"Do you think Jennifer Dodson is guilty of Maxine Shepard's murder?"
"Do you agree with those who say your personal issues have become too much of a distraction for you to do your job?"
"Will you be resigning?"
He remains stone-faced through it all, even the last question. He knows a segment of the city's population thinks he should have been thrown out of office long ago, both for his relationship with Jenny, and because he wasn't upfront about his views on capital punishment.
He always found it sad—and ironic—that between those two transgressions, his relationship with Jenny caused the more rabid uproar.
He remembers his first day back at work after he'd testified at Alex’s trial, how hard it was to walk through the crowd on the courthouse steps to reach the podium at the top, where he
addressed the city. Like walking through a gauntlet. Some had come to show their support, but most were there to castigate him for all he'd done. They screamed at him and he absorbed it all. He knew he deserved every bit of their rancor.
He took his second chance seriously.
He began the arduous climb back by publicly expressing his contrition. His words bounced like rubber off most of the people in the audience, but a few applauded, providing the little fuel he needed to keep going. A few days later, some of his previous detractors publicly recanted their condemnation of him and agreed to wait and see if his future actions would match his words. He made sure they did. He fought to restore his reputation in the community as hard as he fought to restore his marriage. For the most part, he succeeded. He knows Claire is responsible for a large part of that success, for refusing to leave him, even though she faced her own criticism for her decision. Her grace under pressure was not only a model, but a constant source of strength for him.
He accepted as the price of his sins that some would never trust him again. The renewed call for him to step down doesn't surprise him, not with Celeste's
allegations and now Jenny's return. What does surprise him is that, for the first time, he wonders if perhaps he should.
Even though five o'clock has long since come and gone, Jack steps off the elevator to find Earl in the reception area surrounded by several of the assistant DA's who once worked under him. They scatter like partiers at a drug bust when they see Jack.
"Gunner will be here shortly," Earl says on the way to Jack's office. "He doesn't want to arouse interest, so he'll slip in through the back when he gets a chance. The delay will give us a few minutes to talk privately."
Jack motions at the chair behind his desk. "Why don't you take the position of honor? I don't really feel deserving of it just now."
Earl sighs but doesn't argue. "Did you have any luck with Dodson?"
"I learned only today that she was staying at the Ritz," Jack begins as he hangs his overcoat on the back of his office door. Earl's eyebrows rise at Jack's mention of the Ritz. "But she's no longer there, and I have no idea where she was headed."
All true.
"Did you try to call her?"
"Since she left the Ritz? No, but I will if you want me to." Also all true.
Earl studies him—he obviously
suspects he's not getting the full story—
but he declines the offer. "Wait and see what Gunner wants. In the meantime, you need to think about what you'll do if you're asked to step down. I have no doubt the request is coming."
"Do you think I should?"
"Well, let me ask you." Earl picks up a pen and twirls it like a miniature baton.
"If you consider everything that's happened since the night you drove Celeste home, or rather, everything you've done, do you think you should? If every step you've taken was somehow made public, do you believe your constituents would agree they were the right steps to take?"
"If I answer no, does that mean ipso facto I should resign? Is that the litmus test you applied to your decisions when you had this job?"
Earl's nostrils flare. He lets the pen fall to the desk and leans forward. He doesn't welcome Jack's sarcasm. "Tell me, where were you on Christmas Eve, Jack?"
The question catches Jack off guard.
"Excuse me?"
"I tried to call you that night. When I didn't get an answer, I called your house.
Claire said you'd gone out but that she'd give you the message. On Christmas Eve, she claimed you'd gone out. I didn't have the heart to ask her where. I never heard back, so I tried you again the next morning. Still no answer." Earl crosses his arms. "So what happened?"
"Claire wasn't too pleased with the evidence being leaked. That's what happened. We argued and I left."
Earl rises. He's not a tall man, but he carries a muscular heftiness that has always made him appear much larger than his five feet, six inches. He half-stands, half-sits on the wide sill and looks down on the city below. His silence is unnerving. Jack braces himself for the subtle psychological interrogation he knows is coming, the same type his former boss once used so successfully as a prosecutor.
"Did she give you my message?" Earl asks.
She would have had to talk to me to do that.
He shrugs in a noncommittal way, neither yes nor no.
"Why didn't you call me back? I've never known you not to return my calls."
"I wasn't somewhere I could talk."
"On Wednesday and Thursday? Where might that have been?"
"Earl, lay off me already, will you? I wasn't anywhere Claire doesn't know about."
"So reassure me." Earl's aging eyes haven't lost their power to penetrate.
Jack looks away and rubs at an
imperfection at the front edge of the desk.
He told Claire where he was, and as far as he's concerned, she's the only one who's entitled to know.
"You went to Dodson, didn't you?"
"Claire and I fought, so I left and went to my brother's house. But I couldn't fall asleep, so I went out to Jenny's motel, just to talk to her a while. But I accidentally fell asleep and—"
"What?" Earl's composure slips. "Are you telling me you spent the night with her? Jesus Christ! Not again. What the hell is wrong with you?"
