The Rita Farmer Mystery series Box Set Read online

  “Essentially,” he said, “it means don’t take candy from strangers.”

  _____

  Watching, next morning, Mark walk the jury through key pieces of the physical evidence from the point of view of the defense, I saw he’d learned more from Gary than I’d thought. Even vocally he had modeled himself after his mentor. His voice was calm and measured, yet he brought out emotion with inflections and pauses for effect. This was a Friday, and he wanted to impress the jury so they could think about it over the weekend.

  He hit heavily on the fact that no toxicology test was done on Eileen that awful morning, in spite of her having told the police she felt unwell, sleepy, peculiar. Of course, evidence of a strange drug could have done harm to the defense’s case as much as it might have done good. But in the absence of proof, Sharma could and did imply police negligence. He implied that a tox test could have proved Eileen was victimized that night, along with her daughter.

  “So the only difference,” he said to a witness, flipping his coat back in a confident, Gary-like gesture, “was Eileen survived the attack, and Gabriella did not, isn’t that right?”

  Tracy Beck-Rubin objected, but he’d made his point.

  He cast delicious doubt on the police evidence with short, tight testimony from three expert witnesses, called to the box bam-bam-bam.

  Beck-Rubin couldn’t achieve much in her cross-examinations, and realizing she was in trouble she kept her questions brief. She tried for maximum contempt effect, flipping her eyes heavenward, shaking her head in disgust, the whole can-you-believe-this-bullshit thing. It was a little too obvious for the jury, though; they only glanced at her dismissively. I could have given her some pointers.

  Mark figured we’d probably only need two more days for the defense. “Fast and hard, like a good boxing match,” he said to the team in the conference room that afternoon. A two-or three-day defense would certainly contrast astonishingly with the belabored eight weeks of prosecution we’d endured.

  The police were investigating all of us the same way, fast and hard. They interviewed Daniel, they talked to my neighbors in the building, and I’m sure Jeff was on their list too.

  _____

  I had managed that morning to pack Petey’s suitcase for Spider Con. I made sure to get home with a few groceries in time to fix him an early dinner of a grilled-cheese sandwich, carrot sticks, and a large mug of hot cocoa, his favorite beverage. A tummyful of love. He was so excited about Spider-Man World Con he could hardly eat, but I cajoled him.

  “Spider-Man never goes on a mission on an empty stomach. He needs the energy from good food.”

  “Mmph,” said Petey, who was losing the last of his baby fat before my eyes. His arms and legs were so thin—little pipestems sticking out from his shirts and shorts. Watching him eat, I had one of those mommy moments where you’re alone with your child and a nameless wistfulness comes over you. What would occupy those little hands someday? A surgeon’s scalpel? A carpenter’s plane? An ice ax and loop of rope? I supposed the likeliest thing would be a computer keyboard, but I rejected that notion. His natural inclination toward climbing and jumping boded better for a future of conquering peaks, exploring oceans, well, who the hell knew, Olympic gold, why not?

  I came back to the present thinking of Jeff. He’d served me papers trying to take away my boy—for no reason but to hurt and spite me. Steve Calhoun had called Jeff’s challenge a nuisance suit, but I thought of it more as a hate crime.

  To be frank, however, I was still feeling sort of schizophrenic about Petey. I begrudged him going away for the weekend, but I did need a break. He hadn’t yet many friends who could come over and play, so he still depended on me a great deal for amusement. There was the hitting thing, but above all that, with a small child around, you’re never alone; you never have a scrap of total peace because as a mother your senses are always on alert, to one degree or another, even when the kid’s asleep. I badly wanted a couple of nights off.

  Jeff had said he’d come for him at six-thirty.

  I would have to be civil to him now and forever, tied as we were by the blood flowing through Petey’s veins. And even when our boy would be a man and all custody battles finished, he would marry and have children (fingers crossed for that order) and Jeff and I would be tied by their blood as well.

  It’s really shocking, the long-term effects of the simple act of fucking. Moms and dads have learned this over and over through the ages. How smart we all are by now.

  I pictured Jeff glaring at me across the aisle at Petey’s ball games, his commencements, his wedding.

