Moment of Truth

by Lisa Scottoline

  “Can you just relax and nod off? I can bring you something to drink.”

  “Come on.” Paige rolled her eyes. “Just one more? Don’t be so stingy.”

  Trevor sighed and gentled her back to the sofa. “All right, but one is enough. I don’t want you to overdo it.” He leaned over the coffee table, picked up the vial, and screwed off the black lid. He rummaged through his pencil case to find a Bic pen and used it to scoop powder from the vial. “Just one more. That’s it.”

  Paige nodded, but couldn’t think clearly. It was all too terrible. She had known the dinner meeting was going to be bad, but it had gone way too far. Her mother dead. The bloody knife hot and slippery in Paige’s hand. She had dropped it and started crying.

  “Here we go,” Trevor said, handing her the pen cap with the K, and she raised it to her nose and snorted, one nostril then the other, and inhaled deeply. Her brain clouded instantly and she dropped the pen cap. She wanted to ask; she didn’t want to ask:

  “Trev, did I … did I … really do it?”

  “Honey, why are you asking me?” His green eyes looked confused. “Don’t you know?”

  “No, I guess, I don’t remember. The crystal. I remember some of it, but not all.” Paige felt sick inside. It couldn’t be true, but it was. She hated her mother. She had dreamed her dead a thousand times. “I remember the knife, and her screaming.”

  “Let’s not talk right now. I’m worried you’re gonna get a migraine.”

  “No, I want to know.”

  “Okay.” Trevor sighed and rubbed her shoulder. “Well, she started in on you about not gaining weight, something about retaining water, whatever that is.” He sighed heavily. “And you started yelling at her and when you told her, she hit you and kicked you. You remember that, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” Paige tried to remember the scene. She saw herself on the floor of the dining room, rolling away from her mother’s foot. “She kicked me, okay, and yelled. She wouldn’t stop.”

  “I tried to pull her off you but I couldn’t. Then, well, it was like you just went crazy. You went after her.” Trevor’s voice grew hushed. “I never saw you like that. You’ve never been like that. You were completely out of control. You were raging. It was like it got to you all at once or something, and you picked up the knife. Remember the knife, from the table?”

  “Yes.” Paige shut her eyes to the memory. The knife. It was the knife they always used for filet. How could she have done this? Killed her mother? Was she crazy? Was she a horrible person? How could she do such a thing? She shouldn’t have done the crystal. She burst into new tears, and Trevor held her close again as she sobbed. “Oh my God, I can’t believe it. My own mother. I … killed her.”

  “Don’t think about it, now. Just relax.” His arms encircled her shoulders, wrapping her in a warm, woolly cocoon. “It’s not your fault. She’s been so miserable to you. You couldn’t help it.”

  Paige listened to his quiet words as the K finally came on. Her breathing slowed. The craziness of the crystal disappeared. Calm crept through her body. Her emotions grew remote, as if they didn’t belong to her, but her eyes still stung from crying and she couldn’t breathe through her nose. She imagined she looked like hell. She’d studied her face like other kids study French. Trevor massaged her shoulders, loosening the muscles, easing the pressure on her head. Once he had prevented a migraine, just by giving her a massage. He took better care of her than her mother ever had.

  “That’s it, that’s my girl,” he said, kneading her shoulder.

  Paige heard him but her attention was focused on the pictures in her mind, filtering through her consciousness. Not a kaleidoscope anymore, but a book of photographs, one after the other, as if she were thumbing through her own portfolio. Her face in soft light. In backlight. With too little sleep or too many drugs. She was floating now.

  “You all right?” Trevor’s hands moved to her nape, slipping under her hair. “You better?”

  “Definitely,” Paige heard herself whisper. The photos in her mind portfolio morphed into her mother. Her mother in Mikimoto pearls. In DKNY sunglasses. With Estée Lauder eye cream. Her mother was a collection of brand names. Paige smiled inside, drifting. She looked like her mother, everyone said so. Her mother’s eye cream evaporated and her blue eyes became Paige’s blue eyes. Then her mother’s face got younger and younger and turned black.

  “Babe, you there? Anybody home?”

