by Diana Saco
“My goodness, that’s some miracle toxin. Consider the testimonials our own Millsferryzians could provide. ‘Oxalic acid—we’ve used it to bleach wood, eliminate mites on bees, and kill award-winning bakery chefs.’ ”
“Objection, Judge,” Mason stated. “In addition to being in poor taste, counselor’s fantasy testimonial assumes the substance was used by one of our own citizens with the intention of killing another. This is highly prejudicial, especially in light of the fact that no one in this courtroom has been charged with intentionally killing ‘an award-winning bakery chef.’ ”
“Sustained, on both counts,” Ota responded, giving Loyal a disapproving look. “The jury will disregard Mr. Bingham’s last comment.”
Loyal shrugged off the objection with only the slightest hint of apology. “When the lab reports came back showing it was the oxalic acid in the defendant’s rhubarb that poisoned both Mrs. Munch and Mr. Kirkland, what were your thoughts then?”
“Well, we still thought it might have been a bad batch of rhubarb. So I interviewed the produce vendor who sold Chloe the rhubarb.”
“And?”
“Mr. Woo and his wife still had a sample from that batch. It was tested and determined to be uncontaminated.”
“And what conclusion did you draw from this?”
“That the rhubarb had to have been contaminated after Chloe bought it.”
“Contaminated in her home?”
“That’s our assumption, yes.”
“Come now, Ms. Braco,” Loyal prodded. “You can be more direct. Doesn’t this prove that the defendant is behind the poisoning?”
“Prove? No,” I said emphatically. “In fact, in all my years as an investigator, I’ve never had a case in which someone implicated herself by poisoning food that only she could have handled. Or where someone poisoned food without knowing for sure that the intended target would be eating that food. But it does suggest that someone wanted to make it look like Chloe was responsible.”
“Are you familiar with the concept of ‘chain of custody’?”
“Of course,” I replied curtly.
“Wasn’t the defendant the only person with access to the rhubarb?”
“No, she wasn’t,” I said. “We know Chloe bought the rhubarb from Jeff Woo on the Thursday morning before the bake-off. Chloe told us she prepared the rhubarb and left it on the counter in her kitchen while she went to meet with a new client in Provincetown. Anyone could have walked right into her home to contaminate the rhubarb. As the sheriff said, Chloe doesn’t lock her doors.”
“Did the client corroborate this Provincetown meeting?” Loyal asked.
“The client never showed up.”
“So you have no way of knowing whether Ms. Owens left her house, as she claims,” Loyal stated.
“Yes, we do,” I countered. “Cell tower and GPS logs confirm that her phone and her car were there. It stands to reason she’d be there, too.”
“Yet, conveniently, there’s no one who can confirm actually seeing the defendant anywhere along the outer Cape that afternoon?”
“There was nothing convenient about it. Except for the mystery person who arranged to get Chloe out of her house.”
“Do you have any evidence that someone broke into the defendant’s house that afternoon?”
”No, as I just said, Chloe has a habit of leaving her doors unlocked. So technically, the perpetrator could have just walked in undetected. No obvious forced entry required.”
“Well, I suppose you would know about ‘obvious forced entries,’ ” he said.
Loyal was looking far too amused, and at my expense. Since I had no defense against his comment, I didn’t respond. He used the barb to segue into his next line of questioning.
“You broke into the Munch house on September 13. Is that correct?”
My stomach churned again, but I was determined to get through this.
“Yes, sir.”
“Why, Ms. Braco?” he asked.
“I was convinced that Marvin and Maxi had been having an affair behind Monica’s back. That would give them a strong motive for murder. I learned that they were going to be out of town that evening, so I decided to use the opportunity to try to find evidence of their involvement.”
“Wouldn’t that evidence have been inadmissible?”
“The legalities weren’t uppermost in my mind at that moment,” I admitted.
“Obviously. What was uppermost?”
“I just needed answers,” I said, sounding slightly desperate even to myself.
“Did you get them? Your answers.”
