Extreme Malice

by R E Swirsky

  Chapter 28

  Tuesday, December 6th 14:32 pm

  Jack sat in the witness box and stared out at the gallery. All eyes were on him. He was sworn in and waited on edge as Crown Prosecutor Ron Baxter shuffled through his papers with his assistant. Jack was confused at the delay. A number of minutes passed before Judge Rumpoldt also got tired of the inaction and demanded that the honorable Mr. Baxter begin.

  As Ron began the questions, Jack knew immediately which road he was driving on. The questions supported Ron's opening statement in establishing that Jack was nowhere near the scene of the crime when Donna was murdered.

  "...and you left your home at what time Mr. Gardner?"

  "Seven thirty."

  "And you drove all night?"

  "Uh, yes. All night."

  "Arriving in Abbotsford at what time?"

  "Just around seven in the morning."

  "That's a long drive Mr. Gardner. I know when I drive like that I tend to drift off. Do you ever drift off while driving?"

  "I get tired, yeah, but I've never driven off the road if that's what you're asking."

  "I was just curious. That is one heck of a long drive."

  Ron paced about and looked at the Jury. They were attentive as usual. "Did you stop anywhere on the way?"

  "Kamloops. For gas. If I drive just under the speed limit, I can stretch my gas out that far if I start with a full tank."

  "And how far is that?"

  "About seven hundred kilometers."

  "Seven hundred kilometers is a long way on one tank of gas. And what time did you arrived in Kamloops?"

  "I'd say about four a.m.," Jack replied. "That's three a.m. in B.C. with the time change." Jack wanted to smile. It was not about four a.m., it was exactly 3:55 a.m. Jack knew it because he finally caught up to the Greyhound bus in Kamloops at precisely 2:55 a.m., B.C. time. The bus always stopped in Kamloops at two fifty-five am on its run from Calgary. He followed it many times, and he caught up to it again on this last trip.

  Jack had been practicing driving that particular road faster and faster over the last nine months and recording the times and distances. He knew he would have to work it out eventually. Over and over, trip after trip, he sped and recorded until he was finally in the right towns at the right times. He would have to repeat the timing perfectly when the time came. It had come on that last trip. He had to average nearly one hundred and thirty kilometers an hour to catch up to the bus, but he had already mastered that. The highways were nearly empty in the early hours, and Jack found he could get up to one hundred and sixty in some areas for nearly seventeen minutes at a time without slowing at all. He really had only two worries driving at this excessive speed: one, of course, was the police, but he had come to know the areas where they tended to patrol and where they were always absent. His bigger worry though, was elk. It was dangerous in the deep of night, especially just after dusk and just before sunrise. The elk could jump out on to the highway almost anywhere on that drive. He watched the ditches carefully as darkness set in.

  Just past Golden, when the precipitation was still teetering on the border of rain and sleet, a huge, eight-point bull elk lunged up out of the ditch on to the highway, into Jack’s headlights. Jack swerved into the oncoming lane and narrowly avoided impact as the big animal reversed and dashed back down into the ditch it came from. The moment terrified Jack but pumped enough adrenalin to keep him extremely alert for the drive up through the wet snow on Roger's Pass.

  "And you stopped nowhere else?"

  "No," Jack lied and shook his head. Jack did stop a few times. The first stop was at the Tim Horton's in Golden. The second time was just before Salmon Arm, on a side road he picked out months ago. He prepared two Jerry cans full of gas, since he knew it would be impossible to stretch the Pathfinder's gas tank to seven hundred kilometers if he had the pedal to the metal the whole way. He emptied the Jerry cans into the gas tank, tossed the Jerry cans into the bush, and carried on. "Nowhere else," he said.

  Ron moved on to questions about what time he arrived in Abbottsford, when he got up, and where he went. This line of questioning carried on until Ron had covered all of Jack's time in the Vancouver area until the police contacted him and escorted him back to Bluffington.

