Tuesday’s Child

Chapter 18

RYAN SPENSER TOOK ONE LAST LOOK AT HIS REFLECTION IN THE mirror of the men’s room. Time to beard the lion. Such a cliché, but of late his life seemed to be one huge cliché. Once he had been the media’s darling. Today he was The Devil. Right or wrong, he knew that his goose was cooked. There was no way he could recover politically from the slaughter he was going through. Another cliché. If his father had his way, he’d fry his ass. Was that a cliché? He didn’t know or care.

No way was he going to walk away from any of this. No way in hell. Well, goddamn it, his conscience was clear. He had presented what he had to a jury and a judge. He turned the ball over to them. And now here he was as The Devil. He stared hard at his reflection. He’d lost weight, his summer tan was fading. He almost looked ghostly. His Armani suit hung on his big frame. A month ago, he’d looked smashing and debonair in the seven-thousand-dollar suit. A real Renaissance prince to be sure.

Spenser slammed his way through the door. His feet picked up speed as he strode down the marble hall to the EXIT sign, where reporters were waiting for him. He knew they were out there-they’d been dogging him for two weeks. No reason to think they wouldn’t be there again. Look like a winner, and you are a winner-his father’s favorite bit of advice. Look like a loser, and you are a loser. “Bullshit,” he muttered under his breath.

He was on the courthouse steps in the bright sunshine. He wished he’d thought to keep his sunglasses out, but they were in his briefcase. The aviator shades, in his opinion, made him look like movie-star material. If he was guilty of anything, it was of being vain. And he looked like a washed-up movie star.

There were just four reporters trailing him. More proof that he was a has-been. Right then, right that very second, he thought he would sell his soul to the devil if he would magically be given a smoking gun. He felt sick to his stomach as he stood tall and waited for the onslaught of questions. All of which he would respond to with, “No comment at this time.”

The four reporters shouted their questions, talking over each other.

“Is Sophie Lee going to get the payoff she deserves?”

“How do you feel about that payoff? Do you feel guilty?”

“What’s your feeling on Kala Aulani these days?”

“You still going to try to run for governor?”

“Where is Sophie Lee?”

“Do you have any proof Kala Aulani stole evidence from the evidence locker?”

“Did you lose weight, Mr. Spenser? Is that Armani you’re wearing?”

“What’s the Speaker of the House saying about all this?” Then, as an afterthought, “What is your uncle the governor saying?”

The questions kept coming. Spenser felt sick to his stomach. He tried for a smile, but it was sickly at best. “I’ll have a statement shortly. You know I can’t comment on an ongoing situation like this. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m already running late.”

“Where are you going, Mr. Spenser?”

He wanted to say, “Home to lick my wounds,” but he clamped his lips shut. They’d all know soon enough where he was going because they’d follow him.

“I’m going home because it’s the only place I can work uninterrupted. I owe the taxpayers my time, and I can’t fulfill my obligations if I’m constantly interrupted. Please, show some respect, okay?”

Finally, finally, he was in his car, a Mercedes 560 SEL convertible. It was blistering hot inside the small car, so he removed his designer jacket, jerked at his tie, then rolled up his shirtsleeves. Hot air blasted from the AC unit. Within seconds, he was drenched in his own sweat. He longed for a drink and a cigarette. He never smoked in public, but he did at home. And then he sucked on mints. Ten minutes and he’d be home and he could indulge himself. Just ten more minutes.

It wasn’t ten minutes but seventeen minutes because somehow he managed to hit every red light on the way home. He roared his way down the ramp, waited impatiently for the guardrail to rise, then raced up to the fourth level of the garage. He hopped out of the car, grabbed his jacket and bulging briefcase, and headed for the private elevator that would take him straight up to his penthouse apartment.

He always enjoyed coming home to his apartment. He loved it there, with the panoramic view of a town he loved, the town he’d sworn to protect as an officer of the court. And now that same town was out to skin him alive for doing his damn job. Where the hell was the loyalty? Where was the goodwill? Not liking his thoughts, Spenser walked around his spacious apartment, his eyes half seeing the furnishings, the other half somewhere else.

