Tell No Lies (37 page)

He saw Rob Kollman sitting at the defense table and grew nervous. Where was Earl? Rob saw Jack and nodded in greeting; Jack returned the gesture. He managed, with a smile and a few handshakes, to secure seats for both himself and Claire just behind the bar.

"This is a zoo," she whispered as they sat down on the hard bench.

Minutes later, the door to the back halls opened and Jack saw Earl standing in the entryway. When they emerged, Earl was talking to Jenny as if there wasn't another soul in the room. Despite the rising clamor, Jenny's expression was impenetrable, and she kept her eyes on Earl's face, nodding to acknowledge whatever he was telling her. Jack knew that Earl was talking nonstop to distract her and help her ignore the circus. Earl had obviously seen right through Jenny's tough act and knew how fragile she would be in this setting. He was taking care of her, just as he'd promised Jack.

The bailiff slammed the gavel and shouted for everyone to take their seats. Rob stood and pulled out the middle chair for Jenny, and Earl took the chair on her other side. It was then, just as she was about to turn and take her seat, that she allowed herself to look at Jack.

Less than five feet separated them. Her dark eyes landed on him first and then Claire. It lasted only a second, if that. Without any hesitation, she turned and sat down, her hands resting demurely in her lap. He wondered what she'd anticipated before walking in. Had she hoped that maybe, despite her insistence on his silence, he would appear and like a knight in shining armor, admit to everything and she'd walk out of there a free woman? And now, having seen Claire, she knew better. He stared at the back of her head and tried by sheer mental force to know what she wanted him to do, all the while feeling ashamed because it really didn't matter. He knew what he should do. He just didn't have the strength to do it.

"Please be seated," the judge said loudly. He directed his attention to Earl. "Mr. Scanlon, it's going to take some getting used to, seeing you on that side of the courtroom." Nervous laughter hummed through the room. The judge saw Jack then, and for a moment Jack feared he was going to comment on him, too, but instead he simply nodded and turned his attention to Sterling.

"Mr. Sterling, sir," he said, nodding politely to him, too. "Thank you for being available to handle this matter on such short notice. Is there anything either party needs to bring before the Court before we read the charges?"

Jack fidgeted, his foot tapping softly on the floor, while Earl explained that although Newman had initially acted as Jenny's attorney, he had subsequently filed his entry of appearance and his firm would be handling the case in its entirety. Rob confirmed Newman's withdrawal from the case.

The judge bent down and whispered to his clerk, and then they both looked at Jenny.

"Ms. Dodson? Please rise for the reading of the information."

Earl leaned over and said something into her ear—words of encouragement, Jack knew. She stood and teetered slightly. Did he imagine it? The clerk stood, too, and in a slow monotone, read the charges against her for the first-degree murder of Maxine Carson Shepard.
 

When she finished, the judge spoke. "Ms. Dodson, how do you plead to the charges?"

"Not guilty, Your Honor." Jenny spoke the only four words she would speak in court that day loudly and clearly. Somehow, Earl had instilled the fight back in her.

Earl stood. "Your Honor, we ask that the Court dismiss the charges for lack of evidence—"

"Denied," the judge interrupted, doing what both Jack and Earl had known he would. Earl's request had been nothing more than a formality.

"We'd further ask the Court to set bond at this time."

The judge nodded and turned to Sterling. "Mr. Sterling?"

"Your Honor, since filing these charges, we have collected additional evidence that links Ms. Dodson to this crime. In light of this, we would ask the Court to hold Ms. Dodson until trial."

"To what additional evidence are you referring?" Judge Baxter asked.

"Police officers searched her home late last night, and at that time they found a Walther PPK pistol, .380 caliber, which they suspected might be the murder weapon. Test results received this morning confirmed their suspicions."

