No Regrets

(Blood-spatter experts agree that it is very unlikely to mix up such diverse blood patterns.)
    Davis said he had inspected the bathtub in Ruth’s bedroom, but had not noted any chipping, gouges, dents, or defects at all. He testified that he would expect a broad-axe to have left such marks.
    As a professed expert in the burning of bodies, Davis insisted it was not possible to reduce human body parts to ashes in an open burn barrel. “Large and long bones, perhaps flesh, would remain.”
    He was not correct with that information. After twohours of intense heat, almost any human body will be reduced to only ashes.
    It was the predictable “war of the experts.” Who knew how the jurors would weigh what Davis had deduced against Englert’s more professional presentation?
    Ruth had her two close women friends on Lopez Island: fish-buyer Wanda Post and Ruth’s neighbor, Winnie Kay Stafford. Wanda had testified that Ruth had never spoken to her about her husband’s desertion or said anything about killing Rolf or disposing of his body.
    “Isn’t it correct,” Greg Canova asked, “that she didn’t have to tell you why Rolf left because she told you she’d killed him?”
    “No, that is not correct.”
    “Remember,” he warned, “you are under oath.”
    “I know that.”
    Wanda Post would not be shaken from her conviction, even though Paul Myers had testified that he had heard Ruth bragging to both Wanda and Winnie Kay over cocktails about how she had literally destroyed her husband.
    The other witness who could be extremely helpful to the prosecution was missing. Winnie Kay Stafford was deathly afraid of testifying. Winnie Kay had once been utterly devoted to Ruth Neslund, and Paul said she, too, had been privy to many clouded secrets, but she didn’t want to talk about them.
    Winnie Kay had told other island residents that she was afraid of Ruth, so fearful that she had moved. Packing up her life and leaving the Alec Bay Road neighborhood wasn’t very effective, however. Winnie Kay had first moved from the south end of Lopez Island to get awayfrom Ruth, but her relocation was laughable; she only went as far as the middle of the tiny island, merely a hop, skip, and jump away from the Alec Bay Inn. Further, at any given time, Winnie Kay’s location was easy to determine. She was a well-known island personage who showed up at almost all public functions on Lopez, and attended every party. She had once been a stunning woman, and now—in her midforties—she was still very attractive, slender, with long brown hair that she wore either up in a bouffant style or cascading down her back. Author John Saul’s parents had known Winnie Kay for years, and the thriller writer often encountered her at parties. But now, suddenly no one saw her.
    There was a rumor that someone in Ruth’s camp had warned Winnie Kay that she would be better off far away from Friday Harbor, and that testifying against Ruth would be “unfortunate” for her.
    For whatever reason, Winnie Kay Stafford had driven south with a woman friend, headed for California. She had detoured into Arizona to drop her friend off, and now was reportedly “hiding out” in San Diego, California, with family members. Winnie had been full of anxiety about testifying. She was caught between her fear of Ruth and her concern that she might be prosecuted for being an accessory after the fact in Rolf’s demise, or, at the very least, for perjury.
    Winnie Kay had lied to a judge before to save Ruth, and she didn’t want to be anywhere near Ruth’s murder trial. She was afraid she might go to jail.

Twenty-two
    Despite the intense interest in Ruth Neslund’s trial, life went on as it always had on the San Juan Islands. Residents crowded the ferries to do holiday shopping in Anacortes, Bellingham, and Seattle. Christmas lights appeared on the village streets and in the windows of homes, incongruous colored beacons, holiday counterpoints to the grisly testimony about blood, burning bodies, betrayal, and infidelity. As serious as the trial was, there was an almost “soap opera” feeling to it, as if it was still difficult to view as something that had actually happened to fellow island dwellers. Both Fred Weedon and Greg Canova were dynamic and attractive men—just like the lawyers on
All My Children
and
The Young and the Restless.
And while no one could describe Ruth Neslund as a glamorous woman, she did have a gift for the dramatic, an actress playing a