by Angela Hunt
“Miss Lester!” the closest woman shouts, shoving a recorder into Briley’s face. “What can you tell us about Erin Tomassi’s case?”
Briley focuses on the parking garage in the distance as the wind slaps her cheeks with frigid fingers. “Erin Tomassi entered a not-guilty plea this morning before Judge Hollister,” she says, weighing each word before she speaks it. “That’s it for now.”
“Can you tell us how you plan to defend her? Your personal theory of the case? Is it true that Jeffrey Tomassi was having an affair with a flight attendant?”
Briley glares at the male reporter who released the barrage of questions. “We are not prepared to make further comments at this time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe I have the right to cross the street unimpeded.”
A couple of the reporters grin and step aside, but the impudent man keeps yelling as she pushes her way down the remaining steps. “Have you subpoenaed Jeffrey Tomassi’s phone records? What about the twin brother? Is it true that Jeffrey and Jason frequently exchanged roles to fool unsuspecting women?”
Briley lowers her head and steps into the street, more willing to trust the oncoming traffic than the rabble of reporters.
Chapter Seventeen
Briley hands cash to the parking lot attendant, takes her receipt, then pulls out of the garage and into traffic, careful to avoid the fresh wall of snow piled at the curb. Flurries blow past her windshield, shimmying and dancing to the thump of rap music from a vehicle in the next lane.
She braces her elbow against the door as a traffic light turns red and her car crawls to a halt behind a green Hyundai. At this rate, she’ll never get back to the office before lunch, and she needs at least an hour to review Bystrowski’s file before she heads to the jail. After studying the material and speaking to her client, she ought to be able to formulate a defense strategy.
Though Franklin and others in the firm would probably advise her to delay as much as possible, she can’t help thinking about Erin Tomassi spending the holidays in jail. The “old wine defense”—delaying a case as long as possible—might benefit a defendant who is out on bail. But her present client doesn’t look like the sort who will be able to handle a long stint behind bars. Her fragile demeanor, that porcelain skin…not even the shapeless jail uniform can disguise the fact that Erin Tomassi looks like a pampered princess. And the hardened inmates of the Cook County Jail tend to resent princesses.
Even Briley could find it easy to resent Erin Tomassi. Despite the article that portrayed Erin as a girl from the working class, she obviously traveled an easy road after marrying Jeffrey Tomassi. The newspaper had mentioned two homes, a housekeeper, and a jet-set lifestyle that kept the Tomassis busy flying from one five-star hotel to the next.
Briley can’t remember the last time she stayed in a five-star hotel. And, being single, she’s had to work for almost everything she owns.
A smile crawls to her lips as a voice rises from her memory. “And who crowned you the Queen of Everything?” her father would chide whenever she complained about working around the house. “Get off the couch and help me with the dishes. Then we can sit down and tackle your algebra.”
A car honks, startling her out of her reverie. She steps on the gas and her car lurches forward, carrying her through the intersection and back to her place at the Hyundai’s rear bumper.
No, Erin Tomassi doesn’t look like she grew up scrubbing dishes. She won’t have to work at the Cook County Jail, either, but she might find the routine tedious. No afternoon teas, no formal dances, no shopping trips, unless you count the occasional jaunt to the commissary to buy shampoo and underwear.
Still, Briley can’t help but feel a small stirring of sympathy for her client. She can’t think of anything more horrible than spending the holidays locked up…unless it’s spending Christmas alone in the dorm at boarding school. She’s done that, and she would never want to do it again.
She wouldn’t wish that kind of loneliness on her worst enemy.
Chapter Eighteen
Erin shuffles into the interview room and stands without moving until the guard releases her handcuffs and shackles. Briley Lester is already sitting at the table, several stacks of papers spread before her. Her face seems to be in a fully uptight and locked expression, a look that doesn’t exactly fill Erin with confidence.
