“Thirty seconds,” said the judge, growling.
The whole team huddled at the table, whispering so as not to be overheard, trying to show no emotion so that neither the press nor the jury would sense disagreement.
Tony whispered, “You want me to do the cross?”
“No,” said Kevin. “No one should do it.”
“That’s nuts.”
“Look, her testimony hurt me a lot more than Peyton. And I’m telling you, it can only get worse if you cross-examine.”
Peyton just looked at him, as if looking right through him. “What are you saying?” she said in a hushed but piercing voice.
The judge interrupted. “Thirty seconds are up. What’s it going to be, Counsel?”
Kevin and Peyton were locked in silence. The lawyers checked their clients, then looked at each other. Finally, Tony rose and said, “No questions at this time, Your Honor. But it is possible that one of the defendants may recall her as part of our defense.”
“Very well. The witness is excused. Ms. Blair, please do not discuss your testimony with anyone, since there is the possibility of your return to the witness stand.”
Sandra stepped down and crossed before the bench, her stride a little faster than normal. She was looking right at Peyton, Kevin noted, and as she passed their table she slowed her step. Her eyes shifted toward Kevin, and he looked away awkwardly, only to meet Peyton’s glare. He looked the other way but still felt the weight of her smoldering suspicion.
He heard the click of Sandra’s heels as she headed up the aisle, heard the heavy door open and shut in the back of the courtroom. Sandra was gone, but it was as if she were still there, sitting right between them, showing Peyton her earrings.
55
THE PHONE RANG ON JENNIFER’S DESK. SHE WAS ALONE IN HER office preparing for tomorrow’s witnesses. She pushed aside her plastic takeout container of chicken Caesar and snatched up the receiver. It was Ohn.
She stiffened with surprise. “To what do I owe this honor?”
“Your client passed up a good deal before trial. Testify against his wife, he gets complete immunity. I’m renewing the offer.”
“What makes you think he’d be interested now?”
“I saw the way he and Sandra Blair looked at each other in the courtroom today. More important, I saw the way his wife looked at him. My well-honed prosecutorial instincts tell me that it’s only a matter of time before Peyton tubes her husband. This is your client’s last chance to take a preemptive strike.”
“Am I to infer from this conversation that the prosecution’s theory is that Peyton Shields pulled the trigger?”
“I’ll tell you this much. If your client doesn’t take the deal, I can only assume that it’s because he was the triggerman. In that case, I might just turn around and offer the same deal to his codefendant.”
“You’re just a model of integrity, aren’t you?”
“The offer’s good till tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll let you know,” she said, then hung up the phone.
Peyton got home around eight-thirty. At her insistence, there had been no joint defense strategy session at the conclusion of today’s testimony. It had been just Peyton and Tony in his office, leaving Jennifer and Kevin to meet or not on their own. Kevin had tried to corner Peyton alone, but she’d avoided it. Somewhere deep inside she’d known all along that Kevin was hiding something. Ironically, had anyone but her mother planted the initial seed of doubt she probably would have confronted Kevin long ago. But that telling little exchange between Sandra Blair and him in the courtroom had finally put a face on her suspicions and fears.
Peyton entered the apartment quickly and hung her coat in the foyer. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Kevin seated in the living room, but she didn’t look his way. She continued down the hall to the master bedroom. She pulled a suitcase and garment bag down from the shelf in the closet and threw them on the bed. She started packing slowly, then more furiously, driven by hurt and anger.
“What are you doing?” It was Kevin, standing in the doorway.
She continued sifting through the panty-hose drawer, not even looking up. “What does it look like?”
“Why are you doing this?”
She stopped and glared. “Are you going to look me in the eye and tell me you were never with that woman?”
He shifted nervously, right foot to left foot, then back again. “Peyton, I swear it was only one night.”
She chuckled pathetically. “Only one night. That’s beautiful, Kevin. Why don’t we try that defense at our trial. But, Your Honor, we only shot Gary Varne in the head once.”
“I didn’t shoot him in the head any times.”
“Neither did I, asshole. I was only making a point.”
“I know. You have every right to be furious.”
“You’re damn right I do,” she said, her voice shaking. She ducked into the closet and grabbed a few dresses and shoes for court, then threw them on the bed. “You bastard. How could you do this to me?”
“It was last winter. You were so busy at the hospital, it seemed like I saw you about two hours a week. Things weren’t very good between us, remember? You didn’t even tell me you were pregnant.”
“So it’s my fault, is that it? You wouldn’t have cheated if I’d told you I was pregnant?”
“No. That’s just a symptom of how bad things had gotten between us. I’m the only guilty one here, and I regretted it from the day it happened.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You know what I really don’t understand? How could you make me feel so horrible over nothing but a complete misunderstanding with Gary Varne, when all the while you were hiding this secret about you and this…this woman.”
“Because I was afraid you loved Gary. And in my whole life, I’ve only loved one woman. You.”
She zipped her suitcase and said, “You have a lousy way of showing it.”
“I’m not proud of the way I acted. But for me, the thing with you and Gary was never about one night. I worried about your renewed friendship with him from the day you started at Children’s. I blamed him for the way you seemed to stop loving me.”
