Anne wasn’t surprised. It was a common name. She couldn’t begin to read each one, it would take until Tuesday. She narrowed the search geographically, to Pennsylvania. As far as she knew, Bill Dietz had been living here at least in the recent past. He had worked at Chipster for less than five years.
Your search has revealed 427 persons named William Dietz with criminal convictions.
Hoo boy. Anne checked her watch. 5:10. It was getting late. Still, what was the point? She had so much to do, and this was undoubtedly a detour. She didn’t even know why she was following up. So what if Dietz was violent? So what if he had a criminal record? So what if he only pretended to be a sensitive ponytail? Still. Anne flashed on the scene in the dep, on the rage in Dietz’s eyes. She moved the computer mouse over the first live listings in blue, and clicked.
Eighty-two listings later, Bill Dietz still hadn’t been convicted. Anne rubbed her eyes. This was stupid. She wasn’t getting anywhere. She checked her watch. 6:05. Was Bennie still in with the cops? What was taking so long? Anne stretched, tense and frustrated. She was about to take a break when the door to her office opened a crack.
Bennie stuck her face inside the open door, her forehead creased with anxiety. “You’re wanted in conference room D. Now.”
“The cops? Is there a problem?”
“No, the cops are in C.” Bennie snuck inside and shut the door behind her like a co-conspirator. “What’s worse than the cops?”
“Brown hair.”
“Think money.”
“My Visa bill.”
“Think like a lawyer, not a woman,” Bennie said, but Anne was already on her mules.
12
What’s going on?”
“Gil Martin’s here,” Bennie answered. “Carrier’s in with him.”
“What? Gil? Here? Why?”
“Turns out that since you got killed, he’s been having doubts about me trying Chipster. He came here to fire us. He seems to think I’m not up to it.”
Anne almost laughed. She had tried ten cases to Bennie’s thousand, and they had been in L.A., where even O.J. got off. “So, what did you tell him?”
“That he shouldn’t worry, that I was up to speed. That we function as a team, a family.”
“The family stuff never works,” Anne said without thinking, and Bennie blinked, hurt.
“It doesn’t?”
“All companies say it. It’s never true.”
“It’s true for me. I mean it.”
“Well, I believe it, but they don’t. Other people don’t.”
Bennie still looked hurt.
“Okay, it depends on who says it.”
“Well, anyway, young Gil ain’t buying. We’re toast. He’s already contacted Crawford, Wilson, & Ryan. He knows people there, and he’s also looking at Ballard, Spahr. First-rate firms. They’re running conflicts check as we speak, and we both know what they’ll say.”
“What do you think I should do?”
“He’s your client, make your decision,” Bennie answered without rancor. “What do you wanna do?”
“I didn’t even want you to try this case. You think I’ll lose it to someone who’s not even family?” Anne smiled, and so did Bennie. “No question. I’ll tell him I’m alive. Swear him to secrecy. I want to keep this representation.”
“I understand, but I’m not interested in killing you to save a client. Even if it wasn’t Kevin who killed Willa, we know now that he’s in the vicinity. Can you trust Gil to keep it quiet, that you’re alive?”
“He’ll keep it quiet.”
“Okay. But I go first, to keep the cops in C.” Bennie opened the door narrowly and checked the hallway. “Your client’s in D.”
“Thanks. By the way, I got Willa’s address.”
“Good job.” Bennie slipped out of the door, and Anne waited a minute, then left and hurried down the hall. She whizzed past the Deer Park cooler, watercolors of City Hall’s Victorian facade, and endless rowing sequences, all of which looked like a skinny guy in a rowboat wearing a bad tank top. She reached conference room D, opened the door, and slipped inside quickly, closing it behind her.
Gil was standing with Judy and he was well dressed in a navy-blue blazer, pressed khakis, and Gucci loafers. His boyish face was lightly tanned, albeit showing signs of IPO strain.
“Hello, Gil. It’s me, Anne,” she said and looked at him directly. She didn’t want to play with his emotions, and he seemed not to recognize her for a moment. His forehead knit and his sharp, blue-green eyes looked confused. He ran a quick hand through shiny brown hair, which fell expensively back into place. Anne managed an encouraging smile. “It’s really me, Gil. I’m not dead. I’m alive. It’s a mistake.”
Gil looked like he wanted to laugh, but it turned to something like a hiccup. “Is this a joke?”
“Maybe you should sit down.” Anne gestured to the modern, tall-backed chair on the other side of the table, but Gil was already sinking into it, all six feet of him, slowly collapsing from the knees, like a house imploded from its foundation. He couldn’t take his eyes from Anne’s face, and she had to set him straight. “Gil, I’m sorry, it’s all a misunderstanding. I mean, I wasn’t killed last night, another woman was. Not me.”
Gil looked uncertain, his smile cautious. “You’re really Anne Murphy? Then tell me something only you would know, from first year.”
“Okay, we met the first day of Contracts class, sitting next to each other alphabetically. Martin and Murphy. I memorized offer and acceptance, and you improved Game Boy.”
“Ha!” Gil laughed softly, almost coming around. “It’s you? I can’t believe it. But . . . in the news, on TV, they said—”
“They were wrong. It’s all wrong. The woman who was killed was taking care of my cat. The cops don’t know I’m really alive. Only we do. Now you. And it has to stay that way.” Anne reached for the pitcher of water they always kept on the table, but it was off for the holiday weekend. Only the glasses remained, turned upside down on a pebbled paper towel. “You want something to drink?”
“Got scotch?” He smiled, and Anne did, too. Next to him, Judy rose without being asked and headed for the conference room door, but Gil was scrutinizing Anne so intently, she wasn’t sure he noticed. She had to bring him down to earth, fast. She wasn’t about to lose this representation. “Gil, the cops know who killed my cat-sitter and they’re in the conference room right now, planning how to get him. They’re going to arrest him any day, but all of this is beside the point.” She leaned across the table, trying to engage him, and once they locked eyes, she held him. “I know this is a lot to digest, all at once. But what matters to me and to you is Chipster, and I intend to defend you and your company on Tuesday. I know the facts, I know the case inside out. You can’t switch counsel now. You don’t need to.”
“You’re really alive?” Gil kept raking his sandy hair with his fingers. “This is so . . . odd.”
“On Tuesday, we’ll tell the cops and pick a jury. But you have to swear to keep this secret for the weekend. Even from Jamie, okay? From everybody.”
“I just can’t get used to it. It’s so fucking odd.”
“Tell me about it.” Anne had to defuse the situation. There was business to conduct. “I know who we want on the jury, I’ve prepared Beth’s cross, because she’ll be their first witness. In fact, I was just rereading the deps.”
“But where were you, last night?”
“I went away to prepare for the case, in quiet. You know better than I do how the city gets on the Fourth. I wanted to think.”
“And you didn’t tell anybody? You didn’t tell me?” Gil frowned. “What if I had to talk to you?”
“I didn’t think you would, and you didn’t.” Anne flushed defensively. She didn’t understand why the questions. Maybe it was the initial shock. “Besides, I remembered you told me you’d be at a dinner party last night, in the suburbs.”
“I did. I was. I remember. You know what’s really weird?” Gil laughed suddenly. “We sent you flowers! Jamie picked them out! Lilies, a dozen. She felt so bad, when she heard about you. We saw it on TV. Did I say that already?” He laughed again, his discomfort plain, and Anne reached out impulsively to pat his hand.
“I’m sorry that you were upset, and Jamie.” Jamie was an at-home mother, and the very definition of a softhearted woman.
“You say the cops know who did it?”
“Yes. But here’s a question, and I know it sounds strange. In your own words, what is Bennie’s relationship to me?”
Gil frowned. “Who?”
“Bennie Rosato.”
“No, I mean, who did it? Who killed you—I mean, this other woman? She was in your house?” Gil seemed concerned, but Anne didn’t want to get into this. She wanted him to stay on track.
“It’s a long story and it’s not germane to the case.”
“But is the killer still out there? I mean, walking the streets?”
“Gil, forget it. The cops are working on it. They’re professionals. Leave it to them.”
“Ha! Right. Then how come they haven’t figured out that you’re not only alive, you’re right across the hall?” Gil laughed, but it stopped when the door opened and Judy entered, closing the door behind her and bearing a clear plastic pitcher of water. She set it down and reached for a glass, which she filled with a glug glug glug and handed to Gil. Anne thanked her because Gil didn’t, and made a mental note of the change in Judy. The flyer they’d made together had been a peace treaty. Okay, they weren’t exchanging recipes, but at least they weren’t mud wrestling.
Gil drank thirstily while Anne continued. “I don’t want you to think for a second that we’re not on top of this case, because we are. Mary DiNunzio, whom you met, covered today’s dep beautifully, and Judy here has been helping out a great deal. Bennie knows more about trying a case, any case, than I ever will. You and Chipster are already in excellent hands. There’s no reason to go anywhere else. So call off Ballard and Crawford. Tell ’em to sit back and watch how it’s done.” Anne smiled, which seemed to coax a genuine grin from Gil.
“I didn’t really want to fire your law firm. You know that.” He set down his glass. “I mean, I came to you for good reasons. We’ve known each other a long time, and you were always so”—he seemed to fumble for the word—”smart. Really smart.”
“Thank you.”
“I knew you’d work your ass off for me, and frankly, I wanted a woman to represent me. I thought it would help with the jury, on a sexual harassment case.” Gil seemed to be talking aloud to himself, trying to get his bearings. “Also, you’re so attractive, I knew you would get the jury’s attention. And the media’s.”
“All of these reasons still pertain.” Anne nodded, vaguely aware that Judy was bristling beside her. He never would have hired her if she hadn’t looked the way she did. Well, here was proof positive. Anne hoped she was happy.
“I mean, I was trying to be aggressive in the company’s defense. If you’re going to hire a woman, hire an all-woman firm, right?” Gil spread his palms. “Do it in a big way.”
“Of course. And you did.” Though Gil had never articulated his rationale this fully, Anne wasn’t stupid. He’d used the publicity to his advantage; he’d been accused of sexual harassment and had managed to come out looking like a feminist champion. But none of it worked, unless Anne won a jury verdict. “So let’s talk about the case a minute. Answer my question. What is Bennie’s relationship to me?”
Beside her, Judy looked nonplussed, and Gil shrugged. “Bennie Rosato? She owns the law firm, doesn’t she?”
“Yes, but what do you call the person who owns the business?”
“Like me? The owner, I guess.”
“Not ‘the boss’?”
“I never say that. It’s weird. Why?”
Of course. “Just a question. Now that you’ve gotten over the shock of me still drawing breath, how else can I help you? Is there anything you want to talk about? Has the media been driving you nuts?”
“This is kind of strange, don’t you think?” Gil looked with renewed doubt from Anne to Judy and back again. “You’re just going to pretend that this isn’t happening? That some woman didn’t get murdered? That this murderer, whoever he is, isn’t out there?”
Anne felt stung. “Gil, I’m not pretending anything. I am simply handling both. Doing both. Multi-tasking.”
“It’s my company, Anne. My reputation.” Gil’s expression darkened. “The mutual funds are watching, the VC guys. I’m risking everything here. I have to win, I’ve guaranteed it to my Board. I can’t go forward with less than a hundred percent from you.”
“I understand that, and you have it.”
“You’re ready to try this case, even with this murder thing hanging over your head? It’s a huge distraction, and now you’re telling me you have to hide from the police—”
“It’ll be resolved by the time of trial, Gil.”
“If not?”
“That’s not possible.” Anne knew she was losing him, watching him edge backward on the seat of his chair.
“I don’t know,” he said after a pause. “I just don’t know. It’s good that you’re alive—great, obviously—but it’s strange. I can’t let this get personal. It’s business.”
“Then think about your business, Gil,” Judy interrupted, and Gil’s head swiveled to her at the sharpness of her tone.
“What do you mean?” he asked
“The whole world knows that Anne Murphy of the all-woman firm of Rosato & Associates represents you. They also know that Anne was brutally murdered last night. How will it look if you fire the girls when they’re down? How’s that gonna look to everyone, to the press, and to your potential stockholders? Or to the women who end up on your jury?”
Gil paused. “I can handle the press and the shareholders, and my lawyer can ask the jurors about that when we’re picking them. He’ll just make sure the ones who think like that stay off the jury.”
“No, you can’t,” Judy said. “It’s not a criminal case, where the jury gets vigorously screened for impartiality. Voir dire in a civil case is routine, especially in Judge Hoffmeier’s courtroom. You came to us because we’re women and it may be the reason you’re stuck with us.”
Gil’s eyes glittered. “That’s blackmail.”
“That’s litigation.”
“Wait a minute,” Anne broke in before it came to fisticuffs. “Listen, Gil. This is all news to you, my being alive, my trying the case, and it’s a surprise. So why don’t you sleep on it and we’ll talk again tomorrow?”
“I don’t know.”
“Give me a day. You’ve known me a long time. I’ve done good work for Chipster, won almost every motion. We have them where we want them. If you want to fire me Sunday, you can. I’ll turn over the files on the spot.”
“Prudence is the better course,” Judy added, as if she’d been a Republican all her life. In red clogs.
