Shadow of Doubt (A Kali O'Brien legal mystery)

by Jonnie Jacobs

  “I doubt there’s much I can do,” I told her, “but if it will make you feel better, I’ll look into it. I can’t make any promises though.”

  “No, of course not.” She paused. “But I know you’ll turn up something.”

  “I’d like to talk to Jannine again. Do you think she’d be up to seeing me tomorrow?”

  “Oh yes, absolutely.” Nona's anxiety had all but vanished.

  I wished I could have said the same for my own.

  Chapter 4

  The hammering and pounding started again early Tuesday morning, but this time I was already awake, having spent the better part of the night stewing about my prospects with the firm and the mess with Jannine. There wasn’t much I could do about the former right then, so I put most of my brooding into figuring out the best way to help Jannine. By morning I’d at least begun to lay out my approach.

  One thing law school teaches you is that everything is open to interpretation. What I hoped to do was find some loose ends, raise some additional possibilities. Enough anyway to persuade the police that Jannine wasn’t the only potential suspect. The strategy was something like the way the defense approaches a trial; with enough “what ifs” and “supposes” you can turn a case around. In legal terms it’s called “reasonable doubt.” Not the best defense certainly, but one which is used pretty regularly. It’s much easier, however, if you can keep things from reaching the trial stage in the first place. Easier, and a whole lot less risky.

  I had intended to spend a couple hours sorting through my father’s things before my meeting with Jannine, but the morning was so glorious and Loretta’s expression so hopeful, I left the boxes stacked in the hallway and took her for a walk instead.

  I told myself the walk was for me, and Loretta was simply free to tag along if she wished. Which she most assuredly did. Then I showered and drove to the bakery, where the gray-haired woman behind the counter looked perplexed when I asked for croissants. Jelly Danish was the closest they came, so I bought half a dozen and headed for Jannine’s.

  “What are you trying to do?’’ she asked when I handed her the box. “Make me fatter than I already am?”

  “You’re not fat, and what I’m trying to do is offer comfort and support” I gave her a quick hug. “It’s not very effective, is it?”

  Her face took on a sudden solemnness. “Just your being here, Kali, it means a lot.” Then she gave me a weak smile and ushered me into the kitchen, where the aroma of freshly brewed coffee greeted me like an old friend. “Cream and sugar?”

  “Black.”

  She laughed self-consciously. “I should have guessed.” Jannine was dressed in a gauzy blue caftan just the color of her eyes. Her hair was freshly washed, and a gloss of pink brightened her lips. The old sparkle was missing, but she looked far less spent than she had the day before. She cut a couple of the pastries into quarters and set them on a plate before joining me at the table.

  “Is there going to be a funeral?” I asked, trying to think how best to broach the subject of my visit.

  She nodded. “We have to wait for the police to release the ..., uh, for the police to finish. They said it shouldn’t take long. It’s not a complicated autopsy.” Her voice was tight, but she finished with a brave smile. “I have to talk to the minister later this morning. Eddie wasn’t big on going to church, but I know he’d want a proper burial and all.”

  I sipped my coffee, seized by a momentary urge to flee. My cowardly streak runs deep.

  Jannine cleared her throat and shifted in her chair. “Mom told me what happened, you know, down at the police station. And why you’re here.”

  “The spouse is always the first person they look at,” I said. “What’s happened so far doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

  “That’s what I tried to tell Mom, but you know how she is.” Jannine reached for a square of Danish and absently picked at it until the table in front of her was covered with a layer of tiny crumbs. Then she brushed them into a pile with her fingers. Finally, she took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. “So, tell me what you want to know.”

  I took a deep breath, too. “Let’s start with the gun. The police are certain it was your gun that killed Eddie?”

  “Oh yes. They found it right away, and the bullets match up. I could tell it was mine because it has this scratch in the barrel where I dropped it on a rock.”

  I choked, though I tried hard not to let it show. “You voluntarily identified the gun as your own?”

