Lesser Crimes Read online

  “We both did.”

  “Would you say that Lynn was more thorough than you? More inclined to make it all spick-and-span?”

  “She was less tired than me,” April said, one eyebrow raised.

  “Would you say she was more likely to try and clean the fire poker, the fireplace, all that?”

  This time, April shrugged with both shoulders. “Maybe.”

  “So, conceivably, her prints might have been the only prints on that poker, if she — a year before — had wiped it clean and then put it back on its stand?”

  “Could be.”

  “Thank you,” Paxton said, turning to Bennett. “The defense has no more questions, Your Honor.”

  SIX

  "The prosecution would like to call Detective Cecil Putney to the stand, Your Honor," Cynthia Williams said.

  Putney stood and buttoned his suit jacket, taking his place at the witness stand after being sworn in by Bennett, who said the words of the oath even more quickly than the previous time. Williams followed the same careful line of inquiry about Putney's movements on the 29th of November 2013, after he explained that he had been deployed by Greensboro to answer the request for help from Hawkshaw.

  "What time did you get to 247 Howard Lane that day?" Williams asked.

  "I got there around 2 p.m."

  "And the body had been found by Mrs. Keane at around 8 a.m., and Officer Brooks had arrived at the scene of the crime at 8.17 a.m.?"

  Putney looked down at several sheets of paper. "That's what my report says, yes."

  "What is it you found when you got to 247 Howard Lane?"

  "I found Mrs. Keane sitting outside in the yard with her daughter Cora, smoking a cigarette and drinking bourbon. I found Officer Brooks with them, as well as another local policeman."

  "Would that have been Officer Noah Wright?"

  "The report says so. It was years ago, and I don’t know them personally."

  "What happened then?"

  "Officer Brooks told me pretty much what he has told the court, that he had arrived and found Mrs. Keane in shock, and the deceased in the position he was still in. He ascertained that Joseph Keane was in fact dead and found a bloody fire poker next to the body. Officer Brooks bagged the poker, and Officer Wright photographed the scene. He also said that the stairs had been a bit disturbed by having to climb up for Cora, but that he hoped that his few, inevitable footprints would be easy to separate from the perpetrator's."

  "What did you make of the scene?"

  "Well, it wasn't more disturbed than most crime scenes I've seen. In fact, it seemed pretty tidy."

  "So you'd say that Officer Brooks and Officer Wright had done a good job of keeping the crime scene undisturbed."

  "No, I wouldn't say it was undisturbed. I'd say it didn't look like a big mess."

  "Was there a forensics team from Greensboro with you?"

  "They arrived soon after."

  "And they collected fingerprints, DNA evidence, photographed the scene as usual?"

  "Yes."

  "And all the evidence was then handed to the Greensboro Police Department?”

  "It was."

  “And the body?”

  “Went to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, as usual in cases of violent death.”

  "Did you interrogate Mrs. Keane and Cora at the time?"

  "I asked them questions, yes. Mrs. Keane told me the same things she has stated here."

  "Concerning her claim of being asleep under the influence of sedatives, did you perform a blood test?"

  "We did. She volunteered for it. The result was positive for diazepam."

  "Did she ask about the defendant at any time?”

  "She did.”

  "Did you or anyone know the defendant's whereabouts?"

  "A unit had been dispatched by Hawkshaw to Billy Wheeler's house, but the defendant wasn't there. She had called her husband. Her sister-in-law, who was at the house, claimed that the defendant had called saying that she was going away because she was in trouble."

  "That's what the defendant said, that she'd be away and that she was in trouble?"

  "The defendant didn’t speak directly to the sister-in-law but to William Wheeler, her husband — so what the witness told me was based on what she heard of her brother's side of the conversation."

  "And what did Mr. Wheeler say?"

  "Later, when he spoke to me, he said that the defendant had called saying she was going away, and that she would call him — but without saying what had happened. And I got out of him that she sounded very distressed."

  "And that was the last anyone saw of the defendant in Hawkshaw until her arrest, correct?"

