Murder Is Forever, Volume 1 Page 10

  Chapter 42

  Stacey, Raley, Wall, and Nancy

  Frank knew that Billie Earl Johnson had done well on the stand. The blackmail angle had made sense, when Frank’s lawyers had presented it to him. But Billie Earl had made it sound ridiculous. Then Billie’s girlfriend had taken the stand and backed the things Billie had said right down to the smallest details. The dates she gave matched the ones Billie had given. Her descriptions of meetings with Mr. John synched exactly with the ones her boyfriend had provided.

  Stacey admitted it—she knew full well that “Mr. John” was paying Billie to do away with his wife, Nancy Howard. She admitted that she’d enjoyed all the money and all the things she’d bought with it. “It beat working, I’ll tell you that much,” she said. But backing Billie up again, she said that they’d never planned to go through with the murder.

  “This man, Mr. John, never sat right with me,” Stacey said. “There’s something twisted about him. I told Billie that no good would come out of getting involved in this business. But Billie was never actually going to kill anyone. And Mr. John was just giving us money. We weren’t stealing. So where was the crime?”

  When Frank Howard’s defense lawyer asked Stacey about the supposed blackmail plot, she said the same thing Billie had said: “That’s ridiculous. That doesn’t even make sense!”

  Frank’s old boss, Richard Raley, took the stand too. Like Billie Earl Johnson, Raley was dressed in an orange jumpsuit. He was in jail on prescription-drug-related charges. But what he told the jury about was the millions of dollars that Frank had stolen from him. The district attorney called an expert witness—a Secret Service agent—to back Raley up, and the agent testified about files and money transfers and all of the spreadsheets on Frank Howard’s laptop.

  Then Detective Michael Wall took the stand and led the jury through his whole investigation, detail by painstaking detail.

  The officer who’d arrived at Nancy’s door on the night of the shooting also testified, describing the way she’d looked as he sprinted up the walkway toward her door—and the way she had fallen into his arms once he’d gotten there.

  At one point, the beaded, bloodied blouse that Nancy had worn on the night of the shooting was shown to the jury. Frank couldn’t help wincing as the prosecutor held it up. The district attorney played a recording of Nancy’s frantic 911 call. He brought out the 911 operator herself to testify. Finally, he showed the jury photographs of the crime scene, with Nancy’s blood visible in all the pictures.

  He was like a dog that had gotten ahold of a really good bone. And Nancy Howard’s own testimony was all the more devastating for the cool, even tone she delivered it in.

  She began by describing the night of the shooting—her struggle with her assailant, the cold look in his eyes as she prayed and begged Jesus to save her.

  Then Nancy described the aftermath.

  “God spoke to me and said, ‘Get up, get up,’” she told the jury, “and He gave me the strength to get up.”

  Nancy had rehearsed her testimony several times with the prosecutor. She’d rehearsed it, time and again, in her head. She did not want to cry on the stand. But it was all she could do to keep her voice from cracking as she talked about how it had felt to drag herself out of the garage and through the hallway, and the horror she felt when she looked into the bathroom mirror and saw the “bloody mess” staring back. She described the surgeries she’d had since the shooting—all four of them—and the way her fake eye would fall out of her head, even now, because she lacked the muscles to hold it in place. She talked about the shooting pains she still felt and about losing her senses of taste and smell.

  Faith in God and constant prayer pulled her through the experience, she explained.

  Finally, Nancy had talked about Frank, who was sitting a few feet away, with a pained look on his face and his hands folded in front of him.

  She talked about meeting Frank in his father’s church in San Marcos. About how much she had loved his big, lopsided smile. About the way they fell in love and courted, for eleven months, before marrying in that same church. Looking right into his eyes she said, “Frank and I had a great marriage. It wasn’t a perfect marriage. But we had a strong relationship.”

  Was there anything, in the months and weeks that led up to the shooting, that would have led Nancy to believe that Frank could be capable of such a thing?

  Looking over at the man who had been her husband, Nancy met Frank’s eyes for the first time since the trial had begun. He was smiling at her now—that same old lopsided smile—and she shook her head and said, “Nothing.”

  Chapter 43

  The Court

  Frank never did testify in his own defense. His lawyers would not risk it, letting him up in the witness stand for the district attorney to savage. They’d staked everything instead on the argument that Billie had blackmailed Frank over his affair, then taken it upon himself to shoot Nancy.

  But slowly, systematically, the district attorney’s office poked enough holes in that story to sink the Titanic. And all the while, the office was building its own mountain of evidence.

  There was forensic evidence, gathered at the crime scene. The facts of the shooting were as firmly established as they could have been.

  There was the evidence that suggested—all but proved—that Frank Howard had embezzled millions of dollars from Richard Raley. Coupled with Suzanne’s testimony about the affair, this established a motive for Frank’s actions: Any divorce court judge worth their salt would have discovered the stolen monies immediately, traced them back to Richard Raley, and uncovered Frank’s financial crimes.

  Frank had gotten in so deep, the DA said, he couldn’t have risked a divorce. He could have stayed with Nancy, of course. But Frank wasn’t willing to do that. And so, the only alternative, as Frank had seen it, was murder.