Gil looked from one lawyer to the other, his expression impassive. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t decide now.”
“There’s one thing, Anne.” Gil rose to go, smoothing out his khakis. “I tell Jamie everything. She’s been with me every step of the way, from the beginning, even through the humiliation of this case. I’d like to discuss this with her, if I’m waiting a day. I trust her to keep anything confidential.”
“No,” Anne answered firmly. “Fire me now if you will, but don’t tell another living soul.”
Gil gave the table a resigned knock. “Okay then, I’ll call you tomorrow at nine.”
“Try after my memorial service.”
“Memorial service?” Gil asked, and even Judy looked over in surprise.
It was Plan B. Anne was throwing herself a memorial service, and she knew Kevin would find a way to be there. Then they could catch him, once and for all. “Yes, tomorrow at noon the office is holding a memorial service for me, at the Chestnut Club. It would be great if you could come.”
Gil snorted. “You want me to come to a memorial service and pretend you’re dead?”
“I’m sorry, it can’t be helped. You can’t stay away. The media will be there.”
“Jesus, Anne.” He walked around the conference table to the door, where he stopped. “Look, I’m not unsympathetic. I know you care about the case. But my priority is my company.”
“Leave that to me,” Anne said and pretended not to mind when Gil opened the door and closed it abruptly behind him.
As soon as the women were alone, Judy’s eyes flared with outrage. “I hate that asshole!”
“Why?”
“Aren’t you offended by what he said? That he hired you because you’re a woman?”
Here we go. “Judy, I’m not naive. Companies hire black lawyers to represent them in race discrimination cases. Rapists hire women to represent them in rape cases. Everybody hires older men when they want authority.”
“I know that.” Judy raised her voice. “The question is, doesn’t it offend you? It does me, even though I know it happens.”
Go for it. Anne braced herself. “But that’s not what’s really bothering you, is it? Because that’s not exactly what Gil said. He said he hired me because I’m a pretty woman. Frankly, he wouldn’t have hired me if I were an ugly woman, right?”
“Right.” Judy reddened slightly.
“And we both knew that, you and me.” Anne leaned over, leveling with her. “But you know what? It doesn’t bother me, because I find it ironic. In my mind, I know how bogus my beauty—my alleged beauty—is.”
“Bogus? What are you talking about? You’re perfect! Your face, your body, even in your new haircut. Men fall at your feet. You look like a supermodel.”
“I was born with a cleft lip, a unilateral cleft lip.”
Judy looked like she wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, and Anne sensed it would do her good to explain it, to say it out loud. She never had before, outside of a doctor’s office. It was her dirty little secret. That, and the fact that she’d been rejected twice for an American Express card.
“My lip, right here”—Anne pointed to the left of center—”was split halfway up to my nose, at birth. It’s the most common birth defect, and my case was relatively mild because the palate wasn’t cleft, just the lip. The vermilion, the surrounding tissue, to be exact.”
“Jeez.”
“Exactly. My mother, well let’s just say, didn’t have the best of reactions. She was a pretty woman and she wanted a pretty baby. One she could make into a movie star.” Anne refused to sound like a victim, so she shortened the story. “I didn’t get the surgeries I needed—lip, palate, even gum—until I was past ten. It took seven operations to get me to look like this, and by the end I felt like a science project. So when something comes to me now because of the way I look, I just laugh inside.”
“It must have been awful.” Judy swallowed hard, and Anne shrugged.
“I can’t take it back, my prettiness or my ugliness, and I wouldn’t. I just know that the world changed when I got pretty, and you’re right, lots of unfair advantages came to me. Men, clients. The manager at Hertz saves me a Mustang. The boy at the video store sets aside the new releases. Security guards at the courthouse run interference for me. I know how well I’m treated now, because I saw the difference. I’m a walking ‘before’ and ‘after’ picture. And I used to feel the unfairness, the resentment, and the jealousy. Like you do.”
Judy’s light eyebrows slanted unhappily.
“So I don’t begrudge you your feelings, and you don’t have to hide them from me. I feel more like you than me.” The conference room fell so quiet, Anne could hear the rasp in her own voice. She had never spoken so intimately to anyone before, but she had to clear the air. “And I have a confession to make. I overheard you this morning, in my house, but it didn’t come as a surprise. I know you don’t like me. No women like me. I can’t make a girlfriend at gunpoint.”
Judy emitted a dry laugh.
“I just hope that you give me a chance, because now you know better. When you think of the clients, the men, the new DVDs, and the perks that my looks bring me, think of the rest, too. Like Kevin Satorno, who’s trying to kill me. Beauty isn’t a blessing, Judy, take it from me. It’s a curse.”
Just then the door to the conference room opened. It was Bennie, bristling with excitement. “Ladies, we’re outta here. I just got a call from Mary.”
“What about?” Anne asked.
“Your murder. Let’s go.”
13
Anne, in her white baseball cap and black Oakleys, Bennie, and Mary stood in the bright but tiny third-floor kitchenette. It had been converted from a corner of a bedroom by installation of a dorm-sized Kenmore fridge, a two-burner electric stove, and a baby stainless-steel sink. It smelled pleasantly of Lysol and home fries but was oppressively hot, despite the lateness of the day. A cheap plastic Duracraft fan oscillated on a countertop, to no effect.
Mary DiNunzio sat at the kitchen table across from Mrs. Letitia Brown, holding her hand. “Mrs. Brown, these are my associates, and they want to hear what you told me. About what you saw last night. Do you mind repeating it all?”
“Thas’ no problem, I like some ladies visitin’.” Mrs. Brown was seventy-seven years old, her black skin oddly graying and her eyes cloudy behind trifocals. Her glasses pressed into cheeks slackened by time, draped like velvety stage curtains around a steady smile. Gray hair sprang in thinning coils from her scalp, and she wore a flowered housedress with black plastic slip-ons. Anne knew she’d end up in shoes like that and she was actually looking forward to it. Mental note: Perspective sneaks up on everyone, in time.
Mary was asking, “So tell me again, what did you see last night, on the street?”
“I seen people, evabody playin, partyin’. I seen people goin’ out, goin’ to the Parkway, to the fireworks, the whole day people be comin’ an’ goin’. Plenty to see.” Mrs. Brown waved a shaky hand toward the window over the kitchen table, of rickety pressboard. Thin Marcal napkins had been weighted down with heavy cut-glass salt-and-pepper shakers, so they wouldn’t blow away in the breeze from the screen, clearly an abundance of caution. “Lots to see out this winda, better than the TV. In the day, I look at my stories, then I come over and look out the winda.”
“And what about the house I asked you about? Number 2257.”
Mrs. Brown wet her lips. Fine lines around them led to a small, parched mouth. “I seen everythin’ las’ night, at the house you talkin’ ’bout.”
“Which house? Show us.”
“That one, 2257. My eyes ain’t that bad, I see the number.” Mrs. Brown raised an arm and pointed to the window, and Anne followed her crooked finger just to make sure. It was Anne’s own doorstep, just two doors down, on the same side of the street. Mrs. Brown’s third-floor vantage point gave her a good, if parallax, view of anyone who came to Anne’s door. Though Anne had never seen Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Brown had undoubtedly seen her.
“And what were you doing, last night?” Mary’s voice was soft and even, uncannily matching the tone and cadence of Mrs. Brown.
“What I always doin’, settin’ here. Settin’ here and lookin’ at muh papers and muh pitchers and muh books.” Mrs. Brown gestured happily to a lineup of children’s school photographs, all girls with their hair neatly braided, and one older boy in cornrows and an Allen Iverson jersey. “These muh grandbabies.”
“They’re so cute.”
“And this here’s muh books.” She reached for a stack of crossword-puzzle books and opened one only with difficulty. Printed on the soft paper was a large-size crossword puzzle, completed in shaky ballpoint. Anne eyeballed ten down “three letters for place to sleep.” The blocks were filled not by BED but by QOP. She scanned the entire puzzle. Each block had been neatly filled with a letter, written in a jittery hand, but none of the letters formed words.
Mary looked back at Anne. “Her daughter and son-in-law live downstairs, with their two kids. They were out last night and weren’t here when the cops canvassed. Mrs. Brown stayed home. She was upstairs the whole time, but the cops didn’t know it.”
Anne nodded. They had met the son-in-law downstairs. A chilly young man who evidently didn’t like his mother-in-law enough to teach her to read, or even to come upstairs when a group of lawyers came to call. Plus they had central air downstairs, but only a single fan on the whole third floor. How could someone leave her mother up here like this?
“Go ahead, Mrs. Brown,” Mary said, encouraging the woman with a nod.
“I was settin’, lookin,’ an my daughter an my son-in-law, they all went out. An there was fireworks, above the roof. I seen the ones that made it high enough. Then there was a big noise, real big.”
“Not firecrackers?”
“No. Gunshots.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know. Mm-mm.”
“Did you see somebody shoot the gun?” Mary asked.
“No, I was dozin’ I think, jes a little, and my eyes, they come open”—Mrs. Brown opened her hands in front of her eyes, and Anne pictured her drowsy, sitting at the table on a stifling summer night—“and out I look and I seen that man.”
“What man? Tell us everything you saw then.”
“Young, pretty, white. Blond hair. His face all lit up from the house, from inside the house. 2257. I seen him and he let go of the gun, he sure did.”
Anne’s mind raced. It was Kevin.
“And God strike me if he wasn’t cryin’, cryin’ like a newborn baby, like his heart was gonna break in two, and then he run, he run down the street, all the way, and I couldn’t see him no more.”
Anne couldn’t breathe for a moment. She had always known it was Kevin, but this made it so real. At least Bennie would be fully convinced now.
“I seen that poor girl’s feet, lyin inna door. She was wearin’ sneakers and they were shakin’, shakin’! Then all of a sudden, they stopped.” Mrs. Brown’s eyes welled up, and Mary gave her wrinkled hand a squeeze.
“If I showed you a picture of this man with the gun, could you say if it was him or not?” Mary reached into her purse for the red flyer, but Bennie stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t do that. I don’t want to take a chance of screwing up any photo array the cops show her. We got what we need.”
Mary slid the red flyer back into her purse. “Mrs. Brown, thank you for talking to us. You’ve helped us very much. We want to call the police now. Will you tell them what you told us? They want to catch this man and put him in jail.”
“Surely, I will.”
Bennie was already flipping open her cell phone. “Detective Rafferty, please, it’s Bennie Rosato,” she said, and she didn’t have to wait long. “I’m here with a witness to Anne Murphy’s murder, and she has described Kevin Satorno to a T. One of the neighbors. You want to pick up or shall we deliver?” Bennie paused. “Fine. See you at 2253 Waltin Street in ten minutes.” She snapped the phone closed and turned to Judy. “Carrier, why don’t you take our new messenger to the car and keep her company.”
“Got it.” Judy thanked Mrs. Brown and started to leave.
But something kept Anne rooted to the spot. Something bothered her about leaving the old woman alone. Something about a daughter who would desert her mother like this. Then she realized that for all she knew, her own mother was sitting in a stifling room on somebody’s third floor, passing the time until she died.
“Whatsa matter, child?” Mrs. Brown asked, her voice kind, and she eyed Anne even through her clumsy disguise. Sunglasses, baseball cap, or lipstick, Anne had been hiding something as long as she could remember.
Everything. “Nothing, thanks,” Anne answered.
She followed Judy through the remaining room on the floor, Mrs. Brown’s bedroom, scented faintly of drugstore talc. It contained a saggy double bed covered by a thin chenille spread so neat that its worn white tufts lined up like monuments in a military cemetery. Over the bed hung a large wooden crucifix, and on the nightstand a doily runner, a small fake-Tiffany lamp, a yellowed Westclox alarm clock, and a worn Bible that left Anne with a thickness in her throat.
She hit the stairwell full of emotion she couldn’t begin to sort out, much less express, exacerbated by the annoying clop-clopping of Judy’s wooden clogs on the uncarpeted stair. By the time they reached the second floor, then descended to the first, which was air-conditioned and full of modern smells, Anne couldn’t say goodbye to the son-in-law because she wanted to throttle him, even with the police on the way. She headed for the front door, opened it wide, and came face-to-face with a man about her age, standing on the front stoop, about to knock.
“Hello!” the man said, and grinned in a toothy way. He wore a tan Australian bush hat with one side pinned up, and a white Weezer T-shirt with loose jeans and black Teva sandals.
“Uh, hello,” Anne replied, startled.
“I’m Angus Connolly. Sorry to disturb your holiday, but I was wondering if you’ve seen this man.” He reached into his back pocket and handed Anne her own red flyer. “His name is Kevin Satorno.”
Anne was so shocked she couldn’t find her voice. Not even her inner voice.
“I was just wondering if you’ve seen his man. He’s a suspect in the murder of one of your neighbors down the block, last night. Just two doors away.” The man turned and pointed at Anne’s house.
“Who are you?”
“I’m a reporter. With City Beat.”
“City Beat?” Anne eyed him for a press pass but found none. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“We’re a free newspaper, and I’m trying to make a name for myself, me and my friends. We’re investigating this murder and asking all the neighbors if they saw this man last night.” He frowned. “Wait a minute, you do live here, don’t you?”
