“What did you do after you made this discovery?”
“I called Terri and I asked her to meet me at the boathouse.”
“Tell us what happened in the boathouse,” Delilah said.
Casey took a deep breath. “I was talking to Terri when he came in. He had a knife. He…he stabbed her.” Casey closed her eyes but kept talking. “She screamed. He kept stabbing her.” She put her hands over her face. “I don’t remember anything after that.”
“Who was the man who stabbed Terri Spencer?”
“Joshua Maxfield.”
Delilah waited for a few seconds to let the jurors digest Casey’s testimony before asking her next question.
“Did you see your husband, Randy Coleman, at the boathouse that evening?”
Casey looked puzzled. “No.”
“You’re certain that Randy Coleman did not stab Terri Spencer to death?”
“Yes.” She pointed at Joshua Maxfield. “He did it.”
“The State rests,” Delilah said when Eric Swoboda finished a short and ineffective cross-examination of Casey Van Meter.
“Very well,” Judge Shimazu said. “We’ll be in recess until one o’clock. If you have any motions, Mr. Swoboda, you can make them then.”
The bailiff banged the gavel. Casey left the witness stand and Ashley intercepted her when she pushed through the gate in the low fence that separated the spectators from the area where the court conducted business.
“Are you okay?” Ashley asked.
The question seemed to puzzle Casey. Then she smiled. The emotion Casey had shown on the stand was nowhere to be seen.
“Of course I’m okay,” Casey answered. “Why wouldn’t I be? My testimony should be enough to destroy any hope Joshua has for an acquittal. We’ve both done our part to avenge Terri.”
Ashley felt odd when she should have been happy. Casey was right. The two of them had sealed Maxfield’s fate, but she didn’t feel triumphant.
“He’ll probably die,” Ashley said.
Casey’s eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened. “That bastard deserves to die. He put me in a coma. I lost years of my life. I’m just sorry he’ll be getting a lethal injection instead of a more painful death.”
Ashley was shocked. “I know Maxfield is a terrible person.” She remembered her terror as he lay on top of her and her despair when Norman and Terri died. “It’s just…I don’t know. He deserves what he gets, but I don’t feel good.”
Ashley paused. She wanted to tell someone about the emotions that were twisting her up inside, and Casey would have the best chance of understanding the way she felt.
“Do you have some time? I’d like to talk to you about the trial. Do you want to go for lunch?”
“Sorry, dear,” Casey said. “I’d love to but I have a Portland Symphony meeting. But call me. We’ll get together soon.”
Casey hurried off and Ashley looked after her, shocked by the way she’d been treated. Terri would never have put Ashley off under these circumstances. Terri had always put her daughter first.
Ashley wanted to cry but she wouldn’t let it happen. She had tried to form some kind of bond to her mother, but it wasn’t working. The dean still treated her like a potential student she was trying to woo to the Academy. Try as she might, she had been unable to establish an emotional link with the woman who had given birth to her.
Chapter Thirty-Three
As soon as Eric Swoboda finished his cross-examination of Casey Van Meter, Joshua Maxfield demanded that they talk. Fifteen minutes after court recessed, Swoboda was seated in the narrow interview space in the courthouse jail and his client was on the other side of the iron mesh partition.
“I want to testify,” Joshua said.
“We’ve been over this before. If you take the stand, you’re fair game for Delilah.”
Maxfield smirked.
“Don’t underestimate her,” Swoboda said. “I know you’re smart but she cross-examines people for a living, and she’s very good at it. And we made a lot of headway when I crossed Coleman. I can argue…”
“Casey said she didn’t see Coleman in the boathouse. She said she saw me. So did Ashley. I have to explain what happened.”
“What can you say?”
“Don’t worry about that. Just call me as a witness.”
“You don’t understand what you’re letting yourself in for. Delilah will crucify you.”
“How?”
Swoboda thought for a moment. “The novel, Joshua. Delilah will ask you about the novel. She’ll ask you how you were able to give such an accurate account of murders you claim you know nothing about.”
Joshua squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his fingertips to his temples. He looked like he was trying to keep his head from exploding.
“That fucking book,” he muttered. He opened his eyes and glared at Swoboda. “I’ll say I didn’t write it, that it was someone else’s book. I’ll say I copied someone else’s ideas.”
Swoboda shook his head slowly as he tried to figure out how to be tactful with a client who was going over the edge.
“No one will believe you. You printed your name on the top of each page. Don’t you see, you’ll be committing suicide if you testify.”
“No,” Joshua said as he swung his head from side to side, “it’s my only chance. They’ll see I’m telling the truth. They have to believe me.”
“I still think…”
Maxfield looked directly at his lawyer. There was steel in his voice when he spoke.
“I don’t care what you think,” Maxfield said. “You’re my lawyer and you’ll do as I tell you.”
“The defense calls Joshua Maxfield,” Eric Swoboda said as soon as court reconvened. Delilah could barely conceal her surprise and delight. She salivated like a guest at Thanksgiving dinner when the big, juicy turkey is carried out of the kitchen.
Joshua straightened his suit jacket and strode confidently to the front of the courtroom to take the oath.
“Mr. Maxfield,” Swoboda began when his client was seated in the witness box, “what is your occupation?”
“I am a novelist,” Maxfield declared proudly.
“Have you had a successful career?”
“I would say so.”
“Tell the jury about some of your accomplishments.”
“Certainly. My first novel, A Tourist in Babylon, was published to international acclaim soon after my graduation from university. It won or was nominated for several literary prizes not only in the United States, but also in Europe. The critics loved it, and the reading public made it an international bestseller.”
“Did you publish another novel?”
“Yes, The Wishing Well.”
“Was The Wishing Well another bestseller?”
“Yes.”
“In addition to writing fiction, have you taught fiction-writing?”
“Yes, at Eton College in Massachusetts and in high school. My last job was at the Oregon Academy.”
“Would you please tell the jurors how you develop the idea for a novel?”
Maxfield smiled at the jurors. He was charming and, despite the charges they were considering, several of the jurors smiled back.
“Ideas come from everywhere, and they come when you least expect them. The idea for the novel I was working on at the Academy was born when I was teaching in Massachusetts and read about a home invasion that resulted in the death of a young girl and her parents. I wondered what sort of person could commit a crime like that.
“Quite by chance, a year later, I learned of another, similar murder. I became fascinated with the concepts of good and evil, much as Robert Louis Stevenson was when he wrote Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I decided that I would write a book from the viewpoint of a truly twisted mind. I went to the library and read newspaper accounts of the two real cases. I read books about serial murderers and the psychology of sociopathic individuals to learn how these people think and act, so my book would have the ring of authenticity.”