The 13th Juror

by John Lescroart

  “What happens if you get bail and . . . what do they say? . . . jump it?” Jennifer asked. Then, at Freeman’s glare, “I mean in theory.”

  “Don’t even think about it. And don’t let anybody hear you ask about it. In fact, don’t talk to anybody here in jail about anything. That’s good free advice. Now, if you jump—first, you lose the money you put up. All of it, and then they will catch you, believe me, they will. You’ll never ever get a bondsman again. Finally, you’ve got the entire judiciary A convinced you’re guilty and Two—”

  “B,” Hardy interjected.

  “And Two, prejudiced like hell against you. It’s a bad, bad idea. Don’t even think about it.”

  “Not that she’s got any bail to jump anyway,” Hardy reminded him.

  “Do you guys rehearse this?” she asked.

  Freeman was scribbling on his pad. He looked up. “Here’s what I get—even if you don’t do the bail appeal and if you sell your house and completely tap out, you’re still short. We want to help you, but I’m afraid I’ll have to tell the judge we’re withdrawing—”

  Jennifer faced them. “There’s more,” she said. “There’s another account.”

  Freeman stopped gathering his papers. Hardy pulled a chair around and straddled it. “What do you mean, another account?” Freeman asked.

  Jennifer looked down, swallowing. Obviously nervous. “Sometimes . . . I just didn’t think Larry and I were going to make it, you know? And I thought, well, if I had to go out on my own, with Matt, I mean . . . ” She looked from one man to the other. “I mean, I just felt I had better have something of my own for Matt and me. Just in case . . . ”

  “Just in case what?” Freeman was staring at her.

  “Well, you know, like I said, in case it didn’t work out. In case I had to get away or something—”

  “Get away from what?” Freeman was remembering what the psychiatrist Lightner had said about abuse.

  “Are you saying your husband beat you?” Hardy asked. “You never . . . ”

  Jennifer brought her hand up to her face, as though feeling for remembered bruises. “No, he didn’t, not really, but, you know . . . still, if I really needed it . . . ”

  She stammered it out. She had been squirreling money away for some seven years. In spite of Larry’s tight grip on everything, she had found ways to take “a little from here, some from there,” pad about what she spent on Matt, toys, clothes, makeup, decorating, anything she could manage. The amounts had grown to almost a thousand a month, and she had learned to invest it in high-risk stocks so that the account now totaled close to three hundred thousand dollars, unencumbered and liquid.

  “Well,” said Freeman, allowing himself a smile, “if you still want us, Mrs. Witt, you’ve got us.”

  Hardy did not smile. Jennifer’s revelation, however justifiable she might make it seem, still bothered him. He’d rather not have known, to tell the truth.

  6

  “Tell me about Larry Witt.”

  Jennifer and Freeman sat across the table from one another. Hardy was a fly on the wall against the inside of the door. Freeman had produced a thermos of coffee from his briefcase, and three cups now steamed on the table.

  “What do you want to know? About him and me?”

  “I want to know everything.” Freeman had his coat and one arm draped over the back of his chair. He slouched, his shirt was half untucked. “But I suppose we should start with how often he beat you up.”

  Jennifer blinked, then recovered. Her eyes widened, went to Freeman, then settled on Hardy. “I said we were fighting, not that Larry beat me.”

  Freeman put out his hand, back toward Hardy, keeping him from responding. He spoke soothingly. “But he did beat you?”

  “I don’t see why that would matter.”

  Freeman kept his voice low, persuasive. “It matters, Jennifer, because it gives you a defense. It gives the jury something they can hold on to.” Hardy couldn’t help noticing this was not what Freeman had told Dr. Lightner downstairs when he had characterized the battered-wife defense, given the death of Matt, as a hard sell to the jury. “In fact, though, he did beat you?”

  She took a moment, the muscle in her jaw working. “I didn’t kill Larry, Mr. Freeman. I don’t care what reason you come up with why I might have, I didn’t . . . What about Matt? My God, are they going to say I killed Matt too?”

