Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes (30 page)

So what? I thought and showed the photograph to Joslyn.

“Must've meant something to Cardinal,” she said, “but what? And when was it taken?”

I shrugged and looked around for a phone book: there was one on the lower shelf of the table next to the recliner. When I turned to the
L's
I found a listing for Loomis Photography. I called the number, but got no answer.

Joslyn looked questioningly at me, I said, “The photographer's still in business. I'll check with him tomorrow, see if he remembers anything.”

She was sitting on the sofa, still holding the cat. Its head was tucked into the crook of her elbow, but it wasn't struggling. “Aren't you going to the mock trial?” she asked.

The trial! Looked at my watch, saw it was after midnight. Jack would really be angry with me by now. “I hope to,” I replied. “You mind if I make another call?”

“Be Melissa's guest.”

I ignored the graveyard humor, dialed All Souls. When I explained what had happened, Jack's anger evaporated. “I'll be up all night, anyway,” he told me. “Come by when you can.”

Replacing the receiver, I asked Joslyn, “Can I keep the photo overnight?”

“Go ahead,” she held it out to me. “I doubt it has any bearing on my case.”

I didn't believe it for an instant. She was trusting me with it because she and her partner had already trusted me too much; all they could hope for now was that I'd deliver something.

“Thanks.” I tucked it in my bag, then motioned at the cat. “What're you going to do with it? Take it to the pound?”

Joslyn's hand paused in its petting motion; she looked down. The cat—wily creature—turned adoring eyes on her face. “Oh, hell,” she said, “maybe it's time to trade in the tropical fish for something more companionable.”

Her words took me back several years, to the apartment of another murdered woman, to a fat black-and-white spotted cat named Watney who had crouched growling under the sofa. I'd taken him home just for the night; last year he'd died of old age and was now resting under my rosebush.

“You won't regret it,” I told Adah.

Faint music drifted from Jed Mooney's row house. When he opened the door, I recognized the sound of Charlie Parker's alto sax. Mooney looked slightly drunk or stoned; after a moment his expression brightened.

I said, “Sorry to bother you so late, but there's something I'd like to ask you to look at.”

“No hour is too late for a woman such as you.” The courtliness of his deep bow was spoiled when he lurched into the doorframe. He righted himself, sighed, “You can see why I've never had much success with members of the fair sex.”

I smiled and followed in his shambling footsteps to the living room. He turned Charlie Parker down and without asking poured me a glass of Chianti form a near-empty bottle that sat next to the wax-encrusted one on the low table. We resumed our earlier seat on the cushions.

“You look pale and wan,” Mooney said. “Drink.”

I took a small sip of the wine, felt spreading warmth, and mentally cautioned myself against drinking more. Dinner had been a couple of Hershey bars gobbled down in the car, and much too long ago.

“What have you got to show me?” Mooney asked.

I took the photograph I'd found in Cardinal's rabbit vase from my bag and passed it to him. “Do you recognize these people?”

He held it close to the candle, studying it intently. After about fifteen seconds he said, “That's Cordy McKittridge, of course. And Roger Woods.” He pointed to the dark-haired man next to Wingfield.

I'd hoped he would identify the man as the one he'd seen at the Unspeakable with Cordy; this was even more interesting. So Roger Woods, card-carrying Communist, had visited the right-wing, security-conscious Institute. By whose invitation? Louise Wingfield's? It would appear so, but Wingfield claimed not to have known Melissa had a stepbrother.

“Are you certain it's Woods?” I asked Mooney.

“Oh, yes.” He nodded. “He's dressed considerably better than he did around my coffeehouse, but it's definitely Roger.”

“What about the other people in the picture? Did you ever see any of them at the Unspeakable?”

“That I couldn't say for sure. A few look familiar because they ran pictures of them in this evening's
Examiner,
along with a story on the Historical Tribunal session this weekend. I wish you'd told m e that's what you were working on when you came here earlier. I would have enjoyed knowing I was part of something . . . important.”

