Judith McNaught (12 page)

murder in an unpremeditated rage of passion like your ordinary killer. No indeed, not him. He waited twenty-four hours so that his precious movie could be finished first, and
then
he chose a method of revenge that is so bizarre, so cold-blooded it makes me gag! He put hollow point shells in a gun, and then

at the last minute while they were filming the end of that movie, he changed the way the script had been written, so that his wife, not Anthony Austin, would be shot during their fake struggle!"

Alton paused and gripped the railing again. "None of this is conjecture on my part. You've heard the testimony that proves every word: On the afternoon of the murder, while the rest of the film crew was on a break, Zachary Benedict went into that stable alone, ostensibly to rearrange some things on the set.

Several people saw him go in there—he admitted it himself—yet no one on the film crew could think of a

single thing that looked different when they returned to the set. What was he doing in there? You know what he was doing! He was switching the harmless blank shells, which a production assistant testified he had put in the gun himself, for deadly hollow points.

I remind you once again that Benedict's fingerprints were on that gun. His and his alone, left there no doubt by mistake, after he'd wiped the gun clean.

And

once all his preparations were made, did he finish the gruesome deed and get it over with like an ordinary murderer? No, not him. Instead of that," Alton turned to face the defendant, and he did not have to feign

his loathing and revulsion as he said, "Zachary Benedict stood beside a cameraman in that stable, watching his wife and her lover embrace and kiss and fondle each other, and he made them do it
over
and over again!
He stopped them each time his wife was ready to reach for the gun. And then, when he'd had enough 'fun,' enough sick vengeance, when he could no longer prolong the moment that the script called for—the moment when his wife was supposed to reach for the gun and shoot Tony Austin—Zachary Benedict
changed the script!"

Twisting around, Peterson pointed a finger at Zack, his voice ringing with loathing. "Zachary Benedict is a man who is so corrupted by wealth and fame that he actually believed himself above and beyond all the

laws that apply to you and to me. He believed you'd let him get away with it! Look at him, ladies and gentlemen of the jury—"

Compelled by Peterson's booming baritone, every single face in the crowded courtroom turned in unison

toward Zack, who was seated at the defendant's table. Beside him, Zack's chief defense attorney hissed

without actually moving his lips, "Damn it, Zack, look up at the jury!"

Zack raised his head and complied automatically, but he doubted that anything he did was going to make a difference in the jury's collective minds. If Rachel had set out to frame him for her murder, she could never have done a better job at making the

"evidence" point to him than he had done on his own.

"Look at him," Alton Peterson commanded with renewed fervor and fury, "and you'll see what he is

—a

man who is guilty of murder in the first degree! That is the verdict, the
only
verdict, you can return in this
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case if justice is to be done!"

* * *

The following morning, the jury retired to debate their verdict and Zack, who was free on $1 million bail,

returned to his suite at the Crescent, where he alternately considered trying to make a run for South America and trying to murder Tony Austin instead.

Tony seemed like the most logical suspect to him, yet

neither Zack's lawyers nor the private detectives they hired could turn up any damning evidence against him except that he still had an expensive drug habit

—a habit that he would have been better able to indulge if Rachel had lived to marry him after divorcing Zack. Furthermore, if Zack hadn't decided at the

last minute to change the script, Tony, not Rachel, would have been the one shot. Zack tried to remember if he'd ever mentioned to Tony that he didn't like the ending as written and was thinking of changing it. Sometimes, he thought out loud and bounced ideas off others without remembering he'd done

it. He'd written notes about changing the ending in his copy of the script, and he'd left the script lying around, but all of the witnesses denied having known anything about it.

Like a caged tiger, he prowled the length of his suite, cursing fate and Rachel and himself. Over and over again, he went through his own lawyer's closing statement, trying to make himself believe Arthur Handler

had been able to sway the jury from convicting him.

