Sleight of Hand (23 page)

"She can't introduce new evidence in cross," Dodgson said aggrievedly "There's nothing wrong with using schematics in such a case. It isn't as if we're trying to sell property here. Besides, this witness has trouble reading a real map."

"It's hardly new," Barbara said. "It's making sense of a child's drawing. And she's your witness. You should have tutored her."

"Enough," Judge Wells said sharply. "You have my decision. It's four now. Will you finish your last two witnesses today?" He handed Dodgson's map to him.

Dodgson looked sullen as he took his own schematic back. "I'll be done. She's the one delaying things here."

"And will you be prepared to begin the defense in the morning?" the judge asked Barbara.

"Yes, Your Honor. But if he can't rein in this witness, I suspect it's going to be a late adjournment today."

The judge waved them both away.

Dodgson used his own simplified map. On it, there appeared to be only the few houses on Owl Creek Road, and the single Ogden house on Hunter's Lane and nothing else between Eugene and the coast. It was not fast or easy, but Dodgson got Mrs. Ogden to describe their farm as forty acres, with a wheat field across the road from the house, apple and pear orchards, a large garden and cornfields. They had lived in the area all their lives, and she knew all the people who lived on Owl Creek Road.

"Are you familiar with their habits, their comings and goings, things of that sort?"

Dodgson asked.

She looked surprised at the question, nodded, then said, "Well, you do, you know, with neighbors you've known for years. Be hard to surprise any of us I guess."

Dodgson got to the night of the murder quickly as soon as the background was out of the way. "Do you recall that night?" he asked.

"Oh, yes indeed. It was my daughter's birthday sleepover. Not that her birthday was on the weekend, because actually it was on Tuesday that week, but you don't have a sleepover with teenage girls on a school night. They don't sleep at all, you know. Up all night, and eating all night. So we let her have her friends over on that Saturday night, and I made cake and fried chicken for their supper, with sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows, the way kids like it..."

She would have gone on, but Dodgson held up his hand and interrupted. "All right.

Please tell the jury what you observed that night at a little after nine o'clock."

"You can't believe how tired I was," she said. "All that cooking, and shopping earlier, and trying to feed four girls. People think boys eat a lot, but believe you me, girls can match them bite for bite, and then some. I told them I'd clean up the kitchen, you know, let them have a real party without chores or anything, and that's what I did. And they went on to the den to do their things, you know, fix their hair, try on clothes, things like that. My husband went to Bend to visit his folks. They retired over there, but they don't much like it. Too cold, but he just didn't want to be home when they were gong to sleep over. They scream, you know, and that bothers him, so he went over to see his folks, and I cleaned up the kitchen and all."

"Then after about nine what happened?" Dodgson asked, not raising his voice, but unable to conceal a hint of impatience that sharpened his tone.

"I'm coming to that," she said. "See, I was tired, dead tired, and I just plopped down on the sofa to watch television. Usually I shut the draperies, but I didn't think of it, I was that tired, and I turned on the television. We have a remote, you know.

You don't have to get up to do anything, and I guess I wouldn't have got up no matter what, once I settled down. And headlights hit me right in the eyes."

"Headlights," Dodgson repeated. "Did you notice what time it was?"

"Yes. There's a clock on the television, green numbers that glow in the dark and all, and it was a quarter after nine. I thought it was funny for anyone to be leaving that late on a rainy night. Sometimes weeks go by without anyone going out at night. You see them coming home sometimes, but not going out. And it raining and all."

Dodgson finished with her soon after that, and Barbara stood up and introduced her own map and placed a transparency over it. Mrs. Ogden looked at it with a blank expression when Barbara pointed to it and said, "Can you recognize your own house on this map?"

She couldn't.

Carefully Barbara circled the house. "And this is the corner lot that's going wild,"

she said, tracing its outline. "Then Owl Creek Road, and the residences on it." She pointed out each one, then circled it. "So you know everyone on that road, and have known them for years, all except Mr. and Mrs. Lederer. Is that right?"

