Did She Do It?

Did She Do It?

Chapter 1

Alice, my wife of 9 years, and I were reading news off our respective tablets having finished Saturday morning breakfast when the doorbell rang. Alice jumped a little at the interrupting chime. I'd noticed that she'd been a bit nervous and clingy for the past week or so, her clinginess leading to some mighty good sex. Much better than the dull, uninspired sex we'd had during the previous 6 months.

"I'll get it," I said, setting my iPad on the table and heading for the door. Opening the door, I found two men flashing badges identifying them as police officers.

"Hello, can I help you?" I inquired.

"Mr. Brian Campbell?" the larger of the two asked, I nodded.

"We're officers Stevens and Peters from the Austin Police department.

Sir, we're here to execute a search warrant," he said handing me a set of papers.

"A search warrant?" I confusingly exclaimed. "For what?"

"Sir, its all explained in the warrant, we'll give you a few moments to read through it. You can also call your attorney if you feel the need. We would also like to speak to your wife, Alice Campbell, if she is available."

"She's in the kitchen," I said as I ushered the two officers into the foyer as I read through the warrant, finding that indeed the warrant was directed to my wife Alice; and specifically to any firearms that she might own or possess and any property that may have belonged to a Mr. Conrad O'Brien.

Walking with the officers back to the kitchen I asked, "Does this have to do with that rich guy that was found dead last week? My wife works for one of his companies, but we don't know him, I've never even met the guy." Saying that, I looked up and saw my wife's face blanch and her eyes open wide like saucers. If they wanted a picture of a "guilty face" they needn't look any further.

"Alice, do you know what this is about?" I said with an edge to my voice. "They have a warrant to search our home and the warrant implies that you have something to do with Conrad O'Brien's murder."

"Sir, please let us ask the questions. If you'd please take a seat somewhere outside the kitchen, we have a few questions we'd like to ask Mrs. Campbell."

"Is she under arrest?" I asked. "I really think she should have legal counsel present before you ask her a bunch of questions. Alice, do you want me to call my attorney and see if he can get someone to represent you?"

"Yes, please," Alice meekly said, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

"That is her right, of course" one of the officers said. "Why don't we set up an interview for next week, right now we're just collecting evidence, no one is under arrest. Actually, we'd like to interview you as well Mr. Campbell, we can do it down at the station at the same time that we interview your wife. Of course, you are entitled to legal representation during the interview if you so choose. One more thing, sir, do you have any firearms in the house that we should be aware of?"

"First, I'm happy to talk to you here rather than down at the station. I never met O'Brien and have nothing to hide. Second, yes, I own a few guns, all of them are locked in my gun safe except for one of my handguns that is in the drawer of my bedside table."

"Could Officer Peters accompany you to retrieve the gun in the bedside table and then could you open your gun safe so that we can have a look?"

Knowing I didn't have much of a choice and wanting to appear cooperative I responded, "Sure, follow me its right this way," leading Officer Peters to the master bedroom. Once there I pointed at my bedside table, "Its in the top drawer." With gloves on, Officer Peters opened the drawer and carefully removed my Taurus Judge using an evidentiary rod and placing the gun into an evidentiary bag.

"Thank you, sir. Could you please take me to your gun safe?"

"Sure, right this way," I said leading him to my office. Once there, I entered the combination and opened the large, heavy door of the gun safe.

"Sir, we are going to take all of the firearms to our lab for testing, we'll give you a receipt for the items we remove before we leave. Once the items have been cleared, they will be returned to you."

"Alright," I said knowing I didn't have a choice in the matter. Peters spoke into a small microphone, "Michaels, I need you and your team to come in here and start inventorying the owner's firearms."

"Alright, boss, be right there," I heard voiced through Peter's speaker. In moments, Michaels and his team were in my study with evidentiary containers and bags to inventory and remove the guns.

I looked at Peters and he nodded, then he cleared his voice. "Alright guys, we're here to search the premises for any items listed in the warrant. In particular, we're looking for any additional firearms. Michaels will assign each of you a search area. Let's get busy!"

