Verdict Suspended (3 page)

“Yes. That’s what she told us.”

Ryan cocked his head at an imagined nuance. “What she
told
you?” he repeated. “Have you any reason to doubt her story?”

“No,” Shepherd said firmly. “I used that manner of expressing myself because I didn’t actually see Jaime at the house at all. I didn’t see him until two hours later in the emergency ward of the receiving hospital.”

Ryan had one more question. “Both Jaime Dodson and the deceased were your business associates, Mr. Shepherd. Do you know of any trouble between them?”

The courtroom was quiet. The heat came late in October, and for some seconds the only sound was the hum of a defective air conditioner. Everyone in the chamber, with the exception of the non-local press, knew of some trouble, or some rumor of trouble, between Jaime Dodson and his sister. But Cy Shepherd didn’t answer until his eyes sought and found his wife among the witnesses waiting to be questioned. She was a small, slightly plump woman with dark hair and eyes and an ivory skin no amount of sun would ever tan. Her eyes met his gaze and held. He turned back to Ryan.

“No, sir,” he said. “I do not!”

Even bland Coroner Swenson was surprised at Shepherd’s answer. “There were no quarrels over the delay in completing the Cultural Center?” he demanded.

“Oh, we all caught it over that!” Shepherd admitted. “It’s like that when a group of people are hot on a job. If there’s a hitch—say a delay in getting materials—everybody’s on edge. Nice people don’t construct buildings.”

“And who,” Ryan queried, “was in charge of expediting materials on this particular job?”

“Jaime Dodson,” Cy Shepherd admitted.

Steve Quentin had come to the inquest in a dual role: witness and counselor. His knowledge of the night of the murder was limited. Like the other guests, he had received a late afternoon invitation to Sheilah’s dinner party. Yes, she was upset. Under police questioning, prior to the coroner’s hearing, he admitted that she had threatened to cut Jaime out of the business. But this was a regular threat with Sheilah. It happened at least once during every major contract. Business had delayed his arrival, and his own story of the occasion was merely an appendage to what the other witnesses would testify.

But his second role was to defend Jaime from the indictment Ryan was trying to get. In this capacity, he rose to cross-examine Cy Shepherd.

Almost as an afterthought, Steve asked, “Mr. Shepherd, did you like working with Sheilah Dodson?”

Shepherd hesitated. “Yes and no,” he said.

“Will you explain that answer, Mr. Shepherd?”

“Certainly. Sheilah Dodson was a talented and strong-willed woman—and a hard worker. I liked that. But lately, well, I guess she’d read too many press notices.” Cy stopped to listen to his own words. He smiled shyly. “Not that I blame her. In her place, I’d have been worse, I suppose. But Sheliah was more concerned with an artistic triumph than getting the job done on schedule.”

“And you didn’t like that.”

“I’m a businessman. I have to show a profit.”

“Mr. Shepherd,” Steve asked, “did you ever feel like punching Sheilah Dodson in the face?”

The listening silence in the courtroom tightened. Cy looked up, surprised. “Well,” he admitted, “if she’d been a man—”

“Did you ever feel like killing her?”

Shepherd’s face drained of color. “Good Lord, no!” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because Sheilah Dodson was a great woman! She was opinionated and stubborn—but she wasn’t vicious! No one would—” Cy’s words stopped abruptly. He looked about strangely, as if aware for the first time that he was a witness in a courtroom where an attempt was being made to charge someone with the crime of murder. The familiar faces became cardboard faces with the features and expressions painted on, and none of them related to anything at all until he turned to face Steve Quentin again.

“No one would what?” Steve prodded.

In a puzzled voice, Cy answered, “No one would want to kill her.”

Steve returned to Jaime’s side. He had now laid the ground for all that was to come later—his first victory. But his attention was drawn to the rear of the room. Sometime within the past few minutes the double doors had opened to admit the man who now stood against the rear wall searching the spectators’ section for a vacant seat. Dr. Curry’s eyes met Steve’s and the victory died. Without a nod of recognition, Curry found a place in the rear of the room.

In the afternoon session Tilde Shepherd told her story. She wore a smart print dress with a neckline that dipped low; but there was nothing cheap about her. Even the bright blue costume jewelry at her throat took on an illusion of quality. She was soft-spoken with a trace of an accent. Carefully she verified her husband’s story in every detail. Sheilah’s dinner invitation had created no particular anxiety.

