully down the aisle, looking far more like a runway model than a boardroom mistress.  A low murmur rippled across the packed gallery of spectators at the show.  This was the exalted, Seattle’s top rung, so to speak, the envy of mere mortals, the embodiment of you-can-look-but-you-can’t-touch.  Few, if any of those in the courtroom, had ever seen the socialite in person.

Not one to dance around, Mark Sundstrom cut right to the chase.  “What was your relationship with the deceased?” he asked, as soon as his witness had taken the oath.

Stephanie took a deep breath.  “We were lovers,” she replied with a defiant toss of her head.  “For a little more than two years.”

The gallery erupted.  Even members of the normally stoic jury couldn’t keep their eyes from popping.  This was not information that had been allowed to make its way into the media, and so it took Judge Lazarus several minutes to gavel the crowd to silence.

At the defense table, Clare steeled herself for what was to come, hands clenched in her lap.  Whatever else Richard was, he had always been discreet about his philandering, and few had known about it, until now.  Now, the whole world would know.

“And how did you believe this two-year relationship of yours was going to end?”  Sundstrom continued when order is finally restored in the courtroom.

“It was my understanding that Richard was going to divorce his wife,” Stephanie said softly, with an almost girlish blush touching her cheeks, “and that we were going to be married.”

“And this was your understanding because?

“Because it’s what Richard said,” the witness testified.  “On any number of occasions.”

“Richard Durant told you he was going to divorce his wife and marry you?”

“Yes.”

“All right, let’s go back to the afternoon of October 19
th
of last year,” the prosecutor said.  “Did you receive a telephone message from Richard Durant on that day?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What did the message say?”

“It said that he was coming home from his trip a day early and that he would be coming by my place as soon as he got in.”

“Did it say anything else?”

“Yes, it also said that he was going to call his wife and tell her that he was on his way home, but that he wouldn’t get there until much later that night.”

“And is that, in fact, what happened?”

“As far as I know, yes,” Stephanie confirmed.  “Richard arrived at my place a little after seven o’clock.”

“And what time did he leave?”

“I believe it was a little after eleven-thirty.”

“Now,” the prosecutor continued, “do you happen to know how long it would normally take for him to drive from your apartment on Capital Hill to his home in Laurelhurst?”

“If I remember right, Richard said once that it took him around half an hour.”

“Sundstrom nodded.  “So that would have him turning into his driveway sometime shortly after midnight, give or take a few minutes, wouldn’t it?” he inquired.

“I guess so.”

“And several weeks after the murder, what did you do with that recorded message?”

“When I heard that Richard’s death had been officially ruled accidental, I took it to the police.”

Sundstrom walked over to the prosecution table and retrieved the digital recorder from Tom Colby.  “Is this what you gave to Detectives Hall and Grissom that day?” he asked his star witness.

Stephanie nodded.  “Yes, it is.”

“Just as a matter of curiosity -- are you in the habit of keeping your messages?”

“No, I don’t usually keep my messages,” Stephanie admitted, the blush deepening.  “But by the time I got around to erasing that one, Richard was already dead, and I -- well, I -- I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t bring myself to destroy it.”

“Thank you,” Sundstrom said.

***

Clare was numb.  This testimony was more devastating to her than any of the scientific stuff she had had to sit through.  She glanced at the jury.  She could tell that they believed what Stephanie had said.  After all, they were probably reasoning, why would someone of the socialite’s stature subject herself to this kind of public exposure if she weren’t telling the truth?  If Clare were a member of the jury, she knew she would probably believe her, too.