Rum and Razors (16 page)

I dialed the number given me by Detective Calid. “Luther Z. Jackson,” a man answered.

“I’m so glad you’re there,” I said. “My name is Jessica Fletcher.”

 

For years I’ve enjoyed trying to match physical appearance with voices heard on the radio, or during a telephone conversation. I’m invariably wrong. Someone who sounds on the air like a big person always turns out to be short and skinny. Blondes prove to be brunets. Baldness usually ends up a full head of hair.

It was no different with attorney Luther Z. Jackson. I had him pegged as a tall, slender man with a long, angular face, rimless glasses, and a slash for a mouth. Instead, he could have been the brother of portly New York TV weatherman Al Roker, my favorite of all television weather pundits. I told Mr. Jackson that he looked like Al Roker.

“I’m mistaken for him all the time when I go back to New York,” he said pleasantly as we introduced ourselves to each other in front of the jailhouse. “I have family there. Some days when I’m back there, I get asked more about the weather than about law.”

“How are you at weather forecasting?” I asked.

“Better than Al Roker,” he replied, “although I suppose there are days he knows more about the law than I do. Come in, Mrs. Fletcher. My client is waiting.”

The St. Thomas jail was a long, rectangular building that might have been a military barracks at one time. I imagined its original color to have been pea soup green, or gray; it was now seashell pink, with a gleaming white tile roof. Large baskets of island flowers lined the few steps leading up to the door. Jackson opened it for me, and I stepped into a reception area that shared the same look and feel as the St. Thomas airport. The only difference was the music. Instead of calypso or steel drums, it was the sort of music you hear in elevators in Manhattan, or supermarket aisles in Cabot Cove.

A young woman in uniform sat behind a highly polished desk that contained nothing, not a scrap of paper, pencil, telephone, or calendar. Jackson stepped up to the desk and told her she looked especially lovely this morning. She beamed, said she wished she could say the same about him. They laughed in concert. He was obviously a frequent visitor to the jail, as one would expect of a public defender.

“This is Jessica Fletcher,” he said, motioning for me to come to his side. “She’s a writer of mystery books, and quite famous.”

“You’re too kind,” I said, accepting the female officer’s outstretched hand.

“She’s here to spend a little time with my client, Mr. Austin.”

“I see.” The officer pulled a logbook from beneath the desk and asked me to sign it.

“How is he?” Jackson asked.

“Upset. The night officer says he didn’t sleep a wink. Just pacing and shouting that he’s innocent.”

“Which he is,” said Jackson.

“And you’re paid to say that,” the woman retorted.

“Right you are,” Jackson said, “but not enough to ask you on a proper date.”

“It’s nothing to do with money,” she said, standing and leading us to a door marked “OFFICIAL PERSONNEL ONLY.” “It’s your wife who might be a problem.”

Jackson looked at me, grinned, and shrugged. “Sometimes I forget about her,” he said as the door was opened and we stepped into a corridor lined with individual cells. The first few were empty. If they were any barometer, the crime rate on St. Thomas was low.

But then we passed cells that housed prisoners. Some sat sullenly on their bunks, their eyes silently watching as we passed. One inmate came to the bars, grasped them, and shouted sexual obscenities at me. Jackson took my arm and spirited me past that cell as quickly as possible.

Jacob Austin was in a cell at the far end of the corridor. He appeared to be asleep. Jackson said loudly, “Wake up, Jacob.”

The young prisoner opened one eye, then the other, but never moved his head.

“Mrs. Fletcher is here. The lady I told you was coming.”

“Go away,” Austin said.

“Not on your life,” said Jackson. “You’re in enough trouble without insulting a famous writer who’s come here to help you.”

Austin pushed up on his elbows and looked at me. “Hello, Jacob,” I said. “I remember you from the inn.”

He swung his legs off the cot, stood, stretched, and slowly approached the bars. “Help me?” he said. “You and Marschalk were good friends. Why would you want to help me?”

“Because—” I wasn’t prepared for what the attorney had said about my being there to help. I hadn’t told him that, nor was I sure it represented what I truly felt. But I suddenly was consumed with exactly that—a belief that this young man had not murdered Walter Marschalk. Don’t ask me why, at least not at that juncture. But that’s how I felt. I said, “I don’t believe you killed my friend, Walter Marschalk.”

