One Life for Another, page 11
“You testified that you think he may have abused her when people weren’t around. If that were true, why would she ever hit him?”
***
Steve grimaced as he read this question. It seemed Hixon had made the classic litigation rookie mistake.
In law school, Steve had learned that one of the first rules of trial practice was to never ask an adverse witness a question to which you didn’t know the answer. It only gave the opposing party room to fill in the blanks with whatever fit their agenda.
***
Walters’ smile was cold. “Probably because it was her one chance to hit him back. She knew he wouldn’t hit her in front of people, so she hit him when I was there because she had been beaten so many times before that she wanted to get him back just once. She was scared and sad. She didn’t think leaving him was an option. Just this one time, she took the opportunity to hit him back. This happened about two weeks before she was killed. I guess he got back at her for trying to hurt him. Wouldn’t you agree?” Walters asked in mocking anger.
“Ma’am,” Judge McClintock interjected. “Please just answer the questions asked of you. You are not allowed to ask questions of the attorneys. Please show that last statement stricken. The jury is ordered not to consider Ms. Walters’ question to Mr. Hixon as evidence.”
“No more questions, Your Honor,” was all Hixon could muster as he slunk back to his chair.
Next, Mr. Whitmore was called to the stand. As Brent Whitmore walked into the courtroom, he removed his cowboy hat. He was about thirty years old, but his weathered face made him look at least forty. He was wearing a work shirt, denim jeans, and boots. The dried mud caked on the hem of his pants left a trail of dirt as he walked to the witness stand.
***
Steve noticed in his outline that he had only made a handful of notations during Whitmore’s testimony. After he reread it, he remembered why. There wasn’t anything particularly eventful about the testimony. Whitmore had never seen Scottie do anything abusive; he just “never liked him” and “always thought he was bad for Ashley.”
Steve wondered why Battel had bothered to call Whitmore to the stand at all. Probably just wanted the jury to see the victim had a brother.
After finishing the testimony, Steve decided to call it a night. He wanted to get a good night’s sleep before he and Booger interviewed their two suspects in the morning.
CHAPTER 18
Steve and Booger were on the freeway, making the thirty-minute drive to Claremore. Steve fiddled with the radio a bit; however, nothing came in clearly except for a country station. He turned it off completely.
“So, what’s the game plan for the day?” Steve asked. “Start at the Scotties’ old house?”
“Yeah,” Booger replied, taking his turn at the radio. “I think we pay Mr. Whitmore a visit before heading over to the Walters’ home. What do you think about this rancher brother?”
“Well…” Steve scratched his jaw. “I don’t know. He didn’t try and nail Scottie to the cross at trial, basically just said he didn’t like him. It’d be interesting to hear his take.” He glanced over at Booger. “How about Ms. Walters… mention the affair or play dumb?”
Booger gave up on the radio and leaned back. “Play nice and play dumb. Try to get as much as we can with a smiley face before she ices us. Then we drop the bomb.”
The address, 5260 E. 420 Rd, was on the southeast corner of the Whitmore Flying W Ranch. They pulled up to the gate, which was basically a long metal pole stretched across the entryway. A barbed wire fence extended from each side of the pole. It was padlocked closed; perfect for keeping vehicles out, but someone on foot could easily pass.
From the county road, they could see the house where Ashley was killed. It was about a quarter mile up a gravel driveway and appeared to be abandoned. There were boards nailed over the windows in a shoddy fashion, as if someone had rushed the job.
“Doesn’t look like anyone is around,” said Booger as he opened his door. “Let’s go have a look inside.”
Steve hesitated. “Are you sure?”
“If you want to solve this crime and save Scottie, you are going to have to get your hands a little dirty. Come on.”
There was enough room for Steve to park the car in front of the gate and still be safely off the main road. They got out of the car, hopped over the gate, and walked up to the empty house. As Steve peered through the boarded windows, Booger jimmied the back door with a tool from his body shop and entered the cavelike darkness of the abandoned structure.
