by Diane Capri
“Let’s work together, shall we?” I asked her, and stuck out my hand. She took it and we shook on our new arrangement. Time would tell whether it would work any longer than the last one.
“You first,” I said.
She smiled; judges rarely give in gracefully.
“Can we move to your conference room?” She said as she walked through the connecting door without waiting for my consent.
She put her briefcase on my conference table and extracted a light green pasteboard file with a flexible side that expanded to hold the papers she carried in it. From the size of the file, it looked like she’d been doing more than just talking to George without my knowledge.
“I’ve interviewed several witnesses and what I’ve learned has shed a lot of light on what went on the night before the murder.”
I grabbed one of the ubiquitous yellow legal pads stacked on the conference table and picked up my pen to take notes. “In what way?”
“Well, after Tory Warwick beaned you with the crystal and George told everyone to leave, the Warwicks had a doozy of a fight on the way home. I interviewed both Tory and Sheldon separately and they told me essentially the same details.” She flipped through her notes and gave me the highlights. “When they got back to their house in Hyde Park, about a five-minute drive from Minaret, Tory went up to bed and passed out. Sheldon claims he stayed in the rest of the night and then went to bed. But there’s no one who can support that.”
She had put on a pair of reading glasses and now read from the shorthand notes she’d made with black ink from a fountain pen on a white legal pad.
I admire anyone who can take readable shorthand. I’ve wished more than once that I could do it. Usually because I’d like to take better notes myself.
But right now, my inability to decipher shorthand thwarted my excellent skill at reading upside down.
“Since Andy was killed in the early morning, does it matter whether the Warwicks can prove their whereabouts the evening before?”
“Let me finish. The next morning, Tory claims to have slept until eleven. Alone. And Sheldon claims to have gotten up and gone directly to the Blue Coat golf tournament. Again, neither one of them can support the other.” She looked at me over the tops of her half-glasses and held up two of her tiny, be-ringed fingers. “Both of the Warwicks had motive and opportunity. Of course, there’s still the problem with the gun.”
“Yes,” I said, “Let me fill you in on that.”
I told her about my trip to the gun club and what I’d figured out from George’s logs.
“I could have saved you some time there,” Olivia responded. “It’s good you did the foot work so that we can prove the facts if we have to, but I asked George about it.”
“So did I. He wouldn’t tell me.” I was peeved and she ignored it.
“Actually, George’s explanation is quite simple, as most truthful explanations are.” She read from her notes again. “He shot the gun every Wednesday at the gun club, as you discovered. The last time he shot it, Peter, George’s maitre d’, was with him. George had to leave, but Peter wanted to stay longer and keep shooting, so George left the gun with Peter, who took it with him when he left the club that day.”
She looked up at me. “For a lot of scheduling reasons that don’t matter here, Peter never gave the gun back.”
The explanation actually made perfect sense. Peter and George often shot together. Peter, too, had been in the military and liked to shoot handguns. George is not only fond of Peter, but Peter is very responsible. George would view loaning the gun to Peter as a friendly gesture, no more.
Also explained why George didn’t tell anyone what he’d done with his gun. He wouldn’t want Peter to be bothered.
“So how did the gun get from Peter to the killer?” I asked her.
Olivia tapped the fountain pen on one of her front teeth, a thoughtful expression on her face. “I don’t know that yet. I haven’t been able to interview Peter privately. But I will and I’d appreciate it if you’d let me do it my way. In other words, don’t ask him yourself just now, alright?”
I nodded, and she continued. “George wants Peter shielded. Peter has talked with George about this and George says Peter’s answer to the question is simple, too. But I told George I wanted to hear it from Peter directly and I don’t want him to repeat it to you first.”
She must have seen my resistance to her idea, because she said, “If you won’t agree to this, Willa, I’ll stop reporting to you right now. I won’t have you interfering where I think I can do better. It’s my call. You decide right now whether you’ll be working with me or not.”
What choice did I have? I agreed.
But if Peter just happened to tell me, or if I could get George to tell me first, that wouldn’t violate my word to Olivia at all.
When I was in private practice, I was a very creative lawyer.
I told Olivia about my interview with Robbie Andrews, but I skipped the part about Robbie calling 911 while I was there. I also reported my work with the Ask Dr. Andrews column. Olivia took lengthy and skilled shorthand notes I couldn’t read right side up.
When I finished reporting on my progress, I asked her if she’d done anything else.
“I’ve done a lot of things, actually. But what I think you’ll be most interested in is my interview with Robbie Andrews’s husband, John Williamson.” With this, she smiled in a self-satisfied way that made me want to slap her and hug her at the same time.
John had been with the Andrews family at George’s the night of Andy’s murder and would probably have a good idea about what happened afterward. I should have interviewed him, but I hadn’t thought of it.
I used to watch that old television series where the detective kept going back to his suspects, asking questions again and again. I thought, as the audience was probably meant to think, Why can’t this guy just ask everything at one time?
Because you just can’t think of everything all at one time, that’s why. No matter how clever you are.
