Death by Jury (Alo Nudger Series Book 9)

by John Lutz

  “Three-ninety,” Heidran said, placing Nudger’s order on a brown Shag’s tray. Plastic envelopes of ketchup, paper ones of salt and pepper, and a brown paper napkin were neatly arranged at the base of the triangle formed by Nudger’s burger, fries, and shake.

  He handed her four singles. A clean, square hand without nail polish placed a dime in his hand. Heidran thanked him and turned away as if dismissing him from her mind entirely. Her attitude suggested that he simply was not important. Nudger thought that if he’d paid with a twenty-dollar bill, things might be different. Heidran didn’t seem the type to make a career out of Shag’s.

  Nudger knew how Ray could spend his entire welfare check in one night, giving the impression that he had money to roll around in. He probably impressed Heidran by dressing up and ordering the Super Shag Huge Deal Meal that was printed in the center of the menu in large brown letters.

  You’re being unfair, he told himself, carrying his tray to one of the tiny brown plastic booths. She might be a perfectly lovely woman genuinely attracted to Ray and not at all to Ray’s lies and illusory wealth.

  Either way, Nudger thought, Ray deserved her, though she might not deserve him.

  Still, Ray was Danny’s cousin. Family.

  By the time Nudger had finished eating and stood up to leave, the pimply girl was behind the counter and Heidran was wearing the belt pack and earphones and handling drive-through customers. Every move she made was coordinated and so efficient and smooth that the little aerial on the earphones didn’t waver.

  Nudger smiled a good-bye to the teenager behind the counter as he walked from Shag’s and made his way belching to his car. He glanced up at the COUNTLESS SOLD sign and doubted that Shag’s would ever overtake McDonald’s.

  Once inside the car, he got a roll of antacid tablets out of the glove compartment and popped two of the chalky white disks into his mouth even before starting the engine and air conditioner.

  It was almost two o’clock when he drove north on the Inner Belt toward the address of Roger Dupont’s loyal and well-heeled sister.

  Effie Prang’s house was low and seemed mostly made of glass and rough-hewn cedar beams joined at extreme angles. It was a few blocks off Ladue Road, on a large corner lot, and had a circular driveway.

  Nudger parked by the front door and walked up onto the small porch shaded by a cluster of tall spruce trees. He pushed the doorbell button but heard no sound from inside the house. No one came to the door. He tried the bell again, waited a few minutes, and was about to leave when he heard the distinctive reverberating plonggggg! of a diving board, then a splash.

  He walked along a stepping-stone path that led around the side of the house, and there was a swimming pool surrounded by a chain-link fence. A thin woman in a red one-piece bathing suit was pulling her dripping body up an aluminum ladder at the deep end of the pool. Her long brown hair was wet and in her eyes, which were almost closed, and the material of her suit clung to her rather good figure. She had a deep tan, with a jarringly pale line above the top of her suit.

  She stood up straight and arched her back, shaking her head so that water flew from her wet hair in beautiful glistening arcs that caught the sun. Then she used both hands to tug up on the top of her suit so the paleness, and any sign of cleavage, disappeared.

  As she smoothed her hair back, she opened her eyes all the way and saw Nudger. She held a cupped hand to her forehead like a prolonged salute, blocking the sun so she could be sure he wasn’t an illusion.

  “Effie Prang?” Nudger asked.

  “Who are you?” she said, as if fearing a trick question. She had a heavy smoker’s throaty voice.

  “My name’s Nudger. I’m doing some investigative work concerning your brother Roger Dupont.”

  “You police?”

  “No, no. I’m on your side. Working for the court.”

  Almost the truth. Sort of.

  She stood dripping, leaving a dark wet pattern on the pale concrete around her bare feet while she decided about him. Her toenails and fingernails were painted the same deep maroon.

  “Okay,” she said, “c’mon in through the gate.” She pointed to a break in the fence and a chain-link gate ten feet from Nudger that he hadn’t noticed.

  He walked onto the concrete apron around the pool, feeling the heat radiating upward to warm his ankles.

