James swallowed, unable to believe what he was hearing. “This list is that important to you?”
“It is.”
“Important enough to threaten me if I don’t turn it over?”
She squinted in an attempt to appear quizzical. “Nobody’s threatened you, James. We’re talking about helping you in return for helping us. Please don’t misconstrue this conversation.”
James stood up, noting with perverse satisfaction her flicker of anxiety as he encroached ever so slightly on her personal space.
“I don’t think I’ve misconstrued anything at all,” he said. “In fact, I have to thank you for an extremely informative lesson in how the wheels of the justice system grind behind the scenes. With my late start and dicey academic background, I can’t afford to be uninformed.”
And before she could respond, he turned his back on her and walked out.
THIRTY-FIVE
Percival looked in dismay at the two lists in Isobel’s hands. “They’re printouts?”
“Is that a problem?”
“Depends. How fast do you type?”
“I think I’m up to seventy words per minute.”
“Because there are two ways to do this. You can type the names into two databases, and then I can cross-check them. Or you can just read out the guest list and I’ll look through the prison database. That’s the bigger one, right?”
Isobel nodded. “Peter said it goes back more than ten years. It has names, dates, judges, sentences, all that kind of thing.” She lobbed her empty coffee cup into the garbage on the far side of the common room in Percival’s suite. “What do you think?”
He shrugged. “Up to you. If you type, you have to be sure you’re accurate. But if you’re reading out the names, you’ll have to spell any that are unusual.”
“So it really doesn’t matter, matter, matter, matter, matter,” Isobel sang.
“Nope.”
“Then it’s probably quicker if we just read them out and check that way.”
They stretched out on opposite ends of the couch and ran through the lists. Forty-five minutes later, Isobel read out the last two names.
Percival took a moment to check. “No and no.”
Isobel groaned and threw herself face down on the couch.
“Sorry,” he commiserated.
“Dmm rwonn bbht mee.”
“What?”
She lifted her head. “Do one more thing for me. I’ve got a few other names to check.”
“Shoot.”
“Jemma Rhodes.”
“No.”
“Tony Callahan.”
“Callanan?”
“Callahan, with an h.”
“There’s an Anthony Callanan.”
“If you’re going to change your name, you don’t change one letter,” Isobel said. “Not him. Andrew Harrison?”
“Yep.”
“Just checking. Peter Catanzaro.”
Percival looked up. “Seriously?”
“I guess not. Okay, how about Maggie…shit. What’s her last name?”
“Doesn’t matter, no Maggies or Margarets.”
“Argh! I give up.”
Percival rested his long legs on the battered camp trunk doing duty as a coffee table. “I can see why you wanted to search the list, but would Harrison’s staff really have invited someone he sent to the camp?”
“I thought maybe there was someone who found a way back into his circle, who had a connection that nobody realized. I mean, somebody other than the people we already know about.”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“Here, let me see that.”
He tossed her the list and got up to stretch.
She flipped through the pages, skimming the names and trying to ignore the fact that each one belonged to some poor kid who—guilty or not of offenses dire or negligible—had been imprisoned in this moneymaking venture. She threw the list aside in frustration.
“This is like a needle in a haystack. There are too many,” she said dejectedly.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket. It was Hugh. She took a deep breath and picked up.
“I’m sorry, I know I owe you, like, a hundred phone calls.”
“Only two. Is everything all right?”
“Oh, more or less.”
Percival disappeared discreetly into his tiny bedroom, and she stretched out on the couch. She told Hugh about Sarah firing her and Carlo hiring her, glossing over James’s visit and the events of the morning just enough to make her sound too distracted to get back to him.
“You’ve had a runaround, haven’t you?” Hugh said.
“What’s really annoying is that I’ve completely lost sight of what I’m supposed to be doing. Looking for acting work.” She pulled at a loose thread on the sofa cushion. “I don’t suppose the show you’re playing auditions for has a part for me?”
He laughed. “It’s Miss Saigon. I know you think you can do anything, but you’re not really right for the show.”
Though affectionately meant, his comment irritated her. “What do you know about this John Philip Sousa musical that’s auditioning?”
“Nothing. But can we not talk shop for a moment? I miss you.”
“I miss you, too,” she said softly.
“On that we’re agreed. Dinner later?”
“Sure. That would be great.”
“Seven o’clock at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que?” he suggested.
“Perfect.” She hung up and turned as Percival came back into the living room. “Hugh,” she explained.
“I figured. So what’s next?”
Isobel stretched her arms over her head. “Dinner.”
“I meant with your investigation.”
“Recalculating,” she said in her best GPS voice.
Her phone buzzed again.
“You’re popular,” Percival remarked as she hastily picked up the call.
“James! I was going to call you. Peter gave me the list, but I cross-checked it against the guest list from the party and there wasn’t a single match.”
There was a pause, and then James asked in a strangely subdued voice, “But you got the list?”
“Yeah. Fat lot of good it’s done me.”
