She looked as though she might break into tears, biting her thin lip and taking a deep breath.
“Ms. Zeltner, let me be completely honest with you. I didn’t intend to come here this evening. It never crossed my mind to do that. But now that I’m here, and now that my mention of Cynthia Warren has caused an obvious reaction in you, I have to ask, why?”
She stared at the countertop for what seemed a very long time. Then she placed her hands on it and muttered, “Bitch.”
I thought she meant me.
Realizing what I was thinking, she looked up and said, “Please, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you.”
“I’m relieved,” I said. “You meant Cynthia Warren.”
“I shouldn’t have said it. It’s just that—”
“Ms. Zeltner, I said I’d be honest with you. I’ve been investigating Ms. Warren’s murder. Not in any official capacity, of course, but because I’m beginning to believe that others might be in jeopardy. You read, I assume, about one of the jurors, a Mrs. Montrone, being run down.”
“It was a hit-and-run, wasn’t it? An accident.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Why did you react so visibly when I mentioned Cynthia Warren?”
“Because—took, Mrs. Fletcher, things are very tense here between Thom and me.”
“I’m sorry. Has being tied up with the Brannigan trial contributed to that?”
“I suppose so.” She looked up at a clock. “Thom will be here any minute.”
“Which means I’d better leave. I’m an official part of the Brannigan defense team. And that means no contact with jurors or alternates.”
“It’s all money, isn’t it?” she said.
“What is?”
“Everything. It is with us. With Thom and me.”
“You’re having money problems?”
“Yes. Serious money problems. Cynthia was going to—”
She now had my total interest. “You say her name as though you knew her quite well,” I said.
She silently dusted an already pristine countertop. It occurred to me as I processed what she’d said that if Thomas McEnroe personally knew Cynthia Warren, he should have made that known when he was questioned by the attorneys during voir dire. Cynthia Warren was to be Billy Brannigan’s prime alibi witness. Not indicating he knew her was as egregious an omission as Harry LeClaire not admitting he knew Gina Simone, Brannigan’s accuser as a rapist, and Cynthia Warren.
But that was a matter to take up with Malcolm and Rachel Cohen. Fortunately, neither McEnroe nor LeClaire had joined the twelve-person jury, and would not be voting on Billy Brannigan’s guilt or innocence. Not yet, anyway. If my supposition was correct—and that’s all it was at that juncture, a supposition—then any other juror likely to acquit Billy might face the same sort of danger as Marie Montrone.
I wasn’t sure whether Patty Zeltner would welcome further questions. She appeared poised for flight. But since she’d offered what she had, I felt there was nothing to be lost by pressing on.
“How well did Thom know Cynthia Warren?” I asked.
“I really have things to do in the back before Thom arrives, Mrs. Fletcher. You’ll have to excuse me.”
“What about the pot in the window? I’d like to buy it.”
“It will have to be another time. Sorry, Mrs. Fletcher. The shop is closed.”
She went to the front door and opened it for me.
“May I come back?” I asked.
“Yes. Another time. I’ll put the pot aside.”
“Thank you. It is lovely. I’d like to take it home with me as a souvenir of my Boston trip.”
I crossed the street and entered a small coffee shop, took a table by the window that afforded me a view of the gallery, and ordered a cappuccino. As the waitress placed the steaming cup in front of me, Thomas McEnroe pulled up in front of Fire and Ice in a white convertible. He fairly leaped from it, entered the gallery, appeared to lock the door behind him, turned off the lights in the showroom, and disappeared, presumably into the back room.
I finished my coffee, paid, and stepped outside. It was now dark, and rain had begun to fall with serious purpose.
I crossed the street and stood in front of the gallery. A hint of light spilled into the showroom through a crack in the door to the rear room.
I stepped closer to McEnroe’s car. It was a Mercedes. I have no interest in cars, and don’t know one from the other. But I did know a Mercedes was expensive. If the gallery was having money problems, as indicated by Patty Zeltner, Thomas McEnroe didn’t seem to be suffering them personally.
I spotted a cab and waved it down. As I was about to step into the taxi, my eye went to the license plate on Thorn McEnroe’s convertible. SUMRLVN 2.
