Ghost Witness, Part Two

“Thomas Jurgen?” The call came from a number my phone didn’t recognize. The voice was agitated.

            “Speaking. Can I help you?”

            “My name is Stuart Paulus. I’m a lawyer representing Jordyne Sail. Arick Sail hired you on a domestic case involving his wife. Is that you?”

            I hesitated. “Well, I’m not really supposed to disclose who my clients are—”

            “Arick Sail is dead, Mr. Jurgen. Jordyne Sail is charged in his murder.”

            “What?” I shot back in my chair. Rachel turned, cocking an eyebrow.

            “Sail was murdered by blunt force trauma three days ago. From what I can gather, it was the same day you reported to him that his wife met someone at a hotel downtown.”

My stomach felt like a lead weight had dropped through it. This is why I hate domestic cases. “That’s—I didn’t hear anything about it.” Somehow I’d missed it in the papers.

“I need to talk to you. Actually, I need you to talk to me and Ms. Sail. I’m trying to arrange bail, but for the moment she’s being held downtown.”

I took a breath, fighting to keep my voice from shaking. “Uh, all right. What time?” It was 10:30.

“Two o’clock.” He hung up.

“What is it?” Rachel is psychic, but she didn’t need that to see I was upset.

“My client. Sail? He—his wife killed him.”

“Oh my god.” She put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s not—are you okay?”

“Yeah.” I squeezed her hand. I always tell myself I’m not responsible for what my clients do. I’m just doing a job.. Sometimes I even believe it.

I reached for my coffee, wishing for something stronger. Even at 10:30 in the morning. “That was the wife’s lawyer. He wants to meet with me. And her.”

“What for?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to come?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Thanks. I’ll be fine.”

 

Jordyne Sail wore the standard-issue orange jumpsuit. Her eyes looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. They were glaring daggers at me as I sat down.

            The room was small, with harsh fluorescent tubes in the ceiling and cracked yellow paint on the wall. Stuart Paulus, a Black man in his forties with a flat face and a slight paunch in his stomach, wore a jacket with no tie and a wrinkled shirt.

            “Mr. Jurgen.” We didn’t shake hands. “Can you tell us exactly what you did for Ms. Sail’s husband?”

            I sighed and sat. “I followed her.” I forced myself to look Jordyne in the face. “I followed you. To a bar two times, and then to a hotel. I reported to my—to your husband. That’s all.”

            “But you didn’t see her with anyone.” Paulus kept his eyes on me.

            “No. I can testify to that, if that’s helpful—”

            “Stuart, can I just tell him what happened?” Jordyne seemed close to collapse—or an eruption. Whichever came first. “Then he’ll see—”

            “Just a moment.” He lifted a hand. “Arick asked you to look into a friend of Jordyne’s, right?”

            “Clark Weston, yeah. He’s dead. I didn’t have any other names.”

            “Right. How did Arick seem to you?”

            I glanced at Jordyne. “Angry. Jealous. Consumed with suspicion. I tried—I did try to help him stay calm. These cases are always difficult, but there’s no point in letting it drive you crazy. I told him that. Before you know the truth, you have to ask yourself what you really want to do. I usually tell people to talk to the other person, and listen. Lots of times couples end up reconciling.” Okay, rarely, but it happened.

            Jordyne laughed bitterly. “He didn’t want to talk.” She leaned across the table, pulling down the collar of her jumpsuit. 

            I could see deep red bruises around her neck, her throat. Damn it. He’d tried to strangle her?

            “So you’ve got self-defense,” I said. I felt stupid right away. Of course her lawyer would know that. What was I doing here?

            Paulus sat back. “Jordyne didn’t kill her husband.”

            Did this mean I could help somehow? “Who did?”

            “Clark.” Jordyne’s voice was firm. “Arick was going to kill me, and Clark saved my life.”

            “But . . . he’s dead.”

            “Yeah.” Paulus sighed. “That’s the problem.”

 

“He started the minute I got home.” Jordyne glared at me. “He told me he had someone following me. He told me your name, he showed me your card, and he said you saw me go into that hotel. I tried to tell him it was a mistake, that he didn’t understand, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He just kept yelling, and then his hands . . . his hands . . .” 

            She rubbed her neck, breathing shallowly. “I couldn’t breathe. I started to black out, and I was falling, falling, and everything was black, and then—and then I was on the floor, almost throwing up, and Clark was there.”

            Paulus and I exchanged glances. 

