The Murder of Sara Barton (Atlanta Murder Squad Book 1) by Lance McMillian (top 20 books to read TXT) 📕

statement. The jury looks interested but uncommitted. Rich men kill people, too.

The financial evidence established, the questioning takes a turn into the personal.

“Mr. Winston, how long have you known Bernard Barton?”

Pause. “Twenty-five years.”

Millwood next solicits Winston’s observations that the Barton marriage was over, and neither wife nor husband exhibited much discernable regard for the other. Winston offered to terminate Brice Tanner for the offense of sleeping with a partner’s wife, but Barton laughed off the sex tape and wanted no retribution taken on his account. The general knowledge within the firm was that Barton had moved on to Monica Haywood. Winston gave Barton the name of the lawyer who handled Winston’s own divorce, and that was that. The testimony concludes with the witness describing Barton’s extensive work in fundraising for domestic violence shelters.

I stifle a yawn. I have a text of Barton calling his wife a whore, a 911 call of him yelling at her on the same day he learned about the sex tape, and a color photo of Sara Barton’s bruised back. The documentary evidence doesn’t lie. I don’t care how much money Barton gives to good causes. Millwood turns the witness over to me.

***

Winston eyes me with the wariness of a house cat that still possesses a healthy dose of tiger DNA in its blood. He is obviously a competent lawyer, but corporate law has domesticated him. Now he finds himself in the wild on unfamiliar ground and doesn’t like it. I approach friendly-like, more for the jury’s benefit than Winston’s. Jeff Yarber told me the day after Sara Barton’s murder that Marsh & McCabe has had to settle numerous sexual harassment lawsuits on Barton’s behalf. I doubt Winston knows I know. That is about to change.

“Mr. Winston, you’re managing partner of Marsh & McCabe?”

Pause. “Yes.”

“One of the largest law firms in Atlanta?”

Pause. “Yes.”

“And your firm employs a great number of women?”

Pause. “Yes.”

“And some of these women have accused Bernard Barton of sexual harassment?”

Winston reacts as if punched in the face. He calculates the awful equation in an instant. His firm now has bigger problems than one of its partners on trial for murder. The #MeToo movement just showed up on its doorstep on national television. An unresponsive Winston looks to Millwood for rescue.

Millwood objects, “Objection, Your Honor. Beyond the scope of direct examination.”

I answer, “Your Honor, the question goes to witness credibility. If the witness has covered up for the defendant in the past, then the jury may infer that he is covering up for the defendant now and thereby disregard the entirety of his testimony.”

“I’ll allow it.”

Millwood appears over all of it. No doubt he specifically asked Barton about other potential grenades out there. No doubt Barton lied to him. Difficult clients keep lawyers up late at night, and Millwood wears the look of a man that can no longer stomach Bernard Barton.

I watch Winston expectantly. He still sits there on mute. I slowly restate the question in a louder voice: “Have some female employees of your law firm accused the defendant of sexual harassment in the past?”

The attention of every spectator in the courtroom oppresses him as his silence grows louder by the second. Finally, he offers, “Pursuant to confidentiality agreements, I’m unable to testify about such matters.”

“Agreements. Plural?”

“I’m not allowed to testify on such things.”

“This is a murder trial, Mr. Winston. It trumps the secrecy of your hush money payoffs. Answer the question.”

Millwood jumps in, “Move to strike, Your Honor!”

“Granted. The jury will disregard counsel’s last remark.”

Millwood continues, “I also object to this whole line of questioning as being unduly prejudicial and lacking relevance to the present charges. Mr. Barton is on trial in connection with his relationship with Sara Barton, not irrelevant relationships with other women.”

I respond, “Your Honor, the questioning still goes to Mr. Winston’s credibility or lack thereof. Also, how the defendant acts towards women who reject him is at the heart of this trial.”

The judge rules, “I’ll allow it. Mr. Winston, you have to answer the questions asked of you.”

Winston slouches in disappointment before resuming the edifice of his erect posture. The cracks are showing. The earlier wariness now reads as a foreboding of impending doom. The king of the boardroom is no match for the courtroom. I relaunch the ambush.

“Have some female employees of your law firm accused the defendant of sexual harassment in the past?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t pause. He has finally let his guard down when it should be at its highest. He made Millwood run around the mulberry bush and back to extract the answer to the simplest questions. Now he figures to give me what I want without much fuss. Cross-examination has that effect on people.

“This harassment consisted of unwanted comments?”

“Yes.”

“Unwanted touching?”

“Yes.”

“Of women who were his subordinates?”

“Yes.”

“Who he had power over?”

“Yes.”

“More than one woman?”

“Yes.”

The problem is what I don’t know. I don’t know how many women Barton harassed, who he harassed, what he said to them, how he touched them, or how many settlements Marsh & McCabe paid out to cover for him. When I later asked Jeff Yarber for these details, he wouldn’t spill them, confidentiality and all. Without the specifics, I’m forced to probe Winston around the edges to see what I can scare up.

“You found these complaints credible?”

That stops him. He can’t very well throw all the women who complained about Barton under the bus on national television. But if the complaints were credible, why is Barton still a partner at the firm? I wait with all the time in the world as he makes up his mind.

“Yes.”

“So credible in fact that your law firm paid out financial settlements to these women?”

“Yes.”

“Sizable settlements?”

“Yes.”

“Hush money, in fact?”

“Absolutely not. They were payouts on disputed legal claims.”

“Did the settlements have provisions that prohibited these women from talking about what the defendant did to them?”

“Yes. Confidentiality clauses are standard contract language in settlement agreements.”

“The firm bought the silence of the defendant’s victims?”

“I wouldn’t characterize it like that.”

But everyone else would. The disgust that the jurors