For the next several hours, the team spread out and thoroughly searched our house and our two cars that were in the garage. While they weren't destructive, our house was certainly a mess when the search was called off. We waited about 10 minutes while the CSI team and the two officers conferred at their vehicles.

I kept looking at Alice, giving her my best "what the hell is going on" look. Officer Peters then knocked on the door. I answered and he handed me a receipt and thanked me for our cooperation with the search. As if I had a choice! I nodded, looking through the receipt noting that all they took were firearms, five long guns and four handguns.

He asked if he could speak to Mrs. Campbell for a moment, I again ushered him into our home. Alice was still at the kitchen table. Her head was down and it looked like she might have been crying. The officer gently said, "Mrs. Campbell?" to which she looked up. He handed her a copy of his business card and said to make sure she set up an interview at the station sometime this week when her attorney was available. She nodded and said "OK."

He then asked if he and his partner could interview me in my study and that I had a right to have a lawyer if I wanted. I said I didn't need an attorney as I'd never met O'Brien and I had nothing to hide. The interview was thorough but didn't last more than an hour since I'd never even met O'Brien. As the husband, they wanted to see if I might have an axe to grind with the asshole who was apparently banging my wife and check out any alibi that I offered. They asked about my whereabouts on the night O'Brien was murdered. I asked which night it happened and they told me the date, I opened my iPhone and looked at my calendar.

"I was visiting a friend of mine, Lee Rogers, out at his place. Alice told me that she was going to spend the night with her aunt in Fredericksburg, so I called Lee and he invited me over." When asked what we did, I said that we had dinner with Lee's wife Pat, we talked for a while after dinner, and then Lee took me up in his private plane as he is an avid pilot. I explained that his neighborhood, Breakaway Park Fly-in Community in Cedar Park, has a private runway and many of the residents, including Lee, have their own private planes and hangars. It appeared the officers knew of the neighborhood. I told him that we took off sometime around 8pm and returned about an hour or so later. They asked who flew the plane and I said that I was not a pilot, but Lee had been a pilot for years in the military so I was quite comfortable flying with him. They indicated that they might need to corroborate my story so I gave him Lee's full name, address and phone number. Later, I talked to Lee and found out that the officers interviewed Lee and Pat at their home who both corroborated my story. They also provided the officers with surveillance footage that they obtained from the HOA. The footage was captured by a camera pointed at the runway showing planes as they took off and landed at the airstrip. The footage confirmed that that Lee's plane took off at 8:05PM and returned at 9:15PM.

The officers thanked me for my cooperation and left. I returned to the kitchen and confronted my wife. "What the hell was that all about? You work for one of his companies, but I didn't think that you had ever met this O'Brien asshole? What the hell is going on, Alice? Were you having an affair with that asshole?" She looked up at me, her lower lip quivering and tears shedding from her eyes. She wailed, "I'm so sorry" as she jumped from her seat and bolted to our bedroom, closing and locking the door behind her.

Chapter 2

The next week was a whirlwind of activity. The local news stations found out about the executed search warrant and hounded Alice and I for an interview or comments. Conrad O'Brien's murder was the top local news. We said nothing, just like her attorney told us. My attorney had referred Alice to Ted Walker, a criminal defense attorney in town. For some reason, Alice didn't want me to be in the meeting she scheduled with Ted for Monday afternoon. Something sure wasn't right.

O'Brien had made millions in software and on-line ventures, his companies once employing over a thousand people locally before moving much of his development work to India several years ago to cut costs. Still, he was frequently in the news, often for some type of philanthropy, and he still employed quite a few people, including Alice. Rumor was, however, that old Conrad was a womanizer and he especially liked to bed attractive married women.

Walker arranged for a sit-down interview with Alice at the police station for Friday morning at 9:30AM. She relayed that Ted thought that the police were just fishing for information and that he doubted that anything would come of it.

Well, Ted couldn't have been more wrong. I received a call from a distraught Alice around 11:30 on Friday morning telling me that after the interview, the police placed her under arrest and charged her with Conrad O'Brien's murder. She was booked and put into a cell of the women's jail downtown with a bail hearing scheduled for the following Monday. I asked if I could come to the bail hearing and was told that it was not open to the public.

