Стив Хокенсмит - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 51, No. 6, June 2006

Joy calculated. “Oh-three.”

“How long before Mr. Monrho died?”

“Three months, about.”

“And how long after he married Faith Monrho?”

Joy’s green eyes glinted briefly. “Several days.”

“Very well. And the occasion of the photograph?”

“It was a party for J. J.’s work.”

“Which one is he?”

“That’s him. In the center.”

Micki extracted something small from her folder and spun it over to Bickers. “I enter this document as Plaintiff’s Three. Ms. Monrho, please tell us what it is.”

“So noted,” Bickers said, and slid it down to Joy. She and Arnie squinted at it. Joy said, “It’s his driver’s license.”

“Whose?”

“J. J.’s.”

“All right. And what is the expiration date?”

She studied it for a long time. “July 15, 2004.”

“The year he died?”

“Yes.”

“And tell us, Ms. Monrho. What is the term of a Michigan driver’s license?”

“I’m not sure.” She glanced at Arnie. “Four years?”

“Four years,” Micki agreed. “Meaning the picture on the license was taken when?”

Mildly irritated, Joy said, “Well, I suppose, 2000 sometime.”

“Now Ms. Monrho — please compare the driver’s license photo and the party picture. Describe for us the differences in your late ex-husband’s appearance.”

Which were obvious. In the party picture, J. J. Monrho had very long hair and an elaborate goatee. In the driver’s license photo, he was clean-shaven, his head scraped nearly bald. Joy made an indifferent show of looking over the photos. “He changed his look all the time.”

“Isn’t it a fact,” Micki pressed, “that after your 1999 divorce, Mr. Monrho adopted the clean-shaven look in the license photo, and retained it till his death?”

“No, he was always—”

“Which would mean that the pictures you’ve shown us — of the party, and the boat — had to have been taken years before the time you are claiming.”

“I object.”

“So noted.”

“I — have told — the truth,” Joy said, for the first time showing emotion, if only barely. Anger, barely concealed, churning beneath. “The only lies in all this are being told by you and — that woman.”

“Move to strike the deponent’s last remark,” Micki said.

“So noted.”

“Are we done?” Arnie demanded.

“Oh no, Brother Bumpps,” Micki said, reaching for her folder. “We are just warming up.”

And warm it was. Very. You take all those bodies, all those suits, all that tension — it jacks up the temp, and the humidity too. Ironic, considering how chilly the sunny day was outside the broad windows of that twenty-ninth floor conference room. I was wearing my dark blue blazer, and wishing I could shuck it.

“What is your job, Ms. Monrho?” Micki asked.

“I object,” Arnie cut in. “Outside the scope of the direct.”

“My colleague opened the door with questions related to the deponent’s alleged workday meetings with the deceased.”

“So noted.”

“They weren’t ‘alleged’ meetings,” Joy said. “They really happened.”

“And you and J. J. met for the first time on the job, isn’t that so?”

“I object. That’s outside the scope too.”

“Counsel led the witness through a rather labored chronology,” Micki said.

“So noted.”

“Yes we did,” Joy answered. “So?”

“And what company was this?”

“Stone,” Joy said readily, as if it meant nothing.

“Stone Automotive,” Micki said. “The defendant in this action?”

“Yes.”

“Where J. J. Monrho was employed most of his adult life, is that so?”

“It is.”

“The plant in Melvindale?”

“Uh, right.”

“Where he eventually died.”

“Yes. But I quit there. A long time ago.”

“When?”

“Oh... years and years ago.”

I was dying for Micki to ask why. But she stayed on track. “What was your job at Stone Automotive?”

“I object. Out of the scope of the direct.”

“The relevance to the direct will become obvious.”

“So noted.”

“Ms. Monrho?” Micki prompted.

The woman’s squarish face was a mask of puzzlement, but her green eyes were focused and intent. “I don’t remember. It was many years ago. Some kind of office job.”

“Clerical work.”

“Something like that.”

Micki opened the folder, took out an item, and scooted it down the table toward Bickers. It was a Stone Automotive plant badge. “Plaintiff’s Four,” Micki murmured, then asked: “Do you recognize this, Ms. Monrho?”

Joy looked at me with green eyes that were, for just a split-second, enraged. “You took it!” she said, and her tone had no anger at all, just hurt and indignation. To Bumpps she added, “Perkins stole it from me!”

“We object,” Arnie Bumpps said, with well-oiled scorn, “to the plaintiff’s use of misappropriated property in this proceeding.”

“So noted.”

“Whose property is this, Ms. Monrho?” Micki asked.

“Mine.”

“And whose was it before it was yours?”

“My husband’s.”

“You’re absolutely certain?”

“See, it has his name on it.”

“We do note that, for the record.”

“It’s mine now.”

“And you’ve had it all this time?”

“Yes. And I’m keeping it,” Joy said, chin upraised, beringed hands cupping the badge. “It’s precious to me. You can put me in jail. But I’m not giving it up.”

Arnie started to say something to her, but Micki said: “That’s all right. You just hang onto it.”

“You’re waiving entering it as evidence then?” Bickers asked.

“Yes, that’s fine, let her keep her little trinket.” Micki bent, reached into the unzipped bowling bag at her feet, and rose. “Let’s make this Plaintiff’s Four,” she told Bickers, and slid the yellow plastic hard hat down the table.

All eyes gaped at the thing as it slid to a stop, bill aimed at the end, Micki’s shot as pretty as if she’d made a seven-ten split. Joy Monrho edged back in her chair, staring. “I don’t understand.”

“On the contrary,” Micki said.

“I object,” Arnie sputtered. “Scope of the direct.”

“So noted.”

“You’ve never seen this before, Ms. Monrho?”

“I don’t know.”

“Read us the initials on the bill.”

“EHS?”

“What does that stand for?”

“How should I know?”

“One would think you would, ma’am,” Micki said, extracting an eight-by-ten photo from her folder. “Plaintiff’s Five,” she informed Bickers, who put the photo on the easel. It was the plant shot from ’88, featuring, among others, the much younger J. J. Monrho and his soon-to-be-wife Joy, making her formal unwilling smile beneath the bill of her yellow hard hat.

“Oh,” Joy said. “That.”

“So now the fog lifts a bit?” Micki asked.

“I object,” Bumpps said, “to this whole, entire line of inquiry. It’s wholly irrelevant, impertinent, impermissible. And while we’re at it, I object to the counsel’s sarcasm.”

“So noted.”

“Do you now recall what EHS stands for, ma’am?”

“Not exactly.”

“Would it surprise you to be reminded that it stands for Environmental-Health-Safety?”

“I guess. Whatever.”

“So — just like the scrap yard where you work now — you were in charge of safety at the Stone Automotive plant then, weren’t you?”

“Oh, they gave me all kinds of jobs,” Joy said, stirred up now, her green eyes hard and glinting. “Stupid thankless jobs. Girl jobs. Paperwork and training and books to keep up. They gave me that job because I had a cute figure. The OSHA inspectors liked me. I hated it. Just hated it.”