Canyon of the Sphinx (30 page)

“So, as part of your degree
program, you had the opportunity to go and work in Egypt on Dr. Trent’s dig,”
he said. “And you did that?”

“Yes.”

“Did Jensen know?”

“Yep, she did. She’s the one who
told me I should try to see if I could get a job on the dig since my brother
already worked with Dr. Trent.”

“So you called your brother?”

“Uh-huh. He’s the one who asked
Dr. Trent if I could come work there for the summer for college credit.”

“So you went to Egypt.” Robert
paused in his pacing and stood strategically between the witness stand and the
jury box. “Now, Mr. Sutton, as part of the on-site accounting office, you had
contact with Ms. Elder on a regular basis.”

“Yep. I guess you could say we
worked together. She did the accounting for the site at the SCU office. She
paid the bills and stuff.”

“And she is the one who asked you
to take a picture of Dr. Trent’s signature?”

“Uh-huh. She said she needed it
for her files.”

“And you didn’t ask why or for
what files?”

“No.”

“Did she ever explain?”

“No. But I told her I would ask
Dr. Trent if it was okay. Checks and balances, you know.”

“And what did she say to that?”

“She said not to bother her, that
it wasn’t a big deal. She didn’t need to know.”

Robert let that linger in the
jury’s mind for a moment. “What else?”

“She said that everything I did
for her, to help her on my end, would pay off in the end.”

“Those were her words?”

“Yeah, dude. Then her mom started
calling me, long distance to Egypt and all, and asking me about Dr. Burton and
what he was like and stuff.”

Robert paused long enough to give
him a long, curious look. “Her mother called you?”

“Yeah, dude. She kept asking me
about much money they make at the dig and stuff, and I tried to explain to her
that we didn’t make any money at the dig. She said with all of those people at
the Valley of the Kings, we should be making a fortune.”

Robert couldn’t help it; he
looked at the jury even though he was speaking to Mike. “So Jensen’s mother
called to find out how much money the dig makes? Didn’t you think that was
strange?”

Mike shifted uncomfortably in his
chair. “Yeah.”

“So what did you do?”

“Nothing, really. I just asked
Jensen why her mom called me and she said she would take care of it.”

Robert nodded his head and
resumed his pacing. It helped him think. “So the mom stops calling you. And
then what?”

“Then Jensen called me one day
and wanted me to call her right back at a different number. I called the number
and she answered. She said she was at some hotel in Los Angeles. She said it
was more private than her cubicle at the school because she really wanted to
talk to me about something and didn’t want anyone else to hear.”

“And what was that?”

“She wanted to know if I’d be
willing to help her with something. She said if I helped her, that she’d pay me
enough to pay the rest of my school tuition and make money on top of it.”

Robert’s jovial features
hardened. “Did she tell you what it was?”

“Uh-huh. She said she could get
some money out of Dr. Trent and Dr. Burton and that we’d never have to worry
about working for a living ever again.”

“Did you ask her what you had to
do?”

“She said I already did it.
Accounting is an exact field, dude. When people sign documents like expense
accounts and tax audits, it’s like they’re signing their life away. If anything
happens, it’s their ass. Jensen said she was going to put Dr. Trent’s signature
on a few documents, just enough to make her look bad, and then tell Dr. Trent
that she could make the documents go away if Dr. Trent was willing to pay for
them.”

It was the magic bullet. One
could almost hear an audible sigh go up in the courtroom and Robert could
literally taste his sister’s acquittal. “Did she tell you this after you took a
picture of Dr. Trent’s signature?”

“Yeah, way after.” Mike sat
forward in his chair. “Look, dude, I may look like an idiot with a seventh
grade education, but I’m not stupid. I knew I was already in trouble because I
had given her the signature. I should have cleared it with Dr. Trent, but I
didn’t. Jensen said it was for her files, so I believed her. Then she came back
and told me I could make a lot of money and I knew she had me. What could I
do?”

“Good question,” Robert
countered. “What did you do?”

Mike sat back in his chair. “I
told her to leave me out of it. Whatever she was doing, I didn’t want to be a
part of it. She said I was already a part of it and if I didn’t do what she
said, she’d get me in trouble.”

“What trouble?”

“If I told, she said she would
prove I was in on it with her by showing that I took the picture of Dr. Trent’s
signature. She said she’d take me down with her.”

Robert positioned himself between
the witness stand and the jury box again. “But according to the deposition you
gave, you stated that she never had a chance to follow through with her plan
because Dr. Trent was injured in the Yucatan and Dr. Burton went to be with
her. She had already started the wheels in motion but because her two subjects
weren’t there to blackmail, she couldn’t do as she had intended and the wheels
couldn’t be stopped. The IRS got wind of her findings through a routine audit
in the accounting department at SCU and it was suddenly out of her control.”

“That’s right. She called me
right after Dr. Burton went to be with Dr. Trent and she was really pissed. She
told me things weren’t going as planned and told me that if I said anything to
anyone, she’d make sure I never said anything, to anyone, ever again”

Robert’s blond eyebrows lifted
slowly. “A death threat?”

“Objection, your Honor,” the IRS
lawyer said, somewhat feebly. He could see his case was already shot. “This has
no relevance to this case.”

“Over ruled,” the judge said
after a moment. He looked at Mike. “Continue, Mr. Sutton.”

Mike looked from the judge back
to Robert. “She was pretty pissed. I don’t know what she meant, but it could
have been a death threat. I don’t know.”

Robert let the last thought
settle into the objective minds of the jury. He stood there, gazing at Mike,
before turning back to the defense table. Picking up a collection of papers
held together with a paper clip, he went over to the judge and handed it up to
the bench.

