A Deadly Judgment (10 page)

Then it sounded like bad news. “Why the hell can’t you?” Malcolm shouted into the phone. “She’s upset? All the more reason to get her here to Boston. Put her up in a hotel, keep her close.”

Malcolm frowned as he heard what Fleigler said next. “All right, Ritchie, but I want you down there first thing in the morning.”

He slammed down the phone, tugged at his collar to loosen it with his left hand, and ran the fingers of his right hand between his collar and thick neck. “Well, what do you think, Jessica?” he growled.

“About what?”

“About today. First day of a trial is always problematic.”

“I suppose I was so busy focusing on the jurors that I really didn’t pay much attention to anything else. Your opening statement was eloquent.”

“Thank you. You can win a case with your opening statement. Lose it, too.” He pointed to the phone. “That was Ritchie. He finally made contact with Cynthia Warren down on the Cape. She said she’d gotten away from the pressure. Glad she decided to come back. Ritchie says she’s upset about testifying. A basket case, he says.”

“Which I can certainly understand,” I said.

“All she has to do is tell the truth, that she was with Billy the night his brother was murdered.”

“Still, Malcolm, it must be traumatic having to testify in a murder trial. I certainly wouldn’t want to be a witness.”

“That damn Judge Wilson,” he said. “I never did much like him, although I suppose he’s trying to be fair. I just wish he were older. I like older judges, even the cantankerous and short-tempered ones.”

Like you, I thought, smiling. I knew why Malcolm was upset with the judge. District Attorney Whitney James had managed to win two points during hearings held with the jury outside the courtroom.

One involved Malcolm’s request that two DWI convictions of Billy Brannigan be excluded on the basis of a lack of materiality and relevance. The judge allowed it because the most recent had been the week before the murder.

The second was Malcolm’s request that the court recess at noon on Friday to accommodate some personal commitments of his staff. He meant, of course, his assistant counsel, Rachel Cohen, who had to be somewhere with her youngsters. But Malcolm didn’t explain that to the judge. He left it vague; the judge was not vague when he said, “Motion denied.”

Malcolm shuffled through a mountain of papers piled on his desk. As he did, his frown deepened. He sighed and shook his head. I wondered whether it was time for me to leave, which would not have displeased me. I was exhausted, and wanted to get back to the comfort of my suite at the Ritz-Carlton. I was about to suggest that I leave him alone when he looked up and said, “You might as well know that I’m worried about Cynthia Warren’s testimony.”

“Why?” I asked. “As you said, if she was with Billy that night, all she has to do is tell the truth. Do you question whether she’s being truthful?”

He sat back, laced his fingers on top of his sizable belly, and said, “No, it’s not that. The problem is she seems like a fragile little flower, not the most solidly grounded of women. You never know about people like that. Sometimes they become so fearful that they fly away, like a bird escaping a cat.”

“But Ritchie said she’s returned home. That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”

“The best sign would be if she were holed up in a room next to you at the Ritz-Carlton. That’s what I wanted Ritchie to do, bring her back to Boston tonight. He said he tried to convince her of that, but she refused. Said she’d come tomorrow.”

I didn’t relish the thought of having Ms. Warren in a room next to me. I wasn’t anxious to become caretaker to a star witness in a murder trial.

“There’s something you can do for me, Jessica. I’d like you to go to the Cape with Ritchie tomorrow morning and escort Ms. Warren back here. Ritchie knows how to dig up things, how to find people, but he tends to be brusque. I’m afraid he’ll scare her off even more. You, on the other hand, are a woman.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“And Cynthia Warren is a woman. More important, you know people, know how to handle them, know what gets them upset and what calms them down.”

“I’m flattered, but I’m afraid I’m not that astute.”

Malcolm sat up and slapped his hands on the desk. “I don’t need modesty from you, Jessica. What I need is for you to go with Ritchie tomorrow morning and make sure Cynthia Warren gets back here.” He smiled. “Besides, I’ll treat you to lunch at Thompson’s Clam Bar, in Harwichport. Close to where Ms. Warren lives, right on the water.” He laughed. “The more I talk about it, the more I’d like to skip court tomorrow and go with you.”

