Witness for the Defense Page 11

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  Across the glass partition from me, Terri perched on the edge of a plastic chair. Her shoulders were hunched and her arms were folded in front of her—as if in retreat from the grim surroundings of the interview room. After a moment, she picked up the phone, holding it gingerly with her thumb and forefinger.

  I sympathized. I was on the side where the good guys sat, and not any happier with the ambience than she was. Inmates didn't have a monopoly on oiliness and stale sweat. There was nothing fresh or alive about either cubicle.

  “How's Hannah?” she asked right off. “Have you seen her?”

  I shook my head. “I've talked to Ted though. He and Hannah seem to be doing fine.”

  “Without me.”

  “What I meant is, they're holding it together.”

  “Ted should have gone ahead with the christening, even if he did want to cancel the buffet afterwards.”

  “I'm sure he wanted you to be part of it.”

  “My mother will probably come stay with them now that. . . that I'm. . . now that the judge ruled against bail.” She swallowed back tears. “I just want to get out of here!”

  “I know. I'm trying.”

  “I didn't do it,” Terri wailed. “I didn't kill Weaver. How can they think I did?”

  “I'm sorry you have to go through this, Terri. I can imagine how awful it must be.”

  She bit her bottom lip.

  “But they must have evidence. I'll know more after I see the police report. In the meantime, I've got some questions of my own.”

  She nodded, pulled her shoulders in even tighter.

  “What time did you leave for Mendocino that morning?”

  “Around ten o'clock, I think. I was up early with Hannah so it felt later, but I don't think it was.”

  “What made you decide to go?”

  Terri shrugged. “I guess I was feeling at loose ends. My mother wasn't well. I thought she should go home. With Ted gone, the house felt empty. Besides, I wanted to show off Hannah.”

  “A spur-of-the-moment decision?”

  “Right. I didn't even call Robin until we got there.”

  “Why didn't you tell Ted where you were?” I had a feeling that had only added to the cops' suspicions and probably underscored their concerns about her being a flight risk.

  Terri dropped her gaze to the table top.

  “He thought you were calling from home,” I added.

  “I know.”

  “That makes it look like you were intentionally concealing where you were.”

  She hesitated. “I was.”

  It wasn't the answer I'd expected. “Why?”

  “Ted doesn't like me driving long distances by myself.” She paused. “Also, he doesn't like that I visit Robin.”

  “Why, is she a bad influence?”

  “He. Robin's a he.”

  “Ahh.”

  “But he's gay so it's not like Ted has any reason to be jealous.”

  Not logically maybe. But I'd found that men felt threatened by gay males in a different way. Nonetheless, her reasons for not telling Ted were apparently unrelated to Weaver's murder. If she was telling me the truth, that is.

  “Robin and I used to teach together,” Terri explained. “He had fifth grade; I taught third. The whole faculty was wonderful. Then the school board decided to reassign all the teachers. I lasted another year. Robin just quit last month. He bought a bed and breakfast place near the coast. It's going to be fantastic when it's all done.”

  “So you spent time reminiscing?”

  “I spent the weekend scrubbing floors and helping him repaint two of the bedrooms. And playing with Hannah, of course. Robin absolutely fell in love with her.”

  “He put you to work?” Not the kind of friend most of us go out of our way to visit.

  “It was fun. Got my mind off my troubles.”

  “Troubles?” I was back to thinking about Weaver's death.

  Terri looked up. “About Hannah, I mean. Whether we were going to lose her, whether we were even right to try to keep her.”

  I was mulling over her story, thinking about how it would play to the prosecution—and the jury. I could see where there might be some room for skepticism. The thought must have been evident in my expression because Terri leaned forward.

  “You believe me, don't you?”

  I had avoided asking myself this very question. What a defense attorney thought about her client's innocence wasn't supposed to be an issue. You tried to do the best you could by your client in light of the evidence. Sometimes this meant fighting tooth and nail at trial. Sometimes it came down to an acceptable plea bargain. But the role of attorney was that of advocate, nothing more.

