The 8th Confession (Women's Murder Club 8)

For all the reasons being with Rich was wrong before, it was still wrong. I was still about ten years older, we were still partners — and I still loved Joe.

Sowhy, I asked myself, driving away from Rich — speeding away, as a matter of fact — does doing the right thing feel so bad?

Chapter 41

YUKI AND PHIL HOFFMAN sat in easy chairs in Judge Duffy’s chambers. The court stenographer was sitting behind her machine near the judge’s desk, and Yuki was thinking, What now? What the hell is it now?

Judge Duffy looked frazzled, as though he’d misplaced his hallmark nonchalance. He tapped an audiocassette on its side, called out edgily, “Corinne? Got that player ready?”

The clerk came into the wood-paneled office and placed the cassette player in front of the judge, who thanked her and then pressed the tape into the box.

Duffy said to Yuki and Hoffman, “This is a tape of a phone call made from a monitored pay phone at the women’s jail to juror number two. It’s crackly but audible.”

Yuki looked at Hoffman, who shrugged as the judge pressed the play button.

A young woman said, “Can you hear me okay?” A second woman, recognizable by her nasal twang as juror number two, the retired postal worker Carly Phelan, said, “Lallie, I can’t talk long. I’m supposed to be in the little girls’ room.”

The judge pressed the stop button, said, “Lallie is the juror’s daughter.”

Hoffman said, “The juror has a daughter in detention at the women’s jail?”

“So it seems,” said Duffy.

The judge pressed the start button, and the tape played again. There was some back- and-forth conversation between the two women: how Lallie’s defense was going, how her mother liked the hotel accommodations, what was happening with Lallie’s son now that both mother and grandmother weren’t home.

Duffy said, “It’s coming now. Listen to this.”

Yuki strained to make out the words under the static.

“I saw your defendant in the shower this morning,” said Lallie. “That Stacey Glenn?”

“Crap,” Hoffman said.

Duffy hit rewind, played it again.

“I saw your defendant in the shower this morning. That Stacey Glenn? She’s talking to the matron, saying if she had done that murder, she wouldn’t have done it with no crowbar when she’s got a perfectly good handgun at home.”

Yuki felt light-headed and a little sick.

First, Carly Phelan had lied by omission during voir dire. If she’d said she had a daughter in jail, she would have been excused because one could logically infer that she’d be prejudiced against the prosecution.

The DA’s office was trying to put her daughter away!

Second, and worse, Lallie Phelan was carrying news about the defendant to her mother. If Carly Phelan gossiped to anyone on the panel, the whole jury would be tainted.

“You’re declaring a mistrial?” Hoffman asked.

“No. I’m not.”

“Then I move for a mistrial, Your Honor. I have to preserve my client’s rights,” Hoffman countered, singing a different tune from the week before.

Duffy waved his hand dismissively. “I’m going to dump juror number two and substitute an alternate.”

“I have to object, Your Honor,” Hoffman said. “This conversation took place last night. Phelan could have poisoned the whole jury by now. Her daughter told her that my client has a handgun.”

“Your Honor, I’m with you,” said Yuki. “The sooner you get Phelan off the jury, the better. The alternates are ready to go.”

“So noted. All right,” said Duffy. “Let’s get on with it.”