"Of course. I've had it forever. That old Ford isn't much to look at, but sometimes I don't want to drive the Lexus. It’s got an automatic shift. You'll be fine. I’ve got to get dressed. Be back shortly."
She picked up the large tote she’d carried on the plane and found the phone number for the attorney, Brian Meeks. She left word on his voicemail that she was free after nine that morning, but would prefer it he could come to the house in the early afternoon, about one. She gave him Jordan’s address and asked him to call her back and confirm the appointment. Meeting with her attorney the day before she went to jail was not the way she’d planned to celebrate the days leading up to her first Christmas with Jordan.
A few minutes later he walked back into the kitchen, kissed her again, and watched while she broke eggs into a bowl and whisked them. "Jordan, did I tell you about the dinner they gave me last night in the jail? Now I’m kind of sorry I lost that weight I’d gained in Provence. I might starve to death in jail."
"No, I've always heard how bad the food is, but in my line of detective work, I don't spend much time in jails. I'm never the arresting officer, just the one who does the groundwork on the art thefts. Was it that bad?"
"Beyond. There was some unidentifiable meat with gluey gravy on it and peas that looked so mushy they must have been cooked all day. Seriously, they’d lost every bit of their green color and the only way I could identify what they were was by their shape, plus the bread had mold on the crust. I felt like throwing up. I couldn’t eat any of it.”
"That sounds horrible. Sorry to leave you with the kitchen mess, but I’ve got to go. Here's the tape recorder I told you about. Good luck with the attorney and tell your parents I said hi. I’ll call you later." He kissed her again. She smiled as she looked at his work outfit - jeans, white shirt, sport coat, and a gun in its holster on his hip underneath the coat.
When she drove the old red Ford onto her parent's street, she felt a sense of déjà vu. Nothing had changed in the years since she'd left, married Jeffrey, and ultimately fled to Provence. There were bars on the windows, paint was peeling, more weeds than grass were in front of the run-down houses, and gang graffiti was everywhere. No matter how many years had gone by, every time she thought about the house or something reminded her of it, she could still feel the rats on her, licking her blood. She shivered, remembering when she was gang-raped.
As soon as Maria pulled the Ford up to the curb in front of her parent’s home, the door of the house flew open. Maria's mother, Elena, ran out to the front yard to hug Maria with Fabian, her father, close on Elena's heels. Tears streamed down Maria's face.
"I've missed you so much and I'm so sorry to hurt you like this. You must believe me. I didn’t kill Jeffrey intentionally. I’m innocent. I don't know how much you'll hear about the case when it goes to trial, but you didn’t raise me to kill someone. What happened will come out in the trial. It was a horrible time for me. I was so scared. The only thing I could think to do was leave the country. Once I got to Provence I was afraid the people who were looking for me might do something to you if I tried to get in touch. That’s why I never called or wrote. Let's go inside. I want you to tell me everything about the family."
"Well, you have a new nephew," Fabian began, as all three of them turned and headed for the front door. "Paola had a son. I'm sure you're going to spoil him as much as you’ve spoiled the rest of them. Come, come."
Maria quickly crossed the small living room with its threadbare rug and patched up furniture, hugging her sister and holding her plump little nephew. "Hello, little guy. I'm your Aunt Maria. It's nice to meet you,” she said, kissing his chubby little fingers. She handed the baby back to Paola.
"Mom and Dad probably told you I've been arrested. I'm innocent. I want you to know that. Anyway, when this is all over, I think I need to get this little guy some clothes and toys. Would that be all right with you? I mean, that's what aunts are for, right?"
Her sister nodded with approval and said that would be wonderful. What wasn't said was that if Maria didn't buy clothes and toys for him, he'd only have hand-me-downs from the church. He wore a blue onesie, the nap long gone from having been washed too many times. Just feeding the large family and keeping a roof over their heads was a constant challenge for her parents. There was no extra money for baby clothes and toys. Maria knew how much her family struggled and she’d made sure money was deposited monthly into their checking account from her Cayman Islands account. With another mouth to feed, they needed the money now more than ever. An hour later she hugged everyone again, told them not to worry, and that Jordan would let them know when they could come to visit her.
