A Case of Redemption (23 page)

“Mrs. Wells, like I said, we understand that you want your daughter's killer to be punished. And the truth is, we want that, too. We're just not sure that our client is the man who killed her. We know the police have told you that he's guilty, but we want to make sure.”

Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but I thought I saw a nod of support. As if Roxanne's mother had her doubts, too.

“So, could you tell us whether Roxanne ever said anything about problems in her relationship with L.D.?”

“She actually didn't talk about him much at all. You know, when Roxanne was in high school, she wasn't allowed to go out with any boy until I'd met him. But after she moved to New York City . . .”

Mrs. Wells didn't finish the thought. Instead, she broke off eye contact and was now staring at the floor. I got the sense that she was embarrassed to admit how little she knew about her daughter at the end, which was apparently another thing we shared.

“Were you expecting Roxanne to come for Thanksgiving with L.D.?” I asked.

“No,” Mrs. Wells said, still looking away. “It wasn't until the last minute that Roxanne even decided to come. She first said that she had to work. I was so happy when she called and said she could get away.”

If Roxanne hadn't planned to come to Stocks until the last minute, then she couldn't have invited L.D. and then disinvited him. But that still didn't address why L.D. hadn't gone with her, especially since his own plans had fallen through at the last moment, and that meant there was still room for L.D. to feel, as Marcus Jackson had so eloquently put it,
disrespected
. Besides which, I suspected Roxanne's mother would not end up being our star witness, and her story would undoubtedly change after Kaplan had some time with her.

But, as L.D. said, the truth matters. Or at least it should.

As I was mulling this over, Nina said, “Did Roxanne stay with you over Thanksgiving?”

“Of course. Where else would she stay?”

I felt a jolt of enthusiasm, like when you realize you've hooked a fish. We had something. I just wasn't sure what exactly, or how big.

“Roxanne was seen at the Old Westerbrook,” I said. “Do you know why she was there?”

“She was at the Old Westerbrook?” Wells said, as if she might have
misheard me. “Well . . . maybe she was visiting a friend who was staying there.”

“I take it, though, that you didn't know she'd done that? Or who she might have been visiting?”

When Wells didn't answer, Nina said, “We also spoke to a witness who thought she might have seen Roxanne kissing an older man. Do you know who that might be?”

From the look on Wells's face, I knew Nina's approach had been too aggressive. Wells kept shaking her head, as if she were trying to convince herself it wasn't true. It wasn't clear to me what she found more disconcerting—that her daughter might have been involved with an older man, or that she knew so little about Roxanne's life. What I could discern from her expression, however, was that she regretted letting us in, and that meant we were running out of time.

“I don't think that would be true,” she said. “If Roxanne had a man in her life . . . she would have told me.”

“Even though you just told us that she didn't tell you much about L.D.?” I said, trying not to sound argumentative.

“That was different.”

“Can you explain to us how it was different?” Nina asked.

Wells paused, turning from Nina to me. “I'm sorry,” she said, “but I shouldn't be talking to you, I think.”

I tried my best to salvage the situation. “We meant no offense, Mrs. Wells, and we're very sorry if we upset you. It wasn't our intent. We just wanted—”

“You need to leave,” she said, and then stood up to walk us to the door.

W
hen Nina and I arrived back at the Old Westerbrook, a different woman was behind the front desk than the one who had checked us in. She looked to be just out of college, if such higher education was a prerequisite to man the front desk at a rural South Carolina hotel with a championship golf course. Like her morning counterpart, she wore a dark red blazer with a name tag. The afternoon desk clerk was named Jodi and she hailed from Farmington Hills, Michigan.

With an inviting smile, Jodi asked if there was anything she could do for us.

“There is, actually,” I said. “We're interested in knowing who was staying in cottage eighteen over Thanksgiving weekend.”

Jodi from Farmington Hills, Michigan, suddenly had the look of someone who didn't quite get the joke. “Pardon me?”

