Presumed Guilty

This is another story that, like my previous story 'A View From the Bottom' and others, draws from my personal experience. This time it is a wife who accused me, wrongly and often, of having affairs, and would launch into a screaming, sometimes public, tirade. While you may think these incidents are unreal, believe me they are very real. Other elements of the story are from my imagination and should not be taken as perfect in every way, I may, and probably will, get it wrong. I use these elements as a vehicle in a romance, the getting of two people together. Whether the romance is long lasting, or short-lived, it is still a romance. CM

*

"Don't lie to me!" The words were hurled at me from a distance of around ten centimetres. "You have been fucking Paige!" Paige was her younger sister and I wasn't fucking her.

"I have not been fucking her, I don't know where you got that idea from." I said as calmly as I could. This had been going on for the almost all of the five years of our married life, these accusations of infidelity borne of her insane jealousy.

"She told me! That's how I know you've been fucking her!"

I have tried to convince her that she should seek treatment for her jealousy before she really goes off the rails and ends up needing psychiatric care. These moments are balanced out by her loving nature at other times, a loving nature that encourages me to persevere with our marriage, but at times like this I begin to seriously wonder why I bother.

"I have not been fucking Paige. I am not going to stay here and listen to your irrational jealousy, I'm going for a drive while you cool down."

"That's right, you're going for a drive, straight over to her place to cry on her shoulder and tell her what a bitch her sister is, and then she'll get all sympathetic and caring and fuck you."

"Look, if it puts your mind at ease, why don't you call her and you can talk to her until I get back. That way you'll know that I've been telling the truth."

"Don't worry, I will, I'm not going to let you bluff me."

"Take care of yourself and I'll see you in a little while." I would have kissed her but the look on her face told me not to bother. This was the last time I saw Emily alive.

My stress relief driving course took me up into the hills on winding country roads, where even the speed limit can be testing in places. I found that the combination of having to concentrate on my driving, and the adrenalin rush that this brought on, took my mind off my problems, and when I turned back it gave me time to think. My thoughts bore no resemblance to what waited for me when I turned into my street.

There were two cars out front of my house, both with 'red and blues' flashing, and there was an ambulance backed up in the driveway, also with flashing lights.

I pulled up out front and walked up to the front door, there was a policeman standing beside the door who blocked my path. "You can't go in there sir."

"Why not, it's my house?" What was going on. "What's happening here?"

"Just then another policeman came out of the house. "Mr. Holland?"

"Yes, what's happened, why won't you tell me what's happened?"

"I'm Detective Sergeant Peterson, would you come this way sir." He led me into our bedroom. Emily's naked body was stretched across the bed, I assumed that she was dead because no-one was making any attempt to revive her."

"What happened here?" I was shocked at what I saw.

"That's what we thought that you might be able to tell us."

Alarm bells were clanging in my brain, surely they don't think that I had anything to do with this.

"I'm afraid that I know nothing of this, she was fine when I left here about an hour ago."

"Where have you been for the past hour?"

"Well, you see the thing is, we were having an argument and I left her here while I went for a drive to let her calm down." I realised the moment I said it, that they would now elevate me to the top of the list of suspects, a long list of one.

"How long ago did you leave" Peterson asked.

"About an hour ago, give or take a few minutes, I didn't actually look at the time but I remembered that the news had just started on the car radio, so it must have been on the hour."

"That would make it fifty-two minutes ago." He looked at his watch and wrote this in his little book.

"Now this argument, what was that about?"

"She accused me of having an affair with Paige, that's her sister."

"And you of course denied this?"

"Of course."

"Were you having an affair with this Paige woman?"

"No!"

"Of course you wouldn't admit it even if you were, would you?" He asked. Well he asked me, but I got the impression that it was a statement to himself.

"Tell me sir, who packed the dishwasher and set it going?"

"I did, why?"

"Very convenient."

"What has this got to do with Emily's death, come to that, how did she die?"

