The Jury

The Jury by Steve Martini

Bellingham, WA 2001 prologue

Her head rested against the concrete coving at the edge of the pool as she gazed up at the stars under a moonless sky. Her eyes were exotic brown ovals with a hint of mystery in the sculpted arch of the brows. They were always the first aspect anyone noticed when talking to her. Men seemed to get lost in them.

Her wet hair cascaded like liquid velvet and floated around her shoulders, tawny skin and slender neck. Her body had an air of athleticism that made Kalista Jordan a kind of magnet to men. Everything about her was perfectly proportioned, except perhaps her ambition.

Tall and slender, she fit the desired body style of the age. Without half trying, she had paid her way through college doing inside spreads for fashion magazines. According to people at the agency, she could have had an annual seven-figure future in modeling. She had been offered some covers but passed them up, refusing to move to New York.

The arc of fame for models was too short. Kalista would rather waste her body than her brain, though she wasn't into giving up either easily. She wanted a career that would span more than a few fashion seasons and end up in a pile of used newsprint.

She finished her undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago and quit the catwalks. An African-American woman with a straight A average in engineering and science, she was heavily recruited by graduate schools. She ended up taking a full scholarship at Stanford.

It took Kalista six years, but when she was finished she held a doctorate in molecular electronics, one of only two women in the field on the West Coast. It was cutting edge, the latest science for a new millennium.

Lying in the warm waters of the hot tub she marked the guidepost of the dark night sky--something she had learned from her mother as a child.

She located Ursa Major, the "Big Dipper." Then extending her right arm to full length, Kalista formed a loose fist with the thumb and little finger pointed out, like a telephone receiver. Using this to sight, she spanned twenty-eight degrees from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger, the distance from Debhe, the last star on the lip of the Big Dipper, and found Polaris, the North Star.

She cocked her head a little for a better angle. Floating at the edge of the hot tub, she slowly mapped the visible cosmos: Leo Minor and Bootes, Antares, and Scorpius. Off to the left she found Sagittarius. She averted her vision just a little, using the more sensitive cones of peripheral vision to overcome the light pollution of the San Diego skyline. She scanned the myriad beads streaming overhead, the veil of the Milky Way.

She lost it for a moment, her attention distracted, something in the bushes behind her. She sat up, turned and looked, nothing, shadows. Perhaps a bird or the wind, though the night air seemed still.

She slid back down into the water; her head against the tub's edge anchored her body. Her bottom bobbed off the underwater bench, lifted by the silky warmth of the jetted bubbles. The billion shimmering stars drifted in and out of focus as the rising plume of steam wafted above the churning pool. Slowly the tight muscles of her back

relaxed, tensions born in the rancor of a hostile workplace. It was becoming more difficult to get up and go to work each day.

This evening she'd had another argument with David. This time he'd actually put his hands on her, in front of witnesses. He'd never done that before. It was a sign of his frustration. She was winning, and she knew it. She would call the lawyer and tell him in the morning. Physical touching was one of the legal litmus tests of harassment. While she was sure she was more than a match for David when it came to academic politics, the tension took its toll. The hot tub helped to ease it. Enveloped in the indolent warmth of the foaming waters, she thought about her next move.

The pool was a large, elegant affair---free-form in design. It was located at the center of the complex. Tonight it was empty. The Jacuzzi was at the far end.

On rowdy nights he had seen it fill with a party of a dozen, pressing flesh and skimpy bathing suits, giggling girls and single guys all looking for a good time. He had been here every night for a week and he had not seen her. Tonight he got lucky.

The only light around the pool came from underwater, dancing blue reflections on the wall of the building nearby. This was the exercise room, though at this hour it was closed, locked and dark. He had carefully checked the facility, knew the terrain and the schedules for security, the locked gates and how to get through them if he had to.

They made it easy. There was an unmanned security kiosk out front, and a rolling iron gate that was automated. Tenants opened it from their car windows with the swipe of a card key. The gate was slow to close. Two or three cars routinely passed through on a single cycle and nobody checked to see if they were all tenants.

The complex was maybe twenty years old, one- and two-bedroom condos with a few studios. There was a sales office next to the exercise room. This closed at six, on the dot. The only security was a hired

company that came by and patrolled from a vehicle every three hours. He had timed them. The guard would do the rounds on the roads inside the complex, then sit in his car and smoke a cigarette in the parking lot out near the front gate.

It took him between twelve and fourteen minutes to do the rounds and finish his cigarette. He operated like a night watchman, only without using a clock at checkpoints. Then the little white sedan with the blue private patrol emblem on the door would head out toward Genesee,for the next complex.

The area was condo city, graduate students and under grade from the university, along with' faculty and support staff. Some of the condos were rented, others owned outright.

The windows in most of the units at this hour were dark, though a few insomniacs quenched their need for companionship in the flickering eerie glow from television screens reflecting through closed drapes and drawn blinds.

The parking lot was quiet and for the most part dark, with only a couple of vapor lamps and some low-voltage garden lights to worry about.

He checked his watch. He had more than an hour before security would do its rounds again.

Alone with her thoughts, Kalista knew she was on the cusp of success. Within months, if all went well, she would be the director, with a twenty-million-dollar annual budget and control of all research. It was why she had sacrificed and worked so hard all those years. Her first move was to undercut his authority on part of the funding. This she had done. She then developed allies in the chancellors office.

