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Juror Number Six

Bob Strother

    Tanner’s elbows rested on the desk, hands fisted under his chin as he read the morning Post’s headline: Acquitted Man Arrested in Second Deadly Shooting. He sighed, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a perverse sense of satisfaction. The man who’d been arrested, Dewayne Lamont, had been set free by a jury only one week earlier. His latest victim was the ex-girlfriend who had dropped the dime on him in the earlier case. The case Tanner prosecuted. The case Tanner lost.
    Connie, his secretary, set a cup of coffee down on Tanner’s desk and glanced at the headline. “You told them so,” she said.
    Tanner met her gaze. “Thanks. I’d of felt like a jerk saying that myself.”
    “Take it easy on yourself. You did all you could.” On her way out of the room, Connie said, “And, speaking of jerks, don’t take everything your ex-girlfriend says to heart.”
    He looked up again, but she was gone. Tanner’s mood, already glum, slipped further into the abyss. Yvonne, his lover for the past year, had recently dumped him for a stock broker with a waterfront condo on the Eastern Shore and a new Mercedes SLK. 0 for two, he thought.
    He was still brooding later that afternoon when Connie buzzed him on the intercom.
    “I have a Jessica Whatley on line two,” she said.
    Jessica Whatley. The name rang a distant bell, but Tanner couldn’t place it. He picked up the phone and pressed the blinking button. “Jeff Tanner.”
    “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “I just finished reading the newspaper story. I wanted you to know how sorry I am about our decision.”
    Then it hit him. A week earlier he had requested the jury be polled. He’d wanted the jurors to realize what they’d done, wanted them to feel individually responsible for what he knew was a miscarriage of justice.
    “Are you still there?” the voice asked.
    “Yes.”
    “I was juror number six.”
    He remembered her now, mid-thirties, short blonde hair, wearing a simple blue dress with a gold pin at the neckline. She’d lifted her head defiantly, brown eyes boring into his. “Not guilty,” she said, and nodded for emphasis.
    “It’s not necessary for you to apologize, Ms. Whatley.” The damage has already been done.
    “But it is,” she said. “I just feel terrible. I want you to know we only reached our verdict after careful consideration. I’d like to explain further.”
    Tanner picked up a pencil and tapped it on his legal pad. “You’ve already explained, Ms. Whatley. Thanks for calling. I appreciate it.”
    “I meant ... in person.”
    “Well...” There was a long silence on the line while Tanner debated with himself. He was still nursing some anger, but her apparent sincerity was nibbling at the edges of it.
    “C’mon,” she said. “Couldn’t we meet for a drink later today, or a cup of coffee? Really, I feel I owe you something.”
    “I guess a drink would be okay.” He checked the wall clock. “I’m through here at five.”
    “How about Jason’s?” she said. “Over on Connecticut? I can be there by six.”
    “All right,” he said, “I’ll meet you there.”

