Suspicion of Vengeance (12 page)

"Mrs. Chastain is a state witness. If you want to talk to her, you need to get an okay from the prosecutor."

"No, we do not. The trial is over."

"If you disturb this lady again," said the sheriff, pointing stiffly at Anthony, "I will not take it lightly. I got to her house, she started crying. She thought she'd done something wrong. It was hell getting her calmed down. You stay away from her."

Gail broke in. "Garlan, it's my case. Anthony is advising me. I've been retained by Kenny Ray Clark's grandmother."

With a short laugh, Bryce shook his head. "Ruby Smith. Well, that explains how you got into it." He tugged on the front of his vest. "Ruby hired you to file another appeal, did she?"

"Ruby believes that Kenny is innocent, and there's a good chance she's right." Gail hesitated, then said, "Garlan, we have information that your lead detective, Ronald Kemp, threatened a potential defense witness to keep her from testifying."

"What witness? Who are you talking about?"

"Tina Hopwood."

"Who?" He tilted his head.

"She rented a room in her trailer to my client."

"Oh, for the love of Christ."

"Did you know what Kemp planned to do?"

His lips thinned against his teeth. "My officers do not threaten witnesses."

"I believe that this one did, Garlan. Look. I'm not trying to attack you or your department. I'm just trying to get to the truth."

"Is that so? Let me save you some time. We don't throw people in jail who don't belong there. We want to get it right, because if we don't, some defense lawyer or judge down the line is going to give us problems. We do not put together a half-assed case and cross our fingers the jury will see it our way. We don't make an arrest until we have evidence. We had evidence when we arrested Kenny Ray Clark. We had a great deal of evidence. I don't doubt for one second that he's right where he belongs."

The air in the small room seemed to be running out. Gail said, "I'll need copies of the crime scene photos. Who do we ask?"

"Get a court order." Garlan Bryce headed for the door, then paused as his glance fell on his daughter.

"I won't be long," she said.

He opened the door and was gone. Jackie let out a breath. "I'm so sorry," Gail said.

Jackie looked fiercely at her. "You didn't tell me everything. You didn't say you suspect my father of framing your client."

"No one suggested that."

"My father has more integrity than anyone I know. He would never allow a witness to be threatened, and if it did happen, and he found out, he wouldn't stand for it."

Quietly, Anthony said, "Jackie, you're a police officer. You know how these things go. They were dealing with a violent, highly publicized murder that had to be solved. Any investigator with Kemp's experience would know how to bend the rules, and his supervisors would expect him to."

"Not in my father's office."

Anthony sighed.

Fear of being rebuffed kept Gail from moving. "Jackie, I didn't know Garlan would react this way. Never mind Vernon Byrd, I'll find him somehow. Just don't let this come between us. Will you call me sometime? Please. We won't talk about this case."

Jackie stared past her. After a long moment she said, "I'll call you."

The quick tap of her boot heels receded on the concrete floor of the barn.

Anthony said, "Welcome to Martin County."

"Dammit." Gail sat heavily on a stack of roofing shingles, not caring about the dust. "Could that have gone any worse?"

"Well. It appears that a gap of several hours has developed in our schedule. It's a beautiful afternoon. Perfect beach weather." He stroked her hair, then bent to kiss the crown of her head. "On second thought, why don't we go back to the room?"

"And do what?"

"I could think of something."

She looked up at him. "Be serious."

"I am serious. You kept me up all night."

"Excuse me? I kept
you
up?" She let him kiss her, then held him down by his shirt collar. "We could look at the trial transcript."

"Mmm. How exciting."

"You said you wanted to see it."

"Give me a summary. I'd like to hear how a case as weak as this one resulted in a sentence of death. You have as much time as it takes for me to drive back to the hotel." He pulled her up and brushed the dust off her bottom. "Let's get out of here."

"No speeding," Gail said. "I don't think Garlan's in the mood to cut you any breaks."

CHAPTER 8

"It doesn't seem reasonable, does it, that Kenny Clark sat in jail for a year before the case went to trial?"

"A year? It's not that unusual,
querida.
There is no bond in a capital case, and if the
cabrón
who represented him believed in his guilt, well, let him sit."