“No, she doesn’t,” Judy answered, coming up behind Anne. “And she hasn’t seen that man. But I know someone who has. She’s right upstairs and she’s about to tell her story to the cops, who will be here any minute. Looks like you got the scoop, dude.”
“For real?” The man climbed the stoop, and at the same moment, Anne felt Judy’s knuckle in the small of her back, nudging her out of harm’s way.
“Go right upstairs,” Judy continued. “Bennie Rosato’s there, too. She’ll answer any questions you have.”
“Bennie Rosato? The Bennie Rosato? Oh my God!” The wanna-be reporter whipped a cell phone from the back pocket of his jeans. “I need a photographer fast,” he was saying into it when he hustled inside the house.
“Go, go, go, girl!” Judy whispered, falling into step beside Anne, pushing her forward by her elbow. “You want the cops and the press to recognize you?”
“No, of course not,” Anne said, but her heart felt so full. What’s the matter with me? Why am I acting like such a loser? Tears came to her eyes, and fatigue washed over her. Maybe it was all catching up to her at once. She let Judy lead her down the street, hurrying her along, past her own house and the cellophane-wrapped bouquets on her front stoop. She looked over and stopped at the sight of one of them. A bouquet of daisies, wrapped by a white ribbon. It hadn’t been there before. She bent down and picked it up.
“What are you doing?” Judy asked, between gritted teeth.
A couple passing by were scowling at Anne, their disapproval undisguised, but she couldn’t speak. She stared down at the daisy bouquet. A pink card attached to it had been typed, as if the flower order had been phoned in. It read simply:
Love, Mom.
14
Bennie steered the Mustang through the city traffic, keeping an eye on the rearview mirror. By now Anne had learned enough about Bennie to know it wasn’t the traffic that had her worried. Judy kept glancing back at her, and Mary was permanently affixed to her right hand.
“Don’t worry, everybody, I’m fine,” Anne said, though she sat in the backseat clutching her mother’s daisies like a baby blanket. Mental note: You can know you’re acting like a dope and still not be able to stop it.
“There’s really nothing to worry about,” Mary said, squeezing her hand from the seat next to her. “We couldn’t have planned it this well. The cops will get Kevin’s ID from Mrs. Brown, and the news will run the story tonight. It’s probably all over the web already. Everybody in the city will be looking for Kevin Satorno.”
“Yeah, Anne.” Judy twisted around in the front seat, the last of the day’s light filtering through her sunny hair, her bandanna blowing in the wind. “The heat will be on him. They’ll have Kevin in custody in time for us to take a field trip to the fireworks.”
The Mustang cruised forward to a red light, and Bennie braked. “Only problem is, it may discourage him from showing up at the memorial service, if he’s still a fugitive.”
“He’ll be there,” Anne said, with absolute certainty. They were getting closer to catching Kevin, and Bennie’s reaction to Plan B had been much better than she had expected, though she wasn’t sure why. “He’ll find a way to be there.”
The Mustang idled in traffic, and Bennie tapped her finger on the wheel. “Let’s think about that. How will he do it? Talk to me, Murphy. It was your idea.”
“Well, I used to think he’d come as a guest, a mourner in some half-assed disguise, but now I’m beginning to wonder.” Anne wondered if Bennie was just trying to engage her, but played along because it was such a nice thing to do. “Not with the cops and every reporter in the city, looking to make his mark. I’m thinking now he might try to come in another way.”
“Like what?” Judy asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe as staff of some kind?”
“Secret agent stuff.” Judy smiled. “Yowza!”
“So, what’s at a memorial service, ladies? Let’s brainstorm,” Bennie gave the car some gas. “We’re having it at the Chestnut Club, in town. What staff will be there? Any?”
“Only the head lady, because it’s closed.” Anne had made the arrangements for her memorial service, posing on the telephone as a cousin from California. The Chestnut was one of the oldest eating clubs in Philadelphia, with two stories of dining rooms and waiters in white jackets with time-warp Nehru collars. “They subcontract out the catering. The lack of house staff will make it easier for Kevin.”
Mary frowned. “How?”
“Well, Kevin is smart. It’s not beyond him to anticipate that my firm would hold a memorial service of some kind, especially after you offered the reward. I took out ads in the Sunday papers, announcing the service, open to the public. He’s got to see one of them and find out where it is, then maybe he’ll get hired by the caterer or something.”
“Really.” Mary sounded almost respectful, and Anne knew the feeling.
“I know. My stalker is a genius.”
“There’ll be flowers,” Judy offered, thinking aloud. “He might come as a flower delivery guy.”
It sent a chill through Anne. “Very possible. Kevin’s a red-roses kind of psycho. Sent them to me every day, a single one.”
The Mustang accelerated down Race Street. “Here’s how it’ll go down,” Bennie said, wind blowing blond tendrils into her eyes. “I’ll backstop everybody, but we all need our own jobs. Carrier, you quiz the flower delivery guys. DiNunzio, you deal with the press. Don’t let them in the service, but check their IDs anyway. Satorno may use it as a way to get close.”
Mary nodded. “Got it.”
“Thanks,” Anne said, touched by their willingness to help. “I can cover food and drink. The kitchen staff is from Custom Catering. They were the only ones not booked this weekend.”
“I’ll help with the food,” Judy chirped, and Mary laughed.
“There’s a surprise.”
Bennie glanced over. “Carrier, make sure you get a list of the kitchen staff. Does that cover everyone?”
Anne tried to picture it. “Folding chairs, and a lectern. Microphones. I rented them all from a caterer the club uses. I’ll check chair guys, too.”
“Okay, that’s it, I think.” Bennie turned left onto Broad Street and steered south. The parade had gone but the street was still full of partiers, drinking beer and hanging out, waiting for dusk and the laser show. “The cops will be there, and I’ll hire security. Rent-a-muscle guys, and we’ll have Herb, too.”
Anne cringed. “In case our breasts need protecting.”
“Be nice, Murphy. He knows his stuff, and he was very upset when your chest passed on.” Bennie laughed. “Ladies, it’s almost dark and you’re all ordered home to bed. DiNunzio, I’m dropping you off first, then Carrier. Murphy, you’re staying with me tonight. You’ll be safe at my house.”
Anne looked up in surprise. She hadn’t planned that far ahead. She couldn’t very well turn Bennie down. She knew from the movies that sleepovers were a big deal with girlfriends. But she thought of Mel, alone in the office, and then, of Matt. She wished she could tell him she was alive. She wondered what kind of a night he’d be having.
“Agreed, Murphy?” It was Bennie, jolting Anne from her thoughts.
“Sure, yes. Thanks. But we have a stop to make first.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Bennie checked the rearview. “You’re not too tired? You’ve had a helluva day.”
“Not worse than hers,” Anne said, looking out the window, as night came on.
Judy looked at Bennie, confused. “What are you guys talking about? Where are you going?”
Anne let Bennie answer. It hurt too much to say.
Fitler Square was one of Philadelphia’s historic pocket-parks, a square block limned by privet hedge and wrought-iron fence, with tasteful wooden benches around a center fountain and newly refurbished brickwork underfoot. Fitler Square didn’t get half the attention of Rittenhouse Square, which was roughly in the same city neighborhood, but Anne found Fitler more charming. It was out of the way of the business district, at Twenty-sixth and Pine, and any time she had gone past it in a cab, it was full of moms pushing strollers and toddlers dropping Cheerios or scribbling sidewalk pictures with chubby pastel chalks.
But the neighborhood, Willa’s neighborhood, had been changed for her, too, and tonight the scene was different and felt strange. Fitler Square was almost empty, and the black Victorian gaslights that anchored the park’s four corners flickered in the darkness, barely illuminating a couple on one of the benches, their arms around each other. The Mustang cruised around the square, looking for a space, and headed to Keeley Street. Anne edged forward on her seat as they rounded the block and pulled into a space at the end of the row.
Bennie parked and shut off the engine. “Got the purse?”
“Yes,” she answered, taking Willa’s purse from the seat between them. It was a striped cloth sack from Guatemala, and she had retrieved the purse from a locker at the gym, where Willa had left it last night. A quick check inside revealed that it contained no wallet. Anne figured that Willa, like her, didn’t bring her wallet to the gym, because the lockers didn’t lock. The little bag held only keys, sunglasses, and a bruised organic apple, and Anne felt funny carrying it as she fell in step with the taller Bennie and walked to Willa’s house.
The night air was punctuated with the popping of distant fireworks, and the short heels of Anne’s mules dragged on the sidewalk. Fatigue and emotion were catching up with her, but she set both aside. She owed this to Willa. It was awful that it had taken her all day to get here. She had to find Willa’s family before the day was over, and tell them the worst news of their lives.
They passed 2685, then 2687. The rowhouses on the skinny back-street reminded Anne of Fairmount and were of the same colonial vintage; a lineup of attached brick homes, two-stories high and with a door flanked by two front windows, distinguished by the paint color of their shutters or the occasional clay flowerpot on the step. Anne’s stomach tensed when they reached 2689. She opened Willa’s purse for the keys, feeling terribly like they were invading the dead woman’s privacy. Going into her purse. Entering her home.
“You want to wait outside?” Bennie asked, but Anne shook her head.
“No, thanks. I’m the one who owes her.”
“Don’t think about it that way.” Bennie’s tone softened, though Anne couldn’t make out her expression in the dark. The only streetlamp was down the block. It would have been what Anne’s own street looked like last night, when Willa opened her front door.
Anne fished for Willa’s keys and inserted them in the lock until she found the one that clicked. She opened Willa’s front door and stepped into the darkness. Please God don’t let there be an entrance hall. A light went on suddenly, and she turned.
“You sure you’re okay?” Bennie was standing behind her, one hand on a switch on the wall, and the other closing the door behind them with a solid click.
“I’m fine.” Anne turned back and looked around. There was no entrance hall, and the light switch illuminated a white parchment sphere with red Chinese characters which hung over the small living room. But this was like no living room Anne had ever seen. Every inch of wall space was covered with a drawing. Skilled, detailed charcoal cityscapes had been tacked up, cheek by jowl, floor to ceiling. Sketches of storefronts in the Italian Market. Skyscrapers in the business district. The concrete lace of an Expressway interchange. The lights on the boathouses along the Schuylkill River.
“Wow,” Bennie said quietly. “Look at these drawings. There must be hundreds.”
“She was so talented.” Anne tasted bitterness in her mouth. Kevin would have to pay for this. For taking Willa.
“Notice anything unusual about them, by the way?”
“Not really.” Anne scanned at the drawings. “All of them are black-and-white, I guess.”
“True, and there are no people in them.”
Anne double-checked and saw that Bennie was right. The series of drawings of Fitler Square focused on the gaslights and the shadows they cast, or the intricate pattern of the wrought-iron fence. There were no babies, no mothers, no kids. A study of Rittenhouse Square depicted its statues—a frog, a goat—but none of the people who used the statues as meeting places. Anne wasn’t immediately sure what it meant.
“I like art with people,” Bennie said. “You’ve seen my Thomas Eakins prints of rowing.”
“Sure.” Hate them. “Love them.”
“They’re from the exhibition at the Art Museum. Did you see it?”
“Missed it.” But I’ve been to the Lucy-Desi Museum in Jamestown, New York. Does that count?
Anne surveyed the rest of the living room. It contained no TV or VCR, only a sixties-retro sling chair in white, sitting in front of a cordless phone, a stereo system and stacks of CDs on a white entertainment center. It was more gallery than living room and contained no clues about Willa’s family, but Anne couldn’t help but linger in it, breathing in the faintest smell of dust and lead. It was all that was left of Willa, that and a misidentified body, cold in a morgue.
“Here we go,” Bennie said, crossing to the telephone and picking up the receiver. “Here’s a way to reach her family and friends instantly. They’ll be on speed-dial.”
“Good idea.” Anne wondered why she wasn’t thinking of this good stuff. She felt suddenly so passive, a half-step behind. “Maybe I should be the one to tell them.”
“No, let me handle this. When my mother was alive, she was in the number-one spot. Actually she still is. I don’t have the heart to take her off.” Bennie pressed the first speed-dial button, listened into the receiver, then frowned. “No number in the first spot.” She pressed the second button. “No number in the second spot.” She pressed another button. “Strike three,” she said, after a minute, then hung up the phone. “Evidently, Willa didn’t set up her speed-dial. So there’s nobody she calls all the time. That seems strange.”
“Not really,” Anne blurted out almost defensively. She hadn’t set up her speed-dial either.
“Maybe not. Come along.” Bennie touched Anne’s arm. “There has to be something, somewhere, that can help us. Bills, correspondence, old birthday cards with a return address. Something that would tell us more about her, or where her family is. How old did you say she was, again?”
“My age.”
“She’s too young for her parents to have passed on.”
“Right,” Anne said, though she wasn’t thinking that clearly. Maybe she was exhausted. Or maybe she just had no idea how families kept in touch with each other. She’d never gotten a birthday card from her mother. She wouldn’t know her father if she ran him over with a car. She followed Bennie through the living room to the back of the house.
