No way out

Chapter Twenty-four

I waited until we were back in Kate’s car, the barbed-wire gate screening our view of the Farm.

“What was that about?”

She shook her hair. “What was what about?”

“The con you just tried to run on Jimmy Martin. You convinced him you could fix the jury so he could skate on a felony theft charge even though he’s guilty, all so you could try to blindside him into admitting he killed his kids. If there’s a code of ethics for jury consultants, I’d say you violated all of them except for the one about sleeping with the judge, but I guess you have to save something for the trial.”

She put the key in the ignition but didn’t start the engine. “Is that all?”

“No, that’s just for openers. This is Jimmy’s first felony beef, so he’s not going to do enough time for styles to change even if he’s convicted, which is going to happen no matter how much fairy dust you sprinkle on the jury. Your Robin Hood defense doesn’t stand a chance, especially since Jimmy will have to testify how much he loves his wife and kids, which guarantees he’ll be convicted once the prosecutor tells the jury that Peggy is divorcing him and that he won’t tell anyone what happened to his kids. No lawyer would hire a jury consultant for this case, especially one as good as you. It’s a lost cause, and you’re too damned expensive. Jimmy doesn’t have two quarters to rub together, but he’s got you on his team because Ethan Bonner says you owe him. How does that happen?”

“Is that all?”

“That’s enough for now.”

“Good,” she said, firing the engine. “How do we get to Peggy Martin’s house?”

“We aren’t going anywhere until I get some answers.”

She sighed, pulled out Peggy’s divorce petition, found her address on the cover sheet, and entered it in the GPS built into the dash. A moment later, a mechanical female voice instructed her to proceed to the highlighted route, and she put the car in gear.

“Your deal with Ethan was clear. I interview the Martins and tell you and him what I think. That doesn’t entitle you to an explanation of my methods.”

The warm greeting she’d given me at breakfast had faded, replaced by a cold front, the tipping point coming when I blurted out that I cared about what had happened to us. It wasn’t hard to understand why my confession had stirred up a storm. When she asked me to follow her to San Diego, I had answered by saying that I’d asked my ex-wife to move in with me and would she mind being patient while I saw how that worked out. I would have sworn it somehow had made sense to me at the time even though anyone else would have realized it was a one-sentence application for Moron of the Year.

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded, keeping her eyes on the road. “Good for you.”

“Not about today, about San Diego.”

She bit her lip. “I believe you are sorry, Jack, but I’m not sure what it is you’re sorry about. Whether it’s that Joy got sick and you decided you were the only person on earth who could take care of her or that you chose her over me or that you hurt me or that you realized you made the biggest mistake of your life. But whatever it is, don’t tell me you care about what happened to us because people who care don’t just walk away even if they think they have a good reason. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to deal with all of that and doing it in the middle of this case isn’t my idea of fun. So let’s just stick to business.”

My head and neck whip lashed against the head-rest, my right shoulder dipping as my left twisted until it was perpendicular to my sternum, the spasm holding me for a five count.

“Fair enough,” I said when I could breathe again.

She turned toward me, her eyes wet, her mouth soft. “I hate it when you do that.”

“Don’t say that. I don’t like people feeling sorry for me.”

“It’s not that. When you shake, it takes the fun out of beating up on you, and I really feel like beating up on you.”

“Get in line. So, tell me. Did Jimmy Martin kill his kids?”

She gathered herself, squaring her shoulders to the road. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? What happened to divining the truth hidden in facial expressions?”

She took another breath, suppressing her irritation. “There’s been a lot of new research. Turns out that liars don’t avert their eyes on average any more than people telling the truth do.”

“What about body language, posture, things like that?”

“Same story.”

“So, are you running a scam on Ethan?”

“Are you trying to piss me off?”

I grinned. “You made it clear I already did. I’m just trying to give you another reason so you’ll forget why you were mad at me in the first place.”

“A simple plan for a simple mind,” she said, patting my cheek. “I started with Jimmy’s earliest memories growing up, something he’d have no reason to lie about. That gave me a baseline on how he communicates. I’ll compare that to the rest of the interview for differences that suggest deception, but since he refused to talk about his kids, there’s only so much I can do.”

“Like what?”

“I’ll have a better feel for him after I study the videotape and break his expressions down frame by frame. But, his body language, his facial expressions, everything about him was defensive whenever I got close to talking about Evan and Cara. He relaxed when I got him to talk about himself, which is no surprise since that’s every man’s favorite subject. He likes portraying himself as the victim, and, no matter what goes wrong, he’ll tell you that mistakes were made but not by him.”

“He’s not an overachiever, that’s for certain.”

“His reactions to the photographs were interesting and confusing.”

“When you showed him the pictures of Evan and Cara he acted like he’d never met them.”

“He tried to, but he couldn’t pull it off. His involuntary micro-expressions showed me a lot, but I’m not certain what they mean.”

This was Kate, the scientist collecting specimens, putting them under the glass, pulling them apart, and putting them back together again.

“What did you see?”

“When I showed him the pictures of Evan and Cara, the corners of his mouth turned up for a fraction of a second. That was a smile, or the makings of one. He was happy to see them. Then he got angry, not annoyed but furious. His mouth got hard and tight, and his eyebrows crunched down and together, squashing his eyes and wiping out his smile.”

“I didn’t see any of that.”

“That’s why we call them micro-expressions. They don’t last long enough for the untrained eye to pick up on them.”

“He could have been mad at his kids. He pretty much told you they were cramping his style.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so, especially after I showed him the picture of the dead children. Coming on top of the pictures of Evan and Cara, his brain instantly assumed his children were the ones in the photograph.”

“But he realized they weren’t his kids.”

“Not before I saw his uncontrolled, involuntary reactions. He was completely surprised and horrified.”

“Isn’t that what you’d expect?”

“Not if he killed them. The killer would have shown contempt or disgust, maybe shame, unless he’s a total psychopath.”

“All I saw was how angry he got after you showed him the pictures of the dead kids. You set him up, and he knew it. That would piss anyone off.”

“Yeah, but that anger was different than the first outburst, the hidden one you didn’t see. You saw his anger at being tricked. As outraged as he was, the flash of anger I saw when I showed him Evan and Cara’s photographs was more intense. He was snarling, like a rabid dog.”

“Are you saying you don’t think he killed them?”

“I’m saying I don’t know why seeing pictures of his children made him happy at first and then made him angrier than when I tried to deceive him into thinking his children were dead. I don’t know what that means.”

“There’s one other thing you’re overlooking.”

“What’s that?”

“When you showed him the picture of the bodies, he said that they weren’t his kids. He didn’t say that they couldn’t be his kids because they weren’t dead. That’s what I would have said if I were him and I hadn’t killed my son and daughter.”

My cell phone pinged with a text message. It was from Lucy. I read it and shook.

“What is it?”

“One of the volunteer search teams looking for Evan and Cara found something in Kessler Park.”

“What?”

“Remains.”