“Not the ones I anticipated.”
“Please, explain,” Loyal said.
“When Marvin and Maxi returned unexpectedly, I was in the sunroom off the kitchen. I hid under a blanket so they wouldn’t find me. I was right next to the second refrigerator, the one Monica had used to store her contest entries and client orders. She apparently stored leftover sugar there, and that’s where Marvin went to sweeten his tea. I could hear them talking.”
“And what did they say?”
“Mostly they were talking about Marvin being sick and their having to cancel the trip. Maxi assured him that it didn’t matter. They also talked about their feelings for each other. They admitted their mutual affection but that it was also, for both of them, too soon to act on those feelings.”
“What did you conclude from this unguarded conversation between the victim’s husband and sister?”
“It became apparent to me that they hadn’t been having an affair. And that they really did care for Monica. Which meant that they wouldn’t have had a motive for killing her.”
“Dear me. That left you without suspects, didn’t it? Besides the defendant, of course,” Loyal concluded.
“It just meant that Maxi and Marvin weren’t behind it. That we were missing something in our investigation.”
Loyal approached the jury box pensively as I waited for his next question.
“Well, Ms. Braco, let’s review the testimony so far to see what’s missing. We know that Ms. Owens obtained oxalic acid from Randall Kirkland. We know it was her poisoned dessert that killed Monica Munch. We know it was her poisoned jam that put Mr. Kirkland in a coma. And we know that the rhubarb wasn’t already contaminated when she bought it from Mr. Woo. Despite the overwhelming evidence against the defendant, you maintain that someone else broke into her house and contaminated her rhubarb?”
“Yes, I do,” I said.
“And you also expect the jury to believe that Ms. Owens remained blithely unaware that she was poisoning people. That’s a stretch, don’t you think?”
“No more so than believing that Chloe would poison someone to win a cooking competition. And that she would use her own dessert to do it. And that she would believe that, of all the people with access to her dessert, Mrs. Munch would be the first and only person to eat the poison.”
“So instead of sticking with the obvious, you propose this phantom-burglar theory. Really, Ms. Braco. Isn’t it more likely that the rhubarb in the defendant’s house was poisoned by the person living there? Despite your fantasy break-ins, wasn’t Chloe Owens the only person with access to her home?”
The question stopped me cold as something occurred to me for the first time. I looked at Chloe and knew she was mirroring my own expression. Obviously, the same thought had just hit her between the eyes because her baby blues were round with surprise, too.
Where was Aunt Dottie during all this?
I looked at Aunt Dottie with that question written all over my face. Her expression went from expectant to aware to determined. And then she did the most outrageous thing. She stood up and yelled, “I did! I poison!”
And then Chloe stood up and blurted, “No, it was me! I did it! I poisoned the rhubarb! I confess!”
*****
Confessions make the wheels of justice spin more quickly and efficiently. Usually. But when confessions are blurted in open court by two separate parties, t
hose wheels swerve out of control and cause a rather spectacular crash. I noticed several things at once in the ensuing chaos.
Ota started banging his gavel yelling “Order.”
Aunt Dottie kept pointing at herself yelling “I did! I did!”
Chloe was still yelling “No, I did it!” while Mason was trying to get her to shut up.
Marvin had shot out of his seat and was hopping up and down saying, “You see? I told you she did it.”
I glanced at the jurors and saw that they were as stunned as I was by the commotion—all except Juror No. 3, who was still looking at me and actually waved “hello” with his greasy fingers. What a weirdo, I thought, as I waved back automatically.
I heard Chloe yelling my name and turned in time to see the bailiff ushering her out. “Nina, don’t you dare say anything! You hear me!”
“Order! Order in the court!” Ota yelled again.
Bruno had materialized from somewhere else in the courthouse and was immediately pressed into service.
“Sheriff,” Ota called, “please escort Aunt Dottie to one of the conference rooms until we get this sorted out.”
She did not go quietly and may have actually growled at Marvin on her way out.
