Chapter 43 #2
His mind wandered. To be called a murderer and put on trial would be a nightmarish ordeal even for a guilty person.
The horror was the potential punishment: death by lethal injection, or decades in prison.
But for an innocent man, the entire charade was overwhelming and surreal.
Simon kept telling himself that it wasn’t really happening, that at some pivotal moment the judge would stop everything, dismiss the jury, admonish the prosecutor, and instruct the defendant to walk out of the courthouse, an innocent man.
And, oh by the way, sorry for the trouble.
But with each hour of each day, he was quietly growing accustomed to the role of the accused.
The grinding machinery of American justice was often slow to start, but once the disparate elements finally came together at one time and in one place—the courtroom—there was no stopping the train wreck.
Cora returned to his scheming ways and the jury perked up.
The defendant typed the will, then convinced an insurance agent and his wife next door to witness it, then tried his best to keep it quiet.
Because of a quirk in our estate tax laws, it would be greatly advantageous to the heirs if Ms. Barnett died in calendar year 2015.
Thus, the defendant had a deadline. He slowly befriended Ms. Barnett, spent more time with her, took her to many long lunches, all of which he paid for.
During one outing, the couple discovered a Vietnamese restaurant in Braxton.
Ms. Barnett especially liked the Saigon ginger cookies the place was known for.
On a large screen hung from the wall across from the jury, Cora flashed a color photo of one of the ginger cookies.
Flat, about two inches in diameter. Then she added a photo of the Tan Lu’s box.
For $6.25 you got a dozen cookies. The last photo was a small mound of white powder on a lab test tray.
It resembled baking soda. She said it was a sample of thallium, a poison no longer produced in America but not illegal to possess.
Until recently it was commonly used in rat poison.
Most of it came from China and India. It was odorless, tasteless, invisible when mixed with other substances, and lethal.
In a movement that was quite dramatic, Cora walked to the exhibit table near the bench and from a cardboard box removed a standard, plastic hospital tray.
Two of Tan Lu’s boxes were in the center of it.
She held it in front of the jury and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, here’s the murder weapon.
Eleven cookies. Nine in one box, two in the other, all laced with thallium.
The thirteen that are missing were consumed by the victim.
All were purchased by the defendant on two separate days last December, then taken by his secretary to the hospital room of Eleanor Barnett.
After the cookies were consumed over a one-week period, Ms. Barnett died of acute toxic poisoning.
Her death was slow, painful, and agonizing.
The state medical examiner will describe the condition of her body. ”
The courtroom was perfectly still. Everyone watched as Cora carefully placed the tray back in the cardboard box. She handled it as if the slightest jiggle might unleash the thallium and kill her, the court reporter, maybe the judge as well.
She returned to the podium and flipped through her notes. Simon could almost feel the stares from some of the jurors, and they were not conveying sympathy.
“Now, once Ms. Barnett was dead, the defendant tried desperately to cover his tracks, to hide the evidence.” She lifted a document and waved it around.
“This is called an advance directive. Also known as a living will. Typed up by the defendant, presented to Ms. Barnett in the hospital, probably while she was eating the cookies, and signed by her there, upon his advice.”
Raymond startled everyone by standing and yelling, “Objection, Your Honor. Pure speculation. Ms. Cook doesn’t know when the deceased ate the cookies.”
Her Honor was as shaken as everyone else by the outburst and took a second to react.
Raymond thundered away, “Please instruct the prosecutor to stick to the facts, Your Honor.” He turned and glared at Cora and said, “Or maybe you do know if she was eating and what she was eating when she signed the document, and if you do know then please tell us, but don’t just fabricate facts. ”
“Order, order, Mr. Lassiter,” the judge said. “That’s enough. This is an opening statement and great latitude is allowed. You’ll get your chance in a moment, Mr. Lassiter. Objection is overruled.”
Raymond angrily fell into his chair, still glaring at Cora as if she’d committed a major sin.
She had not. She had simply massaged the facts a bit, something that happened all the time and was routinely allowed.
Raymond’s loud interruption was nothing but drama, an attempt to intimidate Cora and also set the tone for the trial. He would not be pushed around.
Cora was flustered for a moment and lost her place.
She shuffled some papers, checked her notes, and lifted another document, holding each by a corner as if they were sticky and odorous.
“And this is a power of attorney signed by Ms. Barnett as she was signing her advance directive. Taken together, both documents gave the defendant the power to terminate her medical care with, of course, the advice of her doctors. On Wednesday, December 30, while on a ventilator and showing no brain activity, the defendant, along with the doctors, decided to pull the plug. She died ninety minutes later.”
Simon glanced at his watch, though there was no need. A large clock hung on the wall high above the bench. Cora had been going strong for almost an hour, and the jury was still captivated. Simon felt ill and struggled to maintain a look of concerned confidence.
Cora Cook was good and quite effective. She didn’t yell or preach or overplay the facts.
She stuck to them, probably because they were in her favor.
She walked the jury through the actions taken by the defendant immediately after Ms. Barnett died.
Within two hours he called the funeral home and arranged to have her picked up from the hospital and whisked away to be… cremated!
Burning a corpse, even when done intentionally by a mortician, was such a dramatic visual and Cora banged the drum too long. Simon scribbled, “Enough already!”
What was the killer’s motive? Greed, money, absolute control of the estate, huge fees.
The will the defendant typed himself and signed by Ms. Barnett gave him complete control of her assets.
Her home, her stocks, everything she owned would be sold and the proceeds put in a trust and there was only one trustee—the defendant.
He controlled the checkbook. He could play Santa Claus and give it all away.
And while doing so he could pay himself rather generously to the tune of $500 an hour.
Such a rate might seem low on Wall Street where billionaires and giant corporations sue each other, but for a general practice lawyer doing simple estate work in small-town America, the rate was excessive.
Again, she went on a bit too long as she found the greed angle irresistible.
But she seemed to realize it, and moved quickly to the punch line, to the joke, to the hoax.
It seemed as if the defendant’s scheme to collect huge fees was all for naught.
At one point in her life Eleanor Barnett was a very wealthy woman, but the money vanished in bad investments.
There was no fortune. Perhaps she was living in the past, still dreaming, but we’ll never know.
Cora finally began to wind down. Judge Shyam had not set a time limit and perhaps that was a mistake.
Cora read the situation right and rushed through her final comments.
She promised the jurors that when all the proof was in, they would have no problem believing the defendant poisoned his client.
It would be their sworn duty to return a verdict of guilty.
Judge Shyam recessed for twenty minutes.