He never told anyone, but he had decorated the place himself. Everything was stark, black and white. Because that was the way he thought, either something was black or it was white. Either there was proof or there was no proof. End of story. Period. Chrome and glass with colored Jackson Pollock prints on the walls that added color. He always had fresh flowers delivered every other day. He liked flowers for some reason. He looked around; the place looked like a war zone in Beirut, with papers and files and folders everywhere. He’d given Yolanda, his housekeeper, a six-week paid vacation to visit her family in Guatemala to get her out from under his feet. Besides, he liked to reward loyalty, and Yolanda had been with him from day one. She’d certainly have her work cut out on her return. Which, in turn, would require an extra bonus.

Spenser stomped his way into his bedroom. He eyed the messy bed, the clothes he’d dropped wherever they fell. He wasn’t a slob by any means, but, over the past weeks, all desire for neatness had vanished. His bed linens needed to be changed, he needed clean towels, and he needed to do his laundry and hit the dry cleaners. Maybe he could call them, and they’d pick up his things. Well, he knew how to clean and make beds. It was the first thing that had been drilled into him at boarding school. Just because he knew how to do it didn’t mean he liked doing it.

Spenser shed his clothes, donned a pair of creased shorts and a snappy white T-shirt that said he loved Atlanta. Which he did. An hour later, his bed had fresh linens with hospital corners, his towels were in the washer, his dry cleaning sat in a bag by the front door. He forgot his desire for a drink and made coffee. While he waited for it to drip into the built-in coffeemaker, he eyed Yolanda’s favorite kitchen tool: a Crock-Pot. He needed to eat some nourishing food, and there was no way in hell he was going to go out to a restaurant, where people would gawk at him and whisper all kinds of things about him out of earshot. He opened the freezer, took stock of his food supply, and yanked at several different packages. He unwrapped everything and dumped it into the Crock-Pot, along with some chicken broth, some seasonings, then put the cover on it. Done.

Spenser wondered if his father had ever eaten anything out of a Crock-Pot. Unlikely. His father had a gourmet palate, unlike his own. Thanks again to summer camps and boarding school. He’d grown up on mac and cheese, stews, spaghetti, and anything that could be cooked in one pot. And he liked it. The only thing he and his father had in common was their appreciation for fine wine. He realized in that moment that he really didn’t like his father very much. Hell, he didn’t like him at all. He didn’t much care for his socialite mother, either. How could he? He had never been around them long enough to form any kind of attachment when he was a child.

The coffeemaker made one last cheerful gurgle, then went silent. Spenser peeled a banana and forced himself to eat it before he poured and carried his coffee into the living room. He brushed aside papers, set the cup down, and let his mind race. He needed to come to terms with what was staring him in the face, and he needed to do it now.

Spenser let his mind go back ten years in time. The police had called his office the moment they realized Audrey Star was dead. His office was always the first notified when a high-profile case came into being. He had dropped everything and raced to the Star mansion. He knew within seconds that this was the one big case that could make or break him. The media were everywhere, twenty-four/seven. He’d lost count of the interviews he’d given, always careful to speak the truth and to stay inside the letter of the law.

Spenser remembered his first thought when he entered the death room and saw the pretty little nurse, the dead woman who wasn’t so pretty in death, and the handsome husband. Triangle. Money. The husband was going to inherit the Star fortune. Sadly, to his dismay, he soon found out that wasn’t the case since Star had already had the fortune, and it had been turned over to him long before the wife had her tragic accident. It was still a triangle. A love triangle. Pretty young nurse with stars in her eyes, a handsome man, and an invalid wife. Anyone with half a brain would have thought the same way he did at the time. He’d burned the midnight oil, getting by on as little as two hours’ sleep a night in his quest to get to the truth.

The pretty little nurse had a squeaky-clean background. Orphan, friends in the city, put herself through nursing school, sterling affidavits from friends and teachers, glowing testimonials from those do-gooder nuns at St. Gabriel’s. It wasn’t computing.

He’d interviewed Adam Star personally at least a dozen times before the trial. He was adamant that there was nothing going on between the nurse and himself. Spenser actually believed him. He tried another tack: Sophie Lee was enamored of her boss, a secret love crush. Star had scoffed at that. Sophie Lee, he said, had always been professional. He’d gone on to say he never understood why she’d stayed on because his wife was so verbally abusive. Until Sophie came, they hadn’t been able to keep a nurse more than a week. Star had said he actually asked her why she stayed, and her response had been, “Your wife needs me. She needs a constant. They’re just words, Mr. Star, and they’re a result of her medications and being an invalid with no hope of recovery.” Star had gone on to say, because of her dedication, he always gave her a bonus in her paycheck to show his appreciation. She always thanked him and said it wasn’t necessary. Star said no one, and that included Spenser, could ever convince him that Sophie Lee had killed his wife.

