“Did you contact him during your … work?”
“Oh no. I finished my show in the usual way and forgot all about him. Until I left to go home that night, just after midnight.” A moment’s hesitation. “He was waiting for me in the alley behind the club.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Not at first. I ran back into the club and locked the door. I might be from Stroud, but I’m no idiot. When you find a man lurking in the alley, you run.”
“But that changed.”
“Yes. He talked to me, through the door. Assured me he wasn’t going to harm me or force himself on me. Showed me his badge. Said he’d seen me during the show and he’d been taken with me—that was his phrase. ‘Taken with me.’ He asked if I would do him the honor of allowing him to escort me to my car. He was really very charming. And in time … I gave into it.”
“You let him escort you back to your car?”
“Oh yeah. And the next night, he showed up at the club again. And this time he drove me home. And one thing led to another …”
“And you became lovers?” Ben and Christina had spent about an hour and a half debating what was the best word to use, one that didn’t seemed coyly euphemistic but at the same time didn’t make it sound any worse than necessary.
“We did.” Her head rose. “But bear in mind—I didn’t know the man was married. He didn’t wear a ring and he never mentioned it. He even talked about us getting married sometime in the near future. And Joe was such a comfort to me. I had been on edge, worried, uncertain, for so long. But Joe made everything better. It seemed as though he could fix anything. He was fun, comforting. He told me he had a lot of money. He said that once we were married, I wouldn’t have to strip anymore. He said he’d take care of me. He’d take care of everything.” Ben saw the tiniest crack in her facade, a deep and heartfelt twinge of pain. “You can’t imagine how good that sounded to me. You just can’t imagine.”
“How long did this relationship continue?”
“For a little over two months.”
“And in that time …” Ben licked his lips and reconsidered. This was a delicate subject, and although it had to be addressed (better him than LaBelle) he had to be careful how he did it. “Was there any aspect of your relationship that bothered you?”
“Yes,” she said bluntly. “The sex. I’m not pretending that I was some kind of prude. From Stroud or not, I knew the way of the world. Still, the things Joe liked to do … well, they shocked me. Horrified me, even. I guess I’m a small-town girl at heart. I’d never heard of anything like what he wanted to do—what with the whips and chains and leather and all. My mama never told me about anything like that, believe me. And he wanted to do it all the time, every possible opportunity. Which could be awkward. Especially when my brother was also in the apartment.” Her hands fell on the rim of the witness box, and she leaned forward slightly. “Of course, now I realize that he wanted to do those things with me—because his wife refused. He was getting from me what he couldn’t get from her. But I didn’t know that at the time.”
“Did you learn to … enjoy these activities with Joe McNaughton?”
“No, never. I know what the prosecution witnesses have been saying. That I had all these weird kinky tastes. That I was some kind of sex addict. But it isn’t true. Joe was the one who wanted it that way. All I wanted—” Her voice dropped so low as to be nearly inaudible. “All I wanted was someone to take care of me.”
“Keri, some of Joe McNaughton’s coworkers have testified that you were the instigator of these sexual activities.”
“I know. But were they there? No. I don’t know why they say those things. I don’t know what Joe told his macho buddies when I wasn’t around. Joe lied to me; maybe he lied to them, too. Men have been known to brag about sex to their friends. Making it sound like he was such a stud I couldn’t get enough of him. That probably would’ve scored him some points down at the police station.”
In the jury box, Ben saw an older woman on the top row slowly nodding her head. She understood what Keri was saying. But did she believe it?
“Those police officers,” Keri continued, “those so-called friends of Joe’s—they’ve been out to get me from the moment his body turned up in Bartlett Square. I don’t mean to sound paranoid, but it’s true. They all knew about me, and they didn’t like me. I’m not sure why. Maybe they were jealous, maybe they were friends of Joe’s wife. I don’t know. They probably thought I was mistreating the wife I didn’t even know existed. I know this, though—they were at my apartment less than an hour after Joe’s body was found. They were determined to prove that I had killed him. And they haven’t let up since—even to the point of following me around, stalking my attorney, planting knives—”
“Objection,” LaBelle said, for the first time breaking the spell Keri was weaving. “It has not been proven that the police planted that knife.”
“Well, who else—” Keri began, but the judge silenced her.
“She’s the witness,” Ben rejoined, “not Mr. LaBelle.”
“I’ll sustain the objection,” Judge Cable said. “Let’s stick to the facts. What you actually saw and heard.”
“Yes, your honor,” Keri said quietly.
“Keri,” Ben asked, “despite your reservations, did you want your relationship with Joe to continue?”
“Of course I did. Even in that short time, I had come to depend on him for so much. And he was talking about marrying me. It was like a dream come true. It was all I ever thought about.”
“Would you say he was serious about it?”
“We looked at rings!” Keri said, straining against the edge of the witness box. “We picked a church. We even talked about a date. He said he wanted to wait until June, because that was when his mother was married. Of course, now I realize he was probably just stalling. Stringing me on as long as possible until I learned the truth.”
Ben stepped away from the podium. “Keri, when did you find out Joe was married?”
“When Andrea McNaughton showed up at my door.”
Ben paused a moment, letting the full horror of that moment sink into the jurors’ consciousnesses. “And before that, you had no idea she even existed?”
“None whatsoever. I was stunned. Stunned and—shattered.” Her hand covered her eyes. “I didn’t know what to think,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I couldn’t believe it.”
“What did Mrs. McNaughton say?”
Keri sniffed, wiped her eyes, and carried on. “After she convinced me she really was who she said she was, she insisted that I break off my relationship with her husband.”
“And what was your response?”
“I’m not even sure. I was so totally overwhelmed. Please try to understand—I had pinned all my hopes, all my dreams, all my future, on that man. And now, this woman showed up at my door and wanted to rip it all away, everything I had, or everything I thought I had, in a split second. I—I just couldn’t deal with it.”
“Did you agree to stop seeing Joe?”
“How could I? I had my whole world wrapped up in him. But I didn’t say any of those awful things she claimed I said. Mostly I just stood there like a dummy, not knowing what to say.”
“And what was her response when you declined to break off the relationship?”
“She hit me,” Keri said. “Hard.” Once again, the slightest trace of an edge crept into her voice. “She knocked me down on the floor, then she started kicking me. Left bruises that stayed for days. I thought she’d cracked a rib, that’s how bad it felt.”
“Did you fight back?”
“I tried to, but she was out of my league. It wasn’t at all like she described. I wouldn’t attack her. She came after me. She totally lost control. I thought she was going to kill me.”