She wasn’t far wrong about that. But I had to get at the truth.
“Why? You know about his raping me, and you wanted to hire me. Why?”
“You know why.” She raised an eyebrow. “My husband is guilty. He’s guilty, and I wanted to give you the satisfaction of making sure he got his just desserts in this case.”
My heart started to palpitate as I watched this woman. The inescapable conclusion was that she killed her father, framed her husband, and then enlisted me to make sure he went to prison and not her. Either that, or she was covering for her mother.
“Ms. Sanders,” I said.
“Please, call me Christina.”
“Christina. I think that you know better than that. You know that I can’t just throw this case if he didn’t actually kill your father. I’m ethically bound to give him the best defense that I possibly can.”
“Ethical shmethical,” she said. “I’m telling you that he did it. Now, you just have to figure out how to make sure he fries for it.”
“Well, nevertheless, I need to go forward with this deposition.”
“Go ahead, ask away. As soon as my attorney gets here, we can get the show on the road. Where is the court reporter, anyhow?”
“She’s running late, too.”
“How convenient.” She smiled. “May I smoke?”
I didn’t want her to, but I nodded my head.
She lit up, her fingers elegantly holding the end of the cigarette. She raised her face to the ceiling, smoke billowing out of her red lipsticked mouth.
She watched me. “You know that I’m right,” she said. “You know that you smell blood in the water. What’s so hilarious is that my husband has no idea why I wanted you so much to be his attorney. He didn’t want to hire you. No way. I told him that it was you or nobody.”
“How is he broke? I don’t quite understand?”
She rolled her eyes. “Guess mistresses cost a lot of money to keep. Well, that and the fact that he likes the cards a bit too much. God knows he has no interest in our kids. Or me, for that matter.” She looked sad, just briefly, but only briefly, because she was soon back to smiling.
Just then, her attorney came in the door. The court reporter was right behind him.
“Party’s over,” Christina whispered to me. “Hello, John,” she said. “Let’s get the show on the road.”
We went into our conference room and set up. The court reporter got out her machine and prepared to type. “I’m terribly sorry I was late,” she said. “I wanted to call, but I forgot my phone at home. You probably think that I’m so unprofessional.”
“No, it’s fine.”
Christina raised her eyebrows. “You were late and so was my attorney, and you guys ended up walking in at the exact same time. Admit it, you’re sleeping together.”
She smiled wickedly, and I suddenly knew that I was starting to really like this woman.
John Ryan rolled his eyes. “That’s enough of that. Ms. Ross, are you ready?”
“I am,” I said. I fidgeted in my seat, wondering if I really wanted to still drag Christina through the mud. I strongly suspected that she killed her father, but I really didn’t want to see her punished for it. I wanted to see Michael punished for it, whether he did it or not.
“Please state your name for the record.”
“Christina Sanders.”
“Ms. Sanders, do you understand that you will be put under oath, and, just like in a courtroom, you must tell the truth under penalty of perjury?”
“Yes, I’ve done these before.”
“Then do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“I do.”
We went through preliminary questions about her age, her relation to the victim, her relation to the defendant, and other such sundry items.
I then decided to get into the meat of the matter.
“Ms. Sanders, are you aware that your father, Robert Sanders, was being poisoned?”
“I do now.”
“What do you mean, you do now?”
“I guess that you had his body exhumed and the medical examiner did his thing and he found poison in my dad’s system.” She looked down at her hands, and, again, I saw a look of sadness cross her face, then vanish. When she looked up again, she, once again, looked impassive.
“Were you aware that your father was having health problems in the last month of his life?”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course I was. I went to the doctor’s office with him every time. They could never find anything wrong with him, so they sent him home. He got weaker and weaker and sicker and sicker and, somehow, nobody even thought to look for poison in his system.” She looked annoyed. “That doctor is next on my list. I’ve already filed a lawsuit against him. A malpractice lawsuit.”
“Who had access to your father’s food and drink?”
“Me, Anita Gonzalez, my mother and Michael Reynolds. And my kids, I guess. We all went to visit there every Sunday.”
“Who, in your view, would be the person who would be most likely to have poisoned your father?”
“Michael Reynolds.”
“And why is this?”
“Because Michael was the one who administered dad’s pills.”
My ears perked up. This was one thing that hadn’t yet come up. “Your dad’s pills? What pills were those?”
“My dad was taking medication for his heart and his diabetes. That was also why he was always drinking health shakes and things like that. Why he only had fruits and vegetables in his fridge at his work. He was trying to get it under control without the pills. But my husband was the one who took care of all of that.”
“Walk me through this. Your father was staying in the East Wing, correct?”
“Yes. My mother banished him there after she found out about his other family.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Turns out my father couldn’t keep it in his pants, either. He had a lot in common with my husband in that way.”