“You don’t?”

“No.”

“Why?”

I’d hoped he wouldn’t ask that question. But now that he had, I said, “Because you don’t appear to me to be the sort of person who would kill anyone. Am I right?”

Jacob didn’t respond. The uniformed female officer, who stood slightly behind us, asked, “Going in?”

“Jacob?” Jackson said.

“All right.”

We entered the small cell. “Sit on the bed,” Austin said. He took a spindly, wobbly chair and sat backwards on it, his arms resting on its back. The officer left, locked us in the cell, and disappeared up the hallway.

“Thank you for seeing me,” I said.

He said nothing.

“Jacob, I’d like to hear your side of the story. I’m not with the police, so you don’t have to worry about what you say to me.” I looked to Jackson to confirm that to his client, which he did by a solemn nod of the head, adding, “They’ve only granted us twenty minutes, Jacob. I suggest you make the most of it.”

Then, something unexpected happened. This surly, noncommunicative, seemingly hardened young man who’d threatened his employer, and who’d been charged with the brutal murder of that employer, began to cry. Tears ran freely down his cheeks. His chest heaved, and he pressed his lips together in an attempt to regain control. Was it jail and its unique ability to soften some men that had brought about this display of human vulnerability? Or was it a window into what Jacob Austin was really like? I didn’t ponder the answer, simply handed him a Kleenex from my purse, which he used to dry his eyes and to blow his nose.

“Jacob, I understand if you don’t want to talk. But if you do, I’m all ears. As your attorney said, we don’t have much time.”

Jacob looked at me, his face still wet, his bottom lip trembling. “I didn’t do it,” he said. “I didn’t do anything.”

“I heard you threaten Mr. Marschalk,” I said. “The morning he fired you.”

“I shouldn’t have said it. He took the comment as an affirmation of my status as his enemy. But that doesn’t mean—”

He cut me off. No more crying. He sat up straight. His mouth and eyes returned to their prior defiant state. “So what if I threatened him?” he said. “I hated him, but so does everybody else who works for him. Maybe I shouldn’t have said it, but I did. But I didn’t kill him. I swear it.”

“Give me a chance to believe you Jacob. I want to believe you.”

“I don’t know what else to say except that I wasn’t even near the inn or Lover’s Lagoon that night. I was taking care of my baby. She had a hundred-and-four fever. An ear infection in both ears. She gets them a lot.”

“Was there anyone else with you?”

“Sure. My wife and two other kids. I told the cops my wife was there with me but they said she couldn’t be an alibi. Because she was my wife. They didn’t even question her.”

“So there was no one else with you besides your wife and children. How old are they?”

“My wife is—”

“Your children.”

“Five, three, and one.”

“Too young to be witnesses,” said Jackson.

“Jacob, Detective Calid mentioned a straight razor he says you purchased a few days before Mr. Marschalk was killed.”

“That’s right. A gift for my grandfather. He’s old-fashioned, likes to shave with it.”

“You gave it to your grandfather?”

“No. I mean, I got it to give to him but I lost it the day I bought it.”

“Lost it?”

“Disappeared. I think it might have fallen out of my pocket when I was at work.”

“At the inn?”

“Yes. I forgot to leave it home and had it in my jacket along with a lot of other stuff. I lost something else, too, a key chain.”

I turned to Jackson, who’d been listening intently. “If the police didn’t find the razor,” I said, “why would they consider it the murder weapon?”

“They’re making assumptions, all circumstantial, Mrs. Fletcher. They found out Jacob bought the razor, got the record of the sale from the shop-keeper, and decided that was sufficient to use as evidence.”

“Surely you could have that thrown out of court,” I said.

“Depends upon the judge, Mrs. Fletcher. Nothing’s for sure in a court.”

I returned my attention to Jacob. “Do you know who might have killed Walter Marschalk?” I asked.

“Plenty of people. Like I said, he was hated by just about everybody. And his business was being investigated. The whole island knows that. It was on the front page of the newspaper, for God’s sake. It could have been anybody. But, for some reason, they picked me.”

