Hide & Seek - James Patterson [75]
Her yellow pass, pasted conspicuously on her windshield, enabled her to spin the Chevrolet into the black-topped courthouse parking area. The lot was already packed with similarly stickered state and local police cars, and private cars belonging to the attorneys and their aides from both sides.
Judge Andrew Sussman’s blue Mercedes was in his private stall beside the courthouse back door. Nearby stood Nathan Bailford’s silver Porsche, looking like a car a college boy might drive to pick up pretty girls on weekends.
And it was Bailford who came up to her as she hefted her slightly overweight body out of her car.
Bailford gestured toward the crowd outside the lot. “And today’s only for jury selection. Imagine the scene when the real trial starts.”
“How’s your client holding up?” Norma asked. She had visited the accused woman several times in the past weeks, finding her surprisingly down-to-earth, although remote, neither helpful nor hindering. “Confused,” she was told. Clinically depressed, Norma described her.
“The same. Hasn’t really changed since the night of the killing. All lows, no highs.” He looked at her anxiously. “Anything new on your end?”
“Nothing yet. Lot of balls in the air though. Sometimes I feel like the court juggler. Ha, ha.”
Norma didn’t tell the lawyer that there were aspects to the killing that troubled her a great deal. There was nothing really specific yet, just things that didn’t hang together, or hold up to close scrutiny.
What did seem clear was this: If Maggie shot her first husband, she was forced to do it. If she shot Will Shepherd, she was also forced to. By what or by whom was unclear.
The real trouble was that there were two killings. One might be explained—temporary insanity, self-defense, long-term abuse. But two?
She would go back to the murder site that afternoon, looking for more information, looking for some trail to follow.
There was something she hadn’t found, something crucial. There had to be.
Dammit. Something was definitely wrong.
In Palm Springs, a California hazy, grapefruit-pink desert sun slid over the rocky stubble topping the mountains. The early rays came shimmering down onto the swimming pool and the surrounding red tile terrace.
Peter O’Malley laid aside his copy of yesterday’s New York Times. He removed his new mirrored Ray-Ban sunglasses, put them on a wrought-iron drink stand, and stared at the sparkling blue sheet of pool water.
His mind was sparkling too. On the surface itself, superimposed over the reflection of the stucco pool house, he could almost see the face of Maggie Bradford. Just as he had seen it on television last night. Pale, shadows under the eyes. She looked like a damn zombie, out of it, and his heart leapt at her plight.
Serves her fucking well right!
Later that night he’d heard her singing voice, the sound that literally destroyed him, blaring from his car radio. Her songs were all over the radio, of course. The caged songbird, the deejay called her.
Well, that voice wouldn’t be around much longer. Not on the radio (who would play the songs of a convicted murderess?), not in the boardroom of his father’s company either.
He put his dark glasses back on, picked up the pen and legal pad he had brought with him to the pool, and began the letter that he believed would guarantee the process of sending Maggie Bradford to her doom.
What goes around, comes around, sweetheart. Now you get yours. Trust me on that. Your “affair” with the O’Malleys isn’t quite over with yet.
CHAPTER 89
EVERYBODY WHO CAME into close contact with Dan Nizhinski, the Westchester County district attorney, had the same reaction: he was too good to be true, he was perfect for his part.
First, there were his looks. He was six foot one, with corn-blond hair prematurely thinning on top but long on the sides. His face was somewhat weatherbeaten, making it look older than its thirty-six years, but the lines around his light blue, sparkling