“You’ll hear testimony regarding the phone calls he made to set up a meeting with Slade at his remote Adirondack lodge. You’ll see GPS data and DNA evidence that places Lenny Lerman at that lodge when Slade was also present—at the time the medical examiner has established for Lerman’s death. There’s just one reasonable conclusion: Ziko Slade murdered Lenny Lerman in a vicious, premeditated fashion.” Stryker paused to let this sink in.
“Through witness testimony and forensic data, you’ll be able to follow Lenny’s movements on that final day of his life—as he drove from his little two-room apartment in Calliope Springs to the door of Slade’s grand mountain lodge. From there you’ll follow the evidence trail to the lonely spot in that cold November forest where he was beheaded and buried.”
Stryker let that final image creep into the mind of each member of the jury before going on.
“Ziko Slade knew exactly when Lenny was coming. Slade was ready. When Lenny arrived, Slade let him talk. Let him make his proposition. Let him state his price. Then he killed him.”
Stryker’s voice rose to a high pitch of outrage. “Killed him with an axe and buried him. Coolly, calmly, without hesitation or remorse.” She smiled sadly, her voice suddenly oozing sympathy. “Lenny Lerman was no saint. He’d committed crimes and paid for those crimes. Like many of us, he’d made some mistakes. But he didn’t deserve to be murdered. He had a right to live, something that was stolen from him by Ziko Slade. Lenny Lerman has a right to justice. Justice that you, as members of the jury, can deliver. Thank you for your attention.”
Wartz cleared his throat roughly. “Mr. Thorne, your turn.”
At that moment, Gurney heard Madeleine coming across the hall toward the den, and he paused the video.
She hesitated in the doorway. “Sorry. Am I interrupting?”
“Emma left me a link to the trial video. l decided to take a quick look at it.”
“And?”
“Judging from the DA’s opening statement, the case against Slade is strong.”
“Trying to create that impression is the purpose of an opening statement, right?”
“She succeeded. By the way, the ‘she’ is Cam Stryker.”
Madeleine froze for a moment, then abruptly changed the subject.
“Gerry and I have the early shift at the Crisis Center. She’ll be picking me up in a few minutes. I don’t have time to deal with the chickens. Maybe you could check the feeder and make sure they have fresh water?”
He nodded with a conspicuous lack of enthusiasm.
“And,” she went on, “you could give them some blueberries.”
“Blueberries?”
“They’re birds. Birds eat berries. I hear Gerry’s car now. See you tonight.”
“Doesn’t the early shift end in the afternoon?”
“It does. But then we’re meeting with our music group. I’ll be home in time for dinner.” She smiled tightly and departed.
Since the dreadful ending of the Harrow Hill case, the shadow it cast over their lives often made activities that were once normal feel strained. Madeleine seemed determined to maintain her external routine as if nothing had happened, but that determination itself added to the tension in the atmosphere. Occasionally, a small crack appeared in the facade, as it had the previous afternoon with the dropped dish and her retreat from the room, but soon enough the subject would always shift to something like snacks for the chickens or practice sessions with her string quartet. Gurney didn’t see a solution. Conducting business as usual felt artificial, but perhaps there was no better alternative. Maybe the weirdness of it all was the way it needed to be.
More disturbing was his suspicion that the weirdness might be rooted in some central fact of their marriage, something he was unwilling or unable to confront.
For a long while, he stared out the den window at the high pasture. The pale morning sun was just beginning to creep above the eastern ridge, casting a cold light over the hillside’s withered remnants of milkweed and goldenrod.
A slight movement at the top of the field caught his eye. Three deer were standing at the edge of the tree line, alert, ears twitching, as if they sensed that the hunting season—with all its random pain and death—was about to begin.
5
GURNEY MADE HIMSELF A GENEROUS BREAKFAST OF THREE eggs, two slices of toast, and four slices of bacon. Madeleine didn’t approve of bacon, insisting it was full of carcinogens, which made having it in her presence uncomfortable. It was a vice he preferred to enjoy alone.
He finished eating and washed up. It occurred to him that he should tend to the chickens, but that thought was nudged aside by an urge to watch Marcus Thorne’s opening statement. Returning to the den, he resumed the paused trial video.
Thorne stood beside the defense table, facing the jury, his well-fed features constricted in a way that conveyed something between amazed disbelief and a reaction to an unpleasant odor. His voice was cultured, a bit weary, and distinctly mid-Atlantic.
“Well, Ms. Stryker’s statement was really something. I had to keep reminding myself that she was talking about this case. Rarely have I heard a prosecutor sound so sure about facts that are open to so many interpretations. And rarely have I seen ‘evidence’ as inconclusive as what the prosecution intends to present in this trial—evidence that proves nothing beyond the fact that a murder was committed. I’ll say no more at this point. There’ll be no windy introduction from me. I’m sure you’ll see through the prosecution’s so-called logic, and your own common sense will persuade you to acquit this innocent man.”
He took his seat at the defense table next to his client.
This was Gurney’s first clear sight of Ziko Slade. Three years had elapsed since his descent from tennis star to dissolute druggie to moral conversion and involvement with Emma Martin. The man’s face seemed to contain two opposing personalities. The mouth—full-lipped, pouty, on the verge of a sneer—was that of a corrupt Adonis, a mixture of creepiness and seductive charm. The eyes, however, radiated a calm intelligence and something almost ascetic. The mixture of qualities struck Gurney as both unsettling and magnetic.
“Ms. Stryker,” Judge Wartz said, speaking in a voice that sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a wet barrel. “Are you ready to proceed?”
She rose, straightening her blazer. “I call Thomas Cazo to the witness stand.”
A bull-necked man in a silvery gray suit approached the witness box, sat down, and cleared his throat. The top two or three buttons of his shiny green shirt were open, revealing more hair on his chest than on his head.
In response to a question from Stryker, he stated that he was employed as a night manager at the Beer Monster in Calliope Springs Mall and that he had been Lenny Lerman’s boss until Lerman quit at the beginning of the previous November. Stryker regarded him with respectful attention, conveying to the jury that this was a man worth listening to.
“So, when he quit,” she said, “that would have been about three weeks before he was murdered?”
“Yeah.”
“And that was your last conversation with Lenny?”
“Yeah.”
“Would you please describe that conversation to the court.”
Cazo cleared his throat again and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “He came into my office to tell me he was quitting. I asked him why. He said he was onto something real big, and he didn’t need to be stacking cases of beer anymore.”