James Patterson - 10th Anniversary

Stephen White cast his eyes toward Yuki as if to say, “Did I just get into trouble here?”

Hoffman continued his cross-examination.

“So, to be clear, you didn’t write down the serial number of the gun you sold to Mr. Martin on the receipt. Do you have the serial number anywhere?”

“Extremely doubtful.”

“So there’s no way to know if the gun you sold Dennis Martin is the gun that killed him, isn’t that right?”

“I didn’t say I did know.”

“That’s all, Mr. White. Thank you.”

The judge folded his hands on his desk. “Redirect, Ms. Castellano?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

Yuki opened the folder in front of her, pulled a photograph from the file, and walked toward the witness. This was going just the way she’d hoped it would.

“Mr. White. This is a picture of the murder gun, a Smith and Wesson twenty-two. Is this the type of gun you sold to Mr. Martin?”

“Yes.”

“How many of these guns did you sell in April last year?”

“I sold just the one.”

“How many twenty-two Smith and Wesson guns did you sell in the entire year?”

“I sold just the one.”

“To Mr. Dennis Martin?”

“Yes, exactly like I said. I wrote his name on that receipt.”

“Thanks, Mr. White. I’m finished, Your Honor.”

Yuki kept her expression neutral as she walked back to the prosecution table, but she was doing handsprings in her mind.

White was a very credible witness. He’d checked Dennis Martin’s gun license and driver’s license and he’d positively identified Dennis Martin from his photo. And he’d positively sold Dennis Martin a gun.

It wasn’t proof — but it was damning testimony.

Yuki waited for Stephen White to step down from the box and then called her next witness.

I STOOD IN THE BACK of the packed courtroom watching Yuki interrogate level-two investigator Sharon Carothers, the CSI who had tested Candace Martin’s hands for GSR less than a half hour after Dennis Martin was gunned down.

I’d known Carothers for about four years and had worked a dozen cases with her, and I had never known her to make a mistake. She went strictly by the book but knew how to look around corners without breaking the rules.

“Ms. Carothers, are you the lead investigator on the Martin case?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Did you test Dr. Martin’s hands for gunshot residue at approximately six-forty-five on the night of September fourteenth?” Yuki asked.

“I did. The test was positive for GSR.”

A woman sitting near the wall broke into a fit of wet coughing that seemed like it would never quit. Yuki waited it out, every last sputter, then asked, “Ms. Carothers, did you ask the defendant if she fired the gun that was found on the scene?”

“Yes, I did. She said she had.”

“And what was her explanation for firing the gun?”

“She had one explanation before I tested her hands and a more detailed explanation afterward.”

“She had two explanations?” Yuki said, turning to shoot Candace Martin a look. Had that look been a gun, it would’ve gone bang .

I was torn, both rooting for Yuki and at the same time feeling compassion and fear for Candace Martin. A lot of people I knew and respected had bet their careers on their belief that Candace Martin had killed her husband. Could they all be wrong?

Why was my gut telling me that she was innocent?

Yuki said to her witness, “Please tell us about those two explanations.”

Carothers turned unblinking eyes on the jury and said, “Before I did the test for GSR, Dr. Martin told me that an intruder shot her husband. After the test, she repeated that an intruder had shot her husband but added that when she called out to her husband, the intruder dropped the gun and took off. She said that she picked up the gun and ran after the intruder. That she had fired out toward the street to scare him off.”

I left the courtroom quietly. I was still nowhere on the Richardson case and Brady had made it superclear to me that the Candace Martin case was closed.

What he didn’t know was that I had gone through the Martin case file last night. I had read all of Paul Chi’s notes and had found a lead I wanted to check out. I needed to check it out so that I could shut down Candace Martin’s voice in my head saying, “I didn’t kill him, Sergeant. Please help me. I’m on trial for my life.”

WHAT I HAD GLEANED from Chi’s notes was that Caitlin and Duncan Martin had a piano teacher who came to their home to give them lessons twice a week.

His name was Bernard St. John.

Chi had interviewed St. John during the Martin investigation, and according to his notes, St. John had no idea who the killer was. In fact, he’d made a point of saying that he did not believe that Candace Martin shot her husband.

Chi had never interviewed St. John again, but because the piano teacher felt so strongly that Candace Martin was innocent, I wanted to hear from him how and why he had formed that opinion.

St. John’s rented apartment was in a Victorian house in the mostly residential 2400 block of Octavia Street. He was expecting me, and when I rang the bell on the ground floor, he buzzed me in.

I sized St. John up at his doorway.

He was in his early forties, five foot eight, with a slim build and spiky hair. I followed him into his apartment and saw that he clearly liked drama in his furnishings. The parlor was gold with red draperies, faux zebra-skin rugs were flung about, and a very nice Steinway grand sat near the bay window.

After offering me a chair, St. John sat down on a tassel-fringed hassock and told me he was glad that I had called.

“But I don’t understand why the police want to talk to me now,” he said. “No one wanted me as a witness.”

“You weren’t in the Martin house the night of the murder, were you?”

“No. I wasn’t there. I saw no gun. Heard no threats,” he said with a shrug.

“From what you said in our phone call, I take it that you were privy to certain behaviors in the household that you thought might be important.”

“Well, I have some thoughts and observations, Sergeant. I certainly do. Starting with when Candace had breast cancer a couple of years ago.”

St. John needed no encouragement to fill me in on the last two years of his employment with the Martins, a story laced with petty complaints and gossip. Still, the fact that he was a gossip didn’t make him a bad witness.

On the contrary.

“Candace was bitchy to everyone when she was in chemo,” he said. “Especially to Ellen.”

“Ellen Lafferty. The children’s nanny.”

“That’s right,” St. John told me. “I don’t know when it started, but it was well over a year ago when Ellen confided in me,” St. John said. “She told me that she was having an affair with Dennis.”

“Why didn’t you tell this to the police?”

“I didn’t think it was important. Is it?”

“I’m not sure. But tell me — why did you say to Inspector Chi that you didn’t think Candace was capable of shooting her husband?”

“She’s a doctor. ‘First, do no harm.’ Killing Dennis would have harmed everyone in the house. And look. It did.”

I closed my notebook and thanked St. John for his time. As I left his apartment, I thought about Phil Hoffman telling me that what he knew about Ellen Lafferty could cause the charges against Candace Martin to be dismissed.

Candace had speculated that her husband had been sleeping with Ellen Lafferty, and now Bernard St. John had confirmed that part of her theory.

Had Lafferty gotten jealous, as Candace had suggested?