Beyond Suspicion (8 page)

•

Jack had a noon meeting with Rosa Tomayo at his office. It was literally a matter of walking across the hall. Her office suite was on the same floor, same building as his.

Rosa’s firm was three times bigger than Jack’s, which meant that besides herself she had two much younger partners to help carry the workload. Not that she needed much help. Rosa was a bona fide multitasker, someone who felt hopelessly underutilized if she wasn’t doing at least eight different things at once, all with the finesse of a symphonic conductor. Jack had personally engaged her in spirited debates over lunch only to have her later recount conversations she’d simultaneously overheard at nearby tables. That kind of energy and brain power had landed her among Miami’s legal elite, though some would say her reputation was equally attributable to the quick wit and enduring good looks she employed with great flair and frequency on television talk shows. She definitely had style. But she wasn’t the typical showboat criminal defense lawyer who proclaimed her client’s innocence from the hilltops when, in truth, the government had merely failed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If Jack ever decided to seek out a partner, Rosa would have been first on his list.

When he needed representation, Rosa was the obvious choice.

Calling her from the crime scene last night had turned out to be the right thing to do. Even though he’d walked hundreds of his own clients through similar situations, the perils of a lawyer representing himself were endless. Rosa helped him focus objectively. They’d agreed that, first thing in the morning, she would meet with the prosecutor assigned to the case.

At 12:15 Jack began to pace.
Rosa, where are you?

The wait was only made worse by the barrage of calls from the media. Jack dodged them all. As a lawyer he didn’t normally shy away from reporters, but in this case Jack was avoiding any public statements at least until Rosa confirmed one way or the other if he was a suspect.

At 12:45, finally, she was back.

“I think it’s solved,” she said.

Jack chuckled nervously from his seat at the head of the conference table.

“I’m serious.” She was picking over the deli sandwich platter he’d ordered for lunch. She removed the sliced turkey from between two slices of rye bread, rolled it up, and nibbled as she spoke. “I honestly think it’s resolved.”

“Already?”

“What can I say? I’m damn good.”

“Tell me what happened.”

She tossed the rolled turkey back on the platter and started on the ham. It was the way Rosa always ate-two bites of this, a bite of that, talking all the while.

“The meeting was just me and Jancowitz. He claims you all but admitted that Jessie scammed the investors.”

“I didn’t go that far. I was just trying to give him some insight into the motive they might have to kill her.”

“Well, the motive cuts two ways. He sees it as
your
motive to kill Jessie.”

“How?”

“Self-righteous son of a former governor gets scammed by a client who used to be his girlfriend. His ego can’t handle it, or maybe he thinks it will ruin his stellar reputation. He snaps and kills her, then makes it look like suicide.”

“That’s weak.”

“That’s what I said. Which is why I don’t think it’s their real theory.”

“Then where are they headed?”

“Same place you’d go if you were still a prosecutor. You and Jessie were having an affair. She threatened to tell your wife unless you played along with her scam. You got tired of the extortion and whacked her.”

“When?”

“Good question. I pressed Benno on the time of death. They’re not committing to anything, but bugs don’t lie. The medical examiner says that the maggot eggs in Jessie’s eyes were already starting to hatch. If you work backward on the timeline of forensic entomology, that puts her time of death somewhere about midday.”

“Good for me,” said Jack. “I was in trial all day and then went straight to dinner with Cindy.”

“That’s what I told Benno.”

“Except the maggots give us something else to think about. Aren’t they more prevalent on a body found outdoors than indoors?”

“Not necessarily.”

“But you see my point. Is anyone considering that Jessie’s body was moved from somewhere outside the house to my bathtub?”

“I’m pretty sure they’ve ruled it out. With all the blood that ran from her body, her heart had to be pumping when she was in your tub, which means she was alive when she got there.”

“Though not necessarily conscious.”

“True. But there are other indicators, too. Benno was talking pretty fast, but I think he said something about how the livor mortis pattern on her backside suggests that she died right where she was found.”

“When can we find out something definite?”

