With that, I turned my back on the bullpen and walked a few feet away. I leaned against the wall and I dialed.
“Sam,” I said when he answered. “It’s me.”
Five minutes later, I’d heard everything I needed to. Yes, Sam admitted, there was still one Panamanian property in his name. Yes, it was one of the properties that Forester had asked him to transfer to his name upon Forester’s death and then sell. For over a year, he’d thought that property, like the others, was sold and the money turned over to Forester’s son, Shane, once the mystery surrounding Forester’s death had been solved.
But then he’d heard from the real estate agent he’d worked with in Panama that a mix-up had been uncovered. The shares of the company that owned the property had been turned over to the buyer, as per custom, making that buyer the owner of the company and its assets. But before the buyer could take over the residence, that buyer was convicted of a crime and therefore, the shares reverted to the previous owner—Sam. He’d found this out right after he’d gotten engaged to Alyssa. It served to remind Sam of the life he used to have—with me, with his job as Forester’s wealth management advisor—and he realized how far away he felt from the person he’d been then.
“I didn’t like it, Iz,” he’d said. “Not at all. I don’t know if you can understand what it’s like to be so disappointed in yourself. To feel like you’ve gone backward in life.”
“Are you kidding?” I retorted. “After you disappeared, I lost my fiancé and my job on top of losing Forester. I know what it’s like to go backward, my friend.” The words were said with some scorn. “So if you found this out weeks ago, why haven’t you turned the corporation over to Shane?”
Quiet.
“Why, Sam?” My heart hurt as I said the words. He wasn’t the man I thought he was; he didn’t have the integrity I’d always believed I’d seen in him.
“Iz,” he said. “It’s hard to explain.” He sighed.
I pushed the phone closer to my head. I wanted to hear his explanation. I wanted to think the best of Sam, even if this was really and truly the end for us.
But just then I heard the door to the courtroom open and a voice yell, “Iz?” Maggie. Heels click-clacked on the cement floor, then Maggie appeared in a gray pinstripe suit with a teal silk blouse. She’d styled her hair and wore more makeup than usual. She rubbed her hands together when she saw me. “Last day of trial!” she said. “Let’s go!”
“I have to run,” I said to Sam.
“No, don’t.”
“I’m on trial, Sam. I’ll talk to you later.” But I’m not sure if either of us believed it.
65
Before we went back in the courtroom, I finally got to tell Maggie about the document I’d found in Sam’s pocket, along with what I’d learned from Mayburn and what Sam had told me just now.
“Wow.” Maggie shook her head. “Wow. I didn’t see that coming.”
I looked at her, waiting for some pronouncement, some advice. But Maggie only said, “Sam’s got some balls, huh?”
“I guess that’s one way to put it.”
“What’s he going to do with it? With the property?”
“We didn’t get that far in our conversation.”
Maggie reached out a hand and stroked my shoulder in sympathy. “I guess that’ll be the big tell, huh? He fesses up and he’s the Sam you always knew.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Maggie raised her eyebrows, seemed stumped into silence.
“Enough about this,” I said. I needed to tell Maggie about seeing Layla with Zavy and about the dearth of the information about him.
“Girls!” we heard Q shout into the hallway. “I need you.”
“One sec,” I called.
“Now!”
We made our way back to the courtroom. “The state’s attorneys keep asking me questions about the exhibits,” Q whispered. “And I don’t know the rules here in the world of criminals.”
Q explained the exhibits to Maggie, following it up with some questions about the testimony she intended to illicit.
Maggie answered, then listened as Q explained some other exhibits and offered suggestions of when they could be utilized during testimony.
“This is great,” Maggie said. “Why didn’t we do this earlier in the trial?”
I shot her a look. “I told you to do this earlier.”
“Sorry.”
“No worries, girls,” Q said. “I’m here now.”
Maggie looked over at the state’s table and grinned a little. I could see what was coming. After the show we’d put on yesterday in front of the media, the state had countered by giving interviews to the evening news stations, calling the case against Valerie “rock-solid” and the defense “laughable.”
I’m not a fan of taunting. Maggie, however, was different. She adjusted her suit and sauntered over to the state’s attorneys’ table.
“It’s going to be a new show in here now,” she said. “A different show. How should I explain this? We’re stepping it up. A lot. You guys ready?”
Tania blinked at her, but Ellie only scoffed.
“Seriously,” Maggie said. “I’d get ready if I—”
But then the door opened. We all glanced toward it. Someone large entered the room, someone with dark hair, wearing an orange golf shirt.
Maggie gasped. “Bernard!” She clapped her hands.
She hustled toward the back of the room, ignoring the press who’d arrived and were now turning in their seats.
“Who’s the Samoan?” Q asked me.
“He’s Filipino.”
“That’s the French horn player you guys met in Italy?”
“Yep.”
Maggie was hugging Bernard, as he lifted her off her feet.
The sheriff came into the courtroom, announcing, “Court is about to begin!”
Maggie came back to the front of the courtroom. “That’s my boyfriend!”
Ellie smirked. “I can see that.”