David lacked tact and had a tin ear when it came to academic politics. He lived in a world of his own making and believed success should be based solely on one's merit as ascientist. He made enemies daily. In fact, she wondered how he'd survived so long. All she had to do was

push him into contact with other people. David did the rest, like a nuclear reaction. If anything, he'd become more volatile and careless since she'd made her first overt moves. The man had an academic death wish.

Kalista could have that effect on people.

Unable to sleep, she had a knot like a goose egg high in the center of her back.

Whether it was tension or anticipation she couldn't be sure. It was why people got married, for the mutual back rubs. She considered this for a moment, then dismissed the thought. The heated waters of the pool didn't require a commitment or ask for compromises in your career.

She sat up on the bench seat and leaned forward arching her back, trying to stretch herself out. She reached behind and started to untie the top to her bikini.

There was nothing as relaxing as floating listlessly in the state of nature. She struggled with the knot for a moment, then stopped, her hands up behind her back. She heard it again, something in the bushes. It wasn't much, the faintest click, like someone winding a child's toy. Perhaps a small animal or a bird hitting the chain link fence around the pool. It stopped.

She gave up on the knot in her bathing suit. The complex was a hive of single males, some who stumbled home after the bars closed. A glimpse of shoulder-length hair and a tiny pile of Lycra at the edge of the pool would be like waving red underwear at a bull.

Instead she picked up her watch that lay on top of the towel at the edge of the pool. It was just after two in the morning.

She heard it again. This time there was no mistake.

The tip of the nylon cable tie was now locked in the metal teeth of the tool The pistol grip offered control, leverage if it was needed. A narrow band of white nylon formed a loop more than afoot in diameter and was sufficiently rigid to reach out and snag something. It was designed to bundle large electrical cables and fasten them to an overhead beam or a wall. When tightened it could produce more than two hundred

pounds of pressure. Once the loop was pulled closed and tightened with the long trigger grip, only a sharp knife could break it.

He looked up at her apartment window. A single dim lamp lit, probably in her bedroom, marked the unit. He knew because he'd followed her home after work on two occasions and watched from the parking lot as she entered and went up the elevator. He had waited a few seconds, and lights went on in the windows. He then counted from the end of the building, using the outside balconies to distinguish each apartment. She was five in from the end of the building.

Birds sometimes did strange things. Kalista looked out into the darkness, but couldn't see a thing. The bushes were like a jungle around the pool, knifelike long leaves and deep shadows. It was probably a sparrow in the chain-link fence.

She had seen them chase insects through the diamond-shaped openings, pecking like a machine gun. The noise had that land of metallic rhythm, very quick, and then it was over.

She looped the band of her watch around her wrist and fastened it, grabbed her towel, stood, adjusted her bathing suit, skimpy cloth bottom and knotted top, then made her way up the steps and out of the water as she dried her face and toweled her hair.

The quick evaporation from the night air chilled her so that she wrapped the large towel around her shoulders. It only reached to just above her knees, but it cut the breeze as she walked. She headed for the gate. From the inside she didn't need a key, though she would to get into the unit and her apartment. She exited the gate and closed it behind her. Then, before leaving the area with its muted light, she fished for her key. She had fastened it with a safety pin to the inside of the halter top of her bathing suit just under the string that looped around her neck. Looking down she flipped the material down and found the pin, started to squeeze it with her fingers; and then she heard it, a rustling in the bushes movement behind her. This was no

bird. Whoever it was was moving quickly through the bushes, thrashing brush, coming around the outer fence to the pool, twenty yards away.

Her fingers fumbled with the pin. The key dropped. It bounced off one of the stone pavers under her feet and caromed into the ground cover around the steps.

Kalista turned to look. There was no time. She remembered she had left the door to the inside stairs ajar. If no one had used it after her, she could get in without her key. She ran barefoot down the stairs, headed for the building and her apartment.

She sprinted across the parking lot and down the paved walkway, long legs like a gazelle. She prayed that she might see someone coming the other way. Anyone. But at this hour, the paths were deserted. She ran for the entrance to her building and reached the covered alcove. She pulled on the heavy metal door with its little slit window that led to the inside stairway. It opened. Relief was palpable in her breathing. Kalista issued a huge sigh, quickly stepped inside and slammed the door closed. It locked behind her with the thud of a bank vault.

She stood inside catching her breath, leaning against the wall for what seemed like minutes but were, in fact, seconds. Her heart pounded. Her wet bathing suit dripped on the concrete floor until water puddled around her feet. She turned her head to the left, hugging the wall and the edge of the door with her back, and inched toward the small wire-reinforced window. Outside she could see the path leading to the front door. There was no one on it for as far as she could see.

She stooped down and slipped under the window coming up on the other side. Now she could see the front door, two double plate glass doors and inside, beyond them, the elevator doors. There was no one there, and the front doors were closed, locked. Whoever it was had given up.

She caught her breath, and slowly trudged up the stairs, holding the

towel around her damp body. She scaled the two flights and came out just across from the elevator doors. When she got to the intersection in the hallway she went to the right, away from her apartment. She went almost to the end of the hall, near another set of stairs and stopped outside of a door with the numbers 312 on it. Hanging in the center of the door was a decorative flower arrangement, silk roses in a basket that hung flat against the door.