“We have to be patient. You know how this works. It could be weeks before the medical examiner issues a final report. Until then, all we get is what Benno deigns to share with us.”

“Does that mean I’m a suspect or not?”

“I don’t think you’re high on the list. In my opinion, he just wants to tweak you, embarrass you a little.”

“Oh, is that all?” he said, scoffing.

“Better than making your life miserable for the foreseeable future as the target of a homicide investigation. All you have to do is give him a little of what he wants.”

“What are you telling me? You and Jancowitz sat around a table all morning negotiating how best to embarrass me?”

She bit off the tip of a pickle spear. “Basically.”

“This is crazy.”

“Just listen. Here’s the deal. We put down in writing the whole conversation you and Jessie had the night before she died. She was afraid for her life, she admitted that she had scammed the viatical investors, they were threatening to kill her. Then we put in your side of the story. She acted like she was on drugs, you told her to go to the police, blah, blah, blah. And most important, we put in bold and all capital letters that you knew absolutely nothing about the scam until after the verdict was rendered.”

“You’re confident that there will be no repercussions about breaching the attorney-client privilege?”

“A lawyer can breach the privilege to defend himself from possible criminal charges.”

“I know that. But nobody’s talked about charging me yet.”

“There was a dead body in your house. Trust me. They’re talking about it.”

Jack glanced at the untouched sandwich on his plate, then back at Rosa. “What kind of immunity are they offering?”

“They won’t prosecute you on the scam. No promises on the homicide investigation.”

“You think that’s enough?”

“Let’s be real, okay? You’re never going to get immunity on a homicide charge. You’re the son of a former governor. Prosecutors cut deals with the little guys so they can nail people like you.”

“Then why are you so sure that this letter is the right thing to do?”

“First of all, it’s the truth. Second, even though you weren’t part of Jessie’s scam, you should sleep better at night knowing that the prosecutor has agreed not to try to prove you were involved.”

“That’s something, I guess.”

“Especially when you consider that we’re not giving them anything they haven’t already deduced from your conversation last night. Like I said, they’re assuming there was a scam. This just puts it on record that you knew nothing about it.”

“So, in your view, we’re giving them nothing?”

“Exactly. It serves the same purpose as a press release, only not as tacky. And it may help down the road, too. Worst-case scenario, Jancowitz asks the grand jury to indict you for the murder of Jessie Merrill. Your involvement in her little scam is sure to play some part in your alleged motive. Somehow, he’ll have to explain that from day one of the investigation he had a letter sitting in his file in which you unequivocally denied any involvement.”

“You know as well as I do that a prosecutor doesn’t even have to mention that letter to the grand jury.”

“No, but we can make some hay in the press if he doesn’t.”

“So, why do you really think Jancowitz even wants the letter?”

“My opinion? He doesn’t like you, never did. He can’t wait to use your own words to show the world how stupid you were with your own client.”

Jack cringed.

“Sorry,” she said. “But that’s the way he’s going to play it. Slick defense lawyer gets outslicked.”

“The media will have a feast.”

“Yes, they will. But today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s paper-hat.”

“Gee, thanks. I feel better already.”

She came to him, laid a hand on his shoulder. “Look, my friend. These are salacious facts. Innocent or not, you won’t come out of this smelling like a rose.”

Jack knew she was right. The hardest part about being a criminal defense lawyer was defending the innocent. Even when they won, they lost something-status, reputation, the unconditional trust of friends and peers.

“I suppose it will all come out in the end anyway,” he said. “I might as well lay it all out from the get-go, do what I can to make sure the investigation heads in the right direction.”

“That’s exactly where I came out. Of course, we’re making certain assumptions. One, you didn’t kill her, which goes without saying. And two, she was not your lover.”

“Definitely not.”

“I’m not just talking about getting naked. I don’t want to find some string of flirtatious e-mails down the road somewhere.”

“There’s none of that.”

“Then I say we go public with the scam. Jancowitz is happy because it embarrasses you professionally. We’re happy because the truth focuses the attention where it belongs, on the viatical investors.”

