Murder One (40 page)

“And what was her response?”

“She sighed a bit, you know, wistful. She seemed tired. Perhaps ‘resigned’ is a better word.”

“And you recall that specifically?”

“If you knew my ex-wife . . . she is rarely resigned to anything.”

“Then what happened?”

“The fire came, the one I became all too familiar with during our marriage, when her eyes change color from green to a dull gray. That’s when she said it.”

“And what did she say?”

“She said, ‘You know, if I had known it would take this kind of effort, I would have just put a bullet in the back of his head and been done with him.’”

Cerrabone waited a beat. Then he asked, “And did you have any reaction?”

“No, not particularly.”

Several jurors looked confused, as if they had misheard the testimony. Cerrabone too looked and sounded curious but his was no act. “Why not?”

“Because during ten years of marriage, I’d seen Barclay say things like that before. She cannot help herself.”

“So you did not take her seriously?”

A small laugh. “To the contrary, I’ve learned to always take my ex-wife seriously, Mr. Cerrabone. Yes, I thought she meant it, if that is the intent of your question. And yes, I thought she was capable.”

Sloane shot from his chair. “Objection, Your Honor, speculation. No foundation.”

“Sustained. The jury will disregard the witness’s last remark.”

In theory, perhaps, but practically, Sloane knew the jurors would not be able to do so. Apparently recognizing this, Cerrabone was content to leave the jury to consider those stricken but not forgotten words.

Sloane rested an arm on the railing of the well near the court reporter. “You said you learned to take your ex-wife seriously. So I imagine you called the police to tell them of this statement and your concern that she might actually do it.”

“No, I did not.”

“You told your date for that evening.”

“I saw no reason to do that.”

“So you told no one?”

“I told the police.”

“Two weeks after the fact and after Mr. Vasiliev was dead, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Prior to that, you did nothing.”

Oberman looked as though he were about to say something, then cleared his throat. “I did nothing prior to that.”

“You didn’t say why you had learned to take your ex-wife seriously. Why was that?”

“Because my ex-wife is a person who follows through on what she says she will do.”

“Like getting a restraining order from the Superior Court against you after your separation?”

Oberman pinched his lips. “Including that.”

Sloane positioned himself at the corner of the counsel table so that to look at him, Oberman would also have to look at his ex-wife. “Let’s not dance around the pink elephant in the room, Dr. Oberman; your divorce was far more than acrimonious. It was vicious, wasn’t it?”

“I certainly thought so.”

“It even became violent, did it not?”

Oberman shook his head. “I tried to keep things civil.”

Sloane raised his voice, disbelieving. “You were arrested for assaulting her.” He pulled a sheet of paper from the file he had set on the table and approached. “You blackened her eye, split her lip, fractured one of her cheekbones. Do you call that keeping things civil?”

Oberman’s jaw clenched. “I never touched her,” he said.

Sloane held up the police report. “So the police report is what . . . a fantasy?”

“She lied. I never touched her.”

“Did she make up the injuries in this report? Were those also a fantasy?”

“I don’t know how she obtained her injuries, but I was not responsible.”

Sloane was amazed that even now, after ten years, under oath and on the witness stand, the man could be so adamant. “You were arrested for assault, were you not?”

“I was.”

“You spent time in jail.”

“I did.”

“So we know the court didn’t consider it a fantasy.”

Cerrabone rose. “Objection, Your Honor.”

“Sustained.”

“And as part of your release, Judge Corliss issued a restraining order against you.”

“He had no choice under the circumstances. He had to respect the
allegations. I was never convicted of any crime, and I maintain my innocence.”

“You were never convicted because Barclay convinced the prosecutor to drop the charges against you. Isn’t that true?”

“She dropped them after I agreed to give up my custody battle for Leenie; she used our daughter as a bargaining chip.”

“What are you suggesting, Dr. Oberman, that Barclay rammed her face into a meat tenderizer to gain leverage in the divorce?”

