Reilly 04 - Breach of Promise (46 page)

“Incredible how much accumulates during the course of a trial,” she said to Sandy as she entered the reception area.

“Some of the files we need to keep here, others can be stored in our storage area.”

“What storage area?”

“The one we just rented,” said Sandy. “You’re starting to pile up dead files. Until we rent more space, we need to be able to move around.”

“Sandy . . .”

“What?”

“Is . . . I mean. You seem . . .”

“What.”

“Kind of down.”

Sandy lifted her shoulders and began typing from a yellow legal pad.

Nina found Winston squatting on the floor in his sweats, in front of a tower of files in his office. “I think I’ve got this thing licked,” he said. “This pile here is stuff I take. This one,” he patted a stack, “is to stow somewhere. This is garbage. Where are the trash bags?”

“Sorry, I have no idea,” said Nina.

“Wish!” he hollered.

Genevieve, who had already packed, stood with her arms crossed, leaning against the wall watching him. “Winston, at this rate you’re never going to finish. Didn’t you have some kind of appointment this afternoon?”

“Trial over. Good-bye and good riddance?” he said.

“Of course not,” Genevieve said. “Just don’t drag it out. Packing’s a real pain, but I know how you feel. It’s like when you’re going to catch a plane. You fear you’re gonna end up at the counter without your passport.”

“There’s nothing really pressing. I just have better things to do than pile old papers,” Winston said.

“Just remember, Sandy will send anything along that you forget,” Genevieve said.

“I don’t like this,” said Nina.

“You don’t like what?” Winston asked.

“Everyone leaving,” Nina said. “This.” She waved her arms at the mess. “I got used to having company for lunch. I got used to you knowing better than me the things I knew perfectly well before you two came.”

“You’re a sociable critter, Nina,” Genevieve said. “You just don’t pander to that side of yourself enough. Now, Winston,” she said. “Move over and let me help you toss files haphazardly into that box. I can do that as well as you can.” Sidling over, she nudged him with her hip, but Nina thought Genevieve looked as upset as Nina felt.

Back in her own office, Nina closed the door and sat with her back to the window, thinking about how quiet it would be and wondering if she liked that. Rather than decide, she picked up her phone messages and began to return calls.

The morning passed quickly. By eleven, the yellow truck was on its way to return the furniture. Winston and Genevieve had relocated to the conference room next to Nina’s office, where there were still chairs. Sandy had ordered sushi and salad for an early lunch.

Winston ate quickly. “You know that island you told me about?” he asked Nina, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

It took her a minute to recall what he must mean. “The tiny one in Emerald Bay? Fannette?”

“That’s the one. Any idea where I could rent a kayak to get there?”

“Well, sure. Richardson’s Resort. Head west on the highway. Turn right at the ’Y.’ It’s just a couple miles up on your right. They have a marina and dock. Call first to make sure you can get one, though. It’s still early in the season.”

He called, and they listened while he arranged to rent one for the afternoon.

“That sounds like fun!” said Genevieve. “I’ve always wanted to learn to kayak.”

“I’m doing this for some upper-body exercise. I need to go fast. Maybe I can take you out another time,” Winston said.

Genevieve’s mouth turned down. “Okay.”

“Are you going to hike to the teahouse?” Nina asked.

“Maybe,” he said. “I’ll check it out and decide when I get there.”

Everyone helped clear away the trash. In deference to Sandy’s forbidding nature, Winston shook her hand. She thanked him again for the rabbit-skin blanket. Nina and Genevieve also came in for a final handshake. There seemed nothing left to say.

“I’ll be in touch, Nina,” Winston said, pulling away.

“You better be,” she said.

He saw her mood and gave her arm a squeeze. “Hey, we’ll do another trial again sometime. I feel it. Meanwhile, stay out of trouble. I mean it!” he said when they laughed at the thought. “Don’t you ladies do anything I wouldn’t do,” he said as he went out the door.

“Winston that’s just not a possibility,” Genevieve called after him. “I can’t think of a thing he wouldn’t do,” she said to Nina with a mischievous smile.