Once Aunt Dottie and Chloe were out of the room, the crowd began to settle down. Ota tapped his gavel twice more to silence the trailing chatter as people retook their seats, and the collective tide of adrenaline began to ebb.
“Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, you may find it difficult to disregard the various outbursts you heard moments ago, but you’re going to have to try. That includes the defendant’s outburst.”
“But she confessed!” Marvin shouted.
“Mr. Munch!” Ota yelled, “One more word out of you, and I’ll have you arrested for contempt. You’ll be the fourth person I send to jail today, so don’t think I won’t do it. I’m on a roll.”
Marvin plopped down without another word.
“Now, Mr. Bingham, I’d like to adjourn, but not before you’ve finished with this witness. Do you have any more questions?”
“Just one, Your Honor.”
“Go ahead, then.”
“Ms. Braco, what just happened?”
The question made me feel lightheaded and queasy. I swallowed thinking about Chloe’s last statement to me before she was hauled out. She didn’t want me to say anything, and I wasn’t inclined to. But I didn’t have a choice.
“When you asked if Chloe was the only person with access to her house, I realized in that instant that I have no idea where Aunt Dottie was on that day.” I turned to the jury to explain. “You see, Aunt Dottie broke into my house the afternoon of the bake-off incident.”
“There seems to be a lot of that going on in this case,” Loyal joked.
“Well, apparently, it’s a habit with Aunt Dottie. As far as I can tell, she doesn’t have a place to live. So she takes turns moving in with people she feels may need her help with something. I’m not sure what’s supposed to be wrong with me, but I was told that if Aunt Dottie moved in with me, it’s because I need her. Apparently, she leaves when she’s done whatever it is that needs fixing.”
“Sounds disruptive,” Loyal mused.
“It was, which is why I was against her squatting with me, at first. But I have to admit, she’s fun to have around, and she’s a great cook. Anyway, before moving in with me, Aunt Dottie was staying with Chloe. Chloe didn’t mention taking her to P-town with her on that client call—for the meeting in Provincetown, I mean. So I suddenly realized that Aunt Dottie could have been at Chloe’s house that day. And given Chloe’s reaction, she probably was there. It’s a question of opportunity—of who else could have had the opportunity to poison the rhubarb. And, well . . . I don’t really believe it, but, she confessed. And . . .”
“And what, Ms. Braco?” Loyal asked.
“Aunt Dottie had access to the rhubarb. She could have poisoned it.”
“What day are we talking about, Ms. Braco?” Judge Ota asked.
“July 18. The day Chloe bought the rhubarb.”
“Sidebar,” Ota said. “You, too, Ms. Braco.”
I stood up and leaned toward Ota from the side of the bench as Mason and Loyal gathered around the front. The judge turned off his microphone before addressing the three of us.
“Aunt Dottie wasn’t at Chloe’s that day,” he declared. “You’ll be able to corroborate this later and present it to the jury, but I’ve known the lady for years and can confirm where she was. Every July, from the fifteenth to the twentieth, Aunt Dottie goes on, shall we say, a ‘family retreat.’ ”
“She does?” I asked stupidly.
“Yes,” he said.
“But she broke into my house the evening of the twentieth,” I said.
“After her retreat,” he explained.
“And she has a family?” I asked.
“You’ll have to ask her the specifics. Suffice it to say that you don’t have to consider Aunt Dottie a suspect in these proceedings,” Ota said with finality.
“Um, okay,” I said, processing this new piece of information. “Well, I guess Aunt Dottie didn’t realize that she wouldn’t be a credible suspect.”
Ota nodded. “Okay, let’s proceed,” he said. He turned his microphone back on as we all retook our places.
I wasted no time clearing up the various misunderstandings.
“To get back to your question, Mr. Bingham,” I said, “I believe Aunt Dottie confessed to protect Chloe. And then Chloe got up and confessed to protect Aunt Dottie. The bottom line is that those were both fake confessions.”
