The Murder List Read online

  Jack pictured this, the phony politeness, the attempt to weasel information, the brazen disobedience to the rules, the orchestrated humiliation.

  Nina looked at the ceiling, a checkerboard array of bright black-and-white tiles. “Jack? What is going on?” she continued, her words coming faster. “Why would they arrest me? Me? You’re the lawyer, you must know. Know something.”

  And this was the hell of it, Jack thought. No, he didn’t know why she was a suspect. Not completely. Yet again, how the legal system is stacked against the defense. Exactly the opposite of how it should be.

  “At this point I only have the police report from the discovery of the body,” he told her. “I know they got a nine-one-one call from the trash guy. They picked up later than usual because of the snow. Cops responded to the scene. They found Ms. Zander’s body at the dumpster. No immediately apparent cause of death, like gunshot wounds or stabbing.”

  He heard her draw in a breath.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “No, no, go on.” She waved aside his concern. “I need to know everything.”

  “They speculate a blow to the back of the head, ‘blunt trauma,’ the report says. But nothing further.”

  “But by now? Don’t you have…” She shook her head, held up her hands, entreating. “Something? What they’re going to say? What evidence they have?”

  “Nope,” Jack had to say. “That’s how the system works. It … sucks. Sorry for the language. But we won’t hear what they have until they read their statement of the case in court. We’ll deal with it from there. And your bail. But before we do all that, two things. One, they’re not supposed to ask you anything after you ask for a lawyer, but it’s good they tried. We can keep that blatant misconduct in our back pocket. But, two, the better news, it gives us a clue about what they have. What they think they have.”

  “They don’t have anything!” Nina’s voice went up, her veneer of sarcasm and control weakening.

  He put up both palms. This was the real Nina coming through, and he didn’t blame her. Frankly, she didn’t know the half of it. Martha Gardiner was a freight train, every case a must-win, no matter who got flattened on the way to a guilty verdict. But Jack felt exactly the same about a not guilty. And here they were, again, two locomotives running head-to-head. And, Jack calculated, this damn time it was the good guy’s turn to prevail.

  “Listen, Nina, you need to tell me. First, how well did you know Danielle Zander? And second, where were you? And I mean—every moment. From, say, Friday night until Monday afternoon. Where?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  RACHEL NORTH

  I’d been in court more often in the last month than I had in the entire rest of my life. I shifted on the rock-hard wooden pew in the spectator section of the courtroom, the padding of my heavy winter coat the only thing cushioning my rear. Was every seat in every courtroom designed to be uncomfortable? I remembered complaining to Roni Wollaskay about our chairs in the superior court jury box—was it only weeks ago?

  Talk about uncomfortable. Senator Rafferty, his coat buttoned and a scowl darkening his face, took up twice as much room on the pew next to me as he was entitled to. No one dared to sit on the other side of him. Like at a funeral, when people gave mourners their space. Danielle Zander’s actual funeral was yet to be held, put on hold for the medical examiner’s investigation.

  Nina Perini Rafferty sat ramrod-backed and motionless at the defense table. Today, she was the victim.

  Beside her sat Jack Kirkland, pin-striped and square-shouldered, his chair turned a supportive fraction toward Nina, his arm over the back of her chair, his demeanor protective and proprietary. Like he’d been with me yesterday. And last night on my doorstep. Today, he hadn’t acknowledged me at all, though he must have seen me sitting here. Did he know what evidence the prosecutors had against Tom’s wife? They’d worked pretty fast, charging her after one day. I tried to imagine her killing Danielle. I imagined me sitting on her jury, deliberating whether to put the wife of my employer in prison for life for killing a young woman who worked in his office. I imagined Tom Rafferty imagining that murder and that jury. Now both of his hands were clenched into fists. Maybe he thought Nina did it.

  After the news about Nina broke this morning, we got so many phone calls that it almost blew the statehouse circuits. The senator, incensed or embarrassed, closed the office and sent everyone home. But even after Nina’s arrest, he ordered his staffers to travel in groups. Which meant he thought Nina didn’t do it.

