Sweet Anger

by Sandra Brown

  “This is Hunter McKee.”

  I know damned well who it is, she wanted to shout. Stubbornly she remained silent.

  “How are you?”

  She gritted her teeth. “Does it matter?”

  “Believe it or not, it does.”

  “Well I don’t believe it, Mr. McKee. If my well-being were your concern, you wouldn’t be carrying out this campaign to discredit my late husband.”

  “It isn’t a campaign. It’s an execution of duty.”

  “It’s an execution of reputation. Thomas’s.”

  He ignored the interruption and went on. “The purpose behind the investigation was not to discredit anyone, especially your late husband.”

  “That’s not the way I interpret the headlines.”

  “Then your interpretation is wrong.”

  She laughed shortly. “You’re making your name a household word. Do you deny you’re using this trial to gain the public’s attention? What better way to win voters than to produce thieving civil servants, robbers of hard-earned tax dollars? You’re making certain that the post of D.A. will be permanently yours, aren’t you?”

  “I’ll admit I want to hold the position permanently, yes.”

  “And you’ll condemn an innocent man in order to win it.” She was breathing hard. One fist was clenched around the telephone, the other hand was balled at her side.

  “If you’re so certain of Wynne’s innocence, why won’t you help me? If you’ll recall, I gave you the opportunity weeks ago.”

  “I can’t help you. I told you that weeks ago, too.”

  “Can’t you?” he asked softly

  His tone made her wary. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you have documents in your possession, records your husband kept that might shed light on the case; prove his innocence?”

  She sank into the nearest chair, rubbing her forehead with her three middle fingers. Was that it? He thought she was withholding evidence. Didn’t he think she would have turned it over if she had discovered anything? Then again, she didn’t even want him to know she had searched. That would be tantamount to admitting the possibility of Thomas’s guilt, wouldn’t it? By an act of will she shook off the depression and fatigue that weighed her down, not wanting to reveal a trace of weakness.

  “You want me to let you paw through Thomas’s personal effects, is that it?”

  An exasperated sigh preceded his clipped reply. “I wouldn’t put it that way.”

  “But that’s what you want?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “I can’t help you, Mr. McKee. When I moved from the house, I took only a few items that had special significance to me and left the rest for his children to handle as they saw fit.”

  “I’ve gone through those things, with Mr. Wynne’s attorney present, I might add. I found nothing incriminating in them.”

  “Then that should be your answer!” she exclaimed.

  “I found nothing to absolve him, either,” he retorted. “You know as well as I do that a man who has as many irons in the fire as your husband did is bound to keep several sets of books. Do you have them, Ms. Stewart?”

  “No!” The truth of it was, she didn’t. Thomas had never written anything down, not telephone numbers, addresses, errands to run, things to pack, nothing. He carried information in his head. In desperation she asked, “Do you think I’m deliberately trying to keep something from you? What’s that called?”

  “Obstruction of justice.”

  “Do you think I’m guilty of that?”

  “Are you?”

  “No.”

  “You’ll swear to that?”

  “Yes.”

  After a lengthy silence, he sighed heavily. “That’s just what you’ll have to do then, Ms. Stewart. I’ve tried to spare you an appearance in court, but you’ve forced me to put you on the witness stand.”

  “I have nothing to hide.”

  She prayed he would hang up. The tense silence between them was almost palpable. What more could either of them say? Yet he made her feel much had been left unsaid. At last he muttered a gruff “good night” and hung up.

  She laid the telephone back in its cradle. The simple task seemed to require all her energy. Then she tried to stand. That was when she felt the first cramp.

  Pinkie was nursing a bottle of Scotch and watching an old John Wayne movie on TV when his telephone rang.

  “Yeah?”

  “Pinkie?” Her voice was weak, but he knew who it was. He pulled his stockinged feet from the coffee table, knocking over a bowl of potato chips in the process.

  “Kari? What’s the matter?” He didn’t have to ask if something was wrong. Something definitely was. He only wanted to know what.