"We believe that she was poisoned, and by putting the dishes into the dishwasher, any chance we might have of finding traces of the poison, or fingerprints have been effectively erased. "I think Mr. Holland, that you should accompany us to the station. I am arresting you on suspicion of murdering your wife Emily Holland, anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence against you,"

"Yeah, I know, I can contact my lawyer and all that."

"I'm sorry sir, but I have to tell you your rights in full."

"Get on with it then." He did, and then he put handcuffs on me and led me to a waiting police car. To the neighbours and onlookers, I was guilty, it's hard to look innocent when you're being led off in cuffs.

I was formally charged and I was allowed to call my lawyer who came as soon as he could.

George McTiernan and I sat in an interview room. "First things first, did you do it?"

"No."

"Right, now that's out of the way, let's get down to the nitty-gritty. What evidence do they have for reaching the conclusion that you're guilty?"

"Emily and I had one of our regular arguments this morning, and I went for a drive to calm down and give her a chance to calm down. When I got back she was dead and the police were there. Before I left I had stacked the dishwasher and turned it on, they say it was to erase any evidence."

"When did you do that, was it before or after the argument?"

"Before, why?"

"How long does it take to complete the full cycle?"

"About an hour and a half."

"Was it running when you got home?"

"No, but I don't know when it would have finished. Is this important?"

"It could be very important. Do you feel up to being grilled by the police?"

"Let's get it over with." He pushed a button on the desk and a couple of minutes later Detective Sergeant Peterson and Constable Stevens arrived and sat opposite us.

"Mr Holland, when we spoke to you earlier, you mentioned that you had been having an argument with your wife, is this correct?"

"Yes."

"And this was because she had accused you of having an affair with your wife's sister Paige, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Were you having an affair with her?"

"No, I've already told you that."

"Would it interest you to know that we have spoken to Paige Middleton, and she has told us that you were in fact having an affair."

"We weren't."

"What possible reason would she have of saying that you were?"

"I don't know, I get on well with her but the very thought of having an affair with her has never entered my head."

"So you say. Tell me, why did you turn on the dishwasher?"

"Because it was full."

"While you were on your drive, did anyone see you?"

"Hundreds of people would have seen me but I don't expect that any of them would remember me."

"I thought that you might have stopped for fuel somewhere."

"No, I had plenty of fuel and didn't need to stop."

He asked several more rather innocuous questions before telling me that I would be remanded in custody until a court hearing in the morning and that he would be opposing bail.

"I'll see you in the morning." George said as he stood up. "I'll do a little fishing and see what I can come up with."

"Thanks George."

"Come with me sir." Sergeant Peterson said as he led me to the front desk where the rest of the formalities took place.

Prison cells are not designed to raise the spirits of the prisoner. I lay on the bunk and tried to think what had happened and who could have killed Emily. No inspiration came.

Some time later the flap in the door clanged open and a tray was slid in, on it was my cordon bleu evening meal. It remained on the tray untouched. I had no appetite for the muck that was on the tray.

The committal hearing was brief, the police presented their case, accusing me of killing my wife, when asked, I pleaded 'Not guilty' and I was committed. The police asked that I be held in custody, George opposed this and applied for bail, the police objected to this application, the Magistrate set bail at fifty thousand dollars, George agreed to this, the police were unhappy, a trial date was set in three weeks and the matter was adjourned.

"What are you going to do?" George asked as we left the courthouse through the milling crowd of media each trying to get me to answer their inane question.

"Did you murder your wife?" Some clown asked. Do they think that I'm totally stupid enough to admit it even if I had?

"No comment."

George stepped in. "My client is innocent of this charge and we will prove his innocent if this ever gets to trial, which I very much doubt, because what little evidence the police have will not hold up in court."

He drove me home to my now empty house. I set about tidying up the mess left by the police, the finger print powder was almost impossible to get off without using harsh cleaners. They'd emptied the dishwasher but left everything lying around, which was probably just as well because I had to wash them again.