Susan Lim lived in a large, two-story home in Montgomery Estates. Paul always felt this particular development had a slight unreality to it, like a Twilight Zone of complete suburban normality on the cusp of the wild kingdom. Its landscaped yards fended off the wilderness, and the forest skulked just beyond its borders, threatening to engulf it again if the mowers ever stopped.

She answered the door. He introduced himself, giving the usual explanation for his questions, and she agreed to give him five minutes. She liked to be into work by ten in the morning, when the realty office opened, and was already running late.

They sat in two chairs on the porch at the front of the house. The lawn and flowers reflected the touch of a precise, artistic hand.

“First, I’d love your impressions of the mood of this jury as a whole, how they reacted to the testimony,” he said, notepad in hand.

A plain-featured woman with a helmet of shining dark hair, Mrs. Lim wore a hint of pink lipstick that matched her jacket and brightened her face. Sighing, she shook her head. “I found the process really grueling, since you ask. It seems like such a simple thing, to ask people to listen to some information, synthesize it, and decide the facts and evidence support one side or the other. Instead, what we had in the jury room was more of a free-for-all.”

“In what sense?”

“Everybody’s got an agenda,” she said. “I’m sure you know that. Usually, it’s not so obvious. We got in there and reason just flew out the window. Not that there was a window. That might have helped.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, what was your position?”

“I favored Lindy Markov. From the beginning, I thought it was obvious they had some arrangements they didn’t have in writing. They must have informally agreed to share things. She was too bright not to have at the very least squeezed some promises out of him. And people agreed with me, at least at first.”

“I understand on the first vote of the original jury, eight people supported her.”

“That’s right. Then Cliff brought out his presents and threats. . . .”

“Threats?”

“Oh, yes. I believe he threatened Sonny Ball with prison. He’d found some evidence of drugs in the bathroom at one point. I believe he seduced Kris Schmidt. I suspect they slept together after that first day,” she said, clearly disgusted.

“Maribel craved attention, and he gave it to her. Ignacio, well that was a shame. He’s a good person with good instincts, but not someone who is used to argument on the level Cliff inhabited. Cliff dumped him in a maze and walked circles around him, all the time posing as the logician.

“Grace just needed some sympathy and he came along, the Good Samaritan giving her what she needed.”

“So Frank, Bob, and Kevin already favored Mike,” Paul said.

“Yes. They didn’t allow anything as messy as logic to sway them. They had picked a position and stuck with it, by God,” she said, with a tinge of sarcasm. “All Cliff had to do was ensure they knew how welcome they were in the anti-Lindy club with him.”

“You didn’t like Cliff Wright.”

“I have nothing but contempt for men like him. I despised his manipulations of weaker per- sonalities.”

“Why do you think he was so opposed to Lindy?”

“I think Diane had that figured out. It had to be personal. He said he had recently separated from his wife. Maybe he was really suffering, who knows with a man like that? But he was so underhanded and angry, and so persuasive and determined in there. I’m guessing that Mrs. Markov looked like his worst nightmare come true, a woman ruining a man’s bright future because of a breakup.”

“I guess you’re glad things happened the way they did.”

She stared at him. “You mean, Cliff dying?”

“Well, with the alternate installed, the jury came back around to Lindy, didn’t they?”

“That’s true.”

“I understand most of the jurors brought snacks along during the deliberations,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Anybody eat peanuts?”

“Not that I noticed.”

“Anything with peanuts? Candy?”

She began to laugh. “Snickers. Butterfingers. Nutty granola bars. Peanut M&M’s. Mr. Van Wagoner, is this a joke? Are you implying that someone, that I—”

“Look, I’m just saying things worked out the way you wanted them to.”

“I wish my husband could hear you. He thinks I’m not aggressive enough. And here you are suggesting I . . . correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you suggesting that I planted a peanut butter cup in his eggroll because I was so mad at him?”

“Stranger things have happened, Mrs. Lim. Did you or anyone else leave the room before lunch was served that day?”

“There were a few minutes before the lunch was brought in. Most of us left the room. I made a phone call. Some smoked, some stretched, some used the bathrooms.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Everyone was really looking forward to that lunch. I even saw Diane lifting the aluminum foil and peeking at the cartons.”

