The Silence of Murder (24 page)
Read The Silence of Murder Online
Authors: Dandi Daley Mackall
It’s all I can do to keep from shouting, “Go, Raymond!” I admit I wasn’t crazy about Raymond bringing up Rita like that, but it’s clear that I have seriously underestimated Raymond Munroe, Attorney for the Defense. He leads Caroline Johnson through a series of questions and answers about her husband and Jeremy. Even she has to admit how much they liked each other. I whisper to Chase, “I’m so glad Raymond got her on the stand. Everybody has to see that she did it, or at least that she could have done it.”
Chase isn’t bubbling over like I am. “Don’t be too sure. Keller will get another crack at her when Raymond’s done.”
This is something I hadn’t thought about, and it doesn’t seem fair. Keller already had his turn when she was
his
witness, even though she only testified on paper. Raymond finishes his questions, and I still think he nailed it. But Chase is right. Keller stands up the second Raymond announces that he’s out of questions.
K
ELLER:
Mrs. Johnson, on behalf of the court, I’d like to apologize for putting you through this today. You’ve been most gracious to come to court and help us finish up the trial.
May I get you anything? I’m sure the judge would consider a short recess.
M
RS
. J.: No. Thank you. I’m here to help.
K
ELLER:
I’d like to revisit your husband’s relationship with the defendant. Can you describe it for us?
M
RS
. J.: Of course. John felt sorry for the boy. Well, I suppose one has to, doesn’t one?
K
ELLER:
So he spent time with the defendant and gave him a job?
M
RS
. J.: John was always generous to a fault. He taught the boy how to care for horses and taught him to ride, not that John had that kind of time. After the cancer made me an invalid, John had to do his own job and mine. He took over the stable. He let Jeremy muck the stalls, and he undoubtedly paid the boy much more than the task merited.
K
ELLER:
And what about Jeremy and the Panthers, your husband’s baseball team?
M
RS
. J.: Again, John’s heart was too big for his own good. Jeremy couldn’t play on the team, of course, so John let him carry the clipboard and equipment bag. John even gave him a uniform.
K
ELLER:
Forgive me for making you relive this one more time, but I need to talk about Jeremy’s bat. Do you know where the defendant got his bat?
M
RS
. J.: From my husband. John bought it for the boy. And it wasn’t cheap. All the other boys wanted aluminum bats. But John said Jeremy wanted a
real
bat, a wooden one. I never liked seeing Jeremy with that bat of his. I knew it was trouble from the minute I—
R
AYMOND:
Objection!
J
UDGE:
Sustained. Just answer the questions, Mrs. Johnson. Proceed.
K
ELLER:
Did you ever see the defendant with his bat?
M
RS
. J.: All the time! He carried that bat with him everywhere. He scared a couple of our broodmares with it. John wheeled me to the barn from time to time so I could be around the horses. That was before this last bout with the cancer.
K
ELLER:
And you saw Jeremy in the barn? With a bat?
M
RS
. J.: Yes. I’m the one who insisted he leave the bat at the entrance the minute he stepped inside the barn.
She breaks up, and Keller hands her one of her tissues. I think her crocodile tears are a crock. I stare at the jury and hope they got the part about her knowing exactly where the bat was kept.
K
ELLER:
After you stopped going to the barn, did you see the defendant again?
M
RS
. J.: John brought him by the house, but …
K
ELLER:
Please go on, Mrs. Johnson.
M
RS
. J.: But that boy always made me nervous. Anxious.
K
ELLER:
Anxious? How so?
M
RS
. J.: He brought that bat into our house, for one thing.
K
ELLER:
Tell the court about the last time you allowed the defendant into your home.
M
RS
. J.: Jeremy had supposedly gotten a splinter in his finger from one of the spades or pitchforks in the barn. John brought him to the house so he could get a pair of
tweezers. He needed more light to see the splinter, so they used the bathroom. On the way out, they stopped by the bedroom so John could check on me and explain. I tried to put the boy at ease and asked him questions about the horses, yes-or-no questions. But he got more and more agitated. He started swinging that bat. He swung it around and around, harder and faster, until I was frightened. He ended up breaking my bureau mirror, my grandmother’s mirror. John said it was an accident, but I don’t know.
