And I have no reason to think, not the slightest, that Jack would betray me. My brain must be going there because I spent the day steeped in Rafferty’s serial infidelity. Jack’s my husband, my faithful husband. Even though he knows I’m not usually home until seven.
I’ll find out in the next three seconds.
“Rachel?” Jack’s voice carries down the hallway. Not our “Hey you,” I notice. And his voice sounds forced. Superpolite. At least they’re not upstairs. Though I guess they might have raced down when they heard my car pull in.
“Yes?” His tone makes mine wary, too. In a few steps, I’m at the living room entryway. A woman is seated on our semicircular couch, and for a second I see only her back, a pale-green blouse and a mane of streaky hair. She turns. Gives me a tentative smile.
“Hi,” she says. “Blast from the past, right?”
It takes me one blink. Two.
“Roni? Wollaskay?” My fellow juror from the Deacon Davis trial, six years and a million lifetimes ago. What the hell is this about? I look at Jack, questioning, but he’s giving me nothing, then back at Roni. She’s just the same, comfortable and affluent, silky top and gold necklace, and hardly looking six years older. I know she must be assessing the new me, now equally blond as she is. Her earrings are clip-on, too, and it takes me a beat before I realize that’s irrelevant. Her necklace is irrelevant, too.
“Ah, Roni, what a surprise,” I say. “How are you?”
“Great,” she says. “And you? So, you’re in law school now, your husband tells me. The world works in mysterious ways.”
“Sure does.” Time to end the small talk. “And I’m fine. Are you okay? Is this about Deacon Davis, somehow?” Then another thought. The more likely one. I put up both palms, realizing, and take a step back. “Or, oh. Do you need a lawyer? And that’s why you called Jack? Let me get out of your way.”
“Ms. Wollaskay called to chat with you, Rachel.” Jack looks pleased with himself, or maybe I’m reading him wrong. “She—”
“I looked you up on the internet,” Roni interrupts, “and you’re listed, Rachel North, and so I called. Mr. Kirkland answered, though of course I didn’t know it was him. When I asked for you, he asked who it was, I told him, and he asked if he could take a message, and when I said I wanted to talk with you, he invited me over. I was surprised, I have to say, but then he told me who he was.”
“Oh, I see,” I say, though that’s not exactly true. Jack still has the look, and is not being at all helpful. Maybe he doesn’t know why she’s here. But there cannot be a reason other than the Davis trial. Jack certainly knows that. “Well, Roni, what can I do for you?”
“Great talking to you, Ms. Wollaskay,” Jack says, before Roni can answer. “It’s been a while.”
Jack leaves, and I sit across from my guest. This whole thing is so awkward, so surprising, so unexpected, it might as well be taking place on another planet. Roni’s handbag is at her feet, an elegant leather rectangle.
She picks it up as she talks. “So, yeah, I know this is strange,” she says, unzipping a side pocket of the bag. She pulls out a folded white paper, dingy and frayed. “But you remember the Davis trial, of course. And can I ask—you got the letter from Jack Kirkland, after, right, back then? Like this? About wanting to talk to us jurors?” She flaps it open, holds it up.
I nod, recognizing it. Remembering what happened the day I got it. I hadn’t kept mine.
“Weird that he’s your husband now. Jack Kirkland, I mean. Not bad-weird, of course, I don’t mean that, but—” She stops, regroups. “And you also got the letter from the prosecutor? Gardiner?”
“Yeah.” It is weird that he’s my husband now. And even weirder because Martha’s my boss. Which Roni probably doesn’t know, unless Jack mentioned it before I got here. The whole thing comes flooding back, my guilt, my embarrassment, my fear that someone told Gardiner or Jack what had happened in the deliberations. How I’d caved because I wanted to get back to work. But—no. That person could not have been Roni, because she’d been excused for her sick daughter. Rhoda, or Rinda, or something. “How’s your daughter?” Then I laugh. “Well, she’s certainly fine by now. It’s been six years.”
Unless she died, my conscience tells me. Shut up, Rachel.
