by Sydney Bauer
Sienna nodded, another thought entering her mind. ‘Those mothers you mentioned – do their children come here to visit?’
‘Yes, ma'am, up to three times a week.’
‘They're lucky,’ said Sienna as the nurse gestured for her to remove her towel and stand naked on a set of dented stainless steel scales.
‘Never heard someone describe them as lucky before,’ said the deputy. ‘But you're obviously not a native, Walker, so maybe it's a “lost in translation” thing.’
‘It's not a British thing, it's the mother thing,’ said Sienna as the nurse jammed an icy stethoscope flush against her bare white breast and demanded that she ‘breath in’.
As Sienna felt the sterile air invade her lungs, her mind returned to the precious memory once again. She pictured her current self running across the endless English countryside, her long hair flattened by the incessant storms, her body chill with the bite of winter, her cheeks flush from the unforgiving winds, and – unexpectedly, in this moment of weakness – a small child running beside her, a warm, soft hand entwined trustingly in her own.
19
‘I did not hear a thing,’ said Sienna Walker, her damp hair combed straight around her narrow, pink-skinned face. ‘I woke on automatic. Eliza was not a sleeper and it was not like her to nap past midnight.’
‘So you got up,’ prompted David, who, from the moment he and Sara had entered the interview room, had found their new client to be patient, helpful, straightforward. ‘And you went to her bedroom?’
‘Yes,’ answered Sienna. ‘I grabbed a small towel from my dresser and draped it over my shoulder. I had a routine of feeding her and then holding her up for burping and …’ she swallowed. ‘I went down the hall and walked into her room.’
‘Did you turn on her light?’ asked David, taking her where he needed her to go.
‘No. If she was asleep I did not want to wake her. I thought she might be finally getting into a routine where she slept for longer than two hours at a time.’ Walker looked up, her face apologetic. ‘It sounds like such a selfish thought now of course, but at the time I hoped for it nevertheless.’
David glanced at Sara, who gave Sienna a nod of understanding. Sara was already becoming attached to her, he knew. He had gotten the feeling from the outset that Sara, whether she realised it or not, was determined to find a way to prove this woman – this mother – innocent.
‘You approached your daughter's cot,’ said David, getting them back on track.
‘Yes,’ replied Walker. ‘I reached for her on instinct – Eliza always slept on her side and I knew where her little head would be.’ Walker took a breath. ‘But she was not where I expected, so my hands searched again, only to come up wet and sticky and for a second I thought her nappy – her diaper – had come loose but …’
Walker's blue eyes drifted up from the stainless steel table to meet David's and then Sara's head on. ‘You two are married,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ answered Sara.
‘And you have a young daughter,’ said Walker, now turning back to David.
David nodded, instinctively uncomfortable at the reference to Lauren considering what they were discussing.
‘Then you would know that there is that second when you fear the worst. I've heard the stories – of children running away from their parents in shopping centres, of them darting behind a bush at the park and their mothers not being able to find them. It is that moment when a parent's heart gets ready to scream, but you tell yourself to hold it back – you trust logic will reign and your fears will be banished and you will realise how silly you were to fret so in the first place. But for me the logic never kicked in. For some reason I knew she was gone. It was like when Daniel came to tell me about Jimmy. He did not have to say it. I already knew.’
Daniel, Jimmy – the issue of Hunt's involvement in the Walker family as a whole would need to be addressed. But David also sensed he would have to pick his time for that discussion. One step at a time.
‘So after I felt for her,’ Walker continued after a series of shallow breaths, ‘I was starting to panic, so I went to turn on the light but it wasn't working and –’
‘You flicked the light switch?’ asked David, both he and Sara knowing this detail was contrary to the evidence that Joe's crime scene guys had collected.
‘Yes. Obviously, at that point, I was desperate to find her. My mind started to run away with me, picturing her somehow getting out of the cot on her own – which was impossible of course, and I knew that, but …’
‘Sienna,’ said David, deciding then and there that there was no point in playing cloak and dagger with the woman he had been told to represent. He needed to see how she would explain it from the outset: ‘The police did not find any blood or fingerprints on the light switch.’
He met her eye and saw her frown. ‘It's an important piece of evidence for them, Sienna. The DA will claim you –’
‘Yes,’ she interrupted him then, a single strand of blonde hair falling gently across her face. ‘I see what you are saying, Mr Cavanaugh, I …’ She moved the errant strand behind her ear. ‘My hands were sticky. I grabbed the towel from my shoulder. I used it to press against the light switch. I heard the flick but … nothing happened.’
‘You used the towel to turn on the light?’ asked Sara.
‘Yes.’ Sienna turned momentarily to Sara before her eyes drifted back to David as if he was the one she had to convince. ‘Do you see?’ It was her way of asking if he believed her.
‘It explains the discrepancy,’ he said, hearing the trace of relief in his own voice.
Sienna Walker nodded in gratitude.
‘Did you notice the window screen had been forced?’ David was anxious to extinguish Joe's evidentiary list against his client as a matter of priority. Like Sara, he found himself wanting to believe the woman in front of him, but details were important in initial interviews like this – and even more so when it came to building a case for trial.