The layout was similar to Anne’s, a combination dining room and kitchen fashioned from one room, and she could tell at a glance that it would reveal little, if anything, about Willa’s family. Sketches blanketed the white walls here, too, and the oak table was bare except for a bouquet of dried flowers. The kitchen was perfectly clean, with Kenmore appliances that landlords always installed. The remarkable centerpiece of the room was a beautiful, cinnabar-red spice rack that had been mounted above the stove.
She stepped over to it, reading the hand-lettered names on the spice jars, which were so exotic she’d never heard of them, much less cooked with them: cumin, cardamom, turmeric. Willa must have been a wonderful, creative cook. Anne felt a terrible twinge, stepping into a life that was lost because of her.
“Maybe she has an office upstairs,” Bennie said, turning away. “There has to be a place she paid her bills. We’ll have better luck there.” She left the room, and Anne followed her numbly. Bennie turned on a light over the stairwell and led the way upstairs. Sketches served as wallpaper all the way to the second floor, and Anne marveled at the hours it must have taken to draw all of the scenes.
At the top of the stair was a tiny bathroom that they skipped in favor of the bedroom, another completely unconventional room. A wall that would have typically existed between two bedrooms had evidently been taken out, leaving an L-shaped bedroom-studio. Sketches covered the wall, their subjects similar to the ones downstairs, but much larger here, as if this were the second floor of an exclusive gallery, reserved for private customers.
A pine double bed, whose canopy top had been draped with long, white sashes of silk, sat at an unusual angle against the front windows. Beside it was a plain white IKEA-type dresser and desk, covered with papers in neat stacks. Bennie made a beeline for the desk and when she reached it, turned on a black halogen lamp. Anne went over after her.
“No computer, that’s unusual,” Bennie said, but somehow it seemed to Anne like speaking ill, so she didn’t say anything. “Here’s her bills.” Bennie thumbed through a pile of envelopes as Anne watched. Visa, Philadelphia Electric, and Verizon; Bennie pulled out the Verizon bill, which was already open, and reached inside. “The phone bill. It’ll have a record of her calls. Maybe we can find her family that way. She has to call them, even if they’re not on speed dial.” Bennie slid out the bill, flashing the familiar sky-blue, and they both skimmed the listings.
“Almost nothing beyond the basic charges,” Anne said, recognizing it. The bill could have been a duplicate of Anne’s own; they were even on the same billing plan. “She’s on the plan where you pay by the call. It makes sense if you don’t make a lot of calls.”
But Bennie was already casting around for a telephone. “No phone up here. Jesus!” She slid her cell phone from her pocket, and flipped it open, and called the first number on the bill, which was local. She listened on the line, then hung up. “Taws, the art store, and they’re closed. Read me the next number.” Anne read it off, and Bennie called it on the cell, then listened. “The Philadelphia Horticultural Center, also closed. Wonder why she called them?”
“To sketch it?” Anne guessed, but Bennie was on a tear.
“Try the next.” Bennie called the number as soon as Anne read it off, listened, then flipped the phone closed. “Fresh Fields. Gourmet foods. Shit!” She skimmed the rest of the bill and tossed it aside. “None of the calls are long-distance, to family.”
Anne’s gaze fell on a stack of correspondence on the desktop. Maybe there’d be a letter from Willa’s parents. Obviously, Willa wasn’t a computer jock. Maybe she grew up in a family of artists. Anne picked up the topmost letter, but it had a letterhead from Mether Galleries in Center City. It was dated last week, and she skimmed it:
Dear Ms. Hansen;
We are writing in the hopes that you will reconsider your decision not to let us represent your portfolio. We understand that you were one of the most talented students in Bill Hunter’s class at Moore College of Art, and believe that we can help your art find wonderful homes, in addition to providing a substantial income for you. Please contact us as soon as possible at the above address.
Anne mulled it over. Mether Galleries was one of the fanciest in the city. Why didn’t Willa want to show her wonderful drawings there? If she had a trust fund, she didn’t need the money. But still. Why hide all this talent under a basket?
“No luck on the other bills,” Bennie said, opening the top file-drawer of the desk. “You finding anything?”
“Not yet.” Anne reached for the next letter in the stack. It was an earlier letter from Mether, and there were two others underneath it from galleries in SoHo. She glanced through the letters, but they were like the ones from Mether Gallery. Why hadn’t Willa at least responded? “All these galleries want her art, but she won’t sell it. From the looks of it, she doesn’t even call them back.”
“Nothing here.” Bennie had opened the upper file-drawer of the desk and was rooting through a stack of correspondence and papers, narrating as she went along. “No family pictures or anything. No birthday cards. Just receipts from Taws and some from Anthropologie. She doesn’t buy much at all. Here’s a transcript from Moore College of Art.” Bennie frowned as she read. “She was doing well, then there’s no courses listed after the first semester. Too bad. She must have dropped out.” Bennie set it down and opened the lower drawer, filled with manila folders. “Now this looks promising.”
“What?” Anne replaced the gallery correspondence.
“Taxes, old check registers, and stuff.” Bennie dug to the bottom of the drawer. “Here’s a copy of her lease, and there’s other legal papers.”
“She mentioned a trust fund.” Anne watched Bennie pull out a sheaf of papers and read through them, her mouth tightening like a rubber band. Anne got a bad feeling. “What’s the matter?”
“She had an inheritance. Willa’s family was evidently from Holland, Michigan, and her parents died there, two years ago. This is their will. It was probated there.”
“No. Really?” Anne felt so sad, for Willa. About Willa. She held out her hand for the papers, and Bennie passed them over without a word. They were so cold and white, the paper stiff and unusually thick, folded in thirds. She skipped the boilerplate to the bequest, to see if Willa had any siblings. But the bequest referred only to “our daughter, Willa.” Willa was an only child, and, with the death of her parents, alone in the world. Anne felt her eyes welling up, and bit her lip, but Bennie was already leafing through another set of stapled papers.
“It looks like the parents had an auto accident, from the executor’s report. Extensive hospital bills were paid by the estate, for both of them. They died within a week of the accident.” Bennie folded up the papers, then dug for more in the folders. “That’s tough, on a girl so young. She must have come here to go to Moore, then her parents were killed and she dropped out. What a shame.”
Anne wiped her eyes when Bennie bent over, rummaging in the drawer. She didn’t want to explain her feelings to Bennie. She couldn’t explain them to herself.
“It was a large estate, almost a million dollars. It’s held in trust, wisely invested. I should give the trustee a call, at some point.” Bennie was reading from something that looked like financial schedules. “If Willa lived carefully, as she obviously did, she’d be set for the rest of her life. That’s why she didn’t sell the drawings. She didn’t have to.”
No, it isn’t, Anne thought, but didn’t say. “So there’s no family to notify,” she said instead, and even those words caught in her throat. It was hard to hold back an overwhelming sadness. Willa lived alone, in a black-and-white world of her own, cutting herself off from everyone around her. The only color in her life was her hair, and that Anne couldn’t quite explain. Willa had only her work for company and she didn’t share even that with anyone. She lead a completely insular life, and Anne sensed it had begun when her parents had been killed. It was a normal response to trauma, and an uncomfortably familiar one.
“Oh, well.” Bennie returned the documents to the drawer and closed it. “I guess, at this point, I’m fairly convinced that nobody wanted to kill Willa Hansen. Given what we learned today and tonight, I think Kevin is the murderer and you the intended victim. I was wrong. Sorry about that, Murphy. You were right.”
She was killed because of me. “No I told-you-so here,” Anne said, forcing a pat smile.
It was late by the time they got to Bennie’s house, and Anne settled onto the warm dining room table, trying to shake her gloom and her fatigue. Bennie had gone to fix some dinner for her and to get Mel a saucer of milk. The cat crouched at Anne’s feet while Bennie’s golden retriever, Bear, snuffled up his fur with a wet nose, leaving slobbery patches in the cat’s usually immaculate coat and misaligning his dark stripes. Anne’s hand hovered protectively nearby. For the dog’s protection.
“How they doin’?” Bennie called from the kitchen, just out of eyeshot.
“Oh, they’re becoming fast friends!” Anne called back. Mel took a declawed swipe at Bear, which would remain their little secret. It did nothing to deter the dog, a hundred pounds of red fur with a pink tongue. Bear had been in constant motion, dancing around Mel when Anne first set him on the floor, then bowing in front of him to play, and finally pawing the air between them. She marveled that Bear craved such instant intimacy and attributed it to a disturbing lack of discretion on the animal’s part. In other words, a dog thing.
“Is the cat okay?” Bennie called out again. From the kitchen came the clink of glasses, and in the living room Mel took another swipe with his paw, which Bear misinterpreted as an invitation to frolic. Anne was getting the distinct impression that goldens believed everyone really loved them, despite any and all evidence to the contrary. They could be the erotomanics of the dog world.
“Not to worry!” Anne called back.
“Two percent or light cream?”
“Two percent is fine!”
“I have a can of tuna, too.”
“Great! Thanks!” Anne lifted the cat onto her lap before he blinded his new best friend. Mel settled into Sphinx Cat, and by the time Bennie entered the room with a tray, he looked completely innocent. He was scary-good at it.
“Here we go,” Bennie said, setting the tray down on the oak table. The tray had a frosted-glass bottom, funky blue handles, and a price tag stuck to the side. $12.98, Michael Graves, on sale at Target. Anne was no sleuth but she figured Bennie didn’t entertain much, and she’d heard something about Bennie breaking up with her live-in boyfriend. Mental note: You can never tell who’s lonely just by looking.
“Thanks.”
“Can this tiny thing feed this creature?” Bennie asked, holding up a white ramekin of milk.
“Sure. Just set it on the floor.”
“No way. Not with a golden in the tri-state area. Food on the floor is fair game.” Bennie set the ramekin on the dining room table, as Mel watched. “Murphy, you want to show it to him or something?”
“He sees it. He’ll have some when he’s ready.”
“Amazing.” Bennie rolled up the sleeves of her workshirt. Between it, her worn shorts, and her slightly grubby bare feet, she looked remarkably comfortable, not only in her own house, but in her own skin. “A dog never delays eating. See?” Bear’s tail wagged like crazy and he was already sniffing the ramekin. He would have snorted it empty if Bennie hadn’t leaned over and moved it out of reach. “I hope the cat doesn’t wait too long to have some.”
“Guaranteed that he will, for purposes of doggie torture.” Anne stroked Mel’s head and he purred. She reached for her soda and took a long, cold slug. “Thank you for the drink and the hospitality.”
“I’m happy to do it.” Bennie cocked her head so that a tangle of ponytail tumbled over her shoulder to her breast pocket. “I checked on what I have for dinner. Oranges and three eggs. Sorry, I haven’t had the chance to go food-shopping, with depositions and the near-death experience of one of my best associates.”
“I’m not really hungry. I usually have cereal for dinner.”
“That I can cook.” Bennie turned, headed for the kitchen, and returned with two tablespoons, two bowls, a half-quart of Wawa milk, and a box of Shredded Wheat, which she put on the table and sat down in the chair opposite Anne. Track lighting that ringed the room set a soft glow to her face and highlighted her blond hair. “Dinner is served.”
“Great!” Anne said, though she usually avoided Shredded Wheat. The box remained on the table: squat, red, and remarkably smug for a breakfast food. Its long list of “Nutrition Facts” faced her, reporting alarming amounts of phosphorus, magnesium, zinc, and copper. Metal belonged in plumbing, not breakfast, but Anne reached for the cereal, fixed herself a bowl, and pretended it was Captain Crunch.
“So, let’s review,” Bennie said, swallowing. “You’ve survived a stalker who wanted to kill you, a client who wanted to fire you, and haircut by office scissors.”
Anne managed a smile. “One of these things is not like the other.” She took another bite of Shredded Wheat, which didn’t taste bad because it lacked taste altogether. She glanced around the polished pine table for a sugar bowl, but it was completely bare except for the woven place mats of yellow straw. Maybe that’s what was in this cereal. “May I have some sugar, please?”
“No,” Bennie answered.
“Kidding?”
“There’s no sugar in the house. No sugar and no TV. They’re both bad for your health.”
Anne thought this must be some form of insanity. No Lucy? “No sugar?”
“Ever hear of sugar blues?”
“Is it how you feel when there’s no sugar in the house?”
Bennie smiled. “Forget it.” She finished another mouthful of Shredded Wheat. “You don’t like sports, do you, Murphy?”
“I shop. It takes stamina. I train by eating Cocoa Krispies. Now that’s dinner.” Anne became vaguely aware that she was trying to make Bennie laugh, and wondered why that was so.
“I admire you, Murphy. I do.”
“Me?” Anne almost choked, but it could have been the place mat.
“I think you’re handling your situation like a champ. I’ve taken some heat in my time, but not like this. I’m proud of you. This is just awful, and I know how horrible you feel about Willa.”
“Thanks,” Anne said quickly, feeling her face warm. “I do appreciate everything that you, and the others, have done for me.”
“No problem, but it’s not over yet. Tomorrow is the big day. The memorial service.” Bennie ate more cereal and washed it down with Diet Coke. “We will get this asshole. DiNunzio’s tougher than she looks, and Carrier comes through in any clutch. They both do.”
