Evidence of Guilt (A Kali O'Brien legal mystery)

by Jonnie Jacobs

Sam looked at me over the rim of his cup. “Nobody’s life is spotless, Kali, and nobody is without enemies. If you look hard enough, you’ll find dirt.”

  Trash the victim: It was a common enough defense strategy, but it left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I thought about arguing the point but knew I’d lose. Instead, I told Sam about my appointment with Lisa’s friend from work, Caroline Anderson, and about my meeting with Kevin in the barn.

  “Do you know anything about a man called Granger?” I asked after a moment. “He supposedly lives in the woods and sometimes slept in Lisa Cornell’s barn.”

  Sam shook his head. “Never heard of him. You think he knows something?"

  I shrugged. “Probably not, but I think it’s worth following up. I’m willing to bet he wasn’t interviewed by the police.”

  “Do what you need to, money’s not a problem. Jake has given us a green light on this.”

  “It’s a good thing, since we’re starting with nothing.”

  “Worse than that, I’m afraid. We’re starting with a client who’s painted himself into a corner and doesn’t seem to care.”

  <><><>

  After leaving Sam’s I stopped by my office to make a few phone calls on other cases and to down a cup of honest- to-goodness coffee. Then I drove over to talk with Caroline Anderson.

  Silver Creek has more than doubled in size since the time I was growing up. The open pastures I remember from my youth have given way to strip malls and seemingly endless stretches of tract housing.

  The Andersons lived in one of the newer developments near the highway, where the houses were packed in so tight you could practically hold hands with your neighbor by leaning out your bedroom window. The houses were small and pretty much identical, except that some had the garage on the left and some on the right. Most of the yards were landscaped, though barely, and without inspiration.

  The Andersons’ was not. Instead of the rectangular patch of green and the lone, staked, sapling, their yard was fashioned from raw earth and weeds. A child’s tricycle was parked near the front door.

  I rang the bell and waited. Inside a baby cried and a television audience found something uproariously funny. I was just about to ring a second time when the door opened.

  “Caroline?” I asked.

  She nodded wordlessly, a baby on her hip, a toddler at her feet. She was about Lisa’s age, but without Lisa’s sparkle. Thin, almost bony, with pale lashes, washed-out coloring and hair that went several directions at once. The only distinctive thing about her was a bruised and swollen lip.

  “I’m Kali O’Brien. We talked yesterday. I wanted to ask you about Lisa Cornell.”

  Caroline pulled the baby closer, as though I might have designs on snatching it away. “I’ve been thinking about that,” she said. “There’s really not much I can tell you.”

  “Whatever you know, it’s more than I do at this point.”

  “I don’t see why you want to know about Lisa anyway. She’s not the one who did anything wrong.”

  “Look, I know you probably think I’m the enemy here, but I’m not. I knew Lisa too, and I’m sickened by what happened to her.”

  Caroline’s expression remained skeptical.

  ‘The thing is,” I continued, “if Wes Harding is convicted and he didn’t do it, then the real killer gets off scot-free.” Of course if Wes Harding did do it and wasn’t convicted, the outcome was the same. And as much as I professed to believe in the American judicial system, I knew it was far from perfect. I pushed that thought aside for the moment.

  “I could use your help,” I added.

  “It’s just that...”

  “I won’t take up much of your time,” I assured her. Caroline’s eyes flickered to the street, then back to me.

  The baby drooled onto the front of Caroline’s blouse. She wiped its chin with her hand. “Oh, all right. But only for a few minutes. I’ve got to put this guy down for his nap.”

  With the toddler clinging to her leg, Caroline ushered me inside. The place was tight and boxlike. A kitchen to the right, living room straight ahead, stairs to the left. I’d seen mobile homes more spacious. We moved into the living room, which was furnished with a green and brown plaid couch, an orange recliner, a large-screen television, and an assortment of toys.

  “Watch your step,” she said, kicking aside a plastic fire engine. “Kids’ toys can be lethal.”

  I stepped carefully. “Is that how you hurt your lip?”

