Before He Wakes (41 page)

“I don’t remember the date being there,” Mary said.

Barbara’s brother Alton followed his wife to the stand. He first declared that the voice on the tape was not Russ’s, and Cotter got to the meat of the matter. Alton had gone to his sister’s house with his brother Steve after the shooting and found numerous weapons in the bedroom.

“I know very little about any type of gun,” he said, but he recalled a pump shotgun in the corner, two military pistols in the nightstand, “a cowboy revolver-style gun” and another small revolver.

“We could see the bullet in it,” he said of one of the revolvers, “so him and myself took it out on the deck, which was just behind their bedroom, and my brother unloaded the shells out of that gun. The rest of them we wrapped in blankets. I know that sounds silly, but we wrapped them up in blankets because we didn’t know if they were loaded or not.”

They put the guns in the back of his car, he said, then checked Russ’s Blazer. “There was another loaded pistol in the glove compartment.”

Alton also recalled seeing several “Bowie-type” knives—“big meat-cutting-type knives mixed around in his dresser drawer.”

He had told Detective Buchanan and Russ’s sister about the weapons, Alton said. Cindy said she didn’t want any of them, and Buchanan had told him they could be sold. National Guard officials had come to claim the military weapons, he said, and had unloaded the others.

Satisfied this point had been driven home, Cotter brought up Russ’s will, knowing that if he didn’t let Alton attempt to explain why he had witnessed Russ’s forged signature, Evenson would make the matter look even worse.

“I was just floating around the house and I was asked to sign his signature,” he said. There had been another document with Russ’s signature on it. “I looked at that versus what was on the will and signed it stating that was his signature.”

He had gone to the courthouse with his sister and mother, he said, because both were upset.

He was surprised, he said, when he got to the clerk’s office and saw that the will had been notarized.

“I was really upset. I thought I had done the wrong thing. It scared me. I asked my mother, I said, ‘When did you get it notarized?’ and she said she knew somebody who had notarized it. I have been trembling ever since because it scared me that I had signed it and it was not notarized and all of a sudden it became notarized. That’s all I was asked to do, just to verify that it looked like his signature.”

On cross-examination, Evenson asked if Alton had based his opinion about Russ’s voice on the tape from listening to the entire tape.

“Yes.”

“Pretty shocking, some of the stuff on there, isn’t it?”

“It’s very shocking knowing both parties.”

“As far as you know, Russ loved Barbara, is that true?”

“That’s true.”

“And he was an honest guy, wasn’t he?”

“As far as I know.”

“Nice guy?”

“Yeah.”

“I believe you have in essence been through this twice, haven’t you?”

“No, I have never testified.”

“What I’m talking about, you have witnessed two wills?”

“I don’t remember witnessing Larry’s.”

Evenson quickly moved to undercut the credibility of the witness. He got Alton to acknowledge that he had been to notary school, and Evenson handed him the affidavit he had signed when he had accompanied his sister to the office of the clerk of court with Russ’s will.

“That is your signature, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

Evenson asked him to read item number three on the document, which swore that the attesting witness on the will had signed at the request of and in the presence of the deceased.

“Is that true?” Evenson asked.

“I don’t understand what it’s saying.”

“You don’t understand?” Evenson said, making no attempt to hide his contempt.

“You tell me, no.”

“When you signed that, what did you think you were signing?”

“I had no idea.”

“You just signed your name?”

Alton was clearly uncomfortable. “Well, no. Let’s see if I can. I really don’t know. It has been what? A year or so.”

“Well, you take your time, and when you’re ready, just let us know,” Evenson said disdainfully.

Alton pondered the document. “Okay, I signed the paper as subscribed witness. That’s what I signed.”

“So in essence, did you see Russ sign that will?”

“No, I did not.”

“But you signed your name and you took an oath on the Bible that you saw him sign that name, didn’t you?”

“No, I did not. Not that I saw him sign, that that was his signature.”

“Did she tell you it was his signature?” Evenson asked, nodding toward Barbara.

“Yes.”

“She did?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I have no further questions.”

Cotter returned to safe ground with the next witness. Barbara’s younger brother Steve was able to describe exactly the weapons he and Alton had found in Russ’s bedroom: two military .45-caliber pistols, a .38 revolver, a .357 Magnum. The pistol found in the Blazer, he said, was a 9mm Browning semiautomatic. All were loaded, he said, and he had unloaded only one of the revolvers.

“Did Russ and you ever talk about guns?” Cotter asked.

“Yes, we did.”

“Was he a gun collector?”

“I would say yes.”

“Has she told you she was scared of guns?” Evenson asked, sweeping his hand toward Barbara at the defense table.

“I believe so.”

“Terrified?”

“I don’t know if she said she was terrified.”

Did he tell investigators that Barbara had taken Russ’s guns to a Durham gun shop and sold them?

“I can’t remember what I told the investigators,” Steve said.

“Is that possible?”

“It is possible. I believe she took them and sold them.”

Had he told the investigators that he had never known Russ to sleep with a gun under his pillow?

“I don’t remember.”

“Did you tell the investigators that he had died in an odd way?”

“No,” Steve said adamantly.

Barbara’s mother, Marva, looking cool and reserved, followed her two sons to the stand. Cotter asked how she had come to sign Russ’s will.

