The Victim's Wife

by Dan Decker

  “No, she said she received a phone call from you.”

  Rafael Jensen. It took a moment before I put things together.

  This was Mason’s daughter. Jensen must be her mother’s last name.

  “Of course, send her right in.”

  I closed the paper files in front of me, sliding them into my desk. After that, I locked my computer screen. It was not likely Rafael would see anything that I was working on, but I was cautious still the same. My door opened, and Ellie showed Rafael in. I motioned to a seat after shaking her hand.

  “Thank you for coming in to meet with me,” I said to Rafael, just as if we’d had a regularly scheduled appointment.

  “I apologize for the drop-in. I’ve tried several times to bring myself to call you and just could not do it. I finally decided it might be easier for us to have this conversation face-to-face.”

  The way she spoke made me feel like there was something significant she wanted to tell me. This was not the perfunctory check-the-box conversation that I had hoped it would be.

  I nodded. “I understand. As I believe you probably know, I am representing your father in a matter.”

  “The murder of Max Moyer.”

  “That’s what he has been charged with. I—”

  “He did it, though, didn’t he?” Rafael leaned forward, looking carefully into my eyes as if I was doing a bad thing by representing him. It was not the first time somebody had questioned my willingness to represent a client who appeared guilty.

  “Everybody deserves a day in court. I’m just running through the process—”

  “My father deserves to go to jail.”

  I cocked my head to the side. She spoke with such vehemence that I was sure it wasn’t over Max Moyer that she felt this way.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “He did it, didn’t he? If there’s no doubt my father did this, he should pay for what he’s done.”

  I nodded slowly. It was time for a change of topic.

  “Actually, I didn’t call you in to chat about that case, as much as I would like to hear your perspective on it. I have a different issue I want to talk with you about.”

  Rafael looked taken aback. “Why did you want to speak to me if it isn’t that?”

  She seemed to think that this was entirely about the incident at her father’s office.

  “Do you have any information about what happened at Meridian Solutions?” I asked.

  “No, I just assumed you wanted to talk about that.”

  I was curious Mason had not reached out to Rafael to tell her the purpose of the conversation. That’s why I had made the phone call immediately afterward. Was there some sort of wedge between him and his daughter that kept him from feeling like he could reach out?

  “I see. Sorry for the confusion. A year and a half ago, the police were called out to your house.” I stared into Rafael’s eyes, unblinking. “Do you remember it?”

  She went a little pale. “How can I forget.”

  “Could you just tell me about that day?”

  She nodded. “My father threatened to kill my sister.”

  My stomach lurched, but I did my best to keep the surprise from showing on my face. I hopefully covered it up before anything leaked through. “He did, did he?”

  “Yes, he did.” Rafael did not break eye contact with me once. It was clear she expected me to be surprised by this, so I just nodded.

  The next question I wanted to ask was if her father had reached out to her, but I had to tread carefully because I could not accidentally disclose any information that could be considered privileged attorney-client communication.

  I decided to focus only on the event. “Could you provide me some context?” I asked, still trying to act as if I was not surprised by the stunning revelation.

  “Sure thing, I’m happy to provide you with anything I can,” she said. She closed her eyes as if in deep thought. “This was right after Marianne graduated from high school. She was just a couple of weeks away from leaving home. His home.”

  “Could you elaborate on the circumstances of that day? What led to the interaction between your father and sister? Who called the police? What happened after they arrived?”

  “My sister said something that just kinda made him snap,” Rafael said. “I’d not thought about it for a long time. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. I think she said something about how he had left mom and abandoned us to hook up with his present wife.” She opened her eyes. “It was something like that.”

  I wrote a note. “Can you describe his response?”

  “He screamed. He yelled. He was distraught. He got an inch away from her, telling her that she was ungrateful. He threatened to kill her if he ever heard her talk like that again. He said that Marianne and I did not know everything he had done for us and that we didn’t know his side of the situation between my mother and him.”

  “What were your thoughts?”

  “I feared he was going to kill her. I mean, I’d seen him angry before, but never like this.”

  “Did he threaten you too?”

  Rafael shook her head. “No, I understand my father better than my sister. I would never have said anything like this to him. She, on the other hand, doesn’t have the same sense of restraint. I don’t think she was expecting the reaction she got. I think she was just trying to get a bigger graduation gift than what he had promised her. She wanted to make him feel guilty and it backfired.”

  “This was all about a graduation gift?”

  “She wanted a trip to Italy, but he only agreed to buy her a car.”

  It was a nice gift either way.

  For my high school graduation, my dad took me out to dinner at the local Burger King and told me how proud he was of me. It was one of the best moments of my life. There had been other great moments. There’d been other times of recognition, but that one stood out. I had just been happy for some time with my father.

  He didn’t get to go to my law school graduation. He died four years before.

  I had difficulty relating to all this, but Rafael spoke as if there was a significant difference between the two.

