Medicine Wheel (23 page)

Fuller jumped from his chair. “Objection, Your Honor. Mr. Locke’s leading the witness and he’s asking the sheriff for an irrelevant opinion.”
 

Judge Whitmore smiled amiably. “Now, Mr. Fuller, the sheriff is
your
witness after all. I think the defense has a little leeway here.” Then he turned to Cam. “But that’s about as far as I’ll let you go, counselor. I’d take it kindly if you’d just withdraw the question.”

“Withdrawn, Your Honor. I do have just a few more questions, though.”

“Proceed.”

“Sheriff, I’m having difficulty here grasping a few things. Perhaps, you can help me out.” Cam saw the sheriff eyeing him warily. “Did you see anyone fire the Colt?”

“No.”

“Did you talk to a witness who saw Mrs. Brannon fire the Colt or any other weapon at Mr. Brannon?”

“No.”

“But you concluded Mrs. Brannon killed Mr. Brannon?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because she was the only one there at the house.”

“When Mr. Brannon was shot?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well, who else could have been?”

“I could list a lot of possibilities, Sheriff. But may I remind you I’m asking the questions?” Cam quickly finished his cross-examination with a few perfunctory questions to nail down his message to the jurors that the evidence against Kirsten was essentially circumstantial.

47

S
ERENA
STUDIED
THE
jurors while the county attorney called the prosecution’s witnesses and laid out his case, followed by Cam’s cross-examination, which she observed was what she called a “strike and withdraw” attack—making his point precisely and then walking away from the witness. Were it not for his family entanglements, he would have had no need for her at the counsel table. This man was capable of combating the giants of the profession.
 

A few of the jurors were unsuccessfully trying to stifle yawns, but most were alert and attentive. Several times her young shopkeeper’s eyes met hers and then promptly turned away. She thought rapport with key jurors was potentially helpful, but she did not give the weight to such personal relationships that some lawyers did. There was no substitute for preparation, as far as she was concerned.

Serena glanced at Kirsten who sat to her left. The young rancher had shown amazing calm and poise throughout the trial. Her demeanor was relaxed, yet appropriately serious. Kirsten appeared to be following the proceedings intently, but she spoke little even during the occasional recesses, letting her lawyers do their work. This woman was deceptively shallow to many at first meeting, Serena thought, perhaps intentionally so. During trial prep meetings, she had come to realize that she was dealing with a person of intellectual depth and exceptional survival skills—“tough as a boot,” as she’d heard her father say in referring to durable, persistent men he’d encountered.

Dr. Horace Kleeb, the county coroner, had taken the stand for the prosecution, and Serena turned her attention to Cam’s cross-examination. Kleeb, a slight, balding man who appeared to be in his late-sixties, would obviously have preferred to be elsewhere. He fidgeted in his chair and mopped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief as he responded to questions.

“Now, Mr. Kleeb,” Cam asked, “you testified you have been practicing medicine for nearly forty years. Tell me, what medical school did you graduate from?”

Kleeb sighed deeply before he replied in a high-pitched voice. “I became a physician by apprenticing with a St. Louis medical doctor many years ago.”

Cam had gently hammered a small chink in the witness’s credibility. She doubted he would attack aggressively on this front, since the coroner’s main function was to testify that Max Brannon had died of a gunshot wound and no one was contesting that.

Cam continued. “You testified that you thought Max Brannon was killed by a .45 bullet. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“But you could not say for certain?”

“No, the bullet was too fragmented.”

“Hypothetically, let’s say the bullet
was a
.45 caliber. Could you match it to a particular gun?”

“No. I guess there are some gunsmiths and other experts who claim to be able to make a match in some cases, but I wouldn’t have that capability.”

“How many Colts that fire .45 caliber bullets do you think there might be in Riley County?”

“I have no idea . . . a lot.”

“Objection, Your Honor. There is no foundation for this question. It calls for sheer speculation and establishes no basis for the witness’s expertise to respond.” Fuller was clearly miffed at Cam’s quick move.

“Sustained,” the judge said. “Jury will disregard.”