  Jack thought Ron was about done when Ron asked Jack about his cell phone.

  "Do you have a cell phone, Jack?

  "Yes, I do. A Blackberry."

  Ron nodded. "And you had the Blackberry with you when you left for Abbotsford?"

  Jack nodded. "Yes, I did," he lied.

  "Did you receive any phone calls while driving to Abbottsford?"

  Jack knew where this was going. "One phone call came in while I was on my drive, but it went to voice mail. I was listening to an audio CD and didn’t hear the ring."

  "Can you tell us who called you?"

  "Donna. Donna called me." Jack feigned misery at losing her with a few deep sighs and rubbing each eye with his knuckle.

  Ron paused in anticipation of a rumble from the gallery, and he was not disappointed.

  "What time did she call you?"

  "I think it was around ten or ten thirty. Closer to ten thirty, I think."

  "And what was the message she left on your Blackberry?"

  "She hoped I had a good drive out. Uh, she asked me to call her when she got in. She finished by saying ‘Love you darling’."

  Ron looked at the Jury. "Those were Donna’s last words that we know of."

  Jack looked down to the floor inside the witness box and remembered her voice again. He thought he had beaten this devil down already, but it was trying to rise up. He wanted to cry, and knew it would make a great show for everyone watching, but he knew he may not be able to stop if he let go now.

  Ron carried on with his conclusions from all of the evidence presented and left Jack in the witness box to fight his emotions with everyone looking on. Jack knew Ron was using him at this point. He just had Jack recall Donna’s last words. Her husband, Jack, was now on display for the Jury and gallery to feel sympathy and compassion for. Ron wanted to make it clear that Jack was far away when this murder occurred, and Donna's own words recorded in that phone call to Jack's cell phone would confirm that Jack was on the highway near Golden at that time. That left the jury focused on the choice suspect Josh Anderson. Jack knew Ron would replay the recording from Jack's Blackberry later on to re-enforce his message, but for now, Ron had achieved his goal.

  Jack did not realize he was trembling as he sat in the box and listened to Ron as he continued to speak. Part of him was elated with Ron's direction so far; it led exactly where Jack had hoped it would, but the other part of him tried to hold down the devil that loved Donna. He wanted none of that right now. He brought his hand to his mouth, felt the shake, and demanded he get control over himself. He closed his eyes briefly and focused on the facts. He could not deny the ‘facts’. He need not get emotional over the facts. He let the thoughts come, and with it came a calm relief.

  Jack had been nowhere near Golden when his Blackberry rang at ten twenty seven that night. The only thing near Golden that stormy night was a Greyhound bus rumbling down the cold, wet highway toward Abbottsford. Inside that Greyhound bus, down in the undercarriage, stuffed in with all of the suitcases and other packages, was one little cardboard box, insignificant in its size and shape. The small box was shipped with ‘Hold for Pick Up’ to Abbottsford. Inside that little box was Jack's Blackberry, turned on and waiting for the call.

  As the bus rumbled on towards Golden and the time neared 10:27 p.m. Jack was home standing over Donna's dead, but still warm, body. He stared at the bedside clock and knew it was time to make the call. He went downstairs to use the house phone on the main floor. He had been careful not to touch the bedroom phone in the past six months. Only Donna's fingerprints would be on the phone on her side of the bed.

  Jack pulled out the pocket voice recorder he pur
chased months ago in Vancouver on one of his trips, dialed his Blackberry from the house phone, and played the recording. Donna had left him the recorded message nearly a year ago on his Blackberry. He had kept it for this very purpose and transferred it to the voice recorder. Jack played back that same message into the phone.

  The defense had no questions for Jack at this time but expressed their intention to call Jack back up to the stand to testify when they began the defense case for Josh Anderson. Jack was excused from the witness box. The prosecution ended the day on Donna's last recorded words, a powerful message to everyone in the room.