  Finally, there was the testimony that Billie and Stacey had given—testimony that had been backed up with jailhouse conversations Billie and Frank had had during Billie’s various stays in jail. Those jailhouse calls had all been recorded. And on the recordings, which the DA played for the jury, Frank did not sound at all like a man who’d been blackmailed.

  “So this thing that we’re talking about,” Frank would say, over and over again, in the course of these conversations. “When are you going to be able to do it?”

  “What you heard there, time and again, had nothing at all to do with blackmail,” the prosecutor explained to the jury after playing the last recording. “Clear as day, it was the voice of a man who was contracting another man for a job. In response, Billie Earl Johnson would say, ‘Soon, man, soon.’ What you’re hearing there, time and again, is a man who keeps putting off doing the job. Every one of these conversations backs up everything that Billie Earl Johnson said on the stand.”

  The sound of Frank implicating himself, directly and repeatedly, set the district attorney up perfectly for his closing argument.

  * * *

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the DA began. “The case before you could not be any more clear. After twenty-eight years of marriage, John Frank Howard hatched a plot to have his wife killed. He hired Billie Earl Johnson, a habitual criminal from East Texas, to kill her. And on August 18, 2012, Nancy Howard was attacked in her home—attacked viciously—by a gunman who shot her in the face and left her for dead.”

  Frank sat impassively through the district attorney’s opening salvo. Nancy’s eye followed the DA as he walked, back and forth, in front of the jury box. But like Frank, she betrayed no emotion. The trial had been grueling for her. Testifying against Frank had been the hardest thing she’d ever done, and seeing her own children sitting behind Frank—supporting their father over her—had been harder still. But the end was in sight now, and Nancy had put her trust in the Lord. Whatever verdict the jury came back with would be a part of His plan.

  “Miraculously,” the DA continued, “Nancy Howard survived. She will never be the same as she was before the shooti
ng. She’s told you, in her own words, about the pain and suffering she’s endured already and will continue to endure throughout her life. She described the wounds that will never heal. And along with those wounds, Nancy Howard will have to live the knowledge that her own husband—the father of her three children—stayed with her, under the same roof, for more than two years, while having an affair with another woman and planning to have his wife murdered.

  “Now, you might ask, why murder? Why didn’t John Frank Howard simply obtain a divorce from his wife? Part of the reason has to do with his reluctance to disclose his affair with Suzanne Leontieff. In Carrollton, Howard was seen as a pillar of the community. A churchgoing man who sang in the choir—quite literally, a choirboy.

  “He did not want his family, friends, and neighbors to find out about the double life he was leading. And, as you’ve heard, that double life was doubly complicated, because for several years, Howard had been embezzling funds from his employer, Richard Raley.

  “I say ‘funds.’ But the actual amount that we’re talking about is millions of dollars. Millions that John Frank Howard used to maintain yet another life—a triple life he was leading. As Frank Howard, he was the churchgoing Texan I told you about just a moment ago, as well the lying, philandering husband that Suzanne Leontieff fell in love with in California. But in his third life, as ‘Mr. John,’ he was a man who hatched elaborate fantasies about the ways in which his own wife could be murdered. Fantasies that involved baseball bats, house fires, even the murders of innocent bystanders. Fantasies that he fully intended to go through with, and did go through with in the end.

  “Given this triple life, John Frank Howard felt that he simply could not afford a divorce. Not because he had no money. But because a divorce would have laid his finances out for all to see and show the world how he’d gotten that money. If that had happened, we might all still be gathered here today. The only difference would be, we’d be judging this man as a thief, instead of a murderer.

  “But John Frank Howard did decide to commit murder and hired Billie Earl Johnson to carry that murder out for him—to shoot Nancy Howard, in cold blood, in her own home, while he was in California, cavorting with his mistress in Lake Tahoe.”

  Frank remained impassive as the DA went on to catalog the evidence that had been filed against him and summarize the testimony of the witnesses who had been called. Sitting next to his lawyer, he tried to let the DA’s words wash past him. They were just words. It would be up to the jury to decide whether or not to believe them. And the last word belonged to Frank’s own lawyer.

  * * *

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you’ve heard the state make its long, convoluted case against my client,” Frank’s lawyer said after a short recess the judge had called.

  “It’s a ridiculous case, a ridiculous story, about a suburban accountant: a family man who grew up in the church and never committed a crime in his life. Suddenly—overnight, the district attorney would have you imagine—this family man becomes a coldhearted criminal. A criminal who spends several years plotting to destroy his own family.

  “Now, we all know that Frank Howard had an affair. That’s not a point of contention today. That’s not what Frank Howard’s on trial for. Like the rest of us, he’s made mistakes. Like all of us, he’s a sinner. But even the district attorney knows there’s no logical connection between Frank Howard’s love affair and the terrible thing that happened to Nancy Howard. The district attorney knows there’s not one shred of physical evidence that links Frank Howard to his wife’s shooting. He knows that Frank Howard was in California on the night that shooting took place. In fact, he’s got so little to go on, he’s had to trot actual criminals out to do what criminals tend to do—lie. And those lies are the basis of the state’s entire case against Frank Howard.”

