Mourning Gloria (35 page)

But Jessica’s media attention wasn’t just print, and it wasn’t just local—partly because her experience was so sensational, and partly because Jessica herself is an attractive, vivacious young woman who knows how to tell a story.

And she had a zinger of a story to tell. The day after her release, she was interviewed on CNN, NBC, and CBS, and the day after that, on
Good Morning America
. Her interviewers loved hearing her tell how she had waited in fear in the dark, bound and gagged and wondering if Simmons was going to shoot her, as he had shot Gloria Graham before he burned her alive—as he was
alleged
to have done, Jessica was careful to add. But they loved it even more when she told how she had taken out her captor entirely by herself, armed only with a seven iron. And of course they picked up on that golf club, and before long, she was known far and wide as the Seven-Iron Slugger.

Three days later, she was contacted by a New York literary agent, urging her to write a book.

 

 

“HAVE you seen the newspaper yet?” Ruby asked me, late on a Saturday afternoon, two weeks after the ordeal. She grinned at Jessica. “I know
you’ve
seen it.”

We were all three sitting at the table in Ruby’s kitchen, munching on some of the leftover refreshments from the garden club program and the tour of Ruby’s shamanic garden. Ruby was holding up the latest
Enterprise
, open to the page of engagement announcements. At the top of the page was a photo of Sheila and Blackie. Blackie looked smug. Sheila looked a little tense.

“Yes, I saw it,” Jessica replied. “Mr. Hibler wonders whether it’s really going to happen.”

“They’ve set a wedding date,” I said. “The first Sunday in September. And Blackie and McQuaid are busy making plans to join forces in the P.I. business, after Blackie leaves office.” It was still hard for me to believe that Blackie could give up the post of sheriff so easily.

“Do they know where they’re going to live?” Ruby asked.

“I think that’s still undecided,” I replied. “Sheila’s house is too small for both of them, and Blackie lives even farther outside of Pecan Springs than I do.” I lifted a bottle. “Anybody want another sip?”

I had brought several different bottles of homemade herbal liqueurs so that the garden club members could each have a little taste, as well as a couple of bottles from my very private stash—Rosemary Tangerine and Lemony Mint liqueurs—for Ruby. Caitie had baked more of those tasty lemon icebox cookies, and I had brought some of those, as well. Caitie was at orchestra practice this afternoon. She’d only had two lessons with her new teacher, but she was doing so well that Sandra had put her into the orchestra immediately.

Ruby held out her glass. “I’ll try the Lemony Mint,” she said, helping herself to another of Caitie’s cookies. She turned to Jessica. “So what’s the situation with the book, Jessica?”

“It’s looking like a real possibility,” Jessica replied. “But first there’ll have to be a conviction—and that will take some time.”

Ruby tasted the liqueur. “Gosh, that’s good,” she said. “I think I like it even better than the other one.” She paused. “Do you think Simmons is likely to get convicted, China?”

“Very likely,” I said. “I understand that his parents have hired Jeff Murdock, from Houston, to handle the defense. He’s good. The trial is likely to be interesting—if it goes to trial.”

The charges against Matthew Simmons were piling up. For now, they included murder, arson, aggravated kidnapping, and assault with a deadly weapon. Eventually, when the federal agents finished their investigation, they would include multiple counts of drug trafficking and conspiracy charges, as well.

“Looks to me like the prosecution has a very strong case,” Jessica said.

I agreed. Since Simmons had been caught in a hostage situation, the kidnapping was a slam dunk, and the case of Gloria Graham’s murder was almost as strong. Among the pieces of forensic evidence that would be presented at trial was the gun Simmons had in his possession when he was taken into custody in the parking garage. Ballistics testing had matched it with the single slug taken from Gloria’s burned body. A big plus for the prosecution; a challenge for the defense.

The shoe evidence was less compelling, but it would pose a problem for the defense, as well, since juries know more about shoes than they know about the rifling of gun barrels. Among the crime-scene photos the prosecution would enter into evidence was the photo of the footprint taken from the area where the accelerant had been poured. The diagonal slash I had spotted on the square-and-diamond patterned tread of the Converse shoe could be seen in the photo and in the plaster cast that had been made of the print. To clinch the argument, the prosecutor would pass around the red-and-white-striped Stars and Bars basketball shoe Simmons had been wearing when he was captured, and point out that the slash in the heel exactly matched the eighth-inch-deep scar in the cast.