  “I’m bleeding.” Her voice cracked. “I think I’m losing my baby.”

  “Your baby!?” he shouted. Blasphemous language poured through his lips. “I’ll be right there.”

  He arrived at her condominium within twenty minutes. Bonnie, her hair wound in pink foam curlers, was with him. He had picked her up on his way over. Leaning weakly against the door, Kari let them in. Her eyes were red from weeping.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said needlessly. “I called the doctor. He thinks I should come to the hospital just … to … uh … be sure.” Then she collapsed against Bonnie and began to sob rackingly. “I’ve lost my baby. Thomas’s baby. It’s gone. Oh, God. My baby, my baby.”

  “More soup?”

  Kari smiled wanly. “No, thank you, but it was delicious. I don’t remember anyone ever making me homemade chicken soup before.”

  Bonnie lifted the tray off Kari’s lap and patted her hand. “Do you want anything else? A Coke? Juice? The doctor said you must build up your blood sugar.”

  “Nothing for now, thanks. You’ve both been terrific. I don’t know what I would have done without you. First Thomas’s … accident. Then the scandal. Now this.” Her voice trailed off and she lowered her eyes to the satin border of the blanket she was pleating between her fingers.

  She had been home less than an hour after spending the night in the hospital. Bonnie and Pinkie had driven her home. They were fussing over her like mother hens, making her a bed on the living room sofa, fetching and carrying, talking softly. She was reminded of the days just following Thomas’s funeral. In a grim way, their attitude was appropriate. Her baby had died.

  Pinkie was sitting across the room beside the open window. Bonnie had dictated that if he insisted on smoking, he had to sit by the window. With unaccustomed meekness, he had complied. Not out of deference to Bonnie, but to Kari. “How do you feel, sweetheart?”

  “Empty,” she said softly. Neither he nor Bonnie missed the fragile hand that smoothed down her concave abdomen.

  “For God’s sake, why didn’t you tell us you were pregnant? Why didn’t you—”

  “Pink-ie,” Bonnie ground out.

  He glowered at her and took a deep drag on his cigarette. “I was only going to say that if we had known, we would have made damned sure she took better care of herself.”

  “Don’t blame yourself, Pinkie,” Kari said. “There’s only one person to blame for this.” Hunter McKee, Hunter McKee, Hunter McKee, her brain chanted. How she hated the name.

  The doorbell startled them all. Pinkie jumped up to answer it. “Is Mrs. Kari Stewart Wynne here?” the uniformed official asked.

  “No,” Pinkie said curtly and was about to close the door.

  “It’s all right, Pinkie,” Kari said from her resting place. “I’ve been expecting this. It’s a subpoena, right?” she asked the official as he stepped around Pinkie into the room.

  “That’s right, ma’am.” He laid the document in her outstretched hand and took his leave as briskly as he’d come. Pinkie called him a rude name and slammed the door behind him.

  “I’m to appear in court on the seventeenth,” she said, reading from the subpoena.

  “The seventeenth?” Bonnie said. “That’s only—” />
  “The day after tomorrow!” Pinkie finished for her. “Out of the question. I’ll call McKee myself, tell him the circumstances, tell him—”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Kari said, springing erect. The sudden motion taxed her strength. She fell back onto the cushions. “I’ll be there when I’m supposed to be.”

  “But you can’t,” Pinkie protested. “You can barely make it from bed to chair. My God, Kari, you’ve had your insides scraped out. …”

  “Pinkie, shut up!” Bonnie yelled. “You’ve got about as much tact as a steamroller. Now be quiet.” Properly subdued, he hunched down in his chair. Bonnie knelt beside Kari and took her hand. “Honey, are you sure you should put yourself through that right now? It would be a terrible ordeal at any time, but now … Let us call him and say that you’ve been ill. We won’t mention the miscarriage if you don’t want us to. We’ll just say that you’re not feeling well.”

  “No,” Kari said firmly. “He’d think I was goldbricking to avoid facing him. I won’t let that man think I’m a coward. He called it, but it’s going to be my day in court.”