  Paige nodded, smoothing her cheeks to relax them, like her mother had taught her. Her mother was never a model; she was a deb. Her mother had made her into a model. When she was little, she was in diaper ads, then newspaper layouts and catalog work. This year, her mother was trying to get them a shot in YM magazine. A sudden fear disturbed Paige’s floating. “What if the police are on their way? I mean, they’ll be looking for me.”

  “No, they won’t. Don’t worry.” Trevor held her closer. “They don’t know you exist. You don’t even live there anymore. How would they even find you?”

  “You’re right, they can’t.” Paige squeezed his arm and it felt like an oak tree. What would she do without him? She got that giddy feeling, kind of horny, that she sometimes got with K. “I love you, Trev.”

  “I love you, too. We’re gonna get through this together.”

  Paige looked up at him with gratitude. She remembered that he had made her wash up after, at a gas station on the way home. He had told her to get the knife but she’d forgotten it, and he hadn’t even yelled. “I’m worried about the knife, Trev. Can they get fingerprints from it, like on TV?”

  “No, I don’t think so. They have to match them to fingerprints they have on file, I think. They don’t have your fingerprints at the police station. You’ve never been arrested or anything.”

  “What do we do if the cops come?” she asked, but the question sounded like it came from someone else. Someone inside was asking; whoever kept you breathing in and out. She had learned it from her science tutor before winter break; the automatic nervous system? “I mean, what do I say? I was supposed to have dinner at my parents’.”

  “The cops don’t know that, and if they do, just say you were supposed to go over but you didn’t. Maybe you can say you had a migraine.”

  “But what if somebody saw me leave?” Paige closed her eyes and leaned her head back in the soft chair, the drug overwhelming her fear. “That pimply guy at the desk or one of my neighbors?”

  “It was the old guy at the desk and he was dozin’ again. I didn’t sign in, and nobody was out in this weather. Besides, this place has three hundred apartments. Nobody notices what you and I do.”

  “What if they arrest me?” Paige said the words, but it didn’t seem like it could really happen. Not to her. Nothing could happen to her. She was above the clouds. “What if … they put me in jail?”

  “Why would they even suspect you? As far as the cops know, you haven’t seen your mother all day. The last time you saw her was yesterday at the Bonner shoot. She’d been drinking again, you said.”

  “Like tonight.” Her mother had been wasted when Paige got home. Then screaming, fighting. When Paige had picked up the knife, her mother had dropped her glass. Scotch had flown from the tumbler in a golden rope, like a noose. Then Paige realized something. “Wait. What about my father?”

  “Your father?”

  “Sure. He must have come home and found her. He was supposed to be at dinner.” Paige had almost forgotten about him because he hadn’t been in her life much until this past year. Her mother had managed her, and her father had his work. He used to spend all his time handling the family’s legal matters, until Paige had finally told him she’d had enough of her mother and wanted to move out. It was like it woke him up. “I called him today at work, and he said he’d be there. He even said to leave you home, to come alone to dinner. I told him I would. He said he would see me at seven.”

  “So your father comes home and sees your mother on the floor. What will he do?”

&n
bsp; “I don’t know, how am I supposed to know?” Paige heard her voice get high as a little kid’s. It kept her out of commercials and her voice coach hadn’t been able to get her to lower her register. It drove her mother crazy.

  “Will he think you did it?”

  “Maybe,” she said slowly, and Trevor looked worried for her.

  “Will he turn you in?”

  Paige didn’t know her father very well, but she knew the answer. “Never,” she said.

  4

  The interview room in the basement of the Roundhouse was rectangular and airless, a dingy bank of cubicles where attorneys met with clients. Grimy wood paneling covered the walls, which were plastered with curling notices in English and Spanish. The no smoking sign bore a cigarette burn, the ceiling sagged around the brown water stain in the corner, and the blue-gray paint on the interview cubicles was covered with pen marks. Phone numbers tattooed its surface and the largest scrawling read GLORIA LOVES SMOKEY, TLF.

