In Self Defense (31 page)

“Scared of what?”

“Scared of what would happen if I told.  Scared the police might come and take my dad away.  Doreen said we shouldn’t say anything for the tine being, but we should keep our eyes open.”

“Why do you think she said that?”

The girl shrugged.  “I’m not sure, but I think maybe she didn’t believe me.”

“Do you think she thought you were lying?”

“No, not lying,” the girl replied, “but that maybe I was just mistaken about it.”

“So what did you think?” David inquired.  “That if Doreen didn’t believe you, maybe no one else would, either?”

Julie nodded.  “I tried to do what Doreen said.  I tried to keep my eyes open.  I tried to keep my eyes on my mom.  But then I went to art class, and I wasn’t there when the truck hit her.”

At the defense table, Clare was sobbing uncontrollably into her hands, and for several seconds, it was the only sound that could be heard in the courtroom.  Because now she understood -- she understood Julie’s behavior after that day, and she cried because she hadn’t been able to help her daughter.

“You wouldn’t come here and say what you just said just to help your mother, would you?”

“You mean if it wasn’t true?” Julie asked.

“Yes.”

“No,” the girl replied, shaking her head.  “I don’t tell lies.  I know better.  The thing is, lies never really help anyone.  In the end, they always come out, and then it just makes things worse.  That’s what Mom always says, and I know it’s true.”

“Could you have been mistaken then, as Doreen probably thought you were?” David pressed.  “You had -- what -- a split second to see what happened?  Is it possible you just thought you saw your father trip your mother?”

“I don’t think you mistake seeing something like that,” Julie responded.  “Do you?”

“But people think they see things all the time that later turn out to be absolutely not what they actually saw at all.  Couldn’t this be one of those times?”

Julie thought about that for several seconds, and then she shook her head decisively.  “When you see something like that, it’s so unexpected that it’s kind of like it takes a photograph that stays in your brain.  I don’t think you get it wrong.  I mean -- whoever expects to see their father try to kill their mother?”

“Thank you, Julie,” David said.

***

Great, Mark Sundstrom thought to himself.  Now all he had to do was go after a teenager -- and not just any teenager, but one who had already lost her father and was in real danger of losing her mother.  She was a late addition to the witness list, and he knew he could have objected, but he probably would have lost the argument.  He sighed heavily.  Being a bully, especially when it meant beating up on kids, was his least favorite part of the job.

“This is all pretty convenient, wouldn’t you say?” he suggested right off the bat.  “An eleventh hour witness to corroborate your mother’s story.  Who’s idea was it for you to come forward with this totally off-the-wall story?”

“It was my idea,” Julie said.  “I heard on the television when you tried to make my mom out to be a cold-blooded killer, and I knew I had to come here and say what I saw.”

“And you expect this jury to believe you?”

Julie looked over at the twelve jurors and four alternates who were fixed on her every word.  “I don’t know any of these people,” she said with the reality of a thirteen-year-old.  “And they don’t know me.  If I knew them, then I could probably answer that question.  If they knew me, then they’d know I’m telling the truth.”

***

Doreen Mulcahy was the next witness to take the stand.  “Julie talked to me the night of her mother’s fall,” the housekeeper confirmed.  “She came to me shortly after we got home from the hospital in Port Angeles.  I’d driven out to pick the children up, as Mr. Durant was staying with his wife.  Julie was so worried that something would happen to her mother while she wasn’t there, she didn’t want to leave.”

“Did she say why she was so worried?” David inquired.

Doreen nodded.  “She said it wasn’t an accident.  She said her father made her mother stumble and fall off the mountain.  She said she saw him do it.  And she didn’t understand why.”

“Did you believe her?”

“Well, at the time, with everything that was going on, I thought she was probably mistaken about what she saw.  Children can have very vivid imaginations, you know.  It wasn’t until after that truck ran Mrs. Durant off the road that I started having second thoughts.”

“And do you remember what the date of this conversation was that you had with Julie?”

“I remember exactly when it was,” Doreen said without hesitation.  “It was Father’s Day night of last year.”

“Thank you,” David said.

***

“Did you like Mr. Durant?” Sundstrom asked, rising from his seat and approaching the witness.

“He was a good man to work for,” Doreen replied.  “He paid well and he treated me fairly.”

“You worked for the Nicolaidis family before coming to work for the Durants, didn’t you?”

“For Mrs. Nicolaidis, until she died.”

“And then you moved from Ballard to Laurelhurst?”

“Yes.

“Quite a step up, wasn’t it?”

“Housekeeping is housekeeping, wherever the house is,” Doreen said.  “Truth be told, I liked Ballard better -- smaller house.”

More than several of those in the courtroom giggled at that, and one of the jurors even nodded in understanding.

“I take it you like your job?”

“Yes, yes I do.”

“And you’d like to keep it?”

“I have no plans to leave.”

“But if Mrs. Durant is convicted here, she’ll go to prison, and there won’t be any need for you.”

Doreen frowned.  “That would be a pity.”

“So you have every reason to want to keep your employer out of prison, don’t you?”

“I have to admit, I never thought of it in quite that way,” the housekeeper replied, “but yes, I’d like to see Mrs. Durant cleared of all this nonsense.”

“Enough to lie to this court about a conversation with her daughter?” the prosecutor suggested.

Doreen Mulcahy was nobody’s fool.  “To be honest, I don’t know how anyone would be able to answer that question,” she replied.  “And luckily, it doesn’t matter, since the conversation with Julie did take place, exactly as I’ve testified that it did.”