"I know them," Mrs. Ogden said. "They're all good friends, except like you said, Mr. and Mrs. Lederer, and I hardly know them at all, but they've been so busy—"

Barbara interrupted her. "All right. Now let's look at Hunter's Lane. Here's Highway 126, and your wheat field, your house, and then there's a curve in the road and Owl Creek Road on the left. The curve continues for a time, and there's another household about a mile and a bit up here. Do you know the people in that house?"

"The first house up that way?" Mrs. Ogden asked. "Sure, that's Sam and Mary Lewiston. They been there for twenty years or more."

"How about the next household?" Barbara asked, tracing Hunter's Lane for another half mile or so. Mrs. Ogden knew them also. And the next family as well, but after that she shook her head.

"On up farther there's the Arnold family. I know them," she said helpfully. "Maybe a couple more up that way."

Barbara nodded. "So there are a lot of families who live in the area who might drive on Hunter's Lane routinely. Is that right?"

"Not usually late at night, and in the rain like that," Mrs. Ogden said.

"All right, let's talk about the lights you saw. From your living room can you see Owl Creek Road?"

"Not from there, but from the kitchen, or outside the house. Our garage is in the way, and the empty lot with all that wild growth."

"Does your living room look out over Hunter's Lane?"

"Yes. That's out front."

"For lights to come into your living room, the car had to be on the curve, didn't it?"

"I guess so," Mrs. Ogden said uncertainly.

"It had to be facing your house, the lights aimed at your house or the lights wouldn't have hit you in the eyes. Is that correct?"

Again Mrs. Ogden's uncertainty was clear as she agreed that was right.

Well, Barbara thought then, she wasn't trying to convince Mrs. Ogden of anything.

This was for the benefit of the jurors, who were watching attentively.

"All right, and then, when the car finished the curve and straightened out, the headlights would have been on the road, no longer on your house. Just lights on the road. Is that right?"

"I didn't keep seeing them come in like that," Mrs. Ogden said.

"What did you see?"

"Just lights. There's no streetlights out that way, you know. So it was just lights on the road, like you said."

"Did you see a car?"

"I couldn't. Dark, raining and all, and no streetlights or anything."

"Thank you," Barbara said then. "No further questions."

As Dodgson started his redirect, in spite of herself Barbara was thinking about Stephanie's presence in court again. Did she have suitcases packed, cash in hand, ready to grab Eve and bolt if Eve's name came up? Did she believe the prosecution offered no threat, but she couldn't be sure about Barbara? What would satisfy her?

The quick conviction that was predicted?

Dodgson called his final witness. Detective Stephen Jankow, who was just as intense and hungry looking as he had been the last time Barbara had seen him, when he had been sent to collect evidence from Wally's house. He would burn out young if he didn't lighten up, she thought fleetingly as he told about his history as a homicide detective.

"Are you familiar with the area of Hunter's Lane and Owl Creek Road?" Dodgson asked.

"Yes, sir. I was out there two times, first to collect evidence from the defendant, and the next time to ask questions of his neighbors."

"And what was the result of your questioning of his neighbors?"

"I asked each one if they had seen any car leaving the area the night of April 26, and no one had except Mrs. Ogden. And I asked each one if they had driven out that night at nine or later. They all said no."

"What else did you do following the questioning of the area residents?"

"I drove from the defendants house to Mr. Wilkins's house and timed the drive. It took thirty-five minutes."

Dodgson started to return to the prosecution table, then paused and asked, as if it were an afterthought, "Detective Jankow, precisely when is the homicide unit called to investigate a case?"

"Whenever there's a violent and/or unexplained death," he said promptly.

"Are all those instances determined to be homicides?"

"No, sir. Sometimes it's decided they were accidents, and now and then one's determined to have been a suicide."

"When is that determination made?" Dodgson asked.

"Sometimes not until the investigation is completed, sometimes right away, depending on the situation."

"Is the investigation concerning the death of Connie Wilkins still under investigation?" Dodgson asked.

"Yes, sir. It's ongoing."

