Thanks to his reputation, Troy also had an annual part-time job coordinating safety issues during Grandma’s Marathon. As a result, he knew everyone who worked security along the twenty-six-mile course.
She crumpled her paper wrappers into a ball and climbed down from her truck. Troy, docking the Zodiac, saw her and waved, and she waved back. He was a couple years older than she was and only a few inches taller. He was a weightlifter in his spare time, with a beefy, muscular frame. His skull was shaved smooth, and he had a face that wouldn’t win him a cover spread in GQ: an oversized, lumpy nose; a couple of broad chins; and florid cheekbones that pushed out from his face like a pair of red jawbreakers.
Troy wasn’t anyone’s idea of cute, but Maggie had a little bit of a thing for him. She liked nice guys. Stride. Troy. Apparently, she also liked married guys, because Troy and his wife Trisha had been married for five years and had recently had their first child, Emma. He was off-limits. Maggie didn’t spend a lot of time on self-reflection, but sometimes she wondered if she was doomed to have crushes on men she couldn’t have.
‘Sergeant,’ Troy announced as he bounded onto dry land. ‘I don’t usually get a welcoming committee.’
‘Hey, Troy.’
Troy, like Maggie, was an early riser, and he toured the dock areas from the water several mornings a week. His philosophy of security was that the best way to stop trouble was to make sure it never happened. He also liked seeing things with his own eyes, which was why he didn’t delegate basic tasks like reviewing the port facilities.
‘So what’s the McPoison this morning?’ he asked with a grin. ‘Hotcakes? One of those new McGriddle things?’
Maggie shook her head. People in Duluth knew way too much about her daily routines. ‘Sausage McMuffin with Egg, thank you very much.’
‘I don’t suppose you brought me one,’ Troy said.
‘And ruin your organic body? I wouldn’t dream of it.’
Troy chuckled. ‘Well, it doesn’t seem to hurt yours, Sergeant.’
She’d told him for two years to call her Maggie, but Troy stayed formal around cops. For him, it was a respect thing, even though they were friends. Part of her also wondered whether it was his way of keeping extra distance between them. She liked to think that her sex appeal didn’t go completely unnoticed.
‘How are Trisha and Emma?’ she asked.
‘Neither one getting much sleep.’
‘Well, sleep is overrated.’
‘I told Trisha that,’ Troy said, ‘and then I had to duck when she threw a shoe at me.’
Maggie laughed. She slid a copy of the photograph that Stride had given her from a back pocket, then passed it to Troy. ‘Listen, I’m hoping you can help us. This is a crowd pic from Grandma’s. See the redhead in the security uniform? I was hoping you know who she is.’
Troy glanced at it and handed the page back. ‘Sure. Jessie Klayman.’
‘What about the guy she’s standing next to? The hard case in the camo jacket?’
He took another look at the photograph. ‘No, sorry, him I don’t know.’
‘What’s the story with Jessie?’ Maggie asked.
‘She’s a temp. Moved to Duluth from Fargo about a year ago. She did mall security there. I’ve brought her in a few times on low-priority overflow work. Nothing sensitive. Between you and me, I don’t see her as full-time material. She’s not particularly reliable, and if I had to guess, there’s an alcohol issue.’
‘She looks about forty,’ Maggie said.
‘Yeah, that sounds right. I haven’t spent a lot of time with her. She’s nice enough, but I get tired of hearing about guns.’
‘Guns?’
‘Oh, yeah, she’s a bad-to-the-bone gun collector. Always going to shows around the country. She must have an armory at home by now.’
Maggie frowned. ‘Including assault rifles?’
‘Definitely. She brags about the hardware. No anti-government or militia crap. I wouldn’t hire her if I got a whiff of that. I think she’s just your run-of-the-mill gun nut.’
‘Where does she live?’ Maggie asked.
‘She’s got a little place in Gary. I’m sure I have her address.’ Troy dug a notebook from his pocket and riffled through the pages. ‘Here you go,’ he said, rattling off the number and street.
Maggie wrote it down. ‘Thanks. And you’re sure you don’t know the guy with her?’
Troy looked at the photograph again, taking more time. ‘He’s not familiar to me, but I know that Jessie’s got a kid. If you ask me, there’s some resemblance in the faces. The eyes and nose look similar. Maybe that’s her son.’
28
By noon, the case was theirs.
Closing statements were done, and for Howard, they were no more than a regurgitation of what he’d already heard. The judge read them instructions on the law and gave them verdict forms. One count of murder in the second degree — guilty or not guilty. There were no more witnesses, no more attorneys, no more exhibits, just the twelve of them together in the jury room. Twelve strangers.
Howard sat nervously at the conference table. The room was no more than a drab meeting space immediately behind the courtroom. Twelve chairs barely fit around the table. There was a leather sofa and a cabinet with a mini-refrigerator, microwave, and coffee maker. An old-fashioned clock ticked off the minutes above the microwave.
He realized they didn’t want the jury getting too comfortable. Do your work, make a decision, and go home.
The black woman who’d sat next to him throughout the trial chose a seat next to him again. Every day, she wore a different pants suit; today it was cream-colored, with lace stitching on the collar. She spoke first. ‘Let’s go around the table and introduce ourselves, okay?’
So they did. Some gave just their names. Some talked about what they did for a living. The woman in the pants suit said that her name was Eleanor and that she worked as a secretary in a small accountant’s office and had three children. She had a calmness about her, friendly but direct. Her dark skin was mottled. Her hair was short and neat.
‘We need to pick a foreman,’ a man at the other end of the table announced when they’d finished introductions. Howard tried to remember the man’s name and thought that it was Bruce. He was the only juror in a tie, and he’d made a point of bragging that he managed a downtown hotel. He was in his sixties, with a gray mustache and a comb-over.
Eleanor said, ‘Well, who among us would be willing to be the foreman? Maybe we should start there.’
Bruce raised his hand immediately. Eleanor stared at the man thoughtfully, and then she raised her hand, too. It was just the two of them. No one else volunteered. Eleanor suggested they each talk about how the foreman could help the group, and when they did, Bruce talked about his management experience, and Eleanor simply said she wanted to respect the process and deliver a fair result.
They passed notepaper around the conference table, and when they’d voted, Eleanor was named foreman by a vote of 10 to 2. Bruce didn’t look happy with the outcome.
‘We have four questions to answer,’ Eleanor reminded them as they began their deliberations. ‘I think we can decide three of them easily enough. Can we take a vote as to whether the state proved that Jay Ferris was dead?’
They did. All agreed.
‘And let’s also vote as to whether the death took place in St. Louis County in the state of Minnesota?’