Beyond Suspicion

56

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It was late Friday afternoon, and Jack was at his abuela’s when Rosa phoned him on his cell. Expecting bad news, he ducked out of the kitchen and took the call in the living room, out of his grandmother’s earshot.

“Indictment is down,” said Rosa.

He closed his eyes and slowly opened them, absorbing the blow. “How bad?”

“One count, one defendant.”

“Me?”

“No. Theo.”

The knot in his stomach twisted. A moment of relief for himself, a deep-felt pain for his friend. “No murder for-hire-scheme, like we thought?”

“Not yet.”

“You think it’s coming?”

“Could be like we talked about earlier. The prosecutor will use the indictment as leverage against Theo, try to get him to turn against you.”

“He could have done that even if he’d indicted both of us.”

“He’s being cautious, as he should be. You’re a respected lawyer, the son of a popular former governor. You can bet that the state attorney herself is insisting that the evidence against you be ironclad.”

“Marsh’s testimony obviously wasn’t enough.”

“Or the prosecutor has some reservations about it. I heard a rumor that Marsh refused to take a polygraph.”

“That’s just great. They’re not sure if their star witness is telling the truth, so they can’t indict me. But it’s fine and dandy to indict Theo.”

“Theo’s a former death-row inmate. I don’t care if he was innocent the last time, the bar’s a lot higher for you than for him.”

“This really pisses me off.”

“Calm down, okay? We don’t know what additional evidence they have against Theo. It could be worse than we think.”

Jack sighed, realizing she was right.

Rosa said, “Right now we have to focus on making sure they don’t convince Theo to flip against you. That would be all the evidence they need to go after you on murder for hire.”

“The only way they can do that is to get Theo to lie. That’ll never happen.”

There was a brief pause, then Rosa shifted gears. “Where are you now?”

“My grandmother’s house. I didn’t want to be home or at the office when the indictment issued. Just can’t deal with the media right now.”

“Where’s Cindy?”

“With her mom.”

“Are you two…”

“I don’t know what’s happening with us.”

“Have you heard anything at all from Theo?”

“Not a word.”

“Well, his arraignment is set for Monday morning at nine. If we don’t hear from him by then, he’ll officially be a fugitive.”

“I’ve been trying to find him ever since his lawyer told me he couldn’t reach him. I called his friends, talked to his partner, the people he works with. No one seems to know anything.”

“Then do more.”

“I will. But the indictment isn’t going to make it any easier. There’s no bail for murder in the first degree. The thought of going back behind bars isn’t going to sit well with him.”

“You need to find him and convince him that he has no choice. A no-show on Monday only digs a deeper hole for all of us.”

Jack started to pace. Through the archway at the end of the hall, he could see his grandmother standing at the kitchen island preparing dinner. Strange, but he suddenly smelled jail food. “I need to get on this. Where can I reach you tonight?”

“I’ll be here in my office pretty late. You should come by. Jancowitz is delivering the grand-jury materials to Theo’s lawyer tonight, and he promised to share with me. Could be interesting stuff.”

“Yeah. Like reading my best friend’s obituary.”

“We’re a long way from that, Jack.”

He thanked her, said good-bye, and hung up. He took a few steps toward the kitchen, then stopped. Only one thing seemed worse than telling Abuela that an indictment might be around the corner, and that was letting her hear it first on television. He drew a deep breath and entered the kitchen.

“Who called?” she asked.

“Rosa.”

She was flattening a mound of dough into a paper-thin sheet, back and forth with a rolling pin. It was for her famous meat-filled pastry shells that were tasty enough to tempt even a life-long vegetarian. “What she tell you?”

“Not good news.”

“How not good?”

Jack stood on the opposite side of the island, grabbed a sliver of extraneous dough, and rolled it into a ball as he told her about Theo, and how they might still come after him. He could see the emotion in her eyes, but she kept working the dough faster and faster as the news unfolded. He finished in a minute or two, but the silence lingered much longer. Just the sound of the rolling pin and the slice of the knife on the granite countertop-rolling the dough, flattening it into sheets, slicing it into triangles.

