“I got a room at the Hampton Inn. I brought a bottle of vodka with me, and I drank the whole thing in my room.”
“When did you go home?”
“The next morning. I checked out of the hotel and was still pretty messed up. I drove home and must have fallen asleep on the den floor, because that’s where I was when Nola found me.”
Jason looked at his sister, realizing that she’d omitted Tyson Cade completely from the story. Was she lying again? Or did she not remember being with Cade?
She’s making it up as she goes along, Jason thought, letting go of her hands and looking at the jury.
“Did you know Jackson Burns?”
“Of course. He’s our next-door neighbor on Buck Island.”
“You heard Ms. Thacker’s testimony a moment ago.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Were you aware that your husband was having an affair with Jackson Burns’s wife, Shandra?”
“No, I was not.”
“No further questions.”
Shay Lankford waded into her cross-examination of Jana with caution. “Ms. Waters, you had an affair with Waylon Pike.”
“Yes.”
“And you also had a relationship with a man named Tyson Cade, didn’t you?”
“Your Honor, I object,” Jason said. “May we approach?”
Conrad gestured to Shay and Jason to come forward. “Mr. Rich?”
“Any questions regarding an alleged affair with Tyson Cade would be a direct violation of your pretrial order.”
“Your Honor, the defendant and the victim both had extramarital affairs,” Shay countered. “It is our position that any relationship with Cade goes straight to the defendant’s motive to kill her husband.”
Judge Conrad scratched his chin and then nodded. “I’m going to allow it.”
Jason took his seat while Shay strode toward the witness stand. “Ms. Waters, did you have a sexual relationship with Tyson Cade?”
“No, that’s not true.”
“Well, you’ll at least admit that you were buying cocaine from Mr. Cade?”
“On the advice of counsel, I’d like to take the Fifth Amendment.”
Shay put her hands on her hips. She asked several more questions about Tyson Cade, and each time Jana pleaded the Fifth. Then the district attorney changed gears.
“You admit you took $15,000 out the day before your husband was murdered?”
“Yes.”
“Because you say you were afraid your husband was going to cut you off?”
“Yes.”
“You knew he was going to divorce you.”
“That’s what he said, but I don’t think he was ever going to follow through with it.”
“But that’s what he told you.”
“Yes.”
Shay slammed her notepad down on the prosecutor’s table. “No further questions.”
“Mr. Rich?” Conrad asked.
“Nothing further.”
Jana walked back to the defense table and sat down.
“Call your next witness.”
“The defense recalls Trey Cowan.”
Jason made it short and sweet with Cowan. “You testified yesterday that you spoke with Waylon Pike quite a bit during your happy hour sessions at the Brick. Was there anyone with Pike when he would meet you at the bar?”
“Yes,” Cowan said. “He was almost always with Jackson Burns.”
“And the conversation you mentioned on the stand yesterday, where Pike was bragging about the deal Jana had offered him to kill her husband for $15,000, was Mr. Burns present for that conversation?”
“Yes, he was.”
79
After a thirty-minute recess, Jason stood to call his last witness.
“The defense calls Mr. Jackson Burns,” Jason said. As Burns took the stand, he looked rather disheveled. His shirttail was hanging out of the back of his jacket, and his hair was uncombed. During the break, Harry had called Burns and asked him to return to the courtroom. When Burns had resisted, Jason’s investigator had reminded the car dealer that he was still under subpoena.
Now here he was, back on the stand.
“Mr. Burns, isn’t it true that your marriage ended in divorce late last year?”
Burns wrinkled his face in confusion. “Yes, what does that have to do with anything?”
Jason walked to the defense table and picked up the file that Izzy had printed off that morning. “According to the petition, it was you who filed for divorce.”
“Yes.”
“But you told me that Shandra divorced you, didn’t you?”