‘Did you see or hear anyone else in the house?’
‘No.’
‘Were there any other cars in the driveway or parked near the house?’
‘No.’
‘What happened next?’
‘Janine went inside with Jay. He closed the door. I left.’
‘Before you left, could you hear any part of the conversation between the defendant and her husband?’
‘I heard loud voices. It sounded like an argument.’
‘Would you characterize this as a heated argument?’
‘I guess so, yes.’
‘Was there physical contact between them?’
‘Yes, Jay grabbed her wrist, and Janine pushed him away.’
‘Did you see or hear anything else?’
‘No, I left after that.’
‘As you left the house that night, Mrs. Stride, did you see anyone else?’
‘No. There was no one else there. I was alone.’
‘What about other cars?’
‘Mine was the only car.’
‘Did you see anything that raised your suspicions?’
‘No.’
‘Thank you, Mrs. Stride. Now is it fair to say you consider the defendant a friend?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Do you see her regularly on social occasions?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Has the defendant ever shared any information with you about her perspectives on the state of her marriage?’
‘She told me that she considered her marriage to be a mistake,’ Cindy acknowledged.
‘Did she express an intent to seek a divorce?’
‘Yes, she did.’
‘On more than one occasion?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mrs. Stride, in December of last year, did you ask the defendant about the status of a possible divorce from Mr. Ferris?’
Cindy didn’t want to say it. She’d known the next question was coming. They’d gone over all of it in her statement to the police. Even so, she hated having to say it out loud, in a courtroom, with the jury listening. With Janine listening.
‘Yes. We had lunch, and I asked if she was going ahead with a divorce.’
‘What did she say?’
Cindy opened her mouth, but her throat was too dry to speak. She reached for the water and drank.
‘Mrs. Stride? How did the defendant answer that question when you asked her if she was proceeding with a divorce?’
‘She said no.’
‘Do you remember her exact words?’
‘She said, “I wish I could, but Jay has me trapped.”’
Archibald Gale stood up to conduct the cross-examination.
‘Mrs. Stride, while you were driving Dr. Snow home from the party on January 28, did you stop the car at any point?’
‘Yes. Janine wasn’t feeling well. I stopped, and she got out and threw up.’
‘So she was a mess?’ Gale asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Mrs. Stride, if you threw up on the side of the road, what would you do when you got home?’
Cindy smiled. ‘I’d take a shower.’
‘And what would you do with your clothes?’
‘I’d put them in the washing machine.’
‘Thank you. Now when you arrived at Dr. Snow’s residence and you saw Jay Ferris, did he have a gun?’
‘No.’
‘He wasn’t waving one in the air?’
Another smile. She saw the jurors smiling, too. ‘No.’
‘What about Dr. Snow? Did she have a gun at the party?’
‘No, not that I saw. I mean, she had a purse, but it was tiny. It would have been noticeable if something as big as a gun were inside.’
‘Okay. And you say you left Dr. Snow’s house at approximately 9:45 p.m., is that about right?’
‘Yes, that would be about right. A couple minutes on either side of that.’
‘You have no idea what happened at the house after you left, do you?’
‘No.’
‘If a car drove up to the house thirty seconds after you turned onto Skyline Parkway, you would have no way of knowing that, is that right?’
‘That’s true.’
‘Thank you. Mrs. Stride, did Dr. Snow ever threaten her husband in your presence?’
‘No.’
‘Did she ever tell you that she wished she could kill him? Or that she wished he was dead?’
‘No, nothing like that.’
‘Did she ever seem desperate to you about her marital situation?’
‘Janine? Desperate? No.’
‘Thank you, Mrs. Stride,’ Gale said. He began to sit down, but then he stopped. ‘Oh, I’m very sorry, could you tell the jury — did you have a frightening experience at Miller Hill Mall this spring?’
Dan stood up immediately. ‘Objection, your honor. This line of questioning is outside the scope of direct examination, and it’s not relevant to the case.’
Judge Edblad waited. ‘Mr. Gale?’
‘Your honor, the incident I’m asking about arose because of the witness’s relationship with Lieutenant Stride of the Duluth Police — a relationship that Mr. Erickson inquired about under direct examination. In addition, the incident arose because of Lieutenant Stride’s investigation into this specific case, which certainly makes it relevant.’
‘I’m overruling the objection,’ the judge replied.
Gale continued to Cindy: ‘You can answer the question.’
‘I — yes, I did,’ Cindy said.
‘Please tell us what happened.’
‘I followed a man at the mall, and he confronted and threatened me. He had a gun.’
‘What was the nature of his threat?’
‘He said I shouldn’t stick my nose into his business. He said bad things happened to people who did that. And then he showed me a gun.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Gale said. ‘What a terrifying experience for you. Please tell the jury, Mrs. Stride, why did you follow this man in the first place?’
Cindy felt herself flushing. ‘I believed that he was a man that my husband, Lieutenant Stride, was looking for.’
‘Why did you believe that?’
‘I saw a set of photographs in a stack of evidence that Jonny — that Lieutenant Stride left on our kitchen table. The photos showed a man in the woods carrying an assault rifle, and there was a note about trying to find him. This looked like the same man.’
‘This stack of evidence that the Lieutenant brought home to study, do you know what case it was part of?’
‘Yes, it was evidence connected to the murder of Jay Ferris,’ Cindy said.
Gale nodded as he sat down. ‘Thank you, Mrs. Stride.’
‘Mrs. Stride, how long did you look at these photographs?’ Dan Erickson asked on his redirect examination.
‘A few seconds, I guess.’
‘Ten seconds? Twenty? Thirty?’
‘Closer to ten,’ Cindy admitted.
‘Were these crisp, clear, high-resolution photos?’
‘No, they were blurry.’
‘And how long after you saw these photographs did you follow this stranger at the mall?’
‘Several days.’
‘You saw a couple of blurry pictures for maybe ten seconds, and days later, you saw someone that you thought might be the same man — do I have that right?
‘Yes,’ Cindy said.
‘Can you say for sure that this was the same man, Mrs. Stride?’
‘Not for sure, no.’
‘Thank you, Mrs. Stride. That’s all.’
22
Stride had sat in the same witness chair in the same courtroom many times before. Testifying in court was one of the few tasks for which he wore a suit. He owned only two suits, and today he wore the navy blue one, freshly dry-cleaned. He’d tried to tame his restless hair, and he’d shaved. Appearances mattered. Trials were about evidence, but they were also about perceptions. Finding facts meant deciding whom to believe. Whom to trust.