Suspicion of Vengeance (22 page)

Jackie nodded.

"I'll have them next week. Do you want to see them?"

"No, I don't think so."

Gail wished she hadn't asked. "I understand."

Jackie's hands rested on the edge of the table. Short nails, pale polish, a plain stainless-steel watch. Her forearms were smoothly muscled. Not bulky but strong. She said, "My father didn't tell me to stay out of it."

"That's okay."

"It's not like he orders me around."

Unsure where this was going, Gail remained silent, watching the thoughts move like cloud shadows across her cousin's face. Jackie's hair was parted in the middle, and the freckles she'd had as a child hadn't entirely vanished. A few of them still dotted her cheeks.

"What you said about him doing you a favor? That's not what it was. He was just doing the right thing, that's all."

"That's usually enough," Gail said. "But you'd be surprised how rare it is."

The waitress brought their lunch, and for a while they talked about fishing. Jackie liked to go when she could. "Your dad was a great fisherman. What was that boat they used to have? The
Irene Marie.
I have a picture of my mom and Alex and me on the boat. Do you remember my mother?"

"Of course I do. Aunt Lou was wonderful."

"I don't know. She drank too much. When I was twelve she walked out on us."

From Jackie's tone she might have been talking about someone they hardly knew, but Gail could sense something going on under the surface. "She couldn't have
walked out
on you. I mean, not in that sense."

"One day I came home from school and she was gone. She moved to West Palm Beach, and we hardly saw her. She died two months later in a car crash. She was speeding and went off the road at a sharp curve. They found a bottle of gin in her car. Alex says our dad threw her out, but he makes up memories because he needs them to be true. I think it's better not to fool yourself."

Searching for the right reply, Gail said, "It's probably more complicated than that. My husband and I split up. There wasn't much warning, everything just fell apart. Jackie, I know that Aunt Lou wouldn't have left you and Alex and not given a damn what happened to you."

Jackie wasn't convinced. "Then why did she leave?"

Gail realized that she didn't know why. Garlan and Louise had been having problems, but that wouldn't be news to Jackie. "When you come for breakfast tomorrow, why not talk to my mother? I have things to do, but you stay and visit. Mom adores you, and Aunt Lou was her favorite sister."

"I might." Jackie stared out toward the fountain, a girl with a vase on her shoulder, water splashing merrily at her feet. "How's your case going?"

"Not too badly, under the circumstances. My motion has to be filed in ten days."

"Is that enough time?"

"No, but it's all I've got."

"You still think he's innocent?"

"I believe so, yes."

"Maybe he's lying to you. Maybe that woman is too. Tina Hopwood. How can you tell?" Jackie's brown eyes were direct and unwavering: "You're his lawyer, and you have to believe him."

"If Kenny Ray Clark were on trial again, and he had a halfway competent lawyer, he'd be acquitted in five minutes." She let Jackie wait. "Want to hear why I think so?"

"All right."

She knew somehow that Jackie wouldn't run to Garlan with what she told her, so she told her everything, facts and inferences tumbling out. It was good talking about it. Anthony would understand the legal points better, but he would be too ready to hand her his own opinion, and Jackie simply listened.

Pushing her plate aside, Jackie leaned on an elbow facing Gail. She spoke quietly, aware that other people were nearby. "You still think it was someone she knew."

"Probably. It usually is."

"But not her sister."

"Not if Mrs. Chastain saw Lacey arrive and leave within minutes," Gail said.

"And Gary is off your list too," Jackie said. "So where does that leave you?"

"With the same question I started with a week ago. Who was Amber Dodson? A girl from a respectable, middle-class family, who graduated from a Christian high school. A good girl, but not too good. She was wearing a red silk top and panties when she died, but she complained that her husband was impotent. After she had the baby, why did she go back to work at River Pines, way out on Martin Highway? For the money? She was a receptionist. She didn't have friends there. The girl she knew, Mary Jo, had moved on. So what was the attraction?"

Jackie said, "It had to be a guy. It's always a guy."

"How well do you know Whit McGrath?"

"Not very. If he were sitting at that next table, he might say hello, he might not. You think she was doing it with
him
?”

"His director of sales, a woman named Vivian Baker, told the police that McGrath hardly knew Amber, but the sales brochure had a picture of them at the pool in swimsuits. She also said he rarely came to the site, but he did, a lot. One lie, why not two? Something was going on. Tell me about McGrath."

