The Woman He Married (36 page)

Scott began with the day of the crime—November third. What was she doing?
“Sitting in the back room watching television with the grandkids.”
Where was Mr. McGee?
“Out front at the register.”
What did she hear? Was it still light outside? What did she see…and so
on.
Mrs. McGee was certain about everything including the fact that
Slidell
was the killer. In addition, she added that Sly frequented the station on his way to work, and that he was a kind, courteous boy.
“Always polite,”
she said.

The time of the crime, five forty-five in the afternoon, was the most damning evidence against
Slidell
.
Slidell
punched in for work at the Dairy Queen down the road at six, giving him plenty of time to commit the crime and then head to work, acting as if nothing happened.

“And are you sure the time was five fort-five exactly?” Scott asked again.

“Yes, I am sure.” Mrs. McGee was very insistent.

“And what makes you so sure?”

“Because I looked at the clock in the office just before and it said five forty-five. And the grandbabies and I were watching that
Sponge Bob
on the television.”

Wait a minute
, Josie thought. Something wasn’t right about that. Thinking back to the night of John’s dinner party when she’d sat the kids down in front of the TV to stop them from wreaking anymore havoc, she remembered noticing the show had started an hour earlier than usual, which meant that in November it had likely begun at six-thirty, not five-thirty. If Sly had punched in at six o’clock, he couldn’t have shot anyone at six-forty-five. She picked up her pencil, scratched her thoughts on the legal pad, and slid it in front of Brian. Then leaning back, she whispered to Sandra to double-check the programming changes. Sandra nodded and snuck out of the courtroom.

Brian kept his ears trained on Scott, but glanced over at Josie’s notes. “Are you sure?” he mouthed.

Nodding, Josie whispered, “Sandra’s checking right now.”

“What about the clock? She said she looked at the clock,” Brian said.

The judge and some of the jurors were beginning to notice the sudden activity at the defense table, so Josie wrote another note:

“What if the clock was wrong? It was just after the daylight savings time change. Maybe the clock was reversed twice, reflecting 5:30 when it was in fact 6:30?
”

She slid it over to Brian.

He read it then whispered, “It’s a long shot, but I’ll give it a try.”

Brian looked apprehensive now. Josie knew that, like any lawyer, he didn’t want to ask a question if he didn’t know the answer beforehand.

Just as Scott was finishing up, Sandra returned to her seat with a faxed sheet, and handing it over to Brian, she gave Josie a thumbs-up.

When the judge asked Brian if he had any questions for the witness, he acknowledged that he did and began with his original strategy of creating reasonable doubt.

“Mrs. McGee, how often would you say you see the defendant?”

“Once, maybe twice a week.”

“And how often do you actually
speak
 
to
the defendant?”

“I
dunno
…occasionally.”

“If you saw Mr. Henry outside of the station, would you recognize him…say, at the
Piggly
Wiggly?”

“Probably, though I’ve never seen him anywhere else.”

“You mean in a town as small as
Harpersville
, you have never, on any occasion, run into the defendant anywhere else—not once?” Pausing, he eyed her suspiciously before looking to the jury with an expression clearly intended to convey a perception of uncertainty. “Or, have you, and you just didn’t recognize him because you really don’t know him as well as you say?”

Brian pursued the point relentlessly until Mrs. McGee finally admitted, “I
s’pose
I really don’t know Sly well enough to be certain.” She gave a sigh, and her eyes turned sad in
Sly’s
direction as she added, “It’s just that the sheriff seemed so sure he was the one.”

Satisfied that he’d established some doubt, Brian looked to Josie for encouragement before launching into a new line of questioning.

“Mrs. McGee, you testified earlier that you were watching a children’s program on the television in the back room at the time of the crime.
Sponge Bob
, I believe it was, and you mentioned that the clock on the wall read approximately five-forty-five which coincides with said program, beginning at five-thirty?”

“That’s right.”

“What would you say if I told you that last November, this particular children’s program was shown in the six-thirty time slot. Only after the start of the New Year did it change to the five-thirty time
slot
in which you claim to have seen it.”

Mrs. McGee looked bewildered, and Scott got to his feet. “Your Honor, the defense is trying to confuse the witness. Ms. McGee already testified that she looked at the clock.”

The judge regarded Brian over his glasses. “Mr. McAlister, do you have any proof to back up this line of questioning?”

Brian produced the fax Sandra had acquired from the network, showing it first to the judge and then to the prosecutor. Scott perused it before he stoically said, “Withdrawn,” and took his seat.

“If Mrs. McGee and her grandchildren were in fact watching this program, Mr. Henry could not have possibly shot Mr. McGee because he’d punched the time clock at the Dairy Queen a whole half-hour prior.”

“Objection.”

Scott didn’t bother getting to his feet.