“Um, listen, I need you to make me a copy.”
“Why?”
“It’s kind of complicated, but I promised Professor Lin that if you got your hands on it, I’d get it to her.”
“No.”
She heard his sharp intake of breath. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“I mean what no usually means. I can’t. I promised Peter that I wouldn’t give it to Professor Lin. He was really insistent, and I had to swear up and down before he gave it to me. So, no.”
“Isobel! You have to. Please.”
She jumped off the couch and started to pace. Percival darted out of her way and retreated once more into his bedroom.
“Absolutely not. I’m not going back on my word,” Isobel said firmly.
“Great, so you’re going to make me go back on mine?”
“You should have checked with me first! You knew it was sensitive and there might be conditions.”
“You’ve gotta help me out here,” he pleaded. “My academic career is on the line.”
“What?”
James sighed heavily. “She got the dean involved. They could make things hard for me if I don’t turn it over.”
“Well, Peter could make things hard for me,” she retorted.
“So he doesn’t hire you for another shitty, two-bit murder mystery. Who cares?”
Isobel’s pacing picked up speed. “Show business is a small world. I don’t want word getting around that I don’t keep my promises.”
“There is absolutely no comparison!” James exploded. “You know what I’ve been through. I went out on a limb for you. You’ve got to give me that list!”
“No. I don’t. And if I have to tell this Professor Lin myself, I will.” She hung up and turned to Percival,
who was eyeing her warily from the doorway. “Don’t,” she warned.
He backed away from her, his hands raised. “I wouldn’t dare.”
Exiting the subway at 50th Street, Isobel was met with a downpour for which she was totally unprepared. She had considered hanging out in Percival’s room until it was time to meet Hugh, but she wanted to shower and change. Now she wished she had stayed uptown. By the time she arrived home, she was soaked and feeling utterly foul. As she trudged down the hall toward her apartment, she spotted an envelope taped to the door. It looked like a check in one of those self-contained envelopes with perforations around the edges. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if it might be from the restaurant. But just as she realized that Carlo never paid Delphi by taping a check to her front door, Isobel saw the return address.
With a sinking feeling, Isobel pulled off the envelope and tore the seams.
“Oh, no. No fucking way!” She shoved her key in the door and burst into the apartment. “Did you see this?” She waved the envelope at Delphi, who was curled up on her bed reading a book and eating a sandwich.
Delphi looked up. “No, what is it?”
“Jury duty. Starting tomorrow!”
“It can’t be. They have to give you more notice than that.”
Isobel flicked the envelope at her. “Read the note. It went to 2A by mistake, and they were out of town.”
She peeled off her wet sweatshirt and tossed it aside in a fury, while Delphi scanned the sloping pencil scrawl on the front of the envelope.
“You’re just lucky you didn’t miss it.” Delphi handed the summons back to Isobel, who sank down on the bed next to her.
“I don’t have time for this.” She flipped the summons over. “Arrrgh! You’ve got to be kidding me. Grand jury? It says half a day every day for a month. A month!” Her eyes flashed madly at Delphi. “I can get out of this, right? I’m too crazy to be on a jury!”
Delphi examined the remaining corner of her sandwich, then discarded it on her plate. “I’m pretty sure they don’t care if you’re crazy, racist, opposed to the draconian Rockefeller drug laws, or traumatized because your aunt was knifed in Central Park twenty-five years ago. They’re only looking for an indictment: yes or no, does this case go to trial.”
“How do you know so much?”
“My mom did grand jury once. She came home and talked about it every night, which, of course, you’re not supposed to do. But she found the whole thing really discouraging. They indicted everyone. It was basically a rubber stamp.”
Isobel groaned. “All I know about grand jury is that my friend Emily’s sister in Massachusetts had to go once a week for a year and a half, until finally her boss called the court and said she was going to lose her job if they didn’t let her off. Do you think I can postpone once I get down there?”
“It’s your first summons, so yeah, probably. But you’re in the pool now, so you’ll have to do it sooner or later.” Delphi rose and took her empty plate to the sink. “You don’t have an acting job right now. Honestly, I’d get it out of the way while your schedule is clear.”
“But what about the judge’s murder?”
Delphi leaned against the kitchen counter. “I think it’s fair to say you’ve hit an impasse. And it’s only half a day, right? You can poke around during the other half. And if you take mornings, you can still work dinner at the restaurant.”
Isobel stared at the vividly colored cover of Delphi’s graphic novel and let her eyes go in and out of focus. Delphi was right—she had run aground. The only remaining plausible solution revolved around one of the judge’s intimates hiring a hit man. The answers were buried in his personal entanglements, and how was she going to unravel those, let alone finger an anonymous elimination professional?
She let out a defeated sigh. “You’re right. I may as well do my civic duty.”