  Six-thirty came and went, then seven.

  “He’ll prob’ly be here any minute,” Petey crowed anxiously.

  I agreed. “He’s probably stuck in a traffic jam.”

  “Daddy’ll just blast through that traffic jam! I wish I had a blaster, I’d just blast that traffic jam!”

  “Into a jillion pieces,” I suggested.

  “Jillion pieces!”

  I popped a Mickey Mouse DVD into the player, but Petey insisted, “No! Spider-Man! The first one!” I knew every word of those movies. But I put it on, and he settled down to watch, one ear cocked toward the door.

  Which remained silent.

  At seven-thirty, I phoned Jeff’s office and condo and left voice mails, then tried his cell phone. No answer.

  If Petey had been only three, I’d have been able to distract him, make up an interesting story, create some special fun that would have delighted him. But he was four and had developed the single-minded focus on an adult promise I’d hoped wouldn’t happen for a few more years.

  His small dimpled face searched mine for reassurance.

  That was a long night, during which I witnessed the six phases of juvenile disillusionment:

  1. Giddy excitement.

  2. Buoyant optimism.

  3. Steadfast hope.

  4. Creeping desperation.

  5. Full-on desperation.

  6. Sobbing despair.

  The final phase lasts longest, approximately two hours or until loss of consciousness occurs, whichever is latest. Tonight it was midnight.

  He came to at about six-thirty in the morning and brought an optimistic attitude to the breakfast table, then remembered Spider Con.

  “Oh, Spidey,” he wailed. “Oh, Daddy.”

  He’d begun grieving for Jeff. Good.

  Daniel came to the rescue, brushing aside my almost incoherent gratitude. He swept Petey off in his turbocharged Porsche to the lovely boulder fields in the San Gabriels, to scramble around and later eat enormous chickenburgers at some hippie bar he knew.

  _____

  “You bastard!” I let my anger flare just a little higher. “You think you can kill with money. Choke off the life in this valley.”

  I listened to Serge Oatberger sputter a denial, my head turned away toward the dark line of trees at the edge of the open range, far beyond the walls of the conference room at Colonnade Studios.

  I brought my anger down now from fire to frost, like water freezing on a pond, crystallizing so swiftly you can’t believe it or stop it. “I know it was you bought up all the heart medicine in the county so I couldn’t get any for Paw. Well, now he’s dead, just like you wanted.”

  We went on with the scene, improvising as we had the first time. Appropriately, the conference room was as gloomy as the inside of a pine shed in the rain.

  Sometimes you just know it’s the right moment to take a risk.

  I craved this role of Emily Rounceville in Third Chance Mountain. Hell, if for no other reason I’d need work after the Tenaway trial.

  In my first audition I’d been loose enough to let ideas come to me during the improvisation, and I’d used them. But I’d worked carefully; there had been a dab of don’t blow it in there, and afterward I’d wondered whether Oatberger had seen it.

  Today I felt differently. Maybe I’d finally lived long enough to understand that caution has its drawbacks.

 
; His lackeys were there, and once again I’d been offered Gatorade. I declined it. The blond-tipped bootlicker who’d offered it gasped slightly. Then Oatberger stumbled over a chair, and another tight-jeans had said, “I’m sorry.”

  Honestly.

  Oatberger was a good actor. I perceived the equal parts evil and fear in his eyes, as the selfish rancher who long ago learned that money wasn’t good enough to buy an honest woman. Now he’d used it as a weapon, and it still didn’t work.

  The lines in his forehead deepened, but his lips stretched into a smile. “You’ll think different,” he said, “once you’ve got used to my ways.”

  I drew up the saliva in my mouth and fired it straight into his face.

  Chapter 30 – The Last Witness

  Jeff never called or showed that whole weekend. After returning from my audition I cleaned the bathroom, made pizza dough, and crafted recriminations. “How could you break his heart like that?” I muttered viciously, jabbing the toilet brush under the rim. “You’re not a daddy, you’re a shit cloud.”

