A Deadly Judgment (21 page)

“It will go wonderfully with that blue blazer you’re so fond of wearing.”

“If you say so. Well, what does the rest of the afternoon hold for us?”

“While you were trying on that suit—I wish you’d bought it—I called the jail where Billy Brannigan is being held. I have an appointment to visit him there at four. But you won’t be allowed in with me.”

“Not a disappointment, Jessica. Treating inmates at the Maine Correctional facility once a month is enough jail time for me. Think I’ll head back to the hotel and unpack my bags, maybe take a nap before dinner with your pompous friend.”

“He’s not my friend, Seth. Frankly, I accepted because I have the feeling I might learn something from him.”

“How so?”

“When I first met him, he was—how shall I say it?—he was close with the district attorney in the Brannigan case. But from what he said today, that’s no longer true. Besides, I’m looking forward to having dinner at Jasper’s. It’s supposed to be one of Boston’s finest restaurants.”

“Whatever you say, Jessica.”

“Come on,” I said. “Cathie can drop you off at the hotel.”

“No. You go on ahead. Not much of a walk, as I recollect, and I can use it. Go visit your client, Mr. Brannigan. We’ll meet at six-thirty?”

“Sounds fine. In the lobby. And wear your blue blazer and new tie. You’ll look smashing.”

I watched my friend walk away and was glad he was there. As much as I liked the people I’d met since signing on to the Brannigan defense team, I didn’t feel close to them. But Seth was like a comfortable pair of slippers, a link with my roots, roots that had anchored me in Cabot Cove for so many years.

“Your friend is nice,” Cathie said.

“Yes, he is. Well, let’s head for jail.”

“Got your ‘Get Out of Jail’ card?”

“Like ‘Pass Go?’ Afraid not, Watson. You’ll visit me if they lock me up?”

“Sure. I’ll hide a file in pound cake. The way I make pound cake, they’d never find anything in it, let alone be able to eat it.”

Billy Brannigan’s few days behind bars had aged him years. His eyes were sunken, and his lip twitched as he said hello and sat across a scarred wooden table in a room reserved for attorney-client meetings. A guard stood just outside the door, which had a small glass insert covered with close-mesh wire.

“How are you holding up?” I asked, knowing that the answer was written all over his handsome, youthful face.

“Not too good, Mrs. Fletcher. I hate it here. Why did the judge revoke my bail? I didn’t go anywhere, run away when I was out on bail.”

“Because of Cynthia Warren’s murder, as I understand it.”

His laugh was rueful, more of an editorial grunt.

“Billy, I asked to see you because I’m trying to piece together some things I’ve learned that might help you.”

“I don’t think there’s anything anybody can do. Mr. McLoon told me about Cynthia’s letter saying we weren’t together the night Jack was killed. That’s a lie. I was there with her.”

“I’m sure you were. Any idea why she might have written it?”

“I don’t think she did,” he said.

“Why?”

“Why would she? Cynthia had a lot of faults, Mrs. Fletcher, but she wasn’t a liar.”

“Do you think someone might have gotten her to write the letter? Coerced her into doing it? Paid her to do it?”

“Who?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Did she ever mention a Mr. Harry LeClaire to you?”

He shook his head.

“Name doesn’t ring a bell?”

“No.”

He obviously hadn’t bothered to learn the names of the jurors and alternates for his own trial. He’d made the point from the first day I met him that he wasn’t interested in reading about the trial in the papers, or watching it on television. I certainly wasn’t about to reveal that Harry LeClaire was one of those alternates because it might cause him to do something that ran contrary to Malcolm’s strategy. I’d promised Malcolm I’d tell no one, and intended to keep my pledge.

“Billy, tell me about Gina Simone.”

“That bitch? Sorry. I didn’t mean to curse in front of you.”

“That’s quite all right. I’ve heard the term before.” I didn’t add that my most recent exposure was when it was directed at his deceased girlfriend, Cynthia Warren.

Because he hadn’t indicated any knowledge that Harry LeClaire was on the jury, I felt safe mentioning Thomas McEnroe. I received the same response, a shaking of the head.