  There were no other lawyers there except Mary and Judy, and they sat on one side of a smudgy sheet of bulletproof plastic while Jack Newlin was brought in on the other. He was so attractive that Mary felt herself straighten involuntarily when she saw him. Newlin was tall, broad-shouldered, and well built; comfortable with himself in an attractive way and handsome but for the anxiety straining his features. A furrowed brow hooded light blue eyes and crow’s-feet wrinkled their corners, tugging his expression down into a frown. His full mouth was a flat line, and a shadow the color of driftwood marred his strong jaw. But Jack Newlin was a man who wore even stubble well. He reminded Mary of Kevin Costner, only smart.

  “Thanks for coming, ladies,” Newlin said, sitting down. Handcuffs linked his wrists in front of him against a white paper jumpsuit. “But you both really didn’t have to bother. I only need one lawyer. Which of you answered the telephone?”

  “We both talked to you,” Mary answered. She introduced herself, then Judy to her right. “For a murder case, we work as a team.”

  “I appreciate that, but I won’t be needing a team. Who did I talk to first on the phone? Was that you, Mary?”

  “Uh, yes.” Mary looked at Judy, who gave her a go-ahead nod. Still Mary didn’t want to go ahead. “But I can’t handle this case alone, Mr. Newlin. I don’t have much experience with homicide cases, not as much as Bennie Rosato or lots of other lawyers in town.”

  Newlin smiled easily. “First, please call me Jack. Secondly, you answered my questions honestly on the phone, as you are now, and I don’t need a lawyer with decades of experience. I want you to be my lawyer.”

  Mary felt her neck flush at the praise. That it came from a total hunk gave her a charge she couldn’t quite ignore. “Mr. Newlin, Jack—”

  “This will be a simple case. I won’t need much fire-power. I intend to plead guilty. The truth is, I killed my wife. I did it.”

  Mary fell momentarily speechless. Had she heard him right? His words hung between them in the air. “You did it?” she repeated, in shock.

  “Yes. The police questioned me and I told them everything. I confessed.”

  Mary met his gaze, and though she had never looked into the eyes of a murderer, she didn’t expect them to be so gorgeous. Of course, Ted Bundy had gorgeous eyes, too. Maybe gorgeous eyes should be on the killer profile. “Slow up a minute,” she said, trying to get her bearings. “You spoke to the police? Why?”

  “I was wrong, I guess. Disoriented. Thought I could answer a few questions and be done with it. I know it was stupid. I called them from the scene. Maybe it was the Scotch.”

  “Scotch?” Mary would never have pegged him for a drinker.

  “Maybe it’s best if I tell you what happened, from the beginning?”

  “Hold on, are you drunk now?”

  “No. Hardly.”

  “Were you drunk when you spoke to the police?”

  “Not at all. I had only a few drinks.”

  “How many?”

  “Two, I think. I feel fine. Does it matter, legally?”

  Mary had no idea. “Yes, it does. That’s why I asked. Now, go on, tell us what you told them.” She fumbled for her briefcase and dug around for a ballpoint and a fresh legal pad. “Let me just get it down,” she said, uncapping her pen as he started to talk. She recorded everything he said while Judy listened silently. When he was finished, Mary asked, “Did you tell all of this to the police?”

  “Yes, I told them everything.”

  “Did they read you your Miranda warnings?”

  “Yes. They gave me a waiver sheet, too. Two sheets, which I signed and answered.”

  Mary glanced at Judy, who shook her head. Trouble. “I think that means it’s a valid confession. Did they take down what you said?”

  “Yes, and they videotaped me.”

  “What else did they do?” She knew only the TV basics of police procedure. The law according to Steven Bochco.

  “Fingerprinted me. Took a hair and skin sample. They took pictures of me, in my suit, and of my hands. There’s a cut on my hand from the knife. They took twelve pictures of it, I think. They took my clothes, because they had blood on them. They scraped samples of my wife’s blood off my hands and clothes.”

  Mary was appalled, but hid it. Even a short legal career had perfected her false face. “You had your wife’s blood on you?”

  “Yes.” He glanced away, and Mary noticed that when he looked up, he didn’t meet her eye. “Also they wrote up a statement, but I didn’t sign it.”

