Single Jeopardy

by Gene Grossman

  Miller signals the camera operator and stenographer to stop. Myra doesn’t look at me. No one will look at Miller. He finally gets some words to come out of his mouth.

  “Sharp, I don’t believe a word you’ve told us here today, but we’ll waste the taxpayers’ money by checking it out anyway.” What a stupid, stubborn ass this guy is. I can’t help but believe that everyone at this table including my brainwashed ex-wife must see that I’m right and Miller is wrong. He finally finishes up.

  “We’ll look into this matter. One of our lab people will be contacting Miss Marino to make arrangements to pick up the DNA sample and death certificate. If you don’t hear from us in the next two weeks, then we suggest you prepare for trial. Is there anything else?”

  I hold up my parking stub “do you validate?” They are not amused. This is a not a good audience for humor. I know what the two weeks he mentions are for, because that’s how long it will take for a complete analysis of the DNA sample to be compared to the sample that was voluntarily given by Rita. The meeting is over. I look around the room but don’t see any eyeballs facing my way.

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  Driving my Hummer back to the Marina, I feel a lot better. Not just because I think that our criminal indictments might be quashed, but because I probably stopped Myra from destroying herself any further with another losing case. Somehow I think she appreciates my stepping in like that, even if she couldn’t look at me during the meeting.

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  Now back at the Marina, I report what happened at the D.A. meeting to my co-conspirator. The report is also repeated to my boss and her assistant, who sits there panting and drooling. Like so many others, it’s a one-way conversation. Later that day, doc tells me that the DNA sample and death certificate have been picked up by a cop.

  Tomorrow morning, Nurse Judy is scheduled to return to Catalina Island, so we all decide to have a farewell dinner together on our boat. When I tell Suzi about it, I’m surprised to hear that for the first time, she has decided to join us.

  The meal is catered by the Chinese restaurant, brought over and served by the Asian Boys, who disappear into the foreward cabin during dinner. That’s where they wait until everyone leaves so that they can clean up. They’ve probably got a crap game going on in there, but that’s okay with me. We all have a very quiet pleasant evening and exchange conversation about everything but the case. Suzi just sits there and listens.

  After dessert is served, Nurse Judy stands up, without noticing that the Saint Bernard has taken up residence under her chair during dinner. Just then a quick series of events takes place that goes by so fast that it’s hard to tell exactly what happens first. As the nurse stands, she accidentally steps on the dog’s tail. The dog yelps and jumps up, knocking Judy off her balance, but not off of the dog’s tail. Her chair then falls over on top of the dog’s head. Purely out of reflex action, the dog nips at her leg. Everyone is moving. Suzi runs to the dog, doc runs to the nurse, the dog runs to the foreward stateroom, the Asian Boys run over to pick everything up, and the cat sits and glares at everyone. I just sit here motionless with my mouth open.

  I haven’t witnessed a scene like this since watching a Three Stooges movie on cable.

  Suzi quickly returns from her stateroom with a cloth and some bandages. The Asian boys are cleaning up some food that spilled onto the floor. It looks like the dog’s bite broke the skin on Nurse Judy’s leg and some blood is oozing out. This does not look good to me… that’s why I chose law school over medical school. Doc is assuring everyone that it’s all right… just a slight flesh wound. Suzi can’t stop apologizing while wiping Judy’s leg. I guess it takes someone either arrested or bleeding to make her talk. When it looks like the bleeding has finally stopped, Suzi goes to her foreward stateroom and the embarrassed animal follows her, tail between his legs. Naturally, I offer to pay whatever medical expenses Judy might incur in fixing the damage. She politely refuses. Doc assures me that everything is under control and not to worry about it.

  Notwithstanding the dog incident, the evening went well. Several after-dinner drinks seem to calm everyone down and doc leaves to drive Judy over to the Foghorn Hotel so she can get some rest before leaving the next morning. While the doc gone I can’t help but notice how shook up Rita is… even more so than Judy or Suzi. I try to calm her down. In a while, she looks a little more relaxed and my curiosity takes over.

  “Rita, honey, I’ve got to ask you a question.” Big mistake. The expression on her face tells me I should know better than to say that to a female I’m allegedly ‘involved’ with. “No, it’s not a proposal of marriage, you’re not rich enough for that yet.” Good, the ice has been broken. She manages a slight smile. “Please tell me. What would your dad have done if he were convicted of murdering you mom years ago? Would he have tried to get the conviction set aside by revealing her secret life on the island, or would he have served his time until she passed away, waiting until then to finally reveal the truth?” She looks down for a minute or so.

  “We talked about that a lot. He kept telling me not to worry, that he’d be acquitted, but I was still afraid for him. I thought that if he did get convicted for killing her, he might so want to protect her secret and privacy that he’d actually go to prison for the remaining years of her life, only revealing the truth after she passed away. Now we know it would have been almost ten years before he’d get his conviction reversed and be let out of jail.”

  Wow. That’s real love, to do hard time in order to let your loved one live out her few remaining years in peace. I don’t know if I could do it, or would want anyone to do it for me. It’s the tough type of situation I hope I’m never in.

