The Best Defense (30 page)

“Do you tie your own flies?”

“Yeah.”

“And on Wednesday, April sixteenth, did you go to a sports shop and pick out waders, a tackle box, a fly rod, several flies?”

He was darting glances around again, or stretching his neck, running his finger under his collar, scratching, every time he spoke. His twitchiness was getting on her nerves.

“Yeah, I needed some stuff,” he mumbled after a long pause.

“What kind of flies did you buy?”

He shrugged.

“I don’t remember. Just some flies.”

“Did you have any equipment for a fishing trip when you agreed to go?”

“Yeah, sure, just not enough. I just needed a few things.”

“Mr. Kennerman, didn’t you try to charge three him dred forty dollars’ worth of fishing equipment on a credit card Wednesday?”

“I don’t know. Not that much.”

“Weren’t you turned down when the credit card charge was rejected?”

“Yeah. They wouldn’t let me use it.”

“And on the next day, Thursday, did you go to the bank and withdraw four hundred eighty dollars from your joint savings account?”

“No!” he cried.

“It was four seventy-five.”

Barbara nodded.

“And did you use that money to pay for the equipment you had selected on Wednesday?”

“Yeah, some of it. I had to go fishing with the guys.

One of them was going to give me a job.”

“Were those three other men friends of yours?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“How long had you known Gus Hormeier?”

“A couple of years. We used to work together.”

“And Michael Selby?”

“A few months, maybe.”

“I believe you said the third man was named Mr.

Wentworth; how long had you known Mr. Wentworth?”

He looked around the courtroom again, as if searching for an escape route.

“I just met him.”

“So they weren’t really your friends, were they?”

“Gus is my pal.”

“The four of you rented a cabin, didn’t you? Planning to stay up there Friday night and Saturday night. Was that the plan?”

“Yeah.”

“But you didn’t go until Saturday. Why was that, Mr.

Kennerman?”

“I was looking for Paula on Friday. I got worried when she didn’t come home Thursday night.”

“Did you go to her sister’s house in Cottage Grove?”

“Yeah. She wasn’t there.”

“And did you go to the Olympus restaurant and try to collect her paycheck?”

“No! I just was looking for her.”

“Did you ask Cindy Truman for Paula’s paycheck?”

“No! I might have said I’d put it in the bank for her or something like that. I didn’t want it. I was trying to find out if she’d been there.”

“Did you go to a house on South Polk Street looking for her?”

He hesitated a long time, studying his fingers intently.

“Yeah. I went there.”

“Who lives there, Mr. Kennerman?”

“I don’t know, just a bunch of women.”

“Isn’t that what they call a safe house for women?”

“I don’t know what they call it,” he mumbled.

“How did you know about that house, Mr. Kennerman?”

“Guys talk, you know. I heard about it.”

“What time did you drive up to the North Fork on Saturday morning, Mr. Kennerman?”

“I don’t know, nine or a little later.”

“Did you find your three friends?”

“Yeah, sure.”

-“Mr. Kennerman, did you see Gus Hormeier that morning?”

“Yeah. He didn’t see me. He was busy, fishing.”

“Did Michael Selby see you?”

“No, not right away. He was with Gus, down the river, with a’lot of other guys all around them. It was crowded there.”

“Who did see you?”

“Mr. Wentworth. I went by him and stayed awhile.”

“What time was that?”

“I told you, nine-thirty or ten by then.”

“How long did you stay by Mr. Wentworth?”

“Hour, hour and a half. I don’t know.”

“Was it cold and overcast?”

“Yeah.”

“Where is Mr. Wentworth now?”

“I don’t know. Back in California, I guess. He just come up for the opening of trout season.”

“So the only person who saw you was Mr. Wentworth, who is out of state.”

“We were all together later on,” he said quickly.

“At what time were you all together?”

“I don’t know. In the afternoon sometime.”

“Mr. Kennerman, did Mr. Wentworth tell you to go away and not bother him?”

“How’d you-No! We just fished.”

“Didn’t Mr. Wentworth say something like you were an amateur and had no business out there?”