  Even so, you couldn't help but form impressions.

  I looked into Terri's eyes and nodded. “I'm on your side, Terri. No matter what. And I don't think you killed Weaver.”

  But neither did I think she'd been entirely truthful.

  CHAPTER 13

  Three days later Jared and I were in his office sifting through the initial fruits of our motion for discovery. There were stacks of papers lining the floor along one entire wall. And this was only the beginning. Whatever else trials were, they weren't kind to trees.

  Jared had taken the first cut at organizing the material—an important step because without a plan for tracking information, it was next to useless.

  “Did you catch the press conference on the news last night?” Jared asked.

  I nodded. The mayor and District Attorney Ray Shalla assuring their public that the case against Terri Harper would be pursued vigorously. Both were masters of the sound bite, but had come up short on detail and substance.

  I slid my chair closer to the desk. “Guess now I understand why Shalla hasn't had time to meet with me.”

  “It's weird not seeing them nipping at each other's heels,” Jared said, echoing my own thoughts. “Ever since the brouhaha over that article in the Chron, they've circled the wagons and made like they're on the same team.”

  In the spring, the San Francisco Chronicle had run a special report comparing the treatment of rich and poor defendants in the city's legal system. Both the DA and the mayor had taken it on the chin and had been grappling to redeem themselves ever since. Terri, unfortunately, was a poster case for their cause.

  But it had to be more than that. “The District Attorney's Office may have been a bit overzealous,” I said, “but they wouldn't build a case out of thin air.”

  Jared looked at me. “They didn't.” He reached into his desk for a bag of M&Ms, and poured a handful before tossing the bag my way.

  “It's only ten in the morning,” I told him, pushing the bag away.

  “So?”

  “What've we got so far?”

  “You want to start with the gory stuff?” Jared asked.

  I didn't. On the other hand, Weaver's body was a logical place to begin. “Okay. But just the highlights. I'll read the autopsy report later.”

  “Weaver was shot twice.” Jared was reading from the report. “Once in the lower abdomen and once in the face. Entry wounds to the front in both instances.” He slid the crime scene photos across the table to me.

  I was glad to be drinking coffee and not grape soda.

  Weaver was lying on his back amid a Rorschach spread of red. Blood had pooled on the tile floor of the entry hall and in the hollow above his neck where his face should have been.

  “Geez,” I said. “Looks like he was hit with a cannon.”

  “The blast to his face was at close range,” Jared explained. He continued reading from the report. “A .25 caliber slug. Forensics says it's from a Beretta. Same manufacturer as the gun registered to Terri.”

  “That's prosecutor's logic,” I told him. “Our job is to remind the jury that lots of people aside from Terri own .25 caliber Berettas.”

  “They don't list anything more on the gun.”

  “I don't think they're able to determine model. Did they find
any casings?”

  “Two.”

  “An automatic then.” Which kept Terri in the running. “What else do they have?”

  “Let's see. A Doublemint gum wrapper in the bushes by the walkway.”

  “Not necessarily dropped by the killer,” I pointed out. “But if the prosecution learns that Doublemint is Terri's gum of choice, you can be sure they'll use it against her.”

  It was the kind of evidence that could only damage the defense, not help. We'd gain nothing if we could prove that Terri never chewed gum, because there was nothing to tie the wrapper to the crime. But if there was testimony that Terri chewed Doublemint, the jury would make the connection whether there was a basis or not.

  Jared grinned. “Let's hope she's a Juicy Fruit kind of gal.” He took another fistful of M&Ms. “You like the blue ones?”

  “They all taste the same.”

  Jared shook his head. “Blue tastes different. I don't eat blue.” He dropped two blue candies onto the table near my hand, then turned back to the report. “They found a pair of dark glasses near the body.”