  Mary’s pen paused over the paper. “I don’t understand. You confessed, but you didn’t sign the statement?”

  “Yes, and I asked to call a lawyer.”

  “Why confess, then call a lawyer?”

  “I changed my mind. All of a sudden, I wasn’t sure I should confess. I realized maybe I couldn’t represent myself. I had thought I could handle it, being a lawyer myself, at Tribe.”

  “You’re a lawyer at Tribe?” she asked, shocked. Tribe & Wright was law-firm royalty, almost as pretentious as Stalling & Webb, where she and Judy used to work. Jack Newlin had to be very smart, so why had he acted so stupidly? And violently? It didn’t square.

  “Yes, I head the estates department. After I told the police what had happened, they started asking me questions and I realized I was out of my depth. I wanted to talk to a criminal lawyer before I signed the confession. I figured I could plead guilty, and with a criminal lawyer, I could get the best deal.”

  “Why did you talk to the police at all? As a lawyer, you had to know not to.”

  “I was emotional, I was all over the place, but I’m not expecting miracles from you. I don’t expect you to get me off. As I said, I’m fully prepared to plead guilty.” His tone remained calm and even commanding, but his eyes seemed uneasy to Mary. His jaw clenched and unclenched, suggesting buried emotion.

  “Mr. Newlin, Jack, I see why you want to plea bargain. They’ll have a ton of evidence against you. But it’s kind of premature to talk about pleading anything now.”

  “Why?”

  Mary didn’t know. It seemed like common sense. “It’s common sense. I’m not sure what kind of deal we can get you at this point. First, you confessed, and they have the videotape, so your bargaining power is already low. Secondly, you have a preliminary hearing coming up, which is where they have to prove they have enough evidence to hold you.” She was remembering from her bar review course. Had the Constitution been amended when she wasn’t looking? “Why should we try to bargain before then? In the meantime, we can do our own investigation.”

  “Your investigation?”

  “We always do our own investigation for the defense.” At least they had on Steere and Connolly, Mary’s universe of experience with murder cases.

  “But I told you what happened.”

  “We have to learn about the evidence against you.” For verification, Mary glanced at Judy, who smiled yes. “We have to understand the prosecution’s case against you with regard to degree and possib
le penalties. We need a colorable defense to threaten them with. We can’t bargain from weakness.”

  “Hear me, Mary. I want this over with now.” Jack’s mouth set in a firm line, and Mary frowned in confusion.

  “But it’s not usually the defendant who benefits from a rush to judgment, it’s the Commonwealth. Rushing hasn’t helped you so far. If you had called us before you talked to the police, you wouldn’t be in this predicament. We’re talking about a possible death penalty, do you realize that?”

  He seemed to gloss over the statement. “I want it over with because I want my family affected as little as possible. I have a daughter, Paige, a sixteen-year-old who’s a model. She’s still got a career if this blows over quickly and quietly. She doesn’t even know that her mother is dead. In fact, I’d like you to go to Paige’s apartment and tell her. I don’t want her to hear it from TV or the police.”

  “Her apartment? She doesn’t live at home?”

  “No. Paige has her own place. Her condo is right in Society Hill, it’s not far.” Jack rattled off an address that Mary jotted down. “Please go after we’re finished here. Can you imagine hearing the news from the police?”

  Mary met his gaze again, and his eyes focused intently, suddenly lucid with concern. Could someone who had killed his wife worry this much about their daughter? It was confounding. “You want me to tell your daughter? I’m not sure what to say.”

  “Tell her everything. Tell her the truth. Tell her what I told you tonight.”

  “I can’t do that. What you told us is privileged.”

  “Not as against her. I waive the privilege as against her.”

  “You can’t.” Mary double-checked with Judy, who was already shaking her head no. “It wouldn’t be in your best interest. What if they called her as a witness at your trial?”

  “What trial? I’m going to plead guilty.”

  Damn. “You can’t be sure you’ll plead guilty and we have to preserve your options. That’s why I won’t tell your daughter any more than necessary. I’ll tell her that her mother is dead and that her father is being held by the police.”