A Deadly Judgment (23 page)

I wondered if Mr. Jerome worked the night shift after returning from his day as a juror, and peered through the glass in search of him. Unlikely, I told myself, that he would be in the dining area. He was a chef, which meant being in the kitchen.

As I stood there on the busy sidewalk, I rationalized that ending up at Karl Jerome’s place of work had been an accident. I just happened to be there.

But I knew that wasn’t true. When I decided to take my evening walk in Cambridge, he was very much on my mind. So was Cynthia Warren, and Marie Montrone. Two people connected with the Billy Brannigan trial were dead, one the victim of a brutal stabbing, the other run down on the sidewalk in front of her home.

The question was whether my supposition—that Ms. Montrone was killed because she appeared to be leaning toward an acquittal—was valid. I was, after all, a writer of murder mysteries, which called for a certain vivid imagination. Was I injecting that imagination into the reality of Juror Number Seven’s death?

Possibly.

Then again—

I stepped into Grendel’s Den and went to the salad bar from where I could see into the busy kitchen. My sight line kept being obscured by the swinging doors, but each time they opened, I could see inside. No sign of Karl Jerome.

“Like a table, ma’am?” a young man asked me. “Should be one opening up in a minute.”

“No, thank you. I was dropping something off for one of your chefs, Karl Jerome.”

“Not here. He’s on jury duty.”

“I thought he might work nights.”

“Not this week. Give it to me. I’ll see that he gets it.”

“Thank you, but I’ll come back.”

Once outside, I checked Jerome’s home address from the notebook I carried in my oversized purse, then consulted my pocket map. He lived only a few blocks away, and I slowly walked in that direction. Darkness had fallen; lights came to life in shops and the area’s many university buildings.

I paused at the corner. Last chance to change your mind, Jess. You’ve been lucky so far that no one’s reported you to the court. Let it go. You’re probably wrong anyway. Just a coincidence that two people so intimately associated with the Brannigan trial were dead. You’re in Boston as a jury consultant, I reminded myself, not to prove a conspiracy. You came here because an old friend, attorney Malcolm McLoon, asked you to come, and because you wanted to soak up the atmosphere of a real murder trial to use in your next novel.

Give it up. Go back to your lovely hotel suite, take a Jacuzzi, read a good book and—

I stood opposite Karl Jerome’s six-story apartment building, drew a deep breath, and looked up the one-way street. A car was approaching; plenty of time to make it across the street.

But as I stepped off the curb, the sudden roar of the car’s engine froze me in my tracks. I turned. It was bearing down on me at racetrack speed.

I twisted and hurled myself back in the direction of the curb, landing with a thud on the pavement, my cheek making painful contact with the concrete. The car, large and dark in color—brown? black? blue?—flashed by in a blur, its left tire missing my foot by an inch.

I didn’t give Karl Jerome another thought until the smiling young doctor in Harvard University Hospital’s emergency room assured me my face was only scraped and bruised, nothing broken. By then, I wanted only to get back to the Ritz-Carlton, lock the door and shut the drapes against the outside world and all its potential violence. Before I could, however, the police questioned me about the incident.

I told them everything I could remember, which wasn’t much. One thing I was sure of, I said. The driver of that dark car deliberately tried to run me down.

“What were you doing on that particular street, Mrs. Fletcher?” one officer asked.

“I was—just sightseeing.”

“That’s a residential street,” he said. “Nothing touristy.”

“A pretty street,” I said. “I sort of wandered down it.”

“You’re on the Brannigan defense team,” his partner said as they prepared to drive me back to the hotel.

“That’s right.”

“My wife’s been watching the trial on Court TV.”

“Oh? I’m not sure I agree with allowing television cameras into the courtroom,” I said, gingerly touching fingertips to my stinging cheekbone. “But then again, there is the public’s right to know what goes on in its justice system.”

“Shame how that juror died,” he said, holding open the rear door of the marked police car.

“Terrible,” I agreed.

