Bill Harvey Collection

by Peter O'Mahoney

  “I didn’t think it was relevant.”

  “Mr. Feeble.” Harvey’s voice rose. “This is a murder investigation. Everything is relevant. Who else was present in your apartment?”

  Thomas’s eyes darted around the courtroom. “Manuel Perez.”

  “Manuel Perez? The man that is employed as Jessica Lempare’s cleaner?”

  “Yes.”

  “And presumably, Manuel has keys to Jessica’s apartment?”

  “Um, yes.”

  “Is that how you entered Jessica’s apartment that afternoon?”

  Thomas shook his head.

  “Mr. Feeble, please verbally answer the question,” Judge Wilmot boomed again.

  “I really wanted to make sure that Jessica was fine. I was worried about her.”

  “Did you use the keys that Manuel had with him to enter her apartment?” Harvey was very firm in his statement.

  “Yes,” Thomas mumbled.

  Harvey flipped through the papers on his table. “Mr. Feeble.” Harvey’s voice was angry. “That’s not in any statement that you have made previously. You stated that you owned the keys to her apartment. Why have you been hiding that information?”

  “Um,” Thomas whimpered. “I was worried that Manuel would get in trouble.”

  “Mr. Feeble, how did Jessica treat Manuel Perez?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Mr. Feeble.” Harvey’s voice rose again. “This man is your friend. How did he tell you that he was treated by Jessica Lempare?”

  “He said… he said that she was horrible to him.”

  “Horrible?”

  “Yes. Really mean. Ms. Lempare was a racist, and she would say some really nasty things to Manuel.”

  “Did that make you angry?”

  “Of course. Manuel is my friend.”

  “Angry enough to kill her?!”

  “Objection!” Valentine interrupted. “Leading the witness.”

  “Sustained. Don’t answer that question, Mr. Feeble.”

  “Mr. Feeble.” Harvey’s voice rose for the third time. “Did you ever wish that Jessica was dead?”

  “Objection,” Valentine interrupted again.

  “Your Honor, I can assure you that this question is leading to evidence.”

  “Overruled, but make it relevant, Mr. Harvey.”

  “Mr. Feeble,” Harvey repeated. “Did you ever wish that Jessica was dead?”

  “Um… no.” Thomas looked at Harvey in confusion.

  “Mr. Feeble, on January 11th this year, did you post a picture of a freshly painted hallway on the social media site Instagram, with the caption ‘Freshly painted hallway. It took a lot of effort. I wish some people didn’t interrupt the process… sometimes I wish they were better off dead.”

  A look of shock covered Thomas’s face. He looked to Valentine, but she wasn’t prepared for that question. He then looked to Taylor Reaper sitting in the back of the courtroom, but he was in no position to help him either.

  “Mr. Feeble.” Harvey’s voice was dominant and firm. “Did you write that statement?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Kind of?”

  Thomas’s voice was panicked. “Yes. Ok, yes.”

  “Was it in reference to Jessica Lempare?” Harvey’s question was almost an accusation.

  “It wasn’t like—”

  “Yes or no, Mr. Feeble. Was that statement a reference to Jessica Lempare?”

  Thomas sat on the stand with his mouth hanging open.

  “Please answer the question, Mr. Feeble,” Judge Wilmot stated.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Mr. Feeble, you weren’t in your apartment alone, were you?!”

  “No, but—”

  “Why was Manuel Perez in your apartment, Mr. Feeble?!”

  “He…” Thomas was flustered. “He had been cleaning Jessica’s apartment that morning.”

  “And he finished cleaning at 10 a.m., which is more than six hours before you saw Anna. Why was he in your apartment, Mr. Feeble?!”

  “We’re friends.”

  “Friends?” Harvey questioned. “That’s a long time to spend with a friend. Or were you planning to assault Ms. Lempare that afternoon in an act of revenge?”

  “No!”

  “Was Manuel angry with the way that Ms. Lempare treated him?!”

