Stress Test (11 page)

“Of course I didn’t. What has that got to do with my asking for a job?”

“Don’t you think I might get a little heat if I hire you?” Rick cleared his throat. “Never mind, I’ll handle it, even though people might think it’s too much of a coincidence.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not following you. What do you mean?”

“Hector Rivera was Cara Mendiola’s fiancé. As soon as the police cleared him, he left to take her body back to her family in Mexico. He’s not coming back, and I’m about to hire you to take his place.”

“Come on, Charlie. You don’t want to come out of this with egg on your face.” Sandra Murray swiveled away from her desk and dangled one Enzo Angiolini pump off her toes. “You have nothing to contradict my client’s story.”

“Sandra, Sandra. I know you’re doing what you have to. After all, everyone is entitled to the best possible defense, but come on. That story about being kidnapped, then falling off a stack of crates or something?” Charlie Greaver lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“The question isn’t whether I believe it. The question is whether a jury will. And if even one of them believes it, your case goes out the window.” Sandra let her shoe slide to the floor, then heeled off the other one. She wiggled her toes. “Don’t embarrass yourself and Jack by taking this case to a grand jury.”

“Jack and I agree that’s exactly where the case should go. And as soon as Frank gets his ducks in a row, that’s where it’s going.”

Interesting. The DA and assistant DA are giving the case to Frank
Everett. Nice to know
. “Well, you think about it, Charlie, and if you or Jack have second thoughts, give me a call.”

Sandra hung up and spun back to her desk, where she made a couple of notes. Everyone at the courthouse knew that Jack Tanner was going to retire soon, and Charlie Greaver wanted to succeed him as district attorney. If she could play on Charlie’s need to have a clean record when he ran, she might get Matt off.
Murder trials that end in
acquittal are bad PR for a potential DA
. She tapped her pen against her front teeth, then leaned forward and scribbled another note.

Then there was Frank Everett. Frank thought he was an up-and-comer, even though he’d been with the DA’s office long enough to know better. She’d gone up against him six times in court—or was it seven? In any event, she’d won every case. If Matt did come to trial, it was nice to know Frank would be prosecuting. But her job right now was to keep that from ever happening.

A dead woman turning up in the trunk of Matt’s car, lying on top of his wallet, was pretty compelling evidence against her client. Sandra would need to be at her best to counter that. She already knew the spin she was going to put on the evidence. Matt wasn’t a murderer, he was a victim. And there was Matt’s story of the kidnapping. Even if the police didn’t believe it, she could think of a number of ways it could help her client at trial. What was it she’d said to Matt at their first meeting?
“You’re going to need a very good lawyer. Fortunately, you
contacted one.”
Well, she was a very good lawyer. Now it was time to prove it.

Jennifer Ball sensed, rather than saw, someone approach her desk. She followed the rule formulated long ago by workers in any office: keep your head down, look busy, and maybe they’ll leave you alone. She typed faster, her fingers flying, the words hardly registering in her brain. So much of what she did was boilerplate. Use this form. Put
this name in at that point. Add the date. Print five copies . . . or six . . . or twelve. Move on to the next one.

“Got a minute?”

She started to swivel her chair, expecting to see Frank Everett standing behind her, her mind already flipping the pages of her mental calendar and finding nothing that couldn’t be moved if he wanted some of her time. Frank seemed to be getting serious, and she’d decided that was a good thing. If her past relationship with Matt came out, maybe Frank could protect her from any fallout. At least, she hoped so.

“Sure,” she said, barely stopping her tongue from adding, “Frank.” It wasn’t Frank’s voice. Instead, the man standing behind her was Jack Tanner, the DA himself. Jennifer wasn’t worried because the boss was at her desk. She’d done lots of work for him, work that was considered so confidential he’d only trust it to either her or one other secretary. It was simply that now the appearance of any authority figure at her desk was enough to make her nervous, afraid her relationship with Matt might come out.

Jennifer summoned up her most innocent smile. “What can I do for you?”

“It’s about the Matt Newman case,” Tanner said. He was an imposing figure, tall and thin, his full head of silver hair combed straight back. Although most of the men in the office left their coats hanging on the backs of their chairs, Tanner always donned his when he ventured out of his office. Today the suit was a charcoal pinstripe. His blue dress shirt had a white collar, and the knot in his lavender tie was perfect, as always.

“Uh, yes, sir. I know a little.” Should she mention hearing about it from Frank? She decided to let it go for now.

“As you may know, Dr. Newman was in private practice, working
out of Metropolitan Hospital here in Dallas. His story, which seems sort of thin, is that he was kidnapped from the parking garage there.” Tanner shook his head. “Anyway, the police are looking into it, but I have some ideas of my own. I suggested we question some of the doctors who work at that hospital. How well liked was Newman? Did they ever see him with Cara Mendiola, the woman who was killed? And I recall that you used to go out with a doctor who worked at Metropolitan. I’d like to start with him. Thought he might open up a bit, talking about a colleague, if you called him first.”

