Valerie peered around me, something anxious in her eyes, but she nodded. “Yes, okay.”
Maggie, Valerie and I walked to my dad and Mayburn. “Thanks, you guys,” Maggie said. “Amazing stuff. We had an investigator on the case, and he didn’t come up with information that the neighbor had been a suspect.”
“No problem,” Mayburn said.
My dad murmured. “Of course.”
I introduced them to Valerie, both of whom shook her hand and asked polite questions about how she was. Very little flustered my dad or Mayburn, and the sight of a beautiful woman charged with murder probably only registered as a beautiful woman. Valerie seemed to feel their relaxed way toward her and even smiled a little. Eventually, she excused herself.
When she was gone, I thought of the idea I’d had while I was crossing Vaughn. I pointed to my dad, then Mayburn. “You two could make a great team.”
I purposefully raised this topic in public, because I knew both would reject the suggestion in private. Before they could say anything, I spoke up once more. “You should work together.”
“I don’t think so,” my dad said. “John seems to have a nice operation going on his own.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of how I like it.”
My dad nodded at him, like he completely understood.
“I don’t mean together, together,” I said. “Just divide up tasks. C’mon, we really need your help in this case.”
“We do,” Maggie said. “You’ve already gotten us some info on Dr. St. John, but we need to look into him further, since the cops didn’t, and we should find out what we can about the nanny, too.”
“And Mayburn is already researching all the other players in this case,” I said. “Plus, Maggie’s firm can’t pay that much.”
Maggie nodded. “My grandfather took this case on for free. We’re paying Izzy on it, because we needed her to step in. We’d like you to do the same, but we can’t pay what Izzy tells me you’re used to, especially since we already paid one investigator.”
“And neither of you wants to shake down the whole case,” I said. “But at the risk of repeating myself, we really, really, need your help.” I’d taken Vaughn down a notch, but the state still had a lot of great evidence against Valerie. No one said anything for a second, so I continued, “Mayburn, you’re trying to change your lifestyle, maybe have more time in case Lucy comes around…” I trailed off. It was kind of a low blow, but it was true. “And Dad, you’re not sure what you want to do, and you don’t know how things really work in Chicago. And you’re sort of in the same business, so even if it weren’t for this case, it would make sense to team up.”
“Good point,” Mayburn said, half under his breath.
My dad and Mayburn looked at each other, as if for the first time.
“Good,” I said. “It’s decided. This will be your test case.”
33
He thought about it all the time now—about the night when he’d gone to the house to make it real.
No. Speak the truth. He’d gone to the house see death, to see another human being die.
He was led into a room. Brown plastic molded chairs, cement floors painted cement-gray, the walls made of large yellow-colored brick.
Along the left wall were telephones. He kept looking at them. The phone at the very end was labeled. Although he couldn’t make out that label, he didn’t need to. He knew what that phone was intended for. It was reserved for a savior.
He looked around. There were people here, but no saviors. They were all out for blood, out for death.
He thought about the girl, too. Thought about her all the time, in fact, although he supposed she wasn’t a girl anymore. No, she had continued to grow, while the other, the one who had been killed, would always be fifteen.
“All right,” a man said, his voice gravelly, ominous, “let’s go.”
Finally, he let himself look toward the front of the room, at the man with the gravelly voice, and more importantly at the man whose life was about to end. He hadn’t thought that man would be able to see him, since he was sitting toward the back. But he was wrong. The man stared at him, kept staring, challenging him, his eyes telling him, You know.
After a minute, the ominous voice said once again, “All right, let’s go.” And then it started.
That look stayed with him. It was part of him now. He saw those eyes every night.
34
The next detective took the stand, and Ellie Whalen stood to direct her witness. At first, she took him through the same sort of questions she’d asked Vaughn.
But then she put down her notes, crossed her arms and said, “Okay, detective. Let’s talk about the food.” She glanced over at Valerie then looked back at the detective. “You spoke to the coroner after Amanda Miller was murdered, correct?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“What did the coroner say about the cause of death?”
Maggie stood. “Objection. Hearsay.”
“Sustained.”
Ellie paused to rethink her question. “Did you ever learn the cause of death for Ms. Miller?”
“Yes. I read the autopsy report,” he said. “The cause was…”
But Maggie jumped up again. “Objection, Your Honor. It’s still hearsay if the detective read it.”
“Counsel misconstrues my statement,” Ellie said.
“No, counsel does not,” Maggie retorted.
She and Ellie went back and forth, arguing and sending each other scathing looks. In the end, Maggie lost and she sat down, giving a low huff that only Valerie and I could hear.
“The cause of death,” the detective said, “was cardiac arrhythmia caused by food that had been laced.”
“When you say ‘laced,’ detective, what do you mean?”
“Two batches of Mexican food were made on the night of Amanda Miller’s death. In one batch of food was a high amount of a drug. It was essentially mixed into the food.”
“And did Ms. Miller eat that food?”
