Everything made him think of the trial.
A teenage boy had driven here with his girlfriend on January 28, just like the boy and girl in the Taurus. They passed a Rav4 on the way to the tower but couldn’t say exactly when or where.
Howard left the parking lot and kept driving. It was as if he were on autopilot, not setting a course. He was back on Skyline Parkway, and moments later, his LeBaron drifted to a stop at a spur road that climbed sharply up the cliffside to his left. At the summit of the road was the mansion belonging to Janine Snow. He knew he shouldn’t be here, but he turned the wheel and drove slowly to the top of the hill.
There was Janine’s house. He recognized it from the television reports and from the photographs at the trial. What an amazing place, like a palace built on the roof of the world. Lights were on. She was home, the defendant out on bail. There were no cars around. He wondered if she was alone. Just her, sitting amid the ruins of her perfect life. And Howard only a few feet away.
Judge Edblad had told them: You are not investigators.
Even so, he couldn’t restrain his imagination. He sat in the car with the engine running, and he realized that this was the very place where everything had happened. On January 28, inside that door, behind the glass windows, Jay Ferris had been murdered. If Howard had been here then, he would have heard the shot.
What would he have seen? A stranger running away?
Or Janine Snow pulling out of the garage in her husband’s Hummer to hide a gun?
Howard realized that what he wanted more than anything was to hear the story from Janine’s own mouth. He wished he could talk to her, look into her eyes, and listen to her answer every question. The frustrating thing was that he knew he never would. She wouldn’t take the stand. Defendants hardly ever testified. She was the one person who really knew the truth, and he would never hear her say what it was.
Somehow, his car engine turned off, and his door opened.
He didn’t think it was him getting out and walking toward the house. It was someone else. He felt his feet on the walkway, heading toward the front door. That was what a stranger would have done, coming to murder Jay Ferris. If there was a stranger.
Howard stood at the door. Janine’s door. He felt dizzy. His finger quivered; he wanted to stab the doorbell. If he did, she would come. He’d see her appear behind the glass. She would open the door –
– and that would be the end of everything.
He would have crossed a line from which there was no going back. Wheels would be set in motion. Attorneys would talk, and he would be called in front of the judge, and he would be admonished and dismissed, and one of the two alternates sitting in the jury box would take his place.
Howard Marlowe would be just Howard Marlowe again. A footnote in the newspaper, soon forgotten.
Carol would laugh at him.
He felt as if he were awakening from a bad dream. He turned and ran back to his Chrysler, needing to escape before he was seen. Before the police spotted him. Or the media. No one could know he’d ever been here. He got into his LeBaron and shot down the steep street.
*
Janine watched him go.
She sat in her office, where the security camera at her front door fed video to her computer. She’d installed the camera months ago when she had a parade of unwanted visitors coming to her house after the headlines brought notoriety.
She recognized him, of course. Juror #5. He was the one who sat closest to her in court. She hadn’t missed the fact that he liked to watch her. He tried to be discreet about it, but she caught his wandering glances in her direction. At first, she’d written it off as curiosity, but now she realized it was something more. She’d understood men all her life, much better than she ever understood women. This man was in love with her.
She knew she was attractive. Men had fallen for her since she was a high school girl in Texas growing up fast. This was different. Since the murder, men had sent her e-mails, proposals of marriage, and naked pictures. All types of men, married and unmarried, black and white, old and young, from across the country. For the stalkers, she’d become an object of fascination. And now, it seemed, one of those stalkers had made his way onto her jury.
He was an ordinary man. Physically, he was neither attractive nor repellent. If she’d met him on the street, she would have stared through him as if he didn’t exist. In other circumstances, the only way a man like that would have come into her circle was as a patient, but circumstances were different.
She was tempted. All she would have had to do was go to the door. Call to him through the speaker. Invite him into her home. She could have taken his hand and fulfilled his fantasy with a night unlike any he’d ever experienced. Sex meant nothing to her, but she knew it would have meant everything to him. For the price of giving up her body, she would have asked only one thing.
Hang the jury.
He would have done it, too.
Instead, she let him go.
Janine knew she should call Archie to have Juror #5 swiftly and quietly removed from the case, but she didn’t do that. He might yet be her salvation. She wondered if a man who was in love with her could really believe that she would shoot her husband in cold blood.
25
‘Mr. Skinner,’ Dan asked at trial when Nathan was sworn, ‘did you engage in a sexual relationship with the defendant, Janine Snow?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘How did this affair begin?’
‘Last spring I was doing part-time night security at the hospital where Janine practices. We got to know each other. One thing led to another.’
Nathan Skinner cocked his head with a little smile, as if it were simply nature’s way that two attractive people would fall into bed together. His magnetism would be felt by the women on the jury. Stride realized that Nathan was on his best behavior. Dan had probably counseled him to keep his ego and arrogance in check.
‘How long were the two of you involved?’
‘The relationship began in May. It ended in early December.’
‘Who ended it?’ Dan asked.
