Animal Instinct by Rosenfelt, David (novels for students TXT) 📕

Where it falls apart, at least in my mind, is the Ardmore connection. How would they profit from it? As in the case of the medical insurance, clients paying a fee for Ardmore to adjust their medical records just wouldn’t pay off on the kind of scale necessary to take these kind of risks, and to commit these kind of murders.

The only way it would make sense is if the bad guys could somehow get a large piece of the life insurance payoffs. But that again crumbles under any kind of analysis. Why would a beneficiary, a family member, turn over their money to someone at Ardmore?

Could Ardmore take out a secret policy, naming one of their own as a beneficiary? I suppose it’s possible, but they’d have to know who was going to die relatively quickly, otherwise they would be paying the premiums for many years.

Might their knowledge of the person’s health records help them predict who would die relatively soon? I suppose it’s possible, but way too complicated and way too speculative.

Could they be taking out a policy and then murdering people? Is that what happened with the three people whose obituaries Lisa Yates was hiding? It just does not seem possible to be doing that on a large scale, and I’m not aware of any media stories speculating that any of those three people were murdered.

Since I know that Steven Landry is Doris Landry’s only immediate surviving family member, I make a note to ask Sam to find out if he received a payout on any life insurance policy that she had.

Even if that is the case, I still don’t know how that could benefit anyone at Ardmore. But it can’t hurt to find out.

I also make a note to myself to check out the death certificates that Sam got for the three people. I want to see if there is even a hint that any of them could have been murdered.

This is what is known as grasping for straws … but it sure beats jury selection.

LAURIE was able to track down Enrique Lopez.

She initially called Jason Musgrove, who coldly told her that he was finished talking to anyone involved in my defense. Maybe the publicity about the upcoming trial has hardened his attitude, or maybe it is something else. I can’t say either way, but if something is going on at Ardmore, as CEO, Musgrove would be in prime position to be involved.

Instead Laurie turned to Sam, who found Lopez’s home address in Garfield. She went to see him, but came away close to positive that he is not our “Rico.” He is in his sixties and retired due to failing health. She cannot see him as a dangerous drug dealer, and nothing he said to her changed that feeling.

Andy thinks that jury selection will be finished today, possibly by late morning. So far we have seated eight people, so we need four more and two alternates. I’ll be delighted when we’re done, although that means the trial will start. I am dreading the trial because I am more than a little worried about the outcome.

It takes longer than Andy predicted, and it’s almost three o’clock in the afternoon before the fourteenth person is chosen. Judge Wallace gives them what amounts to a brief pep talk, thanking them in advance for their service and impressing on them the incredible importance of their task.

Dylan is pretty much beaming; he either thinks they got a pro-prosecution jury, or he’s doing a good job of faking it. Andy, true to his preselection prediction, says he doesn’t have the slightest idea whether we did well.

Judge Wallace says that we will begin opening arguments tomorrow. He admonishes the jury to be on time, and also not to watch any media coverage having to do with this trial, effective immediately.

We all head back to Andy’s to go over last-minute pretrial preparation. Laurie told me that Andy has never before included his clients in these kind of things. She views it as a sign that he respects me; I think it has more to do with his clients usually being in custody during the trial.

Sam is here to report that Steven Landry did collect on an insurance policy on his mother’s life, $525,000. The policy that was taken out three years ago. He placed the money into his investment account and it is still there. He did not, obviously, give a portion of it to anyone at Ardmore or anywhere else for services rendered.

Andy’s pretrial preparation session with me consists of his telling me to go home and get some sleep.

“Do you want to practice your opening statement? Laurie and I could listen and…”

I stop talking when I see Laurie cringing.

“I never prepare an opening statement,” Andy says. “I wing it.”

“You wing it?” I don’t say so, but the concept horrifies me.

“Yes, I wing it. If it makes you feel better, I have a general idea of what I am going to say. If I were to practice it, I would lose the spontaneity.”

“Do you ever forget anything?”

“I’m sure I must, but by definition I never remember what I forget.” At this point Laurie is smiling.

“I’m going to get some sleep,” I say.

“Good idea.”

When I get home, I quickly realize that there is no chance I can get any sleep. Luckily Dani is here; since all this started, she has basically been here full-time. We hadn’t talked about it; it just came naturally.

She knows I can use the support, but she does it in an unobtrusive way. She is here when I want to talk or vent, but gives me space when I need it, which is often. Tonight she makes some coffee and reads a book while I immerse myself in all these trial documents.

I am going over the death certificates for the three people whose obituaries Lisa Yates had in her suitcase. As Sam had said, nothing indicates any possibility of murder. Samuel Devers died of heart failure, Eric Seaver