  Martha Gardiner—the gang was all here—sat with her arms crossed in front of her chest. Suede pumps, hair impeccable, wearing a dark got-to-be-designer suit. She’d also angled her body toward Nina, but to mark her territory, show the defendant who was in charge. Beside her sat Lizann Wallace, the same associate-wannabe who helped her in the Deacon Davis trial. Those two hadn’t acknowledged me, either.

  The judge turned pages in some document, behaving as if there were nothing else in the world going on. No drama, no tension, no news cameras, no reporters, no rampant curiosity. No defendant, her future in precarious balance, waiting for the proceedings to begin. And end.

  “Ms. Gardiner?” The judge moved his wire-rimmed reading glasses to the top of his balding head, then attempted a smile.

  Beside me, I felt Tom let out a spool of breath. He was a lawyer. He knew what was about to happen. But this time it was about his wife. And about his career, too. Would the citizens of Massachusetts embrace a senate president whose wife was a convicted murderer? Even a suspected murderer? I knew it took months, longer even, for actual trials to get under way. After my lifelong habit of studying murder mysteries and watching crime shows on TV, I knew there’d be discovery and investigation and interviews and legal wrangling. If Jack Kirkland couldn’t get Nina released on bail, then Tom would be trying to conduct senate business with his wife in state custody. I knew from real life that was not gonna fly.

  Would he take a demotion, maybe? Agree to the appointment of an interim senate president, maybe agree to move all of us to a ratty dinky office in the statehouse basement, keeping his head down and profile low while the murder investigation progressed? Unlikely.

  He’d have to resign.

  And when he resigned, he wouldn’t be my boss anymore. And I’d be as toxic as he was. No one liked to be tainted with scandal, even someone else’s. If Nina was found guilty, it would make sense for me to leave town. I sneaked a look at the senator. Or stay, if that worked out.

  I yanked myself back to the current reality. Martha Gardiner, her voice unsettlingly familiar, read from a police report describing the scene behind the statehouse when the then-unidentified body was found.

  “Responding to a nine-one-one call,” Martha told the judge, “Boston Police Officer Carmine Boteri arrived at a statehouse parking lot, wherein he discovered a white female, approximately twenty-eight to thirty years of age, lying supine on the pavement in proximity to a dumpster. The woman was fully clothed in skirt and turtleneck sweater underneath a woolen coat, and upon first examination, Officer Boteri, though he determined she was deceased, could not determine a clear-cut cause of death. Whereupon he called for an ambulance and police backup. The victim, later determined to be…”

  She—Dani—wasn’t in the dumpster, the way the news reporters had written it.

  I envisioned the murder scene, as much as I allowed myself to do so, as Gardiner continued with investigatory details. I risked another glance at Tom, but he stared straight ahead.

  “Upon closer scrutiny of the victim by the medical examiner,” Gardiner was saying, “the cause of death was determined to be blunt trauma, although no weapon was found at the scene.”

  Why did they suspect Nina? That was all I could think about. They had to explain that. But I wasn’t a lawyer, and there was no one to ask. Certainly not Tom Rafferty, who was as much a victim as his wife. The pews behind me were silent, reporters and spectators and tragedy seekers, courthouse regulars, I
guessed, all waiting for the juicy stuff. Which was vile and sordid, except that’s why I was here, too.

  “Soon after the murder,” Gardiner went on, “we were able to confirm via a confidential interviewee that the gold necklace Ms. Zander was wearing, very distinctive, with charms of small stars…”

  I looked at Tom. He stared ahead. Hardly breathing.

  “… was given to her by her employer, Senator Thomas Rafferty.”

  Gardiner paused. The air went out of the room, then rushed back in. I saw every news camera swivel. Targeting the senator. It was all I could do not to shrink back, duck down, make myself small, and stay the hell out of the shot. But that would not be loyal. I tried to look dismissive. Derisive. As if this were an obvious prosecutor trick, impugning the reputation of an upstanding citizen and public servant. My boss.

  The necklace. Tom was an idiot. Was everyone crazy?

  It hadn’t been for his wife. It was for Dani. I felt my brain turn black and the room go dark, and—Rachel. Stop. Tom had no idea I’d seen the necklace that weekend he’d left it at my apartment. So … damn. Think think think.