  “Well, it’s registered in my name anyway, but sure, I tried to help out.”

  At some point we’d have to have a little discussion about dealing with the authorities. “Was the gun ever stolen?”

  “No.” A pause. “I mean, I guess it must have been since it was used to shoot Eddie.”

  “When did you see it last?”

  “A month or so ago when I was looking for a pair of stockings. That’s where I kept it, under the lingerie case in my top dresser drawer. I didn’t even know it was missing until the police showed it to me Sunday evening.” She smiled halfheartedly. “I don’t wear stockings very often.”

  “Could Eddie have taken it?”

  “He could have, I suppose. I don’t know why he would, though. He has a couple of his own.”

  This was an aspect of small town life I’d forgotten about. While some of my urban friends owned guns (though they were loathe to admit it), most did not. But in places like Silver Creek, where the Old West was family history, guns were as common as back fence gossip.

  “Well, somebody took it,” I reasoned. “Any ideas?”

  “I told you, I didn’t even know it was missing.”

  “Think about who might have known where you kept it, or had access to your bedroom recently — workmen, house guests, cleaning lady ...”

  “Cleaning lady? My God, Kali, what do you think I am?” She threw me a sharp look, then slouched lower in the chair. “Anyway, I haven’t a clue who could have taken it.”

  I put the question of the gun aside for the moment. It had somehow made its way from Jannine’s dresser drawer to the woods outside of town, killing Eddie along the way. Figuring out how that had happened seemed pretty important to me, but it was clear I wasn’t going to get any answers going about it the way I was.

  “Tell me about Saturday,” I said, switching course. “What was Eddie doing out by the South Fork anyway?”

  Jannine studied her coffee for a moment. “I don’t know. He left here that morning about eleven. Said he had some errands to run and might spend the afternoon at The Mine Shaft. That’s a tavern his uncle owns over in Crystal Falls. Eddie helps out there sometimes, especially on weekends.”

  “That was the last time you saw him?”

  She nodded, biting hard on her lower lip.

  “Weren’t you worried when he didn’t come home that night?”

  Her breath caught and she looked away. I could see the tears threatening. “I thought maybe he’d decided to stay in Crystal Falls,” she said.

  “Spend the night there?”

  She nodded, picking at a patch of chipped Formica near the table’s edge. “He does that sometimes when he’s there late. Apparently there’s a vacant office above the tavern, kind of like a studio apartment or something.”

  “But wouldn’t he have called?”

  “Not necessarily, especially if it was a last minute decision.” Jannine looked none too happy about the arrangement, but I could imagine Eddie having his way, regardless.

  “Okay, so Eddie leaves here a little before noon. What did you do the rest of the day?”

  She brushed away a tear. “It’s so hard to think about all this.”

  “I know. But I need to understand what happened.”

  Jannine nodded, and I waited. She got up and poured us each a second cup of coffee, then took her time adding NutraSweet and creamer. By the time she sat down again, she’d regained an element of composure.

  “After Eddie left, I helped
Erin with her book report. Then after lunch, I took the kids to my mother’s and went shopping down at the mall.” She paused. “I didn’t buy anything, so I can’t prove I was there. The police seem to think that’s highly irregular. Maybe their paychecks are fat enough they don’t have to count pennies the way we do. Anyway, I got back to Mom’s a little before six. We had dinner there and didn’t get back here till almost nine.”

  “What about Eddie? At that point you were expecting him to come home, weren’t you?”

  Silence.

  “Didn’t you worry he’d wonder where you were?”

  “He’d have known where to find me,” she said evenly. There was a long pause, then a heavy sigh. She looked over at me out of the corner of her eye. “We had a bit of spat that morning, okay? Nothing big, but I figured it might serve him right if he came home to an empty house.”

  “And when he didn’t come home at all, you thought maybe he was pulling the same thing on you?” It was the old let-’em-stew-in-their-own-juice maneuver. I’d used it myself once or twice.