  “They’re already saying that, Jennifer.”

  Her laugh was so brittle it broke. “And what’s their reason? For me to do that? Have you thought about it? How are they saying I killed my son?”

  Freeman kept his voice flat, quiet. “Matt’s not what we’re talking about, Jennifer. Right now we’re talking about Larry.”

  “I don’t care about Larry.” Jennifer slapped the table. “I didn’t kill Matt. Don’t you understand that?” She looked up at Hardy.

  He felt he had to answer her. “They’re going to say that Matt just showed up by accident, that you panicked or he got in the way of you shooting Larry.”

  She closed her eyes, breathing heavily now. “But . . . but if it was an accident it’s not first degree murder, is it? I mean, it didn’t happen, but if they say it did, it’s not the same as Larry . . . ” Her face was deathly pale.

  Hardy was tempted to explain it as Drysdale and Powell had put it to him. He resisted, but it worried him some that she had even asked, followed by a quick denial.

  At the same time, as though he had just confirmed something to himself, Freeman nodded, straightened himself and sat forward, cradling his hands on the table. His voice, again, was carefully modulated, but it was a master’s instrument, and this time, beneath the soothing tone, thrummed a hint of a threat. “I want you to be very clear on something here, Jennifer. I am not accusing you of anything. But you should know that I will neither believe nor disbelieve anything you tell me. Anything. Whether you did it or didn’t do it. Why or why not.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  Freeman held up a flat palm. “You must believe me that if your husband, in fact, did hit you, the prosecution will hammer that point again and again as one motive for you to have killed him. Now, if one time you and Larry had a fight and he struck you, that isn’t going to satisfy most juries that he gave you a reason to kill him. But if we can come back and show that this was a recurring event in your marriage, that you were living in a state of constant fear and stress, then at least we’ve countered their argument. Regardless of whether or not you killed him—”

  Jennifer was shaking her head. “I didn’t kill him, but if I did I was justified? Is that it?”

  Hardy straightened up. He had been thinking the same thing, that you could not have it both ways. Reason or no reason, either she killed him or she didn’t.

  Jennifer understood and cared about this distinction. Good, Hardy thought. But then, he had to face another countering thought . . . an embezzler with a logical mind, capable of long-range planning and execution? Was Jennifer Witt the kind of person who might just get away with murder?

  But Freeman wasn’t backing away. “We’re going to find some defense out of all of this, but we’d damn well better be prepared for all the arguments, and to just keep repeating I didn’t do it will not, I’m afraid, be effective.”

  Hardy moved forward to the table. Jennifer’s face was hard, her eyes angry. Tears threatened. Suddenly Freeman reached across the table and covered Jennifer’s hands with his own. “Let’s just talk, all right, Jennifer? Did Larry hit you?”

  She nodded. “But it wasn’t . . . I mean, there were a couple of times he got physical, but . . . I guess they were my fault—”

  “How could it have been your fault?” Hardy said.

  “Well, I messed up. I would just—I don’t know—make a mistake and—”

  “And your husband would beat you?” Freeman, who had heard it all from many clients, still sounded incredulous.

  Jennifer balled a fist and pounded the table. Was that an act? Hardy couldn
’t figure it.

  “Look, please, stop saying he beat me. Maybe he did hit me a couple of times but it wasn’t like he . . . he beat me up. He’d get mad, yes. But he loved me and it just disappointed him that I didn’t live up to what I should have.”

  “And then what?” Freeman said.

  “And then what what?”

  “What happened next, after Larry beat . . . hit . . . you?” He didn’t add “for your own good.” He waited. This was getting serious.

  She hunched her head down again—the mannerism suggesting a cowed, beaten state of mind, and it was becoming almost familiar. “He felt terrible, I know. I couldn’t believe I’d made him feel that way . . . ”

  “You made him feel that way? How did you do that?”

  “By messing up. If I hadn’t . . . ”

  “He wouldn’t have hit you?”

  “Yes. Do you see?”

