It wasn’t the first time that Billie had sworn on a Bible. But as far as he could remember, Frank Howard’s trial was the first time that he’d sworn on a Bible and gone on to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
“I knew him as ‘Mr. John,’” Billie said, while pointing at Frank and looking straight at him.
Frank Howard was dressed in a dark business suit, one that was well cut, with expensive stitching. Billie was wearing a prison jumpsuit that itched and chafed. They looked worlds apart. But Billie was determined to catch Frank’s eye. When he did, the look the two men exchanged was significant.
“Let the record show that the witness is pointing to John Franklin Howard,” the prosecutor told the clerk.
This was the first of several nails that Billie and the prosecutor tried to drive into Frank Howard’s coffin.
Methodically, step-by-step, they went through the chronology.
Up in their box, the jurors looked intent and impassive.
“John, Frank, whatever you want to call him. He called me up out of the blue in 2009. I was at home, lying there on the couch. My girlfriend, Stacey, was in the kitchen. And this man said that he’d heard of me, heard I’d be good for the job.”
“Did this man specify what that job was?” the prosecutor asked as Billie wriggled around the witness stand.
“Sure he did. He said he wanted to get rid of his wife. Well, do you think I didn’t jump up off of that couch?”
“What did you tell the man?”
“I told him I didn’t know what he’d heard, or why someone would say that. But if he wanted to meet, we could meet.”
“What year was this, to the best of your recollection?”
“This would have been in 2009.”
“And did you meet this man ‘John’?”
“We met several times,” said Billie.
“And what was discussed in the course of these meetings?”
“The ways in which John wanted me to get rid of his wife.”
One of the jurors—a middle-aged woman who’d worn sensible shoes and cardigans to every day of the trial—snuck a glance at Nancy. She was sitting on the prosecutor’s side of the room, staring straight ahead, betraying no emotion. But at his lawyer’s table, Frank shook his head gently from side to side.
“Specifically, if you don’t mind,” said the prosecutor.
Billie wriggled around in his chair. He glanced over at Nancy, who was still looking straight ahead. He avoided looking at Frank.
“Specifically,” Billie said. “With an ax. With a baseball bat. With a gun. He wanted me to kill her while she was at home, with her book club, or something like that. One time he said I could burn her house down. We also talked about carjackings, muggings, cutting the brakes on her car. If she was going out of town for a conference, she could be killed in her hotel. Or she could be killed out in public, like at a restaurant out with her friends. John didn’t care too much if other folks got in the way, long as none of us got caught afterward.”
The juror in sensible shoes was looking at Frank now. He was shaking his head more vigorously, whispering to his attorney.
“Wait,” the attorney whispered back. “Wait, and he’ll give us our opening.”
“And did you have any intention of following up on any of these plans that John Frank Howard had made?”
For the first time since he’d taken the stand, Billie looked directly at Frank, who met his gaze and glared at him.
“Hell no, I did not,” Billie said.
“So why did you keep talking to Howard?”
“Because every time that we talked, he would give me more money.”
“Money for what?”
“For killing his wife is what he said.”
“Which you never intended to do?”
“No. But I didn’t see that talking about it was some great crime. Not when I never expected to do it. And every time, John would give me more money.”
“How much money?”
“Tens of thousands of dollars. Sometimes more. All in all, I’d say he paid out well over a million in cash and another million in bail bonds.”
“For something you never came close to doing? Why do you think he’d do that?”
“Objection!” Frank’s lawyer called out. “Calls for speculation on the part of the witness.”
But the judge let Billie answer the question.
“Well, sir,” he said. “Have you ever been of two minds about something important? It seems to me that John was that way about Nancy. If I were to guess, I’d say that he was paying me to listen to him talk about killing his wife. The man had money, that much I know. And listening’s not much of a crime.”
* * *
During cross-examination, Frank’s defense lawyer was incredulous. In fact, it was as if he’d looked the word incredulous up in the dictionary and was working his hardest to live up to the definition. He arched his eyebrows, flapped his arms around, and adopted a mocking tone every time he approached the witness stand where Billie was sitting.
“What you’re saying, Mr. Johnson, is that Frank Howard paid you—paid you upwards of two million dollars—to listen to him talk about killing his wife?” he asked.
“Based on the fact that he kept paying and I kept on listening, I would say yes.”
“But killing Nancy Howard was something you never had any intention of doing?”
“No, sir.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
“I don’t care what you believe. It’s the truth.”
Billie’s really hitting his stride now. His whole life, he’d never understood how easy and simple just telling the truth could be. But now he stopped wriggling around in the witness box. Sitting straight up in his seat, looking right at Frank Howard, he felt righteous and spoke forcefully. It’s amazing what the truth can do. Billie wondered why no one had told him about it before.
From here on in, he answered each of the lawyer’s questions with as much conviction a simple “No, sir” can carry:
“Isn’t the real truth that you contacted Frank Howard and not the other way around?”
“No, sir.”
“And that you contacted him because you’d gotten wind of an affair he was having?”
“No, sir.”
“And that you intended to blackmail him, in exchange for keeping what you know about his affair to yourself?”
“No, sir.”
“And that you did, in fact, blackmail Frank Howard? That you blackmailed him for several years? And that when Frank Howard finally stopped paying, you took revenge on him by shooting his wife?”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Billie said, and leaned back in his seat, looking triumphant. But the judge instructed him to answer the lawyer’s question.
“No, sir,” Billie said. “There was never any talk about blackmail or anything like that.”
“Mr. Johnson. Isn’t it true that you’re in prison now on drug-related charges?”
“Yes, sir, that’s true.”
“And that by testifying here today, you’re hoping to lessen your sentence?”
“No, sir.”
“No?”
“I’m here to tell the truth. Whether or not the government sees fit to reduce my sentence, that’s up to the government. I’m not a killer. And I haven’t been charged with anything having to do with the crime we’re talking about today. But what I do know about the Howards is the truth of what happened. That’s what I came here to tell you today.”