  Effie Prang sat down on the edge of a yellow-webbed, aluminum lounger. She kept her thighs pressed primly together. She was in her late thirties and had a sweet face with an extreme overbite that somehow added to her attractiveness. It was the kind of trusting face you’d expect to find on a woman who’d lay her wealth on the line for a brother accused of murder.

  She said, “You’re sweating, Mr? . . . ”

  “Nudger,” Nudger reminded her.

  “Want some lemonade?” She pointed to a round, white-enameled steel table where a tray with a pitcher and half a dozen upside-down tall glasses on it sat. They were in the shade of the yellow umbrella that sprouted from the center of the table. The pitcher was partly covered with a thin red cloth napkin. Nudger could see ice cubes floating in the hazy liquid.

  He walked to the table and poured lemonade into one of the glasses. “One for you?” he asked, holding up an empty glass.

  “No, thank you.”

  He placed the glass upside down again next to the four identical empty glasses. “Are you expecting company?” He waved a hand over the glasses.

  “No,” Effie Prang said, “but I never know when people are going to drop in.”

  “I guess the pool is a draw for the neighbors.”

  “The neighbors all have pools,” she said.

  “Ash.” Nudger had forgotten he was in affluent Ladue. He sipped from the tall glass. “Good lemonade.”

  “It’s from a can.”

  “Good anyway. You do anything to it?”

  “Open it, pour it.”

  “Ah.”

  “Mr. Nutter—”

  “Nudger.”

  “Mr. Nudger, what is it you want to ask me about Roger?”

  “Why did you post bond for him?” Nudger, master interrogator, driving to the point.

  Effie Prang appeared surprised. “He’s my brother. My only sibling. Blood is everything in this world. It’s all that keeps us from being alone.”

  “You must have friends.” He smiled. “What about the people who drop by and drink lemonade.”

  “You’re here drinking lemonade,” she pointed out.

  Nudger wondered vaguely if he’d been insulted.

  “When it really matters, on the deepest level, you can’t count on your friends,” Effie Prang said. “You can’t even count on your spouse.”

  Nudger wasn’t sure about that. He’d discovered after the divorce that he could count on Eileen to make him miserable.

  “We’re all more alone than we think,” Effie Prang continued, “and during trouble, or at the very end, we find it out. The illusions are all gone and we know.”

  Nudger had to admire her good cheer. “What about your parents?”

  She picked up a folded towel and patted her bare, tan shoulders. “Both dead for years. Roger is my only family. He’s all I have, and I’m all he has. Blood is the only thing you can trust without reservation.”

  “You think Roger is innocent, then.”

  “I know he is. We’re close. Siblings can tell these things about each other.”

  “What about Karen?”

  “She ran away to Chicago, just like Roger said. If you knew Karen, you wouldn’t think the story so improbable. Among other things, she’s impulsive.”

  “What other things?”

  Effie Prang smiled at Nudger. Lots of white teeth. Nice. “You’ve come to the wrong place if you’re trying to find out what Karen was like, Mr. Nubber. I didn’t understand her. She came from a background so different from mine and my brother’s.

  “It’s Nudger, actually. Do you think she married Roger for his money?”

&
nbsp; Startled, she looked at him.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” said Nudger.

  Effie hesitated for another moment, perhaps remembering the injunction not to speak ill of the dead. Or the gone-to-Chicago.

  “All right. I never thought she was good for Roger.”

  “How long were they married?”

  “Four years.”

  “Did you and your sister-in-law get along? I mean, were you civil to each other?”

  “Of course. But Roger knew what I thought of Karen.”

  Nudger thought he’d play dumb, a talent that often came in useful. He shot a look at the house, at the glaze of sun on wide sliding glass doors. “Is Mr. Prang home?”

  “There is no Mr. Prang. Not anymore. I’ve been divorced for six years.”

  “Then you live alone?”

  “Then I live alone,” she confirmed, with what might have been a note of sadness.

  “Children?”

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “You seem to believe in family, I thought . . . Well, you’re right, it’s none of my business. Is your former husband here in St. Louis?”

