"Anyway, Larry reads the paper in the morning with his breakfast. It's just something he always does…" She paused, collecting herself. "I mean he always did. But this morning he came down angry."
"Over what?" Hardy said.
She swallowed hard. "I wasn't dressed right."
"Didn't you say you were in your running clothes?"
She nodded. "But that wasn't going to be for an hour or so, you see? I guess I still looked like I just rolled out of bed. I mean my hair and no make-up."
"But hadn't you just been up for a while cleaning house, doing the dishes?"
Jennifer might not wasn’t to talk about Larry beating her, but this was good stuff for her. Saint Larry was taking a few hits and Hardy was trying to keep Jennifer swinging. "Well, yes, but… he just didn't like it."
"Did he yell at you?"
"No. I could just tell he was upset. You know?"
"I think so, Jennifer." Hardy included the jury. "And then what happened?"
"Well, I got his coffee and then I tried to rub his shoulders, which he liked when he was tense about something, but he shrugged me off."
"He shrugged you off? You mean he physically moved you away?" Powell seemed to be willing to let him lead the witness and Hardy would use a leash if he had to.
But Jennifer wouldn't go along. "No. You know, he just didn't want me to look this way. So I told him I'd go upstairs to change if he wanted me to…"
"Even though you were still going running in an hour?"
She nodded. "If he wanted. It wasn't a big deal to me. But then he told me not to bother, he said he'd been awake for an hour upstairs, going over our bills. He was worried about money. Christmas, you know, that sort of thing?"
"And what happened then?"
"It got to be a family budget argument." Jennifer was facing the jury. "You know, everybody has them."
"All right, and then what?"
"Then Matt came down, rubbing his eyes, like he did when he woke up… I didn't like to have Matt hear us arguing and yelling so I stopped and went into the kitchen and made him some French toast, which was his favorite. Then I went upstairs to make the beds. I thought maybe it would all blow over."
"And did it blow over?"
"No… When I came down Larry started in again on how I looked. He thought I'd gone upstairs to change into something decent. I told him I was going running now, but he was still mad about the other… about everything. So we had more words and Matt was crying. I thought I could make it stop if I left, so I did."
"You went out running?"
"Yes."
"And what time did you leave the house?"
"I don't know. I walked down a couple of blocks, which is what I always do to warm up, then I started running."
She told it well… the stop at the bank, her return to the house, the inventory where she didn't list the gun as missing because she hadn't gone back into the bedroom. Hardy was coming to the opinion that in his fear over Jennifer's abrasive personality, Freeman had badly erred in not putting her on the stand. She had a consistent story to tell and she told it well, her voice gaining in confidence as she went on until her direct testimony came to an end just before they broke for lunch.
If only she could stand up as well to Powell's cross-examination.
"I'd like to start by asking you to clarify something for me. Is that all right?"
During lunch in the "suite," Hardy had let her savor her partial victory for a few moments, and then thought he'd best begin to prepare her for Powell's expected onslaught. Perhaps it would work – she was facing Powell calmly now, her eyes clear as she nodded.
"You've said, and I quote: 'I didn't kill my husband. I certainly did not kill my son.' Do you mean that you're not as certain that you didn't kill Larry?"
This was a get-your-goat question and as such, Hardy thought, it was good strategy. But he wasn't about to let Powell get away with it. "Argumentative, Your Honor. What's the substance of that question?"
Villars agreed. Jennifer did not have to answer, but Hardy could see that the question had rattled her, already chipped at her reserve. He caught her eye and half-lifted a palm – keep cool, Jennifer, don't let it get to you.
Powell smiled at the defendant and started again. "If you don't mind, Mrs. Witt, I'd like to clear up one part of your story I still don't understand. You've testified that when you came back downstairs after making the beds and so on, that you and your husband started fighting again."
"Larry started yelling again, yes."
"And Matt started crying?"
"Yes."
"And as a mother, your response to your son's crying was to leave the house?"
"I tried to stop it by leaving."
"Yes, I see that, but how did you try to comfort your son? Did you hug him? Tell him you loved him?"
"No, not then. I thought when the fight between Larry and me stopped, he'd stop-"
"And that was the point, wasn't it? To get him to stop?"
"Well, no. I mean, he would."
"So you just walked out on him?"
Hardy stood up. "Asked and answered, Your Honor." Disastrously.
Powell withdrew the question before Hardy could be sustained. He stepped closer to the witness box. "All right, Mrs. Witt. On another subject – you've mentioned that you and your husband had this fight about money – family budgets, the kind we all have, is that right?"
"Yes."
"And your husband, Dr. Witt… was looking over your family budget before coming down to breakfast?"
"Yes."
Powell had something, Hardy realized. Relaxed, taking his time, he went back to the prosecution table and took a document from Morehouse. He walked back to the center of the courtroom. "Your Honor, I have here a copy of a statement of an account of Mrs. Witt's from Pioneer's Bank. I'd like to introduce it into evidence as People's 14." Jennifer visibly tensed.
Hardy's stomach tightened. As Powell came over to his table to show him the bank statement, he decided to buy her some time. "Your Honor, sidebar?"
The judge, scowling, motioned Powell and Hardy forward. "What is it now, Mr. Hardy?"
"Your Honor, this document wasn't on the People's evidence list." During discovery, counsel for both sides were supposed to present the other side with complete lists of witnesses they intended to call, and physical evidence they intended to present. Neither witnesses nor evidence had to be used, but if they were not listed beforehand they normally could not be used. In theory, at least, the courtroom was not a place to spring surprises – in practice, attorneys loved it when it worked out that way. "I object to its introduction now," Hardy said.
"Counsel is mistaken, Your Honor."
Powell was now holding up the thick sheaf. "These are the papers, a complete copy of which we presented to defense counsel on" – he paused, checking another page – "August 1."
Hardy and Freeman had, of course, received this package. It was undoubtedly somewhere in Hardy's office among the seven book boxes filled with statements, interviews, police reports. Because Powell hadn't seen fit to introduce it in the guilt phase, Hardy had allowed himself the faint hope that Powell hadn't noticed it in the mass of documents. No such luck.
The financial package Powell now held was three-and-a-half inches thick and contained nearly five-hundred pages of the Witts' past tax statements, insurance forms, bank accounts, IRAs, stock records, copies of canceled checks, receipts for most of their household items. None of it was in any order and there was no index – a ton of camouflage for the one thing that was going to hurt Jennifer – the one page statement revealing the existence of her secret account. Powell was flipping through the pages upon pages of photocopied copies of canceled checks until he found it, hidden among them. "Here it is, Your Honor."
Villars leaned over, adjusted her reading glasses, nodded. "There it is, Mr. Hardy."