Practice to Deceive

decade. At Banks’s direction, she pointed out Huden at the defense table. She said she had not seen him for “many years.”
    Cindy Francisco said she had met Peggy Sue at a hair salon in Langley. “We were good friends, close at that time.”
    She agreed that she had once lived on Wahl Road but thought that had to be almost ten years ago.
    “Had Peggy Thomas spent time there?”
    “Yes, she and her two girls once stayed with me for a few weeks.”
    “Was Jim Huden ever there?”
    “No.”
    “Was Russel ever there?”
    “Once—to pick up some plants I was getting rid of.”
    The witness said she had traveled with Peggy, once to Florida, where she met Jim Huden.
    “Did you ever spend time in Las Vegas with Peggy?”
    “No.”
    Dick Deposit was the next witness. He answered questions about his connection to Whidbey Island.
    “I grew up here.”
    “How long have you known Jim Huden?”
    “Since fourth grade . . . I consider him a best friend.”
    Deposit explained that he had met Peggy Sue at “Sweet Sue” Mahoney’s wedding. He recalled that Peggy and Jim had “become an item” in the summer of either 2002 or 2003.
    Deposit owned a vacation home in the Useless Bay Colony and he testified that Jim and Peggy had stayed there several times when they visited the island.
    “When was the last time?” Banks asked.
    “They arrived the week before Christmas 2003, and left the twenty-third or twenty-fourth.”
    Deposit said he’d left his key with the Hatts, who lived next door.
    The retired CPA said that the last time he had heard from either Jim Huden or Peggy Sue was on December 26 when they called to say that they had forgotten to return the key on the twenty-third, but they had just dropped it off, and they were currently on their way to visit Bill Marlow, and then to drive south to Longview to have dinner with friends.
    “Have you had any contact since then?”
    “No.”
    “Any attempts [on your part]?”
    “No.”
    Matt Montoya’s cross-examination questions continued to take only a few minutes. As before, he seemed to be asking the same questions that Banks had.
    Even though the next few witnesses were testifying for the prosecution, it was obvious that this was difficult for them. They had all considered Jim Huden a good and close friend for many years.
    Still, Bill Marlow had to tell the truth. He testified that neither Jim nor Peggy had visited him around midday on December 26, 2003. He agreed that Jim “consumed alcohol” and had been drinking his favorite Crown Royal whiskey more heavily than he did the last time Marlow had seen him earlier in 2003.
    The next witness was Richard Early, one of the people Peggy Sue and Jim said they had dinner with the day after Christmas. And that, Early said, was true. The couple had joined their group in Longview late, and left after appetizers, but they were there.
    Early looked at exhibit number 93, a copy of the receipt from the restaurant that he had signed at 7:41 P.M. on December 26, 2003.
    “How did Jim appear that evening?” Banks asked.
    “He looked like he’d been drinking heavily.”
    “Was he driving?”
    “Probably Peggy drove.”

C HAPTER T HIRTY-FIVE
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    T HERE WAS PROBABLY NOTHING more important in the case against Jim Huden than the gun that was lost—and then found. In most cases, guns can be traced back to the day they came off the assembly line in the gun factory. It wasn’t necessary to go all the way back with the .380 Bersa that had killed Russel Douglas in an instant, but Prosecutor Greg Banks and the sheriff’s detectives knew its history through three owners.
    Exhibit number 95 could well be the key to the entire case.
    Martin Snytsheuvel, who was the manager of an Internet company and lived in Las Vegas, bought that gun in 2003. It wasn’t what he wanted, so he asked his father to place an ad in hopes of selling or trading it.
    Around the same time, Jim Huden had asked his friend Keith Ogden, the retired Oregon law-enforcement officer, if he had a gun that Jim could buy. Ogden told him no.
    He asked Jim why he wanted a gun, and Huden said that he wanted to shoot the pigeons that were becoming a nuisance around Peggy Sue’s pool in Henderson.
    Jim called soon after to say he had purchased a gun and he asked Ogden if he would show him how to use it. Ogden said he would if Jim Huden would come to his house.
    “Have you ever been to Jim’s residence?” Banks asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Does it have a