“Let me put it this way: Theoretically, you’d be correct.”
“Good. Theoretically, then, I’d like you to convey a message from me to the prosecutor assigned to this case. I’ve read the NCIS report. What there is of it anyway. Half of it was blacked out.”
“Actually, Ms. Hart is pretty lucky to have a report at all.”
“What makes you say that?”
“It can take as long as six months, at least, for the agency to issue a final report. This one moved very quickly. Your client should be happy about that.”
Jack smiled to himself. Just as he’d thought: The chief assistant did know everything. Jack said, “Technically, she’s not my client. Not yet, anyway. Like I said on the phone, I’m still debating whether to take the case.”
“How do you know there’s going to be a case?”
“The NCIS ruled her husband’s death a homicide.”
“I meant a case against her.”
Jack gave him an assessing look. “Are you telling me-”
“I’m not telling you anything. I thought I’d made that clear from the beginning.”
“Okay. Right or wrong, Ms. Hart seems to think she’s the prime suspect.”
Gerry was deadpan, silent.
Jack said, “That’s a pretty nerve-racking position to be in, for a woman who maintains her complete innocence.”
“They all maintain their innocence. That’s why I’m still sitting on this side of the desk. I respect you, Jack, but I sleep easier knowing that I don’t defend the guilty.”
Jack moved to the edge of his chair, locking eyes with his old boss. “That’s why I’m here. I’m in a tough spot with this case. Lindsey Hart is-” He stopped himself, not wanting to say too much. Gerry was an old buddy, but he was still on the other side. “Let’s just say she’s a friend of a friend. Of a very close friend. I want to help her if I can. But I don’t want to get involved in this if…”
“If what?” Gerry said, scoffing. “If she’s guilty?”
Jack didn’t return the smile. His expression was dead serious.
“Come on, Jack. You didn’t expect me to look you in the eye and say, ‘Yup, you’re right buddy. Take the case. These investigators are breathing down the neck of the wrong suspect.’ Or did you?”
“At this point, I just want to know how honest my own client is being with me. I need to verify something. It has to do with the time of death.”
“Even if I knew the details of this case, which I don’t, I couldn’t comment on the investigation.”
“Sure you could. It’s just a question of whether you will or not.”
“Give me one good reason why I should.”
“Because I’m calling in every favor, every ounce of friendship that ever existed between us.”
Gerry averted his eyes, as if the plea had made him uncomfortable. “You’re making this awfully personal.”
“For me, it doesn’t get any more personal than this.”
Gerry sat quietly for a moment, thinking. Finally, he looked at Jack and said, “What do you need?”
“There’s a ton of information missing from the NCIS report, but one hole in particular has me scratching my head. Lindsey Hart says that her husband was alive when she left the house at five-thirty A.M. The medical examiner puts the time of death between three and five A.M.”
“Not the first time the forensic evidence contradicts a suspect’s version of events.”
“Hear me out on this. The victim was shot in the head with his own weapon. The report makes no mention of a silencer. In fact, he was shot with his own gun, which was recovered in the bedroom just a few feet away from his body. No silencer in sight, no tattered pillow or blanket that was used to muffle the noise.”
“So?”
“They had a ten-year-old son. If Lindsey Hart shot her husband between three and five A.M., don’t you think their son would have heard the gun go off?”
“Depends on how big the house is.”
“This is a military base. Even for officer housing, we’re talking two bedrooms right next to each other, eleven hundred total square feet.”
“What does the NCIS report say?”
“Nothing that I could find. Maybe it’s on one of the pages that was blacked out.”
“Maybe.”
“Either way, I want to know how the investigators account for the sound of the gunshot. How is it that a woman fires off a 9 mm Beretta, and her ten-year-old-son in the next room sleeps right through it?”
“Could be a sound sleeper.”
“Sure. That could well be their explanation.”
“And if it is?”
Jack paused, as if to underscore his words. “If that’s the best they can come up with, Lindsey Hart may have just found herself a lawyer.”
A weighty silence lingered between them. Finally, Gerry said, “I’ll see what I can do. Keeping Jack Swyteck off the case might be just enough incentive for the lead prosecutor to cough up a little information.”
“Wow. That may be the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me.”
“Or maybe I just don’t like women who murder their husbands and then run out and hire a sharp defense lawyer.”
Jack nodded slowly, as if he’d deserved that. “The sooner the better on this, okay?”
“Like I said, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Sure.” He rose and shook Gerry’s hand, then thanked him and said good-bye. He knew the way out.
4
The answer came back sooner than anticipated. It was anything but what Jack had expected.
Jack had taken an easy weekend, a little boating on the bay with Theo, some work in the yard. Nothing could stop him from wondering how different his life might have been. At first, his attraction to Jessie Merrill had been overwhelmingly physical. She was a striking beauty, definitely not a prude, though the bad-girl image was mostly an act. She was easily as bright as any of the women he dated in law school, and if her impressive sphere of knowledge included knowing how to please, who was Jack to hold it against her? Unfortunately it hadn’t occurred to him that she might be “The One” until after her flawless rendition of the time-honored “I don’t deserve you, sure hope we can still be friends” speech. Jack would have given anything to get her back. Five months later, when she actually did come back, Jack had already fallen for Cindy Paige, the girl of his dreams, his bride to be, the woman he would eventually divorce and never speak to again. Jessie graciously backed away and wished him well, never bothering to tell him that she was carrying their baby.
What if he’d never met Cindy? Would he and Jessie have gotten married? Would Jessie have avoided the life choices that had courted death at such a young age? Perhaps Jack would have a son to take to baseball games, to go fishing with, to viciously defend from the corrupting influences of Uncle Theo. By Sunday night, Jack had created the perfect little world, the three of them living happily ever after, the image of his son firmly in his head, everything about him as real as it could be-the sound of his voice, the smell of his hair, those skinny ten-year-old arms that wrapped around him as they wrestled on the floor.
Then came the Monday morning phone call from the U.S. attorney’s office, the reminder that nothing in life was ever really perfect.
“Lindsey Hart’s son is deaf,” said Gerry Chavetz.
Jack could hardly speak, and he managed to utter only the obvious. “That’s why he didn’t hear the gunshot.”
“That’s why he can’t hear anything,” said the prosecutor.
Gerry continued to speak, and Jack gripped the phone tightly, as if fearful that it might drop from his hand. Jack should have probed for more information, and he would have kept Gerry talking all morning if the boy had been just another boy. But circumstances made it impossible for Jack to pretend that he didn’t care, and his connection to
