“Can he do that?” she said into the phone.
“The subpoena arrived here with your name on it. Since you haven’t personally received it, I suppose you could, technically, not show up in courtroom number three without receiving a contempt charge. But given how often we in forensics have to work with the court system, and how Mr. Kovacic has recently tarnished your reputation with same, I don’t suggest it.”
“You have got to be freakin’ kidding me.”
“I am not,” he assured her, “freakin’ kidding you.”
“How do I get myself into these things?”
“I wonder that often myself. How you get yourself into these things, I mean, and why you’ve chosen to drag the lab with you on what is looking more and more like a personal vendetta. We cannot be seen to take sides, have I made that sufficiently clear?”
“Yes.”
“Not, apparently, clear enough!” He hung up.
Theresa made two lefts to head back downtown. She wasn’t even sure where to park for the historic county courthouse since she rarely went there. The parking garage eventually turned up, underground, entirely too ominous for her tastes-parking garages had to be a rapist’s dream, isolated, dimly lit, with limited points of egress…when would the powers that be finally figure out that parking garages should be lit with lights designed to blind, like an operating room or a night baseball game? Nevertheless, she managed to get to the ground floor without any felonies inflicted upon her, to be immediately distracted by the sweeping architecture.
From the middle of the marble staircase she stopped to stare at the stained-glass depiction of Law and Justice, and noticed too late the man who paused beside her.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Richard Springer said. The defense expert who had complained about her to the medical examiner appeared dressed for court, in a conservative blue suit and with a leather briefcase.
Theresa had had too long a day for subtlety. “You aren’t here for Evan Kovacic, are you?”
“Never heard of him.”
“Good.” She continued up the stairs to the third floor and followed the signs.
Springer came along. “I suppose you’ve heard that we aren’t going to have to face off on the witness stand after all.”
“No one told me.” Theresa stopped walking when she found courtroom number 3, but still did not look at her temporary companion. If she ignored him, he might go away.
“The charges were reduced to statutory, time served.”
Now she looked at him. In fact, she stared in horror before sinking to the bench and resting her face on one upturned palm. After a moment, she felt a vibration in the wood. He had sat down beside her.
“Look, if it’s any consolation, it had nothing to do with your stupid shoe print.”
What did that matter? The scumbag was still walking free.
As if uncomfortable with the silence, he went on, “It had more to do with the fact that the judge at the preliminary hearing didn’t seem convinced by the girl’s story. It turned out she had neglected to mention quite a few things.”
She lifted her head slightly, still staring at the patterns in the marble tile. “Such as?”
“Such as, she invited him to her bedroom, and not for the first time, and that the weapon used was a rubber pirate dagger, a souvenir of the family’s last trip to Disney World. Basically she had to come up with a story for her parents, and then couldn’t stick to it.”
This did, she admitted to herself but not to him, make her feel better. But it didn’t make her any less guilty. Her work had been sloppy. “Thank you for telling me.”
He grinned, with a glint in his eyes that no doubt charmed most female members of any jury. “Does this mean you no longer consider me a whore?”
She could not hedge to that extent. “No, you’re still a whore. But I’m hardly perfect.”
This did not seem to be the answer he had expected, but didn’t appear to bother him either. He said only, “Until next time, then.” To her relief he did not offer to shake hands, but set off to his next perfor-testimony.
Drew passed him, coming up the hallway. He had given up the knit jacket for a navy blazer she suspected had last been worn for his high school graduation. “I tried to call you directly but it didn’t go through, I guess. Thanks for coming.”
“I didn’t have a choice. You had a subpoena issued in my name. Drew, what the hell are you doing?”
“I have to try to get Cara. You know he’ll kill her if I don’t.”
Other people bustled around them, their footsteps echoing on the cold marble, bouncing off the three-story-high ceiling. That was the hell of it-she did know. She felt absolutely certain. It was the only explanation that fit all the known facts. Evan had killed Jillian, almost perfectly so. How much easier would it be to kill Cara, a helpless, orphaned infant? “Do you have a lawyer yet?”
“No. I’ll represent myself.”