After the guard leaves, she rubs the bones of her wrist and approaches the table. “Thanks for coming,” she says, sliding into a plastic chair. “I didn’t really expect to see you again so soon.”
The lawyer looks up, surprise in her eyes. “Why? I said I’d come.”
Erin lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “After a few days in this place, you learn not to expect too much.”
Ms. Lester tilts her head, as if urging her to explain, but Erin looks away, unwilling to spell out the obvious. The woman didn’t want this case; apparently no one at her firm did. So Erin’s been stuck with a reluctant lawyer, one who will go through the motions and shake her head in regret when the court finds her guilty of murder.
So here they are, beginning the attorney-client dance. Other than “I didn’t do it,” she has no idea what she’s supposed to say to this woman.
The sound of voices intrudes on the silence, an inaudible exchange of taunts and retorts that grows louder as a prisoner and two guards move down the hallway. Erin presses her hand to her forehead as the shrill sound of female cursing seeps through the concrete walls, accompanied by the jingle of chains and the creak of a guard’s leather belt. Finally, the noisy procession moves away, but not before reminding Erin of what appears to be an inevitable future.
After an awkward moment, the attorney clears her throat. “I’ve been reading the police report,” she says, folding her hands. “And I can see why they felt they had enough evidence to make an arrest. Your home was sealed tight—video cameras covered the front and back doors and your security system was armed and functioning properly. No one tripped the alarm that night. The video cameras didn’t pick up any signs of an intruder. So apparently you and your husband were the only two people in the house.”
Erin shivers as a subterranean tremor passes through her. “I never blamed Jeffrey’s death on an intruder. If the police are trying to make me look like a liar—”
“They’re not. At least you’re not on the record as saying someone broke in. But if you didn’t kill your husband, and he didn’t kill himself, then someone else injected him with that overdose. Simple logic tells us that much.”
“I didn’t kill him.”
“Your fingerprints are on the syringe. How’d they get there?”
“I don’t know. I never handled his medical supplies, and those syringes come in a paper wrapper. If my prints are on a syringe, someone put them there.”
The lawyer’s mouth dips in a cynical smile. “You’re kidding, right? I need you to be honest with me.”
“I am being honest—I don’t know what happened. After the banquet, we came home and I went to bed. I took a sleeping pill. In fact I took a double dose.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“I didn’t care.” Erin lowers her gaze to the tabletop, where some unimaginative prisoner has scratched a series of vulgar suggestions. “I felt dead. A bomb could have gone off, and I don’t think I’d have heard it. The next morning, I woke up and went into the kitchen. When I finally checked on Jeffrey, he was dead.”
“The medical examiner estimates the time of death at about 2:00 a.m.,” Ms. Lester says, glancing at a paper in one of her stacks. “What time did you go to bed?”
Erin rubs her temple with her fingertips, trying to remember. “We came home…around midnight. I had a headache. I went to bed about an hour later.”
“Did your husband go to bed before or after you?”
“Maybe a little after, but not much. He was tired, and he never let me go to bed without him.”
Erin’s pulse skips a beat when the lawyer shoots her a questioning look. “He never let you?”
Ms. Lester asks.
She shrugs. “Jeff had strong opinions about certain things. He wanted us to be together…nearly all the time.”
The lawyer consults her notes again. “What did you do between midnight and one? Did you talk about the evening? Did you argue?”
“I put away our formal wear and got ready for bed.”
The lawyer stares at her, then blinks. “It takes you an hour to change clothes?”
“They were expensive clothes.” Erin attempts a smile, but the effort feels more like a facial twitch.
“Erin.” The lawyer shoves her papers aside and leans forward, her eyes widening. “I know you barely know me, but I’m your attorney. You can tell me anything, and I need you to tell me everything you can remember about that night. We might find some clue you’ve overlooked—something to give us an insight into what your husband was thinking and feeling. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life in prison because he made a careless mistake, do you?”
