Witness for the Defense (28 page)

“We understand,” Sarah said in a soothing tone. “Go on.”

Danny stared at the floor as he told us what happened next. “I looked around one last time, then I slowly moved the small yellow box to my side and let it fall into my coat pocket,” he said. “Then I paid for the Gummy Bears and left”

“What happened to the perfume?” Sarah asked.

“When I ran into the man, I thought he was the store’s security guard, so I handed it to him.”

I bent on one knee so I could look Danny in the face. “Are you saying you gave the bottle of Obsession to the man who attacked you?”

“You won’t tell my mom, will you?” he said and began to cry.

I finally understood the ramifications of what Danny was telling her. The item of women’s toiletry that had been found in Jared’s car was a box containing a canister of Obsession perfume.

I pulled Sarah to the corner of the room. “Do you know what this means?”

She placed her index finger over her lips to shush me.

“But a box of the same perfume was found in Jared’s car,” I said, as if it was news to her.

She fixed her gaze on me. “And if anyone else finds out that Danny had that perfume with him…Don’t you understand what this means?”

“Of course I do. I may be a little slow, but I’m not stupid. If that’s the same perfume, then there’s no doubt Danny was in Jared’s car.”

Tears began to well in Sarah’s eyes.

“If you’re crying for Jared, I wouldn’t. It looks like he’s been lying to us all along.”

A very uneasy silence ensued. I knew what was bothering her. The Obsession proved only that Danny had been in Jared’s car. It didn’t prove that Jared was the person driving it.

Sarah looked up at me. A tear ran down her cheek. “Where in the hell is my father?”

Chapter 30

Sarah left the Bartons’ without saying a word. I’d hoped she’d go straight to the farm to look for Avery, but by the time I’d arrived, there was no sign of either. During the remainder of the night and the following morning, I telephoned her apartment—but not even her answering machine responded. I knew there was no escaping the fact that her father was a prime suspect. After her reaction in Danny’s bedroom, I was sure she’d reached the same conclusion. Also, she knew something I didn’t—the reason her father had been forced to retire from the bench.

For most of the afternoon I drove back and forth between her apartment and office, hoping she’d show up. It was after four o’clock when I finally gave up and drove back to the farm. When I pulled in front of the guest house, I was so focused on looking for Sarah’s Lexus that I almost didn’t notice Avery’s Blazer parked in front of the main house.

Knocking several times on both the front and back door, I walked to the field, thinking he was probably surveying the damage to his trees. I wasn’t sure what I’d do or say once I found him. There was always the direct approach. I could walk right up and ask, “Hey, Judge, I can get Jared off by proving you’re the child molester. Want to help?”

Before I made it across the driveway, the guest house door slammed shut. Avery was heading for the main house with a large plastic bag slung over his shoulder.

“Avery,” I called out. He stopped like a deer frozen by oncoming headlights. “We need to talk.”

He ran to the main house.

I rushed up behind him as he repeatedly stabbed his key into the door lock. “Please, Avery.”

“I’ll be right out,” he said and closed the door.

His evasive actions didn’t do much to relieve my suspicions. I had to see what he was carrying. I flew through the front door and stopped immediately. Avery was walking toward me, empty-handed.

“I said I’d be right out.” He walked past me to close the door.

“I thought you said ‘come in,’” I lied.

He hesitated, as if searching for the right thing to say. “It was just some of Jared’s stuff that I figured had to be in your way.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Personal things,” he said and walked into the kitchen, where he rummaged through the refrigerator. “Want something cold?”

“Not now.”

“A beer? A coke? Which is it?”

With what I had to say, I didn’t want to give him the impression that I was there to shoot the bull. “No, thanks.”

“Where’s Sarah?”

“Looking for you, I imagine. You’ve had her pretty worried.”

“That sounds like her,” he said and paused. “I really didn’t think you’d mind.”

“About what?”

He popped open a can of beer. “For being in your room without asking.” He held the can out to me. “Are you sure?”

I waved it off. “I’m fine.”

