“I’d had a nightcap,” Rudy said.
Cotzee gave a theatrical double-take.
“A nightcap?” he repeated. “I’ve read your medical records, Mr. Manuel. You had several DUIs worth of alcohol in your blood when the paramedics found you.”
“Maybe it was more than one.”
“You see, that worries me, Mr. Manuel. If you can’t remember that much, how can we expect you to remember anything at all?”
“I remember just fine,” Rudy said.
“We’ll see. Why don’t you start by walking us through that evening. What had you been drinking? And where? And with whom?”
Rudy cleared his throat, wiped a line of sweat from his upper lip.
“Whiskey,” he said. “I’d been drinking whiskey at the Camp Nelson Saloon.”
“With?”
“Bonn … Mrs. Hood.”
Cotzee turned and pointed at Jim.
“In other words,” he said, “you were on a date with this man’s wife.”
Jim did his best not to react.
“No,” Rudy said. “It wasn’t like that.”
Cotzee raised one eyebrow.
“What was it like then?” he asked.
“I worked for Mrs. Hood. I was the property’s caretaker. We’d been having trouble at the bar.”
“Trouble?”
Rudy described the small gang of unruly bikers, focusing in particular on the beer their leader had dropped at Bonnie’s feet.
“Was that the only incident with these bikers?” Cotzee asked.
“No,” Rudy said. “There were others.”
“In fact, Mrs. Hood had been receiving death threats for some time, all delivered on identical sheets of pale-blue paper. Isn’t that right?”
Rudy nodded.
“One of these threats was wrapped around a brick and thrown through the windshield of her Jeep, isn’t that also correct?”
“It is.”
“And up until her death, you’d assumed it was this band of disgruntled bikers who’d been sending the threats?”
“Yes.”
“A reasonable assumption. Mrs. Hood, in their view, was an outsider who sought to disrupt, if not outright destroy, their social hub. Camp Nelson Saloon had been their watering hole for a long, long time. Mrs. Hood wanted them gone. She wanted to replace them with Silicon Valley types. People with better manners and deeper pockets. Am I wrong?”
Rudy hesitated. There was more to the story, and the yes-or-no question left him flustered.
“She wanted to make the saloon part of the lodge,” he said. “She wanted it to be for the guests.”
“So she did want the locals gone?” Cotzee asked.
“Maybe, but—”
“Let’s revisit your relationship with Mrs. Hood,” Cotzee interrupted. “She was more than your employer, wasn’t she?”
Rudy looked around the courtroom as though he’d written the answer somewhere on the walls.
“It’s not a trick question, Mr. Manuel.”
“We were friendly,” Rudy said. “We liked each other.”
“A little more than friendly,” Cotzee sniggered. “You were sleeping with her, weren’t you? In fact, the two of you had sex less than an hour before she was killed.”
Murmurs broke out all around the courtroom. Rudy turned crimson.
“No,” he said. “That’s not right.”
“So the police reports are wrong? You weren’t found lying in your underpants on Mrs. Hood’s bedroom floor?”
“Yes, but …” He sputtered out. Beauchamp lifted his head from the legal pad, looked surprised for the first time since the trial began. Jim didn’t know who to root for.
“But what, Mr. Manuel?” Cotzee pressed.
Rudy looked down at his hands.
“I heard a noise. I came running.”
“From where?”
“I was staying in the cabin next door. In case something happened.”
Cotzee’s eyebrows shot halfway up his forehead. There was more rumbling across the room. The judge issued a stern warning.
“So you weren’t having an affair with Mrs. Hood?” Cotzee continued. “Is that what you’re saying?”
Rudy squared his shoulders, leaned closer to the small microphone.
“We were friends. We both cared about the property. That’s all.”
“But that isn’t what you told police,” Cotzee said.
“I’d just been shot. Everything was fuzzy. I was confused.”
“About whether or not you were sleeping with your very attractive and very wealthy boss?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I wanted it to be true. Maybe my mind was playing tricks.”
