Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (105 page)

In a blow to the prosecution, Judge Alexander concurred.
 
Sara was

still legally married to Brad when he alluded to the danger in her

lifeþeven though she was living in fear of him.

To counter Sara's testimony about his infidelity, Brad wanted to

introduce evidence that he felt would show she was "plotting" against

him with Lynn Minero's husband, and that she had talked about this from

an operating room phoneþeven while she administered anesthesia.
 
Judge

Alexander would not permit it, again protecting Brad from his own

ignorance.
 
"That testimony would be so damaging to your case .
 
. .

I can't allow you to keep doing this to yourself."

The jury filed back in and Sara's direct testimony continued until the

lunch break.
 
When court reconvened at 1:37, the moment Sara feared

most was at hand.
 
She was about to be cross-examined by her

ex-husband.

Brad looked at Sara dispassionately.
 
"You currently have a lawsuit

pending against me based on what the children and I own?"
 
he asked.

The property in contention in the "lawsuit" Brad mentioned was in a

storage locker in Snohomish County.
 
As always, he seemed preoccupied

with possessions that had been taken away from him.
 
But then, he may

have just been trying to establish prejudice against him.

"The trustee put a hold on the children's property," Sara replied.

"The children are living with me, and I'm their guardian ad litem.

To get their toys and stuffþI plan to leave it alone right where it

isþuntil the end of this trial and then I will get the children's

things...."

Brad continued his cross-examination, only on financial matters.

But when he had not made many positive points with that line of

questioning, he tried another tack.
 
He moved to the bakery acquisition

and attempted to get Sara to say that he had done a great deal of work

in remodeling it.
 
No Sara countered, he had hired a contractor to do

the work.

"The equipment for the bakery?"
 
Brad asked.
 
"Did I buy it?"

"You chose.
 
I paid."

Brad was still getting nowhere.
 
He was trying to establish how hard he

had worked during all the years of their marriageþwhen he had no real

jobþbut Sara would not validate that.
 
All of the remodeling on the

Dunthorpe house and on the bakery/bistro had been, in her opinion done

by hired labor.
 
Nor would she support his recall of his pitifui

circumstances after Cheryl's murder.

Sara sighed with relief when the afternoon break interrupted Brad's

rambling cross-examination, but she had held her own.
 
And he had

obviously not expected that.

When the trial resumed later that afternoon, Brad at last asked a

question that had some relevance to the case.
 
"Did you say your third

call to me was at eight-fifty P.M. [on September twenty-first]?"

"Yes."

"Could it have been even earlier?"

"No."

"The answering machine was only on when I was away?"

Sara had no reply to that, other than that she knew it had not been on

that night.

Brad asked only a few more questions and they seemed pointless: when

they met, where they lived, when she met the boys, what they had eaten

on the night Cheryl was killed.
 
The jury had already heard this

information.

"No more questions," Brad finally said.

Incredulous with relief, Sara smiled broadly for the first time during

her testimony.
 
Her ordeal was over.
 
She stepped down from the witness

chair.
 
Except for the unalterable fact that Brad was the father of her

sons, he was for all intents and purposes out of her life.

Upham continued his case for the prosecution.
 
Eric Lindenauer, the

young lawyer whom Cheryl had mentored at Garvey, Schubert and who had

been with her the day she enrolled Jess in Bridlemile School, testified

that she had been terrified of Brad.
 
He said he had learned that

Cheryl had been murdered at 11:30 on September 21, the night she

died.

Betty Troseth had called him and he was "absolutely devastated."
 
He

then called the Oregon State Police to give them information about her

fear of her estranged husband.

"When did you last talk to Brad?"
 
Upham asked.

-"On the phoneþon September twenty-fifth.
 
[My secretary] said that a

Mr. Ballaster was calling.
 
I knew no one by that name.
 
I picked up

the phone and it was Brad.... He asked if I was probating Cheryl's

will.
 
I said, No," and I directed him to Brian Whipp."

When Brad cross-examined Lindenauer, he insisted that he had called a

full week after Cheryl's death, not three days later, to ask about her

will.
 