Fat chance, Serena thought, but this was just a small building block in the defense case on the journey to reasonable doubt. Cam had no further questions of Dr. Kleeb, and the coroner made a quick exit from the courtroom. The county attorney called Chet Grisham as his next witness, and if the coroner was nervous, the lanky old cowboy was on the edge of breakdown. Serena noted his trembling hands before they grasped the arms of the witness chair and a tick in one eye that kept the lids flapping.

Frank Fuller led Grisham through his personal relationship with the defendant and the nature of his responsibilities at the C Bar C, before he got to the purpose of the cowboy’s testimony. Finally, he asked, “Mr. Grisham, you acknowledged you were interviewed by the sheriff in the course of his investigation of this case. Did the sheriff ever ask you if Mrs. Brannon ever threatened to kill Max Brannon?”

“Yes. He did.”

“And what was your response?”

“Well,” Grisham replied, his voice shaky, “I told him that Kirsten said, ‘I’m going to kill that son-of-a- bitch’ . . . that was when he didn’t show up to help round up cattle a few months back, but—”

“And did she repeat this on other occasions?”

“Not in them exact words, but, yeah.”

“What were the exact words?”

“Well, once she said she was ‘going to kill that asshole’ . . . pardon the expression. She might have said that more than once.” Grisham’s face turned scarlet.

“She and her husband didn’t get along, I take it?”

“Not for a long spell. Never spoke much to each other when I was around. Or if they did, they was cussin’ each other out about something.”

Fuller completed his examination by asking the same questions different ways, Serena observed, and then the witness was turned over to Cam.

Cam stood but kept some distance away from the cowboy and looked up at the ceiling for a few moments, as if seeking divine inspiration there, before commencing his questioning. Then he turned to the old cowhand. “Tell me, Chet, you testified you’ve worked for Mrs. Brannon for about five years. But you knew her before that, didn’t you?”

Grisham appeared more at ease now. “Oh, yes, sir. Knowed her since she was a tadpole in Missouri. Worked for her papa, Ben Cavelle. Come to work for Kirsten when she set up her operation here in the Flint Hills. She asked me to come with her, and Ben gave his blessing to it.”

“In all those years, how many times did Mrs. Brannon say she was going to kill somebody?”

“Grisham chuckled. Probably hundreds. She was feisty as a bobcat.”

“And did she?”

“Did she what?”

“Kill somebody.”

Grisham laughed again. “No, hell no, she wouldn’t stomp on a spider. Just has a quick temper, and she’d say things like that lettin’ off steam.”

“Did you think she intended to kill Max Brannon those times when you heard her say she was going to kill him?”

Grisham looked surprised. “Well, no, never gave it a thought. She just said things like that. I tried to explain that to the sheriff and Mr. Fuller.”

Fuller interjected, “Objection, witness isn’t being responsive to the question.”

“He’s your witness, counselor. Defense has got a little slack in the rope,” the judge responded.

Cam continued, “Just a few more questions, Chet. Did you ever say you were going to kill somebody?”

“Probably dozens of times.”

“Did you?”

“Nope.”

“Did you ever say you were going to kill Max Brannon?”

“I don’t recall it . . . but I thought it a time or two. Surprised I didn’t get branded as a suspect.”

Serena thought Cam seemed a bit taken aback by the witness’s response, but he recovered quickly.

“Why do you say that?” Cam asked.

“Well, I was sleepin’ right there on the place. Who’s to say I didn’t slip in there and pull the trigger on that pistol . . . or my own. I got a Colt just like it.”

“No further questions.”

Chet Grisham, wittingly or not, had just furnished an alternate theory that the defense, at Kirsten’s insistence, had been unwilling to exploit.

48

J
UDGE
W
HITMORE
,
AT
the county attorney’s suggestion, had adjourned the trial after Chet Grisham’s testimony. Fuller had promised the judge that the prosecution would rest its case by noon this day, Tuesday. Cam and Serena were discussing trial strategy at the dead end of a hallway outside the courtroom, prior to convening of court.

“You’re still planning to call Chet as a defense witness, I assume,” Cam said.

