corresponding, brief mention in the Post, José Vasquez, a landscaper, had been killed in a freak work-related accident. Okay, I shouldn’t laugh, but, honestly, it was hard to keep a straight face when I was reading about a guy being crushed while planting a palm tree. Talk about your freak accident.
Only two names remained on my list. One was a drama student at FAU who, according to the critic who wrote the article, was so talentless that she made Paris Hilton look like Meryl Streep. The other was Graham Keller, the jury foreman.
Keller was a fifty-eight-year-old man who—I swallowed—was also dead. Also an accident. Also within the last three months.
The hairs at the back of my neck prickled. I let out a breath and whispered, “Something is very wrong.”
Never blow your girlfriends off for a guy.
Four
It was Wednesday, and in just three short days I was beginning to change my opinion about Stacy Evans. As in, maybe she wasn’t a delusional widow with nothing better to do than bug me. Maybe there was something to her theory that her husband had been murdered after all. Hell, I hadn’t even started checking out the trial witnesses and already the bodies were piling up.
My fingernails clicked against my keyboard as I cyber-hunted for more information on Graham Keller, the third dead juror. There was a tingle of excitement in my stomach. A normal person would equate it to that sensation you feel when you know you’re about to get great sex.
Me? It’s more like the thrill I get when an eBay auction for one of my coveted Rolex parts is about to end and I’m still the high bidder.
Unlike the poor landscaper crushed by the palm tree, the details of Graham Keller’s demise were pretty standard fare. According to the newspaper, he simply keeled over during a performance at the Kravis Center. I grimaced when I discovered the death occurred during intermission on the opening night for a touring company’s production of The Marriage of Figaro.
My reaction was a sad commentary on my character because the response wasn’t empathy for the dead guy. Oh no. It was pretty much a function of my own personal experience.
Mom dragged Lisa and me to various operas on a regular basis when we were growing up. Fully expecting her daughters to share her love of opera. Lisa does. I so do not. Particularly not Figaro. For me, it’s three and a half hours of sappy romance set to music. Don’t get me wrong, I like romance as much as the next girl. I just prefer the Sleepless in Seattle kind. About an hour into the opera, my hand starts to itch, and I’ve got to battle the urge to rush the stage and bitch-slap the Susanna and/or Figaro character, just for being so stupid.
So the notion of a quick and painless death at intermission held some sort of perverse appeal for me. Lucky bastard didn’t have to sit through the second half.
“Stop it,” I chided myself softly. A therapist could probably have a field day analyzing the correlation between my loathing of opera and my relationship—or lack thereof— with my mother and sister.
Shaking my head to clear my errant thoughts, I returned my focus to Keller’s sudden death. His age was listed as fifty-eight—pretty young to just drop dead. Again I thought there was a possibility that Stacy Evans wasn’t a complete loon.
Three dead jurors in three months is pretty damned suspicious. Even to an underachieving estates and trusts paralegal.
My shoulders slumped when I reached the last line of the article just above a grainy photograph of the deceased.
There’d been a autopsy. The M.E.’s office determined that Keller had suffered a massive coronary. Natural causes, damn it.
In the bizarre and wonderful world of the medical examiner, once homicide and suicide are ruled out, a heart attack is technically considered an accident. Which I suppose makes some sort of sense. It’s not like anyone would intentionally have a coronary.
That knowledge didn’t do much to support my
Only two names remained on my list. One was a drama student at FAU who, according to the critic who wrote the article, was so talentless that she made Paris Hilton look like Meryl Streep. The other was Graham Keller, the jury foreman.
Keller was a fifty-eight-year-old man who—I swallowed—was also dead. Also an accident. Also within the last three months.
The hairs at the back of my neck prickled. I let out a breath and whispered, “Something is very wrong.”
Never blow your girlfriends off for a guy.
Four
It was Wednesday, and in just three short days I was beginning to change my opinion about Stacy Evans. As in, maybe she wasn’t a delusional widow with nothing better to do than bug me. Maybe there was something to her theory that her husband had been murdered after all. Hell, I hadn’t even started checking out the trial witnesses and already the bodies were piling up.
My fingernails clicked against my keyboard as I cyber-hunted for more information on Graham Keller, the third dead juror. There was a tingle of excitement in my stomach. A normal person would equate it to that sensation you feel when you know you’re about to get great sex.
Me? It’s more like the thrill I get when an eBay auction for one of my coveted Rolex parts is about to end and I’m still the high bidder.
Unlike the poor landscaper crushed by the palm tree, the details of Graham Keller’s demise were pretty standard fare. According to the newspaper, he simply keeled over during a performance at the Kravis Center. I grimaced when I discovered the death occurred during intermission on the opening night for a touring company’s production of The Marriage of Figaro.
My reaction was a sad commentary on my character because the response wasn’t empathy for the dead guy. Oh no. It was pretty much a function of my own personal experience.
Mom dragged Lisa and me to various operas on a regular basis when we were growing up. Fully expecting her daughters to share her love of opera. Lisa does. I so do not. Particularly not Figaro. For me, it’s three and a half hours of sappy romance set to music. Don’t get me wrong, I like romance as much as the next girl. I just prefer the Sleepless in Seattle kind. About an hour into the opera, my hand starts to itch, and I’ve got to battle the urge to rush the stage and bitch-slap the Susanna and/or Figaro character, just for being so stupid.
So the notion of a quick and painless death at intermission held some sort of perverse appeal for me. Lucky bastard didn’t have to sit through the second half.
“Stop it,” I chided myself softly. A therapist could probably have a field day analyzing the correlation between my loathing of opera and my relationship—or lack thereof— with my mother and sister.
Shaking my head to clear my errant thoughts, I returned my focus to Keller’s sudden death. His age was listed as fifty-eight—pretty young to just drop dead. Again I thought there was a possibility that Stacy Evans wasn’t a complete loon.
Three dead jurors in three months is pretty damned suspicious. Even to an underachieving estates and trusts paralegal.
My shoulders slumped when I reached the last line of the article just above a grainy photograph of the deceased.
There’d been a autopsy. The M.E.’s office determined that Keller had suffered a massive coronary. Natural causes, damn it.
In the bizarre and wonderful world of the medical examiner, once homicide and suicide are ruled out, a heart attack is technically considered an accident. Which I suppose makes some sort of sense. It’s not like anyone would intentionally have a coronary.
That knowledge didn’t do much to support my
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