The Prosecutor nodded and took his seat. "Your witness," he said to Barbara, almost casually.

He looked smug, as well he should she thought. That was a good move, one that constricted her chest and made her mind race for a way to counter it. They were fighting a silent duel, out of sight of the jurors, but they both knew exactly what he was doing, disproving her theory of one killer and two murders, driving home the idea that Connie's death could still be called a suicide, and Jay had had cause to fear such was the case. She nodded to him slightly, acknowledging the ploy, but before facing the detective, and before she could prevent it, she cast a quick glance over the spectators.
Stop it
, she thought, furious at herself.

"Good afternoon, Detective Jankow," she said, looking at him. His entire body seemed to stiffen and his nod was little more than a twitch. "Have you ever worked with Lieutenant Hoggarth in the homicide unit?"

"Once or twice," he said.

"Is Lieutenant Hoggarth the lead detective in the Connie Wilkins case?"

"I think so," he said cautiously.

"Detective Jankow, the homicide unit surely isn't so big that you can't keep up with who is in charge of different cases, is it?"

Dodgson objected and was sustained.

"Rephrase your question, counselor," the judge said.

Barbara nodded. "You said you've been with the homicide unit for seven years. Is that correct?"

He said it was.

"And in all that time have you ever known Lieutenant Hoggarth to have investigated anything other than murder cases?"

"I only know the cases I was on," he said after a pause. "They were both murder."

She regarded him for a moment, then said, "Do you know if the death of Connie Wilkins has been determined to have been a murder?"

He paused longer this time, cleared his throat, then said, "I don't know. I'm not on that case."

Her first impulse was to pound on him. He did know. Everyone in homicide knew.

But she stilled the question already forming as a cautionary instinct seized her.

Although she didn't know what the trap was, she suspected that she had been led to one. She nodded to Jankow, as if satisfied with his answer, then asked,

"Did you ask Mr. Lederer if he had driven out on Hunter's Lane on Saturday night, April 26?"

His quick glance at Dodgson was enough to confirm that her trap warning had been on target.

"Yes."

"And what was his response?"

"He denied it."

"Just like everyone else? Is that right?"

Dodgson objected in a loud voice and it was sustained.

Moving to the map still on the easel, Barbara pointed to the first house past the Ogden house on Hunter's Lane. "Did you ask the inhabitants of this house the same question?"

He said yes. "No one from there left at that time."

"And this one?" she said, moving on to the next house.

It was the same answer.

She continued up Hunter's Lane for another mile and a half, and his answer was unvarying. After that, he said he had not asked anyone else on the road.

"I see. Where does Hunter's Lane end, Detective Jankow?" she asked then.

"Up around the Alvadore community."

"Did you canvas that area to see if anyone had driven out that way that night?"

He flushed slightly and said no.

"Can you describe the Alvadore community for the jury?"

"Farm country, orchards, things like that."

"Is there a general store?"

"I think so."

"A gas station or two?"

"I think so."

"A school?"

"Yes."

"Some businesses? A commercial nursery, for instance?"

"Yes."

"In other words it's a real community with over a hundred inhabitants, a nursery, greenhouses, businesses. Is that correct?"

He clipped off an affirmative answer.

"Detective," she said then, "if someone from the Alvadore community wanted to drive to Veneta, or to the coast, or even to west Eugene, how do you suppose they would go?"

Dodgson called out his objection. "That's a hypothetical, and irrelevant."

She shrugged when it was sustained. The jurors would have the map; they could figure it out for themselves when they deliberated. She had no more questions.

Dodgson kept his redirect short and to the point and the detective left the stand.

Then Dodgson said, "The state rests, Your Honor."

"And that's their case for better or worse," Barbara murmured to Wally.

The court adjourned, and when Barbara's group gathered in the corridor for a few minutes, she was already sorting out the testimony, starting to think of her own witnesses and trying harder to keep her thoughts about Stephanie's presence at bay.

"As soon as we get out of here tomorrow," Wally said, "we'll head out to the house.