    And he would’ve had he not been called for a conference with the District Attorney. When the meeting was over, he checked his watch. It was six-forty. “Shit,” he said, and looked up the number of the bar.
    “Is a Jessica Whatley there?” he asked when the bartender answered.
    “I’ll check.” When the man came back on the line, he said, “No one here by that name now. But if she’s a hot-looking blonde, I think she left about fifteen minutes ago.”
    He debated letting it go; he didn’t owe the woman anything, after all. But the bartender was right about her being good-looking. And it had been a while since he’d been out with a woman.
    Tanner looked up her number online, but when he tried it, got a recorded voice telling him the phone was no longer in service. Finally, he called the courthouse, found a night clerk he knew, and was able to finagle the juror’s home address.
    He could have walked—it was only ten blocks from the courthouse, but the wind was up and it was spitting snow, so he hailed a cab and arrived at the address, a four-story brownstone, shortly after seven. The directory showed a J. Whatley in 209. He walked up one flight of stairs, found the apartment, and knocked on the door.
    Seconds later, the lock tumblers turned, the night chain rattled into place, and one brown eye peered at him through the crack. “Yes?”
    “It’s me, Jeff Tanner,” he said. “I wanted to apologize for missing you at the bar.”
    “I waited half an hour,” she said. “I thought you’d changed your mind.”
    “It was a last minute meeting, the District Attorney’s office. It’s my fault; I don’t usually do this sort of thing. I would have called before coming by but your phone is ...”
    “I had the landline taken out,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to get a cell, but I’m afraid I’m kind of disorganized that way. How’d you find me?”
    He grinned. “I have friends in high places.”
    She slipped the chain off the door and grinned back at him. “Well, you’re here; you want to come in?”
    The apartment was furnished sparsely, but charming nonetheless. Gas logs glowed in a small fireplace, with recessed lighting over the mantle.
    “I haven’t really shopped for groceries,” she said, “but I could make some fondue, if you’d like.”
    “That’d be great.”
    They had cheese fondue and wine in front of the fire. She apologized again for herself and the rest of the jury, but the wine, the ambiance, and her presence combined to ameliorate any residual feelings he may have had about the case. After strawberries and cream for dessert, she poured two brandies and touched her glass to his. “This is fun, isn’t it?”
    “Yes,” he said.
    And he meant it.

    Tanner spent the next two days at a legal conference in Baltimore, alternating his thoughts between prosecutorial issues and Jessica. He wondered if he shouldn’t have tried hitting on her. A nice looking woman, living alone, soft lighting, drinking wine and brandy, maybe she’d expected him to hit on her. The trouble was ... well, she wasn’t Yvonne; that was the trouble.
    The one sexual experience he’d had since Yvonne dumped him had been with a woman he’d met at a bar. They’d both gotten pretty drunk, and she’d taken him back to her apartment. Afterward, he’d gone home and lain awake half the night thinking of Yvonne.
    Give it up, Tanner told himself. Yvonne was gone. Jessica could be a new beginning.
    After arriving back in DC, Tanner stopped off at a deli and bought a bottle of good French wine. He got a taxi to Jessica’s apartment, climbed the stairs to the second floor, and knocked on the door of 209. He waited a few seconds, then knocked again.
    A faint voice came from within. “Yes?”
    “It’s me, Jeff Tanner.”
    “Oh,” she said. “Wait just a second, please.”
    He heard footsteps approaching and the door opened a crack, the night chain stopping it. Through the narrow opening, Jeff saw her face, tousled hair, a glimpse of naked flesh.
    “I was ... uh, taking a nap,” she said.
    “Oh, I’m sorry.”
    “That’s okay; it’s just that ... uh ...”
    She turned away for a moment, then looked back at him. It’s just that there’s someone here with me, her eyes said. I was in bed with someone, and it’s just a very inconvenient time for you to come knocking on my door. It’s just—hit the road, Jack.
    “Well, I...” He kept looking at her eyes, hoping maybe he was reading them wrong, but the night chain stayed on the door. “Well, I’ll see you another time, okay?”
    “Jeff,” she said, “I’m really sorry. It’s just that I wasn’t expecting you, you know?”
    Tanner shook his head. “No, it’s my fault. Again. My mistake. Goodnight, Jessica.”
    “Goodnight,” she replied.
    He turned away, heard the door closing behind him and the small, oiled click of the tumblers falling into place. “I’m really on a roll,” he said softly to the deserted landing. “First it was Yvonne, then the Lamont case, and now this.”
    He descended the staircase still carrying the bottle of French wine. He turned right on the sidewalk and headed for the subway station. At the corner, he spied a derelict huddled in a shadowed doorway. Tanner stopped and handed him the paper bag containing the wine. A crooked grin stole across the old man’s face, exposing a row of rotten, jagged teeth.
    “Thank you, sir,” the man said. “A splendid vintage, I’m sure.”
    Tanner was halfway across the intersection when the bum yelled out, “Hey, dude! ’Dis bottle don’t have no screw top. How I supposed to open ’dis?”
    Tanner continued walking. And that, he mused, makes O for four.

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