The Murder List

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  My own conscience prodded like a stone in my shoe. Davis might be innocent. But I thought about the eleven others in this room who apparently disagreed with me. I thought about the work stacking up in my office. What else might be going on there in my absence. I thought about Deacon Davis, who might not have killed Dr. Georgina Oreoso, but who might have. Who might have a criminal record. Which wasn’t in evidence. Who didn’t even defend himself on the witness stand. Did people get away with murder? How?

  “Let me say this.” I returned to my chair at the head of the table, addressed the room. “If he might not have done it, we have to find him not guilty. If there’s the slightest doubt. A person’s future is at stake.”

  “Bull,” Gil said. The murmur of the others underscored his derision. “People can’t even decide for sure if there was a moon landing, let alone know for sure a guy killed someone.”

  “Poor thing,” Delia said.

  “There was a moon landing.” I could not believe I had to say this. “This is different.”

  “Vote,” Gil said.

  “Vote,” Annette said.

  “I suppose,” Larry said. “Yeah.”

  Whatever happened next meant I’d probably ruined my life. I’d tried, really tried, to be diligent and reasonable. Conscientious. But I could feel my patience fraying like the edges of too-taut twine. Unraveling. Irreversible. After all I’d worked for? After how far I’d come? After I finally got the perfect job and the perfect potential?

  If I was trapped in this jury room another whole week, even another whole day, Danielle Zander would continue to take over. I’d heard the whispers every afternoon when I returned from court. Like Logan, my predecessor, I was training myself to know everything, and the undercurrent was “Dani this, Dani that, Dani, what a rock star. Dani, what a brilliant strategist.” Dani, what a witch, I felt like saying. I knew that was petty. Normalcy would return once I was out of here.

  If I stayed here, trapped, Dani might erase me. I’d vanish as completely as my predecessor Logan Concannon. Who no one had heard from, not a whisper.

  Wonder what the senator’s wife, Nina, thought about Dani. Nina. Ballistic. I remembered the words I’d overheard Logan saying. Could she have been referring to Dani? Was Nina Rafferty ballistic over Dani? Why? Oh.

  No.

  “We have to start over. And we can.” I kept my demeanor oh so calm. I couldn’t panic. Outwardly, at least. More and more, it felt like my career was at stake. It felt like this jury was deciding about my life, too. My future.

  Part of me separated and floated away. I checked the jury room door. It was closed. I lowered my voice. “But let’s get this done. Fast.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  RACHEL NORTH

  At my desk. Monday. Coffee mug half empty. Mail stacked in front of me. As I had for the last two weeks, since the trial finally, finally ended, I arrived here at the office hours before anyone else. Weekends, too. There was so much to do. So much to clean up. Danielle Zander wasn’t in today, but I’d read all her emails and reports while I was stuck on jury duty, and when I returned, she’d continued to be her persistently helpful—and omnipresent—self.

  At first, I’d tried to embrace her accompanying the senator to his political events. Fine, I’d thought, let her fetch his coffee and fend off the crazies. But now, trial weeks over, we were back to status quo. In every way. Like it was supposed to be.

  Elbows on my desk, I pressed my fingertips to my eyes, trying to clear my head. And calm my brain. Dani haunted me, and I hated that. I was bigger than that. Stronger than that. I closed my mind to Danielle Zander. She could not hurt me. If I let her affect me, I would lose.

  This morning, walking to the statehouse again, I’d seen a few crocus leaves peeking up along gardens’ edges, timidly investigating whether it might be meteorologically safe to push all the way through. The predicted snow had fallen again overnight, though, blanketing all but a few green tips. Go back, I’d whispered to them. It’s only March. Anything could happen.

  Talk about “anything could happen.” I stared at the letter I’d just opened. This one addressed to me. Personally. The senator got lots of mail, some of the letters on lined notebook paper with the heavy-handed printing of a (forgive me) deranged person. Those we gave to security. I was always touched by the ones on onionskin paper, written in fountain pen with perfect Palmer Method handwriting, from spindly seniors who offered a return address instead of an email. To Whom It May Concerns, ranting and demanding. Letters on yellow legal paper, page after single-minded page, from prisoners who were innocent, they swore, but no one would listen.

