“Best friends, I think.”
“Suppose we could get you up there to live with Judy, maybe as her niece, and put you to work part-time in her bookstore. You could join the book club that seems to be at the center of this whole mess and get to know some of the ladies. You might be able to come up with some information I’d never find.”
She sat quietly for a moment, thinking. She took a sip of her coffee. “Matt, run this by Aunt Esther. If she thinks it’ll help, I’ll talk to the chief about taking a month off. I can probably use built-up time for that, and if I don’t have enough accrued, I can take a short leave of absence. If I’m going to stumble over anything, I think a month might be more productive than a couple of weeks.”
“I’ll talk to Esther today, and if she likes the idea, I’ll go see Judy. Is Jock still in bed?”
“Far as I know. Want me to get him up?”
“No. Let him sleep. I’ve got to get on the road.”
“Be careful with that fog.”
“It’ll clear by the time I get to the fire station on Cortez Road.”
She walked me to the front door and hugged me for a long moment. “Thanks for doing this, Matt.”
That hug was all the compensation I needed to send me happily back into the legal jungle.
CHAPTER 10
I WALKED INTO the Clerk of Court’s office in the Sumter County courthouse at nine o’clock on the dot. I filed a notice of appearance on behalf of Aunt Esther, a motion for her release on her own recognizance or, in the alternative, for the court to set bail, a motion to dismiss the second-degree murder charge, and a number of discovery motions. I doubted that the motions would do any good, but I wanted them on the record.
The charge against Esther was second-degree murder. The difference between that and first-degree murder was substantial in that a death sentence was possible only if the accused were convicted of murder in the first degree. However, that charge had to be brought by indictment by a grand jury and the prosecutor would have to convince a trial jury that the killing had been premeditated. I didn’t think that would fly with Esther’s case, but prosecutors often went for the indictment so they could use the death penalty as a bargaining chip with the defense team. “Plead guilty and we’ll take the death penalty off the table.” It could be an effective tool and it put tremendous pressure on the poor sap trying to defend his client and keep him or her out of the death chamber. Both charges, first- or second-degree murder, carried the possibility of a sentence of life without parole. Once I took the measure of the prosecutor, I’d be in a better position to gauge his intent about the indictment.
I left the Clerk’s office and walked down the hall to the state attorney’s suite. I went in and introduced myself to the receptionist and told her I would be representing Esther Higgins. I wondered if the case had been assigned to a prosecutor yet. She asked me to take a seat and she’d find out. “Can I get you a cup of coffee while I’m in the back?”
“Thank you. Black would be just fine.”
She was back in a few minutes and handed me a Styrofoam cup of coffee. “Meredith Evans will be prosecuting the case, Mr. Royal, but I’m afraid she’s tied up in court in Ocala this morning. She should be back before noon. Her secretary said she could see you then. I’d be happy to call you when she gets in.”
“That’ll work for me. Thank you.” I gave her my cell number and left for the Detention Center, sipping the surprisingly good coffee.
Esther was in the same small conference room where I’d met her on Friday. “How are you holding up?” I asked.
“Piece of cake.”
“Are all the women in your family as tough as you and J.D.?”
“She and I are the last of many generations of southern women.”
“Steel Magnolias,” I said.
She grinned. “Bet your ass, sonny boy.”
I laughed. In this dismal, windowless, and sunless room, wearing a jailhouse jumpsuit, facing life in prison, or worse, and being fully aware of her plight, this delightful woman displayed a girlish insouciance that made me laugh. She and J.D. had certainly been crafted from the same gene pool. My God, I thought, I can’t lose this woman to the Florida Department of Corrections.
“Esther,” I said. “Do you own a twenty-two-caliber pistol?”
“I do. J.D.’s dad gave it to me years ago.”
“Where is it?”
“In my closet at home. Why?”
“The bullet that killed Olivia was apparently a small caliber. Maybe a twenty-two. I’m sure the police would have found it when they searched your house. Do I have anything to worry about with the gun?”
“What do you mean?” Her voice was quiet, flat.
“Did you lend it to a friend? Anything like that?”
“No.”
“I don’t think it’s anything to worry about, but I’m just trying to cover all the bases. I’m sure the police will have run ballistics on it by now and figured out that yours wasn’t the gun used to kill Olivia.”
We talked for an hour. I explained what I was doing procedurally, what I hoped to gain by doing it, and what I thought about our chances of getting her out of jail. I cautioned her that we might be facing an indictment for first-degree murder and told her how that differed from second-degree murder and what it might mean in any plea bargaining.
“Matt,” she said, “there won’t be any plea bargaining. I didn’t kill that woman. If I’m going to prison for something I didn’t do, the prosecutor is going to have go through a jury to put me there. I’ve got complete faith in your ability to get me acquitted.”
“I appreciate your confidence, Esther, but I didn’t win all my cases. No lawyer does. Not if he tries many.”
She smiled and patted my hand. “You’ll win this one. When do you think we’ll get to trial?”
“The speedy trial rule requires us to start within one hundred seventy days of your arrest. That is almost six months. That could put us as late as the end of August.”
