Читать книгу Confessions Bundle - Jo Leigh - Страница 9

“WHY ARE YOU CHANGING?”

With her arm half in and half out of one of her favorite navy silk-lined suit jackets, Juliet turned to see a fully dressed Mary Jane standing in the doorway of her closet Tuesday morning. She finished removing the jacket.

“You look cute,” she told the child. Today Mary Jane had on a short denim skirt, an orange long-sleeved sweater, orange socks and tennis shoes. The kid had her own sense of style. Even in this, she stood out from the crowd.

“Thanks,” she said, coming in to hold Juliet’s jacket while she stepped out of the navy skirt. It had to go on the hanger first.

The child stood, unusually silent, watching while Juliet stepped into one of her most expensive suits—black skirt and tailored red jacket with black silk piping.

“What was wrong with the first one?”

“Nothing.”

Pulling her favorite black pumps from their slot, Juliet did a mental run-through of the questions she had for Eaton James that morning in light of the new evidence the prosecution would be introducing. And of the first witnesses she’d be calling when the prosecution finally rested.

Mary Jane was looking in her jewelry box, pulling out the eighteen-karat gold-and-diamond heart necklace, bracelet and earrings she usually wore with this suit.

“Are you going to see my father this morning?” She handed them to her mother.

“Yes.” Schuster was winding up and so far, he hadn’t given them anything she couldn’t rebut. They weren’t arguing about the facts, but about whether or not Eaton James’s intentions were fraudulent. There was no personal gain to give truth to that claim. The man might have been desperate and stupid, but he hadn’t done anything with the intent to steal from his investors.

“Is that why you’re wearing the red power suit?”

“No!”

With her head slightly lowered, Mary Jane peered up at Juliet, her full lips puckered disapprovingly.

“Okay, okay, yes, maybe that’s why. I’m really trying not to think about it.” She held out her bracelet and her wrist. “He’s just a guy.”

“Don’t tell him about me, okay?” The girl’s forehead creased as her little fingers fumbled with the clasp.

“Of course not, imp. I’d never do something like that without telling you.”

“Promise?” Wide green eyes stared up at her.

“Yes.” Unequivocally.

Pulling the little girl into her arms, Juliet knew there was at least one thing in her life she’d gotten completely right.

And that she’d give her life for it.

For her.

JULIET WAS LETTING THE prosecution lay everything out on the table, waiting for Schuster to show all his cards so that, when her turn came to explain those cards, she could do so without confusing the jury. The tactic didn’t always work, but in a case as convoluted with paper trails as this one, it was an almost sure win.

That was why she’d let every single witness pass unquestioned by the defense. Those she needed, if any, she’d call back.

It was also why Judge Lockhard didn’t have much patience with her. Judges didn’t like it when defense attorneys refused to cross-examine.

And then Schuster called his last witness that Tuesday morning in early April. As she’d been doing for a couple of weeks, she waited while Schuster questioned Blake Ramsden, revealing to the twelve-member jury that until his death, Walter Ramsden had held a seat on the board of Semaphor—along with Eaton James. Semaphor served as a clearinghouse of sorts, collecting and providing data to potential contributors all over the world. Schuster maintained that James used this connection to find his prey.

“Objection!” Juliet stood, her gaze solidly on the judge. “Your Honor, the prosecution is leading the witness.”

Judge Henry Lockhard sighed, frowned and said, “Objection sustained. Jury, please disregard the last remark and it will be stricken from the record. Counsel, you may continue.”

Juliet sat. She reminded Eaton not to show any emotion other than respect, or perhaps any distress he might be feeling at the tarnishing of his good name. She waited for his nod and returned her attention to the notepad on the table in front of her.

She had no reason to size up this witness. She already knew his size.

Eaton James, when she’d disclosed her very brief association with the witness, had seemed more pleased than distressed.

“Mr. Ramsden, what do you know about Eaton Estates?” Schuster continued.

“It was a land development project in the Cayman Islands. Eaton James approached my father with an investment plan that projected at least a double return on any monies spent. In addition, three percent of all profits were to go to the Terracotta Foundation, specifically to feed orphans in Honduras. The Foundation made much of its money through such investments.”

His voice hadn’t changed.

“And did your father invest?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“Half a million dollars.”

“What happened?”

He was wearing a gray suit, white shirt and maroon-white-and-gray striped tie. His shoes were Italian leather—or something that appeared just as expensive. She’d noticed them when he’d approached the witness stand. Other than that, Juliet didn’t look at Blake Ramsden. There was no point in studying the father of her child for evidence of genetic similarities.

“I was in the Cayman Islands at the time. My mother called, telling me she was concerned because my father had been getting the runaround from James, and she asked me to check out Eaton Estates.”

“And did the development exist?”

Schuster’s shoes brushed the floor softly as he walked back and forth from the jurors’ box to the witness stand a few feet away.

