The Jury Master (11 page)

“You’re still here?” He put the envelope down as she handed him a draft of the settlement agreement he had dictated to put on the record Monday morning.

“In body only,” she said. “My mind departed at five.”

“I didn’t expect you to do this tonight.”

“Now you tell me.” She brushed an errant hair from her cheek and tugged at the sleeves of the Irish-knit cardigan draped over her shoulders. “What? Do I have something on my face?” She wiped the side of her mouth in the reflection in the window.

He had been staring at her. He had thought Tina attractive the moment she was introduced as his assistant, but had really noticed her when she walked unescorted into the firm’s twenty-five-year anniversary party wearing a black backless gown and a strand of pearls. They had sat together, each without spouse or date, and danced more than once. But then the clock struck midnight, and Tina left quickly. It was just as well. There could be nothing between them. She was his employee; a relationship would only lead to disaster, like all his relationships, a convoy of failures. But unlike those women, who were eager to be married, Tina gave no indication that that was something in her future. Sloane had come to respect her as intelligent and mature beyond her years, always putting the well-being of her son, Jake, first.

“I was just wondering who’s watching Jake.”

She turned from the window. “Would you believe his father? I called to see if hell had also frozen over.” She put up a hand. “My mother says I shouldn’t say those things, that I need to be more diplomatic. ‘Frank’s not a bad man. He’s just not a very good father.’” She rolled her eyes, then nodded to the beer. “You got any more of those, or did you drink them all?”

Sloane popped open a beer and handed it across the desk. “You want some Chinese? I have an unopened carton of garlic chicken.”

“I ordered for myself. You paid.” She held up the bottle. “Cheers, here’s to a rip-roaring Friday night.” They tapped bottles, and she sat in a chair across his desk. “So where were you going?”

“What’s that?”

“On your vacation, where were you going?”

“Oh, just up to the mountains for a few days. Yosemite.”

“Rock climbing?”

“Nothing serious. I’m not in shape for it. I just like the mental challenge and the exercise.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“I appreciate you sticking around tonight. I hope I didn’t ruin any plans.”

“Yeah, I had a hot date—my mother really loves the
Antiques Road Show
. . . Don’t worry about it. It gave me a chance to study, and it gave Jake a chance to spend time with the man supposed to be his father. Oops, there I go again.”

Sloane chuckled. “Studying?”

“Don’t say it like you’re shocked.”

“I was laughing at your comment. Are you going to school or something?”

“Or something.” She laughed, toying with him. “You are shocked.”

“Give me a break here; you’ve never said anything. Are you taking classes?”

She smiled, coy, and took another drink of beer.

“What are you studying?”

“Architecture.”

“Seriously, what are you studying?”

She lowered the beer and stared at him. “How does it taste?” she asked.

“What?”

“Your foot.”

She was serious. He had expected her to say she was taking an art class.

“For your information, I’ve been taking classes for three years. When Jake was born I had to drop out of college, but I promised myself I’d go back and finish. Then Frank decided being a father crimped his life too much, and I had to wait. I wanted to make sure I could do it before I said anything to anybody.”

“Do what?”

“I graduate the end of the summer.”

He felt a sudden hollow ache in his stomach. “Graduate? Then what?”

She drank from the bottle. “We can talk about that later.”

“Are you thinking about leaving?”

She hesitated. “I was going to talk to you about it earlier, but with the Scott trial I didn’t want it to be a distraction.”

He felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut. “You’re leaving.”

“I’ll be giving my formal notice August first,” she said.

“Two weeks?”

“You’ll have a month to replace me, David. This opportunity came up unexpectedly. I need time to get Jake situated in school for the fall and to find us a place to live.”

He felt as if the room were spinning. “A place to live . . . Where are you going?”

“Seattle. A friend offered me a job doing drafting. It’s a good job. Better pay. Better benefits. I can afford a house. I can spend more time with Jake, and my mother can have her life again, too.”

He didn’t know what to say. He had never contemplated the possibility that Tina would leave. He had pictured the two of them receiving their gold company watches together.