“Well then, Mr. Star,” Spenser had said, “that just leaves you as the guilty party.”

“Prove it,” had been Star’s challenge. He lawyered up with eight-hundred-dollar-an-hour lawyers; not one, not two, not three, but four of them. Within hours of Audrey Star’s death, he had the mayor, the chief of police, and everyone else with a title in the state of Georgia covering his back. Star was right, there was no hard proof, not so much as a shred. So, Spenser concentrated on Sophie Lee and his theory of a secret, unrequited, one-sided love affair. It was weak, and he knew it, but he ran with it anyway because he had nothing else to go on. There was a dead woman who demanded justice be served, and he had to serve Audrey Star.

The medical laptop computer that belonged to Dr. Hershey Franklin had yielded nothing. On his daily visits to check on his patient, Dr. Franklin had typed in his orders, and Sophie Lee initialed them. She recorded everything on the computer every fifteen minutes, even Audrey Star’s abusive comments. Kala Aulani had argued to the court that those entries were all the proof a jury needed to show that Sophie Lee was a dedicated nurse.

Sophie Lee had arrived with her own outdated, beat-up, secondhand laptop, Adam Star had said. But when she realized she didn’t need it, she’d taken it back to her apartment. He’d confiscated that, too, but there was nothing on it to incriminate Sophie Lee. Then he had decided maybe it was a conspiracy between the doctor, Star, and the nurse. Well, that had been a shitstorm to equal no other. Franklin’s lawyers had come on like bulldozers and he had to back off that theory and actually offer an apology to the doctor. That left him with Sophie Lee and his unrequited-love theory. Audrey Star was dead, and if her husband didn’t kill her, that left only Sophie Lee. All he had to do was convince a jury of Sophie Lee’s peers that she was guilty. And he had successfully done that.

Had Sophie Lee killed Audrey Star? In his heart of hearts, he didn’t think so. What he personally thought did not count in a court of law. Spenser thought Adam Star had killed his wife. He just couldn’t prove it. He had hoped, in the dark and silence of this very apartment, late at night, that Adam Star would own up to what he had done at some point. But he never had, so he gave the case everything he had, and Sophie Lee was convicted.

Okay, that was his side of things. Spenser finished his coffee, trotted out to the kitchen for a refill, and brought it back. He rummaged until he found Kala Aulani’s opening statement. He read it, reread it, then read it a third time. What jumped out at him were the words: Audrey Star had kept a journal. He’d grilled Adam Star about the journal-Star had referred to it in old-fashioned girly terms as a diary. On the stand, Star had said his wife kept a diary long before he had ever met her, and that she continued to write in her diary during the good years of their marriage, and as far as he knew she hadn’t done it since the accident. Then he had corrected himself and said maybe she had kept one, but if she did, he didn’t know where it was, and no, he had never felt the need to pry into his wife’s secret thoughts. In her deposition, Sophie Lee said there was such a diary but she referred to it as a journal and that Audrey wrote in it on her “good days.” She said Audrey kept the journal either under her pillow or in the drawer of the night table that she could reach by the side of her hospital bed. She said also in her deposition that Audrey used to clip articles or things of interest out of magazines, again, on her “good days,” and kept them in the back of her journal or would tape them to pages in her journal.

Spenser’s instincts back then had been on the money, but the suits who charged $800 an hour had successfully gotten Star out of it, leaving only Sophie to prosecute. The son of a bitch had never confessed until he himself was dying. He wondered how those eight-hundred-dollar-an-hour suits were sleeping these days. No better than he was, he hoped.

A warrant to search the Star mansion and Sophie Lee’s apartment did not turn up a journal, a diary, or even a notebook. At trial he had hammered home the point that only Sophie Lee had direct knowledge of the journal and that she had gotten rid of it before the fateful day she’d decided to kill her patient. On the stand, Adam Star had openly scoffed at that suggestion, and for his point of view, he had been declared a hostile witness.