‘Janine. I think Jay found out and forced her to break it off.’
Archie Gale stood up. ‘Objection – speculative.’
‘Sustained,’ Judge Edblad ruled.
‘Mr. Skinner, were you acquainted with Jay Ferris?’
‘We knew each other, but neither of us would say we were friends.’
‘Can you explain?’
Nathan sighed, as if the dispute were nothing but a rueful part of his past. ‘I used to be employed by the Duluth Police. Unfortunately, I was on a vacation in the Wisconsin Dells and got pulled over by the local cops while I was very, very drunk. It was stupid. Stupid to be driving while drunk – and stupid to say the things I did to the police. I used offensive racial language that I really regret. As I say, I was drunk.’
‘What happened next?’
‘Mr. Ferris got a tip about my arrest, which was filmed by a dashboard cam on the police vehicle. He wrote a column about it – several columns, actually – calling for my dismissal from the Duluth Police. Ultimately, I lost my job.’
‘When was this?’
‘This was back in February of last year.’
‘Do you blame Mr. Ferris for being fired?’ Dan asked.
‘Back then? Sure. I was mad at him and mad at the world. I even took a swing at him in a club a couple weeks later. I felt like he was trying to make an example of me, but you know what? He was right. I deserved it. Like I said, I was stupid.’
If Nathan was acting, Stride was impressed with his performance.
‘Was your affair with the defendant an act of revenge against Jay Ferris?’ Dan asked.
‘I guess it started that way. After a while, though, we enjoyed each other’s company. I think Janine needed someone to talk to.’
�
��Objection – speculative,’ Gale interrupted.
‘Sustained.’
‘During the course of your relationship, did the defendant offer her impression of her marriage to Jay Ferris?’
‘Yes, she told me she wanted a divorce.’
‘Did she express any opinion to you about the likelihood of obtaining a divorce?’
‘She said it would never happen.’
‘How exactly did she phrase it?’
‘She said Jay wanted to own her like a slave. She said she didn’t believe she would ever be able to get away from him while he was still alive.’
Murmurs rippled through the courtroom, and Judge Edblad quieted the crowd. Dan waited.
‘Mr. Skinner, did you ever have a conversation with the defendant about guns?’ Dan asked.
‘Yes, I told her that I knew Jay owned a gun.’
‘How did you know that?’
‘When I had the altercation with Jay, he showed it to me.’
‘Did the defendant express surprise at the news that Jay owned a gun?’
‘No.’
‘Did you say anything else to her about it?’
‘Yes, I said she should be careful in case Jay found out about us.’
Stride waited for the bomb to drop and for a new wave of whispers through the courtroom. Gale, who knew exactly what was coming, waited for it, too. Stride thought he saw a ghost of a smile on Dan’s lips.
‘What did the defendant say?’ Dan asked.
‘She said maybe she should get a gun, too,’ Nathan said. ‘She asked me if I knew how she could get one off the books.’
*
Archie Gale stood up, well aware that he had a disaster on his hands.
‘Mr. Skinner, how much money do you make in your current job?’ Gale asked.
‘Objection – relevance,’ Dan interjected.
‘Your honor, Mr. Skinner has testified that he lost his job with the Duluth Police because of the actions of Mr. Ferris. It’s relevant to know the specific impact this had on his financial situation.’
‘The objection is overruled,’ Judge Edblad announced.
‘I make minimum wage,’ Nathan said, and some of his casual confidence seeped into bitterness. He didn’t like to be humiliated.
‘Did you lose your house to foreclosure because of your loss of income?’ Gale went on.
‘Yes.’ It was more like a hiss.
‘Do you have substantial credit card debt?’
‘I don’t know about substantial—’
‘More than fifteen thousand dollars?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is your current financial situation directly attributable to your dismissal from the Duluth Police?’
‘Yeah, I guess.’
‘So is it fair to say you hated Jay Ferris for what he did to you?’
‘I suppose so, but that was a long time ago.’
‘The economic consequences are still very real to you today, though, aren’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘You testified that you got to know Dr. Snow because you were doing part-time security work at her hospital, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you ask to be assigned to work at St. Anne’s?’
‘I – I don’t remember.’
‘Shall I call your boss and subpoena your employment records so we can confirm it?’ Gale asked.
‘Okay. Yes, I heard about an opening there, and I asked to get it.’
‘Why?’
Nathan was silent.
‘Mr. Skinner,’ Gale went on, ‘did you go after that position with the specific goal of seducing Dr. Snow into an affair?’
‘It may have crossed my mind,’ Nathan admitted.
The body language from Janine Snow at the counsel table was eloquent. She oozed scorn. It was easy to see similar reactions on the faces of the women on the jury. For all his attractiveness, there was a dark side to Nathan Skinner.
‘Mr. Skinner, were you interviewed by the police shortly after the murder of Jay Ferris?’
‘Yes.’ His voice was clipped. Impatient. He wanted to be done and off the stand.
‘Did you say anything to the police at that time about your affair with Dr. Snow?’