“No! No, he didn’t say that.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing like that. He said he didn’t want to talk business. He came to fish.”

“Mr. Kennerman, didn’t you buy a lot of new gear and go out there in order to impress Mr. Wentworth?

And didn’t he treat you with contempt?”

“No! He was a little uppity, that’s all.”

“And was it still overcast and cold when you left him?”

“Yeah. He didn’t want to talk and I was cold.”

“Mr. Kennerman, I have here the newspaper report of the opening day of trout season this year.” She went to her table and produced the paper.

“It says the weather was clear and warm all day; there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Yet you say it was cold and overcast. What time are you talking about, Mr. Kennerman? Before the sun rose?”

Pierst objected on the grounds that the question had been asked and answered several times. He was overruled.

“I don’t know what time it was,” Kennerman said.

“I

was cold.”

“Didn’t you get in your car and drive back to town then?”

“No! I didn’t! I stayed out there and fished.”

“Didn’t you drive out to the Canby Ranch and have a look around?”

“No! I didn’t know nothing about the place!”

“But you knew about the Polk Street Safe House, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I knew that one, but not the other one.”

“When did you first start noticing that Paula was abusing your child?”

“She wasn’t, not that way. She’d yell at her and punish her, that’s what I mean.” He was gripping the stand with both hands; beads of sweat lined his upper lip, sweat shone on his forehead.

“When Lori was an infant? In diapers?”

“Yeah, it started back then.”

“Did you try to stop her?”

“Yeah, sure I did.”

“How?”

“Like I said, I’d pull her away, keep her away from Lori.”

“Did you hit her?”

“No! I’d just try to pull her away.”

“Mr. Kennerman, did your former wife have to have a root canal in July of a year ago?”

“I don’t know.”

“Didn’t you slap her hard enough to loosen a tooth, which then abscessed?”

“No!”

“Did you and Paula talk to a marriage counselor a year ago in August?”

“Maybe. I don’t know when it was.”

“And didn’t Paula tell you then that if you hit her again, if you didn’t straighten yourself up, she’d leave you? Do you remember that?”

“No!”

“Did you ever hit Lori?”

“No!” he cried in anguish.

“I never.”

“Did you tell the counselor that you and your former wife would open a savings account for Lori’s education?”

“We talked about it, yeah. We never had a chance, Paula and me. We wanted things better for Lori.”

“Why did Paula punish Lori? How did she misbehave?”

“She didn’t. She was a good kid.”

“Did she yell, race around the place, make a lot of noise?”

“Yeah, sometimes. And Paula made her sit still on the floor.” He was very pale; his hands were trembling, and he was staring in a fixed gaze beyond her.

“What else did Lori do?”

“Sometimes she wet herself.”

“And she was punished for that?”

“Yeah, she said she’d take her to the woods and let the bears eat her.”

“And did she threaten her in any other way?”

“Yeah, with a curling iron. She said she’d burn her.”

He began rubbing his chest, still staring, blindly, it appeared.

“Do you have a scar on your chest, Mr. Kennerman?”

“No! She never burned me.”

“Who are you talking about, Mr. Kennerman?” Barbara asked in a low voice, moving in close to the witness stand.

He broke then. Both hands flew to his face and his body shook out of control. Barbara walked back to the defense table, turned, and regarded him with pity. The silence in the courtroom was complete.

“You’re not talking about Paula, are you, Mr.

Kennerman?” she asked after a moment.

“No,” he said, choking, his hands concealing his face.

“Did your mother burn you with a curling iron, Mr.

Kennerman?”

“No! She didn’t do that. She wouldn’t do that!”

“Your former wife never threatened your child, did she?”

“I don’t know. No. No, she didn’t.”

“Mr. Kennerman, the night you had your last fight with Paula, did you pick up Lori and throw her on the bed?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he said from behind his hands.

“Did you threaten to throw her out the window?”

“No! I didn’t mean it. She knew I didn’t mean that.

I wouldn’t hurt Lori. I loved her. Oh, God, I loved her!”

He stopped, and this time he buried his face in his arms on the stand.