"Well, like I said, he keeps a couple of horses out at Rusty's ranch, and I used to go out there a lot, because it used to be Diddy's, you know, and Rusty said we could use it as long as we wanted to. When I was a kid, and I'd go out there to take care of my horse, I used to run into Whit, but not lately. Yeah, he could've modeled in that sales brochure. He looks the part. He plays tennis, he skis. He flies his own plane, he crewed in the America's Cup. He has businesses all over the country, houses in New York and Colorado, and he's gone most of the time. He does things like hang gliding in the Andes. That was in the paper. Most of what I know I hear around town."

"Amber Dodson must have been dazzled."

"No doubt."

The waitress came along and cleared their plates off the table. Jackie barely noticed. The waitress had to ask twice if she wanted dessert. Jackie didn't. They both ordered coffee.

When the waitress was gone, Jackie said, "Your theory is, they were having an affair, and he killed her to keep his wife from finding out."

"Is that plausible?"

"Maybe. It was her money he started with."

"Really."

"Her name is Taylor Vandiver McGrath."

"Taylor?"

"They call her Tay. She's so Palm Beach. You hardly ever see her in Stuart. We're too provincial. The McGraths had money, but they weren't stinking rich, like the Vandivers. They have two kids, teenagers, in private school. River Pines was Whit's first project, and he was only like twenty-eight when he started buying up property. He wants to make it into a town, if he can get it past the county commission."

"How old is he now?"

"Forty-two?"

"Still good-looking?"

"He has dimples and shaggy blond hair."

"I'm going to be sick."

Jackie smiled. "Anthony's the babe." She looked at her watch. "I should get going. I'm on duty at three o'clock." She took the check out of Gail's hand. "Let me. You're in my town."

"Thank you," Gail said. "Thanks for everything."

"Glad I could help."

"Want me to keep in touch about all this?"

Jackie stood up and aligned her white plastic chair to the table. "Sure."

The brass bell over the door rang out melodiously when she entered. Display cases shone with silver and china, and the various pieces of antique oak or mahogany furniture smelled of lemon wax. There were reasonably priced small items as well, and Gail browsed among them. She picked out a charmingly silly 1950s plastic bracelet for Karen and a porcelain bluebird for her mother. She intended to leave with some information as well, if she could get it.

Behind a low divider in the back, a gray-haired woman worked on account books. There were two customers at the cash register near the door. Gail waited until they had gone out, then took her purchases to the front.

At twenty-two, Lacey Mayfield's photograph had appeared in newspaper stories during the Clark trial. Now her figure was full and soft, hidden under a blue jumper and white cotton turtleneck. A gold barrette held her mousy brown, chin-length hair back from her face.

The purchases added up to $63.50, and Gail used a credit card. She said yes, thank you, when asked if she would like them gift-wrapped.

"You're Lacey Mayfield, aren't you?" The woman said that she was. "My name is Gail Connor. I'm a lawyer and I wonder if I could ask you a couple of questions."

"About what?"

"Well, I know the whole situation is painful for you, but I represent Kenneth Ray Clark. His grandmother, who lives here in Stuart, used to work for my family. She hired me to handle his appeal."

Blue eyes stared at her. "So he's filing another appeal. Why am I not surprised?" Lacey Mayfield turned to find a box for Karen's bracelet.

Gail said, "I'm sorry for the pain your family has been through. I know it's hard to lose a sister this way. I lost mine. I know what it is."

"How long did it take for her killer to be executed?"

"He died before he went to trial."

"You're fortunate." She laid the small box on pink paper, which she folded quickly, expertly. Her hair swung against her jaw. "That's my mother at the desk back there. I bring her with me to give her something to do. She can't keep a job because of her nerves. Dad works but he's had two heart attacks. Amber's death hit them very hard."

"Yes, I know it must have."

Lacey Mayfield affixed to the wrapped box a gold sticker with the name of the store. A vee of blue ribbon made an instant bow. "You're the first of his lawyers to speak to us. None of the others cared to."

Gail hadn't thought, before walking in here, that this would be so difficult. "I wonder if you could tell me something. Amber had a friend named Mary Jo, a blond girl who drove a red Corvette. They worked together at River Pines before Amber had her baby. Do you know Mary Jo's last name or where she is?"

