In Self Defense (27 page)

He took in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and reached for the shampoo.

***

It was the third day of the third week of trial.  The courtroom was packed, and there was a nervous tension in the air.  Everyone knew what evidence had been presented -- now they were waiting to hear how it would all be explained away.

There had, of course, been a great deal of speculation in the media, with everyone from legal pundits to the neighborhood gardener jumping in to provide his take or her spin.  The Durants’ trusted caterer had already gotten rich providing juicy tidbits, having nothing at all to do with food, to the smear magazines.

“If she knew it was her husband,” everyone agreed, “then she can’t claim self-defense.”  And the general consensus was that the prosecution had pretty much established that.  So everybody waited to hear what evidence the defense could possibly produce that would change anyone’s mind.

***

“The defense calls Elaine Haskell to the stand,” David said.

Clare’s sister-in-law walked directly down the aisle, avoiding eye contact with her brother and her parents who were now allowed to sit in the courtroom.  With her dark hair and flashing eyes, she, more than anyone else in the family, resembled Richard.

“How well do you know your sister-in-law?” David asked, once he had established her identity for the jury.

“I couldn’t know her any better or love her any more if we were blood relatives,” Elaine replied without hesitation.

“It’s been put forward by the prosecution that your brother thought his wife was having an affair,” David suggested.  “Do you have an opinion about that?”

Elaine chuckled.  “That’s nothing but poppycock,” she said.  “Even if she’d wanted to, when would she have found the time?  If she wasn’t at work, she was at home with the children.  If she wasn’t at home with the children, she was out at some charitable meeting or event.  Her life was an open book for anyone who wanted to look.  If you ask me, that was nothing more than Richard trying to justify his own affairs.”

“How would you assess the marriage?”

“Clare was madly in love with Richard, right from the start.  As far as she was concerned, he walked on water.  Or maybe more to the point, she enabled him to walk on water.”

“And your brother?”

At that, Elaine shrugged.  “My brother was madly in love with Nicolaidis Industries,” she told the jury.

“Did it come as a surprise to you to learn that your sister-in-law was seeking a divorce?”

“No, it didn’t, because she wasn’t doing anything of the kind,” Elaine declared.  “Like the affair, that was another fabrication of Richard’s.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I asked her right out about it.  She was very upset that Richard would even think she would do such a thing.”

“But she had to know about his numerous affairs, didn’t she?”

“Oh yes, she knew,” Elaine confirmed.  “And it hurt her deeply.  But she also knew he would never leave her for any of them.”

“Why was that?”

“Because leaving her could well have meant losing his position at Nicolaidis Industries,” Elaine explained, “and Richard would never have done that.”

“But how can you be so sure of that when that’s exactly what some witnesses here have testified he was going to do -- divorce his wife?” David wondered aloud.

“He could have talked to all the divorce attorneys in the world, and it wouldn’t have mattered,” Elaine asserted.  “Look, I knew my brother.  Apparently, I knew him better than anyone else in my family.  If divorcing Clare meant giving up his position at Nicolaidis Industries, he just plain wouldn’t have done it.”

“Not even for Stephanie Burdick?”

“Well, I have to admit, that was the first one that stuck.  The rest of them were pretty much here today and gone tomorrow.  But to tell you the truth, I don’t think even she would have been enough to pry him out of the marriage.”

“Then how do you explain his telling Ms. Burdick, on the night he was killed, that he was going to marry her?”

“I can’t explain it,” Elaine said.  “Except to say she was either deluding herself or Richard was deluding her, or maybe he had something else in mind.”

“What sort of something else?”

“I don’t know, maybe he thought there was another way he could get out of the marriage.”

David nodded slowly.  “Thank you,” he said.  “I have no more questions.”

***

“Mrs. Haskell, you didn’t live with Clare and Richard Durant in Laurelhurst, did you?” Mark Sundstrom asked on cross.

“No, I didn’t,” Elaine said.

“You live in Ravenna, some fifteen minutes away, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then how can you be so positive about how and where Clare Durant spent her time before her husband’s death?”

“Because we talked on the telephone almost every day, sometimes more than once,” Elaine explained.  “We still do.  We’re very close.  But you don’t have to take my word for it.  You can ask Doreen.  She did live with Clare.  She still does.”

“You didn’t like your brother very much, did you?” Sundstrom tried.

“I loved my brother,” Elaine assured him.  “But that doesn’t mean I was blind to his shortcomings.”

The prosecutor gave up.  “Nothing further,” he said.

***

Henry Hartstone took the stand next.

“Clare may not have been part of the day-to-day operations of the company during Richard’s tenure, but she always knew exactly what was going on,” he said.  “I know that for a fact because she’d been having me send her monthly reports for years.  Of course, I can’t say whether Richard knew that or not.”

“Was she happy with the way Richard was running her father’s company?” David inquired..

“Perfectly happy,” Hartstone confirmed.  “As she should have been.  As everyone was.  With all due respect to our new CEO, Richard will be very hard to replace.  He had a brilliant mind for the business.  Gus Nicolaidis knew it.  That’s why he put him in charge.”

“What about the marriage?” David queried.  “Was it a good one?”

“That’s not exactly my area of expertise,” the chief financial officer replied.  “But I have no reason to think otherwise.  As far as Clare was concerned, all I can say is it was obvious she was in very much in love with her husband.  There was never any doubt about that.”

“But you won’t venture an opinion on whether her husband was very much in love with her?”

