Page 32

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

FRIDAY, MARCH 24, 2023

10:00 A.M.

Donna Jean sat in her tiny living room that morning with Pearl curled up in her lap and watched the clock on the wall tick slowly toward ten. It wasn’t just any clock. It was the electric one Amy had given her that first Christmas after she got out of prison. It was a cat—a black-and-white plastic cat. With each tick the eyes moved back and forth and so did the tail. It was ugly, Donna Jean supposed, and until she became acquainted with Pearl, she’d never really liked cats, but Amy had been so excited as Donna Jean had unwrapped the gift all those years earlier, that, no matter what had been inside the box, it would have been a treasure. It still was. Not only that, but even after all these years it still worked.

As soon as a knock sounded at exactly ten o’clock, Pearl made tracks toward the bedroom, while Donna Jean went to answer the door. She opened it wide enough to see a forty-something-year-old Black woman standing in the hallway holding a briefcase.

“Ms. Plummer?” the new arrival asked, holding out her hand. “I’m Moesha Jackson.”

Donna Jean opened the door wider. “Yes, please call me Donna Jean. Do come in.”

Donna Jean showed her guest to the kitchen table, where, after taking a seat, she deposited her briefcase on the floor.

“How are you doing?” Moesha asked.

“I’ve been better,” Donna Jean replied. It had only been a week and a half since she had gone to the Brewsters’ home for the last time, but it felt like forever.

“I have some questions for you,” Moesha said. “I’m sure you have some for me as well.”

Donna Jean nodded. “Who sent you?”

“The long answer to that question is that my father was wrongfully convicted of a crime and spent eighteen years in prison for something he didn’t do. An organization called Justice for All helped overturn his conviction. I went to work for them as soon as I graduated from law school. The person who brought your situation to our attention is a woman named Ali Reynolds who lives in Sedona, Arizona. Her husband is someone named B. Simpson.”

Donna Jean sat up straighter. “Mr. Simpson? Really? I remember him. He was Mr. Brewster’s partner at one time, but that fell apart when his wife had an affair with Mr. Brewster.”

“Then Clarice and Mr. Brewster got married?” Moesha asked.

Donna Jean nodded wordlessly.

“I’m not entirely sure how or why this happened, but for some reason Ms. Reynolds, Mr. Simpson’s current wife, is under the impression that you are being unfairly targeted by the detectives investigating Mr. Brewster’s homicide. That’s what I’m here to discuss, but before we do that, I need you to sign something.”

Moesha opened her briefcase, extracted a piece of paper, and passed it over to Donna Jean along with a pen. “This is a retainer. Once you sign it, you’ll be designating me as your attorney, and anything you say to me in the course of this conversation or any other is under privilege. Do you understand?”

“It means whatever I say to you is confidential,” Donna Jean said, signing the document without bothering to read it, and pushing it back across the table.

“Yes, it is,” Moesha agreed with a smile. “Ms. Reynolds suggested that perhaps the detectives in the Brewster homicide are targeting you based on the idea that you’re a repeat offender. I’ve done some investigating into that case, but please tell me about your husband.”

“About Kenneth?” Donna Jean asked uncertainly.

Moesha nodded. “Was he violent with you?”

“Yes,” Donna Jean answered. Over the next few minutes, she went through the whole painful story one more time, ending by saying, “I’m sorry he died, but at the time it was him or me. I did that crime, and I did my time, but I had nothing to do with what happened to Mr. Brewster.”

“You worked for the Brewsters for how long?”

“For more than twenty years—from before the first Mrs. Brewster died.”

“What’s that been like?”

“I worked for them two days a week. Mr. Brewster was always kind to me. He even left me some money in his will—a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I think that’s part of the reason that Detective Horn is so sure I did it—for the money, but I had no idea he was going to give me anything until after the will was read.”

“What about Mrs. Brewster?” Moesha asked.

Donna Jean sighed. “She’s always been… well… I guess ‘prickly’ would be the right word. Not easy to get along with, and I thought Mr. Brewster could have done better, but it wasn’t my place to say so. The detective mentioned that he was looking into getting a divorce, but I didn’t know anything about that.”

“Tell me about your interviews with Detective Horn.”

“He wanted me to tell him everything about that day, and so I did, from the time I came to work until the cops showed up.”

“Now I want you to tell me,” Moesha said.

Donna Jean sighed, but she told that story again, too—about getting there, taking the trash out, cleaning the house, and finally finding a bloodied Clarice at the top of the stairs and taking the knife away from her. The whole time, Moesha was taking notes in something that didn’t seem to be regular handwriting.

“So Detective Horn seemed to think that there might have been some kind of romantic entanglement between you and Mr. Brewster?”

Donna Jean nodded. “He wanted me to take a lie detector test, and I refused.”

“Why?”

“Because I took one of those when Kenny died, and even though I told the truth, they said I was being evasive. But this time I knew I had lied, and they were going to catch me at it.”

“You told a lie?” Moesha asked. “What kind of lie?”

In response, Donna Jean stood up and walked into her bedroom. She returned holding what appeared to be a ball of tissue in her hand. Once she was seated, she unwrapped the tissue and revealed what was inside.

“What’s that?” Moesha asked, frowning. “A wine cork?”

Donna Jean nodded. “I found it that morning while I was cleaning. That day, when I tried to close the slider that leads from the family room out onto the patio, this was lying in the track. I slipped it into my apron pocket without even thinking. When everything happened, I forgot about it completely. Then there was a big fuss about there being no forced entry. That and all the blood was why they thought Clarice did it. I should have mentioned the cork when Detective Horn asked me if there was anything out of place, but I didn’t because I was afraid they’d think I was somehow involved.”

Moesha carefully removed the tissue-wrapped cork from Donna Jean’s hand.

“This would have made it possible for the assailant to gain entry into the home through the unlocked slider?”

Donna Jean nodded.

“You touched it?”

Donna Jean nodded again. “When I put it in my apron pocket. When I found it again after I got home, I used a Kleenex to take it out and put it in my dresser drawer.”

“So your prints and DNA will be on it, but maybe someone else’s will be as well,” Moesha said. “Now that I’m aware of this piece of possible evidence, I’m duty bound to turn it over to Detective Horn.”

“Do you have to?” Donna Jean asked in dismay.

“Absolutely,” Moesha said, “because there’s a good chance that evidence found on this cork might just lead him to the real killer.”