  Secretly, I’d feared I’d get one from Deacon Davis.

  That one had not arrived.

  This one had. It was marked personal.

  On stark white stationery, navy lettering. The letterhead said Kirkland Associates. I pictured Jack Kirkland when I looked at the signature, a strong slash of navy blue, readable and confident. It matched him. I remembered him as passionate. Authentic. Prepared. He seemed to care about his client, in a more personal way than I might have predicted. I’d admit to looking at Kirkland, from time to time, thinking about his legal skills and his quick-draw retorts to Martha Gardiner’s objections. My dad always wanted me to be a lawyer, like him, but I’d resisted at every turn. Maybe my dad was right. Everyone on Beacon Hill in a position of real power was a lawyer, come to think of it. Everyone else started as a minion and stayed a minion.

  Law school at age thirty? I pictured myself in a classroom or reading a textbook or cramming for tests. Studying to pass the bar exam. Could I do that?

  “Dear Ms. North,” the letter began.

  The words blurred as I read it for the fifteenth or so time, imagining Jack Kirkland composing it, dictating it, signing it. Licking the envelope. Although he wouldn’t do that personally, I guess. He was handsome—I’d thought that from the start. Maybe too old for me. Too everything for me. Exactly what I needed, to erase my crush on Tom Rafferty with a dumber crush on some older-man defense attorney. If a friend had told me she was thinking this way, clearly a father-thing, or a power-thing, I’d have sent her to a shrink. But apparently I was not my own best friend. And now I was procrastinating.

  Jack Kirkland wanted to talk to me.

  “Good morning,” I replied to some new intern, a young woman, one of our spring crop, whose father was a muckety in the district. She waved at me, headed for the coffeepot.

  “Bring you some coffee?” she asked over her shoulder.

  Who brings who coffee is the ball game, I realized. The instant indication of hierarchy. Law degree or not, I ruled the roost here now. Finally.

  “I’m set, thanks.” I held up my mug.

  Dear Ms. North, I read again.

  I felt my lips purse, eyes narrow, brow furrow—all those things one did to illustrate confusion. Could Jack Kirkland do this?

  The letter indicated he could. That the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said so.

  “We’re interested in your experiences in the jury deliberations of Commonwealth v. Deacon Davis.” The letter got to the point after a paragraph of thanking me for my valuable service. Blah blah blah, it said, but what stood out to me, blindingly, as if it were highlighted in neon yellow, was “and determining whether extraneous influences interfered or affected those deliberations.”

  I frowned even harder. If I were a lawyer, I’d know all about this “extraneous influences” stuff. Did “extraneous influences” mean exactly what happened? That I’d … I let my thoughts trail off, but they returned, nastier than before. Had I been pressured—not by the others, but by myself? Had I been more interested in myself than Deacon Davis? Had I allowed myself to be “convinced”—simply so I could go back to work? Could Kirkland possibly, possibly be asking me about that? And how hideous would it be for me to admit it? I could not believe this was happening. Today of all days.

  Somewhere a phone rang. Not mine. I ignored it. Could I ignore this letter, t
oo? It said it was “optional” to meet with him.

  My mind flared with questions. I’d always thought what happened in the jury room stayed in the jury room. Why else were there guards and closed doors and all those rules? The sanctity of the jury room was the whole point. And what happened in that particular jury room was something I was not comfortable discussing.

  I took a sip of now-tepid coffee. Stared at the letter. My stomach really hurt.

  “Not comfortable” wasn’t going far enough. I could never tell, not anyone, not ever, especially Jack Kirkland or Deacon Davis, what I did on that jury. I would feel terrible about it forever.

  I dropped my head into my hands, worrying. Deciding. Maybe if I talked to Kirkland, I could make up for it. Somehow. “Unlikely,” I muttered.