“He said he came in last night to surprise me, but he got in late, and didn’t want to wake me up, so he just checked into a hotel.” She sighed. “What a good boyfriend.”
Ellie rolled her eyes. “Jesus, where are we? Queen of All Saints grade school?”
“I don’t care what you think,” Maggie said. “I don’t care about anything. That’s my boyfriend.”
I sat at the counsel’s table, stunned. I had seen Maggie through many boyfriends, but she never used the word so many times, not in a year much less in a few sentences.
She looked to the back of the room. Bernard, with his huge self and his inky, shaggy black hair, had settled into a seat near the back, but because of his height he could be seen clearly. He waved at Maggie, smiling big. She did the same.
“Okay, Mags. We’re all glad that your boyfriend is here,” I said. “But we have to get back to work. And I need to talk to you about something.”
But then the press hushed as Valerie was led through the back door by Maggie’s law clerk. Her hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail and her normally warm, dark skin somehow appeared cool and grayish as if it had been bled of vitality by the last week as she was on trial for her life.
The judge came through the chambers’ door as Valerie sat. “Let’s go,” he said simply. He nodded at Maggie. “Counsel, call your witness.”
Maggie stood. “Your Honor, the defense calls Elizabeth Payton.”
The poison lady.
66
Elizabeth Payton had trim dreadlocks to her chin and horn-rimmed glasses. She wore a cardigan sweater over a summer dress.
Maggie asked the witness to state her name, then buttoned her suit coat. “Thank you. Do you go by Elizabeth?”
“My friends call me Betty.”
“Ms. Payton, can you explain your profession to the jury?”
“Sure, I’m a pharmacist.”
“Do you work in a pharmacy?”
“No. I used to after I graduated college, but
now I work for a drug company in a lab.”
“Do you also serve as an adviser for authors and writers?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Have you ever been called ‘The Poison Lady’?”
She smiled. “Yes, that’s my nickname now.”
Q pushed a button on his computer and the screen behind us sprang to life, showing a blowup of a magazine article. Poison Lady Kills ’Em with Kindness, the headline read.
The jury perked up.
“Ma’am, have you seen this before?” Maggie pointed to the article.
“Yes, that’s a piece a writing magazine did on me.”
“What was the article about?”
“How I’d always wanted to be a writer, but never had the discipline. So what I do instead is consult with writers, often mystery writers, who have something happen to their characters—illness or death—and need to have it explained. Pharmaceutically. Or when they’re trying to figure out a plot and they might be able to use my pharmaceutical knowledge.” She shrugged. “I don’t know how it got rolling, really. It’s sort of a hobby of mine.”
“Do you charge for these services?”
“No.”
I looked at the gallery. The reporters were sitting forward in their seats, scribbling notes.
“Did you ever appear on a panel called ‘How to Kill Your Character’?”
Q clicked a few more buttons, and a different image popped to life, a program conference brochure showing a panel named just that. “Yes, I have. A number of times. That’s a program from one of the conferences.”
“Objection,” Ellie Whelan said, sounding irritated. “Counsel hasn’t asked to admit these ‘exhibits’—” she made air quotes with her hands “—and I would object to such admission.”
“Granted.”
“No problem, Your Honor.”
I nodded at Q, who quickly made the screen go black. Q and I had done this many, many times—flash something illustrative, then taking it down when an objection was drawn, knowing the impression had already registered with the jury. In this case, these weren’t exhibits that could make or break our case, but we had a number of objectives in mind. First, after a week of watching the trial every day, we wanted the jury to wake up and get them to pay attention. Using a TVlike screen always helped with that. Second, we wanted to show that Betty Payton was legit as a poison expert. And finally, with our graphics, we wanted to distinguish ourselves from the state, to show how professional we were, how serious we were about Valerie’s defense.
Maggie crossed her arms and looked at the witness. “Please tell me, Ms. Payton, about the ‘How to Kill Your Character’ panel.”
Betty Payton adjusted her glasses, then pointed to the screen where the program had just been. “Sometimes at these conferences, they’ll call it something different, but that’s generally my function—I go to writers’ conferences and help devise creative ways to kill people.” She laughed, but only a few jurors followed suit.
“That’s quite a hobby,” Maggie said, now drawing chuckles from the jury. “Now, Ms. Payton, I want to ask you a very pointed question here. Do you know someone named Valerie Solara?”
“I know of her, but I’ve never met her.”
“How do you know of her?”
“Because I have been subpoenaed to appear at this trial.”
Q, who clearly wished he could have been here at the whole trial, with more experts requiring exhibits, tapped on his computer, causing a subpoena to appear on the screen.
The judge shot Q a stern look and so did Maggie. I elbowed him, and the subpoena disappeared.
Q looked at me. “I love being here,” he whispered.
“I can tell,” I whispered in return.
“I want back into the law,” he said.
Now Maggie sent both of us a look, and we went quiet.
“Other than through this trial,” Maggie said to the witness, “do you know of someone named Valerie Solara?”
“No.”
Maggie took a moment to let that sink in, pacing back and forth, then eventually to our table.
She pointed to Valerie. “Is this woman familiar to you, Ms. Payton?”
“No, she is not.”
