“Our fees go up when there’s a pain in the ass lawyer involved. Call it ‘hazard pay’ if you’d like. So, if you want to do what’s right for your client, whose name is Jessica in case you’ve forgotten, I’d suggest you drop the attitude and let us do what we’re damn good at doing.”
Maryanne didn’t flinch. She just sat, still as a stone. Eyes fixed and locked.
“You said ‘a few minor things.’ That’s only one,” she said.
“Second, Jessica, I’m going to ask you three questions to start. If I think you’re lying to me, we’ll stop our investigation before we even begin.”
Jessica nodded her head.
“I’ll answer anything you ask. Anything.”
“Third, if you answer our questions and we start the investigation, understand if at any point, we feel you are guilty of the crime you are accused of, we’re off the case. We’re not interested in helping guilty people go back to their lives.”
“I didn’t kill my husband.”
“Fourth, we will speak with the DA, if he chooses to give us an appointment.”
“She,” Maryanne shot back. “The DA is a woman. Imagine that! A female DA. Ever heard such a thing, Mr. Cole?” The sarcasm was practically dripping off her words.
“If she will give us an appointment. I’m sure your lawyer has already asked for full disclosure which we expect to be shared with us, so meeting Mrs. or Miss DA won’t be to ask any favors, but rather to get a feel of how she’ll prosecute if your case goes to trial. And,” Derek continued as he raised his hand, stopping Maryanne who seemed about ready to say something, “we will also speak with as many of the cops and investigators as will give us their time.”
“Detectives,” Maryanne said. “They call them ‘detectives’ down here.”
“Whatever. Again, we won’t try to get any inside info from them, so don’t expect us to come back with any case-blowing information. I’m an ex-cop and ex-cops and cops know how to talk with each other. They’ll be much more relaxed speaking with me than with your charming lawyer.”
Still no reaction from Maryanne Jenkins.
Derek leaned back against his chair, glanced to Nikkie who was scribbling on the yellow legal pad sitting on the table in front of her. Without needing any additional cue, Nikkie took over the conversation.
“Fees are as you expected, Mrs. Jenkins.”
“Miss Jenkins,” Maryanne said.
“Good for you. Most of our cases are tied up within a week, so we don’t expect to be here longer than seven days. If our investigation warrants, we’ve already made arrangements to have other pending cases worked by our Ohio-based team.”
The truth was, there was no Ohio-based team. Not anymore. The last case Derek and Nikkie worked put Crown, their office manager, in the hospital with a traumatic brain injury. One of their associate investigators, Alex, turned out to be a drug-selling psychopath, currently on the run from the law and from Derek. Alex was responsible for Crown’s condition and occupied the “Most Wanted” position on Derek’s list. When their team of five was cut to three, Derek decided he and Nikkie would comprise the entirety of “Derek Cole and Associates” and would handle all cases, front to back, start to finish. He let their other associate investigator go find another job, giving him a more than generous severance package and a glowing letter of reference.
“I understand,” Jessica said, cutting off whatever else Nikkie had to say. “Can we please just get started? Please? I’m not made to stay in jail. I can’t take it much longer.”
“Bail?” Derek asked.
“My client, Jessica, is a woman of significant resources. However, the vast majority of those resources are tied up with her recently departed husband’s untimely passing. Judge set bail at two million. Two hundred large in bond. While that amount would normally not be an issue…well, under the circumstances, I’m sure you can deduce my client is having a challenge accessing the funds.”
“Time frame?” Derek asked.
“Another day or two. Three at the outside.”
“Jessica hiring a private investigative firm may help her case in a bail reduction hearing. Wouldn’t you think?”
“Might. But you haven’t agreed to take her case yet, so I can’t rightly go to the judge, request another bail hearing just yet.”
Derek smiled, nodded his head.
“Question number one: What happened the day your husband was killed?”
Jessica detailed how she had found her husband Sam. She went over how she had just returned from a weekend away.
