Girl, Under Oath (Michael Gresham Series) Read online

  Girl, Under Oath

  John Ellsworth

  Contents

  Praise for John Ellsworth

  Prologue

  1. Jennifer

  2. Michael

  3. Jennifer

  4. Michael

  5. Jennifer

  6. Michael

  7. Jennifer

  8. Michael

  9. Michael

  10. Jennifer

  11. Michael

  12. Email from Elise Ipswich

  13. Michael

  14. Jennifer

  15. Michael

  16. Jennifer

  17. Joe’s Tape Recording

  18. Michael

  19. Michael

  20. Jennifer

  21. Jennifer

  22. Michael

  23. Jennifer

  24. Michael

  25. Michael

  26. Jennifer

  27. Michael

  28. Michael

  29. Michael

  30. Jennifer

  31. Michael

  32. Michael

  33. Jennifer

  34. Michael

  35. Elise

  36. Michael

  37. Michael

  38. Michael

  39. Verona

  40. Elise

  41. Karrol

  42. The Ritz

  43. Michael

  44. Michael

  45. Frank

  46. Michael

  47. Michael

  48. Frank

  49. Michael

  50. Michael

  51. Michael

  52. Michael

  53. Michael

  54. Michael

  55. Michael

  56. Marcel

  57. Michael

  58. Michael

  59. Michael

  60. Jennifer

  61. Michael

  62. Michael

  63. Michael

  64. Marcel

  65. Marcel

  66. Michael

  67. Michael

  68. Michael

  69. Lakeside

  70. Verona

  71. Paris

  72. Michael

  73. Michael

  74. Paris

  75. Michael

  76. Michael

  77. Michael

  78. Michael

  79. Michael

  Afterword

  Also by John Ellsworth

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Free Book for Email Signup

  Praise for John Ellsworth

  "After having read this book, is there a way to give it more than five stars? This is a brilliantly written, fascinating story!"

  "I have read everything that this author has written and can't wait to read what's next from him. Thank you John Ellsworth."

  "A very interesting book of legal, love lost, love tried and true, and good versus bad. Jennifer Ipswich is so believable. The author keeps you wanting to turn page after page and not stop reading."

  "WE ARE INSPIRED BY THIS WRITER AND HOW HE IS DELIGHTING READERS"--Amazon press release 10/15/18.

  "There are so many plot twists and turns. Put on a pot of coffee and curl up on the couch for an all-nighter. Well done, John Ellsworth."

  5.0 out of 5 stars

  What a great read!

  I'm not claiming I missed a whole night's sleep reading The Contract Lawyer, but I woke up at 1:00 am and couldn't put it down until I finished. I'd tried to go to bed after starting it, but it woke me up, demanding I find out what happened.

  Every book in the Thaddeus Murfee series is great, but this one outdid itself. Action, adventure, intrigue, ripped from the headlines, it's going to be a timeless classic. I love a book that's so well written it seems like the story is unfolding right before you. There are twists and turns that make you gasp, and of course, keep reading through the night.

  If you could pick your brother, and I had no choice about mine, you couldn't do better than Thaddeus and the lengths he went through to retrieve his nephew from kidnappers, to protect his sister from legal jeopardy, and his commitment to the team who helps him.

  Horrible things happen, but the book will make you feel a little better about the world. People can solve problems. If only we could clone Thaddeus!

  {Another 17,000 reviews on Amazon’s pages}

  For Jon and Adriane and Deb

  Prologue

  I watch the witness raise her hand. I hear the old familiar oath:

  Do you solemnly swear the evidence you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you, God?

  Do you know why they raise the right hand? Because, long, long ago, they cut the thumbs off liars. So…when you went to court, you raised your right hand to prove you were not a liar. At least, this is what the Jesuits taught me in law school.

  My name is Michael Gresham, and I have toiled inside these Chicago courtrooms thirty years and counting. I have seen it all. Drunk judges, stoned lawyers, speeding witnesses, senile bailiffs, sleeping spectators. You name it, I’ve seen it up close and firsthand. And much more than that.

  But the strangest story I’ve heard from the witness stand is the one you’re about to hear from me. The story of a woman accused of poisoning her husband. He had died “under mysterious circumstances.” That’s what the police say when they haven’t a clue what happened. Anyway, Jennifer’s Joe died under mysterious circumstances, and then the State of Illinois, in all its power and majesty, indicted Jennifer and put her on trial. Two weeks later, guess what? Guess what the jury did?

  Let me back up. I should probably take this from the beginning. Let you form your own judgments. I’ll try to tell you about her in such a way I don’t force my opinion on you. Because, believe me, I have one.

  So look at your own hands. All ten fingers there? Funny thing, me, too.

  But here’s one thing I know about every last one of the ten thousand witnesses I have heard testify in a court of law.

  They all lied.