  Jannine raised her head, her expression slightly off balance. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

  I backtracked and began questioning her in more detail about the shopping trip. An airtight alibi is always a good defense. Unfortunately, we weren’t even close. “I’ll check it through, just in case,” I told her. “Maybe I can find someone who remembers seeing you that afternoon.”

  She nodded mutely, as though her mind were a hundred miles away. I wondered which was worse, losing a husband or being accused of his murder.

  “Did Eddie seem worried about anything the last couple weeks? Distracted, upset, anything at all unusual?” She thought a moment “Not really. Eddie’s always going a couple of different directions at once. It’s just his way.”

  “Friday night at the party he mentioned something to me about needing a lawyer. Do you have any idea what it was about?”

  Jannine thought some more, twisting her wedding band with her right hand. “Not unless it was about The Mine Shaft. Eddie and his sister inherited an interest in the place when their father died. Their uncle wanted to buy them out; Eddie didn’t want to sell. It got real ugly there for awhile, but I think everything was pretty much settled. You’d have to ask Susie about the details though. Eddie didn’t talk business with me.”

  I’d about run out of questions, and I sensed Jannine had about run out of energy. There were a couple more things I needed though. “Does Eddie have a desk or someplace where he keeps phone numbers, business records, that sort of thing?”

  “Just this sort of table and file cabinet off the bedroom. You want to see it?”

  I nodded.

  The table was old — scratched and nicked and a little wobbly, but everything on it was neatly arranged in canisters and plastic bins. The file cabinet was the same. There were folders for tax records, insurance, car maintenance, and such — every one of them carefully labeled.

  “I’m the messy one,” Jannine said. “My drawers look like the aftermath of a hurricane; Eddie’s are neat as a pin. You should see the way he folds his socks.” A shadow crossed her face. “Folded them, I mean.”

  “I know it’s going to be hard, but I’d like you to go through Eddie’s papers — checks, receipts, phone records, that kind of thing. There might be something there that would help us. I’ll come back later and work with you, if you’d like.”

  “That’s okay. I think I can do it.” Her voice was flat and quiet. “I’m going to have to go through everything sooner or later anyway.”

  The phone rang just then, and while Jannine went to answer it, I made a few quick notes to myself.

  “That was Jack Peterson,” she said when she returned. “Remember him? Only it was Mr. Peterson in those days. He’s principal now and kind of like Eddie’s mentor. I tried to make it quick, but he’s been so good to us I couldn’t very well hang up on him.”

  Mr. Peterson had been hired in the middle of our sophomore year when Miss Locke, the typing teacher, ran off with the father of one of her students. I’d never had him as a teacher myself, having been labeled somewhere in the early grades as one of those students better suited to Latin and chemistry than business courses, but I had a vague recollection of a thin, pale young man who sported bow ties in a town where most of the teachers wore jeans.

  “He’s moved around quite a bit,” Jannine continued, “only came back here about three years ago. He’s in line to run for state assembly in the next election.”

  “He’s done quite well by himself, hasn’t he?”

  She nodded. “Of course, he did it the easy way. His wife has money and a long history of political connections. She was one of those dutiful daughters who never left home until her parents died. That was only a couple of years ago. Jack Peterson’s star has risen rapidly since the marriage.”

  “Does he still wear those silly bow ties?”

  She smiled. “And stiffly starched shirts. He and Marlene would have been at the party Friday except that Jack had the flu. Marlene dropped by briefly to bring some brownies she’d baked, but I don’t think you met her.”

  As we wandered back toward the kitchen, I got her to give me a list of Eddie’s friends and co-workers, and a promise to go over everything once again in her own mind. “What we want to do is point the police in a different direction,” I told her. “Get them started thinking about someone besides you.”

  “But they'll have to prove I did it, won't they? Even if they can’t find anyone else.”

  “Proof comes later. At this point, it’s more a question of coming up with the most likely scenario.”