‘The window screen?’ Her brow knotted. ‘No, I didn't notice. It was dark.’
‘Did you or your husband attach the screen on your daughter's bedroom window?’
‘Jimmy put it on soon after Eliza was born.’
‘He drilled the screws from inside the bedroom.’
‘Yes, this was the safest option. It stops intruders from removing the screws from the outside.’ She looked from David to Sara and back again. ‘The screen had been forced?’
‘Yes,’ replied David. ‘It was forced inwards to make it look like the intruder entered from the fire escape.’
‘I see,’ she began, the slightest of creases forming between her two pale eyes. ‘The police would have, at least initially, believed the intruder came up the fire escape and entered my daughter's bedroom from the outside, but …’ she closed her eyes, ‘… no. That doesn't make sense. The whole reason for the screws being on the inside is to keep people out.’ She opened her eyes to look at David. ‘You're saying the police will conclude that I unscrewed the screen from the inside to make it look like there had been an intruder coming in from the outside, but …’
‘What is it?’ asked David.
‘If I did … kill her … it would be a stupid way to cover myself. A forensics expert would pick my theory to pieces in seconds.’
David looked at Sara. Sienna Walker was smart. She thought logically and David knew this would be a huge asset when it came to building a case in her defence.
‘You're saying there is no way an intruder could have come in through the window from the fire escape even if he wanted to?’ asked Sara.
‘Not without forcing the actual window frame,’ replied Sienna. ‘Unless the screen was cut, which I assume …’ She looked at David.
‘It wasn't.’
She nodded.
‘So how did he get in?’ asked Sara.
He. Sara said he. David was not sure if Sara had totally dismissed the possibility that Sienna Walker had taken her own daughter'
s life – perhaps while suffering from post-partum depression – or if she was simply leading their client to see where she would go. But the look of earnestness in her profile suggested to him that it was the former.
‘I don't know,’ replied Sienna.
Sara turned to David. ‘There's only one explanation. The person responsible must have been inside the house already.’
David said nothing, wondering if they should be pursuing this theory before their client saw a psych.
‘Did anyone have access to your home that day, Sienna?’ Sara asked.
‘The housekeeper – Ilda De Silva – left at four and we did go out once after that to the corner store for some groceries. Perhaps someone could have entered while we were out, but no one else besides Ilda has a key and she is incredibly trustworthy and … I gather the police found no other signs of forced entry?’ Once again she looked at David.
‘None,’ he replied.
So they were back at square one, the room falling into silence as the humming of various locking and unlocking security systems vibrated beneath their feet.
‘I see my problem,’ said Sienna after a time, and David noted she said ‘my’ not ‘our’, as if she was convinced she had not secured David's trust. ‘All of this logic – it simply consolidates the assumptions made by the police. These small things, while not making me appear to be the smartest of criminals, certainly point toward my guilt, and guilt is guilt no matter what your level of intelligence.’
David nodded, knowing there was no point in denying it. ‘They'll claim you tried to manipulate the crime scene to make it look like an intruder entered from the fire escape when, for reasons you have described to us, there is no way that this could have been the case.’
Sienna sighed, her shoulders drooping. ‘It's worse than that,’ she said. ‘These staged details suggest premeditation.’
David nodded, once again mentally noting her aptitude. ‘Which explains why the DA is going for murder one.’
His words hung heavily around them, until Sienna spoke again.
‘How will they explain it?’
‘Explain what?’ queried Sara.
‘Why I did it?’ she asked.
It was a good question.
‘They might argue that at the time you were …’ Sara searched for the right words, ‘… not yourself.’
Sienna Walker swallowed, her head shaking just a little before she lifted her chin once again. ‘Post-natal depression,’ she said. ‘But it does not gel with the premeditation.’
‘Maybe not. But they could argue you acted out of an impulse triggered by your depression – and then regained control enough to consider how to cover your tracks.’
Sienna nodded. ‘I see.’
Sara glanced at David before turning once again to their client. ‘Sienna, were you being treated for any form of depression?’ she asked.
‘No. Did Dick tell you I was?’ It was Sienna's first reference to Hunt's close associate.
‘We haven't spoken to him as yet,’ said David. ‘But we have spoken to your friend Daniel Hunt, and he mentioned that you have been doing it hard since your husband's death.’
David thought he saw Sienna's expression shift from one of confusion to what could have been acceptance or expectation even. But if it was there at all it was only for a second.
‘Daniel said I was depressed?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘And do you think I look depressed – I mean, in a “desperate-enough-to-kill-the-one-person-I-loved-more-than-any-other-on-the-planet” sort of way?’ she asked. It was the first time her voice had risen in the interview so far.
‘No,’ he replied.
‘Then I am pleased,’ she said, her crisp British accent tinged with a trace of resolution.
‘Sienna,’ said Sara then.
David knew what Sara was going to ask – perhaps the most important question they would need to answer if they had any chance of winning this thing in court.
