Chapter 44
Over coffee that morning, Raymond had told Casey and Simon that he was prepared to make one of three opening statements, depending on Cora’s tactics.
She had a lot of ground to cover and he suspected she might ramble a bit.
All in all, though, he gave her high marks for her presentation.
The jury stayed with her as she told a compelling story and piled plenty of suspicion upon Simon.
Raymond’s approach would be that the defense had nothing to prove and would need only to poke holes in the prosecution’s case. Once the jurors had settled into their chairs after the recess, he walked to the podium, with no notes, and offered a charming smile.
“Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to remind you that nothing you just heard from Ms. Cook has been proven, none of it is evidence, all of it just her speculation, her hopes and dreams maybe, of what the Commonwealth might try to prove against Simon Latch. She tells a nice story. She’s an experienced prosecutor.
The problem is that she has promised too much.
She can’t deliver all that she promised, nearly two hours’ worth, because she doesn’t have the proof. ”
He stepped away from the podium and stuck both hands deep into his pants pockets.
“There are so many important facts that she conveniently left out. For example, she said that Ms. Barnett was in the hospital being treated for injuries received in a car wreck. What she failed to include was that Ms. Barnett was driving too fast late at night, ran a red light, and T-boned another car, seriously injuring its occupants. At the time of the crash, she was driving and she was, well, let’s just say she was intoxicated.
Point zero-nine, over the limit. It seems that she had been out partying with the girls, they had some type of ‘poker’ club they called it, and it was their annual Christmas party.
She got hammered, got behind the wheel, and as her friend Doris rode shotgun they took off down the streets of Braxton at ten-thirty at night. She damned near killed Doris.”
He managed to make killing Doris sound almost humorous.
Simon was impressed with his oratorical skills.
For years he had heard stories about Raymond’s courtroom antics and abilities, but he had never seen him in action.
With a packed house, an attentive jury, and everything on the line, Raymond was in the center of the ring and completely at home.
“Greed!” he snarled loudly. Then he managed a belly laugh that startled everyone.
“Greed. For the simple will, Simon Latch charged Eleanor Barnett the greedy sum of two hundred and fifty dollars. And she never paid him! And for the retainer that she insisted on, he got really greedy and charged her one thousand dollars. And she never paid that bill either! For almost nine months of legal work, and not counting the long lunches she insisted on, nor the coffees, nor the late-night phone calls, nor the hospital visits, not counting anything but the hours spent at his desk tending to her legal matters, over sixty hours of billable time, the defendant, Simon Latch, received a total sum of…zero! Nothing, not a dime. Why are we talking about greed?”
Raymond wandered away from the podium, shaking his head at such foolishness.
“Something else Ms. Cook neglected. Mr. Simon Latch, a well-respected member of the bar with no ethics complaints or malpractice suits filed against him throughout his entire career in Braxton, was immediately suspicious of Ms. Barnett’s assertions of being rich.
How often does a client walk into a law office to meet an attorney for the first time and claim to have twenty million or so in assets?
In Braxton, Virginia? It never happens, I can assure you of that.
Simon Latch was no fool. He saw the signs of modest affluence—the absence of debt, a nice pension inherited from her husband, a lovely home free and clear—but those things were not unusual.
He immediately suspected she wasn’t being truthful.
He repeatedly asked her for proof, as in periodic brokerage statements or bank records.
When she resisted, he became even more suspicious. ”
And here the fiction began. Only Simon could tell the jury what went on between himself and Eleanor. Only he could re-invent what his thoughts were at the beginning. There was an element of truth in what Raymond was telling the jury, but the fiction was taking over.
“He wasn’t driven by greed. The poor woman had no one else.
No husband, no children, no siblings, no close relatives.
She needed a friend, a counselor, a lawyer to help her through the legal maze.
She was eighty-five, single and lonely, and she claimed to have a lot of assets.
Perhaps she really believed the money was still there.