I had just emerged from the shower when the front door bell rang. It was Paige. "Hi Matt, I hope that I'm not bothering you, can I come in?"

"Sure." I stood back and let her in.

"I just dropped by to see how you were holding up."

"Tell me one thing, did you tell the police that we were having an affair?"

"No, I haven't spoken to the police. Why, did they tell you that I had?"

"Yes, they told me that they'd spoken to you, and you told them that we were having an affair."

"I can't for the life of me understand why they would do that?"

"Did you tell Emily that we were having an affair?"

"No, I told her that I'd met someone but wouldn't tell her who it was, she must have assumed that it was you."

"Can I get you something, a cup of coffee?"

"Sure, let me help you." She filled the kettle and pushed the go button while I got a couple of cups from the cupboard and the coffee from the pantry.

We sat and sipped, both of us for a moment lost in our thoughts, me reliving the sight of Emily's lifeless body stretched across the bed, she probably having thoughts of the sister so callously taken from us. "I'm going to miss her, she wasn't the easiest sister to live with, but I don't know whether I can live without her."

"What do you mean when you say that she wasn't the easiest sister to live with?"

"Well, she had this jealous streak, even with me, she was jealous of my achievements, she was jealous of the men I dated, she was even jealous of my freedom, I think in a way that was why she got so angry with you, she wanted her freedom and thought that if she made life difficult for you that you'd leave her. She couldn't face the stigma attached to her leaving you."

"Do you think that she may have been seeing someone?"

"Why would you ask that?"

"It's just that I can't think of any reason why she would want to break up our marriage, I can't see her as wanting to live on her own, she wasn't the type to do that, she would have prepared for the future, and that could mean her backup plan of another man lined up already."

"No, I can't see her doing that."

"Why not?"

"She doesn't have the guts to go behind your back with another man."

"I'm not sure about that, she's been a little pre-occupied lately, as if something was bothering her."

"So you think it was something other than your supposed affair with me?"

"Yes, I wasn't aware that she was thinking about me having an affair with you, but I think it was something else."

"She never said anything to me, and I think that she'd tell me if she was seeing someone."

"I don't know, I don't know what to think, and now I have the police who are convinced of my guilt."

"If you feel the need to talk to someone, just give me a call, okay?"

"Oh, sure, thanks Paige, you've been a great help already."

"That's what sisters are for." She stood up and bent over to kiss me. "I'll let myself out." And she was gone.

I sat and thought about how I could clear my name and then it hit me, my Sat Nav. I rang George and asked him to come over.

"What is it?"

"Come with me." I led him outside to where my car had sat since I got home. I opened the door (I hadn't locked it and it was still there, amazing.) I turned the ignition on and waited for the Sat Nav to boot up.

"What are you doing?"

"You'll see." The screen burst into life and went through the usual routine of loading the maps until the main menu opened. I pushed a button. "Look," I said, pointing to the screen, "that's the trip log with details of my drive yesterday, it gives not only the number of Kilometres down to two decimal places, but the running average and overall average speed as well as the highest speed that I drove at. You will notice that the running average and overall average are very close, this means that I stopped only for traffic lights and turns, no major stops. From this information we can get a pretty good estimation of how long I was driving."

"How do we convince them that this is actual evidence?"

"It sets a time line, and helps me account for my movements from the time I left the house to the time I returned."

"We need to preserve this, how do we do that?"

"By taking a photo of the screen using a camera with the time and date stamp, and I just so happen to have one of those. I have the feeling that if I give the police access to this evidence they might just accidentally erase the information."

"Do it, and then we contact the good Sergeant and let him impound the car."

While I took the necessary photographs George contacted the Police Station. "Sergeant Peterson, it's George McTiernan, Matthew Holland's lawyer, my client has remembered that his car is fitted with a Sat Nav that records trip data, and we intend to use that to prove that he was away from his home for forty-nine minutes, this establishes an alibi for the time that Emily was killed."

