In Self Defense Susan Sloan (summer reads .txt) 📖

that her husband was coming home a day early from his business trip,” Erin testified.

“Evidence such as?”

“Such as a recorded telephone message sent by the victim to a third party in which he said he intended to tell his wife he would be coming home around midnight.”

“People’s forty-four, Your Honor,” Sundstrom declared, picking up the digital recorder with Richard Durant’s message on it, and passing it to Tom Colby, his second chair, who proceeded to play it for the jury.

“Is this that recording?” he inquired of his witness, when the message had been heard in full.

“It is,” Erin replied.

“And in the course of your investigation, Detective Hall,” he asked, laying the groundwork for a future witness, “did you have the recording examined by a voice analyst to confirm the voice was indeed that of Richard Durant?”

Erin nodded.  “We did.”

“What other evidence did you develop that led to the arrest of Mrs. Durant for the murder of her husband?”

“When we went back to the Durant home a few weeks after the incident, and did a reenactment of the crime,” Erin told the jury. “At which point, we realized that the scene had been altered.”

“Altered?  In what way?”

“We believe that Richard Durant was carrying a suitcase when he entered the bedroom that night, and we found reason to believe that the suitcase was removed by the defendant immediately prior to our arrival on the scene.”

“And did you form any conclusion as to why the suitcase was removed?”

“We concluded that Mrs. Durant did not want us to see anything that might have indicated she was aware that someone other than the stalker had entered the bedroom.”

“Objection,” the defense attorney said.  “Calls for speculation.”

“Sustained,” the judge concurred.

“Thank you, I have nothing further,” Sundstrom said.

***

“Detective Hall,” David Johansen began his cross-examination, “where did the idea of a serial stalker come from?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, was the idea that a serial stalker was after my client an idea that she put in your head?”

“No,” Erin admitted.  “The idea that there was a serial stalker on the loose came from my partner and me.  It was based on two previous cases we knew about that seemed to be very similar.”

“Not from Clare Durant?”

“No.”

“She didn’t tell you she was being stalked?”

“Well, not at first.”

“What do you mean -- not at first?”

“It was a friend of hers who originally contacted us.”

“A friend?  Are you saying that the defendant, my client, didn’t file the complaint?”

“No,” Erin conceded.  “She didn’t.”

“In fact, isn’t it true, that when you showed up, unannounced, at her place of work, she asked you to leave?”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“And isn’t it also true,” David pressed, “that although she finally admitted to receiving harassing phone calls, she didn’t want you to do anything about it?”

“Yes, that’s also true.”

“But you insisted?”

“Yes,” Erin responded.  “We didn’t think she understood how serious the matter was.”

“Didn’t understand how serious the matter was?” David repeated.  “Detective, what did you discover in the course of your investigation about Clare Durant’s life in the year prior to the shooting of her husband?”

“We learned that less than a month before the incident, her car was run off the road and she sustained serious injuries,” Erin replied, shifting a bit in her seat.  “Four months before that, she had a near-fatal accident in the Olympic Mountains.  And three months before that, she suffered from a bout of arsenic poisoning caused by contaminated bottled water.”

“In other words, she was having a pretty tough year of it, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes,” Erin replied with genuine empathy, “I would.”

“So let me see if I’ve got this straight -- while she’s somehow managing to deal with being poisoned, almost falling to her death, and then being driven off the road, you come along and convince her that there’s a serial stalker after her?”

Erin shrugged apologetically.  “Pretty much, yes.”

“You put the fear of God into her about what this fellow would do to her, and then you set up this sting, where you used her as live bait to catch this guy -- hopefully, before he could get to her?”

“Yes.”

“Only somehow, you didn’t quite make it in time, did you?”

“No,” Erin was forced to admit.  “We didn’t.”

“And now you want this jury to believe that, when someone did show up in the middle of the night -- just as you predicted he would -- heck, she knew it wasn’t any stalker, she knew it was her perfectly harmless husband coming home early from his business trip -- only it didn’t matter because she was planning to shoot him anyway?”

Erin hesitated.  “I know it sounds crazy,” she said.  “But yes, I think that’s exactly what happened.”

“Very good, Detective,” David said softly, and took his seat.

***

“I thought she was my friend,” Clare said wistfully.  “I thought she understood.”

“She’s only doing her job,” David told her.

***

Eddie Ridenour, the crime scene analyst, took the stand on Monday.  He followed up on Erin’s testimony with the forensic evidence he had assembled, much of it in the form of slides and computer reenactments, which suggested that the victim had been carrying a suitcase when he entered the bedroom and that the suitcase had somehow disappeared by the time the police arrived.

“Mr. Ridenour,” David asked on cross.  “Can you say, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Clare Durant knew who was entering her bedroom that night?”

“What I can say is that she could clearly see that the shape of the man who was entering the room was the same general shape as her husband,” Eddie replied.

“Did she know what the shape of the stalker was?”

The crime scene analyst paused.  “Well, I don’t know about that,” he said after a moment.  “But I have to assume she didn’t.”

“So, if the stalker just happened to have the same general shape as her husband, and Clare Durant had taken the time to find out, she could have been the one who ended up dead by the time the police showed up, couldn’t she?”

“She could see he was carrying a suitcase,” Eddie reminded