“We thought it was about some change in the building,” she said. “There were so many lately.”

“Wasn’t Miss Dodson sure of herself?” Ryan asked.

Tilde hesitated, embarrassed. “I don’t think I understand your question.”

“Was she emotionally disturbed? Is that why she made so many changes?”

Tilde Shepherd’s small hands worked nervously on the clasp of a large black bag. “Really, I couldn’t say,” she answered. “We weren’t that close.”

“In spite of having worked with her over a period of years?”

“But you don’t understand. Work is one thing. Friendship is another.”

“Then you disliked Sheilah Dodson.”

“No!” Tilde was distressed. She looked hopefully toward Coroner Swenson, but he did nothing to discourage the line of questioning. “It wasn’t that I disliked Sheilah,” she protested. “It was—well, I am Belgian. I think differently than American women. I was, frankly, a little in awe of her.”

“But you didn’t feel, as your husband does, that she was a great woman?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Did you resent her?”

“No!”

“Did she resent you?”

Tilde Shepherd hesitated. There was a shade of uncertainty in her eyes. “Why should she resent me?” she asked.

“Miss Dodson worked closely with your husband. There might have been friction.”

“Over me? Oh no. Not over me!”

“Who, then? Who was disturbing Sheilah Dodson so much she couldn’t perform her duties at her usual standard?” Ryan pounced on Tilde. When she hesitated, he took advantage of her obvious weakness. “This is an American legal procedure, Mrs. Shepherd,” he said. “No matter how much you might wish to protect someone else, we do have penalties for perjury and you’re under oath.”

The room suddenly became awesome and strange to Tilde Shepherd. She glanced out across the spectators to locate Cy, but he was on the other side of an impenetrable barrier. Ryan waited.

“Who, Mrs. Shepherd?”

“All right,” Tilde said. “I will tell you what I know. Sheilah—Miss Dodson—was worried about her brother.”

“Jaime Dodson?”

“Yes, Jaime Dodson. He was serious about a girl, and Sheilah didn’t trust his judgment. She said Jaime was too unstable. He needed a stronger woman.”

“A stronger woman than whom, Mrs. Shepherd?”

Tilde nodded across the room. “Than her—Greta Muldoon.”

“The woman who discovered Sheilah Dodson’s body?”

“Yes.” Tilde was thoroughly upset. Her eyes panicked. “But it was nothing, the trouble. There were other girls at other times. Sheilah always handled them without trouble.”

“Handled?” Ryan echoed. “Do you mean that Miss Dodson always got rid of her brother’s girl friends?”

Ryan’s interpretation of Tilde’s words came back to her with visible shock.

“You make it sound terrible,” she protested. “She was only trying to protect her brother. He’s like a little boy—”

“Mrs. Shepherd,” Ryan cut in sharply, “do you know the age of Jaime Dodson?”

“No,” she admitted.

“Then I’ll enlighten you. Jaime Dodson is twenty-nine years old. He has been examined by two state psychiatrists and found sane. We can therefore assume that he was responsible enough to make the choice of a life companion, if that was his intention.”

When Steve Quentin approached the witness stand he found a greatly chastened Tilde Shepherd. Ryan had done a good job of playing on her European awe of authority. She had talked too much and knew it. She faced him guiltily. Steve smiled.

“Mrs. Shepherd,” he said, “how long have you known the brother of the deceased?”

“Five years,” Tilde said. “Since I married my husband.”

“Would you say he’s a man of violent habits?”

“Jaime?” Tilde’s expression of incredulity was exactly right. “Not violence,” she protested. “He’s moody and sometimes a little stormy—but he’s not violent.”

“Can you explain what you mean by ‘stormy’?”

Tilde Shepherd hesitated. Jaime faced her from across the room—a sober, troubled young man whose greatest problem at the moment seemed to be the need to know what to do with his hands. They were clasped before him on the table, long hands with fingers laced tightly together in the one outward manifestation of private agony. The accident itself had left no lasting scars. He watched her thoughtfully as if she might hold the key to missing time.

“Sensitive,” Tilde said. “He concentrates on his work. If it doesn’t turn put the way he thinks it should, he tears up everything and drives off alone—sometimes for days. But that isn’t violence.”

“What about the trouble with his sister?”