  And that didn’t bode well for Jannine, who based on what she’d told me, fit the scenario to a tee. That fact must have dawned on her too, because she seemed considerably gloomier than she had an hour and a half earlier.

  “It doesn’t look good, does it?” she asked softly.

  I had to admit it didn’t.

  “You know though,” she said, as she walked me to the door, “if I was going to kill him, why would I leave my gun sitting right there practically in plain view?”

  If I were a prosecutor, I could think of several reasons, but I wasn’t, so I kept my mouth shut.

  Chapter 5

  Outside, the day was still grand — the air fragrant with the scent of mountain lilac and freshly turned soil, the sky a clear, deep blue the likes of which we never see in the Bay Area. My spirits, however, were considerably less bright.

  With almost no effort at all, I could see the State’s case taking shape, and it wasn’t a comforting sight. They would see motive in the fight Jannine and Eddie had that morning, play up the fact that she hadn’t seemed surprised when he didn’t come home at night, might in fact find therein the cause of her anger. They would argue that she’d taken the children to her mother’s, then tracked or lured Eddie to a remote spot and killed him, using a gun to which she clearly had access.

  It was a tidy picture. I wondered, bleakly, if there was any truth to it.

  I stood by the car for a moment, enjoying the sun’s warmth on my back while I tried to organize my thoughts. The story in that morning’s paper had been largely a rehash of yesterday’s news. The police were continuing their investigation, and while there were several leads, no arrests were imminent. I would have found the report heartening, particularly the part about “several leads,” except I thought there was a good chance it wasn’t entirely accurate. When the law enforcement folks aren’t forthcoming with details, reporters are forced to make do with an assortment of stock phrases. I had a feeling today’s column was nothing but generic news-speak. It made the next step pretty obvious, however.

  I’m no fonder of tilting at windmills than the next person, but I thought I should give Benson another shot. The cops undoubtedly had information I would find useful. I was willing to risk being thrown out on my rear for the chance to learn some of it.

  The desk sergeant was once again intent on poking at the computer termi
nal in front of her when I arrived. She didn’t even bother to look up.

  “Benson’s out,” she barked.

  “Still?”

  “Again.”

  I noticed a nameplate I’d missed the day before. A. Helga Smelski. I wondered what the “A” could possibly stand for that she would choose to go by Helga instead. Some pretty awful possibilities came to mind. Or maybe she just liked the name Helga. It suited her, anyway.

  “I thought you said he was going to be back today,” I said.

  Helga poked a few more keys, then hit a switch to her right The computer made a whirring sound, then began to print out a list of some sort. Finally, she looked up. “He was back. Now he’s gone again.”

  “Can I leave him a message?”

  Helga squinted one disapproving eye at me, as though I’d trampled her prize rosebush, but she handed me a piece of paper and a pen. I wrote a quick note, then asked for an envelope.

  “You going to mail it?”

  I’ll say one thing for the woman, she was an effective gatekeeper. I handed her the note, sans envelope, and left to try my luck elsewhere.

  At the corner gas station, I stopped to phone the school and inquire about Nancy Walker’s schedule. Not only was Nancy familiar with the town, she knew Eddie — knew him better than I did at any rate. I was hoping she would be able to give me a quick run down of the “who’s who” variety, and save me some time.

  I was planning to swing by and catch her at the close of school. As it turned out, she had a prep period coming up in twenty minutes. I hopped in my car and took off. The timing would be just about right.

  The high school is out on El Camino Road at the eastern edge of town. When I was growing up, there wasn’t much out that way but open grassland where cows, and occasionally a truant student or two, vied for shade under the smattering of twisted oaks. Things had changed though. Rows of flat, box-like houses had sprung up along the sloping terrain on both sides of the road, and at the intersection of El Camino and Marsh, a three-way light provided easy entrance to a fancy new 7-Eleven. There wasn’t a cow, or an oak, in sight.