I took another sip of my coffee, staring at Leslie even as I tilted my head down to the cup. Her eyes were moist, cast downward, and her hands nervously clutched one the other.
“In another month,” I said, “Chet is going to stand trial for murder. Mr. Slocum is going to prosecute the case. He is going to ask the jury to sentence Chet to death. And I believe, Mrs. Moore, you can stop Mr. Slocum from killing Chet Concannon, just like you promised.”
After a long pause, Leslie said, “Renee, please, why don’t you get yourself another drink.”
“I think I should stay right here,” she said, “and keep my eye on Mr. Carl, make sure he doesn’t steal the ashtrays.”
“Get the drink, Renee,” Leslie said, her voice suddenly filled with an authority I didn’t know she could muster.
Renee shrugged and headed out to that other, less tidy room.
When she had left Leslie said, “I can’t tell you what you want to know, Mr. Carl.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“We have had difficult times in our marriage, I won’t deny that. And after Nadine’s death, for the longest time there was nothing left for either of us. I can understand now how he could seek comfort with that girl. But the ordeal of this trial has resurrected our commitment to each other. We have gone to counseling, we have opened our hearts to one another. It has changed both our lives, I am sure. It is as it was when we were first starting out together. In fact, it is better.”
“Chester Concannon is going to be put to death with a lethal injection, Mrs. Moore,” I said.
“We have both learned again what it means to give, to cherish one another, to trust.”
“They’re going to strap him to a gurney, tightly binding his arms and legs with leather straps,” I said, “and stick a needle in his arm. And attached to that needle will be an intravenous sack filled with a deadly barbiturate, the fluid laced with a chemical paralytic agent to make sure he doesn’t jerk the needle out of his arm as they kill him.”
“We have both learned again what it is to love.”
“They’re going to empty that sack into his arm,” I said, “and his muscles will freeze and his brain will slow from the drugs and Chester Concannon will fall into unconsciousness and die from barbiturates just like Nadine fell into unconsciousness and died from barbiturates.”
“Stop it, stop it now,” she said and then, still without looking at me, in a whisper, “You don’t understand. We have renewed our vows to each other, we have reaffirmed our commitments. He will no longer cheat on me, he has promised, and I will love him again, as I had loved him before I stopped loving him. We are together again, I can’t turn against him now.”
“You mean you won’t.”
Her head lifted and she stared squarely at me. “That’s right, Mr. Carl, I won’t. I can’t be forced to testify against my husband, is that right, Mr. Slocum?”
“That is correct, Mrs. Moore,” said Slocum. “We cannot force you to testify against your husband. But what we are talking about here is testifying in favor of Mr. Concannon.”
“And you would want me to testify?”
“I don’t want to kill an innocent man,” said Slocum.
“Then let him go.”
“I can’t, Mrs. Moore, without evidence. Right now, as it stands, I believe I’m going to convict him of first degree murder.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Carl. I am so sorry.”
“So am I,” I said, reaching for my briefcase. “Sorrier than you can know.”
I placed the briefcase on my lap, bullet hole side up. It was a brown leather number, with thick strips binding the edges, a Hartmann, one of the finest cases made. It was a gift, from my uncle Sammy, a message of his faith in my future. It was a solid briefcase, the briefcase of a successful lawyer. I used to like heaving it around, as if the accoutrements could define the man. Now it embarrassed me. All the more for what it contained. I freed the leather straps guarding the latches and opened the case. From inside I pulled out a manila envelope. Carefully I closed the case and placed it on the rug beside the couch and unfastened the metal clasp holding the envelope shut. Then I brought out the photographs.
Morris had had them taken for me. He had complained about the assignment. “I don’t do such stuff, prowling with a camera in the dead of night,” he said. “I am an investigator, not a piece of dreck.” But when I told him what it was all about and how a man’s life might depend on those photographs, and how I was out of town in Corpus Christi and couldn’t do it myself, he relented. “There might be nothing, you know that, Victor, nothing at all.” I told him I knew that, but that I had a hunch. “You and your hunches, where have your hunches gotten you, mine freint. Take my advice, and keep your hunches away from the racetrack and maybe you won’t die a beggar.” Of course he had not taken the photographs himself, as he might have been recognized, but he gave the assignment to Sheldon. “All the stuff he has,” said Morris. “These fancy-schmancy cameras, lenses like telescopes, special meters like from NASA, special filters, special film, a regular Eisenstadt. So tell me, Victor, why when it’s time for a picture of me and mine wife, the heads he cuts off like an executioner.” But in these photographs, Sheldon had not cut off the heads.
I placed the first on the coffee table, facing Leslie.
It was a high-resolution black-and-white photograph from inside one of the terminals still under renovation at the Philadelphia International Airport. Gate D5, a United Airlines gate, where two attendants were taking tickets at the counter and handing out seat assignments. On the board was listed Flight 595 to Chicago, leaving 4:55 P.M. In front of the counter, posing for the photographer, was a man holding up a copy of the Daily News. The headline running the entire length of the page read, “EAGLES SACK PACK,” touting the Eagles’ great surge to.500 on the preceding Sunday.
“This was taken Monday at the airport,” I said.
“And?” asked Leslie.
Slocum too was looking at me, wondering what I was doing.
The next picture was of the same counter, with the same attendants. To the side of the counter was a barrel-chested man in a belted raincoat, a garment bag hanging by a long strap from his shoulder. The man was Jimmy Moore.
“This is the flight he took Monday,” I said, “to get him to Chicago for the first day of the conference.”
“That’s right,” said Leslie. “He called me from the airport to say good-bye. To say he loved me and missed me already.”
“Yes, I’m not surprised,” I said, showing her the next photograph.
It was a wide-angle shot of the same terminal, the counter now on the right and Jimmy sitting on a chair in the waiting lounge, talking on his cellular phone.
“I don’t understand your point, Mr. Carl,” she said.
“I want you to look at the counter, Mrs. Moore. Do you see the woman there, in the heavy overcoat, with her back to us, getting ticketed?”
“And?”
I showed her the next picture. An announcement had been made and the first-class passengers had been asked to board. Jimmy was handing his ticket to an attendant at the mouth of the ramp. The woman in the overcoat was still getting ticketed at the counter.
Without saying anything I placed the next photograph before her. The corners of the prior photographs peeked out from the edges of the latest. Jimmy Moore had boarded, he was no longer in the photograph. The woman at the counter had received her seat assignment and boarding pass and had turned to leave the counter. Just as she was leaving the counter she had taken a glance behind her, looking left over her shoulder and the moment of that glance was when Sheldon had snapped the shutter. Her face was clearly visible in the photograph. It was Veronica Ashland.