  “No, he’s far away. One night he turned to me and said his company was transferring him to the Abu Dhabi branch. I said I didn’t know about moving overseas and he said that was all right, I wasn’t coming. Then he went to his room to pack. He left me sitting astounded in front of the television. I remember Jeopardy was on.”

  “Not so unlike the way Karen left Roger,” Nudger said.

  “Exactly. And we’re both better off without either of them in our lives.” A large glass ashtray sat on the concrete next to her chair, and an unopened pack of Virginia Slims. She lifted the pack of cigarettes, realized what she was doing, and dropped it quickly into the ashtray. “I’m trying to quit,” she explained. “There are fewer and fewer places where a smoker can indulge. They tell us what a terrible addiction smoking is, then expect us not to smoke except when and where they say it’s okay. It’s difficult.”

  “A compulsion,” Nudger agreed. He could hear water lapping gently in the pool behind him, stirred by the action of the filter. “Maybe there are people who simply can’t quit.”

  She started to answer, then stopped with her lips slightly parted. A low, grating sound made her look beyond Nudger.

  He turned to see one of the sliding doors open. A tall man wearing a blue terry cloth robe stepped from the house onto the patio. He had straight, neatly parted graying brown hair, and a lean, patrician face with a ledge of graying eyebrow. For a second he screwed up his features in a squint to protect against the brilliant sun, then he drew a pair of glasses with darkly tinted round lenses from his shirt pocket and put them on. He walked toward where Effie Prang and Nudger were at poolside. When he got closer, Nudger saw that he had a slight overbite.

  “Mr. Nudger,” Effie Prang said, finally getting his name right, “this is my brother Roger.”

  Chapter Six

  Dupont shook Nudger’s hand then poured himself a glass of lemonade. He sipped, swallowed with his head tilted far back, then actually smiled and emitted an “Ahhh!” the way actors did in TV commercials. Holding the glass at belt level, he turned and faced Nudger. His eyes were invisible behind the dark glasses; the lenses themselves reminded Nudger of the eyes of insects.

  “So you’re investigating in my behalf,” Dupont said, after Effie had filled him in.

  Nudger knew right away Dupont wasn’t going to allow any vagueness as to his role, the way his sister had. Hiding behind his own glass of lemonade, he took a long swallow then nodded.

  Dupont smiled again. “But if I understand correctly, you’re not police?”

  “The court,” Effie said. “He’s working for the court.”

  Dupont shook his head in puzzlement. “I’m afraid I still don’t understand. Who exactly did hire you, Mr. Nudger?”

  “Your lawyer,” Nudger said, “Lawrence Fleck.” Fleck wasn’t going to like Nudger’s involvement becoming evident so early in the game, but there was little choice. “It’s standard procedure in many cases,” Nudger went on quickly, smoothing and hastening. “Mr. Fleck doesn’t like leaving stones unturned if whatever’s under them might help a client.”

  “I turned over all the stones Mr. Fleck needs to look beneath,” Dupont said with an edge of anger. Then, more reasonably: “It isn’t that I don’t appreciate his concern, but your services simply aren’t necessary.”

  Nudger couldn’t understand this. He wished he could see Dupont’s eyes. “Mr. Dupont, you do comprehend, don’t you, that in a few days you’re going to go on trial for your life?”

  “Of course. And while I realize that the situation isn’t without some risk, I’m confident I’ll be acquitted.”

  “ ‘Some risk’ might mean that you die by lethal injection. In your position, you should want every avenue explored if it might lead somewhere that assures your innocence.”

  Dupont’s smile was confident. Nudger could see two small images of himself in the dark glasses. Did the prey of spiders see such images? Had Karen Dupont? “I’m already assured of my innocence, Mr. Nudger.”

  What was this, word games? “I expressed myself a little incorrectly,” Nudger said. “What you need is for a jury to be as assured as you are, or at least to have enough reasonable doubt to make you a free man. Contrary to what a lot of people believe, innocent people are executed from time to time.”