‘If you did not murder your daughter, then who did? And more importantly, why? Why would someone go to that much trouble to take a small child's life – and then set you up as the killer?’
Sienna looked at Sara and tilted her head to the left. Her lank hair slipped over her shoulder, her lips parted as if they were willing to respond to the question but unsure of where to begin.
‘When I was a child my favourite book was Wuthering Heights,’ she managed a smile. ‘I know, rather intense for a ten-year-old girl. But my parents encouraged me to read the classics and …’ She stopped there, as if the memory had gotten the better of her. ‘There is a line, in Chapter 30 I believe, where Catherine confronts Heathcliff and basically tells him that she is spent, that she can no longer continue to fight for him. She says something like, “You have left me so long to struggle with death, alone, that I feel and see only death! I feel like death!” And that, you see, is the crux of it.’
David glanced at an equally confused Sara before turning back to their client. ‘I'm sorry, Sienna, we don't understand.’
‘When Jim died I was alone. Struggling, but not in the sense that I could not cope with my daughter. On the contrary, she was my lifeblood – Eliza was my hope. But perhaps one was always the halfway mark – or the third-way mark when it really comes down to it – because now I am like Catherine, alive, but I feel like death.’
David looked at Sara again, wondering if she was thinking the same thing he was. ‘Sienna,’ he began, ‘are you saying that your husband – that he was part of all this? That his death was not an accident, that he was the first victim and that your daughter was …’
‘It had to be, don't you think?’ she said, as if the answer was a given. ‘If not, it would be all too much of a coincidence.’
There was that word again, the one that had haunted this case from the get-go.
‘It is not like I have not thought about it,’ she said, her eyes starting to glisten. ‘Believe me when I tell you that, for the past few days I have, of course, thought of nothing else.’
David believed her once again, as he contemplated the hell she must be going through.
‘But why?’ asked Sara then. ‘What is it about your husband and your daughter that would result in their being targets of –’
‘Oh no,’ interrupted Sienna, a blink now releasing a single tear that trailed down her pale cheek. ‘This is not just about them. At least I don't think so.’
‘Then who?’ asked Sara.
‘Why, me of course,’ their client answered. ‘In the end this is all about me.’
20
‘Tell me, James, do you have a problem with me?’ It was Daniel Hunt's first question to the smartly dressed young executive before him.
Jim Walker did not hesitate. ‘No, Mr Hunt, why would I have a problem with you? The great majority of my colleagues have been shown the door, but you're offering me an opportunity to save my job.’
‘You don't resent me for letting your friends go?’
‘You're running a business, Mr Hunt, not a soup kitchen.’
Hunt sat back in his soft leather office chair. He had made the chief executive's space his own the moment the papers were signed – fast tracking a complete refurbishment of all three floors occupied by the now insolvent Capital Consolidated. ‘I didn't save your job, James – true I may have let the great majority of the old employees go, but this isn't a case of my saving your job, it's a case of my considering creating a new one for you.’
Considering.
‘You want me to apply for this new position, Mr Hunt?’
‘It's Daniel, and I simply want to know more about you, James.’
‘It's Jim – and if you want to know more about me, Daniel, you only need ask.’
The room fell into silence.
‘Do you want to work for Hunt and Associates because you want to make money for the company or you want to make money for yourself?’
It was a question designed to see if Jim Walker was a
liar – and if so, just how good at it he was.
‘Both, Mr Hunt,’ replied Walker, once again without the slightest hesitation. ‘But I also want to make money for your clients, because as you and I both know, the capital raised by this firm is exponential – the primary exponent being the client, the secondaries being the firm and the people employed by it.’
Hunt said nothing so Walker took the cue to go on.
‘But, if you will forgive me, Mr Hunt, the real reason I want this job isn't because of the reputation you are building or the clientele you attract. It's not just because the Boston Tribune's business section recently described you as the most exciting new force in corporate finance this city has seen in years, or because you drive a $250,000 car or wear a $5000 suit. It's because you're smart, Mr Hunt. You think out of the box. You've realised that people are sick and tired of specialisation, you've grasped the concept that CEOs are no longer willing to sit through ten conference calls or read an inbox full of emails to make sure their needs are being met. Hunt and Associates have questioned the entire validity of corporate management specialisation. You people trade in commodities and futures, you offer brokerage services for independent investors, you manage hedge funds, structure financial investment packages for your clients, you source funding for local corporations from off-shore venture capitalists, you manage buy-outs, you hopscotch around the tax constraints and you offer legal representation to corporations looking to avoid unnecessary expense or embarrassment or both.’ Walker sat forward in his seat. ‘You make things happen, Mr Hunt, and I want to be a part of what you and your associates are doing here – to move things forward, to make decisions that count.’
Hunt considered him. ‘You've done your homework Jim,’ he said – an observation, not a compliment.
‘It would be an insult to you if I didn't, Mr Hunt.’
Hunt nodded with the slightest of smiles.
‘How old are you, Jim?’ he asked, changing tack.
‘I'm thirty-one.’
‘According to your Capital Consolidated personnel file, your IQ is five times that.’