His tone was so wistful that I said, “I apologize. To make up for that, I'll arrange for you to have a pass to the preferred seating at the trial. We might even need you to testify to Roger Woods's identity when the defense presents on Sunday.”

Mooney's face lit up. “Was Woods involved in the murder? No, he'd left town by then. What possible connection could he have with it?”

“That remains to be seen.” I truly couldn't hazard a guess, and now I felt my stress level mounting. The mock trail was slated to begin in eight hours; I had yet to meet with Jack and study the original press file, and I also needed to talk with the photographer, Loomis. I would have liked to go up against Louise Wingate once more, but common sense told me to leave her to the police. God, I hoped Jack had come up with some solid structure for his case rather than waiting for me to make sense of these bits and pieces of evidence!

Jed Mooney was excited now. He wanted to talk about my case and how the mock trial would be conducted. He wanted me to drink wine, relax a while, and listen to Charlie Parker. I pleaded the need to confer to the defense attorney, and he immediately became apologetic. When I left, he was already fussing about what to wear to tomorrow's proceedings.

“Jesus, I don't like any of the ways I can approach this case,” Jack said. He sat on a stool in the law library—disheveled, red-eyed, his gray-flecked hair furrowed where he'd clawed at it with his fingers. On the table lay his files on the case, the SFPD files—which he'd barely had time to glance at—and the remains of the sandwich I'd built from somebody's leftovers when I'd arrived. It was now after two-thirty, and my head ached. My skin had that taut, tingling feel it gets when I pass far beyond exhaustion.

“I thought you'd already structured it along the lines of reasonable doubt,” I said. “Most of the cases that go before the Tribunal can't be tried on any other basis.”

“Doesn't mean I have to like it. I wanted to introduce new evidence.”

“We've got plenty of that. Taken together, though, it doesn't add up.” I yawned. “Judy's still insisting on participating?”

“Uh-huh. We've cleared it with James Wald and Rudy Valle. Stameroff's waived meeting with her to brief her, which tells me he's planning to proceed much as he did at the original trial.”

“Have you seen Rae? Did she find out anything further from TWA in Kansas City?”

Jack shook his head. “They refused to give out any more information on Cardinal.”

“And now she's dead.”

The phone buzzed, and I reached for it; as I'd expected it was Adah Joslyn, whom I'd called when I arrived over an hour ago. “Sorry it took so long to get back to you.” She sounded as ragged as Jack. “Bad news. Nueva and his girl are gone. He sold his car, TV, and stereo to a neighbor of theirs around seven, by now they could be anywhere. And we haven't located Chavez.”

“What about Louise Wingfield?”

“She has an alibi for the evening, and we've already verified it. Admits to knowing Chavez, but only as a former client of Project Helping Hands. Says she doesn't know why he showed up there that day you were in her office; but the time you left, he'd vanished and never came back.”

“She was convincing, but who knows?”

“Adah, that photograph from Cardinal's apartment?”

“Yes?” She spoke in a lower tone now.

“I have an I.D. on the man with Wingfield, Eyestone and McKittridge. He's Roger Woods.”

“The Commie. Huh. Funny thing about him, Sharon: I queried Seattle, and they've got no record of him being killed in ‘fifty-five, or for at three-year period either side.”

“So he might still be alive. And that might make the picture very important. Is it still okay if I keep it overnight?”

There was silence. Then Joslyn said, “As far as I'm concerned, there
is
no picture.”

“But if it's evidence—”

“We'll rediscover it at Cardinal's apartment.”

“Aren't you going out on a limb--”

“Sorry, Sharon. Got to go.”

Annoyed, I hung up the receiver. “Where were we?' I asked Jack.

“Reasonable doubt.”

“Right. About that new evidence you want—how likely is it that Judy'll remember anything else that might help us?”

“I can't tell what's going on in her mind.” The words sounded bitter.

“I take it the two of you still aren't getting on.”

