Beyond Suspicion

“What kind of statement does this make?”

“I warned you about my point of view, now. You really want to hear what I’m thinking?”

“Yes.”

Glenda narrowed her eyes, and as if she suddenly fancied herself an FBI criminal profiler. “I look at this crime scene, I see a woman who’s obviously at the end of her rope, flipping back and forth between fits of anger and bouts of depression. She can’t take it no more. She’s so wigged out she can’t even express herself in words. So she does this. This is her message.”

“What’s the message?”

“You askin’ my opinion?”

“Yes, your opinion.”

“Something along the lines of: ‘You think this was a fling, sucker? You think I was your little plaything? Well, guess again. I’d rather kill myself in your bathtub than let you and your pretty wife go on living happily ever after as if I never even existed.’”

Cindy looked away. “That’s not what this is.”

“Or, it could be she didn’t want to die.”

“What do you mean?”

“If she really just wanted to off herself, she could have crawled in her own bathtub and slit her wrists. But no. She does it in a place where she knows her lover will find her. She’s maybe played out this fantasy in her mind a hundred times. Her man comes home, finds her on the brink of death, he rushes her to the emergency room. Her hero rescues her. He waits at her bedside all night long at the hospital, clutching her hand, praying for her to come to. He realizes how she doesn’t want to live without him. And he realizes he can’t live without her either.”

“That’s too weird.”

“That’s the real world, sister. Tragic. Lots of people end up killing themselves when what they really wanted was someone to find them in the nick of time and save them.”

“Everything you’re saying is… it all assumes that my husband was having an affair.”

Glenda raised an eyebrow, as if to say, Well, duh!

“That’s not the way it is with Jack and me.”

“I’m glad to hear that. ’Cause to look at this, I surely would have thought otherwise.”

“Jack would never cheat on me.”

“Good for you. My boyfriend’s the same way.”

“Really?”

“’Course. He knows I’d cut his balls off if he did.”

“How romantic.”

Glenda laughed, then took another hit of coffee. She scrunched her face, as if confused, but Cindy was already onto the fact that Glenda was much smarter than she let on. “One thing I was wondering about. The house alarm.”

“What about it?” asked Cindy.

“I notice you have one. But it didn’t go off when that glass on the French door got busted.”

“It wasn’t on.”

“You don’t use your alarm?”

“We only set it when we’re home.”

“How’s that?”

“I’ve had some bad-” She stopped, not wanting to reveal too much of herself and her dreams. “I’ve had some trouble with prowlers in the past. I’m kind of a ‘fraidy cat.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“I’m worse than most. I have the motion sensors turned up so high, all it takes is a strong puff of wind to trigger the sirens. That used to happen all the time when we weren’t home, and the city of Coral Gables ended up socking us with seven hundred bucks in fines for false alarms. Finally Jack said enough. We don’t activate the alarm when we’re not home. If somebody wants our stuff, we have insurance. The only thing we care about is whether someone is trying to break into our house while we’re still inside it.”

“Makes sense, I guess.”

“At a hundred bucks per false alarm, you’d be surprised how many people use their alarms that way.”

“You’re right, I see it all the time. But one other thing makes me curious: How do you suppose Jessie knew that you guys don’t set your alarm while you’re away?”

Cindy thought for a moment, then looked at her and said, “Maybe she thought we had a silent alarm. It could be as you said, she wanted someone to come save her before she died.”

Glenda screwed up her face and said, “Nah, doesn’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Like you said, your husband wasn’t having an affair.”

Cindy didn’t answer.

Glenda finished her coffee. “Then again, maybe we should ask Mr. Swyteck about that. What do you think?”

“I’m not going to tell you how to do your job.”

“Fair enough. Nice talkin’ to you, Mrs. Swyteck.”

“Nice talking to you, too.”

She handed Cindy a business card. “I’m sure you’re right. I’m sure things are just fine and dandy between you and Mr. Swyteck. But just in case there’s something you want to talk out, woman to woman, my home number is on the back. Call me. Anytime.”

“Thank you.”

“You bet.”

They shook hands, and Cindy raised the passenger-side window. She watched from behind tinted glass as Officer Wellens cut through the chaos in the front yard and returned to the scene of the crime.

14

•

It was the most unpleasant evening Jack had ever spent on his patio.

Assistant state attorney Be

“Just a few more questions, Mr. Swyteck.” Smoke poured from his nostrils as he spoke, his eyes glued to his notes, as if the answers to the world’s problems were somewhere in that dog-eared notepad. So far he’d spent almost the entire interview combing over the civil trial Jack had won for Jessie.

Finally he looked up and said, “Know anybody who’d want Jessie Merrill dead?”

“I might.”

“Who?”

“The viatical investors who I beat at trial.”

“What makes you think they’d want to kill her?”

“She told me in those exact words. She thought they were out to kill her.”

“Pretty sore losers.”

“They apparently thought she’d cheated them.”

“Did she? Cheat them, I mean.”

Jack paused, not wanting to dive headlong into the matter of a possible scam. “I can’t really answer that.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re getting into an area protected by the attorney-client privilege.”

“What privilege? She’s dead.”

“The privilege survives her death. You know that.”

“If there was foul play, I’m sure your late client would excuse your divulgence of privileged information.”

“She might, but her heirs will probably sue me.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Right now, Jessie’s estate has at least a million and a half dollars in it. Hypothetically, let’s say I breach the attorney-client privilege and tell you she scammed the investors out of that money. Her estate just lost a million and a half bucks. Her heirs could have my ass in a sling.”

“You want to talk off the record?”

“I’ve said enough. If something happened to Jessie, I want to help punish the people who did it. But there are some things I can’t speak freely about. At least not until I’ve talked to her heirs.”

The prosecutor smiled thinly, as if he enjoyed having to pry information loose. “Did Ms. Merrill call the police about this alleged threat on her life?”

“No.”

“Did she tell anyone else about it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“So she was in mortal fear for her life, and the only person she told was her lawyer?”

“Don’t taunt me, Be

“If you’re implying there’s a possible homicide here, it would help for me to understand the motive.”

“The investors reached a viatical settlement thinking Jessie would be dead in two years. It turns out they might have to wait around for Willard Scott and Smucker’s to wish her a happy hundredth birthday. In and of itself, that’s pretty strong motive.”

He wrote something in his pad but showed no expression. “Answer me this, please. When’s the last time you saw Ms. Merrill?”