  I didn’t think much about Oatberger. I was glad I’d jolted the hell out of him. The significance of that—being glad about it—escaped me at the moment. I figured, if spitting in his face doesn’t get me the job, nothing can. He’d sent me away with one of his signature scowls.

  Back to Jeff. I pictured him on a bender with the new girlfriend—she’d probably convinced him to abandon Petey in favor of partying at her house with the pool and the dog named Tuna or whatever. They were clinking glasses and laughing maniacally.

  Then, of course, I imagined him dead somewhere—perhaps at the bottom of that very pool with all the dog turds. Or perhaps he’d driven off the PCH, his last thought before hitting the rocks being, Let’s see, how many hours has it been since I last got laid?

  “How could you be such a self-indulgent jackass?” I snarled, slamming the pizza dough around the kitchen. “Excuse? A reason? No. There’s no way you’re ever gonna get redemption from this one, asshole.”

  When Daniel brought my boy home that night, all of Petey’s grief had been drained away, replaced by the relaxed happiness that always came over him when he was with Daniel. I’d pretty much gotten it out of my system too. Daniel looked like he’d worked off some of his torrential grief over Gary. We ate pizza and I heard all about the boulders and lizards and picker bushes.

  On Sunday morning Daniel returned with the newspaper and an armful of comic books, and I went to the lockup to work with Mark Sharma and Eileen. (Weekend visiting for lawyers was another special privilege quietly scored by Gary, way in the beginning.) We went over her testimony for about two hours. She wanted to take the stand. It would happen this week.

  Juries, you know, hardly ever get to hear the accused testify in major trials. Too risky, defense lawyers say. Well, let’s face it—any defense attorney will admit that most of the people they represent are in fact guilty. So it stands to reason a good prosecutor would make pâté of a defendant on the stand, even if the defendant’s story is well rehearsed. Gary Kwan had not permitted Roscoe Jamison to testify, even though Roscoe’s friends all insisted in public that he was dying to tell the truth. Roscoe had a good PR department, you gotta hand him that.

  Moreover, even an innocent person can be made to look shifty or foolish by a skillful prosecutor.

  Eileen seemed both weary of this whole show and supremely confident. Her back was straight.

  When Mark left the room for a moment, she asked, “Do you think I’ve got it?”

  Right then I saw something extra in her. I guess I’d call it a sort of forward gaze, an intentness, as if she were already feeling the heft of the trophy in her hands. There was secrecy in her look, though, as well. I found her just a little spooky.

  I said, “Do you mean do I think you’re ready for the jury—and Tracy Beck-Rubin?”

  “Oh, her.”

  “Well, with that attitude, yes. You’ve got it. But just in case, we’ll be going over questions she’s likely to ask you. And I want to work with you on your voice.”

  “Oh. I don’t want a lot of homework right now.”

  “Look, missy.” I scraped my chair closer to hers. Cold fluorescent photons rained down on us. “The jury’s on your side now, clearly. Or at least they’re ready to be on your side. They can’t wait for you to talk to them. They really want to believe you. Remember Beatrice Rhinegold?”

  Eileen looked at me quickly, a faint smile breaking on her lips. I said, “Whenever you take the stand—maybe Tuesday or Wednesday—your best friend from the old neighborhood will be sitting in the middle of the jury box. Place your voice to her.”

  _____

  The circus started up again Monday morning. The clangor of the media, the clench in my gut, my ongoing fascination with that chunk of the iceberg there below the surface. That iceberg was getting bigger by the day.

  Gary’s funeral was today. Jacqueline, we were told, wanted only family members there.

  “Where’s Padraig?” asked Eileen as soon as she joined us at the defense table.

  I shrugged, looking. No sky-scraping red head in the gallery. This was the first morning he’d been absent. Not auspicious.

  Eileen heaved a long sigh of distress. Firmly, I said, “We need you to be up. Focus ahead.” She nodded and gave herself a shake. She sat relaxed and erect.

  Through skillful questioning of his witnesses, Mark presented the defense’s alternate theory of what had happened that night, developed by Steve Calhoun at a cost of roughly a hundred fifty thousand dollars (at least that was Lisa Feltenberger’s whispered estimate). An intruder or intruders had broken into the Tenaway house with larceny in their hearts. Eileen had awakened at the noise, naturally, but they sedated her with a date-rape drug like Rohypnol.

