The End of Her

Stephanie feels her shoulders relax slightly. So far, it has gone well. But Erica hasn’t given her evidence yet.

As if her mind has been read, Erica Voss is called to the stand, and Stephanie feels her heart begin to race. She watches Erica walk with noticeable poise to the witness box, and then turns her attention to the jurors – how are they reacting to her? Everything boils down to whom they will believe – this woman, or her husband.

‘Ms Voss,’ Ms Spellman says, ‘do you know Patrick Kilgour?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Can you please explain the nature of your relationship with him?’

She nods. ‘I met Patrick through Lindsey, his wife. Lindsey and I were friends. In spite of that’ – she hesitates and then says, ‘I had an affair with her husband, Patrick, in the weeks before her death.’

There’s a frisson of heightened interest in the courtroom. This is what they’re all here for, Stephanie thinks bitterly. This much has been leaked; there had been mention of a possible affair in the newspaper. She has just confirmed it.

‘A sexual affair?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was this affair casual, or would you say it was serious?’

Erica appears to take a moment to compose herself and says clearly, ‘It was serious. We were in love.’

Stephanie hears murmurs in the courtroom and several gasps. The jurors are looking at Erica with great interest. Stephanie glances at her husband beside her; his profile is set, his jaw tight. He’s staring at Erica as if he loathes her.

‘How often did you meet?’

‘It began one night when a bunch of us had got together for drinks. Lindsey had gone home earlier. Patrick and I both got drunk. We ended up back at my apartment, in bed. After that, we took every opportunity we could to be together, but it wasn’t easy, because he was married, and Lindsey wanted him at home.’ She adds, ‘We would meet at lunchtimes during the week. His wife would make him a lunch to take to work, but he’d come to my apartment and we’d make love.’

Stephanie hears the murmur of disapproval go around the courtroom.

‘Did the two of you ever talk about being together, about telling his wife?’

‘Yes. He told me he didn’t love her, and he resented being tied down by her. He didn’t want a baby at that stage in his life. They argued a lot. He said he wanted to be with me.’

‘Did you or he ever talk about making concrete plans to be together?’

Erica bites her lip. ‘Not in so many words. He said he wanted to be free of her. But I thought he was talking about divorce, not murder.’

Another gasp around the courtroom; the judge bangs his gavel and everyone falls silent, riveted by her testimony.

‘Tell us what happened on January 10, 2009.’

‘I got a phone call from Greg Miller. He was a friend of Patrick’s, from work. We all used to socialize together. He called me and said there had been an accident. I got over there as fast as I could.’

‘Did you talk to Patrick?’

‘No. I was in shock. He was hysterical, sobbing. But then, when no one was looking, he caught my eye, and – the look in his eyes was one of triumph.’

‘Triumph?’

‘Yes. I knew then that he’d killed her on purpose, and that he thought he was going to get away with it.’ She pauses, looks suitably upset – the first break in her composure. ‘I think he expected me to be … glad.’

Another murmur of shock makes its way across the courtroom.

‘Did you speak to him after that?’

She shakes her head. ‘Not then. He tried to speak to me but I avoided him. I went to the funeral and I avoided him there too. I thought he’d killed her on purpose, because of me, but I was too afraid to say anything. I was afraid the police would think I was involved in it. I felt guilty – I thought he’d murdered her to be with me. I couldn’t even look at him after that. I knew what he’d done.’ She pauses and then adds, ‘And by then I knew I was pregnant with his child.’

More consternation in the courtroom. Stephanie tries to read the mood of the jurors, but she can’t tell what they’re thinking as they hang on Erica’s every word, every gesture. She doesn’t know if they believe Erica’s story or not. It sounds so over the top.

‘And what happened to that child?’

‘I gave him up for adoption at birth. I don’t know where he is.’

‘One last question. Did anyone else know about your affair? Can anyone confirm what you’ve told us?’

She shakes her head. ‘We didn’t tell anyone. I’ve come forward now because I can’t live with this any more. I owe it to Lindsey to tell the truth. And I want the world to know what he did because I’m afraid for his current wife. I’m afraid he might do it again.’

