Chapter 50
telephone. Elliott was with him, just the two men in Jack’s office after hours. Jack smiled as he hung up.
“That was Abe Beckham,” he told his client. “The indictment will be dismissed tomorrow morning. Congratulations.”
It was impossible to predict a client’s reaction to good news in a criminal case. Some literally jumped for joy. Others broke
into tears. A few, like Elliott, were completely stoic.
“Now I suppose everyone will know Austen shot his father,” he said.
“Better now than ten years from now,” said Jack, “when he’s sixteen and you’ve spent ten years in prison for a murder you
didn’t commit.”
Elliott seemed to take some solace in that logic.
“What will Julianna Weller do now?” asked Elliott. “Charge me with covering up the murder and trying to make it look like
a suicide?”
“Abe Beckham assured me that you won’t be charged. And neither will Sheila.”
That Elliott’s girlfriend had helped stage the crime scene was something Jack had figured out on his own, and Jack had clearly
surprised his client.
“How did you know?” asked Elliott.
“The note I found on my windshield. It was in the same handwriting as Owen’s fake suicide list. You were in jail at the time,
so it obviously wasn’t you. My first thought was Helena, but the note was put there to make you look innocent. Seems like
something a girlfriend would do.”
Elliott didn’t dispute any of it. “Sheila worked more closely with Owen than I did,” he said. “Knew his handwriting better.”
“Probably also didn’t hurt to have a second set of hands at the Pollard house,” said Jack. “There was a lot to do in a short
period of time. Lifting Owen’s body off the floor. Propping him up in the chair. Positioning the shotgun. Composing the note.
All while one of you was covering Austen’s ears so he wouldn’t hear the blast and pleading with him to tell you what he did
with his mother’s pistol. Unsuccessfully, I might add.”
“Poor boy was so traumatized he could barely talk,” Elliott said sadly.
“I don’t doubt it,” said Jack.
“Sheila is a good person,” said Elliott.
“I don’t doubt that either.”
“So is Helena.”
“Is she?”
Elliott looked at him curiously. “You sound like you disagree.”
“Helena seemed awfully content to let you rot in prison for a murder you didn’t commit.”
“If she was so content, then why did she lie about having an affair with C. J. Vandermeer?”
Jack had not figured out that part. And the fact that he was hearing it from Elliott—not from Helena or CJ—was enough to confirm another of Jack’s hunches.
He rose from his leather chair, walked around to the other side of the desk, and took a seat in the armchair beside Elliott,
as if to eliminate all obstructions between them.
“When I was cross-examining Helena at this last court hearing, I noticed that every so often she would look beyond me. I thought she was cutting glances into the public seating, trying to make eye contact with her lawyer. But last time she looked past me—right as she was about to tell me about her affair with CJ—it seemed she wasn’t looking all the way into the gallery.
And then I realized, of course, that the table for the defense was also behind me.
I got the distinct impression that Helena exchanged a glance with you. ”
Elliott didn’t answer, but it wasn’t like before. This was not a speech strike. He was just speechless.
“Which raises a bigger question in my mind,” said Jack. “What did Helena find when she returned to her house that evening?
Were you and Sheila gone, and Helena found Owen’s body and the note? Or were you and Sheila still there?”
Elliott crossed one leg over the other, a slightly defensive posture. “Those are excellent questions. But why does it matter
at this point?”
“I suppose it matters only because you have a curious lawyer,” said Jack. “I can’t help but wonder if this was a case of two
mothers who, on the night of Owen Pollard’s death, coordinated from the get-go to protect their child. Or two mothers who
independently chose to put their child first and coincidentally ended up on the same track?”
“Wow,” said Elliott, his eyes narrowing. “That’s one strange twist on the story of King Solomon and the baby, isn’t it?”
“What’s the answer?”
“Is it really better for you to know the answer to that question, Jack?”
“It might be. But I’m guessing I’ll never know.”
Elliott rose. “It’s a shame you can’t see it, but I’m not surprised. To a criminal defense lawyer, the most important thing
is the Fifth Amendment. But nothing I ever did in this case was about my right to remain silent. It was always about the right . . .”
Elliott paused, seeming to search for the right words. “The right to what?” asked Jack.
He looked Jack in the eye. “The right to remain an innocent child.”
Jack accepted those words as final. He walked his client out to the lobby.
“Take care of yourself,” said Jack as he turned the lock and opened the door.
“Thank you,” said Elliott, and he stepped into the glow of the porch light.
Jack nodded a silent “you’re welcome,” watched Elliott climb down the stairs to the driveway, and closed the door.
A late night at the office was nothing unusual, and whenever Jack was alone after dark the place seemed to come alive with
the sounds of a century-old residence. Creaky floorboards. The occasional pop of attic joists in a gust of wind or the patter
of falling acorns on roof tiles. The hiss of waterpipes in walls without soundproofing. The only discordant sound was the
groan of the noisy dehumidifier that Bonnie had left running behind her desk. Jack walked over and pulled the plug.
A harsh knocking on the door startled him, but it was at the rear entrance, not the front. Jack switched on the kitchen light
and saw CJ outside in darkness, peering through the glass panel. He had an exasperated and impatient way about him, as if
he’d been knocking for a while and Jack had been unable to hear it over the noisy dehumidifier. Jack went to the door and
opened it.
“About damn time you answer your door!” said CJ, entering without an invitation. “We have a serious problem.”