“Not that I can recall,” Nell lied, spooning in the last of her dessert. Outside the dark windows, topiary pinpointed with strings of tiny white lights looked like earthbound constellations. Inside, the light was soft and flattering, the food and service excellent. Nell could almost believe there was a world where this kind of ease and quality could be a daily occurrence.
And of course there was such a world. And Jack Selig could afford it.
“Consider yourself told for the first time tonight, then,” he said.
The waiter arrived and topped off their coffee. Selig’s gaze strayed for a moment away from Nell. She needed the break. It was a relief not to be regarded as an object of worship.
“Are we going to be honest with each other?” she asked.
He looked back at her, slightly surprised. “Or course. We’ve taken the oath.”
Nell didn’t recall any oath, but then he might have slipped it in somehow. “What were you thinking just a moment ago?” she asked.
“Of how much you resemble a younger Iris.”
Jesus!
“I hope that doesn’t upset you,” he said.
“No. Well, yes…At the same time, I guess I’m flattered.”
“You see my problem,” he said.
“Yes. But I’m not sure I’m the solution.”
“Oh, I know you’re not. No one is. But believe me, I enjoy being with you not only because of your resemblance to my late wife, but because of who you are.”
“But you don’t know me that well.”
“Maybe better than you think. I have connections, Nell, and I confess I used them to gather some information about you. I know that you’re spirited, generous, smart, and ambitious.”
And that I’m divorced and assumed by some to be a killer cop.
Nell wasn’t sure just what to make of this. “That’s all not very specific.”
“I’m not that interested in specifics, more in who you are. I know you’ve had marital problems in the past, and some scraps. Some run-ins with superior officers. I don’t care.”
“Mr. Selig-”
“Jack.”
“Jack, I’m not Iris.”
“I don’t expect you to be, wouldn’t want you to be. Would never ask that you be.” He sipped his coffee and smiled at her. “You look confused.”
“Is it companionship you want, Jack?”
“More than that, Nell. But we pledged honesty-”
Did we?
“-and the pathetic truth is that I’ll take what I can get.”
“Don’t expect-”
“-I would never expect. Anything.”
Nell looked across the candle-lit table at him. “I don’t think you could ever seem pathetic, Jack.”
He was obviously greatly pleased. “Ah, what you can do for me. Do I sound selfish?”
“Sure. We’re all selfish.”
When they were finished with coffee, Selig paid the check, leaving an outsized tip, probably to show off.
Outside the restaurant, the evening had cooled and a breeze carried the fragrance of nearby flowerbeds. There was a bright half moon, with only a few clouds scudding across the night sky. It wasn’t far to the edge of the park and the brighter lights of the city.
“I can dismiss the driver and we can walk,” Selig suggested.
“Fine,” Nell said. Though her feet might start to ache in the high heels, she was tired of sitting down.
She watched as Selig walked over and talked briefly with the driver behind the wheel of their waiting white stretch limo, paid him, no doubt with a generous tip, and returned to her. Two women entering the restaurant gave him more than a passing glance. He was trim and moved like a much younger man. Nell could believe he was interested in more than companionship.
“Sure you’re not afraid strolling in the park at night?” he asked, taking her arm.
“It’s not that far,” she said, as they began to walk, “and usually there’s a cop nearby.”
32
It was too warm in the jury assembly room. Melanie thought that might be on purpose, so juries would come in sooner with their verdict. One of the jurors asked the bailiff, who was standing just outside the door, to kick up the air conditioning. He smiled and complied. It made no difference.
Light spilled in through grilled windows that didn’t allow for much of a view. Heat seemed to rise from the humidity-damp wood table and chairs, along with a subtle scent of furniture polish and painful deliberations past. No one on the jury thought this was going to be brief.
Melanie was the foreperson, primarily because no one else wanted the job.
The eleven other jurors stared at her for guidance. Each had a legal-size pad in front of them on the table, on which to make notes, but after only a preliminary discussion, Melanie suggested they take an anonymous vote and find out where everyone stood. So pieces were torn from the top sheets of legal pads and used simply to write “guilty” or “not guilty” on, then folded and passed to Melanie.
She unfolded and tallied them on what was left of her top yellow sheet. Three abstentions. Two not guilties. Seven for conviction.
“I’m a ‘not guilty,’” she said.
“What’s your reasoning?” asked Juror Number Three, a greengrocer from the Bronx named Delahey. With his rimless glasses, refined air, and conservative suit, he looked more like a college professor than anyone in the room.
His question was a good one, because Melanie simply knew that Richard Simms-Cold Cat-wasn’t a killer. “The time element,” she said. “If Simms was seen outside Knee High’s apartment around the time Knee High said he was there, he wouldn’t have had time to cross town on foot, or even by cab or subway, to his own apartment and murder his wife.”
“Barely time enough,” said Juror Number One, Mimi, a dance instructor who looked like, and in fact was, an aging ballerina and was always dressed in black.
“And for time to be a factor in the defendant’s favor,” said Number Eight, a portly, sweaty gentleman who was a financial analyst, “we would have to believe Merv Clark. And, frankly, I didn’t find him credible. Nor did I find his wife credible when she testified as to what a sterling husband he was.”
“She almost made you think her broken teeth were her fault,” said the ballerina.
“Clark might be a wife beater, but he was slightly more credible than Knee High,” said Number Two, a freelance writer named Wilma King who lived in the Village. “Why should anyone believe anything said by someone who’s legally changed his name to Knee High?”
“Because he was under oath,” said Melanie.
Several of the jurors laughed. Others looked at her as if they were having second thoughts about her being foreperson.
“If you believed Clark, you don’t have to believe Knee High,” Melanie pointed out to Wilma.
“I know. And I believed Clark’s testimony.”
“There’s also the fact that Edie Piaf was shot,” Melanie said, “and Simms didn’t have any powder burns on his hands.”
“He could have worn gloves, like the prosecution said.” Delahey the greengrocer added.
“Knee High and Clark were both lying,” Mimi said. “This seems to me like a slam dunk.”
“I thought you were a dancer, not a basketball player,” said a gray-haired man at the far end of the table. Number Twelve, Walter Smithers. No one laughed. A few of the jurors groaned.