The plate on Cynthia Warren’s car that was parked in her driveway on the Cape the day her body was discovered was SUMRLOVN.
Evidently, Thomas McEnroe and Cynthia Warren knew each pretty well.
Chapter Twenty-One
My sojourn to Boston’s gentrified waterfront, and my conversation with Patty Zeltner, hadn’t taken more than a couple of hours. But in that brief time away from my suite, I received seven phone calls.
Four were from media people; my respite from them evidently had ended.
Seth Hazlitt called from Cabot Cove to say he was coming to Boston the next day to do some shopping, would be staying at the Ritz-Carlton, and would get in touch when he arrived.
Another call from Cabot Cove was from Mort Metzger, our sheriff and my good friend. The only message he left was that he would call again.
Rachel Cohen’s message was that she was having dinner with a friend at Terramia, and if I changed my mind, I could join them there.
I decided to not return any of the calls, and tried to resurrect my quiet evening alone. I got into my nightgown and robe, finished the appetizer platter I’d ordered earlier in the evening, and settled in to start reading, once again, the book I’d given up on. My second attempt was no more successful than my first; the events of that day kept intruding upon my concentration.
I pulled a yellow legal pad from my briefcase, sat in an overstuffed chair by the window and wrote down what I knew up to this point.
> > William Brannigan, from a wealthy family, benefited from a trust. His older brother, Jack, was trustee.
> > The trust called for Billy Brannigan to be cut out of the trust if he was ever charged with a crime involving moral turpitude.
> > A stunning young woman, Gina Simone, accused Billy of attempting to rape her.
> > Although Gina Simone eventually withdrew her charge of rape, Billy’s brother, Jack, threatened to invoke the moral turpitude clause of the trust.
> > Jack Brannigan was found stabbed to death in one of the famous Swan Boats in Boston’s Public Garden.
> > Billy Brannigan was indicted for Jack’s murder, and hired flamboyant defense attorney, Malcolm McLoon.
> > Billy’s Cape Cod girlfriend, Cynthia Warren, claimed she was with Billy on the Cape the night Jack Brannigan was murdered, and would testify to that at his trial.
> > McLoon’s investigator, Ritchie Fleigler, and I went to Cape Cod to bring Ms. Warren to Boston in advance of her testimony. We found her dead in her home, also a stabbing victim.
> > A ten-thousand-dollar deposit slip found in Warren’s home turned out to have been money given her the day before her murder by one of six alternate jurors on the Brannigan case, Harry LeClaire, a businessman and owner of LeClaire Metals, manufacturer of tweezers and scissors.
> > The reaction of two employees of LeClaire Metals when I mentioned Cynthia Warren’s name said to me that they knew her.
> > A letter, allegedly written by Cynthia Warren, Billy Brannigan’s dead alibi witness, arrived at the office of Billy’s prosecutors. In it, Ms. Warren recanted her claim that she was with Billy the night of his brother’s murder. A handwriting expert had been called in by Malcolm McLoon to evaluate the letter’s authenticity.
> > Question: Had Harry LeClaire paid Warren the ten thousand dollars to have her write that letter?
>> I visited Gina Simone, who seemed to panic when I mentioned Harry LeClaire’s name. Shortly after my visit, she was picked up by LeClaire and dropped at the airport for a flight to Fort Lauderdale.
> > Harry LeClaire knew both Cynthia Warren and Gina Simone.
> > Gina Simone and Cynthia Warren were friends. Yet, Gina charged Cynthia’s boyfriend, Billy Brannigan, with attempted rape.
> > Another alternate juror, pottery maker Thomas McEnroe, evidently created a piece of ceramic art found in Cynthia Warren’s home, His “partner,” Patty Zeltner, demonstrated a distinct change of attitude when I mentioned Cynthia Warren’s name, and called her a “bitch.”
> > Thomas McEnroe drives an expensive automobile, with a license plate, SUMRLVN 2. Cynthia Warren’s plate was, SUMRLOVN. Like matching shorts and shirts. Like two people who knew each other very well.
> > According to Patty Zeltner, she and McEnroe were having financial problems at the gallery.