  "It is what they claim."

  "And they never heard from her either?"

  Putney shrugged. "That would be impossible for us to know for sure. We didn't employ wiretapping or any means to keep a tab on their communications. As you know that’s expensive and legally very difficult to do.”

  "I do know. Then they might, in fact, have spoken to her during these years? Or, at least, her husband might have done?"

  "And her mother. And her sister. Anyone, for all we know."

  Williams waved a hand in the air, dismissing her own line of questioning, and changed it. "What clues did you have as to her whereabouts?"

  "She had taken her mother’s car, so we put out an APB and the car was found in a parking lot near the airport in Charlotte. We were able to ascertain that she had paid for a plane ticket to New York, and there the trail grew cold very quickly. Once again, you know how difficult and expensive it gets to find a criminal, or a suspect. They would have to use their credit card or their ID to check into a hotel or rent a car, and she had emptied her savings account in Charlotte early the morning after the murder, so she had approximately three thousand dollars cash with her."

  "Did she own a passport at that time?"

  "She did not. She never owned a US passport."

  Williams turned to the judge. "And yet we know, Your Honor, that she crossed the Arizona border from Mexico recently. We also know that she did not enter Mexico under her own name. She might have crossed into Mexico under a false identity and been there all the time — or elsewhere."

  "I guess you won't know that until you investigate her for the trial," Bennett said, adding, "If it comes to that. Proceed."

  "Detective Putney, please walk us through what forensics established in relation to the manner of Joseph Keane's death," Williams requested.

  Putney sat back, consulted his notes for a moment and began: "Time of death was estimated to fall between eight and eleven p.m. The lacerations on the victim's skull were consistent with the use of an instrument such as the fire poker that was found next to the victim. However, the pathologist ruled the actual cause of death to be a broken neck due to Joseph Keane's fall from the stairs."

  Bennett interrupted him, "So he didn't die from the lacerations themselves, and he didn't bleed to death?"

  "No, Your Honor. He broke his neck when he fell — after being hit on the head from behind several times with an instrument such as the fire poker."

  "Go on."

  "The blood on the poker was his, as was the blood all over the stairs, the blood in the footprints and the drops of blood leading to the door and outside. The fingerprints on the poker were the defendant's. The footprints were a mixture of Mrs. Keane's, Cora Miller's, Officer Brooks' and the defendant's. The defendant's bloody footprints led to the door and her partial bloody footprints were found outside and on the driveway. Likewise, there were more of the defendant’s bloody footprints inside her mother’s car, as well as her bloody fingerprints."

  "Clearly, then,” Williams concluded, “the defendant had been in the house on the night that Mr. Keane was murdered, had stepped on his blood and had held the poker, which was the murder weapon."

  "Yes."

  "Was this unequivocally stated in the forensic report?"

  "Yes."

  "And before the
defense asks, could her fingerprints on the murder weapon have been put there sometime before, when she might have touched the poker during a routine cleaning?"

  "Not the bloody fingerprints.”

  Cynthia Williams rested her elbows on the podium to lean forward. "Detective Putney, what was your conclusion about this murder as an experienced homicide detective?"

  Putney put down his notes once more and cleared his throat. "After interviewing witnesses who saw the defendant threaten the deceased the night before; after finding her fingerprints on the murder weapon, her footprints leading outside with drops of blood from the defendant which might have been transferred to her garments or her hands; after finding her abandoned car full of the deceased's DNA, and after finding that she had fled Hawkshaw abruptly and cleaned her bank account, the only possible conclusion is that Lynette Annamae Miller murdered Joseph Keane."

  Cynthia Williams nodded slowly. "And did your investigation open any other avenues or point toward any other suspects?"

  "No. The evidence only pointed to the defendant."

  "Do you believe anyone else may have committed the crime?"

  As Paxton opened his mouth to protest, Williams raised her hand and again changed the question, "Do you believe, Detective Putney, that a case could be made for someone else having committed the murder?"

