Trial Junkies (A Thriller) (10 page)

Hutch left the courtroom before the jury was even dismissed for the day. He walked for a while, then caught a train, which he rode for nearly two hours. Then, a little past four o'clock, he hailed a cab and went to the apartment in Lincoln Park.

As he stepped through the lobby doors, the doorman, a cheerful, elderly guy named Maurice, moved to his desk and waved an envelope at him.

"Fella dropped this off for you," he said. "I'd tell you what's in it, but I haven't had a chance to steam it open."

Maurice had been manning this post for a good thirty years and Hutch had known him for more than half that. When Hutch was thirteen, Maurice had given him a baseball signed by several of the Cubs, including hall-of-famer "Ryno" Sanberg. Hutch still had that ball in a glass display case in his condo in Los Angeles.

He smiled. "You want me to go away for a while, give you a little extra time?"

"Nah," Maurice said. "Guy didn't look all that interesting anyway, and I'm too lazy to break out the kettle."

"He happen to mention his name?"

"Matt something. Said he'd been trying to get hold of you but didn't have your private number. Couldn't get your agent to give it up."

Hutch wasn't surprised. He was very careful about maintaining his privacy these days and let his agent field any inquiries. Since Matt was with the media, it was likely that any messages he left were immediately round filed and forgotten about.

"I played dumb," Maurice continued. "Told him your name didn't sound familiar, but he wasn't buying. Said he was a friend of yours and left the envelope anyway."

Hutch took it from him and turned it in his hands before tearing it open. Inside was a business card—Matthew W. Isaacs, Chicago Post—with a note scribbled on back:

Call me.

A phone number was written underneath this.

"
See? What'd I tell you?" Maurice said. "Not worth firing up the kettle."

Hutch smiled and thanked him, then pulled his phone out and dialed as he walked toward the elevator.

Matt picked up after the second ring. "Isaacs."

"It's Hutch. What's up?"

"You're a tough man to get hold of."

"I have my reasons."

"No shit," Matt said with a laugh. "I've been out of town on assignment for the last few weeks, but our crime watch editor says you've been in the courtroom every day since they started jury selection. Says you had some pretty strong words about Ronnie."

Hutch's gut tightened. "Are we on the record right now?"

"Come on, man, give me some credit. I feel pretty bad about how we left it the night Ronnie was tagged, so I'm hoping you'll let me buy you a drink. Non-alcoholic, of course."

Hutch had no problem with that. He'd always respected Matt, despite any differences of opinion.  

"When and where?" he asked.

"You free now?"

Hutch was at the elevator and stopped just short of pressing the call button. "I was about to climb in bed with a harem of starlets, but I think they'll give me a rain check."

"Yeah? Ask 'em if they'll give me one, too."

— 18 —

H
UTCH ORDERED A
root beer, then looked at Matt and said, "Where's your wing man?"

It was just after five p.m. and The Monkey House
was oddly devoid of college students, most of whom were on summer break.  

Hutch and Matt sat across from each other at a corner table, Hutch trying to remember the last time he'd seen Matt without Andy McKenna hovering somewhere nearby. He hated terms like
bromance,
but thought it might be appropriate when it came to the Curmudgeon Twins.

"He's working late tonight," Matt said. "Some kind of accounting emergency, I guess."

Hutch smiled. "I read his script, you know. When I was back in L.A."

"Oh?" Matt's eyebrows shot up. "Believe it or not, he hasn't said anything about it since that night. Guess I dodged a bullet."

"I haven't talked to him yet. Been a little distracted."

"Haven't we all," Matt said. "Thing any good?"

"Honestly? It's probably better than most of the scripts I've read."

"You gotta be shittin' me."

Hutch shook his head. "Your old buddy actually has some talent. He's got the structure down, snappy dialogue, good visuals, and a pretty good little story. Better than the novel I'm working on, that's for sure."

Matt looked at him. "You're writing a novel?"

"Probably more of a memoir than anything else—and not a very interesting one."

"Never really been a book man myself. I like stories I can read in one sitting. I like
writing
'em, too. Unfortunately nobody's interested in newspapers anymore."

"Maybe you should start a blog."

Matt chuckled. "Might have to, if things keep going the way they're going. Whoever thought trees would become obsolete?"

"It's not just trees. I haven't bought a CD or a DVD in years."  

"It's all about streaming and downloads now," Matt said. "You can't go into the crapper these days without a charged battery and a wireless connection."

They both laughed and the waitress brought their drinks, smiling politely as she set them on the table.  

It felt good to laugh.

"Can I get you boys anything else?"

"That'll do it for now," Hutch said, and when she was gone, he sobered, took a sip of his root beer and looked again at Matt. "I don't think you called me here to gripe about emerging technology and the erosion of traditional business models."

Matt shook his head, then stared at the beer in front of him for a moment without touching it. "I want to apologize, Hutch. That night at the station house, I got pretty hot when I realized you were thinking Ronnie did this thing."

"That was mostly Nadine and Tom. They're the ones got me started in the first place. But, as we soon discovered, they did have a point."

He nodded. "Now that I've had some distance and a little time to consider it—"

"You think Ronnie's guilty."

He hesitated. "I'm not ready to go that far. But I can see why people would think that. And the prosecution has a pretty damn good case against her."