Peyton grabbed her bags and pushed past him. “Don’t put this on me.”
He followed her down the hall to the foyer. She slowed just enough to throw on her coat. He touched her shoulder as the door flew open. She stopped in the open doorway, but didn’t dare turn to look at him. Her emotions were running the gamut from hurt to betrayal, anger to disappointment. She was determined not to lose control in front of him.
His voice quaked behind her. “I wish I knew what to say.”
“Don’t say anything.”
“I wish I could undo it, just go back in time. When I was sitting in the living room waiting for you to come home tonight, I was thinking about our second date back in college. I remember it more clearly than any night in my life. I remember what you wore, what we said. I remember dropping you off at your apartment afterward. Most of all, I remember going home and, for the first and only time in my life, literally thanking God for bringing a woman into my life.”
She closed her eyes tightly, holding back tears.
“I am sorry, Peyton.”
“Me too,” she whispered, then rushed down the porch steps, no looking back.
56
RUDY LAY WAITING AND WATCHING, CONCEALED FROM SIGHT BY thick shrubbery and the dark shroud of midnight. He was only following orders.
The night before the trial began, he’d chatted with Ladydoc again. It had been almost two months since they’d reestablished Internet contact, roughly the same time Peyton and Kevin had been indicted. In that first reunion chat, she’d given him exactly what he’d wanted in their private chat room. Ever since then, she’d been playing hardball. A year ago, at the peak of their relationship, she would come to their regular cyber meeting place almost every night at eleven. Since the indictments, she’d come some nights but not others, no schedule whatever, never making a
date for another go-around. Rudy had to log on and check the chat room each night at eleven, disappointed more often than not. Even when she did show up, it wasn’t like before. She’d leave abruptly, right in the middle of one of their steamy sessions, threatening never to take him all the way again unless he agreed to meet her in person. Each time he’d refused, but this last time she’d given him the ultimatum. “Meet me in the Back Bay Fens, or you will never hear from me again,” had been her exact words. Whether she meant it or not he couldn’t say. But he knew he couldn’t take the teasing anymore, the aggravation of her leaving him swollen and unsatisfied time after time. It was ruining the illusion, the way she’d get him all worked up, take him to the brink, and then—bleep—Ladydoc has left the room. It was an empty feeling, like making it with some bitch only to discover that in the middle of the act she’d fallen asleep or passed out, or that the knife had penetrated a little too close to the heart and that she’d bled to death before he could finish.
If she wanted to see him in person, fine. He brought his blade, just in case.
“So where the hell are you?” he muttered, checking his watch.
Ladydoc didn’t know what he looked like, so her directions had been detailed and specific. “Meet at the park bench facing the Mud River. Sit on the north end. Cross your right leg over your left, then your left over your right. Then I’ll know it’s you.”
Rudy agreed to it, but he wasn’t an idiot. In the back of his mind, he suspected that the minute he sat on the bench a half-dozen FBI agents would come flying out from behind trees to apprehend him. So from his hiding spot in the bushes, he watched from a distance as the homeless guy he’d hired for twenty bucks performed the ritual. He sat on the bench, crossed his right leg over his left and then his left over his right. And he waited.
A minute passed, and nothing happened. Rudy replayed the performance in his mind, making sure that the guy had done it right. He had, he was sure of it.
Two minutes passed, and still there was nothing.
Rudy was getting edgy. This whole idea had been hers, not his. She’d made the rules, and he’d played by them. At least, as far as she’d known, he’d played by them. She had no reason to know that the guy on the bench wasn’t the real Rudy.
Going on five minutes, and still no Ladydoc.
The good news was that she hadn’t invited him here to lure him into a police trap. The cops would have been all over his homeless stand-in if that had been the case. But that gave him only a moment of calm. The bottom line was she’d stood him up.
Damn her!
He was shaking with anger, trying to keep control of himself. The homeless guy was now prone on the bench, half-asleep. In a fit of rage, Rudy sprang from his hiding spot and sprinted toward the bench. He pounced on the guy from the blind side.
“Hey, what the—”
Rudy pummeled him with both fists, tearing at his coat, ripping the pockets. “Give me back my twenty bucks!”
The man groaned as he rolled off the bench. With his twenty back in hand, Rudy gave the guy a kick in the kidney and headed off into the night.
His hands smelled from having dug in the guy’s pockets. Using a stand-in had been a mistake. That had to have been the reason for Ladydoc’s no-show. She could have watched from a distance—maybe even used binoculars—seen the homeless guy on the bench, decided that she didn’t like what she saw, and gone home. If that was the case, her no-show was his fault. He’d have to go online and confess what he’d done, tell her that he wasn’t some drunk who reeked of dried urine and fell asleep on park benches.
Who the hell are you kidding?
She’d stood him up, he knew it. Again. Just like last winter, when she’d promised to meet him, chickened out, and then told him it was over. She was a manipulative bitch back then, and he’d let her do the same thing all over again. Five weeks ago he’d warned her and told her that she needed to prove that she was worth saving. This proved only one thing. He shouldn’t have pulled her out of Jamaica Pond. She hadn’t been worth saving then. She wasn’t worth saving now. One thing, however, was for certain.
