Daunting Days of Winter (13 page)

“Good morning,” she began. “It’s with deep sadness that we’ve gathered in this court today. The tragedy that befell our communities last week is hard to fathom. Leah Smith, a vivacious young woman, the joy of her family, brutally raped and murdered. Her body left to rot, hidden in the basement of an abandoned home. And Kyle Tait, a father of three young children, husband, local militia member, heroic survivor of an almost impossible journey home, sits here charged with her murder. Mr. Tait is also the owner of the home where the body was found, the man not only on guard duty the night the victim was murdered, but the one with specific responsibility for the area of town where both the victim was visiting and where her body was found.

“I know this is going to be a difficult case for everyone. Both the victim and the accused are members of our communities, so we’ve all been touched by the crime in one way or another, directly or indirectly. And it’s going to be difficult, too, for our jury. We’ve been so conditioned by the news reports and dramas we watched on TV to expect every crime to have irrefutable evidence—fingerprints, DNA, video of the perpetrator, incriminating emails, GPS data from cell phones—all high-tech pieces of a puzzle that would lead us to an inescapable conclusion of the accused’s guilt. Well, we don’t have those things anymore, do we? No DNA, no fingerprints, no video—none of it. So what do we do? Do we throw out all hope of discovering the truth and let the accused go free? Or do we do the best we can with the information we have at our disposal?” She paused and looked around the room, stopping to look each of the jurors in the eye.

“That’s what we are asking you to do today, this week. This is not the first jury to hear a case under difficult circumstances. It’s only been in the last hundred years that fingerprint evidence has been allowed in the courtroom, let alone DNA or GPS evidence. No, good people on honest juries have been making difficult decisions for over a thousand years, weighing evidence, listening to witnesses, assessing the cases presented, and rendering a verdict. I’m confident that as we proceed through this case, you’ll find it to be straightforward and will be able come to a conclusion as to what happened.

“Leah Smith, young, sweet, pretty, leaves the home of her boyfriend at too late an hour. It’s dark out, not much of a moon that night. She leads her horse quietly through town, trying to make it back home without being seen. But before she gets very far, she’s stopped. It’s a man with a gun, the only person in the area. She’s unarmed. He questions her. She explains she just left her boyfriend’s, and the thought arouses him. He speculates as to what this pretty, young girl and her boyfriend have been doing, and he propositions her, or maybe she flirts with him to try and get him to let her pass. Late at night, with no one else around, she’s scared enough that she agrees to what he asks when he promises not to hurt her, and she follows him into the basement of his own home, explaining why there was no screaming and no witnesses.

“Having second thoughts, she says she’s going to tell his wife, or her father, someone, or maybe he just fears that she will. The thought of losing everything he worked so hard to save makes him fearful. Family gone, reputation shot, ostracized from the community with nowhere to go. He starts to worry. He tells her to be quiet. Maybe she laughs. He strikes out, hits her. She screams, and he panics, grabs her, covers her mouth, and pushes her down to shut her up. But he stays on her too long. He’s no monster, but in the heat of the moment, things have gone way too far. She’s no longer breathing, and he realizes what he’s done.

“He hides the body and locks the door to his house, knowing he needs to check in back at the militia house. For the rest of the shift he’s worried, knows if anyone sees him with a body, it’s all over. He decides to wait, to give it a few days until the heat dies down then dispose of the body, hoping that it looks like she ran away, or that an outsider will be blamed for her disappearance. But someone found the body and ruined his plans.” Helen pauses again, allowing the sobs from Leah’s father and younger brother to amplify. Two members of the jury dab at their own eyes.

The prosecutor turns back to the crowd. She works the jury and the spectators, continuing to paint a picture of a tragic crime and a young life snuffed out too soon, describing Leah’s childhood, her grief at the divorce of her parents, her successes in school, her job, and her despondency after the EMP, before finding happiness again with a boyfriend in Deer Creek.

Her statement takes just over an hour to finish, a powerful, emotional, and convincing narrative that Kyle himself finds absorbing. And with every minute she speaks, the cold despair that clutches Kyle’s chest tightens its icy grip on him.

