The Victim's Wife Read online

  Sure you did, I thought, wondering if I should ask her what it was.

  “Not a problem,” I said instead, picking up the menu. “What’s good here?”

  “You don’t get out very much, do you?”

  I gave her a questioning look.

  “This is one of the most popular restaurants in the city. How have you never been here? I would have expected you and Barbara to have come before.”

  I shrugged. “Never have.” Barbara had a thing for Applebee’s. I liked making her happy, so we frequented the place.

  “Try their chicken sandwich. I think you’ll like it.” There was something in Cindy’s smile. I was suddenly quite wary.

  I looked at the chicken sandwich, decided it looked good and set my menu down because I wanted to focus on our conversation.

  I gave Cindy an intense look, which she ignored while studying her menu. After it was apparent she was going to look at the menu for a while, I pulled out my phone and continued to scroll through the news, stopping every now and again to click on an article that interested me so I could scan it before going back to the headlines. It wasn’t until almost five minutes later before Cindy finally looked up. “I’ve decided. I’m going with the chicken walnut salad.”

  She gave me a smile, the same one she gave me when we had dated.

  I forced a smile onto my face.

  I am just imagining things about the restaurant choice, right?

  I suddenly felt guilty about this meeting. Was I enjoying it too much? What would I say if Barbara were to walk in and see the two of us at this table?

  She knew that I was on a case opposite from Cindy. I’d even made sure to mention to her the other times I’d met with Cindy for lunch to discuss this case. Barbara had been surprised but had accepted my explanation that it was in my client’s best interest that I do everything I could to make sure the prosecution and I were getting along.

  Barbara had not said anything more about it, but I had readily seen the jealousy in her eyes, even though I had assured her there was nothing to worry about. Cindy had taken on an almost the legendary role in my past. Barbara knew all about the antics she had played over the years.

  This woman stole my notes in court.

  “Are you taking Penny’s case?” Cindy asked, favoring me with another smile. It was as if she knew it was working on me.

  “Too early to say anything about that,” I said, giving a shrug and sliding my phone back into my pocket.

  “I would avoid it. I’d stick with Mason and blame his actions on Penny.”

  “Noted.” If all she wanted to do was talk about what I was doing on the case, she was not going to get much more than one-word answers from me.

  “Mitch, I’m not even going to try to talk about another offer at this point. It seems like your client is determined to go to trial. Is that a fair assessment?”

  There it was again, the offer.

  Ostensibly, this was the reason why she had wanted to meet with me and had not wanted to talk over the phone. Mason wanted to roll the dice by taking this to trial.

  “I’ve had him thinking about it,” I said, “I’ve asked him, and he hasn’t gotten back to me. It’s probably a fair assumption we’re going to trial, but I have been surprised in the past by my clients, so I’m not going to commit to anything.”

  Cindy nodded.

  “You said you had an update on the case for me?”

  “Yes, we will be amending the charges against your client to add conspiracy.”

  I nodded. “I assumed.”

  She could have told me that over the phone. I’d already even asked about that.

  Cindy gave me an odd look. “Aren’t you curious why?”

  “How about you elaborate?”

  She shook her head. “I sometimes forget how maddening you can be. You know that?”

  “No more maddening than I was, I hope.”

  “Well, when I dumped you... Oh, wait, it was you who dumped me.” She gave me a wicked smile that made me wonder if maybe this was about revenge. “Never mind, let’s leave our past out of it, shall we?”

  I was uncertain about what to say. When it became apparent I was waiting for her to continue, she obliged.

  “What you don’t know yet is that we found evidence Penny and Mason are having an affair.”

  I stared at Cindy with unblinking eyes, waiting for her to go on. I didn’t want to risk giving away any information by saying or doing anything. She watched me closely, hoping to get an idea of whether or not I already knew about this.

  “I’m assuming you already know,” Cindy said. “In any case, I want to give you a preview of our case.” She paused for dramatic effect to make sure she had my full attention. She then smiled. She was enjoying this moment. “Your clients wanted to take control of the company, and they figured if they murdered Max and then combined their ownership that they would have sole control. What do you think of that?”

  “You know better than to ask me.”

  “That’s the theory we’re going to present in court. We have pictures. We have witnesses. We have everything. It’s not going to be hard to make the connection between the two. Hence the reason why I recommend you don’t take Penny on as a client.”

  It was clear where she was going with this, but I wanted to make her say it aloud. She’d already hinted at it before but was working up to it again.

  “There is another option, you know,” Cindy looked at me and gave me another big smile. I could tell she thought she finally had me in a corner and that she was going to force a deal.

  “I will make sure to tell my client all this information,” I said, feeling like a broken record because this conversation was going much the same as it had before.

  “Is that all you have to say?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know that there’s much more to say. I appreciate the preview of your case. I will make sure my client’s aware of it. I don’t know that it is gonna change any of our plans at present.”

  This was not the response she had hoped for.