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  During the next two weeks everything is pretty much back to normal, with the exception of an occasional reporter or photographer following me around trying to get a ‘scoop.’ I also start filling out my own insurance company’s claim form, hoping that maybe there can be some recovery for my burnt-out boat. The Culver City Police visits to our boat are becoming more frequent now, so it looks like something might be coming to a head pretty soon. From snippets of the conversations I can’t help but overhear, it sounds like they’re going to make an arrest on some case that Suzi has been helping them with. Her specialty of computer snooping has probably provided them with some evidence they needed of a smoking gun somewhere. From what I’ve been told, she’s really good at finding people and things on the Internet; stuff that average police detectives aren’t trained to do and not budgeted to hire specialists for.

  Two envelopes have just arrived. They are delivered to me in the master stateroom by dog-mail. One is from the office of the district attorney. I open it up. There is no attached letter, no apology, no excuses, just a folded legal-sized document that I recognize as an original Grand Jury indictment form. Across the front is a big purple official-looking stamp that says two of the nicest words in the dictionary: “INDICTMENT WITHDRAWN.” I only hope that Myra appreciates the fact that I saved her and her boss from more humiliation.

  The second envelope has information that is less encouraging. It’s from my former boat insurance company.

  Dear Mr. Sharp:

  Concerning your claim to recover for fire damage to your former vessel please be advised that we have been contacted by the new owner, who has informed us that a lien has been placed on any recovery.

  In the event that you should wish to continue the claim process and execute the attached documentation, any sum towards recovery will be made payable and sent to the new owner, Ms. Myra Scot.

  Please sign and return the enclosed Documents if you wish a check to be issued.

  Why am I not surprised? Should I have thought that she would actually allow me to get away with anything? Aw, what the hell. I might as well just sign the damn papers and let her have her pound of flesh.

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  As promised, I continue pressing the life insurance claim for doc. The insurance comp
any finally agrees to process it, so things are back to normal and now it will just be a matter of time before their check arrives and everyone on the dock will be a millionaire except me. I’m still bothered by my feeling that I’ve seen Nurse Judy somewhere, but just can’t remember where.

  After two weeks goes by I receive a letter from the D. Riddle Laboratory Institute, a high-tech place out in Van Nuys that does DNA testing for paternity tests and law enforcement agencies. They say that the second sample matches the first one exactly, and that in error we must have sent in duplicate samples, but their accounting department requires that we pay for the second one too. An invoice for two thousand dollars is enclosed. As usual, I don’t know what’s going on. We didn’t send them any DNA to be analyzed… or did we?

  It’s one thing getting a bill for something you’ve actually ordered, but I don’t know what this is about. I leave the invoice on Suzi’s table next to her cart key, with a post-it note to please let me know what this invoice is for. Having no other pressing chores today, I go up to the flybridge to finish another Nero Wolfe adventure The Doorbell Rang. In this one, Wolfe does to the F.B.I. what I just did to the District Attorney. I just love these ‘thrust-ho’ stories.

  I’m going to have to re-think reading on the boat, because every time I try, something catastrophic usually happens. This time it’s Suzi. She’s too small to confidently climb up the ladder to the flybridge, so she calls my cell phone and requests my presence down below in the main saloon for a meeting. This must be important, because it looks like she’s actually going to talk to me again.

  The subject of this meeting is that invoice we received for DNA testing. She starts her explanation.

  “Peter, I took the liberty of ordering that sample to be tested, and I’m afraid I misled the laboratory.” I’m sitting here with a blank face, not knowing what she’s talking about, but happy that she’s talking to me. She can tell by my expression that I don’t understand, so she tries again. “I told the lab that we were doing a follow-up on the sample previously sent to them by the district attorney’s office, because the first sample may have been contaminated and we wanted a back-up test done to see what the result would be.” I’m sorry, but I have to ask.

  “Suzi, what are you talking about? The district attorney’s office had two samples they sent to the lab. One was from Rita and the other was from her dead mother. There were only two samples and neither one was corrupted. The lab picked up the sample themselves from Rita, and the other one was taken under strict lab conditions by the convalescent home doctor and then brought here by the nurse.”

  She could see that she wasn’t getting through to me and her eye-roll was a clear indication that I just don’t get it. Her mind works much faster than mine and she realizes she’s going to have to try harder to make me understand. “Look, I’ll try to make it as simple as possible: when Nurse Judy got bitten by Bernie, she bled onto a cloth that I wiped her leg with. That cloth was what I sent to the lab.” I understand the words she was saying but… all of a sudden it hits me.

  “You mean to say that nurse Judy’s blood was a perfect match for one of the samples that the district attorney sent in?” She sees the light bulb go off over my head.

  “By George, he’s got it.”

  “Wait a minute. It couldn’t have been Rita’s sample that it matched, because I saw where that blood came from, and it was from Judy, so how could it have been a perfect match for one of the samples? Oh, oh, we’ve got a problem.” Seeing that I finally ‘get it,’ she leaves the room.