  She was wearing black.

  He saw her the instant she entered the courtroom. It was a two-piece suit with a cream-colored blouse underneath. The skirt was narrow. The jacket fit her to perfection. All that showed of the blouse were the bow beneath her chin and an inch of cuff at her wrists. Her hair had been pulled into a short curly ponytail at her nape, secured with a sedate black velvet ribbon. There were small pearls in her ears. Her green eyes were the only vibrant color about her. They looked unusually large in her pale face.

  They flickered toward him, stopped, and stared unblinkingly and emotionlessly, then gradually moved away. They didn’t come back.

  She looked like a victimized angel. He had never felt so villainous.

  Guy Brady, one of his junior assistants, whistled softly under his breath. “Jeez, what a looker she is. Even better in person than on TV.”

  Hunter swiveled around and scowled at him so menacingly that the young attorney quickly absorbed himself in the legal briefs spread out before him.

  As unobtrusively as possible, Hunter watched Kari. She took a seat in the second row. Accompanying her was a short, stocky yellow-haired man with a ruddy complexion. He hovered over her like a bodyguard.

  The judge’s entrance was announced; the court was called to order; Hunter proceeded with the case he had been building against the defendants for the last few days. He called two witnesses. Their testimonies were cut and dried and only repeated information the court had heard from previous witnesses. Cross-examination was equally as boring.

  The next name on Hunter’s list was Kari Stewart Wynne.

  He pondered the name. This was it. Do I or don’t I? If he didn’t call on her to testify, he might have a chance at winning her confidence, and then her friendship, and eventually … Maybe, but it was an optimistic pipe dream.

  If he did call her to the stand, he ruined his chances for anything.

  But it was his sworn duty to uphold justice. It wasn’t his fault her husband had been a crook. If he didn’t do what he knew he should, wouldn’t he be as guilty of dereliction of duty as the defendants?

  “Your Honor, I call Mrs. Kari Stewart Wynne to the witness stand.”

  A murmur rose from the spectators. Everyone knew her from television and unless they had been living under a rock for the past month, they were well acquainted with her connection to this case.

  “Do you think she’ll cooperate?” Guy asked out of the side of his mouth.

  “No,” Hunter answered as he watched her making her way to the witness box.

  “Then, why call her?”

  “If she won’t cooperate, the jury will wonder why, won’t they? They’ll automatically think ‘guilty.’ ”

  “She’s not on trial.”

  “No, but whether she wants to think so or not, her late husband is.”

  Guy gave Hunter a respectful nod, but Hunter didn’t see it. He was watching Kari being sworn in. The hand resting on the large black Bible looked as delicate as porcelain. He could see the faint blue veins, each fragile bone. He remembered holding her hand against his chest. It had weighed virtually nothing, yet it had left a lasting impression there that his imagination could conjure up at will.

  She took her seat and calmly met his gaze. His heart went into double time. Why did she have to be so damned beautiful? And why did he have to rip her to shreds? With a gesture of frustration, he put on his eyeglasses. “State your full name, please.”

  “Kari Elizabeth Stewart Wynne.”

  “You were married to Thomas Wynne?”

  “Yes.”

  “For how long?”

  She showed the first flicker of emotion. She seemed surprised by the question but answered it calmly. “Two years.”

  Of course the question had no real bearing on the case. Hunter had a personal reason for wanting to know. “Are you acquainted with Mr. Parker and Mr. Haynes?”

  “Yes.”

  “To what extent?”

  “They served on the city council with my husband … before his death.”

  Clever, this woman. She had slipped that in to make him look like the tormentor of hapless widows. Which was exactly what he felt like. If they weren’t already, the members of the jury would soon be eating out of her hand. He couldn’t let her get away with such sly tricks or even he himself might succumb to her charm.

  “While your husband served on the city council, did he often take trips?”

  “Yes.”

  “Business trips, pleasure trips? What kind of trips, Mrs. Wynne?”