The porcelain bird vanished into a nest of tissue paper. "Mary Jo? It doesn't sound familiar. Amber and I didn't have the same friends. She was three years older. What's this about?" She put the bird in a box and taped it shut.

Gail said, "I've been looking into the case, and I'm certain that Mr. Clark didn't kill your sister. Someone else did, and I'm trying to find out who. Maybe she was in a dispute with someone at her job. Mary Jo might have some information."

A sheet of yellow paper flew off a stack of them. Lacey Mayfield slid scissors down the middle of it. "Another innocent man on death row. I get so sick of hearing about innocent men on death row." The paper quickly went around the box. Fold. Fold. Tape. "What was it this time, a mistake or a frame-up by the police?"

"A series of mistakes," Gail said. "One of them was made by the eyewitness, Mrs. Chastain. She lived across the street from your sister. She'd been out of town for more than a week when she picked my client's photograph out of a display, plenty of time to forget important details. It could have been you that she remembered. You walked around the house. You had long brown hair at the time. Mrs. Chastain could easily have been confused."

"I didn't walk around the house." Lacey attached another gold sticker and ribbon.

"You went to the west side, didn't you? At Amber's bedroom window?"

"Yes, but she was sleeping, so I left."

"How did you know she was asleep? Could you see her through the window?"

"They were closed, and the curtains were drawn. I knocked."

"Loudly?"

"I wasn't trying to wake her up. I just thought she didn't hear the doorbell." With a sudden, knowing smile, Lacey Mayfield put a hand on her hip. "If you think she was already dead, you're wrong. Gary called her at ten o'clock and spoke to her on the phone."

"That's true." Gail had forgotten. She hesitated a moment, then said, "Did you ever own a denim jacket? My client didn't. Mrs. Chastain saw a denim jacket that day. Was it yours?"

"No. I never owned a denim jacket, and I would swear it on the Bible." Lacey Mayfield shook open a small shopping bag with a loud crack of paper. "This is unreal. Every time I think it's over, here we go again. This man is guilty of murder. My God. Why can't you
see
that? Everybody else does. You probably
do
see it, but you're being paid to overturn his conviction no matter who it hurts. You might as well spit on my sister's grave. I'm not going to tell my parents you came in here, it would probably give my father another heart attack." Lacey May-field's voice had begun to tremble with emotion.

Gail picked up her credit card receipt.

"Are you doing this because you feel
sorry
for him? Why does everybody feel so sorry for the criminals and not the victims? Kenny Ray Clark put himself where he is. He was a career criminal before he killed Amber, and he's been playing the system all his life. Why should he get to live when she's dead? He gets to watch TV and eat three meals a day. He can read books and write letters and go outside to exercise. He isn't suffering. He won't suffer when they execute him. He'll just go to sleep, like when a vet puts a dog to sleep. He killed more than my sister. He killed her husband and baby. He killed my mother and father. I've been through two divorces. He needs to die. He needs to get what he deserves, and shame on you. Shame on you."

Gail took the shopping bag. "I'm sorry for your loss, Ms. Mayfield."

"No, you aren't."

The bell tinkled again as Gail left the shop.

There was a trash can at the end of the block, and she dropped the bag into it and kept walking. The gifts were too weighted now with anger and woe. To see them again would be to think of a family condemned to grief. Grief had taken over their lives, had become their lives, and not even the death of Kenny Ray Clark would release them.

Gail was halfway to the hotel when she remembered why she had gone into Mayfield Antiques in the first place: not to argue with Lacey Mayfield but to obtain one small piece of information. She had come away with nothing.

That morning, hearing about Mary Jo Whoever from the Grigsbys, Gail had intended to find the woman quickly, see if she had anything to say, and if not, move on to someone else. But she was stymied. Gail knew her own personality: the sort of person who would not proceed to
B
until she had accomplished
A.
Now what? Let Hector Mesa find Mary Jo. But Hector was busy dealing with a jailhouse snitch, looking for more alibi witnesses, and getting current addresses for every last one of the jurors, in case any of them could be persuaded to sign an affidavit.
If I
had only known that sleazeball Detective Ronald Kemp had beaten the alibi witness with a rubber hose, I would never have voted to convict. If only I had known ...
fill in the blank with whatever other facts could be hurriedly assembled.