Late Monday afternoon, I received a call from Alice, sounded like she had been crying. She said her bail was set at $500,000 and she asked me to post bail for her. Since I'd never been involved in the criminal justice system, I Googled bail and learned that a bail bondsman would likely charge a 10% non-refundable fee for bail. Crap, $50,000 that we'd never get back. I had started a successful recruiting business several years ago and we were doing very well financially, but still $50k was a lot of money. I told her before I posted that kind of money, I wanted to meet with her and she needed to be honest with me about what was going on. She agreed, I guess she didn't have much of a choice if she wanted my cooperation. Walker set up an interview for us at an interview room of the jail and said he'd like to be present to explain things.

I arrived at the jail and they checked me over and made sure I didn't have any contraband or weapons, then I was ushered into an interview room usually used by defendants and their attorneys. Walker and Alice were both in the room, Alice was in an orange jumpsuit. It didn't look good on her.

Instead of getting answers directly from Alice, Walker was acting as her mouthpiece. He said that I'd likely learn of the facts anyway so he was prepared to tell me what I wanted to know. He said that O'Brien and Alice had an affair lasting for about six months which only ended at his death. I was shocked with this revelation and angrily looked at Alice. "You fucking whore! No wonder sex with you was so god-damned boring until that prick died, he was ringing your charms, wasn't he? You bitch!" Alice sat their looking stunned and sad at my outburst, bowing her head and crying.

Walker said he understood that this news was upsetting to me and implored me to take a few minutes and calm down. He said that he was certain that, while Alice had an affair with O'Brien, she didn't kill him.

"Really?" I responded, "if you're so damned certain, then why did they arrest her for his murder? They must have some awfully good evidence against her."

Walker went on to explain that the murder took place at O'Brien's 640-acre ranch located in the Texas hill country west of Austin. The house on the ranch was a mini-mansion, smaller than O'Brien's ostentatious abode on Lake Austin but it was still a two-story home with over 5,000 square feet with a pool and a tennis court.

The property had outdoor security cameras equipped with night-vision capabilities that captured any vehicle or foot traffic approaching the house from all angles. The inside had cameras too, but O'Brien only turned those on when he was away and, indeed, those cameras were off when he was killed.

Ted went on to explain that the officers showed surveillance footage of O'Brien's Lamborghini traveling up the lane towards the house at 9pm the night he was murdered. A camera in the house clearly showed him walking in through the garage before he turned off the indoor cameras.

Around 10pm, the outdoor cameras captured Alice's Lexus traveling up the lane and parking outside, clearly showing Alice walking to the front door and letting herself in. I found the level of familiarity with her letting herself inside as unsettling as the rest of the sordid affair. A few minutes later, the same camera captured Alice hurriedly leaving the house and practically running to her car, making a hasty exit.

"Holy shit!" I exclaimed, "it sure as hell looks like she did it." I looked over at Alice, "did you really do it?" I asked.

Her attorney tried to keep her from answering but she didn't heed his advice, "no, I swear to you, I didn't do it! When I walked in I could see him sitting in his recliner, I could see his feet but his back was to me, he didn't answer me when I called so I thought he was sleeping or something, when I came around the chair and looked at him he had a hole in his forehead right between his eyes with blood all down his front. I screamed and panicked and ran back to my car."

"I'm not sure why I should believe you since you've already admitted that you are a cheating, conniving bitch, carrying on a 6-month affair behind my back while I bust my ass giving you a life that most women would love to have. I'm also not sure why I should fork over $50k to bail you out of this joint."

Walker tried to interject some much-needed calmness and logic into the conversation. He explained that, being in a community property state, half of our money was Alice's and that they could obtain the $50k with or without my assistance. In the end, I caved and decided to cooperate, but I made Alice know that regardless of my cooperation we were through. Walker was optimistic that Alice could beat the charges despite her being at O'Brien's house and fleeing the scene without calling the police.

Walker summed up the evidence gathered by the police, "The good news is that ballistics did not match any of the guns from your house as being the murder weapon. Unfortunately, the bad news is that the only people appearing on O'Brien's security footage over the past week were O'Brien and Mrs. Campbell."

