Girl, Under Oath (Michael Gresham Series) Page 3

  She smiled and brushed her hand at me, waving me off. "Well, we'll be in touch. Give my best to my children-in-law.”

  "What?"

  "Or something like that. Joe talked so much about his American children that I feel a special kinship to them. They might as well be part my own. In fact—"

  "Really, I have to get back to my work. Can you find your way out?"

  "I'm on my way," she said in the dearest tone. "And I do hope we can make all the transfers and sell-offs happen without worry. I know your home will literally fly off the market. So, there's a start."

  "My home?" I managed to say, more walnuts going down. "I'm not selling my home!"

  "Oh, when you see the quitclaim deed where Joe gave me his one-half, I'm sure you'll reconsider. You certainly wouldn't want me and Çidde moving into the top level, now, am I right?"

  "Goodbye, Miss—Miss—"

  "That's all right. It'll come to you eventually, from one Mrs. Ipswich to another. Good day."

  Then she was gone. I hurried into my bathroom and stuck two fingers down my throat. The bile was quick to dislodge. This was when I noticed: those same two fingers were shaking uncontrollably, as were my hand, arm, and upper body.

  Joe’s ashes inhabited my Qing vase. But he wouldn't remain there for long. I couldn't wait to dump him into the toilet and introduce him to the City of Chicago sewer system.

  And as to my Qing vase. No one could have that but me. I'd die before I gave it up. There's only one other in the world. The man who sold me this one owned the other. But he wouldn’t part with the last one.

  He felt like I did.

  6

  Michael

  Two days later, I was outside the Cook County Courthouse, slogging along with the crowd, trying to keep up with the crush headed for the courthouse that morning. I was to appear as the guardian ad litem for a little boy whose divorcing parents couldn't share. Just as I was entering the building, I heard my voice called from behind. "Hey, Michael Gresham!"

  I turned to look. There was the waving hand, the hand of Marcel Rainsford, my investigator. I stopped and waited for him to catch up even though my case was scheduled to begin in four minutes. It was 8:56 AM, summertime in Illinois, I was half soaked in sweat, and I was feeling miserable. The day was only just getting started, and here was Marcel flagging me down, which meant something important was afoot.

  "Meet you in the lobby!" I called to him and turned to resume making my way toward the entrance and the air-conditioning awaiting inside.

  My back was hurting because I was old, and that's what backs did when you were old. They hurt. But I tried not to show it. I tried to keep an upright posture, bright and strong, because a trial lawyer must be attractive to juries and appear young, bright-eyed, and hungry if they are to be liked and pass muster.

  It was a hurrying bunch all around me, springing ahead on young legs and ready to engage with anyone who stood in the way of them getting the justice they were entitled to that morning. I knew the feeling; I had been there and had been that voracious at one time myself. But not anymore. I was no longer hungry, and that's when trial lawyers should bow out gracefully.

  Anyway, I was lugging my briefcase full of law books that I had packed in and out of these courthouses for thirty years. The case was banging against my bum knee and making me wish I was back home in bed, enjoying a second cup of coffee and the sports page.

  Then I was inside the courthouse and making my way through security with their conveyor belt and their magic wand. Off came my belt, my shoes, and my watch while coins went into the plastic tray to be X-rayed. When they were satisfied, at last, that my name wasn't Hamid or Hussein, they allowed me passage into the courthouse.

  I went to the far wall, leaned up against it, and flattened myself. I checked my watch and searched the crowd for Marcel. He should be coming through at any moment.

  He snuck up from the side. "Your friend, Jennifer Ipswich, she's holding on the phone."

  "Why so?" I asked. "Isn't one calamity a day enough?" I was referring to the child custody case at which I was to serve as guardian ad litem. The parents wished to own the child, to make sure the other never got to see their offspring again, and they had both been courting me for weeks with invitations to lunch "to see if there's any common ground" or to investigate "whether it's worth pursuing” this or that angle. Whatever. It meant they would wine me and dine me and hope that I would return home, sated, my opinion of them notched up a peg or two, their chances of making off with Robbie upsized.