The female officer came to the cell and said, “Time is running out.” I raised five fingers to her. “Okay,” she said.

“Jacob, there’s got to be someone, perhaps a neighbor who saw you at home that night. Maybe through the window. Think hard.”

“Nobody,” he said, shaking his head ruefully. “That’s what is so unfair about this. What responsible family man with three kids do you know who has an alibi at midnight? I was home with my kids and wife like I’m supposed to be.”

The officer appeared again. “I’m afraid we’ll have to be leaving,” Luther Z. Jackson said, standing.

“Yes,” I said. “There’s nothing else you can tell me?” I asked Jacob, who remained seated, his chin resting on crossed arms.

A grunt was his answer.

“By the way, how is your daughter doing now?” I asked. “Have you been able to speak with your wife?”

“Mr. Jackson arranged for me to make a phone call. My daughter’s doing better. We called the doctor that night, and he told us to give her a bath with cool water. I did, and the fever came way down. We all finally got some sleep. My wife brought her to the doctor the next morning, and he put her on an antibiotic.” He’d come alive as he spoke of his children. I’d remember that the next time we met as a good way to get him to open up.

The guard unlocked the door, and Jackson and I stepped into the hallway. “I’ll be back, Jacob,” I said over my shoulder as we proceeded in the direction of the reception area. We’d almost reached it when I stopped, asked permission to say one final thing to him, and without waiting for an answer, quickly retraced my steps, past the prisoner who repeated his sexual slurs to me and to Jacob’s cell. “Jacob, listen to me,” I said slowly and deliberately through the bars. “You said you spoke to the doctor and he told you to give your daughter a cool bath to bring the fever down.
When
did you speak to the doctor?”

“Late that night. About midnight. I woke him up, but he was nice about it. He said—”

“About midnight,” I repeated.

“Yeah. About midnight.”

It was his first smile since we’d arrived, and it said many things, all of them positive.

A
ttorney Luther Z. Jackson and I lingered outside the jail after leaving his client. “I feel sorry for him,” I said.

“You believe him then.”

“Yes. Don’t you?”

“I want to. I
have
to if I’m to defend him. But I’ve seen seemingly nice, believable people do not very nice, unbelievable things to others. I’m heartened at his having spoken with Doc Silber that night at the time the murder took place.”

“He’s a pediatrician?” I said.

Jackson laughed. “Hardly. Silber’s an old-timer, a family-type doctor. I haven’t seen him in a long time. The only time I do run into him is when I have a case that involves him.”

“A case? Malpractice cases?”

“No. Murder, mostly. He’s the island’s medical examiner. Actually, it’s more an honorary position. There’s not much murder on St. Thomas, so Doc doesn’t have much to do. He’s a character actually.”

“I just hope he keeps a telephone log, or records his calls,” I said. “I’m disturbed at what Jacob said about Walter Marschalk. Walter and I were good friends when he lived in Cabot Cove. That’s in Maine. Walter and his wife, Laurie, were neighbors. We spent a lot of time together. I never realized Walter was disliked by so many people.”

“Based upon what Jacob said?”

“No. That was just a confirmation of what I’ve been hearing from many other people. Did you have any dealings with Walter Marschalk?”

“No, although I’ve heard talk about him. A few local merchants have complained that he doesn’t pay his bills promptly. Sometimes not at all.”

I sighed. “Well, Mr. Jackson, thank you for allowing me to see Jacob this morning.”

“Happy to oblige. And if you come up with any useful thoughts that might help in his defense, please call. You obviously have a head for crime.” I wasn’t sure I should take his remark as a compliment, but thanked him anyway. He handed me his card on which he’d added his home telephone number, looked up at the sky, and said, “I’d say we’re in for rain today.”

“Spoken as a lawyer or a weatherman?”

He laughed. “Spoken as a man with an arthritic knee, Mrs. Fletcher. Stay in touch.”

I hailed a taxi parked just up the street from the jail and asked to be taken to Lover’s Lagoon Inn. The driver’s expression was off-putting. “Is there a problem?” I asked.

“I would say so,” he said, starting the engine. “The inn is closed.”