Frank never did testify in his own defense. His lawyers would not risk it, letting him up in the witness stand for the district attorney to savage. They’d staked everything instead on the argument that Billie had blackmailed Frank over his affair, then taken it upon himself to shoot Nancy.
But slowly, systematically, the district attorney’s office poked enough holes in that story to sink the Titanic. And all the while, the office was building its own mountain of evidence.
There was forensic evidence, gathered at the crime scene. The facts of the shooting were as firmly established as they could have been.
There was the evidence that suggested—all but proved—that Frank Howard had embezzled millions of dollars from Richard Raley. Coupled with Suzanne’s testimony about the affair, this established a motive for Frank’s actions: Any divorce court judge worth their salt would have discovered the stolen monies immediately, traced them back to Richard Raley, and uncovered Frank’s financial crimes.
Frank had gotten in so deep, the DA said, he couldn’t have risked a divorce. He could have stayed with Nancy, of course. But Frank wasn’t willing to do that. And so, the only alternative, as Frank had seen it, was murder.
Finally, there was the testimony that Billie and Stacey had given—testimony that had been backed up with jailhouse conversations Billie and Frank had had during Billie’s various stays in jail. Those jailhouse calls had all been recorded. And on the recordings, which the DA played for the jury, Frank did not sound at all like a man who’d been blackmailed.
“So this thing that we’re talking about,” Frank would say, over and over again, in the course of these conversations. “When are you going to be able to do it?”
“What you heard there, time and again, had nothing at all to do with blackmail,” the prosecutor explained to the jury after playing the last recording. “Clear as day, it was the voice of a man who was contracting another man for a job. In response, Billie Earl Johnson would say, ‘Soon, man, soon.’ What you’re hearing there, time and again, is a man who keeps putting off doing the job. Every one of these conversations backs up everything that Billie Earl Johnson said on the stand.”
The sound of Frank implicating himself, directly and repeatedly, set the district attorney up perfectly for his closing argument.
* * *
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the DA began. “The case before you could not be any more clear. After twenty-eight years of marriage, John Frank Howard hatched a plot to have his wife killed. He hired Billie Earl Johnson, a habitual criminal from East Texas, to kill her. And on August 18, 2012, Nancy Howard was attacked in her home—attacked viciously—by a gunman who shot her in the face and left her for dead.”
Frank sat impassively through the district attorney’s opening salvo. Nancy’s eye followed the DA as he walked, back and forth, in front of the jury box. But like Frank, she betrayed no emotion. The trial had been grueling for her. Testifying against Frank had been the hardest thing she’d ever done, and seeing her own children sitting behind Frank—supporting their father over her—had been harder still. But the end was in sight now, and Nancy had put her trust in the Lord. Whatever verdict the jury came back with would be a part of His plan.
“Miraculously,” the DA continued, “Nancy Howard survived. She will never be the same as she was before the shooting. She’s told you, in her own words, about the pain and suffering she’s endured already and will continue to endure throughout her life. She described the wounds that will never heal. And along with those wounds, Nancy Howard will have to live the knowledge that her own husband—the father of her three children—stayed with her, under the same roof, for more than two years, while having an affair with another woman and planning to have his wife murdered.
“Now, you might ask, why murder? Why didn’t John Frank Howard simply obtain a divorce from his wife? Part of the reason has to do with his reluctance to disclose his affair with Suzanne Leontieff. In Carrollton, Howard was seen as a pillar of the community. A churchgoing man who sang in the choir—quite literally, a choirboy.
“He did not want his family, friends, and neighbors to find out about the double life he was leading. And, as you’ve heard, that double life was doubly complicated, because for several years, Howard had been embezzling funds from his employer, Richard Raley.
“I say ‘funds.’ But the actual amount that we’re talking about is millions of dollars. Millions that John Frank Howard used to maintain yet another life—a triple life he was leading. As Frank Howard, he was the churchgoing Texan I told you about just a moment ago, as well the lying, philandering husband that Suzanne Leontieff fell in love with in California. But in his third life, as ‘Mr. John,’ he was a man who hatched elaborate fantasies about the ways in which his own wife could be murdered. Fantasies that involved baseball bats, house fires, even the murders of innocent bystanders. Fantasies that he fully intended to go through with, and did go through with in the end.
“Given this triple life, John Frank Howard felt that he simply could not afford a divorce. Not because he had no money. But because a divorce would have laid his finances out for all to see and show the world how he’d gotten that money. If that had happened, we might all still be gathered here today. The only difference would be, we’d be judging this man as a thief, instead of a murderer.
“But John Frank Howard did decide to commit murder and hired Billie Earl Johnson to carry that murder out for him—to shoot Nancy Howard, in cold blood, in her own home, while he was in California, cavorting with his mistress in Lake Tahoe.”
Frank remained impassive as the DA went on to catalog the evidence that had been filed against him and summarize the testimony of the witnesses who had been called. Sitting next to his lawyer, he tried to let the DA’s words wash past him. They were just words. It would be up to the jury to decide whether or not to believe them. And the last word belonged to Frank’s own lawyer.