Erin presses her lips together as tears sting her eyes. “His name was Jeffrey…and he rarely made mistakes.”
Ms. Lester straightens and picks up her pen. “So tell me what happened after you and Jeffrey got home.”
Erin studies her hands as a tear rolls down her cheek. “We had an argument. Jeffrey had been irritated with me all day. The argument started before the fundraiser began. He was yelling at me in the hotel suite when his dad came up to see if we were ready.”
“What was the argument about?”
“I think—I think it started because I forgot to pack his silk socks.”
Surprise flickers over the lawyer’s face like heat lightning.
“Oh, I don’t blame him for being upset. I meant to pack his socks, but in all the excitement I grabbed an ordinary nylon pair. We were busy in the suite all day, talking to party leaders and all, so we only had a few minutes to dress before the banquet. Jeffrey got upset when he couldn’t find his silk socks. Like I said, it was all my fault.”
The lawyer gives Erin an uncertain look. “You got into a fight…over socks.”
Erin nods. “Jeffrey doesn’t handle disappointment well. Anyway, when Antonio came upstairs, he asked me to leave the room. I did, but I stood at the bedroom door and heard him warn Jeff about being hard on me in public. That only made Jeffrey even more furious, so we argued again while we were waiting for the event to begin. Later, while we were dancing, he said he wasn’t finished with me.” She looks away as shame bubbles up from the secret place in her heart. “I knew I was going to get it when we got home.”
“Wait a minute. What do you mean, ‘get it’?”
Erin presses her hands to her flaming cheeks. In the five years she’s been married to Jeffrey Tomassi, no one has dared ask this question. Evidence of his brutality has been viewed by hotel maids, family housekeepers, campaign workers, various relatives, even her father-in-law. All sorts of people have glimpsed her bruises and heard Jeffrey’s shouting; they have seen the black look in his eye when he turned to her, upper lip curled and fist clenched….
But in the winding and torturous length of their marriage, no one has ever asked what he did when they were alone together.
“I don’t think you want to know,” she whispers, keeping her gaze lowered.
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want an answer,” Ms. Lester says, her voice clipped. “Let me put it this way—were you an abused wife? Did that man hit you?”
Without speaking, Erin closes her eyes and grips the hem of her prison shirt. She lifts it, knowing that her ribs are still faintly colored with greenish bruises.
She can’t help hearing the other woman’s quick intake of breath.
“Are you saying Jeffrey Tomassi did that on the night he died?”
Erin nods.
“That was nearly two weeks ago.” Ms. Lester narrows her eyes. “Did the matrons see this when you were admitted? When they searched you?”
Erin feels her cheeks flame. “I told them I fell up the stairs.”
“And they believed you?”
“They seemed to.”
“Did your husband hit you often?”
Erin swallows. “As often as he liked.”
“Do you have proof? Photographs? Were you ever treated at a hospital for your injuries?”
Erin drops her shirt. “Jeff was always clever. He hit me where it wouldn’t show. He had me wear long sleeves when my arms were bruised. Once he broke my ribs, but he wouldn’t let me go to the hospital.”
“You should have gone.” The words fall like rainwater from the lawyer’s lips, spoken without understanding.
“That would only make things worse.” Erin meets Ms. Lester’s horrified gaze. “I was surrounded by people who knew what Jeffrey was doing. But they adored him and wouldn’t allow anything to harm his image. It was easier to ignore me…. Besides, I filled a useful role.”
“What, the candidate’s punching bag?”
“Something like that. As long as Jeffrey could come home and take his frustrations out on me, they were pretty much spared from his tantrums. No one would ever admit it, but I think they were relieved I was around. He had this one friend…Terry Rhodes, who helped with the campaign…Anyway, Terry once saw him hit me. He turned and walked out of the room.”
A livid hue spreads over the other woman’s face. “No woman deserves to be beaten. You should have been an equal partner in his team—”
“How old are you, Ms. Lester?”
