Free Trial by Fury (9780061754715) by Judith A. Jance Page B

cookies. She gave her mother the ten.
    There was a quiet space, with no customers coming or going. The sun had dipped behind the roof of the Coliseum, and it was suddenly chill. Jenny gave a shiver.
    â€œHow many boxes in a carton?” I asked.
    â€œTwelve,” Jenny answered.
    â€œHow would you like to sell two cartons all at once?”
    â€œReally? You mean it? Plus the ones you already bought?”
    â€œSure. But it’ll cost you. I’ll need you to tellme everything you can remember about the man and woman who bought those fifteen boxes.”
    Jenny’s mother stiffened. “Wait just a minute…”
    I reached into my pocket and extracted my ID. “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m a cop, working a case. I really will buy the cookies, though, if you’re willing to help me.”
    Jenny looked from me to her mother and back again. “Is it okay, Mom?”
    Her mother shrugged. “I guess so. It’s about time we left here anyway. It’s starting to get cold.”
    Jenny packed up her supplies. I wrote the Girl Scouts a check for sixty bucks, and we transferred twenty-four assorted boxes of cookies from their trunk to the backseat of the Porsche. I made arrangements to meet them at Dick’s for a milkshake and hamburger. My treat.
    While Jenny mowed through her hamburger and fries, I chatted with her mother, Sue Griffith. Sue and Jenny’s father were divorced. Sue had custody, and she and Jenny were living in a small apartment on Lower Queen Anne while Sue finished up her last year of law school. There was no question in my mind where Jenny got her gumption.
    Showing great restraint, I waited until Jenny had slurped up the very last of a strawberryshake from the bottom of her cup before I turned on the questions. “Tell me about the man who bought the cookies,” I said.
    â€œIt wasn’t just a man. It was a man and a woman.”
    â€œTell me about them.”
    She paused. “He was tall and black. He had a sort of purple shirt on. And high-topped shoes.”
    â€œAnd the woman?”
    â€œShe was black, too. Very pretty. She’s the one who wrote the check.”
    â€œWhat was she wearing, did you notice?”
    â€œOne of those big funny sweatshirts. You know, the long kind.”
    â€œFunny? What do you mean, funny?”
    â€œIt had an arrow on it that pointed. It said Baby .”
    I had seen a sweatshirt just like that recently. At Darwin Ridley’s house, on the back of his widow, who never went to his games, not even statewide tournaments.
    â€œWhat color was her shirt?” I asked.
    â€œPink,” Jenny told me decisively. “Bright pink.”
    It was all I could do to sit still. “What time was it, do you remember?”
    â€œSure. It was just before we left. Mom brings me over as soon as I get home from school and have a snack. We’re at the store by about four-thirty or five, and we stay for a couple ofhours. That way I catch people on their way home from work.”
    â€œSo what time would you say, six-thirty, seven?”
    She nodded. “About that.”
    â€œJenny,” I said. “If I showed you a picture of those people, would you recognize them?”
    Jenny nodded. “They were nice. The nice ones are easy to remember.”
    Across the table from me, Sue was looking more and more apprehensive. “What’s all this about?” she asked. “This isn’t that case that was on the news today, I hope.”
    â€œI’m afraid so.”
    â€œI don’t think I want Jenny mixed up in this.”
    â€œJenny’s already mixed up in it,” I said quietly. “Aside from his basketball team, your daughter may have been one of the last people to see Darwin Ridley alive.”
    Jenny had watched the exchange between her mother and me like someone watching a Ping-Pong game. “Who’s Darwin Ridley?” she asked.
    â€œI believe