The Best Defense (20 page)

jury selection was completed by the lunch recess on Friday; Barbara had held out for equality, half male, half female, and that was how it ended up. She had had no illusions about finding totally neutral jurors—the public had already found Paula guilty—but she had dismissed several people whose eyes appeared too glittery, and one man for no reason that she could have stated.

She had not liked him. Reason enough. This week there had been few spectators; jury selection was a boring business for voyeurs. But they would come, she knew.

Her three student researchers were there taking notes;

she suspected that Brian O’Connor had assigned them this case to follow to the end. And Lucille was there, today accompanied by a thickset man who looked uncomfortable.

She brought him to be introduced during the lunch recess—her husband, Dave Reiner. Would it look bad, he asked hesitantly, if he didn’t come every day? It was hard to miss work. Barbara assured him that it was understandable, that no one would think anything of it.

Inwardly she was seething. He believed Paula was guilty, she realized; she would have rejected him for jury duty. And she certainly did not want her jurors to read his face, read the forced smile he directed at Paula.

She hoped he stayed away altogether.

After lunch on Friday Gerald Fierst rose to address the jury. He was in his mid-fifties, gray-haired, and wore a gray suit and a bright blue tie. He was a quiet man without mannerisms, without fidgets or tics, just a cautious, methodical, almost plodding prosecutor who, if he had a sense of humor, left it at home when he went to work every day. He would have crossed all the t’s, dotted all the is, Barbara thought appraisingly.

The evidence would prove, he said, that Paula Kennerman struck and killed her child and then set an arson fire in an attempt to hide her crime. His remarks included only one item that Barbara had not anticipated:

“Paula Kennerman spilled gasoline through the lower half of the house, lighted a fire in the kitchen, and then replaced the empty gas. can in the barn in an attempt to hide her crime. When she returned to the house and tried to enter, a propane tank exploded and she was thrown to the ground outside the front door….”

Barbara nodded to herself, a man who dotted the is.

No gas can had been found near the house, something no report had mentioned.

When it was her turn, Barbara stood before the defense table, so that in looking at her, the jurors also saw Paula, who was deathly white. Speaking quietly, she stressed the fact that the burden of proof was on the state.

Defense would prove that Paula Kennerman had been above reproach as a parent, that her only goal in life had been to secure a decent future for her child, and that she had absolutely no motive for the murder of Lori Kennerman.

“Defense does not have to point the finger at another person. You will hear testimony that contradicts other testimony, and it is your duty to consider the motives of all those who appear on the witness stand in this procedure.

Defense does not have to prove Paula Kennel-man’s innocence; it must only raise the specter of doubt that the state has proven its case.”

When she sat down again and looked at the bench, Judge Paltz was regarding her with a remote, unreadable expression. Gone was the grandfatherly attitude, the kindly, reminiscing, old family friend; he had turned into the jurist her father had warned her about: strict, scholarly, and unflappable. He looked like a stranger.

He thanked her courteously, thanked Gerald Fierst, and instructed the jury regarding its duty in the coming days, and then called for a recess until Monday morning at nine.

Over the weekend Barbara stewed about the missing piece she knew was somewhere in the mass of information they had gathered. She reviewed reports and listened once more to the tape made by Christina Lorenza, the woman in Silicon Valley, whose education had been financed by Craig Dodgson.

“So I said, hey, it’s yours, too, you know. And he said, yeah, sure. I’ll take care of it. Honest, I will…. I thought he’d want me to have an abortion, but I guess even back then he was dead set against it. Anyway, he wrote out what all he’d do and signed it. But I was too sick to care very much, you know. I guess my stomach was queasy, morning sickness that went on and on. We were going up to some islands out of Seattle, and I just kept getting sick. So he gave me some Dramamine, and that helped a little but not much. Two days later I said I had to go home, I was too sick for anything, and he gave me some more Dramamine, stronger this time, and we headed back….