  "Here, I've got her on the line.” He handed me his cell phone.

  "Jennifer? Michael Gresham speaking. How can I help?"

  "Michael, thank God, I reached you. Here's what happened."

  “All right. I've got three minutes."

  “More than enough."

  “Please go on."

  "The police called me. The detectives want to take my official statement. I'm afraid to talk to them, and I refused to make an appointment until I talk to you first. I know you will want to be there. I told them I didn’t even know if you’d let me make an appointment. Would it be best if I talk to them and try to explain that I knew nothing about Joe's wife in Paris and that I had no motive to murder him? Or should I refuse to speak and just assume the worst?"

  "I never allow my clients to speak to the police. I'm so glad you called me. If they call you again, give them my phone number and tell them I am your attorney. They have absolutely no right to contact you again at that point."

  “Oh, thank God. That makes me feel so much better. It's not like I have anything to hide. I didn't know about Joe's extra wife until he was dying. It's not like I poisoned him beforehand because I had known beforehand. Nothing like that. So they’re really barking up the wrong tree. I'm as innocent as the new-fallen snow. I hope we can get that across to them somehow and you can make them go away and leave me alone. Will that be possible, Michael?"

  "I'll do everything I can to make it go away. I can't promise anything, but sometimes the detectives can be reasoned with, especially where there isn’t a strong case. I don't believe they have a strong case against you unless they find some kind of poison in your medicine cabinet, which I assume they are not going to find. Am I correct?"

  "You are absolutely correct. I would never be stupid enough to keep some kind of poison around my house."

  "Is there anything else you're not telling me?"

  "Not telling you? Not telling you like what? Like I killed Joe? Do you think that I did?"

  "Jennifer, I don't have opinions one way or the other, and it doesn't matter what I think. My job is to defend you, regardless of what happened. And that's exactly what I'm going to do."

  "Well, you're going to be defending an innocent person. I can assure you I had nothing to do with Joe’s death. Now that I know he was married to another woman, I'm not sure I wouldn't have poisoned him if I had it to do over again. But that’s not the case. I didn’t find out about her until the moment when he was dying. I hope you can believe me about that."

  "It doesn't matter whether I believe you or not. What matters is whether the police believe you. Beyond that, it also might matter whether or not a jury believes you. But I just need you to trust that I'm in your court, either way."

  "I trust you, Michael. I know you're going to get me out of this. I'll let you go now, and I'll tell the police ‘no way’ if they call again."

  "All right. Have them contact me if they feel a further need to talk."

  "All right, Michael, bye for now."

  It was now 9:01. I was late to be the guardian ad litem for the little boy whose parents wanted to cut him in half. I was beginning to see how Joseph Ipswich might've felt, a wife in Chicago and a wife in Paris.

  I wondered, had anyone cut him in half?

  7

  Jennifer

  Well, the same day I flushed Joe’s ashes, the police came and arrested me. One detective said my refusal to give a statement made me look bad. But I ha
d Michael waiting in the wings because I had expected them to come for me. They had their reasons.

  Michael said we would take them to court, but that didn’t help me today where my world was inhabited with zombie women in the jail’s common room, watching TV, rubbing against each other, and ganging up by color swatches—skin color, I mean.

  I hate it here. I also hated Joe for dying and leaving me in this mess. There was no one else to blame for his death, so they chose me, and here I was. What they had on me was motive, Michael told me. Motive to kill Joe because of Elise.

  My first week of jail. Michael Gresham filed motions for me to be released on bail, and the motions should have been allowed but weren't. The judge didn't allow me to get out on bail because he felt I had money planted overseas that I was going to run to so that I wouldn't have to stand trial. Which was ridiculous, given that I have two children, Abel and Sarah, nine and eleven, who I love more than anything in the world and who I wouldn't uproot from their lives just to run off to Switzerland and hide.

