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

feel toward Winston is evident. The feeling is likely reciprocal. The witness hasn’t once looked in their direction. His focus now on me, I lounge around to let him twist in the wind a little longer. The small specks of sweat evolving at the border of his hairline speak to his distress. I give him a fake, sympathetic smile before resuming.

“Bernard Barton is still a partner with your law firm?”

“He’s currently on leave.”

“Paid leave?”

“Yes.”

“A million dollars a year, right?”

Winston sags. Back at headquarters, I imagine the partners of Marsh & McCabe are scurrying to divorce themselves from Barton as we speak—and maybe Roy Winston, too. Clients are the currency of Big Law, and Corporate America wants no part of the negative press the law firm will soon endure. Marsh & McCabe just became toxic.

“You had multiple complaints of sexual harassment against the defendant that led to sizable settlements, yet you still allowed the defendant to work at the law firm?”

“In hindsight, that was a mistake.”

“The firm covered up for a predator?”

“I reject that characterization. We settled legal claims, and we should’ve severed our relationship with Bernard because of it. Conduct like that is unacceptable.”

“Yet you accepted it, didn’t you?”

Pause. “I’m afraid so.”

***

That night, Ella and I sit on opposite ends of a conference table, married to our yellow legal pads—the lawyer’s perpetual best friend. Scott is off attending a school event for his daughter. The end is close. By this time in every trial, the body runs on fumes, 20-hour days exacting their due. I prepare for Barton’s upcoming cross-examination. Ella toils on jury charges. We end up doing arm stretches at the same time, sending each other awkward glances in the process. Ella breaks the silence.

“Millwood seems to be struggling.”

“It’s not his fault. Barton hasn’t been square with him. Jack had no idea about the sexual harassment settlements. He never would’ve put Winston on the stand if he had known. Barton is directing his own defense and it shows. Jack’s fed up. I don’t blame him.”

“Why would you hire one of the best lawyers in Atlanta to defend you and then not listen to him?”

“Barton probably thinks he’s the best lawyer in Atlanta.”

“How are you going to handle him on cross?”

“Try to get under his skin.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard. He might kill you in open court.”

“That may be his best defense at this point. Mary would have to declare a mistrial.”

We get back to our work. At some point, I close my eyes. When I open them far later into the night, I see Ella asleep with her head cradled in her arms on the table—all peaceful like. I watch her rise and fall in rhythm with her breath. Look at what I threw away. I get up and gently rouse her.

With her head still on the table, she asks, “What time is it?”

“Late.”

She sits up and shakes the sleep out of her eyes. A piercing yawn follows. She says, “I was in the middle of a dream. It was about you.”

“A good dream?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t get to finish it, but I doubt it.”

I offer a sage nod, reckoning she guessed right. We exit the room to go home but with the knowledge that we’ll be right back here again in a few hours. Before we part, Ella stops and looks at me with studied intensity.

She asks, “Why are you the way you are?”

I thoughtfully ponder the question before answering, “I wish I knew.”

46

“The defense calls Bernard Barton.”

Barton walks to the stand—his legs not quite confident, not quite jelly. Only a sociopath wouldn’t be nervous in his shoes, and Barton is no sociopath. He’s a gambler. The huge debts he ran up in Vegas led him to take the biggest gamble of his life in murdering his wife. He now doubles down on the high-risk strategy of testifying on his own behalf—something murder defendants almost universally avoid. Barton suffers from the gambler’s curse. He wagers that one more gamble can wipe away all the previous losses, that lady luck will be on his side with one more roll. He should know that the house always wins.

Millwood proceeds slowly through the background questions. The goal is both to humanize his client and to chisel off some of Barton’s nerves before getting to the meat of the testimony. Even though the State contends that Barton is a cold-blooded killer, he sits there in the witness box right next to the jurors, well within striking distance before security could ever stop him. Everyone accepts the arrangement as normal. One of the benefits for Barton in testifying is to make himself one with this non-threatening normalcy. The effect would be stronger if Barton’s pot hadn’t been boiling over for most of the trial.

The testimony borders on boring, but that’s a feature not a bug. Boring people seem incapable of murder. I myself wrestle with inattention as the story drags. Trials are exciting on television and in movies, but the reality of listening to witnesses drone on hour after hour after hour day after day after day drains the energy of every viewer. Paying attention to the small details demands a constant refocusing of the mind.

Millwood finally finishes with the fluff. He doesn’t say a word, but the noticeable change in his demeanor perks up the courtroom from its recent lethargy. He stands at the far end of the jury box away from Barton, forcing his client to look into the whites of the jurors’ eyes. I pick up my pen. Now the testimony begins in earnest.

“Mr. Barton, you stand accused of murdering your wife, Sara Barton. I ask you directly: did you kill your wife?”

“Absolutely not.”

The burden of proof in any murder case always rests on the prosecution, but jurors still want to hear a defendant deny under oath the charge against him. Silence in the face of false accusation is unnatural. The thought persists in a juror’s mind—“If I were wrongfully accused of murder, you better