“Yes. It was a plot of land that was sinking into the sea.”

The footsteps stopped.

“So, completely useless.”

“Yes.”

“Then what happened?”

Schuster began to pace again. Juliet knew by heart the expressions the man was wearing for the jurors’ benefit. But hers would be the ones they took with them into deliberation.

“I called my mother and she relayed the information to my father, who confronted James. She called the next day to tell me James had admitted the land was worthless, but claimed that he’d only just discovered that himself. He’d been swindled with the rest of his investors.”

“Mr. Ramsden, would you say your father was a savvy businessman?”

“Absolutely.”

“As a matter of fact, he’d never made a bad investment in his life, had he?”

“This was a first.”

“Why do you think he was so successful in that area? Luck?”

Blake gave a humorless chuckle and Juliet glanced up instinctively. And then quickly away. He wasn’t smiling, his lips were twisted into an “I know better” quirk that Juliet recognized all too well. She’d seen it directed at her just that morning, from a pair of eight-year-old lips in her closet at home.

“Walter Ramsden would never have given up control of his life, or his money, to something as capricious as luck. He was successful because he had an uncanny talent for evaluating people—as though he had a second ear that heard what a person wasn’t saying as clearly as what he was.”

“And what did your father have to say about the Eaton Estates deal?”

“When I spoke to my mother after my father’s meeting with Eaton, she said he was certain James was lying. That the man had known before he bought the property that it was wasteland. And that he’d paid a fraction of the cost claimed on the notes he’d passed on to my father. He also said there was no way of proving his suspicion, that Eaton had his bases all very well covered, including the fact that no extra money had turned up anywhere else.”

“So, how do you explain, if your father was this talented…” Schuster paused and approached the jurors.

Juliet gave the man full marks for the little bit of emphasis he put on that word, leading the jury right to the thought they were already going to have, that perhaps Walter Ramsden wasn’t as gifted as his son claimed, thus voiding the value of Blake’s testimony. She knew, too, that whatever was coming next would plant in their minds something that would discount that suspicion. In a detached, analytical way, she waited to see how he pulled it off.

“…if Walter Ramsden did indeed have the ability to sense the potential legitimacy of his business associates, why did he invest in Eaton Estates?”

Surprised when Blake didn’t immediately answer, Juliet looked up and saw the hesitation in his eyes, eyes that stared out but weren’t focused. Pen to tablet, she scribbled.

“I know why. I’d been abroad at the time, studying architecture—and volunteering on various development projects. According to my mother, my father followed my progress from country to country.”

He paused. Juliet was staring. This was nothing like the man she’d known that night so long ago. That Blake Ramsden had come close to hating his father—or at least the tyranny with which the old man had ruled his son.

“At the time the Eaton offer was first made, I was in Honduras, helping modernize a village whose population was three children to every adult. They were all hungry, poverty stricken. Eaton offered to feed those kids.”

Damn. The jurors were swimming right toward Schuster. He was good. Almost as good as she’d heard.

And she knew what was coming next.

“If it pleases the court, I’d like to submit Exhibit double Z into the records.” Schuster pulled out the document he had faxed to Juliet’s home Sunday night. “This is a record of a land assessment inspection showing that the property was sinking.

“Please note, further,” Schuster said softly, “the date of the investment is the month before the sale date.” He walked the document over to Blake Ramsden. “Can you confirm this is the same document you saw?”

A long pause followed. Juliet shifted in her seat. Glanced at the judge. The jurors. Tapped her pen against the back of her left hand.

Eaton moved beside her, breathing heavily. Reaching over, Blake handed back the document. “Yes.”

Juliet put her hand on Eaton’s knee. “It’s okay. Sit still. We get the ball last.”

He sat back, but he wasn’t calm. No one was. It was another five minutes before Judge Lockhard offered her the witness for cross-examination.

This time, Juliet accepted the offer. She had no desire to spend a second day in court with Blake Ramsden.

Picking up her black leather-bound tablet, Juliet rose. She didn’t need the notes. She could recite them—and everything in between the lines—by rote. But she needed something to look at.

It felt good to stand. To move around after so many hours of sitting.

She was going to have to connect with the witness if she wanted the jury to connect to the response she drew from him.

With a long slow breath, she approached the witness stand. Looked up. Smiled.

And had to swallow when he smiled back.

Mary Jane’s smile.

“Mr. Ramsden, I’m sure you understand, as does the jury, that the point in question here is not whether Eaton James had various business interests that showed no profit or loss, or even any movement. Anyone can establish a business and then not do anything with it. It is, as the prosecutor has so adeptly shown, just a matter of paperwork. The question is one of intent. Did Eaton James intend to rob people of their money? Or was he just an honest businessman who didn’t have the luck of one as talented as, say, your father?”