He and his partner got in the front seat. The engine came to life and we pulled into Boston traffic. “Yeah,” the officer said, turning his head to speak directly to me. “Really strange, that juror run down like you almost were, and that alibi witness from the Cape being murdered. Then another juror getting it.”

It took a moment for his words to sink in. When they did, I sprang forward and placed my hands on his shoulders. “Did you say another juror ‘got it’?”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s why I was interested in how come you were on that street when you were. Another juror died there tonight. A black fellow, a chef here in Cambridge. Grendel’s Den. Name was Jerome. Karl Jerome. Fell off his roof just a little before you almost got run down.”

“Fell—off—his—roof?”

“Or got pushed.”

I slumped back in the seat and pressed my fingers to my temples. The stinging on my cheek had been replaced by a pounding, pulsating pain deep inside my head. I’d been right. It was no longer just a theory. Two members of the Billy Brannigan jury had died in less than a week.

I believe in coincidence. I think it happens more than we realize.

But there’s coincidence, and then there’s coincidence.

This was no coincidence.

Somebody was killing off the jurors, and it looked like only those who were sympathetic to the defense were marked for death.

Then it dawned on me that it wasn’t only jurors who were in jeopardy. This jury consultant had almost become coincidence number three. No, make it four. Let’s not forget Cynthia Warren.

“Could you drive a little faster ” I said. “I have some very important phone calls to make.”

The full impact of my near brush with death didn’t hit me until I was in my suite. I looked at my face in the mirror and winced at seeing the injury to my cheek, which had grown darker and angrier since leaving the hospital.

The police had asked if I wanted protection that night, but I declined their offer. The way I processed it, whoever had tried to run me over was probably the same person who’d killed Marie Montrone. If so, his, or her M.O.—
modus
operandi—was to use a vehicle as a weapon. Little chance of being run over in my suite.

My nerves were on edge, frayed, uninsulated wires crossing and sparking. I took a miniature bottle of brandy from the mini-bar and poured it into a snifter. It went down hot and hard, but immediately caused a welcome calm, a fire extinguisher for my sizzling nerve ends.

The phone rang. I picked it up and said, “Hello?”

“Mrs. Fletcher?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“Patty Zeltner. From Fire and Ice.”

“The gallery. Of course. How are you?”

“Mrs. Fletcher, I—”

“Yes?”

“Are you buying the pot? The one from the window?”

“I’d forgotten about that. Is that why you’re calling?”

“Yes. Well, no. I tried to call you before. Two or three times.”

I noticed for the first time that the red message light on the phone was blinking. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t check for messages. About the pot.”

“Mrs. Fletcher, I need to talk to you.”

“All right.”

“Not now. Not on the phone. Can you—would you come to the gallery?”

“Now?”

“Yes. Please.”

“Is this about the Brannigan trial? Cynthia Warren?”

“Yes. Could you come right away?”

“I suppose so. I’ve had an accident tonight, but if you give me a half hour, I can leave by then.”

“An accident?”

“Minor bruises. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

I checked by messages. There were the two from Patty Zeltner, one from Seth to tell me he would call when he returned from dinner with Jill Farkas, a reporter from a radio station wanting to interview me, Regina Wells of Court TV wanting the same thing, and Mort Metzger, sheriff of Cabot Cove, who complained that I hadn’t returned his last message.

After applying makeup in a futile attempt to cover the spreading bruise on my cheek, and debating taking a fast Jacuzzi to ease pains that had developed in every joint and limb, I left the hotel and took a cab to Fire and Ice where Ms. Zeltner was waiting. She’d locked the door; the interior was illuminated by a single low wattage bulb in a lamp behind the counter.

She was overtly nervous as she let me in, and locked the door behind us. As we walked to the counter, the light caught the injury to my cheek. “What happened to you?” she asked.

“I was almost run over.”

She gasped, pressed the knuckles of her right fist to her mouth, and grabbed the counter for support. I put my hands on her arms and helped her onto a high stool. “What’s wrong, Ms. Zeltner? Are you ill?”

“No. It’s just that—” Her teary eyes met mine.

