Beyond Suspicion

34

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Jack returned from a hard-fought morning in federal court feeling pretty good about himself. A suppression hearing had gone his way, and it was gratifying to know that, despite the personal hassles, he was still able to do impressive work for his clients. Even the guilty ones.

Jack had barely settled into his office when Rosa popped in from across the hall. It was their habit to kibitz after a court hearing, and he was eager to share the details. She beat him to the punch.

“Jessie Merrill named you in her will.”

Jack did a double take. “Named me what?”

“A beneficiary.”

The words almost didn’t register. He hadn’t really been focusing on the probate of Jessie’s estate as of late. In fact, he’d given it little thought-perhaps too little thought-since he’d spoken with Clara Pierce, the personal representative. “That can’t be.”

“I just got off the phone with Clara. Apparently she’d rather deal with your lawyer than with you.”

“What did she say?”

“There will be a reading of the will today in her office at three-thirty. You’re invited, since you’re a beneficiary.”

“Did she say what I’m getting?”

“No.”

“Then it’s probably the Charlie Brown special.”

“She intimated that it bolsters your motive to murder Jessie. That hardly sounds like a lump of coal.”

“You don’t think she left me the money, do you?”

Rosa considered it. “It seems incredible. But I’m beginning to think maybe she was at least a little crazy.”

“I’ll vouch for that.”

“I’m saying something a little different. I’m talking about the kind of mental impairment that’s medically verifiable.”

“Do you know something I don’t know?”

She walked to the window and said, “I hear the medical examiner is about to issue a report.”

“I hadn’t heard.”

“Nothing’s official yet. But I have it on pretty good authority that higher-than-normal levels of lead were found in tissue taken from her liver and kidneys. You know what that means, Jack?”

He was looking at his lawyer, yet it was as if he could see right through her. “Jessie did have lead poisoning.”

“At one time, yes. It was no longer in her bloodstream by the time she died, but traces of it had deposited in her major organs.”

Jack was talking fast, his thoughts getting ahead of him. “Okay, she really was sick at the outset. But that doesn’t prove that there was no scam. Somebody, somewhere along the line, got the bright idea to take lead poisoning and turn it into a phony case of ALS in order to dupe a group of viatical investors. Maybe it was her idea, maybe it was her doctor’s. Maybe it hit them both at the same time while they were lying in bed together.”

“I agree with you, but that’s not my point.”

“What is your point?”

“Lead poisoning has other ramifications, medically speaking. Even personality problems. Paranoia, hallucinations, irritability.”

“The kinds of things you’d expect from a suicide candidate.”

“Except that this isn’t a normal suicide.”

“Is there such a thing?”

Rosa took a seat on the edge of the desk, facing Jack. “Let me explain what I mean. So far, we’ve uncovered what seems to be a string of some pretty peculiar things that Jessie did before she died. She named you as beneficiary in her will. She named you as the coaccount holder of her bank account. She used that audiotape to make it look as if you two were recently in the sack together.”

“It’s pretty clear she was trying to set me up as an accomplice.”

“Most likely to keep you from blowing the whistle on her scam.”

“Right. As soon as our audio expert finishes her analysis, we can show the state attorney exactly what she was up to.”

“With the original missing, it won’t be easy to show that the taped love-making session between you and Jessie happened seven or eight years ago.”

“Still, any expert worth her salt can verify that the only tapes in existence are copies. The only reason for Jessie to have made a copy and destroyed the original is to create the impression that she and I were having a recent affair.”

“That’s all true,” said Rosa. “But I’m not sure your extortion theory accounts for the full range of emotions behind that audiotape.”

“What are you talking about?”

“As you say, we know that she copied the tape from an old original so it would look new. But that begs the question: Why did she keep the original all these years? You can’t tell me that she was planning this scam for seven or eight years.”

“I explained all this before. That tape became kind of running gag between us. She probably ended up stuffing it in a shoebox somewhere and forgetting about it. Until recently, when she needed it.”

“I’m not convinced that her keeping it all these years was as innocent and meaningless as you think. I’ve listened to it.”

“So have I.”

“Maybe you should listen to it again.”

“I really don’t want to.”

“I want you to. Come on.” She started out of the office.

“Where we going?”

“The tape. It’s in the file.”