“The detective told me Sam had been killed around two hours before I found him. They wouldn’t believe me when I told them I found him the way I did. That there was no way in the world I could have murdered him since I wasn’t even home at the time he died. I don’t know how they could tell what time he died, but I was still two hours away from home when he was murdered.”
“Liver temperature,” Derek said. “They know time of death by liver temperature. Condition of any spilled blood. Skin temp compared to the ambient temp of the room he was found in. Pretty accurate measurements. If the detective told you thirty-minutes, then the medical examiner told him thirty-minutes.” Derek paused a beat, looked at Maryanne then back to Jessica. “I’m assuming the detective was a man. At least, the one who told you your husband’s time of death.
“Yes,” Jessica said.
“And I bet he had a partner with him. A female detective. At least she presented herself as being his partner.”
“Yes. His name is Detective Mathers. The woman detective was Rachel. I don’t remember her last name.”
“That’s because she didn’t tell you her last name. Oldest trick in the book. Male detective goes over the charges, gives some details of the crime, some of them pretty descriptive I’d imagine. The female detective—who probably isn’t Mathers’ partner at all—probably sat in on the interview, offering you a box of tissues and cold drinks while Mathers kept on with the questions. I bet at one point, Mathers got up and left the room. Maybe grabbed his cell phone from his pocket and acted like he had to answer a call.”
“Exactly. That’s exactly what happened. How do you know that?”
“Because I was a cop. A cop in the army and a cop with Columbus PD. I wasn’t a detective with either but I know how they operate. Second question: What did you say to the female detective, to Rachel, that you didn’t say to Mathers?”
“Nothing,” Jessica said. “I mean, we just sat in that awful room alone for ten minutes talking about Sam. She asked if our marriage was a happy one, asked if we had any kids. She asked if I suspected he was having an affair or was having difficulties at work. She was nice. She didn’t press me on anything. She just…she was just nice.”
“Third question: You say you didn’t kill your husband but you haven’t said where you were when he was killed. Where were you and who were you with?”
“I can’t tell you that. Not yet. I can’t until I speak with someone.”
“You looking forward to spending more time in your jail cell?”
“No,” Jessica said, her voice louder, more determined. “I hate this place. I’m not made to be in a place like this.”
“Without an alibi that can be corroborated, you’re not likely to get bail reduced. You may get another bail hearing, but, without an alibi, no judge will lower your bail.”
“You’re stepping on my turf now, Cole. I already discussed the importance of sharing her whereabouts with my client. I don’t need you to tell her or me how my part of this game is played.”
“And yet,” Derek said, staring directly into Maryanne’s eyes, “here we sit. An unknown alibi. Unknown potential witness to her alibi. Maybe potential witnesses. You may not need me to tell you how to play your part of this game, but you may need my help in getting you on the field.”
Maryanne screwed up her face.
Finally, Derek thought. A reaction. I can work with this lady.
Chapter 3
It came down to a choice. Not a simple choice, but a choice nonetheless. A or B. Left or right.
Either tell them it was Brian Hilton she had been with or keep her promise, and with its keeping also came keeping the view from her cell. Jessica knew that. Knew she would have to talk about who she was with and the relationship she had with her alibi soon. But there were other circumstances. Other factors and she needed to meet with the person she would soon claim to have been with while her husband was murdered first and let him know what she needed to do.
“It’s not that simple,” Jessica said to Derek. “The person I was with when Sam was murdered will lose everything if I say anything. Everything.”
“His life?” Nikkie asked. “Will he lose his life? Because, in case you didn’t know, Florida still has the death penalty. I’m not sure that the DA’s office will pursue the death penalty, but I’d be willing to bet they’re having conversations about it. Regardless, without an alibi that puts you anywhere but at the scene of your husband’s murder, you’re looking at a very long stretch of your life behind bars.”
