Beyond Suspicion (10 page)

•

Jack listened to the audiocassette in the car. Immediately, he knew what it was. The bigger question was, Why was she doing this to him?

Jack had one good friend who’d known the old Jessie. Not in the same way Jack had known her, but they used to hang out together back when Jack was dating Jessie. He’d first met Mike Campbell in Hawaii. Jack spent a summer slumming it in Maui before law school, one last blowout before immersing himself in the study of law. Mike had done him one better, having spent his entire senior year as a transfer student at the University of Hawaii before starting law school in Miami. He’d simply packed up his old Porsche at the landlocked University of Illinois, driven to Los Angeles, hopped on a ship, and finished out his undergraduate degree surrounded by palm trees and beautiful women. They were a couple of young immortals, crazy enough to night-dive in the black ocean beneath the fishing boats, living for the rush of adrenaline that came each time they’d spot holes in the nets that sharks had torn through. Mike was always a bit more fearless, which is why he now lived on the water, with a forty-three-foot Tiara open-fisherman docked in his backyard. He’d second-mortgaged his house and risked everything to wage a ten-year battle against the makers of a polybutylene piping that was supposed to replace copper plumbing in homes across the United States. Turned out that even the minimal levels of chlorine in normal drinking water disintegrated the stuff. Darn. It only ended up costing the big boys 1.25 billion dollars. At the time, it was the largest settlement ever in a case that didn’t involve personal injuries. Mike walked away with twenty-two million bucks, thank you very much.

The best part was, it was still impossible to hate the guy.

“You and Jessie on tape?” said Mike.

Jack had stopped by his house and caught him tinkering with the stereo system on his boat. They were sharing a couple of beers on deck, Mike leaning against the rail and Jack reclining in the hot seat, as they called it, a bolted-down fishing chair that made Jack want to strap himself in and reel in a monster sailfish. It was well past sunset, but the landscape lighting from the expensive homes on the other side of the canal shimmered on the waterway.

“Yeah. On tape.”

“Like, screaming and everything?”

“Mike, you’re not helping.”

“Every good lawyer needs all the facts.”

“The most important fact, buddy, is that this tape is ancient. It was made before I’d even met Cindy Paige.”

“So, was it a high-pitched scream, or more of a guttural-”

“Mike, come on.”

“Sorry.” He swiveled in his chair and grabbed another Bud from the cooler. “So, it’s an old tape. Did you even know she had it?”

“Not really.”

“What do you mean, not really?”

Jack tipped back his beer, took a long pull. “Jessie was a lot of fun, but she wasn’t nearly as promiscuous as people thought. We didn’t jump in bed together, by any means. But once we dated awhile, things progressed. And once we got there, things got kind of… interesting.”

“Interesting?”

“She wanted to make a videotape.”

“What?” he said, smiling.

“I wouldn’t go for it. But for about a two-month stretch, she brought it up almost every time we got naked. One night we were out dancing, got pretty drunk. About thirty seconds after we get back to her apartment, we’re in bed rolling all over each other. She reaches for the remote control on the nightstand, and I think she’s switching on the television to throw a little light on the subject. We’re about five seconds away from doing it when I realize that there’s a tape recorder on the nightstand. She figures that maybe we’ll ease into this with just the audio, then maybe I’ll warm up to the idea and do a video. I tell her to turn it off, but at this point I don’t care if we’re live on National Public Radio. That’s how it happened.”

“You made an X-rated audiocassette?”

“It was awful. It sounded like a couple of drunks going at it in the dark.”

“So, you got rid of it?”

“I told her to, but she kept it. It became a little gag between us. I’d be working late at the office till maybe ten or eleven o’clock. Instead of getting a nagging call to come home, I’d pick up the phone and on the other end of the line would be this tape of Jessie outdoing Meg Ryan in the
When Harry Met Sally
restaurant scene.”

“Beats all heck out of clanging the dinner bell.”

“It was good for a couple of laughs, and then she dropped it.”

“But she kept the tape?”

“Evidently.”

“For how many years?”

“Seven, closer to eight. I don’t read much into that. She could have just stuffed it in a shoebox somewhere and forgotten about it.”

“And the homicide investigators found it.”

