The Murder of Sara Barton (Atlanta Murder Squad Book 1) by Lance McMillian (primary phonics txt) 📗

going to happen, it’ll happen soon. Scott appears as nonplussed as a man waiting in a deli line to order a sandwich—no nerves at all. I want to throw up. Thinking of those pictures in the storage shed in north Georgia doesn’t help. I’m playing fast and loose on more fronts than I can defend. But I promised Lara I would get justice for her sister, and I intend to honor my word.

“He was her lawyer?”

“Divorce lawyer, yes.”

“And he visited his client at her home at ten o’clock the night that she died?”

“He did.”

“Didn’t meet her in his office that night?”

“Apparently not.”

“Came over personally?”

“Yes. Brought the divorce papers over himself. I collected them from him that night.”

“Didn’t Wilkins’ visiting late seem strange to you?”

“Most things that lawyers do seem strange to me.”

The courtroom snickers in suppressed laugher. Woodcomb gives a soft tap with her gavel to restore order.

Scott continues, “Sorry for the little joke, Your Honor. I asked Mr. Wilkins about that very thing. The divorce promised to be a lucrative one for him, and the victim asked him if he would bring the papers over to her house. So he did.”

“And he told you that the night of the murder?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s not in the police report?”

“No. Police reports are summaries, not transcriptions.”

“And you don’t have a separate witness statement for Wilkins that night?”

“No.”

“Isn’t your usual practice to obtain such statements?”

“Sometimes.”

My nerves stand on high alert. Millwood focuses like a hungry wolf on the weak spot in the investigation. He knows how Scott goes about his business and recognizes the irregularity in not formalizing the interview of such a key player.

“But not from Sam Wilkins?”

“No.”

“Didn’t take a witness statement from the person who discovered the murder victim?”

“Beyond what’s in the police report, no.”

“This was an important case, right?”

“All murder cases are important.”

“And because all murder cases are important, you try your best to be thorough?”

“Always.”

“But being thorough here didn’t require taking a witness statement from Sam Wilkins?”

“Beyond what’s in the police report, no.”

Millwood doesn’t like it. I can tell from the tautness of his muscles that his Spidey senses are going haywire. I feel him look at me to get a read on the situation, but I ignore him with all the nonchalance I can muster. I then confer with Ella on some trivial point just to have something to do.

“You took a statement from Brice Tanner?”

“I did.”

“From Monica Haywood?”

“Yes.”

“But not Sam Wilkins?”

“No.”

Millwood is burning his britches to ask why not but knows that he can’t because he has no idea what’s on the other side of that door. In a brazen act of reverse psychology, Scott unleashes a look of challenge, all but daring his questioner to give in to temptation and ask the question. Millwood trains his sights on Liesa instead.

“Sam Wilkins’ wife was in the vicinity of the murder scene at the time of the murder?”

“A traffic cam caught a minivan registered to the Wilkins family over a mile away from the Barton residence around the time of the murder.”

“Traveling away from the direction of the Barton home?”

“Yes.”

“And it wasn’t Sam Wilkins driving that vehicle?”

“No. He drove his Volkswagen Passat to the Barton residence.”

“Did Liesa Wilkins admit driving the minivan through the intersection that night?”

“She didn’t want to talk to the police.”

“Refused to talk to you?”

“Yes.”

Millwood gives the jury a look pregnant with meaning and cashes in on his gains by moving to other topics. The remaining time of the cross-examination barely registers in my consciousness, except that I intuitively know that Millwood did us no great harm—only nibbling here and there at the periphery. Even the Liesa stuff is a big bag of nothing at the end of the day. When Millwood finishes his turn, I announce, “No further questions for this witness, Your Honor.” The judge excuses Scott from the stand, and I give him a slight smile of thankfulness and solidarity.

We survived.

39

Brice Tanner walks to the witness box when I call his name. He wears an appropriate gray suit. With a haircut and a clean shave, he presents like the Brice of old. I met with him extensively in the past few weeks to prepare him for his testimony. He held better than I would have thought, but the real thing is a different animal. The goal today is to introduce Brice to the jury on my own terms and safely defuse some of the land mines he presents to the case. Toward that end, the first thing is to establish that Brice and Sara had an affair. No need to beat around the bush, either.

“What was your relationship with Sara Barton?”

“We were lovers.”

The next questions delve into the beginning of the relationship. He and Sara had met and flirted, but nothing more, at a series of law firm functions. That changed when Sara showed up unannounced at Brice’s door one early evening. An intimate romance commenced. When Brice and Sara later found themselves alone at another Marsh & McCabe firm party, one thing led to another. They had sex on the floor of the High Museum.

We talk a little bit about the video—how he learned about it and his reaction in the aftermath. Despite the public revelation of their affair, the two continued to see each other. Sara confessed that she was scared of her husband. She told Brice to watch his own back, too.

“How did you respond?”

“I pledged to protect her, but she assured me that she could protect herself.”

Brice delivers the line with appropriate gravity. His guilt-ridden eyes stare a hole in the courtroom floor. Sensing that the moment is right, I play the jury the unedited video of Sara and Brice. The proximity of the video to the 911 call necessitates a public airing of what triggered Bernard Barton’s rage.

The video is high quality and shows a naked Sara in full frontal glory, sitting on top of Brice, rocking up and down. She faces the camera, and I marvel again at the sexual beauty of the Landrum twins.