“You don’t think that sounds too simple?”

“I’m not saying we write Jancowitz a letter and then sit on our hands. If they start thinking homicide and definitely not suicide, he might still hound you as a suspect. In that case, we need to be ready to hand them something on a silver platter, something so compelling that it almost forces them to focus their investigation on another suspect. Hopefully, the right suspect.”

“We’ve got two pretty solid theories.”

Rosa started to pace, as if it helped her think. “One, the viatical investors killed Jessie. They put the body in your house to deflect guilt from them to you. Or two, Jessie feared a horrible death. She was convinced they were going to kill her. So she killed herself, but she did it in a way and in a place that, as you say, makes a statement. She wanted to create havoc in your life because you refused to help her.”

“It has to be one of those,” said Jack.

“Lucky for us, there’s a common thread to both of them: The viatical investors threatened to kill Jessie. We need to find out who’s behind that company.”

“Jessie didn’t give me much to go on. She basically just said the company itself was a front. The real money was a bunch of bad operators.”

“You know what I always say. Bad money has a stench. Follow your nose. You up for it?”

“What’s my alternative?”

“You can sit back and hope your love letter to Jancowitz does the trick.”

He shook his head, not so sure that Jancowitz would be satisfied in merely embarrassing him. He looked at Rosa and said, “I’ll take care of the letter. Then it’s time to go fishing.”

“You have any particular investigator you’d like to use?”

“The official answer to that is no.”

She gave him a knowing smile. “You know, it’s really too bad Theo is a convicted felon. I’d use him too, if he could get a license.”

“That’s the beauty of the arrangement. It keeps me from having to pay him.”

“Something tells me you’ll find a way around that.”

Jack nodded, knowing that with all the freebies Theo had given him, someday he’d owe him his car.

Rosa checked her watch. “Gotta run. If you need me, you know where to find me.”

Jack walked her from the conference room to the lobby. They stopped at the double doors. “Rosa. Thank you.”

“No problem. You’d do the same for me. But let’s hope you never have to.”

She was out the door, but Jack answered anyway, for no one’s benefit but his own. “Let’s hope.”

•

It was two A.M., and Jack sat alone at the kitchen table wearing the pajamas his mother-in-law had given him for Christmas. They were a grotesque paisley print, the kind of garment that might ordinarily sit in a dresser drawer until old age seized his senses. So long as he and Cindy were in Mrs. Paige’s house, however, he figured he’d be the good son-in-law and wear them.

Since “the incident,” as they’d come to call it, Cindy and Jack had been staying in her old room in her mother’s house in Pinecrest. It was a temporary arrangement until they could find an apartment. Moving back into their house would never be an option, and Jack feared that even a fast-talking realtor would have a tough time selling it.
And over here, Mr. and Mrs. Buyer, is a spacious master bathroom, which the owners have quite tastefully painted a very lovely shade of red to disguise the blood splatter on the walls.

The light from under the range hood cast a faint glow across the room. Beads of condensation glistened on the glass of water before him. A seriously flawed segment of Jack’s brain was forcing him to play the half-empty/half-full guessing game, so he raised the water glass and guzzled.

There, damn it. Empty.

Jack’s letter had gone off to the state attorney’s office that afternoon. It recounted his entire conversation with Jessie the night before her death. He’d labored over the wording for several hours before enlisting Rosa’s help to massage the final draft. She was totally sold on the concept. Jack hadn’t realized how
un
sold he was until after he’d wasted four hours trying to fall asleep. A written acknowledgment to the state attorney that his own client had scammed him would hardly bolster his standing in the Miami legal community.

“Are you okay?”

He turned and saw Cindy standing behind him. He’d tried not to wake her when he’d crawled out of the little bed they were sharing, but he’d obviously failed.

“Can’t sleep,” he said.

“Me neither. I thought I’d check the real estate section for rentals once more.”

“Good idea.”

As she searched through the recycle bin for yesterday’s newspaper, she looked up and asked, “Are you still thinking about that letter you wrote to the state attorney?”