“It’s just that what, Ms. Zeltner?”

“I’m afraid I’m going to be killed, too.”

“You? Why?”

She pulled herself up straight, wiped her tears with the back of a hand, and said, “Because Thom killed Cynthia Warren, and I think he’ll do the same to me.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, sitting on a second stool behind the counter. “Run that by me again.”

“Thom killed her.”

“Why?”

“Because she was a bitch.”

“You said that the first time I was here.”

“She was going to give him the money to keep the gallery going.”

“She knew him that well?”

She guffawed. “You bet she did. They were lovers. No, let me put it this way. He was one of many lovers. She was a slut.”

“You say she was going to give Thom money for the gallery. That doesn’t seem to be a motive for him to kill her. You don’t go around killing those who are about to give you something.”

“That was the problem. Cynthia reneged on the money. Without it, the gallery was going to go under.”

“How much money had she promised Thom?”

“Fifty thousand dollars, I think.”

“That’s a lot of money. What did she expect in return?”

“Half ownership in the business.”

I leaned back and thought for a moment. “Ms. Zeltner, if Cynthia had become half owner of this gallery, what would that have done to you?”

Her face turned hard. “It meant I was out. I couldn’t believe Thom would do that to me. I’d put up my life savings to open the gallery.”

“That must have been extremely hurtful to you,” I said.

“I wanted to die.”

“May I call you Patty?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“Patty, if Thom is a murderer—if he has it in him to so brutally murder a young woman, no matter what the reason—do you think he might have killed Jack Brannigan, too?”

“I wouldn’t know about that.”

“Where is Thom tonight?” I asked.

“He’s meeting with someone who might be interested in representing his work on a national basis.”

“That sounds exciting. Are you sure he’s with this person?”

“Yes. I called him at the man’s office twice a few hours ago.”

I got off the stool and walked to the gallery’s front window. The street was empty. My cheek and head hurt. So did my stomach. The shrimp cocktail at Cafe Pamplona seemed years ago, and I hadn’t eaten since. Some people can’t eat under stress. I’m not one of them.

I turned and faced her. She was still sitting on the stool. “Patty,” I said, “you must go to the police with this information.”

“I can’t. If Thom found out, he’d—” “What would it matter what he thinks? You’re afraid he’s out to kill you now. The police can protect you until this is sorted out.”

She lowered her head; I assumed she was thinking. I didn’t intrude. Eventually, she looked up and said, “I’m willing to tell the police what I know.”

“Good,” I said. “Here’s what I suggest. Come back to my hotel with me. I can arrange for a room there, or you can stay in my suite. I’ll call Malcolm McLoon, the attorney, and get his advice about how to proceed.”

“All right.” She sounded defeated, out of energy and air. She slipped on a green raincoat, turned off the lamp, locked the door, and walked with me to a busier comer where we found a cab.

As we rode back to the Ritz, I was consumed with sympathy for her, and concern for her safety. If what she’d told me was true, the seemingly mild mannered and creative Thomas McEnroe had within him the capacity to wantonly kill.

“You’re a very kind person,” she said after we’d settled into the suite, and I was about to call Malcolm.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Would you mind if I made myself a drink from the mini-bar?”

“No, of course not.”

“This is a beautiful suite,” she said, removing two miniature bottles of vodka from the bar and pouring them into a glass. She also took a bag of peanuts, and potato chips. The transformation in her was marked. She was no longer the frightened, vulnerable woman she’d been at the gallery. She looked calm, contented, even smug. She smiled and raised her glass to me in a toast.

“I’ll try to reach Malcolm,” I said, sitting in an easy chair next to a phone in the living room.

I reached for the phone, but it rang before I had a chance to pick it up. I quickly lifted the receiver.

“Hello,” I said.

“Jessica? It’s Seth.”

“Where are you?” I asked.

“In my room. I thought we could meet up at the bar for a nightcap.”

“I have a better idea,” I said, taking a deep breath and checking Ms. Zeltner again. “Let’s have a nightcap here, in my suite.”