“What are my chances of bail?”
“Not good. But I’ve filed a motion for bail, and I’ll take a hard swing at it. If we don’t get it, I’ll push the prosecutor to get to trial a lot quicker than six months.”
“How quickly do you think we can get to trial?”
“We’ll just have to wait and see. If I can’t get you bailed out of here, the prosecutor will want to drag things out as long as possible. The idea is that if you’re sitting in the county jail, you’re more amenable to agreeing to a plea deal.”
“Years ago, the school system I worked for got in a jam and had to assign me to an all-boys junior high school to teach eighth-grade English. There is nothing in the world worse than spending all day cooped up in a room with thirty hormone-crazed, potty-mouthed thirteen-year-olds who can’t think of anything but sex. You tell that prosecutor that if I could handle that for nine months, I can damn sure handle a jail cell for six months. No deals. Tell him not to even bother offering one.”
“It’s a her.”
“What?”
“The prosecutor is a woman.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. We actually have women lawyers these days.”
“I know that, you Neanderthal. I’m sure she didn’t get to the point where she’s prosecuting murder cases unless she’s very good and paid a lot of dues. Worked her butt off.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“I’m proud of her. Don’t tell her I said that. She’ll think I’m pandering, but I like to see a woman make her way in this world. Maybe if I’d come along a few years later, I’d have been a lawyer, or a cop like J.D. In my day, educated women usually became teachers or nurses. Not anymore. The floodgates have opened. Long past due. What do you know about her?”
“Nothing, yet. I just got her name this morning. Meredith Evans. I’ll know more after I meet her and read up on her background. I’m sure she’s pretty good if she handles murder cases. This won’t be her first one.
”
We talked some more. I told her what J.D. and I were thinking about J.D.’s role in an undercover investigation. “What do you think?”
“I like it,” she said. “Judy’s a good friend, and I’m sure she’ll help. She came to see me yesterday during visiting hours and said if I needed anything to let her know.”
“I’ll go see her today.”
“She’ll be at her bookstore. She works there all day.”
We talked a few more minutes, and I got up to leave. I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “You make me proud to be an honorary member of your family,” I said.
“Then don’t screw up this case.” She grinned, and in that moment, I saw J.D. twenty-five years in the future. I was staring into the face that J.D. would someday wear. The thought of our growing old together made me happy because it promised that we would be with each other even after the inexorable march of time took first our youth and then our middle age. And it made me a little sad, because the reality is that old age portends the end of life, and perhaps the end of togetherness.
CHAPTER 11
I CALLED THE state attorney’s office and spoke again to the receptionist. She had not heard from the prosecutor yet and assumed she was still in court. I talked to Ms. Evans’ secretary, and we set an appointment for us to meet in her office at three that afternoon. I drove to The Villages to talk to Judy Ferguson.
I found her bookstore in the Grand Traverse Plaza at the corner of Powell Road and Highway 44. Like most everything in The Villages, the place looked new. A variety of trees shaded the parking lot and the trill of tiny sparrows filled the air with songs that gave the world a reason to smile. Golf carts were parked two to a space, side by side with cars and trucks.
I found the bookstore several doors down from the Publix Market, sandwiched between a Chinese restaurant and a dental office. I walked into a pleasant space that was bigger than it had seemed from outside.
Casually dressed people were browsing the bookshelves that lined either side of the shop. Upholstered chairs were grouped in the middle of the room and tables stacked with best sellers were placed comfortably about the area. I saw a vaguely familiar woman, whom I assumed to be Judy, standing behind a counter on one side of the store finishing a conversation with a customer. The customer left, and Judy watched me walking toward her, a quizzical look on her face.
“Hi, Judy,” I said as I reached the counter. “I’m Matt Royal. We met at Esther Higgins’ driveway party back at Christmastime.”
Her face broke into a smile. She was a pretty woman who wore her sixty-five years with grace and self-assurance. Her strawberry-blond hair was trimmed and shot with gray. “Matt. Of course. I couldn’t quite place the handsome man I saw walking across my little store. How are you? And how is J.D.?”
“We’re both fine, thank you. It’s good to see you again.”
“I suspect you’re not here for a social visit. Esther told me you were going to represent her.”
“I wanted to talk to you about Esther. I’ve got a pretty big favor to ask and I’d like to lay it out over lunch. Can you get away?”
She looked at the clock on the wall behind the counter. “It’s almost noon now. Let me get one of the girls to look after things, and we can leave right away. Do you have any place in mind for lunch?”
“It’s your town. You choose.”
“There’s a World of Beer over in Brownwood. They’ve got a giant Bavarian soft pretzel that’ll melt in your mouth. And the dipping sauce is out of this world. How’s that sound?”
I laughed. “Count me in. Actually, I was there Friday.”
We took her golf cart with me riding shotgun. Our short drive was over asphalt tracks crowded with people in carts of all descriptions, smiling and waving. A friend of mine had once described the place as a large support group for old people. I suppose that was true in many respects, but if it seemed to be a bit frenetic, it was also a very happy place. Too happy for murder to intrude so rudely.