‘No.’
‘Did you believe the police would consider you to be a suspect in the murder of Jay Ferris if they found out that you’d been having an affair with the victim’s wife?’
‘I figured I was a suspect anyway,’ Nathan said, and then he winced.
‘Okay, and as a suspect, would it be in your interest to deflect police attention to someone else?’
‘I didn’t do that.’
‘When you were first interviewed, did you say anything to the police about Dr. Snow asking you how she could get a gun?’
‘No.’
‘You only told this story after Dr. Snow informed the police of your relationship, is that right?’
‘Yes, but it’s true.’
‘Did anyone else overhear this conversation?’ Gale asked.
‘No, but Janine knows what she said.’
‘Mr. Skinner, is there anyone who can verify your whereabouts after 9:45 p.m. on the night of January 28?’
‘No.’
‘Were you drinking that night?’
‘I – yeah, I guess.’
‘How much did you drink?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Do you own a revolver, Mr. Skinner?’
‘I gave my gun to the police. They tested it. It was clean.’
‘Is that the only handgun you own?’
‘They tested all of them. Clean as a whistle.’
‘How many handguns do you own, Mr. Ferris?’
‘Eight.’
‘Eight guns,’ Gale murmured. ‘Mr. Skinner, did you make a statement to Lieutenant Stride that if you had committed this murder, you would have simply dropped the murder weapon through the ice? That the police would never find it?’
‘Yeah, I did, but it was a joke—’
‘That’s all, Mr. Skinner. Thank you.’
26
‘I found him,’ Cindy told Stride.
It was late, and he was surprised that she was still up. He’d spent most of the day at the trial and then caught up on the job in the basement of City Hall until nearly midnight. His wife sat at their small kitchen table with a laptop open in front of her. Only the light over the sink was on. She wore a nightgown, and her feet were bare. The house with its open windows was warm and humid, and he smelled old coffee. A stiff wind made the lake roar like a lion not far from their back door.
Stride sat down across from her. Like him, she was nearly forty, and yet in his eyes, she could have been seventeen. She was the same teenager he’d met in school. He could barely remember what his life was like before she came into it. School, college, career – all that time, it was him and her together.
‘I found him,’ Cindy repeated, pushing a photograph toward him across the table.
‘Who?’
‘The guy at the mall.’
Stride studied the photograph and saw a crowd shot taken downtown during Grandma’s Marathon. His wife had circled a man with a black marker, and he held the page close and squinted at the face. She’d enlarged the photograph, but the image was crisp and clear. The man was overdressed for the warm June day in a camouflage jacket.
‘Where did you get this?’ he asked.
‘I know a photographer who covered the marathon. I’ve spent the last six hours analyzing every one of her pictures.’
She passed him the original photograph, before she’d zoomed in on the crowd. The picture had been taken from a second-floor window near the corner of Lake Avenue and Superior Street, facing northeast. Swarms of runners f
illed the street in the center of the frame; they were the jubilant, exhausted ones, within two miles of the finish line in Canal Park. Crowds twenty deep on the sidewalk cheered them on. Cindy had drawn an arrow to show the man in the original photo. He was little more than a stick figure standing by a lamp post in a brick-lined park well behind the flood of people.
The crowd watched the runners.
He watched the crowd.
Stride’s eyes snapped back and forth between the two pictures. ‘You’re certain this is him?’
His wife nodded. ‘I don’t know if this is the guy in Jay’s photos, but it’s definitely the man I followed at the mall. No question about it. I haven’t forgotten him, Jonny.’
‘I know.’
He studied the man and understood the aura of repressed violence that Cindy talked about. Maybe it was bravado, maybe it wasn’t. He focused on the people around the man and spotted a heavy-set redheaded woman seated on a bench no more than ten feet from the lamp post. She wore a lanyard and fluorescent vest that marked her as race security, but her face was turned away from the camera.
‘Did you find him in other photos?’ he asked.
‘Two more,’ Cindy said. ‘I haven’t printed them, but I can pull them up on the screen.’
She used the laptop touch screen and pushed the computer across the table to Stride. He zoomed in on the photograph, and he could see the man in camouflage in his original spot. The redheaded woman had stood up and was brushing shoulders with him. They were talking, and they didn’t look like strangers. Her face was clearly visible. He didn’t recognize her, but the marathon brought in plenty of private security on race day.
‘What do you think?’ Cindy asked. ‘Will these pictures help you find him?’
‘I don’t know about him, but we should definitely be able to find her.’ He stabbed a finger at the security guard in the photograph. ‘I’ll put Maggie on it in the morning.’
‘Good,’ Cindy replied, sounding relieved.
He watched a small smile of triumph bloom on his wife’s face. She got up from the table and stretched her arms over her head. Her white nightgown climbed up her thighs. He knew she’d had a long day, but he didn’t remember when he’d seen her so tired. He reached for her hand and squeezed it.
Goodbye to the Dead (Jonathan Stride Book 7) Page 17