Vik and Marti sat in the room with the bolted-down table and benches. This time, Jennifer Hunt Cooper sat across from them. Cooper was smart enough to keep her mouth shut and demand to see an attorney.
“I know my rights. I don’t have to tell you anything and I’m not going to tell you anything. How do I get an attorney?”
“We found the jewelry in your purse, the gold and zirconia pieces Savannah Payne-Jones was wearing in that PR photo,” Marti told her.
Cooper did not react.
“We also found the cuff links you showed that jeweler in Chicago.”
That seemed to surprise her, but again she said nothing.
Marti looked at Vik. He scratched his chin. He didn’t think they were going to get anything out of her either.
As they got up, Cooper asked, “When’s my bail hearing?”
“Sometime within the next twenty-four hours,” Marti said.
“Twenty-one hours,” Cooper said. “I’ve been in custody for three hours already.”
When the door to the interrogation room closed and locked behind them, Vik said, “Too much TV A couple of days in the real world of jail should take care of that.”
Their next stop was the state’s attorney’s office. The case had already been assigned to one of the assistant SAs.
“Cooper won’t talk without an attorney,” Marti told her. “And there are some things we need to know. We’ve got a couple of senior citizens in the hospital who might be able to help us eventually, but aren’t able to talk with us now. Without them, Cooper’s all we’ve got.”
“I think she knew when she went to Delilah Greathouse’s home that she was going to have to shut her up, as well as Cornelius Jefferson,” Vik said. “Greathouse is still in surgery. Except for being scared half to death, Jefferson seems to be okay. As for Savannah Payne-Jones, Cooper could argue that it was not premeditated. We’ve got her for that because she had possession of Jones’s jewelry. We’ve also got a couple of witnesses who can confirm that Cooper picked Jones up the night she died.”
“What we don’t have in the Jones case is a weapon,” Marti explained, “or any proof that Cooper brought a weapon with the intention of committing bodily harm. The knife she used on Delilah was on the kitchen counter. Maybe, that night on the bridge, she picked up whatever came to hand. Right now we can’t prove premeditation.”
“You’re suggesting a plea bargain,” the assistant state’s attorney said.
“That’s your call,” Marti told her. “There are a few things that we would like to know. And with those two in the hospital, unless someone else can tell us . . .”
“We will be asking that she be held without bail,” the SA said. “That shouldn’t be a problem with one homicide charge and right now the attempt on Greathouse. We can’t find any major priors on her, but she was involved in two aggravated-battery cases, the first seven years ago, and again two years ago. Got probation both times. We’ll see that she has ample opportunity to get an attorney as quickly as possible, if a public defender isn’t assigned to the case. What do you need to know?”
Marti began with the jewelry. “We don’t know how it came into Jones’s family’s possession. Savannah Jones’s mother is the original owner. We also have a photo of the original owner with her husband. We’d like to know who he is, and if and how he figures in. These two people in the photo went to Massachusetts and reinvented themselves. Nothing on their marriage license is accurate. And, there’s a connection between the jewelry Cooper had in her possession, not only with Jones, but also with the Newsome family.”
The ASA looked puzzled.
“Their company did the renovations that bricked in the windows and sealed off the second floor in that building where those skeletal remains were found last year,” Vik explained. “Cooper, Jones, and Newsome all have jewelry made by a Prussian named Otto Von Weiss; he never left Eastern Europe.”
“You think that a fifty- or sixty-year-old homicide is connected with this?”
“Maybe just indirectly. But it’s no coincidence that they all have jewelry made by the same person.”
“So, Jennifer Cooper could possibly tie up some of those loose ends. Okay. I see where you’re coming from. I’ll see what I can do. But I’m going to call you before I make any deals, or you call me if you get these questions answered without her. At this point, I don’t know of any mitigating circumstances other than the issue with the weapon. I’d just as soon charge her with Murder One.”
“Hospital?” Vik suggested, when they got back in the car.
“Might as well,” Marti agreed.
They found Lupe and Holmberg in the surgical waiting room.
“They’re still operating on Delilah,” Lupe said. “It’s been three hours now.”
“What about Cornelius?”
“He’s on a heart attack and stroke watch. His blood pressure and heartbeat are erratic. No visitors until they get it under control.”
Marti could see that Lupe was upset. “Look,” she told her. “We followed procedure and everything went down fast. She could have lain there and bled out.”
“But if we went in even a few minutes sooner ...”
“What happened, happened. The one thing we cannot do is second-guess. We’re cops. We had one shot at it. We took it. We did it right. That was not a situation where we could risk playing cowboy.”
Lupe nodded. Marti looked at her for a few moments, decided what she said was sinking in. She was getting ready to leave when a doctor entered the room and walked toward them. He was wearing surgical scrubs. A mask dangled from his neck and he was still wearing a white cap.
“What?” Lupe asked.
“Mrs. Greathouse made it through surgery. She’s in intensive care. All we can do now is wait.”
“Can I see her?” Lupe asked.
“Come up in about half an hour.”
Lupe turned to Marti when he left. “The granddaughter,” she said. “That actress’s daughter.”
“Delilah’s great-granddaughter, Sara.”
“Delilah’s a fighter, Marti. Knowing Sara is here would really give her something to fight for.”
“We’ll get her.”
Sara and Akiro were in the den watching television when Marti and Vik arrived at the pastor’s house.
“We need to talk with you,” Marti said.
Akiro turned off the television.
“You have a relative here, your great-grandmother.”
“That can’t be true,” Sara protested. “Ma would have told me.”
“Not if she didn’t know.” Marti explained about Savannah’s PR photo being in The People’s Voice. “Someone saw it and either recognized the jewelry or realized who your mother must be because of her eyes, or both. In any case, your great-grandmother finally saw that picture today and knew who it had to be. She contacted the woman we are charging with your mother’s death. That woman came to her house and stabbed her.”
Sara got very pale. Akiro rushed over and put his arm around her and led her to the sofa.
“She’s dead, too?” Sara whispered.
“No, but she had to have surgery and she’s in intensive care.
We think that if she knows you’re there, and you know who she is, it might help. She’s in her eighties, but she’s got a fighting chance of pulling through.”
“Let’s go,” Akiro said. “We’ll follow you. I’ve rented a car.”
He helped Sara to her feet.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I’m okay.”