Judge P. R. "Pat" Willis, a small, tidy man whose Cracker accent was not out of place in Stuart despite the influx of Yankees, ran his courtroom with brisk efficiency. He ordered that no one mention the Dodson baby's accidental death, as it would have been highly prejudicial to the defendant. The chances were slim, however, that the jurors did not already know about it. Jury selection began the week of January 8.

The trial was not televised, but the news media gave it heavy coverage. As a witness, Gary Dodson attended the trial only on the day he testified. He avoided the press. His bowed head and slumped shoulders said enough.

The victim's sister was a swirling vortex of rage. Reporters sprinkled her comments into their stories for heat. "Kenny Ray Clark is guilty, and he should be put to death by stabbing, like he did to my sister. He stabbed her in the heart. He strangled her. He let her baby die. I want him to pay." In her photos she has long hair, like her sister, but Amber was the pretty blond one. Lacey was in the courtroom every day with her parents, Fred and Rose Mayfield. They all sat in the front row, directly behind the prosecution table, holding hands.

Joseph J. Fowler, the state attorney for the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, did not usually try cases himself, but he took this one. He was up for reelection in the fall. Two of his top assistants sat with him. One of them was a woman named Sonia Krause, who would eventually take over Fowler's job.

The other table was reserved for the defendant and his court-appointed attorney, Walter Meadows. Photographs show a man in his late fifties, overweight, wearing a rumpled gray suit. At breaks he goes outside to smoke a cigarette. In the afternoon he closes his eyes during part of the state's case. The judge inquires if he is asleep. Then inquires again. Meadows replies, "No, your honor. Wide awake."

"I have known such attorneys" Anthony said. "They drink at lunch. They don't know how to prepare a case because they usually plead a client guilty. They don't investigate because there isn't enough money. How much did Meadows earn?"

"Forty-five dollars an hour."

"Clark got what he paid for."

The newspaper sent a sketch artist into the courtroom. The picture of the defendant adds ten years to his age. Kenny Ray Clark's hair is short and spiky; the shading on his lean face looks like stubble; his eyes veer away. Tattoo-smudged hands rest on the table. The artist has drawn them large enough to break bones.

The trial began promptly at 9:00 a.m. on January 15. After opening statements, the first witness was called to the stand: Sergeant Ronald Kemp of the Martin County Sheriffs Office, trim, articulate, professional in manner, holder of commendations, graduate of FBI seminars. With the prosecutor asking a question here and there, Kemp took the jury step by step through the investigation and the evidence that had led them to their man. The eyewitness ID. A confession. The lack of an alibi. Mr. Clark had claimed to be hanging drywall the day of the murder. That lie had been quickly exposed.

On cross, the defense attorney laid the groundwork for a later attack on the eyewitness, Dorothy Chastain. He wanted the jury to think that Kemp had used the photo display to plant Clark's image in her mind. Kemp's patient explanations emphasized that the police had followed accepted procedure.

The only concession that Walter Meadows got from Kemp was that the police had not found any of Amber's missing jewelry in the defendant's possession.

The next day was taken up by detectives from crime scene. The prosecution didn't dwell on the physical evidence, perhaps because Fowler knew they had nothing conclusive. Even so, the state scored some points. Joe Fowler unsheathed the defendant's hunting knife and left it on the low wall of the jury box. Light glinted on its blade. An expert testified that the fragments of coquina rock found on the carpet at the Dodson house were consistent with those found in the tread of the defendant's tires. The long screwdriver taken from the toolbox had been tried on a piece of test aluminum, and the marks were consistent with those on the sliding door. The jurors were shown glossy color enlargements of the knife, blood spatter, a screwdriver, aluminum, and rocks.

To his credit, Walter Meadows managed to obtain an admission that "consistent with" did not mean "the same," and that some other screwdriver could have been used. None of the tools found in the Dodsons' utility shed had been examined.

Luminol had shown blood on the knife seized from the defendant, but in too small an amount to be tested. Meadows said, "Give me a simple answer. Was any of the victim's blood found on the knife or on anything whatsoever that belonged to Mr. Clark? Yes or no."