“Yeah. Or, more likely, Jessie’s estate handed it over to them as evidence.”

“As evidence of what? That you and Jessie had sex before you and Cindy even met?”

“I guess it never occurred to anyone that the tape might be from another decade.”

“How could they not see it?” said Mike. “You ever gone back to one of your old cassettes? They look
old
.”

“But a copy doesn’t look old. Cindy’s looked brand-new. Unless you have the original, it wouldn’t be so obvious that the tape is eight years old.”

“So, where’s the original?”

“I don’t know. The police might have it, but that would be really scummy of them to copy an old cassette onto a new reel and pass it off to my wife as a recent affair.”

“So, presumably Jessie’s estate kept the original, and for some reason they gave the police a copy that makes it look new.”

“Or, I suppose, the original could be gone, and the only thing Jessie left behind was a copy that looks brand-new.”

“Why would she do that?”

Jack paused, as if afraid to come across as paranoid. “Because she wanted someone to think that she and I were having a recent affair.”

“Ah, I see,” he said, smiling. “And which conspiracy theory do you subscribe to on the Kennedy assassination? Would it be the Mafia, the Cubans, or perhaps the cluster of icebergs that got the
Titanic
?”

“Okay, it’s a little out there. But whatever went on here, it sure convinced my wife.”

Mike leaned forward in his captain’s chair, looked at Jack with concern. “How is Cindy doing?”

“So-so. This doesn’t help.”

“I thought about you two when I saw this on the news. I called you.”

“I know. I got the message. So many people called, I just didn’t have a chance to return them all.”

“I thought about calling Cindy, but I didn’t know what kind of shape she’d be in. Bad enough finding a body in your house. But it has to be especially hard on her, after the nightmare she went through with that psycho former client of yours.”

Jack looked down at his empty beer bottle. “First him, now Jessie. Guess I need to work on my choice of clients.”

“Water through the pipes, as I always say.”

“Polybutylene pipes.”

Their bottles clicked in toast. “God love ’em,” said Mike.

They shared a weak smile, then turned serious. “Tell me the truth,” said Jack. “After all these years, why do you think Jessie had that tape?”

“Could be as you said. She packed it away in her closet and forgot it even existed.”

“Or?”

“I don’t know. You are the son of a former governor. Maybe she thought you’d run for office some day and she could embarrass you.”

Jack peeled the label from his beer. “Possible, I suppose.”

“Or it could be that she’s been listening to that tape over and over again for the last decade, turning away the likes of George Clooney and Brad Pitt, crying her eyes out night after night for Jack Swyteck, world’s greatest lover.”

“You think?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Wow. I never would have figured that out on my own. You’re a genius.”

“I know.”

“Seriously,” said Jack. “You’re a plaintiffs’ lawyer.”

Mike glanced around his gorgeous boat. “Last time I checked.”

“Go back in time eight months. On the face of it, Jessie Merrill had an attractive case. Sympathetic facts, a young and beautiful client.”

“I’ll give you that.”

“She could have gone to a zillion different lawyers. Most of them would have taken the case. Hell, some would have signed on even if she’d told them flat-out in advance that the whole thing was a scam.”

“Not me, but some of them, yeah.”

“Yet, she picks me. A guy whose practice is ninety-percent criminal. Why?”

Mike didn’t answer right away, seeming to measure his words. “Maybe she wanted a really smart lawyer who she knew she could fool.”

“Thanks.”

“Or, for some bizarre reason, she wanted you back in her life.”

“But why? After all these years, why?”

He shrugged and said, “Can’t help you there, my friend. You’ll have to answer that one yourself.”

Jack leaned back in the deck chair, watched the moonlight glistening on the little ripples in the brackish water alongside Mike’s boat. “I wish I knew,” was all he could say.

Mike tossed his empty into the open cooler. “You need a place to stay tonight?”

He considered it, then said, “No. I can’t let this fester.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Tell Cindy the truth.”

“That won’t be easy.”

“Cake,” Jack said. “The hard part is getting her to believe it.”

He grabbed an end of the cooler, and Mike grabbed the other. They climbed from the boat, the empties rattling against the cold ones as they walked toward the patio.

•

The chain lock was on the door when Jack got to his mother-in-law’s house. It opened about six inches and then caught.