  That, ladies and gentlemen, is one big basketful of thumbs.

  1

  Jennifer

  Joe was dying, and he pulled me close.

  “One last thing, Jennifer,” he whispered to me. His tiny voice scraped and rasped. But it was Joe, nonetheless.

  “What’s the one last thing?” I asked. Tears formed in my eyes, waiting to let loose only after he had taken his last breath, which would be any second. Joe hated tears, so I was waiting, but it was a struggle, for I loved the man with every cell and fiber in my body. After fifteen years together, I could feel my very flesh tearing loose as he slipped away.

  “One last thing. Give her a million dollars of the…insurance money.”

  My ears alerted. “Give up the insurance money?”

  He inhaled a shallow, thready breath. “Pleeeeease,” he exhaled.

  “Give who one-million dollars?” I called into his bad ear. I didn’t know anyone who should get one million dollars from Joe’s life insurance. I was the sole beneficiary of the insurance policy. Had always been the sole and only beneficiary since we took out the policy when Joe was thirty. Now he was forty-five, and I was to take my two-million dollar fund and give someone—what the—? “Give who half?”

  “Elise.” He spoke. “Elise gets half.”

  Then he died.

  Two weeks later, the detectives showed up at my house, wanting to talk.

  Elise was the week after.

  2

  Michael

  The first time I saw Jennifer Ipswich was at the Evanston Racket Club. Her blond hair was wet and streaming water as she climbed out of the Olympic pool. Here
she came, walking right at me, one finger freeing water from her ear, the noonday sun dancing on her mouth as she made ready to smile. She approached me and stuck out the hand with the ear finger. She smiled. "You're Michael Gresham?"

  I said, "I am."

  Her smile broadened. "My name is Jennifer, and I guess I need a lawyer. Everyone says you're the one to get. When can I see you?"

  “Who’s everyone?”

  She turned and pointed at a clutch of women at the next cabana, drinking iced tea and talking. “They say so. They know you.”

  "See a lawyer about what?" I didn't know that my specialty was what she would need.

  "Can it wait until we're at your office? Poolside hardly seems the place."

  She had me there. In that brief moment, I tried to place the name or the face—some thing, since she acted like we had known each other since forever. "Have we ever met?"

  "Nope. I'm a doctor, pediatrician. Unless you have a kid between naught and thirteen, we've never met." She dropped her hands and giggled. A knee raised, and she bent forward, amused at herself. TV commercial smile, refrigerator white teeth, maybe the mom who just fed her kids some wonder vitamins. Healthy, fawn-colored skin, faultless in its bath of SPF 40—except for tiny white flecks encircling her face, maybe small scars. Then she was turning and looking for her brood, Henny Penny, the mother hen.

  I was dumbstruck.

  She was beautiful, obviously intelligent with the MD behind her name, and no indication of anything remiss. Next time, I would learn to look at the shadows, listen for the echo, and feel the emotional fingerprints. But for once, I didn't have a follow-on line to offer: "Please, call my office" or "Drop by Monday" or any of the usual, noncommittal lines that keep people at arm's length. Everything about her said she deserved more than that; she deserved to have me pluck a calendar out of the July sunlight and make her an appointment then and there.

  Then I heard myself saying, "How about Tuesday morning, seven o'clock, my office?"

  "Seven it is," she said. "Whether I'm done with my rounds are not, I'll be in your office. And thank you, Michael Gresham."

  "And thank you, Doctor—Doctor—"

  "Jennifer. Everyone calls me Doctor Jennifer. Jennifer is good because we're friends now. Ta."

  She turned back to the pool and dove in, entered without a splash, and then executed a crawl to the far end where she stood, shook her head, and glanced around as if expecting the world to bend to her. And why wouldn't it? It always had.

  I returned to my novel.

  Jennifer came to my office and hired me because she had been indicted for the murder of her husband. She was unclear on why she had been charged. She was in great distress over the charges—and who wouldn't have been? This was an entirely different woman than the smiling, confident woman at poolside. So I set about determining whether I was the lawyer she needed. As I poked and prodded into her past, it came out that she was once diagnosed as bipolar.

  "Was it an accurate diagnosis?" I asked.

  "Okay, here's what it was. I was living with my boyfriend, David, in San Diego. We were both accepted at UCSD medicine. This was a year before I married Joe. Anyway, David Goldman was Jewish, and his mother wanted to know more about me than he ever wanted to know. He was happy with willing flesh, but she wanted more. She wanted pedigrees, bank accounts, religions, Evanston contacts, mutual acquaintances—the stuff that matters, she said. Whatever that meant. Anyway, he had become upset. He said I was cycling.”

  “Cycling?” I asked her for clarification.