To suggest that Lindenauer and Cheryl might have been having an

affair, Brad asked him how close he and Cheryl had been.

"We were close friends."

"Didn't you have keys to each other's houses?"

"No," Lindenauer said flatly.

Then Brad tried out another of his alternate-suspect theories.
 
He

asked Lindenauer if Garvey, Schubert and Barer had "key man"

insurance.

"I don't know."

"Anything that pays benefits to Garvey, Schubert if [a partner

dies]?"

Brad pressed.

"I don't know."

"Was the firm having financial problems in 1986?"
 
Brad asked.

This was a new motive.
 
Brad was suggesting that Garvey, Schubert and

Barer might have insured Cheryl as a "key man" and then had her killed

so they could bail the firm out of financial problems.
 
That made five

entities Brad had suggested were far more likely to murder his

estranged wife than he: Jerry Finch, the O.S.P detective who investigated

her murder, some unknown pick-up from Jubitz Truck Stop, Cheryl's own

half brother, Jim Karr, one of her "many lovers" from her law firm,

and, now, the law firm itself.

Brad listed names and Lindenauer identified them as partners at Garvey,

Schubert and Barer.

"Were you aware that Cheryl was having affairs with these men?"

Brad asked quickly.

"I object!"
 
Upham barked.
 
"Sustained."

A disgusted Eric Lindenauer stepped down.

Oregon State Police Detective Mike McKernan took the stand to give the

jury a sense of the distances involved on the Sunday night of September

21, 1986.
 
He had driven the route on a Sunday night, at the speed

limit From the American Dream Pizza restaurant to Brad's apartment was

six miles.
 
"It took me fifteen minutes."
 
From Cheryl's house to the

Madison Tower, the time elapsed on a Sunday evening was nine minutes

and forty-eight seconds.
 
The distance from Cheryl's house on the West

Slope to the Sunset Highway where her body was found was three-tenths

of a mile.
 
The distance from her house to the Mobile station was

seven-tenths of a mile.
 
A man with an hour and twenty minutes of time

unaccounted for could have made the drive to the Sunset Highway and

back with relative ease.

The next big hurdle for the State was to get into evidence the DNA

analysis of hairs removed from Cheryl Keeton's body.
 
Ray Grimsbo

formally a criminalist with the Oregon State Police crime lab, would

observe the tests done by Dr. Cecilia Von Beroldingen.
 
Judge

Alexander ruled that he would allow the DNA results in.
 
But Dr. Von

Beroldingen's testimony would have to wait.
 
She had been called from

California, but Brad was throwing the court schedule into such chaos

that she could not testify.
 
Now, she would not be able to return from

California again until the fifth or sixth of December.
 
Perhaps even

later.

The tension in the courtroom was building by the day, chiefly because

of Brad's incompetence as a defense attorney and his ignorance of

criminal procedures.
 
He continually asked the D A."s office to produce

the items of "missing" evidence.

"Every bit of this has been available for a year and a half," Scott

Upham said finally in exasperation.

"Let's get the whole batch up here," Judge Alexander said with equal

exasperation.

The D.A."s chief investigator, Jim Carr, a man known for his pleasant

þif inscrutableþexpression, had sat next to the courtroom door

throughout the trial.
 
Obligingly, he went to get the evidence that

Brad thought would be so important.
 
Some of it, in fact, had been

missing for years.
 
Someþlike Cheryl's checkbook with her West Slope

address imprinted on the checksþwas more dangero2xs than helpful to

Brad.

The rest wasn't relevant to his case.

The witness list that Brad had held so close to his vest proved to be

almost identical to the prosecution's.
 
He planned to question Upham's

witnesses, apparently to bring out testimony about some massive coverup

by the Oregon State Police, the D.A."s office, and the firm of Garvey,

Schubert and Barer.
 
Perhaps that was also the reason behind his continual demand for "missing" evidence.
 
But Brad's witnesses were seldom

on hand.
 
The court clerk, Gwen Lipske, would step out into the hall

and call out a name.
 
Once.
 
Twice.
 
When no one answered, she would

step back into the courtroom to say that the witness was not there.

That wasn't really surprising, since Brad's subpoenas were all dated on