Beyond Suspicion

14

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It was the most unpleasant evening Jack had ever spent on his patio.

Assistant state attorney Benno Jancowitz was bathed in moonlight, seated on the opposite side of the round, cast-aluminum table. Between his chain-smoking and the burning citronella candle, it was olfactory overload. Yet at times Jack could still almost smell Jessie’s blood in the air, his mind playing tricks on the senses.

“Just a few more questions, Mr. Swyteck.” Smoke poured from his nostrils as he spoke, his eyes glued to his notes, as if the answers to the world’s problems were somewhere in that dog-eared notepad. So far he’d spent almost the entire interview combing over the civil trial Jack had won for Jessie.

Finally he looked up and said, “Know anybody who’d want Jessie Merrill dead?”

“I might.”

“Who?”

“The viatical investors who I beat at trial.”

“What makes you think they’d want to kill her?”

“She told me in those exact words. She thought they were out to kill her.”

“Pretty sore losers.”

“They apparently thought she’d cheated them.”

“Did she? Cheat them, I mean.”

Jack paused, not wanting to dive headlong into the matter of a possible scam. “I can’t really answer that.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re getting into an area protected by the attorney-client privilege.”

“What privilege? She’s dead.”

“The privilege survives her death. You know that.”

“If there was foul play, I’m sure your late client would excuse your divulgence of privileged information.”

“She might, but her heirs will probably sue me.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Right now, Jessie’s estate has at least a million and a half dollars in it. Hypothetically, let’s say I breach the attorney-client privilege and tell you she scammed the investors out of that money. Her estate just lost a million and a half bucks. Her heirs could have my ass in a sling.”

“You want to talk off the record?”

“I’ve said enough. If something happened to Jessie, I want to help punish the people who did it. But there are some things I can’t speak freely about. At least not until I’ve talked to her heirs.”

The prosecutor smiled thinly, as if he enjoyed having to pry information loose. “Did Ms. Merrill call the police about this alleged threat on her life?”

“No.”

“Did she tell anyone else about it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“So she was in mortal fear for her life, and the only person she told was her lawyer?”

“Don’t taunt me, Benno. I’m trying to help, and I’ve told you as much as I can.”

“If you’re implying there’s a possible homicide here, it would help for me to understand the motive.”

“The investors reached a viatical settlement thinking Jessie would be dead in two years. It turns out they might have to wait around for Willard Scott and Smucker’s to wish her a happy hundredth birthday. In and of itself, that’s pretty strong motive.”

He wrote something in his pad but showed no expression. “Answer me this, please. When’s the last time you saw Ms. Merrill?”

“Last night.”

“What time?”

“Around midnight.”

“Where’d you two meet up?”

“She was waiting for me.”

“Where?”

“The parking lot.”

“You go anywhere?”

“No. We talked in my car.”

He raised an eyebrow, and Jack immediately regretted that answer.

“Interesting,” he said. “What did you two talk about?”

“That’s when we had the conversation I just told you about. When she told me she thought the investors might kill her.”

“Is that when she told you she’d scammed the investors?”

“I didn’t say there was a scam. I told you twice already, I can’t talk about that.”

“Suit yourself.”

“I’m not being coy. I may end up telling you everything. Just let me do my job as a lawyer and sort out the privilege issue with her heirs, whoever they might be.”

“Take your time. Get your story straight.”

“It’s not a matter of getting my story straight. It’s a thorny legal and ethical issue.”

“Right. So, other than this sacred attorney-client relationship that you’ve chosen to carry into eternity, did you have any other kind of relationship with Ms. Merrill?”

“We dated before I met my wife.”

“Interesting.”

It was about his fifth “interesting” remark. It was getting annoying.

He glanced at his notes once more and said, “Just a few more questions. Some mop-up stuff. Ever hear her threaten to kill herself?”

“No.”

“She ever make any utterances of farewell or final good-byes-like, those bastards won’t have me to kick around anymore?”