Handler's only real, only plausible defense had been that Zack would have had to be a complete fool to commit so blatant and bizarre a crime when he knew every scrap of evidence was going to point directly at him. When it came out during the trial that Zack owned a large gun collection and was fully familiar with various types of guns and shells, Handler had tried to point out that since that was true, Zack would have also been able to switch the shells without

leaving a clumsy fingerprint on the gun.

The idea of trying to make a run for South America and then vanish revolved around in Zack's mind, but it was a lousy idea, and he knew it. For one thing, if he ran, then the jury would decide he was guilty even

if they'd been going to acquit him. Second, his face was so well known, particularly now with all the press

coverage of the trial, that he'd be spotted within minutes wherever he went. The only good thing he could

count on was that Tony Austin would never work in films again, now that all his vices and perversions had come out in the trial and made headlines.

* * *

By the next morning when there was a knock at the door, frustration and suspense had twisted every muscle of his body into knots. He yanked the door open and frowned at the only friend he had ever trusted implicitly. Zack hadn't wanted Matt Farrell at the trial, partly because he was humiliated and partly because he didn't want the taint Zack now carried to rub off on the famous industrialist. Since Matt

had been in Europe until yesterday negotiating for a company he was buying, it had been easy for Zack to sound optimistic when his friend phoned. Now, Zack took one look at his friend's grim features and knew that he'd already discovered the dire truth and had obviously flown to Dallas because of it.

"Don't look so happy to see me," Matt said dryly, walking into the suite.

"I told you there was no reason to come here," Zack countered, closing the door. "The jury's out right now. Everything is going to be fine."

"In which case," Matt replied, undeterred by his unenthusiastic greeting, "we can while away the hours

playing some poker. O'Hara's putting the car away and arranging for our rooms," he added, referring to his chauffeur/bodyguard. He shrugged out of his suit coat, glanced at Zack's haggard features, and reached for the telephone. "You look like hell," he said as he ordered an enormous breakfast for three
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sent up to the room.

* * *

"This sure is my lucky day," Joe O'Hara said six hours later as he scooped a handful of winnings from the center of the table. A huge man with a prizefighter's battered features and a wrestler's physique, he

hid his private worry over Zack's future behind an attitude of boisterous optimism that fooled no one, but

somehow made the tense atmosphere in the suite more bearable.

"Remind me to cut your salary," Matt said wryly, looking at the pile of money accumulating at his chauffeur's elbow. "I shouldn't be paying you enough to sit in on a game with these stakes."

"You always say that whenever I beat you and Zack at cards," O'Hara replied cheerfully, shuffling. "This is like the good old days in Carmel when we used to do this a lot. Except it was always nighttime."

And Zack's life wasn't hanging in the balance…

The unspoken thought swelled in the heavy silence, broken by the shrill ring of the telephone.

Zack reached for it, listened, and stood up. "The jury's reached a verdict. I have to go."

"I'll go with you," Matt said.

"I'll bring the car around." O'Hara put in, already reaching for the car keys in his jacket pocket.

"It's not necessary," Zack said, fighting down his panic. "My attorneys are picking me up." He waited until O'Hara had shaken his hand and left, then he looked at Matt and walked over to the desk. "I have a

favor to ask of you." He took a formal document out of the drawer and handed it to his friend. "I had this prepared just in case something goes wrong. It's a power of attorney granting you the absolute right to act on my behalf on anything that pertains to my finances or assets."

Matt Farrell looked down at it and his color drained at this proof that Zack obviously thought there was at least a fifty–fifty chance he'd be convicted.

"It's just a formality, a contingency plan. I'm sure you'll never need to use it," Zack lied.

"So am I," Matt said just as untruthfully.

The two men looked at each other, nearly identical in their height, build, and coloring and in their matching expressions of proud, false confidence. As Zack reached for his suit coat, Matt cleared his throat and reluctantly said, "If
…
if I were to need to use this, what do you want me to do?"

Looking in the mirror, Zack knotted his tie and said with a shrug and a lame attempt at humor, "Just try not to bankrupt me, that's all."

