“Yes, Katherine, you may,” I say, and then force another smile as I add, “If it would please the court.”
I proceed to tell her about Rob Jacobson’s houseguest and Jimmy’s visit to the Upper West Side town house and the girl pulling a gun on Jimmy when she thought he was an intruder, and then Danny Esposito having tested and retested the gun yesterday.
Katherine Welsh gives out a long, low whistle.
“Goddamn,” she says. “The missing murder weapon, at long last.”
She pauses. “In his own goddamn house.”
“It wasn’t exactly as if the girl found a buried treasure,” I say.
“You have your treasures,” Welsh says, “and I have mine. Even when the treasure finds me.”
“Prints are useless,” I say. “The girl’s were on it. And Jimmy’s, he grabbed it before he realized what she might be handing over. But that’s all the staties could pull.”
I sit back down in my chair.
“Of course,” I say, “this doesn’t prove anything.”
“As a matter of fact,” she says, “it does.”
“Not that he did it.”
“No,” Welsh says. “It proves thatyoudid the right thing, Jane.” She nods to herself. “It’s funny you brought up the high road before. A friend of mine gave me a T-shirt once that has ‘The high road sucks’ on the front. And on the back it says, ‘But you have to take it.’”
“There are times when it sucks way more than others,” I say. “But in the end, we’re the same in one other way: We’re both officers of the court.”
“Not everybody in your shoes would have done what you just did,” Welsh says.
“No need to rub it in.”
She stands now. I stand. We both know there’s nothing more to say, at least not this morning. She walks me to the door then, but before I walk out of her office, she puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Please don’t thank me again,” I say. “I can only take so much gratitude.”
She smiles again.
“Wasn’t going to,” she says. “Just wanted to remind you that I’m going to kick your ass with or without a murder weapon.”
“Bitch,” I say.
FIFTY-TWO
THE DRIVE TIME DURING Rob Jacobson’s first trial in Riverhead was about half what I’m facing now. Both Jimmy and Ben have tried to convince me to rent an Airbnb in Mineola—to spare me the daily, three-hour round-trip drive.
I have consistently refused, just as they’ve refused my insistence that Ilikebeing in the car. Mostly I like beingalonein the car.
“To quote my sainted father,” I said the last time Ben brought it up, “go pound sand.”
He smiled. This was at dinner on Sunday night, just the two of us. And the dog, of course.
Then I told him again what I’d assumed both he and Jimmy already knew: the double shot of alone time in the car got me ready for each day in court and also gave me a chance to review the day’s proceedings. Nothing against either one of them, the two great loves of my life along with Rip, who only occasionally tries talking me into doing things I don’t want to do.
Dr. Sam Wylie emails me Sunday night to inform me that she wants to see me in her office for one last pretrial check of my vitals. So I leave my house at six thirty on Monday morning and make a stop in Southampton.
“Body temp, pulse rate, rate of breathing, blood pressure,” she tells me now as I sit down.
No receptionist at this hour. Just the two of us, meetingthe way we used to meet before class in high school, about a hundred years ago, when we were the hot chicks who thought we were going to live forever.