“No.”

“Ever hear her say she can’t go on anymore, that life isn’t worth living?”

“No.”

“Did she have any kind of physical pain that she couldn’t deal with?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Were you fucking her?”

“Huh?”

He seemed pleased to have set up the question so nicely, having caught Jack off-guard. “You heard me.”

“The answer is no.”

“Other than those viatical investors you mentioned, can you think of anyone else who’d want her dead?”

“From the looks of things, maybe she wanted herself dead.”

He nodded, as if he’d already considered Jack’s theory. “Breaks and enters through the French door, grabs a bottle of vodka from the liquor cabinet, goes upstairs, slits her wrist. Which leaves one gaping question: Why would she kill herself in your house?”

“Who knows? Maybe to make some kind of statement.”

“Exactly what kind of statement do you think she was trying to make?”

“I can only guess. I was her lawyer. Maybe she didn’t like the job I did.”

“You’d just won her a million and a half dollars.”

“That’s a complicated situation. I already told you, I need to sort out some privilege issues before I can talk freely.”

“Ah, yes. The scam.”

“I never said there was a scam.”

The prosecutor’s nose was back in his notes. The silence lasted only a minute or two, but it seemed longer. “Lots of nice pictures in your house,” he said finally. “I like that black-and-white stuff.”

Jack had no idea where he was headed. “Thanks. My wife took them.”

“She’s good with the camera, is she?”

“She’s a professional photographer.”

“That what she does for a living?”

“Partly. She’s gotten into design work lately. Graphic arts. She’s really good on the computer.”

“Pretty busy lady, I would imagine.”

“It’s a full-time commitment.”

“And your job? Hell, that’s more than a full-time commitment.”

“I’m busy, yeah. We’re both busy people.”

Jancowitz glanced toward the house and then back. “How are things with you and your wife?”

“Couldn’t be better.” He felt a bit like a liar, but his marriage was no one’s business. Jancowitz didn’t seem to believe him anyway.

The prosecutor said, “I couldn’t help noticing earlier. You seemed pretty eager to get her in the car, off to the sidelines, as soon as the police started showing up here tonight.”

“Cindy was attacked by a man five years ago. Turning her house into a crime scene is a pretty upsetting experience for her.”

Again, Jancowitz offered that long, slow nod of skepticism.

“What are you trying to say, Benno?”

He gnawed his pencil. “Well, so far we got a gorgeous young woman, who used to be your lover, dead and naked in your bathtub. Blood is dry, body’s still not at room temperature, rigor mortis is fading, but the larger muscle groups haven’t completely relaxed. Medical examiner will pin it down better, but I’d guess she’s been dead no more than twenty-four hours.”

“Which means?”

“Which means that the little talk you had in your car last night certainly puts you in contention for the last person to see her alive. And we’ve already established that you were the first person to see her dead.”

“You’re ignoring the empty bottle of vodka, the slit wrist. I told you about those viatical investors just to give you the whole picture. It could be just me, but this maybe, kind-of, sort-of, looks a little like suicide, don’t you think?”

“One thing I’ve learned after twenty-two years. Looks can be deceiving.”

He gave Jack the kind of penetrating look that prosecutors laid only on suspects. Jack didn’t blink. “Sorry. I don’t scare easy. Especially when I’ve done nothing wrong.”

Jancowitz closed his notebook, rose slowly, shook Jack’s hand, and said, “I just love a challenge. I’ll be in touch.”

“Anytime.”

He crossed the patio and walked back inside the house. Through the bay window Jack saw him stop in the family room to admire a long wall that was lined with Cindy’s photographs. He turned, grinned, and gave the thumbs-up, as if he were admiring her work. He seemed pleased to see that Jack had been watching him.

“Twit,” Jack said quietly as he returned the phony smile.

Jack waited for him to disappear into the living room, and then he took out his cell phone and dialed.

It was late, but somehow he sensed he was going to need a lawyer. A good one.