Let Me Call You Sweetheart

22

Kerry could tell it was going to be another late night. She had started reading the transcript immediately after Geoff left and resumed after Robin went to bed.

At nine-thirty, Grace Hoover phoned. “Jonathan’s out at a meeting. I’m propped up in bed and felt like chatting. Is this a good time for you?”

“It’s always a good time when it’s you, Grace.” Kerry meant it. In the fifteen years she had known Grace and Jonathan, she had watched Grace’s physical decline. She had gone from using a cane to crutches, finally to a wheelchair, and from being ardently involved in social activities to being almost totally housebound. She did keep up with friends and entertained with frequent catered dinner parties, but as she told Kerry, “It’s just gotten to be too much effort to go out.”

Kerry had never heard Grace complain. “You do what you have to,” she had said wryly when Kerry candidly told her how much she admired her courage.

But after a couple of minutes of familiar chatter, it became apparent that tonight there was a purpose to Grace’s call. “Kerry, you had lunch with Jonathan today, and I’m going to be honest. He’s worried.”

Kerry listened as Grace reiterated Jonathan’s concerns, concluding with, “Kerry, after twenty years in the state senate, Jonathan has a lot of power, but not enough to make the governor appoint you to a judgeship if you embarrass his chosen successor.

Incidentally,” she added, “Jonathan has no idea I’m calling yore”

He must have really vented to Grace, Kerry thought. I wonder what she would think if she could see what I’m doing now. Feeling evasive the entire time, Kerry did her best to assure Grace that she had no intention or desire to ruffle feathers. “But Grace, if it developed that Dr. Smith’s testimony was false, I think that Frank Green would be admired and respected if he recommended to the court that Reardon be given a new trial. I don’t think that the public would hold it against him that he had in good faith relied on the doctor’s testimony. He had no reason to doubt him.

“And don’t forget,” she added, “I’m far from being convinced that justice was denied in the Reardon case. It’s just that by coincidence I’ve stumbled on this one thing, and I can’t live with myself if I don’t follow through on it.”

When the conversation ended, Kerry returned to the transcript. By the time she finally laid it down, she had filled pages with notes and questions.

The sweetheart roses: Was Skip Reardon lying when he said he didn’t bring or send them? If he was telling the truth, if he didn’t send them, then who did?

Dolly Bowles, the baby-sitter who had been on duty in the house across the street from the Reardon home the night of the murder:

She claimed she saw a car in front of the Reardons’ house at nine o’clock that night. But neighbors were having a party at the time, and a number of their guests had parked in the street. Dolly had made a particularly poor witness in court. Frank Green had brought out the fact that she had reported “suspicious-looking” people in the neighborhood on six separate occasions that year. In each instance, the suspect turned out to be a legitimate deliveryman. The result was that Dolly came through as a totally unreliable witness. Kerry was sure the jury had disregarded her testimony.

Skip Reardon had never been in trouble with the law and was considered a very solid citizen, yet only two character witnesses had been called: Why?

There had been a series of burglaries in Alpine around the time of Suzanne Reardon’s death. Skip Reardon claimed that some of the jewelry he had seen Suzanne wearing was missing, that the master bedroom had been ransacked. But a tray full of valuable jewelry was found on the dresser, and the prosecution called in a part-time housekeeper the Reardons had employed who flatly testified that Suzanne always left the bedroom in a chaotic state. “She’d try on three or four outfits, then drop them on the floor if she decided against them. Powder spilled on the dressing table, wet towels on the floor. I often felt like quitting.”

As she undressed for bed that night, Kerry mentally reviewed what she had read, and noted that there were two things she had to do: make an appointment to talk with Dr. Smith, and visit Skip Reardon at the State Prison in Trenton.