A Dead Husband (Jessica Huntington Desert Cities Mystery) (6 page)

With that Jessica got up to leave
. The other thing she could do was help Laura with the morass of tasks women face when they lose their husbands, to divorce or death.  Jessica offered to go to the house and retrieve whatever she could find related to Roger’s business dealings or their personal finances. That way they could start to sort things out as soon as Laura was able to do so. Laura was so grateful and relieved that she did not have to go back to the house. Most of what they needed would be in Roger’s home office, including his laptop and a file drawer of important papers like insurance policies and business records he kept in his desk.  There were some personal items Laura needed from the house too, mostly clothes, make up, toiletries and the like.

“Let me get organized and follow up on a few things. I’ll call you later today or
first thing tomorrow so we can plan further.” She gave Sara and Laura each a big hug. Laura seemed less forlorn as Jessica left. Jessica felt bowed down by the weight of the burden she had just assumed, for which she was neither qualified nor prepared.  That included the daunting prospect of visiting a dear friend’s house that had now become the scene of a murder.  How did anyone ever prepare for that?

CHAPTER 4

As she left Sara’s house and headed to the Trader Joe’s nearby in Cathedral City, Jessica thought about the situation they were in
.  Her basic grounding in criminal law and procedure was enough to pass the bar in California, and on the first attempt, which was no small feat.  When she sat for the bar exam, California had one of the highest failure rates in the country.  Several prominent Californians, including the current governor, had taken the exam more than once before passing. If she was really going to help Laura, though, she needed advice from someone who knew a lot more than she did about procedures surrounding murder investigations.

N
obody with that kind of experience came immediately to mind.  The same thing was true when she included the attorneys she had met through outings with Jim and the members of his firm, as well as those she met at community events.  Lots and lots of attorneys in their circle, but none of them involved much in criminal defense work. 

Jessica strained to recall fellow students in law school at Stanford who had planned to be prosecutors or defense attorneys
.  There was a guy who was something of a super star and made law review.  What was his name?  He was a nice looking guy in a waspy kind of way. A bit standoffish, but that could have been because he was a year ahead of her in school. His last name was Worthington, as she suddenly remembered. Someone had joked that he was from old money and “worth a ton”: Paul Worthington. That was it. 

A few years back he had been
involved in a high profile case in LA when some celebrity was accused of murdering her husband.  Jessica hadn’t paid too much attention, but it was hard to avoid all the media coverage. She had caught glimpses of the handsome, well-spoken man talking about his client’s innocence, and taking a bow later when the proceedings were concluded in his client’s favor.

P
arking in the lot at Trader Joe’s, Jessica pulled out her smartphone and began to search the alumni data base at Stanford.  The information she was looking for popped up right away. According to the latest info he was a junior partner with a firm in Los Angeles. She had no trouble finding the firm’s website and dialed the number listed on it. A robotic voice offered her access to individual members of the firm by spelling their last name. This got her to a voice mail where she could leave a message.

“Mr. Worthington, this is Jessica Huntington-Harper
. You may remember me as Jessica Huntington. Actually you may not remember me at all, but we overlapped as students at Stanford law school, graduated a year apart. I’m calling because I have a friend in trouble. She may need a defense attorney and I could use a consult about how best to help her. If you could give me a call at your earliest convenience I’d be very grateful.”  Jessica left her cell phone number and email address, thanked him in advance for his help, and hung up.

She put the phone away
.  Not the smoothest voice mail message.  She had stumbled over her own last name.  Huntington-Harper had always been cumbersome and it was true that when she and Paul Worthington were at Stanford Law she was just Jessica Huntington. Maybe it was time to go back to that, Jessica Huntington, pure and simple. Doing so made the whole divorce thing so final, like signing those damned papers. Not to mention she’d have to add a round of tasks to her “to do” list in order to make the name change official at the DMV, her bank, her credit card companies, etc. etc. etc. 

“Time to shop!”
Jessica thought as she pulled Bernadette’s crumpled grocery list from her jeans pocket and headed into the store.  She couldn’t have been shopping for more than twenty minutes when her phone rang. 

“Hello,” she said, answering the phone hastily.

“Ms. Huntington or is it Huntington-Harper? This is Paul Worthington.”

“Sorry about that
.  Technically it’s Jessica Huntington-Harper, but not for long.  I’m kind of in transition.  But, wow, that was fast.  I wasn’t even sure you’d call me back, and on a Saturday, too.”  Jessica was totally blown away by the call.

“Of course I’d call you back
.  I’m a good lawyer and a great colleague and always happy to talk to an alum, especially a smart one,” he replied.

“Well I’m sure that’s true
, about you being a good lawyer, I mean.  I just wasn’t sure you’d remember me, but I guess you do.” Jessica was stammering, caught off guard by the call
and
the compliment.  She tried to pull herself together so she’d sound more professional.

“Sure I do
.  You wrote that great piece for
Law Review
that ended up in the
Stanford Environmental Law Journal
.”

Now she was really stunned
.  “How’d you know about that?” she asked, trying not to sound as flabbergasted as she felt.

“I was one of the reviewers
.  I thought it should have been published in the law review but others thought it was too specialized.  I recommended you send it the
Environmental Law Journal
.  I didn’t know who wrote it, of course, when I reviewed it, but I kept an eye out for it. When it showed up in the other journal it had your name on it.  Made a lasting impression as you can tell.  So, what’s up?  Are you still in the Palo Alto area?”

“No, I still have the phone number I picked up there
.  I was living in Cupertino until recently but that’s another story.  I’m in Rancho Mirage now. You know, out near Palm Springs?”

