Beyond Suspicion

18

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When Jack first met Cindy, she was a wimp when it came to drinking. “Tying one on” meant an extra splash of Bailey’s Irish Cream in her heaping bowl of Häagen Dazs. She’d been raised in a strict Methodist household. Her mother sang on the church choir and her father, Jack was told, had just one vice, a little nickel-and-dime-poker game on Tuesday evenings. She’d loosened up over the years, but Jack rarely saw her sloshed.

So, when he came home early at five o’clock and found a completely empty bottle of chardonnay on the kitchen table, he knew something was amiss.

“You share that with anyone?” asked Jack.

She shook her head. Her mother wasn’t home. She’d been drinking alone.

Time had passed slowly since Jessie’s death, and the media had not yet tired of speculating as to the “true nature” of the “tragic relationship” between Jack and his attractive client. It was obviously beginning to take a toll.

“You lied to me,” she said.

He looked at her but couldn’t speak. It hurt more than being called a murderer. “What are you talking about?”

“She was your lover, wasn’t she?”

“Do you mean Jessie?”

“Who else?”

“No.” He hurried to the table, sat in the chair beside her. “Who told you that?”

“A couple of investigators were just here.”

“What kind of investigators?”

“Homicide.”

“You let them in this house? Cindy, you have to stay away from those people.”

“Why? So I don’t hear the truth?”

He looked into her eyes. She’d been drinking, for sure. But he could see way past that, to the part that really hurt. She’d been crying. “What did they tell you?”

She took a sip from her wine glass, but it was dry. “They said you and Jessie were having an affair.”

“Not true.”

“I trusted you, Jack. I felt sorry for Jessie, I told you to take her case. How could you do this?”

“I didn’t do anything. It’s so obvious what they’re up to. They lay this cockeyed romance theory on you to get you mad enough to turn against me. They’re fishing, that’s all.”

“You really think she killed herself?”

“I don’t know. But whatever happened to her, we weren’t lovers.”

“Damn you! The woman slit her wrist in our bathtub-naked.”

“Looks bad, I know.”

“Yeah, all over the news for over a week it’s been looking bad. There isn’t a person in Miami who doesn’t think you two were doing it.”

“Everyone but the person who mattered. You believed me.”

“I wanted to believe you. But sooner or later, even I have to face facts.”

“The fact is, it didn’t happen between me and Jessie. And there isn’t a bit of proof that it did.”

The anger drained from her voice, and she was suddenly stone-cold serious. “That’s the problem, Jack. Now there is proof.”

He could almost hear his own heart pounding. “What?”

“The investigators. They left it for me.”

“Left what?”

She pushed away from the table, crossed the kitchen, and stopped at the cassette player on the counter. “This,” she said as she ejected the tape.

“What’s that supposed to be?”

“Seems your friend Jessie-your client-taped one of your little episodes in her bedroom.”

“That’s not possible. There were no episodes.”

“Stop lying! It’s your voice. It’s her voice. And the two of you aren’t talking sports.”

He was speechless. “This is crazy. We were never together. And even if we had been, why would she record it?”

“Get real. She’s a swindler, and you’re a married man with an awful lot to lose. She wouldn’t be the first woman to slip a tape recorder under the bed.”

“I want to hear it.”

“Well, I don’t. I’ve heard enough.”

She grabbed her purse and dug for the car keys.

“Wait,” he said. “Give me a minute to listen to it.”

“No.” She started for the door.

“Cindy, please.”

“I said no.”

He stepped between her and the door. “You’re not driving anywhere. You just drank a whole bottle of wine.”

She glared, then started to tremble. A huge tear streamed down her check. Wiping it away only brought replacements, a flood. Jack went to her, but she backed away.

“Just stay away from me!”

“Cindy, I would never cheat on you.”

“What about Gina?”

He froze. Gina Terisi, years earlier. “That was before we were even engaged. You went to Italy on that photo assignment and told me we were through before you left.”

“You obviously took it very well.”

“No. I was a wreck. That’s how it happened with Gina in the first place.”

“Were you a wreck this time? Is that how it happened with Jessie?”

“No. It didn’t happen with Jessie.”

“It’s on tape!”

“I think I know what this is. Just let me hear it.”

“I’m not going to sit here while you play that thing.”

As she tried to pass, he backed against the door. “You’re not driving drunk.”

“Let me out!” She punched him in the chest, not a boxer’s punch but more like beating on a door in frustration. She practically fell against him, partly catharsis, partly the alcohol. He tried to take her in his arms, but she kept fighting for the doorknob.

“I’ll go,” he said. “Just give me the tape and promise you won’t drive anywhere.”

Their eyes locked-those beautiful, blue, moist eyes filled with doubt and disappointment. Quickly she went to the cassette player on the counter and threw the tape at him. He caught it.

“Knock yourself out, Jack. Now leave me alone.”

He didn’t budge, couldn’t move his feet. “Cindy, I love-”

“Don’t even say it. Just go!”

He hated to leave on that note, but he didn’t want to make things worse by trying to explain the tape before hearing it. He lowered his head, opened the door, and went without another word. He was halfway down the steps when the porch light switched off. It seemed that Cindy wanted it that way-Jack walking to his car in total darkness, alone.