“So he’s staying in the East Wing. He has his own kitchen in the East Wing, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Who else had regular access to this kitchen?”
“Nobody. He was the only person who regularly used that kitchen.”
“Nobody. Nobody ever drank drinks out of his kitchen or ate food out of his kitchen. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“Now, tell me about how Michael administered the pills to your father.”
She shrugged. “My dad didn’t like to bother with such things. I put Michael in charge of making sure that his pills were in their little pill box things that you buy in drugstores. It has little compartments for each day. In my dad’s case, it had compartments for morning and evening for every day.”
“And how did that give Michael access to your father’s food and drink?”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s pretty simple. My mother never went to that other kitchen. Neither did I. Michael did, because that was where we kept the pill boxes that he filled up every week. He had a reason to be in that kitchen. Mom and I didn’t have a reason. So, Michael was the one who was in the best position to put poison in my dad’s food and drink.”
That was making sense to me. But I wasn’t sold. I still thought that Christina was hiding something. It was all too perfect. If she killed her dad, she framed him perfectly, got the right attorney to represent him and had the right story as to why Michael was the only one who had decent access to Judge Sanders’ food and drink.
“Do you have a prenuptial agreement with Mr. Reynolds?”
“What do you think? I kept my maiden name, as you noticed. It’s pretty obvious that I want to really keep things separate from him. So, yes. We do have a prenuptial agreement. If Michael and I divorce, he’s going to get diddly squat. He won’t even get the house, because my father bought that for me before we were married and he made sure that only my na
me was on the title. All my inheritance money was put into a separate account before we were married, too. I’ve been careful to never put any money into a joint account of any kind.”
I nodded, thinking that was significant, although I wasn’t quite sure why.
I cleared my throat. “Ms. Sanders, I need to ask you some delicate questions.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, my father sexually abused me. That was going to be your question, wasn’t it?”
“It was. When did this abuse occur?”
She shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “When I was 15 years old. It happened only once, though. My mother stopped it after that.”
That story didn’t quite comport with the story that Anita told me. She indicated that this was an ongoing thing.
“Only once.” I shook my head. “Would you be surprised if I told you that Anita Gonzalez told me that it happened much more often than one time?”
“Well, she’s a liar,” Christina said. “She hates me and she obviously wants you to think that I had a reason to kill my father because he was abusing me. She obviously wants to take the attention off my husband. That won’t work, though.” She glared at me and whispered to her attorney.
“What about your mother? She found out that your father had an entire other family living in Parkville. Another woman and three kids with her. How did that make you feel?”
“Like crap. How would you feel? My mother didn’t deserve that treatment. She didn’t deserve that at all. My mother is a good person, and I would really appreciate it if you don’t bring her into this mess. She’s gone through enough.” She raised her eyebrows at me and I got her drift. She wanted to limit the exposure to her mother, because she was determined that her husband was going to pay for this murder. Nobody else but him.
“Did your mother want to divorce your father?”
“No, she wanted the other family to move in with us, so she could be a sister wife to my father’s whore.” She rolled her eyes. “Of course she wanted to divorce him. But she couldn’t divorce him, because she was going to have to give him half of her fortune. So, she didn’t divorce him, but banished him to the East Wing.”
“Okay,” I said. “Here’s how I see it. You have a reason to kill your father. Your mother has a reason to kill your father. The one person in your family that didn’t have a reason to kill your father was Michael Reynolds.” That conclusion was inescapable. I wish that it wasn’t, but it was. Michael had no clear motive for killing the judge. Christina and Ava Sanders both did.
“Oh, but he did have a motive. He did.”
She swiveled in her chair as she watched me.
“What was his motive?”
She looked down at the table. “You’re just going to have to ask him.”
“I’m asking you. You indicated that he had a motive. I’m asking you what it is.”
“This deposition is over,” she said.
“Ms. Sanders, what, in your view, was your husband’s motive for killing your father?”
She shrugged. “He’s a bad guy. A bad, violent guy. That’s motive enough.”
I sighed. “Ms. Sanders, that’s not motive enough. Not under the law.”
She looked out the window. “You’ll find a motive. You just have to dig a little deeper.”
“Help me out here. If there’s a motive, I need to know what it is.”
She looked me directly in the eye. “I don’t know what it is. All that I know is that he did it. You’re going to have to find out why.”
I wasn’t going to get anywhere with her. I knew it and she knew it.
“Okay. This deposition is done here.”
The court reporter folded up her equipment and John Ryan packed up his briefcase. Christina, for her part, remained at the table. It looked like she wanted to speak with me, but I didn’t want to talk to her anymore about the case. If she wasn’t under oath then whatever she told me would be something that she could deny on the stand. If she wanted to speak with me, she was going to have to do it under oath.
