Killer Ambition

61

I had a martini and some welcome laughs with Drew. When I got back to my room, I saw that I had a voice mail message on my cell. The crisp tones of Andrew Chatham, my supposed tabloid co-conspirator, greeted me. “Rachel, I’m so very sorry about what Ms. Fisk said. I wanted you to know that I never told her I’d spoken to you. I do admit that I have spoken to her, and I imagine that’s why she took a shot in the dark and falsely accused you that way. If there’s anything I can do to clear up this mess, I’ll gladly do so.”

Yeah, I just bet you will. No, gracias.

I poured myself a glass of pinot grigio and was lying back on the couch with the remote when my cell phone played “Janie’s Got a Gun,” Graden’s ringtone-in honor of his getting me my gun permit. I brought him up to speed but didn’t mention my encounter with the film crew. On calmer reflection, I realized they probably hadn’t intended to do me any physical harm. The only real danger lay in the possibility that someone had shot footage of my retreating derriere.

“Your turn,” I said. “What’s new?”

“I’ve made some progress on those reports Lilah talked about. They appear to be legit-”

Lilah, the murderous sociopath who’d sent me reports on my sister, Romy. “Why didn’t anyone pick up on them before?”

“A couple of reasons. Number one reason, because I wasn’t the investigating officer on the case, and number two, because the reports were from different jurisdictions, both of which were tiny and not computerized until very recently; and neither of the jurisdictions was where Romy was taken.”

They hadn’t realized the significance of what they’d seen. “Of course.”

“So I’d say so far, so good. If our kidnapper kept Romy alive for six months, it’s a lot less likely that he…”

“It’s okay, you can say it: that he killed her. I’ve been living with the possibility that he killed her for over twenty years, I can certainly handle hearing that he might not have.”

“You have the DA investigators trying to find Lilah, right?”

The DA investigators had wound up working that case with me, and in the course of the investigation, Lilah’s accomplice, Chase Erling, had killed their beloved team leader. So when Lilah ran, they’d asked to take over the search for her. No one would have thought of refusing, even though she was technically an LAPD suspect.

“Yeah,” I answered. “Why?”

“Just making sure. So when do you start trial?”

“We hand out questionnaires to the jury pool in a few days and voir dire starts next week.”

“That’s fast.”

“Yeah, I’ve been jammed before, but never like this.”

Just talking about it made my stomach hurt. After we hung up, I took a hot shower, got into bed, and watched rich housewives scream about one of them getting too drunk and another one hitting on someone’s husband. It made me feel better about not being rich…or married. I was asleep within minutes.

The jury questionnaire was forty-five pages long and we had over two hundred of them. I always grade each juror on a scale of one to five, with five being best, and I flag the answers that need follow-up. It’s a backbreaker of a process, but it really gets me on top of what I’ve got in that jury pool. I had a second copy made for Declan so he could review them all and make his own assessments. I spent the week going through each and every questionnaire, page by page, and sometimes more than once to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

It was a task that had me alternating between relief and misery. Mostly misery. There were some real gems-smart, well read, and solid. But there was a depressingly high number of defense groupies. Not that they directly admitted it. Their bias-and lack of candor-lay between the lines. A municipal bus driver who admitted in the first pages of the questionnaire that he watched every news program from five o’clock till ten o’clock every night, in later pages insisted he’d heard nothing about the case. He also said he knew he could be fair, but admitted he’d heard that Ian Powers had been framed and thought it was possible. Another potential juror turned out to have been under investigation for a string of arsons in Torrance; he said he wouldn’t hold the unfair suspicion against the prosecution. I told myself that I was being unduly critical, but it felt like for every solid juror, there were ten rejects.

I wanted to believe it would all change when the jury saw the evidence, but I knew better. You can’t make a jury buy logic. I fought to keep my spirits up in the days leading to the trial, but the truth was, my optimism was losing the battle against a growing dread.

Too soon, the day for voir dire arrived. I dressed in one of my “believe me” suits and left myself plenty of time to get to the office and do hair and makeup repair, as per my lessons from Toni. I’d gone back to hoofing it to and from the office. I needed the exercise, and the danger of being chased by reporters had lessened considerably, thanks to Terry’s penchant for giving daily interviews on the courthouse steps. The press now stuck close to the building, where they could be sure of getting their sound bites.

Even from two blocks away, I could see the antennae of the satellite trucks that now permanently surrounded the courthouse. The sight irritated me all over again. I’d wanted Judge Osterman to seal the transcripts of jury selection, so the jurors would feel safe enough to be candid, but he’d refused. “The right to a public trial means the whole trial.” The press wouldn’t physically be in the courtroom because there wasn’t room for them. But they’d be monitoring and reporting every word uttered in court-other than jurors’ names-in a separate room that was wired for sound.

Fortunately, I now had a key to the freight elevator, so I made it up to the eighteenth floor in blissful privacy. As I passed Eric’s office on the way to my own, I heard the television playing what sounded like a crowd at a rock concert. When I leaned in, I saw that Melia was watching the coverage. Curious, I stepped in to get a look. A move I immediately regretted.

The low wall that fronted the length of the courthouse building was now a shelf for vendors hawking everything from T-shirts to teacups, all emblazoned with faces-of me, of Terry, of Don, and of Ian. People were marching back and forth, carrying signs that read TEAM TERRY and TEAM RACHEL.

“What about Team Hayley and Team Brian?” I fumed.

Melia gave me a mournful look. “I know, it’s terrible.”

Not so terrible it made her turn the damn thing off, though.

I’d felt pretty well dressed in the navy suit with the thin silver pinstripes that I’d found on sale at Bloomingdale’s. Until I saw Declan. His was a darker navy that looked like it had been made for him. There’s just no substitute for bespoke.

Now that jurors would be walking the hallways, the judge had ordered the reporters to either stay in the sound-wired room or go outside. The only camera allowed inside was the one mounted on the wall above the jury, which would ensure that no photographs of the jurors would be taken. And it wouldn’t be activated until after jury selection was finished.

When we walked up the courtroom aisle, I saw that Russell was once again firmly ensconced on the defense side of the courtroom and Raynie was sitting in neutral territory, the back row of the middle section. As we set up at counsel table, I stole glances at the defense side. Terry was in a beige dress with a pleated skirt. No doubt trying for the soft, feminine touch. That would work until she opened her mouth. Don wore the standard dark suit. No fewer than six law clerks, and all wore more expensive suits than mine.

The lockup door opened and Ian sauntered out as though he were walking into an A-list party. He had a big smile and wave for girlfriend Sacha, and a smile and a nod for all his loyal acolytes, which included Russell. Five minutes later, the judge took the bench. He surveyed the courtroom with a frown and spoke to the bailiff, Deputy Jimmy Tragan. “I’ll need all family members to sit in the section on the far right, away from the jurors.”

The bailiff turned to face the gallery and gave them Judge Osterman’s edict. Raynie reluctantly moved to the designated area, but as far away from Russell as she could get. I took that as a good sign. Then again, I might just have been desperate for a positive omen.

With the family and friends safely cloistered, the jury commissioner’s emissary opened the door and our group of two hundred prospective jurors began to file in. I watched them fill the benches, looking for early signs of a bad attitude or an overly excited glance at Ian Powers. Not one nuance could be overlooked. Among this group were the twelve people who’d decide whether Brian and Hayley’s killer would be brought to justice.