possible that working together, in secret, they could change history. It was possible, but not likely.
The reason, unless I miss my bet, is that there’s no way Bonguard could have known at the time of the murder that the Jefferson Letter was a fraud. And it was this fact that propelled the murder. Unless I’m wrong, Ginnis would never have told his wife what he was doing. The risks were too great. He would not want to put her in jeopardy if things went wrong, risked having her accused of collusion and conspiracy. But there was one person, sufficiently in the shadows and therefore safe, with whom he might share the secret: his trusted former clerk.
That night, as Harry and I flew east toward Miami and south to Curacao, we must have passed Trisha Scott in the air, jetting the other way. She was in a frantic dash to reach our office, racing to slip the envelope with the Jefferson Letter and a few of her own clipped hairs under our office door. Scott saw what was happening. Reading news reports of the trial, watching the revelations minute by minute on television, she knew that the only way to stop us from looking further, to prevent us from stumbling over what was really happening, was to deliver the evidence and hope that this would draw the attention of the world back to the trial. But she was already too late.
When I called to make the arrangements, I insisted that we meet in a public place. I no longer know who it is I’m dealing with. Here in a crowded room, I feel safer. It is the same Washington restaurant where we first met for dinner.
We spend a couple of minutes in false pleasantries-the weather, politics. I’m not entirely certain if she realizes why I’m here. She is animated, sitting erect in the chair, actually laughing once at something she heard in one of the campaigns. She is also very nervous.
Then I broach the subject. “I take it you do understand that it’s over now?”
She gives me a quizzical expression, then leans in toward the table. “Excuse me?”
“It’s over. All of it,” I tell her.
She makes a perfect oval with her mouth as if she wants to say, What’s over? But as she studies my face, she stops herself. She closes her mouth and doesn’t say a word.
In this instant, Trisha Scott looks as if she’s aged ten years in the seven months that have passed since our last meeting.
“I am not a cop. I’m not a reporter. Under other circumstances I wouldn’t even be here tonight. But I have a client, and he’s still hanging out there on the line, in jeopardy. Do you understand?”
“I read that in the newspapers. I’m sorry to hear it,” she says. “But I’m not sure what that has to do with me.”
“Then let’s cut to the chase,” I tell her. “I left a memorandum on my desk with an e-mail to my partner as well as to the district attorney with your name, phone number, and address on it, just in case something bad were to happen to me during my trip here tonight. I told them to find you and to pluck a few hairs and that all their questions would be answered.”
This seems to freeze her in place.
Trisha Scott could feel safe sending off bits of her hair in an envelope under our office door because she knew there was no national database for hair samples as there is for fingerprints. Unless there was someone to point the way, to connect her to the crime, the hair evidence might serve to exonerate Carl without implicating her. I wanted this on the table early, so that if she had plans to send me to join Scarborough, she would know from the get-go that they are fruitless.
“It’s over. Do you understand?”
It takes a few seconds, and then she seems to wither in the chair. Whatever will or determination was left evaporates almost in the blink of an eye. I find myself suddenly looking at a different person across the table, at what I can only characterize as a catatonic mask.
For a long time, she says nothing. She takes a drink of water, her eyes suddenly scanning the restaurant. She sets the glass back down and seems to look right through me as she gathers her thoughts.
“I want you to understand…I wonder…I wonder if I could go to the ladies’ room?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say.
“Police?”
I nod. They’re not here yet. They are on their way, but she doesn’t have to know this.
“Oh, God! I want you to understand how it was. It’s important that you understand.”
“We don’t have much time,” I tell her.
“There was no other choice,” she says. “All the way out on the plane, I got more and more angry. Terry Scarborough was the kind of person who left a trail of ravaged souls as he cruised through life. By the time I got to that hotel, I was seething.”
“You don’t have to say anything. You’ve probably already said too much.”
“No,” she says. “I’ve been holding it in so long. Nobody I could talk to. I have to…I was thinking as far ahead as my brain would allow. I had the cab let me out two blocks from the hotel so there’d be no record of a taxi having dropped me. For a time I actually thought that-given how I felt, the anger-that I could kill him with my bare hands. But he was bigger than I was, stronger. I didn’t have a gun. Even if I did, I wouldn’t know how to use it. I thought about a knife. Maybe I could buy one. But I’d read enough briefs on appeal in criminal cases. I knew if I did that, even if I got rid of the knife, there’d be a trail. Wounds in the body would tell them the length of the blade, whether it was serrated, probably right down to the make and model. I’d read enough about it. I knew they could do it. They’d start checking all the shops, recent sales, anybody buying a single hunting or butcher knife. And even if I used cash, the salesclerk would remember this woman, because her eyes were all red from crying. I decided I couldn’t buy a weapon. I’d have to improvise, use whatever I found in the room-a lamp, a heavy knickknack off one of the shelves.”
“But then you didn’t have to go looking for a weapon, did you?”
“No. But you already know about that, the hammer in the stairwell. I didn’t want to get into the elevator. Too many people would see me.”
“How did you know what room he was in?”
“I called Dick Bonguard on his cell the night before. I had Dick’s number in Outlook on my computer. I knew that Dick would be trailing along with Terry on the book tour. I told Dick I had something I needed to fax to Terry. He gave me the hotel and the suite number.
“I climbed fourteen floors, all the way to the top. Every three or four flights, I’d stop to catch my breath. That’s when I saw it.”
“The hammer?”
“It was as if God had reached down and put it there and I was his avenging angel. I took it, put it in my purse. I had a good-size bag I always used for travel. I carried it over my shoulder, and I climbed to the top.”
“And the raincoat, the gloves?”
“The raincoat was in a little pouch, in the bottom of my purse with the gloves. I knew if I hit him with the hammer, there would be blood. It would get all over me and I’d be trapped there. From everything I read in the papers-and believe me, I kept up with the progress of your case every day,” she says, “the police never found the gloves?”
I shake my head.
“I dropped them in a trash can someplace. I don’t even remember where.”
“The police wouldn’t have looked very hard,” I tell her. “It didn’t fit the facts of their case. They had a fingerprint on the murder weapon. But it wasn’t yours.”
“I know,” she says. This seems to bother her more than the actual killing itself, the fact that Carl and his parents have been dragged through hell. “I would never have let him go to prison or die,” she says. “You have to believe that. I was buying time. That’s all I was doing. I knew that sooner or later I would have to do something to put an end to it. When the news of the Jefferson Letter broke, it was almost a relief. The very thing I’d been hiding so long was now out in the open. There was no need to hide it any longer.”
“So you fed it to us, hoping that it would be enough?”
She nods nervously several times. “Why didn’t it work?”
“One obstinate juror,” I tell her. “The way it goes sometimes.”
“Then if he’d been acquitted, you wouldn’t be here tonight.”
I shrug. She’s right. If Carl were on the street, free, out from under, this wouldn’t be my job. And given the theory of the prosecution, if Carl were acquitted, they would never be able to convict Scott-that is, if they even