  Hardy and Freeman exchanged a look, then Freeman continued. “So Larry felt bad after he hit you?”

  “Awful. Really. He did love me, you know. I can see what you’re thinking, and it’s just not true. He’s the only one who knew the real me. Afterward he’d be so affectionate, bring me flowers the next day.” Now something seemed to embarrass her. “Sometimes, those were the best times. Afterward, I mean.”

  “After he hit you? But it was only a couple of times, wasn’t it? You just said that. And a couple is two. Might it have been three?” Freeman said.

  She didn’t cave. “No, no, it was two. I didn’t mean sometimes, I mean both times.” She nodded. It seemed they had hit the bottom of that well. But her reluctance to acknowledge the abuse was still hard to understand.

  Freeman glanced at the folder on the table in front of him. “Let’s talk about who did kill Larry if you didn’t. I mean, since you didn’t. Any ideas?”

  She took a minute to change gears, then reached for the coffee. Her eyes were getting better. “He worked hard—he was a doctor.”

  “Yes, but did he have any enemies, anybody who might have it in for him?”

  “Well, maybe his first wife . . . I mean, this sounds so ridiculous. I don’t want to accuse his first wife or anything. I know she didn’t kill him.”

  “How do you know that, Jennifer?”

  “Well, I mean, she just wouldn’t, not after all this time. It wouldn’t have made any sense.”

  “Might it have earlier?”

  Playing with the cup, picking at it, she shifted herself on the hard chair. “Well, you know, it was one of those situations where she worked while he went to medical school, and then he graduated and they just didn’t get along. I guess she was pretty unhappy about it at the time.”

  “Did you figure in that?”

  She let herself pout, which struck Hardy as somewhat affected. An act. Jennifer Witt was not easy to figure out.

  Freeman prodded. “So Larry’s ex-wife, what was her name?”

  “Molly.”

  “And, I ask again, were you in the picture when she and Larry broke up?”

  “Well, they were already having problems.”

  Which answered that.

  “Did you mention Molly to the police?”

  “No. I told you, she wouldn’t have—”

  “Just covering bases, Jennifer.” Freeman jotted something on his pad, and Hardy came and sat back down. “Anybody else who didn’t care for Larry? What about Tom?” Jennifer’s hot-tempered younger brother had left an impression.

  Again, that near jump, that blink, sitting up as though Freeman had slapped her. “What about Tom? How do you know about Tom?”

  Freeman ignored the reaction. “What about him and Larry?”

  She shrugged. “Larry and I never saw Tom a lot. He’s got such a chip on his shoulder.”

  “Over money?”

  “I don’t know what it is exactly. Jealous of Larry, maybe.”

  At Freeman’s look, she hastened to correct herself. “No, not that kind of jealous. Really, what do you think I am?”

  Freeman leaned forward again. “I don’t know, Jennifer. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. You tell me how Tom was jealous. Jealous enough to kill Larry?”

  The acting, if it was, suddenly stopped, and so did the fidgeting. “Tom is mad at his life, I think. He didn’t have money, didn’t go to college. He feels like he doesn’t have a chance and never did, but that doesn’t mean—”

  “Like your father?”

  “I guess that’s what Tom’s afraid of, that he’ll wind up like Dad. Except my dad never wanted as much. Also, it was a lot easier to get a house in those days, even if you were blue collar, and the house was enough for Dad. But I think Tom saw it as . . . as a sort of prison. I did, too, in a way, but I got out.”

  “What does he do? Tom?”

  “I don’t think he does anything regularly. I know he drives a forklift sometimes. Does construction. Whatever he can find, I guess.”

  “And he resented Larry, and you, for having money?”

  “We didn’t have that much, but I suppose yes. And me for not having worked for it.”

  “But now you do?”

  “What?”

  “Have money. A good deal of money.”

  She bit her lip, perhaps not understanding Freeman’s implication? Perhaps understanding it too well?

  “What’s that got to do with Tom?”