“Yes, and she died after eating it.”
The court reporter requested a break to fix a problem with her machine, and I leaned toward Maggie. “Mother father, this isn’t good,” I whispered to her.
“Mother father? Is that a swear word replacement?”
“Yeah.”
“For what?”
“Mother fucker,” I said, dropping my voice even more.
“See! You just said it. You always end up saying the ‘bad’ words. So let’s just quit this.”
“No. I’m trying to make myself a better person.”
Maggie rolled her eyes and sat up as the judge called for the state to continue their questioning.
“Okay, let’s take a step back for a second,” Ellie said. “What kind of food are we talking about here?”
“As I said, it was a Mexican dish. Specifically, it was called chicken mole.”
“Okay, and please tell the jury who prepared that food?”
“Amanda Miller and Valerie Solara.”
“From whom did you learn that, Detective?”
Maggie jumped up again. “Objection. Again this is hearsay.”
“If counsel will permit the witness to answer, she will see that this is an admission against interest.”
“I’ll allow it for now,” the judge said.
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Maggie said, as if she’d won the objection. But she sat down with another under-her-breath huff.
“From Valerie Solara,” the detective said.
“Do you see Ms. Solara in the courtroom today?”
“Yes.”
“Can you stand and identify her, please?”
The detective, a big guy, groaned a bit as he got to his feet. He looked directly at Valerie and pointed to her.
The eyes of everyone in the courtroom shot to our table and to Valerie. It was an awful feeling. A detective, standing there and pointing, made even me feel guilty. I glanced at Valerie to see how she was doing.
&
nbsp; She blinked and blinked again, looking startled.
Maggie made a soft growling sound. “I’ve seen The Point a million times,” she whispered, “but I still hate it when they do it.”
The detective sat down, and Ellie Whelan perused her notes, letting the silence fill the room for a few moments. “Now, Officer,” Ellie went on, “in your twenty-six years of detective work, have you ever known anyone to commit suicide by poisoning their own food?”
“No.”
“Is there any reason to think in this case that Amanda Miller poisoned her food in order to take her life?”
“No.”
“If Mrs. Miller did not place that poison in her own food, then who did?”
“In my professional opinion, it was Valerie Solara.”
“On what do you base that opinion?”
“A few things. For one, it was Valerie Solara’s recipe. She’d learned it from her father. For another, she was teaching Amanda the recipe, so we know she was directing the preparation of the dish. Also, Xavier Miller saw her putting something blue into one of the batches of the chicken mole.”
“Objection!” Maggie called.
“Sustained.”
Ellie moved on as if she hadn’t noticed. “Detective, what color is the drug you spoke about, the drug that killed Amanda Miller?”
“Blue.”
“Now, Detective,” she continued, “in your line of work, do you deal with motives for crimes?”
“Absolutely. That’s our bread and butter.”
“And what would Ms. Solara’s motive be to do such thing to Amanda Miller?”
“We learned that she had, essentially, tried to seduce Mr. Miller before the death.”
“Objection, hearsay,” Maggie said.
“Admission against interest,” Ellie answered.
“Overruled.”
“When you say she tried to seduce Mr. Miller, you are referring to Amanda’s husband, correct?” Ellie prompted.
“Correct. Xavier Miller. We concluded that Valerie Solara wanted her friend to die so that she could take her place in their relationship.”
“Objection,” Maggie said. “Speculation.”
“Sustained. The jury will disregard.”
Maggie sat down. “Finally, I get sustained,” she muttered.
But the damage had already been done. “That will be all, Detective,” Ellie Whalen said before she sat at the state’s table with a satisfied look on her face.
Maggie was out of her chair in a second. “Detective, you just told us that there was no reason to believe Amanda Miller killed herself. But you learned that Amanda Miller was suffering from depression at the time of her death, didn’t you?”
“That’s correct.”
“We know that because you wrote that in your notes, right?”
“Yes.”
“You learned that depression had come on quite recently, is that correct?”
“Yes, it had started about a month before her death, but—”
“Thank you, Detective,” Maggie said, cutting him off. “You learned the depression was severe, didn’t you?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Well, let me refresh your recollection.” She looked at the judge. “Your Honor, may I approach?”
“You may.”
Maggie made her way over to the witness stand. “Showing you what has been marked as Exhibit number seventeen. Detective, those are your notes, correct? The general progress reports you made in this case?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you read those to yourself to refresh your recollection about what you learned about the severity of Mrs. Miller’s depression?”
The detective took his time. Then he put the notes on the railing that surrounded the witness stand.
Maggie picked them up. “You learned her depression was severe, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s the word you wrote—severe. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” Maggie said in a voice that indicated she was done with that topic. She wasn’t going to specifically draw the conclusion that Amanda Miller had, in fact, poisoned her own food, but she was going let the jury wonder about it.
Maggie continued with her cross. She used the information Mayburn had dug up about the disagreements the Millers had with their neighbor.