Oberman’s voice rose. His eyes became animated. “She wanted full custody of Carly. She told me if she didn’t get full custody, she would destroy me. She succeeded. As I said, my ex-wife usually does what she says.”

“And you had no part in your own demise?”

He clenched his jaw. “She ruined my business, my ability to make a living.”

“I was under the impression that your business was ruined because you chose to have a relationship with one of your psychiatric patients, something the State of Washington Medical Board frowned upon and which resulted in the suspension of your license to practice. Isn’t that true?”

Oberman pointed at him. “I did not have an affair with any of my patients, and the medical board’s inquiry never held such to be the case.”

Sloane nodded as if accepting Oberman’s explanation, then held up a document. “Never held that to be the case because the medical board
also
dropped the charges when the patient failed to appear and testify against you, isn’t that correct?”

“It was one of the reasons. It was not the only reason.”

“Another condition of your parole was that you refrain from the use of alcohol and that you attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings; isn’t that also true?”

“That is true.”

“But alcohol played no part in your demise, either, did it, Dr. Oberman?”

“I acknowledged my drinking.”

Sloane let it go. “Now you indicated that your daughter’s death had a—how did you put it . . .” He walked to the table, and
Pendergrass handed him his notes. “‘A sobering effect on us both, you know; made us realize life is too short.’ Is that accurate?”

Oberman calmed. “I believe so, yes.”

“Isn’t it true, Dr. Oberman, that after your daughter’s death, you began to leave Barclay messages accusing her of being an absentee mother and blaming her for not being more diligent, that if she had been more diligent, she would have seen the signs that Carly was using drugs?”

Reid had recorded the messages and phone calls. Sloane had the tape if Oberman denied it.

Oberman took a breath, gathering himself. “I was angry and upset when I received the news of my daughter’s death, as any father would be. I said some things that I regret, I said them in the heat of the moment,” Oberman blurted, anger seeping into his response.

“Sort of like ‘I would have just put a bullet in the back of his head and been done with it’ could be said in the heat of the moment?”

“No, it’s not the same.”

“I’m sure it’s not,” Sloane said. He turned his back, walking to the counsel table.

“You don’t understand,” Oberman said. Sloane wheeled and looked to Underwood to admonish Oberman and to strike his unsolicited comment. Underwood had already raised his hand, but before the judge could speak, Oberman looked at Sloane, his brown eyes hooded and tired.

“But you will,” he said.

T
HE
J
USTICE
C
ENTER
S
EATTLE
, W
ASHINGTON

Rowe reached for the phone on his desk. He had a few minutes to change into more comfortable clothes, grab his materials, check his messages, and call home to reacquaint himself with his wife’s voice. Then he would head back to the courthouse to meet with Cerrabone for what would likely be a very long evening. Sloane had lived up to the hype. He seemed to have an innate sense of the best way to attack each witness. With Joshua Blume, he had been compassionate
and sensitive, and it was clear from the expressions on the jurors’ faces that they had appreciated it. With Oberman, that compassion was nowhere to be found. Sloane took the man head-on, provoked him, and again his style seemed to resonate with the jurors. And yet—to Rowe, anyway—Sloane seemed to be holding back, perhaps saving his best shot for last, and that last shot was Rowe. He would have to be better prepared than he had ever been.

After speaking to his wife and each of his three sons—his oldest had a baseball game that evening—Rowe grabbed his materials and headed for the elevator but heard someone call his name.

“Sparrow. Hey, Sparrow?” Bernie Hamilton chased after him, a document in hand.

“What’s up, Bernie?”

“Where are you off to?”

“Meeting with Cerrabone. I’m on the stand tomorrow first thing.” Rowe looked down at the document. “I’m late.”

“Not for this. Ballistics are back from the cold case that big PI told us to pull. Zach Bergman.”

L
AW
O
FFICES OF
D
AVID
S
LOANE
O
NE
U
NION
S
QUARE
S
EATTLE
, W
ASHINGTON

Half a turkey sandwich grew stale on a piece of white butcher paper, and the tea Carolyn had made for him had long since grown cold. The door pushed open and Reid walked in, looking exhausted. “How much longer do you have?” she asked.