  “But not often,” Dupont said. A bead of perspiration ran from behind his ear down the side of his neck to disappear beneath the collar of his robe. The only sign of any discomfort. “I truly did not kill my wife, Mr. Nudger. I have faith in our legal system. I have competent counsel. That should be sufficient, so I’m relatively unworried.”

  Nudger said nothing, but he wasn’t so sure about competent counsel.

  Dupont began to untie his robe. “Come on, Effie, time for our swim.”

  Nudger was amazed. But Effie took the announcement in stride.

  “Do we have to? I’ve already done my laps, Roger.”

  “Then you’re all warmed up. Let’s race.” Dupont threw off his robe. He was in excellent shape. “Shall we make it the usual? Ten lengths?”

  His sister remained seated. “I’m a little tired.”

  Nudger said, “Mr. Dupont, I do have a few more questions, if you don’t mind. There are only three days until the trial begins.”

  Dupont put his hands on his lean hips and looked to heaven. What a couple of spoilsports he was stuck with. “All right. I’ll race you to the far end and back. How about that, Effie?”

  “But what about Mr. Nudger?”

  “He can say go.”

  Trading his sunglasses for tinted goggles, Dupont walked to the edge of the pool. Effie rose and followed. Nudger stayed where he was, sipping lemonade. He thought Dupont was kidding, until the man turned and looked at him with annoyance.

  “We’re on our marks,” he said, “so just say, ‘get set’ and ‘go.’ ”

  Nudger sighed and got up. Perhaps this was all being done for his benefit. Perhaps Dupont was laying the groundwork for an insanity plea.

  “Get set.”

  Effie didn’t move, but Dupont dropped into a crouch, his arms straight back.

  “Go!”

  Dupont made a flat lunging dive that any Olympic competitor would have been proud of. When he was still airborne, he was one-quarter of the way across Effie’s backyard-sized pool. Then he splashed and began pulling with a strong crawl stroke. Four strokes and he was at the far end. He executed a neat flip turn and stroked back, passing Effie, who was about halfway through her first lap. He didn’t slow up, though. He was going for the gold. He touched at Nudger’s feet and turned around to see how far his sister was behind him. She was just making her turn at the far end. Dupont grinned. He stayed where he was, hanging on to the side and watching Effie’s slow progress. When she came up beside him, he said, “Beat you.”

  Here was a guy who liked to rub
it in. Nudger wondered what the Dupont siblings’ childhoods had been like. Rather, he wondered how Effie had put up with it. At the moment, she only smiled tolerantly.

  Dupont levered himself out of the pool and padded back to the table. Nudger followed, noticing that Dupont was breathing hard. He’d put his all into that race. He switched back to the sunglasses and put on his robe.

  Nudger figured he’d better hurry and get his questions in before the next event. “Since you are innocent, Mr. Dupont—”

  “Of course I am.”

  “I have to ask, why did you confess?”

  Dupont said stiffly, “Judge MacMasters ruled that confession inadmissible in a pretrial hearing. So you can just forget about it.”

  “All the same I have to wonder why you made it. If you’re innocent and feel you have nothing to fear—”

  “When you’re under arrest, surrounded by cops, and alone, you have something to fear. I panicked and did a foolish thing.”

  Nudger nodded. It was hard to imagine Dupont in a panic, but there was truth to what he said about being arrested. Nudger decided to move on.

  “I’m assuming you still haven’t heard from Karen.”

  “Of course not. If I had, there wouldn’t be a trial.”

  Effie returned to the table, hitching up the top of her swimsuit. As she sat down, Nudger turned to her. “Have you heard from Karen or anyone who might have seen her in Chicago?”

  Effie looked slightly surprised. “No. Believe me, Mr. Nudger, I’d be the last person Karen would contact.”

  “That’s not true, Effie,” Dupont said. “Karen is fond of you.”

  Nudger studied the bland face. The man truly didn’t seem concerned about anything except preserving harmony between in-laws. Nudger decided to see if a blunt question would unsettle him.

  “Why did your wife leave you, Mr. Dupont?”

  Picking up a towel, Dupont began to dry his face. He did not take off his sunglasses, but dabbed around them. “I believe it was the house.”