CHAPTER 16

Tuesday, January 24
^th

Central Wyoming

Rose pushed the door of the ranch house closed behind her, the warmth of the room a sharp contrast to the chilly outside air. “Well, everything’s loaded and strapped down tight. I guess I should be off now.”

Sonja smiled and gave her a hug. “You understand you’re welcome to stay longer, don’t you?”

“I do, but I hadn’t even intended to stay as long as I have. I so appreciate you letting me be here, coming unexpected like I did.”

“It’s the least we could do for a neighbor and a friend. I just wish all this wasn’t happening. I’m not sure what things will be like when it’s all over, but I fear they’ll never be the same,” Sonja said wistfully.

Lou stood from his chair in front of the fireplace. “Wish those thugs would have followed you here. The ranch hands and I would have made short work of them, and made things a little safer for you.”

“It’ll be alright, Lou. They’ll avoid places like yours as long as they can, at least until they run out of the smaller places. I’m lucky I was left alone as long as I was.”

“Well, we’ll be ready for them if they do show up. They’ll have to bring a small army along if they want to take what’s mine.”

Rose smiled knowingly. “Thank you again for your help, and the supplies, and the horse. You’re truly a life saver.”

Lou shook his head. “Don’t thank me yet for that horse; she’s got a bit of an attitude. If I didn’t know who her parents were, I’d swear she was part jackass. And anyway, we have more animals than we need, so it’s not much of a sacrifice. Worst case you can shoot and eat her.”

The Thompsons walked Rose outside, waiting to wave when she finally rode off with her two horses loaded down with supplies. Three inches of fresh snow from a storm the day before covered the ground. It had delayed her departure, but today was clear and the temperatures were warming, with water already dripping from the eaves of the house and snow sticking to the horses’ hooves.

Rose took a deep breath, waved goodbye to the Thompsons again, and turned the horses towards the road. It had been a few years since she’d been to the ranch by this road, six years in fact, when she’d been Lou’s real estate agent and sold off a third of his ranch so that he could pay the estate taxes from his father’s passing. The sale had been the largest real estate deal and commission of her career, but had unfortunately come from difficult circumstances, as Lou had not only just lost his father, but had also had to give up a sizeable chunk of the ranch that had been in his family for almost one hundred years in order to pay the death taxes.

Since that sale, Rose had passed through, stopping at the Thompson’s ranch, once or twice a year on horseback, but theirs had mainly been a professional relationship. Lou’s willingness to help her as much as he had was a surprise to her, as she had hoped for and expected nothing more than a place to spend a night or two before beginning her journey to Montana. Instead, both Lou and Sonja had been extremely generous, replacing her horse and providing supplies she hadn’t had time to gather before fleeing. She knew her journey was high risk, but at least with Lou’s assistance, her odds had increased somewhat.

Rose guided Smokey through the open gate and towards the driveway under skies that were a vivid blue with a few wispy clouds to the north. Miles of undisturbed snow surrounded her, and the glare of sunlight on the snow made it unbearable to look around. Rose dug out a pair of sunglasses Sonja had insisted she take, plunked them on her nose, and gave Smokey a slap. The lead rope from her new horse, Blitz, pulled tight, and Rose looked back to make sure that the chestnut-colored horse was securely attached. Blitz, who was six inches shorter than Smokey and named for the lighting-shaped patch of white on her forehead, snorted and pulled against the lead, twisting her head from side to side then, temporarily accepting the futility of the fight, fell in behind Smokey.

CHAPTER 17

Tuesday, January 24
^th

Deer Creek, MT

Boyd Kelly walked to the front of the room. He paused and gave Kyle a nervous smile. The prosecutor had just concluded her opening statement, leaving the crowd buzzing. Boyd waited for the crowd to settle down, then, when it was finally quiet, he cleared his throat, pulled a notecard from his pocket, and began his opening statement.

“Jurors,” he started, his voice cracking and wavering. “You’ll find I’m not as eloquent as Ms. Markham. I apologize for that.”

