Part 20 (1/2)

”I'm asking you today to do the same courtesy for me that you've done for the police, who have much more authority than I, and answer questions for me similar to those asked of you then, and others I may have in mind,” Johnston said. ”Will you do that?”

”Under the advice of my attorneys, I a.s.sert my right for the Fifth Amendment.”

”Will that be your response if I continue asking questions that are substantive regarding this case?”

”Correct,” Baker said.

With that, Matt's deposition ended thirteen minutes after it began. Although Johnston had warned the Dulins this could happen, the reality was still crus.h.i.+ng. Jim looked at Linda, and she shook her head in disgust.

It took only moments for the room to be resettled, and for the tables to turn from Johnston questioning Matt to James Rainey setting his sights on Linda. To begin, Rainey asked: ”Why have you filed a wrongful death suit?”

”Because we believe that Matt Baker took our daughter's life and set it up as suicide.”

”By 'took her life' you mean he killed her?”

Linda didn't mince words: ”I mean he murdered her. Yes, sir.”

”Why do you believe these things?” Rainey asked.

Twice Linda started and stopped, trying to get her words together. ”I would have preferred that my daughter had taken her life and have my granddaughters safe.” She sighed, then continued, ”I fought these feelings for quite a while, but there were circ.u.mstances that happened beginning shortly after Kari died that would not allow us to ignore what was becoming increasingly clear.”

”What do you mean by shortly?” Rainey asked.

”Right after she was buried.”

At times, Rainey seemed surprised, as when he asked twice if Kari had truly been buried just two days after her death. ”Yes, sir,” Linda said, not adding that it was at the insistence of his client. When Rainey asked what spurred her suspicions about Matt, Linda laid out what she'd heard from her sisters.

As his client talked, Johnston wondered about the gray-haired woman seated at the table next to Matt and suddenly questioned if she belonged there. When he discovered the interloper was Matt's mother, Johnston asked Rainey incredulously, ”Is she a party to this case?”

”She's not,” Rainey admitted.

”I invoke the rule,” Johnston said, marveling that the woman would interject herself into the morning's events. ”I object to a nonparty being present.”

Rainey asked Barbara to leave, and she did.

From that point on, Rainey asked questions about the process that had taken Linda from standing up for her son-in-law to believing that he'd murdered her daughter. They talked of Kari's words to Bristol, and the matters Johnston and his investigators had worked so hard to uncover, including nailing down the allegations in Matt's past. Through it all, Linda detailed everything from finding Vanessa's number on Matt's bills to the way he'd kept the Dulins' granddaughters from them.

At times, the testimony became highly emotional, Linda needing to pause and calm her tumbling emotions. She apologized, then forged ahead. She couldn't answer everything Rainey wanted to know, and she told him so, explaining that the investigation was ongoing. In particular, she wouldn't speculate on how Matt murdered Kari.

Apologetic at times, Linda acknowledged that she was a novice at pulling together the strands of an inquiry into a mysterious death. ”I'm not an investigator,” she said.

That day, Linda put on the record that she disagreed with much of what Matt had said, including how he portrayed the ride home from the doctor, in which he claimed Kari attempted to jump out on the freeway.

”Did it seem like Matt was overreacting to that or something?” Rainey asked.

”It sounded like Kari thought Matt was being kind of silly,” Linda responded.

Perhaps, Rainey suggested, Kari blamed herself for Ka.s.sidy's death, agreeing with Matt's charge that she'd been the one responsible. But it wasn't that Kari blamed herself, Linda said: ”She thought Matt blamed her . . . She loved Matt, and she was very hurt . . . She defended Matt, always defended Matt.”

The conviction that Kari hadn't died as Matt described came in bits and pieces, including the hours Linda spent at the computer researching Unisom. ”It was just me being Nancy Drew,” she said.

”What do you take for a sleep aid?” Rainey asked.

”I have a prescription my doctor gave me for Ambien, but I don't take it often,” Linda said. Then, knowing Matt's attorney could suggest Kari had gotten the drugs from her, Linda cleared up precisely when she'd started taking the sleeping pill. ”My doctor gave me that prescription after Kari died.”

”After Kari died?” Rainey asked.

”Yes.”

At times, Linda became aware of Matt watching, listening to her every word. Usually, she tried to ignore his presence, concentrating on the attorneys, but when Rainey asked how Matt had changed after Kari's death, Linda turned to the man she blamed for her daughter's death. ”Excuse me, Matt, for saying it this way,” she said. ”But, I mean, he just started trying to be some little cool hip daddy guy, you know?”

”You think that the fact that there were pictures of Vanessa up and none of Kari that went to motive, thinking that's a reason why Matt killed Kari?” Rainey asked.

”You know,” Linda said. ”It was another little piece of the puzzle.”

Now it seemed ironic that Kari so believed in Matt that she'd ignored everything that suggested he wasn't the good Christian she thought she married. That thought flooded Linda with sadness. ”Kari loved pa.s.sionately,” she explained. ”The people she loved, she stood up for. And she stood up for Matt.”

”So what you're telling me then doesn't sound like Matt Baker was actually ever indicted or actual formal criminal charges brought against Matt Baker?” Rainey asked. When it came to the p.o.r.nography on the laptop computer from Crossroads, Matt's attorney asked, ”And did the church have a policy against people looking at it?”

”He's a preacher,” Linda said.

”I understand,” Rainey said.

”Understand, that I'm giving you information that is just little piece by piece that by itself seems fairly harmless, until you start adding up all the pieces . . . I mean, Matt is a minister . . . He preyed on women.”

”Do you have a smoking gun?” Rainey asked a while later.

”Oh, if I had a smoking gun, it would be right here on this table,” Linda said.

”As we sit here today, you don't have any major piece of evidence that you would call a smoking gun, do you?”

”I do not have a smoking gun,” she said. ” . . . I have pieces of a puzzle that show Kari did not commit suicide, but we're not at the finish line yet. By the time we get there, we will have the answers we need.”

This was a civil suit, and as the afternoon ground to a close, Rainey wanted to establish what harm had been done to Linda. ”Have you had any physical ailments or physical problems since your daughter has died that you might think are related to the stress or anything related to Kari's death?”

”I've lost my daughter, and that has forever changed my life,” Linda replied, her voice thick with emotion. ”My daughter was my heart, and my life will never be the same . . . That is a big deal.”

Looking at Rainey, she asked, ”Do you have a child?”

”I have two,” he said.

”Then you understand.”

At 2:09 that afternoon, five hours after it began, Linda's deposition ended. The Dulins had arrived that day hoping that Matt would be made to go on the record. Instead, he'd refused, and Linda had been the one who'd endured a grueling day of questions.

Chapter 44.