Kyle smiled and looked the jurors in the eye. His hair was combed, his beard neatly trimmed, and he wore his newest jeans and the one dress shirt and tie that he owned, delivered to him at the militia house by Jennifer. The storm and the accompanying ruckus let up just as he began his testimony. “Yes, Mr. Kelly. I don’t have much of a criminal record. I’ve had a couple of speeding ticket and one for a late registration, but that’s it.”
“Anything from your childhood?”
Kyle blushed a little. “Ah… my friends and I…”
Boyd looked slightly panicked.
Kyle continued. “We got caught stealing a case of beer from the grocery store. I was a senior in high school, so seventeen years old. My mom told the police to teach me a lesson, so I spent a night in jail and was sentenced to fifty hours of community service. That’s the only blemish from my high school days.”
His attorney let out a relieved breath. “Anything more serious than that?”
Kyle shook his head. “Nothing.”
“What about the event that was alluded to yesterday, where it was alleged that you confessed to killing someone?”
“That was a terrible thing.” Kyle looked right at the jurors, like Boyd had instructed him. “Yes, I killed a man. I still have nightmares about it. I was in a situation where it was kill or be killed, and I didn’t want to die out on the road, away from my family.” He stood up and removed his shirt and tie and held up his arm where the scar from the bullet wound was still clearly visible. “I tried to do everything possible to avoid it. This is where I got shot before I killed the guy. I was forced to take his life, or else I wouldn’t be here today.” He put his shirt back on before sharing, in detail, what had happened on the road in Colorado.
Boyd paused when Kyle finished, giving the jurors a chance to think about what they might have done in the same situation, then cleared his throat before asking the next question. “The young girl who was killed, Leah, had you ever seen her before?”
“Not on the night in question.”
Boyd looked surprised. “Had you seen her before that?”
“Yes,” Kyle confirmed. “About a week before she died. I was on patrol and saw someone on horseback coming towards me. I waited behind a tree until she was almost to me, then I confronted her.”
“Anything unusual happen.”
“No. I surprised her a bit, but she told me where she was going. I just told her to be careful and not be out so late. It wasn’t a big deal, just unusual because people aren’t out at night much.”
“Did you attack her?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Did you hurt her?”
Kyle shook his head. “Not in any way. If I had done anything to her, I’m sure she would have told someone, but nothing happened.”
“Why do you think she was found in your house?”
“I don’t know why she was left there, other than the fact that it’s empty. Maybe with the house’s history whoever killed her might have thought people would avoid it. I just don’t know.”
“Did you put the body down there?”
“No. I didn’t kill her, and no, I didn’t put the body down there. I had nothing to do with it. Besides, why hide the body in a room with a window. Someone who knew the house would have concealed her better.”
“The night Leah went missing, did you see or hear anything?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary. I mean, there are always a few noises-you’ll hear dogs, and owls, the river, stuff like that, but screams, or fights, or something to indicate a problem? Nothing like that.”
“Did you fall asleep during your shift?”
“No. After the gunfight that happened a couple of weeks ago, I don’t think anyone could sleep on duty. I went back to the militia house to warm up a couple of times, for maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, but other than that I was out there the whole night.”
“Why did Mr. Lee testify that he saw you by your house on the night of the murder?”
“It was about halfway through my shift when I noticed the front door of my house was open, so I closed it. I had gathered some stuff from there the day before, so when I saw the door open I just figured I hadn’t closed it tight. I closed and locked the door, then stopped to relieve myself by a bush. I was coming from the front of the house when Steven saw me. That’s it.”
“Do you notice many doors open at night?”
“Not really. It’s pretty dark out there at night, but I’m familiar with my own house and noticed the door cracked open.”
“Why didn’t you tell Sean about it when he talked to you the next day?”
“Because I didn’t think we were looking for a body. I was sure she was lost, and I didn’t think she’d be lost in my basement.”
Boyd asked a few more basic questions, then it was Helen’s turn for questioning. She stood, a smile on her face, and turned to Kyle. “Kyle, how hard is it to kill a person?”
Kyle swallowed hard before looking at the jury. “It is the hardest thing you can imagine doing, but when your life is threatened, like mine was, you do what you have to do. You never forget about it though.”