I was scared, and he was, too. Then I knew I was having a miscarriage…. He was really sweet to me, really caring. Brought me tea and was anxious, you know, caring and we made it back to Spring Bay. By then I was feeling better, and we stood at the rail and tore up the paper he had written and signed, and we even laughed a little. That’s when he said he’d like to do something for me, you know, send me to school or something. And that seemed okay to me, so we agreed that he’d pay for two years of computer school, and he did.” There was a silence; Winnie asking a question? Then Christina’s voice was back: “Look, I was twenty-one and he was twenty-four, but we were like two scared little kids….”

Winnie had believed her, and Barbara had to admit that she did, too. Dead end. A sweet Craig Dodgson was the last thing she intended to introduce at this trial.

The weather continued hot and dry; grass was dying, leaves turning brittle on the trees; a forest fire started in the Willamette National Forest and smoke from it drifted across the valley, making the light a peculiar dirty yellow. Bailey had nothing to report about a truck leaving Royce Gallead’s firing range.

Sunday afternoon she had a conference with Paula and warned her again about the bad days to come.

“Are you sure you don’t want to use a mild tranquilizer? It would help.”

“Dr. Grayling said he’d give me something if I needed it. I don’t want anything. You know, I feel sort of like I have to be there, really be there, for everything.

I told Janey that and she understood.”

Barbara nodded; she understood too, all too well.

* Every morning Barbara had driven to Frank’s house and they had walked the half mile to the courthouse. On Monday morning when Frank came out to meet her, she said, “I have stuff to carry.” He looked with interest at the Kmart plastic bag she held, along with her bulging briefcase and purse. He took the bag, hefted it, then shrugged, and they began.

Even his shady neighborhood was muggy that morning; it would be a hot walk home. They passed Yuppie Heaven, deserted at this hour, passed the first two-tiered parking structure where automobiles were lined up to enter, stopping traffic. Ahead, across Seventh, a fire truck was diverting traffic as it backed into the municipal building fire department. That building and the courthouse across the street from it were like a matched pair, four stories high, stable looking with old well-weathered concrete and many windows. But the fire department really shouldn’t hold maneuvers at this hour, Barbara was thinking, when Frank caught her arm in a hard grip, drawing her to a stop. They were even with the middle of the county parking lot where another line of cars had come to a halt awaiting entrance.

Framed between two cars, visible through an opening in the stopped traffic, was the courthouse entrance where twenty-five or thirty people were milling about, shouting, some with signs: death sentence for baby

KILLERS! LET BABY KILLER KENNER MAN HANG! One man had a heavy rope tied into a noose that he carried suspended from a pole. Television crews were there in force; police had put up a barricade and were trying to keep the demonstrations behind it. The traffic light changed, the cars began to move again, and the scene was obliterated.

“My God,” Barbara whispered.

“Hold it,” Frank snapped, still clutching her arm in a hard grasp.

“They’ve got garbage to throw. Come on.”

He pulled her behind a car waiting to enter the parking lot. They stayed behind cars to the entrance of the tunnel under Seventh that led to the courthouse. The tunnel was crowded as usual at this hour.

As soon as they emerged within the building, a bailiff met them.

“Judge Paltz wants you,” he said to Barbara.

And she wanted him.

Gerald Fierst was already there when she was admitted to Judge Paltz’s chambers. Both men were grim-faced. Judge Paltz looked her over quickly and motioned to a chair, and then seated himself behind his desk.

“This won’t do,” he. said

“I request that the jurors be sequestered,” Barbara said.

“Those people have tomatoes, who knows what all.”

“I know that,” the judge said. He turned to Gerald Fierst.

“How long is this trial going to take?”

“I’ll wrap up my end in three days,” Fierst said.

“If there’s no hindrance from the defense.”

“I don’t know how long it will take,” Barbara said.

“But if it takes a month, the jury has to be protected from a mob like that. There can’t be a fair trial with that kind of demonstration outside the door. It’s a vigilante mob out there. And we all know some of them will be inside the court today. Ask them if they intend to delay anything.” She drew in a deep breath.