“You need to tell us who you were with, Jessica. And where. Like I told you and as these two are telling you now, there’s just too much evidence against you for you to be protecting whomever it is you are protecting.” Maryanne’s face, still set in an angry twist, seemed to soften at the edges with the prospect of Derek and Nikkie helping persuade Jessica to share her alibi. She knew without an alibi, Jessica’s case would be difficult, if not impossible to defend. She also knew requesting Jessica’s bail be lowered or granting her access to the bank accounts would be shot down three seconds after the judge heard Jessica say she wouldn’t say whom she was with while Sam Gracers was being shot.
There wasn’t an avalanche of evidence, but what evidence there was would be damn near impossible to overcome without a rock-solid alibi that put Jessica Gracers someplace besides standing over her husband’s dead body, holding a gun and firing three shots into his torso, just in case the shot to his forehead hadn’t been enough. The four bullet casings found at the scene each had Jessica’s prints on them. The bullets found inside Samuel Gracers’ body all came from a .380 caliber pistol, each fired from the same gun. Those bullets were fired by the gun registered to Jessica Gracers, confirmed in the ballistics lab in Tampa. Jessica was seen leaving her residence, gun in hand. When tested, the Glock .380 revealed it had been fired recently. Though no gun shot residue was found on Jessica’s hands, the small caliber .380 used in the murder was known to not leave gun shot residue, or GSR, on a shooter’s hands.
When questioned by Detectives Gary Mathers and Rachel Gonzales, Jessica’s story about being away for the weekend was as thin as tissue paper. Without anyone to corroborate her alibi, the gun in her hand and the evidence that her gun was the murder weapon was the sheriff’s entire department needed to formally charge Jessica Gracers with murder.
“We’ve put people away on less evidence than what we have on your client,” the DA, Julia Steinberg, told Maryanne when the two met over a late breakfast earlier that day. “We have her at the scene, holding the murder weapon in her hand. Ballistics tests confirm it was the murder weapon and her prints on the casings add to the proof. I’m not telling you how you should run your case, Maryanne, but murder in the second with twenty-five minimum would save us both a lot of time and the tax payers of the county plenty of money.”
“Little early to be offering my client a plea offer, doncha think? Hell, I just met with her for fifteen minutes this morning and you’re already offering…”
“I’m not making an official plea offer, Maryanne. Just suggesting if that plea offer crosses your desk, you may want to give it some serious consideration. No alibi coupled with forensic evidence? Damn, I might be a fool to even suggest a possible plea.”
“Not nearly the fool you’d be to try for murder one with no motive. And if you’re thinking ahead about the penalty phase, there ain’t no way no jury will send a woman—especially one as wealthy and as attractive as my client—to any death chamber.”
Julia drained the remains of her coffee, proffered her hand to Maryanne. “Open and shut, Maryanne, and I think you know that. I have to run. We’ll be talking soon.” Julia dropped a fifty dollar bill on the table. “Tell the waitress to keep the change,” She left the small diner without another word.
She didn’t need any other words. Julia was right: Maryanne’s client was going to spend a very long time behind bars unless she had an alibi.
Despite numerous attempts, Jessica refused to tell Maryanne anything except, “I wasn’t even home. I was away.” But the look of fear dancing across her client’s face now that Derek and Nikkie were driving the point home, gave Maryanne a flash of hope.
And hope was something Maryanne had been in short supply of for the last fourteen months of her life.
After nearly forty-nine years being “blessed with kind folks outside and strong health inside,” her doctor delivered the news as only a doctor who had decades of delivering an equal mix of good and bad news could have.
“It’s what we expected, Maryanne,” the old doctor began as he dropped into the hard-wooden chair behind his incredibly cluttered desk in his office. “ALS. Lou Gehrig’s disease, but I do not like to call something as awful as this disease after a man of such high character as old Iron Lou. But, that’s who made this damn disease famous, I suppose. So, Lou Gehrig’s it is.”
“And now it’s mine, too.”