“Billy, when I mentioned Gina Simone’s name, you reacted with anger, and I can understand why. Tell me more about her.”

“Why?”

“Just one of the pieces I’m trying to fit into a larger puzzle. What does she do for a living?”

“Lives off men.”

“Oh? You make it sound as though she’s a prostitute.”

“She is, but not the way you usually think of prostitutes. She’s a great-looking girl. Woman. Knows how to play guys to get what she wants. She says she’s an actress, but she’s never acted in anything that I know of. A wannabe actress. But maybe she is a good actress, the way she always gets her way.”

“I read in newspaper clippings that she claimed to be an actress. I was reading them while waiting to see you. You said she lives off men. How?”

“Gina only runs with guys with money. Doesn’t matter if they’re married. In fact, maybe she prefers that they are. Makes it easier to blackmail them into keeping her, paying her bills, her rent, buy her clothes and jewelry.”

“I see.”

“I hated that she and Cynthia were such good friends. Cynthia and I used to fight about that a lot. Gina was a bad influence on Cynthia.”

“Are you saying that Cynthia used men, too.”

“No. Well, sometimes. Before I met her. She and Gina used to run together, always with high-rollers, big shots, party girls I guess you could call them.”

“High-rollers. Gamblers?”

“I don’t know. Guys with money. Jet-set types.”

“What did Cynthia do for a living? Her home on the Cape is beautiful.”

“Some uncle left it to her. Caused a big stink in the family. It was her mother’s brother, and her mother thought the house was being left to her. Surprise, Mom. Cynthia got it.”

“But keeping up a house like that costs money. And she had a nice car sitting in the driveway. How did she earn money?”

“She said she was a design consultant to businesses in Boston and New York.”

“Did you know who her clients were?”

“No. I asked a few times but she said it was confidential. Like a lawyer and client. Didn’t make any sense to me, so I stopped asking.”

The guard opened the door. “Ten minutes, ma’am,” he said.

“Yes. All right.”

I waited for him to close the door before saying to Billy, “You come from quite a family.”

He smiled genuinely for the first time. “I guess I do,” he said. “Sure is a rich one.”

“Your brother, Jack, ran the business as I understand it.”

“Maybe ran it into the ground is more like it.”

I hadn’t expected that response, and was speechless for a moment.

“Maybe you’d better explain, Billy. I thought Brannigan’s Bean Pot was an extremely successful business. I see the product everywhere I go.”

“Oh, sure. It’s a success. A big success. Always has been since my grandfather started it. Secret recipe and all.”

“I’ve tasted Brannigan’s baked beans. Very good—almost as good as the ones I make.”

“Yeah. It’s good. Jack was a good businessman, I suppose, only some of the other family members involved in the business thought he played too loose and easy with the money.”

“How so?”

“He gambled.”

“Did he? Big stakes?”

“Sometimes. Every once in a while he’d come back from the Bahamas and tell me how much he lost. Big bucks. But I guess when you have it, it doesn’t mean much.”

I asked, “Did your brother have business dealings with others outside Brannigan’s Bean Pot?”

“Like who?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Billy. Investments in other businesses.”

“Sure.”

“Any names?”

“Not that I remember. Jack didn’t talk much about those things to me, I guess because I didn’t want anything to do with business. I was content to live off the trust.”

“But I thought you said that on the morning of his murder, you got up and went to work.”

“I did. I have a friend on the Cape who makes a living clamming. I went out with him that day. I bought some lobsters, went back to Cynthia’s house, took a shower and—well, then the next morning I heard about Jack. I never had to work a steady job, not with the trust. So I did odd jobs, for friends, things I enjoyed doing. I didn’t want to just sit around like some spoiled rich kid.”

“If your brother had gone through with his threat to cut you out of the trust’s proceeds, your lifestyle would have changed dramatically.”

“Yeah, I guess it would have.”

“Billy, I know I have to leave. Before I do, can you think of anyone who might have hated your brother enough to kill him?”

“No. I mean, he wasn’t the nicest guy in the world. Like any businessman, he struck hard deals and made enemies. But—”

“Other members of your family? You said some of them didn’t approve of how Jack handled the company’s funds.”

