Beyond Suspicion

15

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Jack had a noon meeting with Rosa Tomayo at his office. It was literally a matter of walking across the hall. Her office suite was on the same floor, same building as his.

Rosa’s firm was three times bigger than Jack’s, which meant that besides herself she had two much younger partners to help carry the workload. Not that she needed much help. Rosa was a bona fide multitasker, someone who felt hopelessly underutilized if she wasn’t doing at least eight different things at once, all with the finesse of a symphonic conductor. Jack had personally engaged her in spirited debates over lunch only to have her later recount conversations she’d simultaneously overheard at nearby tables. That kind of energy and brain power had landed her among Miami’s legal elite, though some would say her reputation was equally attributable to the quick wit and enduring good looks she employed with great flair and frequency on television talk shows. She definitely had style. But she wasn’t the typical showboat criminal defense lawyer who proclaimed her client’s innocence from the hilltops when, in truth, the government had merely failed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If Jack ever decided to seek out a partner, Rosa would have been first on his list.

When he needed representation, Rosa was the obvious choice.

Calling her from the crime scene last night had turned out to be the right thing to do. Even though he’d walked hundreds of his own clients through similar situations, the perils of a lawyer representing himself were endless. Rosa helped him focus objectively. They’d agreed that, first thing in the morning, she would meet with the prosecutor assigned to the case.

At 12:15 Jack began to pace. Rosa, where are you?

The wait was only made worse by the barrage of calls from the media. Jack dodged them all. As a lawyer he didn’t normally shy away from reporters, but in this case Jack was avoiding any public statements at least until Rosa confirmed one way or the other if he was a suspect.

At 12:45, finally, she was back.

“I think it’s solved,” she said.

Jack chuckled nervously from his seat at the head of the conference table.

“I’m serious.” She was picking over the deli sandwich platter he’d ordered for lunch. She removed the sliced turkey from between two slices of rye bread, rolled it up, and nibbled as she spoke. “I honestly think it’s resolved.”

“Already?”

“What can I say? I’m damn good.”

“Tell me what happened.”

She tossed the rolled turkey back on the platter and started on the ham. It was the way Rosa always ate-two bites of this, a bite of that, talking all the while.

“The meeting was just me and Jancowitz. He claims you all but admitted that Jessie scammed the investors.”

“I didn’t go that far. I was just trying to give him some insight into the motive they might have to kill her.”

“Well, the motive cuts two ways. He sees it as your motive to kill Jessie.”

“How?”

“Self-righteous son of a former governor gets scammed by a client who used to be his girlfriend. His ego can’t handle it, or maybe he thinks it will ruin his stellar reputation. He snaps and kills her, then makes it look like suicide.”

“That’s weak.”

“That’s what I said. Which is why I don’t think it’s their real theory.”

“Then where are they headed?”

“Same place you’d go if you were still a prosecutor. You and Jessie were having an affair. She threatened to tell your wife unless you played along with her scam. You got tired of the extortion and whacked her.”

“When?”

“Good question. I pressed Benno on the time of death. They’re not committing to anything, but bugs don’t lie. The medical examiner says that the maggot eggs in Jessie’s eyes were already starting to hatch. If you work backward on the timeline of forensic entomology, that puts her time of death somewhere about midday.”

“Good for me,” said Jack. “I was in trial all day and then went straight to dinner with Cindy.”

“That’s what I told Benno.”

“Except the maggots give us something else to think about. Aren’t they more prevalent on a body found outdoors than indoors?”

“Not necessarily.”

“But you see my point. Is anyone considering that Jessie’s body was moved from somewhere outside the house to my bathtub?”

“I’m pretty sure they’ve ruled it out. With all the blood that ran from her body, her heart had to be pumping when she was in your tub, which means she was alive when she got there.”

“Though not necessarily conscious.”

“True. But there are other indicators, too. Benno was talking pretty fast, but I think he said something about how the livor mortis pattern on her backside suggests that she died right where she was found.”

“When can we find out something definite?”

“We have to be patient. You know how this works. It could be weeks before the medical examiner issues a final report. Until then, all we get is what Benno deigns to share with us.”

“Does that mean I’m a suspect or not?”

“I don’t think you’re high on the list. In my opinion, he just wants to tweak you, embarrass you a little.”

“Oh, is that all?” he said, scoffing.

“Better than making your life miserable for the foreseeable future as the target of a homicide investigation. All you have to do is give him a little of what he wants.”

“What are you telling me? You and Jancowitz sat around a table all morning negotiating how best to embarrass me?”

She bit off the tip of a pickle spear. “Basically.”

“This is crazy.”

“Just listen. Here’s the deal. We put down in writing the whole conversation you and Jessie had the night before she died. She was afraid for her life, she admitted that she had scammed the viatical investors, they were threatening to kill her. Then we put in your side of the story. She acted like she was on drugs, you told her to go to the police, blah, blah, blah. And most important, we put in bold and all capital letters that you knew absolutely nothing about the scam until after the verdict was rendered.”

“You’re confident that there will be no repercussions about breaching the attorney-client privilege?”

