The Unbidden Truth (19 page)

“Why do I have to be guarded?”

“If the defendant vanishes, or has a fatal accident, or anything else happens to her, the trial is canceled. Guilt is assumed, and the problem ends for the guilty person.”

Carrie didn't move for a time, then she stood up. “I'll pack my things.”

“Do you want me to help?”

“No. There isn't much.”

“I'll go down and tell Darren,” Barbara said.

She knew Darren had not been in the house long when she
entered the kitchen and saw how red his cheeks and nose were from the cold. It was insane to ride a bicycle to work in December, but he did. “Can we talk?” she asked.

“Sure. Herbert's having a talk with Todd, you want to talk to me. What's up?”

“You asked if Carrie would be safer somewhere else, and I said no. Now I'd have to say yes. Someone tried to light an arson fire in my building last night, and I'm moving all the trial material to Dad's house to keep it safe. We need Herbert over there. And I'll take Carrie over with me.”

He studied her for a moment. “We'll miss her. Is there anything I can do?”

She heard Todd laughing and looked past Darren as Todd and Herbert entered the kitchen.

“He says he's going to be an undercover agent for Mr. Holloway,” Todd said. “He's going to infiltrate a bunch of college radicals.”

“Hey, boy, don't you go making fun of me. Wait till you see me in my school duds.”

Todd laughed again.

Darren was still watching her, Barbara realized, and his question was still hanging. “You could bring Todd over to visit and play chess with Carrie over the weekend,” she said. “I know she'll miss her games with him.”

Todd looked stricken and Darren said, “With the trial coming up next week, it's a good idea to have her over at Mr. Holloway's house. But we'll go visit.”

In her bedroom Carrie finished emptying her closet. As she had said, there wasn't much. Shelley had taken her shopping for clothes to wear in court, and those things along with her old clothes took only a few minutes to pack. She had made a
habit of never accumulating more than her old car could hold easily. Two boxes, two suitcases, that was plenty.

And the only thing of any real importance was the box that didn't take up any space at all. Since Dr. Minnick had shown her the trick with her hands, she had turned the rectangle into a memory box. She had started to tell Barbara about it, then held back. In the beginning Barbara had tried hard to make her remember, then she had stopped, and Carrie had come to realize that Barbara no longer wanted her to remember her childhood. She had to remind herself that the memories she was storing away were not really of her own life, but that of her alter ego, but that was all right, as long as she kept it firmly in mind that she was reconstructing a phantom girl's childhood.

So far she had not been able to recall anything about her father and mother, living in a truck, traveling a lot, the crash that killed her parents and orphaned her. But she felt that if she kept adding memories to her memory box, one day the rest would start to come also. She believed that the other little girl would lead her to herself.

A
lthough Judge Henry Laughton had been on the bench for three years, Barbara had not had a trial in his court before. Shelley, who had tried two cases before him, pronounced him strict and fair enough. But Barbara kept in mind the fact that the judge had been a prosecutor for eight years, then a defense lawyer for three. He had worked both sides of the courtroom, as he had informed both her and the prosecutor, Jason Mahoney, and he would not stand for any shenanigans from either side. Also, he had told them sternly, he wanted this trial over with before the holidays started. No more than she did, she had added under her breath.

There were few observers in court that day: the usual court groupies, a reporter busily writing something in a notebook, and the older Wenzel son, Luther. Families generally preferred to stay away when the grisly details and photographs of murder were being presented.

Neither side dallied over jury selection. She used peremptory challenges three times, and Mahoney four, and by the end of the second day he had given his opening statement. Nothing he said had been unexpected: orphan, foster care, homeless drifter who spotted a rich and vulnerable man in Las Vegas, preceded him to Eugene where she maneuvered herself into a position in his lounge, and several weeks later into his motel bedroom where she killed and robbed him. Barbara deferred her opening statement until the defense presented its case.

Jason Mahoney was one of the younger prosecuting attorneys, thirty-one years old, without a history of many trials. He was slightly built with ginger-colored hair and very pink cheeks. Probably he was as overworked as everyone else in the district attorney's office due to budget cuts and loss of staff. Barbara suspected that he had been assigned this case because at the outset it had appeared cut and dried, but she remembered a warning Frank had given her years before, that the young ones could be the most zealous. In their determination to prove themselves they often overprepared, and they were more likely to take chances. They hadn't been slapped on the wrists often enough by magistrates to teach them manners.