“Cindy?” he called out through the narrow opening.

“Go away, Jack.” It was her mother’s voice, coming from the other room.

“I just want to talk.”

“She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

Part of him wanted to plead directly with Cindy to let him in, but he knew there was no getting through to her as long as her mother was acting as gatekeeper.

“Cindy, it’s just as I thought. That tape is old. It was made before I’d even met you.”

No one answered.

“Call me, please. I’ll leave my cell phone on.”

“Better get an extra longlife battery,” her mother said.

“Thanks a ton, Evelyn.” He closed the door and retreated quietly to his car.

He wasn’t sure where to go. He drove around the neighborhood for a few minutes, heading generally in the direction of U.S. 1. He considered going back to Mike’s, then changed his mind. Cindy was foremost in his thoughts, but his earlier talk with Mike had helped frame another question that, on reflection, just might tie in with his current marital woes: Exactly what information about Jack had Jessie’s estate handed over to the state attorney?

This wasn’t a job for Theo. He turned down Ludlam Road and decided to pay a visit to Clara Pierce.

In Florida, the executor of the estate is called a personal representative, and with Clara the term “personal” seemed particularly appropriate. It had been years since Jack had been to Clara’s house. They’d first met when Jack was dating Jessie. She was a lawyer and one of Jessie’s oldest friends, which was how she ended up drafting Jessie’s will and being named the PR. Jessie and Jack had actually double-dated with Clara and her then-husband. David and Jack had stayed friendly through the divorce, though Jack had tried not to take sides. David was a real estate attorney who’d given up his own career to be their son’s primary caretaker. He did it all-the bottle feedings, the diapers, the back-and-forth from school, homework, soccer, Little League. He fought for custody when they divorced, and lost. At the time, Jack didn’t blame Clara for turning on the tears to convince a judge that a boy needed his mother. Having never known his own mother, Jack was perhaps an easy sell. But it bugged him to no end when she’d packed up the boy’s things and shipped him off to boarding school two months after the court awarded her custody. It only confirmed that she hadn’t really wanted her son, she just didn’t want her husband to have him. The only thing that mattered to Clara was winning.

Clara didn’t seem shocked to see Jack. She invited him into the kitchen for coffee.

“Your son still a hotshot center fielder?” Jack asked, baiting her.

“Oh, yeah. He’s always been, you know, really centered.”

Typical of Clara not to know that her own son was a pitcher, not a center fielder. Even Jack’s stepmother would have known the difference, and she thought Mickey Mantle was a mouse that sat over your fireplace.

“Cream and sugar?” she asked.

“Black’s good.”

She sat on the bar stool on the other side of the counter, facing Jack. She was still dressed in office attire, a basic navy blue business suit and white silk blouse. Clara wasn’t big on style. She’d worn her hair the same way for eight years, tight and efficient curls as black as her coffee. She took a sip from her cup and eyed him over the rim, as if to say,
What gives?

“A couple of homicide investigators came to see Cindy today,” said Jack. “They gave her an audiotape of me and Jessie. Know anything about it?”

“Of course. I gave it to them.”

“Why?”

“I’ve inventoried every item of her personal property. That’s my job as PR. The police asked me for anything that might shed light on the nature of the relationship between you and Jessie. So I gave them the tape.”

“You could have called to give me a heads-up. It’s the least I would have done for an old friend.”

“You and I were never really friends.”

She wasn’t being acerbic, just brutally honest. Jack said, “I didn’t side with David over you. I was subpoenaed for the custody hearing. I told the truth. David was a good father.”

“That has nothing to do with this. Jessie was my friend, and the police are trying to find out how she died. I intend to cooperate, and I’m not going to pick up the phone and call you every time something happens. That’s not my job.”

“Did you know that the audiotape was made back when Jessie and I were dating?”

“No. It looked brand-new.”

“You mean the copy you gave to the state attorney looks brand-new.”

“No. I’m talking about the only tape I’ve ever seen.”

“You mean the tape you found among Jessie’s possessions looked like new?”

“Yes.”

Jack tried not to look too puzzled, but his conversation with Mike about being paranoid was echoing in his brain.
Maybe it was icebergs that got Kennedy
. “Jessie must have copied it onto a new tape and destroyed the original.”