The implication of what she had said struck her so forcefully, her cheeks flamed. “The food smelled very good. We all thought so,” she said, trying to regain her composure.

He persisted with her, but after that, she refused to answer another question.

Back in his van, Paul looked around feeling discontented. Things were looking shabby in the old vehicle. Somehow, the leopard-skin cover in back had picked up some mildew, probably from sitting in airport parking lots for days. Like it or not, his car was an extension of himself, and it was dying of neglect. He started the engine up. The people in Washington were after him for a final decision by next week. He didn’t know what to say.

He had to finish up this investigation. He needed to think about Nina.

Promptly at noon, Paul arrived at Bizzbees on the highway. He and Wish were ready to swap notes on their interviews. Paul found himself instead being beaten to a pulp at darts.

“So Kevin Dowd and Frank Lister stuck by Mike from the beginning. They basically loved Cliff Wright. Grace Whipple came to her door in a housecoat, and this was at about two o’clock yesterday afternoon. She takes care of someone, said he’d been having some trouble. She only talked to me through the grill in the door. She was so distracted,” Wish said, pulling his arm back, and with a
thwack,
another dart met the bull’s-eye at dead center.

“What did she think of Cliff Wright?”

“ ‘Charming,’ she called him. And Maribel what’s-her-name . . .”

“Grzegorek.”

“She was at work over at Mikasa, but they were having a slow day. She told me she had liked Cliff, but got disappointed in him at some point.”

“Oh?” Paul said, interested, taking his turn.

“Yeah. She’s a real fun person. Said Kris Schmidt had already snapped him up by the time she noticed how handsome he was. Kevin told me she asked him out and he turned her down.”

“So her disappointment had more to do with romance than the case.” Paul tossed his last dart to the outside.

“Yep.”

“You didn’t tell me you were league champ at the rec center when you challenged me to a game,” said Paul. “You’ve got an unfair advantage here.”

“That’s why,” said Wish, selecting another dart, eyeing it closely for shape, whipping around and tossing it lightly to land beside the one already stuck in the board, “I only bet you ten bucks.”

His third dart flew to keep close company with the other two.

“I don’t want to play anymore,” said Paul. “I came here to talk.”

“Oh, come on,” said Wish. “Don’t be a sore loser.”

With a deep breath, Paul positioned himself, dart in hand. The bull’s-eye, so close from some angles, suddenly appeared quite far away. He threw. “Twenty,” said Wish, marking a chalkboard beside the dartboard. “That’s nice.”

Paul gritted his teeth, aimed, and threw dart number two.

“On the line,” pronounced Wish. He examined the board. “On the two side. Sorry.”

“Thanks one whole helluva lot,” said Paul. Here was one game he couldn’t win. Might as well quit now. Without aiming, just to get the throw over, he hurled his last dart.

“Bull’s-eye!” marveled Wish. He wiped Paul out with a few more well-placed darts, then said, “Okay, game two. Let’s up it to twenty.”

But Paul refused. He ordered another soda. Wish, who was on his lunch break, ate a sub. They settled near the pool table, where a slender man and a large woman were locked in combat and the room had the hush of church over it.

“Okay, let’s go over what we’ve found out,” said Paul, keeping his voice low.

They hashed out what they had heard about the events leading up to Wright’s death. “Just to be thorough, I looked into some other possibilities besides the jurors,” Paul said. “Rachel’s ex, Harry. He might want to sabotage Mike. But Harry was at a photo shoot at an automobile dealership all that morning according to his coworkers, and anyway would have trouble getting into that hall without a hassle from Deputy Kimura. Then there’s this other guy, George Demetrios, apparently a loyal fan of Lindy’s. Same problems except for a slightly weaker alibi provided by his brother.

“Then I looked at Alice, Lindy’s friend. Her alibi checked out, but again, we’re talking an employee. Nobody’s alibi is airtight. But with all three of these people, we return to a central problem: how could these people know what was going on in the jury room? How could they get to the food? Alice used the hall occasionally during the trial. Kimura said he’d seen her in there. But she would have no business there while the jury was deliberating. Someone would have noticed her that day.”

He took a long drink. “Here’s a thought,” he said. “The three women jurors were in cahoots. They spiked his food together.”