“Redirect, Mr. Johansen?” the judge inquired as Sundstrom took his seat.

“No, Your Honor,” David said.  “The defense rests.”

Twelve

Julie Durant’s testimony was the lead story on the evening news, and the headline in the morning papers.  It was the topic of conversation around office water coolers, in neighborhood bars, and on commuter ferries.

But Clare didn’t care about any of that.  It had been months since she read the papers or turned on the television.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked her daughter.  “Why didn’t you tell me you saw what happened?”

“I was scared,” Julie admitted.

“Scared of me?”

“No . . . scared of Dad.”

Clare put her arms around her daughter and pulled her close, rocking her slowly back and forth, letting her cry, saying nothing.

After all, what was there to say?

***

Erin’s phone was ringing as she entered her apartment.

“We got a match,” Eddie Ridenour said without preamble.

“Who is it?”

“Some two-bit loser from Lacey.  His rap sheet’s pretty long, but it’s mostly petty stuff.”

“Lacey,” Erin murmured.  “Richard Durant grew up in Lacey.”

“Interesting, perhaps,” Eddie suggested.

“Thanks.” Erin said.  “I owe you.”

“Don’t worry,” the analyst said with a chuckle as he hung up.  “I’ll collect.”

***

Erin rang the bell at her partner’s West Seattle home at eleven o’clock in the evening.  “I’m so sorry to bother you this late,” she apologized to Jean Grissom when Dusty’s wife answered the door.

“That’s okay,” Jean assured her.  “He’s just getting ready for bed.  Come on in.  I’ll get him.”

“Sorry to bother you so late, partner,” Erin said, when Dusty, in bathrobe and slippers, shuffled into the living room, “but this was important.”

“That’s okay,” Dusty said.  “What’s up?”

Erin pulled the booking card of one Ryan Purdue out of her briefcase.  “Take a look,” she said.

Dusty eyed the photo.  “Why do I know I’ve seen this guy before?” he muttered.

Erin pulled another sheet out of her briefcase.  “You tell me,” she said, thrusting the police sketch made from Clare Durant’s description of the man in the black truck under her partner’s nose.

He whistled softly.  “I’ll be damned,” he murmured.  “Right down to the sideburns.”

“Comes from a trailer park in Lacey,” Erin told him.  “And guess who he went to high school with?”

Dusty heaved a sigh.  “We better have a little talk with the captain,” he said.  “And then maybe a chat with Mark Sundstrom.”

***

“The hell you say,” Sundstrom cried the following morning.  “Closing arguments start in an hour, and then this case is on its way to the jury.”

“But she may be telling the truth,” Erin argued.

“I’m perfectly willing to let the jury decide,” the prosecutor declared.

“Without this information?” Dusty pressed.

Sundstrom sighed.  “Even if her husband
was
trying to kill her, it doesn’t necessarily mean she killed him in self-defense.  He had no weapon and she was in no imminent danger, and that’s what I’m going to argue.”

“He has a point,” Dusty said as they left the prosecutor’s office and the courthouse.

“I know,” Erin conceded with a realistic sigh.  “Maybe I just feel sorry for her.  Knowing her husband wanted her dead is an awful thing to have to live with.”

***

Mark Sundstrom rose, buttoned his suit coat, cleared his throat, and turned to face the jury.

“Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, you’ve heard a lot of testimony in the past several weeks,” he began.  “Much of it contradictory, most of it conclusive.  And soon, you’re going to go back into the jury room and sift through it all, and talk among yourselves until you arrive at the truth of what took place on that October night in Laurelhurst just over a year ago.  It’s an awesome responsibility.  Not only because you hold the future of the defendant’s life in your hands, but because you will be the final arbiter of what really happened.

“Was the death of Richard Durant nothing more than a tragic mistake, as the defense would like you to believe?” he continued.  “Or was it self-defense, as the defendant herself would like you to believe?  That is, of courses, if you don’t buy her tragic mistake theory?  Or was it, as the People believe, nothing less than cold-blooded murder -- at the hand of a woman who simply took the opportunity to rid herself of an unfaithful, ungrateful husband?  Well, let’s see if we can figure it out.  Let’s take one more look at the facts of this case.”

For the next three-and-a-half hours, Sundstrom took the jury back through the past month, rereading testimony, revisiting exhibits, reviewing evidence.  The jurors soaked it in.  The spectators listened intently.  The judge listened implacably.  David Johansen made copious notes.  And Clare sat with her hands clenched and her head bowed under the weight of it all.

“What corroborating evidence do we have that Richard Durant was trying to kill his wife?” Sundstrom asked as the lunch hour neared.  “The testimony of an impressionable child who says she saw her father trip her mother.  A child who has already lost her father and is now in jeopardy of losing her mother.  Can we know for sure what she saw in the flash of a second?  Or what she told a loyal housekeeper?  Or what she now wants you to believe in order to save her mother?  Remember, even the housekeeper didn’t believe her, Ladies and Gentlemen.  That’s why she didn’t speak up before.

“But let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that Richard Durant did want his wife dead.  He certainly didn’t intend to kill her that night.  He knew the police were right outside, waiting to nab their stalker.  He knew he couldn’t have gotten away with it.  He walked into that bedroom carrying a suitcase, Ladies and Gentlemen, not a weapon.  Clare Durant was not in any imminent danger from him.  And she knew it.  She shot her husband willfully.  And how did she cover up her crime?  She hid the suitcase before the police could get there, and hoped they wouldn’t notice.  And she almost got away with it.  If not for the diligence of the detectives on the case, she well may have.