The Cheater

by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

  “So you think the verdict was wrong?”

  “Voluntary manslaughter,” Lily said, scowling. “Dead wrong. I’m not that familiar with the sentencing laws in Florida, but the maximum term is probably six or eight years, like it is here. With good-time and work-time credits, she’ll be out in half that time. How many men ask their wives to wear sexy clothing? The only way the jury bought it was because the majority were women. What’s this theory you mentioned?”

  “I think it was a lot more than the preacher asking his shy wife to dress up in sexy clothes or wear high heels,” Anne told her, placing her arms on the rim and scissoring her legs in the warm water.

  “Elaborate.”

  “Read between the lines.” She paused. “Is it okay if I call you Lily?”

  “Sure.”

  “The mattress the dead guy was sleeping on was on the floor. A minister might not earn a lot of money, but I think he can afford a bed, don’t you?”

  Lily glanced at the large round clock on the wall. She got out and dried off. “What’s does the mattress have to do with it?”

  Anne climbed out as well, wrapping a fresh towel around her body. “Personally, I think they were swingers and the husband pushed her into it. Think about it. If you have sex with more than one person, even a king-size mattress might not be big enough. So you put the mattress on the floor.” She saw the look on Lily’s face and laughed. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m not a swinger. The only reason I know about this stuff is the client I mentioned with the yacht paid for it by throwing these kind of parties. Internal Revenue seized the boat because he failed to report the income. When I went to look at it, there were mattresses all over the floor.”

  Lily was intrigued. A blast of cold air struck her when Anne opened the door leading out of the Jacuzzi, and she wrapped her towel around her shoulders to stay warm. The role reversal was strange. People were usually hammering her for information on various newsworthy cases. “Are you saying the preacher was throwing sex parties at his home?”

  “Not exactly.” Anne spun the combination lock, then pulled it down until it opened. “He could have invited another couple to their house, or even a single girl. Men love threesomes. Besides, this kind of thing is so popular today, they even have a swingers’ section on My-Space. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t this type of activity kept under the table in the past? Maybe it was out in the open in the sixties or seventies. That was before AIDS. I was shocked things like that still went on.”

  The case was shifting directions in Lily’s mind. “If this is true, wouldn’t they be afraid someone might find out?”

  Anne reached around to snap her bra, then pulled on her bikini panties. “I don’t think there’s a they in this equation. I think it was the husband’s idea. From what I’ve heard, it always is. When his wife protested, he kept pushing until she cratered. This guy was a Pentecostal preacher. I don’t know what religion you are, but have you ever seen these guys on TV? They get poverty-stricken widows to send them their last dime, so they must possess strong powers of persuasion. He might have even quoted the Bible to her, where it says a wife must submit to her husband.”

  Lily took a seat on the bench in front of the lockers, looking down at her feet. Talking to Anne was like reading a tabloid magazine, just from a more intelligent perspective. “The man was a preacher. One of his parishioners might have recognized him.”

  “Maybe he reasoned that swingers weren’t the kind of people who go to church.” Anne wiggled into her jeans, then pulled a flowered T-shirt over her head. “Did you see the footage of the wife testifying?”

  “No, I didn’t catch it. I don’t watch much TV.”

  “The poor woman was beet-red.” Anne stepped into her tennis shoes, sat down on the bench beside Lily, and then bent over to tie the laces. “I don’t know of any drug that can make a person blush on cue. This was a shy, introverted woman. She married a man she thought was a servant of God, only to have him turn into a perverted pig. There’s no telling what disgusting things he made her do.”

  “I know you don’t practice criminal law,” Lily told her, “but the elements you mentioned are mitigating circumstances, not a justification for murder. And how did the shotgun get there? Don’t tell me the preacher brought a shotgun to their alleged sex party.” A judge had to watch her mouth, or serious repercussions could develop. Lily’s rule of thumb was she never discussed cases she was involved in, and only discussed other legal matters after they had been officially resolved by the court.

  Anne thought a few moments. “Since they were dealing with strangers, he could have kept a shotgun in the closet for safety.” Seeing Lily wasn’t buying it, she held up her palms. “Okay, I’ll concede she intentionally shot him. It’s an offshoot of the battered woman defense, and I realize it could be used to distort justice. Still, I think the preacher probably got what he deserved.”

  “You’ve made your point, Counselor,” Lily said. When Anne’s cell phone rang again, she pushed herself to her feet and headed off to her own locker.

  THREE

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27

  VENTURA, CALIFORNIA

  A chilly wind had blown in from the ocean, and the sky was as gray as a sailor’s blanket. The temperature gauge on Lily’s white Volvo read sixty-one degrees. Just three days ago, it was in the mid-seventies. Two weeks back, the Santa Ana winds had made it warm enough to jump in the ocean and take a swim.