K
ELLER:
What do you mean?
M
RS
. J.: I thought then—in fact, I was sure—that Jeremy had swung his bat into my mirror on purpose. He knew what he was doing, all right.
After Keller sits down, Raymond stands up and tries to get in some last words about how much Jeremy and Coach liked each other. But it doesn’t help. He can’t erase Caroline Johnson’s words. They’re stuck in our heads, and nothing is going to drive them out:
He knew what he was doing, all right
.
I’m so angry when court adjourns that my stomach aches and my whole head feels like it’s on fire. “That woman is evil!” I tell Chase as we watch his dad and a deputy wheel her out of the courtroom. “She made my brother sound like a bat-waving, mirror-breaking, weapon-swinging maniac.”
“I know.”
“And I guarantee she knew about those checks to Rita and maybe what Coach was paying Rita for.”
“You don’t know what those checks were for, Hope.”
“
She
knew. I know she did. Give me ten minutes alone in
that house, and I’ll bet I could find more canceled checks and who knows what all.” We’re at Chase’s car in the parking lot, and I wait for him to unlock the doors. Across the street, in front of the courthouse, an ambulance drives up. Sheriff Wells pushes Mrs. Johnson’s wheelchair into the back of the ambulance. “Chase, what’s that about?”
“Didn’t you hear them when they were wheeling her out? Dad and Keller are taking her to the doctor to have her checked out after the ‘ordeal.’ It’s all for show, if you ask me.”
“Wait a minute.” I hadn’t heard one word of that conversation. I’d been too wound up to hear anything. “Are you telling me she’s going to the doctor, and your dad
and
the prosecutor are taking her?”
“That’s what they said.” He climbs behind the wheel and unlocks my door. “Why?”
I slide into the seat next to him. “Don’t you see what that means? Chase, not only will she be out of the house now, but your dad will be out of the way too!”
Chase rests his forehead on the steering wheel. “Hope, no.
Please?”
I buckle up. “We have to do it, Chase. It’s our last chance to prove that Caroline Johnson is a dirty rotten liar.”
Twenty minutes later
Chase pulls up at Caroline Johnson’s house. We don’t have time to park far away like T.J. and I did when we searched the barn and Coach’s office, so Chase cruises behind the house and parks around back.
As we make our way to the front porch, I’m still fuming. “Jeremy never liked that woman. And he’s an excellent judge of character.”
“So you’ve said. On numerous occasions.” Chase tries the front doorknob. “Locked. I think we should leave, Hope.”
“So
you’ve
said on numerous occasions.”
He doesn’t smile.
“Please, Chase? Maybe there’s a key hidden around here.” I check under a pot sitting on the front porch, under the planters along the sidewalks, and all around the porch swing. Chase doesn’t help. He’s definitely getting restless. I don’t know how much longer I can keep him here.
“Let’s try the other door,” I suggest. I jog to the back of the
house. The screen door is locked too. Chase comes up behind me. I rattle the screen. “Can’t we yank it open? Or cut the screen?”
“Not unless you want to end up in jail.” He steps in front of me and takes his car keys out of his pocket. “Here. It’s just a fall latch.”
I watch while he jimmies the latch and pulls open the door in one smooth move. “Where did you learn to do that?”
His mouth twists like somebody snapped a rubber band over his lips. Then he says, “I told you I ran with the wrong crowd in Boston. Enough said?” He says this like he’s mad at me.
“Enough said.” I shove in front of him and try the doorknob. It turns. I push the door until I can squeeze through. A strong odor hangs in the air—a mix of bacon grease, burned cookies, and sickness. Or maybe death. I don’t move from the doorway.
“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Chase asks, making it clear he doesn’t.
I turn and face him. It’s dark inside the house. Outside, the sun has stopped shining for the day. “I have to, for Jeremy. But you don’t. You could wait in the car.”
He sighs. “Do you even know what you’re looking for?”
“One of those checks to Rita maybe? A divorce paper? Or a journal, where Coach’s wife tells how she did it? Or a copy of a contract she gave to a contract killer?” I smile up at him, willing him to smile back.
He doesn’t. But with one finger, he pushes back a strand of my hair that’s sprung loose. “Well, we better hurry. They could bring her home any minute.”