“Ok. You’re very good and I’m sorry I got mad at you. What did John Williamson have to say?” We smiled at each other then, friends again, storm over.
“Jack’s a very interesting guy,” she said, using his nickname. “I’d never met him until now and I caught him at his office unexpectedly, otherwise I doubt he’d have consented to talk to me.” She looked satisfied with herself again, even though I couldn’t imagine very many men declining any request from Olivia for long. Not only was she beautiful and so petite that men would believe she was helpless and in need of assistance, but she was persistent. Jack Williamson never had a chance.
She read from her notes. “He said there was one hell of a row among the Andrews clan after George threw them all out of the restaurant, too. They started arguing before they left the dining room and continued into the parking lot. As luck would have it, they’d all ridden over together in a limousine, so they were able to keep up the fighting until the car dropped Jack and Robbie off in New Suburb Beautiful.”
“What was the fight about?”
“That’s the interesting part. It seems Deborah Andrews is a long-time alcoholic. Did you know that?” she asked me.
“I knew Deborah has had some problems over the years. Hers has not been an easy life,” I told her.
“Right. Well, she’s in a twelve-step program now and she was at the point where she was supposed to forgive everyone and ask forgiveness in return. So she scheduled the birthday dinner for Andrews, strong-armed the kids into coming, and set it all up as a surprise to him. Apparently he was surprised, but not too thrilled, so there was quite a bit of tension before the fight in the restaurant.”
“I can believe that. From what I’ve seen, that family was a tinder box waiting for a small spark anyway.”
“Right again. The fight was one of those really nasty ones that dredges up old grudges and involves a lot of screaming.” She skipped a few lines of her notes. “Jack said by the time he and Rob
bie got out of the car, she was in a fit of rage and crying. Of course that meant their part of the fight didn’t end, either.”
Having had a small taste of Robbie Andrews’s ire myself, I could believe that. She had been vicious to me. I believed she wouldn’t quit until she’d drawn blood from her husband.
Olivia continued. ”The best part, for our purposes, is that these two went to bed separately and mad, too. And they woke up separately with no one to confirm what they did the rest of the night or in the morning.”
I realized that Olivia was collecting evidence, attempting to create reasonable doubt as to whether George had committed the crime, in the hope that we could take it to Drake, the State Attorney, and persuade him to drop the charges before going to the grand jury for an indictment.
It seemed to me Olivia had now identified eight other people with motive and opportunity to shoot General Andrews besides George. And I hadn’t told her about my visit to Deborah Andrews yet. Things were looking up.
Olivia opened her briefcase and took out a couple of sheets of paper, handing them to me over the table.
“What’s this?” I asked her as I began to scan the closely typed pages. I needed my reading glasses.
She saved me the trouble. “It’s the autopsy report on General Andrews. I got it from Ben Hathaway this morning when I went over there to discuss the case.”
I’d found my reading glasses by this time and started to read quickly down the first page. The autopsy was unremarkable, except for the damage to the brain and the skull done by the bullet. Andrews exhibited the expected levels of deterioration of a human body in his age and socio-economic circumstances. The cause of death was pretty obvious.
The time of death wasn’t quite so easy. The report considered rigor mortis (the rigidity that comes and goes shortly after death), livor mortis (the discoloration of the skin caused by the settling of the red cells of the blood due to gravity) and algor mortis, (the gradual cooling of the body).
Andrews was still in full rigor when they found him. That meant he’d been dead at least two hours and less than forty-eight.
Of course, we’d known he’d been dead less than two days because we’d seen him the night before. Sometimes, science was not the only answer. Which is a good thing for all us non-scientific types.
Blood had settled in Andrews’s feet and buttocks, the report said, which was consistent with his sitting position. Again, the livor mortis pointed to the time of death as being at least two hours earlier.
Andrews’s body temperature, measured at the scene, was low enough that the medical examiner felt confident he’d been dead at least six hours when they found him.
All of which is a convoluted way of saying that Andrews died well before time for the Blue Coat Golf Tournament. Knew that, too.
Reading through to the bottom of the first page, I didn’t learn anything I hadn’t known before. I became impatient with Olivia’s drama. She probably sensed my feelings, but said nothing.
I flipped to the second page. Much of this I’d already learned from the police file, except the notation in the third paragraph where it said that the bullet, once they removed it from Andrews’s head, had tiny strands of gray wool fabric embedded in the tip, possibly from a jacket or heavy sweater.
The conclusion was that the bullet had passed though a wool jacket or sweater on its way to Andrews’s head. Find the fabric and whoever was wearing it was the killer.
There were probably only about twenty or thirty million people in America who owned at least one grey wool jacket or sweater. This was progress?
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Tampa, Florida
Saturday 5:05 p.m.
January 29, 2000
BUT, THE GREY FIBER was something we hadn’t had before.
I grudgingly gave her the praise she was due. “Well, Olivia, I guess you do have a right to be pleased with yourself. You’ve gotten some real evidence for us to work with.”
“There’s a problem with it, though. The fiber itself is not that helpful, but it does tell us that we should be looking for a gray wool jacket or sweater. Like most businessmen, I assume George has several gray wool jackets?” She asked me, with a natural arch to both eyebrows that any woman would admire.