He hesitated. “As a matter of fact, I feel damned angry at her. Right now I could give a fuck about going through with this trial, but I'm in it up to my nuts, and my reputation is on the line. Those assholes at the Tribunal have been grabbing all the press they can; the whole legal community will be sitting back and watching me duke it out with Stameroff. I feel manipulated—by the Tribunal and by Judy. She's been playing with my emotions the way you play with a rubber band—stretch them out, let them snap back. I'm just glad it'll be over on Sunday, whatever the outcome.” He paused, then grinned ruefully. “Listen to me. Good old Smilin' Jack, whining like you were Dear Abby.”

“If I were Dear Abby, I'd just tell you to get counseling. As it is, I have a more concrete suggestion—about the trial, not our love life. Judy will be called as a witness for both the prosecution and the defense, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you'll be putting her on first?”

“Right again.”

“Okay, as I recall, during the Patty Hearst bank robbery trial, they all left the courtroom and went over to the apartment where the SLA held her to look at the closet where she was confined. Can you do something like that at this trial? Move it to the Seacliff estate for Judy's testimony?”

“I can make a motion to move the trial for viewing the crime scene. It's done in cases where a point can't be proven by photographs, diagrams, or direct descriptive testimony.”

“I'd say this is such a case, wouldn't you?”

“Well, there are subjective factors that would come across more clearly if we went to the scene. That's generally why it's done. But I'd have to back that up in giving the reasons for my motion, and then it would be up to the judge's discretion.”

“Do you think he'd go for it?”

Jack rubbed his stubbled chin, thought for a moment. “Normally judges resist. They're big on control, and they know that if they leave the courtroom they'll lose a measure of it. On the other hand, this is only a mock trial; the proceedings are more in the interest of getting at the truth. I'd say there's a good chance. But are you sure we can get access to the property?”

“My real-estate broker's still working on it. I'll know early tomorrow.”

Jack sat up straighter, looking more animated than I'd seen him in days. “Then I should approach Valle and Wald at the morning recess, alert them to the possibility. When should we plan on going out there?”

“That's something else's that's a little irregular. I'd like to go tomorrow night, after dark. Given today's fog, the weather should perfectly re-create the conditions on the night of the murder.”

He frowned. “That makes the timing awfully tight. I'll have to open the defense in the last afternoon rather than on Sunday morning, but I think I can manage it. If necessary, I'll waive my opening statement—it's a bunch of bullshit, anyway.”

“In the meantime,” I said, “I'll be in and out of the courtroom, following up on a couple of other things. I'll keep you posted on what develops. Tomorrow night, if everything works out, we'll go to Seacliff and you can have Judy walk through what she did and saw on the night of the murder. That should convince the jury that there're big holes in the prosecution's case. And Judy may remember something significant that will strengthen the rest of your presentation on Sunday.”

“You really believe all this about repressed memory?”

“Don't you?”

He looked away from me. “I don't know what I believe anymore.”

“Well, I talked with a therapist about it; it's a more common occurrence than you'd imagine. The Susan Nason case—”

“I know about that.” He shook his head. “I guess it's hard to believe something that bizarre is happening to a person you're close to.”

“Well, don't brood on it tonight; you need your rest.” I stood and picked up the thick file from the SFPD.

“You going home?”

“Yes, but not to sleep. I have some reading to catch up on.”

JUDY BENDICT: Mama's dress was red in front. It was a white dress, but there was red all the way down to the hem. She said it was ink . . . .The ring was in the delphinium dress she wore last Christmas. . .

RUSSELL EYESTONE: The child came downstairs with the ring. She said she'd found it in the delphinium—that was the color of the dress. She said she could have thrown it away too . . . I guess she meant that Mrs. Benedict should have thrown that dress away with the others she gave to Goodwill. . . .

DR. ROBERT McDONALD: (Lis Benedict's personal physician); No, Mrs. Benedict didn't consult me about her case of food poisoning. Frankly that surprises me. She's always struck me as a bit of a hypochondriac. . .

LEONARE EYESTONE: All of us, with the exception of Mrs. Benedict, were present at the Blue Fox and later at the St. Francis. The only time the party was separated was in transit, and as you know, that's only a short distance. . . .