  “Hmm…yes. Mood changes cycling. He had supported himself through undergrad as a psych tech, which lent him a certain credibility. 'You're rapid cycling,' he told me one Saturday. He had said it offhandedly while watching the Cubs and dishing someone's batting average. I was bored with baseball—who isn't?—and started striking his xylophone with my fingernail. The noise pissed him off. He was shooting me dirty looks and trying to watch the game at the same time.

  “He grumbled and jumped up and clicked off the game. Off to his bedroom, he stomped. It was something besides baseball, so I followed him in there. I remember nothing more except I wanted to go on a picnic. It didn't have to be a big deal. Just get out in the grass with a tuna fish sandwich and iced tea. But there he was on our bed, his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. 'You're cycling,' he said to me again. ‘You need to see someone.' So, he made an appointment with a psychiatrist he knew, and I went to see him.

  "'Be here fifteen minutes early to do the paperwork,' the receptionist informed me. When I got there, she handed me a clipboard and pen. 'Please fill this out and sign at the X.' I did the usual boxes and a couple of explanations, like a plantar wart for the skin doctor and heart palpitations for the cardiologist. Then I really got into it and started writing on the back of the doctor's intake forms. All of our boyfriend-girlfriend problems came flowing out in black ink. I filled eight pages with observations about my sex life with David. I got pretty lurid, lots of details, even the kinky stuff we did—the cameras and battery-powered stuff. You might think I was testing the doctor. I wasn’t. My feelings were all true. Then I turned it in at the desk and sat down. Ten minutes later, I was being ushered into the doctor's office.

  "The shrink had read my notes before I even entered his office because no sooner had I seated myself than he said, 'You're bipolar.' It took all I had not to crack up. 'Really?' I said. 'Why do you say that?' He waved my paperwork at me and shook his head. 'Have you read what you wrote?' I told him I certainly had read it. I had reviewed and even initialed it. 'None of what you wrote surprises me or upsets me. I'm not talking about the content. I'm talking about the quantity of what you wrote. Eight pages?'

  "He started me on Depakote. It's a common drug for bipolar. Lithium for people with money. I took that religiously for a few months, put on eight pounds, and immediately dropped out."

  I asked, "How did that feel?"

  She shrugged. "I didn't feel a thing. Which upset David, so he kicked me out. That same day, I found a job as a barista in a drive-through coffee hut. Low-cut peasant blouses, handing out coffee to San Diegans bound for work at defense contractors. It was a kick in the self-confidence-butt to be leered at by sleepy software engineers who hadn't had their first caffeine kick yet. I stayed in San Diego, waiting for medical school to begin, couch surfing for a few days until I found the right place for the next four years. It even came with a stray cat, two blocks from the sand in Ocean Beach."

  As a lawyer, it was a lot to take in: the bipolar and Depakote, the sexual athleticism, medical school. Sitting there in my office and looking across the desk at her, there was much more I needed to know about Joe’s death, but I knew I was going to have to go slowly with her. I asked her, "So, did the diagnosis take? Have you gone back on the Depakote?"

  Her face exploded in a wide grin, and she exclaimed, "Of course not! I haven't taken it, and I haven't experienced rapid cycling, as my old boyfriend put it. I’ve been very stable. I graduated from medical school, endured four years of pediatric residency, produced two children for my husband, Joe, every day managed 200 out-of-control patients between 0 and 13, invested in mutual funds and lakefront condos, and have kept order at home. Nobody has been more stable than me."

  "Got it."

  It sounded stable. I knew I couldn't have pulled off all that.

  Of course, who was I to judge? I was the lawyer who accepted her at face value.

  So, I jumped in and took her case and her money. As she was writing a check for the retainer, she said, almost offhandedly, "There's one other thing I'll need your help with, too."

  "What's that?"

  "My husband, Joe, evidently had a woman in Paris. She wants money."

  “Of course.”

  “So, will you take it on when she sues me?”

  "I don't know about that. I don't do much domestic work."

  "It shouldn't be that complicated. I'm the real wife. She's in Paris, France. Please say yes."<
br />
  "I'll look into it. We can talk later, let's say if she brings legal proceedings or hires a lawyer."

  She ripped the check from her checkbook. "Fair enough."

  3

  Jennifer

  My name is Jennifer Ipswich. I’m five-seven, blond by secret sauce, slightly overweight, slight overbite that Invisaligns are curing even now at thirty-something-but-not-forty, and a big day for me anymore is a new Crockpot. We have two kids: Abel, who’s nine and thinks Legos are much more than demons to be stepped upon in bare feet in the dark, and Sarah, who at eleven is already several grades ahead of me.

  Joe and I had our medical practice, Ipswich and Ipswich, Physicians and Surgeons. I’m the first-named because, even though I’m younger than Joe, I got out of med school ahead of him because he served in the Gulf War, and I did not. I stayed in med school while our class went on without him. All the police and DAs and lawyers want to know how Joe and I first met.