“Because you’d been shot in the head?”
“Yes. But now—”
“Let’s recap, Mr. Manuel,” Cotzee said. “You came here today to testify against Mr. Beauchamp, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And how do you think your testimony is going so far?”
The prosecutor objected. The judge sustained.
“Withdrawn,” Cotzee said. “But the fact remains, Mr. Manuel, that you’ve reversed your story on more than one key point, and there’s more than ample reason to doubt your memory. First, you told the police it was dark that night and you couldn’t see more than the assailant’s silhouette. Earlier today, you told this court that you have no doubt it was Mr. Beauchamp standing in that room with the gun in his hand. Which is it?”
“It was him,” Rudy said. “I’m sure it was him.”
“Because you’re one of those rare people whose memory improves with time and trauma?”
“I’m healed now. It all came back to me.”
“I see. Still, it was dark that night, you were drunk, and then you were shot in the head. Isn’t it at least possible that your memory of the shooting remains faulty?”
“I know what happened,” Rudy said.
“Maybe. Do me a favor, would you? Give us a physical description of Mr. Beauchamp.”
Rudy looked confused.
“That’s him sitting right there,” he said, pointing.
“Yes I know, but pretend he isn’t there. Pretend I’m a sketch artist. What words would you use to describe Mr. Beauchamp?”
“Well, he’s tall.”
“Taller than six feet?”
“Yes.”
“What else? What about his physique?”
“I’d say he’s stocky. Big boned.”
“Excellent. And how old would you say he is?”
“Between forty-five and fifty.”
“Now, Mr. Manuel, how would you describe the customer who dropped his beer at Mrs. Hood’s feet? A suspect you yourself introduced to this court.”
Cotzee had done his homework. Rudy felt himself shrinking on the stand.
“I didn’t say he was—”
“Please just answer the question. Was this man also taller than six feet?”
“Yes.”
“Was he also big boned and stocky?”
“Yes.”
“And would you say that he was also somewhere between forty-five and fifty?”
“Could be.”
“Late at night, in the pitch dark and under the influence of a great deal of alcohol, mightn’t it be difficult to tell them apart?”
“I guess, but—”
“At least as difficult as determining whether or not you’d been sleeping with the woman he murdered?”
“You’re twisting my words. I—”
“Just be glad that I’m not allowed to discuss your own extensive arrest record, Mr. Manuel.”
This time the prosecutor jumped to his feet.
“Withdrawn,” Cotzee said. “I have nothing further for this witness.”
Jim looked over at Beauchamp, caught the faintest hint of a grin.
CHAPTER 15
“WHAT EXACTLY LED you to my client, Detective O’Dowd?” Cotzee asked.
O’Dowd, who’d stayed up all night rehearsing
his testimony, then compensated for the lack of sleep by drinking a pot of coffee and three shots of espresso, explained in a jittery voice how witnesses from the saloon had led them to Beauchamp’s fingerprint.
“And what was it witnesses noticed about my client?” Cotzee followed up.
“They thought his behavior was unusual.”
“Unusual how?”
“He sat at the end of the bar, drinking alone. At first people thought he must be waiting for someone, but nobody came, and he didn’t budge from his stool the whole night.”
“Anything else?” Cotzee asked.
O’Dowd understood from Cotzee’s tone how thin their path to Beauchamp must seem.
“Just that it isn’t the kind of place people wander into,” he said quickly. “It’s off a small country road. Only locals know about it.”
“And my client told you that a local recommended the place to him. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, but—”
“Have you ever had drink alone in a bar, Detective O’Dowd?”
“I guess so.”
“And you weren’t breaking the law, were you?”
“Of course not. That’s not what—”
“Did any of your witnesses place Mr. Beauchamp at Mrs. Hood’s cabin later that night?”
“No, they didn’t.”
“How about in the vicinity of the cabin?”
“No.”
“Anywhere on the property other than saloon?”
