“Direct examination should take 30 to 45 minutes, your honor.”
“We’ll take a ten minute recess, then, and try to finish with the next witness today. Please be prepared in ten minutes.” He banged his gavel and left the room.
Ellen stood up slowly and turned around. When she saw Gordon sitting at the back of the courtroom, there was a barely visible shock of recognition in her eyes, and he found himself blushing.
• • •
The first thing Gordon had noticed about Ellen McHenry was those eyes. They were blue-gray and had the unusual effect of seeming wide open and penetratingly focused at the same time. They dominated her face as though an expert had enhanced them with makeup, even though she wore none. She was not a beautiful woman by conventional standards, but she was handsome and there was something compelling about her. A few inches under six feet tall, she was slender but not frail, with wavy, auburn hair that fell just below her collar when it wasn’t put up in a bun or tied in a pony tail. She had an angular nose and thin lips that framed a mouth which was sensuous when she smiled, determined when she didn’t.
Their first meeting had been in early July, when Gordon had driven up from San Francisco on a Saturday in search of a place to spend a fishing holiday. It was to be more than a holiday, really. Beyond catching trout, he was hoping to get a handle on his life, and specifically to decide whether the time had come to leave the brokerage firm of Howell, Burns & Bledsoe and do something — anything — else. He thought he knew the answer, but he also knew that in order to do it, he’d have to get away and work it through. Summit County was a place he had visited several times over the years, and, through his father, he knew the sheriff, who he asked about an out-of-the way place to stay. That was how he found himself in the offices of the Twin Creek Cattle Company, located inside the main house of the McHenry ranch that summer afternoon.
“So you’re looking for a place to stay and fish, Mr. Gordon?” she said. “We do have a few cabins we rent out during the summer, but we generally close them up after Labor Day.” She looked at him intently, with a relaxed self-confidence. Her hair was unbound. “However, since you come with a recommendation from the sheriff, I guess we can make an exception.” She turned to the computer at the left of her desk and called up a standard form.
“When would you be arriving?”
“Labor Day. Monday the 6th.” She keyed it in.
“Just yourself?”
“I’ll be alone Monday through Friday of the first week. My friend Sam Akers will be joining me on Saturday the 11th and staying through the second week.”
“Second week?”
“Is that a problem?”
“I’m not sure. It looks like the trouble …”
“Trouble?”
“Oh, nothing that should concern you. There’s a legal matter involving the ranch, and it looks as if I might be spending a fair amount of time in court then. I’m afraid I won’t be a very good hostess.”
Gordon shrugged. “I’m pretty self-reliant. I’ll take my chances.”
“Very well then.” She entered the rest of the necessary information into the computer, then showed him several cabins. She had about her the simple, direct attitude of the Westerner and they were able to carry on a pleasant conversation during the tour. When it was concluded, he picked out a cabin and wrote her a deposit check. She printed out a receipt for him, and he drove off, looking very much forward to his return.
He hadn’t seen much of her the first two days of his visit. On both Tuesday and Wednesday, he had gotten in some fishing in the morning, but had been forced indoors by an afternoon thunderstorm. Gordon didn’t mind fishing in the rain, but he knew that an angler standing in the middle of a stream holding a nine-foot graphite rod during an electrical storm is making a strong bid for the role of lightning rod.
Wednesday afternoon the storm had begun around two in the afternoon, and the rain was coming down in sheets when he dropped into the Sportsman Bar and Grill in downtown Harperville for a beer. He was sitting unobtrusively at one end of the bar, half-listening to two men carrying on a conversation at the other end, when the word “McHenry” caused him to sit up and take notice. From what they subsequently said, Gordon was able to infer that Ellen McHenry and her brother were involved in a dispute over their father’s will. Subsequent pumping of the bartender elicited the information that the trial was the subject of intense local interest and that public sentiment generally lay with Ellen.
The rain stopped at four o’clock, and Gordon drove back to the ranch, figuring on doing some reading. When he turned on the switch as he entered the cabin, two of the three bulbs in the overhead light fixture blew out. He unscrewed them and carried them up to the main house, but no one was in, so he idled about, rearranging his fishing gear, until he saw Ellen McHenry’s pickup truck pull up to the house just before five-thirty.
Bulbs in hand, he walked toward the house and arrived at the front steps just as she did. Her lips were clenched together grimly, and she looked as if she were fighting back tears. Before he could react, she pulled herself together and addressed him.
“Oh, Mr. Gordon. Did the bulbs burn out? That seems to happen a lot in number three. Let me get you some replacements.”
“Thank you.” He paused, then decided to plunge ahead. “Since it’s that time of day, could I offer you a glass of wine?”
Her head jerked slightly and she looked at him for several seconds. “That would be very nice, Mr. Gordon. Yes, I would love a glass of wine.”
“You can drop the mister and just call me Gordon. All my friends do.”
They drank the wine — an excellent Napa Valley Chardonnay with hints of oak and pear — at a picnic table near Gordon’s cabin. It was overcast and pleasantly cool, and the rain had brought up a rich aroma of pine needles and sagebrush. Behind them, the main creek through the ranch babbled in the background, and an occasional sound of distant thunder punctuated their conversation. It was an atmosphere in which all senses seemed heightened.