The question catches the lawyer by surprise. Her eyes widen and a blush deepens the color on her cheeks. “I’m almost thirty. And please, call me Briley.”
“I’m twenty-eight. But right now I feel about ten years older than you…Briley.”
The attorney leans back in her chair and crosses her arms as thought works in her eyes. “We could make a case for Jeffrey’s being emotionally disturbed. He may have looked polished on the outside, but a man who beats his wife has obvious mental problems. We could theorize that he purposely injected himself with a massive dose of insulin because he was overcome with remorse for the way he treated you that evening.”
Erin shakes her head. “I’m not sure you should mention those things.”
“Why not?”
“I thought lawyers were supposed to be bright.”
Briley exhales in a rush. “If you’re thinking the abuse provides a motive…”
“Doesn’t it?” Erin’s voice cracks as she offers a truth she hasn’t dared verbalize until this moment. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished Jeffrey were dead. I have, and I know it’s wrong. But I didn’t kill him. Murder is a mortal sin, and I’d never hurt anyone on purpose. I can’t even kill a bug.”
Briley lowers her hand to Erin’s arm. “You need to let me be the lawyer. Let’s get the facts of the case on the table, then we’ll formulate a strategy. But first, I need to know everything about you and Jeffrey—where you met, how you got together, when his violence began. Can you take me back to the beginning?”
Erin dashes more wetness from her eyes, then takes a deep breath and nods.
Chapter Nineteen
Briley steps through the gates of the Oak Woods Cemetery and strides down the paved road that leads to her father’s resting place. She breathes in the woodsy scent of the evergreen wreath in her arms, then shifts her gaze to study a group of tourists gathered around the red granite tombstone of Jesse Owens.
No crowds will ever gather around her father’s memorial; his circle of influence did not extend far beyond Chicago’s West Side. But he was everything to her—mother, father, pastor, teacher, adviser. She couldn’t follow him into the ministry—she could never submit to a God who abandoned his servants at their most vulnerable—nor could she ever give herself as completely as he did. But there’s no denying she is who she is because of what happened to him.
Her father’s cemetery plot rests under an aging red cedar, its branches dusted with snow. She bends to brush a layer of powder from the top of the simp
le gravestone, then props her wreath against the granite face. After glancing around to be sure she won’t be disturbing any other mourners, she steps back and takes a deep breath. “Hey, Dad. Sorry it’s been a while.”
In the distance, she hears the roar of passing traffic on East Sixty-seventh Street. No one will bother her, though. No one ever does.
“I have a new case—a murder trial. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the partners swooped in and took it from me, but so far they’ve left me alone. I’m a little nervous. The victim was high profile and the evidence against my client is pretty daunting. But there are extenuating circumstances…and you always told me never to judge a woman until I’ve walked a mile in her stilettos.”
She smiles as the cedar rustles in evergreen applause. “I’ve got to put together a theory of the case, something I can believe well enough to sell to the jury. Trouble is, I’m not sure what I believe. My client seems sincere, but fingerprints don’t lie. And the state’s attorney has video proof that the husband and wife were alone that night. One of them had to do it, right? Either the husband or the wife?”
Beside the pathway, a streetlamp begins to glow, activated by the gloom seeping from a bruised and swollen sky. They should have snow tonight, a deep blanket of it.
“I know I’ll figure something out,” Briley tells her father. “Sure wish you were here. Timothy’s not around much these days. We’re still together, but he’s taken on a new client, a movie star who’s really messed up. He’s not only an addict, he’s also spoiled rotten. Apparently he needs Tim’s approval to go to the bathroom.”
Voices rise from somewhere beyond the crest of a hill, probably a tourist group making their way back to the main gate. They are cold, night is approaching, and this is no place for an unarmed woman to be alone after dark.
“I love you, Dad.” She reaches out to adjust a drooping poinsettia petal in the wreath. “I miss you. And I’ll be thinking of you at Christmas.”