  But what if—what if I said no, but others said yes? What if they repeated what I’d said—“Let’s get this done. Fast.”? Had I said that out loud? I honestly hadn’t meant it that way. What if someone else told him I did, and I’d refused to talk? Then I could be in more trouble. Maybe. Who knew what the damn rules were. I should have been a lawyer.

  I drew in a deep breath. Let it out. Come on, Rachel. Pull it together.

  “All you did was agree,” I said out loud.

  “Huh? Are you talking to me?” The intern, coffee now in one hand and a pink-and-white-sprinkled doughnut in the other, stopped at my desk and looked at me quizzically. Her fingernails were multicolored, I saw, spanning the rainbow.

  “Oops.” I tried to look like I were laughing it off. “You caught me. Nope. Just trying to win an argument with myself.”

  “Huh.” She saluted me with the doughnut. “Good luck with that.”

  JACK KIRKLAND

  Jack raised a hand in greeting when he saw Rachel North standing, as she’d promised, on the still-snowy steps of the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common. Not that he made a habit of meeting people outside his office. But Ms. North had not been “comfortable” coming to his office on Friend Street, nor with talking in her office on Beacon Hill. He’d been surprised she called and set this up so quickly. Maybe she wanted to get it done.

  She held up a gloved hand in response. Except for that one night at Gallery, he’d never seen her outside the courtroom. Now, with a knit cap pulled over all that dark hair and wearing sunglasses, he’d probably have walked right past her if she hadn’t specified she’d be wearing a black coat and red plaid muffler. Since she’d refused a neutral-territory restaurant or bar, here on the Common—site of assignations, war preparations, and citizen marches since 1634—it would have to be. If he could get her to relax, maybe they could wind up at someplace more comfortable. Warmer. And with coffee.

  This was all Clea’s fault. Her damn TV story. Because of what Jack had confided in her at Gallery, that woman had researched Deke’s life. If her story had gotten his client convicted, it might get Jack in big trouble. But, he had to admit, better he face the consequences than have a possibly innocent person rot in prison. Thing was—maybe it didn’t happen that way. That’s why he was here. That’s why this was important.

  “Ms. North,” he said as he approached. “Thank you for seeing me. I know it must have been tough to clear your schedule.”

  She’d been leaning on the cast-iron railing of the bandstand, halfway up the step, the last of the afternoon sun giving her a glow around the edges. She stood, turning to him, and the glow vanished as she descended toward him.

  “I always think about the people who walked here,” she said, her gesture encompassing the park. “John Adams. Lafayette. George Washington.”

  “They had hangings here, too, Ms. North,” Jack couldn’t resist saying, although it was hardly a conversation starter. Though maybe it was. “Deserters. Pirates. Witches. And murderers.”

  Her hat almost covered her raised eyebrows, and he saw her expression change.

  “Sorry.” He tried to walk back his grim observation. “But I like to think the justice system has evolved since then. Which is—”

  “Why you’re here,” she interrupted. “I get it. So I’m here, too. Call me Rachel. I have ten minutes before I have to get back to work.” She cocked her head at the statehouse. “My boss is probably watching us out the window right now.”

  “Senator Rafferty?” Jack said, turning toward the redbrick building to their right. “For real?”

  “No.” The eyebrows again. “Kidding. What can I do for you?”

  “Ah.” This woman was making him nervous for some damn reason. She was brusque now, and apparently distracted, fidgety, but that was understandable. He’d instantly noticed her in the jury box, her attractive intelligence differentiating her from her random-faced colleagues. A couple of times he’d worried she’d notice his attention, and tried to avoid looking at her. Sometimes it worked. He hadn’t convinced her of Deke’s innocence, though. “Should we walk? I’m Jack.”

  She walked beside him, heading toward Boylston Street. Jack saw she was focused ahead, into the bare trees and the distance. A blue-and-gray police car blared by, its siren insistent. Bostonians took a lot of convincing.

  “Short version,” he said. “You know verdicts can only be determined using the evidence presented in court.”

  Rachel nodded, looking stolidly straight ahead. This was why these things were so much easier inside. In offices. With chairs that faced each other and doors that closed. He tried to read her, but she was making it as difficult as possible. He wondered why she’d even shown up.