“You’ll want to do what you can, while you can, to keep your strength up. Eat more than you’re normally accustomed to, cut back on alcohol and get used to spending time in the water. I hear the YWCA over in Tampa teaches water aerobics. Might be a good way for you to build up some muscle before…well, before Gehrig takes back from you what was taken from him.”
“How long do I have?” Maryanne asked as if she was questioning a witness and not asking about a disease she knew would take her life after stealing every ounce of pride and independence from her first.
“Most pass after three years from diagnosis, but, there’s a pretty decent number who reach five years. Maybe more, depending on their condition before and what they do after. Like I said, eat more and try out the pool over at the YW.”
“Three years, most likely, then. Five if… what? If I’m lucky?”
“Hard to call what you’re most apt to experience as ‘luck,’ if I’m going to be fully honest with you. First year or two should be okay, for the most part. You’ll have spells, some lasting a few hours, some a few days, when your muscles just won’t want to cooperate. Numb feeling, weakness, but not pain. A bit slowing down, getting tired easier and easier as days pass. Don’t let your pride keep you from a wheelchair once your legs tell you they’re about done. No use in you falling, banging your head and messing with that keen mind of yours. From what I’ve read and seen, two years and on is when things usually start to get more complicated. Less moving, less control of your body when you can move. Difficulty swallowing will creep up on ya, so, again, get to eating when the food still goes south like it should.”
“Treatment options? Medicine?”
“I’ll write you up some scripts,” the elderly doc said. “Truth is, Maryanne, I’m an old country family doctor. Probably fifteen years past my expiration date. You ought to consider seeing a specialist after our sit down today. There are docs in Tampa and St. Pete who know this disease like I know the chicken pox. Inside, outside, backwards and forwards.”
“Can they give me more time?” Maryanne asked, her face, as her emotions, set in stone.
The doctor shook his head. “Probably not much more than I could. But, there’s new advancements everyday, I’m sure. Go see one of them specialists. I hate to say this, but there’s nothing more I can do than to follow what I read in the journals at this point.”
Maryanne went to an ALS specialist in Tampa two weeks after being told of her diagnosis. The specialist—who had turned out to be a team instead of a si
ngle physician—started her on a gluttony of medications, a special diet, prescribed a regimen of muscle building exercises and made an appointment to see a psychologist who specialized in working with clients recently diagnosed with terminal illnesses. Maryanne filled the prescriptions, joined the YWCA in Tampa instead of seeing a physical therapist and tossed the appointment card for the shrink in the wastebasket outside the ALS specialists’ office.
For the fourteen months since she sat in her doctor’s office, Maryanne Jenkins felt small bits of her wasting away. The first six months revealed small, almost imperceptible declines in her gait, the steadiness and strength of her hands and her ability to remain seated or standing for any period of time. Months seven through fourteen were filled with days of more appreciable decline. She could still walk without people taking notice of her unsteadiness, but it wouldn’t be long before others would not only notice, but also begin to ask questions. She had already heard a couple of whispers from people she had passed on the street.
“Looks like Miss Jenkins started a little early on the bottle today,” one person had said last week when her legs felt more like buzzing sticks of Jell-O than the legs she had known for nearly five decades.
During court last week, while defending a triple-repeat offender of Florida’s DUI law, the presiding judge actually stopped the proceedings, called the counselors to her bench and asked Maryanne if she needed a recess.
“I’m having a challenging time understanding you, counselor,” the judge had said. “If I didn’t know you, I might be prone to wonder if you’ve been drinking before court.”
“Not drinking, your honor,” Maryanne replied, summoning all of her control to pronounce each word, each goddamn syllable with pristine accuracy. “Just not feeling a hundred percent.”
That case was adjourned for three days, giving Maryanne enough time to persuade a fellow attorney—the one and only person in Pinellas County she had told about her disease—to take over the case.
Deathly Reminders: a Derek Cole Thriller (Derek Cole Suspense Thrillers Book 6) Page 2