Upon entering, the first thing Steve noticed was the smell of neglect that wafted throughout the house. Light sliced through the dusty air from the gaps between the planks covering the windows. Then, he noticed the silence. The house was eerily empty. Clearly, no one had been here in several years. Steve recognized the furniture from the crime scene photos. The only items missing were Ashley Pinkerton’s body and the blood stained carpet.
The pair’s first priority was a detailed examination of the door to the master bedroom. There was not even a scratch on it. Booger took several pictures of the door to have more proof for their file. He also made a video of himself opening and closing the door. He took more pictures of the living room and of other rooms throughout the house.
After a few minutes, the aura of the house began to bother Steve. “Don’t you think we have seen enough?” he asked Booger.
“Probably. You can step on out if you want. I’ll sit here and digest the place a bit. May sound hokey, but sometimes just sitting in a place where someone was murdered can give you a feeling about what happened. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Steve went back to the car, opened Words with Friends and was excited to get to play “Zippy” on a double word square against his anonymous arch nemesis while he waited. About fifteen or twenty minutes later, Booger hopped back over the gate and got in the passenger seat.
Steve looked over at the investigator. “Anything?”
“I had some thoughts—some kind of crazy ones. Nothing I definitively want to get into just yet. Let’s go talk to the brother.”
Although it may have been a five-minute drive across the ranch as the crow flies, the drive around the perimeter of the acreage, along the county roads, took a little longer.
As their car pulled through the southwest entrance to the Whitmore Flying W Ranch, they saw the house built for Whitmore and his wife, Julie. It was similar to the one built for Scottie and Ashley but slightly bigger. It also was a classic one-story ranchstyle home with several bushes and flowers in front, a three-car garage attached on the side, and a long gravel drive connecting the house to the county road. Unlike the vacant yard of the Scotties’ old house, the front and side yards here were strewn with different children’s toys, and there were children playing on a wooden playset out back.
Mrs. Whitmore was the first to see the car. She had been sitting on the porch, watching the children play. She immediately rose from her chair and went inside. Within seconds, Steve and Booger could see Whitmore come out of the house. He was briskly walking toward them. Steve put the car in park and rolled down the window. “Is there something I can help you two with?” Whitmore asked.
“My name is Steve Hanson, and this is Harold Thomas,” Steve said as he got out of the car and approached Whitmore with his hand outstretched. “We represent Scottie Pinkerton in his federal appeals case.”
Whitmore took his hand and shook it fiercely. He then pulled Steve close to him without releasing his grip on Steve’s hand. Whitmore spoke quietly, “If you represent that bastard, then I’ve got nothing to say to you. Please leave my property now. You know, in this county they give rewards instead of prison time for shooting trespassers.” He released his hold.
“We don’t want to cause any trouble, Mr. Whitmore,” Steve said, keeping his tone polite and friendly while raising his hands peacefully in the air. “We just hoped you might be able to help us. We have found evidence that we believe might exonerate Scottie and help prove he didn’t kill your sister. We are looking to find the real killer.”
Whitmore’s eyes darted away and back to Steve. “Listen here, buddy, the person who killed my sister is in prison and will get his due soon enough. I’m not talking to you, and neither is my family.”
During this time, Booger had gotten out of the car and now stood a few feet behind Steve. “Mr. Whitmore, we don’t want any trouble. We will leave, but can you tell me if one of those kids over there is Gabriel?”
“Yes,” Whitmore snapped. “The one in the blue-and-whitestriped shirt, but you best stay away from him, too. He doesn’t need to be reminded any more than is needed that his daddy killed his momma.” Raising his voice, he demanded through clenched teeth, “Now get the fuck off my property!”
The two men slowly turned and walked back to their car. Steve put the car in reverse and began to cautiously back out of the driveway.
Steve spoke first. “Well, that didn’t go so well.”
“No, he didn’t seem too excited to hear that we think Scottie didn’t kill Ashley.” Booger retrieved his camera and telephoto lens from their bag. “Don’t pull away until I get some pictures of Gabriel.”