This would be the last time she’d ever stand him up.
He knifed through the darkness of the park’s north end and headed straight for the overpass, clutching his recovered twenty bucks, knowing that, for money like that, the sluts on the street would blow him without a condom.
Who needs you, Peyton?
It was 5:26 A.M. and Peyton had slept about an hour all night. Her mind refused to shut off. Anytime she managed to think of something other than her split from Kevin, her mind shifted to the trial. Hardly the stuff of sweet dreams.
Last night, she’d gone from her apartment straight to the logical place: her parents’ house. They’d taken her in with open arms and, surprisingly, very few questions—or perhaps not so surprisingly, given their own taste of marital infidelity years ago. In any event, Peyton didn’t want to talk about it, and no one forced her. It made for a relatively painless move, but it didn’t necessarily add up to a good night’s sleep, not even in her old bed. Staring at her from the foot of the bed was old Wilbur the teddy bear, who’d served in a pinch to keep the headboard from banging against the wall the time she’d brought Kevin home from college to announce their engagement. She’d come here tonight to escape the ghosts, but Kevin had been part of her life since she was nineteen years old. Ghosts were just about everywhere.
Her alarm would ring in about a half hour, but she saw little point in waiting. In her robe, she went downstairs to the kitchen and started the coffee. She checked the front step, but the newspaper had yet to arrive. Just as well. She was trying to avoid reading about herself anyway. The coffee aroma lured her back into the kitchen. She poured a cup, then wondered what she was going to do until the rest of the world woke. It wasn’t as if she could call anyone at this hour. She sipped her coffee and, like magic, it gave the brain a jump start. She hadn’t checked her e-mail since the beginning of the trial.
Her parents had a computer in the den. She logged on to her server as a guest and pulled up her home page. She had countless unanswered e-mail messages. A few good wishes from friends. Some coupons from computer software companies. And one that she didn’t recognize.
She opened it, read it once, then read it again. The second time through, she started to tremble.
The sender was identified not by a screen name but a number. The e-mail had been sent to her from one of those twenty-four-hour copy/office centers that rent workstations with computers with e-mail capabilities. She knew that it would be impossible to trace the electronic message back to the true sender, since it would simply lead back to the subscriber, Fast Fred’s Copy Center. That was yet another way to retain anonymity in the world of cyberspace. Whoever this anonymous someone was, however, he or she seemed to want to help her.
The message read, “The man you need to meet will be seated on a bench facing the Mud River in the park in Back Bay Fens tonight at midnight. Go there. Bring the cops.”
Peyton wasn’t sure who “The man you need to meet” was, exactly. But with someone posing as her in cybersex chats and someone else framing her for murder, she would have settled for either one.
She hit the print button to get a copy of the e-mail, not sure who to call first. “Tonight at midnight” didn’t leave much time to prepare. A wave of nervous excitement washed over her, and then an even bigger wave of despair. The message, she noticed, bore yesterday’s date. “Tonight at midnight,” meant last night at midnight.
Almost numb, she fell back in her chair, staring at the screen, wondering how huge was the opportunity that had just slipped through her hands.
57
“NEVER,” SAID KEVIN.
It was seven-thirty in the morning, and he was seated in his lawyer’s office. The fourth day of trial wouldn’t begin for another ninety minutes, but Jennifer had called to tell him that there was something they needed to discuss beforehand. In just two minutes, Kevin had heard enoug
h.
“I told you the last time this came up. I would never cut a deal that involves turning against Peyton.”
Jennifer leaned back in her leather desk chair, seemingly frustrated. “Circumstances have changed. Your wife has walked out on you. I don’t know where that leaves the joint defense arrangement.”
“I don’t care. We’re still married.”
“That’s honorable, but in the context of a joint murder trial that could go either way, it could also be suicide.”
“You’re asking me to testify against the woman I love.”
“I’m advising you to do what’s best for yourself.”
“Okay, then let me talk in terms you can understand. Even if I wanted to take the deal, there’s nothing I can offer the prosecutor in exchange for immunity. I have absolutely no evidence that Peyton killed Gary Varne.”
Jennifer looked doubtful but said nothing.
He said, “Do you think she did it?”
Again, she didn’t answer.
Kevin shook his head, flabbergasted. “The last time we talked about this, you burned me for not citing Peyton’s innocence as one of my reasons for rejecting the prosecutor’s deal. Well, this time, let’s put Peyton’s innocence at the top of the list.”
“Your decision,” she said in a clipped tone. “Just keep in mind that Charles Ohn may be right. If you turn down the deal, Peyton may start pointing the finger at you.”
He lowered his eyes and said quietly, “Maybe I’d deserve it.”
She did a double take. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
He realized what he’d said, how it might have sounded. “I meant that I deserved to be betrayed because I cheated on my wife.”
“Is that so?”
“I wasn’t saying that I deserve to be convicted because I killed Gary Varne.”
She gave him a sobering look. “Either way, it’s okay with me. Just so we understand each other.”
“I didn’t kill Gary Varne.”
Lying with Strangers Page 27