  “My husband is dead. How can he be on trial?”

  Score two for her. Hunter addressed the judge. “Your Honor, would you please direct the witness to answer the question.”

  “Her husband isn’t on trial, Mr. McKee,” the judge reminded him.

  “No, Your Honor, he isn’t. But were he still alive I have no doubt that he would be. However, that is irrelevant. I do believe that this witness’s testimony could be relevant to the involvement of Mr. Parker and Mr. Haynes in the alleged misappropriation of funds.”

  “Very well. Proceed. Mrs. Wynne, you will please answer the question.”

  She wet her lips. “He often took business trips.”

  “Alone?”

  “I think so.”

  “But you’re not sure?”

  “Yes, alone,” she said with a conviction he knew was counterfeit. He was certain the jury knew it, too.

  “You never went with him?”

  “Not on business trips, no.”

  “Never?”

  “Not on business trips,” she repeated.

  He turned away from her abruptly and went to the table where Guy was ready with a file. He opened it and began shuffling through a stack of receipts. “You went with him on vacations, I suppose.”

  “Of course.”

  “Pleasure trips.”

  “Yes. Vacation trips, pleasure trips, whatever you want to call them.”

  He could tell by the way she shifted in her chair that she was growing impatient with this questioning that seemed to be going nowhere. But every time she glanced at the file he was consulting, he could discern her unwilling interest in it.

  “Would you consider the chartering of a private airplane to be the kind of luxury associated with a pleasure trip rather than one taken for business purposes?”

  The question was planned to confuse her, and as he had anticipated, she was unprepared to answer it. Weighing her answer in her mind, she stammered, “I’m not sure I understand—”

  He jumped in. “If a commercial airline is available to fly you from point A to point B, would you consider it a luxury to charter a private jet? A simple yes or no, Mrs. Wynne.”

  “I don’t—”

  “A simple yes or no.”

  “Yes!” she exclaimed.

  He retreated somewhat. He didn’t like the twin spots of c
olor that had bloomed in her cheeks, making the rest of her face look even more pale. Her fingers, gripped tightly together in her lap, looked bloodless. Had she lost weight?

  He forced his mind back to business. You want this conviction, don’t you? You don’t want these crooks who have been bleeding taxpayers for years to go free, do you? Then, get with the program, McKee, and stop thinking about her as a woman. Stop thinking that you’d much rather be holding her protectively than attacking her with leading questions. And for God’s sake, stop looking at her face like a lovesick calf.

  Impatiently he shoved his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. He noticed that Guy was looking at him curiously. Was his uneasiness that obvious? “And would you say that rented boats and limousines, etc., were also luxuries associated with pleasure trips?”

  “I suppose so, yes.”

  He turned on her belligerently, as though to prove to himself that he still could. “Then as long as you’re supposing, why do you suppose Mr. Wynne arranged for these luxurious means of transportation when he was ostensibly conducting business for the city of Denver?”

  “He didn’t!”

  “Objection,” the defense attorney said from his table. “Mr. McKee is calling for a conclusion from the witness.”

  “Sustained,” the judge intoned.

  If Hunter had allowed himself to smile, his expression would have been smug. The jury had already heard his accusation and Kari’s vehement denial. “Is this your late husband’s signature on this charge receipt?” He shoved a slip of paper in her face.

  Her eyes scanned it rapidly. “It … it looks like it. I can’t be—”

  “And this.” Another paper was thrust at her. “And this.”

  The defense attorney came to his feet. “Your Honor, Mr. McKee is badgering the witness. She can’t swear to the validity of the signatures on those receipts. Only an expert could.”

  “Sustained. Mr. McKee, I think you’ve made your point.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” He looked back at Kari and was alarmed by the faint trace of perspiration beading her upper lip and the rapid rise and fall of her chest. He leaned forward and whispered. “Are you all right? Would you like a glass of water?” He had an almost irresistible impulse to take her hands between his and warm them. Instinctively he knew they were as cold as ice.