Jack felt as if someone had just punched him in the gut.
That's impossible
, he thought. Earl whirled around and narrowed his eyes at him, but it wasn't until Claire chastised him—"Jack, shh"—that he realized he'd spoken aloud and that everyone else in the front of the courtroom was looking at him, too. But he didn't care. More of a blow to him than Sterling's statement was Jenny's reaction to it—or really, her lack thereof. She sat immobile, her back erect against the hard wooden chair, her hands still crossed ladylike in her lap. She hadn't even twitched, for crying out loud. As if she'd expected this bit of information all along.
As if she'd known her gun had been used to kill Maxine Shepard
.
 

When he thought it couldn't get any worse, he heard Earl say, "Your Honor, Ms. Dodson has an airtight alibi" —the courtroom emitted a collective gasp—  "which we will reveal at the appropriate time. When we do, it will become readily apparent to everyone that she had nothing whatsoever to do with this crime."

As Jack tried to process that Earl had used the word
alibi
in open court, the other lawyers moved on to arguing over the amount of the bond.
 

"Jesus," he muttered. Suddenly Claire was feeling his cheek and forehead with the back of her hand.

"Are you okay?" she whispered, her voice shaky. "You're as white as a ghost."

Was he okay? He looked at Claire as if she was a stranger. And really, at that moment, she was. He wanted to grab Jenny by the shoulders and demand,
Why aren't you surprised that your gun was the murder weapon?
He wanted to shout at Earl,
Why did you mention an alibi?
But most of all, he wanted to drag Claire into the hall and confess right there and beg her forgiveness. More than anything, he wanted Claire's forgiveness.
 

As it became clear the hearing was drawing to a close, he whispered to Claire to stay put, he'd be back to get her. He quietly left his seat and tried to slip down the outer aisle near the windows as unobtrusively as possible. He waited in the back corridor behind the courtroom; his plan was to intercept Jenny and her entourage as they came out.

But this was a part of the process he'd never seen as an attorney for the state. He'd always remained at his table after a hearing, until the guards escorted the defendants out of the courtroom, sometimes with their attorney, sometimes without. He'd never seen or really thought about what happened once they disappeared through the same door from which they'd come in.
 

He knew, of course, that she wouldn't be released immediately; she'd be taken back to the jail until arrangements were made to have the bond posted. And he knew for a bond so large—the judge had set it at one million, though she'd have to come up with only 10 percent of that—it could take a while. But what he didn't know was that they would handcuff her again as soon as they stepped into the hall, and even Earl would have only a brief moment with her. For Jack to have a moment with her would be out of the question.

Their eyes met briefly as she walked through the door. But she ignored him otherwise and focused on Earl just as she had when she'd entered the courtroom. She pretended not to notice as one of the guards, a large, balding man with a red, shiny face and stubby fingers, cuffed her. In one smooth, practiced motion the guard slipped one cuff around her wrist and clamped it shut, and then he pulled her arms together and effortlessly did the same with the other. Jenny left her arms limp throughout the short maneuver, but Jack, believing the guard to be unnecessarily rough, felt his own arms tense, his fists clench. At least the jackass had left her arms in front.

"She's okay, she'll be fine," Earl said as the guard led her away. With a touch on Jack's sleeve, he tried to lead him in the opposite direction, back toward the large foyer outside the main entrance to the courtroom.

"What were you doing in there?" Jack said under his breath. "Are you crazy? Why didn't you tell me you were going to—"

"Calm down," Earl ordered.

"I can't calm down. In case you forgot,
I'm
the fucking alibi! Don't you think you should have told me? Why'd you bring up the alibi?"
 

"I'm trying to save that girl's life. I know what I'm doing." Earl was mad now. "I shouldn't have to tell you that."

"No, but you should have to tell me what—"

"I didn't use names, did I? Now relax." Though no one was around, he grabbed Jack's arm and pulled him closer to the wall for privacy. "I want to see how Mendelsohn reacts to the news, all right? If he thinks she has an alibi, he might start to crumble more easily."

It made sense but it scared him like hell. "What did she say about the gun?" he asked. "Did you have a chance to talk to her about the gun?"

"Yes, I—"

"Why the hell was she so calm in there when they trotted out that stuff about the gun?"

"She already—"

"She didn't even flinch!"