“Detective, where did that neighbor live?” Maggie asked.
“He lives just to the north of the Millers.”
“So his house is directly next door to the Millers.”
“That’s correct.”
“The name of this neighbor, please.”
“Can I see my notes again?”
Maggie glared at him a little. She thought that the detective knew the neighbor’s name just fine but was trying to tweak her by making her trot over with his notes.
Maggie stood next to the detective while he looked at his notes, all the while glancing at her watch.
Finally, the detective said, “Dr. Dominick St. John.”
“And what is the approximate distance between the Millers’ house and that of Dr. St. John?”
The detective shrugged. “I didn’t measure it. Maybe twenty feet.”
“Pretty close, huh?”
“I don’t know. Define close.”
Maggie let it go. “And you learned that the St. Johns and the Millers had once been good friends.”
“Correct,” he said. “But then they had some dispute over control of an association of sorts, some neighborhood kind of thing.” It was clear the detective didn’t think much of the neighborhood “thing.”
“In addition—” Maggie lifted the police records to show him she had knowledge of this information and he’d better go along with her “—you mentioned here that the St. Johns and the Millers often left their doors open during the day, isn’t that right?”
“Yes. The kids are all apparently friends, and they go back and forth between the houses.”
“From your investigation, did you determine what time the Mexican food was prepared?”
“Between three and five.”
“That’s 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. right? So, during the day?”
A grunt. “Yeah.”
“Did you determine whether the Millers’ house was locked or unlocked at that time?”
He made a wry face, the look of a witness who knows a good point is about to be scored by the opposition. “We believe it was unlocked.”
“Later that evening, at the time of Mrs. Miller’s death, was the house locked or unlocked?”
Another wry face. “Same answer, counselor.”
“The house was unlocked.”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you, Detective.”
35
I left the courtroom to use the restroom but stopped short when I got into the hallway. There was Detective Vaughn.
“You’re still here?” I said. Though we’d never spoken outside an official capacity—he as a detective, me a witness—in a screwed-up way, Vaughn and I had been through much together. Enough that I didn’t feel the need for pleasantries.
He peered at me with his forest-green eyes under thick brown brows. “I was waiting for you.”
My stomach turned. No good had ever come of Vaughn waiting or looking for me.
He held up his hands in a show of surrender, as if he had read my nervous thoughts. “I just… I wanted to talk for a second.”
I narrowed my own eyes, suspicious, said nothing.
“So—” he nodded toward the courtroom “—you did a good job in there.”
I was so surprised at his words that something seemed to stick in my throat. I coughed. I had never heard, nor ever expected, a compliment coming from Damon Vaughn.
But then of course he had to take it away. “I kinda let you score some points,” he said.
“You kinda let me? I took you down, dude. Admit it.” I didn’t say the word dude much. Possibly I had picked it up from Theo. Either
way, it felt okay.
He shrugged. “You did a good job.” He cleared his throat. “I also wanted to talk to you because, well, I’m trying to make amends.”
“What does that mean? Are you in AA or some thing?”
A short laugh. “Probably should be. No. Getting a divorce.” He raised a hand, and in what looked like a nervous gesture, he brushed through his rough brown hair with it. Although his body was lean, his features were coarse—his nose thick across the bridge, his jawline wide and straight. Put together, the whole picture of him was that of someone manly, someone strong. And yet his expression now was one mixed with pain and embarrassment.
“Oh. Sorry.” I actually felt a little bad for him. Breaking up with Sam had been one of the more excruciating times of my life, and we hadn’t even been married.
Vaughn shrugged again. “It’s okay. I guess. But anyway, I’ve been looking at my behavior over the years and…I guess, well, I guess I’m sorry.”
I took a look behind me, then back at him. “You saying you’re sorry to me?”
“Yeah. I think I might have been a little rough on you back then.” He shrugged again. “There were a lot of reasons. I mean, hell, the evidence I had…”
“The evidence? This is you sounding sorry?” My hair suddenly felt hot on my neck, and I shook it back over my shoulders.
“No, I am.” Vaughn nodded. “Really. I’m sorry.”
“Did a Chicago police officer just apologize to me?” I said sarcastically. That felt good, too. I wasn’t often sarcastic. “Let’s get a court reporter out here. We need someone to witness this.”
His green eyes glared a little. “I said it once. I won’t ever say it again. There it is.”
I thought about it. I scoffed for good measure, then said, “Okay. I’ll take it.” I didn’t like giving in so easily, but I was shocked at how good it felt to have Vaughn saying, essentially, that he believed me now. I hadn’t known I needed his…what? Forgiveness? That wasn’t right. His…opinion? No. It was, I suppose, a belief that he knew I was innocent. And now that I’d learned of that belief, I could let it erase the tiny cache of my own embarrassment that I still, apparently, carried around. I hadn’t known the shame was there until now, but just as fast, with Vaughn’s apology, it was gone. And it felt good.
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