It was entered into evidence and Powell descended on Jennifer. "Now, Mr. s Witt, take a look at People's 14 here. Is this your account?"
The clear look in her eyes was gone. Panic had taken up residence there. And Hardy was not much help – he felt it himself. Jennifer nodded. "Yes, that's my account."
"Did your husband know about this account?"
Jennifer swallowed. "Yes, of course."
Hardy knew that perjury wasn't much compared to murder, but he hated to hear the lie, anyway, even though he understood why she told it.
"Mrs. Witt, would you read to the jury the address on that statement?"
Jennifer glanced at the copy she held. "P.O. Box 33449, San Francisco, California."
"A post office box? Statements from this account weren't sent to your home?"
"No."
"And why was that, Mrs. Witt?"
Wide-eyed, Jennifer turned to Hardy. "I don't know."
"You don't know! Powell's voice rose and grew deeper. "You don't know?" he repeated. "Isn't it true, Mrs. Witt, that your husband had no knowledge of this account?"
"No-"
"… land that he had discovered that something was wrong with your family budget. What he'd discovered was that you had been lying to him about money."
"No, that's not true-"
But as Hardy knew, it was true.
And Powell wasn't finished. He backed up a step, lowered his voice again, came at her from another direction. "Mrs. Witt, have you received any money yet from your late husband's insurance?"
Thrown by the change in tack, Jennifer might have thought for a moment that Powell was easing off. She said she hadn't.
"Did you and Larry have a large savings account?"
"No, not really. I think about twenty thousand, something like that."
Powell turned to the jury. "Some people might call that large, Mrs. Witt, but I'll take your word for it."
"Then we had Matt's college fund." Jennifer, not knowing where he was going, was trying to be helpful. "That was about another twenty."
"And what about the house?"
Hardy jumped up. "Your Honor, where is this going?"
Powell turned to him, then back. "I'll tell you where it's going, Your Honor. It clearly demonstrates that these murders happened because of greed." He held up the Pioneer's Bank statement again. Wound up now, Powell turned back to Jennifer. "Mrs. Witt, this account of yours that got mailed to a post office box, how much money did it contain when you were arrested for these murders?"
Jennifer studied her hands.
"I'll tell you how much it contained if you don't remember. It's here in these statements. It's a little over three-hundred-thousand dollars, Mrs. Witt. Money you had been stealing from your husband for almost seven years. Money you embezzled from your own household!"
Jennifer lost it, voice shrill. "We never went out! Don't you understand that? He never let me do anything. You don't know what it was like, what he was like. He never even missed it-"
"But he did that morning, didn't he, Mrs. Witt? And your beloved Matt was in the way, too-"
"Objection!"
"You didn't grab the gun in the heat of the fight- you had planned the basics for some time-"
"Your Honor, objection."
"You went upstairs to get the gun-"
"Objection." Hardy's voice had gone up several octaves. Villars banged on her gavel. Powell rolled over both of them, at the top of his voice, moving closer to Jennifer.
"Now, suddenly, this became the moment when you must act. He said he was taking his money back, isn't that it?" Finally, in her face"Isn't that why you killed him?"
Exploding out of the witness chair, nearly knocking it over, Jennifer lunged at Powell, her face distorted. "No. I didn't kill him, you son of a bitch!"
"Sit down, all of you. Mr. Powell…" Villars slammed her gavel.
Jennifer, out of control, was screaming.
"Order! Order! Bailiffs!"
But even the bailiffs stood back, letting Jennifer wind down until, spent, she pulled the chair upright again and lowered herself back into it.
Powell stared at her. His shoulders sagged. "I just don't understand why you had to kill Matt," he whispered. Turning, he said he had no further questions.
It took the jury two ballots, two hours and seventeen minutes. It was, as the law prescribed it had to be, unanimous. And it was for the penalty of death.
Part Five
50
Hardy woke up sweating, gasping for air, the green room closing in around him as the almond-scented, corrosive gas burned its way down his windpipe, into his lungs, exploding them inward, leaving him in mute agony – in his dream, the scream woke him. In life, in this style of death, the scream would be silent, choked off the instant it was born.
It was all right. He was in his bedroom, Frannie curled in sleep next to him. The clock next to the bed said it was a little after three o'clock – he'd been asleep almost two hours.
He got up and went naked into the bathroom to throw water on his face. He'd been sweating – his hair was stuck to the side of his head. Gulping water and aspirin, he pulled at the skin around his eyes – the blackened circles under them didn't smudge away.
At the front of his house, still undressed, he sat in his armchair. It was cold, colder than it ever got. After a couple of minutes he heard footsteps and Frannie was next to him.
"Bad dream?" She sat on his lap, her arms around his neck. "You're all clammy," she said.
He couldn't talk. Her hands moved over his head, smoothing his hair. He had his arms around her and held her tight against him.
"I'm going to get a blanket."
When she got back he was shivering. He couldn't stop. She put the blanket over him, then went to get another comforter. When she returned he was out again, breathing heavily. She tucked the extra blanket around him, rubbed a hand across his damp and burning forehead and lay down in the windowseat under an afghan, her head on a sitting pillow near her husband's knees.
He woke up again. It seemed to be a long time before dawn.
Still in the chair, he listened in the darkness, trying to hear something beyond the sounds of his quiet house – Frannie breathing on the windowseat beside him, the aquarium gurgling away in the back, in their bedroom.
Something – he thought it might have been a noise – had gotten into his consciousness.
A chill shook him, bringing with it a sudden jolt of fear. If he was on to what he thought he was, suppose there was someone trying to make it impossible for him to tell what he might know?
He didn't remember getting into bed. He didn't remember getting to this chair, or why Frannie was here. Throwing off the blanket, he realized he must have come in, taken off his shoes and collapsed.
His guns!
His guns from his cop days were locked in his safe. When Rebecca had moved into what had been his office he had moved the safe out behind the kitchen, on the top shelf over his workbench. Now, woozy and stumbling, he forced himself up, back through the house, turning on lights as he went.
The safe was untouched.
He opened it. The guns were still there. He really was losing it. No one was coming for him. Not here. Not at his home.
And then it occurred to him that maybe Larry Witt had thought the same thing. And so had Simpson Crane. And both had been shot with their own weapons in their own houses Ridiculous.
The. 380 in his hand, shivering, he decided he'd finish making sure. There wasn't much of the house left to check. Vincent's room, Rebecca's, his own bedroom. He passed back through the kitchen, dining room, living room, back up the long hallway, turning lights off behind him. Nothing. He was crazy.