“I don’t usually ask guests what they do for a living because it’s bad business,” Ellen said after a sip of wine, “but are you by any chance an attorney”
“Afraid not,” Gordon said, “but I plead guilty to having one in my family. My father is a judge.”
“Then I can’t go on about how stupid the law can be.”
“Go ahead. Half the time my father would be the first to agree. Look, I couldn’t help noticing that you were upset a few minutes ago. If talking would make you feel better, I promise to be discreet.”
“Discreet. That’s one of those words, like honor, that you never hear these days. I appreciate that, but the whole town knows anyway. Family arguments are hell, but there has to be a special section of hell reserved for family arguments that end up in court.”
Gordon nodded his agreement. She filled him in on the bare facts of the matter, which he had learned at the Sportsman earlier in the day, then shook her head.
“From my own standpoint, I can accept the possibility of losing, but I can’t bear the thought that this ranch, which my father built from nothing, would go where he didn’t want it to. You see, Gordon, my brother has fallen in with a bad crowd and I don’t like to think what they have in mind.”
Gordon wondered what constituted a bad crowd in Harperville, but before he could respond, she finished her glass of wine, reached out and touched him on the arm.
“This was very nice of you, and I feel better already.” She got up to leave. “But I have work to do, and I don’t want to bore you.”
“I’m anything but bored.”
“And remember. Discreet’s the word.” With that, she turned and walked back to the ranch house.
• • •
The judge returned and the next witness was sworn. She was a woman in her early forties of medium height and average weight, with black hair streaked with gray. She wore blue jeans, athletic shoes, a well-pressed and starched blue blouse, and a large pair of
glasses through which her eyes squinted slightly. She gave her name as Nancy Davidson, and before rising to question her, Bosso made a theatrical show of reviewing some papers, the contents of which he had undoubtedly long since committed to memory.
“Mrs. Davidson,” he said, “what is your occupation?”
“I’m a nurse at Summit County Hospital.” She croaked the words out and they were barely audible.
“Could you please speak a little louder, Mrs. Davidson, and remember, there’s no need to be afraid. All I seek is some simple information, and I believe the judge can vouch for the fact that there is no documented evidence of my ever biting a witness.”
Some chuckling rippled through the courtroom, and the witness exhaled and leaned back slightly. The Bosso magic was beginning to work its spell. He continued:
“How long have you been a nurse at the county hospital?”
“Almost seven years.”
“Were you on duty at the hospital between March 26th of this year, when Mr. Frank McHenry was first brought in for treatment, and March 30th, when he signed the will?”
“I had the day shift all five days.”
“And during that time, did you tend extensively to Mr. McHenry?”
“Uh huh. There weren’t many patients then, and he was the worst off, so I spent more time with him than anyone else.”
“Were you on duty when he was brought to the hospital following his accident?”
“Yeah. I remember because there was only an hour left on the shift when he came in, and I had to work three hours of overtime until he was settled in.”
“Recognizing that you are not a physician, could I nevertheless ask you to describe his condition in general terms?”
“Well, he was in pretty bad shape. Anybody could see that. He was all banged up, and he was shaking.”
“Was he conscious and capable of speech?”
“Barely. They gave him an injection of morphine right away, and after that, he’d drift in and out of consciousness, mostly out.”
“Did he say anything during this time?”
“On a few occasions he’d say, ‘Danny. Where’s Danny?’ Or, ‘Get Danny. I want to see him,’ things like that.”
“Did you know who Danny was?”
“I knew he had a son by that name.”
“In the time you were with him that night, did Mr. McHenry call for his daughter, Ellen?”
“No, but she came in a couple of hours after he was admitted.”
“Were you there when she first arrived?”
“Yes. Mr. McHenry had just been wheeled out of the X-Ray unit, and I was with him in the hall, waiting for the doctor to tell me what to do next, and she walked up.”
“What did he say to her?”
“He said, ‘Danny. Did you get hold of Danny?’”
“And she said?”
“‘I finally talked to him, Dad. He said he can’t come up now, but maybe in a few days.’”
“How did Mr. McHenry take this news?”
“He didn’t say anything. Just looked up at the ceiling.”
“Did Miss McHenry say anything else?”
“She took his hand in hers and said, ‘It’s all right, Dad. I’m here. I’ll see to it that everything works out.’”
“Thank you, Mrs. Davidson. Now the following morning, what time did you come to work?”
“Eight o’clock. That’s when the shift starts.”
“And when did you first see Frank McHenry that day?”
“About half an hour later. The first thing I did was take breakfast around to the patients, and I got to him last.”
“When you entered the room that morning, was Mr. McHenry otherwise alone?”
“No. His daughter was there. She’d been there all night.”
“How can you be sure of that, Mrs. Davidson?”
“I can’t, I suppose, but she was wearing the same clothes as the night before, and there was a cot in the corner of the room.”
“Could you describe Mr. McHenry’s physical condition that morning.”