“How did you know?”

“Because I know you.”

He lowered his eyes. “I feel like the teacher kept me after school to write five hundred times on the blackboard, ‘bullwinkle is a dope.’”

“You’re not stupid. You’re the smartest lawyer I know.”

“I did a pretty stupid thing.”

“You had no choice. Writing that letter is the only way to focus the state attorney’s attention where it belongs-on those investors who were threatening your client.”

“I didn’t mean writing the letter was stupid. I meant letting Jessie fool me in the first place.”

She quit searching for the newspaper and lowered herself into the chair beside her husband. The look in her eye told him that he was in for a reality check. “Jessie’s doctor was one of the most respected neurologists in Miami. How could you possibly have suspected that a man of his stature would falsify a diagnosis and defraud a group of viatical investors?”

“I deal with clever thieves all the time. I let my sympathy for Jessie get in the way.”

“Of course you did. Even
I
felt sorry for that woman. I’m the one who told you, ‘Go ahead and take the case, I don’t care if she’s your old girlfriend.’ Remember?”

“It still blows me away.”

“Me too. Especially the doctor. The more I think about this, the crazier it seems that Dr. Marsh would jeopardize his whole career that way.”

“Money,” he said, shaking his head. “I know a few doctors who love it.”

“There has to be something more at work. Something that we don’t understand.”

He could have detailed some of Jessie’s other persuasive powers, but that didn’t seem like a smart road to travel with his wife. “Let’s not worry about him,” he said. “How are you doing?”

“Okay.”

She’d averted her eyes when answering. He turned her chin gently. “What’s wrong?”

“I got my period,” she said quietly.

Jack tried not to show disappointment. “It’s okay. We’ll keep trying.”

“We’ve been trying for eleven months now.”

“Has it really been that long?”

“Yes. And I’m still not pregnant.”

“Maybe we should try doing it without our wedding rings. That never seems to fail.”

She almost smiled, but this was clearly weighing on her. “How worried are you, honey?” he asked.

“Very.”

“Maybe it’s me,” said Jack.

“It’s not you.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

He wasn’t sure how she knew, but debating it wasn’t going to cheer her up. “There are plenty of things we haven’t tried yet.”

“I know. And there’s always adoption, too. But I’m almost afraid to think about that.”

“Why?”

She paused and said, “Because of the relationship you had with your stepmother.”

“That’s totally different from adoption.”

“It’s not, at least from a bonding standpoint. You were just a newborn when your mother died. Agnes raised you from infancy.”

“The fact that my stepmother and I never bonded has nothing to do with the fact that she was not my biological mother. My father was so desperate to find me a new mother that he married a woman who turned out to be a drunk.”

She took his hand, lacing her fingers with his. “How often do you wonder about your real mother?”

“I go in spurts. Times when I’m really curious, other times when I don’t think about her at all. Fortunately, I have my
abuela
to tell me all about her.”

“Doesn’t that concern you, about adoption? The idea of this mysterious person becoming part of our lives?”

“Adoption isn’t like that. There’s no
abuela
around to tell stories about the biological mother.”

“I didn’t mean an actual living person. I meant more like the essence of the birth mother.”

“That doesn’t seem to bother the millions of other couples who adopt.”

“I don’t think other people are as in touch with that sort of thing as I am.”

“What sort of thing?”

“Feeling someone’s… presence.”

Jack knew that she was talking about her father, and he feared that Jessie’s death had triggered something. “Is that why you’re awake? Were you having that dream about your father again?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Come on, I didn’t want to make this conversation about that. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. This was a traumatic event for both of us. If you want to talk to me or someone else or even a counselor, it’s okay.”

She fell silent, then looked at him and said, “Actually, there’s something I’ve been wanting to show you.”

“What?”

“Wait right here.”

She rose and followed the dark hall to the spare bedroom that she’d turned into her temporary home office. In a minute she returned to the table and laid a ten-by-twelve photograph before him and said, “I shot a few rolls of film a couple weeks ago. Just a run-of-the-mill outdoor portrait of a little girl and her dog.”