“More than I have time for,” he said.

“Isn’t it always that way.”

“Rowe’s their last witness,” he said. “I want to make sure we finish strong before we begin our case in chief.”

“Where’s Tom?”

“Drafting our motion for a directed verdict.”

The motion was routine, brought by the defense at the end of the prosecution’s evidence—a request that the judge dismiss the case because the state had failed in its burden to prove beyond a reasonable
doubt that Reid was guilty. Judges were reluctant not to allow a case to go to a jury. Sloane and Pendergrass gave the motion no chance.

“I won’t get my hopes up,” Reid said.

“Why don’t you go home?” Sloane said. “I’ll get in a few more hours and grab a room at the Club.”

“You’re not coming home?”

Home
. Sloane hadn’t thought of Barclay’s house as his home, but he supposed it had become that. Many of his clothes now hung in her closet, and she had cleared space in the top two drawers of a dresser for him. He’d spent far more time at her house recently than at Three Tree Point.

“If I did, it would be very late and I’d just wake you, or you’d wait up for me, and you need a good night’s sleep.” He smiled. “I’ll bill the room to the client.”

“Then get a good room,” she said. Her kiss lingered. When their lips parted, she did not pull back. Eye to eye, she asked, “Is everything okay?” He nodded, but she didn’t buy it. “Sorry, but you don’t get off that easy. Something is bothering you. I sensed it over the weekend. What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“David, tell me.”

“I’m worried,” he said.

Her brow furrowed, but her voice was light. “The lawyer who does not lose, worried?”

“I’m not getting an impression from the jury; what they’re thinking and feeling.”

She put her hands on his shoulders, remaining close. “You’ve been brilliant, just as I knew you would be.”

They kissed again before she departed. When the door closed, he turned and looked out his office window. In his head, he heard his conversation with Jake as the boy left for the airport.

It’s how we heal, you know?

What’s that?

The pain
.

What about it?

Feeling it every day . . . it’s not a bad thing. That’s how we heal
.

TWENTY - SEVEN

W
EDNESDAY
, D
ECEMBER
7, 2011
K
ING
C
OUNTY
C
OURTHOUSE
E
SATTLE
, W
ASHINGTON

C
errabone spent the morning doing cleanup, putting on additional members of the CSI team as well as witnesses to testify that Reid was intimately involved in Vasiliev’s federal prosecution. It set the stage for Rowe.

That afternoon the detective took the stand in a pin-striped suit, blue shirt, and silver tie. Rowe testified that he received the telephone call from Felix Oberman after returning to his office following the daylong investigation of the crime scene. “The first thing I did was run a data check to determine if Ms. Reid owned a handgun, as her ex-husband claimed.”

“And what did you determine?”

“I determined that Ms. Reid had purchased and registered a handgun.”

“Of what caliber?”

“A thirty-eight. A Smith and Wesson revolver.”

“What did you do next?”

Rowe related how he and Crosswhite had gone to Reid’s home and asked to see the weapon, and how the gun was not in the safe on the floor of her closet.

“Did Ms. Reid have any explanation?”

Rowe shook his head. “She said she hadn’t seen it, hadn’t opened the box since taking shooting lessons some time after her daughter’s death. She said she had no idea why it wasn’t in the box.”

“She didn’t know where it was?”

“She did not.”

Rowe discussed the search warrants and what they had removed from Reid’s home, including the five pairs of running shoes. Cerrabone had him identify and authenticate each pair so they could be admitted into evidence.

“What size are the shoes?” Cerrabone asked.

Rowe dutifully pulled out the tongue of each of the pairs as if considering them for the first time. “Seven,” he repeated five times, like a bell tolling.

“What is the brand of each pair?”

“Nike AS300,” he repeated.

“Did you interview Ms. Reid about her collection of shoes?”

“I did.”

“Why so many pairs?”

“She said she was training, that she did triathlons, and that included running long distances.”