“This isn’t what I intended for my life, David. This is better for me—I mean, there’s nothing here for me . . . Is there?”

“You could find a job here.”

“Forget it.” She turned and looked out the window, then looked back at him. “Why are you here?”

“It’s a good firm, Tina—”

“No. Why are you here now, tonight? You haven’t taken a vacation in years, and when you finally get one you seem to be avoiding going. And pardon me for saying so, but you do look tired.”

Maybe it was because she was leaving, or maybe it was the beer. Whatever the reason, he was talking before he could stop himself.

“I haven’t been sleeping much.”

“You work too hard.”

“It isn’t work. I’ve been having a nightmare.”

“A nightmare?”

“And I get these searing headaches and I can’t get back to sleep.”

She lowered her beer. “How long has this been going on?”

“Every morning since the Scott trial started.”

“David, you should see a doctor.”

He chuckled. “You mean I should have my head examined.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“The law is still an old-boys’ network, Tina. You don’t want word getting out you might be a little nuts.”

“You’re stubborn,” she said. “See a doctor, David.” She took a drink of beer. “What’s the nightmare about?”

“You don’t want to hear this, Tina.”

“Why not? The longer I’m here the more time Jake gets to spend with the man who’s supposed—oops—I mean, with his dad.” She put her empty bottle on the desk. “Crack me another one.” He handed her a second beer. “Besides, I shared my secret with you. I expect some reciprocity. Maybe you’ll find that it actually helps to talk to someone about these things.”

Keeping it to himself certainly hadn’t helped. “What the hell.” He started matter-of-factly, as if reciting facts to a jury. “I’m in a room—I don’t know where exactly; the details are sketchy and it’s very stark. There’s a woman there.” He closed his eyes, seeing her. “Sometimes she’s working at a desk. Sometimes she’s just standing . . . dressed in white, backlit, like an outline. And I’m not sure why, but I have this feeling . . .” He opened his eyes. “More than a feeling. I know something is going to happen to her, something bad, and I can’t stop it.”

“Why not?”

He struggled to find the right words. “I can’t move. It’s like my arms and legs are bound. When I try to call out to her, my voice . . . Nothing comes out.”

She sat forward. “So what happens?”

“I don’t know exactly. There’s this blinding flash of light and an explosion.” He put a hand to his ear as if hearing it. “Then people are rushing into the room, shouting.”

“Who are they?”

He shook his head. “Everything is a blur. I can’t see or breathe.”

“What happens to the woman?”

He took another drink.

“David?”

He lowered his eyes. “They rape her,” he said softly. “Then they kill her.”

16

S
HE NEVER FLINCHED.

The blade end of a garden hoe stopped two inches from her throat, and she never moved.

Remarkable.

She considered him as one might, on first sight, an old-growth redwood, marveling at its sheer size. Her eyes took in his overalls, from the taut straps across his thick shoulders and chest to the rolled cuffs above his mud-caked work boots. Charles Jenkins did not recognize the face, though it seemed to tweak a place in his memory, but her face would have been a particularly difficult one to forget. She was as stunning as she was composed. Her hair cascaded like spilled ink over her shoulders, the same indigo-blue color as her eyes. Her nose was thin and perfect, perhaps surgically altered, and though he detected no makeup, the cool weather—or the rush of adrenaline—had brought a blush to her cheeks. Otherwise, her bronze-colored complexion was unblemished. He estimated her to be five feet ten—most of it legs wrapped in straight-legged jeans—with perhaps an extra inch from the spit-shined ankle boots, the spiked heel sinking into the moist ground. She wore a waist-length leather jacket over a white blouse.

And behind the beauty was someone with remarkable training.

“Charles Jenkins?” she asked.

H
E LEFT THE
garden hoe on the ground and led her across the pasture to the cottage. At the back door he removed his boots and stepped inside. He passed through the kitchen to the main room, did not hear her follow, and turned to find her standing in the doorway, considering the kitchen with the same measured curiosity with which she had considered him. Pots, pans, and ladles overflowed the sink onto the worn Formica counter and buried all but a single burner on the stove. Dozens of mason jars, some with the lids wax-sealed tight, lined the counter like glass soldiers. Freshly picked blackberries and raspberries filled strainers, waiting to be washed and boiled. The supermarket in town sold his jam in a section for the locals—a hobby, like the Arabians. His parents had left him with a modest estate that, invested prudently and spent wisely, would sustain him into his old age.