* * *
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you’ve heard the state make its long, convoluted case against my client,” Frank’s lawyer said after a short recess the judge had called.
“It’s a ridiculous case, a ridiculous story, about a suburban accountant: a family man who grew up in the church and never committed a crime in his life. Suddenly—overnight, the district attorney would have you imagine—this family man becomes a coldhearted criminal. A criminal who spends several years plotting to destroy his own family.
“Now, we all know that Frank Howard had an affair. That’s not a point of contention today. That’s not what Frank Howard’s on trial for. Like the rest of us, he’s made mistakes. Like all of us, he’s a sinner. But even the district attorney knows there’s no logical connection between Frank Howard’s love affair and the terrible thing that happened to Nancy Howard. The district attorney knows there’s not one shred of physical evidence that links Frank Howard to his wife’s shooting. He knows that Frank Howard was in California on the night that shooting took place. In fact, he’s got so little to go on, he’s had to trot actual criminals out to do what criminals tend to do—lie. And those lies are the basis of the state’s entire case against Frank Howard.”
Frank had not turned his head once during the DA’s closing argument. He did not turn it now. But suddenly he could feel Nancy’s gaze on the back of his neck and imagined her, sitting a few feet away, judging him.
For many years now, Frank had thought that Nancy was weak—not much more than a weight around his ankles. But Nancy’s testimony had changed his mind. Seeing how calm she’d remained up on the stand. How put together she’d seemed as she walked the jury through the sordid details of the shooting. Now, as his lawyer addressed the jury, Frank looked inside of himself for the faith he’d seen Nancy exhibit and found himself praying for the same kind of strength.
“You heard from Billie Earl Johnson, a drug addict who’s spent his whole life in and out of prison and only testified here in exchange for a reduced sentence,” Frank’s lawyer was saying. “You’ve heard from another drug addict, Richard Raley, who told improbable stories about millions of dollars that Frank Howard stole. Somehow, the district attorney would have you believe that there’s a link between this money that you heard Raley talking about and the shooting of Nancy Howard. What I want to ask you now is, how in the world does that make any sense?
“What I want to ask is, why would a man who’s already had one divorce decide to murder his second wife, instead of simply divorcing her too? A family man, like Frank Howard, who’d been in his marriage for going on thirty years. A man who had three loving children—all of whom testified on his behalf. A man who slipped in his marriage, as some of us do. But who loved his wife, stuck by her side, and saw her through the terrible aftermath of the shooting? The reason Frank Howard didn’t obtain a divorce from his wife is that he didn’t want to divorce her.
“Now, we’ll get down to details in a moment. This is an extremely convoluted case, the case that the government’s making. It’s so convoluted, it might take us a while to untangle. So before we do, let’s stop for a moment and look at the much simpler facts, insofar as they pertain to the actual circumstances leading up to the shooting of Nancy Howard.”
As his lawyer laid out the facts, Frank was impressed with his delivery. No longer praying, he hung on to the lawyer’s every word. And as he looked up, Frank saw that the men and the women gathered there to sit in judgment of him were doing the same.
“Ladies and gentlemen, before we get to the details, which will exonerate my client once and for all, let me ask you: Which story is more believable? Which one’s in line with everything you’ve heard about the characters involved? And, because in my experience as a criminal attorney, simple explanations are the ones that always tend to be right, let me ask you one more thing: Which story is simpler?”
* * *
It’s a strong argument, Frank thought when his lawyer was done. Strong and simple, like the lawyer had said. The district attorney had talked about double lives, triple lives. But who’d ever heard of somebody leading a triple life? Just a few years earlier, Frank himself wouldn’t have believed it to be possible. Would he have been capable of an affair? Of course. With Frank, women were always a weakness. But would he have been capable of embezzlement on a grand scale? Of consorting with criminals? Ultimately, would he have been capable of murder?
If the old Frank Howard had been there, in the jury box, he would not have believed any of it. The old Frank Howard would never have voted to convict.
But the old Frank Howard was gone. And when the Frank Howard that remained scanned the jurors’ faces, not one of them met his eye. The middle-aged juror in sensible shoes was looking down at her lap. The middle-aged man who’d worn a three-piece suit to every day of the trial was glancing back and forth between Frank’s lawyer and the thick notepad that he’d been scribbling in. The girl who taken time off from her job as a dental hygienist (she had the same job as Frank’s mistress, Suzanne, and had taken a special interest in Suzanne’s testimony) stared off to the side, as if something more interesting were happening in the courtroom’s far corner.
Frank tried once more to catch their eye. Once again, none of them—not even the alternate jurors—would meet his gaze. And as Frank’s lawyer wrapped up his concluding argument, and the jurors filed, slowly, out of the courtroom, Frank thought that he saw a look of firm, fixed determination on each of the juror’s faces.
In Frank’s estimation, none of this was a good sign.