“I bet.”
“But I have an apology to make, on their behalf and my own.” Bennie paused, eyeing Anne directly. “None of us was welcoming when you first came to the firm, and it’s my fault. I didn’t take the time to get you assimilated. I didn’t realize how important it was. None of us acted very well, and I’m very sorry for that.”
“That’s okay.” Anne swallowed the thickness in her throat. She set down her tablespoon and vowed never to eat home furnishings again.
“No, it’s not okay. I’m a good lawyer, but I see now I’m not a good manager. I’m not so good, I think, at making sure everybody is getting along, being happy. Working together. I usually make sure we win.”
“Winning is good.”
“Not good enough. Things fall through the cracks, and people. Like you.”
“I wasn’t so friendly—”
“The burden was on us. On me. You came to my city, to my firm. However you acted was understandable, considering what you’d been through.”
No time like the present. “I have a question, Bennie. You knew everything about Kevin. About my past.” She thought of her mother’s bouquet of daisies. “How was that?”
“One of your work references told me about Kevin. That he’d tried to kill you, that you’d held up under extreme pressure and put him in jail.”
“They’re only supposed to verify term of employment,” Anne said, surprised.
“They wanted you to get the job. They were trying to help you change your life. And when I heard the full story, it sold me. I knew you could take anything I could dish out.”
Anne smiled. She really wanted to ask about her mother, but it seemed so awkward.
“The rest I researched. I have lots of friends in the criminal defense bar out there, and I asked around.” Bennie sipped her soda, and the ice made a sound too festive for the conversation. “I remembered from the interview that you said you had no family. But you didn’t say anybody had died. And there was no mention of a family or even birthplace on your résumé. So I had our firm investigator look into it. You know Lou, don’t you?”
“You investigated me?” Anne tried not to sound too pissed.
“Sure, and I don’t apologize for it. I can’t have just anybody at my firm, and people don’t spring from somebody’s head. Everybody has a family, whether they deny it or not. Not just a family, a context. Like a word, with meaning in a paragraph.” Bennie smiled over the rim of her glass. “And with some work, I found your context.”
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“Not my father.”
“No.”
Anne felt her heart quicken. “Where was she, anyway?”
“Southern California.” Bennie set her glass down. “That’s all I should say. She asked me not to tell you, and I promised I wouldn’t.”
Anne held her features rigid. A knife of familiar anger sliced near her heart. “How nice of her.”
“I am sorry. I respected her wishes, but I thought it was hurtful, too.”
“I don’t care enough to be hurt,” Anne said quickly, and she sounded lame even to herself. She wanted to scream. How can a parent have this power over a grown child? Even the worst of parents?
“I think she wasn’t very proud of herself, and that’s why she didn’t want you to know.” Bennie paused. “There is a drinking problem, I gather.”
“Meaning she was barely coherent when you spoke.” Anne knew just how that conversation would go, and her face flushed with sudden shame. “She didn’t ask you for money, did she?”
Bennie didn’t confirm or deny. “My family is no model either, but I miss my mother every day. Well. We all make mistakes.”
Anne’s chest felt tight. “Has she contacted you, since then?”
“No, but I remind you. She left the flowers you’ve been driving around with.” Bennie smiled softly. “Not that you care.”
“I only had to die to get her attention. She phoned it in. The card was typed at the store.” Anne stared at her leftover cereal and tasted a bitterness in her mouth that wasn’t magnesium. “I don’t even know how she got my home address.”
“I told her,” Bennie answered, and Anne looked up.
“You? When?”
“When I spoke to her last year, when you moved here.”
Anne fell silent. So it’s not even like she follows me in the newspapers.
“You wish I hadn’t. I’m sorry.” Bennie sighed. “We always wish our parents were better than they are. Bigger, stronger, richer. Better people, more reliable. But they’re not, they’re just not. Sometimes, the best course is to try to accept that, as truth.”
“I accepted that a long time ago,” Anne said, then hated the way she sounded. She pitied herself for pitying herself, and even more because Bennie was right.
Mental note: Maybe bosses became bosses for a reason.
15
Outside the second-story window, dimestore firecrackers popped and holiday lasers sliced the night sky, but Anne ignored it all in favor of the computer monitor. She sat at the workstation in Bennie’s messy spare room, which contained old athletic equipment, a white Peugeot bicycle, and boxes of old files, which had been stacked on the skinny daybed against the wall before they had cleared them off. Anne would have gone to bed but she couldn’t help finishing her Internet search of Bill Dietz’s background. The top of the screen read:
Your search has revealed 427 persons named William Dietz with criminal convictions.
She had picked up reading the listings at 82, and she was already at 112. She still didn’t know why she was doing it. She didn’t know if she’d find anything and didn’t know why it mattered. Only that she had looked into Bill Dietz’s eyes and remembered malevolence behind them. Evil masquerading as concern for his wife; abuse dolled up as protection, even love. She returned to the search.
At 226, Anne was in the zone of eliminating Bill Dietzes and taking a caffeinated pleasure in the accomplishment of a simple task. Click on a listing, read it, click on the next. It was easier than redrafting her opening argument or trying to guess which guise Kevin would take in his next incarnation. At 301, she’d still had no luck.
“Murphy, it’s very late,” Bennie said, from the threshold of the office. “You have to get to sleep.” She entered with Bear behind her, his nails click-clacking on the pine floorboards. She wore a white terry-cloth bathrobe and her hair had been piled into an unruly topknot, but when she got closer Anne could see that her eyes were tinged with pink and vaguely puffy.
“What’s the matter? You getting a cold?”
“I guess I’m allergic to cats. My face itches, and I can’t stop sneezing.”
“Oh, no.” Anne felt terrible. “When did this start?”
“After dinner. I took a shower but it didn’t help.”
“Should I leave and take Mel?”
“No, you don’t have anywhere else to go. Just keep him in the room. On the bright side, our eyewitness Mrs. Brown is all over the news. On TV, on the radio. The cops announced they’re officially looking for prison escapee Kevin Satorno in connection with your murder. He’s a wanted man.”
“The wish of erotomanics everywhere.”
“Which brings me to my next point. Since Satorno is on the loose, I wanted you to have some peace of mind. I can protect us, if need be. Don’t freak out when you see this.” Bennie stuck her hand in her bathrobe pocket and extracted something. Its silvery finish caught the light from the lamp.
“A thirty-eight special, huh?” Anne reached for the gun and turned it over expertly in her palm. Its stainless-steel frame felt cool, and the hatchmarks on its wooden handle were slightly worn, as was the gold-toned Rossi logo. She thumbed the cylinder-release latch and let the cylinder fall open into her hand. The revolver was loaded with five Federal bullets. She closed the cylinder with a satisfying click. “It’s about ten years old. You musta bought it used.”
Bennie cocked an eyebrow. “Yes. How do you know that?”
“These guns don’t circulate much anymore. Rossi made ’em in Brazil. They were a bunch of guys who spun off from Smith & Wesson. That’s why it looks like one.” The clunky gun was a knock-off, but Anne didn’t say so. She wouldn’t like people saying bad things about her gun. She turned the revolver over in her hand, appreciating its heft, if not its style. “It’s a good gun. Practical. Plenty of stopping power. Good for you.” She handed it back.
“So you’re not freaked.”
“By a gun? Not unless it’s pointed at me. I’m not a gun nut, but I bought one after Kevin attacked me. I own a Beretta thirty-two, semi-auto. Fits in my palm. Cute as a button. I don’t even have to rack the slide to load it. It pops up, so I don’t break a nail. A great girl gun.” Anne could see that her boss was looking at her funny, so she explained. “I tried therapy, Bennie, but I sucked at it, and I’m not the support-group type. I went to the shooting range four nights a week. After a year I can kill a piece of paper, and I feel a helluva lot safer.”
“My, my. You’re an interesting girl, Murphy.” With a crooked smile, Bennie slipped the revolver back into her bathrobe pocket. “I want you to know the gun is here and it’s loaded. We’re safe. I’ll keep it in my night table.”
“Why don’t you leave it with me?”
“That’s not a good idea. Do you have experience with this type of gun?”
“Can Eakins paint by numbers?” Anne smiled, and so did Bennie.
“Just the same, I’ll keep it in my night table.” She turned to the computer monitor and scanned it with swollen eyes. “What’s the point of this search, when you should be getting ready for bed? So what if Dietz has a criminal record?”
“I can use it on cross, for impeachment.”
“True, but I don’t know what that gets you. If it really matters, we can sic Lou on him, after the holiday. Bill Dietz isn’t your enemy in Chipster.”
“I know. His wife is.”
“Wrong. You’re the lawyer. Your opponent is her lawyer. Matt Booker.”
“Of course.” Anne resolved instantly not to tell Bennie her feelings for Matt, and vice versa. “That’s a given.”
Bennie squeezed Anne’s shoulder. “Do me a favor and go to sleep. You’re running on adrenaline, and you have a big day tomorrow. Now, good night.” She turned and padded out, sniffling, with Bear click-clicking after her down the hall.
Anne took a deep breath and resumed her search. She eliminated 302 through 397, hoping against all odds that this would be her Bill Dietz. She slowed just after 426, then clicked on the very last entry, feeling unaccountably as if she were rolling the dice. But the screen read only: William Dietz, birth date 3/15/80, Cochranville, PA. Misdemeanor theft.
“No!” Anne said aloud, without meaning to. There was nothing. Mel picked his head up quickly, his ears flat.
Anne felt suddenly lost. She had been wrong. Bill Dietz did not have a criminal record. He was just a jealous, protective husband who had committed no crime, not even a misdemeanor. She felt stupid, useless, and depleted of energy and emotion. Nothing was going right. She was too exhausted to think. It had been too crazy a day.
She got up, turned out the desk light, shimmied out of her skirt, and slid into bed, slipping under the covers in her T-shirt. In time, the house fell quiet except for a loud, breathy snoring from Bennie’s bedroom down the hall. Anne assumed it was the dog, and hoped that she hadn’t made Bennie completely sick. At the foot of the bed, Mel circled a few times, then curled against her covered feet, just like home. But it didn’t feel like home. She could never go home again. She lay in the dark, feeling suddenly that she didn’t belong anywhere, with anyone. She had lost whatever context she had. It was just as Bennie had said, with characteristic bluntness:
You don’t have anywhere else to go.
Anne closed her eyes, trying to clear her mind, and in a minute the snoring from down the hall was joined by street noises. Cars honked, people laughed and yelled, fireworks went off. A party somewhere must have ended, or she just hadn’t heard the noises before. She put the down pillow over her head but it didn’t help. It wasn’t her bed, and she missed her own pillow, with its woven photo of Lucy kissing Desi from “Redecorating the Mertzes’ Apartment.” Episode No. 74, November 23, 1953.
Anne flopped over and tried not to think about her house, then Willa, who had died there. And her mother, whose daisies did nothing to scent the room. And Mrs. Brown, sitting all by herself with her puzzle books. And especially not Kevin, with his gun. Would they be able to catch him tomorrow, at the memorial service? They had to. After losing him today, it was her last chance.
An hour later, she still hadn’t fallen asleep. She was jittery and anxious. She flopped back and forth, thinking of Matt. His flowers on her front stoop. The emotion in his voice at the office. The way he’d looked, grief-stricken. Would he come to her memorial service? She wished she could tell him she was alive, and she wished she could see him. She felt a politically incorrect need for a strong shoulder to cry on, a warm chest to burrow into. Anne loved men, and, before Kevin, she had dated a lot; fallen in and out of love a few times, and been very happy. Was Matt where she belonged?
Fifteen minutes later, Anne had dressed, closed Mel in her bedroom, and grabbed her messenger bag, which contained her cell phone and a borrowed revolver. It had been almost too easy to sneak into Bennie’s bedroom and steal the gun from the drawer. The snoring had been the dog’s, thank God.
She steered the Mustang through the streets of Philadelphia. She knew she was taking a risk being out, but it was calculated. She could protect herself, and her odds of seeing Kevin were slim to none. He’d be hiding from the cops, laying low, and still he had no reason to think she was alive. It was almost two in the morning, but the sidewalks were hardly deserted. Tourists club-hopped and walked in groups, laughing, talking, and holding hands. People carried brown bags with bottles inside or swung six-packs joined by plastic loops.
Anne cruised to a red light, eyeing the partiers on the street. No Kevin. The night was sultry, with a wildness in the air. Everybody was misbehaving, Anne most of all. Driving where she shouldn’t be, for no justifiable reason. All bets were off. She pointed the Mustang toward the colonial part of the city and Matt’s house. She had gotten the address from 411, but hadn’t called ahead. Olde City lay east, centering on Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence had been signed. It would be the most crowded section of the city, now that Philly was throwing itself the nation’s birthday party. She sped downtown, and soon colonial brick rowhouses covered with ivy were whizzing past the car window.
Anne could feel the summer night ruffling her short hair, and accelerated. She forgot about her mother and the Chipster case. Put distance between herself and Kevin. She felt like she did when she first moved here. Hopeful. Excited. Her heartbeat quickened. She drove around for a parking space and finally took an illegal one out of necessity; even at this hour of the morning, the holiday partied on. She cut the ignition and was about to go when she caught sight of herself in the rearview mirror. She had forgotten her lipstick. The stitch in the middle of her upper lip showed.