“Sustained.
Ask a question, Mr. McAlister.”

“Mrs. McGee, is it possible that the clock could have been wrong?”

“I
s’pose
, but I don’t think—”

“Have you been back to the station and noticed that the clock is correct?”

“No, I have not stepped a foot
once
in the station since.”

“To your knowledge, did the police or investigators ever double-check the clock to ensure that it reflects the proper time?”

“No—”

“Who generally turns back the clocks in the office when daylight savings time ends, which was just prior to the date of the crime?”

“Well, my husband should, but he usually forgets, so I turned the clocks back myself.”

“Is it possible that your husband
did
, in fact, turn back the clock, and that assuming he forgot you turned it back again—making it an hour behind where it should have been?”

Getting to his feet again, Scott objected with gusto, saying, “What does the time change have to do with anything?”

“Overruled.”

“Your honor, defense would like to request a short recess so my associate along with a sheriff’s deputy can go over to the station and check the clock.”

Reluctantly, the judge agreed. “One hour,” he said with a pound of his gavel.

Scott sent his second chair, Margo Cavanaugh, along for insurance.

* * * *

The oppressive heat rolling in endless torrents from inside the van ignited John’s temper while he reminded himself of where child murderers ultimately end up spending eternity.

Strapped securely in, Beth shrugged her shoulders. “They’re always like this,” she said, while John tried to
wrangle
the twins into their seat belts.

Climbing under and over the seats, the twins laughed and wiggled until the beads of sweat rolling down John’s back told him it was time to yell. “Get your chubby butts in these seats before I—” Not a good idea because then they started crying, really loud.

“God Almighty,” John grumbled as he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Desperate to settle them down, he softened his tone as he said, “If you stop crying, I’ll buy you some ice-cream.” And like an
Alabama
summer downpour, the tears stopped as quickly as they’d started.

Josie’s schedule said he was supposed to drop off the twins, pick up Bobbie, and then Jack. Mumbling, “That’s crazy, Jack’s school’s right here,” he tossed the schedule onto the passenger’s seat and headed into the Dairy Queen drive-through.

Then on to Jack’s school.
John slammed on the brakes behind three long lines of cars leading up to the front of the school. An open lane passing directly in front of where all the children sat waiting tempted John, and he maneuvered the van around the stationary cars, making his way up to the front. Scanning the throng, he saw Jack, and rolling down the passenger window, he yelled for him to get in.

Big mistake,
he soon realized when an older woman, who looked like she may have been teaching long before John was born, knocked irritably on his window. “You’re in the bus lane. You can’t pick your child up from here.”

Then, as rudely as humanly possible, she told John he had to continue on and back around to the end of the line that by now was three times as long. Twenty minutes later, when John finally made it up to the front again, Jack opened the door, climbed in, and said, “Where’s Bobbie? You’re supposed to pick him up first.” Then he looked at the twin’s faces and their recital dresses covered with melting ice cream and smeared chocolate. “Why do the twins have ice cream? They can’t eat that! They’re allergic.”

“That’s just great,” John grumbled.

Driving on to Bobbie’s school, John swore when he got held up again.
Only, this time it was slow traffic that had appeared out of nowhere and for no apparent reason.

The swearing became more profuse when Jack said, “If you would have picked Bobbie up first, we’d be home by now.”

By the time they got to Bobbie’s school, all the children had been taken back inside. John locked all the kids in the van and trudged in, looking for Bobbie.

He felt pretty sure that murder would be warranted when the after-school aide looked him up and down, asking to see some I.D. before releasing Bobbie to,
“
a man that
I don’t recognize as ever having been at the school before.”

Dragging Bobbie by the hand while the boy droned on about how Brandon’s uncle Thad, who’d shot off his big toe while hunting, could still feel it itching sometimes, John ran into Bobbie’s teacher.

“Have y’all decided what you want to do about Bobbie’s failing science grade?” she asked with that forced disingenuous teacher’s smile.

John scanned his frazzled memory momentarily before realizing that this was the first time he’d heard anything about failing grades. Looking down at Bobbie, who’d suddenly fallen uncharacteristically silent, John didn’t want to appear out of touch with his family. “Yes. Of course, my wife and I have discussed it and…um…she’ll be getting back to you on
that
this week,” he said while making a mental note to ask Josie,
“What the
hell
is going on?”

Back in the van, John turned the key and said, “We’ll drop off the twins, home to change for basketball practice, karate and—”

His planning was interrupted when one of the twins let loose a gut-wrenching belch followed by a cascade of partially-digested frozen desert. John pulled to the side of the road and wondered,
Now
just who the hell’s going to clean that up?
 
When the other twin regurgitated her ice cream as well, he let his head fall to the steering wheel when he realized it was going to be him.