IT’S AMAZING how boring trials can be. How even the most salacious of crimes committed under the most colorful of circumstances can result in testimony that is tedious and snoozy.
Claude Henry, the owner of the house on Airport Road, was brought in and questioned for several minutes about the material comprising the driveway (packed grass) and the existence of a water heater (there wasn’t one; he’d had it removed because he was afraid vandals would steal it), and whether or not the house had working electricity. Troopers Willie Burke and Troy Johnson were each brought on the stand to discuss the placement of their tent, and the use of their night-vision goggles, and approximately how long it appeared to take Charles Smith to light the house on fire.
Trooper Martin Kriz took the stand and explained that Tonya, when he searched her, had told him about a ChapStick in her bra. Because of the trooper’s Eastern European accent, the word “ChapStick” ended up with an “ah” sound in it. “Chahpstick.”
“Did you find any weapons?” Allan Zaleski asked Kriz.
“No, sir.”
“Any lighters on her? Cigarette lighters?”
“No, sir.”
Gary Agar, on redirect with Trooper Kriz, unintentionally revealed that he had been flummoxed by the young trooper’s accent when the trooper talked about discovering Tonya’s lip balm. “You stated she had a chopstick?” he asked incredulously. He had a habit of slowly repeating back the witness’s final phrases in his rumbling, singsong voice. “Did she indicate where she had the chopstick?”
“She told me it was in her bra,” said Kriz, who didn’t understand that Agar misheard him.
“In her bra?” Agar repeated. “What, if anything, did you do at that point?”
“I removed it,” Kriz said. The accent confusion was never cleared up, and approximately half of the courtroom was left with the impression that the accused arsonist must have a proclivity for Chinese food.
The cell phone expert that Agar had found was a custodian of records from Verizon Wireless, a man named Avram Polinsky, who took the stand holding a sheaf of papers and explained what they represented: calls and text messages occurring between two particular cell phone numbers on the evening of April 1. Agar explained that the fire in question took place at 11:35. Did Mr. Polinsky have any calls that were placed at that time between Charlie and Tonya? Polinsky shuffled his papers and said he did—three of them, all placed at 11:35. One lasted five seconds, one lasted six, and the final one lasted a full three minutes. Those were the only calls between the phones that evening.
The last witness of the day was Charlie. The only witness anyone cared about was Charlie. The ten or so reporters in the courtroom had half expected him not to show up; Charlie himself had reconsidered his decision more than once, up until the last minute.
His hair was close shaven and his hands were shackled, which made him hunch even further into himself as he entered from the right, through doors that led to a small holding cell. The path to the witness stand took him directly in front of the defense table where Tonya sat between her two attorneys. Behind her, the journalists sent to cover the trial picked up their notebooks, ready to write down anything the former lovers said or mouthed as Charlie walked past. The two hadn’t seen each other in months, since Tonya was released from the Accomack jail on bail. But they didn’t look at each other, not even once. Tonya kept her eyes straight ahead and Charlie kept his on the floor until he settled into the witness stand and hunched forward into the microphone.
“Mr. Smith, I think if you just sit back, I think that thing picks up pretty good,” said Judge Tyler, motioning that Charlie didn’t have to bend quite so close to the microphone. “You don’t need to lean up.”
Charlie nodded and backed away, but only by a few inches, as Agar approached him.
“Have you come to tell the truth today?” Agar asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Is this difficult testimony for you?”
“Yes.” Charlie’s voice was barely more than a whisper, and despite the judge’s promise that the microphone would pick up his voice, the attendees in the gallery had to strain to hear him.
“Judge, I would object to that,” Allan Zaleski said. “It’s leading.”
“Sustained.”
Agar continued, barely missing a beat. “Mr. Smith, do you know Tonya Bundick?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How do you know her?”
“She was my fiancée.”
“Would you point her out to the jury, please?”
Charlie raised his eyes the barest minimum in order to accomplish the task of looking, for the first time, at the love of his life. “She’s right there,” he said.
“Your feelings for her?” Agar asked.
“I still love her,” he said, and his throat caught.
Agar knew that the defense, during cross-examination, would light upon Charlie’s previous criminal record, so he decided to get there first, pivoting to the check forgeries that landed him in prison the first time. He asked Charlie how many felonies, exactly, did he currently have under his belt? Charlie shook his head as if the number was near unfathomable. “Thirtysome?” he guessed. Agar affirmed the number and pointed out that the number was so high because all of the forgeries had happened at once—Charlie had burned through an entire book of checks. But he admitted to those forgeries. And he’d admitted to the breaking and entering.
And he’d admitted, more recently, to setting the arsons. “Yes, sir,” Charlie agreed. He had done those fires.
Periodically, Agar would stop roaming the room to glance back down at the prosecution’s desk. On it, he had laid out a legal pad, with the questions he planned to ask Charlie written in neat print.
15) Riding around?
16) Who driving?
17) Purpose in driving around?
The questions stretched all the way down to number thirty-five, by which point he planned to have guided Charlie up to the night of his arrest.
“Now, were you living with Tonya Bundick when these arsons began?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“And how did they begin?”
On the stand, Charlie shrugged, as if the thing was just as much a mystery to him as anyone else. “It just kind of happened one night. Having a bad night and rode by an abandoned house and decided to set it on fire.”
“Who set it on fire?”
“I went into the house first, and I didn’t set it on fire, and then she went in and set it on fire.”
“Did you do any more arsons other than that?”
“Yes, sir,” Charlie said. They had done them until they finally got caught.
“Did you develop a particular scheme or manner of doing those fires?” Agar asked.
Again, Charlie shrugged. “It was just what we always did. A phone call. Get dropped off, then pick up the phone and tell them where to come pick each other up. I couldn’t tell you word for word because it I don’t remember, but it basically stayed the same . . . She would drive most of the time except for in the beginning.”