  She turned. Her eyes met mine briefly, then shifted away. “Yeah, I tripped.” But there was a telling pause before she spoke, a skipped beat that made me think the toys were getting a bum rap.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t trying to pry; it’s just that it looks painful.”

  “It’s not so bad.” Her voice was defensive.

  We sat on opposite ends of the couch, the toddler burrowing under the seat cushion between us. The baby began to wail.

  “What is it you want to know?” Caroline asked, bouncing the infant on her knee.

  “I understand you and Lisa were pretty good friends.”

  “Not really.”

  I heard a car slow down on the street out front. Caroline stiffened. The car passed and she relaxed.

  “Velma seemed to think you two were friends.”

  “I mean we were friends, but not like best friends or anything.” The baby kept howling. Caroline tried draping him over her shoulder and patting his back. “I don’t think Lisa had any really good friends. She was kind of a private person.”

  “Standoffish?”

  Caroline shook her head, offering the baby her little finger to suck on. “No, not like that. She was friendly, and people liked her. It’s just that she kept her distance. We’d talk about kids or customers or about Carl, but not much that was personal.”

  “Carl?”

  “The cook. Or rather the chef, as he wants to be called. Velma’s husband.” With a sigh, Caroline unbuttoned her blouse. “Oh, all right,” she said to the yowling infant. “I give up.” She brought him to her breast and he quieted instantly. “This kid’s as stubborn as a mule. Takes after his father.”

  There was an interval of silence.

  “You were telling me about Velma’s husband,” I prompted.

  “Yeah. The guy’s a letch. And crazy besides. You go to pick up your order and he makes you lean way over to get it so he can look down your blouse. You don’t give him a peek, he makes sure your next meal is either raw or overcooked. The way he’s always making suggestive remarks, you’d think he was eighteen instead of almost sixty.”

  “Why do you put up with it?”

  She shrugged. “It’s not a bad place to work. Even with Carl. And I make decent money.”

  “Is that why Lisa put up with it too, because of the money?”

  “Lisa never got too upset about Carl. She’d threaten him with everything from bringing a sexual harassment suit to telling Velma, but it was all talk. It was almost like she enjoyed the attention. Jeremy, stop it!”

  Caroline turned to rein in the toddler, who was now using the cushion between us as a trampoline. In the process she detached herself from the baby’s mouth. He let out an angry, ear-splitting wail. Caroline sighed again, rehooked the baby, then turned back to me as if it were all my fault.

  Which in a way maybe it was. “Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “I can come back another time if that would be better.”

  “It won’t be any different.” Her tone was resigned. Jeremy tried crawling into her lap, whimpering that he was hungry. “You just ate,” she protested as she endeavored to nudge him to the side.

  The kid was not easily dissuaded. He butted the baby with his head and continued to whimper. “I wanna cookie. And juice.”

  “Wait until I’m finished here, would you?”

  It was clear that waiting was not Jeremy’s strong suit. And putting up with whiny kids was not mine.

  “I’ll get it for him," I offered. “If you’ll tell me what
and where.”

  “No, he can wait for . . .”

  Jeremy had been tugging at the baby’s bootie. Suddenly it came loose and Jeremy toppled back against the coffee table. Although he didn’t appear to be hurt, he wailed loudly.

  Caroline sighed. “Okay, you win. Cookies and juice.” She turned to me apologetically. “Is it okay if we move into the kitchen?”

  “Sure.”

  Still holding the baby to her chest, she tried to open the refrigerator with her elbow. When I repeated my offer of help she smiled gratefully. “Thanks. The apple juice is in a pitcher. You can use the Snoopy cup by the sink. The cookies are in the drawer next to the stove.” From the look on her face you’d have thought I was offering to scrub the kitchen floor, which I’d noticed needed it badly. The soles of my shoes stuck with every step.

  I poured Jeremy’s juice and dug out the bag of frosted animal cookies. We settled at the Formica table, which had been squeezed into one end of the narrow kitchen. The windows were bare, and the blue and white wallpaper had already begun to peel at the edges, but I noticed she’d hung an embroidered sampler on the wall near the door. Home, Sweet Home.