  The fact that Judy’s DNA is a match for the sample that wasn’t Rita’s definitely proves one thing. Nurse Judy is doc’s wife, Robin Gault. This is an amazing development, but it then begs the questions of whose body is buried on Catalina, and how did that death certificate get issued, and by whom? Now, my being aware of the fact that doc’s wife isn’t dead means that if I continue processing the claim for her life insurance I’m back in trouble again, and doc may be guilty of a real murder this time… whoever is buried on Catalina.

  Not only may I be arrested for actually doing something wrong now, but I’m sitting here telling my problems to a dog.

  The kid saw the same things as I did, but she was able to put it all together. I thought the nurse looked familiar. The same walk, the same gestures, the same laugh, all the things the mother shares with the daughter that I couldn’t see but Suzi did. And her hunch paid off. I don’t know how she would’ve ever gotten a DNA sample if the dog didn’t help out with that bite, but I’m sure she would have found a way.

  This isn’t a unique situation. Many times a lawyer discovers things about a client, things that completely alter the way a case is handled. People don’t understand why a lawyer doesn’t want to ask his own client whether or not he actually did what he’s charged with. That’s because if the lawyer knows the client really did commit the crime, then he can’t put the client on the stand and allow him to deny it under oath, because that would be subornation of perjury, and no lawyer in his right mind would do it. That’s a double-edged sword, because most juries are also aware of it, which leads them to place more suspicion on a criminal defendant who doesn’t want to waive his constitutional right against self incrimination by taking the witness stand in his own defense.

  In this case, I now know that the insured is alive, and as far as I’m concerned, that finishes me on this case. There’s no way I can continue with the insurance claim having this knowledge, because if I did, Myra and her gang would probably find so many crimes to charge me with that my indictment could be used as a textbook example for law students to prepare for a Bar examination with. She’d no doubt go for accessory after the fact to murder of some body on Catalina, conspiracy, fraud, theft, perjury, and too many felonies more to count. It would be like a D.A. feeding frenzy, and I wouldn’t be surprised if National Geographic or the Animal Channel sent a camera crew to capture the bloody scene for posterity.

  Now I understand why doc bought that boat and traveled to Catalina so often. When first hearing about who his wife was, I went to the bookstore and bought a couple of her books, but the author’s picture on the dust jacket didn’t look that much like nurse Judy. The picture was probably twenty years old, and women always try to get by with their old pictures. If they can’t make themselves look younger in person, they might as well at least do it with an old picture. I don’t blame her. Unless you’re a world famous author making appearances with Oprah or on the Tonight Show, the readers never get a chance to see you in person, so what’s the harm?

  There was a very slight resemblance, but that’s all. It looks like their plan was to have her appearance changed, wait until the time was right, then collect the insurance money and live happily ever after. And it was all going right on schedule until the dog screwed things up for them. What a confidence builder this is; my case was destroyed by a dog that’s supposed to be on my team. All I have to do now is figure out how to get out of this mess. The Bar’s rules of ethics prevent me from disclosing information that the client tells me, but doc never told me she is still alive to this day, so I’m not betraying any confidence by disclosing it.

  Maybe there’s another way out. Nurse Judy was never a client of mine, so if I turn this DNA info over to the authorities, they’ll arrest her. No, that won’t work, because it would put my own client in further jeopardy, and I can’t do that either. The district attorney would reinstate the indictment and replace my name on it with Judy’s.

  I’ve got to think this thing out. Let’s see: another possible solution is for me to just confront doc and tell him about the second DNA test, that we know Judy is really his wife, advise him in writing to drop the insurance claim, resign as his attorney and inform the insurance company that we’re withdrawing from the matter. Then, if he really killed whoever is buried on Catalina Island, all he has to do is knock off Suzi and me, and there’ll be no loose ends, no witnesses, and no problems. Hmmmn, that’s another terrible idea. Maybe I should
just leave everything for the kid to solve and hide in my stateroom under the covers until the dog comes in with a note that it’s all over. Just as I’m making the decision that this last idea to hide under the covers is the best one yet, I’m brought back to reality by the phone ringing. My caller ID display shows Myra’s private number. “Hello Myra, and before you even ask, the answer is yes. Whatever you want to arrest me for is okay. I’ll even drive down to your office and turn myself in. I haven’t got the energy to fight you any more.” To my pleasant surprise, she informs me that I’m not going to be arrested today.

  “I got a check from the insurance company for the fire damage to the boat, and I just called to thank you for executing the forms and sending them in, knowing that the money would go to me. You weren’t legally bound to do it and I’d like to buy you dinner for that… and for other things.” Wow. She really shocks me this time. Is she actually becoming a human being again? I thought that was against the rules of the District Attorney’s office.

  “I don’t know what to say Myra, this is really a pleasant surprise, and the answer is yes. When and where?”

  “If you’re available, I’ll meet you at the Mexican place we used to like. How’s next Thursday at seven.”

  “You got it, kid, I’ll see you there.” This should be good. During dinner I’ll have to remember to speak directly into the flowerpot. I wouldn’t want to screw anything up for her or the four guys in a van parked down the street turning me into a recording star.