“I know Thompson’s,” I said. “But you don’t have to offer lunch. It would be better if we headed straight back to Boston with Ms. Warren and had lunch here.”

He stood and went to the window, looked out over Boston at night. For some reason—maybe it was the way his large body seemed to have settled, the way he held his head, or the expression on his face as he left the desk—that caused me to think he was, at that moment, suffering a great sadness. But he didn’t say that. He turned to me and said, “Use your best judgment, Jessica. That’s why I’m sending you. I need people with good judgment.”

“Of course I’ll go,” I said, standing and straightening my skirt as a signal I was about to leave. “I suppose I really don’t have any function now that the trial has started.”

He held up his hand. “Nonsense. I’ve told you that the most important phase of your responsibilities has just started. I need you to read those jurors. But I figure I can get along without you for one day. Getting Ms. Warren here is our top priority.”

“Then I’ll be off to the Cape in the morning.” The sadness I discerned earlier was still very much evident on his round face.

“Anything wrong, Malcolm?” I asked.

For a moment, I thought he might cry. But he forced a smile and said, “A few problems, Jessica. Maybe when this is over, you and I can sit down, have a couple of stiff drinks, and I’ll explain them to you.”

Before leaving, I said, “I want you to know, Malcolm, what a wonderful experience this is for me. I’m learning a great deal about how our justice system works.” I thought of George Plimpton, the author known for actually living the roles and occupations of those he writes about. What fun that must be for him. It also crossed my mind that maybe I should set my next book in outer space, and see if I could hitch a ride on a space shuttle. But I immediately dismissed that notion. I could never survive on Tang and dehydrated beef jerky.

“Mind an early start tomorrow?” Malcolm asked.

“Oh, no. I’m an early riser.”

“Fine. I’ll have Ritchie pick you up at seven.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

We barreled along in Ritchie’s Olds 88, his radio crooning Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Benny Goodman, and other jazz greats being played by a Boston FM station.

We reached the Bourne Bridge, which crosses the man-made Cape Cod Canal and links the rest of the world to the Cape. The smell of salt water, and memories of innocent, good old-fashioned summer fun brought a smile to my lips. I’ve always found Cape Cod and its landscape, atmosphere, and attitudes to be a step back in time, despite its increasing commercialization.

As we made our way to Cynthia Warren’s house in Harwichport, I took in the long stretch of pine trees that line Route Six. Because most trees on the Cape are pines, the look doesn’t change much from winter to summer, a comforting sameness that renders the arm-shaped peninsula timeless.

“We’ll avoid Suicide Alley,” Ritchie said, turning off the main highway onto a smaller road. “Unless I’m in a real hurry I stay clear of it.”

“Suicide Alley?” I asked.

He laughed. “Yeah. The right name for it.” He explained that it was the name given to a stretch of the two-lane highway that has been the scene of countless accidents as drivers attempt to pass one another, too often into oncoming traffic. “We’ll take the back roads,” he said.

“Ever been to her house before?” I asked as we passed quaint cottages lined with white picket fences, salmon-colored roses climbing trellises, an occasional American flag flying, and through picturesque towns with tiny shops.

“Sure. I’ve been on this case a couple of months now. I’ve been out here twice to interview her. A very nice young woman. Beautiful, too. Brannigan has good taste in women.”

“There’s Tip O’Neill’s house,” he said as we passed an unassuming weathered shingle home with pink shutters.
“Was
his house, I guess. His widow still lives there.”

We eventually turned into a crushed seashell driveway leading to a home I would use if I were scouting locations for a film about Cape Cod. It was an old, rambling white house with navy-blue shutters and a wraparound porch adorned with dozens of hanging pots of red geraniums. An Irish setter slept on the front steps. He was no watchdog. He didn’t raise his head as we pulled in.

The yard was well-kept, the lawn stretching down to a serene ocean inlet with a small, postage-stamp-size patch of sand. Water lapped quietly against the pilings of a dock; a Sunfish with a red sail rested against a willow tree, the tree’s branches gently arching out over the water.

We got out of the car and walked up the front steps to the house. The dog finally raised its head, wagged its tail halfheartedly, stretched its legs, and went back to sleep. He was obviously old, and probably deaf. Although time wasn’t on his side, he acted as though it were.

