Mortal Crimes 1

by Various Authors

  “I show a clock-out at noon that day, a return at one forty-five and a final clock-out at four-thirty p.m.”

  This went on for several minutes, and even though he had been warned that this was coming, Hutch’s stomach dropped each time Abernathy pointed to a notation and got confirmation of a corresponding clock-out from Hardwick. By the end of that week in April—the week Jenny had been killed—there had been several calls, all of them clustered around Ronnie’s extended lunch breaks or the end of the work day.

  Knowing this was all part of Langer’s sick game didn’t make Hutch feel any better, and he could see by the looks on the jurors’ faces, their glances toward Ronnie, that the testimony was making an impact.

  Worse still, Ronnie’s body language signaled her defeat. She was no longer able to look at the jurors or even sit up straight. Hutch wanted to shout at her, don’t let them see your pain, but the twin blows of Danny Tillman’s death and this morning’s interrogation had left her incapable of fighting.

  It was at that moment that Hutch realized just how much Ronnie meant to him now. Not as a substitute for Jenny and not merely as a friend, but as someone he had grown to care about in a way he thought he’d never again experience.

  Was it love? He couldn’t be sure. But it was close. Very close. And to see her looking so forlorn and defeated broke his heart.

  When Abernathy was done with his laser pointer, he put it away and said, “Mr. Hardwick, are you familiar with the Dumont Hotel?”

  Hardwick nodded. “Yes, of course. It’s one of the oldest in Chicago.”

  “Do you know where it’s located?”

  “Yes,” Hardwick said.

  “And how far is it from your salon?”

  “Just a few blocks. I don’t know the exact distance.”

  “Have you ever walked there on your lunch hour?”

  “Not to the hotel itself,” Hardwick said. “But there’s a little sushi place on the same block that I sometimes go to.”

  “And how long does it take you to get there?”

  Hardwick shrugged. “Depends on how fast I’m traveling, but I’d say about ten or fifteen minutes at the most.”

  “Ten or fifteen minutes,” Abernathy said, then thanked Hardwick and turned to Waverly. “Your witness, counsel.”

  ________

  AS IF TO demonstrate that Abernathy’s show and tell was much ado about nothing, Waverly didn’t get up from her chair. Instead, she flipped open a legal pad and glanced at it.

  “Mr. Hardwick, on the subject of dog hair on your clothes, can you think of anyone other than pet stylists who might be subject to this problem?”

  “Well, most dog owners, for one,” he said. “Dogs shed quite a bit during the course of the average day.”

  “And how many dog owners would you say there are in the Chicago area alone? Thousands? Millions?”

  “Objection,” Abernathy said. “Calls for speculation.”

  “Question withdrawn.” Waverly made a quick notation on the pad, flipped the page, and switched gears. “Mr. Hardwick, when Ms. Baldacci clocked out for those extended lunch hours, did she ever tell you why she needed the extra time?”

  “She said she had personal business to take care of.”

  “Did she ever elaborate on the nature of that personal business?”

  “No,” Hardwick said.

  “So you have no way of knowing where she went during her time off?”

  “No,” Hardwick said.

  “Do you have any way of knowing whether or not she walked to the Dumont Hotel?”

  “No,” Hardwick said.

  “In fact, you yourself testified that the walk to the Dumont takes about ten or fifteen minutes. When you went to the sushi restaurant nearby, did you ever need to take an extended lunch hour to get there and back?”

  “No,” Hardwick said.

  “So isn’t it possible that the show and tell you and Mr. Abernathy just put on was much ado about nothing?”

  “Objection,” Abernathy shouted.

  “Sustained.”

  Waverly scribbled something on the legal pad again, then flipped the page and continued. “What about my client’s demeanor at work? Was she ever uncooperative or did she show any anger toward you or her follow employees?”

  “Not anger, no. And she was never uncooperative. But I did sometimes get the impression that I wasn’t her favorite person in the world.”

