The Rome Affair
Page 27
Sally bristled at this bit of theatrics. Most evidence in any case was circumstantial—it wasn’t as if criminal acts were routinely captured on video. Marlow knew better, but lines like “circumstantial evidence” often played well to juries.
The attorney continued. “We have cooperated with the investigation without conceding Mr. Kruger’s involvement in his wife’s disappearance. He was not involved. He, too, was a victim.”
Sally glanced across the crowd of colleagues and caught her friend Tessa’s eye. Tessa made a gesture as if she was about to vomit. Sally shook her head. Mr. Kruger was a victim now? Marlow was really pushing it.
“I’m pleased to announce that now, on the eve of Mr. Kruger’s trial, we are about to clear his good name once and for all.” Marlow looked up from his notes and gestured to the right of the screen. “My client couldn’t have killed his wife, because she’s with us here today.”
Sally’s blood rushed to her feet, and a chill settled in its place as a figure crossed the screen to the lectern. She’d looked at hundreds of pictures of Mitch Kruger’s wife over the course of this investigation and in preparation for trial, imagining the terror the poor woman must have felt in her last moments. Sally knew Mrs. Kruger. The shape of her face. The shade of her white-blond hair. Her slender build.
Through private interviews with her closest friends and family, Sally knew even more than that. She knew that Mrs. Kruger liked country music, line dancing and beer. That she didn’t care for gardening, but kept small potted plants that she tended with love. That she loved her shar-pei, Pookie, and would never, ever have willingly left him with Mitch. Sally knew that Mrs. Kruger was dead.
But then the woman smiled shyly at the camera and said, “Hello. I’m Ronnie Kruger.”
And stupid Ben had the nerve to whisper, “Sally, I think there’s a problem with your case.”
Copyright © 2014 by Natalie Charles
ISBN-13: 9781460327708
THE ROME AFFAIR
Copyright © 2014 by Frances Karkosak
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