“Nobody in the family would get that mad at him. Had to be somebody outside the family, somebody who got screwed by Jack in a business deal.”

“Any suggestions? Did he owe people money?”

“No. People owed
him
money. It was like a hobby with Jack, lending money to people at big interest rates.”

“You make him sound like a loan shark.”

“He was, like Gina Simone was a prostitute. Not literally in either case, but doing basically the same thing.”

“Who owed Jack money?”

“I don’t know. As I said, Mrs. Fletcher, Jack didn’t discuss details with me. But he’d brag when he’d make a score, either gambling or lending money. I remember once he laughed and said he had somebody by the—had them in a tough position because he’d loaned money to them.”

“But he didn’t say who it was.”

“No. I think he called him the tweezer guy.”

“The tweezer guy?”

“Yeah, whatever that means. Jack always talked that way. The car guy. The bank guy. The meat guy. The tweezer guy.”

The door opened.

“I’m leaving,” I told the guard.

“Billy, before I go, do you know anyone who had a specific, obvious reason for killing your brother?”

“No. But I bet whoever killed him killed Cynthia.”

“Anything to back that up?” I asked.

“Makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, they were killed the same way, knife to the chest and all. And she was going to testify that I was with her the night Jack was killed. Whoever killed Jack wants me convicted of the crime so he can go free.”

“I suppose it does make sense. Well, I have to leave.” I stood and shook his hand. “Thanks for sharing these things with me,” I said. “And don’t lose faith.”

“... and so, Mr. Parker, you say that the district attorney, Ms. James, is confident that with the letter from Cynthia Warren introduced into evidence, Billy Brannigan’s conviction is a sure thing.”

I asked the question in the spacious, muted splendor of Jasper’s, where we’d feasted on grilled lobster sausage, pork and clams
Alentejo
(with garlic and tomatoes), Maine rock crab cakes, and a grilled duck salad with papaya and spiced pecans.

“Yes,” he replied. “In her usual arrogant way, Whitney thinks she can’t lose. And in convicting Billy Brannigan, she launches herself into higher office, attorney general, perhaps even governor.”

“An ambitious lady,” Seth offered, finishing his dessert.

Parker laughed. “ ‘Ambitious’ is too mild, Dr. Hazlitt. Whitney James will stop at nothing to rise above her level of incompetence.” He chuckled.

“Seems to me you don’t like the lady much,” Seth said, removing his linen napkin from where he’d tucked it into his shirt collar, and wiping his mouth.

“Another understatement,” said Parker.

It had been a pleasant dinner. Warren Parker was a man with a sizable ego and sneering charm, yet he seemed to know when to defer to Seth or myself, when to lecture and when to listen. I was surprised at Seth’s acceptance of our host. Usually, the good doctor from Cabot Cove was quick to let people like Parker know what he thought of them. But he was on his best behavior this night, and went along with the conversation without challenging him.

“You’ll excuse me,” Seth said. “Nature calls.”

The moment he left the table, Parker placed his hand on mine and said, “Your friend seems tired, Jessica. How about dropping him at the Ritz, and you and I continuing the evening in more intimate surroundings?”

I slid my hand from beneath his and laughed. “I think you’re mistaken,” I said, “in judging who’s the tired one. As lovely as this evening has been, I’m the one who needs to go straight to bed.”

I knew the moment I said it that he would turn it into a double entendre. He sought my hand again and smiled.

“I’m tired, Warren and—”

“I think we should have a talk, Jessica. Just the two of us.”

“Oh?”

“You might have gathered that Whitney James and I have had a close relationship in the past.”

“I assumed that.”

“And that I enjoy a certain status in the community. I know many important people, Jessica, who confide in me.”

“I don’t doubt that.”

“Truth is, Jessica, I can hand you and Malcolm McLoon what you need to ensure Brannigan’s acquittal.”

I sat up straight and stared at him. “I’m not quite sure I understand,” I said.

“You will once we shuck your friend for the evening and head for a quiet, private spot where I can explain.”