Jack studied the photograph, shrugged, and said, “It’s a nice picture.”

“Look at the lower right-hand corner. See anything?”

He zeroed in. “Like what?”

“Does that not look like a shadow to you? As if someone might have been standing behind me?”

He looked again and said, “I don’t see any shadow.”

“You don’t
see
that?”

“The entire corner is a little darker than the rest of the photograph, but it doesn’t look like a person to me. Was someone there with you?”

“No. That’s the whole point. It was just me, the girl, and the dog. Yet I had a weird sensation that someone else was there during the shoot.”

“Cindy, please,” he said with concern.

“No, it’s true. Then I went back and took a really good look at the proofs, and I saw this.”

“Saw what?”

“This silhouette.”

“It’s just a dark spot.”

“It’s a
person
.”

“Cindy-”

“Just listen to me. I’m not losing my mind. I thought I was, to be honest. Between my creepy dreams and this shadow in the photograph, I was starting to think-well, I didn’t know what to think. But ever since this thing happened with Jessie, it’s beginning to make sense to me.”

“What’s making sense?”

She paused, as if to underscore her words. “Maybe someone’s following me.”

“What?”

“Jessie told you that some thugs were behind that viatical investment. She said they were going to kill her, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“What if those same thugs think her lawyer helped her pull off the scam? They could be out to get you, too. They could be out to get
us.
”

“No one’s going to get us.”

“Then why is this shadow in my picture?”

“I honestly don’t see it.”

Her eyes seemed to cloud over. She looked at the photograph, then at Jack. “You really don’t see anything?”

He shook his head. “If you want, we can hire another photographer to examine it. See if their professional judgment squares with yours.”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. You’re right. It’s not there.”

Jack recoiled, confused by her sudden reversal. “It’s not?”

She shook her head. “The first time I examined this proof, I was sure I saw a human shadow. Then I looked at it again tonight and I wasn’t so sure. You just confirmed it for me. I’m seeing things that aren’t even there.” She chuckled mirthlessly and said, “I really must be freaking out.”

“What happened to us is enough to push anyone to the edge.”

She moved closer, as if telling him to hold her. He took her in his arms and said, “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“You promise?”

“Everyone has fears. The imagination can run away with you.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It’ll pass. Believe me. We’ll be fine.”

“I know. Tonight’s just been especially tough. The whole day, really.”

“What happened?”

“It’s just that…”

“What?”

“After this horrible thing happened in our own house, I’d managed to convince myself that God had something really good in store for us. That’s why it hit me pretty hard today when I found out I wasn’t pregnant.”

“Good things
are
in store for us. There are so many options we haven’t even talked about yet. Fertility drugs, even artificial insemination, if you want.”

She smiled weakly.

“What?” he asked.

“An absurd image just flashed into my head. You sitting all by yourself in the back room of some doctor’s office, flipping through the pages of a dirty magazine…”

“It’s not like that at all.”

“Oh, really, stud? How do you think they collect their specimen?”

“I dunno. I just always assumed that’s why nurses wear rubber gloves.”

“Perv,” she said as she pushed him away playfully.

He pulled her back into his arms. “Come here, you.”

She settled into his embrace, put her head against his shoulder, and said, “A baby. What a thought.”

“
Our
baby. Even more amazing.”

“You ready for this?”

“Heck, no. You?”

“Of course not.”

“Perfect,” he said. “Why should we be different from everyone else?”

She flashed a wan smile, her voice seeming to trail off in the distance. “If only we were just a little bit more like everyone else.”

Jack wasn’t sure how to answer that, so he kept holding her. After a minute or two, she started to rock gently in his arms. It was barely audible, but she was humming the lullaby, “Hush, Little Baby.” In his head Jack was following along and enjoying the melody, until she stopped suddenly in midverse. It was a cold and abrupt ending, like hopes and dreams interrupted. He waited for her to continue, but she didn’t.

They stayed wrapped in each other’s arms, saying not another word, neither of them wanting to be the first to let go.