  “Isn’t this type of drug especially useful,” a friendly Mark suggested to a witness, “because it doesn’t merely render the victim helpless, but it causes her to lose her memory of what happened to her?”

  “Yes,” answered the forensic toxicologist.

  Mark pestered his next witness, the detective lieutenant in charge, on why the police had not requested a toxicology test for her. He’d been thumping on that since he began on Friday.

  “I can’t speculate on why no tox test was ordered,” answered the beefy homicide lieutenant reluctantly. He’d been good-humored with Mark at first, but quickly became guarded. His forehead shone with sweat.

  “Any of several people could have requested it, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “But it was not done?”

  “I’ve already said that.”

  “Therefore,” speculated Mark, “we don’t know exactly why Eileen Tenaway neither heard nor saw any intruder.”

  Tracy Beck-Rubin objected. “Is there a question here?”

  Judge Davenport sustained.

  But Mark, once again, had made his point. “No bruises or obvious marks on her, to indicate a struggle?” he resumed in his let’s-suppose voice. “Wouldn’t she have struggled?”

  Beck-Rubin kept objecting, but every time she did, Mark simply backed off and tried again differently.

  He called a witness, this one a martial-arts expert, who testified how easy it would be for two people to subdue the small-statured Eileen merely by pinning her arms to her sides in a bear hug from behind, then forcing a drugged liquid down her throat. Or they may have given her an injection.

  Several jurors nodded, an excellent sign.

  Mark then called up a psychiatrist, who, answering Mark’s skilled questions, painted the rest of the picture the defense wanted:

  Naturally, Gabriella wakes up crying. The neighbors may or may not hear her unconsoled shrieking—there is shrubbery between the houses, but why take the chance? Gabriella must be silenced.

  But wouldn’t intruders have simply used the same mysterious drug on Gabriella they’d used on her mother? Well, we know criminals are not particularly intelligent life-forms. If they were, they wouldn’t be c
riminals.

  If they’d only brought one dose of a drug along and they used it on the one competent adult they knew to be in the house, what would they do? They could smother the child, killing her outright, or, not seeing themselves as murderers, look for something handy to use.

  They find the Valium, bury it in some ice cream from the kitchen, and feed it to the little one. How easy. How simple.

  “Perhaps,” Mark continued, “whoever gave Gabriella the tranquilizer did not intend to kill her. We do not know.” That had become his mantra: We do not know. Brilliant to identify himself with the authorities. With all of us citizens. We. We do not know. We wish we did. If we did, we could put the correct individuals on trial.

  “Then,” he said at one point, “they carried on with their plot to rob the house, didn’t they?”

  “Objection, Your Honor!” shrieked Beck-Rubin.

  Judge Davenport sustained.

  Mark pondered. A calm flip of the coat. A stroke of the jaw.

  “They might have carried on with their plot to rob the house.”

  The judge almost laughed, and Mark kept going, conjuring the picture he wanted through his witnesses, one by one:

  The intruders were sloppy. They left behind clues—the coffee cup, the cigarette butt, the hat in the juniper bush.

  Patiently, Mark fired his affable questions.

  Now, this scenario fits the facts, doesn’t it?

  Home invasions happen in Los Angeles almost every day, unfortunately, don’t they?

  I ask you, does this fit the facts: that a stable, well-balanced mother would murder her own child, then clumsily try to blame it on strangers?

  He got a witness, a police psychiatrist, to say it: “No, that does not fit. It does not fit at all.”

  “It does not fit at all,” Mark repeated, taking a wide, nothing-to-hide stance. “That’s what you said, correct? It does not fit.” Just brilliant. Gary would have been proud. Beck-Rubin was able to achieve next to nothing on her crosses.

  At lunch recess I got on the phone with Jeff’s employer, Continental Pavilions. His secretary told me he hadn’t come into work. She acted fishy, though, not directly answering me as to whether she’d heard from him.