  She looked like she was about to explode.

  “Mitch, I’m gonna ruin these people’s lives! I’m going to drag them through the mud. It’s bad enough that they’re going to jail. Do they really need to have everybody around them drug through this muck as well? Come on, that’s just selfish of both of them. Penny and Mason have got to think about others besides themselves.”

  She was getting frustrated now. She always did have a hair-trigger. This was part of the reason why it had not seemed totally out of character when she had stolen my notes in court that day. She would get furious, make a rash action, and then regret it later. If she’d had even an hour to calm down, she would not have stolen my notes. Something I’d done in court must have set her off because when I came back from a bathroom break, my notes had gone missing.

  I waited, certain there was more. When I didn’t fill the gap, Cindy went on.

  “All we have to do is start talking about a deal. I’ll make sure none of this slips into the press.”

  Slips into the press?

  This was her rash side coming out. If I wanted, I could push her buttons right now, but it was the last thing I wanted to do. It wouldn’t help my client’s case.

  “Surely you misspoke,” I said as calmly as I could muster, “you are surely not suggesting you would disseminate information to the press purely for the hope of influencing the outcome in court?”

  Cindy opened her mouth and then closed it again. “Of course, I didn’t. That’s not what I was saying at all.”

  “Just checking,” I gave her a brief smile, “just wanted to make sure I hadn’t misheard you.”

  “Come on, Mitch, this is not a good case for your client; this is not a good case for you to take to trial. Deep down in your heart, you know that Mason deserves to go to jail for what he did, even if you’re not going to admit that to yourself consciously. I’m going to send both of them there, and they are going away for a long
time. It’s clear they conspired. I’m going to prove it in court, and you’re going to be left with egg on your face at the end of the day.”

  “Cindy,” I shook my head and chuckled, “it’s obvious you want to start talking about a plea bargain. If you have a better number in mind, I’m happy to take it back to Mason. I’ll make sure he gives it serious thought, promise.”

  “I don’t have a new number.” She said it with such indignation that I was sure she did. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you unless I knew he was going to take it seriously.”

  “He will take it seriously.”

  “You know what I mean. I want him to take it under serious consideration, not just bandy it about. I don’t want to waste my time otherwise.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Cindy. I’m just proceeding with the case as my client wants me to proceed. If he wants to talk about a deal, I will not hesitate to call you. In fact, I promise I will call you the moment I get off the phone with him. In the meantime, unless you have an offer you want me to take back to him, I fear we are wasting our time and that we should focus on discussing how we want the trial to play out.”

  Cindy sat back in her chair. “Fine. Let’s talk about the trial.”

  It was at that moment that the waiter showed up to take our order.

  Finally, I thought, took him long enough.

  40

  I glanced at my watch and saw that it was five minutes after four, meaning that Winston was late for our meeting. This was unusual. The man liked to be punctual. I had never asked him because he was so discrete, but I had always assumed he had served at least a couple of years in the Army or another branch of the military. The man just had a bearing and precision that made me think he was former military. The discipline he showed in his life, his speech, and actions weren’t fully explained by his time as a police officer.

  My phone buzzed just as I was about to turn back to the motion I was working on. “It’s Winston,” Ellie said, “should I show him in?”

  “Please do.”

  A few moments later, Winston was sitting in a guest chair, spreading out several manila envelopes on my desk in front of me. “I’ve got a bunch of information for you,” Winston gave me a piercing look. “How much time do you have?”

  I glanced at my watch, looked at the motion I was working on and then decided to push it to tomorrow if needed.

  “I’m good. We can take all the time you need.”

  Winston nodded and opened up the first envelope in front of him. “The more I dig, the more things seem off, though I still can’t place my finger on what it is that is bothering me about this whole situation.

  “Is it weird that Frank was killed right after I saw Vivian and him getting together? Yes, very weird. But what does it mean? Does it mean that Ronald killed them? It doesn’t seem like it. It also doesn’t seem likely that Vivian killed him either.”

  Winston let out a sigh as he pulled out pictures and documents from inside the envelope. “And what does it mean that Penny and Mason are having an affair? How does that fit into all of this? When I look at the whole situation, it seems to me like everybody has a motive for murder. The question is just finding out who went through with it.”

  “Did you find evidence that the affair between Mason and Penny is ongoing?”

  Winston nodded. “I believe so. It has been a couple of months since they last got together. It looks to me like it was cut off after Max’s death.”

  Very careful indeed, Mason, I thought, remembering how adamant he had been that nobody was going to discover their affair. First Cindy, and now Winston.

  I nodded, keeping the surprise from registering on my face. Winston was watching me closely, looking for any clue that I already knew any of this. I had wanted to believe Mason when he had told me that the affair was over and that he was trying to work things out with his wife, but I knew how these things usually worked. The man was trying to have his cake and eat it too, what a shame.

  “Just so I can be sure on this last one, what evidence did you find that they are still getting together?”