  "Like I said, the forensic evidence points overwhelmingly to the defendant and, most importantly, she ran away right after the murder and was never seen again until now."

  "I'd say that was an open-and-shut case," Williams said. "Thank you."

  "Your turn, Mr. Paxton,” Bennett said.

  Lee held on to Paxton's arm. She gave a small shake of the head without looking at him. James watched as Paxton remonstrated with her in a low voice, but she only shook her head again.

  Her gesture could only mean that she didn't want Paxton to incriminate April, although that was what a good attorney would have done. Paxton would have asked about the diazepam in April's blood: whether it could be stated beyond a shadow of a doubt that she had taken it before nine or ten in the evening — before she might, in fact, have committed murder. He would have asked about the history of violent fights between the couple, and April's repeated physical aggressions against her husband. He would have asked about her jealousy.

  He would have created an alternate case, the possibility that someone else had committed the murder: April Keane. But Lee did not want him to do that.

  "We have no questions, Your Honor," Paxton said from his seat.

  "Does anyone else need to be called?" Bennett asked.

  Williams stood again. "At this time the people call Kevin Owen Hunter, Your Honor."

  A bald, thickset man, sitting a row behind Brooks, stood and moved to the stand.

  "Mr. Hunter, how did you know the defendant?" Williams asked once he was sworn in.

  "I employed her in my bar in Greensboro in 2012."

  "Could you state the name and location of your bar?"

  "Hunter's on 12 Sunfield Street."

  "What kind of bar is it?"

  "Just normal. Drinking, a pool table, some live music."

  "In what capacity did you employ the defendant?"

  "As a singer."

  "Did you always have live music?”

  "Thursday, Friday and Saturday only."

  "Could you describe how you met the defendant?"

  "I had advertised for singers and she came in for an audition."

  “What happened then?"

  "Well, Lynn's voice just blew me away."

  James crossed his arms over his chest; it wasn't difficult to imagine what was coming. Lee at eighteen, in some dark and dank bar that belonged to that thing.

  "And you employed her right away?"

  "Right then and there, yeah."

  "When did she start working?”

  "About three days later."

  "And how did it go? Was she a good employee?"

  "She showed up on time and all that, rehearsed with the band — just someone on piano and someone on bass. It was meant to be jazzy, you know, classy stuff. And then she sang that week, three times."

  "And people liked it?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, say what you want about her, but she really has a voice. It’s different. Special."

  "And what happened the following week?"

  He wriggled in his seat, locking his hands before him. "Well, I ... I kind of liked her, you know. She was pretty, she had an amazing voice. I just wanted something more, so I tried. I know maybe employers aren't supposed to do that, but I told her I liked her. I asked her out."

  "And what happened then?"

  "We were in the back, where it's a bit messy. Where we keep the crates for the booze."

  "She had agreed to go back there with you?"

  Hunter's eyes shifted sideways. "Yeah. Then I said I wanted to kiss her, and all of a sudden she grabbed a crowbar and hit me over the head with it."

  A short bark of laughter rang out, and James realized a bit late it had come from him. He pressed his lips together. Brooks glanced at him with a scowl and Williams half turned, while Bennett only said, "Silence," without trying to see where the disturbance had originated.

  "Mr. Hunter, could you lower your head?" Williams requested.

  He did, and Williams pointed. "As you see by the scars, Your Honor, before Joseph Keane’s murder the defendant had hit a man over the head with a blunt instrument, with little concern as to whether she hurt him or outright killed him."

  "I had to have stitches," Hunter complained, rubbing his skull. "That's what left the scars."

  Again, the judge looked to his left. "Mr. Paxton?"

  This time Paxton faced Hunter squarely, hands on either side of the podium. "Mr. Hunter, really?"

  The man was confused. "What?"

  "You want to go with this story? Are you sure? All right. Then tell me, where was the restroom for employees in your lovely establishment?"

  "It was in the back."

  "Anywhere near those booze crates?"

  "Just beyond them."

  "Perhaps then the defendant hadn't gone to the back with you, she had gone there because she needed to use the powder room, correct?"

