Accused sf-2

by Mark Gimenez

  "But you're pretty enough to have gotten into SMU."

  "I was smart enough to get into Rice."

  "Oh. So how'd you hook up with these guys?"

  "I worked for Scott at Ford Stevens. Didn't care for that life, so I left to help them with Shawanda's case. Plus, I fell for a certain handsome lawyer."

  "But she married me," Bobby said.

  "Don't make me laugh, Bobby, I'll pee in my pants again."

  "Diaper."

  "You'll be a great father, Bobby," Rebecca said. "Seems like yesterday we were all at SMU… What happened to all that curly hair?"

  "Too much testosterone. Makes you go bald."

  "Oh, that explains it," Karen said. "I've gained forty pounds and he still can't keep his hands off me."

  "I've only gained thirty," Bobby said, digging his spoon into the ice cream carton.

  They talked and laughed and ate shrimp and drank beer, as if they were on a family vacation. Scott wished they were. But they were there because the man who had taken his wife was dead.

  "Those were good times back then," Rebecca said.

  "Last time we were down here, that spring break," Bobby said, "I almost got into a fight at the Balinese with some UT guys. Scotty saved me."

  Boo sat up. "A. Scott got into a fight at the Village," she said. "Mother, it was so exciting!"

  "A fight?" Rebecca said. "At a shopping center?"

  "He beat up a car with his nine-iron," Boo said.

  "Why?"

  "Because I didn't have a three-wood," Scott said.

  "Because the bad man followed me and Pajamae there," Boo said. "So I called A. Scott and he came and broke out the windows on the man's car with his golf club, then the man drove off. It was great."

  "What bad man?"

  "McCall's goon," Scott said.

  "When was this?"

  "The day you left," Boo said.

  "Oh."

  There was an awkward moment of silence. Everyone stared at the sand. Scott stood. "Okay, time for bed."

  "Can Mother stay here? She can sleep with us."

  "She's going home." To Rebecca: "Where is your home?"

  She pointed west into the darkness. "About two miles down the beach. But I can't go home."

  "Why not?"

  "The police told me not to go back when they released me from jail, said it was still a crime scene, said I can't even get my clothes."

  "They've got to finish processing the house soon. Then you can go back."

  "I don't think so. A lawyer for Trey's sister sent me a letter in jail, said I wouldn't be allowed back in, that she was the administrator of his estate and the sole beneficiary. Said she owns the house now, that I have no legal right to enter."

  "I need to see that letter."

  "Scott, I'll stay at a hotel… if you'll loan me the money."

  Scott had put the beach house on his credit card. Four thousand dollars for two months. Now a hotel room for Rebecca. Another expense he couldn't afford.

  "Miz Fenney," Louis said, "you can have my room. Me and Carlos, we'll bunk in."

  Carlos finished off his beer then said, "You snore?"

  Louis shrugged. "How would I know?"

  Boo jumped up and tugged on her mother until she stood. "Come on, we'll have a sleepover. The three of us. You, me, and Pajamae."

  Rebecca looked to Scott. He looked out to sea. The horizon was dotted with the lights of a dozen oil tankers lined up at the entrance to the Ship Channel, transporting oil from the Middle East to refineries in Texas, no longer the center of the crude oil universe. Scott Fenney had once been the center of his wife's universe, or so he had thought; now he was again, but for the law instead of love. He turned back to her and nodded.

  Rebecca Fenney would stay that night and every night until the verdict was read.

  NINE

  Scott was running the beach at first light.

  Knowing that after almost two years Rebecca was again sleeping in the same house-in a bed just on the other side of two Sheetrock panels thin enough that he could hear her every movement-had kept him tossing and turning all night… and recalling memorable moments from their sex life. So when the sunlight hit the blinds of his room, he put on his shorts and running shoes and hit the sand.

  He ran west, away from the rising sun. The wet sand glistened in the morning light and felt spongy beneath his shoes. The tide was out, and the beach sat wide, filled with a fresh assortment of seashells and sand crabs scurrying sideways and jellyfish stranded out of water. Seagulls picked over dead fish, and a pelican stood witness. The wind was down, the sea smooth, and the waves low swells instead of whitecaps. The air was fresh, and the beach was his.

