‘What about Thanksgiving?’ he asked. ‘Jay hired Melvin Wiley to follow you, but was he even thinking about an affair? Or did he suspect you were still using pills, and he wanted proof? I’m curious, what exactly did Jay say when he confronted you? Did he call his friend Tamara Fellowes at the Stanhope law firm and say that he was prepared to offer damaging information in Esther Rose’s lawsuit? Did he threaten to destroy your whole life if you didn’t give up the affair with Nathan Skinner? And what else? Did he want a slave, Janine? Did you finally realize there was no way out with Jay except to see him dead?’
Her voice was low but calm. ‘It must be so nice to be perfect, Jonathan.’
‘I’m certainly not that. I’m sympathetic to your situation, Janine, but you have to make some hard choices. It’s time for you to talk to Archie about a plea. If you and Jay argued that night, if you lost control and shot him, then you’re better off admitting it. This crazy story about someone coming into the house won’t fly.’
‘I never lose control,’ she replied, ‘and I didn’t shoot Jay.’
‘No one’s going to believe you. Archie won’t be able to sell that to a jury. Were you on the pills that night? Is that why you had to stop the car with Cindy and throw up?’
Janine picked up her office phone, as if he weren’t there. She’d already dismissed him. ‘Patty, what room is Mr. Fernandez in?’ she asked her assistant. ‘I need to speak to him and his family about the surgery today. I’m afraid we have to cancel it. And get Archie Gale on the phone for me, will you? Tell him I need to see him immediately. I’m going to be arrested soon.’
Howard Marlowe pulled into his driveway at the end of the school day.
They were talking about the 1960s in his ninth grade Civil Rights class. Unrest. Riots. The assassination of JFK and then the Civil Rights Act of the following year. Kennedy was Howard’s hero. He wished he’d been born earlier, so he could have been alive when Kennedy was president. That was an era when people could still make a difference.
As he got out of his car, his head was still reeling from the comment one of his students had made. Howard had shown them headlines from the day after Kennedy’s death, and one of the fourteen-year-old girls had raised her hand and asked, ‘Why was it such a big deal?’
Someone took a rifle and killed the President of the United States.
No big deal.
He’d never felt so impotent and purposeless in life. He was absolutely certain that he was making no difference whatsoever with his stay on the planet. In a black mood, he grabbed the mail from the box at the end of the driveway, brought it inside, and sat down at the kitchen table. Carol was home, making dinner. Baked chicken and broccoli, because it was Monday. She whistled along to a pop song by Kelly Clarkson, as if it were a wonderful day. The anger of the break-in was behind her now.
Everything in their lives was back to normal, which was exactly what Carol wanted. Everything was the way it had always been and the way it would always be.
It made him want to scream.
‘What’s in the mail?’ Carol asked.
‘I don’t know.’
Howard picked at the letters and magazines in front of him. A credit card bill from Kohl’s. A copy of People magazine. Carol liked to read it. A flier about recycling and trash collection. A brochure with coupons from the local restaurants. Five dollars off at Pizza Hut. They’d use that one.
He pulled an official-looking envelope out from the pile. It was addressed to him from the Duluth District Court of St. Louis County.
‘What’s that?’ his wife asked from the sink.
Howard was curious, and he unfolded the official letter inside. ‘It’s a summons,’ he said.
‘For what?’
He read the notice at the top of the page.
You are hereby notified that you have been selected to serve as a trial juror in the County District Court.
19
Summer came.
In Duluth, people sometimes wondered if the ice would never melt and if the trees would stay bare skeletons forever. Spring was often no spring, just cold gray days of mud and rain. However, even Duluth seasons eventually had to bow to the calendar, and by mid-year, the city became a paradise. The months spent as nothing but a cold nowhere were forgiven and forgotten. Lake Superior shimmered, a vast sapphire sea, catching dots of sunlight on each wave. Blue skies met green hills. Waterfalls surged and played through the cataract down Seven Bridges Road. Tourists swarmed Canal Park, and swimmers ran through the surf and wet sand stretching along the Point. Sea brine and popcorn perfumed the air.
Thousands of runners crowded the city for Grandma’s Marathon. A different festival filled up each weekend. Reggae and Blues. Tall Ships. The Blue Angels. Music floated out of the open doors of bars and clubs.
The length of the summer days almost made time hover in place, as perfect and fragile as a hummingbird. A Duluth summer felt as if it could be endless, not gone with the puff of a cold breeze. And yet everyone knew that perfection was a tease. The warmth was brief. July. August. Each sunset came with a little warning label to enjoy the moment while it lasted.
Stride lounged in a deck chair on the sand dune behind their house on their first night back from Alaska. Cindy sat beside him, nearly asleep. He wore sunglasses on the bright evening, which gave the lake a midnight glow. People jogged, and dogs ran along the sand in front of them. He was exhausted from the long flight back and the drive north from the Twin Cities, but he couldn’t recall a time when he’d felt so content with his life.
They’d had the perfect vacation. Luxurious food. Wine. Glaciers calving in front of them. Floatplanes over the remote wilderness. Hours spent in bed on a sea day, making love to the rough rhythm of the waves. Stride, who didn’t do vacations well as a rule, had set aside Duluth and the job for seven whole days. Cindy called it nothing short of a miracle.
Even so, he was happy to be home. To be in Duluth in the summertime. To feel a lake breeze, to hold Cindy’s hand, to drink cold beer from a bottle. His wife was quiet, and he knew a little part of her was sad to be back to reality, but he didn’t mind the ebb and flow of the world. He knew you could never predict the moments that would linger in your memory, but he thought this was one.
‘Favorite port?’ Cindy murmured, revisiting the trip.
‘Juneau.’
‘Favorite meal?’
‘That Chinese restaurant we ate at before we sailed from Vancouver. With the noodles. What was it called?
‘Hon.’
‘Yeah, that one,’ he said.
‘Favorite day overall?’
He nudged his sunglasses up to his forehead and let her see his eyes, and he just grinned. She laughed.
‘Sea day,’ she concluded.
‘Definitely.’
They were quiet for a while. The lake breathed waves in and out. As dusk spread shadows, the crowds on the beach thinned. Someone started a bonfire, and they could smell the wood and feel the smoke in their eyes. An ore boat glided through the nearby ship canal and rolled toward the open water. Stride wanted a cigarette, but he didn’t take one.
‘The trial starts next week,’ Cindy said.
‘I know.’
Back to reality.
The murder trial of State of Minnesota, Plaintiff, vs. Janine Snow, Defendant, was scheduled to begin on Monday. Stride knew that Dan Erickson planned to call Cindy as his first witness, and the idea of testifying weighed on his wife. She’d put it out of her mind during their trip to Alaska, but it was back as the clock ticked closer.
‘You’ll do fine,’ he told her, which was as much as he could say. His own testimony would follow hers. She would probably be off the stand in an hour; he would spend most of the day there. Then in the days to follow, Dan would build his house of cards witness by witness, and Archie would try to blow it down.