  "Maybe.” Hunter shrugged. “I don't remember."

  "And I suppose you also don't remember that, far from asking her nicely if she wanted to be your Valentine, you pushed her against the wall, putting your hand on her buttocks."

  "Fucking pig ..."

  The muttered insult had come from Brooks, and it helped James hold on to his own temper. Poor Magpie, it had all been sordid and brutal, one way or another. No wonder you liked shiny things.

  Thrusting his bulldog head forward, Hunter said, "That's her word against mine.”

  "And I suppose we won't find any other women saying that you ever did that to them?" Paxton wondered.

  Hunter pointed at his own chest. "I'm not on trial here. I just came to tell you she could kill a man. She could have killed me. She's crazy."

  "What a terrible loss that would have been," Paxton remarked breezily.

  "Your Honor!" Williams protested again.

  But Bennett chuckled. "Your joke is overruled, Mr. Paxton. Is the witness excused?"

  "Yes, indeedy, Your Honor."

  "Let's put a close to this, shall we?" Bennett requested

  "Certainly," Paxton said. "It is the defense's contention, Your Honor, that the state has failed to prove that the murder was committed by the defendant. We would argue that the evidence was both questionable and tainted: collected at first by the defendant's resentful ex-boyfriend, an officer with no experience of homicide or crime scenes. A forensics unit from the good city of Greensboro got there hours later, when all sorts of people had been up and down the stairs and around the house.”

  He stopped and pursed his lips, as if considering his next words, then charged ahead, “We must not forget, Your Honor, that at that time we had no state-of-the-art regional crime lab, and we routinel
y waited months to get results from the lab in Raleigh. Without casting aspersion on the valiant team there, how much attention, I wonder, could they have given this case, which seemed to have a clear prime suspect?”

  Williams scoffed. “That’s without causing aspersion!”

  “Well,” Paxton said, raising an innocent hand. “I’m quoting the state crime lab itself, as late as 2015. They were overwhelmed, they claimed.”

  The DA shook her head and swung her foot in disapproval, but Bennett only waited for Paxton to continue.

  “The defense would furthermore argue that the defendant may have, as the prosecution puts it, hit another man on the head but while facing him and trying to escape a dangerous situation, such as potential rape. She attacked Joseph Keene face to face with a saucepan, while trying to defend a mother she loves. It has not been proved at all that she would have the tendency to treacherously hit a man from behind, as the murderous attack on Mr. Keane was committed.”

  Paxton stopped playing with his glasses and swiveled to look at the witnesses behind him, and at the members of the press and public who now hung on his words.

  “Finally, Your Honor,” he said as he turned back to Bennett, “and most strangely: Detective Putney himself has confirmed that he followed no other lines of inquiry in this case because the defendant fled. The detective did not, for example, find any other reasons for the defendant's flight, such as feeling threatened by whoever might have murdered her stepfather, or even by her ex-boyfriend.”

  Brooks shook his head. “Bullcrap.”

  Paxton didn’t hear him or pretended not to. “While the prosecution accepts that the defendant and the deceased did not have a violent relationship, the defendant is meant to have suddenly and brutally beaten her stepfather to death, when there are others who might certainly have had reason to feel greater wrath against him. We believe, Your Honor, that there is no substantial credible evidence for a bind over in this case."

  “All right, thank you, Mr. Paxton.” Bennett looked over to his right. "Ms. Williams?"

  The DA stood and replaced Paxton at the podium as he sat down, patting Lee's hand.

  "Your Honor, I think the evidence is clear,” Williams said, smoothing her jacket over her body. “There is a murder weapon, and it has the defendant's fingerprints. She had attacked the deceased in the past with a saucepan when he hit Mrs. Keane. The night before, she had threatened to kill him if he harmed her sister, and it is probable that her sister called her on the night of the murder to tell her that Joseph Keane had beaten their mother again. She had previously assaulted a man in the same manner, with a blunt object over the head — whether she did it from the front or the back cannot be said to constitute an unbreakable tendency.”