Jeff Murdock might be a hot-shot defense lawyer with a quiver full of acquittals to his credit, but he was going to have a tough time developing a plausible alternative explanation for those two pieces of evidence. If Simmons were my client, I’d advise him to plead: life without parole in what was likely to be a death penalty case.

The federal drug trafficking case that the federal investigators were piecing together would be a strong one, too. The defendant wasn’t talking (what else is new?), but between Shannon Fisher and Larry Wolff (who turned out to know quite a bit about what Simmons was up to), the investigators could reconstruct what had happened, and how and why.

Matt Simmons, who grew up in Brownsville, Texas, and went to high school and junior college there, had been recruited as a mule by the local chapter of the Gulf cartel, one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico. Known as “El Gringo,” he had been employed by the drug lords for over five years, working his way up through the military-style organization to the role of recruiter. In addition to his undercover life, he was a graduate student at CTSU, presumably aiming to equip himself with a degree he could use when he finally decided to go straight (which, of course, the cartel would never allow).

He had met Gloria the previous year and persuaded her that smuggling was an easy—and exciting—way to earn money. Her relationship to Laughton gave her a reason to go on the field trip, and Simmons used the opportunity to introduce her to the cartel’s suppliers. He hadn’t expected her to bring a load across in the van. In fact, it was a dumb stunt, since it might have landed the whole crew in jail. But the border officials had been bought off and Gloria’s first carry was a success. It wasn’t the only one. She made the trip twice more in the next few months, before she got frightened and decided that she needed to get out. Shannon Fisher would testify that Gloria was on the verge of going to the police, with the hope of entering the Witness Protection Program.

That was when Simmons acted, the prosecution would say, under the urging of his cartel bosses, who insisted that he silence her and instructed him on how to do it. But he’d never shot anybody before. He had never set an arson fire, either. He botched the job of killing Gloria outright, and I had happened on the fire before the evidence could be completely destroyed. And he had carelessly left that telltale shoeprint.

But even with that evidence, it’s hard to see how the police would have caught up with him if it hadn’t been for Jessica. As she told the media people who interviewed her, she was compelled to get involved because she had been absolutely stunned by the horrible fact of Gloria’s death.

“When I learned that this young woman had been alive and conscious when the fire reached her—that she had burned to death, I couldn’t get it out of my mind,” she told her various interviewers. “My parents and my twin sister died in a fire. Gloria’s horrific death woke the memories I had buried, the nightmares I had tried to ignore. I was possessed by it, and it possesses me still. Following Gloria’s story, piecing it together, I was mourning her, in a way. But I was also mourning my sister and my mom and dad. I had to find out who killed Gloria and why.”

Under the interviewers’ questioning, she told how she had followed the trail, from Scott Sheridan to Lucy LaFarge, and from Lucy to Zoe Morris. After she left Zoe, she had found a list of laboratory assignments on Stuart Laughton’s bulletin board. She had happened on the name of Gloria Graham, put it together with the initials on the bracelet, and concluded that Gloria might be the woman who had died in the fire. She found her address, went to her apartment, and began knocking on neighbors’ doors.

“That’s when I met Matt Simmons,” she told her interviewers. “He seemed interested and started asking me more and more questions. At some point, I guess he must have realized that I was beginning to piece the story together, and that I was close to finding out what he had done.”

She, too, realized how close she was, and that she was in real danger. “I tried to phone my friend China Bayles for help,” she said, “but Simmons discovered what I was doing and grabbed the phone.” He hit her hard enough to knock her out, took her down to his storage locker, where he bound and gagged and locked her up.