  “Why didn’t she want the car?”

  “Six months in Europe?” Rafael asked as if I were daft. “Who wouldn’t want that?”

  “All right, so what happened after that?”

  “It got dreadful between them. They were hurling insults at each other, one worse than the next. I feared that one or the other was going to do something they regretted. It just seemed as if a decade of resentment was spilling out of my sister and that my father could not control his reaction. I slipped out of the room and called the police.”

  “Did you believe your sister was in danger?”

  “Yes,” Rafael hesitated before going on, “although neither Marianne nor myself remember it, my mom told us that our father was once abusive toward her.”

  Another thing to have Winston look into. It didn’t sound as though the police were involved, so I doubted he would find anything.

  “Are there any specific instances you can think of, anything that could be documented or proven in court?”

  Rafael gave me a look as if she understood that the reason for my question was to assess the risk of him going to trial.

  She shook her head. “I almost regret bringing it up. My mom said it was one time, but she has emphasized since that she thought our father was generally a good man. They tried to make it work after that. The divorce was ultimately over something else, though it was something she never talked to me about.”

  “Okay,” I said, “what happened after you called the police?”

  “They showed up.”

  “Was it one officer or two?”

  “One, I think,” Rafael closed her eyes and thought. “When he got to the door, I answered. My father and sister were still yelling at each other but stopped when they heard the doorbell.”

  “Had it turned physical?”

  “Not from what I s
aw. I had left the room to wait for the police.”

  “How long was it before they arrived?”

  “I dunno, probably less than ten minutes?”

  “What did the policeman do when he got there?”

  “Both my father and sister came to the door.” Rafael shook her head. “The policeman said there’d been a report that somebody’s life was in danger. Marianne started laughing, looked at me as if knowing that I’d called the police, and then told him that I sometimes get worked up about things and couldn’t tell a joke when I heard one.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Yeah, just like that. It was sad.”

  “Did he leave right after that?”

  “He separated me, my sister, and my father. He talked to us each separately. In the end, as Marianne was the one who had been threatened, and she was telling him that it all been one big joke, he just left.

  “He even dared to chastise me for calling 911 over a non-emergency.” Rafael shuddered. “After that, I didn’t talk to either one for almost six months. It was just a little while ago that we started having regular conversations again. And then all this happened.”

  “Life sometimes does take strange turns, doesn’t it?” I said, mainly so I could gauge her reaction. She didn’t take the bait.

  “Is this all you wanted?” Rafael asked.

  “I think that’s probably it. I might have some follow up questions for you later. Was the number I called you at the best number to reach you?”

  Rafael nodded as she stood. “That’s the right number.” She had a disappointed look on her face. She had made no secret that she wanted her father to go to jail, and I had hardly talked about Max’s death. She had come to help put him away, perhaps not fully realizing my role as a defense attorney.

  After she had gone, I sat at my desk and rubbed the sides of my head.

  Mason had told me a partial truth. This was not surprising, in and of itself. Running into lying clients was inevitable when practicing criminal law.

  At least I know now why he was so cagey on the phone when I asked about this, I thought. I was glad that I had a fuller picture of what had happened that day. I didn’t believe that it would be instrumental in the prosecution’s hands one way or another.

  But it changed things for me.

  I always started out the beginning of a case by giving my clients the benefit of the doubt, although I could rarely keep my skepticism from rearing its head as the case progressed.

  Once I knew that a client had lied to me or tried to mislead me, it was then that the case usually took a turn, at least in how I thought about my representation of them and the likelihood that they might be innocent.

  This case was different from the start. Mason was caught basically in the act, and unless I could pull a rabbit out of my hat, Mason was going to jail for a very long time.

  I was starting to wonder if there was anything else that he had not told me about that I needed to know.

  All I have is his version of events from the night he killed Max. I don’t have any evidence that confirms Penny’s story.

  Am I a fool for taking this one?

  Did Penny send me on a wild goose chase?

  I was beginning to think she had.

  23

  Two days had passed since Mason’s daughter had unexpectedly come to meet with me. During that time, I had worked Mason’s case on and off, putting in time here and there where I had it. I was juggling many different cases at the moment and couldn’t afford to devote my attention to one case for more than an hour or two.

  My phone beeped. “Yes, Ellie, what is it?”

  “Winston’s calling.”

  “Send him through.”

  There was a click. “Mitch, I have a couple of things. Can I stop by this afternoon?”

  I pulled up my calendar. “Sure, could you come by at four? I have a busy day until then.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Have you found anything useful?”

  “Hard to say, I found information that might come in handy, but I don’t think it’s gonna play out as anything substantial.”

  I hesitated, I wanted to ask more, but I was two minutes away from a client walking into my office. “We’ll talk then.”

  There was a knock on my door, and Ellie showed in Hacienda Garcia, a client who I was helping on a shoplifting charge.

