Prosecution: A Legal Thriller (21 page)

They had waited nearly a year to marry, but Goodwin
and Kristin had started making plans for their life together almost
immediately. They acquired a secluded half acre with rock
outcroppings, a stand of ancient fir trees, and a distant view of
the nighttime lights of the city. The architect first visited the
site three months after the murder. He remembered they were as
excited as a pair of newlyweds, pestering him with questions about
how long it would take to build.

Designed for constant alteration, the house was a
masterpiece of contemporary innovation. Enormous glass walls let in
the changing light, and by the use of temporary partitions, the
rooms inside could be expanded or diminished or made to disappear
altogether whenever there was a desire for something different.

Various charitable organizations had preserved copies
of receipts that had been given to Goodwin for clothing he had
given away, as he replaced one wardrobe with a much larger one. The
closet in the master bedroom of his new house was nearly as big as
the bedroom he had shared with his first wife in the old one.

These revelations of Marshall Goodwin's
self-indulgent excess were treated by his attorney with a show of
indifference. Each exercise in cross-examination was a variation on
a single theme. Stretching his hands far apart, Richard Lee Jones
would bunch up his lips, narrow his eyes, and shake his head in
endless bafflement.

"So, what you're saying," he asked the architect, a
slightly built man with a high forehead, a straight, thin nose, and
intelligent blue eyes, "is that Mr. Goodwin commissioned you to
design a new house. Is that about it?"

"Yes, that's right," the architect replied, a trace
of uncertainty in his eyes as he tried to understand where this was
going.

Using his leg to shove back the chair as he drew
himself up, Jones struck the air with his hand, an abrupt and
awkward movement, like someone who reaches out to catch a fly
without any expectation of success. Lumbering across to the stand,
he eyed the witness suspiciously. "Tell me, Mr. Dietrich, do you
have a specialized clientele?"

"I don't think I know what you mean."

Jones turned to the jury. "I mean, Mr. Dietrich, do
you design houses only for murderers? Because if you don't," he
sneered, "I'm at a complete loss to see why you've been asked to
testify here today." He did the same thing in a different way with
the car dealer who sold Goodwin the Jaguar. "To the best of your
knowledge," he asked, searching the eyes of the witness as if he
was looking for the first sign of guilt, "how many of the people
you sold cars to last year killed someone to get the money to pay
for them?"

"Why, no one," the witness blurted out, before I
could lodge an objection.

The proprietor of the exclusive men's store where
Goodwin had spent almost as much as he used to earn in a year was
asked a less threatening question.

"You sell men's clothing, correct?"

"Yes."

"To men?" he asked, as if he wanted to be absolutely
sure.

"Yes."

"Good for you," Jones said exuberantly. "For a moment
there, I thought you must be involved in something illegal, the way
Mr. Antonelli was asking you questions."

He began every cross-examination looking at the
witness and ended it facing the jury. And they looked back at him,
followed him where he went, and listened to what he said and the
way he said it.

After days of this, I was down to the last two
witnesses for the prosecution.

Rebecca Easton ran a small neighborhood branch of a
large interstate bank, in which Marshall and Nancy Goodwin had kept
their account. She was in her mid forties, with black hair cut
straight across her forehead, and was dressed in a red blazer,
white blouse, and a black pleated skirt. The enormous circular
frames of her glasses gave her dark eyes a slightly startled
look.

In response to my question, the bank manager produced
first a deposit slip and then a canceled check. The deposit slip
was in the amount of thirty-five hundred dollars. This, as her
testimony demonstrated, was money moved from a small savings
account at the same bank. With this addition, the balance in the
Goodwin checking account was brought up to slightly more than
eleven thousand dollars.

"And on that same day, did Mr. Goodwin cash a check
at your bank?"

"Yes, for ten thousand dollars."

"And was that check drawn on his own account—I should
say, the account he shared with his wife?"

"Yes, the account was a joint account. Marshall and
Nancy Goodwin. Either person," she explained, "could make deposits
or withdrawals."

I was standing at the front corner of the counsel
table, closest to the witness stand. "So one person," I asked, as
if there might actually be someone who did not know, "can write a
check on an account like this, even if, for example, all the money
has been put in by the other person?"

"Yes, exactly. The parties have equal access to the
account."

I stared down at the floor, as if it still was not
quite as clear as I needed it to be. Perplexed, I looked up. "So it
would actually be possible—if two people have an account
together—for one person to hire someone to kill the other and use
their money to pay for it?"

She never had a chance to answer. Judge Holloway, her
eyes sizzling, brought her gavel down hard with one hand while
pointing a finger at me with the other.

"You want to be held in contempt?" she
threatened.

I stood straight and said firmly, "I apologize to the
court for whatever I may have said. It certainly was not my
intention to go beyond the bounds of what I'm allowed to ask." It
was a formal apology that acknowledged nothing in the way of
wrongdoing.

"It was deliberately inflammatory, your Honor," Jones
protested, a scowl descending over the rough-edged features of his
face.

She looked at him sharply. "As opposed, I assume, to
the strictly accidental nature of your attempts to inflame the
jury?"

The scowl deepened, the shank of unruly hair dangled
close to his eyes. Squinting up at her, he started to say
something, seemed to think better of it, and just shook his head in
a gesture of sorrowful contempt.

She was quick to see his meaning. "Careful, Mr.
Jones," she warned. "This isn't some one-horse courtroom out in the
desert somewhere."

He would not look away, and neither would she.