  He ran hard to burn up his desire for her. All that time without her, now they were suddenly living together again. He hadn't bargained for that. But then, he wasn't sure what he had bargained for when he agreed to defend her. It wasn't a lawyerly decision; it was a manly decision. He needed to know how he had failed her as a man.

  Scott Fenney did not have to confront his past during that morning's run-because he was now living it.

  Shortly after Rebecca had left him, a Dallas divorce lawyer who had suffered the same marital fate had shared with Scott his "seven stages of wife desertion":

  (1) disbelief-you're numb with shock that your wife had actually left you for another man;

  (2) denial-you decide she must have a brain tumor, the only plausible explanation for such bizarre behavior;

  (3) anger-you lash out at her for betraying you;

  (4) remorse-you promise to change if she will only return so life can be the same again;

  (5) shame-you isolate yourself because you know that everywhere you go everyone knows;

  (6) blame-she left you and your child, but somehow you failed her. You blame yourself. It was your fault.

  The first five stages, Scott had discovered, pass in due course. But the blame stage lasts… forever? And only when he had escaped from the sixth stage would he embark on the final stage: (7) recovery.

  Would he ever recover from Rebecca Fenney?

  He saw her in the distance, a lone figure dressed in white standing on the beach before a stark white house rising in sharp relief against the blue morning sky. The sun's rays highlighted her and the house and made them both glow. The sand rose up from the beach to a low manmade earthen dune, the developer's apparent attempt to tame the sea. The front portion of the house sat atop the dune, the back half atop tall stilts. But this was not a beach bungalow rented out to tourists and college kids on spring break. It was a four-story multimillion-dollar residence with a second-story deck extending out toward the sea; stairs led from the deck down to the beach. Yellow crime scene tape stretched between police barricades staked out around the perimeter of the house. He stopped running and walked to her. She felt his presence and turned to him. Tears ran down her face.

  "I dreamed last night that he was just at a tournament, and he came back. How can he be gone?"

  She buried her face in his bare chest. Her tears felt cool on his hot skin, and she felt good in his arms. No matter what she had done to him, they still shared a child. When a man and a woman come together and create another human being, they forge a bond that is never broken. The marriage might break, but that bond does not. And so he now embraced that woman, the mother of his child, not the woman who had deserted him for another man. He held her and let her cry until she had cried out. Only then did he say, "Rebecca, what happened that night?"

  "I woke up and found him. Dead."

  "Before that."

  She wiped her face. "We had dinner at Gaido's."

  "What time?"

  "Seven."

  "Did you drink?"

  "We both did."

  "Were you drunk?"

  "We were celebrating."

  "What?"

  She hesitated and turned away. "Trey asked me to marry him."

  "After two years?"

  She shrugged.

  "
What did you say?"

  "I said yes."

  Two years and it still hurt.

  "Who saw you there?"

  "Other locals… Ricardo, our regular waiter."

  "Did you argue?"

  "With Ricardo?"

  "With Trey."

  "No. We were happy. It was a special night."

  "Did Ricardo hear Trey propose to you?"

  "I don't think so. But we told him later."

  "Then what happened?"

  "We came home."

  "Who drove?"

  "Trey. He never let me drive the Bentley."

  "He had a Bentley?"

  "Convertible. It's in the garage."

  "What time did you get home?"

  "Ten."

  "Long dinner."

  "Like I said, it was a special night."

  "Then what?"

  "We took a walk on the beach. Right here. Then we went to bed."

  "What time?"

  "Eleven. Trey was going to get up early, practice for the Open."

  "Then you woke up?"

  "I was cold."

  Her eyes fixed on the deck above them. Her voice was dispassionate, as if she had been a third-party observer of the events that night.

  "The bedroom's right there, just off the deck. We slept with the French doors open, to hear the waves. I got up to close the doors, but I came out onto the deck. It's quiet out here, just the waves… the sea spray hit me, I wiped my face… but I still felt wet… I looked down at myself, saw something dark all over me… I ran back inside, turned the lights on… blood was everywhere… all over him… all over me. I slept in his blood."