  “No! We’re just friends. We were hanging out.”

  “Just friends?”

  “We… um…”

  “How close of a friend is he?!”

  “We’re lovers!” Thomas blurted out the statement and then began to weep. “We’re lovers, ok? I’m gay.”

  Shock sunk into Harvey’s face. Suddenly, it made sense to him.

  Thomas Feeble wasn’t hiding a crime; he was hiding his lover. And Harvey had forced him to disclose that secret to the world.

  “We host a YouTube channel together called ‘Gay Men Talking Together for a While,’” Thomas added. “It’s a hobby. We just talk about life and the world, and we have a few hundred viewers. I sit off camera because I don’t want my face to be shown, and Manuel is the face of the channel. He sits in front of the camera, and he talks to me. I think that the audience likes the mystery of not knowing who I am. And I have never come out to anyone but my lovers. But I guess everyone knows who I am now.”

  “Were you on this channel at the time of the murder?” Harvey enquired with a quieter tone.

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you report this to the police?”

  “Because…” Thomas’s head dropped. “I haven’t come out. My family don’t know about my sexuality. I was trying to wait until after my mother passed away before I told anyone. She hasn’t got long left, but I guess, she’ll know now. She’s following this trial. Sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry.”

  And now Thomas Feeble had an alibi.

  “And this is all online, and available for us to check?”

  “Yes.” Thomas nodded slowly, still with a tear in his eye. “Manuel stopped the recording when I ran back into the room saying that Jessica was dead. I was only gone for a moment.”

  Harvey glanced over his shoulder to look at his investigator, Jack Grayson. Jack nodded; a silent communication between them to check the details of Thomas’ revelation. However, Harvey had little doubt that Thomas was telling the truth.

  “No further questions.” He shook his head, disappointed with himself.

  He knew something was wrong with Thomas’ statement, but he didn’t expect that.

  Bill Harvey turned to the front page of his legal pad and struck a heavy line through the first of four names. On the next line, directly below the name Thomas Feeble, he had written the name Frank Matthews, and directly below that, John Morgan.

  But there was a half-page gap before he got to the fourth name on the list. Harvey desperately didn’t want to reach the last line on the page.

  Written in small writing on the last line was one single name, one last suspect:

  Anna.

  CHAPTER 20

  After Bill Harvey’s failure with Thomas Feeble, Joanne Valentine confidently called her next witness, John ‘Bud’ Morgan. Her case was building momentum, the jury was on her side, and she could feel the tension coming from the defense team.

  Valentine arranged three pens on her table to form a line, starting from longest pen to the shortest pen. She moved the longest one slightly to the right, and the shortest one slightly to the left, ensuring they were all perfectly aligned. When her mother died in a car accident, she was only nine-years-old and she felt like she lost control in her young life. For most of her teenage years, she spent her time in the throes of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; however, the doctors declined to diagnose her condition as they wrote it off as a way of grieving.

  When she was diagnosed with OCD in college, it gave her permission to accept and start to treat her condition. With daily meditation and specific exercises, she had most of her feelings under control; however, when she became stressed her ne
ed for complete control took over. Every night before the start of a new trial, she had to turn the lights on and off four times before she left the kitchen, three times before she left the bathroom, and twice before she crawled into bed.

  She conceded that the need for control was a part of her life, and to stop the OCD behavior would be to acknowledge the death of her mother.

  For that reason, she would never let it go.

  Once the pens were in position, she raised her head to watch Bud Morgan walk past with the look of a man who had experienced more in his life than most. His eyes portrayed a world of horror while his walk was rigid and stiff, and his skin looked weary.

  He took his oath, sat in the witness box, and rolled up his shirt sleeves to display a small glimpse of his arm tattoo.

  “Please state your full name for the court,” Valentine stated when Bud was ready.

  “My name is John Anthony Morgan, but most people know me as Bud.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Morgan,” Valentine said, still reviewing her notes. “Please describe to the court your relationship with the deceased, Jessica Lempare.”