  She took the 101 freeway to the Victoria off-ramp. Her head turned when she passed the Elephant Bar, a hangout for local attorneys, and the first place she had connected with Richard Fowler, a fellow prosecutor she’d fallen in love with. Fowler was still around, but their relationship was over. It had been the type of love that had left a hole in her heart. She couldn’t repair it, but she’d finally reached the point where she no longer wanted him.

  Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t unwind over drinks with the courthouse crowd as she had in the past. Her judicial appointment had separated her from her friends and many of the positive memories she had of Ventura.

  The Ventura government center was similar to a small city. The courts, the district attorneys, and public defenders’ offices, as well as the records division, were all housed on the right side of a large open space. A bubbling fountain stood in the center, surrounded by concrete benches and blooming flowers. To the left were the probation department, the sheriff’s department, and the jail. The general public assumed the two structures weren’t connected, yet in actuality an underground tunnel was used to transport inmates back and forth.

  Lily turned down the ramp leading to the underground garage reserved for judges. She never would have agreed to take the position in Ventura if she had to park in the public lot because it could be seen through the windows of the jail. Minor detail, she thought bitterly, at least to the architects and the board of supervisors who’d approved it. For Lily, it was a horror story. It was hard to accept that both she and her daughter’s lives had changed forever because of a parking lot.

  The jail was actually a pretrial detention facility, and as a result of housing over one thousand inmates with a rate capacity of four hundred and twelve, the twenty-year-old facility had the infrastructure of a sixty-year-old building. About fourteen years ago, the county had erected another detention facility called the Todd Road Jail. Located in the city of Santa Paula, which was part of Ventura County, Todd Road was designed to hold over 750 sentenced male inmates. Only minor or repeat offenders served their time in jail. Serious offenders were sentenced to prison.

  The overcrowding was even worse in the prisons. Approximately two hundred thousand offenders were incarcerated in facilities built for half that number. They were warehoused in gymnasiums, converted classrooms, even kitchens. Riots were an increasing problem. Some of the prisons were under federal mandates to release prisoners or close their doors.

  As a judge, Lily had to factor in overcrowding whenever she imposed a sentence. She wanted to
keep dangerous offenders behind bars for as long as possible, but the reality was there wasn’t anywhere to put them. It wasn’t as important an issue as global warming. Nonetheless, it was still a serious problem that society had chosen to ignore until it was too late to correct. Overcrowding in correctional institutions didn’t concern people until it struck home. One couple hadn’t finished paying the funeral home when they saw the man who’d murdered their daughter strolling down the aisles at a local supermarket.

  Locking her car, Lily took the private elevator to the main floor, passed through security, then continued on to Judge Roger Hennessey’s chambers. Hennessey was the presiding judge. He had been on leave recovering from a quadruple bypass when she’d received her appointment. She knew he didn’t like her. She recalled the days when she’d tried cases before him, and how he had consistently ruled against her.

  Hennessey hated all powerful women. He had tried to oust the first woman to ever be appointed to the Ventura County Superior Court, Elaine Sorbiet. He must be happy now. Elaine had retired recently, but not because of Hennessey. Her husband had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and she’d sacrificed what was left of her career to care for him.

  A smartly dressed man with olive skin came walking out the back door of Division Twenty-one, his thick dark hair held in place by some kind of hair product that made it resemble strands of rubber. “You look terrific today, Lily,” Judge Paciugo said, a mischievous grin on his face. “I heard you’re sitting both the Burkell and Stucky murders. Why do you get assigned all the major crimes while I have to deal with the boring civil cases?”

  Vince Paciugo was a womanizer. He was also a competition junkie, and scoring with a married woman garnered a bigger trophy. “Even a dog could figure that out, Vince,” she told him. “I was a prosecutor and you were a divorce attorney.”

  He placed his hand over his chest, playacting. “How can such a ravishing woman be so vicious? Have a drink with me tonight and I’ll forgive you.”

  “No,” Lily said, attempting to step past him. “I have a husband, remember? Bryce would beat the crap out of you if he knew you were hitting on me. Keep it up and I’ll tell him.”

  Now that he’d left private practice and knew he couldn’t get away with it, Judge Paciugo didn’t harass female employees, which had obviously put a crunch on his sexual proclivities. But he’d decided Lily was fair game, for some reason. The man was basically a baboon. With the things hidden in her past, she had no choice but to tolerate him.

  Paciugo pouted, making him look even more slimy and ridiculous. “All I want is to spend some time with you. Maybe I need some legal pointers and I’m too embarrassed to ask one of the other judges for fear they’ll laugh at me.”

  She glared at him. “Read your law books instead of trying to fuck everything that moves.”

  “I love it when you talk dirty.” He cornered her near the wall, his hot breath on her face, his pungent cologne swirling around her.

  “Get out of my way, Vince. I’m on my way to a meeting with Hennessey.”