Mahoney's first witness was the motel maid, Rosa Jiminez, who was twenty-six years old, thin, nervous and apprehensive. Her testimony was short and to the point. She had gone to work at seven-thirty, prepared her cart, saw the Maid Service card on room number 1, knocked, then entered. She had seen the body on the floor, had run out of the room and to the office to tell Mrs. Hall-Walling, the assistant manager. Together they had returned to the room to look, then had gone back to the office, called the police and waited there.

The policeman who had come told her to wait in the office, she said, and she did until the detective said she could go ahead and clean the rooms. He made a policeman go with her to open the doors and look around.

Mahoney placed a schematic of the motel on an easel and pointed to it as he said, “So you went all the way to the end of the hall here, then back looking inside the rooms. Did you look inside this one, room 3?”

She nodded, then said yes.

“Had it been used the night before?”

“No.”

Mahoney returned to his table and nodded to Barbara. “Your witness.”

“Good morning, Ms. Jiminez,” Barbara said. “I have only a few details I'd like to clear up. You said you knocked at the door before you entered the room. Do you always do that when there is a Maid Service card on the door?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Why did you that morning?”

“I thought he might still be in there.”

“Can you explain why you thought that?”

“I mean, he never went out so early. Usually not until noon or one o'clock.”

“Had he ever put the Maid Service card on his door before that morning?”

“No. He mostly left the other side, the Don't Disturb side out.”

Barbara pointed to the schematic. “He had two doors to the hall, the bedroom and the living-room doors. Which one did he usually hang the card on?”

“The living-room door. The chain was always on the other one.”

“Was the living-room door the one that had the Maid Service card that morning?”

“No. It was the bedroom door.”

Barbara pointed to the schematic. “You said this room across the hall had not been used the night before. How could you tell?”

“The towels and washcloths were folded, the soap was still wrapped up. The bed wasn't used.”

“Are there opaque drapes on the windows? I mean drapes that don't let light in in the morning?”

“Yes. They were closed like we keep them.”

“Ms. Jiminez, if I walked into a clean room like that and sat down in a chair, turned on the television and a light, if I didn't touch the soap or a towel, would you be able to tell the next day that I had been there?”

Rosa looked around the courtroom as if desperate to get out of it. She shook her head. “Not if you didn't use anything in it.”

“Thank you, Ms. Jiminez. No more questions.”

Mahoney stood up. “Ms. Jiminez, in your statement to the investigating officers, and again in court this morning you said no one had used that room. Is that a true statement, that no one used that room?” His tone, not quite openly rude, was brusque and impatient.

He should have let well enough alone, Barbara thought as Rosa looked at her beseechingly, then sent her gaze darting around the courtroom again. Two of the jurors, a black woman and a Hispanic man, clearly recognized intimidation when they heard it. They looked uncomfortable.

“Just answer the question, Ms. Jiminez.”

“Nobody slept in the bed,” she whispered. “Or took a shower or anything.”

Mahoney looked disgusted, shook his head and sat down. “No more questions.”

And he, Barbara thought, clearly recognized the significance of that empty room to which Gregory Wenzel had a key.

 

The next two witnesses came and went swiftly. Two uniformed officers had taken a look around, then secured the suite and waited for the homicide team to arrive. The first detective on the scene did little more than that. When they learned who the deceased was, he said, Lt. Curry was assigned the case, and he waited for him to arrive.

William Curry was a short heavyset man in his forties who had been in homicide for twelve years. He gave his background training and experience in a monotone, as if bored. He had been through this before and knew the routine. He gave his testimony with a minimum of prompting.

He described how his team had fingerprinted the doorknobs, had taken photographs of the deceased, then left the immediate crime scene until after the medical examiner did his work and the crime scene investigators had collected evidence. The forensics team had started in the kitchen, then the living room, bathroom, and only later the bedroom, he said.

Mahoney produced photographs of the dead man. He was sprawled on the floor with his robe open, the blood appeared black. Lt. Curry identified the gun as the murder weapon, registered to Joseph Wenzel. Then, telling what the forensic team had found, he identified two glasses from a coffee table in the living room, and several fibers he said had come from the sofa, black fibers similar to the cotton in the defendant's skirt, and white fibers similar to the cotton blouse she wore. He identi
fied a skirt and blouse he said they had removed from the defendant's closet.