“You’re letting the heat out,” he said, though it was cool inside the cottage.

She closed the door behind her and stepped lightly around a maze of tomato plants, fledgling squash, corn, sweet peas, and lettuce sprouting in black plastic containers to join him in the main room.

He dropped his work gloves on stacks of newspapers and grabbed a handful of the unopened mail addressed to “Resident”—a mountainous pile that spilled across the round table, a six-inch-thick piece of cedar he had cut from the base of an old-growth tree felled by the winter storms of 1998. Sanded and varnished, it served as a one-of-a-kind dining room table. He tossed all but one of the envelopes into a river-rock fireplace, struck a match on one of the stones, lit the envelope in his hand, and dropped it onto the pile. Then he knelt to add kindling, keeping his back to her, listening to the heels of her boots click on the plank floor. She walked about the bookcases that lined the walls like a country library and held an impressive collection of books and videotapes of classic movies. Fruit crates contained additional books he had not yet read and movies he was eager to watch again.

He looked over his shoulder and watched her flip through the canvases near a paint-splattered easel.

“They’re not bad.” She sounded more surprised than complimentary, which was honest. Van Gogh he was not.

Lou and Arnold crashed through the flap of plastic covering the dog door and jockeyed through the doorway. They rumbled into the room and took up their customary positions: Lou on the plaid couch with the nub-worn armrests, Arnold on the La-Z-Boy recliner facing the fireplace. The floor was not good enough. He had spoiled them. They sat upright, ears perked, eyes darting between Jenkins and this unexpected visitor who had interrupted their daily routine. Jenkins added the split maple, which crackled and popped and filled the room with a sweet, syrupy smell, and replaced the screen. He stood and scratched Lou behind the ears, which caused the dog’s face to wrinkle like that of a ninety-year-old man.

She walked to the plate-glass window and cradled the bloom of an orchid plant, one of a dozen aligned on a wood plank. The flowers gave the room the feel and smell of a garden hothouse. Then she looked out over the pasture. “Arabians. Temperamental and high-strung.”

“You know horses.”

“My mother’s family had a farm. Thoroughbreds, Arabians, a few mules.” She turned from the window and walked toward him, extending a hand as if they were meeting in the supermarket checkout. Her fingers were chilled and soft, though the calluses revealed that she did not push paper for a living. “Alex Hart.”

“Well, Ms. Hart, I haven’t seen or talked to Joe Branick in thirty years.”

“I’m not surprised. You don’t have a phone.”

He took out a cellular from a pocket in the front of his overalls. “I’m unlisted. I don’t get a lot of calls. I also don’t get a lot of visitors. People who need to find me ask for the black man. You asked for me by name.”

“Word travels fast.”

She picked up her briefcase, put it on one of the two peeled ash-wood chairs he’d made, and pulled out a copy of the
Washington Post.
The Associated Press article he had seen in the
Post-Intelligencer
was positioned below the fold with the same photograph of Joe Branick. Joe looked older, which was to be expected after thirty years. Traces of distinguished gray flagged his temples; otherwise, his tanned, weathered face still gave him the rugged outdoor appearance of someone living in the Sunbelt. Jenkins hadn’t bothered to read the article in town and wouldn’t now. The headline told him everything he needed to know. Joe Branick was not the type of man to kill himself. Thirty years wasn’t going to change that.

He dropped the paper on the table. “I didn’t know the
Washington Post
personally delivered their newspaper. Is there a special this month?”

She smiled and flipped her hair from her shoulder, folding it behind her ear. He caught the aroma of her perfume. It put the orchids to shame. Arnold moaned. She reached inside her briefcase and pulled out a thick manila envelope, handing it to him. “Joe said if anything were to happen to him, I was to deliver this to you.”

He felt its weight. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.”