“I don’t need to hear that again,” he said, but she was already down the hall. Jack followed. Rosa dug the tape from a locked filing cabinet, then ducked into the conference room. Reluctantly, Jack caught up just as she was putting the audiocassette in the stereo.

“We don’t have to listen to all of it. In fact, the only part that piques my interest is at the very end.” She hit fast forward till the tape ended, then rewound briefly.

“Ready?” she asked.

Jack shook his head. “This is embarrassing.”

“It’s not that bad. This isn’t the two of you grunting and groaning. It’s the afterglow. Just you and her talking, when she tries to coax you into going from audio to videotape. Listen.” She hit play.

The hiss of recorded silence flowed from the sound system, and then Jack heard his own voice.

“Can you put the damn camera away, please?”

“Come on. We did it on audio. Why not try the video?”

“Because it’s like a one-eyed monster staring at me.”

“I stare at your one-eyed monster all the time.”

“Don’t point that thing at my-”

“Oh, now you’re Mr. Modest.”

“Just turn it off.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?”

“Because you don’t like to have it on while we’re talking.”

“No, I just don’t like the thing staring at me like that.”

“So it’s okay to have a tape recorder running while you’re fucking me. But it’s time to put everything away when we talk about how we feel about each other.”

“That’s not it.”

“Are you afraid to say how you feel about me, Jack?”

“No.”

“Then say it. Say it on tape.”

“Stop playing games.”

“You’re afraid.”

“Damn it, Jessie. I just don’t want to do this.”

“You big chicken. Look, I’m not afraid. I can look straight into the camera and tell you exactly how I feel.”

Again the speakers hissed throughout the conference room, a pregnant pause before Jessie’s final words on tape.

“I don’t want to live without you, Jack Swyteck. I don’t ever want to live without you.”

Rosa hit end, and the tape clicked off. She looked across the room and said, “Well?”

“Well, what? It’s lovers’ banter. People say that all the time: I don’t want to live without you.”

“Sure. And probably ninety-nine times out of a hundred it means simply that they’d rather live with you than live without you. But in that rare case, it might have a more literal meaning: If the choice is between death and living without you, then death it is.”

“Those words are said in thousands of bedrooms every day. I’d rather die than lose you, blah, blah, blah. It doesn’t mean they’re going to go off and kill themselves.”

“Most of the time, no. But sometimes it does.”

“This was almost eight years ago.”

“You don’t know what happened in Jessie’s life after your split. Her life could have been one long string of personal disasters from the day you broke up.”

“You’re overlooking the fact that she’s the one who dumped me.”

“Did she? Or did you force her to break it off by refusing to tell her how you felt? You said it yourself, she wanted to get back together with you six months later.”

“Stop the pop psychology, okay? This tape, that relationship-it’s all old news. And everything you’re saying is totally speculative.”

“Don’t knock it. If you’re indicted for murder, this just might be your defense.”

“Yeah, right. Old girlfriend carries a torch for over half a decade. Makes me a joint holder of her bank account, leaves me a pot of money in her will, and doctors up an old tape of us making love, all just to give me motive to kill her. It’s ridiculous.”

“Listen to me. From the very beginning, we talked about how Jessie might have been trying to make a statement by killing herself in your bathtub. Well, maybe the statement she was trying to make is simply this: ‘Jack Swyteck killed me.’”

“You’re serious about this? You think she killed herself and framed me for doing it?”

“Think about it. The trick only works once, but it could be the perfect frame-up. Kill yourself, but do it in a way that makes it look like someone else did it. If it’s done right, it’s ironclad. The real killer is beyond suspicion.”

Jack took a seat, thinking. Maybe he had overlooked a plausible defense, perhaps even the best defense, all because he feared his wife’s reaction to his past with Jessie. “I swear, every time I think I’m getting my arms around this thing, it slips away from me.”

“That’s good. I’m not saying an indictment’s inevitable, but if the worst comes to pass, confusion is the wellspring of reasonable doubt.”

“For my own sake, I’d kind of like to know the truth someday.”

“Would you?”

“Of course.”

“Then maybe you will. Let’s just hope it doesn’t scare you.”

Jack nodded slowly, saying nothing as he watched Rosa remove their copy of the old audiotape.