I’m moving right after this trial. I don’t care if I have to open an office on the sidewalk.
“Do you mind buzzing Dan ? I’ll ask him to see him.”
“I’m paid to keep you guys happy,” she says, and puts me on hold.
Finally, Dan comes on the line and says, “How’s it going, buddy?”
“You want to sit at the counsel table with me tomorrow and make some notes?” I ask.
“We’re gonna be flying by the seat of our pants.”
“Sure,” Dan says loyally.
“I’ve got an uncontested at ten, but I can postpone it. Want me to come over tonight to go over the case?”
Good old Dan. I think he’d amputate his right arm to help me. Too bad he can’t cut off his stomach. Paranoid about the man next to me (he hasn’t said a word in a minute), I don’t go into what’s happening above me in Room 542. Without asking for details, Dan also agrees to pretend to be my assistant and interview the motel manager, and we set a time for him to come to the house, and then I take the elevator back to the fifth floor.
Upstairs, Leigh and Jessie are fast becoming friends.
“Leigh’d be great undercover,” Jessie says dryly, “up to a point.”
She is studying Leigh with unconcealed admiration. I ask, “And what point is that?”
Jessie nudges Leigh in the ribs.
“I don’t get many requests to take off my shirt in my line of work,” she says.
“I suspect Leigh would.”
Leigh giggles unexpectedly, and for the first time since I’ve known her, I get a glimpse of the woman inside the stiff, frozen mask. I have mistaken fear for haughtiness. Jessie tells a story about an arson investigation she conducted in Southern California involving a building owned by a nude sunbathers’ association.
“I swear to God the owner talked to me buck naked. She looked so comfortable I would have joined her if I hadn’t been wired for sound.”
Jessie, even as she entertains us, remains sensitive to Leigh, who must have confided in her while I was downstairs.
“He won’t suspect a thing if you just act natural,” she says, patting Leigh on the shoulder as we talk to her about the conversation she will have with Shane. I tell her to call him and suggest they meet in his office. If her mother is there, Shane won’t implicate himself.
When Leigh calls and reaches him at the church, I notice a flicker of uncertainty on her face. I wonder if this idea will backfire. Shane has spent a lifetime dominating her. The possibility that she may put him on the defensive seems remote. Jessie, to her everlasting credit, invites Leigh to spend the night in her room after I tell her that I was followed to Rainey’s. I do not trust my old friend Kim Keogh or her cameraman not to reveal where Leigh is staying. As Leigh and I leave the room together to drive to the Delta Inn to get her car I make her promise to come by my house after she has talked to her father and picked up her clothes from her parents house. I advise her not to go back to Rainey’s.
Sarah can run over there for her clothes.
“We have a lot of work to do tonight,” I tell her.
She nods, but I can tell she is already thinking about meeting her father. I wonder how I would feel if I suspected my father had murdered my spouse. My father’s own suicide in a mental hospital when I was fourteen left me with questions that will never be answered. As we hit the freeway traffic, I am forced to admit to my self that Leigh may be conning me. Yet she seemed so innocent in the hotel room with Jessie that I was convinced for a moment I was representing a person incapable of murder. Maybe the jury will think so, too.
14
“Do you want me to go with you to Mr. Bracken’s funeral?”
Sarah asks from the couch where she is scratching Woogie. Our dog, who is on his back with his legs in the air, seems as happy as I am that his mistress has returned and moved back into the house with all her belongings.
Unlike myself, Woogie had no one to assuage his grief at her temporary abandonment. Jason Von Jason could make a fortune in this country treating animal depression.
“There’s no need,” I say cautiously.
“I’m sure Dan will go with me.” For the longest time I have tried to shield Sarah from death, as though the loss of her mother was a quota that must not be exceeded. I slice the sausage pizza that has just arrived from Domino’s.
I sense a reluctance on her part to come to terms with what happened in our front yard only a few hours ago.
I can understand her feelings. I’m not sure it has completely sunk in on me. I check my watch. Seven o’clock. Leigh should have been here by now.
“Come wash your hands and let’s eat before this stuff gets cold.”
Sarah smirks at Woogie as if to say, “When will he learn not to treat me like a kid?” but obediently comes into the kitchen and scrubs her hands in the kitchen sink. I give her a graceful way out.
“Do you have any tests you’d be missing?”
“Actually, I do have a couple,” she says, drying her hands on a dish towel she has taken from the counter by the sink.
“I guess I better not. Did you like him?”
I open the refrigerator and take out a couple of Coke Classics and hand one to Sarah. No booze tonight, though I could use a couple of beers. Did I like Chet?
A good question.
“I think I would have if I had gotten to know him better and hadn’t been working for him.”
As we eat at the kitchen table I tell Sarah about Wynona and Trey.
“The kid was crazy about Chet,” I conclude.
“That was obvious.”
“Most children go through a stage where they worship their parents,” Sarah says dryly, wiping her mouth on a paper napkin.
Trey was a stepchild, but I won’t quibble.
“I haven’t exactly felt worshiped lately,” I say, getting a smile out of my daughter.
“How do you feel about Leigh coming over here tonight?” I add, realizing I haven’t given a moment’s thought to Sarah’s reaction. For some reason I don’t fully understand I won’t be content until I have rammed this case down my daughter’s throat. I know I risk further alienation, but I’m determined that she see the other side. Even if she is guilty, Leigh seems more human than her father.
“Weird,” Sarah confesses, “but a little curious. Our house seems to attract death these days.”
I try not to react while I absorb her remark. She’s absolutely correct. What a great father I’ve been lately.
There is a knock at the door and, of course, it is Leigh. As I glimpse her face in the glow of the porch light I realize that I had been afraid she wouldn’t show up. I invite her to share our pizza, but she tells me she has eaten with her parents. She follows me into the kitchen, and I introduce her to Sarah.
As they exchange pleasantries, I am struck by how much they resemble each other. Leigh is taller, not as dark, but her ebony hair and delicate facial structure make her look like Sarah’s older sister. She has discarded Rainey’s sweats for a white turtleneck sweater and red skirt, making me fear she intends to spend the night in her parents’ house. Smiling, Sarah informs me she has to study and takes her pizza and Woogie to her bedroom. Leigh takes Sarah’s seat at the kitchen table, and as soon as we hear Sarah’s door shut, she says, taking the tiny tape recorder from her purse, “My father doesn’t say a word on the tape that would make anyone suspect he was involved in Art’s murder.”
I try to mask my disappointment. I had naively been convinced that he would implicate himself. After the trial he might, perhaps, but not now. If he confesses to Leigh before she is tried, there is no telling how she might react. She pushes the “on” switch and I hear Shane’s voice scolding her for not telling him and her mother where she has been. Ruefully, I recognize the tone: manipulative, judgmental, perfectly calibrated to induce a sense of pity and guilt. Sounding defensive, Leigh says she was “afraid,”