Tilde answered quickly. “There was no trouble. Sheilah worried him. Sometimes he drank too much and always he drove too fast.”

“Mrs. Shepherd,” Steve asked, “your husband testified that he didn’t see Jaime Dodson drive away from the scene of the murder. Did you see him?”

“No.”

“But knowing Jaime as you did, his habits and patterns, how do you think he would have reacted if he came to his sister’s house for dinner and found her dead?”

Ryan was on his feet immediately; but before his objection could be voiced, Tilde Shepherd answered in a clear, firm voice no ruling from the bench could erase from the minds of a jury.

“Jaime would have run away,” she said. “He would have panicked and run away.”

When Ryan called Greta Muldoon to the stand an expectant hush came over the spectators and jury. It was as if everyone present in the staid old courtroom was waiting for the emotional break that seemed inevitable. Greta Muldoon walked quietly to the witness box, her outer poise intact, but for an instant, when she found Jaime’s eyes, hesitated, elevated her chin in a gesture of overconfidence, and walked on. Her voice, taking the oath, was firm. She traced her relationship with Jaime briefly. Greta had come to Cypress Point the previous spring to open a small and very expensive gift shop. Some months later Jaime Dodson came into the store.

“He wanted to buy a gift for his sister’s birthday. ‘I want something for a woman who has everything and wants more,’” he said. Guiltily she added, “He was joking, of course. Jaime has a wonderful sense of humor. That was one of the things that attracted me to him.”

Ryan pulled her back to the story. “Did Mr. Dodson purchase a gift for his sister?”

“Yes. A set of highball glasses—Swedish crystal. I had only a sample in stock. I had to order.”

“And when did this take place, Miss Muldoon?”

“Three months ago. I promised delivery within six weeks but there were difficulties. The first set came through without monograms. Jaime didn’t want them. He said Sheilah liked to have her name on everything.” She paused, suddenly aware of volunteering more information than necessary. The pause was like italics. She continued quickly. “I reordered immediately. The shipment arrived on the day Sheilah died.”

Ryan calculated quickly. “Did you inform Mr. Dodson of this fact?”

“No. I went to the post office to check the shipment. When I saw the glasses were as ordered, I called the parcel delivery service and sent them directly to Sheilah’s house. Later I called the house to make sure the houseman was there and told him the order was on its way.”

As Greta testified, Steve Quentin made quick, cryptic notes. His pencil poised, he frowned reflectively.

“But you didn’t communicate directly with Mr. Dodson all that day?”

“No,” Greta said. “But I tried. From the post office, I returned to the shop. I called Jaime at his office but he wasn’t in. I talked to Sheilah.”

The District Attorney pounced on the admission as if uncovering a vital secret.

“You talked to the deceased,” he repeated. “What was her manner?”

Greta appeared puzzled. “Sheilah Dodson was a busy woman,” she explained. “She was usually brusque on the telephone. She made some light remark about the glasses. ‘About time, I’m getting thirsty.’ Something like that. She said Jaime had gone out on the job and asked if I wanted him to call back. I said he could if he wanted because I would be in the shop all afternoon, and then, almost as an afterthought, she told me to come for dinner at eight.”

“She
told
you,” Ryan repeated. “She didn’t
invite
you?”

Greta’s smile was a bright warmth in a tense room. “Sheilah
told
me,” she said firmly. “That was her way. All of us who knew her were aware of that.”

“But did she usually give such short notice?”

“I don’t know,” Greta admitted slowly. “It was only three months since I had met Jaime.”

The admission pleased Ryan. “Only three months,” he repeated, “but in that time you became friendly enough with Jaime Dodson to become—as has been testified in this court—his fiancée.”

A quick flash of anger spoiled Greta’s smile. “It doesn’t take time to fall in love,” she said.

“No, it doesn’t,” Ryan admitted. He turned and studied Jaime, who now sat upright and belligerent. “Particularly not when the man involved is young, good-looking, and has a highly successful sister.”

Steve had to force Jaime back into his seat. His own objection was lost as Ryan followed the comment with a quick question.

“Were you aware that Sheilah Dodson objected to your relationship with her brother, Miss Muldoon?”

She was a carefully controlled woman. Her hands remained folded in her lap. She met Ryan’s gaze with level eyes, but there was a tautness in her voice as she rationed each word. “No, not directly,” she said. “I heard rumors.”