Tell No Lies (33 page)

Claire fell silent at the other end, probably not quite comprehending what was going on but knowing there was more than what he'd just said. Finally, she said, "Did you see her yet?"

"No. The Franklin County DA is giving me the runaround."

"That's absurd. Why wouldn't you be able to visit?"

"Yeah, that's my question. I don't want to piss him off, though."

Claire huffed. "Piss him off! Do whatever you have to. She must be scared to death." He hunched his body over the table, propping his head on one hand. "Did you hear me?" she persisted.

"Yeah." The phone rang in the adjoining room, and hearty laughs came from just outside the door. Suddenly he blurted out, "She told me her parents and sister were murdered when she was a child. She witnessed it all."

Claire let out a short gasp. "Oh my God. When? When did she tell you this?"

He hesitated. "Just after the election. We had lunch."

"God, that's awful.  She's never talked about anything like that."

He rubbed his temples. Why did he tell her? The energy he'd felt on his way down to the file room had dissipated, and exhaustion from the long night before was setting in. He'd told her because he didn't want to argue with her about his problems with the Franklin County DA. He'd told her because he wanted her to understand. What he wanted her to understand, he wasn't sure anymore.

"Claire?" He wanted to say,
I need you
and
Don't give up on me
, but he didn't. "I should go. If they found the file, they're probably wondering what happened to me."
 

"Okay. Hang in there. We'll talk more tonight, all right?"

"Yeah, okay."

"If you get in to see her, tell her I'm thinking of her."

"I will." But he couldn't think of a single scenario in which he'd be able to say those words to Jenny.
 

Rose stood at the end of the counter, waiting for him, when he emerged from the phone room. She was engrossed in filing her nails with a long emery board. She spoke without looking up.

"I've got good news and bad news," she said. "The good news is that I found the file. The bad news is that it's offsite, in storage. It could take some time to have it sent over here, but I'll do my best to get it as soon as possible."

"Great. Thanks, Rose. You'll call me when you get it?"

She patted the top of his hand. "I'll call you. Hang in there."

Hang in there
. The same thing Claire had said. As if everyone knew he was barely holding on.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

JACK'S PATIENCE WITH with Alan Sterling reached its limit on Tuesday morning, when the Franklin County DA began to build his case against Jenny on the front page of the newspaper. From a news article Jack learned that a scarf belonging to Jenny had been found at Maxine Shepard's house. He also learned that a neighbor claimed to have seen, on the day of the murder, Jenny and Maxine engaged in what the neighbor called a "heated discussion" on Maxine's doorstep. The worst and most shocking claim was that Newman had been investigating Jenny for embezzlement in connection with Maxine's investments.

When he arrived at the courthouse, reporters were waiting for him on the front steps. For the first time in the many years he'd been a prosecutor, he didn't stop. He pushed through the throng, stating only that he'd talk to them later. Once inside, he immediately called Sterling's office in Union, Missouri, and told the receptionist why he was calling.

"Sir, I'm sorry, but Mr. Sterling isn't here right now, so I can't really say—"

"Excuse me, ma'am. I really don't care if Sterling is there. Union's not that big. Find him if you have to. I'm merely calling as a courtesy to let him know that I'll take his non-response to my request to be a positive response, and if he has an opinion to the contrary, he'd better contact me within the hour with an explanation that has some basis in law."
 

She stuttered an unintelligible protest but he hung up on her.

"I'll be at the jail," he told Beverly after an hour had passed and no call had come. On his way out, he passed a few attorneys in the reception area. All eyes were on him and he had the urge to turn around and ask them what they were staring at.

He made it to the jail in less than seven minutes. They let him in without protest this time; he wondered if Sterling had called and given the go-ahead. He knew the guard who accompanied him from the many visits he'd made to the building over the years. They greeted each other courteously, but then Jack realized he was being led not to the interview rooms, but to the row of phone carrels where he'd have to talk to Jenny through a Plexiglas window.