  When she saw me looking, she laughed. “My mother-in- law made it,” she said, in a voice that spoke volumes. “Now, where were we?”

  “You were saying that Lisa was friendly, but distant.”

  “Right. Sometimes it was more than distant. There was a restlessness about her that was hard to pin down. It was like she was there, but she wasn’t.”

  “Do you think she was involved with drugs?”

  “I couldn’t say for sure, but I’d guess not. I don’t know how she could afford them, for one thing. And she was pretty careful about her body because of the headaches. Besides, she was into being responsible. I got the feeling she’d knocked around quite a bit before, but now she wanted to get her life back on track for Amy’s sake.”

  “How about recent conflicts? Was there anyone who was angry with her?”

  Caroline’s tone had lightened considerably after we’d shared the quip about her mother-in-law. But now her expression grew subdued again. She hesitated, then shook her head. “Nothing that I recall.”

  “Do you know where Lisa was living before she moved to Silver Creek?”

  ‘The Bay Area somewhere. Maybe Berkeley. But I don’t think she was there long.”

  “Did she ever talk about her husband?”

  “She didn’t go on about him, if that’s what you mean, the way some people do after a marriage has gone south. But she’d mention him now and then, in passing. His name was Jerry. Jerk-head Jerry was how she referred to him. To tell the truth, I don’t think she had a lot of respect for men, period.”

  “I understand she was engaged, though, to Philip Stockman.”

  Caroline gave a derisive laugh. “Some days she was, some days she wasn’t. You could say she had mixed feelings about it.”

  “Any idea why?”

  She shrugged. “I guess one bad marriage is enough to make you gun-shy.”

  I nodded. I’d had the bad part without the marriage and it had certainly made me gun-shy. “Did she ever mention Wes Harding?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I was wondering if they’d crossed paths.”

  Caroline shook her head. “I don’t recall her mentioning him. Like I said, though, we didn’t get into a lot of personal stuff.”

  Despite the disclaimer, it seemed to me that Caroline knew a fair amount about Lisa.

  “The only time we talked was at work. Duane didn’t like me hanging around with . . .” Caroline looked embarrassed. “With ‘her type,’ was how he put it.”

  I raised a brow. “Her type?”

  “You know, because she was divorced. Duane was afraid it might rub off or something.” The baby had fallen asleep.

  Caroline adjusted her blouse, then leaned back against the chair. She seemed uncertain what she wanted to say next. “Lisa talked about taking a class over at the community college. She wanted me to go too so we could commute together. It was only one evening a week, but Duane about had a hemorrhage.”

  “So you didn’t.” My response was blunter than I’d intended, but Caroline didn’t pick up on it.

  Her voice was flat. “By that time Lisa and I weren’t such good friends anyway. We both had our own lives, you know. Our own interests.” She let her gaze grow distant.

  Jeremy had finished his cookies. He climbed off the stool and put his head in his mother’s lap. She ran her fingers through his honey-brown hair.

  “I’ve got to put the kids down for their naps now.”

  I carried Jeremy’s juice cup back to the sink. “Thanks for talking to me.”

  “I hope it helped."

  Chapter 6

  It was close to four o’clock when I pulled into a parking space in front of the county jail. I’d stopped at the grocery along the way to buy dog food and toothpaste, then driven the four-lane highway to Hadley at well under the speed limit, which said something about my level of enthusiasm for meeting with Wes.

  True to his word, Sam had taken care of the necessary approvals. I showed my ID to the sergeant at the desk, signed my name, paraded through a metal detector and found myself upstairs in the spartan, windowless attorney’s room before I’d had a chance to catch my breath. I was standing, silently practicing my introductory remarks, when the guard brought Wes to the door.

  “Handcuffs off or on?” the guard asked, addressing me.

  In truth I’d have been more comfortable with them on. But that was not the way to gain a client’s confidence. “Off,” I said, without meeting either man’s eyes.