"Counsel will please approach," she said
peremptorily.

Shoulder to shoulder, we stood at the side of the
bench and bent forward so no one else could hear.

Raking me with her eyes, she hissed, "You've played
that game in here for the last time, Mr. Antonelli. If you want to
testify, go put a subpoena on yourself."

She turned to Jones. "You listen to me, Mr. Richard
Lee Jones. You ever give me a look like that again, you'll have
reason to regret it. Now, both of you, get out there and act like
the gentlemen I know you are."

Like chastened children, we resumed our places,
consoling ourselves with the secret pleasure we had taken in the
punishment inflicted on the other.

Rebecca Easton, her hands folded neatly in her lap,
had waited patiently in the witness chair, trying to ignore the
angry colloquy taking place on the other side of the bench.

I began as if nothing had happened. "Mrs. Easton,
what I was trying to ask you is whether each person on a joint
account has the power to withdraw money from it, no matter which
one of them may have put the money in?"

"Yes, of course."

"Now, I'd like to go back to this one transaction.
What is the date on the canceled check, made out to cash, by which
Marshall Goodwin withdrew ten thousand dollars from that joint
account?"

The date was two days before the date on which Travis
Quentin had been released from the county jail.

My head bowed, I walked toward the jury box, my arms
folded across my chest.

"And do you have a record of the way in which that
ten thousand dollars was given to Mr. Goodwin?" I asked, as I
stopped in front of the railing and raised my eyes.

"I'm sorry," she replied. "I don't understand."

Turning just far enough to see her, I said, "What
denominations were the bills he was given?"

She understood. "Hundred-dollar bills."

I looked back at the jury, my eyes darting from one
to the other until I had gazed briefly at them all. Travis Quentin
had testified that both the money he had found in the envelope and
the money he picked up later at a bus station locker had been in
hundred-dollar bills. "No further questions, your Honor."

"Cross-examination, Mr. Jones?" inquired the
judge.

Without any questions he could usefully ask, Jones
sought to discredit the bank manager's testimony by simply
dismissing its importance out of hand. With a shrug of his
shoulders, he shook his head and then, rising halfway out of his
chair, as if that was all the time he wanted to waste, flapped his
hand like someone trying to speed things up. "No, your Honor," he
sighed, and sank back into the chair.

I had only one witness left. "The State calls Conrad
Atkinson," I announced laconically. Out of the corner of my eye, I
saw Goodwin whisper something into Jones's ear. Lean and graceful,
Atkinson moved up the aisle with the easy self-assurance of someone
who neither doubts his own importance nor thinks it worth
mentioning to anyone else. His gray pinstripe suit coat, square
across the shoulders and curved inward at the waist, was tailored
perfectly.

He sat on the front edge of the witness chair, one
leg on the floor, the other crossed over it, and leaned his right
elbow on the arm of the chair.

I had only a few questions to ask him, and he
answered each of them directly and without embarrassment.

"Mr. Atkinson, you were once engaged to Kristin
Maxfield, now Kristin Goodwin?"

"Yes, I was."

"You were in love with her?"

"Yes."

"And she was in love with you?"

"No, I don't think so." He said it the way he would
have expressed a doubt that the stock market will always go up.

"She was engaged to you and you don't think she was
in love with you?"

An indulgent look creased his well-tanned face.
"Kristin was—how shall I say?—along for the ride. With Kristin you
always had the sense that she'd always be there for you—unless you
ran into difficulties or"—he lowered his voice—"she found something
better."

Bolting out of his chair, Jones began to wave his
gangly arms. "Your Honor," he bellowed, "I really don't see where
any of this is taking us."

Neither did Irma Holloway. "Mr. Antonelli, are we
going somewhere with this?"

"Yes, your Honor."

She fixed me with a prickly stare. "Then could we get
there soon?"

Immediately, I went to the night of Nancy Goodwin's
death. "Were you engaged to Kristin Maxfield when that
happened?"

"Yes, I was."

"Were you living together?"

"Yes, we were. She kept her own place, but we had
been living together at my house for about six months."

"And did she spend that night with you?"

"I suppose it depends on how you define night," he
replied, with a wistful look.

I was standing in front of him, a few feet from my
end of the counsel table. I tilted my head and waited.

"She was involved in a trial. With Goodwin there," he
added, nodding briefly toward the defendant. "And I knew she

was probably going to be working late. In fact, she'd
told me she probably wouldn't be home before eleven or so."

"And what time did she come home?"

"It was after four in the morning. Closer to five,
actually. She didn't bother coming to bed. She showered, changed
clothes, said something about having to get back to the office, and
next thing I knew she was gone."

"How much longer did the two of you continue to live
together?" I asked, as I turned and began to pace in front of the
counsel table.

"Not long. I had thought for some time she might be
seeing someone else, and that night pretty well convinced me."

II stopped directly in front of Goodwin and looked
out over his head at the crowd that was shoved tight together on
the courtroom benches. In the back row, Kristin Maxfield was
listening to every word. "Thank you, Mr. Atkinson," I said, with a
brief smile. "No more questions, your Honor."

Scrambling to his feet, Richard Lee Jones went right
up to the witness stand.

"So, Mr. Atkinson, you thought your fiancee was
seeing another man?"

Atkinson uncrossed his legs and, both feet on the
floor, squared up and stared straight into Jones's face.

"Yes, that's correct."

"And to confirm this suspicion, you hired a private
detective?" he asked.