“No.”
“Were you able to establish any connection whatsoever between Mr. Beauchamp and Mrs. Hood?”
“Only that they spent most of that night in the same place.”
“As did any number of people. Tell me, what was my client’s motive for killing Mrs. Hood and shooting her lover? In your opinion.”
“We think Mr. Beauchamp went to the saloon looking for a mark—someone to rob. He followed Mrs. Hood back to her cabin. He didn’t expect to find Mr. Manuel there. Things went bad, and he panicked.”
“You think? That all sounds awfully murky to me. I hate to use the term ‘witch hunt,’ but it fits here. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“No,” O’Dowd said. “I wouldn’t.”
“Really? You couldn’t find a viable suspect, so you went after the one person the locals called strange, though really there was nothing at all strange about his behavior. It happens all the time: He doesn’t fit in, so he must have done it. That kind of logic has landed more than one innocent man in prison, and of course it’s the taxpayers who foot the bill.”
“Mr. Beauchamp had a history of—”
“Of robbery, Detective O’Dowd. Mrs. Hood and Mr. Manuel weren’t robbed, though their valuables, including a sizeable wad of cash, were lying in plain sight. So I’ll ask again: do you have any physical evidence whatsoever linking my client to Mrs. Hood’s murder? I mean apart from a fingerprint found a half-mile away from the crime scene.”
O’Dowd hoped he didn’t look as beaten as he felt. He hadn’t expected to be put through the wringer by a public defender.
“Please answer the question, Detective O’Dowd,” Cotzee said.
O’Dowd cleared his throat.
“We also had an eyewitness,” he said.
“Ah, yes,” Cotzee said. “An eyewitness who saw a ‘tall, shadowy figure.’ An eyewitness who offered police no description of his assailant until after you’d made an arrest. We’re all very familiar with Mr. Manuel. Like I said, what we have here is more witch hunt than investigation.”
Jim watched O’Dowd leave the stand and exit the courtroom. As he turned back toward the judge, he locked eyes with Beauchamp. Neither man blinked or looked away until the next witness was called.
* * *
A few days later, it was all over. The jury deliberated for just an hour. When it was time for the verdict to be announced, Jim sat in his habitual front-row seat, flanked by his in-laws. The jury foreman, a retired postal worker in her mid-sixties, held up a piece of paper and took as long as humanly possible to read the phrase: “We the jury find the defendant …” After an equally lengthy pause, she added the phrase: “Not guilty.”
Bonnie’s mother let out a long wail that seemed to silence all other grumblings in the courtroom. Jim put hand on her shoulder; she swiped it away and recoiled into her husband’s arms.
Jim turned to watch Beauchamp’s reaction. He had Cotzee in a bear hug and was crying and smiling at once. Beauchamp spotted Jim watching and turned to face him. His smile dropped away. He had the look of a school bully who’s spotted his prey from across the cafeteria. Jim locked eyes with his wife’s killer for a second time. To his surprise, he felt more anger than fear.
CHAPTER 16
JIM AND THE kids made their final trip to Camp Nelson on a chilly Thursday in late October. Jim thought the occasion would mean more to the children if they were allowed to take off from school, and of course the trails would be less crowded on a weekday. He booked a suite in a nearby luxury hotel. They skirted the lodge, headed straight into mountains, and parked at a small trailhead. Mindy was out of the car before he’d cut the ignition. He leaned over and shook his son gently awake.
“Come on, buddy,” he said.
Mindy wandered over to the nearest sequoia and placed both hands on the trunk as though the tree needed her support. Jim fetched his wife’s urn from the trunk.
“Can I carry it?” Mindy called. “I want to be the one to carry it.”
She came running over. Jim smiled. Mindy was like her mother: eager to tackle the most difficult part of any new task.
“Button up your jacket first,” he said.
“Okay.”
“And be very careful.”
“I will,” she said. “I promise.”