  “I have known Jessica Lempare for many years, perhaps eleven or twelve years. I’m the CEO of Recovering Veterans, and our main contribution of donations comes from the estate of Norman Chester. Jessica Lempare is… I mean, was… the sole trustee for that estate. Because she handled the donations, we had regular interactions with her. She would come into the office about once a month, or I would go around to her apartment for a cup of coffee. Whenever we had fundraising events, we always made sure that Jessica was invited, and that she was well looked after. Over the years, we became friends.”

  “And how do you know the defendant, Miss Anna Lempare?”

  “Because of my friendship with Jessica, my path crossed with Anna’s. Anna used to live with Jessica, and I would sometimes come over for a cup of coffee. I also served in the army with Anna’s father, so I felt like I had a bond with her. Her father was a good man, and I have always tried to help Anna where I can. That’s what we veterans do—we help each other’s family.”

  Bud was proud of his past, and he wore it like a badge of honor. It was his identity.

  “And in your opinion, how would you describe Jessica and Anna’s relationship?”

  “Stressed.”

  “Tell me, Mr. Morgan, how would you define stressed? Would you say they argued a lot?”

  “Every time I saw them interact, there was an argument. I never saw Jessica say a nice thing about Anna, and I never saw Anna show her aunt any respect. They were… just different people who didn’t get along. I think that they even enjoyed arguing with each other. Sometimes the arguments would be heated, and at other times, they would be quite sarcastic. I cannot remember a time when I saw them talk in a normal way with each other. I think that it got better over the years, but when they were living together, they argued a lot. I remember one argument was over the way Anna was sipping her drink of water. I went over for a cup of coffee, and they were going off at each other.”

  Harvey considered objecting to the line of questioning; however, he let Valentine continue on.

  “Did you see Anna Lempare on May 1st?”

  “I did.”

  “And can you please describe that interaction?” Valentine asked.

  “I was at Tom’s Pint Bar, and I was having a drink with a few of my veteran buddies. It was early afternoon, perhaps around 3 p.m., so we weren’t drinking a lot. We were just having a light drink and telling some well-worn stories. It’s our support network. When I went to order another round of drinks, I saw Anna sitting alone at the bar looking glum. I hadn’t seen her for a few months before that, so I sat down and had a bit of a chat with her.”

  “How would you describe her mood that afternoon?”

  “As we talked, it became clear that she had a lot on her mind. She was talking at a very fast rate, and she was going between feeling sorry for herself and feeling angry.”

  “Angry?” Valentine questioned. “What gave you the impression that Anna was angry?”

  “She was gripping the beer glass so tight that her knuckles were turning white. I thought that she might even break the glass. And she had a fire in her eyes. There was a look about her. I had seen her angry before, and she had that same look.”

  “Can you please tell the court what you and Anna discussed that afternoon in the bar?”

  “I asked her what was making her so angry, and she described the situation with her aunt. I completely understood what she said—at times, Jessica could be a very frustrating person to interact with. Although I really appreciated what she was doing with the estate, I did try and avoid her sometimes. When Jessica had her thoughts set on something, she would rarely change for anything. Anna explained that she was trying to convince her aunt to negotiate parts of the will, but she wouldn’t have anything to do with it. I listened to Anna and told her I understood what she was saying, and then Anna left.”

  “And did she say where she was going?”

  “Yes. She said she was going to visit her aunt to convince her to change the will.” Bud emphasized the important words.

  “Those were her exact words?” Valentine’s interest rose.

  She knew that sentence was coming; however, she still feigned surprise for the purpose of the jury. The jury had bought into her act. Half of them leaned forward to listen to Bud’s answer.

  “Those were her exact words.”

  “And did she say anything else that might be of interest?” Valentine continued, although she knew the answer.

  “She did. She said… it would be better if the old bat just died.”