  “Dark glasses and not reading glasses?”

  “That's what it says.”

  It didn't make sense. Weaver wouldn't have worn dark glasses at night. That left the killer, who wouldn't have been wearing them, either, unless he was trying to disguise himself. Surely there were better ways.

  “No sign of forced entry,” Jared continued. “And no sign of a struggle.”

  “They think Weaver opened the front door to his assailant?” I put one of the blue M&Ms in my mouth, closed my eyes, and let it melt. Tasted like generic M&M to me.

  “Who knows what they think? They aren't bothering to share their theories with us.”

  And because it was a Grand Jury indictment, we wouldn't even get a peek at those theories during a preliminary hearing. “Maybe someone was in the house with him,” I said, thinking aloud. “They had a disagreement, and the killer shot him on his way out.”

  “Except there's no evidence of anyone else being there.”

  “A clever killer, maybe.”

  Jared shrugged. If he wasn't buying the theory, it was unlikely a jury would. Besides, it didn't help Terri.

  “Prints?” I asked.

  “Apparently none were Terri's. That's good news.”

  “Of course, if they're going to argue she shot him from outside, it doesn't matter.”

  “Unfortunately,” Jared said, “that's where things get dicey. There was a handprint on the porch railing. Pretty small to be a man's.”

  “On the railing? How can they tell?”

  “The railing's flat, about eight inches across. Apparently the board was dusty and then with the moisture in the air at night... Anyway, they've got a print but not enough detail to make an ID.”

  “Could have been someone selling magazine subscriptions,” I pointed out.

  Jared nodded. “But it's not going to look good if it's about the same size as Terri's hand, is it?”

  “No, it's not.” I'd been studiously ignoring the bag of M&Ms, but it was getting so that I was having trouble looking anywhere else. Finally I gave in and reached for a handful. “What about trace evidence?”

  “Not much. Some black nylon fibers caught in a rose bush by the front steps. Again, not necessarily from the killer.” Jared caught my eye and smiled like a student aiming to please. “Some short white animal hairs on Weaver's pant legs. No mention that Weaver had a cat or dog.”

  I tried to recall if I'd seen an animal at the Harpers'. I didn't think so. And black nylon was about as common as a winter cold.

  “Coroner says time of death is between nine in the evening and about three the next morning,” Jared continued. “But Weaver didn't get off the air until ten. And the couple who live down the hill from him remember hearing what might have been shots a few minutes after midnight.”

  “What might have been shots?”

  “You know what it's like living in the city. There's always noise. Pretty soon you stop hearing it. And if you have your TV or radio on, you're not really listening to what's outside.”

  Jared reached down to the floor for another file. “This is the bad news,” he said. “There's a witness, another neighbor of Weaver's, who says she saw a woman fitting Terri's description leaving the area about midnight. She was driving a dark-colored SUV.”

  “No shortage of SUVs or slender blondes in the city.” Nonetheless, I felt a knot form in my stomach.

  “Gets worse,” Jared said. “The witness got a partial reading of the license plate. Letters were NMO. Same as the Harpers' dark blue Explorer.”

  The knot got tighter.

  California license plates have seven places; a number, three letters, and then three more numbers. I'd forgotten how to do mathematical permutations, but I assured myself there had to be a lot of plates with those three letters. Given the popularity of sport utility vehicles, we might get lucky and find a dozen or so that fit the witness description.

  While part of me was mentally countering the damaging evidence, another part was struggling to contain the uneasiness rising in my chest.

  Was Terri actually guilty?

  I tucked that thought away for later. Not that it should matter, I chided myself. My job was advocate, not judge.

  “Still,” Jared said, oblivious to the debate playing out in my mind, “we ought to be able to raise reasonable doubt. It wasn't like the neighbor got the whole license number. Or even the exact color or make of car.”

  “You're right. Besides, eyewitness testimony isn't the slam dunk most people think it is. In fact, most experienced cops say it's next to worthless. Memory plays tricks on people. They see what they want to see or what they think they should have seen.”