Jennifer could almost feel her synapses clicking as she struggled to find the right answer. “Did someone tell you it was Metropolitan? Oh no. It was Medical City Hospital. That’s a whole different part of the city.”

“Oh? My family doctor uses Medical City. What’s your doctor friend’s name?”

Think. Think
. She’d seen a name on the board in the professional building when she’d visited her own doctor, a gynecologist. Merchant? Murch? Murchison. That was it. “It was Dr. Murchison, but we broke up, and he was pretty angry about it. I’d rather you didn’t bring it up. Your investigator might say something to him and get the phone calls started again.”

Tanner frowned. “You know, if he’s making harassing calls to you, we can do something about that.”

“No, sir. They’ve stopped. But I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t do anything that might stir it up again.”
Please, please, please. Let it go
.

“Sure. But if there’s any trouble in the future—”

“I’ll let you know. And thank you.”

Tanner drifted away, and Jennifer felt the pounding in her chest slow. She lifted a half-filled bottle of water from her desktop and drained it in two thirsty swallows, but her throat still felt like a desert.
She couldn’t have her name connected with Matt. She wondered how long this would go on. Jennifer turned back to her computer and began taking out her frustration on the keyboard.

“Thanks for the ride. I appreciate it.” Matt closed the car door, waved, and headed up the sidewalk to his front door.

It had taken over a dozen phone calls for him to find someone able and willing to take him to the Department of Public Safety office, but now he had a temporary Texas driver’s license in his wallet.

Next he had to get a car. Apparently reclaiming his car from the impound lot was impossible, at least until the matter of his innocence of Cara Mendiola’s death was established, and maybe not even then. Sandra had made a couple of phone calls, then told him his car was going to remain in custody for a while. He hated to think of the impound bill that was growing day by day. But that was a problem to be dealt with later—maybe even passed on to the company from which Matt was leasing the car. He’d have to ask Sandra.

During his marathon spate of phone calls, he’d broached the subject of borrowing a car several times, but without success. Apparently none of his friends had one to spare, or at least not one they could turn over to a murder suspect. Matt sat at his desk and looked at his list. There were three names below the one who’d finally offered the ride, a doctor with whom he’d gone to medical school. Either Jeff hadn’t heard about Matt’s trouble, or felt comfortable being alone in a car with a man whose next address might be death row. But it had stopped there. Jeff’s wife needed their second car, and Matt got the impression that she didn’t even know about Jeff giving Matt this ride.

Three more phone calls, and Matt had officially reached the bottom of the barrel. His replacement credit cards had arrived, and now
was the time to put one of them to use. He’d have to try to find a rental car he could afford. At one time, he would have let his fingers do the walking through the yellow pages for the information. Now they could crawl across the keyboard to get the same results. Almost an hour later, he’d discovered that the ads hawking “rental cars for as little as $7.00 a day” were classic bait and switch. The cheapest rental car he could find would run him about a hundred and fifty per week. In the days when he had a steady income, that would have been a bargain. Now, when his income stream was down to a trickle, he wasn’t sure.

He’d said he’d take the job in Metropolitan Hospital’s ER, but Rick was called away before they could discuss salary. Of course, anything was better than what he had coming in now, which was essentially nothing. In any case, Matt decided he really needed more details.

His call was answered on the second ring. “Emergency Room, this is Pam.”

“Pam, this is Dr. Newman.” Matt held his breath, but there was no comment forthcoming. So far he’d talked to two ER nurses and detected no censure in their voices. Either they hadn’t heard the news, or they elected not to say anything about Matt’s situation.
Good in
either case
. “Is Dr. Pearson available?”

“Hold on a sec.” The clunk when the phone hit the desk almost deafened Matt. “Sorry, I dropped it.” This time there was no sound. Pam must have been extra careful.

In a few seconds, Matt heard, “Dr. Pearson.”

“Rick, this is Matt.”

“Oh, yeah. I meant to get back to you, but it’s been a madhouse here. Guess you’ll experience that for yourself soon enough, though.”

“I can hardly wait.” Matt figured anything would be better than sitting at home waiting for the police to knock on his door. “Listen, the police impounded my car as evidence, so I’m trying to find
something to drive. You don’t happen to know anyone with an extra car sitting around, do you?”

“You know, this is really weird. Hector Rivera left me the keys to his car and told me to sell it for him. Said he’d write to tell me where I could wire the money. It’s a Chevy. Low mileage. Pretty decent condition. And he was willing to finance it himself. Maybe we can work something out.”

Matt and Rick talked a bit more until the conversation ended much as the previous one had, with Rick saying, “Sorry. Gotta go. I’ll call you when this shift ends.”