  Abel had special needs; he was learning challenged. As a pediatrician, I knew how important it was for him to have continuity in his learning environment and his life. He attended the Chicago Northside School, and he loved it there. Especially, he loved sports and playing his trumpet in the band. To me, these connections he had meant everything. I tried to make Judge Stormont understand how Abel's needs and school anchored me to Chicago. But nothing I said seemed to make any difference. Judge Stormont was going to keep me in jail regardless.

  I also told him about Sarah, my eleven-year-old, who was having a terrible time adjusting to her father's death and clinging to my parents and me in Schaumburg. While she went through all of this, I wouldn't uproot her either.

  Any pediatrician in my shoes would immediately know that removing either of these children from their customary environment would be irremediably damaging. It just wasn't going to happen.

  But Judge Stormont was adamant. No matter how hard I tried to make him understand my ties to Chicago, it seemed like he only wanted to listen to the State's Attorney. It was the first time in my life I’d been ignored in a professional setting. On appeal—if there was one—I hoped they understood that, as a doctor, I wasn’t accustomed to being disbelieved by people, including some judge sitting in some courtroom like a blackbird on a wire.

  My sister Janet moved the kids in with her while I was away. It was only for another couple of weeks, Michael said.

  The Cook County Jail was located in South Lawndale in Chicago, and it was operated by the Sheriff of Cook County, according to the one-sheet we were all given when we were processed in. It happened to be the third largest jail system in the United States and was located at 2700 S. California Ave, Chicago. And yada yada yada. No matter, it sucked.

  I was single-celled because my so-called crime involved violence, which was extremely upsetting given that I had never committed a single violent act in my entire life. Even when I was little and going through that phase that all children go through where they are mean to animals and stuffed toys, my touch of the terrible threes was moderated even then by my ability to see myself from an outside point of view and control my actions. Having not been a violent child then, when most children go through such a year of aggression, I hadn’t committed a violent act against any person, animal, place, or thing in my less-than forty years.

  I was struggling. My cell was hardly big enough to turn around in. It was only six feet wide, two steps for me wall-to-wall since I was five-foot-seven and my steps were probably larger than the normal woman's steps. It was also four steps deep, which I guessed made it about six-by-twelve altogether. There was a single bunk with a one-inch mattress, no pillow, and a wool blanket for protection against the all-night noise, the screaming and crying out, which was silenced only by pulling the blanket up over my head and holding it there until I slept. There was also a commode without a toilet ring. There was only enough toilet paper at any given time for one good bowel movement. Also, there was a sink with one faucet, cold, and no soap. It was like they thought we might try to commit suicide with soap.

  They allowed me to keep my courtroom dress in my cell, including my gold cross and the gold ring Michael Gresham provided. I didn’t believe in anything the gold cross represented since I was a scientist and way down the road on medieval beliefs. As for the gold ring, Joe would have never had me wearing a plain gold band. My real engagement ring, two carats, and my wedding band, both platinum, were held with my other personal belongings that I wore to the jail on the day I was arrested. I didn’t know if I’d ever see those things again, but Michael wanted me to wear a plain gold band anyway, his preference.

  What did I do with my time each day? I was allowed to have a legal pad and one ballpoint pen. Truth be told, as a physician, I would find it much easier to commit suicide with the ballpoint pen than soap from my sink, but again, I wasn’t in charge of such things. At any rate, I spent my days writing, like I was right now. Michael wanted me to keep these notes so that he had a recorded history of my thoughts and feelings to rely on should he need to tell the appellate court personal things about me in the event of an appeal. Also, he wanted me to write down those areas of testimony in court that I considered to be wrong, lies, or presented in error.

  "I'm horrified the jury won't understand just how much I loved Joe," I told Dr. Roach.