They recovered six long black hairs, two caught on a button in the deceased man's coat, one from the bathroom floor and three from the sofa, all identical to the defendant's hair. Her fingerprints were on the taller of the two glasses.

After the medical examiner finished, he went on, they had moved into the bedroom where they recovered more black fibers on the bedspread. A wallet had been found with no cash in it.

“When you questioned the defendant at the police station, did you search her purse?” Mahoney asked. Curry said yes. “What did you find?”

“She had seven hundred dollars in an envelope, forty-two dollars in her wallet, and a receipt for two new tires that cost a total of one hundred fifty-five dollars.”

When Mahoney finished with Lt. Curry, he gave Carrie a long pained look and shook his head.

Barbara rose but before she could start her cross-examination Judge Laughton said, “The court will have a ten-minute recess at this time.” He reminded the jury that they were not to discuss the case and walked out.

And that was the prosecutor in him taking sides, Barbara thought. Give the jury time to let the implications of the testimony sink in. She glanced at Carrie, who looked shaken. “Do you want to use the rest room, get a drink of water or anything?”

“No. I don't blame them for arresting me,” Carrie whispered.

 

It was sixteen minutes before the bailiff led the jurors back in and another minute or two before the judge returned. Lieu
tenant Curry took his place on the witness stand again, and they resumed.

“Lieutenant,” Barbara said, “when you discovered that much cash in Ms. Frederick's purse, did you note the denominations of the bills?”

He consulted a notebook and said yes. They were mostly twenties, one fifty-dollar bill, and the rest in tens and fives, with a few ones, all old bills.

“Lt. Curry,” Barbara said, “when you tried to recover fingerprints from the various doorknobs, what were the results? Let's start with the door from the bedroom to the parking area outside.”

“Just smudges inside and out,” he said.

“And the door from the living room to outside?”

“The deceased's fingerprints on the inside and outside knob.”

“Did you test the outside frame around either door?”

“Yes. There were no fingerprints recovered.”

“All right, now the interior doors to the hall. What were the results?”

“Just smudges inside on the bedroom door. The outside knob had the maid's, the assistant manager's and the uniformed officer's. The living-room door had smudges on the hall side and the deceased fingerprints and the maid's on the inside knob.”

“How do you account for recoverable fingerprints from some surfaces and only smudges for others?”

“If you're holding a cloth in your hand, you'd smudge the fingerprints already there, or if you had on gloves.”

He said the gun had no fingerprints and no smudges.

“Did you recover Ms. Frederick's fingerprints anywhere in the suite besides on the glass?”

“No.”

“Were there other fingerprints on the glass?”

“The bartender's, overlaid with hers.”

“Did you find traces of hand lotion on the glass?”

“No.”

She nodded. “You stated that the fibers you found were similar to the material in Ms. Frederick's garments. Exactly what do you mean by similar to?”

“The fibers we recovered had sizing on them, from the manufacturer. Her garments had since been washed.”

“Your Honor, I ask that the lieutenant's last answer be stricken as prejudicial.”

“Objection,” Mahoney said. “The lieutenant answered the question she asked.”

“Overruled. Strike the answer. Rephrase your answer, Lieutenant.”

And that was the defense attorney in him, recognizing a misleading answer when he heard it, Barbara thought.

“In both cases the fibers we recovered had manufacturer's sizing in them. The defendant's garments had been washed. Otherwise they were the same.” Curry's face remained impassive, and his voice was still the monotone he had assumed at the start.

And he knew exactly what his first answer had implied, Barbara thought. “Did you learn where Ms. Frederick had purchased her garments?”

“They came from Wal-Mart.”

“You said you removed various objects from the rooms,” she said. “Is this the inventory of those objects?” She handed him the inventory. He studied it, then compared it to his notebook before he said it was. “You took a tape recorder, but there is no mention of tapes. Did you find tapes in the room?”

“No.”

“Did you find a key to a safe-deposit box?”

“No.”

“Did you find a receipt for a cash withdrawal from the bank, or a deposit slip?”

“No.”

“Did you find a wrist brace?”

He said no again, in that same flat tone.

“The inventory mentions a carry-on with wheels. Did you find any other luggage?”

“No.”

“Did you examine the contents of Joe Wenzel's wallet?”

“Yes.”

“Did you find his driver's license?”

“I don't recall if we looked for it.”

“So is your answer no? You didn't find it?”

“I have no memory of it one way or the other.”

“What was in the glasses you examined?”