“Punishment aside, Wallace, did you ever strike your children in anger?”
“Never. Never once. And I defy anyone to come up here and say anything different. I have never, never hurt my children. Never!”
“Alysha was reported to have bruises—”
“Alysha was accident-prone. That’s a fact. No one ever suspected anything until after this tragedy occurred and I became the scapegoat for every false accusation in the book. Ask yourself this. If she was showing up at school looking like she’d been beaten, why didn’t her teachers report it? Why didn’t the other parents? Because it wasn’t true. It didn’t happen.”
Ben turned a page in his trial notebook. “Wallace, I know this will be extremely unpleasant for you, but I’m going to have to ask you now to return to the day your family was killed.”
His face became set and grim. “All right.”
“Could you tell us what happened that day?”
Barrett took a deep breath and released it slowly. “We all got up, ate breakfast, got dressed. Everyone was in good spirits—no squabbling, no problems. I kept the kids out of school because I wanted my family with me at the press conference, when I announced my decision to run for reelection. After the conference, we had a quick lunch, then I took the kids to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream.”
“The prosecution witness who worked at the ice-cream parlor said that you and your wife were fighting there.”
“Well, you saw the tape. I would not say we were fighting, but we were having a somewhat agitated discussion. And it was hardly over a life-and-death issue. It was about whether Annabelle got chocolate ice cream.”
“Could you explain?”
He nodded. “It’s pretty simple. Annabelle wanted chocolate ice cream. It’s her favorite. I thought we ought to let her get what she wanted, but Caroline didn’t want her to have chocolate, because she was still wearing her fancy clothes, and as you undoubtedly know, chocolate stains. It wouldn’t be the first time chocolate ice cream had ruined one of her outfits. So that’s what we were talking about. That’s it. There was no shouting, no threatening, no hitting. Nothing about other men or the baby I didn’t know about. Just a normal discussion like all parents everywhere in the galaxy have on a daily basis. It was only after the … the tragedy … that someone got the idea of saying that this stupid discussion at Baskin-Robbins proved that I was some kind of monster.”
“The man at the register said you almost hit Caroline.”
“I talk with my hands, and I can see how he might be confused, if he didn’t know me well. I always talk with my hands. I’m just that kind of guy. I’d be doing it now, Mr. Kincaid, if you hadn’t told me not to.”
There was a pleasant tittering of laughter from the jury box.
“The man at the parlor also said that you threatened her. Something about the children.”
“The man is confused. Caroline was the one who talked about using the kids as a weapon. But she wasn’t threatening me any more than I was threatening her. She was just saying that we had to be careful about arguing around the kids, dragging them into it, trying to use them against one another.”
“So you were not fighting the day of the murder?”
Barrett frowned slightly. “Actually we were, but not yet. The real fight came later that afternoon, after we got home.”
“What were you fighting about?”
Barrett glanced out into the gallery. “Him.” All heads turned to see who Barrett was singling out. “Fisher—excuse me, Dr. Fisher. It was obvious to me that he was in love with Caroline and was trying to get her to go to bed with him. He’d propositioned her on more than one occasion, and was constantly dropping by when he knew I wouldn’t be at home. I knew Caroline would never sleep with him, but just the same, I didn’t want the creep around. I didn’t want him bothering Caroline or the children.”
“And what was Caroline’s response to this request?”
“She refused. She insisted that he was just a friend, and she needed friends. I disagreed. I had no problem with her having friends, but I thought having this lecherous pervert around was not good for our marriage or our family. I admit I got pretty heated and did some shouting. I assume that’s what our ever-alert neighbor Mr. Sanders overheard, once he flung open all his windows and craned his head out as far as it would go.”
Again, some of the jurors laughed. With him, Ben noted.
“We went back and forth for probably fifteen, twenty minutes. I shouted, Caroline shouted. She actually threw a few plates and knocked over a table. Made a huge crashing noise, but it didn’t hurt anything. Then I got really steamed. I knew arguing wasn’t going to make things any better, so I decided it would be best if I just left for a while and cooled off. I ran out of the house.”
“About what time of day was this?”
“I’m not certain, but I think it was around four forty-five.”
“So this is not when your neighbor saw you run to the car?”
“No. That came later.”
“What did you do after you left the house?”
“I just got in my car and drove. Nowhere in particular. Just drove. Tell you the truth, I just needed to let off some steam. I crossed town on the Broken Arrow Expressway, shot back on I-44. Crossed over the river and went away up I-75. Drove for about an hour. Maybe an hour and fifteen minutes.”
“And then what did you do?”
“Then I came home.”
“And what happened?”
“Then …” His voice suddenly broke off. When it returned, it was barely a whisper. “That’s when I found them.”
Ben tried to go easy. Barrett was doing wonderfully; he didn’t want him to break down before the examination was over. “I’m sorry, Wallace, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to go through what happened step-by-step so the jury can understand all the details. Please tell us what happened, beginning when you returned to your home.”
Barrett took a deep breath and steeled himself. “I parked on the street. I was anxious to get in and apologize. I still didn’t want Fisher around, but after thinking about it a while, I realized I didn’t have the right to dictate who her friends were. So I wanted to apologize before any more damage was done.”
“What did you do after you parked on the street?”
“I walked to the house. The front door was open. And before you ask, no, I don’t remember whether I closed the door on my way out when I left. I was mad and I was in a hurry. I’m sure I meant to close it, but it’s possible I didn’t. I just don’t know.”
“What did you do next?”
“I stepped inside. Everything was very quiet. That was the first thing that bothered me. That sent a chill right up my spine. We have two young girls, after all. The house just isn’t quiet in the middle of the day. I thought maybe they had all gone somewhere.”
“What did you think about that?”
“Well, it made me want to kick myself. If I had stayed home, instead of running off like an idiot, I could’ve spent some time with them. Instead, I was going to spend the evening alone. Or so I thought.”
“What did you do next?”
“Well, since it looked like Caroline wouldn’t be making dinner, I decided to go fix myself a sandwich. But on my way to the kitchen, I had to pass through the dining room—”
“And?”
Barrett swallowed. “That’s when I saw her,” he whispered.
“That’s when you saw who?” Ben urged.
“Caroline,” he said. “Sprawled across a dining room chair.”
“Could you please describe her condition when you found her?”