  She started crying again. He put an arm around her shoulders.

  "Rebecca-"

  He waited until she turned to him. He needed to look into her eyes when he asked the next question-and when she answered.

  — "did you kill him?"

  She did not avert her eyes.

  "No. I swear to God. Scott, I loved him."

  And Scott Fenney had loved her. Maybe he still did. He wasn't sure. But he was sure about one thing: after eleven years of marriage-eleven years sharing the same bed-he knew her. Rebecca Fenney was not a murderer.

  They walked back to the beach house and found Consuela and Louis cooking breakfast, Karen feeding Maria-the baby wasn't taking to the broccoli any better that day-and Bobby, Carlos, and the girls watching TV. Boo jumped up and ran to him.

  "A. Scott, we've got cable!"

  "Just for the summer-and only the Disney Channel."

  She looked at him with an expression that said, As if, but she said, "Did you check your pulse?"

  "No."

  "Do you feel faint or dizzy? Are you experiencing chest pain?"

  "Boo, I feel fine. Stop worrying."

  She frowned and turned to Rebecca. "Mother, you were gone when we woke up."

  "I took a walk on the beach."

  "I would've gone with you."

  "Get dressed, Bobby," Scott said. "We're going to see the D.A. And bring the camcorder. Karen, take Rebecca's statement."

  "Mr. Fenney," Louis said, "how about some pancakes and sausage?"

  "Maybe one. Or two. Of each."

  "Coming right up."

  "Louis, go over to Gaido's today… Carlos, you go with him, you might need to translate. Talk to a waiter named Ricardo. Find out what he knows, if he saw any strangers there Thursday night, someone who seemed interested in Trey." Scott went into the kitchen and stepped close to Louis; he faced away from the room and said in a low voice, "Ask him if he heard Trey propose to Rebecca."

  Louis nodded. Scott turned back to the room.

  "Let's go, boys and girls, it's a work day."

  Scott ate breakfast then showered and dressed in what would be his standard Island attire: jeans, topsiders, and a knit shirt. He only wore suits to court now, a benefit of not working in a large law firm, albeit one that did not quite offset the $750,000 salary. He went downstairs and out to the back deck where Karen was interviewing Rebecca. He paused and observed his ex-wife like a juror observing the defendant's demeanor. She was the accused and the only eyewitness. The jury would have to believe Rebecca Fenney.

  "Rebecca," Karen said, "what'd you do after you came back inside and found Trey lying in bed with a knife in his chest?"

  "I called nine-one-one."

  "From the bedroom?"

  "Yes."

  "What'd you do after you made the call?"

  "I stayed on the phone until the police arrived."

  "You didn't give him CPR?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "There was so much blood… I knew…"

  "Do you have a life insurance policy on Trey?"

  "No."

  "Any joint bank accounts?"

  "No. I don't even have a bank account."

  "How'd you pay your bills?"

  "I didn't. Trey did. Or his accountant did."

  "What's his name, the accountant?"

  "Tom Taylor. He has an office on the Strand."

  "How'd you buy things?"

  "He gave me money. Trey."

  "How much did he give you, at any one time?"

  "A thousand, sometimes more."

  "Cash?"

  "Yes."

  "What'd you buy?"

  "Stocks and bonds." She shrugged. "What else? Clothes and jewelry."

  "Did he give you money that day?"

  She nodded. "He was going to the club to practice all day, for the Open. He told me to go to Houston, buy something sexy. I guess because he was planning to propose that night."

  "What'd you buy that day?"

  "The necessities-lingerie and shoes."

  "Where?"

  "Victoria's Secret, Jimmy Choo… at the Galleria."

  "When did you return?"

  "About six. Then we went to dinner."

  "Are you in his will?"

  "I never asked."

  "Why not?"

  "I wasn't his wife." Rebecca held an envelope out to Scott. "Here's that letter, from Terri's lawyer."

