Lisa Scottoline - Dirty Blonde

“How do you mean?”

“Do you think someone, let’s say Courtney Flavert, asked Art not to have you there for some reason, when you rightly should have been?”

“Is that what you think?”

No. “Maybe. I’m trying to figure out her role. In my experience, jury consultants don’t always stay so involved after the jury is empanelled. But she was there all the time at trial.” Cate pressed ahead, putting her cards on the itsy-bitsy table. Sort of. “And, for example, I know that she was invited to Simone’s funeral, and so was George Hartford.”

Micah set her fork down, her lips parted slightly. “ Courtney was invited to the funeral? That can’t be right.”

“It is.”

“I can’t believe Erika invited her. Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?” Micah asked, the question a challenge that Cate was happy to meet.

“George Hartford told me. They flew out together.”

“They did ?” Micah’s eyes narrowed to streetwise slits, and her forehead knit unhappily, if not downright angrily.

“Yes. You told me it wasn’t supposed to be a big Hollywood funeral, but that’s exactly what it was. All sorts of celebrities were there.”

“I saw that on the news.”

“If there was room for Courtney, there was room for you.”

“That bitch!”

“Absolutely.” Cate couldn’t stop the questions. What was going on? Was Micah sleeping with Simone? Had he bought her that delicious coupe? Had he dumped her after the trial, when she was no longer useful? Had Erika excluded her from the funeral because she suspected an affair?

Micah was frowning. “Wait a minute. Why were you talking to George?”

“Confidentially, I was there to discuss my own legal trouble. I don’t know if you heard, but I got fired, too. That’s why I’m free today, to haul around plasma TVs.”

“I did read that. Sorry.”

“I thought I would be an episode already. ‘Judges Behaving Badly Within the Meaning of Article III.’” Cate made quote marks in the air, and Micah cringed.

“Sorry. I’m off the show. The scripts I helped with are done.” Micah looked sympathetic. “But you were a really good judge.”

“The winners always think that.”

“No, you cared.”

“Bet you say that to all the judges.” Cate faked a laugh. “Getting back to the point, George told me he stayed at the restaurant while Art went outside to catch his car. Who arranged for the car?”

“I did.”

“What was the car service?”

“Alpha. They’re good. We used them during the trial.”

“It was due to pick him up at six to make it to the airport by seven-fifteen, for a private plane.”

“Right.”

“But the car got there a little late, in the rain. Simone was waiting out there alone when he was killed.”

“Right, the traffic held up the driver.”

Cate made a mental note to double check. “Who made the dinner reservations?”

“George did, or probably he had his associate or his secretary do it. He picked the restaurant, too.”

Cate considered it. She couldn’t see immediately what George Hartford would gain by killing his own client, unless George was messing around with the jury consultant and Simone had found out. Still, would Simone tell George’s wife? No. And did it matter anyway, in one of those crusty upper-crust marriages? Cate thought of Prince Charles and Camilla, her only reference point for upper-crust marriages, since there weren’t many in Centralia.

“So you actually think Marz didn’t kill Art? But then why would Marz kill himself?”

“Maybe he didn’t.” Cate readied herself to watch Micah’s reaction, since she was about to tell her everything. “Maybe somebody did it for him and made it look like a suicide.”

Micah gasped. “You’re kidding!” she yelped, then covered her mouth.

Ten out of ten on the Shock-O-Meter. “It’s possible.”

“Who would do that?”

“Whoever killed Simone.”

“Why?”

“To set up Marz as the shooter. After all, Marz was easy to frame. He had attacked Simone in open court and lost a lot of money to him. He had motive and opportunity aplenty. Marz makes the perfect killer, except that I’m not sure he did it.”

“You’re like a real detective! That’s incredible!”

“Tell me about it.” Cate leaned over. “I’m asking you if you knew if George was having an affair with the jury consultant, Courtney. I mean, I’m not stupid.”

“Honestly, yes,” Micah answered, her tone ringing true. She leaned forward, only too happy to dish now that she’d been excluded from the funeral. Or perhaps because she could cast suspicion on someone else.

“Really?” Cate tried not to get excited. It only raised more questions. “How do you know?”

“It was obvious, from the day she was hired.” Micah’s eyes glittered. “Lots of touching, pats on shoulders, like that. And joking around. I think it’s been going on a long time.”

“Really. Where was she hired from?”

“The Flavert Agency, her own business. Courtney sells common sense for a hundred thousand dollars a pop.”

Cate laughed.

“I told Art we shouldn’t pay it, that I knew more about Philly than she ever could. But he didn’t want to take any chances, and George insisted she was the best.”

“Maybe she was,” Cate shot back, and they both laughed like girlfriends. Then Cate asked suddenly, “Do you think she was sleeping with them both?”

“What? Who?”

“Courtney. The jury consultant.”

“She was sleeping with George,” Micah said testily.

“But was she sleeping with Art, too?”

“Of course not! What makes you say that?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Art Simone was a very attractive man, with a lot of power and money. And Courtney was the one they both wanted at dinner.” Cate paused, letting it sink in. “Remember the threesome plotline for the first episode of the new TV series? The one you told me about? The two judges and a law clerk, in a ménage à trois?”

“Right, the pilot,” Micah answered, her face reddening in a way that told Cate she’d struck a chord, however accidentally.

“Yes, the pilot. Two men and a woman. Whose idea was it for the threesome plotline? Yours or Art’s?”

“Art’s.”

“So is life imitating Art, or is Art imitating life? No pun intended.” Cate managed another fake laugh, but Micah looked stricken.

“But…Art would never cheat like that.”

On you. “On his wife, you mean.”

“Right. On his wife.”

Bingo . “We’ll never know, will we? And we know Art got his ideas from his life. Isn’t that what he testified to, on the stand? Remember?”

Micah reached for her water glass with a hand that trembled. Cate knew that Micah and Simone were having an affair. The girl’s reaction to the threesome clinched it-and the incredible Mercedes. Micah had thought she was Simone’s mistress; she never figured he’d cheat on his mistress with another mistress. Which left Cate with yet another question.

And a thought about someone who might know the answer.

Cate could hardly wait for Micah to go before she called information on her cell phone, got the number, and waited for the call to connect as she ran to her car in the cold.

“Flavert Associates,” said a woman’s voice.

“Yes, is Courtney in?”

“She’s on vacation this week. May I ask who’s calling?”

“No, thanks.” Cate flipped her phone closed, in frustration. She would have loved to have cornered Courtney and gotten confirmation of her theory. She had learned so much. She felt like she was getting close to something. She reached her car, dug in her bag for the keys, and got in, eventually finding her way out of the parking lot and onto the street, where she stopped.