So be it.
She reached for her purse, removed the revolver, and stuck it in the waistband of her skirt, just in case. She slipped on her sunglasses and climbed out of the Mustang with a confidence that comes cheap with a concealed weapon. She walked a few blocks until she found Matt’s house, a brick rowhouse like hers, only with older brick, a faded, crumbly melon color. The shutters and door were black, and a light was on on the first floor, shining through the blinds, so he must be working late, as she had been. She knocked on the front door and after a minute, the outside light went on and the door swung open.
Anne gasped when she saw Matt. “What happened?” she asked, astonished.
16
Matt looked like he’d been punched in the face. An inch-long cut tore though his left cheek, jagged and freshly red, and underneath it rose a goose egg, almost swelling closed his left eye. He still had on his Oxford shirt, but it was spattered with tiny droplets of blood. His one good eye widened at the sight of Anne.
His lips parted in disbelief. He bent closer and peered into her face. “My God, you look like—”
“I am. It’s me. Anne. See?” She took off her sunglasses, not wanting to linger on his front stoop. A couple on the street was already turning around. She didn’t think they could see her, much less recognize her, but still. “Let me in, Matt. I’ll explain inside. It was all a mistake. I’m alive.”
“What? Anne? A mistake? Alive?” Matt stalled in confusion, so Anne took his arm and pressed him into the house, shutting the door behind them. A lamp was on in the living room, which had exposed-brick walls and a contemporary black couch and chairs. Yellow legal pads, Xeroxed cases, and documents with the Chipster.com logo covered the coffee table and buried a laptop. Matt’s house was enemy headquarters, but Anne couldn’t think of it that way. Or him that way, no matter what Bennie had said. He was bursting into a joyous smile at the sight of her, alive in the lamplight.
“My God! Anne, it is you! I see you! Anne!”
“Like my new hair?” she asked, flicking it with her fingers, but before she could fish for more compliments, Matt had gathered her up in his arms. He felt strong and solid, and relief flooded through her body, spreading warm as lifeblood. It was so good just to be held, even by someone who had never held her before.
“You’re not dead!” Matt began laughing, with evident relief. He squeezed Anne tighter, his arms so long they wrapped almost completely around her. “I can’t believe it! I’m not letting you go! I have you. I have you now!”
Anne hugged him back, letting her emotions come, and felt a tear slide down her cheek. She hadn’t cried since her shower, which seemed like ages ago. She buried her face in the rough cotton of Matt’s shirt, nestling against his chest. She didn’t know if she belonged here, but she needed someone to lean on, and hadn’t realized how much until this very minute.
“Tell me what happened. No, don’t! Forget it. Don’t talk, I want to talk. I have something to say. I’ve been regretting not saying it every minute since I heard you were dead.” Matt released her and looked down at her, wiping wetness from her cheek with a warm thumb. “Don’t cry, this is a good thing. What I have to say is—I love you, Anne.”
Wow. Anne started smiling then, her tears ebbing away, and reached up for him, kissing him fully, in a way she’d wanted to for a long time. She could feel him reaching for her with his kiss, too, with the urgency of his entire body. When he released her, he eased her into sitting on the couch, and sat down next to her, brushing uneven bangs from her forehead.
“What happened?” Matt asked, managing a concerned expression despite a beat-up cheek. “This is crazy. You’re alive?”
“First off, you can’t tell anyone. This is the worst-kept secret in the world, and I can’t risk it getting out to Kevin. He thinks I’m dead.”
“Kevin. You mean this guy they’re looking for, on the news? Satorno? Is that why you changed your hair?” Matt listened while Anne told him the whole story, and when she had finished, he remained in stunned silence for a moment before he spoke. “You took a risk coming here. Why did Bennie let you?”
“She doesn’t know, I snuck out of her house. You’ve been asking me out for a year, I figured it was time to say yes.” Anne couldn’t look at him without seeing his injury, and close-up it was worse than she thought. The gash rent his cheek and fresh blood filled the cut. He might even need stitches. Anne was an expert. “What happened to your face?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“It’s privileged.”
“How can that be? A privileged fistfight?”
Matt waved her off. “Forget it. Why did the police think you were—”
“A privileged fight would be a fight with a client.” Anne thought a minute and arrived at the answer with a start. “It was Bill Dietz! He hit you, didn’t he?”
“He didn’t mean it.”
“That asshole, I knew it!” Anne flashed on the Bill Dietz listings. No assaults, except the one tonight on his own lawyer. So she had been right about the rage in Dietz. “Why’d he hit you?”
“This isn’t confidential, so I’ll tell you. But we have to observe certain boundaries here. He is my client.”
“You’re loyal to him? You should fire his ass!”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
Right. “Well, it should. So what happened?”
“We were at my office, after the dep.” Matt paused again. “I hate to tell you this. It’s not unethical, it’s just stupid, and this is the beginning, where I tell you only the good stuff about me.”
The beginning. Anne liked the sound of it. “Just tell me.”
“Well, Bill said something I really didn’t like, and no, I’m not telling you what it is, so don’t start asking me”—he wagged his finger at her—”and I told him so. Then he told me not to talk to him that way, that I was only his mouthpiece, which is such a stupid term, and then he hit me. I still can’t understand it.” Matt touched his wound gingerly. “He didn’t mean to cut me, but when he threw his punch, he had on a big college ring and that did it. He felt worse than I did. He apologized, and so did Beth. They offered to take me to the hospital.”
“Oh, what a guy. A full-service client.”
“The Dietzes are really nice people.”
“The Dietzes are lying scum.”
“No way. Gil’s the liar.”
Anne sighed. “Matt, you’ve gotten to be friends with them, and it’s clouding your judgment. Dietz has issues. I wouldn’t be surprised if he abuses his wife. Normal people don’t have physically violent reactions. He socked you for something you said.”
“It doesn’t mean he beats his wife. He loves Beth. He would do anything for her.”
“So would you, and you have. You’re her lawyer—and his!”
“I don’t know anybody who doesn’t want to punch out a lawyer. And half of them are lawyers! Maybe you’re the one who’s gotten too close to your client. You just don’t like the Dietzes.”
“But they’re extorting money from an innocent man. They’re taking down his company and ruining his chance for IPO. Chipster is one of the most successful—”
“Anne?” Matt reached out and touched her arm. “Let’s not talk about the Dietzes, or Chipster, anymore. I liked what we were doing before.”
“Come on, what did Dietz say to you? Just tell me. I’m dying to know.”
“No! I will not tell opposing counsel anything my client tells me!” Matt turned serious. “You’re getting paranoid, and I don’t blame you, but we can’t keep talking about the Dietzes. Agreed?”
“You can’t blame a girl for trying.”
“I can and I do. And I’m still pissed about that stripper thing.”
“You’re less fun than I thought.” Anne pouted as Matt’s arms slipped around her shoulders. She sank deep into the couch’s cushy pillows, then felt a hardness against her hip. Oops. “Hold on, wait a minute.” She unclinched enough to extract the revolver from her waistband and set it on the coffee table on top of his scribbled notes.
“Jesus!” Matt edged away, shocked. “Where did you get that?”
“It’s Bennie’s.”
“Is it loaded?”
“Of course. You can’t shoot anybody if it’s not.” Anne edged over to Matt and touched his arm, but he kept staring at the gun.
“Does it have a safety?”
“What’s a safety, big fella?” she whispered, planting a soft kiss on the good side of his face.
“A safety’s the thing they have on guns so they don’t go off.”
“I’m kidding. It’s a revolver, so it doesn’t have a safety.”
Matt recoiled. “Will it go off?”
“It can’t. You have to pick it up, aim it at somebody you don’t like, and pull the trigger.”
“Well, point it away or something. I can’t relax with it aiming at us.”
“Fine.” Anne took pity on him, reached over, and spun the gun so that its barrel had a clean shot at the entertainment center. “I think everything will be okay now, unless the gun decides to shoot your DVD player. Now, if you kiss me like you did a minute ago, I can forget about what a big baby you are.”
“You liked that?” Matt grinned down at her, pulling her closer, and the part of his face that wasn’t injured went soft. “God, you’re so beautiful it’s scary.”
“No, not really.” Anne pointed impulsively at her scar. “Attractive, huh?”
“So what? You got nothin’ on me right now.”
“That’s it? ‘So what?’” Anne blinked, nonplussed. “I was a freak, at birth. I have a scar, and unlike yours, it’s permanent.”
“It’s not a scar, it’s a target, and I think it’s not big enough.” Matt covered her mouth with his, kissing her softly, then again, slowly, overcoming her shame with each kiss. She kissed him back, letting him lead her away from herself and her fears. She was careful with him, too, going slowly so she didn’t hurt his wound, getting to know him better, with a deeper kiss.
She eased back onto a sofa covered with his papers and felt him pressing onto her, her body warm with his weight. She ignored the crackle of Xeroxed cases under her and didn’t give a second thought to which precedent he was citing. She didn’t even try to peek at his laptop screen later, when he reached over to turn out the lamp.
Mental note: Some people have to choose between making love or making war, but lawyers can do both.
Nobody was on the sidewalk at dawn Sunday morning, and only a few light trucks and vans rumbled by, hauling ice, tables, and tents for the city’s festivities. Anne hurried from Matt’s house through the streets of Olde City, happy and reenergized, after a night with a man who loved her. She couldn’t say she loved him yet, but she was very much in deep like, and it was a slippery slope.
She picked up the pace, keeping a hand near her messenger bag so the revolver wouldn’t fly out. Okay, she wasn’t a model of firearm safety, and she wasn’t wearing underwear either. She hadn’t had time to find it. She had gotten up early to get back to Bennie’s, so she wouldn’t be worried. Or discover that her rookie associate was sleeping with the enemy. Anne needed to cover her ass. Literally.
She hustled down the cobblestone sidewalk, breaking a sweat in the thick air. Philadelphians always said, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity,” but Anne didn’t agree. It’s hot, stupid. She pushed up the sunglasses sliding down her nose and jogged the remaining two blocks to the street she’d parked on, slowing to catch her breath when she saw a line of cars she recognized from last night. She cooled down past a blue minivan, a white Mercedes 430, and a blue Ford truck, which was the last one at the top of the row.
Anne stopped, looking around in confusion. Dude, where’s my car? There was no red Mustang on the street. In fact, there were no cars at all where the cars had been parked last night. Had they all left? Was she on the wrong street? She checked the green street sign. Delancey Street. Right. She had parked here last night.
She looked around for the Mustang but it was nowhere in sight. She turned on her heels and came face-to-face with a red-lettered sign that she hadn’t noticed the night before, when she was in heat. It read: NO PARKING TOW ZONE. But it could just as accurately have read:
RANDOM.
17
Loser! Anne’s heart sank. The Mustang had been towed! She cursed herself and her red roots. Her bad planning and her lack of undies. What was she going to do? She could go back and get a ride from Matt, but she didn’t want to reveal her stupidity. Now she knew what he had meant, “This is the beginning, where I tell you only the good stuff about me.”
Anne got another idea, a better one than parking a getaway car in a tow zone. Sooner or later a cab would show up, and until then she would start walking. It would take an hour to get to Bennie’s house, walking from one end of town to the other, but it was in the no-choice category.
She started to hoof it, heading west, up Delancey, and taking mental inventory. The Mustang was a rental anyway, and she still had a cell phone and a knock-off Smith & Wesson. What else did a girl need? And even though the gray sky was lightening to a watercolor blue, she was reasonably safe. Kevin would still be hiding from the cops. There was only one problem: she’d never make it to Bennie’s in time, now. What to do? Anne wracked her brain for a good lie, but came up empty, which worried her. Maybe the sex had sapped her superpowers. Disarmed, she’d have to tell the truth. She’d have to admit that not only had she committed high treason, she’d been too horny to read a traffic sign.
She kept walking and took her cell phone out of her purse, calling Bennie’s home number. “It’s me,” she said, when the call connected.
“Murphy?” Bennie sounded sleepy. “You’re calling me? Aren’t you in your room, in bed?”
“Not exactly.” Anne looked for a cab as she headed uptown. The street was littered with trash and paper cups from the night before. Plastic poppers lay popped in the gutter. “I’m so sorry, I thought I’d be home by now. I’m calling so you wouldn’t worry.”
“What shouldn’t I worry about? Where are you?” She sneezed, and Anne cringed.
“Gesundheit. I’m sorry, really sorry. I’m on my way.” She bit her lip. This was a lousy way to repay Bennie’s kindness. No wonder she never told the truth. It was hard. “I was at Matt’s house last night. I’ll be home in an hour unless I can get a—”
“Did you say Matt? Matt Booker? Why? Was it settlement talks?”
“Not exactly.” Anne flushed, but maybe it was the heat, or the humidity. “I spent the night with him. I’m seeing him, Bennie. I think.”
“Matt Booker? You’re seeing Matt Booker? What? How long has this been going on?”
