Free VC04 - Jury Double by Edward Stewart

containment. I naturally contacted the other numbers Leon had phoned. I discovered four other recipients of similar calls.”
    “Who were they?” Anne said softly.
    “They were all daughters of lawyers with whom or against whom Leon has argued in United States Supreme Court.”
    She looked over at her father, cozy under his afghan. He nodded at her as though to say: Yes, it’s true. Your old dad has still got the stuff.
    “You’re sure these were obscene calls?” she said.
    “There’s no doubt about that.”
    “And you’re sure Leon made them?”
    MacLeod turned to Leon, giving him the floor.
    “The calls are protected speech.” A benign, wise, half-smile floated on Leon’s lips. “In fact they’re part of a test case I’m working on.”
    Has he gone crazy? Anne asked herself.
    Tim Alvarez laid a stack of bills on the coffee table.
    Anne’s hand hesitated and then she leaned forward in her chair and nudged the bills into the circle of lamplight.
    Four dozen statements, stretching back twenty-four months. The name and address computer-printed at the top were Leon’s. Half the bills covered calls made from the house phone and half covered calls from the cabin up in the woods, where Leon used to go for privacy. Toll charges to out-of-state numbers had been highlighted in a glowing nail-polish pink. They’d been placed to a variety of area codes. She recognized Connecticut and California. The other codes were unfamiliar.
    “The families are willing to forgo a trial,” MacLeod said. “Provided Leon signs a consent form, promising to make no more such calls. And makes a substantial financial contribution to a rape hotline.”
    Anne fanned the bills together, tapping them on the edge of her wrist. “Are you willing, Leon?”
    “I’m giving it some thought.”
    Crazy or not , she thought with exasperation, you’re still sly . Still exasperating. She rose and stalked into the kitchen.
    Tim and MacLeod followed, footsteps creaking swiftly behind her.
    “Just tell me one thing.” She placed both hands on the butcher-block table and faced Tim, barely managing to control her voice. “We pay you to keep an eye on Leon. How is it you didn’t know he was making these calls?”
    A tiny drop of sweat crawled down Tim’s cheek, glistening in the lamplight. “Leon made the calls from the phone in his cabin.”
    “And for your father to limp all the way up there, with that bad leg of his …” MacLeod glanced toward the hall and lowered his voice. “I’d say that shows a pretty clear conscience of wrongdoing.”
    Anne reexamined the bills. Without exception, the highlighted calls had been direct-dialed from the cabin phone. A second oddity leaped out at her: the calls had all been placed after one in the morning. “If Leon was limping all the way up to that cabin—two hours past the time you’re supposed to have him in bed—I don’t see how you could have not noticed.”
    “You know your dad. He got me to lower my guard.” Apology danced a hesitation waltz across Tim’s eyes. “I goofed.”
    Anne wondered why Leon had chosen this moment to out himself as a dirty old man. Her hands balled into fists. “I don’t believe any of this. I don’t believe that old phone up in the cabin even works .”
    It had begun to rain. Drops made slapping sounds on the rhododendron leaves. Half-groping in the dark, Anne made out the vine-tangled path that led up the hill into the woods.
    Lightning ripped a neon crack in the sky, showing her the weathered pine cabin.
    The door was unlocked. Thunder growled as she stepped inside. Her hand scrabbled along a plank wall and struck a switch.
    On the desk a lamp went on, throwing a circle of raw 100-watt light over strewn newspapers and books.
    She searched beneath the papers but couldn’t find the phone. Couldn’t even find the cord.
    She tilted the lampshade. Light tipped out over rickety porch chairs and tables. The cabin gave an impression of dust and clutter and