  The guard grunted. “I’ll be outside if you need me.” He closed the door and snapped the lock.

  Wes eased himself into the nearest chair. He was shorter than I expected, maybe 5'10", broad-shouldered and solidly built. His hair was dark and glossy, the way I remembered it, but now dusted lightly across the crown with silver. His skin was smooth and unwrinkled, and seemed swarthier than it had in his youth. Noting the broad cheekbones and deep-set eyes, it struck me for the first time that Wes might have a trace of Hispanic or Indian blood in his ancestry.

  He tilted his head and gave me a long look. “Well, well, Ms. Attorney. I take it you’re the newest hired gun on my defense team.”

  I took a seat opposite him, the narrow table between us. “I’m Kali O’Brien,” I said, opening my notepad. “I’ll be working on your defense with Sam Morrison. But only if that’s the way you want it.”

  “ ‘The way I want it,’ ” he mimicked. ‘Jesus, that’s a good one. I can’t remember the last time I had anything the way I wanted it.”

  Wes rubbed his wrists where the handcuffs had been. His hands were large and muscular, his fingers thick. His arms were thick too, and covered with curly, dark hair. A thin, satiny white scar ran diagonally across his left forearm, almost as if it had been brushed on with acrylic.

  “So which is it?” I asked. “You want me on the case or not?”

  “Sure, the more the merrier.”

  I clicked my pen, cleared my throat and wondered what in the hell I was doing there.

  Wes leaned back in the chair, arms behind his head. “Kali O’Brien,” he said, giving the words rhythm. “Kali-o, calico. I remember you. We went to school together.”

  “For a while.”

  “Until I got kicked out. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

  His eyes locked on mine. They were dark, like the rest of him, and suddenly without expression. Sorcerer’s eyes was the way I’d thought of them in high school. Gypsy magic, in Sabrina’s words.

  I ignored the look, and the question. “I want to go over a few things with you,” I said. “I know you’ve covered this before with Sam, but we need to do it again. Let’s start with the Friday night in question. I believe you left work about five, is that right?”

  “Yeah, more or less.”

  “More or less?”

  “I don’t
punch a time clock.”

  I tapped my pen against the table. The noise resonated off the bare walls and floor. “After you left work, what did you do?”

  He shrugged. “The usual.”

  “I need to know the particulars, everything you did that evening from the time you left work until you went to bed.”

  “Everything? You mean like when I took a leak and that kind of stuff?”

  I ignored the smirk. “If it’s relevant.”

  A fly buzzed overhead. Wes stood, slapped it between his palms, wiped his hands on his pant legs, then looked at me with a flicker of something close to amusement. The guy had good reflexes; I miss half the time even with a fly swatter.

  He sat down again, folded his arms across his chest. “You were part of that high school crowd that hung out near the quad during lunch period, weren’t you? Always joking around with one another in Latin or some damn language no one even speaks anymore.”

  “You were telling me about Friday night.”

  “Veritas. That means truth, doesn’t it?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “How about stercus accidit; you know what that means? Shit happens. I saw it on a bumper sticker, in Latin. Which one should we choose for the motto of our case?”

  “About Friday.”

  He looked at me for a moment, then shrugged. “There’s not much to tell.”

  “Why don’t you give it a try anyway.”

  Wes leaned forward, elbows on the table. “I left work, went home, took a shower, had a beer. I watched a little of the A’s game on television before meeting some friends down at the Oasis.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I drank some more beer, ate a burger — excuse me, two burgers, with cheese — shot the breeze for a while, played a little pool. Pretty much what I do every Friday night.”

  “Except usually you’re there to close the place down, and this particular night you left early.”

  He shrugged. “I was tired. I went home and went to bed.”

  “Is there anyone who can verify that? Anyone who saw you go into your house or called you at home that evening?”

  “No calls. I think the police talked to the neighbors.” And one of them had heard a motorcycle on the street long after the time Wes claimed to be in bed. I decided to leave that for later. “Did you place any calls yourself? Maybe you called out for a late-night pizza, or left a message on a friend’s machine.”