The reunion was bittersweet for Maria. Sweet because she'd missed her parents so much and bitter because of the pain she was causing everyone.
When she returned to Jordan’s home and pressed the button on the sun visor of Jordan’s old Ford, the garage door opened and she drove the car in, realizing that his garage was about the size of her parent’s home and a lot cleaner. As she was closing the car door, the sharp glare of reflected light bouncing off a pair of binoculars caught her attention. It was coming from a window in the house next door. She couldn’t clearly make out who was holding the binoculars, but it looked somewhat like the same man she’d seen last night. She wondered if he was the one responsible for the article in the Celebrity Spotlight. The thought of being watched and photographed unnerved her.
CHAPTER 14
Promptly at 1:00 that afternoon, the doorbell rang. "Who is it?" Maria asked.
"Brian Meeks," the deep baritone voice said. Maria opened the door and standing in front of her was a prosperous looking man in his mid '60's. She quickly took in his medium build, piercing blue eyes, perfectly trimmed grey hair, and the large blue fire-sapphire ring that he wore on his pinkie. He was dressed in a tan golf shirt, khakis, and brown cordovan loafers. He had an air of casual elegance about him. She immediately thought that if she was sitting on a jury, she'd believe anything he told her.
"Please come in. I'm Maria Brooks. First of all, I want to thank you for taking my case. I still don't know who called you, but I'm glad they did. I hear from Jordan Kramer, my fiancé, that your outstanding reputation precedes you. May I get you something to drink?"
"No thanks, I just had lunch. Slade Kelly is the one who called me. He's a private investigator, a very good private investigator by the way. He was a student of mine in a law school class I taught many years ago. We became good friends and have stayed in touch ever since. What I want you to do this afternoon is tell me everything about the death of Jeffrey Brooks. I want to know what happened beforehand, during, and afterward. I'll try not to interrupt."
She sat down on the couch, curling her legs under her. Brian noticed her tightly clenched fists and the throbbing vein in her temple. In spite of the large number of clients he had represented over the years, he always empathized with them as they unraveled the chain of events leading to their arrest. He could already sense that this was going to be very difficult for her. It was one of the reasons he’d decided to cut back on his case load and semi-retire. He hated the emotions involved in this kind of work and he easily read the signs that told him the very beautiful woman in front of him was going to have a lot of them.
“My fiancé thought it would be a good idea if I taped our conversation. I haven’t told him all of the details of what led to my arrest and he thought it would spare me from reliving it once again. He’s the only one who will hear the tape. Is that all right with you?”
“Of course.”
Maria took the black tape recorder off of the oak side table and pressed the record button. She sat for a moment, as if to gather her thoughts and strength, took a deep breath, and sighed as she slowly let it out. "I might as well start at the beginning. From the time I was a little girl, my mother had a mantra that she repeated almost daily and it became mine as well: "Get a good job. Find a rich man. Get out of the barrio.” Her face was overtaken with pain as
she thought about her past and the memories it brought up.
She continued, "My mother thought I was beautiful and that my looks would get me out of the barrio. She hated the gangs, the drugs, the crime, the run-down houses, and the graffiti, but it was too late for her to escape the wretched living conditions of the barrio. My brother died in a drug deal on the streets that went bad. My mother never knew how much I wanted out of the barrio. I was gang-raped when I was twelve."
Brian bent his head and tried to swallow. He forced himself to look up at the beautiful young woman across from him who was about the age of his daughter. He wanted to walk over and hug her. God, he thought, what if that had been Jillian?
"Please continue," he said.
She crossed her arms over her chest as if she was still trying to protect herself from her attackers. "I never knew the names of the young men who did it. It's a fact of life in the barrio. A lot of rapes take place and usually no one’s ever prosecuted. Most of them aren’t even reported to the police. I got over it, but I've never forgotten it. To this day my mother doesn’t know about it. My father discovered me in an alley behind our house where I’d been raped and beaten. I was a virgin and there were rats all over me, licking my vaginal blood. He made me promise never to tell my mother because he was afraid it would break her heart. I never did. Jeffrey and Moore Labs were my ticket out of the barrio.”
