The next witness to disappear was Mr. Bullington. He, like Rita, vanished in the middle of the night, and didn’t stop driving until he checked into the Flamingo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Not only did he have some cash in his pocket, he also had the comfort of knowing that he would not be beaten senseless by the two thugs who’d been following him.
The day before the trial began, Graebel demanded a hearing, and during it howled to the heavens about his vanishing witnesses. Joshua Burch played along and seemed genuinely concerned about what was happening, and he assured the court he knew nothing about it. He was far too smart to get his hands dirty intimidating witnesses.
Burch had laid another trap, one that Graebel walked into. He had convinced the judge to try the cases separately, beginning with the murder of Fortier. The shooting and attempted murder of Rita Luten would go to trial a month later. Rita would be an important witness in the Fortier trial, but her absence would not necessarily derail the proceedings.
Burch knew she would disappear at the last moment, though he never admitted this.
At the hearing, Graebel argued loudly that the forces of evil were at work, his case was being undermined, justice was being thwarted, and so on. Absent proof, though, the judge could do nothing. Since the prosecution had no idea where Rita and Mr. Bullington were at the moment, it seemed unlikely they would be found and hauled back to testify. The trial must go on.
A good murder trial could break up the monotony in any small town, and the courtroom was packed when the chosen twelve took their seats and looked at the lawyers. Pat Graebel went first and fumbled badly. In his defense, it was difficult to say what the State intended to prove when the State had no idea which of its witnesses might disappear next. He relied heavily on the murder weapon and waved the pistol around as if clearing out a saloon in the Wild West. Experts from the state crime lab would testify that the gun was used to kill Earl Fortier and grievously injure Rita Luten. And the same gun was found in the apartment of the defendant, Nevin Noll, along with numerous other weapons.
Sputtering and stammering at the end of his opening, Graebel tried to link decades of corruption and organized crime along their “beloved Coast” to the forces of evil still at work “over there,” but couldn’t tie things together. It was not a good performance in his biggest trial.
Joshua Burch, though, was on center stage in a courtroom where he’d defended many. He wore a light gray seersucker suit, with a matching vest, complete with a pink pocket square, a pocket watch, and a gold chain. Rising from the defense table, he lit a cigar and blew clouds of smoke above the jurors as he paced back and forth.
The State had no proof, no evidence. The State had hauled his client, Nevin Noll, a young man with no criminal record whatsoever, into the courtroom on bogus charges. The law did not require his client to take the stand, but just wait. Mr. Noll was eager to sit right there, take the oath to tell the truth, and tell the jury exactly what he did not do. The charges against him were outrageous. The cops had the wrong guy. The trial was a waste of time because, at that very moment, the man who killed Earl Fortier was out there on the street, probably laughing at the spectacle inside the courthouse.
The State went first and Graebel couldn’t wait to score points with the bloody crime scene photos. The startled jurors passed them around quickly and tried not to gawk. The investigators laid out the apartment and the positions of the bodies. The pathologist spent two hours explaining in excruciating detail what killed Earl Fortier, though it was painfully obvious to the jurors and everyone else that the three bullets to the head did the trick.
Joshua Burch knew better than to argue with an expert and he asked only a few minor questions. Nevin Noll sat next to him and managed to appear confident. The cold, hard stare was gone, replaced by a permanent grin, one kept in place by muscle relaxers. Juror number seven was an attractive young woman of twenty-six and their eyes met a few times.
The serious proof came early on the second day when the State’s ballistics expert pinned the murder weapon squarely on the defendant. There was no way around it. The .22 caliber revolver taken from Noll’s apartment was, without a doubt, the pistol used to kill Earl Fortier and wound Rita Luten.