Chapter 3

Details of the case were obtained by the media and they turned our lives into a living hell, harassing us outside our home, while we were out, and even outside my office. Some of the questions posed to me painted me as the clueless cuckold, asking if I knew she was having an affair with O'Brien and so on. I guess I was a clueless cuckold. I snapped at the reporters once that I'd never even met O'Brien and I was unaware of any relationship between O'Brien and my wife and I certainly would never condone it.

I kicked Alice out of our bedroom and she was now sleeping in the guest room and using the guest bath. She told me that Walker said that we needed to appear as a united couple so that her public opinion wouldn't be too badly tarnished, perhaps affecting any eventual jury.

"Fuck you, Alice. Now that your boyfriend is dead you want to be a 'united couple,' where was this 'united' attitude when you were stepping out on me and fucking that shit-stain? You know what, after hearing Walker outline the state's evidence, I think you did it... not only are you a conniving cheating bitch but you're also a cold-blooded murderer! I'm glad the state has kept my firearms until the case is over, I can't trust you as far as I can throw your sorry ass. I've even installed a dead-bolt on my bedroom door so you can't get to me while I'm sleeping." In response, she looked with a shocked expression... at least she was getting good at that.

The DA met with Walker and Alice several times to try to work out a plea deal. They hammered out an involuntary manslaughter deal with a 2-year sentence of which she'd have to serve 1 year before being eligible for parole. Why the light sentence? I guess the state's case had a big problem with 'motive' - why would Alice want to kill O'Brien? By all accounts, he was good to her and treated her to nice things, even setting up a secret bank account to which he funneled money. When I found out about her secret account, I insisted she pay me back for the $50k I had fronted for her bail. They also had a problem that, despite their best efforts, they had been unable to find the murder weapon.

While Alice maintained her innocence, Walker implored her to take the deal as the evidence, other than motive and murder weapon, was stacked against her and the plea deal was quite favorable. Why take a chance that a jury would throw the book at her? The jury was not going to sympathize with a woman carrying on a 6-month affair and the cameras showed that only she and O'Brien were at the house. Tearfully, she finally agreed. At court a week later, the judge approved the plea deal and ordered Alice to appear for intake at the women's prison in two weeks. Leaving the courtroom, I had her served with my divorce petition. Nothing like hitting a cheater when she's down.

The day before she was to report to prison, Alice asked if I would sit down and talk with her. She disgusted me and I really didn't want to talk to her so I told her I'd talk to her if, after our discussion, she would agree to sign the divorce petition. She agreed so I had my attorney plan on being at our house at 7pm with his notary.

The divorce was a standard 50-50 split, except she didn't receive any interest in my business, and no alimony (or "maintenance" as they call it in Texas). The combined assets also included the $250K that had been in her secret account given to her by O'Brien. I didn't care that it was "whore money," it worked the same as any other money and helped keep her from clawing at my assets.

"My attorney and his notary are going to be here in an hour, after that time you agree to sign the paperwork, right?"

"Yes, I'll sign the paperwork. Thanks for talking with me. I wanted to tell you that I am so, so sorry for ever getting involved with Conrad. I was at a low point and you were working a lot of hours. We met at a coffee shop and he charmed me, made me feel good about myself at a time when I was feeling like crap. That's no excuse, however. I knew who he was and that he owned the company I worked for. I'd also heard the rumors that he was a womanizer and had a reputation for going after married women. I have to admit that I was flattered that he came after me."

"You're a beautiful woman, I'd be surprised if he didn't chase after you," to which she smiled briefly, appreciating my compliment.

"I also wanted you to know that I never stopped loving you even when I was seeing him. While I was fond of Conrad, I never really loved him and knew that our fling would eventually end. It sounds crazy, but I really thought I could have two men, at least for a while. My affair was never about you and I wanted you to know that we never really talked about you. Early on, he tried disparaging you after we'd just finished and I left rather than spend the night with him. I told him if he ever talked badly about you again, we'd be through. It was after that night that he gave me the account with the $250K."