[Barbara Holloway 02] - The Best Defense

by Kate Wilhelm

  “No!”

  “Thank you. No more questions.”

  While Fierst took him back over the few points he wanted the jury to hear again, she wrote robe and circled it. She had hit a sore spot and had not even a clue about why it was there or what it meant.

  SEVENTEEN

  Jack Kennerman was a frightened man that afternoon; he was thinner-faced than Barbara remembered, neatly dressed in a suit and tie, polished shoes, but he acted as if the clothes were not his, did not quite fit. He stretched his neck repeatedly to ease the constraint of his shirt; he worried a hangnail; his gaze flicked here, there, everywhere except at Paula. He had had his hair cut, but now it was too short, where it had been down over his collar before.

  In a brisk, businesslike manner Fierst had Kennerman give some background, details about his marriage, where he was employed now—as a pizza delivery man—and then describe the last evening he had seen his wife and daughter at home.

  Paula was screaming at Lori, Jack Kennerman said, throwing things around, tossing stuff into a suitcase, and when he tried to get her to tell him what was wrong, she pushed him and started screaming harder at Lori, who was crying and scared. He tried to pull her away from the baby and she hit him and he pushed her away harder than he meant to and she fell over a chair. He left, hoping she’d cool down and talk to him later. When he got home again about eleven, she was gone.

  “You had a scene like that with your former wife and you just left her alone? Is that right?”

  He ran his finger under his collar, his gaze shifting rapidly from Fierst out over the courtroom and back. “Yeah, it wasn’t the first time. Usually she just cooled off and that was the end of it.”

  “Did you fight with her often?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. She had a temper, and she’d start in on me, and we’d yell, and sometimes she pushed me and I pushed back.”

  “You said she was yelling at your child, Lori. Did she do that often?”

  “Yeah. She’d yell at her.” Now he was picking at the hangnail.

  “Did she hit the child?”

  “Not much. She’d say things like she was going to leave her in the woods and let the bears eat her, scare him like that. She’d make her sit on a spot on the floor and if she moved, sometimes she slapped her pretty hard.”

  “Mr. Kennerman, did she ever threaten to leave you?”

  “Yeah, in the last year she did. She met this other guy, she said, and he was rich, and he liked her a lot, and as soon as she had some money saved up, she was taking off.” He seemed absorbed now in the wood grain of the witness stand.

  “Did you believe her?”

  “Not at first. But I got to thinking about it and then I did. And when I seen how much money she was stashing away, I knew it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “See, I was out of work and we were doing without stuff,” he said in a rush. “Lori was doing without stuff that she needed, and Paula had all this money in the bank. She was saving up to take off.”

  Paula was scribbling furiously. Barbara didn’t interfere with the examination; now and then she glanced at the scrawling words Paula was writing so hastily. Finally Fierst got to his last questions.

  “Where were you all day Saturday, April nineteenth, Mr. Kennerman?”

  “Fishing. I went up early on Saturday morning, and me and three other guys were up the North Fork of the Willamette for the opening of trout season. We came back Sunday night.”

  “And you were with three other men all weekend? Who were they, Mr. Kennerman?”

  He named them, and Fierst said he was finished.

  “Mr. Kennerman,” Barbara began, “isn’t it true that your former wife supported you and your child for the last five years?”

  “No! That’s a lie. I worked, too.”

  “You were unemployed in April. Were you collecting unemployment insurance?”

  “No. They wouldn’t give it to me.”

  “Why not, Mr. Kennerman?”

  “That’s how the system works,” he said. “They make you quit and then you can’t collect. It happens all the time.”

  “So you quit your last job. How long were you out of work?”

  “I don’t know,” he mumbled, looking everywhere but at her.

  “Well, make a stab at it,” she suggested. “A month, three months?”

  “Maybe four or five months. I couldn’t find anything.”

  Fierst objected often, but she was allowed to take Kennerman back over his work experience.

  “So you quit every job you had over the past five years,” she said. “And out of that period you worked a total of sixteen months. Doesn’t that mean that your former wife supported you?

  “I worked when I could,” he said, almost whining.

  “Five years ago when you quit your job delivering flowers, did you try to start your own business? A salvage business?”

  “Yes,” he said too eagerly. “That’s right. It was a chance I couldn’t pass up.”

  “And did you buy twenty-five hundred dollars’ worth of scuba equipment and take scuba lessons to further that business?”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “Did you start the business?”

  He looked past her, at Fierst, at the ceiling. “It didn’t work out. The other two guys chickened out on it.”

  “Did you charge the equipment on a credit card?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Who paid for the equipment, Mr. Kennerman?”

  “We paid it off. Me and Paula.”

  “But you were out of work. How did you pay anything?”

  “When I got another job, I helped pay,” he said, clearly whining now. “I sold the stuff to a guy and used that.”

  “Three years ago did you try to start another business of your own? A photography business?”

  Fierst objected, and Barbara said, “One side of their domestic problems has been shown by the prosecution; the defense is entitled to show the other side.”