"No," he said, stopping abruptly. "I want to see her in a private room."

The guard winced; he'd anticipated this issue. "Mr. Hilliard, you know I can't—"

"Don't tell me 'can't.'  I know Sterling's talked to you guys, and frankly, I don't care what he said. I'm seeing her in a private room or I'm going to start raising some major hell around here. I'm already a little pissed that it's Tuesday and I'm only now getting in, even though she's been here since Sunday." He paused and they regarded one another. "I'm on your side, remember? You want to piss me off some more?"

"No."

"All right, then."

The guard's nostrils flared. Jack had never spoken to anyone like that before; he'd never had to. Finally, without another word, the guard led him in the opposite direction to a different corridor lined with doors, each with its own small window at eye level. He reached into his pocket for a set of keys and, after struggling with the lock, motioned Jack in.
 

"She'll be in shortly." All pretense of amicability was gone. He left Jack alone in the large gray room, empty except for a table and two chairs.

Jack sat on one of the hard chairs and fumed. He stared at the walls, their surfaces thick and chipped with old coats of paint. He wondered how this DA from Franklin County had managed to turn everyone against him. He suspected that he was now being handled the way they handled defense attorneys.

He stood when the door swung open. He glimpsed her first through the window in the door, and then she appeared fully, only several feet in front of him on the other side of the table. She wore the bright orange jumpsuit he was so used to seeing on other defendants. It was not orange like a pumpkin or even orange like the fruit. It was Day-Glo orange; it forced you to look away.

Her hair hung limply on either side of her face. It was clean, but unkempt. She didn't seem as tall as he remembered. For a brief instant he saw her again, standing naked in front of the stove. He blinked to erase the image from his mind. When he finally looked into her chestnut eyes, she was already waiting for him to meet her stare. Her eyes were glassy, the skin around them swollen from crying or from lack of sleep.

When the guards left, she sat down and immediately started talking. "I know exactly what you want to do, but I'm telling you now, don't do it."

He reached across the cold metal table for her hands, but she jerked them in fast, as if a spring had been released. Jack was stunned; touching had never been forbidden for Jenny.

"Why not?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

"I'll get out of here regardless," she said. "There's no use in you fucking up your family because of it."
 

"As usual, your confidence scares me."

"How'd you get in here?" She leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms.

"What do you mean?"

"How'd you get in here?" she repeated. "In this room. Except for a defendant's lawyer, all other visitors are supposed to see the accused outside, at the carrels, aren't they?"

He wanted to ask her how many visitors she'd had so far. "Yeah, well, they know me." Jack scanned the room for cameras or microphones. He knew some of the rooms were rigged for when the confessions came.

"My point exactly. They let you in, even though you're not my lawyer."

"So what
is
your point?" This wasn't how their meeting was supposed to go.
 

"My point is, I'm one of the privileged, just like you." Jenny's voice was sarcastic, bitter. He wanted to laugh; his difficulty getting in had taught him that he wasn't nearly as privileged as he believed himself to be a few days earlier. "I'm an almost white, Yale-educated, female lawyer who works for one of the biggest firms in the city. I get special favors. They're not going to hang me."

"Or they might use you as an example—did you ever think of that? To show all those bleeding hearts like me that the law won't be unjustly weighted against poor black guys."

Jenny's cheeks blanched. Jack regretted his words; he knew she'd probably already thought of it and was trying to convince herself otherwise.

"Do you know something I don't?" Jenny asked. She'd dropped the sarcasm. "Around your office, have you heard talk about my case?"

"Are you kidding?" Now he was the one to scoff. "I'm a pariah. I come around a corner and I can tell they've been talking about it, but they clam up."

Jenny shook her head in disgust, and Jack began to worry that he had given her another reason to insist he keep his mouth shut.

"Look, I'm just going to tell them I was with you that night," he said.

"No, you can't," she said. "You think you're a pariah now, just wait until they find
that
out. It'll be on the front page of the papers in seconds."
 