Marvin erupted from his seat again. “ ‘Fake confessions’ my left buttock! That Chloe Owens killed my wife!”
“Order in the court!” Ota demanded, pounding his gavel for emphasis. “I warned you, sir. Bailiff, please escort Mr. Munch to lockup.”
“It’s gonna get crowded down there, Judge,” the bailiff advised.
“I see a deputy back there. Let’s send them all to the sheriff’s office.”
“Yes, Judge.”
As I watched Marvin being escorted out, I considered the prospect of sharing a cell with him and Maxi and Chloe. I shuddered.
“Folks,” Ota said, addressing the room, “I won’t tolerate any more outbursts.” Then he turned his attention to Loyal. “Mr. Bingham, let’s get this over with.”
“No more questions, Your Honor.”
“All right. Mr. Tidwell, we’ll begin with your cross first thing on Monday. Court is adjourned,” he said, tapping his gavel automatically.
“All rise,” the bailiff called out.
“Judge Ota,” I said before he turned to leave. “Are Chloe and Aunt Dottie going to get in trouble for their false confessions?” I asked quietly.
“They should,” he said sternly. Then he took a breath and added, “But no, they won’t. I don’t fault Aunt Dottie for wanting to protect one of her kids. And I actually like knowing that Ms. Owens is willing to stick her neck out to protect that sweet old lady. Besides, didn’t you hear? We’re running out of room in lockup,” he said with a smile.
I smiled back.
“Speaking of—and I regret having to do this, Nina—bailiff, please have Ms. Braco taken to the sheriff’s office, too.”
“Okay, Judge.”
I was quietly hoping Ota had forgotten about my jail sentence during the ruckus. Now I would be the last one arriving. As I watched him leave, I had a horrible thought—What if Bruno runs out of toothbrushes?
9. We're Serving Crow at My Pity Party
I stepped off the witness stand and joined the bailiff.
“This way, Mizz Braco,” he said playfully.
“Hi, Jimmy,” I greeted him.
He took hold of my upper arm to escort me out and then started squeezing the bicep.
“Have you been working out?”
“Just the usual laps at the gym pool,” I said casually.
It should have felt weird making small talk on my way
to jail, but a body leans toward normal on off-kilter days.
“I’ve also been doing some scootering around the pasture,” I added, leaning some more.
“Well, it’s paying off. I’d better have Bruno put you in separate cells. Seeing as how you could take down that Munch dude.”
I glanced his way and snorted. “In my sleep!” I replied.
Since I wasn’t looking where I was going, I suddenly crashed into an enormous wall of cotton and cologne.
“Uff,” I said, and then added “-da” when I realized the wall was Al.
“Bruno sent me to get you,” he said, leaving out his usual “Sha.”
“Sha” was just the Cajun pronunciation for cher, the French word for “dear.” Al called everybody he loved “Sha.” The omission was not a good sign. I figured it could go one of two ways for me. He could treat me to a heap of Minnesota Nice with no yelling but lots of cool reserve, or he could give me the Bayou treatment and feed me to the alligators. I wracked my brain trying to remember if Millsferry had any alligators.
“I’ll take custody of the prisoner, Jimmy,” he said.
“I wanna stay with Jimmy,” I whined.
“Sorry, Nina,” Jimmy said, “but I can’t get in the middle of this. She’s all yours, Big Guy.”
Al didn’t grab my arm. He just turned his back on me and started walking, fully expecting I would follow without any further complaint. He was all business, which meant he was furious with me. I didn’t even consider running. I just fell into step behind him. I was contrite, but that wasn’t the reason I kept my mouth shut. I was trying not to throw up again.
We traveled the block to the sheriff’s office in silence—Al taking smooth strides with me walk-running to keep up. Once there, he motioned me into one of the interview rooms, followed me in, and closed the door.
“Have a seat,” he said.
I sat down, folded my fingers together and waited. Al sat across from me and studied me for a long time. I looked back, trying not to squirm. Finally, he spoke.
“What were you thinkin’?”