  “I’m not sure I should tell you exactly how I know. I might have walked into some gray areas to learn that information.” He gave me an appraising look. “How much do you want to know?”

  “What you mean by gray areas?”

  It had bothered me at first when I started working with Winston that he didn’t always play things directly by the book, sometimes skirting legality in his quest to obtain information, but he did his best to keep me from knowing about it when he did and always insulated me from any wrongdoing.

  “It is not going to be admissible in court, at least, not the way I found it.”

  “Did you find something on social media? Or hack their email?”

  Winston stared right back at me with unblinking eyes. “Something like that.”

  “Tell me this, was it a piece of communication between the two of them that you found? Or did you find tangible evidence of a meeting?”

  Winston hesitated. “I found evidence of a meeting.”

  “How did you stumble onto that?” I asked, thinking how Mason had been adamant that they’d only ever rendezvoused hundreds of miles away from the city.

  “Do you really want to know?” Winston asked. “I’ll tell you the first part. Penny has a certain predilection for a type of pastry that is delivered to her almost every day. I got the delivery boy to answer a few questions for me, telling him that I was investigating Max’s murder. Apparently, Max was nice to the kid, so the boy wanted to help out. One of the things that came up was how he had delivered things to a hotel room outside the city.”

  “So you went and obtained information from the hotel?”

  “This is where I need to remain silent.”

  I nodded.

  “So when was the last rendezvous again?”

  “Two months ago.”

  “And are you certain that it was Mason she met with? Could she possibly have met with somebody else?”

  “I know for sure the pastry was delivered. I know for sure that on dates before that one, she had met with Mason. As to who she met with that time, I could not say for sure.”

  I nodded. Part of me wanted to have Winston reveal the rest of what he knew, but I figured it was best to leave it where it lay at the moment. “How long ago was that visit before the last visit?”

  “Last year some time.”

  That information jived with what Mason had told me. So either he had a relapse, or this was a meeting with somebody else, and Penny had just used the same place. Regardless, it was interesting information either way.

  “Are you sure that that this was a romantic interaction? I’m just asking because I want to be certain that an affair was going on still, not that they were just talking to each other.”

  Winston hesitated. “My gut instincts tell me that the affair is ongoing; however, there is room for interpretation of the evidence, and as you pointed out, we can’t be certain that it was Mason she met with this last time. I just assumed.”

  “Can I see the evidence?”

  “Do you want to?”

  I gave him a big smile. “The fact you ask me that makes you want to see it more, but it also worries me.” I rubbed the side of my head with a hand. “Let’s put a pin in that for now.”

  I never asked Winston to break the law during his investigations. It was a mark of just how worked up I was about this case that I was even asking the question about evidence he had found that was not admissible.

  Winston shrugged. “That’s probably a good idea, but let me see if I can find some evidence that would be admissible in court.”

  “That would be perfect. Thank you.”

  “Let’s go through the evidence of Vivian’s relationship with Ronald first,” Winston said, spreading out the sheaf of paper and pictures in front of me on my desk.

  It took approximately half an hour as Winston walked me through all the evidence he had gathered
on what had transpired between Ronald and Vivian. Neither was currently married, though Vivian had gone through a divorce within the last couple of years. Ronald had been married sometime before that, but it was almost a decade since that had ended.

  After we went through all that, I leaned back in my chair and looked at Winston. “Vivian did tell me that she was dating Ronald; it was one of the first things that came up in my initial discussion with her at Meridian Solutions. It seemed at first like she was trying to hold back, but when it became obvious I had my suspicions, she just came right out with it. She didn’t make a big deal about it, and she didn’t try to hide it from me either.”

  I still had not told Winston that Vivian was the reason I initially got involved in this case in the first place, but it was starting to look increasingly certain to me that she had nothing to do with it.

  Won’t it be ironic if Penny is the one we end up pinning this on to get my client off?

  Winston nodded. “Based on some of the information I uncovered—overheard conversations between the two of them—I do believe that they intended to come forward at some point, at least Vivian let Ronald believe that.”

  “Let’s look at what you found on Vivian and Frank,” I suggested, as I digested all the information on Ronald and Vivian.

  It took another half an hour as Winston walked me through everything he had found on their relationship, which interestingly enough, appeared to have begun before her relationship with Ronald. Frank and Vivian had a favorite restaurant they liked downtown. Winston had managed to talk to their regular waiter and determined they had been coming there for several years.

  It was particularly interesting to see that several weeks back, Vivian had spent time with Ronald. On the next day, it had been with Frank.

  Frank was dead the week after that.

  I leaned back in my chair. “It seems to me that one or the other of these gentlemen probably knew about the other. I mean, they worked together for crying out loud.”

  “That’s a safe assumption. Are you ready to let me see the evidence from the prosecution yet?” Winston asked. “I think there might be some connections between what they have found and what I found that I could put together.”