“Well, I went over to Barbara’s to be with them, and Al and Mary were there. They had, I think, just witnessed Russ’s signature and Barbara, well, some of them, indicated that it needed the third witness, and I witnessed that was his signature. Should I go on and tell about—”

“Tell anything you want about the will,” Cotter said.

“Barbara called Oma Smith and asked to bring it over. She said yes, come on.”

She had gone with her daughter, she said, and waited in the car while Barbara took it into the school of business at Duke where Oma Smith worked.

“I drove Barbara because she was in no condition to drive around herself.”

Barbara had returned with the will notarized, she said, and they had taken it to the courthouse.

“As far as you were concerned, were you doing anything wrong about that will?” Cotter asked.

“No, not that I know.”

Cotter then reemphasized Russ’s free-spending ways. “Did Barbara and Russ have money problems?”

“From the day they got married,” Marva said. “Well, beginning, I would say, very soon, maybe within the first month. Cars, golf clubs, diamonds, watches, just about anything you can name, boats.”

Were they equally responsible for all the spending? Cotter asked.

“Well, I never knew that Barbara had any interest in boats,” she said. “She never owned a diamond before. A lot of the stuff, she never had any interest in, I will say that.”

Was she responsible for it at all?

“Partly, yes.”

Was it a problem? Cotter wanted to know.

“Continually. Continually.”

“Was that Russ Stager’s voice?” Cotter asked.

“No,” Marva said with an odd little smile. “Not the Russ Stager I knew.”

Evenson would get little from her in cross-examination.

“How is she partly responsible for the financial trouble?” he started.

“Well, most families, both spend the money and that happened here.”

“What was she spending it on?”

“Well, I don’t know that anybody can answer that question. I would say she bought clothes and she bought maybe—whatever a woman usually spends the money on.”

How did she come to know about the trouble? Evenson asked.

“Most people were familiar with it, I think. You could hardly know that people could buy a car every four or six weeks and not be in financial trouble.”

Evenson led her through the troubles that caused Doris Stager to call a gathering to try to deal with Russ and Barbara’s financial problems.

“We had a family meeting. The blame was put on Barbara at that point, so James and I said we would pay for her to get some help with managing her finances. The Stagers should have done the same thing for Russ, but they didn’t. He was as much to blame, or more, than Barbara was. So we did that. She did get some help and we paid for it.”

She and her husband also had gone to a bank with Barbara and Russ to see about getting a loan, but the bank wouldn’t give it to them, she said.

“They were refused a loan, but I do not know the reason why.”

Did she recall a name being mentioned when the bank turned down the loan? Evenson wanted to know. “Did they mention your daughter’s name?”

“Well, I don’t recall that. That’s as much as I know about the bank situation.”

After Barbara’s arrest, Marva said, she had gone to her daughter’s house with Richard Glaser, the lawyer who had been assigned to the case with Cotter, and when they came out, a man from the bank was waiting to tell them that he was going to take Russ’s Blazer and Bryan’s truck unless the loans on them were paid in full that day.

“I said, well, I would not like for Bryan to lose his truck,” Marva recalled, “for somebody to go down to Wilmington and take his vehicle away from him, I will get the money.” She paid off the truck, she said, but the bank took the Blazer.

She hadn’t known of Barbara’s troubles at the radio station until Russ told her, Marva said.

“So she did have some problems there?” Evenson said.

“Apparently, from what Russ said.”

“Did you receive a phone call from your daughter when Larry Ford was shot?”

“I did. She told me that Larry had been hurt and she was afraid he was dying, and she was just so upset that I knew she did not have a good sense about her. And I said, ‘Well, have you called the police and the rescue squad and whoever else you’re supposed to call?’ She said no. I said, ‘You better hang up and do that.’ ”

“Is that when he was still gasping or gurgling?”

“I do not know.”

“And you were long distance, is that correct.”

“That’s correct.”

“In Durham. She called you from Trinity.”

“Right.”

When the Fords and Terrys were together following Larry’s death, were there times when Barbara would start to say something and she would stop her? Evenson inquired of Marva.

“What is this now?” Marva said.

Evenson made the question clearer.

“No,” she said. “That’s not true. No. No, it isn’t.”

“And did you grab her there in the funeral home and take her out at one point?”

“Possibly. I don’t remember that, but I might have.”

Did she and her husband take the bedding from Russ and Barbara’s bed on the day Russ was shot?

“We did.”

“Was it right after he died?”

“It was, yeah. Right after, or right before. I’m not sure. Maybe it was right after.”

Frustrated, Evenson zeroed in on Marva’s partiality.

“You did witness that will?”

“I did.”

“Did Barbara tell you it was Russ’s signature?”

“I knew it was.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Mmmm-huh.”

So the experts who had said the signature was forged were mistaken?

“In my opinion, they are.”

“Was Mrs. Smith mistaken?”

“Absolutely, she is.”

“She’s lying about that?”

“She certainly did.”

“She’s lying?”

Marva nodded.

“She really hadn’t seen Russ sign his name, as she had sworn, had she?”

“Well, to be frank with you, I’m like my son. I didn’t read the document at the courthouse. I witnessed his signature.”

This wasn’t the first time she had done this, was it? Evenson asked.

“Well, this was the second time we have been through something like this.”