  “Maybe he tried to borrow some and Larry wouldn’t go for it. If Larry’s gone, he’s got a better chance, getting some from his sister alone.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  Freeman made another note. Hardy decided he’d better check some alibis. Maybe Glitsky could poke around, too—Abe often said that going behind the department’s back was just what was needed to spice up the otherwise routine life of the homicide investigator.

  Freeman covered Jennifer’s manicured hands with his own gnarled ones. “You know,” he said, “I’m kinder and gentler than any prosecuting attorney will be. These aren’t even the hard questions, Jennifer. These are in your favor. The prosecutor’s won’t be.”

  She half-turned, stretching the jumpsuit against her body, showing a fine profile. She smiled thinly—was she trying for effect? “That’s really good to know,” she said. “I can’t wait for the hard ones.”

  “Okay.” Freeman’s hands came away and his smile was not friendly. “Since you can’t wait, how about this? Were you having an affair?”

  Jennifer’s shock seemed a near-caricature. “What? When? With who?”

  “Whenever. With anybody.”

  She drilled Freeman with direct eye contact. “No. Of course not. Absolutely not.”

  “When?”

  “When what?”

  “When weren’t you having an affair?”

  But they had already done this. Jennifer withered the old lawyer with another look. “When did you stop beating your dog, right?”

  Freeman, matter-of-fact, “Sometimes it works.”

  She lifted her coffee cup and drained it, grimacing at the cold dregs. “Sometimes it doesn’t, Mr. Freeman.”

  Again Hardy found himself wishing she hadn’t said something. Was she, perhaps unintentionally, telling them that if it had worked they would have gotten the truth? Or that she simply saw how the game was played and was telling the truth anyway?

  Freeman began arranging his papers, putting them into the folder. “Well,” he said, “I think we’ve got enough to get started. Let’s digest this and meet again tomorrow.”

  “What time?” she asked.

  Freeman shrugged. “At your convenience, Jennifer.”

  Now the fear showed through . . . of being left alone, of the ordeal facing her. “Early then, okay?”

  Freeman gave her shoulder a pat. “Crack of dawn,” he said.

  7

  At seven o’clock Hardy was nursing a Guinness, waiting for Frannie to arrive by cab at the Little Shamrock, the bar at 9th and Lincoln that he and Moses McGuire, his brother-in-law, owned. Wednesday, by sacred tradi
tion, was the Hardys’ date night.

  Before Hardy had returned to the practice of law he had been the Shamrock’s daytime bartender for a decade. Before that, he had been a young red-hot with the District Attorney’s office, married to a judge’s daughter, starting out a family—Hardy and Jane Fowler and their boy Michael.

  Michael was not supposed to be able to stand up at five months, so neither Jane nor Hardy paid close attention to whether or not the sides of the crib were pulled all the way or only halfway up. That oversight took the boy from them. He did manage to climb over the railing and fall onto his head. The fall killed him.

  After Michael’s death, Hardy’s world gradually fell apart, within and without. Now, remarried to Frannie and with two new kids, he didn’t feel like he was trying to recapture what he’d had—that was gone for good—but there was hope again, a future. A meaning? That wasn’t Hardy’s style, but not many days passed that he didn’t reflect on how empty his life used to be, and how now it wasn’t.

  It wasn’t clear to him where this fit into the professional turnaround he had taken in the last year, but there was some kind of a visceral bond that, he figured, had to be related. A year ago, for the first time in his life, he had found himself taking the defense side of a murder case because he’d become convinced that the defendant was innocent.

  Several factors played into his hands during that trial—an inexperienced judge gave him unusual latitude in his arguments; an overambitious prosecutor brought a case that was not really locked up; Hardy, himself, had been angry enough at the DA’s bureaucracy that his own motivation went into overdrive. For these reasons, plus the fact that it turned out someone else had done the murder, he had won. Now, after a lifetime during which he had sided with the People, he found himself, for the second time, a lawyer for the defense.

  “No need to apologize,” Moses McGuire said. “You’ve become a bleeding heart. It’s okay. You’re still in the family. We still like you.”