  “Overruled,” Judge Paltz said.

  Painstakingly she forced Jack Kennerman to admit to the four times he had gone deeply in debt with one venture after another that never came off. When a recess was called, she felt as weary and haggard as Jack Kennerman looked.

  Today her father did not comment, but produced a small box that he handed to her. It was filled with expensive chocolates. She wanted to cry. They shared the candy and coffee in silence.

  “How long have you had your present job, Mr. Kennerman?

  He hesitated, then said, “About three weeks.”

  “Are you still living in the same apartment you shared with your former wife and child?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Paula Kennerman wrote a check to pay for the rent in April, but who paid the rent from May until September?”

  “I did,” he said, working with the hangnail again.

  “How did you manage that after being unemployed for so long?”

  “Some guys helped me out. I borrowed a little. I got by.”

  “How much is your rent every month?”

  “Three eighty-five.”

  “You mean three hundred eighty-five dollars a month?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So for four months that comes to over fifteen hundred dollars. What about your utility bills, your food?”

  “I said some guys helped me out, and I worked a little. Odd jobs here and there. I sold some stuff.”

  “What guys, Mr. Kennerman?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I never seen them.”

  “Then how did you receive donations from them?”

  “A guy came over and said these guys wanted him to take the collection for them, and he brought it to me.”

  “Who paid for your divorce, Mr. Kennerman?”

  “Nobody. He said he’d do it as a favor, that he had to do something now and then for free.”

  “An attorney did you the favor. Was he the same one who collected f
rom your benefactors?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did he collect the donations and give you the money?”

  “Yeah. They got in touch with him and he came around.”

  “Who was that man, Mr. Kennerman? What was his name?”

  He looked around desperately. “I don’t know. Don something. He said it too fast.”

  Barbara walked to the defense table and then back to the stand, thinking hard. “So a strange man came to you with money from other strange men and you simply accepted it. Did this ever happen before, Mr. Kennerman?”

  “No. Nobody ever gave me nothing before. He said they did this, a bunch of guys who thought a guy was getting the shaft. They helped him.”

  “Getting the shaft? What does that mean, Mr. Kennerman?

  “A guy whose wife was giving him a hard time, running around, playing him for a dope, stuff like that.”

  “How much money did they give you?”

  “I don’t know,” he mumbled. “Thousand, a little more.”

  “Did they give you enough to pay your rent for several months?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was it enough to pay your utility bills? Electricity, water, things like that?”

  “Yeah. I couldn’t find a job right off.”

  “Was it over two thousand dollars?”

  “Maybe. I don’t remember.”

  “Did you ask what they wanted in return?”

  “Nothing. He said they didn’t want nothing.”

  “But he was friendly, talked to you?”

  “Yeah, some. Not much.”

  “Mr. Kennerman, do you remember what he talked about with you?”

  “No! Nothing much, like I said.”

  She walked away, and only glanced at the jury. Some of the jurors were regarding Kennerman as if he were an alien insect found in the garden.

  “Did he talk about Paula?”

  “No! Just about women, how they treat their men, stuff like that. And these guys were fed up with it.”

  Enough, she decided, and changed the subject. “Mr. Kennerman, are you an avid fisherman?”

  “I guess so. I like to fish.”

  “Do you tie your own flies?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And on Wednesday, April sixteenth, did you go to a sports shop and pick out waders, a tackle box, a fly rod, several flies?”

  He was darting glances around again, or stretching his neck, running his finger under his collar, scratching, every time he spoke. His twitchiness was getting on her nerves.

  “Yeah, I needed some stuff,” he mumbled after a long pause.

  “What kind of flies did you buy?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t remember. Just some flies.”

  “Did you have any equipment for a fishing trip when you agreed to go?”

  “Yeah, sure, just not enough. I just needed a few things.”

  “Mr. Kennerman, didn’t you try to charge three hundred forty dollars’ worth of fishing equipment on a credit card Wednesday?”

  “I don’t know. Not that much.”

  “Weren’t you turned down when the credit card charge was rejected?”

  “Yeah. They wouldn’t let me use it.”

  “And on the next day, Thursday, did you go to the bank and withdraw four hundred eighty dollars from your joint savings account?”

  “No!” he cried. “It was four seventy-five.”

  Barbara nodded. “And did you use that money to pay for the equipment you had selected on Wednesday?”

  “Yeah, some of it. I had to go fishing with the guys. One of them was going to give me a job.”

  “Were those three other men friends of yours?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “How long had you known Gus Hormeier?”

  “A couple of years. We used to work together.”

  “And Michael Selby?”

  “A few months, maybe.”

  “I believe you said the third man was named Mr. Wentworth; how long had you known Mr. Wentworth?”

  He looked around the courtroom again, as if searching for an escape route. “I just met him.”

  “So they weren’t really your friends, were they?”

  “Gus is my pal.”

  “The four of you rented a cabin, didn’t you? Planning to stay up there Friday night and Saturday night. Was that the plan?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you didn’t go until Saturday. Why was that, Mr. Kennerman?”

