At Olivia’s request, Jake had been waiting in the courthouse. The plan she came up with the previous night worked best if he walked into the courtroom expecting to be asked his impressions of Adam’s relationship with his son.
I saw a small smile cross his face as he walked past me on his way to the witness chair. I knew it was intended as a sign of optimism for me, but it only made me feel more horrible.
I kept my hands clasped in my lap and stared straight ahead as Olivia walked him through the basic questions she’d ask of a standard character witness. His name and age. His employment with Rives & Braddock for the past fifteen years. The fact that he first met Adam and his family approximately six years earlier through the law firm’s head partner, Bill Braddock, who represented Eve magazine. The additional fact that the firm subsequently welcomed Adam in as a law partner to handle white-collar criminal cases a little more than two years before his death.
“Would you call Adam Macintosh a friend?”
“Definitely.”
“You socialized together?”
“Yes. Often, in fact, once he joined the firm. Our weekend houses are within a mile of each other, so we saw each other out there quite a bit. And, of course, at work.”
“You had cases together?”
He paused. “No, not per se. He was primarily a criminal defense attorney. I’m a transactional lawyer. But we were partners at the same firm, so, in that sense, all our work was shared. And a few clients had a need for both of us, in which case we’d team up.”
“Did you even take trips with the Macintosh family?”
He nodded. “Yes, a couple of times.”
“And what were those?”
“The firm had a big celebration for its fiftieth year. About a hundred of us went to Anguilla together last January. And then a much smaller group of us—more our social crowd from the East End—went up to Boston together for a Yankee-Sox game, if you could even call that massacre a vacation.”
“And did Ethan Macintosh and Chloe Taylor go on both of those trips?”
He blinked a couple of times at the mention of my name, but I doubt anyone else noticed. “Yes.”
“So you had a chance to get to know both of them?”
“Yes, I’d say so.”
“And did you commence a sexual relationship with Chloe Taylor?”
It only took him a second. I could see the flicker in his eyes. Jake was probably the smartest person I had ever met. How many times had Adam and Bill said that he was the resident genius at Rives & Braddock? The lawyer part of his brain probably even admired Olivia for the move, realizing he never would have fallen for it if it weren’t for his loyalty to me.
He turned calmly to the judge, his eyes moving quickly past mine. “I’m not going to answer that question.”
Jake’s own objection triggered one from Nunzio. “Inadequate foundation for the question, Your Honor.”
Olivia was prepared with a retort. “Ms. Taylor’s testimony laid a sufficient foundation, Your Honor. If necessary, I can recall her to the stand.”
I had said everything except Jake’s name. It wasn’t our fault that Nunzio hadn’t made the connection to Olivia’s late addition of a family friend as a character witness.
“The objection is overruled,” Rivera said. “You must answer the question, Mr. Summer. Unless there’s an applicable privilege, of course. I can give you a recess to give you an opportunity to retain counsel if necessary.”
He looked up at Olivia and set his mouth in a straight line before speaking. “On the advice of my own counsel, I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.”
“Did Chloe Taylor tell you prior to Adam Macintosh’s murder that her husband was physically abusing her?”
“On the advice of my own counsel, I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.”
Over and over again, he repeated the same phrase, like a mantra.
“Did you provide a burner phone to Ms. Taylor so your private conversations with her would go undetected by Adam Macintosh and other members of your law firm?
“At approximately five p.m. before the murder, did you receive a phone call from Ms. Taylor notifying you that she would be at a party and that her husband, Adam Macintosh, would be alone that night, less than a mile from your own home?
“Where were you the night that Adam Macintosh was killed?
“Jake Summer, did you stab Adam Macintosh?”
That was the question that finally made him flinch. I could see how badly he wanted to defend himself. Instead, he looked at me, a pained expression on his face, as he answered one last time, “On the advice of my own counsel, I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.”
When he left the witness chair, he used the opposite aisle through the courtroom so he did not have to walk directly past me. As I watched him leave, Nicky and I glared at him, just like Olivia had us practice. After all, he was the man who must have killed my husband.