  But I could already see the state's case taking shape. Terri leaving the house the night of Weaver's murder, her mother drugged into heavy sleep with pills offered by Terri. She drives to Weaver's place, rings the bell, and when he opens the door, she shoots him in cold blood. Clean and quick, she's come and gone in the blink of an eye.

  Next morning Terri sends her mother home and flees to Mendocino, conveniently removing the possibility of a forensic test for powder residue from her hands. As a further safeguard, she spends the day scrubbing floors with ammonia.

  It was a lot of supposition, but that's what murder trials were made of. All you needed was a jury looking for an excuse to convict.

  CHAPTER 14

  Parking in Pacific Heights isn't easy, but after circling the block only once, I was lucky enough to find a spot a couple of houses from the Harpers'. As I was getting out of the car, a young woman in khakis and a navy cardigan trudged down the walkway pushing a baby carriage. At first I thought it might be a neighbor who'd been visiting Ted, then I recognized Melissa.

  Why was she with Hannah?

  Melissa turned and headed down the street in the other direction without noticing me.

  I punched the doorbell sharply.

  “Hey, Kali. What a surprise.” Ted was dressed in sweats with a towel draped around his muscular neck. There wasn't a drop of perspiration visible.

  “What's Melissa doing here?” I demanded, a little too sharply.

  “Helping with the baby.” He tossed the towel over a chair as he led me to a sitting room at the back of the house. Through the windows, I could see the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge, still shrouded in summer fog. The TV was on and he flipped it off.

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  Ted looked genuinely perplexed. “What do you mean?”

  “That's asking for trouble.”

  “Melissa's no trouble. She was a real sweetheart to offer, in fact.”

  Could the man be so dense? “She's needy. And lonely.” I wouldn't be surprised if she had a crush on Ted as well, but I wasn't going to flatter him by sharing that thought. “She wants to be part of your life instead of making one for herself.”

  “So? She's a nice kid.” Ted plopped down on the sofa.


  “She's also Hannah's biological mother. You don't think that's a problem?” Maybe he had a crush on her as well. Or an insatiable need for attention.

  “What am I supposed to do now that Terri's in jail?” He sounded accusatory, as though she'd left him for a week in the Bahamas. “I can't care for a baby by myself.”

  “What about Terri's mother?”

  Ted rolled his eyes. “God spare me.”

  “She can't be that bad.”

  “Lenore thinks she knows what's best for everyone. Bossy, opinionated—”

  I cut him off. “Hire help then. Or learn to handle it yourself.” The way women did. “What you're doing here isn't good for you, Melissa, or the baby.”

  “I don't see why not. Melissa was living here before.” He was sounding defensive now, and a little piqued at my disapproval.

  “Right, before. This is after. Melissa and Hannah should not be spending time together. Melissa should not be living here.” I was surprised by my own vehemence. I knew next to nothing about babies, yet I was certain the current arrangement was fraught with problems.

  “It was Melissa's idea,” Ted explained.

  “That doesn't change the fact that it's a bad idea.”

  Ted raked a hand through his thick, dark hair, turned to gaze out the window at the blue-gray water of the bay. Then he turned back to me.

  “Are you going to stand there glaring?” he said. “Take a seat, why don't you.” His tone might not have met the Miss Manners test, but it was friendlier than before.

  I sat. The club chair was much too deep for my comfort.

  Ted leaned forward. “There's this other couple who were interested in the baby...”

  I nodded. “I know about them. The Coles.”

  “Right. Well, they contacted Melissa after they read about Terri's arrest.”

  “What?” I tried to keep the alarm from my voice. “They had no right to do that.”

  “They think she should reconsider.”

  “Too bad. Melissa made her decision, signed all the papers. She can't change her mind now.” Though what Terri's arrest would do to the final decree was anyone's guess.