Judge Paltz rapped his gavel.

“The court will recess for fifteen minutes,” he said quietly.

“He was crying,” Barbara said softly to her father in the little room.

“Paula was crying. Half the jury was crying.

I might cry.”

“You might want to cry,” Frank said, putting his arm around her, “but you won’t. Not here, not now. Maybe later.” He gripped her shoulder.

“You know you had to do it, Bobby. You know that.”

She nodded. She knew that. What she wanted to do, she thought then, was go to the coast, stand on the cliff over Little Whale Cove, and explain to Mike that she had to do it. She patted Frank’s hand and went to the window to watch them on the crosswalk.

* “Mr. Kennerman,” she said when they resumed, “when Paula was in the hospital after the tragedy, you went to visit her several times. Then you stopped. Why was that?”

He had washed his face and looked as if he had taken something that had a remarkable calming effect. He was pale but composed now.

“I knew she must have done it,” he said dully.

“What made you think that?”

“The paper said she killed Lori and set the fire, nobody else could have done it; and I got a letter.”

“What newspaper are you referring to, Mr. Kennerman? The daily paper here in town?”

He shook his head.

“Some paper I never seen before.”

She went to the table and picked up a copy of the Valley Weekly Report.

“Was it this paper?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Like that one.”

“Tell us about the letter, Mr. Kennerman.”

“It just came. It said she was seeing this rich guy and making a fool out of me. That’s all.” Whatever he had taken had numbed him so much that now his voice was a monotone and all his restlessness was stilled. He looked almost asleep.

“Do you have the letter or the paper?”

“No. I tossed them.”

“Mr. Kennerman, a year ago didn’t you and your former wife see a counselor who advised you to continue with counseling?”

He shrugged.

“I don’t know. I didn’t pay any attention.

It was for her.”

“You mean you went because Paula insisted?”

“Yeah.”

“And did Paula say she would give you one more chance? Only one more chance?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

“When you arrived home that Thursday evening and found her packing, was she angry because you took the money out of the savings account? Is that what you fought over?”

“Yeah. She was sore.”

“And did she say you had had your last chance, that you had blown it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“When you went to the Polk Street house, did you threaten to break down the door if they didn’t send her out?”

“No. I didn’t mean anything like that.”

“Did you say it?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Did you threaten to burn down the house?”

“No! I didn’t say that!” Sudden animation made him look at her; he was wild-eyed.

“Did you yell that you would burn down the house and make all those bitches go back home where they belonged? Did you say that?”

“I could of!” he cried.

“I might of. I didn’t mean it!

And I didn’t burn down no house!”

“No more questions,” Barbara said.

“Dad,” she said, in the car with Heath Byerson behind the wheel, driving what seemed to be a random route, “remember that wildlife refuge up past Junction City?

Off Ninety-nine? I think I’ll change my clothes and go up there and do some hiking.” No people, she thought, not on a weekday at this hour, this time of year.

“Fine,” he said.

“I’ll go with you. But there’s some thing we have to see to first.”

Heath Byerson had made many turns, and she realized that they had entered the Whiteaker neighborhood, her neighborhood. They passed Martin’s restaurant, and she had a surge of nostalgia for it, for holding court in the dining room, advising people about wills and fences and property lines…. Heath Byerson turned down her street and stopped at her house; she gasped. The windows were boarded up, and the front of the house was covered with red paint.

“Those sons of bitches,” she cried.

“Those god damned sons of bitches!”

frank produced a key for the padlock, and they entered the house. Every window had been broken; it looked as if a high-pressure paint sprayer loaded with red paint had been used inside and out. Silently she looked at her futon, covered with red paint that looked like blood. In her office her file cabinet was streaked red, the desk was covered. Nothing in the living room was salvageable.

“Let’s go,” she said tightly.

“We think it happened about three or four in the morning,” Heath Byerson said back in the car.

“Probably when a train was going by, since no one heard anything.

Some of the paint was still wet when the investigating officers arrived a little after eight. A lot of people saw the windows and junk this morning, and called us.”