She finally stood up. “It’s been real,” she said. Then she winked. “You’ll find your motive. I have faith in you. And once you do, you make sure that the prosecutor knows what it is, too. They’re floundering over there and they don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. They’re under a lot of pressure, too, because of who my father was. Find the motive. Everybody wins in that case.”
As she left, I sat at the conference table, feeling stunned. What just happened? Did Christina really come in here and tell me that she was behind my hiring because she wanted her husband to go down? She did it. I was sure of it. She did it and she was framing Michael.
Or maybe not. Maybe Michael did have motive. So far, however, it seemed that the only people who had motive was Christina and Ava Sanders.
Ordinarily, in a case like this, where it was so obvious that other people were most likely the murderers, I would call the police and tell them to look in a different direction, away from my client. They might do it if I called, and they might not. But I usually tried to at least get them looking in that direction.
In this case, however, I didn’t do that. I was going to follow the evidence where it led, and I had no desire to cut things off prematurely.
Christina wanted me to sink Michael.
So did I.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I got home and found something most unpleasant on my lawn. Well, not on my lawn, but on the street in front of my lawn. A group of reporters were standing there, apparently waiting for me.
I sighed. “Hello guys,” I said. “I don’t know why you’re here, because you know I can’t speak to any of you.”
They started to shout questions at me. “Is it true that the judge was poisoned? Did your client kill that judge? Is it true that the judge had a different family while he was married to Ava Sanders?” These were all questions that were shouted at me as I made my way up to my door. I wasn’t going to talk to them. I couldn’t talk to them. If they were court reporters, which they probably were, then they had to know that I couldn’t speak with them.
But one question, shouted above all the others, made me pause. Made me pause and actually made me want to turn around and answer the question. “Is it true that your client is a serial rapist?”
My heart pounded and I wondered where that information came from. Where it leaked from. I immediately thought about Christina and how she somehow knew about what happened to me in that dorm room. I wondered if she also knew about the other women that Michael raped. He told me that there were five other women. I wondered if there were more. Maybe they came forward after Michael was charged with murder? I had no knowledge that they had made anything public.
I shook my head and rushed into the house before I could say anything that would sink me. I wanted to stay on this case now. I needed to. Christina indicated that the prosecutor’s office was dropping the ball, and they were going to possibly need my assistance in making sure Michael got what was coming to him. I couldn’t afford being forced off the case by the judge because I went to the press and told them anything about this pending case. I wanted to confirm that reporter’s question about Michael being a serial rapist, but that would have disastrous consequences for the case.
I wondered if there was information “out there” about my being one of Michael’s victims. I thought that Christina was probably the one who tipped off the reporters about Michael being a rapist. I doubted that she would have tipped them off about me being one of the victims. If that was known, I doubted that I could maneuver the way that I wanted to on this case.
Rina and Abby were there with Sophia. Rina was watching television and didn’t make a move towards me when I walked through the door. Abby came up and hugged me. “Aunt Harper, it’s almost tomorrow. I can’t wait to get that flute! I just can’t wait!”
I laughed. “I never thought that you would be so excited to play a musical instrument, but I’m very proud of you.”
Rina
snorted. “Abby’s just excited because James finally spoke a word to her. He bumped into her in the hallway and he said ‘watch yourself.’ As if Abby bumped into him. He’s a jerk, Aunt Harper. You shouldn’t be encouraging this.”
Abby’s face got red and she looked embarrassed. “He’s not a jerk,” she said. “I think that I did bump into him. I don’t know. The hallways are so crowded in between classes.”
I sighed. I was with these girls. I was 11 years old once, and madly in love with different boys in my classes, none of whom knew I was alive. They never did know I was alive, either. One crush after another, and I watched all kinds of girls in my class “go steady” with different boys. I never was asked to “go steady” with anyone. I was never the girl who got all the boys. Nobody ever asked me to dance at the school dances, and nobody ever asked me to go to the movies or hang out at the mall. It was a painful, invisible existence for me in middle school and high school, and I hoped that Abby and Rina would have a better time of it.
It sounded like this James guy was a jerk, but I didn’t want to make a judgment on it. I certainly didn’t want to discourage Abby’s interest in playing the flute because of it. Maybe she did genuinely want to learn how to play the instrument and James was just a side concern. I didn’t know. I did know that I was in the band and I had great fun. We took a trip to Florida and that was one of the best trips of my life.
I was also crushing on somebody in band. A tuba player by the name of Bryce McNeil. He was dark-headed and blue-eyed and he played on the football team. I remembered coming to band practice early in the morning – I was in marching band, which Abby probably wouldn’t be for awhile – and I looked forward to these practices just because I wanted to see Bryce. He was way out of my league, but I didn’t care. I imagined that he liked me as much as I liked him.
Harper Ross Legal Thrillers vol. 1-3 Page 47