  One of the jury members gasped in shock. That was a fairly damning statement when it was said only one hour before the murder.

  “And by ‘old bat’ do you believe that Anna was referring to her aunt, Jessica Lempare?”

  “That’s correct, yes. We were talking about Anna’s relationship with her aunt, and Anna was talking about the scenarios with the estate.”

  “Did Anna say anything else that might be of interest?”

  “She said that she was sick of listening to her aunt. I know what Anna meant because Jessica had very strong opinions about life. Once Jessica started talking about her opinions, it was hard to stop her. But I thought Anna was just talking casually. I mean, if I knew what she was going to do, then I would have stopped her.”

  “Objection,” Harvey jumped in.

  “Sustained.” Judge Wilmot didn’t need an explanation for the defense objection. “Mr. Morgan, you’re required to stick to the facts when it comes to your testimony. Please don’t make assumptions in this courtroom.”

  “Yes, Your Honor. Sorry, Your Honor,” Bud replied meekly. His respect for the chain of authority was still obvious.

  “Thank you, Mr. Morgan. No further questions, Your Honor.”

  Valentine smiled.

  She thought the testimony was a win for her, but the defense had other plans.

  CHAPTER 21

  Bill Harvey focused on the list on the front page of his notepad. Bud Morgan was one of his four suspects, and he desperately hoped that he didn’t make it to the last name on his list.

  This was Harvey’s moment to pounce.

  His chance.

  Bud Morgan could hold the key to proving Anna’s innocence, and he didn’t care if he had to tear him apart to prove it.

  “Tell me, Mr. Morgan,” Harvey began, still seated. “What was your relationship with Jessica Lempare like?”

  “I would consider her a friend. I mean, I did consider her a friend.” Bud shook his head. For a man who had seen a lot of death, he still struggled with the event.

  “However, you have just stated that she was ‘very frustrating’ and that you ‘tried to avoid her sometimes’?”

  “Yes. Sometimes, she was hard to deal with. There’s nothing wrong with that. Not everyone is perfect. But despite our differences, I had respect for her. She had a lot of resp
ect for veterans, and I appreciated that.”

  “Did you ever hit her?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Mr. Morgan, I’m asking you if you ever hit Jessica Lempare. Can you please answer that question?” Harvey asked while pulling out two pieces of paper from his briefcase. He held the pieces of paper up just long enough for Bud to look at them.

  “No…” Bud shook his head.

  “Really, Mr. Morgan? Because I have a police report here, dated only five years ago, that states what you’re saying isn’t entirely true.”

  “There were no charges laid,” Bud defended himself. “The police didn’t press charges. I didn’t have a criminal conviction recorded against me, so you can’t use that.”

  “Did you hit her?” Harvey asked again.

  “She didn’t press charges!” Bud snapped.

  Harvey opened his eyes like he was shocked by the outburst, but he wasn’t at all. The act was only for the jury members.

  With a glance to his left, he saw the surprise on a lady’s face in the jury.

  Well played, Harvey, he thought to himself. Men like Bud Morgan were ticking time bombs, and all he needed to do was push the right combination of buttons.

  For most of his life, Bud Morgan had tried to hold his emotions inside, never dealing with the negative feelings that came from war. And this intense build-up only needed to be touched softly for the pain to explode.

  “Why don’t you tell us what happened, Mr. Morgan?”

  “Nothing happened! That’s what I just said! There were no charges laid against me. There’s nothing to tell. There were no charges laid against anyone at any time.”

  “Interesting…” Harvey returned to his desk, ruffling through his papers. “Because I have a statement here from Jessica Lempare to the police about that incident. Your Honor, I would like to present this statement as evidence to the court.”

  Harvey passed the statement to Judge Wilmot, who glanced his eyes over the paper, and then nodded his approval.

  “It’s not true. Nothing happened.”

  “The statement said that you hit her.” Harvey handed copies of the paper to the prosecution table, and then to the jurors.