“Careful,” said Jack. “You’re going to cut yourself.”

Her pace only quickened. Another wad of dough, another flattened square, a diagonal slice that turned the square into two triangles.

After the third cut, Jack grabbed her wrist and said, “Do that again.”

“Como?”

“The slicing motion. Do it again.”

She flattened another sheet, put the rolling pin aside. Then she took her knife and sliced diagonally across the sheet of dough.

“You slice from top right to bottom left,” he said.

“Sí.”

“Not from top left to bottom right.”

She tried it. “Aye, no. That would be very awkward for me.”

“Of course it would be,” he said, looking off to the middle distance. “You’re left-handed.”

“Toda esta bien?” she asked. Is everything okay?

“Perfecto,” he said as he leaned across the island and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Gracias, mi vida. I love you.”

“I love you, too. But what this about?”

“It’s complicated, sort of. But it’s really simple.”

“What you talk about?”

“You made it all so simple.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You’re beautiful. I’ll explain later. I gotta go.”

He grabbed his car keys, ran out the front door, and jumped into his Mustang. The traffic lights were all green on his way to Rosa’s office, a minor miracle that he interpreted as a sure sign that he was onto something. He was in a hurry, to be sure, but the need for speed was more a matter of adrenaline than timing. Less than fifteen minutes later he was banging on the entrance doors to Rosa’s office suite. She let him in and then backed away, as if fearful that he might ricochet off the walls and knock her flat.

“What’s with you?” she asked.

Jack caught his breath and said, “Do you have the grand-jury materials yet?”

“Yeah. Just came.”

“I need to see the autopsy photos.”

“I’m sure they’re in there.”

He followed her to her office. The materials were in two boxes atop her desk. Jack sifted through one; Rosa, the other.

“Here they are,” said Jack. He removed the photographs from the envelope and spread them across the desktop. The gruesome sight cut his enthusiasm in half. Jessie’s lifeless body on a slab evoked chilling memories of the bloody scene in his bathroom.

“What are you looking for?” asked Rosa.

“This.” He cleared away the other photographs and laid one on the desktop. It was a close-up of the wound to Jessie’s wrist. He examined it carefully and said, “Bingo.”

“Bingo what?”

“Jessie’s left wrist was slashed, which is exactly what you’d expect from a right-handed person.”

“Are you saying Jessie was left-handed?”

“No. She was right-handed.”

“Then what’s the big revelation?”

“The slash mark runs at the wrong angle.”

“What?”

He turned his palm face-up, demonstrating. “Look at my wrist. Let’s call the thumb-side the left and the pinky-side the right. A right-handed person would probably slash top left to bottom right, or even straight across, left to right. But top right to bottom left is an awkward movement.”

Rosa checked the photograph once more. “It’s not a severe angle. But now that you mention it, Jessie’s appears to be top right to bottom left.”

“Exactly.”

“So what does this mean? She didn’t kill herself? We sort of knew that all along.”

“It means more than that.” Jack took the letter opener from her desk, then grabbed Rosa’s wrist to make his point more clearly. “I’m right-handed. Let’s say I’m facing you and cutting your left wrist, trying to make your death look like a suicide. My natural movement is to cut from top left to bottom right. That leaves a wound at the exact same angle you would leave if you had cut your own wrist. Try it.”

She took the letter opener, ran it across her veins. “You’re right.”

Jack took back the opener and switched hands. “But if I’m a left-handed person, and I cut your left wrist, the cut runs at the opposite angle. From your vantage point, it’s top right to bottom left.”

She simply nodded, following the logic. “So exactly what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that the only way you end up with a slit at this angle is if a left-handed person is facing his victim just as I’m facing you right now and slashes her left wrist.”

Rosa looked at the photo, then at Jack, her expression stone-cold serious. “Know anyone who’s left-handed?”

“I think I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

“Who?”

He tapped the blade of the letter opener into the palm of his hand and said, “Someone I’ve suspected since the day he came to my office, talking about Jessie’s death as if it were just a business hassle.”

“One Dr. Joseph Marsh?”

“You got it,” said Jack.