Those bastards, I'd like to kill them. If anyone had ever done that to Jillian, I would have in a heartbeat. He looked down at his hand and consciously unclenched his fist.
"Anyway," Maria continued, "it was a long time ago. I went to work for Moore Labs and met my future husband there. His name was Jeffrey Brooks. He was a brilliant scientist who had formulated an anti-aging hormone. Moore Labs was in the process of submitting it for approval to the FDA. There was a lot of talk that he was going to win the Nobel Prize for it. He’d signed a contract when he was hired that specified that all inventions or discoveries he might make were owned by Moore Labs. Also, once it was submitted to the FDA, he was forbidden from having anything to do with that hormone."
Brian watched a range of emotions play over Maria’s face as she struggled to tell him about her past. "I'm listening, Maria, take your time. I'm in no hurry."
She looked out the window at a couple holding hands as they walked along the beach, wishing she had nothing better to do this afternoon. She turned back to Brian, "I told Jeffrey how frightened I was of losing my looks and getting old. He suggested that he start giving me the anti-aging hormone. I didn't want to because I was afraid if anyone ever discovered he’d given it to me, he could lose his job or worse. Reluctantly I agreed to let him start giving it to me.” She stopped talking and picked up the glass in front of her, taking a sip of water.
“One night my boss, Jeffrey's best friend Dan, thought I'd left the office for the night and noticed my unlatched purse sitting on my desk. He was getting ready to put it in my desk drawer when he realized there was a Moore Laboratory vial in it. He took it out and saw that it was the anti-aging hormone. I’d gone to the ladies’ room and when I returned I saw him looking at the vial and my purse. I asked him not to say anything and he agreed. I don't know what happened that night, but the next day he never came into the office. Jeffrey was called into Sidney Moore’s office; he’s the president of Moore Labs, in the late afternoon, and fired. So was I."
Brian interrupted her. "That must have been so hard for your husband. I know those contracts have a purpose and I’ve had cases involving disputes over nondisclosure clauses in a contract, but what Jeffrey did doesn't seem that bad."
Maria turned and looked out at the ocean again. Brian could see the pain she was in as she recounted the events of the past. For several minutes she sat lost in thought, almost as if she’d been turned to stone. Brian resisted the urge to tell her to continue. She turned back to him and began where she’d left off.
"Moore Labs didn't see it that way. In their eyes, he'd violated company policy and by doing so, he had to be fired to teach a lesson to the rest of the employees. We left that night and drove toward Phoenix. Jeffrey was exhausted, physically and emotionally. We were driving in a remote area of the desert when I saw a sign advertising a motel. It turned out to be a small, run-down 1950’s style motel. We decided to spend the night there."
"I was reading the file this morning and was curious how you'd ever found that motel."
She looked at him and resumed. "When we got ready to leave the next morning, the owner told us it was for sale. We drove to Phoenix, but I kept thinking about the motel. After we finished lunch I suggested we go back and look at it since we didn't have any other plans or options. There was no way anyone from a reputable laboratory or pharmaceutical company was going to hire Jeffrey after he was fired by Moore Labs. It's a small industry and we knew everyone would have heard that Jeffrey had been fired and why he’d been fired. I thought if we bought the motel, we could fix it up. I could run it and Jeffrey could build a lab and continue to work on his experiments. Moore Labs had given him four million dollars severance pay when they fired him. They hoped it would keep him from going to some other company with his formula."
"Maria, that's a lot of money. They must have been very worried he'd go somewhere else and produce the hormone."
"I’m sure they were. Anyway, we went back to the motel, looked at the property a second time, and decided to buy it. We returned to our condo in Irvine, packed up, and two days later drove to the motel. It took several months for a contractor to fix it up. We named it the ‘Blue Coyote Motel.’ It was around this time that I began to worry about Jeffrey. He'd been acting strange, but he told me it was because he had so much on his mind. I've suffered from bouts of depression and taken numerous medications over the years for the condition. Right before we opened the motel, Jeffrey formulated a drug he called "Freedom." He told me he'd invented it for me to help with my depression, so I’d be free from it. It worked like a miracle. I felt great."