“One night. Look, I know it sounds terrible, but this is personal, not business.” Then she remembered about Matt’s injuries, and didn’t know if she should tell Bennie. Would she be betraying Matt if she told? Would she be betraying Bennie if she didn’t? And what about Gil? Mental note: There are many good reasons why you shouldn’t sleep with opposing counsel.
“You and Matt Booker are personal? Are you crazy?”
“I shouldn’t have done it, I know.”
“He’s plaintiff’s counsel!”
“I was weak.”
“God, I keep forgetting how young you are!” Bennie shouted, then caught herself. “We’ll discuss it when we see each other. But here’s more bad news. I’m looking out my bedroom window, and the press has taken up residence in front of my house, waiting for me to come out.”
“They weren’t there last night.”
“That’s because they sleep at night, like you should have been. Bottom line is, there’s no way you can get back in without you or the car being recognized.”
The car is no problem.
“Meet me at the office,” Bennie said, sternly. “Use the back entrance. We have to get ready for the memorial service. It’s today, at noon. It would be nice if you attended. You’re the guest of honor.”
“I know. Sorry.”
“Okay, see you at the office. Be careful.”
“Don’t worry.”
Bennie harrumphed, then hung up.
Anne slipped the phone in her purse and hurried to the corner for a cab. None was in sight, so she kept walking. It was less than an hour to the office from here, and she headed for work, picking up a free tabloid from an open box on the way. It was City Beat, that paper she’d heard about, and its circulation must have been local only. THE FUGITIVE, read the headline, above a blown-up mug shot of Kevin, and Anne was thrilled. Everybody would be looking for him now, even regular citizens.
She read the story as she walked, and it was all her history with Kevin, with a sidebar about Mrs. Brown. She glanced up at the byline: By Angus Connolly. The gonzo reporter in the Australian bush hat had gotten his big scoop. She wished him luck, then tossed the paper into the nearest trash can.
Anne was sweating big-time by the time she got uptown and ducked the horde of reporters, TV cameras, and Nikons massing outside the office on Locust Street. She scurried back down the alley behind the office building, hid her breasts past Hot and Heavy, and finally escaped upstairs to the office and past the empty reception area to Bennie’s office in the back.
Bennie’s door was open, and Judy and Mary occupied the two chairs in front of her desk. The office was cluttered with law books, awards, and dark-red accordion files, and the lawyers were huddling over something Anne couldn’t see. She called a guilt-ridden hello, and all three heads looked up at once. Mary and Judy smiled instantly, but Bennie shot her a look that said you-are-in-such-big-trouble, deep-shit-would-be-an-improvement.
“I’m so sorry to have worried you, Bennie,” Anne said quickly, meaning it. She’d had ten blocks to think about what a jerk she’d been, and she’d concluded that as wonderful a man as Matt was, she didn’t belong with him, not yet. Tuesday she’d be in court against him, and a man wasn’t always the answer. Anne felt vaguely like an alcoholic who’d fallen off the wagon. Mental note: Men rehab sucks.
“We’ll discuss it another time. We have work to do.” Bennie’s scowl seemed all the more severe because of her ersatz-mourning clothes. She wore a black suit with an off-white shirt and black pumps, and her curly blond hair had been tamed by a black linen barrette. “Someday in the future, I may accept your apology. Right now I’m taking it under advisement.”
Sitting on the desk, Judy was smiling. “Have a nice time, Murph the Surf?” She had on a black cotton sweater with short sleeves and a funky black skirt, shin-length. With black fake-ponyskin clogs.
“Oh, stop, Jude,” Mary jumped in. She looked like a friendly nun, in a plain black A-line dress. “I think Matt’s hot, too, and you deserve to be happy, after what you’ve been through. And I trust you not to tell him anything about the case.”
“Thanks,” Anne said, but Bennie still wasn’t smiling.
“By the way, I’ll take my gun back.”
“Sure. Sorry about that.” Anne tugged the revolver from her purse, and Mary blanched.
“Is that really a gun?”
Judy jumped. “Is it loaded?”
“No,” Anne and Bennie said at the same time.
Anne handed Bennie the weapon. “I only used one bullet.”
“That’ll be ten cents,” Bennie said, and their eyes met in a temporary truce over the weapon. Bennie opened her desk drawer, placed the gun inside, and twisted the tiny key in the lock. She extracted the key and slipped it into her suit-jacket pocket. “No more gun. Everybody remain calm.”
Judy shuddered. “I didn’t know you had a gun, Bennie.”
“Now you know everything. Favorite color is golden retriever, favorite sport is rowing, favorite hobby is winning cases. Pet peeves? Cats, no pun.”
“How is Mel, I was just about to ask.” Actually Anne had been afraid to.
“He meowed for you this morning. I wanted to shoot him but somebody stole my gun.”
“Bennie!” Anne and the other associates looked horrified.
“Just kidding.” Bennie plucked a yellow legal pad from her desk. “Okay, kids, we all have our jobs today, right? Carrier, you’re on flower detail. You have your list of kitchen staff, right?”
Judy nodded, consulting a piece of notebook paper on Bennie’s desk. “Most are women, so we’re in good shape there.”
“Make sure the only kitchen staff are the ones on that list, and you meet each one.”
“Got it.”
Bennie looked at Mary. “DiNunzio, you’re press person, which is a big job. Satorno might come in with a camera hiding his face, or with TV makeup on. No press admitted. None at all. It’s too risky.”
“Right.” Mary nodded. “Like we said, I verify all press passes outside and call the cops if I find him, but don’t alert him to it. And nobody gets into the service but attendees.”
“Yes.” Bennie glanced at her list. “Murphy, you handle the physical plant, the set-up before. You’ll play the grieving cousin from California. What if your mother happens to show up? Are you prepared for that?”
“It won’t happen, but if it does, I’ll ignore her.”
“Can you do that?” Bennie’s lower lip buckled with doubt.
“Not a problem. I have years of practice.”
“You think she’ll recognize you?”
“No. Not with my new hair, and she hasn’t seen me since college.”
Judy and Mary exchanged looks, then Mary smiled. “Nobody will recognize you, not even your own mother, in the disguise we picked out for you.” She turned to a red, white, and blue Liberty Place bag sitting on the floor. It was what they’d been rummaging in when Anne first walked in.
“What is that?” she asked, edging to the bag, but Judy held her arm and pressed her into her chair.
“Last night, we went shopping for your bereavement outfit.” Mary reached excitedly into the bag. “All the stores were open and there were tons of great Independence Day sales. Look at these shoes! Aren’t they so cute?” She pulled a pair of black flats from the bag like a rabbit out of a hat.
Eeek. “Wow, they’re great!” Anne lied, automatically. The habit came back to her easily, like riding a bike.
“Try them on!” Mary bubbled. “They’re Superstriders, really comfortable. I wear them all the time. They wear like iron. I figured you were a size eight, like me.”
“Good.” Anne had never worn Superstriders in her life, but she kicked off her Blahniks and stepped into them. They had absolutely no heel and were made apparently of rubber, but they fit like Cinderella’s slipper and felt better than mules ever could. She cheered instantly, maybe because her toes could move for the first time in years. “I can catch a killer in these babies!”
Mary nodded happily. “We also got you a dress. Judy picked it out.”
“It’s very cool.” Judy crossed her legs on the desk. “You’ll love it.”
Anne looked up to see Mary holding up a dress, the requisite black, but otherwise utterly unconventional. It had a high neck, a dropped V-waist, and a winged collar. The skirt billowed past the knee and the material crinkled like crinoline. It was beyond fashion faux pas, it was well into Halloween costume.
“It’s kind of dramatic,” Mary said tactfully. “But Judy thought you’d like it. And it covers you up, like a good disguise.”
Judy nodded with pride. “It’s one of a kind. I got it in the crafts store. Slip it on, let’s check the fit. It’s not just a dress, it’s wearable art.”
Huh? “Art is good. I like art.” Anne took the dress, slipped it over her head, and shimmied it down over her T-shirt and skirt. It fit in the waist, but its black skirt flowed to the floor like an oil spill. “We’ll have to staple the hem, but it’s perfect. Thank you.”
Even Bennie was beaming. “You haven’t seen the best part yet. The last, essential piece.”
“More?” Anne looked over in fear, and Mary was holding up a black straw hat with a bigger brim than most beach umbrellas. She handed it to Anne, who set it on her head, impulsively tilted it to the side, and pivoted like a prom queen.
Bennie, Judy, and Mary broke into collective grins. “Wow!” Mary clapped.
“Awesome!” Judy said, then her face changed. “Oh wait, I almost forgot. You can’t go without these.” She reached into her pocket and extracted something that fit in her palm, then held it up. It was a pair of long earrings, with tiny, irregularly shaped red, black, and blue glass beads, in wild zigzag and swirling patterns. The beads caught the sunlight and glowed like fireworks.
“How beautiful!” Anne was amazed. She’d never seen anything like them and she’d shopped everywhere. “Where did you get them? The art store?”
“Not exactly. I made them for you. The beads are glass.” Judy handed them over with a sheepish smile. “Welcome to Philadelphia, Anne.”
Anne clipped on the earrings, touched. These women were so generous to her, each in her own way. They were trying to help her. They actually seemed to care about her. Her throat was suddenly too thick to permit speech, so she did what came naturally and threw herself into their arms, hat and all. “Thank you so much!” she managed to croak out, and her hug spanned three lawyers with some success. “You guys are the best!”
Mary hugged her back the hardest, then Judy, who laughed with surprise. But it was Bennie who patted her back and whispered into her ear: “Everything’s gonna be all right, honey.”
It filled Anne with a warmth she had never experienced. Mental note: Girlfriends are more necessary than underwear.
“Okay, ladies, it’s showtime!” Bennie announced, breaking the clinch, and the three mourners sprang into action, with one lagging behind: Anne.
“Bennie, would this be a good time to tell you what happened to the Mustang?” she began.
18
The Chestnut Club was one of Philadelphia’s grandest gray ladies, a Victorian mansion with a huge, paneled entrance hall, a sweeping, mahogany staircase, and a landing with an immense, stained-glass window depicting William Penn negotiating with the Native Americans. Their lawyer wasn’t present.
Inside, Anne checked her watch, tense. 11:30. Half an hour before the start of the memorial service, and a few people were still arriving. It was a small crowd, which she’d expected; not because of the holiday or the shortness of the notice, but because nobody liked her until twenty minutes ago. She circulated among the mourners, her face artfully made up, her head bent under the wide-brimmed hat, with her sunglasses on. Nobody could see her, much less recognize her, and she was able to spy through the lattice weave of the straw.
She spotted a nice client on one of her commercial contracts cases, Marge Derrick, another commercial client, Cheryl Snyder, and a lovely woman, Lore Yao, whom she knew from a benefit for the Free Library. The staff of Rosato & Associates appeared in force, and Anne wished she could have let them in on the secret, but Bennie had ruled against it. Kevin was nowhere in sight.
Anne walked to the front entrance of the club and looked outside. The press thronged on the street, now joined by onlookers and holiday partiers. Photographers held their cameras above the throng, snapping away, and TV anchorpeople stood to the side, talking to videocameras. They spilled off the sidewalk into traffic, uncontained by too-few uniformed police and sawhorses. Still, no sign of Kevin.
She shifted her gaze to the four rent-a-muscle men Bennie had hired, mixing with the crowd in suits. They were dressed as lawyers, but the biceps straining their suit seams betrayed them. She spotted the Australian bush hat of Angus Connolly, and saw Mary circulating, checking press credentials, passes, and faces. Anne didn’t see Kevin in the crowd. She felt a strong hand on her shoulder and looked over, startled.
It was Bennie. “Relax, Murphy,” she said. “Everything’s fine. The kitchen, the press, and the flowers are all taken care of, so far. Maybe you’d feel better if you came in and sat down.”
Anne nodded, just as she spied Matt outside, in a dark suit and light-blue tie, breaking from the gauntlet of the press and climbing up the stairs. The swelling had gone down on his cheek, and her heart leaped at the sight, then hardened. Matt wasn’t alone. Right behind him came Bill and Beth Dietz, dressed in black. Anne couldn’t believe her eyes. Why had Matt brought them?
“Do you see this?” she murmured to Bennie, who clearly had, from her expression. Her mouth set grimly and her blue eyes had gone flinty. She took Anne by the elbow.
“Time to go inside,” she said, leading Anne back into the entrance hall. “Get going. I gotta mingle.”
Anne walked to the large room, as Matt passed her on the right without recognizing her, shepherding the Dietzes. Why would he bring them? For the press? He had to know it would upset her, either way. She kept her head down and her wits about her, then became aware of a man falling into stride beside her, looking right at her. It was Gil Martin.
It gave Anne a start. She had pushed Gil to the back of her mind, but she was in denial. This could be the day she got fired. There was no telling from Gil’s expression, which was professionally grave. He wore a dark suit, a shiny Hermès tie, and a renewed tan. His hand touched her arm briefly.
“If this is you under the hat, we need to talk,” he said in a low voice.
Damn. “Now?”
“Yes. Jamie’s inside the service already. We only have a minute.”
Anne led him past the staircase, a hall of old-fashioned wooden telephone booths, and toward the smoking lounge. Nobody would be in there; it was tucked away. She reached the room, pushed on the paneled door, and found the small room empty. She slipped inside, with Gil behind her.