I squeeze his arm and hope that he can read how grateful I am that he’s staying with me.
I’m afraid to turn on lights. Chase opens the back door wider so the remaining light of dusk sneaks in with us. I’ve never been inside this house before. The floor creaks with every step. The air is too moist, like in our house.
After a second, my eyes adjust to the shades of gray, and details sharpen, coming into focus as if I’m turning the lens of an expensive camera. I try to take it in: white lace on end tables that flank a light green sofa, doilies under lamps and vases, lacy curtains. The whole house is frilly. You’d think two old women lived here. On the walls and on the hall table are pictures of Caroline with her horses. Over the couch hangs a giant painting of a little girl holding the reins of a pony in one hand and a blue ribbon in the other. The kid has to be Caroline.
I bump into a table and hear something wobble. There are breakables all over this place. No wonder they never had kids. Children wouldn’t last two minutes in this house. “Chase?” I whisper. My heart thumps because I can’t see him.
“In the kitchen,” he calls out in a normal voice. Why not? If anybody’s here, they’ve already heard us.
I stumble over a recliner with the footrest still up, then make it to the kitchen. “Find anything?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t think she’s bedfast like she claims. She’d have to get around pretty well to keep some of this stuff on top shelves.”
“She probably has a housekeeper.”
“True. How about you? Anything?”
“Way too many pictures of Caroline.” I open a cupboard
by the fridge. I try to imagine how the murder might have taken place. “She pretends she can’t get out of that wheelchair, but she can. So maybe she got up early that morning. She could have had a blowout argument with her husband—about money, or about those checks to Rita, or a million other things married people argue over. She makes her way to the barn. Jeremy’s bat was there, so she grabbed it.” I’m picturing the whole thing: Caroline in a cotton nightgown, pink flowers and white lace. She’s screaming at her husband. She sees the bat, lunges for it, and—
“Hope, we have to finish up and get out of here.”
Chase is right. I need evidence. “I’ll take the den we passed when we came in. You take the bedroom. Check the bottoms of her shoes!” I cross back through the living room to the den, or study.
Before I reach the desk, Chase cries, “They’re back!”
I hear gravel crunch in the driveway. The sound of a car engine is drowned out by brakes. The engine cuts off.
“Great,” Chase mutters.
Please!
I’m not sure if it’s a prayer or a wish. I grab Chase’s hand and pull him to the back door.
“What are you doing?” He tries to tug his hand away, but I hold on.
“Quiet!” I stumble and bump into the couch. It hurts my hip, but I keep going until we’re outside. I shut the door, then the screen. Reaching up, I straighten a lock of Chase’s hair, then smooth my own. “Let me do the talking.”
“Why? Hope, what—?”
I shush him and wait.
A car door slams. And another.
Part of me wants to run and hide. But Chase’s car sits six feet away in plain sight. I hear their footsteps on the front porch. A blend of voices. The front door being unlocked. Opened. They’re inside.
I haven’t let go of Chase’s hand. With another wordless prayer, the kind I may have inherited from Jeremy, I reach up and knock on the screen door, hard.
“Hope?” Chase whispers.
I ignore him and keep banging on the door, my heart thudding against my chest with every knock. “Hello? Anybody home?” I open the screen and bang even harder on the door, shouting, “Yoo-hoo! Mrs. Johnson?”
I hear footsteps storm through the house toward us. The back door opens, and Sheriff Wells frowns down at us. “What in blue Hades are you two doing here?”
Chase opens his mouth to speak, but I beat him to it. “Sheriff Wells? I was starting to think nobody was home.”
He ignores me. “Answer me, Chase! What are you doing here?”
“Don’t be mad, Dad. We just—”
“We just wanted to ask Mrs. Johnson a couple of questions.” Somehow, my voice is strong, friendly even.
“You what?” Sheriff Wells shouts. He glances back over his shoulder, then lowers his voice. “I can’t believe you’re this stupid.”
Chase flinches.
“We didn’t mean to cause anybody trouble,” I say reasonably. “It’s just that Mrs. Johnson said some things in court today that hurt Jeremy, and I thought if I could just talk to her for a minute—”
Sheriff Wells glares at me. “You want to ask her questions? Hasn’t your family done enough?”