“He didn’t look too good. His skin was pale and his breathing was loud and labored. Sometimes at the end of a breath, he’d let out a little whimper, sort of. He was lying on his back looking at the ceiling, and his eyes had that wide open look of fear in them. I’ve seen that in a lot of people who knew they were dying.”
“Would it be fair to characterize his physical condition at that time as fragile?”
“I think — yes, I think so.”
“As he was lying there, then, in a fragile physical condition, was there any conversation going on between him and his daughter?”
“When I started in the door, I could hear her saying, ‘There’s still time to do something, dad. You have to make up your mind.”
“Was there any response?”
“He just lay there breathing and looking at the ceiling. Then he said, ‘I don’t know, honey. Please don’t push me. I just can’t think right now.’”
“‘Please don’t push me?’ Were those his exact words?”
“The exact words.”
“Then what happened”
“She saw me coming in and put on a big smile and said, ‘Oh, hi. Glad to see you. I don’t think Dad’s very hungry right now, but he could use some more water.’”
“Was there any further conversation while you were in the room?”
“Not really. She just kept holding his hand and saying, ‘It’s all right. I’m here for you. It’s all right.’”
“Based on your observation, how would you characterize Miss McHenry’s behavior and attitude on this occasion?”
“Well, she seemed very intent and agitated …”
“Would it be fair to say that she seemed to be highly focused on her father, almost to the exclusion of everything else in the room?”
“Well, I certainly got that impression.”
“Moving ahead to Sunday the 28th, did you see Mr. McHenry and his daughter together that afternoon?”
“I did.”
“What time was this?”
“About four thirty, I think. We start serving dinner around four o’clock on Sunday, and Mr. McHenry’s plate was usually the last one I delivered.”
“Were Mr. McHenry and his daughter talking when you entered the room?”
“She was. She was saying, ‘Think about the future of the ranch, Dad. All I have to do is call Howard in the morning, and he’ll take care of it.’”
“And did her father respond?”
“He just lay there for the longest time, and finally he said, ‘I guess you’re right, El. Oh, God, why has it come to this? You probably know better than I do right now.’”
“Were those his exact words, Mrs. Davidson — ‘You probably know better than I do right now?’”
“They were. I’ll never forget them.”
“Then what?”
“Well, Miss McHenry put her head down next to her father’s and gave it a little hug. Then she said, ‘You’re doing the right thing, dad. You’ll be a new man when this is taken care of.’”
“Did either Mister or Miss McHenry notice your presence at the time?”
“Not a clue. I had to cough and rattle the tray a bit to get their attention. She looked up then and didn’t even bother putting on her smile. Just said, ‘Dinner’s here, dad. See if you can eat a little more now. You have to be ready to face Howard in the morning.’”
“Mrs. Davidson, you have stated that you were on duty at the hospital the first four days Mr. McHenry was in the hospital. During that time, on how many occasions did you have an opportunity to see him and his daughter together?”
“I couldn’t say exactly. It was several times a day.”
“And on all those occasions, can you remember a single instance in which Mr. McHenry’s behavior could have been characterized as energetic?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Can you recall a single instance when you saw the two together and Miss M
cHenry was not — by a decisive margin — doing most of the talking?”
“No.”
“Would it be fair to say that on every occasion on which you saw the two of them together, her level of energy and intensity was substantially greater than his?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Davidson. That’s all.” Bosso turned to Watkins. “Your witness.”
The defense attorney sat at his chair for a full two minutes, flipping through the notes he had been taking, nervously tapping his pen on the table all the while. When he stood, he addressed the judge and not the witness.
“Your honor,” he said, “It’s 4:45 now, and this is likely to be a lengthy and detailed cross-examination. In view of that, I was wondering if you might consider calling it a day and starting afresh tomorrow.”
The judge gave him a long, hard look. “I appreciate what you’re saying, counsel, but remember that I am obligated to hold court in the next county tomorrow. If court adjourns now, we won’t be able to resume until Monday morning. Is that what you want?”
“If it would be acceptable to your honor.”
“Mr. Bosso?”
Bosso looked over at Watkins, who nodded his head almost imperceptibly.
“While my client is anxious to see justice done speedily, this is agreeable under the circumstances.”
“All right,” said the judge. “We’ll resume at ten o’clock Monday morning.” He paused and looked at Watkins again. “If necessary. Court is adjourned.”
Dan McHenry was the first one out of the courtroom, moving swiftly to the aisle and avoiding eye contact with his sister, who remained seated at her table until he was gone. Bosso put his papers in a briefcase with great deliberation, then began to leave. As he reached the gate to the aisle and was in a position behind Ellen McHenry, he caught Watkins’ eye and raised a shoulder almost imperceptibly, as if to say, “Well?” Watkins waved him off, and the big city attorney walked briskly out of the small-town courtroom.
“How can he make it sound like that?” she asked, her husky voice shaking slightly. “I stayed with my father to the end while my brother phoned in from San Francisco, and now I’m coming across as the wicked witch who cast a spell and made him change his will.”
The McHenry Inheritance (Quill Gordon Mystery Book 1) Page 3