  “And why did you get that impression?”

  Hardwick shrugged. “Just a feeling I had. I have strict rules and I’m sure there’s quite a bit of talk behind my back, but I’m there to run a business, not win a popularity contest.”

  “Did she ever threaten you or anyone else in the salon with bodily harm?”

  “No,” Hardwick said. “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Did you consider her dangerous in any way?”

  “No, not at all,” Hardwick said.

  “And during the two months she worked for you, did she ever once mention her ongoing custody battle with her ex-husband? Or the name Jennifer Keating?”

  “No,” Hardwick said. “Beyond work concerns, she didn’t really talk to me much at all. She simply did her job.”

  “So did you ever confront her about these extended lunch hours and express your unhappiness about them?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when was this?”

  “I believe it was the day Ms. Keating was laid to rest. Ronnie asked to leave an hour early to attend a funeral and I told her I’d give her thirty minutes and nothing more. That if she wanted a career at the Cuttery, I expected her to do her full eight hours every day from there on out.”

  “And how did she react to this? Did she protest or complain? Get into an argument with you?”

  “No,” Hardwick said. “Although I can’t imagine she was too happy about it. She did express concern about being late for the funeral, but I stood my ground and she went back to work.”

  Waverly paused, seeming to mull something over, then said, “Mr. Hardwick, they say an attorney should never ask a question she doesn’t already know the answer to, but you strike me as a man of integrity who takes great pride in telling the truth. So I think this next question is worth the risk.”

  Hardwick straightened in his chair, obviously surprised and pleased by the flattery.

  “You worked with Ms. Baldacci nearly every day for two months,” Waverly continued. “So when you learned about her arrest for murder, what was your very first reaction? The very first thing that came to mind?”

  “Objection.”

  “I’ll allow it,” O’Donnell said.

  Hardwick hesitated, glancing at Ronnie, then returned his gaze to Waverly. “Well… to be perfectly honest, I couldn’t quite believe it.”

  “And why is that?”

  “At the risk of sounding foolish, I work with animals every day and I’ve learned over the years that people are very much like their canine counterparts. There are those who bite and those who get bitten. And despite what she may have thought of me personally, Ronnie never struck me as the kind who bites.”

  This, Hutch thought, was the most accurate characterization of Ronnie he’d heard. Hopefully the jury would take it to heart, as well.

  Waverly dropped her pen to the legal pad. “Thank you for your honesty, Mr. Hardwick. I have no further questions.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  “YOUR HONOR, THE prosecution calls Ms. Nadine Overman to the stand.”

  Hutch, Matt and Andy exchanged glances as the court deputy crossed to the witness room door, opened it a crack and ducked his head inside.

  “Here we go,” Andy murmured. “Judas is in the building.”

  Gus leaned toward him. “This woman is a friend of yours, right?”

  “Depends on your definition.”

  Hutch ignored the exchange. He was thinking instead about Abernathy’s trial strategy. First, he had presented the lead investigating detective who, despite Waverly’s expert cro
ss, had provided two key pieces of evidence that wouldn’t be forgotten—the sweatshirt and the phone calls. This was followed by Jenny’s secretary, who further hammered home the importance of those calls, then Raymond Hardwick, demonstrating that Ronnie had had ample opportunity to make them.

  Now it was Nadine’s turn, and she would provide direct evidence against Ronnie’s character, proving—in the minds of some, at least—that Ronnie had been hostile toward Jenny.

  Hutch figured the forensic testimony would follow, confirming the origin of the blood on the hoodie, as well as digging deeper into the question of the dog hairs. And even though Waverly had managed to point out that those hairs could have come from just about anyone, the jurors were likely to believe the simplest explanation:

  That they had originated with the killer.

  And that killer was Ronnie.

  It was a carefully constructed case full of circumstantial evidence, and by the time Abernathy was done, the jurors wouldn’t even remember or care that Detective Meyer was a misogynist pig, or that Ronnie and Carlene Harding had never met face to face, or that Raymond Hardwick had claimed that his one-time employee was not a biter.