"You mean the sweatshirt?"

"That's just the start of it," Matt said. "We're getting all kinds of leaks."

"Do you think they're accurate?"

"I
know
some of them are. For a while it was enough to make me wonder if my instincts about Ronnie were completely wrong. That maybe she isn't the sweet little girl we once loved."

His words reflected the very same thoughts Hutch had been struggling with for months now. He understood the pain Matt had to be going through.

"Is that why you've been scarce, lately?"

Matt shook his head again. "Like I told you, I've been out of town on assignment. Our foreign guy quit and my editor didn't want to use a stringer. So he tagged me to fill in. Spent a month in Somalia and three weeks in Tehran."

"Jesus."

"Tell me about it. That blog is sounding pretty good right now." He paused. "Anyway, I just got back and when I talked to our crime guy about the trial, it was pretty depressing."

"The new leaks?"

He nodded. "Some we haven't been able to corroborate and some we have."

"Like what?"

"Did you know that Ronnie was arrested before?"

Hutch was surprised. "When?"

"Few years back. When she was living in Arizona."

"Arizona?"

Matt smiled. "See what happens when you disappear for nearly a decade? She married some biker yahoo she met in a bar here. Can't remember his name. Anyway, they moved to his home town, and three years into the marriage, Sedona police arrested her for spousal battery. You'll read all about it in tomorrow's Post."

Hutch's surprise deepened. "You're sure about this?"

Matt nodded. "Saw the police report myself. She divorced the guy two months later and Chicago PD didn't catch it until they ran a search for priors under her married name."

"Wouldn't they have done that right up front?"

"Apparently some bureaucrat fucked up and they missed it the first time out. Turns out she caught her ex in bed with another woman and went after him with a butcher knife. He got it away from her, but she smacked him pretty good a couple times before the girlfriend pulled her off him."

Hutch said nothing. The kernel of doubt he'd carried with him since Ronnie's little show and tell was starting to waver and fade. Quickly.

He took another sip of his root beer. "What else do they have?"

"A custody battle, that's what. Ronnie has a five-year-old kid and the ex wants him back. Claims she's too unstable to raise him."

Hutch nodded. "I've seen the kid. He's with his grandmother. Ronnie tried to use him to pull me to the dark side." He paused. "But what does any of this have to do with killing Jenny?"

"The assault against her husband doesn't, but the police and DA's office think it demonstrates Ronnie's propensity for violence. Even so, it won't be used in court."

"Why not?"

"It's what they call a prior bad act—just like the thing with her mother. In the state of Illinois, the prosecution can't use it unless the defense opens the door during testimony—and that isn't likely to happen." He paused. "But it doesn't matter. They won't need it."

"Why not?"

"Because they can still use the custody battle. That's where motivation comes in."

"I don't understand," Hutch said.

Was this the
why
that he had been waiting for?

Matt finally picked up his beer and took a long sip. Then he set the glass down, wiped a trace of foam from a corner of his mouth and said, "Jenny's law firm was representing Ronnie's ex."

— 19 —

"T
HAT DOESN'T MAKE
any sense," Hutch said. "Jenny
knew
Ronnie. Isn't that a conflict of interest?"

Matt shook his head. "Not really. Jenny worked for Treacher and Pine, one of the oldest and largest law firms in Chicago. She was a senior associate in the corporate law division. Handled fraud cases, real estate, things like that."

"And?"

"Family court matters are handled by an entirely different set of lawyers over there. They're not even on the same floor, and they don't cross-pollinate."

"So no conflict," Hutch said.

"Not in the court's eyes. But according to the prosecution's theory of events, that didn't keep Ronnie from thinking Jenny had some kind of pull."

Hutch waited as Matt took another sip of his beer.  

"You remember she told us about bumping into Jenny at the Godwyn Theater? Talked about Andy trying to get that screenplay to you?"

Hutch nodded.

"Well, turns out that's not the only thing they talked about. Ronnie brought up the custody case, and apparently Jenny wasn't even aware it existed until Ronnie confronted her."

"Confronted?"

"That's how Jenny's boss characterized it in his witness statement. He says Jenny called him right after the encounter to let him know about it. Wanted everything above board."

"That's our Jenny," Hutch said.

"The boss says he wasn't concerned about it until things started getting a little hairy."

"In what way?"

"Those phone calls you heard about? The ADA says that was Ronnie calling Jenny's office, demanding that she use her influence to get her ex to back off. Most of the calls were fielded by a secretary, who tried to explain that Jenny had nothing to do with the case, but apparently it got pretty nasty. Ronnie didn't take kindly to being ignored."

"She told me she didn't make those calls."

"Well they're saying she did, and they're claiming it's enough to show frame of mind. Their theory is that Ronnie was so afraid of losing her kid, she must have cracked—and Jenny got the brunt of it."

Hutch couldn't help seeing the irony here. The very thing Ronnie claimed was her reason for
not
killing Jenny was the prosecutor's idea of a perfectly plausible motive.

And Hutch didn't disagree. Yet even with all this evidence, Matt still seemed to be leaning toward Ronnie's innocence.

"I don't get it," Hutch said. "You tell me you're not willing to go as far as saying Ronnie's guilty, but this all sounds pretty convincing to me."