Page 71 of The 1 Lawyer
CHAPTER 54
I FROZE in the open doorway when I heard footsteps tramping across the bare hardwood floor of the main bedroom. (When I’d gotten out of rehab, I’d finally hired a team to clear out the signs of the carnage from my wife’s murder, including the bloodstained rug.)
It would have been sensible for me to turn tail and run. Confronting an unknown intruder in a house notorious for murder was crazy. But the situation pushed a button in my brain, setting off a crazy response from me: This was my home. I was under my own goddamn roof. Nobody got to run me off.
So I crept into the house and headed to a guest room I’d been using. I still couldn’t sleep in the bedroom I had shared with Carrie Ann. Too much tragedy in there, too many ghosts.
Propped in the corner of the guest room near the head of the bed was a bat, my old wooden Louisville Slugger. I gripped it with both hands and moved as noiselessly as I could down the hall. From the main bedroom, I heard the rustle of fabric. The idea of someone rummaging through Carrie Ann’s closet made me see red.
I stepped into the room and raised the bat. I saw someone crouched down on the far side of the bed. I caught a glimpse of blue jeans. “Freeze!” I shouted.
With a shriek, the intruder jumped to her feet and wheeled around.
It was Jenny.
We stared at each other, both of us breathing hard. One of her hands clutched the loose fabric of her T-shirt. The other gripped an industrial tape measure. With her shoulders shaking, she said, “Jeez, Stafford Lee! You just scared ten years off my life!” She dropped onto the bed, gasping for breath.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I lowered the bat but kept gripping it hard. In my panic and fury, I was tempted to swing at something—the wall, the door, a window. I wanted to hear something shatter.
“Stafford Lee, I can explain,” she said.
“Explain why it’s all right for you to break into my home?”
“It wasn’t technically a break-in,” she said. “I have a key, you know.”
“Damn it, I know you have a key—I gave it to you.” My voice was too loud even to my own ears. I leaned against the doorframe, trying to get my emotions under control. “And my trusting you with a spare key doesn’t give you the right to come and go at will. This space,” I said, indicating the bedroom with a wave of the baseball bat, “this is forbidden territory for everyone.”
She hopped off the bed. “Please, Stafford Lee, listen to me for a minute. Will you give me that, just one minute?”
I wanted her gone—out of the room and out of my house. But the look of entreaty she gave was hard to refuse. I rubbed my hand over my face and squeezed my eyes shut to block out the sight of the bed. “Make it brief. One minute, then you’re out of here.”
She started talking fast. “Stafford Lee, I’m still looking into Carrie Ann’s murder. I know you don’t want to be reminded, but honestly, Stafford Lee, it doesn’t add up.”
I studied the floor, searching for patience. How many times would I have to tell Jenny to drop the subject of Carrie Ann?
Relentlessly, she went on. “The police concluded that Gates intended to kill you as payback, to settle a grudge against you. They assumed that you were the target. According to the reports, he brought in two different weapons. He had a double-barreled shotgun that he used to commit the double murder, and then he switched to a handgun to commit suicide. Why? Doesn’t that seem off to you?”
I didn’t care why she thought it was off. Didn’t want to hear it. But she was on a roll. “And the blood spatters. I think Detective Sweeney is overlooking something. It feels to me like the cops are mistaken about the killer’s position, the spot where he stood when he shot Carrie Ann and the coach.”
I couldn’t bear to hear much more. She edged nearer. “But the biggest inconsistency: The police report says Benjamin Gates committed suicide by taking a gun in his right hand, sticking it in his mouth, and pulling the trigger. Just like this. And he fell to the floor and dropped the gun.”
She made me watch her act it out. And then she dropped her hand and said, “I don’t buy it. That’s not how it happened.”
Jenny put her hand on my arm; her eyes searched my face.
“I’m right-handed, Stafford Lee. Benjamin Gates was left-handed.”
CHAPTER 55
I COULDN’T remain in that room any longer.
I shook off Jenny’s hand, backed away, and bolted from the bedroom. She followed close behind me, making apologies. “Stafford Lee! I’m so, so sorry! Let’s talk this through. Please?”
I went into the kitchen, walked over to the sink, and grasped the stainless-steel rim, wanting to hang on to something solid as I tried to regain control of myself.
“Stafford Lee? You going to be okay?”
I looked over at her. Jenny stood in the doorway, still clutching the tape measure. Sounding remorseful, she said, “God, I’m totally busted. I thought you’d be tied up in court today. It never occurred to me that you’d find me in that room.”