They made the short hike up to an alpine lake Bonnie had called one of her greatest loves. The air was thin at this altitude, and Jim made an effort not to appear winded. When they reached the water, Mindy handed over the urn without his having to ask.
“There’s no place she’d rather be,” he said. “Especially on such a beautiful day.”
Mindy began crying, softly; Jim Jr. put a hand on her back, then started bawling himself. Jim took off his shoes, waded out into the lake, unscrewed the top of the urn, and let his wife’s ashes fall. Then they walked back to the car without saying a word.
* * *
Mindy sat in the back, staring out the window at the gorge below. Jim Jr. lasted just a few miles before he fell asleep. Jim focused his attention on a radio show about home repairs.
“Where are we going now?” Mindy asked.
“The hotel,” Jim said.
“Why can’t we stay at Mommy’s lodge?”
“Because it isn’t Mommy’s lodge anymore.”
“But why can’t we keep it?” she asked.
Jim switched off the radio, looked over his shoulder.
“We talked about this,” he said.
“I know,” Mindy said. “I know it was Mommy’s job. I know we can’t keep it as a business. But we could go there on weekends, like before. It could be our summer house.”
“Do you remember what it looked like the first time we visited? How it was all rundown and broken?”
“Yes,” Mindy said, though really she’d fallen for the place at first sight, like her mother.
“Well, that’s what happens when there isn’t somebody to take care of it all the time. A place that big needs attention every day. It needs somebody to clean the rooms and fix things when they break. Somebody to water the flowers in the summer and clear the snow in the winter.”
Mindy flashed on an idea, an idea that had been building since her mother’s death.
“I could do it,” she said.
“Do what?” Jim asked.
“Run the lodge. Water the flowers and clear the snow and clean the rooms.”
Jim hid his grin.
“What about school?” he asked.
“I don’t mean now,” she said. “Wh
en I’m eighteen. It could be my job.”
“With a brain like yours, you’ll be headed to college when you’re eighteen. You can be anything you want. A doctor. A lawyer. A professor.”
“But I hate school. And I want to run the lodge.”
“Honey, even if I agreed to hand the place over to you on your eighteenth birthday, who’s going to look after it in the meantime? It will go right back to the way it was before Mommy fixed it up.”
He was growing tense. He heard his voice begin to strain.
“So I’ll fix it back up,” Mindy said.
Jim knew he should stop. There was no point in reasoning with an eleven-year-old who would likely have a new obsession in a week’s time, but he felt inexplicably determined to close the subject, to know that he wouldn’t have to dodge her pleas tomorrow at breakfast, and then again the day after, and the day after that.
“With what money?” he asked. “Repairs on a place like that cost a fortune.”
Mindy thought it over.
“I’d pay you back,” she said. “Once the lodge was making money again. It wouldn’t take long at all.”
Jim’s patience cracked.
“Why?” he said. “Why in the world would you want to spend your life in the place that killed your mother?”
Mindy glared out from the backseat.
“This place didn’t kill Mommy,” she said. “Bruce Beauchamp did.”
Jim gathered himself.
“I know, honey,” he said. “It’s hard to explain. If she hadn’t been up here, if she’d stayed at home, then I would have been able to protect her. He wouldn’t have been able to—”
“But he did and you didn’t,” Mindy shouted. “And now he’s free and he’s going to come after us, and you can’t do anything about it.”
Jim Jr. startled awake. He sat staring at his father. Jim switched off radio, slowed to just below the speed limit.
“Listen,” he said, “Bruce Beauchamp is a coward. Only a coward would hurt a woman. He won’t come anywhere near us. It’s over, you understand?”
Mindy crossed her arms and threw herself back against her seat.
“I understand,” her brother said.
“Good,” Jim said.
He switched the radio back on. He hated to admit it, but Mindy had spooked him. He glanced in the rearview mirror as though Beauchamp might be tailing them, then patted his jacket to make sure the .9mm handgun he’d purchased after the trial was still tucked in its holster.