Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

was first arraigned, but she focused her eyes obliquely as if she existed in some other dimension far away from her trial.
    Her clothing was probably decreed by her attorneys; defense attorneys are experts in “staging” the look of their clients. Mary’s clothes were matronly and plain. She often wore the same white cotton cardigan over rather drab dresses.
    Clark Freeman, Mary’s father, barred from the courtroom until he testified, sat behind her thereafter, as did close friends from McMinnville. She had her supporters in the rows behind the defense table.
    Spectators knew there had been many rumors about a bank scandal involving the Winklers. Now, finally, Jana Hawkins, representing Regions Bank, took the stand to explain what had happened. She said she had called Mary on March 21 to tell her that the Winklers’ account was $5,000 overdrawn. Mary said she was aware of that, and asked if she could remove Matthew’s name from the account. Told that wasn’t possible, Mary asked to meet with Hawkins, saying, “I know I’ve made a bad situation worse and I can’t fit $5,000 into my budget.”
    Leslie Ballin cross-examined Hawkins.
    Amy Hollingsworth, a drive-in teller at the bank, had also spoken to Mary by phone that day, suggesting she come in and talk to the branch manager, and told her that things weren’t “impossible” to fix.
    Hollingsworth testified that she hadn’t questioned Mary when she’d earlier deposited a check from Canada for $6,445 because she knew her so well.
    Mary Paulette Guest, a Fourth Street Church of Christ member who worked at the Regions Bank, testified that she had informed Mary that she was guilty of check kiting and could face criminal charges.
    When Guest was cross-examined by Leslie Ballin, she said that Mary didn’t seem to understand what she tried to explain, not even when she was told that her accounts had been frozen. That frustrating conversation had occurred at 4:15 on Tuesday afternoon.
    Mary and Matthew were supposed to come into the Regions Bank at 8:30 on Wednesday morning.
    Mary had talked to her letter carrier about changing her address, and Walt Freeland suggested that she planned to do this to hide her financial predicament from Matthew.
    But Mary Winkler had been in way too deep, and it was little wonder she had spent her day at Selmer Elementary School on March 21 pacing the school halls as she spoke on her cell phone.
    April Brown, a fraud investigator for Regions Bank, took the witness stand next. She said that Mary had deposited certain checks at an ATM. Brown explained that these funds went into the Winklers’ Regions account. However, the bank had had no way of knowing there were insufficient funds until the check was returned from the bank it was written on.
    Mary had written four checks totaling $17,000 on a new account she opened at the First State Bank in the neighboring town of Henderson. Then she deposited them in a personal account in only her name—one she had set up at Regions Bank. They were deposited in an ATM between February 17 and March 20, 2006. All of the checks bounced. Regions Bank had lost almost $4,000 in the shady transactions.
    Apparently, Mary had deposited two fraudulent checks sent by the Canadian con artist into the First State Bank. Those—for $4,880 and $4,900—went into an account she had opened with only $100. The Henderson bank returned the fake checks and lost no money.
    Running frantically between two banks and their ATMs, Mary Winkler had to have known that it would all fall apart within days. That happened on March 21 when she and Matthew had been summoned to the bank the next morning.
    Only, Matthew couldn’t go because he was dead by then.
     
    The prosecution had made the difficult decision to bring nine-year-old Patricia Winkler into the courtroom. There would be no cameras, no audiotaping, but Patricia would see her mother for only the third time in more than a year. With the first few questions from Walt Freeland, Patricia began to sob. Judge McCraw comforted her, and she was finally able to continue.
    Patricia testified that she had been awakened on March 22 by the sound of a big boom, and she also heard someone falling. When she hurried to her parents’ bedroom, she saw her father lying facedown on the floor, and her mother walking around. She heard her father groaning. Her little sister Allie had followed her to the doorway. When her mother saw them, she had closed the door.
    “We were scared,”