  My professional brain knew Tom needed strategy. What would we say? What would we do? Were we still no-commenting? My personal brain was frying. Insane. Rafferty was so damn stupid. But wait. This meant prosecutors might think that Nina Rafferty was so enraged at this beautiful young “other woman,” so jealous, that she killed her. Really?

  I pursed my lips, considering. Nina. Ballistic. Maybe. It depended on what evidence they thought they had. And though this was not about me, it was, because—But wait. No. Tom didn’t know I knew what was in the box. No one did. No one but me.

  Tom was a statue. Not a twitch of a muscle, not a throb of a vein. I felt the cameras on us, hunting for a trace of emotion, of reaction, of surprise. Or, maybe, shame. I couldn’t risk conferring with him, whispering or not. It made him look too guilty. As if we were planning a defense. We needed to ice our way through this moment.

  But at the defense table, Nina had openly lost it. She turned to Jack, who had already turned to face her. Her jaw dropped, her eyes widened. She leaned closer to him. I saw her mouth the words “What the hell?” At least I thought that’s what she said.

  I heard Gardiner draw in a deep breath. Saw her elegant shoulders rise, then fall. I bet this was theatrics, playing for time, making sure her bombshell sunk in. Letting reporters get it all down, allowing cameras to get their shot and then put her back in the spotlight.

  It worked. When she cleared her throat, all eyes—and camera lenses—pivoted back to her. Nina waited. Jack waited. The judge waited. I sneaked a quick look back toward the row of journalists. They were all texting like crazy. That red-haired Clea person was there, too, the one I saw at Gallery with Jack.

  “The confidential interviewee,” Gardiner continued, “whose name is being redacted by the police to protect said interviewee’s privacy, also revealed…”

  She stopped again. Her associate looked up at her, nodded. I saw her in profile but couldn’t read her expression. I knew my own expression must be a jumble. Half my brain was crafting news releases, and the other half crafting my new résumé. Rafferty and Dani. I thought about that night he came to my apartment. What if I hadn’t thrown him out?

  I imagined myself as a dead girl wearing a gold necklace. A necklace with stars.

  Gardiner was talking again. “… also revealed the senator to have a history of illicit relationships with other female members of his staff. Some of whom are on the staff even now. Which, we allege, his wife, Nina Rafferty, knew full well.”

  This time the audience went full-out nuts. Couldn’t hold back the gasp that seemed to come from all of them at once, including me and including Rafferty himself, who muttered “asshole” under his breath. The judge banged some object that wasn’t a gavel, a block of wood or something. He didn’t yell order, order, like they did on TV. But his intent was clear. When a fidgety hush fell over the courtroom, the judge waited. One beat, two.

  “One more outburst,” he said. “One. And you will all be removed. Then I will close this courtroom. Understood?”

  Fine with me, I thought. The fewer people who heard this stuff the better. I hoped there were no more cats in the bag. Several of the reporters had raced out of the room anyway, the courtroom door banging shut behind them. I mentally shook my head. Apparently serial adultery was bigger news than murder.

  Nina put her face in her hands, her elbows on the table. Jack had his arm around her shoulders again. Gardiner had the classic snarky posture of a tattletale, the kid who was proud of herself for ratting to the teacher. Or perhaps that’s how prosecutors looked when they scored.

  “Ms. Gardiner?” the judge said. “Continue.”

  “Thank you,” Gardiner said.

  Her voice was confident, as if she didn’t care that she was ruining the lives of so many people. Though I supposed she considered it an inevitability of her job. To her, Tom Rafferty might be a sleaze, but Danielle Zander was dead. And Gardiner thought she’d nabbed the woman who killed her. Plus, the police didn’t arrest people they didn’t have some evidence about. If Nina had killed her rival out of jealousy and revenge, it would be horrible. And tragic. For everyone.

  But simply because it’s horrible, that doesn’t mean a jury won’t believe it’s true.