She paused. Stood right in front of him and didn’t look away. His tie was slightly lopsided, made to appear more so by the way the wider maroon stripe came around the left side, while the right was flanked by a skinnier gray one.

“According to your testimony, you believe that the former was the case, is this correct?”

“It is.”

His eyes were different. Older. And though she wouldn’t have thought it possible, more compelling.

Not that it mattered. She was older, too. Different things caught her attention these days.

Things like the conversation she’d be having with Mary Jane that night at the dinner table. Her daughter was going to grill her. And Juliet had to be able to give straight answers.

“Tell me, Mr. Ramsden, how long did your father expect you to stay abroad?”

His eyes narrowed. “A year.”

“And how long, in fact, were you away?”

“Almost four years.”

“Four years.”

She stood there, palms on the stand, nodding. “Did you ever come home for a visit during that time?”

“No.” Blake’s face was impassive.

“But you spoke with your father often? Holidays, Sundays, and so on. You were, after all, his only child.”

“I was, yes.”

Bingo. He hadn’t answered the first question. Her interpretation of the expression she’d read earlier had been right on. It was a talent she’d come to rely on and breathed a sigh of relief every time it came through for her.

“And did you speak with him often?”

“No.”

“You didn’t?” She sounded shocked. “Well, how often then? Once a month? Twice, maybe?”

“I spoke to him once.”

“Once a year?”

“Once. Period.”

“In four years you spoke to your father only once?”

“Objection, Your Honor!”

It had taken him long enough.

“Your Honor—” Juliet stepped up to the bench “—Mr. Schuster’s line of questioning was based on Mr. Ramsden’s opinion of his father. I’m only clarifying the relationship upon which that opinion was based.”

“Sustained.”

In the early days, Juliet would have turned around to see Schuster’s reaction. Such things didn’t matter anymore.

“Just out of curiosity, would you mind telling the court when that one phone call took place?”

“A year after I’d left.”

“When you were due to come home.”

“That is correct.” He nodded once, his gaze steady on hers. The challenge only spurred a rush of adrenaline that had given her the edge up most of her life.

“So…if your father’s business acumen had changed, say, due to old age, or perhaps a growing forgetfulness or loneliness for his only son, maybe you wouldn’t have known.”

The room was silent. Juliet could feel the jurors’ eyes, but even more, the force of their attention.

“I was in touch with my mother. She never indicated that was the case.”

Had she been playing a game of mock court, as she’d done with members of her study group in law school, she’d have issued a polite and grinning thank you very much for the opening he’d just given her.

“Ah, your mother. How did she take your absence?”

“Naturally, she missed me.”

“Naturally. As, I assume, did your father.”

Blake didn’t answer. She didn’t push.

“Would you think it possible, knowing your mother as well as you did, realizing the difficult position she must have been in, that she could have colored the truth just a bit? Perhaps she focused on the Honduran children as your father’s reason for the purchase just to play on your sympathies, to bridge the gap between the two of you. To make you feel you still had his support?”

“My mother did not lie.”

“I didn’t say she did, Mr. Ramsden. I asked if it was possible that certain aspects of the Eaton deal took on more significance for her than others?”

He stared straight at her. And there was anger in his eyes.

“Please answer the question.”

“It’s possible.”

“That said, it’s also possible that she misinterpreted the other things she relayed about this particular business transaction. Perhaps even to use it as leverage to bring you home.”

“No.”

“Did you know, Mr. Ramsden, that a letter was sent from Eaton James to all the Eaton Estates investors, telling them of their loss?”

“Yes, it arrived a couple of days after my mother called to ask me to visit the property.”

“It was postmarked two days before.”

“It arrived two days after.”

“Or not.” Juliet stepped back. “It’s possible, Mr. Ramsden, that your mother already knew the land was worthless when she called to have you check it out, isn’t it?”

“It’s highly unlikely.”

“But possible.”

His chin dropped again, more slowly this time. And then rose again. “Yes.”

Juliet turned, as though going back to her seat. And then, three-quarters of the way there, she turned back.

“One other thing.” She saved lives by playing the barracuda. And right now, the future of an admittedly stupid but innocent businessman was on the line. “Your father died of a heart attack the next year, did he not?”

“He did.”

“He was driving at the time.”

“Yes.”

“And your mother was in the car.”

“Yes.”

“You lost them both. I’m so sorry.” She looked down. Thought about Eaton’s wife—and teenage children—sitting behind them. The lives she was attempting to save.

Blake said nothing.

“Did you realize your mother knew about your father’s bad heart?”

“Not until I got home.”

“But she knew. Had known for almost two years.”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn’t you think that knowing her husband could go at any moment might be motivation enough to do whatever it took to get her only son home?”

She’d done what she’d been hired to do. She’d discredited his testimony. And lost his respect.

For the first time in her life, Juliet hated her job.

“No more questions, Your Honor.”