That jogged my memory. The high school part, not the lesbo part. There were two small children involved, which could work in her favor. Children
do
need their mothers. Though, when you kill a child’s father you’re unlikely to win an award for good parenting.
“How many women on the jury? That should work in her favor.”
Most women would not stab a cheating spouse; most did understand the impulse.
“Seven,” Owen said. But then a cloud passed over his face. “The state made a big to-do about an insurance policy during the trial. Trying to make a case for first degree. I’m not sure one or two didn’t believe that.”
“Refresh my memory. What was their case?”
“The Berksons had taken out million dollar policies on each other.”
“She was a dentist and he was…”
“Frequently unemployed.”
“But she admits stabbing him so she’ll never collect. How could that be first degree?”
“The ASA tried to make it sound like she didn’t understand the fine print.”
“She’s smart enough to plot a murder but too stupid to understand an insurance policy?”
“He spent a lot of time reading the policy into the record. Claimed even he had trouble understanding it.”
“She’s a dentist. She has an education.”
“She went to dental school in the Caribbean. Wasn’t at the top of her class.”
“Still. No offense, but I think law school is a lot easier.” Science had never been a strong suit of mine.
Owen shrugged. “I thought it was crap, too. I’m absolutely certain she did not kill her husband for any insurance money she thought she’d get. She’s very bright, and quite nice for a murderess. Fortunately, the jury agreed and threw out the first-degree charges.”
“So what do you want me to do? Find the mistress?”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“I work for you, you can ask—”
“Madeline doesn’t want her found. We do have to respect the client’s wishes.”
That struck me as odd. The mistress would have bolstered her story and created sympathy.
“Is there even a mistress?” I wondered.
“The newspapers tried awfully hard to find her,” he said absently. “But then...journalists, they don’t always have the right skills.”
He wanted me to find the mistress. I hadn’t spent much time working for him, but I had the feeling we’d be having a lot of conversations that were not directly about what they were about.
“Isn’t it kind of pointless to find her now? Your client still won’t appreciate it.”
“No, she won’t. But…” I could see the wheels turning. “If someone found her by
accident
it could be helpful.”
“If she exists.”
“Yes, if she exists. I wouldn’t want her in court but…
someone
could get her interviewed by the
Daily Herald
or
The Tribune
.”
“How would that help?”
“The jury. They’re not supposed to read the newspaper during the trial. Most of them take that very seriously. But she’s been convicted. At least a couple of them will have jumped the gun and be back to reading the newspaper or watching the nightly news. Not to mention discussing it with their families. If the woman were to do an interview, the jury would know it.”
“So I need to accidentally find her.”
Owen’s lips were sealed. In fact, he kept them tightly closed. Instead, he picked up his briefcase, chocolate brown leather with his initials engraved in gold leaf. O.W.L. I wondered what the “W” was for. Or even if it was
for
anything. It might just be that he liked to think of himself as an owl. Owls were wise. He pulled out a sheet of paper and slid it onto my desk. On it was a column of names; six of the names were typewritten, seven were added by hand.
“The names on the top are the witnesses who’ve agreed to testify on Madeline’s behalf. The names on the bottom are those who’ve refused. Start with the ones who’ve refused. If nothing else, try to get them to come in and speak on Madeline’s behalf. A couple of them might really help her.”
The list didn’t mean much at the moment. I decided to figure it out later. I really needed to talk to him about Jimmy English. “Um, why don’t I walk you out?”
“Yes, why don’t you.”
I really didn’t think my office was bugged. I’d been sticking the cover from a matchbook in between the door and the jamb just below the hinge whenever I left the office. If someone picked the lock and entered my office the little square of cardboard would have fallen to the floor. So far, it had stayed just where I’d left it.
Silently, we walked out of my office and down the narrow stairs to Clark Street. As soon as we were out the door, I said, “Look, I’ve got to tell—” He raised his hand to silence me again. It all seemed a bit ridiculous. He stepped out into the street and hailed a cab. We climbed in, and before giving the driver an address Owen took a twenty out of his pocket and waved it in the front seat. “We’re just going around the block a few times. So, the rest is for you.” He dropped the twenty on the seat and then closed the plexiglass partition between us.
