And here the fiction began. Only Simon could tell the jury what went on between himself and Eleanor. Only he could re-invent what his thoughts were at the beginning. There was an element of truth in what Raymond was telling the jury, but the fiction was taking over.
“He wasn’t driven by greed. The poor woman had no one else. No husband, no children, no siblings, no close relatives. She needed a friend, a counselor, a lawyer to help her through the legal maze. She was eighty-five, single and lonely, and she claimed to have a lot of assets. Perhaps she really believed the money was still there. Perhaps, ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Eleanor Barnett was already a bit off her rocker, as we sometimes say.”
Simon had never really believed Netty was unbalanced or losing her mental acuity, but something was wrong. A screw was loose somewhere. To build an elaborate charade and pursue it with such detail was still difficult to comprehend.
“Ms. Cook makes hay from this cremation issue. Again, her facts are wrong. Years ago Simon and his wife signed new wills and advance directives providing for their own cremations and interments in a mausoleum. Nothing new. They were convinced it was a cheaper, more sustainable way to go. Cremation is rapidly gaining popularity across the country, with a thirty percent increase every year for the past ten. Simon recommended cremation to many of his clients. Eleanor Barnett was one. He wasn’t trying to destroy evidence by having her cremated. Nonsense.”
Raymond spat out “nonsense” as if only a fool could believe such stupidity.
“And the bit about pulling the plug. Oh, that’s rich, that’s juicy. But, alas, it’s not true either. Again, Ms. Cook leaves out some very important facts. You’ll hear from Dr. Connor Wilkes, the hospital’s CEO, and she will tell you that Simon wanted no part of the decision to take Ms. Barnett off the ventilator. He flat-out told her and the doctors that it was a medical decision to be made by them, and not him.”
Suddenly, he was sad and frustrated. He spoke softly, as if confiding in the jurors. “The truth is, we don’t know who poisoned Eleanor Barnett. And the Commonwealth of Virginia is going to waste this entire week trying to pin a murder on an innocent man, while the killer laughs at us. The killer could be in this courtroom at this very moment.” Raymond allowed those words to settle upon the crowd, then he, a bit too dramatically, paused and gazed at the audience, as if searching for the murderer. As if he knew the person was watching and listening.
He returned to the jurors and said, “At the rate we’re going, her murder will never be solved. The police picked the wrong suspect, arrested him, then stopped their investigation. The prosecutor ran to the grand jury, got an indictment, and never considered other suspects. Now we’re here, in this courtroom, watching and listening as the Commonwealth of Virginia tries in vain to pin the murder on Simon Latch. He didn’t do it, ladies and gentlemen. No one saw him buy the poison. There are no records of him doing so. No one saw him tamper with the ginger cookies, because he didn’t. No one saw him feed them to Ms. Barnett, because he didn’t. There is simply no proof.”
Simon scribbled, “Brilliant, but a good time to quit.”
Raymond knew it too. With a look of total frustration, he wrapped it up with “When all the witnesses are finished, and the proof is in, and you deliberate and realize that Simon Latch is not guilty, then you will march back into this courtroom, take your seats, declare his innocence, and go home having done your civic duty, and the real killer will still be out there. Laughing. No doubt, laughing.”
Detective Roger Barr was sworn in as the first witness for the prosecution. It was 1:15 Monday, and he was in for a long afternoon. Cora Cook walked him through his training and experience and so on, though he was not testifying as an expert in any field. His task was to present the framework of the case. Others would fill in the gaps and nail down the proof.
His involvement began on December 30 of the prior year, when a dispatcher at the city desk informed him that an anonymous phone call had been received and recorded. A distorted voice said, “Eleanor Barnett just passed away at Blue Ridge Memorial. The doctors say it’s pneumonia. But her death is suspicious. It should be investigated.”
Ms. Cook walked to the exhibit table where a recorder had been prepared. She got the nod from Judge Shyam and pressed a key. The message boomed from the courtroom’s PA system. Ms. Cook waited a few seconds, and played it again.
Detective Barr went through an exhaustive description of the efforts by the state crime lab to identify and track the caller, but it was not possible. The technicians could not agree on the gender of the informant. He or she had used a cheap throwaway phone with a temporary number. The voice was disguised. At any rate, Detective Barr was given the green light to investigate by the chief, and he went straight to the hospital. Referring to his detailed notes, he walked the jury step by step, minute by minute, through his initial actions. The interviews with the doctors and staff, the collection of items from Eleanor’s hospital room, the visit to the funeral home to stop the cremation, and so on.
Simon pretended to listen with great interest, but he had read all of Barr’s reports. He had read everything in the police files, every exhibit the Commonwealth would throw at him. He had read and re-read and memorized every detail known to the lawyers, experts, and investigators. So he made notes, the same ones he had scribbled onto paper a hundred times in the past four months. Who was the leaker, the informant, the person close enough to Eleanor to know when she died? His top suspect was Jerry Korsak, who had been to the hospital at least once and probably more than that. He clearly had an interest in the estate and had even hired an expensive lawyer to get involved. Jerry was slippery and evil enough to poison his dear stepmother. He was broke and crooked enough to go for her money. He was also thick between the ears and not smart enough to pull it off. The one great question Simon always confronted when suspecting Jerry was: How did he know about the cremation? The leaker stopped it cold. If two more hours had passed, what was left of dear Eleanor would have gone up in smoke.
His next suspect was Tillie, primarily because she handled the ginger cookies. Simon bought them and put them on her desk to take to the hospital. Tillie knew about the plans to cremate because she typed the advance directive. She knew the time of Eleanor’s death. But Simon could not force himself to believe that a gentle soul like Matilda Clark would commit such a horrible crime.
Wally Thackerman’s name was always on Simon’s list, for obvious reasons. Two days before Eleanor died, he checked in at the hospital’s front desk, as all visitors were supposed to do. He visited Eleanor for half an hour and signed out. Simon was not aware of his visit until much later when he saw the hospital logs. In Simon’s world, Wally remained a suspect, though not a serious one. If he was planning to poison her, why would he bother signing in and out and leaving clear proof that he had been there?
He forgot about his sleuthing when Raymond began barking. The Commonwealth was attempting to introduce into evidence the last will and testament Simon had drafted for Eleanor. Raymond objected, but only because he had to. There was no way to keep the will from the jury. Two weeks earlier, in an all-day motion hearing, the two sides had fought vigorously over which documents would be admitted into evidence. The defense took the position that the will was the private work-product of an attorney, and thus privileged and protected. The will had not been probated and was not a matter of public record. The Commonwealth argued that the privilege expired when Eleanor died, so Simon had no right to conceal the will. It was a crucial issue and both sides submitted lengthy briefs. Simon wrote his own, all thirty pages of it. Judge Shyam promptly ruled in favor of the prosecution. The will, advance directive, and power of attorney could be admitted. Raymond was not surprised with the ruling.