  Hutch had been hopeful the last couple days, especially in light of Frederick Langer’s activities, but the creep hadn’t yet made an appearance today. If he’d been scared away, if he was in the wind, Hutch doubted they’d ever find him again.

  And now, with Danny Tillman’s questionable suicide hanging over them, it was clear that whatever force of nature was coming after Ronnie might very well win.

  Hutch was drawn from his thoughts as Nadine emerged from the witness room looking considerably better than she had three nights ago. Her eyes were clear, her hair neatly coiffed, and she was dressed in business wear, a tailored pants suit that said power executive.

  But as she crossed to the stand, Hutch noted that she was fighting a case of the nerves. He’d seen stage fright before, had even suffered from it a few times himself, and he knew it when he saw it.

  Not that he could blame her. Whatever she might be feeling about Ronnie, she was about to betray a woman she had once shared a room with, someone she had called a friend. And that couldn’t be easy.

  She didn’t look at Ronnie as she passed the defense table, and Ronnie continued staring at her hands, her demeanor unchanged. It wasn’t until Nadine was sworn in and seated in the witness box that they made brief eye contact—

  —and Hutch saw something he hadn’t expected to see in Nadine’s eyes.

  Sympathy.

  He saw sympathy.

  But before he could process what this might mean, Abernathy was on his feet and moving to the podium.

  “Good morning, Ms. Overman, I appreciate you taking the time from your busy schedule to testify today. Can you tell the jury what it is you do for a living?”

  Nadine glanced apprehensively at the jurors, then seemed to steel herself, finding her center. “I’m the CEO of Overman Associates, a real estate development firm here in Chicago.”

  “And what was the nature of your relationship with the victim in this case? Jennifer Keating?”

  “We were friends,” Nadine said. “Close friends. But we also had a professional relationship.”

  “Can you tell us more about that?”

  “I’m in the middle of a project that involves the acquisition and development of a large parcel of land in Evanston. I hired Treacher and Pine to oversee the legal details and Jenny was handling the contracts.”

  “So is it to fair to say that you were in regular communication with Ms. Keating?”

  “Yes,” Nadine said. “We spoke by phone several times a week and had dinner or lunch together at least twice a month.”

  “And how long did you know Ms. Keating?”

  “We went to high school together. Then college. We lived in the same dorm during our freshman year, then moved into a house near campus.”

  “This was a house on Miller Street, correct?”

  “Yes,” Nadine said.

  Hutch thought about the first time he’d seen Jenny and Nadine walk into that house. He had passed up the opportunity to dorm and had lived there during his freshman year with Tom and Monica and several other students whose names were lost to him now.

  When those students had decided to find other lodgings, the vacancies were filled by Ronnie, whom Hutch had met in a philosophy class, Andy and Matt, who had previously dormed together on campus, and finally Jenny and Nadine, the last to answer the want ad posted on the student housing website.

  Hutch had just stumbled out of bed when he saw them from his second-story window, crossing with the landlady, Mrs. Kastner, toward the front door. He was standing in his boxer shorts, looking down at them, when Jenny suddenly glanced upward and caught his gaze.

  This was nearly ten years ago, but Hutch could still remember the moment. The slight catch his throat as they made eye contact.

  It was like one of those film noir moments, where the beautiful woman emerges from the haze or the staircase or the alleyway, so perfect in every way that any man watching is suddenly reevaluating his life, asking himself, how can I have that?

  Who do I need to kill to have that?

  But Hutch hadn’t been forced to kill anyone. Within a month, he and Jenny were madly in love and a game of musical roommates was played until they were sharing a room. There was some resentment at first—from Ronnie and Nadine in particular—but they all managed to grow past it and their time in that house became something special. Magical.

  Oh, how things had changed.

  “Isn’t it true,” Abernathy said to Nadine, “that you also lived with the defendant at that time?”