Ritchie knocked.

“Beautiful home,” I said, admiring the white wicker furniture on the porch. A planter housed a healthy crop of pansies. A seashell collection and weathered beach glass in a large glass bowl created a beautiful centerpiece on a white wicker table. “I could spend the rest of my life sitting on this porch,” I said.

“That’d be nice, huh?” Ritchie said. He knocked again.

“Does she live here alone?” I asked.

“Uh-huh,” Ritchie replied, knocking again. He peered through a small row of windows in the front door.

“Doesn’t look like she’s home,” I said.

“Her car’s here,” he said, pointing to a white BMW convertible in front of an old barn that served as a garage. Its license plate read, SUMRLOVN.

Ritchie knocked, louder this time. When there was no response, he went to a picture window and looked inside. “Jesus,” he said.

“What is it?” I asked, coming to his side.

He responded by pulling a small cellular flip phone from his shirt pocket and dialing 911.

I pressed my nose to the glass and looked inside. A woman in a bathrobe was sprawled on the floor, a white couch next to her soaked in blood. “Oh, my God,” I said softly.

“We need somebody over at Four Snow Lane right away,” Ritchie said into the phone. “We’ve got a dead woman here.” He signed off, pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket, and sat on a white wicker chair. “I know one thing,” he said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Malcolm sure isn’t going to be happy.”

 

The initial contingent of police that arrived were so young that if it weren’t for their uniforms, I’d had mistaken them for Boy Scouts. They were soon joined by two older detectives in plainclothes, a crime laboratory technician in a white lab frock, and a police photographer. The criminalist dusted for fingerprints while the detectives examined the body. The uniformed police draped a yellow CRIME SCENE tape across the driveway and front walk.

While I waited for a detective to take a statement from me, I stood in a far corner of the living room and watched the police go about their crime scene investigation. It wasn’t easy looking at Ms. Warren’s body. She’d shed a great deal of blood from the wound in the center of her chest. The knife, which was on the floor beside her, had undoubtedly pierced her heart. Death would surely have been immediate.

I thought of Jack Brannigan’s murder. From the reports I’d read, he, too, had died from a single knife wound to the chest.

I gave my statement, and was left alone after that to casually wander about the living room, wondering when someone would tell me to leave. No one did. Ritchie Fleigler was chain smoking on the front porch and talking into his cellular phone.

I scrutinized a row of framed pictures on the fireplace mantel. Cynthia was in all of them, Billy Brannigan in some. There were photographs on tables and on the wall, which I also took in. There’s something especially powerful about pictures of someone who has just died, especially if that death was sudden and unexpected. How tragic, I thought. Cynthia Warren had been a beautiful young woman, her smile worthy of Hollywood. Tan and blond, she had a girl-next-door freshness about her. So did some of her friends in the photos. One girl appeared in a number of shots. She caught my eye because her dark Mediterranean sensuousness was in stark contrast to Cynthia’s fairness. Another beautiful young woman. The world was full of them.

I paid special attention to the pictures that included Billy Brannigan. He looked happy enough, although I could sense a strain in his expression. Probably uncomfortable having his picture taken, I thought, like many people, me included.

Aware that no one seemed interested in me, I strolled into the kitchen. A pale blue gingham tablecloth hung neatly over a small table, surrounded by four hand-painted wooden chairs with cushions that matched the cloth. Delicate white lace valance curtains graced the windows. Yesterday’s newspaper, open to the entertainment section, sat on a white countertop. An open box of SnackWell’s devil food cookies was next to it. Two of the cookies were missing. A thoroughly rinsed single glass and plate were in the sink.

I almost leaned on the counter but caught myself in time. The last thing I wanted to do was compromise evidence with my palm or fingerprints.

My next stop was the den. Cynthia had wonderful decorator taste. This room, like the rest of the downstairs, was light, airy, and casual. Soft floral prints of red and yellow on an overstuffed couch and armchairs were inviting. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined one wall. Built into them was a huge projection television set and an elaborate stereo. Matching oversized forest-green leather recliners provided screening-room comfort for two.