“I just received this report this
morning and a copy was couriered over to my colleague’s office,” he indicated
the lawyer for the IRS. “This is a report documenting the forensic examination
of the original expense reports alleged to have been signed by Dr. Trent by RLH
Laboratories out of Van Nuys, California. They are on the court-approved list
for forensic document examination. As you can see, the report states that the
signature on the reports was not in ink common to any known pen, but rather
from a commercial, high-quality photo-specific laser printer designed to
produce reprographic results that are undetectable to the naked eye. In
layman’s terms, Dr. Trent did not sign this report. A photo-laser printer did.
I am prepared to have an expert from Hewlett-Packard testify tomorrow if
necessary as to the quality of such a printer. You can’t tell the difference.”

The courtroom was deadly silent.
The IRS lawyer marched over to the bench, looking at the report and glaring at
Robert. The man could have handed him his copy of the report before the day had
even started, but instead chose to use the tactic of ‘couriering’ information
to the opposing law office. That way, the prosecution would be blamed for not
having the report in court due to a slow office worker not driving over to the courthouse
to have the report delivered in time. It wasn’t a new tactic, though it was
considered an unethical one.  It tended to make judges quite angry.

“This report was not disclosed to
the Prosecution before now,” the lawyer said. “I ask that it be inadmissible at
this time, or I ask that I be given enough time to review and rebut it.”

 The judge took the report back
and gazed at it. He handed it over to the bailiff.

“You have until tomorrow to
review and rebut this,” he said.

Robert’s expression was smugly
cool. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his expensive pants. When he spoke,
it was with the levity of someone without a care in the world.

“Your witness, Mr. Prosecutor.”

***

Marcus had stood for a half hour
watching his wife destroy the bedroom of their rented apartment. It was a good
thing the kids were already in bed in the other master suite, insulated from
the sounds. Pictures flew, the bed was torn apart, and she had broken both
bedside tables. He would have found it comical had it not been so deadly
serious. But when she picked up a piece of a broken vase and cut her hand, he
put an end to her tirade.

“Okay, sweetheart,” he had her by
both wrists. “That’s enough venting. Time to calm down.”

She was a crying, snarling mess,
now with blood running down the side of her hand. “Damn her,” she wept as he
led her into the bathroom and tried to stop the bleeding. “Damn her for what
she’d done to me and my family. That stupid whore…”

Marcus kissed her to shut her up.
She sobbed but responded to his lips, quieting long enough for him to wipe up
the blood and put antibiotic on it.

“Did you hear what she said about
you?” she wiped at the mascara running down her cheeks. “Can you believe that
crap? Where does she get off saying stuff like that?”

Marcus put a big band aid on her
hand. “She’s desperate.”

“She’s under oath!”

“She’ll say anything to save her
ass. It’s her word against everyone else’s. She doesn’t care if she’s under
oath or not.”

Kathlyn opened her mouth to
speak, but ended up heaving instead. Marcus barely had time to move out of the
way before she vomited into the toilet. It got into her hair and onto the rug.
Miserable for an entirely new reason, she started crying again.

“This trial has you in knots,”
Marcus said softly. She had vomited that morning, too, unable to keep her
breakfast down. He reached over and turned on the faucet in the bathtub to run
her a hot bath. “Let’s get you calmed down and cleaned up and into bed.”

“I don’t want to go to bed,” she
pouted even as he removed her clothes. “I want to kill that bitch. I want to
string her up by her thumbs and pluck out every last one of her stupid, ugly
eyelashes!”

He grinned as he pulled her shirt
over her head. “That’s original.”

“I’ve never felt so much hate,”
she let him unzip her skirt and pull it to the floor. “It’s like I can’t
control it. I just want to destroy her.”

“That’s natural, considering she
is attempting to destroy you,” he said evenly.

“No, this isn’t natural. I want
to commit murder. I mean it.”

He unhooked her bra, letting her
breasts go free. As he tested the running bathwater, he couldn’t help but
admire them. She had a gorgeous body. Standing there with only a white lacy
thong on, he knew how to get her mind off her troubles. Or at least how to get
his
mind off her troubles. He leaned over and began to take her thong off with his
teeth.

She gazed down at him, frowning.
“Is that all you think of?” She pulled away from him. “Stop, Marcus. I don’t
want to right now.”

He wasn’t put off in the least.
“Okay. But let’s get you into the bathtub anyway. You’ve got vomit in your
hair.”

She shook her head. He picked her
up, bodily, and deposited her in the tub, underwear and all. She took her wet
underwear off herself and tossed it out of the tub. When she looked up and saw
him taking his shirt off to join her, she waved him off.

“None of that right now, please,”
she was calming, more miserable than angry at the moment. “That’s what’s gotten
me into trouble.”

He grinned but left his shirt
off, displaying his amazing physique. He was as tanned and muscular as his wife
was sexy and slender. He sat down on the floor next to the tub, picked up a
cup, and began pouring water on her hair.

“What trouble?”

“You; you’re trouble”

He looked confused. “Huh?”

She glanced at him, a mixture of
shame and disgust. “Exactly what we don’t need right now.” She suddenly burst
into tears. “I don’t want to have my baby in a jail!”

She wept like a cartoon
character, loopy and squeaky. But he didn’t miss the gist of what she had said.

“Sweetheart, you’re pregnant?”

She nodded. “How do you know? I
mean, did you do a test?” he persisted.

She shook her wet head. “I just
know, Marcus. No period for three weeks. My breasts are killing me and I’m
puking like I did with Eden. I’m not a dummy. I know when I’m pregnant!”