Turning to me, he said, “All right, what’s the problem?”
“I’ve figured out a couple of things about Operation Tea and Crumpets.” Operation Tea and Crumpets was the cutesy name the task force had given the investigation into Jimmy’s activities. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for me to step away right now.”
“Then don’t. Do both.” I started to say that I wasn’t sure it would be fair to either client but he stopped me by adding, “Keep billing us the retainer for Jimmy. And also whatever work you do for the Levine case.” What that meant was that my invoicing could easily go over a thousand dollars a week. For about two weeks. That made the whole thing more appealing. I might need to work night and day, but it was just for a while. Part of me still wanted to say no to the lady dentist, but I was fresh out of good reasons.
“What did you find out on Jimmy?” Owen asked.
“The most damaging information comes from a single source. A confidential informant they call Prince Charles. There’s no information in the files about who Prince Charles is. Not even a hint. Which makes me think that they know you have the files. That they wanted you to have them.”
“They’ll have to expose him eventually.”
“So why go to the trouble of hiding him unless they know we’re likely to get our hands on the files now?”
“You think it’s a haystack with no needle.”
“It might be. According to the transcripts, Jimmy told Prince Charles stories. Almost as though he was bragging, which seems out of character.”
“I agree.”
“And there’s another thing. There’s a book or a diary somewhere.”
“Somewhere? It’s not in the boxes I gave you?”
“No. But a lot of the files have notations. Page numbers and dates.”
“Something like that would be a terrific piece of evidence. Especially if it corroborates Prince Charles’ testimony.”
“But Jimmy’s too smart for all of this.” I resisted the temptation to say, “Something’s fishy.”
“I hope so,” Owen said before he told the cab driver to pull over. We were at the corner of Belmont and Clark for the second time. Just as he got out the door, Owen said, “We need to know who’s talking. And we need that book.”
It was a tall order. A very tall order.
Chapter Two
Having sex with friends seems like a very good idea until suddenly it doesn’t.
I’d moved in with my friend Brian Peerson after I’d been stabbed by a murderous young secretary. Fortunately, the girl’s weapon of choice was poison; her skills with a letter opener were not as impressive. Most nights I slept in Brian’s bed because his second bedroom was occupied by a sixteen year-old named Terry Winkler who’d been kicked out by his parents. The sex we had was good, fun, different even. I wanted to call him a fuck buddy, which he was—but he wasn’t. And that made things different in bed. A good fuck buddy is someone who’s friendly and likes sex and doesn’t want to fall in love with you. Brian was all of those things. But he also cared about me and I cared about him. I cared about Ross, whom he loved, and I think he cared about Harker, whom I loved. That made sex between us different. Better. And worse. Occasionally, when I felt like things between Brian and I were getting too comfortable, I slept on the settee in the living room, which was anything but comfortable. I knew I needed to find myself an apartment, but I kept not doing anything about it.
When I got home that evening, I found Terry playing Atari in the living room and a note from Brian on his bed asking me to sleep on the settee that night. Since he wasn’t there, I couldn’t ask him what that was about. He’d never asked me to sleep in the living room before. In fact, he’d always seemed a little wounded when I chose to.
I wandered back into the living room and asked Terry, “Where’s Brian?”
“Huh?” he asked, too into his game to hear me.
“Where’s Brian?” A little louder this time.
“He went somewhere.”
“He say where?”
Terry shook his head, but didn’t take his attention off the television.
“So you have no idea? None?”
“He was wearing a really tight T-shirt and a lot of cologne.” He threw a shrug in, as though what he said might not mean what it obviously meant. Brian was on his way out to meet someone. It might be someone he’d already met or it might be someone he hadn’t yet met, but either way he intended to bring him home.