I was preoccupied with the report. “The curious thing is why Ben Hathaway hasn’t asked to see any of them,” I said.
“Ah, yes. That is the curious thing.” She waited like a comedienne to deliver the punch line. “And why do you think that is?”
I finally looked up at her, giving her the full attention she craved. “Why?”
“Because they’re afraid they won’t find it.” She was almost rubbing her hands with glee, like an Oz munchkin after a delicious sparerib dinner. “I asked Ben Hathaway if he planned to request a search warrant for George’s closet. What do you think he said?”
“I give up.”
“He said, maybe later. Then I asked him if he wanted me to look first. He said he’d appreciate that.”
“I don’t get it. Why do you want to do his job for him?”
“Think about it, Willa. If we look for a grey wool jacket with a hole in it and we find it, I have an ethical obligation to turn it over to the police. So do you. Otherwise, we’d be obstructing justice. Hathaway wins.” She stopped a second or two. “But if we don’t find it, he doesn’t have to report a negative result after obtaining a search warrant, and his prime suspect is still his prime suspect. Hathaway wins.”
She laid it out for me as if she was explaining the strategy behind a major league playoff.
“I understand all of that, Olivia. What I don’t understand is why we would want to help Drake keep George under suspicion of murder for a second longer than necessary. You’re supposed to be representing us, remember? If Drake looks like a fool, that’s just fine by me.”
I could have denied her the permission she needed, but she wasn’t the only good strategist in the room.
Grabbed up my purse and said to Olivia, “Let’s go search my husband’s closets.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Tampa, Florida
Saturday 5:45 p.m.
January 29, 2000
WE TOOK SEPARATE CARS back to Plant Key and I was definitely not practicing my mindfulness during the drive. I was trying to decide whether to disclose to Olivia that George had moved out.
She probably wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at his closets, because he’d only taken a few things with him when he’d moved to the club. But the point of looking at his jackets was not to find an incriminating one. To do that, we’d have to look at them all, and some were at the Club with George.
For some reason, there were no media vans parked at the entrance to the Plant Key Bridge. Maybe we were catching a break.
I arrived at Minaret just moments before Olivia and we both parked in valet at the entrance. After I let us into the flat and got Harry and Bess calmed down and out the back door, we approached George’s dressing room.
When we remodeled Aunt Minnie’s house, we took one of the bedrooms and made it into two dressing rooms with walk-in closets: His and Mine.
George’s closet was meticulous. His suits hung the same way you’d find suits displayed at a clothing store. Each suit on a wooden hanger and all facing in the same direction, colors grouped together, followed by sports coats.
Shirts were boxed and neatly stacked in cubby-holes. Ties hung on racks between the suits and shirts.
Casual clothes were separated by a row of drawers for underwear, hose, and the carefully pressed and stacked monogrammed linen handkerchiefs George carried every day.
Just standing in his closet, smelling his Old Spice scent on everything, bothered me. The closet was so George. I missed his steady presence.
“Knock yourself out,” I said. “I’ll make us a cold drink.”
I left her in George’s closet so I wouldn’t give anything away while watching.
Olivia believed George didn’t shoot And
rews and there would be no hole in any of his grey jackets to find. But George would never have left such evidence in his closet.
I assumed Olivia had already thought this through, but I wasn’t going to help her with it. I knew things about George that no other human would know. While I might have to work through my own doubts, I would never disclose anything that would help Drake’s case.
Olivia came out of the closet empty handed about ten minutes later. Smiling and shaking her head, amused by George’s closet or by what she didn’t find there.
“George is a real gem, you know,” she said. “That closet is a wonder to behold. Because the curiosity is killing you, I’ll just tell you that I didn’t find any holes in any of his nine grey jackets.”
I didn’t argue with her, but it felt good to realize she didn’t know everything.
Olivia followed me out to the veranda, sat in George’s chair, and waited while I lit my Partagas.
“Now what?” I asked her.
“Now, I’ll tell Ben Hathaway I’ve looked for a grey wool jacket with a hole in it and found nothing. He won’t get a search warrant. You’ll be spared the inconvenience and insult of a search. Believe me, after the police searched that closet, it wouldn’t look anything like it does now.”
Olivia reached into her pocket, removed and ate three shortbread wafers shaped like Mickey Mouse. She ate the ears off first, just like the child she resembled in size. She didn’t offer me one. This was the third time I’d seen her do this. A blood sugar thing? She offered no explanation; I refused to ask.
We talked about the contents of the police file for a while. Both of us had seen it before, except for the autopsy report we’d gotten today. Much of the evidence didn’t really point to any thing, except for the gun.
I showed her the gun logs and inventory George kept, which provided written documentation that corroborated his story about when he last shot the murder weapon, although not that he had loaned it to Peter, as he’d told Olivia.
I kept almost nothing from her. It was a relief to let someone else share the load, even though I wasn’t sure her small shoulders could handle the burden. I trusted her. What else could I have done?