“A lawyer can breach the privilege to defend himself from possible criminal charges.”

“I know that. But nobody’s talked about charging me yet.”

“There was a dead body in your house. Trust me. They’re talking about it.”

Jack glanced at the untouched sandwich on his plate, then back at Rosa. “What kind of immunity are they offering?”

“They won’t prosecute you on the scam. No promises on the homicide investigation.”

“You think that’s enough?”

“Let’s be real, okay? You’re never going to get immunity on a homicide charge. You’re the son of a former governor. Prosecutors cut deals with the little guys so they can nail people like you.”

“Then why are you so sure that this letter is the right thing to do?”

“First of all, it’s the truth. Second, even though you weren’t part of Jessie’s scam, you should sleep better at night knowing that the prosecutor has agreed not to try to prove you were involved.”

“That’s something, I guess.”

“Especially when you consider that we’re not giving them anything they haven’t already deduced from your conversation last night. Like I said, they’re assuming there was a scam. This just puts it on record that you knew nothing about it.”

“So, in your view, we’re giving them nothing?”

“Exactly. It serves the same purpose as a press release, only not as tacky. And it may help down the road, too. Worst-case scenario, Jancowitz asks the grand jury to indict you for the murder of Jessie Merrill. Your involvement in her little scam is sure to play some part in your alleged motive. Somehow, he’ll have to explain that from day one of the investigation he had a letter sitting in his file in which you unequivocally denied any involvement.”

“You know as well as I do that a prosecutor doesn’t even have to mention that letter to the grand jury.”

“No, but we can make some hay in the press if he doesn’t.”

“So, why do you really think Jancowitz even wants the letter?”

“My opinion? He doesn’t like you, never did. He can’t wait to use your own words to show the world how stupid you were with your own client.”

Jack cringed.

“Sorry,” she said. “But that’s the way he’s going to play it. Slick defense lawyer gets outslicked.”

“The media will have a feast.”

“Yes, they will. But today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s paper-hat.”

“Gee, thanks. I feel better already.”

She came to him, laid a hand on his shoulder. “Look, my friend. These are salacious facts. Innocent or not, you won’t come out of this smelling like a rose.”

Jack knew she was right. The hardest part about being a criminal defense lawyer was defending the innocent. Even when they won, they lost something-status, reputation, the unconditional trust of friends and peers.

“I suppose it will all come out in the end anyway,” he said. “I might as well lay it all out from the get-go, do what I can to make sure the investigation heads in the right direction.”

“That’s exactly where I came out. Of course, we’re making certain assumptions. One, you didn’t kill her, which goes without saying. And two, she was not your lover.”

“Definitely not.”

“I’m not just talking about getting naked. I don’t want to find some string of flirtatious e-mails down the road somewhere.”

“There’s none of that.”

“Then I say we go public with the scam. Jancowitz is happy because it embarrasses you professionally. We’re happy because the truth focuses the attention where it belongs, on the viatical investors.”

“You don’t think that sounds too simple?”

“I’m not saying we write Jancowitz a letter and then sit on our hands. If they start thinking homicide and definitely not suicide, he might still hound you as a suspect. In that case, we need to be ready to hand them something on a silver platter, something so compelling that it almost forces them to focus their investigation on another suspect. Hopefully, the right suspect.”

“We’ve got two pretty solid theories.”

Rosa started to pace, as if it helped her think. “One, the viatical investors killed Jessie. They put the body in your house to deflect guilt from them to you. Or two, Jessie feared a horrible death. She was convinced they were going to kill her. So she killed herself, but she did it in a way and in a place that, as you say, makes a statement. She wanted to create havoc in your life because you refused to help her.”

“It has to be one of those,” said Jack.

“Lucky for us, there’s a common thread to both of them: The viatical investors threatened to kill Jessie. We need to find out who’s behind that company.”

“Jessie didn’t give me much to go on. She basically just said the company itself was a front. The real money was a bunch of bad operators.”

“You know what I always say. Bad money has a stench. Follow your nose. You up for it?”

“What’s my alternative?”

“You can sit back and hope your love letter to Jancowitz does the trick.”

He shook his head, not so sure that Jancowitz would be satisfied in merely embarrassing him. He looked at Rosa and said, “I’ll take care of the letter. Then it’s time to go fishing.”

“You have any particular investigator you’d like to use?”

“The official answer to that is no.”

She gave him a knowing smile. “You know, it’s really too bad Theo is a convicted felon. I’d use him too, if he could get a license.”

“That’s the beauty of the arrangement. It keeps me from having to pay him.”

“Something tells me you’ll find a way around that.”

Jack nodded, knowing that with all the freebies Theo had given him, someday he’d owe him his car.

Rosa checked her watch. “Gotta run. If you need me, you know where to find me.”

Jack walked her from the conference room to the lobby. They stopped at the double doors. “Rosa. Thank you.”

“No problem. You’d do the same for me. But let’s hope you never have to.”

She was out the door, but Jack answered anyway, for no one’s benefit but his own. “Let’s hope.”