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

the stalker scare.  But Clare has told you she didn’t know her husband was coming home a day early.  And that would make for quite an interesting he-said-she-said situation except for one thing -- Richard Durant’s own assistant testified that he didn’t know his boss was coming home a day early, either.  And surely he should have.  After all, it was his job to know these things.

“So what do we make of all this? Are we to believe that these two people are somehow in cahoots with one another and therefore both of them are lying to you because she very much wanted to be a widow and he desperately wanted to be unemployed?  Or did Richard Durant, for whatever reason, either lie in the message he left for Stephanie Burdick, or simply change his mind after leaving it?  Can any of you say you really know the answers to these questions?

“Are there inconsistencies here?  Of course there are.  Because life is full of inconsistencies, and if there weren’t any in this case, I personally would be very suspicious.  But inconsistencies can cut both ways.  So it’s going to be up to you good people, to sort through all you’ve seen and heard, to study things from every angle, examine every scenario until you can assure yourselves, absent all reasonable doubt, that you know what happened on that fateful October night.”

David gazed thoughtfully at each of the jurors one last time.  “Like the prosecutor, I, too, have been watching you throughout this trial,” he said.  “Like him, I, too, feel confident you will come to the right conclusion in this case.  Because once you put yourselves in Clare Durant’s place, once you let yourselves walk around in her shoes for a while -- live for a while in her life, I believe you’ll have no other choice but to send her home to her children.”

***

Peter “Pogo” McCloskey lived in a shack at the end of a long dirt road and raised pit bulls.  Dog fighting was against the law in Washington State, but the police did little, if anything, to stop it.  Still, he opened his door to the police detective, if warily.

“No,” he said to Erin’s question.  “I ain’t seen Ryan in, hell, it must be more’n a year now.  Don’t expect to see him, neither, unless he runs out of that wad he got.”

“What wad was that?” Erin asked.

“Oh, a year or so ago, he got fifty big ones for doing a job for some guy he knew.”

“Did he say what sort of job?”

Pogo shook his head.  “Not really.  He just said he was cleaning up a little something for some big shot he grew up with.”

“Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money for doing a little cleanup work,” Erin observed.

Pogo chuckled.  “Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” he told the detective.  “Didn’t believe him, either.  But then he showed me his stash.  It sure looked real to me.”

“How’d you meet Ryan?” the detective inquired.

“Just like I guess you already figured,” he said.  “We were cellmates for a stretch.  But I paid my dues, I see my parole officer every month, and I got no beef with anyone.”

“Did you see Ryan often after the two of you got out?”

“On and off.  Up until when he took off, he’d crash here whenever he wanted.”

“Know when you’re likely to hear from him again?”

Pogo chuckled again.  “Like I said,” he said, “when he runs out of money.”

“Any idea where he went?”

“I think he said something about having to get lost and maybe heading down to Mexico,” Pogo said, shrugging his shoulders.  “If he did, that fifty grand could last him a long time.”

“Was he still driving the Ford pickup when you last saw him?” Erin asked.

“Funny you should ask about that,” Pogo said.  “He only had that truck a couple of weeks.  Fussed over it like it was a brand new baby.  Then last time I saw him, he had a Seville.  I asked him what happened to the truck.  He said he didn’t need it anymore.”

***

“How long do you think it will take?” Clare asked her attorney.  The two of them were seated in the living room in Laurelhurst, pretending to drink tea.

“Hard to tell,” David replied.  By four o’clock, Mark Sundstrom had concluded the rebuttal argument for the prosecution, the judge had given the jury its instructions, the jurors had retired to the jury room to begin their deliberations, and the waiting game had begun.  “It could be hours.  It could be days.”

“Which would be better for us?”

“The general rule is -- hours are better than days,” he told her.   “A quick verdict is more often than not a defense verdict.”

“But you don’t think it will be hours, do you?”

David shrugged and shook his head.  “No, I don’t think this is going to be a quick verdict,” he said honestly.  “There really isn’t a preponderance of evidence on either side here.  There’s a good deal to be looked at on both sides. I think the jurors will have a lot to mull over, and I think they’ll take their time.”

“And I guess what the verdict should be maybe isn’t so clear,” she said softly.

“Well, maybe not as clear to some as it is to others,” David said with a gentle smile.

***

The grandfather clock in the foyer ticked off the seconds, the chime marked the quarter-hours, and Clare was positive she had never realized before how slowly -- or how loudly -- it took for time to pass.

“When you’re so busy you wish time would slow down a little so you can get everything done in a day, it flies,” she observed.  “And when you wish as hard as you can that time would fly and it would be tomorrow, you have to live through every agonizing minute of today.”

“You need something to do,” Doreen said.

“You mean something that won’t be photographed and televised and analyzed by everyone under the sun?” Clare asked.

“I recommend lunch,” the housekeeper declared.