“Did you ever get a call from someone named Valerie Solara?”
“No.”
Maggie went on, asking if Valerie Solara had contacted her through email or by mail or through Facebook or through any other fashion. “No,” Betty Payton answered to each query.
“Okay, well, let’s take out the name Valerie Solara.” Maggie said. “You do, I suppose, get calls and emails from different people about your hobby.”
“Yes.”
“Has anyone ever contacted you asking about how to kill someone with the drug Propranolol?”
“No.”
“And did you ever offer anyone information on how to kill someone with Propranolol?”
“No. Through all the years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never discussed Propranolol as a means of death, surprisingly.”
“Why are you surprised?”
“It’s a relatively common drug. And it would be a simple and effective means of killing someone.”
Maggie asked a bunch of questions about the drug and why people would take it. She asked if some people took it for stage fright, which Ms. Payton said they did.
“It really would be quite a simple thing to do,” the witness added. “It’s a very crushable tablet, and although it has a bitter taste, if masked by strong-tasting food, you would never know it’s there.” Maggie glanced at her notes, but in the meantime, Betty Payton spoke up again. “There are actually many drugs like this. For example—”
From the bench, the judge spoke up. “Ms. Payton, we don’t need to know additional ways to kill someone pharmaceutically. Although we certainly appreciate your knowledge.” He looked at Maggie. “Counsel, let’s move on.”
Maggie nodded. “Ms. Payton, you said that you had never considered Propranolol as a means of death, despite its effectiveness. In your opinion, would an average person know that Propranolol could be effective in that manner?”
“I wouldn’t think so, no.”
“Who would have the requisite knowledge to understand how Propranolol could be used in this way? Another pharmacist?”
“Yes.”
“Or a doctor?” Like Dr. St. John.
“Yes.”
Maggie paused. She glanced at the jury. “Thank you, Ms. Payton,” Maggie said. “Nothing further.”
The state didn’t take long crossing the witness. They simply used her to bolster the testimony of their own pharmaceutical witness.
Once Ms. Payton had stepped down, the judge looked at us. “Next, counsel.”
Maggie looked at her watch. “I apologize, Your Honor. I took less time with Ms. Payton than envisioned. Our next witness should be here in half an hour.”
“Very well, let’s take a break.”
I turned to Q. “Hang out with Valerie for me? Keep her occupied while I talk to Maggie?”
“You got it, Red.”
He walked to Valerie. “Come on, Val. The white girls need to chat.”
She actually smiled and followed him toward the front of the courtroom, away from the crowd.
Maggie headed toward the gallery, waving at Bernard.
I grabbed her arm. “Mags, I gotta talk to you. It’s about Valerie’s daughter, Layla.”
“What about her?”
We both looked at the gallery and saw her sitting in the back row. She was dressed in a demure pink dress. She stood and left the courtroom, as many of the spectators were doing.
“I saw her last night,” I said.
Bernard came up, leaning over the iron railing that separated the gallery from the courtroom. “You were so good,” he said to Maggie.
“Really?” She stepped toward him and, on her tiptoes, gave him a quick hug.
“Mags,” I said. “I hate to interrupt, but can we chat?”
“Ju
st give me five minutes,” she said to me, gazing up at Bernard.
I sighed and looked around. Q was talking, Valerie was nodding, looking interested or at least distracted from her trial. Should I tell her about seeing Layla with Zavy? Maybe it was simple, and it wouldn’t even matter to her. Or maybe it would upset her, and push her over the edge emotionally.
Layla, I thought. I would talk to Layla.
I took a step, but there were a number of reporters in the gallery, some staring at me, as if waiting. I turned around and left the courtroom through the back, and peeked my head out into the hallway. Press milled around, lawyers rushed to other courtrooms. No sign of Layla.
I stepped back, trying to think. I knew that Valerie had waited before trial in an empty courtroom downstairs this morning. And my dad had seen Layla go into a courtroom yesterday. Maybe she was there now.
Scooting into the hall and through the stairway door, I descended three flights of steps. I opened the door when I reached the right floor, and sure enough I saw Layla, way down the hallway, walking away from me. There was no mistaking her height, the pink dress or the swing of her hair.
“Layla!” I called.
A clerk stepped out of nearby courtroom and shushed me.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, hurrying after Layla. But she was walking fast.
Layla passed the courtroom where Valerie always waited and kept going. She stopped abruptly and opened the door of another room down the hall, disappearing inside.
I hurried after her. When I reached the door she’d opened, I looked in the windows, through the small anteroom, and into the courtroom. I saw a vacant judge’s bench, an empty gallery. Court was definitely not in session.
I opened the door and stepped into the anteroom where the walls were plastered with sheets of paper, listing the cases to be called.
Making sure to grab the door with the lock, I began to pull open the next set of doors to go into the courtroom itself. But I’d only opened it a crack when I saw them.
I froze.
Zavy Miller stood, his back against a wall to the far left. In front of him was Layla. Their arms were around each other. Layla dug her fingers into Zavy’s blond hair and grasped the sides of his face. Were they…? Yes. Layla Solara was kissing Zavy.
Claim of Innocence Page 27