Page 100 of The Happy Month

“A woman named Andrea Grubber wrote an article forThe Downey Legendin which she said she’d received a tip that Pete Michaels had a fiancée. That tip came from someone who claimed to be Kelly Hawley. But Miss Hawley, now Dr. Wallpole, claims to have been in the room when you made the call impersonating her.”

“She doesn’t claim that,” Sammy said. “You’re wrong.”

“We know you attempted to coerce Dr. Wallpole into not speaking with us?—”

“Wait just a moment,” Colcott said. “You’re making accusations about things you couldn’t possibly know.”

“We’ve spoken to Dr. Wallpole. We know exactly what was said. We know what your client was trying to do.”

That was not exactly true, we hadn’t yet deposed Dr. Wallpole, but it had the desired effect. Sammy was terrified. Lydia was circling close to what had actually happened.

“You planted the item about Pete having a fiancée,” Lydia said. “That led the police to think his murder had to do with a love triangle. Which I think it did. Just notthatlove triangle. Sometime in 1976, you found out about Coach Carrier and Pete Michaels. You wanted to get rid of your competition, so you killed Pete.”

“That’s enough,” Colcott said. “This deposition is over.”

Sammy was glaring at me. She seemed to have taken the phrase ‘if looks could kill’ to heart and was trying to figure out how to remove the ‘if’. I checked to make sure there weren’t any sharp items within her reach.

Colcott was standing, pulling her up by the arm.

“You completely misrepresented what this deposition was about,” Colcott was saying. “I’ll be filing a complaint with the bar.”

“Go ahead. I did nothing wrong and it’s all on tape. If you want to waste your time, be my guest.”

We were all up by that point and following Sammy and her attorney out of the office. In the lobby, Elaine Joy was struggling with her equipment, trying to come fully inside. Colcott shoved her out of the way as he dragged Sammy outside. Elaine Joy landed on her ass.

Sammy and Colcott were gone. It was silent for a moment, and then Lydia looked down at Elaine Joy and said, “You’re late.”

Naturally, the rest of the morning was anticlimactic. We listened to the tape twice, then Karen started working on the transcript. Lydia was chomping at the bit to write her motion.

“Do we have enough?” I asked Lydia before she went into her office.

“Yes, yes. We have enough. We can challenge every aspect of the original case.”

“Do you think the DA will accept that or will they go for a retrial?”

“All they really have is Larry being found with thebody. And we have two witness reports that says the gunshot was twenty minutes earlier. Before he even arrived at the house.”

“So, they have nothing.”

“Not a thing.”

“She’s a flight risk,” I said. “She was buying a suitcase at the mall on Saturday.”

She raised an eyebrow at me. Making me say, “Yes, I know. Catching murderers is not our job. Our job is to get Larry out of prison. It would be nice if part of that was sending the right person to prison.”

“If the police in Downey have any sense, they’ll be looking at her closely.”

“If they can find her.”

At lunchtime, I suggested pizza. We ordered a large chicken pesto pizza from The Pizza Place. They didn’t deliver, so I offered to go and get it. Karen was deep into the transcript and Lydia was absorbed by her Writ of Habeas Corpus. They barely noticed my leaving. My Jeep was across the street. As I crossed, my cellular phone rang. It was Ronnie. I stood next to the driver’s door and answered, “Hey.”

“Do you remember what today is?”

“Oh God. It’s an anniversary?”

“Yes.”

To be fair, we had a half a dozen anniversaries he wanted to celebrate. The first time we met, which was also the first time we had sex; our first date, which came later; the first time I said I loved him; the day we bought the Bennett house; and then the day we bought the house on 2nd Street. I could never keep straight which happened when.