An hour later, in the courtroom, standing beside his attorneys, Zack watched the bailiff hand the judge the jury's verdict. As if the words were spoken in a faraway tunnel, he heard the judge say,

"—guilty of murder in the first degree…"

Then after a brief trial to assess punishment, Zack heard another verdict more excruciating than the last:

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"Punishment is assessed at forty-five years to be served in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice at

Amarillo… Bail pending appeal is denied on the basis of sentence exceeding fifteen years… Prisoner is

remanded into custody…"

Zack refused to wince; he refused to do anything that might reveal the truth: He was screaming inside.

He stood rigidly straight, even when someone grabbed his wrists, yanked them behind his back, and

slapped handcuffs around them.

Chapter 10
1993

"
L
ook out, Miss Mathison!" the shrill warning from the boy in the wheelchair came too late; Julie was dribbling the basketball down center court, laughing as she whirled to make the shot, then she caught her ankle in a footrest of a wheelchair and went flying backward, landing squarely and ignominiously on her

rump.

"Miss Mathison! Miss Mathison!" The gymnasium reverberated with the alarmed shouts of handicapped kids in the gym class Julie supervised after school, when her regular teaching duties were over.

Wheelchairs gathered around her along with kids with crutches and leg braces. "You okay, Miss Mathison?" they chorused. "You hurt, Miss Mathison?"

"Of course I'm hurt," Julie teased as she shoved herself up on her elbows and scooped the hair out of her eyes. "My pride is very, very hurt."

Willie Jenkins, the school's nine-year-old macho jock who'd been acting as observer and sideline coach,

shoved his hands in his pockets, regarded her with a puzzled grin, and remarked in his deep, bullfrog's voice, "How come your pride hurts when you landed on your bu—"

"It's all in your perspective, Willie," Julie said quickly, laughing. She was rolling to her feet when a pair of

wing tip shoes, brown socks, and tan polyester pants legs entered her field of vision.

"Miss Mathison!" the principal barked, scowling ferociously at the scuff marks all over his shiny gymnasium floor. "This hardly looks like a basketball game to me. What sort of game are you playing?"

Even though Julie now taught third grade in the Keaton Elementary School, her relationship with its principal, Mr. Duncan, hadn't improved a whole lot since the time he accused her of stealing the class lunch money fifteen years ago. Although her integrity was no longer an issue with him, her constant

bending of the school rules for her students was a permanent thorn in his side. Not only that, but she plagued him to death with innovative ideas and when he nixed them, she rounded up moral support from

the rest of the town and, if needed, financial support from private citizens. As a result of one of her notions, Keaton Elementary now had a specially designed educational and athletic program for physically

handicapped children, which she'd created and was constantly altering with what Mr. Duncan viewed as typical, frivolous disregard of his preestablished procedures. Miss Mathison had no sooner gotten her handicapped program under way last year than she'd gone on another—stronger—tangent, and there
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was no stopping her: She was now waging a private campaign to stamp out illiteracy among the women in Keaton and the surrounding area. All it had taken to set her off on this crusade was the discovery that the janitor's wife couldn't read. Julie Mathison had invited the woman to her own house and started tutoring her there, but it soon evolved that the janitor's wife knew another woman who couldn't read, and

that woman knew someone, who knew someone, who knew someone else. Within a short time there were seven women to be taught to read, and Miss Mathison had pleaded with him to let her use a classroom two evenings a week to teach her students.

When Mr. Duncan had protested sensibly about the added cost of utilities to keep a classroom open at night, she'd sweetly mentioned that she'd speak to the principal of the high school then. Rather than look

like a heartless ogre when the high school principal yielded to her blue eyes and bright smile, Mr.

Duncan

had agreed to let her use her own classroom at Keaton Elementary. Soon after he capitulated on that, the

irritating crusader decided she needed special learning materials to help speed up the learning process for