So where in the damn hell was the journal? Sophie Lee had been adamant about there being one. Adam Star, hostile witness or not, had backed up the fact that his wife had indeed kept a journal, though he thought she only wrote in it on her good days. Previous nurses who hadn’t wanted to get involved in a messy murder trial had selective memories. A few nurses said they thought Mrs. Star wrote in something from time to time, others said absolutely not, the patient just watched television.

Spenser realized his career was over regardless of what he did from that point on. He had cut corners, but always in the interest of justice. He did what he had to do. To the best of his knowledge, he had not broken a single law. All those other cases he’d prosecuted were now going to come back and haunt him. The lawyers would nitpick every little goddamn thing they could. The cases would be tied up in the courts for years and would probably never end. Unless he could find the damn journal. If he couldn’t find it ten years ago, how was he going to find it now?

He wasn’t. That was the bottom line. As much as he wanted to believe Kala Aulani had it, he knew she didn’t. If Sophie Lee had it, she would have turned it over to her attorney. That just left Adam Star. And Adam Star or Adam Clements, whatever the hell his name ended up being, was now dead. Unless Spenser could find a direct line to hell, he was never going to locate the journal.

Spenser sniffed the aromas wafting out of the kitchen. He hoped the mess in the Crock-Pot turned out to be as good as it smelled. He forced his thoughts back to the matter at hand. And that’s when he had his epiphany. Did he have the guts to act on it?

Spenser leaned his head back and closed his eyes and thought about Sophie Lee. Maybe, just maybe, he could salvage this whole disaster.

Sophie Lee walked on the beach with Sula at her side. She felt better than she’d ever felt in her whole life. Kala had called and said the state of Georgia was going to meet Kala’s demands. She was going to have so much money she wouldn’t know what to do with it. They were wrong. She knew exactly what she was going to do with it, and with the Star fortune, too.

She absolutely loved it in Hawaii. As each day wound down, she thought more and more about making the island her home. If she needed a stateside fix, she could always head for the mainland.

Sophie was tanned and toned, the muscles in her legs and thighs like steel with all the sand walking she’d done these past weeks, ten miles in the morning, ten miles at night. She had developed superior upper body strength, what with all the swimming she’d been doing. The swimming pleased her more than anything. She’d conquered her fear of the water, thanks to Sula, who swam with her every day as she perfected her breaststroke. If ever there was a time to take on the world and Ryan Spenser, this was the time. But did she really want all that upheaval in her life? She simply didn’t know.

But did she really want to let it all go? Wasn’t that why she had a lawyer? You couldn’t unring the bell, everyone knew that. Whatever, if anything, was going to happen to Ryan Spenser would happen regardless of what she and Kala would decide to do. In the end, Kala could take care of all that. All she wanted now was to get on with her life. More to the point, make a new life for herself. If she elected to live in the past, she’d never move forward. All that was important to her these days was that the people she loved and cared about the most finally had hard and fast evidence that she hadn’t murdered her patient. That, she had decided, was enough for her to start to lay the groundwork to begin a new life. She could do that, too. She was mentally and physically strong and getting more so with each passing day.

The only thing that remained to plague her was Audrey Star’s missing journal. Adam Star must have taken it and hidden it somewhere. She realized they would probably never know what had happened to it. It was strange, though, that Adam had not mentioned it in his deathbed confession. Was it that unimportant, or was it too important to talk about? The point was moot now, she assumed, with both Audrey and Adam dead.

The sun was starting to go down, so Sophie turned and headed back to the house where she was living. She was tired, but it was a good kind of tired. In her whole life, she had never gotten this much fresh air or exercise. She poured herself a big glass of pineapple-mango juice and got a chew bone for Sula before she headed to the lanai, where she collapsed onto a flower-patterned lounge chair. Sula hopped up next to her and curled up in the bend of her knees.

Sophie clicked on the remote, and the news came on. She watched it, paying attention to what was going on locally. Then the newscaster switched to the national news, and she watched Ryan Spenser outside the courthouse. He looks terrible, she thought.

There was something different about him, though. Was she mistaken, or was the man being humble? She was mistaken; Spenser didn’t know the meaning of humble. Or did he? Only time would tell.

Sophie had no idea how close to the truth she was or how soon everything would be resolved, one way or the other.