A Fever In The Heart by Rule Ann

Author:Rule, Ann [Rule, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Planet Ann Rule
Published: 2013-12-21T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The summer morning in Seattle was lost to everyone in Judge Loy’s courtroom. They were too caught up in listening to Jerilee Littleton recall a dark dawn in November. She explained to Prosecutor Sullivan how she had run to the phone where her husband’s brother waited. “I just ran inside and picked up the phone and said, ‘Mike, come quick. Morris has blood all over him!’ And then I went back outside and I was screaming— and then two neighbor people came over and asked me if I had called the ambulance, and I said no, and they told me to do that— so I went in and called the ambulance. And by the time I went back outside, the police had arrived then and I went back inside and stayed.”

There were photographs to be introduced into evidence. Sullivan began with the least upsetting. He handed Jerilee pictures of her car, the carport on North Sixth, the back of her house, of Morris’s car, and the side yard.

“The gate was always open,” Jerilee said, “I don’t know if the hinges weren’t working right or—”

“Jerilee,” Jeff Sullivan said gently, “I’m handing you what’s been marked as Identification eight. Can you tell me what that is, please?”

Her breath caught, but she managed to answer, “The fence and Morris’s body on his back.”

“Does that picture fairly and accurately portray the position of Morris’s body?”

“Yes.”

Sullivan changed gears and asked Jerilee about her sister’s conversation with Gabby Moore. “What did he talk to her about?”

“He would ask her to influence me or persuade me to go back to him.”

“And, in that regard, Jerilee, was there ever a time after you left him in July that you indicated to him that you would come back to him?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Did you encourage him in any way?”

“No,” she said firmly.

“After Morris was killed, did you believe that Glynn Moore had something to do with it?”

“Yes, I did— from different things he said. He had told my sister that he knew people that would do anything for him. All he had to do was ask. I just felt that he felt that if Morris wasn’t there, I would be back to him; he was very confident that I would be back with him.”

This was a peculiar trial, indeed. Angelo “Tuffy” Pleasant was the defendant, certainly. But Talmadge Glynn “Gabby” Moore was also on trial. The prosecution had to show how Gabby had cajoled, pleaded, sobbed, and, finally, blackmailed Tuffy into killing Morris and wounding himself. The defense didn’t really disagree with the portrayal of Gabby Moore, but they had to paint Tuffy as the self-sacrificing hero and lay the blame on Anthony and Larry.

The “ghost of Gabby Moore” was going to take a verbal beating in this courtroom, even if the man himself was beyond human reach.

Chris Tait cross-examined Jerilee. “After Morris’s death and before Christmas, did you talk with Gabby about his possible involvement in Morris’s death?”

“Yes, I talked to him once on the phone.”

“Did you tell him you thought he was involved?”

“Yes, I did … He said ‘No way.

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