  “I was looking for Paula on Friday. I got worried when she didn’t come home Thursday night.”

  “Did you go to her sister’s house in Cottage Grove?”

  “Yeah. She wasn’t there.”

  “And did you go to the Olympus restaurant and try to collect her paycheck?”

  “No! I just was looking for her.”

  “Did you ask Cindy Truman for Paula’s paycheck?”

  “No! I might have said I’d put it in the bank for her or something like that. I didn’t want it. I was trying to find out if she’d been there.”

  “Did you go to a house on South Polk Street looking for her?”

  He hesitated a long time, studying his fingers intently. “Yeah. I went there.”

  “Who lives there, Mr. Kennerman?”

  “I don’t know, just a bunch of women.”

  “Isn’t that what they call a Safe House for women?”

  “I don’t know what they call it,” he mumbled.

  “How did you know about that house, Mr. Kennerman?”

  “Guys talk, you know. I heard about it.”

  “What time did you drive up to the North Fork on Saturday morning, Mr. Kennerman?”

  “I don’t know, nine or a little later.”

  “Did you find your three friends?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Mr. Kennerman, did you see Gus Hormeier that morning?”

  “Yeah. He didn’t see me. He was busy, fishing.”

  “Did Michael Selby see you?”

  “No, not right away. He was with Gus, down the river, with a lot of other guys all around them. It was crowded there.”

  “Who did see you?”

  “Mr. Wentworth. I went by him and stayed awhile.”

  “What time was that?”

  “I told you, nine-thirty or ten by then.”

  “How long did you stay by Mr. Wentworth?”

  “Hour, hour and a half. I don’t know.”

  “Was it cold and overcast?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where is Mr. Wentworth now?”

  “I don’t know. Back in California, I guess. He just come up for the opening of trout season.”

  “So the only person who saw you was Mr. Wentworth, who is out of state.”

  “We were all together later on,” he said quickly.

  “At what time were you all together?”

  “I don’t know. In the afternoon sometime.”

  “Mr. Kennerman, did Mr. Wentworth tell you to go away and not bother him?”

  “How’d you— No! We just fished.”

  “Didn’t Mr. Wentworth say something like you were an amateur and had no business out there?”

  “No! No, he didn’t say that.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing like that. He said he didn’t want to talk business. He came to fish.”

  “Mr. Kennerman, didn’t you buy a lot of new gear and go out there in order to impress Mr. Wentworth? And didn’t he treat you with contempt?”

  “No! He was a little uppity, that’s all.”

  “And was it still overcast and cold when you left him?”

  “Yeah. He didn’t want to talk and I was cold.”

  “Mr. Kennerman, I have here the newspaper report of the opening day of trout season this year.” She went to her table and produced the paper. “It says the weather was clear and warm all day; there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Yet you say it was cold and overcast. What time are you talking about, Mr. Kennerma
n? Before the sun rose?”

  Fierst objected on the grounds that the question had been asked and answered several times. He was overruled.

  “I don’t know what time it was,” Kennerman said. “I was cold.”

  “Didn’t you get in your car and drive back to town then?”

  “No! I didn’t! I stayed out there and fished.”

  “Didn’t you drive out to the Canby Ranch and have a look around?”

  “No! I didn’t know nothing about the place!”

  “But you knew about the Polk Street Safe House, didn’t you?

  “Yeah. I knew that one, but not the other one.”

  “When did you first start noticing that Paula was abusing your child?”

  “She wasn’t, not that way. She’d yell at her and punish her, that’s what I mean.” He was gripping the stand with both hands; beads of sweat lined his upper lip, sweat shone on his forehead.

  “When Lori was an infant? In diapers?”

  “Yeah, it started back then.”

  “Did you try to stop her?”

  “Yeah, sure I did.”

  “How?”

  “Like I said, I’d pull her away, keep her away from Lori.”

  “Did you hit her?”

  “No! I’d just try to pull her away.”

  “Mr. Kennerman, did your former wife have to have a root canal in July of a year ago?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Didn’t you slap her hard enough to loosen a tooth, which then abscessed?”

  “No!”

  “Did you and Paula talk to a marriage counselor a year ago in August?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know when it was.”

  “And didn’t Paula tell you then that if you hit her again, if you didn’t straighten yourself up, she’d leave you? Do you remember that?”

  “No!”

  “Did you ever hit Lori?”

  “No!” he cried in anguish. “I never.”

  “Did you tell the counselor that you and your former wife would open a savings account for Lori’s education?”

  “We talked about it, yeah. We never had a chance, Paula and me. We wanted things better for Lori.”

  “Why did Paula punish Lori? How did she misbehave?”

  “She didn’t. She was a good kid.”

  “Did she yell, race around the place, make a lot of noise?”

  “Yeah, sometimes. And Paula made her sit still on the floor.” He was very pale; his hands were trembling, and he was staring in a fixed gaze beyond her.