Hartstone shifted somewhat uncomfortably in the witness chair.  “Let’s just say that the opportunity to run Nicolaidis Industries was a powerful motivator.”

“Are you saying that Gus promised Durant the reins only if his daughter was part of the bargain?”

“There are worse reasons to marry,” Hartstone said.

“Well then, let me ask you this, sir -- what would have happened, professionally, that is, if the Durants had divorced?”

“I guess it would have depended on the divorce,” Hartstone said.

“What do you mean?”

“Specifically, it would have depended on who was seeking the divorce,” the witness clarified for the jury.  “If Clare wanted the divorce, or if it were mutual, I expect Richard could have made his continuing employment a condition.  However, if Richard wanted the divorce, I suspect it would have been something else entirely.  And that’s what I told him?”

“Him?  You mean Richard Durant?”

“Yes.  About ten months or so before he died, Richard came to me with much the same question.”

“And what was it you told him?”

“I told him I couldn’t advise him in any legal manner, but that Gus’s wishes were clear.”

“And they were?”

“Contract or no contract, Richard stayed at Nicolaidis Industries at the pleasure of his wife.”

***

Erin made a beeline for police headquarters as soon as court adjourned for the day.

“What are you doing here?” Dusty asked.

“I just want to check on something,” she murmured.

“What something?” her partner wanted to know.

She looked at him for a long moment.  “Something we may have missed,” she said finally.

***

“Defense calls Dr. Susan Bridges,” David announced, and a petite woman in her mid-forties with hazel eyes and short brown hair walked to the stand.  “Dr. Bridges, will you please tell the jury what your specialty is and what your credentials are?”

“I’m a doctor of psychiatry,” the witness responded.  “I earned my bachelor of science degree from Northwestern University and my medical degree from Stanford University.  I’m currently in private practice here in Seattle, I’m associated with the Swedish Medical Center, and I also teach classes in trauma rehabilitation at the University of Washington.  I’m a member of both the American Psychiatric Association and the Washington State Psychiatric Association, and I’m certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.”

“Will you describe what you mean by trauma rehabilitation?”

“Certainly,” the psychiatrist said agreeably.  “Many people experience trauma of one kind or another, at one time or another, and for some, it’s a life-altering event.  I help trauma victims work through their issues.”

“Did you have occasion to meet and work with Clare Durant, the defendant in this case?”

“Yes, I did,” Bridges replied.  “We met on a number of occasions.”

“Doctor, Mrs. Durant has waived privilege here, so will you please tell the jury what your sessions were about?”

“Mrs. Durant had endured a series of traumatic events in a very short period of time, in this case, less than a year,” the psychiatrist responded, “beginning with a potentially lethal bout of arsenic poisoning, and then an almost fatal fall off a mountain, and then an equally dangerous run-in with a reckless driver, and it all culminated in the untimely death of her husband at her own hand.  Quite justifiably, she was emotionally destroyed.  We spent a number of sessions working on getting her to understand that some things are simply beyond our control, and we shouldn’t always hold ourselves responsible.”

“What did Mrs. Durant feel responsible for?” David asked.

“For the death of her husband, of course,” Dr. Bridges said.

“In what way?”

“She felt -- and I believe still does feel -- that everything that had happened to her leading up to the night in her bedroom was what caused her to react the way she did.  And she’s right.  We act and react based on what happens to us.  A culminating act is based on everything that came before it.  In this case, her close calls with death, the stalker, the police setting up their trap -- all of that played right into what happened.  If none of those things had occurred, the outcome would almost certainly have been quite different.”

“Thank you,” David said.

***

“What about premeditated murder, Dr. Bridges?” Sundstrom asked.

“What about it?”

“Doesn’t that occur because of a set of circumstances that precede it?”

“Of course.”

“So, would it be fair to say that if a set of circumstances existed that had nothing whatsoever to do with Mrs. Durant’s close calls with death, this could have influenced the outcome?”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” the psychiatrist replied, “So I’m not sure how to respond.”

“You treated Mrs. Durant in regard to one set of circumstances, and I just want to know if that was the only set of circumstances that could have been in play here,” the prosecutor clarified.  “For example, what if her trauma was caused, not by her close encounters with death, but by the threat of a messy public divorce, the subsequent damage to her prominent position in the community, and the acute embarrassment of being so callously discarded -- could that series of circumstances have triggered the same result?”

Susan Bridges shrugged.  “Hypothetically, sure,” she said.

***

“Did the issue of a messy public divorce or acute embarrassment ever come up in any of your sessions with Mrs. Durant, Doctor?” David asked on redirect.

“No,” the psychiatrist testified.

“Are you easily fooled?”

The doctor smiled.  “All of us can be fooled,” she said, speaking the absolute truth.  “But we’re specifically trained to detect subterfuge.  In my sessions with Clare Durant, I found no hint of subterfuge, no deception of any kind.”

“Nothing further,” David said, quite satisfied with her testimony.  She had said exactly what he had hoped she would, nothing more, nothing less.

***

“How are you holding up?” Nina asked during her regular nightly telephone call since the trial had begun.

“I suppose I’ve been better,” Clare admitted.

“I’m testifying tomorrow,” the editor told her.

“Yes, I know,” Clare said.  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am to have to drag you into all this.”

“Don’t be silly, I dragged myself into it,” Nina snorted.  “If I’d just kept my big mouth shut and not called the police in the first place, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”