“Could you please tell me the name of the guest who was in cottage eighteen over Thanksgiving weekend? It was November twenty-eighth through December second, if that helps.”

I offered a smile that suggested my request was nothing out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, Jodi was too smart to be taken in by it.

“I'm sorry, sir,” she said with a frozen smile. “We're not allowed to give out that type of information.”

“Jodi,” I said, “we're lawyers from New York City. My name is Dan Sorensen, and this is my partner, Nina Harrington. We're representing Legally Dead, who I'm sure you know has been accused
of murdering Roxanne. We heard from a witness that Roxanne was visiting the guest in cottage eighteen over Thanksgiving. That means that the person who was staying in cottage eighteen is an important witness in the upcoming murder trial.”

Jodi from Farmington Hills, Michigan, looked suddenly less happy to be in Stocks, South Carolina. “Like I said, sir, I'm not allowed to give out that type of information. I'll get my supervisor, if you'd like.”

“Jodi, did you work here that weekend? Do you remember seeing Roxanne?”

I could tell that Jodi was weighing whether she could answer. She must have figured she could because she said, “I worked some of that weekend, but I don't remember seeing Roxanne. Somebody probably would have said something to me if she'd been in the restaurant or on the golf course or something.”

“But if she came in and went straight to cottage eighteen, you wouldn't necessarily know, right?” Nina said.

Jodi must have felt like Nina was helping her. A sisterhood thing, perhaps, because she sighed and answered Nina in a more relaxed voice.

“That's right. I don't know who visits the guests staying in the cottages. I only know about the people who check in.”

“And that's why it's so important for us to know who checked in to cottage eighteen,” I said.

Jodi held her ground, however. “I'm sorry—I'm just not allowed to give out the names of our guests. I don't think any hotels are.”

“Please, Jodi,” Nina implored.

“No. I'll get fired.”

Seeing that Nina's good-cop routine had run its course, I decided to go all in on the bad-cop side of the equation.

“Jodi, the choice is yours. You can either punch a few keys and then whisper a name to us, and your involvement in this matter comes to an end, with no one ever knowing you were even involved. Or, you can say no, which means that I appear before a judge and get
a subpoena with your name on it, and that makes the newspapers. That subpoena will require you to come to New York City and testify at the biggest criminal trial of the decade, and that's going to make all the newspapers, too. And on top of that, we'll make your boss come, too, and we'll be sure to tell him that the only reason he's being inconvenienced is because you made us do this the hard way. As you can see, that's a lot of aggravation for you, and that's a lot of bad publicity for the Old Westerbrook, and it can all be avoided if you just whisper to us the name of that guest.”

Jodi looked to Nina and then back to me. Neither of us offered her any help.

Nina finally said, “This way will be so much easier for you. Believe me.”

Jodi looked past us to see if anyone else could witness what she was about to do. Then, nostrils flaring, she quickly jabbed at the computer.

She took a deep breath, like someone about to jump off a high board might, and then took the leap.

“Matthew Brooks,” she whispered.

•   •   •

Now we had a theory: Matt Brooks was our SODDI guy. We'd tell the jury that he was having an affair with Roxanne, and for whatever reason, things turned bad. Maybe she threatened to go to his wife, and he killed her to keep her quiet. Or maybe she ended it, and he was the one who flew into the jealous rage.

All in all, it wasn't a terrible defense, although it was far from foolproof, a point Nina made to me several times.

“She couldn't have ended it with him, Dan,” Nina said on the plane back from South Carolina. “Our theory is that he was in her bed right before she was killed.”

“You never heard of breakup sex?”

“So our theory is that they had sex, and then Brooks killed her?”

“Yeah. Why not?”

“Are we just dismissing out of hand what Marcus Jackson told us?”

“Actually, it's just the opposite. I think Brooks put Jackson up to telling us that L.D. confessed to him.”

She came pretty close to rolling her eyes at me. “Really?”

“Yes. Really. Think about it for a second. When does Marcus Jackson ever take on a case pro bono? My guess is that he did it as some type of favor for Brooks. Maybe Capital Punishment is throwing him business, or he's getting paid some other way.”