Something inside Jack flares at Earl's question. "What the hell is wrong with me? Everything!" He's shouting but he barely notices. "I haven't done a damn thing and everyone is treating me like a fucking criminal. I can't sleep, I can't eat.
My wife looks at me like I'm a feral animal she can't trust, but one she allows inside anyway because if she doesn't feed it, no one will. My father-in-law would just as soon shoot me than have me spend one more minute in his daughter's presence, not to mention his
grandchildren's, but he can't legally do that, so instead he's trying to have my law license revoked. A girl I trusted and welcomed into my home has decided to make me the fall guy for whatever crap she's got herself wrapped up in, and because of that, I'm facing a lengthy prison term for a crime I didn't commit.
Isn't that enough?"
"Jack, calm down—"
"For the last month, while trying to defend myself against charges that I raped a child, I've been trying to juggle the needs of a very public job, a bitter wife who can't even tell me she believes I'm innocent, a conflicted son who knows I am but for some reason won't discuss it or tell me what I need to know to end this, another son who's confused as all hell, and a woman who might be guilty for a crime for which another man is facing execution. But wait, maybe she's not, and yet somehow I'm expected to be the one to throw her to the lions. And I've been trying to do all this on a few hours sleep each night. So forgive me if I'd reached the end of my rope." His anger depleted now, he leans back wearily.
"I was about to collapse from exhaustion, okay? I hadn't been sleeping. I even tried at my brother's house. It didn't matter. I couldn't sleep anywhere."
"But you were able to sleep at Dodson's?" Earl asks. The question is no longer an accusation, but an attempt to understand.
"Yes, but it was an accident," he says.
"And that
's all I did. I slept. For nineteen hours." They hold each other's gaze.
"You know, everyone is so quick to judge my actions, but until you've walked in another's shoes—"
Earl raises his hand. "Fair enough."
"And your question about my
constituents? Frankly, I think the better question is, do I think my actions were right, given the circumstances."
"Fine, I'll bite. Do you?"
Does he? He tries to analyze everything objectively. He thought he'd done the right thing when he drove Celeste home.
She'd never given him any reason not to trust her. Even Claire wouldn't have had a problem with the decision if the assault allegations hadn't been made. She would have been grateful he let her sleep. He'd been dishonest with her afterwards, but at the moment of decision, all he'd wanted was to regain his son's love and not give Claire another reason to mistrust him.
Had he not been arrested, his claim that Michael drove Celeste home would have been just one more of the many
innocuous white lies that long term couples tell each other to keep peace.
Even his decision to steal the page from the notebook was an impulse he doesn't regret. Anyone who claims he would make a contrary decision in the same position would be lying.
But what about how he'd handled
Jenny's return to town? He tried to be upfront with Claire, and she'd told him she understood his need to know the truth. He can't deny that he mistook mere dormant feelings for dead, but once he realized it, he tamped them down at every turn. Yet, if it had been anyone other than Jenny, would he have done things
differently? He knows he did the right thing four years ago when he came forward as soon as he discovered Jenny's full relationship to her murdered client.
Even though he kept her recent
reappearance secret, the decision gave him an unusual opportunity to discover the truth once and for all. If he'd refused her plea for help, he's confident she would have gone underground again before trusting anyone else, and any advantage he had would have slipped from his grasp.
Of course, the warning he gave her a few moments ago served the same
purpose, didn't it? Even the knowledge that she'd probably played him again didn't stop him from effectively handing her the keys to her own jail cell. It's the one decision he can't justify. How can the DA, of all people, admit that he doesn't trust the system?
"I believe most of the decisions I've made since the night I took Celeste home have been the right ones. And even the ones I might not be proud of . . ." He hesitates. "I'd make them again."
This admission surprises Earl. "Care to tell me which decisions those might be?"
As if Beverly were waiting for the cue to save Jack, the phone on the desk beeps and her sympathetic voice fills the room.
"Jack, Gunner's here. Should I show him to your office?"
Jack and Earl stare at each other. Earl understands Jack won't answer his last question. And they both know there's not much Earl can do for Jack at this point.
"Please do."
Let the party begin.
Gunner enters Jack's office looking pale and tired. He's always been slightly overweight, but tonight his jowls hang a little lower and the bags under his watery eyes are more pronounced. Seems Celeste and Jenny are taking their toll on the Chief, too.
Gunner is accompanied by a detective Jack recognizes but whose name he can't remember. The detective has been in the murder division for about as long as Jack has been at the prosecutor's office, and before that he worked in sex crimes. He's one of the best.
"Jack," he says with a small nod. He sees that Jack doesn't remember his name.
"Bill Sumner,” he adds and offers his hand. “We worked on the Soulard case together."
"That's right, I remember." Jack also remembers that he liked Sumner. The man worked as hard on that case—where a cop solicited a prostitute and then murdered her when she wanted more money for keeping her mouth shut—as he would have on any other case. He didn't investigate any differently when he learned the perp was one of his own, and he didn't assign less worth to the victim as some on the force might have. In his eyes, a prostitute's life was just as valuable as a nun's. Unfortunately, his stellar ethics will probably work against Jack.