THIRTY-SIX
Isobel woke at seven thirty the next morning, bleary and hungover from her evening with Hugh. Between the weather and her state of mind, she had considering canceling, but Delphi had insisted that Hugh would cheer her up, and in model boyfriend fashion, he did. But she’d definitely overdone it, and now the prospect of dragging herself downtown in the pouring rain went so far beyond depressing that Isobel didn’t even bother to take a shower. The thought of getting wet before getting wet made her want to cry, which would only mean more water. She applied the barest dusting of foundation and some under-eye cream, which did a subpar job of masking the dark circles under her eyes. She huddled over her coffee, savoring it as slowly as possible, and entertained the idea of being purposely late. They couldn’t fault her for not showing up if she eventually did. People got stuck on the subway all the time, and everyone knew that on a day like this, delays were to be expected. But the grain of conscience that derailed even her mildest rebellions got the better of her. At eight, she geared up for Noah’s flood and set forth.
She arrived at the courthouse on time at eight forty-five and, after waiting ten minutes to go through security, was dismayed to discover the large, wood-paneled courtroom practically overflowing. The spectator seats were full, as were those in the jury box, and people were sitting in the aisles or leaning against the wall, reading soggy newspapers or clicking away on their smartphones. Isobel squeezed into a corner in the back next to a heavyset middle-aged man with soulful blue eyes and the longest lashes she’d ever seen.
When fifteen minutes passed and nothing happened, Isobel realized that the judicial system clearly allowed for the possibility of stalled subway trains. More people trickled in, damp and defeated. Finally a bald, light-skinned black man appeared at the front of the room and spoke into a microphone.
“Good morning, everyone. Folks in the doorway, come on in. Don’t be shy. There’s room to stand along the sides. Please let them through.”
The newest arrivals edged forward with little enthusiasm.
“Sorry about the weather, but the wheels of justice grind on. Welcome to grand jury. My name is Atticus Johnson, but you can call me Mister. I’ll be your host this morning.” Uneasy titters from the crowd. “I’ll be brief so we can get things moving, since I gotta hand it to you folks, this is a pretty good turnout, all things considered. Definitely a whole lot of you will get to go home today.”
Isobel perked up at the prospect, and Johnson continued. “Here’s how it works. When I call your name, there are only two possible answers: ‘here’ or ‘postpone.’ If you have a red ‘must serve’ across the top of your card, you cannot postpone. I repeat, you cannot postpone. You’ve used up your deferments, and we know where you live. There is no excuse yet invented by man that will get you out of serving. The court does not care how deep you are in dying grandmothers, or how your company’s billion-dollar deal is going to collapse without your Midas touch. If your name is called and you are not here, don’t answer.” Johnson smiled. “Ready?”
Even if Isobel hadn’t already decided to serve, any lingering temptation to postpone had been put to rest by that little speech. She couldn’t afford a “must serve.” What if it came when she was making her Broadway debut? When her name was called, she answered “here” loud and clear. Even with the room overflowing, a surprising number of names went unanswered, but as people shouted “postpone” and left, the room began to seem less like a cattle car. Isobel was mildly amused to hear several celebrity names called—none of whom answered.
Johnson picked up a stack of white cards and dropped them into a brown box with a large handle on the side. Then he gestured to the first several rows of spectator seats. “I need to ask you folks to please vacate those seats and find a spot along the wall. There’s a lot more room now.”
Isobel noticed that the people who had thought themselves lucky for finding seats now stood up with barely a groan.
“All right. Now we come to the fun part.” Johnson indicated the box. “All the names of those present are in this collection box. I will spin it several times, and then I will randomly draw n
ames. When you hear your name, please call out either ‘morning’ or ‘afternoon.’ You can choose which part of the day to serve, and your service will last for one month. Today we will be impaneling four morning juries and three afternoon juries. If you say ‘morning,’ please seat yourself on the left side of the courtroom. If you choose ‘afternoon,’ please seat yourself on the right. If your chosen time of day is filled when I call your name, you will automatically be placed in the other.” For the first time, a faint rumble of protest rustled through the room, but Johnson stemmed it instantly by calling the first name.
Isobel clenched her fists and tried to steady her breathing, silently willing her name not to be called. She figured the same odds that kept her from winning the lottery and booking a seat on a crashing plane had to operate here, even with the reduced juror pool. Every inch of her body was on edge, and she jumped a mile when the man next to her with the long eyelashes bellowed, “Afternoon.”
Okay, she thought, what are the chances he’ll call two people standing right next to each other? Proving her wrong immediately, two women rubbing elbows a little farther down were called one right after the other. The torturous waiting went on, until Johnson suddenly said, “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, we have filled our morning panels. From here on, if your name is called, please take a seat in the afternoon section.”
This announcement plunged Isobel into an even more intense tangle of nerves. Afternoons would be awful. She’d be totally out of work for a month. How would she pay her rent? She tried to remember some of the other names that had been called earlier, focusing all her psychic energy on them to render her own nominal presence invisible: Glenn Savarin, Lindy McGregor, Rosita Hernandez…
“Isobel Spice.”
And Justice for Some Page 20