Part of me felt that it was wrong. He and Ross had broken up six or eight months before, when Ross moved downstate in hopes of a miracle cure. I suppose it was enough time for Brian to be thinking about moving on. Certainly, he’d been messing around with me for the last few months, but that wasn’t moving on. Sex with me wasn’t going anywhere. The idea of him getting over Ross enough to see someone new, well, I wasn’t as comfortable with that as I should have been. I couldn’t spend too much time thinking about it, though. I had two cases to work and needed to get busy.
I walked through the apartment to the back door. Sitting there was a stack of newspapers. Brian was careful to ask if I was finished with them before they went downstairs to the garbage. Each time he asked I hemmed and hawed, mostly because I felt more comfortable with at least two to three weeks of papers sitting around. I’d brought home the list of names Owen had given me and before I talked to them I needed to understand who these people were. The newspapers would help with that.
Bringing them out to the dining room, I sat down and began to dig through for stories about Madeline Levine-Berkson. There were seven people who’d refused to testify and six who’d agreed. I needed to see if any of the names appeared in the stories. That would tell me how they related to Madeline. Working backward, I found the most recent story on the trial was just the day before—Sunday. The article recapped everything right up to the defense resting that previous Friday; as luck would have it, Friday the Thirteenth. Closing statements were made; the jury went out to deliberate. Two hours later the jury was back and Madeline Levine was convicted of second-degree murder. By the end of the trial the papers had dropped the Berkson and just referred to her as Madeline Levine, as though by killing her husband she’d lost the right to use his name.
The article had several pictures. One was of a much younger Madeline Levine with her husband. She was a slightly pudgy bottle-blonde with naturally curly hair that formed a ball around her head. He was square-chinned handsome with a blurry look in his eyes. Another shot was of Madeline in court. She had a stern look on her face and her hair was pulled back, her curls forming a poodle ball over her forehead. It was dark now. I imagine they don’t hand out hair dye in the women’s section of the Cook County Jail.
In the wrap-up, I found several of the names I was looking for. Mrs. Jasper Levine of Park Ridge, Madeline’s mother, had testified for the state about the poor quality of her daughter’s marriage to Wes Berkson. She was one of those refusing to testify on her daughter’s behalf. Insurance salesman Herb Dotson testified for the state that he sold the Berkson’s insurance just a week before the murder. His name wasn’t on either list. There was, however, a Nan Dotson on the “testify for” side of the list. It wasn’t a likely coincidence she and the insurance agent had the same name. I guessed that they were married neighbors of Madeline’s. I could be wrong, but until I found out differently that’s what they were going to be. Dr. Caspian, the dentist who shared Madeline’s practice, testified for the state. He was questioned extensively about Madeline’s intelligence, her credentials as a dentist, and the quality of her Caribbean education. It wasn’t particularly favorable testimony. He had refused to testify on Madeline’s behalf, just as her mother had.
The defense took over and called a handful of witnesses. Melody Oddy, who turned out to be Madeline’s sister, also testified about the crap relationship Madeline had with her husband. She, however, managed to imply that the problems in their relationship were mostly Wes’s fault. She was “testify for.” Lana Shepherd, a childhood friend of Madeline Levine, testified that Madeline had talked to her about Wes’s suspicious behavior. Her testimony created a picture of a woman who suspected her husband might be cheating, who then went over the edge when she got confirmation. The Assistant State’s Attorney pressed her on the issue of what Madeline knew for sure, attempting to get Lana to say that Madeline was certain of the affair prior to her husband’s telling her—which would have made it first degree. Lana was scheduled to testify for Madeline. The last name I recognized was a woman named Lynn Hagen. She was the Berkson’s babysitter. During the trial she claimed to have seen Wes Berkson with a woman she didn’t know one weekend when Madeline was out of town at a dental convention. The ASA tried to cast doubt on whether or not Lynn told Madeline about the mysterious woman. She was on the “testify for” list.
I took a Marlboro out of the box, tapped it down, and lit it. I had some things to consider. Owen wanted me to start with the people who refused to testify on Madeline’s behalf. I wondered if that was wise. In order to convince the seven people who’d refused to testify to change their minds, I had to understand what was going on with the case. I was more likely to get information I could use from the friendly witnesses.