“If the jury is prejudiced or frightened by a mob like that, it’s an automatic mistrial.”

“Don’t tell me my business,” Judge Paltz said softly.

“We have a situation on our hands, and we have to deal with it. Once the jury is inside and accounted for, they will be protected. And there will not be any demonstrations in my court. The principals in this case will all be escorted to the courthouse door for the duration of this trial. You will be picked up by an unmarked police car and brought here, and taken back at the close of the day.

No attorney in my court is going to appear with tomato or eggs on their clothing. A room will be set aside for lunches to be brought in, or you may choose to bring your own food, or eat in the cafeteria. There will be no disruption of these proceedings. I advise both of you to expedite this trial. Before today’s opening I shall speak to the jury and explain the situation to them. Is that satisfactory

After he dismissed them both, Barbara found Frank waiting outside the door. She told him what arrangements Judge Paltz was making.

“How did he sound?” Frank asked.

“He never raised his voice.”

“Yep. Mad as hell. Don’t blame him, either. Well, that’s life.”

The courtroom was packed to capacity that day. The three students were there, but for the most part the audience was middle-aged or older, and they were for the most part well dressed and silent. To Barbara’s eye they looked like vultures waiting for the first blood.

“Did you see all those people?” Paula whispered when she was led in to take her place by Barbara.

“Don’t worry about them. The judge is handling things.”

Paula nodded, but she looked very frightened.

If the panel of jurors had been upset by the demonstration whatever the judge told them seemed to have had a calming effect; they were impassive and attentive when Gerald Fierst called his first witness.

Willis Jacobson testified that he was with the volunteer fire team that got to the fire six or seven minutes after the call came in.

“It had been burning maybe ten minutes by then; the whole building was burning, up and down. The defendant was crying that her baby was upstairs somewhere, and I was suited up, so I went in with a hose to look for her. But it was too smoky by then to see anything and I had to back out again. We had the pumper on the house, and had the fire out within ten minutes, and we looked again for the child, and found her body on the first floor, in the living room.”

“Exactly what did Mrs. Kennerman say when you got there?”

“Well, she was sort of out of her head, crying and screaming, and fighting to get back in. Two women were holding her back. She was bloody and burned some herself. She said, “My baby’s upstairs somewhere.

For God’s sake, she might be under a bed or in a closet hiding.”

” Barbara had no questions.

The next witness was the state fire marshal. Gerald Fierst had him describe his background, his position, his years of experience, and then asked, “Mr. Conkling, what time did you arrive at the Canby house?”

“Twelve-thirty.”

“I see. And who called you?”

“The chief of the volunteer fire department, Walter Dixon.”

“And why did he call you?”

“When there’s a suspicious fire, it’s routine to bring in an investigator. Chief Dixon suspected arson fire and called me.”

“All right. Tell us, please, exactly what you did at the scene.”

“Yes, sir.” He was a solid man, forty-three years old, six feet tall, and very broad, slow speaking, deliberative.

He took his time describing his investigation. Gasoline had been present in the kitchen, in the hallway, and in the living room. The kitchen door had been closed, and when the tank of propane exploded, it blew the door open and blew out the front screen door, and the fire spread to the living room and on up the stairs.”

“How do you know it was gasoline and not kerosene, or even motor oil?”

Conkling went into a very technical explanation of the different ways combustibles burned, the different ash left, the different smoke. He explained the flash effect of the blast against the door; the same effect had been through the hall and on the frame of the screen door, and to a lesser extent on the front wall of the living room.

“So you can tell exactly what burned, and where it started, even after the firemen have soaked the house?”

“Yes, sir. We can tell.”

“What did you determine about the living room where the child’s body was found?”

“Someone had thrown gasoline on some of the furniture, but mostly on the floor and on the rugs. And the girl’s body had been covered with gasoline. There was gas under her and over her.”

Paula made a low sound, but did not move, and Barbara did not turn to look at her. She listened intently to the marshal as he continued to describe what he had found.