“Yes,” Serena replied. “For some reason, Fuller didn’t bring up Chet’s involvement the night of Max Brannon’s death. I suppose he’s avoiding bringing up the injuries to Kirsten. Of course, after Chet’s setting himself up as a suspect, I don’t think Frank had any interest in touching him in rebuttal. I see it as a tactical error on his part. It will just hit with greater impact when we introduce our evidence.”

“I agree. That’s why I stayed away from it on cross. I’m concerned about Fuller’s next witness . . . the banker, Nigel Baker. I tried to talk with him, but he clammed up and was downright hostile. All I know is that he’s going to say Kirsten had motive to kill her husband.”

“Well, good luck.”

“Thanks. It’s pretty much your show after I’m finished with Baker.”

There was a murmuring of voices and shuffling of feet in the hallway outside the courtroom, signaling that the bailiff must be preparing to announce the judge’s entry. They hurried down the hallway and joined Kirsten, who was already seated at the defense table. Momentarily, the bailiff announced, “All rise.”

As the judge took his seat, he smiled genially, nodded at each counsel and tapped his gavel, and everybody eased into their own chairs. “Good morning, folks. We’ll have this show on the road in a few minutes, but first I’d like to have all counsel approach the bench.” Cam and Serena and both prosecutors complied promptly.

“Gentlemen . . . and lady,” Judge Whitmore said in a soft voice, “this trial’s moving along at a nice pace. Mr. Fuller, do you still expect to finish up this morning?”

 
“Yes, Judge.”

“And what about the defense?”

“We’ll be ready to proceed after noon break, Judge,” Serena said.

“I won’t hold you to it, but how long do you think it will take to lay out your evidence?”

“Two days, Judge. I would expect to finish by Thursday noon, allowing for cross by the state.”

“With closing statements, this could go to the jury by mid-afternoon Thursday. I like that, counsel. Let’s go.”

After the attorneys returned to their respective counsel tables, the county attorney called Nigel Baker to the witness stand. Cam felt unprepared for this witness and tried to appraise the man’s demeanor for a clue as to where he might take the case. He had a neatly-trimmed mustache planted on a pallid, washed-out face, which suggested he was a man who saw little of the outdoors—not surprising for a man of his occupation. He was a thin, bony man and would stand an inch or two under six feet, Cam guessed. Although he had a grim look on his face, Baker did not show any signs of unease or nervousness that most witnesses displayed at the prospect of being mauled by two dueling law wranglers.

Fuller quickly ran through the preliminaries, establishing that Baker was forty-eight years old, a loan officer at the Manhattan Bank and that he had been employed by a St. Louis bank before taking a position in Manhattan little more than a year previous. He was single and resided in a rented house within walking distance of his work.

Fuller turned to the serious questioning quickly. “Mr. Baker, are you acquainted with the defendant, Kirsten Brannon?”

“I am.”

“Would you describe the nature of your acquaintance?”

“She’s a bank customer. I have acted as a loan officer for several of her loans.”

“Did you see the defendant in your bank in the period immediately before the death of her husband?”

“I did. About two days prior, as I recall . . . on a Wednesday.”

“How do you remember that?”

“Because Mrs. Brannon usually dealt with the bank president, Mr. Dawes, but he was out of the bank Wednesday of that week.”

“Since you are a loan officer, I assume she was there to discuss a loan matter?”

“She was. She wanted to purchase 320 acres of grazing land from Clem Rickers, but she required a loan to finance it.”

“Did she qualify for a loan?”

“Yes. She had considerable equity . . . parcels of land free of debt, unencumbered cattle. She, like most expanding farm and ranch operators are sometimes land poor, and she didn’t have the cash to buy that much land.”

“So you granted the loan?”

“Yes and no.”

“What does that mean?”

“I told her she could have the loan, but she would have to give the bank a mortgage to secure it. She had about half the cash available, so it was a sound loan, and she had an excellent payment history with the bank.”

“But there was a problem?”

“Her husband . . . under Kansas law the spouse is required to sign the mortgage.”

Cam knew what was coming next, since Kirsten had explained the bank loan problem and her reaction to it. But Baker was a good witness—matter of fact and calm. He decided to let the testimony play out—not that he had any real choice.

Fuller continued. “Why was this requirement that the husband sign the mortgage a problem?”