He walked to the kitchen window. “What the hell happened out there?” he mumbled, looking out at the field.

I could tell, like me, he had something else on his mind. “That’s a long story,” I said. “I’d like to discuss something else before we get into it.”

He sat at the kitchen table and took a swig. “Go ahead.”

I was having a difficult time deciding on a way to begin.

“Hunter, I know what you must be thinking. What everyone must be thinking.” He took a long pull from his beer. “There are just too many coincidences.”

“At first I tried to shrug it off. But when the boy pointed to you, I couldn’t ignore the possibility any longer.”

Avery drained the rest of his beer, and made a show of slamming the empty can on top of the table. “I understand.”

“It has to be either you or Jared.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

I paced the kitchen and explained that Danny told us about the stolen bottle of perfume, which he eventually handed to the man who attacked him.

Expressionless, Avery pondered what I’d said. “And Sarah heard everything?”

I wasn’t sure how to interpret his aloofness. “She’s the one who suspected the boy was hiding something. If it wasn’t for her, I never would have found out.”

“Where’s the box of perfume?”

“With the rest of the items McBean took from Jared’s car and released to Sarah,” I reminded him. “It should be in the bag you were carrying.”

Avery raised an eyebrow at that. “It’s not.”

My voice became cold and accusatory. “Then it’s because you got rid of it.”

He shook his head.

“Tell me this: Why did you retire from the bench?”

Judge Harris was not to be browbeaten. “What exactly is in that petty mind of yours?”

“Just tell me what happened,” I said. “There are other ways I can find out.”

He was quiet for a time, stroking his beard. Finally he exclaimed, “How could I have been so wrong about Jared?”

“Jared!” I shouted. “We’re talking about you.”

“You are, but I’m not.” His chair screeched as he pushed it out from the table and stood. “I’ll be right back.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” I said. I was reaching for him when Sarah appeared; neither of us had heard her come in the house.

“Hey, what’s going on?” she snapped. Sarah yanked me by the arm, jerking me around. “What do you think you’re doing to my father?” She turned to where he’d been standing, but he was gone.

I pulled my arm from her grasp, and she marched to the other side of the table. Clutching the top of one of the chairs with both hands, she scowled at me as though she wanted to crush my head with it.

Then her face went blank. “Jared did it.”

“Come on,” I said and walked as close as I dared. “How can you say that? Don’t you see that you are totally ignoring—”

Sarah cut me off. “Jared’s fingerprints are all over the box of perfume.”

“Who says?”

She gave me a quick, edgy smile. “It was with the stuff McBean gave me.” She reached for my hand. “I’ve been with Robert Foltz all day.”

“The fingerprinting expert?”

“There were other prints, but Jared’s were the only ones he could identify.”

“Including your father’s?”

Sarah smiled. “Not even a smudge…and the same goes for Danny’s.”

The thought of what this could mean made me feel light-headed. If what she was saying was true, I was representing a guilty man after all.

Sarah placed her hands around my waist and hugged me. I started to push her away, but she pulled my face to hers. “I was so afraid it was my father,” she said as our lips parted and she looked at me with her deep blue, tear-soaked eyes.

Avery appeared behind us with a manila envelope tucked under his arm. “It’s time we all had a long talk.”

Without saying anything more, he led us into the living room, where he sat on the sofa next to me. Sarah sat cross-legged on the floor in front of us. “It looks like Jared fooled us,” Avery said, a low rumble of anger in his words.

Maybe he was right. But before I made up my mind, there were a couple of things still bothering me. “There is another possible explanation for Jared’s prints being on that box.”

Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you pressing so hard to implicate my father?”

“I’m only saying Jared could have handled the box sometime later—after someone else left it in the car.”

Avery held his hand out for the two of us to stop. “There’s something else, isn’t there, Hunter?”

“It’s just that Jared doesn’t have any prior history of doing anything close to what he’s being accused of.”

“And I suppose my father does?”

“Judge,” I said, ignoring Sarah, “you still haven’t told me why you resigned from the bench.”

