Page 160 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Jury-rigged

Labelle Gramercy spent the next five minutes initiating her own
search for Hannibal Simulian’s missing mistress. A lesser man, or one
not already beaten into sterner stuff by her callousness, might have
taken that as a reprimand. Not I. I remained at my own desk, well out
of her reach and content to let her sift the facts in her own tedious
way. Yes, I itched to snatch the papers out of her hands and scream
the obvious conclusion in her face, but I knew the attempt would be
thwarted before I even got close. So, tuning out her conversation, I
sat quietly, looking studious while taking peeks at the back page of
the Police Gazette.
“Let’s move on,” she said after hanging up the phone. “No one
knew the first juror would be killed, so we cannot form a clear
picture of what, if any, precipitating events preceded Wanda Lustig’s
death or what these possible victims and murderers were doing in the
days leading up to it.”
“I suppose that is strictly true.” I shrugged noncommittally to
emphasize my superficial objectivity.
“We have seen the Simulian side. What about the jurors? Wanda
Lustig was at home asleep, and her retirement for the night could
have been noted from the street by anyone observing her bedroom
window. In fact, the press coverage of Sherman’s trial made a
considerable amount of detail concerning the jurors, the Simulians
and the so-called ‘execution style’ readily available. The short interval
between verdict and killing means the perpetrator—or perpetrators—
had already gathered all the data necessary to stalk and attack these
four people. That would include their residential addresses and any
regular hours they could be counted on to be there.”
“Well, you can see what we have right there,” I said.
“Yes. The foreman was Ms. Lustig, perhaps the reason she was
killed first. The next juror on your list is Una Lloyd. Age thirty-seven,
height five-three, weight unavailable. She is divorced and works in
her home office, part of a medical billing service. Her time is her
own, to that extent, and means she may be up at odd hours on the
computer, sleeping at unpredictable times. So she might have been
awake on the night Wanda Lustig died, lights on in her window.”
I did not say that I had long ago come to the same conclusion.
“Juror number three, Frank O. Fonik, was not at his residence that
weekend. Age forty-two, height five-nine, weight one sixty-five.

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