been the one who had called the police. Larry and Jennifer Witt had been fighting for weeks, she said. Their son was an unhappy little thing. He cried all the time. The night before, that morning, 'You should have heard them on Christmas' (three days before) – it seemed they nearly ruined the Barbieto's family dinner.
Hardy was taking a shotgun approach to his first reading of the file, and had turned right away to the tab marked 'Civilian Witnesses.' Apparently there were eyewitnesses. From a defense point of view, eyewitnesses were not particularly heartening.
He was sitting on the side of the steps outside the Hall of Justice at 7^th and Bryant. The day was cool and sunny with a light breeze that would probably kick into a gale by five o'clock. Now, though, it was pleasant, even with the bus exhaust and the fast-food wrappers beginning to swirl on the steps.
He turned back to the arresting officer's report. Inspector Terrell had begun to suspect Jennifer after she had provided him with an inventory of items that might have been missing from her home and had omitted the murder weapon. She had carefully searched the house and reported nothing missing. This was before their gun had been found under the dumpster.
After that, Terrell had questioned Jennifer about this oversight and Jennifer had said she must have simply overlooked it, blocked it somehow. Hardy didn't remember this fact from any of the news reports, and it wasn't a good one to find now. He closed the file.
'Hardy.'
He squinted up into the sun and stood up. A tall man, slightly older than Hardy himself, hovered over him in a light charcoal suit, his hand extended.
Hardy stood and took the hand.
'Just saw you sitting here, Diz. Rumor has it you're defending Jennifer Witt.'
'You know rumors, Dean. They never quite get it right.' He explained his stand-in status, helping out his landlord, the famous defense attorney David Freeman.
Dean Powell showed a mouthful of teeth. He had a glorious mane of white hair, ruddy skin and an impressive posture. Hardy hadn't wanted to go see Powell earlier and didn't feel particularly prepared to chat with him now. But here he was, smiling and talking.
'Art wanted to warn me early that you had the case. So I'd take it more seriously.' Some more teeth to flavor the compliment. 'But it's Freeman, huh?' His face clouded briefly. Powell might be nice Hardy and stroke him about what a good job he'd do, but the mention of Freeman moved things up a big notch. Freeman didn't lose too often.
Powell motioned downward. 'That her file?'
Hardy patted it. 'It seems a little thin on motive for Matt's death – the boy's. I mentioned it to Art and he didn't seem to want to talk about it.'
Powell's grin faded. 'I'll talk to you about it. The motive was the husband's money. The boy got in the way. Period.'
Hardy turned sideways out of the sun's glare. 'You really believe that?'
'Do I really believe it? Tell you what, I think it's inherently believable.'
'That's not what I asked you.'
The Assistant DA ran his hand through the flowing hair. 'Do I personally think she shot her boy in cold blood? To tell you the truth, I don't know. We've charged women with that particular crime four times in the last two years, so don't tell me it's just too heinous to even imagine a woman could do that.'
Hardy persisted. 'I'm saying she, Jennifer, didn't do it. I just spent some time with her upstairs.'
'She was sad, was she?' Powell shook his head. 'Remember Wanda Hayes, Diz?' He was referring to a highly publicized case from several months earlier. Hardy nodded, he remembered. 'Well, Wanda was a real wreck, crying all the time. And she admitted that she killed two of her kids. She said she just kind of lost her temper one day, felt real sad about it.'
'Okay, Dean, but-'
'But nothing, Diz. I'm not saying that Jennifer's plan was to kill her son. What she did do, and what we can prove, was that she planned to kill her husband and didn't take the time or whatever else to make sure her son was out of the way. Maybe she was just careless. I don't know and I don't care. The bottom line is the son's dead and she's going down for him, too.'
The flash of anger spent, Powell suddenly exhaled, as though surprised at his show of emotion. He reined himself in. 'Listen,' he said, 'I'm just on my way over to Lou's. You feel like a drink?'
Lou's was Lou the Greek's, the local watering hole for the cops and the DAs.
Hardy motioned to the file again, shaking his head. 'Another time.'
The Assistant DA's face tightened. Powell was said to be considering a run for State Attorney General in this year's special election and he had obviously been working on his public moves – this invitation for a drink had the ring of sincerity, for example – but it put Hardy on guard. Powell was saying that, as Hardy knew, one of the duties of the prosecutor was to provide full and free disclosure to the defense team. 'You know, you might want to drop by Art's again. We don't want you to have any surprises.'
Hardy squinted, moved to the side. This was unusual. 'I just got the file an hour ago.'
'Yes, well, Art and I discussed the case after you stopped by and we decided it would be better to lay it all out at the beginning. Like I said, we don't want any surprises.'
'What surprises.'
Powell's face took on a serious expression. 'You haven't seen the indictment yet. We charged Mrs. Witt with a third count of murder.'
'What third murder?'
'Her first husband died of a suspected drug overdose nine years ago. Did you know that? I don't know how the media hasn't come up with this yet but I'm sure they will.'
Hardy stood still as a pole. He wondered whether his once-upon-a-time friend Art Drysdale had deliberately given him only half of the discovery – there wasn't really any legal advantage in doing so, but Drysdale had been know to mess with defense lawyers just to keep them off balance. It was a good reminder for Hardy – he really was on the other side.
'In any event,' Powell went on, 'Inspector Terrell, the arresting officer? He's been pushing for exhumation and got it through with Strout.' This, was John Strout, the coroner. 'It seems Mrs. Witt made a small bundle on that death, too. Something like seventy-five thousand dollars, which back then was a reasonable piece of change. Terrell found out she was dating a dentist when Ned – that was husband number one – bought it. Dating this dentist while they were still married? Bad form. Anyway, when Ned died it looked like an overdose – so the coroner ran the A scan, found coke and alcohol and ruled it an accidental overdose.'
Hardy knew the medical examiner ran three levels of tests to scan for poisons in dead people. Level C included a lot more controlled substances – barbiturates, methamphetamines – then the check for volatiles – essentially alcohols – that turned up on a Level A scan, but it also cost a lot more to run, and when the apparent cause of death was found at the A level, unless there was an investigator's report indicating foul play, the coroner most often stopped there.
Hardy knew all this but he had to ask: 'He didn't check for anything else?'
'Why would he? They found what they were looking for, coke and booze in an overdose situation… hell, you know. And Ned had 'em both, so the book got closed. But guess what?'
'I can't imagine.' Hardy was feeling numb.
'Atropine.'
'What?'
'Atropine. Jimson weed. Deadly nightshade.'
'What about it?'
'Atropine is what killed him. We exhumed him on Terrell's hunch and there it was.'
'So he OD'd on atropine.'
Powell shook his head. 'You don't just OD on atropine. Atropine doesn't make you high. It's not a recreational drug, but Ned was loaded with the stuff.'
'That's not necessarily murder-'
'I think in connection with these latest two it is.'
'She didn't do these either.'
