James Grippando - Beyond Suspicion

Her pace only quickened. Another wad of dough, another flattened square, a diagonal slice that turned the square into two triangles.

After the third cut, Jack grabbed her wrist and said, “Do that again.”

“Como?”

“The slicing motion. Do it again.”

She flattened another sheet, put the rolling pin aside. Then she took her knife and sliced diagonally across the sheet of dough.

“You slice from top right to bottom left,” he said.

“Sí.”

“Not from top left to bottom right.”

She tried it. “ Aye, no. That would be very awkward for me.”

“Of course it would be,” he said, looking off to the middle distance. “You’re left-handed.”

“Toda esta bien?” she asked. Is everything okay?

“Perfecto,” he said as he leaned across the island and planted a kiss on her cheek. “ Gracias, mi vida. I love you.”

“I love you, too. But what this about?”

“It’s complicated, sort of. But it’s really simple.”

“What you talk about?”

“You made it all so simple.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You’re beautiful. I’ll explain later. I gotta go.”

He grabbed his car keys, ran out the front door, and jumped into his Mustang. The traffic lights were all green on his way to Rosa’s office, a minor miracle that he interpreted as a sure sign that he was onto something. He was in a hurry, to be sure, but the need for speed was more a matter of adrenaline than timing. Less than fifteen minutes later he was banging on the entrance doors to Rosa’s office suite. She let him in and then backed away, as if fearful that he might ricochet off the walls and knock her flat.

“What’s with you?” she asked.

Jack caught his breath and said, “Do you have the grand-jury materials yet?”

“Yeah. Just came.”

“I need to see the autopsy photos.”

“I’m sure they’re in there.”

He followed her to her office. The materials were in two boxes atop her desk. Jack sifted through one; Rosa, the other.

“Here they are,” said Jack. He removed the photographs from the envelope and spread them across the desktop. The gruesome sight cut his enthusiasm in half. Jessie’s lifeless body on a slab evoked chilling memories of the bloody scene in his bathroom.

“What are you looking for?” asked Rosa.

“This.” He cleared away the other photographs and laid one on the desktop. It was a close-up of the wound to Jessie’s wrist. He examined it carefully and said, “Bingo.”

“Bingo what?”

“Jessie’s left wrist was slashed, which is exactly what you’d expect from a right-handed person.”

“Are you saying Jessie was left-handed?”

“No. She was right-handed.”

“Then what’s the big revelation?”

“The slash mark runs at the wrong angle.”

“What?”

He turned his palm face-up, demonstrating. “Look at my wrist. Let’s call the thumb-side the left and the pinky-side the right. A right-handed person would probably slash top left to bottom right, or even straight across, left to right. But top right to bottom left is an awkward movement.”

Rosa checked the photograph once more. “It’s not a severe angle. But now that you mention it, Jessie’s appears to be top right to bottom left.”

“Exactly.”

“So what does this mean? She didn’t kill herself? We sort of knew that all along.”

“It means more than that.” Jack took the letter opener from her desk, then grabbed Rosa’s wrist to make his point more clearly. “I’m right-handed. Let’s say I’m facing you and cutting your left wrist, trying to make your death look like a suicide. My natural movement is to cut from top left to bottom right. That leaves a wound at the exact same angle you would leave if you had cut your own wrist. Try it.”

She took the letter opener, ran it across her veins. “You’re right.”

Jack took back the opener and switched hands. “But if I’m a left-handed person, and I cut your left wrist, the cut runs at the opposite angle. From your vantage point, it’s top right to bottom left.”

She simply nodded, following the logic. “So exactly what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that the only way you end up with a slit at this angle is if a left-handed person is facing his victim just as I’m facing you right now and slashes her left wrist.”

Rosa looked at the photo, then at Jack, her expression stone-cold serious. “Know anyone who’s left-handed?”

“I think I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

“Who?”

He tapped the blade of the letter opener into the palm of his hand and said, “Someone I’ve suspected since the day he came to my office, talking about Jessie’s death as if it were just a business hassle.”

“One Dr. Joseph Marsh?”

“You got it,” said Jack.

•

Dr. Marsh lived in a Mediterranean-style house near Pennsylvania Avenue, a few blocks west of where the noisy Miami Beach nightlife began. The neighborhood was once a haven for retirees, but with the overall revitalization of South Beach, mountain bikes and Rollerblades had long since replaced the wheelchairs and walkers. It was an eclectic area, lots of artists, musicians, gays, and young people-the perfect relocation spot for a rich, recently divorced doctor in pursuit of hard bodies.

Jack parked on the street and killed the engine. It was a dark night, and the canopy of a sprawling oak tree blocked most of the light from a distant street lamp. Rosa was barely visible in the passenger seat beside him.

“This is the last time I’m going to say this, Jack. I don’t think a confrontation with the government’s chief witness is a good idea.”

“I don’t intend to get in his face. I’ve met him several times but I’ve never really focused on whether he’s left-handed or right-handed. I just have to see with my own eyes.”

“What are you going to do, ask him to grab his glove and have a catch?”

“No, I thought I’d just tell him to slap you upside the head.”

“I just want you to be sure about this.”

“I am. This thing I figured out with the angle of the slash on Jessie’s wrist is only one piece of the puzzle. Even if Marsh is left-handed, that’s not the only thing that points to him as the killer. I think she screwed him over.”

“How do you mean?”

“Somehow, the entire million and a half dollars that Jessie wormed out of her viatical investors ended up in a bank account that didn’t have his name on it. I’m sure that Marsh went along with that arrangement because he wanted to prevent his wife from getting her hands on it in the divorce. But something tells me that when it came time to give the doctor his half of the loot, Jessie gave him the heave-ho-‘It’s been nice, doc, thanks for helping with the scam, now see ya later.’”

“You realize we’re totally shifting gears. The whole defense we’ve been crafting so far is that Jessie was murdered by the investors she scammed.”

“Which is probably why we aren’t making any headway. One thing has always bothered me about that anyway. Why would they kill Jessie and let the doctor live?”

“I don’t know.”

“And how do you think Dr. Marsh is going to react when I ask him that question?”

“I think he’ll say exactly what he said to the grand jury: you killed her. So, please, don’t have that kind of talk with him. Just get him to sip coffee or write something down, anything to satisfy yourself that he’s left-handed. Don’t take it any further than that.”

“We’ll see how it goes.”

“No, I already see where it’s going. If all you really wanted to know was whether Marsh is left-handed, you could go ask his wife. You want to get in there, go toe-to-toe, get your friend Theo off the hook, and stem off your own indictment. He got the best of you in that last conversation you had in your office, and now you want to even the score.”