Rich Waters (Jason Rich), page 38
“What did your probe reveal from your interviews of the patrons of the Brick?”
“That there were multiple witnesses . . . over fifteen people . . . who saw Trey Cowan assault Sergeant Flowers.”
“What else?”
“That these same patrons heard Cowan threaten to kill Flowers.”
“There were actually videos of this threat, weren’t there?”
“Yes.”
Shay faced the jury, nodded several times, and then looked at Hatty. “Thank you, Detective Daniels. No further questions.”
As with his opening, Jason launched his first question from the chair. “You were investigating Kelly Flowers for being a dirty cop, weren’t you, Detective?”
“For engaging in potentially abusive behavior.”
“Oh, it was a bit more than that, wasn’t it?” Jason hopped out of his chair, feeling light on his feet and pulsing with adrenaline. He approached Daniels and put himself at a forty-five-degree angle so he could look at the witness and the jury without moving. “Sex in exchange for not charging her with a crime, correct?”
“Yes. That was one of the allegations made by Ms. Wittschen.”
“Drugs, namely methamphetamine . . . in exchange for sex, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Your informant told you that Officer Flowers had done these things to her?”
“Yes, she did.”
“And, in fact, your informant, Ms. Wittschen, was supposed to meet with Sergeant Flowers the night of April 8? Isn’t that true?”
“Yes, it is.”
Jason took out a three-page narrative that had been given to him by the state after Hatty had turned over her copy of the internal affairs file. He handed it to Daniels and then looked at the jury. “Detective, what is that?”
“It’s my timeline of the investigation.”
“And is that the original of that document?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Your Honor, we’d ask that this timeline be marked as defendant’s exhibit one.”
“No objection,” Shay said, her tone nonchalant.
“Prior to April 8,” Jason continued, “how long had you and Officer Mitchell been in contact with Chase Wittschen?”
“Three weeks.”
“And what was the objective, here?”
“Excuse me?”
“What did you and Officer Mitchell hope to accomplish?”
“Well . . .” Hatty paused, looking down at the timeline and then back up at Jason. “We wanted to see if Ms. Wittschen was telling the truth. To do that, we hoped to set up a sting on Officer Flowers and catch him in the act of either soliciting sex from Ms. Wittschen or distributing drugs to her.”
“And had you achieved that goal prior to April 8, 2019?”
“No. Each time we thought we had a sting arranged, Flowers would back out of the meeting.”
“And was there a sting on for April 8?”
“Yes, but it was called off.”
“Please read the last line of your narrative.”
Hatty looked down at the document and flipped to the last page. “April 8, four p.m. Informant called to say that she was meeting KF at nine p.m. Location TBD.”
“And ‘TBD’ is ‘to be determined,’ correct?”
“Yes.”
“Was a location ever chosen?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“And is it your testimony that this meeting was called off?”
“Yes. Officer Mitchell told me that Ms. Wittschen had informed him that Flowers postponed it.”
Jason looked at Shay, a bit surprised that there was no hearsay objection. Of course, the calling off of the meetup between Wittschen was good news for the state. Hence . . . no objection.
“Do you know whether the time was simply moved back?”
“I don’t know that.”
“If Chase Wittschen were to testify that Kelly Flowers didn’t postpone the meetup, but rather moved it back a few hours . . .” He looked at the jury. “. . . to twelve thirty a.m. the morning of April 9 and selected Branner’s Place as the rendezvous point, would you have any reason to dispute her?”
“Well, she didn’t tell me that.”
“But, wouldn’t you agree, that her primary point of contact with the sheriff’s office was Sergeant Mitchell?”
“Yes.”
“Detective Daniels, based on your experience as an investigator, did you find Ms. Wittschen sincere in her remarks about Sergeant Flowers?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did you believe her?”
“Objection, Your Honor. The detective’s personal belief is irrelevant.”
“Overruled,” Barber fired back. “The witness shall answer the question.”
Hatty looked at the jury and paused a beat. “Yes. I believed her.”
Jason turned his gaze to the jury box and then back to Judge Barber. “No further questions, Your Honor.”
“Redirect?” Barber asked Shay.
“Yes, Your Honor.” Then, mimicking Jason, the prosecutor asked her first question while seated. “Regardless of your belief, did your and Officer Mitchell’s internal investigation ever determine that Kelly Flowers was guilty of any wrongdoing whatsoever?”
“No,” Hatty said.
“And, as the lead investigator on this case, were you able to find any evidence linking any other suspect to the murder of Kelly Flowers?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Nothing further,” Shay said. She’d never gotten to her feet.
“Recross, Mr. Rich?”
“No, Your Honor,” Jason said, figuring he’d notched all the points he was going to score.
“All right then. Let’s take a short break, and then the state may call its next witness.” As Barber banged on his gavel and adjourned the jury, Hatty Daniels exited the witness stand, not looking at Jason as she strode to the back.
“Good job,” Trey whispered next to him.
Jason nodded. He’d done the best he could. Would it be enough?
111
“Where in the fuck is George, Sheriff?”