There is an audible gasp in the courtroom. Of horror? Or of disbelief?

‘Thank you, Ms Voss.’

Stephanie watches anxiously as Lange stands up to cross-examine. He walks slowly towards the witness stand. ‘Ms Voss. You say that you and Patrick Kilgour were “in love”. Do you have any proof of that?’

‘Well, no. We didn’t tell anyone, and no one saw us, because we had to keep it secret.’

‘Right. So we only have your word for it. Do you have any proof of the number of times that the two of you slept together?’

‘I had his baby,’ she says, a little defiantly.

‘You had a baby. We haven’t determined that it was Mr Kilgour’s, have we?’ He waits.

Finally she says, ‘No. But I know it was his.’

‘In any event, a single act of intercourse can result in pregnancy. Do you have any actual proof that the two of you slept together more than once or twice?’

‘No.’

‘One more thing. Isn’t it true that last August you approached Patrick Kilgour in Aylesford and attempted to blackmail him? Did you not threaten that if he didn’t pay you money, you would tell his wife that you’d had an extramarital affair with him and that he’d deliberately killed his first wife – and when that didn’t work, did you not threaten that you would try to have the investigation into Lindsey Kilgour’s death reopened?’

Stephanie holds her breath.

Erica looks back at the attorney, perfectly calm. ‘Not at all. Is that what he told you? In fact, I approached him, in Aylesford, to tell him I was going to the authorities in Colorado with the truth. When I told him that, he tried to give me money. Cash. I refused to accept it and told him I couldn’t be bought off.’

Stephanie feels like she’s had the breath sucked out of her. She wants to leap up and yell, ‘She’s lying!’ But she’s paralysed. She looks at the attorney’s face – he hadn’t anticipated this, clearly, and is doing his best to recover. He’d expected a flat denial. Patrick has gone white.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

UNABLE TO SHAKE Erica’s story, Lange says he has no further questions. The judge calls a short lunch break, and when they reconvene, it’s Patrick’s turn to take the stand. Counsel to the coroner says, ‘I call Patrick Kilgour.’

Stephanie can see that he’s nervous. She squeezes his hand encouragingly as he rises, but he doesn’t even look at her. He walks up and takes his place in the witness box as if he’s going to his doom. At least, that’s the way it looks to Stephanie.

Stephanie feels dizzy. She barely slept last night, plagued by insomnia, unaccustomed to being apart from the twins, worried about what would happen today. And she hadn’t been able to get much food down at breakfast. Now she’s feeling light-headed. Erica just perjured herself. Stephanie tries to focus on what’s happening in front of her – it’s so important, but her head is swimming, and the tightness in her chest is becoming unbearable.

Once Patrick is sworn in, Ms Spellman says to him, ‘Tell us about the morning of January 10, 2009.’

He has considerable poise, and Stephanie is relieved to see it. ‘We were going to Grand Junction to visit Lindsey’s mother and sister. Lindsey was eager to go. It had been snowing heavily, so I didn’t want to go, but she insisted. We did have a mild argument about that the night before, but I could see how important it was to her. It had been snowing since Thursday night, and I’d worked from home on Friday for that reason. By Saturday morning, the car was almost buried in snow. I went out to shovel out the car, turned it on to warm it up. She came out and got in the car to wait. I’d told her to wait in the house, but she was so eager to get going.’

‘Did you notice that the exhaust pipe was plugged with snow?’

‘No. It didn’t even occur to me to look. I didn’t know that it could cause carbon monoxide to build up in the car. I blame myself for that every day.’

Spellman asks, ‘Did you have an affair with Erica Voss before the death of your wife?’

Patrick takes a breath and says, ‘I did not have an affair with her. I slept with her exactly twice. Once at her apartment after we’d been drinking – that was the first time. And another time when she asked me to come over to her apartment on my lunch hour to fix something. We wound up in bed together. I ended it after that.’