But Roni’s nodding and puts the letter away. “She’s fine. Randi. She’s nine now, going on forty-two. So, yeah, the lawyer letters. I didn’t talk to either of them. I didn’t even deliberate, if you remember, and I guess you do. Which is too bad for Deacon Davis, because as I said in the jury room, I thought that man was innocent.” She stops, tilts her head, puffs out a breath. “Listen, first let me ask you something. What did they tell you about why I left?”
I put my fingers to my lips, trying to remember. “Ah, they said…” I replay that morning, I think it was morning, in the jury room. “Was his name like, Suddeth?”
“Kurt Suddeth,” she says. “The court officer.”
“Right,” I say, pointing at her. “He came in to get you, I remember. And it was a little scary. And you seemed—surprised.”
“Yes, exactly. And worried, too, and kind of terrified, like maybe something was wrong with my kids, or maybe I’d done something wrong, whatever that would be. But did you hear what happened next?”
I know I did. Somewhere. But who told me? Oh. Jack. Better not mention that. He’s probably not supposed to be gossiping about jurors.
“Later I heard—through the grapevine, I guess—you’d asked to be excused, that you were very concerned about your sick daughter, and they agreed you should be excused.”
“Right,” she nods. “But that wasn’t true.”
“Your daughter wasn’t sick?”
“No, she was. But she was fine, only a cold, and I had a nanny, all good, and I was psyched to vote not guilty. But the officer, Suddeth, told me in the hall the judge wanted to offer me the chance to be excused. I said no, it was fine. But he pushed me on it. Really pushed. Said the judge always worried when there was a juror with a sick child, because she feared if the child got worse during the deliberations and then the juror had to be excused, it was even more of a problem. He said that she said—Suddeth said the judge said—it was easier for me to leave now.” She shrugs. “So, I did. I went home. But in fact? Turns out the judge had never said any of that.”
“Really?” I feel my forehead furrow. “How do you know?”
“Getting to that. So. The judge did call me later that day, asking if Randi was okay, and I said she was. But I took it as a courtesy call. Confirming, you know?”
I’m trying to analyze if that makes sense, if that was covered in my class on trial procedure, if it’s proper, if I’ve heard of such a thing. “But how’d you find that out? Who told you?”
“Can I get you anything?” Jack’s voice comes from down the hall. Not too far down, I can gauge that. Was he listening? “Tea? Coffee?” He steps into the room, Mr. Gracious Host. “Wine?”
“Well, thank you, I almost never turn down wine,” Roni says.
We agree on red, and Host Jack hustles away.
“And why are you telling me this?” I have to ask. “It’s nice to see you and everything, and that story is perplexing, but—”
“Well, exactly. I thought we were sort of friends? You’re in my R family, remember?” Roni smiles, inquiring, and I nod to reassure her. “And I thought maybe, since we’d shared this experience and seemed to be on the same page, you might have some idea about what to do. If anything. You’re the only one I bonded with, I guess.”
“Okay, but—”
“There’s more.”
Roni looks at the floor for a beat, and I do, too, because she’s so intent it seems like she might be seeing something. But no.
“I guess you haven’t heard? Um, Deacon Davis. Himself. Got killed. Was killed. In prison. Maybe three days ago?”
“What? How do you know?”
“TV. Some sort of riot, random, they said.” Roni waves to the big screen insi
de the open doors of our antique armoire. “Clea Rourke, you know her, the red-haired reporter? She interviewed Latrelle Davis, remember her? The sister? And they’re already clamoring to sue—someone. I forget.”
“Really?” I’m trying to process all the players and all the ramifications. And how I’m somehow in the middle again.
“I can’t sleep.” Roni is shaking her head. “Look at the bags under my eyes. I had to talk to someone who knew something. The sister was so sad, so incredibly sad, and I can’t get it out of my head.”
“Yeah.” He wouldn’t have been in prison if we all hadn’t voted guilty. That’s what Roni means. He’d be alive. Except for us. Me.
“Then I called you, and your husband turned out to be—well, at that point it got a little more complicated. But I figured you were still you. And now, turns out you’re almost a lawyer. So you might even know more.”
“Okay.” I draw the word out, thinking about this.
“You two catching up?” Jack arrives, carrying a silver tray with a carafe of wine and two empty glasses. Even a bowl of pretzels and a stack of cocktail napkins. All he needs is a linen cloth draped over his arm.