“Why would she do that?”

He had a theory, but not one that he wanted to share with Clara. “I’m not sure. You got any ideas?”

“I don’t even want to guess what kind of games you and Jessie were playing. I just want to help the police find out what happened to her.”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“I hope that’s true. I sincerely mean that.”

“Come on, Clara. You don’t really believe I’m a killer.”

“You’re right, I don’t. But I didn’t believe Jessie would scam a viatical company out of a million and a half dollars, either.”

“She did.”

“So you say.”

“I saw her and Dr. Marsh holding hands just minutes after the verdict.”

“So what? He was happy she won. That doesn’t mean the two of them were partners in crime.”

“She told me it was a scam, and he practically admitted it too. Right in my office.”

“He’s a respected, board-certified neurologist.”

“Evidently, he’s also a thief.”

“If he’s the thief, then why is it your name instead of his on the joint bank account?”

Jack nearly choked. “What bank account?”

“Grand Bahama Trust Company. The offshore bank where Jessie put the money she got from the viatical investors. She had an account there. Jessie
and you
had an account there.”

He blinked several times and said, “There must be some mistake.”

“Account number zero-one-oh-three-one. A joint account in the name of Jessie Suzanne Merrill and John Lawrence Swyteck. That is your name, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but-a joint account?”

“Don’t get any ideas. If you even try to touch that money, I’ll be right in your face. Those funds are staying in her estate.”

“Don’t worry. I want no part of any money she got in a scam. I’ll stipulate that it’s not mine.”

“Good. I’ll get you the papers tomorrow.”

“Fine. But I need to get to the bottom of this joint bank account. This is the first I ever heard of it.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“It’s true.”

“Why would Jessie put your name on an account worth a million and a half dollars and not even tell you?”

“Maybe for the same reason she wanted to make that old audiotape look new again.”

She narrowed her eyes, as if he were insulting her intelligence. “Let me give you a little advice. Just admit that you and Jessie were doing the deed. This Clinton-like denial is only going to make people think you killed her.”

“They won’t think that. No more than you do. You wouldn’t have invited me into your house if you thought I was a murderer.”

She didn’t answer.

Jack said, “If anyone killed Jessie, it was the investors whom she scammed.”

“That’s a theory.”

“It’s more than that. The night before she died, Jessie came to me, pleading with me to help her. She was sure these investors were going to kill her.”

“I know all that. The detectives showed me the letter you wrote to the state attorney. But your investor theory just doesn’t add up for me.”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Simple. If the viatical investors were the killers, they wouldn’t have made her death look anything like suicide.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I’m the PR of her estate. I’ve seen her life insurance policy. She bought it twenty-two months ago. It’s void if she took her own life less than two years after the effective date. It’s a standard suicide exclusion.”

His response came slowly, as if weighted by the implications. “So, if her death is ruled a suicide, the investors lose their three-million-dollar death benefit.”

“Bingo. I don’t care how bad you say those guys are, they can’t be idiots. If they were behind it, Jessie would have been found dead in her car at the bottom of some canal. Her death would have looked like an accident, not suicide.”

Jack stared into his empty coffee cup. It suddenly seemed like a gaping black hole, one big enough to swallow him and his whole theory about the investors as killers.

“You okay?” asked Clara.

“Sure. That suicide exclusion is news to me, that’s all. I guess that’s why the cops are looking at me and not the investors.”

“You got that right.”

Jack sipped his coffee, then caught Clara’s eye. “You seem to know more than you say.”

“Could be.”

“Is there anything else I should know?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Don’t piss me off. Because if I wanted to hurt you, believe me: I could really hurt you.”

Her tone wasn’t threatening, but he still felt threatened. She rose, no subtle signal that it was time for him to leave. Jack placed his coffee mug on the counter and said, “Thanks for the caffeine.”

“You’re welcome.”

She walked him to the foyer and opened the front door. He started out, then stopped and said, “I didn’t kill Jessie.”

“You said that already.”

“I didn’t have her killed, either.”

“Now there’s something I hadn’t heard yet.”

“Now you have.”

“Yes. Now I have. Finally.”

They said good night, and Jack headed down the steps, the door closing behind him.