I returned the pad to my briefcase and was heading for bed when the phone rang. It was Malcolm’s investigator, Ritchie Fleigler. “Hope I didn’t wake you,” he said.
“Almost. What can I do for you, Ritchie?”
“I figured you might want to hear the latest information I’ve come up with on the jurors.”
I knew Malcolm had instructed Ritchie to continue digging into the background of the jurors, both the twelve sitting members and the six alternates. But I’d forgotten he was actually doing it.
“Sure,” I said. “Go ahead.”
He ran through some names. While I was inherently interested in learning more about the lives of the jurors, nothing he said caught my attention, until he mentioned Harry LeClaire.
“This LeClaire is a high-roller. He—”
“What’s a high-roller?” I asked.
“Big gambler. Well known in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.”
“I see.”
“Problem is he seems to have run out of money to throw away at the craps table. He owes big bucks to a few casinos, at least according to my source.”
“What constitutes ‘big bucks’?” I asked.
“Thousands. Tens of thousands.”
“I’d say that’s big. Any idea why he’s gone into such large gambling debts? He has a business, which I assume is successful.”
“Maybe it isn’t, Jessica. Then again, maybe the business is successful, but he blows all the profits in Vegas.”
As he talked, I wondered how someone who owed so much money to casinos could come up with ten thousand dollars to give to Cynthia Warren.
“Anything else on Mr. LeClaire?” I asked.
“Just scuttlebutt. I know this waitress who knows LeClaire. She says he’s a swinger, a big man with the ladies.”
“He’s married,” I said. “Two children.”
Ritchie laughed. “Doesn’t mean much these days, Mrs. Fletcher.”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t. Well, Ritchie, I appreciate your sharing this with me. Have you told Malcolm yet?”
“No. He’s at some Bar Association dinner. Probably passed out by now.”
I winced at his callous, albeit probably accurate description of the esteemed counselor.
“See you in court?” he asked.
“Yes, you will. Good night.”
I’d been sleepy before the call. Now, I was wide awake. I turned on TV just in time to see the end of a local newscast in which Malcolm was being interviewed at the conclusion of the Bar Association dinner. He wore a tuxedo, and contrary to what Ritchie assumed, appeared to be sober and alert.
“The people haven’t proved a thing,” he boomed. “All you have to do is look into the faces of the jury. They know he’s innocent, and that’s the way they’ll vote. Excuse me. I have a trial to prepare for.”
A reporter shouted, “What about the Warren letter?”
“All smoke and no fire,” Malcolm said. “Sorry, but I have to go.”
I stayed up until midnight chewing on everything that had occurred to date. It was when I finally got to bed, and was about to fall asleep, that an old and wise adage came to mind. It said that if you want to solve a mystery—personal, political, or business—follow the money trail.
That’s what I decided I’d do the next day. There was plenty of trail to follow.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Malcolm, can I see you for a moment?” I asked at the courthouse the following morning. I caught him coming through the front door, and kept pace as he headed for the courtroom.
“Not now, Jessica. The judge wants to hear more arguments on the letter. I have to get in there.”
“Did your handwriting expert examine it?”
“Yes. Says it’s Cynthia Warren’s signature.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“No damage. We won’t use him. We’ll get another expert.”
“Malcolm, I found out things yesterday I think you should—”
“Tell me at lunch,” he said, pushing open the swinging doors and disappearing through them, leaving me standing in the hallway.
I debated following him inside but decided not to. If the morning was to be taken up with legal arguments, I had nothing to contribute.
I left the building and got into the Chevy with Cathie. “Where to?” she asked.
“Not quite sure. Give me a few minutes.”
Despite Malcolm’s downplaying of the handwriting expert’s finding, it struck me as a serious blow to the defense. But I’d learned in my brief exposure to the legal system that things weren’t always as they seemed to be. Lawyers have a way of taking black and turning it into white, and vice versa.
Follow the money.
I pulled out my Boston guidebook and went to the section that recommended Boston’s better stores. The guide listed two shops under the cutlery heading.
The first was located in Copley Place, a ten-acre complex built above the Massachusetts Turn-pike that includes hotels, movie theaters, apartments, restaurants, and a hundred upscale shops.