The Perfect Marriage(73)

“Yes.”

“But you think that father and son might have conspired together to commit this crime?”

“That is a strong possibility.”

“What evidence of this conspiracy do you have?”

“As I stated, there’s motive, there’s lack of cooperation, there’s lack of an alibi, there are the fingerprints, and there is the DNA, which we believe will prove a match to Owen Fiske.”

“All that tells me is that Mr. Fiske is exercising his constitutional rights and had at one time been in the office of his ex-wife’s husband. I see nothing to support the idea of a conspiracy between the son and the father. The initial arrest warrant was premised on the claim that Mr. Wayne Fiske’s DNA would match the blood at the crime scene. We all now know that is not the case. Therefore, the People have not met the probable-cause standard for an indictment against Wayne Fiske. The indictment is dismissed.”

The air came back into Wayne’s lungs. He was being set free. The only problem was that now his son was the one in harm’s way.



The judge ordered a recess after her ruling, providing time for Wayne to change out of the prison jumpsuit and into the business suit that Jessica had brought for him. Away from watchful eyes, Jessica embraced her ex-husband.

“You ready for round two?” Miller asked.

“No,” Jessica said.

“I understand,” Miller said. “There’s a better shot this time to defeat the warrant than there was before. Owen’s illness provides a hook that wasn’t present when they wanted to get DNA from Wayne. And Lisa will go all out in the cross. So keep the faith just a little while longer.”



When court resumed, Salvesen wasted no time calling Gabriel back to the stand. Just like when they sought Wayne Fiske’s DNA, the prosecutor had decided he was going to let Gabriel do the heavy lifting, which once again suited Gabriel just fine.

The other players had rearranged, however. Whereas before Alex Miller and Wayne Fiske sat at the defense table, their seats were now occupied by Jessica Sommers and Lisa Kaplan. Miller and Fiske were in the gallery.

“Lieutenant Velasquez, please tell Judge Martin the result of the DNA test you administered on Wayne Fiske?”

“It was a partial match.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that the person who left blood at the crime scene is a blood relative of Wayne Fiske, but not Wayne Fiske.”

“Does Wayne Fiske have any other biological children aside from Owen Fiske?”

“Not to our knowledge.”

“Brothers or sisters?”

“Again, we have no knowledge of that.”

“Parents who are living?”

“No.”

“What conclusions, if any, did you draw from those facts?”

“That his son, Owen Fiske, left the blood at the crime scene.”

“Is there anything else you’d like to add, Lieutenant?” Salvesen asked.

“No.”

“That’s my examination, Judge,” Salvesen said, seemingly pleased to be done working. “We ask the court to take judicial notice of Lieutenant Velasquez’s prior testimony regarding motive, which applies now to Owen Fiske.”

“Understood,” Judge Martin said. “No need to replow that field. Ms. Kaplan, the witness is yours.”

Lisa Kaplan stepped up to the lectern. She was familiar to Gabriel from her days as an ADA. He liked it better when they had been on the same team and knew he was in for a grilling every bit as intense as Miller had done the last time.

“Good morning, Lieutenant. Let’s start with the people you considered suspects in the murder of Mr. Sommers. Before you arrested Wayne Fiske, how many serious suspects were in the mix?”

“‘Serious suspect’ is not a term I use—”

“I don’t want to spar with you, Lieutenant. We’re just talking normal usage of words here. How many people did you think might have killed James Sommers?”

“In any murder case, the spouse is the first suspect.”

“Let me stop you there, Lieutenant. You’re talking about Ms. Jessica Sommers, the widow of James Sommers—who is not to be confused with Mrs. Haley Sommers, his ex-wife.”

“That’s right. Jessica Sommers.”

“Jessica Sommers did not have an alibi, right?”

“That is correct. She told us she was at home, alone, when the crime was committed.”

“Did you know then that Ms. Sommers was the beneficiary of a five-hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy on her husband?”

“We discovered that in the course of our investigation, yes.”

“I assume that you also discovered in the course of your investigation that the life insurance proceeds that Jessica Sommers recently received were desperately needed to pay for her son’s lifesaving cancer treatment.”

“We knew that Owen Fiske was undergoing a medical procedure, yes. We also knew it was expensive, and beyond Jessica Sommers’s and Wayne Fiske’s means, absent the insurance proceeds.”

“And even aside from the obvious motive to save her son, isn’t it also the case that the reason the wife is always the first suspect is that there’s always a possible motive between spouses, even if it isn’t known to anyone outside of the marriage?”