“I had no idea where I was,” she said, “or what time it was. Most of the time it was pitch dark and I couldn’t see a thing. But once when somebody came in and turned on the main overhead light, I got a quick look around. I realized that I was being held in a storage closet—and that there was a bag of golf clubs and a machete in the corner. You know, a banana knife. I guess he’d brought it back from Mexico. I managed to scoot across the floor to the point where I could reach it, and wedged the blade into position so I could use it to cut the ropes on my wrists. After that, I was able to get the ropes off my ankles and pull the tape off my mouth. I couldn’t escape, because there was a lock on the outside of the door, but I was hoping somebody would come into the storage area before he came back, and I could yell and get some help.”

“And that golf club?” her interviewers would ask. (They always asked about that club, so they could work in the nickname “Seven-Iron Slugger.”)

“Oh, that.” She laughed. “Well, I thought I needed a weapon. The machete was kind of big, but I thought one of the golf clubs would work. I took the seven iron out of the bag and put it on the floor behind me, hoping I’d get a chance to hit him with it.”

The interviewer would lean forward, wide-eyed, anticipating what was next. “And then he came back?”

Jessica would nod. “That’s right. He came back with a duffle bag—for my dead body, I guess—and a gun. I don’t know whether he intended to shoot me on the spot or knock me out and take me somewhere else to kill me. That’s what he’s accused of doing to Gloria.”

“He couldn’t see that you weren’t tied up?”

“At that point, I guess the sheriff was already chasing him, and he was pretty scared. He just assumed that I was still tied.”

“And when he was talking to the sheriff on his cell phone . . .” the interviewer would prompt breathlessly.

“When he was talking on his cell, I whacked him.” At that point, Jessica always grinned, reveling in the memory. “I grabbed the seven iron and walloped him as hard as I could, just above his right ear.”

“You must have hit him pretty hard,” the interviewer would say, frowning slightly. “He sustained a skull fracture.”

“Good,” Jessica would say. “He had it coming.”

I picked up the bottle of Rosemary Tangerine liqueur. “Another sip or two?” I asked.

Ruby held out her glass. “What’s happening with Stuart Laughton?” she asked. “He wasn’t really involved in any criminal activity, was he?”

“Depends on how you define criminal,” Jessica said, looking chagrined. “I’m ashamed of myself. Really. If I had known . . .”

Ruby patted her hand understandingly. “Been there, done that,” she said softly. “Don’t beat up on yourself, Jessica.”

“I imagine he’ll think twice before he fools around with anybody else,” I said. “Donna Fletcher told me that Margie has given him an ultimatum. If he does it again, she’ll divorce him. And McQuaid heard, through the faculty grapevine, that Laughton’s department chair has laid down the law. If he gets involved with another student, his tenure will be revoked.”

“What about the other stuff?” Ruby asked. “You know, the smuggling.”

“Blackie says that the federal agents have questioned him closely,” I reported, filling Ruby’s glass. “They’re satisfied that he had nothing to do with the drug-smuggling operation. However, his dean is not too happy. There will be no more field trips to Mexico for a while.”

“The publicity isn’t hurting the sales of the new book, though,” Jessica said. “I understand that he and Margie are going to be on
All Things Considered
.”

“When are
you
going to be on
All Things Considered
?” Ruby asked. “When you sign the contract for your book? Or maybe when they announce the movie?”

“Gosh,” Jessica said, widening her eyes. “A movie! You think?” She mused. “Maybe Amy Adams playing me? Or Alyson Hannigan?”

“I’ll vote for Tom Selleck to play Blackie,” I offered, although I’ve always thought that Selleck looks a lot more like McQuaid than Blackie.

“Who should play you, China?” Ruby asked practically. “How about Holly Hunter?”

“Aw, gee,” I said, pleased. “Really? Tell the casting director I’ll go along with that.” I paused. “You’ll have to be in it, too, Ruby. Julia Roberts, maybe?”

“Oh, yum.” Ruby rolled her eyes in ecstasy. “But we’ll need to come up with a title.”

“We can use the title of my book,” Jessica said modestly. “I mean, if I really do get a contract to write it.”

“You will,” Ruby said with a confident smile. “It’s a slam dunk. What’s the title?”

“
Mourning Gloria
,” Jessica replied.

Ruby frowned. “I’m not sure I understand that.”