  Frank had not turned his head once during the DA’s closing argument. He did not turn it now. But suddenly he could feel Nancy’s gaze on the back of his neck and imagined her, sitting a few feet away, judging him.

  For many years now, Frank had thought that Nancy was weak—not much more than a weight around his ankles. But Nancy’s testimony had changed his mind. Seeing how calm she’d remained up on the stand. How put together she’d seemed as she walked the jury through the sordid details of the shooting. Now, as his lawyer addressed the jury, Frank looked inside of himself for the faith he’d seen Nancy exhibit and found himself praying for the same kind of strength.

  “You heard from Billie Earl Johnson, a drug addict who’s spent his whole life in and out of prison and only testified here in exchange for a reduced sentence,” Frank’s lawyer was saying. “You’ve heard from another drug addict, Richard Raley, who told improbable stories about millions of dollars that Frank Howard stole. Somehow, the district attorney would have you believe that there’s a link between this money that you heard Raley talking about and the shooting of Nancy Howard. What I want to ask you now is, how in the world does that make any sense?

  “What I want to ask is, why would a man who’s already had one divorce decide to murder his second wife, instead of simply divorcing her too? A family man, like Frank Howard, who’d been in his marriage for going on thirty years. A man who had three loving children—all of whom testified on his behalf. A man who slipped in his marriage, as some of us do. But who loved his wife, stuck by her side, and saw her through the terrible aftermath of the shooting? The reason Frank Howard didn’t obtain a divorce from his wife is that he didn’t want to divorce her.

  “Now, we’ll get down to details in a moment. This is an extremely convoluted case, the case that the government’s making. It’s so convoluted, it might take us a while to untangle. So before we do, let’s stop for a moment and look at the much simpler facts, insofar as they pertain to the actual circumstances leading up to the shooting of Nancy Howard.”

  As his lawyer laid out the facts, Frank was impressed with his delivery. No longer praying, he hung on to the lawyer’s every word. And as he looked up, Frank saw that the men and the women gathered there to sit in judgment of him were doing the same.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, before we get to the details, which will exonerate my client once and for all, let me ask you: Which story is more believable? Which one’s in line with everything you’ve heard about the characters involved? And, because in my experience as a criminal attorney, simple explanations are the ones that always tend to be right, let me ask you one more thing: Which story is simpler?”

  * * *

  It’s a strong argument, Frank thought when his lawyer was done. Strong and simple, like the lawyer had said. The district attorney had talked about double lives, triple lives. But who’d ever heard of somebody leading a triple life? Just a few years earlier, Frank himself wouldn’t have believed it to be possible. Would he have been capable of an affair? Of course. With Frank, women were always a weakness. But would he have been capable of embezzlement on a grand scale? Of consorting with criminals? Ultimately, would he have been capable of murder?

  If the old Frank Howard had been there, in the jury box, he would not have believed any of it. The old Frank Howard would never have voted to convict.

  But the old Frank Howard was gone. And when the Frank Howard that remained scanned the jurors’ faces, not one of them met his eye. The middle-aged juror in sensible shoes was looking down at her lap. The middle-aged man who’d worn a three-piece suit to every day of the trial was glancing back and forth between Frank’s lawyer and the thick notepad that he’d been scribbling in. The girl who taken time off from her job as a dental hygienist (she had the same job as Frank’s mistress, Suzanne, and had taken a special interest in Suzanne’s testimony) stared off to the side, as if something more interesting were happening in the courtroom’s far corner.

  Frank tried once more to catch their eye. Once again, none of them—not even the alternate jurors—would meet his gaze. And as Frank’s lawyer wrapped up his concluding argument, and the jurors filed, slowly, out of the courtroom
, Frank thought that he saw a look of firm, fixed determination on each of the juror’s faces.

  In Frank’s estimation, none of this was a good sign.

  Chapter 44

  Frank

  The jury deliberated for just two hours before coming back with its verdict:

  Guilty.

  Two hours! Frank’s lawyer had told him that it would take the jurors at least a few hours to simply go over the charges. What this meant, then, was that they hadn’t had to deliberate at all.

  Nancy’s expression was impossible to read. She sat stock-still, with her hands in her lap, staring straight ahead into the distance. But Frank’s children, who had sat behind their father throughout the trial and not on Nancy’s side of the courtroom, were visibly angry. They stormed out of the courtroom without saying a word to their mother.

  Nancy knew they would blame her for not having done more to help Frank beat the charges. But what more could she have done? Every word Nancy had said on the stand was true. It had been a fair trial. Frank’s lawyers had done the best they could have done, given what they’d had to work with. And, in the end, the jury had made up its mind. There would be an appeal, Nancy was sure. Another trial. She would see Frank again. But as she looked over at him in the courtroom, Nancy saw something else. Her husband, Frank Howard, was gone. The man sitting in his chair now was someone else—a stranger.

  It was John Howard that Nancy was looking at now.