“Did you know Deacon Davis got killed in prison?” I should have couched it, been more careful giving such disturbing news.
“Of course I did.” Jack puts down the tray. His smile disappears. “What do you think I’ve been on the phone about?”
“Well, how would I know?” He doesn’t need to be sarcastic about it.
“Can I use your ladies’ room?” Roni asks.
Jack—without another word to me—shows her the way. I stare at the wine, deep and red and impenetrable. Seeing the past and the present and the future.
This morning, I sat in a living room and talked to a person from another life—Logan Concannon. Now, tonight, I’m talking to a person from yet another life, Roni Wollaskay. My past has returned with a vengeance. And Deacon Davis is dead. Deacon Davis, who I’d only maybe thought was guilty but I’d voted with the others to convict because I wanted the trial to be over with so I could get back to my work and to Senator Tom Rafferty, is dead.
So this is Tom’s fault.
It isn’t. Fine. I know.
But is it Martha Gardiner’s fault? If he wasn’t guilty, she got him convicted, and now he’s dead?
I listen to the silence, not a bird outside, not a rustle in the trees, almost able to hear my own heartbeat, my thoughts carrying me down the road of possibilities.
“Exactly what I need.” Roni’s back. She points to the wine, adjusts the sleeves of her luxurious blouse. “Because, listen, here’s more. The rest of the story. And I’ve been thinking.”
“I have, too.” I pour wine, half a glass for each of us. Hand one to her. “You first. Tell me the rest.”
Roni takes a sip, takes her seat, looks toward the entrance to the living room. Leans toward me.
“Well, thing is,” she’s keeping her voice low, and glances again at the doorway, seems to be wary. “Before I saw that on the news, I’d seen the judge at an event. Remember her? Bad hair? It was just random, a furniture-company thing, a week or so ago, and of course I mentioned she and I had met, sort of, at the Deacon Davis trial. She remembered the whole thing and, like you, asked about my daughter Randi, then laughed because it was so long ago. She said she’d remembered so clearly, because she’d worried about Randi. I said well, I was surprised to be excused. You could tell she was—I don’t know, baffled by that. And then she told me that Suddeth and Martha Gardiner had told her Randi was dying. And that I had insisted on leaving.”
She takes another sip. “That’s just—not true.”
“Did you tell her that?”
She presses her lips together, then nods her head. “Yeah, I did. I told her everything. But she, you know events like those, a million people. Someone else came up to her, and someone needed me for something, and that was the end of that. I thought.”
“Yow,” I say. “So you think you were—forced out? Somehow? And Deacon Davis was killed after you talked to the judge?”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
We both stare at our wine. I’m thinking about how different the verdict might have been if Roni hadn’t been removed from the jury. Thinking like a lawyer. Like the defense attorney I need to be. But also like a prosecutor. And about Deacon Davis being … dead. Because he faced a jury. And lost. Because of me?
“Roni?” I try to think of it yet another way. “Do you remember Momo Peretz? She had to leave, too. Got excused for some reason.”
“I remember her, but no, I didn’t know that,” she says. “You never see photos of the jury, so I had no idea who was on it in the end. Why’d she get excused?”
I shake my head. “One day she was there, the next day she was gone. She was a ‘not guilty,’ too. Remember?”
Roni looks toward the entrance to the living room. Leans even closer toward me. “I feel so horrible,” she whispers. “If they hadn’t—I don’t know, gotten rid of jurors like me? Deacon Davis would have been acquitted.”
She reaches over, clutches my forearm. “I mean, you all voted guilty. But you didn’t sentence him to death.”
Her statement hangs over our silence. I can almost see Deacon Davis’s face in front of me, full of reproach and blame. Blaming me. His beautiful sister, crying through her loss, bitter over our callous disregard for her loved one’s life. Over my selfish, careless, overreaction to—
“Oh, Roni,” I say, trying to stop my spiraling guilt. “It’s all my fault! It is. I—killed him. I did. I did. I’m a murderer.”