  Sylvie Roach, M.D., was the jail psychiatrist. I would see her every day during my trial. She was easy to talk to, fiftyish, with silver hair and turquoise eyes and a manner of listening that immediately put you at ease since there was no judgment in her whatsoever. She was wiry but short, maybe five-foot-one, and wore her hair in a bun most of the time. She carried a black satchel like most doctors, but hers was filled with medical charts and legal pads like the one the jail gave me. In my cell, she sat on my bunk at one end, me at the other. Then she pulled out her pad, dated the next clean page, wrote my name (I can read it upside-down), and started writing.

  That second day of trial, I complained that I felt like we were losing the jury. They were buying into what the State's witnesses were saying about me. It took everything I had not to stand up and shout to them that I didn't kill Joe, no matter how those witnesses were trying to make it appear.

  Dr. Roach made a note in her dainty hand on the yellow patient sheet that would find refuge in my permanent file. She asked me, "What can you do or say to help them understand the depth of your love for your husband?"

  "That's easy," I said. "I loved him more than life."

  “Did you get to say that in court today?"

  “Not a word of it.”

  It had been a long, terrible day, listening to chemists and crime lab people. "They talked about chemicals in court. Poison I might have given Joe. It was horrible."

  "Are you going to testify?" Dr. Roach asked me.

  "No."

  "So the jury won't find out you majored in chemistry in college because you wanted to be a doctor?"

  "Michael Gresham says they're going to find that out anyway. They have all my school records. They're going to call the records custodian of UCSD."

  "And present your college transcripts so the jury finds out?”

  “Finds out what?”

  “Finds out you know more about drugs than the great Louis Pasteur?”

  I ran my tongue across my lips and felt that damned sore bump under the skin. If I wasn't mistaken, it felt like a herpes sore was about to make its semiannual appearance. Great, and right in the middle of my damned trial. The only people who catch herpes are the people with loose morals. Isn't that what everyone thinks?

  Does that make me a killer?

  8

  Michael

  At the trial, I was to defend Jennifer on charges she murdered Joe with poison. The toxicologist had found trace chemicals in Joe and believed those trace chemicals were left from poison. I felt it was a feeble case and thought the prosecution was, in part, inspired by Jennifer and Joseph Ipswic
h's considerable contributions to the political party on the other side of the fence as the State's Attorney. At least, Jennifer led me to believe that’s what was happening.

  How did I view the case? Even from the beginning, I was uncomfortable. I hadn’t done my due diligence—and I hurry to add that wasn’t all my fault. So why didn’t I fully perform with the due diligence?

  For one, as a medical doctor, Jennifer assured me there was nothing to be gained by raising any defenses based on her mental condition. She convinced me there were no cognitive deficits despite her last go-around with some psychiatric counseling.

  But deep down, I wasn't altogether convinced.

  As the trial date neared, I began to ask myself, had I failed her? Would a more skilled practitioner have gone into court and claimed mental impairment? Should I have at least insisted on testing? I usually would without questions, but she was a physician, so I had listened to her.

  Here’s reason number two why I didn’t have her examined by a psychiatrist. She convinced me that if mental issues became public, it would ruin her medical practice and leave her no way of supporting herself and her children.

  "Don't bother me with that," she said dismissively with a wave of her hand when I mentioned it the first time. "Absolutely not, I need my job."

  So, as I rode the courthouse elevator up to the fifth floor on the second day, I was apprehensive. I was kicking myself, and that's no way to defend a case.

  The elevator doors split open, and I was swept into the crowd headed for courtroom 506.

  As I proceeded inside and took my seat at counsel table, I looked around, waiting for the jailers to bring Jennifer into the courtroom. She would be wearing the little black dress I brought from her walk-in closet. Around her neck would be seen the gold necklace with the relatively large cross that I purchased for her. Also the wedding band, big as a spoon handle, around her finger—which I also purchased for her. Back in jail, she got to wear none of those things. But when she came to court, the jailers were required to dress her as I dictated.