She put a hand to her face to stifle the groan. “Drew. You do understand that the odds of succeeding are very slim. You are no blood relation to Cara and you were not married to her mother.”
“But Evan killed her mother.”
“Do you have any proof of that?”
“No. But you do, right?”
“No, Drew, I don’t, that’s what-”
“Mrs. MacLean. Why am I not surprised to see you here?”
Evan Kovacic and his attorney had come up behind her. The attorney appeared as impeccably dressed and as unflappable as he had in the M.E.’s office. Evan wore a dress shirt and tie and appeared unhappy, either about her presence, the court case, or having to put on a tie.
She opened her mouth to tell him that she had received a subpoena and had to be there, realized it would not do her any good, and shut it again.
The attorney held the door open for all of them. “Shall we go in?”
Civil hearings were very different from what Theresa had become accustomed to in criminal trials. For one thing, she didn’t have to twiddle her thumbs in the hall until called to the stand. For another, there were no opening arguments, no posturing to be done for the jury’s benefit. Underneath a painting of the Pilgrims, and hemmed in by the darkly paneled walls, the judge asked each side why they were there and implied that their answers should be precise. No other spectators or participants appeared.
Evan’s attorney began, setting forth the facts of Cara’s birth, Evan’s marriage to Jillian, and Jillian’s death, adding that no one else had applied for guardianship except for Drew, who had no legal relationship to the infant. Then it was Drew’s turn to speak. He did this horribly, stammering, stumbling, and dwelling for far too long on how much he had truly loved Jillian. The judge glanced at his watch more than once, and finally interrupted. “Mr. Fleming, I granted an expeditious hearing because I understood there to be some emergency as to the well-being of a child. Do you have any facts to present to indicate that Mr. Kovacic would be an unfit father?”
“Only that he killed Cara’s mother, Your Honor.”
Everyone became very still, except the judge. He seemed merely confused. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“He murdered Jillian.”
Now Evan’s attorney sprang up. “Your Honor, this is the purest and vilest slander-”
The judge stopped looking at his watch. “How is he supposed to have killed-”
Drew shouted over the other men. His voice changed, as Theresa knew it could, stress breaking the words into dangerous shards. The judge caught the change and stared. “That’s the only reason he wants Cara, for her money. Then he’ll kill her-”
“Your Honor, we intend to file charges against Mr. Fleming for these baseless allegations-”
“They were married three weeks, Your Honor.” Drew sucked in a breath, obviously working hard to get his voice under control. It worked, somewhat. “Three weeks, and a perfectly healthy young mother ends up dead?”
“-a felony charge of slander and harassment-”
The judge appeared thoughtful, or at least curious. “How did she die?”
“Ask her.” Drew pointed at Theresa, in the second-to-last row of seats. “She knows.”
All four men in the room, plus the bailiff and court reporter, stopped and stared at her.
“And who is she?” the judge asked.
She could only hope that Drew would not introduce her as Wonder Woman.
The walk to the witness stand took forever. She passed Drew on his way back to his seat, and successfully resisted the urge to slap him on the back of the head. She had no idea what to say, and wished for Don, or at least Leo, and thought what a funny story this would make to tell Paul over dinner, if, of course, Paul were still alive to hear it.
The bailiff swore her in. She took her seat.
“Yes, Your Honor?” she replied when he said her name.
“Has Mr. Kovacic been charged with the murder of his wife?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Is he a suspect in her death?”
How to answer that? “He is to me” didn’t seem reasonable…though she was a death investigator and she did suspect him, which didn’t seem quite legitimate…such was the self-esteem, still, of a female raised in the twentieth century… With no other strategy in sight, she bunted. “The investigation by the Cleveland Police Department, to my knowledge, has not been completed.”
The judge didn’t care about her strategy. “So is he a suspect?”
“I couldn’t say, sir. It’s not my investigation.” Was she throwing Frank under the bus? Would he kill her if she did?
“Then why are you here?”
Good question, she narrowly avoided answering. Then she made the mistake of looking at Drew. Skinny, runny-nosed, devastated Drew, who focused on her as if he had terminal cancer and she stood with the last vial of a known cure. Drew remained a problematic human being, but maybe the only one left on the planet with Cara’s best interests in mind.