“Sure I know where that is
.  We’re in the process of opening a satellite office on El Paseo in Palm Desert.  A lot of our clients have bought second homes near you as weekend getaways, and where they go, we go, within reason, of course.  Our criminal defense work gets a lot of attention in the media but we’re pretty much a one stop shop once someone becomes a client.  So we’re always looking for other ways to keep our clients happy.  As it happens I’m going to be out there next week.”

“That is great luck because I need help
.  A friend of mine may be in trouble depending on what happens in the next few days.”

Jessica did her best to fill him in briefly.

“Bottom line is she’s scared.  She wants me to represent her because I’m an old friend who also happens to be a lawyer.  The thing is I’ve told her it’s really in her best interest to hire someone like you who has more experience in this area, if it comes to that.  At this point, though, I don’t know how seriously they’re looking at her as a suspect or if she needs a lawyer at all.”

“Sounds like a real mess
,” he said. “Unfortunately, a spouse is automatically on the short list of suspects. Especially given the circumstances, the victim killed in his own home with no obvious evidence of a break-in or a struggle, and nothing of value taken. The police are probably figuring already that your friend Roger knew his assailant.”

“Well, there are a couple other issues
. Apparently, Laura and her husband were stressed out a lot about money in the past few months. The neighbors alerted the police a couple times about noisy fights.  There was never any physical violence but I think there must be some kind of police record that will come up during the investigation.  The second thing is, as it turns out, Laura wasn’t completely forthcoming with the police about where she was when her husband was killed.”

“Ouch
.  Both of those issues could draw a little more interest from the police than she’d like.  Where was she and where did she say she was?”

“She was out all night
.  She’d been out with me and some friends Friday night and either told the police or led them to believe she’d stayed with me at my place. Actually she was with a guy. Our waiter at dinner, as it turns out. He showed up at a dance club we told him we were headed to later.  Apparently, one thing led to another and she ended up at his apartment.  She’s really embarrassed about the whole thing.”

“Well, embarrassed or not, if she was really with him at the time her husband was killed, that gives her an alibi
. Lying to the police is never a good idea. She can certainly make a case that she was distraught and confused when she spoke to them, especially after a nasty fall and a bang on the head.”

“That’s exactly what I’ve told her
. Thank God I haven’t been misleading her.  So what should I do?” Jessica asked.

“Find out as much as you can about what the police have in the way of evidence, and what sort of story they’re beginning to put together
.  Do you know where they took the body?” Paul asked.

“They told
Laura that her husband’s body was going to be taken to the County morgue that has an office in Indio. I presume they’ll release the body in a couple days for burial, once the autopsy has been completed.  I imagine it’ll take longer than that to get an autopsy report.”

“If they can make a decent guess about time of death and you can corroborate her alibi that might be enough for the police to lose interest in your friend and start looking elsewhere
.  The coroner should make that info available in a preliminary report fairly soon.  The cops are pretty stretched these days so you might want to hire your own investigator. That’s especially true if your client is interested in figuring out who did kill her husband, rather than simply exonerating herself.  We have a couple good investigators on staff. You could put one of them to work, or they could recommend someone from outside the firm.  In any case, that’ll help but it will add to the cost of sorting things out for your friend.”

“She’s an old friend, and a good one
. We’ll try to keep money out of it.  I’ll make sure you and anyone else on your staff get compensated. We need all the help we can get on this, and the sooner the better.”

“I don’t want to add to the stress your friend is feeling
. But if her husband was mixed up in something that got him killed, she might be in some danger too, you know?”

“That did occur to me
. All the more reason to get a jump on the investigation,” Jessica replied, feeling a telltale flutter in her chest.

“I’ll get hold of a couple investigators we use, and will get them to contact you
. One of them spends time in Palm Springs, so he already knows his way around.  Is the number you left the best one to use?”

“That’s my cell
. Let me give you the land line, too, and my email address while I’m at it.”  Jessica gave him the information then had the presence of mind to thank him for his help.  She hoped she aptly communicated her gratitude. Jessica was able to gauge when she was in over my head and this was definitely one of those occasions.

“No need to thank me. L
et’s plan to meet next week when I’m in town so you can fill me in on anything else you find out.  We can talk money then too, if you’d like.”

“Sure, if you let me buy you lunch,” Jessica insisted.

“Will do, let me check my schedule. Let’s see, how about Tuesday around one?” Paul asked.

Jessica didn’t have a schedule to check so she felt pretty good about agreeing to the date and time
.  “Works for me. Where’s your office?”

“Hang on a second
, let me pull up the address for you.  I’ll give you the phone number for that office too.” Jessica typed the information into the contact list on her phone. 

“All right, Paul
.  I’ll meet you there and we can decide where to go for lunch. Thanks again.  I’ll see you on Tuesday.”

“See you then,” he said as he hung up.

She put the phone away and tried to re-focus on her grocery shopping.  She checked to be sure she had picked up the things on Bernadette’s list.  Some items of her own had been added as part of her meager effort at adventurous shopping. At this point,  it wasn’t clear she had all she needed to put together complete meals, but she and Bernadette would have to make do. 

Jessica wasn’t completely recovered from the previous night’s excesses
.  The couple hours spent with Laura had been grueling. It was nothing like what Laura was going through, of course. If only she could get her to agree to let Paul, or somebody from his firm, represent her if the need arose.  Maybe she’d agree if Jessica offered to serve as co-counsel. That was something she might be able to pull off without getting disbarred for misrepresenting her client. For now Jessica wanted to get home.  Tuesday suddenly seemed awfully close. What on earth could she learn by then that could help Laura?