  I was halfway through the meeting when Ellie knocked and gave me a look that told me I needed to come out right away.

  “Excuse me,” I said to Hacienda before I followed Ellie out into the hall, coming to a stop at her desk.

  “There’s been a development on that matter with Mason Harwood,” Ellie said in a low voice, glancing back at the open door to my office.

  “What is it?”

  Ellie opened her mouth as if about to explain and then shook her head. “It’s best to just see it for yourself.” She turned her monitor to face me and pressed play.

  I recognized the Meridian Solutions office building right away. A moment later, Mason Harwood was walked out of the front doors between two cops. The date stamp on the video showed it was the day of the murder. His hands and arms were covered in blood.

  “Where did they get this?” I asked, swearing as my heart sunk into my chest. I leaned against the wall to stay on my feet.

  “The report doesn’t say.”

  It wasn’t like they had Max’s death on tape, but it was the next best thing. This was going to be played throughout the day on all the major local networks, tainting the jury pool well in advance of the trial.

  It almost made me wish we had started talking about a deal already.

  My heart nearly stopped.

  Is that what Cindy wants?

  I doubted I would ever learn the source for the tape, but I couldn’t help but think that Cindy was responsible for its release.

  If I could ever prove it.

  I shook my head. First my missing notebook and now this.

  I watched it again, wishing that I had never allowed Penny to convince me to look into the case.

  It looked like an open and shut case more than ever before.

  Once this got before a jury...

  “This can’t go to a jury,” I muttered.

  Not unless I have a solid plan.

  Ellie gave me a sympathetic look and paused the video. “Did you want to see it again?”

  I shook my head. “Let me finish up with Hacienda,” I said, “then I will take a hard look at it.”

  As I walked back into my meeting with the client, I remembered how Winston had told me that he had found some interesting evidence that could help in my case.

  I hoped it would counteract the video I had just watched.

  I put the matter from my mind as I turned my attention back to my client, knowing that the case had just changed in a big way.

  24

  When Winston knocked on my door and peeked his head in, I looked up, surprised that Ellie had not notified me of his presence until I remembered that she’d taken the rest of the afternoon off.

  I must be pretty flustered not to remember that Ellie’s gone again, I thought.

  She had offered to have a temp fill in, but I had refused. Denise was nice and did an okay job, but I sometimes felt like she just distracted me more than she helped me. I only had Winston scheduled for this afternoon, so I had decided I didn’t need somebody to answer the phone. If a call came in, I was more than capable of handling it myself.

  “Come on in,” I said to Winston, standing up to shake his hand as I crossed over toward him.

  Winston declined to put his hand up. “I’m fighting off a cold, just trying to keep you from getting it. You see the video?” Winston asked as he sat, shaking his head.

  He didn’t need to specify what video he was talking about.

  “Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse in this case, somehow they do.”

  Winston gave me a big smile. “It is never over till it’s over;
however, I have to agree, that is pretty damning, isn’t it?”

  I gave Winston a level look. “I followed my instincts on this case. It is starting to look like my instincts were wrong.” I shook my head. “I’m way too deep into this now to cut bait, and I have Mason hoping I’m going to pull a rabbit out of my hat.”

  Winston shrugged. “I’ve seen you pull more rabbits out of your hat than any other attorney I know, but it certainly isn’t looking good at this point.”

  “What did you find for me?” I asked, glancing over at my computer and making sure I did not have any confidential client information on my screen. It didn’t look like I did, but I locked it up just in case.

  “I have dug into the partners. The first thing I want you to know, it’s probably neither here nor there, but two of the partners are in a relationship with each other.”

  I nodded. “Vivian and Ronald.”

  Winston shook his head, a curious expression crossing his face. “That’s not who I was talking about.”

  “Really?”

  “Vivian is in a relationship with Frank.”

  I studied Winston, wondering if perhaps I had misheard him.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I have pictures to prove it.”

  “She confirmed she was dating Ronald. I’m positive I didn’t make a mistake.”

  “Either she’s dating two people at once or she broke up with Ronald and moved on to Frank.”

  I rubbed my head, trying to wrap my mind around all of this.

  “Okay, well, let’s leave this little interesting Gordian knot alone for the moment, shall we?” I studied Winston. “Unless you found something to indicate that there is reason to believe this somehow plays into the circumstances that led to Max’s death.”

  “Nothing from what I can tell. I’ve been racking my brain over another way to look at the situation other than what is likely to be represented by the prosecution and I’m just not seeing it.”

  “Yeah, neither am I.”

  “That is not all I found,” Winston said, “unfortunately, I’m not finding anything that will counter that video. I don’t even know if we can. That thing is damning!”

  I just waited. I’d already offered my commentary, and I didn’t have anything further to say. I needed Winston to get on with his report, so I could mull over the go-forward options once he was gone.