  “Oh,” he said, stepping back. “Then I guess I’ll catch you later. I was joking, you know. Everyone is so serious. All I want is to have a little fun now and then.” He clasped her arm, his brows furrowed. “You wouldn’t say anything to Hennessey, would you?”

  “I might,” Lily tossed over her shoulder as she walked away.

  The quiet hallways behind the courtrooms where the judges’ chambers were located were a stark contrast to the noise and confusion of a county DA’s office. A lot still went on in these corridors. For one thing, there wasn’t much room to escape unless you ducked inside another judge’s chambers, which was more or less taboo. Attorneys had access. It wasn’t unusual to see one huddled with a judge.

  As a former prosecutor, she was familiar with deadlines, but here everything was about moving the calendar. And moving the calendar was similar to pushing a jumbo jet without wheels. The city of Ventura wasn’t that large, but the county’s population had swelled to over a million people. They called it the Gold Coast. It consisted of ten cities and numerous unincorporated communities.

  Lily had to handle mountains of arraignments, plea agreements, jury selections, opening arguments, closing arguments. And, of course, there was the continuous stream of motions and paperwork. Then there was the unpredictable factor—lawyers. She felt like a teacher trying to ride herd on a class of egotistical students who had the right to argue over every assignment.

  Thrusting her shoulders back, she walked into Judge Hennessey’s outer chambers and announced herself to his assistant. Esther Landau was in her late fifties and had worked for four presiding judges prior to Hennessey. A maniac when it came to her job, she’d once tackled an attorney who tried to barge into the presiding judge’s chambers without an appointment. She forwarded Hennessy’s calls to her personal cell phone when she went to the bathroom.

  “You can go in, Judge Forrester.” Esther had an unusually solemn look on her pinched face. “He’s been waiting for you.”

  Shit, Lily thought, he’s going to rip me to shreds. He’d probably been practicing snarling since early that morning. She thought about turning around and leaving, but she was stuck. Esther’s firm gaze told her not to even think about it. She finally forced herself to step through the doorway. The good news was she had to be on the bench in an hour. Hennessey would never cause her to be late to court, so at least she wouldn’t be in the hot seat for long.

  “It’s good to see you back at work, Judge Hennessey,” she said, giving a lackluster smile to the seventy-two-year-old jurist. Although he’d been a judge for eons, a presiding judge only served a two-year term. He had lost a lot of time with his illness. If her calculations were right, he couldn’t have more than a year left, unless some stupid law had been enacted that stopped the clock for someone in his situation.

  Hennessey’s eyes were small and deeply set, his skin ruddy and wrinkled. A fringe of white hair covered the lower half of his otherwise bald dome, and his dark-framed glasses looked as if they were about to slide off the end of his unimposing nose. Only a small amount of yellowish skin was visible, the rest covered by age spots and what appeared to be scars from old skin cancer lesions.

  His heart attack had been massive. The emergency room physician had been ready to pronounce him dead when his heart suddenly resumed beating. The old fart should have given up golf and done more cardio workouts.

  Lily had been in Hennessey’s chambers in the past, but she now had a true appreciation of them. The room was twice the size of hers, with lacquered cherry bookcases, a magnificent antique desk, and a conference table that could seat twelve. Two studded burgundy leather chairs were positioned in front of his desk, and the walls were covered with certificates and framed photos. There were pictures of him holding golf trophies, standing beside several Supreme Court judges, and even one with the president. The room smelled like a combination of leather, polished wood, old books, and rotting flesh.

  Hennessey stared at her, fingering a piece of paper. “I think you should know I don’t approve of your appointment. Judge Reid should have waited until I recovered before making such a rash decision.”

  Her back stiffened. There was no response to this type of statement outside of a string of profanity. She struggled to keep herself in check. Hennessey was like a tiger who waited patiently for his prey, then pounced as soon as he was certain he had the kill. Although he looked as if his chair had swallowed him, he possessed the razor-sharp instincts of a world-class prosecutor. If she came back strong, he would demolish her. “I’m sure you’re aware that I’m sitting the Stuckey homicide,” she told him. “In addition, Burkell was just declared competent and I have the case on calendar for this morning. If this is the only thing you called me in here for, I have a number of motions I need to review before my ten o’clock hearing.”

  “I won’t assign you any sexual assault cases,” Hennessey said in almost a whisper, brushing his finger under his nose. “
This makes my job more difficult. Judges who are biased on certain offenses don’t belong on the bench.”

  “I am not biased,” Lily countered, still reeling from his description of her appointment as a rash decision. He’d been absent for almost six months. His quadruple bypass had been complicated by a staph infection, leaving the assistant presiding judge, Alex Reid, to take over his responsibilities. As a prosecutor, she had a great track record and was highly respected in the legal community. She easily could have secured a judgeship in Santa Barbara. With Elaine out of the picture the calendar had quickly become backlogged. Of course, all the other judges were male; they needed another woman.