  JACK KIRKLAND

  Nina was clearly shocked by the necklace thing. Jack saw two blotchy spots of red appear on her pale cheekbones. She drew in a sharp breath, and her widened eyes darted from Jack to her husband to her hands—to her wedding ring, a gold band crisscrossed with diamonds—to somewhere off in her own imaginary distance. She touched her own double-strand necklace with two trembling fingers, then dropped her hand into her lap. As if the pearls had singed her fingertips.

  Rafferty must be going bullshit crazy. Jack had to resist turning around to look as Judge Drybrough banged his wooden block for order. Jack also resisted looking at Rachel North, who he knew was sitting next to her boss. He’d seen Clea, too, though he’d pretended not to. “Other female members of his staff,” Gardiner had told the court. Had Rachel known about that? Or—been involved?

  Now he was the one to draw a breath. Was she Gardiner’s interviewee? Was Rachel the informant who’d revealed her boss’s repeated infidelities? Jack calculated the odds, the pros and cons, the possibilities. The timing. When would she have done that? And wouldn’t Tom’s ruin cost Rachel her job? What if she were so principled, so ethical, that the death of a colleague overcame her loyalty? Made telling the truth her only choice?

  “Jack.” Nina leaned close to him. Whispering. “How can that Gardiner woman—?”

  “Ms. Gardiner, continue,” the judge said.

  Jack put a palm on Nina’s arm, felt her delicate bones under the black sweater, her thin wrist. “It’s okay,” he whispered.

  “Your Honor, on information and belief,” Gardiner was pontificating, “as a result of her continued jealousy and inability to stop her husband from his continued infidelity—including her knowledge of Ms. Zander’s so-called business trips out of town with Senator Rafferty, some of which lasted for several days—we believe that on or about Sunday of this week, Nina Perini Rafferty lured the victim from the senate office where she had been working, using some pretext or pretense. After all, Ms. Zander was in the employ of Nina Rafferty’s husband and would have deferred to her wishes. We have confirmed with building security that Ms. Zander was indeed working that day, as a devoted public servant—”

  Jack yearned to object. This was argument, opinion, not facts in evidence. There was nothing in evidence. Still, there was nothing to be gained from making their load of bull take longer than necessary.

  Gardiner had paused, a blatant ploy to lure Jack into objecting. Jack ignored the tactic, instead made what only looked like notes on his yellow pad.

  “A devoted public servant,” Gardiner repeated. “And, Your Honor, we believe that once the two women were in the basi
c area of the dumpster, on a day when the vast majority of statehouse employees are not present, and, indeed, where only an insider like Mrs. Rafferty could have known there was no video surveillance, she brutally attacked her with a rock or brick or other such blunt object, whereupon Ms. Zander fell against the heavy steel dumpster, hit her head yet again, and was soon deceased.”

  The courtroom buzzed again. The horror, for a fraction of a second, winning the race with the judge’s wooden block.

  Jack wanted to kill Gardiner. This was unnecessary. Brutal. Humiliating.

  Instead of committing that crime, he wrote on his legal pad. In block printing, all caps. He turned the pad to Nina.

  DO NOT WORRY.

  He underlined it twice, making sure it sank in.

  No matter what, he quickly scrawled underneath.

  She nodded. Weary, defeated, drained.

  “Nina Rafferty is charged with first-degree murder,” Gardiner said, “with malice aforethought and extreme atrocity, and we request that she be held without bail until trial.”

  Nina gasped, covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes filled with tears. The high-powered exec Jack had interviewed earlier this morning had vanished, replaced by a terrified middle-aged woman faced with her husband’s betrayal. And life in prison. Jack kept his eyes trained on the judge.

  “Mr. Kirkland? We will hear you on the request.”

  Jack stood, almost savoring the moment. He took a deep breath, stalling. He knew Gardiner saw dollar signs in her head, envisioned headlines about some massive bankroll-busting bail and her brilliant victory in court. Thinking Nina Rafferty would never see the sun again.

  “If it please the court, Your Honor, we will not be requesting bail.”

  Jack paused, long enough to confirm the bafflement in Gardiner’s ferrety eyes. Long enough to let the audience react. Long enough to incite the judge’s block-banging again. When Nina raised her eyebrows at him, he let one finger drop to the note he’d written. Pointed to it again. Do not worry.