She turned to the judge. “There are many unexplained factors in Mrs. Kovacic’s death.” She listed the location of the body, Jillian’s state of apparent contentment, and the absence of any obvious cause of death.
“So you don’t know why this woman died? What does it say on the death certificate?”
“The death certificate isn’t complete yet.” Drew should have called Christine, Theresa thought. She’d have impressed the judge and made mincemeat of that lawyer. Christine made mincemeat of most people.
“Is there any reason to suspect foul play?”
“It’s unusual for a perfectly healthy young woman to drop dead, Your Honor.”
“Absence of proof is not proof of absence.” The judge repeated what Frank had said, so primly that Theresa had to look down to keep from glaring at him. The worst part, of course, was that he was right.
“Mrs. Kovacic committed suicide, Your Honor.” Evan’s attorney molded his features into a properly empathetic mask to accompany the statement. “She walked out into the woods and let herself freeze to death. Postnatal depression could have played a part.”
“To do so she’d have to walk three miles in subfreezing temperatures without frostbite,” Theresa put in. “Which is highly unlikely.”
“No one dragged her to that forest. No one tied her to that tree or made her stay there,” the attorney persisted.
“How would you know that?” Theresa demanded.
“Why else would a perfectly healthy woman sit down in the freezing outdoors unless she intended to die? You said yourself there were no signs of foul play.”
“I-she-”
The judge said her name, waited for her full attention. “Do you believe this woman was murdered?”
Her mouth became too dry to form words. But the judge had not asked what she could prove or what Leo would think was prudent to state. He had asked her opinion after placing her under oath.
“Yes, Your Honor. I do.”
Evan leaped to his feet. “That’s a lie! This woman’s working with Fleming-”
“Your Honor! This is a clear violation of my client’s-”
The judge spoke over both of the men. “Do you have any proof?”
She tried. “Only my training and my experience in over ten years of working with both homicides and natural deaths-”
“Any other proof? Any physical evidence that implicates Mr. Kovacic in the death of his wife?”
She thought of something. Probably nuts, but worth a try. “It would help me to complete my investigation if Mr. Kovacic would give me his consent to search Jillian’s living areas.”
Evan had sat, but now jumped up again. “Your Honor! I asked the police to step in when Jillian disappeared. Mrs. MacLean searched my house then! What the hell is she looking for, and why didn’t she find it before?”
Theresa protested, “At that time I was investigating a disappearance with no signs of foul play, not a murder. Had I known Jillian’s body would show an…unclear cause of death or signs of transport, I would have conducted the search differently.”
This excuse brought her no comfort, nor did it impress the judge, who said, “Search warrants and the like are not my bailiwick. If this man needs to be investigated for murder, tell the police.”
Theresa worked hard to keep an even tone of voice. “I understand perfectly, Your Honor. Everyone in this room is here because they care about little Cara’s well-being. If I could complete my investigation, it would put everyone’s mind at ease, and surely Mr. Kovacic’s most of all. He must want to know what happened to his wife.”
She thought it sounded good. Then she glanced at Evan. Then his attorney, and then the judge. Not one was buying it.
“I don’t want this woman anywhere near me or my home, Your Honor,” Evan said.
“Despite the neat bit of extortion on Mrs. MacLean’s part-” began his attorney.
“Once more,” said the judge, who had probably spent his days in family court listening to participants hurl the wildest accusations ever concocted on the face of the earth, “I don’t issue search warrants and I don’t allow my courtroom to be used to persuade reluctant witnesses to cooperate in same. Do you, or do you not, have any evidence in hand that implicates Mr. Kovacic as having caused the death of his wife?”
Drew watched her, his gaze so intense it sucked the air from the room into its path.
“No, Your Honor.”
Evan sat back down.
Drew wilted before her, his hands gripping the antique wooden railing, his forehead sinking to his fingers.
“Then I have no choice but to grant the custody of Cara Perry to her mother’s legal spouse, Evan Kovacic. This decision is permanent and binding. Next case.”