"No."

The next witness was the fisherman who had seen a pickup truck at the county park. His original statement to police had mentioned fender damage; at trial he was certain about a missing rear bumper. Meadows was able to bring out this discrepancy, a small victory.

The state called Vernon "Peanut" Byrd, resident of the "dirt section" of Bahama Street in East Stuart, more recently a resident of the Glades Correctional Facility. Shortly after the defendant's arrest, Byrd and Clark had shared a cell in county lockup. On the stand Byrd freely admitted his convictions for possession of crack cocaine and dealing in stolen property. He denied that anyone had promised him leniency if he testified. He had been asked to show up and tell what he knew.

"Kenny said he didn't want to kill her, but she kept screaming." Byrd provided details. The red silk pajamas. The clock cord tied around her neck.

"How could he have known about the pajamas and the clock?" Gail wondered. "They weren't in any of the newspaper stories."

"The cops told him."

"Oh, really."

"Baby, you have an unrealistically high opinion of the police."

"I sincerely doubt they would frame an innocent man."

"They didn't. They believed Clark was guilty. He murdered Amber Dodson. Why should a technicality like due process stand in the way of justice?"

Meadows went after Byrd's unsavory background, hoping the jury would believe he lied to secure favorable treatment. As the witness was still in prison, the impact of that argument was lost. It would not be until Kenny Ray Clark had been on death row for a year that Byrd was paroled. The state attorney would deny any connection.

Day four of the trial began with the prosecution's most devastating witness. A reporter for
The Stuart News
wrote, "Dorothy Chastain, 58, a neighbor of Amber Dodson, supplied eyewitness testimony placing Kenneth Ray Clark on the victim's property." In the accompanying photograph she wears a dark suit and white blouse. She is serious but not severe. She could be a librarian, a high school principal, a lay church worker. Her glasses overpower her nose, and her chin recedes. She is all eyes.

Fourteen pages of the transcript were taken up by Joseph Fowler chatting with the witness about her background, her family, her education, her hobbies. His purpose was to show her as a reliable, intelligent woman with no axe to grind. She was here to do her civic duty. Fowler introduced photographs and a drawing, then asked her to show the jury where she had been sitting and to estimate distances. She didn't have to estimate. She had used a tape measure. She had also reenacted her observations with a stopwatch.

Her responses were direct and simple. Looking out the window for her ride to the airport, she had noticed a young man with long brown hair, wearing a denim jacket, standing near the hedge across the street. He came around the hedge, looked over his shoulder, then walked quickly behind the Dodsons' house. She never left the window. Her friend arrived and tooted the horn, and she had to go. It was 10:12. "I should have called Amber to alert her. I feel so bad."

"Mrs. Chastain, you have testified that you saw a man going behind Amber's house at approximately five minutes past ten."

"At exactly five minutes past ten."

"Exactly. Did you see that same man at a later time?"

"Yes, I did."

"Where and when was that?"

"I saw him on Wednesday, the fifteenth of February, at the sheriffs office."

"Under what circumstances?"

"Detective Kemp asked me to view a lineup. I picked him out."

"And were you certain, when you picked the man out of the lineup, that he was the same man you had seen going behind the victim's house?"

"Absolutely certain."

"Do you see the same man here in the courtroom today?"

"Yes, I do."

"Can you point him out to the jurors?"

"Right over there. The young man in the dark blue suit."

The prosecutor must have allowed the jury sufficient time to follow the imaginary line that ran from the witness's extended finger directly to the defendant, who had been told by his counsel not to look away when this occurred. But what did the jurors read into that cool, unwavering stare?

"Let the record reflect that the witness has indicated the defendant, Kenneth Ray Clark. Thank you, Mrs. Chastain. I have no further questions."

Meadows rose from his chair and took his notes to the lectern. The difficulty of his task must have weighed heavily: impugning the veracity of an honest, well-meaning citizen. "Mrs. Chastain, you described the man to the police one way in your initial statement, and then you pick out a man who looks different. I don't say you're lying. I suggest that you are mistaken. The truth is, you just can't be sure. Isn't that true?"