Judy found a parking space among a horde of other golf carts about half a block from our destination. The shops and restaurants and other establishments of Brownwood lined streets that formed the area that was the entertainment venue known as Paddock Square. It reminded me of the old southern towns with the courthouse square in the middle of their small business districts. It was in this pleasant place that Kevin Cook had found the body of Olivia Lathom.
We found a table just inside the restaurant near the doors that opened onto the outdoor seating area. Judy ordered an iced tea and I asked for water. I wanted to try one of the craft beers they had on tap, but I didn’t want to meet the state prosecutor with alcohol on my breath. Not a very good first impression. Judy suggested that we split one of the pretzels.
“Okay, Matt. How can I help my friend?”
“I’d like you to adopt J.D. as your niece, change her name, move her into your house, and put her to work in your store. For about a month.”
“Not a problem.”
“That was easy. But you’d better let me tell you why. Esther said this was a lot to ask of you, and if you had any hesitancy at all, you shouldn’t agree to it. She’ll understand and not think any less of you or your friendship.”
“What are friends for? I’ll do it, but I would like to hear what you’ve got up your sleeve.”
I thought about that for a moment. I realized I hadn’t fully figured out a plan. My idea of J.D. as an undercover operative was more an amorphous concept than a plan. I decided to think it through as we talked. Maybe Judy could round off any hard edges that might not fit in a plan for The Villages.
Every community is alike in some ways, and so different in others. The demographics of this area were different from most. It was a retirement community of over a hundred thousand people, mostly well educated and still young enough to enjoy all the amenities offered by this unique place.
“This is a bit of a closed society you have here,” I said. “All groups are like that to some extent. There is a kind of wariness, probably unconscious, among a lot of people. They’re more careful about talking to strangers. They hold back information. And if a lawyer shows up, or an investigator, asking sharp questions, they close down completely.”
“So your idea is that J.D. can become a spy.”
“Sort of. She’s a trained homicide investigator, so she’ll know what to look for, what questions to ask. But if everybody knows she’s a cop, the information starts drying up. If she’s just the new girl in town, and your niece to boot, I think people who know something will be more forthcoming. Does that bother you? The spy part?”
“Good Lord, no. I think it’s brilliant. I can put her to work in the bookstore and get her introduced around town.”
“I’d like to get her into your book club as soon as possible.”
“That’s easy. We meet every other week over at the Eisenhower Center. But what if somebody recognizes her? She met some of the neighbors at Esther’s driveway party back during Christmas.”
“I doubt anybody paid a whole lot of attention. I think a new hairdo, a dye job, maybe a pair of glasses, and she’ll look like a different person.”
“This is going to be exciting.”
“It could also be dangerous, Judy,” I said. “We have to keep J.D.’s real identity very quiet.”
“My lips are sealed. When will she be moving in with me?”
“I’m not sure. She has to get her time off work set up and have a couple of days to change her appearance. I don’t think there will be a problem at work and she can get her hair done in a day or two. Today’s Monday, so maybe by Wednesday or Thursday, if that works for you.”
“That’ll work. Are you going to be hanging around?”
“I’ll be here a lot, but I need to stay away from J.D. I don’t want to compromise her in any way.”
“That’s probably a good idea. Do you have a name for her?”
“I haven’t thought about that. We ought to try to make it a name
similar to her own. People get used to responding to their names, so I don’t think Paulette or Vanessa would work. You have any ideas?”
“I have a sister named Beryl, which is a mineral, and she has a daughter named Jade, which is a rock. A little too much for me, but Jade is about the same age as J.D. and both names sound similar.”
“Where does Jade live?” I asked.
“She’s an Army Intelligence officer. She’s stationed somewhere in Europe.”
“Has she ever visited you here? Would anybody know her?”
“No. My sister and I had a falling out when we were in college and we’ve hardly ever spoken to each other since. I only met Jade once. That was at my mother’s funeral. Jade was just a little girl then. I get a long family note from Beryl every Christmas, so that’s how I know Jade is in Europe. Or was at Christmas, anyway.”
“That might be a good cover. If anybody got nervous and was able to do some background checking, they’d find out that you really do have a niece named Jade. What’s Jade’s last name?”
“Conway. Jade Elizabeth Conway.”
“Married?”
“Was,” Judy said. “Divorced. No children.”
“What if we set up some background for J.D. as a recently divorced woman who needed to get away from her old life and came here for an extended visit with a favorite aunt.”
“Wouldn’t J.D. have to come from somewhere that Jade lived? I mean if anybody was doing background checks.”
“I don’t know how we can cover for that. If somebody digs deeply enough, they’ll be able to figure out that J.D. isn’t Jade. If we tell people that J.D. lived in Miami, she could answer any questions since she lived there most of her life. She only came to Longboat Key about three years ago.”
“And Jade’s last duty station before Europe was an Army command down in Miami. This might work better than we thought.”
“And,” I said,” on the off-chance that somebody finds out that Jade is in the Army and asks J.D. about it, she can claim she can’t talk about it because of national security concerns. Not much chance of getting tripped up if you don’t talk. This just keeps getting better.”
Vindication Page 7
