Tell Me No Secrets by Joy Fielding

Author:Joy Fielding
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance Suspense
ISBN: 9780380721221
Publisher: Avon
Published: 1993-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

The following Saturday Jess enrolled in a self-defense course.

The week had been a strange one. Tuesday saw the wrap-up of the prosecution’s case against Terry Wales. A succession of witnesses—police officers, medical authorities, psychologists, eyewitnesses, friends and relatives of the deceased—had all testified. They had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Terry Wales had murdered his wife. The only question remaining—the stubborn question that had been there from the beginning—was one of degree. Would Terry Wales be able to convince the jury that it had all been a tragic mistake?

He’d certainly made a successful start. Terry Wales had taken the stand Wednesday morning in his own defense and answered his lawyer’s careful questions slowly and thoughtfully. Yes, he had a temper. Yes, he and his wife had engaged in occasionally violent arguments. Yes, he had once broken her nose and blackened her eyes. And yes, he had threatened to kill her if she tried to leave him.

But no, he never really meant it. No, he never meant to hurt her. No, he was not some unfeeling, cold-blooded killer.

He loved his wife, he’d said, his pale blue eyes focused on the jurors. He’d always loved her. Even when she verbally abused him in front of his friends. Even when she flew at him from across the room, determined to scratch his eyes out, forcing him to fight back in self-defense. Even when she threatened to take him for everything he had. Even when she threatened to turn his own children against him.

He’d only meant to scare her when he fired that arrow into the busy intersection. He’d had no idea his aim would prove so deadly. If he’d wanted to kill her, he would have used a gun. He had several, was an expert shot, whereas he hadn’t fired a bow and arrow since he was a kid at camp.

Terry Wales finished the day in tears, his voice hoarse, his skin mottled and pale. His lawyer had had to help him from the stand.

Jess and her two partners had stayed up half that night reviewing the testimony of each witness, poring over the police reports, searching for anything they might have overlooked, anything that might help in Jess’s cross-examination of Terry Wales the next morning. After Neil and Barbara went home, sneezing and wheezing their way down the hall, Jess had stayed up the rest of the night, returning to her apartment at six the next morning only to shower and change her clothes before heading right back to her office.

She appeared in court on Thursday only to find Judge Harris recessing the case till the following Monday. The defendant, it appeared, wasn’t feeling too well, and the defense had requested a postponement of several days. Judge Harris coughed his agreement, and court was dismissed. Jess spent most of the day talking to police detectives, encouraging them to use this delay to ferret out additional evidence that might benefit the prosecution’s case.

Friday saw the arrival of her annual Christmas card from the federal penitentiary.

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