In Self Defense by Susan Sloan (phonics books .TXT) 📕

“Don’t be silly, I dragged myself into it,” Nina snorted.  “If I’d just kept my big mouth shut and not called the police in the first place, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Clare sighed.  “I don’t blame you, and I don’t blame the police,” she said.  “You were all just trying to help.  How could any of you have known it was going to turn out so differently?”

***

Nina Jacobsen did indeed take the stand on Friday morning.

“This is all my fault, you know,” she told the jury.  “I’m the one who should be standing trial here.”

“What do you mean?” David asked.

“If it hadn’t been for me, the police wouldn’t have gotten involved, and Richard would still be alive,” she explained.  “Clare was right to be angry with me.”

“Angry about what?”

“Because I’m the one who called the police when the stalker wouldn’t stop harassing her.  I thought I was doing the right thing,.  I thought I was being so smart. Yeah, well, I was so smart, I’m the one who got Richard killed.”

“Why do you say that?  You didn’t shoot him.”

“I just as good as shot him,” Nina replied.  “Not only did I involve the police when I should have been minding my own business, I’m the one who told Clare she should protect herself -- I’m the one who told her to go learn how to shoot a gun.”

“She didn’t already know how?”

“No,” the witness declared, shaking her head.  “She had to have Richard show her how.”

“But the prosecutor seems to think Mrs. Durant knew she was shooting her husband that night.”

“Well, there’s just no accounting for what some people think,” Nina retorted.  “But I was there.  I saw how destroyed Clare was when she realized she’d shot Richard.  She was practically catatonic.”

“Did the Durants have a good marriage?” David asked.

Nina shrugged.  “Better than some, worse than others,” she replied.  “Richard was a cad who came from nothing and married his way into the big leagues, but Clare didn’t seem to care.  As far as she was concerned, he really did walk on water.”

“Yet we’ve heard testimony here that Richard Durant wanted a divorce.”

“Pooh,” Nina said.  “He may have found a squeeze he thought he wanted to hang onto for a while longer than the rest, but he knew which side of his bread was buttered -- whatever he told the socialite, he’d never have given up Nicolaidis Industries.  Not for anyone.  Clare knew that.”

“You were at the house the night Richard Durant died, weren’t you?”

“Yes, three doors down the hall.”

“Tell us what you did, what you saw, and what you heard.”

“I got to Clare’s place around four o’clock in the afternoon,” Nina said.  “It was the housekeeper’s day off, and I was there to try to keep Clare sane.”

“Sane?”

“The police had set up this big sting operation to catch their stalker, using Clare as bait.  She was a wreck.  We talked, we watched a couple of movies, we had dinner, and we split a bottle of wine.”

“A whole bottle?”

“Yes.  I admit it.  Our nerves were frazzled.  We both needed to relax.”

“Where were the children?”

“Clare would never have allowed them to come within a hair of harm, at least, not knowingly,” Nina declared.  “She’d arranged for her sister-in-law to take them while Richard was away and the police were staging their stake-out.  They were in Ravenna.”

“All right, after the movie and the dinner and the wine, what did you do?”

“We went to bed.  And that’s where else I failed.  I was going to stay up all night, and stand guard, so to speak, but I fell asleep.  I guess the wine worked.”

“What’s the next thing you remember?”

“Hearing the shots.”

“The shots woke you up?”

“Yes,” Nina confirmed.  “I didn’t know what was going on.  For a few seconds, I didn’t even know where I was.  And then I remembered, and I jumped out of bed and got to the door, just as the police came running up the stairs.”

“What else?”

“The scream -- I heard the scream,” the witness recounted.  “It almost wasn’t human, you know.  It was more like the wail of some wounded animal.”  Nina shuddered.  “I’ll remember that sound as long as I live.”

“And Mrs. Durant?  You said something earlier about her being almost catatonic?”

The witness nodded.  “I don’t think she knew she was making that sound.  I don’t think she even knew where she was or what had happened.  After the police came in and took the gun away from her, they were focused on Richard.  Clare just sort of collapsed on the floor and then she sort of crawled into a corner, out of the way, and just stayed there.  She was there the rest of the night.  She wouldn’t -- or couldn’t -- move.  I got a robe over her, but that was the best I could do.  The doctor came, and he gave her a sedative, but that didn’t do any good, either.  She was beyond sedating.”

“What did the police do?”

“Detective Hall was the last to leave.  She was trying to talk to Clare, but I could see Clare wasn’t responding.  She just huddled in that corner, shivering, staring at Richard’s body, and then, after the police took him away, she kept staring at the place where his body had been, with this sort of glassy-eyed look, and all the time, she kept making that hideous sound.  It was awful.  It was worse than awful.  I hope I never have to witness such a thing again.”

***

“Ms. Jacobsen, are you a trained psychiatrist?” Mark Sundstrom inquired on cross.

“No, I’m a book editor,” Nina replied.

“Then I take it we should chalk your analysis of the defendant on the night of the murder up to your fictional expertise?”

“I know what I saw,” Nina said.

“Yes, of course,” the prosecutor said dismissively.  “Now, have you any first-hand knowledge that Richard Durant had abandoned his quest for a divorce?”

“First-hand?  No.  I know only what Clare told me.”

“Which was?”

“Which was that Richard would never leave her if it