When they stopped to get the photos, Whitmore turned and rushed into his house. Booger got some photos just as Whitmore walked back out of the house carrying a shotgun.
Steve put his foot on the gas. He was driving so fast backward down the long gravel driveway, all the while looking back and forth between Whitmore and the direction the car was headed, that he almost ran into the county sheriff’s patrol car that was turning onto the property as they were leaving. The officer inside was none other than Deputy Andrew Blackburn.
When Deputy Blackburn saw Whitmore walking down the driveway with the shotgun, he flipped on his lights and gave one burst of the siren. Steve pulled over but made sure he did outside Whitmore property line.
“Brent, these gentlemen bothering you?” Deputy Blackburn yelled as he exited his patrol car.
“I just wanted them to leave, which it looks like they were finally doing before you stopped them.”
Steve rolled down his window. “We were just leaving, officer, if that’s okay with you?”
“You sure you don’t want me to arrest them for trespassing or anything?” Deputy Blackburn asked Whitmore.
“No, let ’em go,” Whitmore said gruffly.
“All right. I don’t know who the hell you two are or what you are up to, but the property owner seems good with you leaving.
So just get the hell out of here,” Blackburn commanded.
Steve put the car in drive and sped off.
Booger glanced back at the receding figure of Deputy Blackburn. “Wonder why the deputy was going by Whitmore’s place on his day off?”
“I assumed the wife called 911, and he was here on official business. Why do you say it was his day off?”
“Because he wasn’t wearing a uniform.”
“I didn’t even notice that,” Steve said. “I was too worried about getting shotgun pellets in my car or spending my weekend in the Rogers County Jail.” The two men shared a “thank god that didn’t happen” laugh and drove on.
The next stop on their investigative journey was the Walters’ house.
“Here we go,” Booger said. “Remember. Let’s put on our nice faces and see what we can get before we play the ace in the hole.”
CHAPTER 19
Walters and her family lived in the Fieldstone housing addition just east of Claremore Lake. Fieldstone was a nice upper-middleclass neighborhood with large houses on acre lots, and the addition was a fairly recent expansion to the Claremore realty market. Every house had a wooden swing set or a trampoline in the backyard; some had both. Now, just a few years after the neighborhood was originally developed, only a couple of empty lots remained, and sold signs were erected on both of those.
The Walters lived in a two-story beauty near the back of the addition. There was a six-foot-tall wooden privacy fence around the back half of the acre lot and several tall trees dispersed around the property. From the size of the trees, Steve determined that this was one of the older houses in the neighborhood.
As they walked to the front door, Steve noticed heat upon his arms from the sun now beaming down through a few clouds on this beautiful Oklahoma spring morning. Walters’ husband answered in sweats and a T-shirt that looked slept in, his hair still a mess. He scratched his round belly and asked, “How may I help you gentlemen?”
“I’m Steve Hanson, and this is my colleague, Harold Thomas.
We represent Scottie Pinkerton in his federal appeal.”
“Oh. I thought he was all done with appeals and off to death row.”
“Well,” Steve said, “after the appeals in state court, he gets an appeal at federal court. But yeah, it doesn’t look good for the fellow when it gets to this point. We’re just doing a standard investigation as part of our due diligence at this phase.”
“You can come in then, have a seat on the couch. Can I get you some coffee?” Mr. Walters turned toward the hallway. “Hey, honey, there are some men here about Scottie Pinkerton.”
Walters came around the corner dressed in a pair of yoga pants and a tight-fitting, peach-colored workout T-shirt. Her blonde hair was styled as if she had been to the salon, and her face was perfectly made up with eyeliner and lipstick. The outfit fully accentuated the curves of her athletic body; now in her thirties, she was still an attractive and fit woman.
Steve looked at his watch; it was 10:25 a.m. He wondered if this was common attire for her on a Saturday morning in March or if she was truly on her way to or from the gym.
