Beyond Suspicion

“I more than understand. I agree.”

She gave a weak smile, as if relieved to see that he wasn’t going to put up a fight. “That’s all I wanted to say,” she said.

“So, this is it?”

She nodded. “I should go.”

She rose, but he didn’t.

“Cindy?”

She stopped and looked at him. “Yes?”

“There’s one thing I need to know.”

“What is it?”

“Did you think something was going on between me and Jessie even before she called and told you there was?”

“What makes you ask that?”

“For months now, I’ve been trying to put a timeline together in my head. As best I can figure, Jessie came to me and said that the viatical investors found out that she’d scammed them and were out to kill her. Then, after I didn’t help her, she called you and said we were having an affair.”

“That’s right.”

“So, I just wonder: How did the viatical investors find out Jessie had scammed them?”

“Someone obviously told them.”

“Yeah, but who?”

“Could have been anyone.”

“Not really. There aren’t that many possibilities. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t Jessie. It wasn’t Dr. Marsh. Just makes me stop and think: Maybe it was someone I confided in.”

She showed almost no reaction, just a subtle rise of the left eyebrow. “That’s something you may never know,” she said, then turned and started away.

He downed his drink and took solace in the knowledge that he had a little something to counterbalance it all. In a way, it was Cindy who’d started the whole Jessie mess.

“Cindy,” he called again.

She stopped, this time seeming a little a

“There’s something else that’s bothering me.”

“If you’ve got something to say, just say it.”

“All right, I will. This is going to sound weird, because your mother has confessed and is sitting in jail. But the idea that she killed Jessie doesn’t ring completely true to me.”

She made a face, incredulous. “What?”

“Maybe it’s because I’m a criminal lawyer, but motives are a bit of an obsession for me. Your mother’s don’t quite add up in my mind. What she wanted more than anything was for you to find the courage to leave me. Killing Jessie wouldn’t necessarily have accomplished that. But your finding her passed out naked in our bathtub might.”

Cindy didn’t answer.

“Is that how you found her, Cindy? After your mother went to our house and forced her to drink so much that she passed out, was Jessie still alive?”

She flinched a little, virtually u

She said, “What about the angle of the cut on her wrist? That was your whole theory, that someone who was left-handed cut her wrist to make it look like suicide.”

“That sounded like a neat idea at the time. But the angle wasn’t that pronounced. I was having second thoughts about it even before I accused your mother, when Rosa and I talked that morning before Katrina showed up at our house. The medical examiner didn’t put any stock in it at all. Your mother wouldn’t have spent a day in jail without a confession.”

“But there was still an angle, and my mother is left-handed.”

“It isn’t foolproof. The killer could have been in a hurry. Maybe she was even enraged, filled with jealousy. There’s no telling what angle the slash might take in those circumstances.”

“Exactly what is it you’re trying to say, Jack?”

“It’s an idea that’s been floating around in my head the last six months. I’m just trying to go back in time, trying to understand the mind-set. For your own good, your mother is desperate for you to find the courage to leave me and start a new life with no nightmares, no reminders of Esteban. She’s so desperate that she finally does something that she hopes will utterly shock you. Instead of shocking you into leaving me, she pushes you into a crime of passion. At the end of the day, she takes the rap for Jessie’s murder. After all, it was her plan that went awry.”

“So who do you think slashed up our wedding photos? Me?”

“No. That was definitely your mother’s work. But she was hoping you’d think it was Jessie who’d done it. Mom’s way of making you feel a little less guilty about having killed my old girlfriend.”

“Do you really believe my mother would do this for me?”

“You were the ‘good’ daughter, weren’t you? The one who protected her husband’s fine reputation long after your sister revealed the truth about him.”

Her glare was ice-cold.

He looked into her eyes, searching. There was a time when he could have looked straight into her soul, but this time he saw nothing.

Finally, she answered. “Like I said before, Jack. Sometimes in life you just never know.”

He stared at her, waiting for some sign of remorse.

“I deserve to know,” he said.

“And I at least deserved a husband who played by the rules.”

“Fu

“How ’bout that.”

“Yeah. How ’bout that.”

“Good-bye, Jack.”

He watched her turn and walk away. He kept a beat on the back of her head as she flowed with the crowd along the sidewalk. She was a half-block away when she disappeared amid the sea of bobbing and weaving pedestrians. He spotted her once more, then lost sight of her. For good.

•

It was Saturday night, and Jack escaped to Tobacco Road. When it came to broken spirits, there was no better salve than a dark club with live music and bartender who’d never been stumped by a customer’s request for a cocktail. The really beautiful thing about the Road was the lack of beauty-no glitz, no palm trees at the door, no neon lights of South Beach. It was just a great bar by the river that catered to everyone from Brickell Avenue bankers to the likes of Theo Knight.

“Hey, Jacko, you came.” Theo threw his arms around him, practically wrestled him off his bar stool.

“Of course I came. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Possibly because the only thing worse than having no date on a Saturday night is watching your old pal Theo blow on his saxophone and fight off hordes of groupies.”

Jack looked around, spotted a woman at a table who looked as though she’d been there since last weekend. “I can live with it.”

Theo laughed, then turned serious. “How you been, man?”

“Okay.”

“Hey, I hear Be

“I heard the same thing,” said Jack. “Guess he got tired of prosecuting parking tickets.”

“That blowhard deserved a demotion. I mean, it’s one thing to go after the son of a beloved former governor. But if you’re go

Jack chuckled, though evidently not hard enough to suit Theo.

“You sure you okay, Jacko?”

“Fine.”

He laid a huge hand on Jack’s shoulder, as if to console. “Sorry about you and Cindy, man.”

“Don’t be. It was over for a long time. Now it’s just official.”

Theo gave a nod, as if promising never to bring it up again, then ordered himself a club soda. “Hey, there’s someone I want you to see.”

“Please, don’t start setting me up already. I just want to have a couple drinks and listen to music. When’s your set starting?”

“Five minutes. But I’m serious. I got someone who’s dying to talk to you.”

He was about to protest, but Theo had already signaled to the other side of the bar. Two women started through the crowd, and at least from a distance it appeared that his friend Theo was doing him quite the favor. One was wearing black leather pants and a fitted red blouse, and Jack wasn’t the only man watching her cross the room. The other was equally striking. He was begi