“Then why did he pull out?”

“What choice did he have? The client fired him. So he decided to do Brooks a final favor on his way out the door by getting us to think that L.D. was guilty, probably so we'd continue his work of pressuring L.D. to take a plea, and thereby completely insulate Matt Brooks from liability.”

She smiled at me. “Look who's the true believer now.”

Nina and I agreed that our first order of business upon our return home was to serve a subpoena on the Old Westerbrook for the guest registry over Thanksgiving weekend. That would give us admissible proof of Brooks's presence, while keeping our promise to Jodi from Farmington Hills, Michigan, to keep her out of it.

“We'll need Carolyn Anton, too,” I said. “The hotel registry puts Brooks there, but only Anton puts Roxanne with him.”

“I don't see that being a problem,” Nina said. “I bet she's already wondering if she could play herself in the television movie of the trial. Of course, that still doesn't give us proof that Roxanne and Brooks were lovers. He could have been meeting her for some business reason.”

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes.

“C'mon, Dan. You know that's what Brooks is going to say.”

“So let's see if he does. Brooks is now back from wherever he was, and he did say that he'd be happy to help. Let's see if that happiness extends to his giving us a sample of his pubic hair.”

T
here were fewer flowers in front of Roxanne's house upon our return visit, but not by much. I wondered when the vigil would finally be over. The day the last flower was picked up and no one came to lay down another. Just like when I stopped getting casseroles from Sarah's friends.

We were here to button down Eugenia Tompkins. If she could confirm that the older man she'd seen Roxanne kissing was Matt Brooks, or even if she said it might have been Brooks, we'd be very close to proving they were lovers, no matter what cock-and-bull story Brooks came up with as to his reason for being in Stocks over Thanksgiving.

We knocked on her door armed with a glossy photograph of Matt Brooks that I'd pulled off the Internet. It ran alongside some puff-piece article in
Vanity Fair
that discussed him as if he was equal parts Warren Buffett, Houdini, Mother Teresa, and Jesus Christ. The picture captured Brooks in all his glory—silver hair shining, double-breasted suit, crisp white shirt, and bright yellow tie and matching pocket square.

The woman who answered was another heavyset woman from the Caribbean, but it was not Eugenia Tomkins.

“Is Eugenia Tomkins here?” I said.

“She went back to Saint Lucia.”

Goddammit. We were too late.

“Do you know how we can contact her?” asked Nina.

“No, I'm sorry.”

“Are the owners of the house at home?” I said.

She stepped aside and a smaller man came front and center. At first I was surprised, given that it was business hours, and so, if this was the man of the house, he should be at work. Then again, his Gucci loafers were a clear statement he wasn't the hired help.

“Is this your home?” I asked.

The way he squinted at me said in no uncertain terms that he'd be no more helpful than his new housekeeper. “Who are you?” he said.

“My name is Dan Sorensen, and this is my partner, Nina Harrington. We're lawyers representing Legally Dead. We're here because—”

“I know why you're here,” he interrupted. “I would appreciate it if you did not come by again. Eugenia's mother has taken ill, and she went back home. I don't know what she told you, but neither my wife nor I ever saw Roxanne on our street.”

“Is there any way that we could contact Eugenia? It's extremely important that we reach her.”

“I'm sorry, but I don't have any contact information for her.”

“She must have left a phone number or something.”

“Well, she didn't,” he said forcefully.

“We'll pay all expenses for her to travel back here for the trial,” I said, “if you could just let her know.”

“I can't let her know,” he said. “I don't know where she is right now, so I can't help you. I'm sorry.”

He didn't seem sorry at all, though.

•   •   •

Standing on the other side of the closed door, I said, “How do you figure Brooks found out?”

Nina grimaced, the look you give someone who has just finished telling you that the moon landing was a hoax. “Nobody wants to be a witness in a murder trial, especially for the defense. Maybe Euginia just got cold feet and decided to take some vacation.”