Walters raised her arms in the air with a smile on her face and said, “Welcome to Walters Inc. I am president and CEO of this fine establishment! How can I help you today?”
Steve and Booger stood up, and Steve extended his hand. “Good morning, Mrs. Walters. Sorry to bother you on a weekend. I’m Steve Hanson, and this is my colleague, Harold Thomas. We represent Scottie Pinkerton in his federal appeal.”
Steve looked around the room and noticed everything was “in its place,” not a mess anywhere to be seen—not even on the kitchen counters in the adjoining room. He then said, “We are interviewing everyone that testified at his trial, as well as anyone
else we believe might have useful information.”
“Well, I don’t know what I can tell you that would be helpful, and to be honest, I still haven’t gotten over the fact he killed my best friend. I know he had a temper, but until that day, I never thought he was a murderer.” She said the last sentence with a look of disappointment and heartache.
“That’s interesting. As I recall from your testimony, you kind of thought he might be the killer,” Steve said.
“Well, that was seven years ago, and I just testified the way the prosecutor asked me to. It seemed clear from the evidence Scottie had done it. So, I did what I was told to help them get their conviction. I do remember Mr. Battel telling me that I had done an excellent job on my testimony.” She smiled proudly.
“Can you tell us what your exact relationship with Scottie and Ashley was?” Steve asked.
“Ashley was my best friend. We had known each other since we were little kids. We went to elementary school at Justus-Tiawah together. I’ll never forget the day we met. One day during recess, in the fall of fifth grade, some boys were making fun of my clothes. I lived in the trailer park just west of the Racino, although it was still just a horse racing track at that time. The people of Oklahoma hadn’t yet voted to allow slot machines in the racetracks. Anyway, those boys were making fun of my cheap clothes, and then up walks Ashley. She told them to shut up and even pushed one of them down. That girl had no fear. The boys ran off, and we were best friends from that day forward. I always looked up to her and appreciated her standing up for me that day. She was my hero.” Walters began tearing up as she told this story. Her husband brought her a tissue, sat down, and put one of his arms around her.
“What about Scottie?” asked Steve.
Walters’s attitude quickly changed to one of disdain. “He was her high school love and was never much more than that to me. I mean, I was around him a lot, but never without Ashley. So, I can’t really tell you a lot about him.” Steve noticed she subtly glanced toward her husband with apprehension as she said this. “The two of them started dating our sophomore year,” Walters continued. “Other than a brief time when they split up in our junior year, they were together ever since. She got pregnant when we were all eighteen. It was right after we graduated from Claremore High School in 2004. He proposed as soon as they found out about the baby, and they got married shortly thereafter. Sadly, she ended up miscarrying that child. As far as I knew, they were going to wait awhile before trying to have a baby again after that happened, but she ended up pregnant three years later. That is when Gabriel was born.”
“When was the last time you saw Ashley alive?” asked Steve.
“It was the morning of her murder.”
Steve and Booger glanced briefly at one another.
“I started my morning at the gym like I do every Saturday.”
Steve thought Every Saturday, she said, the same as Scottie’s weekly round of golf. That part of his story lined up, then.
“When I was done there, I went by Ashley’s house to see how she was doing. She had confided in me the day before that she thought Scottie was cheating on her. I went by to see what she knew and console her if she had found any real proof. When I got there, she told me it was just a hunch based on the way he had been acting. She didn’t have any concrete proof. She was going to confront him when he got home from his golf game. I left and wished her good luck. About an hour or so later, I got a phone call from her brother, Brent; he told me the news.”
“Is there anything else you think we should know?” asked Steve.
“No,” Walters said with a shake of her blonde head. “That is pretty much all I know.”
As he began to stand up, Steve thanked Walters and her husband for their time. Booger stood as well, and they all exchanged pleasantries. Just as they reached the doorway, Booger turned and said, “We were just out at the Whitmore Ranch visiting Whitmore. Deputy Blackburn pulled in while we were leaving. It looked like he was there on his day off. Are the two of them friends?”