Kyle leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “This is bad” was the only thought that ran through his mind. He glanced at Jennifer, with her bloodshot and swollen eyes, but she was watching Boyd.

Boyd went on at the front of the room. “I’m an attorney, but my specialty is estates - helping people plan for their own demise, not trying to keep someone from facing theirs. This whole situation is not fair. Not for me. Not for you. Not for Kyle Tait. And certainly not for Leah Smith.” His initial nervousness seemed to lessen, but his voice was still whiney and weak, a stark contrast to the powerful, confident tones of the prosecutor.

“Leah deserves to be alive and to live in a town and a place and a time where she could call 911 if she felt threatened, or drive her car home, or text her boyfriend at night instead of sneaking home on horseback. Kyle deserves a real attorney, not a close to retirement desk jockey like me. He also deserves a real investigation.

“Helen told you quite a story. It almost brought tears to my eyes, but it was a fairytale. Once you scrape away all the emotion and the storytelling, the only facts she told you were that a girl died, and that she was found in the basement of a home that Mr. Tait owns. Those are things you already knew. The rest was nothing but speculation, conjecture, make believe.

“Please remember that fact as we go through the trial. There will be no DNA, or video, or fingerprints. Not even witnesses to any crime, or confessions, or wounds on the accused. It’s all conjecture, and a man’s life hangs in the balance. Please don’t make a decision based on sorrow and emotion that you’ll regret for the rest of your life. Thank you.”

With that, Boyd returned to his seat. A stunned silence filled the room, the expectation being that his opening would be as lengthy as the prosecutor’s. Gabe looked at Boyd to confirm that he was done, and Boyd nodded affirmatively.

“The prosecution will now present their witnesses,” Gabe said, indicating a lone chair set up between his table and the jurors. “The time is yours, Ms. Markham.”

Helen stood, facing the front. “Thank you. For my first witness I call Carol Jeffries.”

Carol walked to the front, gave her name to the court, was sworn in, then sat in the witness chair. “Ms. Jeffries, what can you tell us about the body?”

Carol looked nervous and fidgeted with the hem of her shirt as she spoke. She described the condition of the body, the injuries on the neck, the burst blood vessels in the eyes that indicated strangulation, and the disheveled clothing.

As there was no contention regarding the fact that Leah was dead and how she was found, the prosecutor had only a few questions for Carol. Boyd cross examined, but did not bring anything new to light as there was no disagreement on the points at hand.

The next witness was Sean Reider, head of security and defacto policeman/detective of the community. He reiterated what Carol had already stated with regards to the body then Helen changed her line of questioning and delved into his interactions with Kyle.

“How long have you known the accused?”

“Just a little over two months.”

“Any issues?”

“None whatsoever. He’s done a great job.”

“So you’d say he’s an exemplary individual?”

Sean nodded. “Yeah. I don’t see any reason not to.”

“How’d he act when you told him Leah was missing?”

“I’d woken him up, so he was sleepy. But he told me he hadn’t seen anything.”

“Did he offer any suggestions? Give any clues?”

Sean thought a second. “He suggested we look over on the mountain between our two towns. Said it was easy to get lost up there.”

“Where is that in relation to where the body was found?”

“It’s the far side of town, but it made sense. I already had a couple of people looking that direction, so it …”

Carol cut him off. “I don’t need your interpretation of his suggestion, sir. My question was, where is the area he directed you to in relation to where the body was found. You said it was on the far side of town. Is that correct?”

Sean confirmed the fact.

“Is there anywhere else, within this little community, that is farther away from where Leah was found than that mountain.”

“No, there isn’t, but it was the most logical place to look.”

Helen glared at Sean. “Thank you, sir. I believe the relevant part of your answer is ‘no’. There is no place further from the crime scene than the location to where the accused directed you.”

Helen asked Sean a few more procedural questions then yielded the witness.

Boyd began his cross-examination as he walked towards Sean. “How did Kyle act when you informed him that the body had been found?”