            “He—Arick won this award a few years back, this big black piece of steel with his name on it, mounted on a wood pedestal. It was heavy. He kept it in the living room, over the TV. He won it for sales, he sells computer hardware. Sold.” She shook her head. “And there was blood on it, and Arick was on the floor, and there was blood all over the back of his head, and he wasn’t moving.”

            She took a deep breath. “Clark sat down next to me. We sat there for a long time, not talking. Then someone knocked on the door. It was the police. We—we live in a condo, and the neighbors heard Arick shouting and me screaming. They—they looked around, and asked me some questions, and then they took me somewhere—to headquarters, I guess, and then they arrested me.”

            “What happened to Clark?” I asked quietly.

            She shook her head. “He was gone.” She started to cry.

            Paulus got the guard to take her back to her cell. Jordyne thanked him for coming, glared at me again, and left without resistance.

We sat in silence for a moment, not looking at each other.   

            “Okay.” Paulus folded his arms over his stomach. “We’ve got self-defense. The marks on her neck are consistent with someone strangling her from the front. But she couldn’t have gotten the sales award from the shelf and hit him with it in the back of the head while she was being strangled. Maybe he stopped, walked away, and then she hit him? But that makes self-defense a little fuzzy.”

            He sighed, looking across the table at the empty chair Jordyne had sat in. “Or there’s insanity. But that hardly ever works.”

            “Yeah.” I started working up my nerve for what I had to say. He’d laugh at me, but I knew I’d hate myself if I didn’t at least try. “Or . . .”

            “Or what?” His eyes zeroed in on me. Waiting for me to say it.

            “Or it’s the truth.” I looked at him. “Clark Weston killed her. His ghost.”

            I waited for him to laugh, or throw me out—or get a guard to throw me out. Instead he shook his head.

            “I knew I recognized your name,” he said.

            Yeah, I have a tendency to run into the supernatural more than I’d like. It’s gotten me a sort of reputation. Some people think I’m crazy. Others—eventually they come around.

            “You’ve seen ghosts.” Paulus leaned forward. “Right? It’s all over the internet.”

            “So it must be true?” I smiled.

            “You know what I mean. Or am I wrong?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I’ve seen my share of ghosts. Séances, that sort of thing. Also demons, dragons, aliens, stuff like that.”

            “Dragons? Really?” His eyes widened.

            And more. “You really don’t want to know.”

            “Okay.” Paulus scowled. “I honestly don’t know how this is going to work. I’d have to plead insanity myself if we try to do this in open court.”

            “I need to talk to her some more. Can you get her back here again?”

            He shook his head. “I should give her some time. She’s not exactly your biggest fan right now.” He stood up. “I’ve got another bail hearing tomorrow. If she goes home, you can talk to her then.”

            “All right.” I stood up. “How did you end up defending her?”

            “I’m a friend of her sister’s husband.” He shrugged. “You take cases wherever you can, right? But I’ve tried murder before. I can handle this. I think.”

            I nodded. “I’m—tell her I’m sorry about what happened with the husband.”

            He shrugged. “All our clients can’t be angels, right? Thanks for coming.”

            I only hoped I could help.

 

Prosecuting attorney Claude Drake stood up. “Objection!” He turned to Paulus. “Are you seriously going to argue that the murderer was a ghost?” He faced the judge again. “Your honor, are you permitting this?”

            The judge pursed her lips. “Approach.”

            The two lawyers converged. They tried to keep their voices low, but I could hear them.

            “Counselor.” The judge addressed Paulus, her voice firm. “I won’t have my court turned into amateur night at the magic show. What are you up to?”

            Paulus, hands in his pockets, darted his eyes nervously between the prosecutor and the judge. “Your honor, the defendant is entitled to the defense she chooses. We are—”

            “No.” The judge shook her head. “Your job—your responsibility—is to advise your client on a solid defense. Not to indulge her whims and fantasies. If you want to submit a defense of insanity, this is the wrong way to do it.”

            “Your honor, this witness is the core of my case.” Paulus glanced at me, and stood his ground. “Please allow me to continue, and my opponent can cross-examine him to his heart’s content.”

            I wasn’t looking forward to that. But the judge finally nodded. “I’ll grant you a little leeway, counsel, but I don’t want today’s testimony to be the lead story on some ghost hunter’s podcast.” She waved the attorneys away.

            Drake sat down, whispering to an assistant. Paulus stood in front of me again. “What happened next, Mr. Jurgen?”