Though her tone was just above a whisper, Shay’s demeanor and delivery were so intense that they caused Griff to take a couple of steps backward as they gazed at each other in the sheriff’s department war room.
“I don’t know.”
“Not good enough. He needs to be sick. Or undercover. Or doing some extremely important shit for your office. There needs to be some explanation for why in the literal fuck he’s not here. I had wanted to call Hatty after George and limit my questions to her, but instead I had to give all my questions to Hatty.”
“And you did a damn fine job,” Griff said. “Maybe the best examination I’ve ever seen you do. Under the circumstances, top notch.”
“Don’t flatter me. I need you to find George or figure out where the fuck he is.”
“I will, but you keep doing what you’re doing.”
Shay walked to the door. “I expect you to sit with me the rest of the way. Maybe I can play it off as you replacing George as the representative for the state given the seriousness of the crimes.”
“Sounds good, and I’m right behind you.”
She turned, but his voice stopped her.
“Shay?”
“What?”
He smiled. “We’re winning.”
“We’re supposed to be. It’s our case in chief. We’ll see what kind of case we have when Rich starts calling witnesses.”
“Surely you don’t think the jury is buying his bullshit?”
“They did last year,” Shay said.
And then she slammed the door shut.
112
Shay’s next witness was Ronnie Kirk, the longtime head football coach of the Guntersville Wildcats. Kirk described his interaction with Trey just before the defendant was taken into police custody at the football field and, in particular, Trey’s despondent demeanor and his admission that the police were not there to arrest him for trespassing.
The state spent the rest of the day calling several patrons who’d witnessed Trey’s assault on Flowers at the Brick.
During the testimony of the last of these, Shay played the best video of the interaction for the jury on the big-screen television adjacent to the jury box. After she pushed play, the scene came into view, with Trey lunging for Flowers and missing.
As the two men faced each other on the television, Trey glared at Flowers and yelled, “I’ll kill you. I swear to God, I will.”
Shay pressed pause, and the screen showed a closeup of Trey Cowan’s angry face seconds after making his threat.
“No further questions,” the prosecutor said.
For his part, Jason didn’t ask any of the Brick patrons any questions on cross-examination.
“Call your next witness,” Judge Barber instructed.
“Your Honor,” Shay said, speaking with a deliberate, forceful calm. “The state rests.”
113
When Jason arrived at his office at 5:30 p.m., he had a surprise waiting on him. A plump man wearing a crimson golf shirt with a white script A over the heart, khaki pants, and tennis shoes was waiting for him in the firm library. A mess of papers was scattered in front of him.
“Albert Hooper,” the man said, not extending his hand. “I hope you don’t mind, but I went by both of the lawyers’ offices in George Mitchell’s divorce, and I was able to obtain the nonprivileged divorce documents from both.”
Jason plopped down in a chair across from Bo Haynes’s investigator. “I don’t mind at all. Is there anything good in them?”
Hooper grinned and slid a piece of paper across the table to Jason along with two photographs. “Does it help you that Officer Mitchell was seen by his wife’s lawyer’s private eye in Alder Springs on the night of April 8, 2019?”
“Holy shit,” Jason said, gazing at the color pictures before looking up at Hooper. “That’s—”
“Trudy Cowan’s home,” Hooper interrupted, unwrapping a cherry Blow Pop and sticking it into his mouth. “Interesting, huh?”
Jason couldn’t believe his eyes. Another divorce file was about to save his case.
“It does beg the question,” Hooper continued, “what exactly was Officer Mitchell doing sitting in an unmarked car, which wasn’t the vehicle registered to him by the sheriff’s office, at eleven oh two p.m.?”
“It does indeed,” Jason said, extending his fist, which Hooper rapped with his own.
“RMFT,” Hooper said, walking around Jason to the door.
“What?”
“Roll motherfucking Tide. And is there a good place to get a burger around here?”
They ate at the Rock House, and Hooper filled Jason in on the rest of the respective divorce files. None of it was nearly as interesting as what he’d shown Jason at the office and, in fact, told a sad story. While Jan Mitchell’s attorney’s files turned up the surveillance of the detective in Alder Springs the night of the murder, there was no proof of any infidelity on his part. George’s attorney’s materials, however, did reveal that Jan had been engaged in an illicit affair with a banker in Huntsville.
“There’s not much, really, other than what I showed you at the office.”
“Which puts Mitchell at the same spot as Cowan an hour and a half before the murder. With the same opportunity to kill Flowers.”
“Doesn’t give him motive, but it does fill in opportunity, and that picture shows him just a few feet from Cowan’s truck, where the shotgun was found.”
“He could have had the means too. Trey says he never locked his truck at his mom’s house. Mitchell could have put gloves on, grabbed the twelve gauge, driven the mile to Branner’s Place, and killed Cowan. Then returned the gun to the truck.”
“He could have indeed.”
“But what’s his motive?”
“I think he was Tyson Cade’s new inside man. His wife divorced him. He’d lost everything, and he’d decided to go rogue.”
“Breaking bad, just like the TV show.”
“Exactly.”
“I understand from Bo that Mitchell wasn’t in court today.”