Sarah’s voice filled with venom. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

I never moved my gaze from his face. “I must know.”

Avery took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “It was just a big misunderstanding.”

“It was no such thing,” Sarah said. “You had no other choice.”

“But why?” I asked.

“Because she’s a bitch!” Sarah said.

Her father stopped her from going on. He then explained that approximately eight years ago he had been in the throes of a bitter divorce. Some of what he was saying I already knew, but what I didn’t know was that his first wife—Sarah’s mother—had died of breast cancer when Sarah was only seven; Avery had raised Sarah as a single parent. As soon as she enrolled in college, he fell in love with a probation officer half his age. Within a matter of weeks they married.

A month after their first anniversary she gave birth to a boy, who became the center of Avery’s world. However, less than a year later, it became obvious to everyone, including Avery, that his beautiful wife was having an affair with a fellow probation officer. Avery hied for divorce and sought custody of their one-year-old son; his wife bitterly contested.

Two weeks prior to their divorce trial, Avery received a telephone call that his son had been taken to the emergency room with several broken ribs. He rushed to the hospital and was immediately met by two uniformed officers who suspected the boy had suffered his injuries at the hands of another. A few days later his wife threatened to tell the police she saw Avery strike the child on several occasions when the boy wouldn’t stop crying. If he agreed to drop the custody battle, she wouldn’t contact them. When he wouldn’t give in to her blackmail, she did exactly as she’d threatened, and a full-blown investigation was conducted by not only the D.A.’s office, but the Judicial Council as well.

“And that’s when you screwed up,” Sarah said quietly.

“What could I do? When I wasn’t being hounded by the police, the damn Judicial Council was all over me. I couldn’t take it. Plus,” he said, and his face turned from one of anger to that of sadness, “after what they put me through, I had a new perspective on what the judicial process was all about. The bit about being innocent until proven guilty took on a whole new meaning. I could see that what I’d believed in most of my life was bunk. I’d lost faith in something I’d been an integral part of. A judge has to believe in the system, and I no longer did.”

“Do you think she intentionally injured your boy?” I asked.

“I never thought that for a second. He must have fallen from either the crib, the stairs, a chair or… who knows….” He hesitated to compose himself. “What I do know is she saw an opportunity and went for it. No matter how much it hurt me.”

“Were charges ever filed?”

“They had nothing but her vague statements, which even the police had problems with,” he said. “They couldn’t corroborate a word of it.”

“And after he resigned, the Judicial Council lost interest,” Sarah added.

I sank deeper into the sofa, feeling sorry for him. Even if he was fudging the truth, it didn’t matter. Child abuse and child molestation required entirely different mental states. Nothing Avery had been accused of came close to what had happened to Danny.

“All right,” he said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Now can we discuss what J found out?”

I felt guilty I’d even suspected him. “If you still feel like going on after my inquisition.”

Avery wasn’t offended. Instead, he stated firmly, “I have definitive proof that Jared drove my Blazer the day the Boonville boy was kidnapped.”

That caught my attention. “Jared was in Boonville?”

“Only a few miles from where the boy was abducted.” Avery took a yellow piece of paper out of the envelope he’d been holding and handed me an invoice from a company called Greener Garden Nursery. “The signature at the bottom is Jared’s.”

After studying it, I handed it to Sarah. “It sure looks that way.”

“Greener Gardens is where I buy all my supplies, including seedlings,” he said. “As you can see, Jared picked up over two thousand of them that day.”

“But how do you know he was using the Blazer?”

“All of that,” he said, pointing to the invoice, “would never have fit in his car. That’s why I let him use the Blazer.”

“Is that where you’ve been all this time?” Sarah asked. “Boonville?”

“Don’t you think I knew what everyone was thinking when that boy pointed at me in court?” Avery paused. “It was happening to me all over again. All I could think was that I was being suspected of a crime I didn’t commit. I already knew about that poor boy being kidnapped in a Blazer just like mine. I had to investigate.”

Sarah hugged him. “You were gone so long. I didn’t know what to think.”

There was silence as they held one another tightly in their arms.