“So, say someone was going to report to your wife, or Mr. Reider, that you raped them or coerced them into having sex. That would threaten your life, or at least threaten your life the way you know it, right?”
“I’m not answering that. I know what you’re trying to do. That didn’t happen.”
“Okay, fine. I understand. Let me rephrase it for you. You took off your shirt and dramatically told the jury how you killed a man because he was going to keep you from getting back to your family. What would have happened to your family if your wife found out you made it with some twenty-year-old, let alone that you forced her to have sex with you? Would that have threatened your family’s happily-ever-after?”
Kyle stared ahead, refusing to answer. Helen waited, putting on a show for the jury with her patience, but Kyle stayed silent. “Fine, Mr. Tait. I understand you don’t want to address that question. Let me move one. You said you met the victim about a week prior to her death, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Nothing happened at that time, right?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Was she cute?”
“Pardon me?”
“Was Leah cute? You’ve got a twenty-year-old girl walking around by herself late at night. Did you think she was cute?”
“I wasn’t thinking about that. I just wanted to know what she was doing. Besides, everyone is all bundled up at night. You can hardly even see what people look like.”
“So you’d just met this woman, 5’3”, about a hundred pounds, cute face, sneaking home late at night from her boyfriend’s house. What did you think about the rest of the evening?”
“Just work stuff-glad that I hadn’t shot her as an intruder, hoping that someone wasn’t going to jump out of the shadows and kill me, or someone else I work with, or do something to my family. That’s what I think about. What do you think about late at night when you’re on patrol, protecting your town?”
“My,” Helen said, a smirk on her face, ignoring Kyle’s query. “You are quite the man. You must have amazing control to spend hours alone every night with no one to talk to except an occasional wandering twenty-year-old woman, and think of nothing but work. No conjecturing what she had just been doing, or what she looked like with her bulky clothing off. No hoping you might run into her again some night. No thoughts at all about her. Simply amazing. Wish my ex-husband was that disciplined.”
Helen strode over to her table and sat on the edge of it. She lowered her voice from mildly shouting over the weakening storm outside to a more conversational tone. “You think about hiding bodies often?”
“No.”
“I was just curious, because in your earlier testimony you said that there were better places to conceal a body. I’d like to know how often you actually think about concealing dead people.”
“That’s not something I normally think about. It wasn’t until after all this that a thought like that even crossed my mind.”
“So it’s safe to say that prior to the morning of January 19th you hadn’t thought about the best place to hide a dead person in your basement. Is that correct?”
Kyle paused, not sure how to respond, knowing how she was turning his answers against him. The jury shifted in their seats, watching and waiting intently for his answer.
“I never planned out where to hide a body. That’s not something I’ve ever needed to do.”
“Why?” Helen responded, almost at the top of her lungs. “Because the people you kill, you just leave them to rot in the middle of the road? Is that it?”
Kyle didn’t respond.
Helen continued after an extended pause. “So, we can take it from your testimony that before the night of January 18th you had never given thought to where to put a dead body. The fact that Leah is found in a less than ideal location in your basement,” she said, putting heavy emphasis on the word ‘your,’ “shouldn’t surprise us at all. Should it?”
Kyle rubbed his face. He was finding it hard to breath. “I didn’t do it. I know this all looks bad, but it wasn’t me.”
“Yes, I’ve heard you say that numerous times, Kyle, just like all the defendants I’ve put in jail in the past. They deny it all, too. If we only locked up the ones who admitted guilt, we wouldn’t have a need for very many jails. It’s my job to help the jury see past your denial. Leah died the night you were on shift, her body is found in the basement of your house, and the searchers had to break in your door to get to her, even though there was no sign of forced entry prior to that. Do you just leave your home unlocked all the time? So people can help themselves to whatever?”
Kyle looked at the jury and then at his interrogator, his voice shaking as he answered. “Listen, I’ve been moving stuff from our old house to where we’re living now. My wife said we weren’t going back, so I had collected everything that was useful. I don’t usually lock the doors, because there’s not much there anymore.”
Helen rose from the table and took a couple of steps towards Kyle. She shook her head slowly from side to side. “I have no further questions.”