"How are you now? Is this something we need to address while you're in jail? Do you think being incarcerated could lead to a bout of depression?"
"I'm okay now. I simply don't know what I'll be like when I'm in jail. I'm sure I won't be the first inmate to suffer from depression. They must have doctors who treat prisoners for depression and can prescribe appropriate prescription drugs. I'll cross that bridge when and if I come to it. Anyway, Jeffrey wanted to test it on some of our motel guests and chose six guests who were having problems. Freedom was in the form of a gas and he piped it into their rooms through the air-conditioning system in various doses. Unknowingly, all of them became addicted to it. I don't think he used it on any other guests. The six of them returned to the motel over Memorial Day weekend to try and regain the good feelings they'd experienced after their first stay at the motel. None of them knew about the drug being piped into their rooms.
"Meanwhile, Jeffrey’s behavior got worse. He often stayed in his lab for days. Even though I was terrified of the caged rats he kept in his lab for experimental purposes I'd take food down to him and put it in the refrigerator. He neglected his personal grooming, seldom ate the food I prepared, and became more irrational, deranged, and isolated with each passing day. He hardly ever said a word to me. He had this crazy, wild look in his eyes all the time. I feared he was slipping into insanity.”
“From what I read in the autopsy report, he was.”
"I don’t know what’s in the report. I’ve never seen it. Over the Memorial Day weekend, the six guests, headed by a man named Sean, a psychologist who'd been a priest, pieced together what had happened and asked to meet with Jeffrey. They confronted him and from what Jeffrey told me later, he admitted he'd given them the drug without their permission. He told them that the drug was available in tablet form and one pill would last a month. He told them they could buy a year's supply for $20,000. Jeffrey mentioned one of them couldn't pay that much, so he bought three months’ worth at a time. The psychologist and a Native Amer
ican pediatrician decided not to take it. The psychologist gave me his business card when he checked out of the motel and told me to call him if I ever needed to talk."
"Do you know if the psychologist was in touch with any of the other guests after that weekend?"
"No. I never talked to any of them again. I began to worry that Jeffrey wouldn't be able to make the anti-aging hormone or Freedom because of his declining mental condition. I’d never taken the pill and preferred to use the original anti-aging hormone. One afternoon several months after the Memorial Day weekend, I went down to his lab. He'd stopped giving me the hormone. Fortunately, I'd figured out where it was and learned to inject myself. There was almost no Freedom left. When I went down to his lab, he was the worst I'd ever seen him. He was out of control. I’d prepared his favorite foods, hoping I could get him to make Freedom and the anti-aging hormone for me. I suggested we spend the rest of the afternoon in our bedroom. Then he told me hated me and that I would never get either one of them again. I truly believed he was insane and I feared for my life."
"Maria, it sounds like he was insane. Rational people don't intentionally addict people. I feel sorry for those poor people who were unsuspecting victims."
"Yes, I know, but back to Jeffrey. He was eating with his hands and there was a large butcher knife on the lab table next to him. He looked at me with a hateful look in his eyes and his hand started to reach for the butcher knife. I knew he had a gun he kept in the lab because he was worried that someone would try to steal his discoveries. I backed up to the desk where he kept the gun and got it out of the drawer and held it behind my back. He suddenly stood up, grabbed the butcher knife, and raised it over his head in a threatening manner.
“I didn’t know if he intended to scare me or kill me. What I do know is that he was holding the butcher knife over his head as he charged towards me. He screamed that I was a fucking bitch and he was going to kill me. It was the most frightening thing I’ve ever experienced, even worse than when I was being gang-raped. I’d never in my life held a gun or fired one. I closed my eyes, pulled the trigger, and the gun went off, killing Jeffrey. I couldn't believe it, but I knew I had to leave. I was afraid I'd be charged with his murder and go to prison for the rest of my life."
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