  “Yes. We shared a room for nearly three years.”

  “So I’d imagine you came to know Ms. Baldacci quite well.”

  “Sometimes better than I wanted to,” Nadine said and several people laughed.

  “What about her relationship with Ms. Keating back then? How would you characterize it?”

  “Objection,” Waverly said. “I don’t see how events of nearly a decade ago have any bearing on today’s proceedings.”

  “I’m merely attempting to provide the jury with some historical background, Your Honor.”

  “Or color their judgment,” Waverly said.

  “I’m going to allow it,” O’Donnell told them. “I’m sure the jury is capable of evaluating the testimony and deciding for themselves what is and isn’t pertinent to the matter at hand.”

  Abernathy thanked the judge and went on. “You can answer the question, Ms. Overman.”

  Nadine hesitated. “Could you repeat it?”

  “Yes, of course. How would you characterize Ms. Baldacci’s relationship with Ms. Keating when you were all living together in the house on Miller Street?”

  Nadine took a moment, Hutch knowing that she was about to paint Ronnie as a jealous bitch.

  But then she surprised him.

  “Fairly typical,” she said. “They were friends.”

  Abernathy seemed surprised as well. “Can you elaborate?”

  “Their relationship was the same as everyone else’s in the house. They had their close moments, they had their spats, but so did Jenny and I. We were college students—on our own for the first time in our lives—thrown together in a living situation that wasn’t always ideal, but was often wonderful.”

  Hutch could see by Abernathy’s expression that Nadine had just strayed from the script.

  “Did Ms. Baldacci ever show any animosity toward Ms. Keating?”

  “Of course,” Nadine said. “She was always a little envious of Jenny’s relationship with Hutch.” She paused. “That’s Ethan Hutchinson, one of our roommates. But then I was envious, too. I think we all were, in a way. They had something special that the rest of us were still searching for.”

  Hutch didn’t look around, but he was certain that several of the people in the gallery were staring at him now. Some of the jurors as well.

  L
ooking a bit concerned by her response, Abernathy pressed on. “Was there ever a moment during that time that you yourself felt threatened by the defendant?”

  Hutch assumed he was talking about the late night incident with the air gun, one that would surely paint Ronnie a little crazy, but Nadine simply said, “No.”

  And that was the moment Hutch knew that something had changed. That Nadine had finally come to her senses. Somehow the message had gotten through to her that her old roommate couldn’t possibly have done what she was accused of. That, despite any problems they may have had between them in the past, there was no way Ronnie could be a killer. It was the very same evolution that he and Tom and Monica had gone through.

  Hutch didn’t know when she had come to this realization. It could very well have been when she and Ronnie made eye contact here in the courtroom, but he suspected that Tom may have called her and told her about Frederick Langer. And that alone may have been enough to get her to reevaluate her feelings.

  Abernathy looked like a man who had just been hijacked by pirates. “Ms. Overman, did you not tell me in a recent conversation about an incident with a—?”

  “Objection, Your Honor. Leading the witness.”

  “Sustained.”

  Abernathy checked his notes, then said, “Ms. Overman, do you recall a time back then when the defendant possessed a weapon?”

  “A weapon?”

  “A gun,” Abernathy said. “Or, more specifically, an air gun.”

  Waverly was on her feet now. “Objection. Your Honor, I don’t really see the point to this testimony.”

  The judge eyed the ADA. “Mr. Abernathy?”

  “I’m simply trying to establish a pattern of behavior that the defendant engaged—”

  “And how does a single incident form a pattern?” Waverly asked.

  Abernathy glared at her. “It has to start somewhere, doesn’t it?”

  “All right,” O’Donnell said. “Everyone calm down. The objection is overruled. I’m going to allow Mr. Abernathy to proceed. But only with caution.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor.” Abernathy turned to Nadine. “While you were living in that house together, sharing a room, did Ms. Baldacci ever possess an air gun?”