"Ha! Obviously you haven't seen a paper in a few days. Just the fact that we're friends has thrown them all into a tizzy. It won't be long before they create an X-rated relationship all on their own."

She looked down, and he suspected that he wasn't the only one thinking about the two of them a few nights before, tangled together in the darkness of her room. And then he couldn't help but think of how he had left that morning, and how she had left, with him sitting there in the rain.

"Look, you'd be out of here by morning, Jenny. An alibi is much stronger if you tell them about it right off the bat. They'll give us both lie detector tests and then drop the charges."

"No."

"You're being ridiculous."

"No,
you're
being ridiculous!" She leaned forward, her eyes narrowed. "I'm innocent, remember? They have to have some evidence to convict me."
 

He thought of the news article. "Evidence can be twisted or, worse, manufactured."

She glanced sideways. "Yeah, you ought to know."

Despite his efforts to remain calm, he started to get angry. He followed her right hand as it tucked her lifeless hair behind one ear; it trembled the whole way. When she looked at him again, he said, "Jenny, you know I've never tried a case in my life where I didn't believe completely in the defendant's guilt."

She rolled her eyes. "What a saint you are. Let me shake your hand."

"Fuck you." He hated her just then. He stood to leave, but her next words made him stop.

"You already did that, remember?"

He stared down at her; she glared at him. She didn't really believe that, did she? Is that why she turned on him that morning? He wanted to tell her,
No, you fucked me, but I made love to you
. But maybe she was right. Maybe it'd been nothing more than that. Two people fucking. So instead, he said, "You can rot in here. You can rot in hell, for all I care."
 

He waited for her to say something, to say she was sorry or to ask him not to go. But she just sat there, staring at the wall on the other side of the small room as if transfixed on a tiny spot only she could see. Finally she bent her head and rubbed her face. "I'm so tired. I need some sleep, but I can't sleep in here. It's so noisy at night." Her voice trembled with desperation.

Jack squatted in front of her. He took her hands and this time she let him. She rocked, just a bit, in her chair. Several moments passed before she spoke again.

"She'll leave you. She'll leave you and take the kids."

"No, she won't. We'll be okay." Jack knew his words weren't true. "It was just one night, one time. Other guys have done worse and their marriages survived. She'll forgive me."

Jenny shook her head. She finally began to cry. "You two are different, Jack. Other guys are jerks and their wives expect less from them. It's different with you and Claire." She tried to wipe her nose with the back of her hand. Jack pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to her.
 

"See!" she said. "How many men still carry a handkerchief? You're just different."

Jack knew Jenny was only partly right. It was Claire who was different. That was why he'd been attracted to her immediately, why he'd married her. He'd noticed it almost from the moment they met. He thought back again to Claire's statement about adultery, about how she could never forgive him.
I couldn't bear the thought of you experiencing that connection with another woman
.
 

Now here he stood, faced with the decision of whether to break the heart of a woman who had done nothing to deserve it—to tell her that he had, indeed, experienced that connection with someone else—or to let that someone else spend the rest of her life in jail—or worse—to protect his butt.

"Jack, listen, just hold off for now, okay?" Jenny had almost stopped crying. "Let's see what they come up with. Don't do anything you don't have to do, okay?" She paused, and when he didn't respond, she added, "Please?"

She was throwing him a lifeline. How could he not take it? He swallowed and nodded. He felt guilty for the ease with which he let her convince him. "I'm so sorry, Jen."

"Don't be sorry. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't even have an alibi."

He thought of Alex. Maybe she would have had dinner with him, after all, if Jack hadn't been there. "If it weren't for me, maybe you'd have an alibi you felt comfortable using."

She squeezed his hands. Despite the solidity of the room, he couldn't tune out the sounds from the other side of the door: doors slamming, voices shouting, phones ringing, all magnified as a result of the barren surroundings. No carpet on the floors, no pictures on the walls, no wood furniture—everything was metal; there was nothing to absorb the noise. He'd never really noticed the noise before.