he'd best begin to prepare her for Powell's expected onslaught. Perhaps it would work – she was facing Powell calmly now, her eyes clear as she nodded.
'You've said, and I quote: 'I didn't kill my husband. I certainly did not kill my son.' Do you mean that you're not as certain that you didn't kill Larry?'
This was a get-your-goat question and as such, Hardy thought, it was good strategy. But he wasn't about to let Powell get away with it. 'Argumentative, Your Honor. What's the substance of that question?'
Villars agreed. Jennifer did not have to answer, but Hardy could see that the question had rattled her, already chipped at her reserve. He caught her eye and half-lifted a palm – keep cool, Jennifer, don't let it get to you.
Powell smiled at the defendant and started again. 'If you don't mind, Mrs. Witt, I'd like to clear up one part of your story I still don't understand. You've testified that when you came back downstairs after making the beds and so on, that you and your husband started fighting again.'
'Larry started yelling again, yes.'
'And Matt started crying?'
'Yes.'
'And as a mother, your response to your son's crying was to leave the house?'
'I tried to stop it by leaving.'
'Yes, I see that, but how did you try to comfort your son? Did you hug him? Tell him you loved him?'
'No, not then. I thought when the fight between Larry and me stopped, he'd stop-'
'And that was the point, wasn't it? To get him to stop?'
'Well, no. I mean, he would.'
'So you just walked out on him?'
Hardy stood up. 'Asked and answered, Your Honor.' Disastrously.
Powell withdrew the question before Hardy could be sustained. He stepped closer to the witness box. 'All right, Mrs. Witt. On another subject – you've mentioned that you and your husband had this fight about money – family budgets, the kind we all have, is that right?'
'Yes.'
'And your husband, Dr. Witt… was looking over your family budget before coming down to breakfast?'
'Yes.'
Powell had something, Hardy realized. Relaxed, taking his time, he went back to the prosecution table and took a document from Morehouse. He walked back to the center of the courtroom. 'Your Honor, I have here a copy of a statement of an account of Mrs. Witt's from Pioneer's Bank. I'd like to introduce it into evidence as People's 14.' Jennifer visibly tensed.
Hardy's stomach tightened. As Powell came over to his table to show him the bank statement, he decided to buy her some time. 'Your Honor, sidebar?'
The judge, scowling, motioned Powell and Hardy forward. 'What is it now, Mr. Hardy?'
'Your Honor, this document wasn't on the People's evidence list.' During discovery, counsel for both sides were supposed to present the other side with complete lists of witnesses they intended to call, and physical evidence they intended to present. Neither witnesses nor evidence had to be used, but if they were not listed beforehand they normally could not be used. In theory, at least, the courtroom was not a place to spring surprises – in practice, attorneys loved it when it worked out that way. 'I object to its introduction now,' Hardy said.
'Counsel is mistaken, Your Honor.'
Powell was now holding up the thick sheaf. 'These are the papers, a complete copy of which we presented to defense counsel on' – he paused, checking another page – 'August 1.'
Hardy and Freeman had, of course, received this package. It was undoubtedly somewhere in Hardy's office among the seven book boxes filled with statements, interviews, police reports. Because Powell hadn't seen fit to introduce it in the guilt phase, Hardy had allowed himself the faint hope that Powell hadn't noticed it in the mass of documents. No such luck.
The financial package Powell now held was three-and-a-half inches thick and contained nearly five-hundred pages of the Witts' past tax statements, insurance forms, bank accounts, IRAs, stock records, copies of canceled checks, receipts for most of their household items. None of it was in any order and there was no index – a ton of camouflage for the one thing that was going to hurt Jennifer – the one page statement revealing the existence of her secret account. Powell was flipping through the pages upon pages of photocopied copies of canceled checks until he found it, hidden among them. 'Here it is, Your Honor.'
Villars leaned over, adjusted her reading glasses, nodded. 'There it is, Mr. Hardy.'
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-'