Earl crossed his arms, leaned back against the wall, and let out a large sigh. "Why don't you tell me? Why was she so calm? Why didn't she flinch?"

"I don't know!"

"So you expected her to be surprised?"

"Yes, of course I did."

"Why?'

Jack felt Earl backing him into a corner, but he wasn't sure how it was happening or why.

"Because she's innocent," he said.

"And you know that with one hundred percent certainty?"

Jack swallowed. "Yes."

"And an innocent person would be surprised to learn that her gun was used to commit the crime, wouldn't she?"

A staring contest ensued. Was Earl insinuating that Jenny was guilty?

"She didn't do it," he insisted.

Earl studied him a moment longer, and then, as if in the middle of his line of questioning he decided to go a different direction, he said, "For your information, she
was
surprised when I told her about the gun. In fact, it was the only time during my visit with her that she seemed visibly upset."
 

"What do you mean, 'when you told her'?"

"At the jail, before I went in to see her, I called Sterling about having the bail hearing today, and he told me they'd just received the results on the gun. I told Jenny about it, of course, when I saw her."

Earl must have seen the relief on Jack's face.

"Were you doubting her in there, Jack?" His tone was unfriendly, accusatory.

"No, of course not." Jack lowered his eyes.
Was he?
 

Except for the muffled sounds of footsteps and conversations and elevators on the other side of the door, the hallway was quiet. He remembered that Claire was still waiting for him; he wanted to escape Earl's penetrating gaze.

"I need to get back out there, Claire's waiting. Can you get a message to Jenny for me?"

"Certainly."

"Ask her to call me as soon as possible."

"I'll tell her, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. She's pissed at you for telling me your little secret. I had to persuade her to let me do what I did today in court. She wants me to tell you that she thinks it best if you keep your distance from her during all this."

"Really? She really said that?"

"Yeah." Earl stared hard at Jack. "She really said that."

CHAPTER NINETEEN

JACK FOLLOWED JENNY'S instructions, for the most part. It had been almost two weeks since the arraignment and he'd spoken with her only once. Their phone conversation had been short and polite; neither brought up how—or why—he'd confessed to Earl, despite his promise not to do so. She explained that Newman had given her a leave of absence and she was passing the time reading, taking walks, organizing her house and screening calls. She asked about Claire. It was almost as if his visit to the jail had never happened, not to mention everything that had gone before. An eavesdropper would never have suspected what had transpired between them. He told her he wanted to see her, but she didn't think it was a good idea. She didn't allow him to argue. He wanted to plead,
I'm trying not to treat you differently, I'm trying to do what you asked
, but instead he said, "Yeah, you're probably right." The conversation had ended without plans to talk again.
 

His resolve weakened, though, as alibi rumors grew rampant. No one had thrown his name into the mix yet—despite his treasurer's woes, Jack still enjoyed the popularity left over from the election—but reporters eager to break the story cast the net wider each day. Jack knew it was only a matter of time before one discovered his late arrival at the Jefferson City seminar.

Sterling, in the meantime, used Earl's failure to name the alibi to his advantage. He portrayed Jenny to the press as the ambitious orphan girl who had made work her life and who, when faced with the loss of everything, including her newly earned partnership position, would do anything, even commit murder, to save it.
 

But what finally compelled Jack to ignore Jenny's directive was a call he received from Rose, the clerk in the file room. She informed him that the Dodson file hadn't arrived from storage yet, but the docket room had received another request for it and she wanted to make sure Jack had first dibs.

"Who wanted it?" Jack asked, presuming that it was Sterling.

He heard her fingering through some papers. "The request slip says 'J. Dodson.'"

Jack grabbed his coat and left the courthouse immediately. He didn't bother to call ahead. He remembered Jenny's comment about how she thought Maxine would refuse to see her if she told her she was coming.

At the steps to her front door, he bent and gathered the newspapers collecting on the walkway. It was at least a week's worth. If she was passing the time reading, it definitely wasn't the paper.

He rang the bell and waited. The biting wind numbed his cheeks.