I feel tears come to my eyes, tears of confusion and stress and indecision, and fear and more fear. Deacon Davis—unfairly found guilty? Unfairly charged? And as a result his life was taken from him. One moment, one decision, one wrong move and our lives change and the dominoes crash. Fate steps in, unpredictable and swift. My stomach sinks, leaden with remorse. I am truly horrible.
“No, Rachel, no. Oh, no, I should never have said that.” Roni moves to the couch beside me, drapes one arm across my shoulders. “I am so so so sorry. Please. Don’t cry. Please. It’s not your fault.”
“But—”
“It’s not,” Roni insists, hugging me closer.
I feel myself wanting to hear her, to draw in her strength, to sink into the comfort of her, her warmth and her reassurance.
“Seriously, Rachel. It’s not.”
“You … you think?” I sniff, wipe my nose on the back of my hand, then, embarrassed, grab a white paper napkin.
“Definitely. This was the system working. It was the whole jury, Rach.” She pulls back, then putting her hands on my shoulders, turns me to face her, like a mom instructing a child. “This. Is. Not. Your. Fault.”
Is she right? Well, I suppose. I blink, thinking. My eyelashes are wet, and I swipe the tears away. I was simply one of twelve random people. Everyone else thought Davis was guilty. Did Martha Gardiner tamper with the jury? She must have. Or been privy to it. She manipulated that verdict, just like Jack says. And now, I’m the victim of it.
I press my lips together, chin up, balancing my conscience with my newest reality. There’s nothing I can do to change the past. I can only manage the future.
“Here. Have more wine,” Roni says. I’m so immersed in my thoughts, her voice seems far away. “It’ll calm you. I am so so sorry to tell you.”
I sit up straighter, take a sip, try to smile. Okay. I’ll move on. To survive, I have to. What’s more, it’s cases like this that make me all the more determined to ensure that people get fair trials. This should inspire me. We’ll be Kirkland and North. Murder-list lawyers. We’ll protect people.
“Thank you, Roni,” I say, giving a final sniff. “It’s not you. I’d have found out anyway. But it hit me. Taking a life. I mean … I’m so on edge. Maybe I’m tired. But it’s so awful.”
“I’m so sorry, Rach. I agree. It’s awful.” Roni hesitates. Scratches her cheek with manicured nails. Grimaces.
“But Rach? Do you—think we should tell your husband? About the jury thing? What Gardiner—or whoever—might have done?”
I swirl the last of my wine and search my brain. What might have happened behind the scenes in that trial? Telling Jack is a possibility. But it’s not the only one.
“Maybe,” I say. “But first I have another idea.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
MARTHA GARDINER
Martha stashed her wineglass in the kitchen as the doorbell rang again. Considered selecting another one to offer her guest, then decided against it. This was a business meeting. Pure and simple.
She made it to the couch as the doorbell rang again, stepped into her shoes, closed her files, tucked the papers under the coffee table. Smoothed her hair. Pulled open the door.
“Sorry, Lizann.” A wash of blush-tinged sky framed her former associate’s silhouette. Lizann, with her hardscrabble background and bootstrapped law school, now looked like a successful young attorney, all briefcase and chignon. At least her fellow murder listers hadn’t stolen her style along with her philosophy. Every year, the newbies were Martha’s children, she thought of them that way. Her ducklings, her students, her legacy. She’d had high hopes for Lizann Wallace, maybe a partnership someday. But Lizann had disagreed with Martha’s methods. Called her on it. Hard. The two had parted. Not amicably. “Come in.”
“Surprised you wanted to talk here and not the office. Home-turf advantage?” Lizann’s voice stayed professional, appropriate, though Martha knew her well enough to recognize some underlying nerves.
The devil you know, Martha thought.
“Simply easier.” Martha escorted her to the living room, the pink light now bathing the grasscloth-papered hallway and putting a glow on the sterling picture frames and Lizann’s silver earrings. She asked the question she already knew the answer to. “What can I do for you?”
“Fine, and you?” Lizann selected the wing chair, though Martha had indicated the couch.
Good for you, Martha thought, recognizing the sarcasm. Power choice, but it wouldn’t matter.
“You always loved small talk.” Martha perched on the arm of the couch, signaling this was not a cozy conversation. And it made her taller.
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