  Scott removed and read the letter. A Galveston lawyer named Melvyn Burke was representing the Estate of Trey Rawlins. Trey had died intestate-without a will-which made Terri Rawlins, his sister and only surviving relative, the sole beneficiary of his estate. Everything Trey owned would go to her. Rebecca would get nothing. Melvyn Burke instructed Rebecca not to enter the house or to remove any of the contents thereof. He also advised that she was not invited to Trey's funeral services and would not be allowed to enter the church.

  "You ever meet this Melvyn Burke?"

  Rebecca shook her head. "I didn't know Trey had a lawyer on the Island."

  Karen continued her interview of Rebecca. "So you didn't stand to gain financially from Trey's death?"

  " Gain? I've got nothing now. No house, no car, no money, no clothes, no jewelry-nothing."

  "You have a child who still loves you."

  The two women regarded each other like fighters facing off before a boxing match. Rebecca finally broke away and glanced up at Scott, as if hoping he'd come to her defense. He couldn't. He could defend her against a murder charge, but not against deserting her child. She sighed and turned back to her pregnant interrogator.

  "Karen, don't judge me as a mother until you've been one for a while."

  Karen's eyes dropped to her belly for a moment, then she looked back at Rebecca.

  "That last night, did you and Trey have sex?"

  " Karen. "

  Rebecca again glanced up at Scott.

  "Goes to motive."

  She sighed again. "Yes."

  "Where?" Karen asked.

  "On the beach. There's never anyone out here now, since Ike."

  "What were you wearing?"

  "Lingerie I bought that day."

  "What exactly?"

  She ducked her eyes. "White silk babydoll and matching thong."

  "Did you change before you went to bed?"

 
"No. Why?"

  "DNA. His. To prove up the sex."

  "They took my clothes, the police."

  Karen nodded. "Evidence. Were any valuables missing from the house?"

  "I don't know. They arrested me that morning, I haven't been back."

  "Were you and Trey here all week?"

  "We flew in Sunday night, from California."

  "Why wasn't he playing last week?"

  "He had just won the Challenge, he wanted to take a week off before the Open-the U.S. Open-to rest and practice. It's a major."

  Scott had heard enough. For now.

  "Karen," he said, "get a detailed timeline for that day, for Rebecca and Trey. We'll meet out here at the end of each day for status reports and strategy sessions."

  Scott turned to Bobby, who had been standing by the stairs and observing the interview.

  "Let's go meet the enemy."

  TEN

  Galveston County Criminal District Attorney Rex Truitt focused through his black reading glasses and tied off a big blue squiggly lure. He seemed pleased.

  "Relaxes me."

  "Tying lures?" Scott said.

  "Fishing."

  "Good thing you live on an island."

  The D.A. looked like Ernest Hemingway with a law degree. He was sixty-three years old, burly, and BOI-born on the Island. His unruly hair and neat beard were white against ruddy skin that evidenced a long life lived on that sun-baked stretch of sand, except for seven years in Austin attending college and law school at the University of Texas. He had served as the D.A. for the last twenty-eight years and would retire in two. He wore a white short-sleeve shirt and a solid blue tie loosened at the neck; two thick cigars peeked out of his shirt pocket. The coat to his seersucker suit hung on a rack. He sat behind a wood desk in his wood-paneled office on the first floor of the Galveston County Courts Building; on the desk were a dozen colorful lures and two thick black binders. Photos of the D.A. golfing and fishing hung on the side walls and mounted high on the wall behind him was an eight-foot-long blue sailfish. He

  presided over an office that employed thirty-nine assistant criminal district attorneys, four investigators, and twenty-five support staff, all working full-time prosecuting criminal defendants in Galveston County, Texas, population 285,000.

  Scott and Bobby sat across the desk from him. Ensconced in a chair along the wall was a tanned young man wearing a slick suit, a silk tie, and shiny shoes. He had a full head of black hair and a sharp face, like a rat. Assistant Criminal District Attorney Theodore Newman had assumed the imperial pose of Michael Corleone in The Godfather after he had taken over the family business.