  “So. The courts allow us to inquire whether a jury verdict was reached using, well, information that isn’t evidence. Because that would be improper. And that could…” He paused, mentally confirming that it wasn’t improper to tell her this. “Under certain circumstances, that could lead to a new trial.”

  Rachel stopped on the broad sidewalk, so he did, too. They waited until a woman in moon boots pushed a fringed stroller by them. Her fat Dalmatian, leash taut, growled at them as he went past, hackles raised, apparently deciding they were interlopers. “Dashiell! No!” the woman snapped. “Sorry,” she said over her shoulder.

  “You know I got this letter, too.” Rachel slid a hand into the side pocket of her purse, pulled out a folded piece of paper and held it up to him. “It was in the envelope right under yours in the mail stack. From Martha Gardiner. She’s reminding us—me—we don’t have to talk to you.”

  Jack felt anger raise his hackles, knew how Dashiell felt. Damn Gardiner. Could she not stay out of his life? He tried to bring his blood pressure down before he answered. “Exactly,” he said. “And if you remember, that’s what the judge said, too, in her closing remarks.” He held his hand out for the letter, but Rachel stashed it away.

  “So you’ll have to decide between me and Ms. Gardiner.” He didn’t try to hide his smile. “Guess you did that once already. In court. That verdict was a pretty clear decision.”

  Rachel started to walk again, perhaps not a good sign, and he caught up with her in two steps. He’d been teasing. Sort of.

  “What happened to Momo Peretz?” she asked as he joined her.

  “Momo?” She meant Anne Peretz, had to be, but she’d said Momo. At least she was continuing their conversation.

  “Mrs. Peretz, yes. The juror. And Roni Wollaskay, too. Why’d she get excused, too? Is that what your letter’s about?”

  Now it was Jack’s turn to stare straight ahead. Though it was a legal tenet never to ask a question where you didn’t know the answer, this wasn’t the courtroom. And he needed anything he could get.

  “Are you sure you don’t want some hot coffee?” he said. Maybe he could leverage Rachel’s curiosity about the jurors, use that to get her into a corner booth. Get her more under control. “There’s a Café Coffee,” he pointed, “right on Boylston.”

  “To go,” she said. “But you have to tell me about Momo. And Roni.”

  “Deal. And it’ll all be in the transcript, so the information’s public. Mrs. Peretz talked to a court officer about the
trial, so says Grace O’Brien. Supposedly said something about—well. Anyway. That’s grounds for dismissal. As for Ms. Wollaskay, she asked to be excused since her daughter was sick. And the court agreed.”

  They’d reached the corner of Tremont and Boylston. Rachel punched the crosswalk button. Shook her head. “Momo was a talker, that’s for sure. But that’s surprising. And Roni? You sure?”

  “Well, yeah.” Jack wondered what she was getting at. Kurt Suddeth had told the judge that Wollaskay was panicked about her sick daughter. Judge Saunders had called Wollaskay to inquire about that, and offered to excuse her. Wollaskay accepted. Jack could have objected, since judicial procedure would require him and his client to be present for that conversation, but he’d figured entitled socialite Wollaskay was a guilty vote. So good riddance.

  Better if he didn’t mention that. “Why do you ask?”

  “Like I said. Surprising,” Rachel said. “Her daughter was sick, but Roni wasn’t worried. They had a nanny. Roni was happy to get out of the house. She was psyched for the trial. And the deliberations.”

  “To hang my guy,” Jack said. Which was improper, he knew it even as the words came out. But if Rachel volunteered info, that was fine. “That’s what we predicted.”

  “You did? Oh, no, it was the opposite,” Rachel said. “She told me she didn’t think he could have possibly—oh. Wait. Your letter said you’re not allowed to ask me about deliberations.”

  He smiled, tried to look like the whole thing was loosey-goosey, no big deal, no strict rules. The light hadn’t changed, so they were trapped on the curb. The more information this woman decided to offer, the better. Maybe he could keep her talking.