Earl explains to Gunner that he won't stay. Jack gives up his chair so Gunner and Sumner have a place to sit, but instead of taking the chair behind his desk, he props on the windowsill that Earl vacated.
"I'll be in the conference room," Earl mouths to Jack before he slips into the hall and closes the door behind him.
To Jack's surprise, Gunner stares at him with genuine concern. "If you'd rather wait until you bring in another attorney, I—"
Jack cuts him off with a shake of the head. "Let's just get started. This is all off the record, right?"
Sumner breathes deeply and shifts in his chair, an obvious signal to Gunner that he disagrees.
"Gunner," Jack says before Sumner speaks, "if it's not, I might as well take the Fifth. What's your goal? Do you want to find her to question her? Or do you want to take me down?"
"We simply want to question her."
"Then it has to be off the record."
Gunner glances at Sumner and nods.
Jack waits until Sumner gives him a similar assurance.
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything," Sumner says. "Have you seen her? Do you know where she is? Can you contact her?"
"I'll answer all your questions, but first answer one of mine." Even though the detective had asked the questions, Jack directs his to Gunner. "Where'd you get your tip?"
"A state trooper." Gunner studies Jack for a reaction. Jack merely nods. "It was a bit serendipitous. He was in court on another matter and overheard some local cops talking about you. Not surprisingly, Dodson's name came up, too."
Jack finds it ironic that his decision to stop on the shoulder, a decision made because he was worried about Jenny's well-being, is the decision that gave her away. That gave both of them away.
"He did see us," Jack confesses. "He didn't recognize her, though. I'm pretty sure of that."
"He didn't, you're right. He had only vague knowledge of what had happened a few years back. But when one of the cops brought up what she looked like, that she was part Indian, he began to put two and two together. That's when he called me."
"Are you the only one he spoke to? Or do those local cops know, too?"
"Just me, Jack. You're lucky. He liked you."
Jack's not feeling too lucky just now.
"So why were you with her? And how long have you been in contact with her?"
Jack turns to the window and looks down at the street below. He blows out a puff of air and it briefly fogs up the cold glass. "Where to begin?" he mutters to himself.
Gunner answers for him. "I suggest you start at the beginning."
He tells them how she surprised him in the tunnel. He tells them how he met with her, first in Hannibal, then in Mexico, and about the other visits to her motel room in St. Charles. He gives them the name of the motel, and the room number. He tells them about the letters, how Jenny claimed she was being
threatened, but that he only just came to the conclusion, earlier today, in fact, that she'd sent the letters to herself. He explains that he thought he had a better chance of finding out the truth if he kept her return to St. Louis to himself—at least until he knew more. He insists that Claire is aware of his meetings with Jenny. He tells them Jenny had been living at her brother's condo. He even gives them her alias.
He tells them everything they want to know until Sumner asks why Jack believes she sent the letters to herself.
"I can't answer that question without jeopardizing those who helped me with my investigation. I won't do that."
Jack's refusal frustrates Gunner, but he accepts it for now, which forces his detective to accept it, too. They all know a special prosecutor could haul Jack before a grand jury and force the answer
s out of him.
"Do you know where she is now?"
Gunner asks.
"No."
"Do you have a phone number for her?"
"Yes." He pulls up the number on his phone and holds out the screen for Sumner to write it down.
"Are you willing to let us see your phone records to verify what you've told us about your communications with her is true?"
"That's not a problem."
Gunner leans over and whispers to Sumner. The detective immediately pulls out his phone and begins texting.
"I'd like you to contact her now,"
Gunner says to Jack, "and make arrangements to meet with her again."
Jack swallows. The chief plans to do exactly what Jack feared. He plans to use Jack to bait Jenny.
"I don't think she'll be willing. When we spoke at my brother's house, I accused her of murdering Maxine Shepard."
Gunner smiles slightly. "Why don't you try?"
Jack takes his time pulling up her number and placing the call.
"She's not answering."
"Leave her a message to call you."
"She doesn’t have voicemail." He wishes she did, because then he'd know whether her phone is on or off by how quickly the system prompts a caller to leave a message. If the phone is off, Gunner's team can't locate her. "But maybe she'll see that I tried to call and she'll call back."
"See if they can triangulate her phone right now, will you?" Gunner says to the detective. "Let's see if we can find her and bring her in."
After Sumner steps out to the hallway, Gunner says to Jack, "So you accused her of murdering Maxine Shepard? You now believe she did it?"
"Honestly, Chief? I don't know. I was simply trying to get a reaction out of her.
I thought maybe I could judge whether she was lying to me."
"And?"
"I don't know what to think. If she did commit murder, I don't understand why she'd come back. It makes no sense. Why would she send herself threatening letters and then ask me to help find the sender?
And yet, I still get the sense she knows something she's not saying."
Gunner laces his fingers together behind his head, his elbows wide like wings, and regards Jack. "You know, Jack, I believe you're being honest with me. I wish you had come forward as soon as you knew she was back. It would have helped your credibility in your own case.
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