“That’s right,” Jason said. “Which begs another rather obvious question,” he continued, using the investigator’s own lingo.
“Where the hell is he?”
114
Tyson Cade entered the cabin in Mentone and couldn’t believe his eyes.
Empty, he thought, taking a long sip of Sun Drop. His instructions had been clear. He’d told the lawman to be here at 9:30 p.m.
But his mole wasn’t here.
Tyson sat down at the small kitchen table and placed a phone call. “Matty, we got a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“I think our mole may be on the verge of turning his back on me.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing, for now. But we may have to circle the wagons soon.”
“Just say when, boss.” A sigh. “I’m ready to kill them all. Rich. Daniels. Our mole. Every damn one of ’em.”
Tyson Cade took a long sip from his favorite soft drink. “Patience, Matty,” he said, feeling anything but as he walked out of the empty cabin and into the cool night. “All in due time.”
115
Jason arrived home to a strange but welcome sight. Nola was sitting out in the sunroom, her attention seemingly rapt on two men engaged in a lively discussion. As Jason entered the room, Colonel Satch Tonidandel gave him a wave. Then Satch turned to the other man in the room. “Anyway, go on. Finish the story.”
Bocephus Haynes peered up at Jason with a tired but hearty smile and continued in his baritone voice. “Well, we all came out of the irrigation tunnels in Hazel Green at around the same time. We saw Wheeler about to open fire on the Professor’s grandson, and we all fired. General Lewis got the kill shot.”
“The woman prosecutor?” Satch asked.
“Yes.”
“She sounds like one badass lady.”
“You have no idea,” Bo said, standing and stretching his legs. He extended his hand to Satch. “Enjoyed your stories about the Screaming Eagles, sir.”
“Not as much as I enjoyed yours about playing for Coach Bryant and bringing JimBone Wheeler to justice. I remember when he was a fugitive.”
“Yes, sir.” Bo nodded and looked at Jason. “You talk to Hooper?”
“Yes, I did,” Jason said. “And I think we may really have an angle with Sergeant Mitchell. Is there any word on what happened to him today?”
“Not that I’m aware of. Listen, you got a second?”
They talked in the driveway next to Bo’s silver Chevy Tahoe. “You did a good job today. I appreciate you staying away from Hatty’s disappearance and her negotiated return to the sheriff’s office.”
“I tried to focus on what was most helpful to Trey’s case.”
Bo nodded. “You accomplished that . . . and I thought Hatty held her own as well. It was awkward to watch, because I feel like, even though you and Hatty are on opposite sides of this case, we’re all trying to be on the side of justice.”
“And what’s justice here, Bo?”
“Finding the truth.”
“I think your man Hooper uncovered it tonight. I just have to confront Mitchell with it.”
For a moment, there was silence, and then Bo continued, his voice grave. “I’m worried about Hatty. She seems obsessed with bringing this Dean fellow down.”
“I know. She told me she was staking him out.” Jason hesitated. “That’s what my investigator was doing when Dean killed him.”
“I know, and I’m worried. She also seems determined to find a link between Dean and the sheriff’s office.”
“I think Hooper may have found that for us.”
“Perhaps, but keep your eyes, ears, and most especially your mind . . . open. The truth sometimes does its damnedest to remain hidden.”
The two men shook hands, and Bo climbed into the Tahoe. After cranking the ignition, he rolled down the window after Jason rapped his knuckles on it.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“I feel like this case is moving ninety to nothing, and my pants are on fire. There are so many moving parts that my brain is scrambled, and I’m so tired that I can barely think.”
Bo grinned at him. “But you’re loving it, aren’t you?”
Jason grinned back, feeling tired and goofy. “Yeah. Does that make me weird?”
“Nope. It makes you a trial lawyer.” He winked. “And you’ve reached my ideal pace.”
Jason wrinkled up his face, and Bo guffawed as he put his vehicle in gear and spoke over the sound of the engine.
“Wide ass open.”
When Jason entered the house, Nola was still sitting in the sunroom. He approached and sat down in the chair next to her. “What’s up, honey?”
“Just thinking.”
“About what?”
Nola sighed and looked away from him. “About how I need to tell you something.”
For a moment, Jason didn’t know what to say. Finally, he sighed. “Just spit it out.”
“I got into Alabama. I found out earlier today.”
“Nola, that’s wonderful.” He leaned forward and kissed her on top of the head. “I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks.”
“Is that it?”
“No.” Her voice had begun to quiver. “I’m leaving, Uncle Jason. I’d already accepted a job in Birmingham at the campus bookstore at Birmingham-Southern. Niecy got it for me. I’m going to live with her the rest of this year and then start in Tuscaloosa for the second semester.”
Jason looked down at the floor. He’d known she’d be leaving soon, but the finality of it still hurt.
“I hope you understand,” she said.
“I do,” Jason said.
“When are you going?”
“Now.”
“But Nola, it’s past nine o’clock. Why not wait until—”
“I can’t. I don’t want to be here any longer . . . than I have to be.”
Jason managed a nod. He knew it was no use stopping her.