Perhaps, ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Eleanor Barnett was already a bit off her rocker, as we sometimes say. ”
Simon had never really believed Netty was unbalanced or losing her mental acuity, but something was wrong. A screw was loose somewhere. To build an elaborate charade and pursue it with such detail was still difficult to comprehend.
“Ms. Cook makes hay from this cremation issue. Again, her facts are wrong. Years ago Simon and his wife signed new wills and advance directives providing for their own cremations and interments in a mausoleum. Nothing new. They were convinced it was a cheaper, more sustainable way to go. Cremation is rapidly gaining popularity across the country, with a thirty percent increase every year for the past ten. Simon recommended cremation to many of his clients. Eleanor Barnett was one. He wasn’t trying to destroy evidence by having her cremated. Nonsense.”
Raymond spat out “nonsense” as if only a fool could believe such stupidity.
“And the bit about pulling the plug. Oh, that’s rich, that’s juicy.
But, alas, it’s not true either. Again, Ms. Cook leaves out some very important facts.
You’ll hear from Dr. Connor Wilkes, the hospital’s CEO, and she will tell you that Simon wanted no part of the decision to take Ms. Barnett off the ventilator.
He flat-out told her and the doctors that it was a medical decision to be made by them, and not him. ”
Suddenly, he was sad and frustrated. He spoke softly, as if confiding in the jurors.
“The truth is, we don’t know who poisoned Eleanor Barnett.
And the Commonwealth of Virginia is going to waste this entire week trying to pin a murder on an innocent man, while the killer laughs at us.
The killer could be in this courtroom at this very moment.
” Raymond allowed those words to settle upon the crowd, then he, a bit too dramatically, paused and gazed at the audience, as if searching for the murderer.
As if he knew the person was watching and listening.
He returned to the jurors and said, “At the rate we’re going, her murder will never be solved.
The police picked the wrong suspect, arrested him, then stopped their investigation.
The prosecutor ran to the grand jury, got an indictment, and never considered other suspects.
Now we’re here, in this courtroom, watching and listening as the Commonwealth of Virginia tries in vain to pin the murder on Simon Latch.
He didn’t do it, ladies and gentlemen. No one saw him buy the poison.
There are no records of him doing so. No one saw him tamper with the ginger cookies, because he didn’t.
No one saw him feed them to Ms. Barnett, because he didn’t. There is simply no proof.”
Simon scribbled, “Brilliant, but a good time to quit.”
Raymond knew it too. With a look of total frustration, he wrapped it up with “When all the witnesses are finished, and the proof is in, and you deliberate and realize that Simon Latch is not guilty, then you will march back into this courtroom, take your seats, declare his innocence, and go home having done your civic duty, and the real killer will still be out there. Laughing. No doubt, laughing.”
Detective Roger Barr was sworn in as the first witness for the prosecution.
It was 1:15 Monday, and he was in for a long afternoon.
Cora Cook walked him through his training and experience and so on, though he was not testifying as an expert in any field.
His task was to present the framework of the case.
Others would fill in the gaps and nail down the proof.
His involvement began on December 30 of the prior year, when a dispatcher at the city desk informed him that an anonymous phone call had been received and recorded.
A distorted voice said, “Eleanor Barnett just passed away at Blue Ridge Memorial. The doctors say it’s pneumonia.
But her death is suspicious. It should be investigated. ”
Ms. Cook walked to the exhibit table where a recorder had been prepared. She got the nod from Judge Shyam and pressed a key. The message boomed from the courtroom’s PA system. Ms. Cook waited a few seconds, and played it again.
Detective Barr went through an exhaustive description of the efforts by the state crime lab to identify and track the caller, but it was not possible.
The technicians could not agree on the gender of the informant.
He or she had used a cheap throwaway phone with a temporary number.
The voice was disguised. At any rate, Detective Barr was given the green light to investigate by the chief, and he went straight to the hospital.
Referring to his detailed notes, he walked the jury step by step, minute by minute, through his initial actions.
The interviews with the doctors and staff, the collection of items from Eleanor’s hospital room, the visit to the funeral home to stop the cremation, and so on.