"We will need to impound the vehicle so that we can verify that information. I will send a police tow truck to pick it up." The evidence lasted less than five minutes after the tilt tow truck arrived. We expected that the car would be winched onto the flat-bed, instead the tow truck driver drove it onto the truck, effectively wiping the last trip data from the Sat Nav.

"I hope that Detective Inspector Peterson didn't tell him to drive it onto the truck." I said as the driver began to place the shackles onto the car.

George walked over to him a spoke to him for a minute before the driver drove away. "He was not told to winch it on so he decided to drive it onto the tray."

"This could prove interesting, apart from wanting me to be guilty, I wonder if there could be any other reason for Peterson's actions."

"I'm going to have fun finding out in a couple of days when we get to court."

"How did she die, do we know that?"

"It was poisoning, it was something very potent administered orally, this is why they're convinced of your guilt, you turned the dishwasher on destroying any evidence. But it now appears that you haven't."

"But how can we establish the time line?"

"Apparently they received a call from a neighbour reporting a disturbance, this call would have been logged so we'll know roughly when the argument started and when it finished. We know that the dishwasher was finished its cycle when you arrived home. Now the poison that they say was used is very quick acting, it takes less than a minute to cause a death that appears to all intents and purposes to be a heart attack. If you started the dishwasher before the argument began you could not have destroyed the evidence after she ingested it because you weren't there when she died."

"Who could have done this? And what was the motive?"

"I don't know, but what you have to worry about is proving your innocence and to do that we have to cast serious doubts over any evidence that they put forward to show that you had the key elements, motive, opportunity and method. The opportunity we have covered, as for motive, I think we're pretty safe unless they come up with something like the phony admission by Paige, if she says you were having an affair with her we could be in strife. As for method, unless you have access to this poison that I don't know about they'll have their work cut out. Our best bet is to convince the Magistrate that you have neither of those elements and ask that it be thrown out of court."

Who could have done this and why? My mind drifted back to when I first met Emily. It was seven years ago. . . .

*

"Hi." She had just sat next to me on the QANTAS jumbo at Heathrow. She was much better than the usual passenger that I was forced by circumstances I neither understood, nor had any control over, on these long-haul flights from London to Sydney via Hong Kong.

"Hi, are you going all the way or just to Hong Kong?"

"All the way." She smiled at me to reassure me that she would be the perfect passenger.

"Good, I'm Matthew by the way, Matthew Holland."

"Emily, Emily Middleton. Is this a business trip or pleasure for you?"

"A bit of both, I had business in London and took the opportunity to do something that I had promised myself when I was a kid. I went on a tour of the Morgan car factory."

"Oh." She said it like she couldn't understand why anyone would want to waste time doing that.

"I enjoyed it, it was interesting to see where my car was built, to see those tradesmen forming the body panels by hand, it's a lost art. How about you, was your trip business or pleasure?"

"Business, I'm afraid."

"Who do you work for, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I work for the Government." She caught the puzzled look on my face. "I was lucky to get upgraded to First Class, the thought of spending all that time crammed in cattle class was just too horrible to contemplate."

We talked for a while and after an hour she nodded off and her head dropped onto my shoulder. I tapped her shoulder. "Would you like to lay the seat back to get more comfortable?"

"No, I'm quite comfortable enough, thank you." She closed her eyes and left me to dream about this beautiful young woman who was comfortable with her head on my shoulder. This was so much better that the usual overweight business man snoring his head off into the night. I eventually went to sleep myself.

"Matthew, wake up." I opened my eyes to see her face looking at me. One of the cabin crew stood behind the dinner cart. "What would you like?"

"What do you have?" I asked the stewardess. She rattled of the list of exciting menu selections.

"I'll have the chicken thank you and a white wine." The dinner tray was handed over along with one of those ridiculous little bottles of wine and a plastic wine 'glass'. Oh well, haute cuisine it wasn't, but it was better than nothing. Emily selected the same and we munched our way through the meal in silence.

After the remnants were collected Emily turned to me. "Don't take this as an insult, but do you mind if I check to see if there's a decent in-flight movie on?"