“Gil,” Anne said, beginning her opening argument. “I really think you should let me keep—”
“Stop.” Gil squeezed her shoulder. “You don’t have to convince me. I thought about what you said, about the case, and frankly, about the media. I bet on you before and I’m staying the course.”
“That’s wonderful!” Anne felt so grateful she hugged him, Victorian hat and all. But just then the door to the lounge opened with a loud creak, and Anne and Gil looked up from their embrace. Gil’s wife, Jamie, was standing in the doorway in a black Chanel suit, shaking with anger.
“Here, too, Gil? Can’t you keep it in your pants at a funeral? With me in the next room?” Jamie’s pretty face was red, her lipsticked mouth contorted. “Who’s this one? Forget it, I don’t care! You promised, Gil! We made a deal!” She turned on her heel and left, letting the heavy door bang closed behind her.
Anne backed away from Gil, stunned. She tried to process what had just happened. She always believed Gil and Jamie had a good marriage. “What was she talking about, Gil? What deal?”
“I have no idea what she’s talking about,” Gil answered, his features calm and in control. “Jamie always thinks I’m having affairs, which I’m obviously not. Are we having an affair? No. She’s just crazy.”
“Bullshit!” Anne had been hit on by too many married men to believe him now. Had she been played? Had Matt been right? Was Gil the liar, not Beth Dietz? “Is Beth telling the truth? Did you force her to have sex with you?”
“Please!” Gil’s blue-green eyes narrowed. “I never forced myself on anybody, I don’t have to.”
“You had an affair with her, then?”
“All right, fine. You’re my lawyer, you have to keep it confidential, right?”
“Gil, tell me the truth!” Anne shouted, but Gil gripped her arm, angry.
“Shh, don’t make a big deal. So what? Me and Beth had an affair, we were fooling around for months. But I didn’t make her screw me to keep her job. She wanted to. She hates her husband. He’s an abusive jerk.”
My God. Anne edged away. What was true? Was it really a consensual affair? Dietz was an abusive jerk. Her thoughts raced, but Gil seemed superbly in control.
“There’s no basis to the lawsuit, Anne. Beth filed it because I broke off the affair and she wanted to get revenge. My defense is the same as before. This changes nothing.”
“It changes everything! I asked you more than once if you had an affair with Beth, remember? You lied to me!” Anne couldn’t believe how gullible she’d been. She’d believed him because she’d wanted to believe him. He was her client, her friend. “You told me you were insulted by the question! You made me feel like shit!”
“I didn’t want you to know about the affair. I was embarrassed and afraid you’d tell Jamie. Or at least you wouldn’t be able to hide it around her. But it still doesn’t make any difference to the lawsuit. I’m telling you, I still didn’t make her have sex.”
“What deal did Jamie mean? What deal did you make?”
“She stays with me through the trial, then IPO. I want to be squeaky-clean. Besides, if she waits until after the IPO, she divorces me and gets ten million. If she does it now, she gets zip. Which would you choose? And she’ll lie at trial if we want her to.”
“We don’t want her to!” Anne couldn’t think fast enough. She didn’t know this side of Gil. How could she have been so stupid? “I won’t put Jamie on the stand to lie for you! And I won’t put you up there either! I don’t want your defense anymore. Find yourself another shill!”
“Oh, come on, don’t be so emotional.” Gil’s tone was supposed to be soothing, but it disgusted Anne. He reached for her to calm her, and she pulled back. She couldn’t wrap her mind around any of it. She had just kept the case of her career, only to find out she was defending a total sleazebucket. And she didn’t have time to deal with it now. Kevin might already be out there. The memorial service would be starting any minute.
She turned on her heel, enjoying the rather theatrical swirl to her skirt, and walked out on her client without another word. She had no explanation for her behavior, now that she was a brunette. Mental note: Impulsiveness may not be related to haircolor.
She hurried down the corridor, past the entrance, and entered the service. The room was paneled, large and boxy, with rows of tan folding chairs in two blocks with a center aisle. Only the first three rows of seats were taken, and Anne took a seat in the back row, for the best view. She tried to get back in control. This was her last chance to catch Kevin. She searched every head, every set of shoulders in front of her. No Kevin. She checked her watch. 11:55. The service was about to start. Were was he? Was he coming?
Anne checked the room. Judy and Bennie stood in the front, talking together off to the side, and Mary entered and joined them. Matt sat on the right side of the room, next to the Dietzes. Gil was seated two rows behind them, his head bent in an impression of a man with a conscience. Near him sat Detective Rafferty, in coat and tie, and his chain-smoking partner, whose back pressed heavily against the folding chair. The gathering seemed to settle as the last of the stragglers came in. Anne tried to ignore the fact that her mother couldn’t be bothered to attend, her lover had betrayed her, her client had lied through his bleached teeth, and her psycho killer was still on the loose.
A flower deliveryman came in, and she watched Judy hurry to meet him at the door, check his ID, then wave him to the front of the room, where he set the flowers down with the few others: lilies, mums, and white sweetheart-roses. The white roses were a corporate gift from a client, and the other flowers were from various Center City law firms, and there was one from the gym. None was from friends, because Anne had no friends, and if that wasn’t a graphic enough illustration, no one in the crowd was weeping or even looking mildly bothered.
She felt an echo of the same emptiness she’d experienced in Willa’s house, looking at her black-and-white drawings. She didn’t want to continue on Willa’s path, closed up and alone, and it was where she’d been going. All around her was proof positive. She resolved on the spot to let her death change her life. But first she had to stop Kevin, once and for all.
Bennie was already at the lectern. “Good afternoon,” she began, adjusting the black stem of the microphone. “I’m Bennie Rosato, and thank you very deeply for coming to this memorial service. Today we honor a young woman I greatly admire, Anne Murphy. I hired her a year ago, because she struck me as an intelligent, well-trained, and hardworking young lawyer. But, in truth, I didn’t take much time to get to know her, this past year. It was my loss, and not hers.”
Listening, Anne felt her mouth go dry. This wasn’t the script they had discussed back at the office. Bennie had hated the idea of lying to the people, so she was supposed to keep her eulogy generic and impersonal. On the sidelines, Judy and Mary exchanged looks, and the office staff whispered to each other in their seats.
“But more recently,” Bennie continued, “I have come to know Anne Murphy, and actually to love her. Her boldness, her courage, and her doggedness. Her resourcefulness, even her recklessness—”
Suddenly, a young man stood up at the far end of the third row. “Judy Carrier! Ms. Carrier!” he shouted. “Ms. Carrier! You!” He pointed to Judy, standing at the front of the room. “City Beat wants to know, Ms. Carrier!”
Bennie’s lips parted in surprise, and Judy edged away, appalled. Anne didn’t get it. Was it a joke? Who was this clown? The crowd turned to the young man, who kept shouting.
“Ms. Carrier, why were you in Anne Murphy’s car the day after she was murdered? What do you have to say for yourself?” The man had leaped from his folding chair and headed straight for Judy before anybody knew what was happening, pulling a tiny digital camera from his jacket pocket. “City Beat wants to know!”
City Beat? It was the paper Anne had read on the way to the office. The one with that wanna-be journalist, Angus Connolly, with the bush hat. But this guy wasn’t Angus Connolly, and what did he want from Judy, for God’s sake?
Anne rose to her feet, watching in shock as he snapped pictures, advancing on Judy. Detective Rafferty jumped from his chair and lunged toward the reporter, as did his heavyset partner.
All of a sudden a second man started yelling from the other side of the row. “Judy Carrier! Carrier! Answer our allegations! What were you doing with Anne Murphy’s car? You killed Anne Murphy! City Beat has the story!”
What? Anne was stunned. Judy’s eyes widened, her arms pinwheeled, and she tumbled backward into the flowers. Anne rushed to help Judy, but she saw Gil bolt for the exit with the Dietzes right behind. Matt and Bennie tried to get to the second reporter, who was charging toward Judy, brandishing something.
“Judy Carrier!” he shouted. “You killed Anne Murphy! We have the proof! City Beat has the proof! An exclusive undercover investigation!” He was shouting as Bennie grabbed him. Matt and two other men piled on, but the young man wouldn’t stop yelling. “Confess! You had her car! We have the proof! You were driving her car the day after you shot her!”
My God! Anne froze on her feet, her mind racing. These amateurs thought Judy was her killer!
“You did it!” yelled the first reporter, as Detective Rafferty and his partner forced him to the ground. “You can’t do this! We are the working press! We are the working press! We have rights! Constitutional rights!”
The service was thrown into pandemonium. People darted from their seats, tripping on chairs. Anne was pushed against the guests when a vivid flash of red at the door caught her eye. A dozen red roses, held by a deliveryman, his face visible over the roses. His hair was dyed matte-black, but his eyes, nose, and mouth were recognizable.
It was Kevin.
“Stop him!” Anne screamed above the din, but Kevin vanished in the next instant. “Stop him! Stop that man!” She yelled but her voice got lost in the uproar.
“No!” she screamed again, then turned around and took off after Kevin. She wouldn’t lose him this time. Not again, never again. She threw herself into the people hurrying toward the exit. Cops charged into the room, blocking her way. She grabbed the short sleeve of one, trying vainly to get his help.
“Officer, I need you. Come with me!” But the cop was already past her and reaching for the handcuffed reporter being hauled off by the detectives. She’d have to do it herself.
“Move! MOVE!” Anne shouted at the people running from the room. She found open road for a brief instant, then pressed her way into the hallway, trying to see Kevin over the fleeing guests. Suddenly someone in front of her got pushed back, and Anne almost fell. Someone trounced on her hem. Her hat and sunglasses got knocked off. She looked wildly around, jostled this way and that. Kevin was nowhere in sight. She had lost sight of him. Not again! She felt like crying, like screaming. Tears of frustration sprang to her eyes.
“Hey!”’ she yelped as she was shoved from the side, then felt herself falling backward. She grasped for someone’s handbag on the way down but the woman yanked it away. The next thing she knew she had hit the carpet and was in danger of being trampled. She covered her head with her hands and tried to roll away, with flower petals sticking to her hands and face.
Red rose petals.
Anne opened her eyes and squinted through the moving feet. Red petals lay scattered everywhere on the carpet. They had to be from the red roses Kevin had been carrying. He must have run out with them, then dropped them. Black pumps blocked her view and the spike heel of a dress sandal almost speared her in the ear. Ahead, an empty glass vase rolled on its side. Beyond the vase lay a white paper of some kind, bright against the blood-red rug. A small card, the kind that came with flowers. Kevin’s card.
Anne crawled forward on her elbows, risking life and limb. The heavy rubber sole of a wingtip almost stepped on her nose, but she kept an eye on the card. A straight pin affixed it to a headless rose. If she waited until everyone was gone, the card could be as torn up as the bouquet. She got kicked in the ribs by indeterminate footwear and winced in pain.
She was only three feet from the card, then two. The card lay just out of reach. She stretched out her hand but a stack heel crunched down on her index finger.
“Yeow!” she cried, and took one final lunge.
19
The interview room at the Roundhouse, Philadelphia’s police headquarters, was as full as a stateroom in a Marx Brothers movie, but far less funny. Detective Rafferty stood against the wall, jacketless, his striped tie loosened from the melee at the Chestnut Club. His partner sat next to him, hunting-and-pecking on an antique typewriter. It read Smith-Corona in script and sat atop a laminated wooden table against the wall. Except for a few chairs, including a steel Windsor bolted to the floor, there was no other furniture in the tight, airless shoebox of a room. It was a dingy green color, scuffed beyond belief, reeking of stale cigar smoke. Judy and Mary stood off to the side, near a smudged two-way mirror, while Bennie stood at Anne’s elbow, acting as her counsel.
Anne occupied the steel Windsor chair. “No, I’m not dead,” she said, which really seemed sort of obvious. Or maybe it wasn’t. Her forehead bore a girl version of Matt’s goose egg, and her ribs hurt from being kicked around the carpet. Two buttons had been torn from her art dress, and her stapled hem had fallen. On the plus side, she still had her beaded earrings and something else she treasured, tucked into her bra.
“So the body in the morgue, it’s Willa Hansen’s?” the detective asked.
“Right.”
“She has no family.”
“No immediate family.”
“What about your family? You don’t want them to know you’re alive?”
“I haven’t seen my mother in a decade. I never met my father.”
“Well, well.” Detective Rafferty rubbed his chin, where a five-o’clock shadow was beginning to sprout, even though it was only three in the afternoon. “We woulda figured this out by Wednesday, when the tests come back. Misidentifications happen, but we have procedures to prevent it. The holiday weekend screwed us up.” Rafferty looked at Anne. “You pretended to be dead?”
Anne was about to answer, but Bennie clamped a hand on her shoulder. “I’m instructing her not to answer that, Detective.”
“Oh, Christ! Why, Rosato?”
“’Cause I’m a good lawyer,” she answered. “Ms. Murphy has volunteered to speak with you only because you were about to question Judy Carrier in connection with her murder. Now we all understand that Ms. Murphy is not dead, and that Kevin Satorno shot Willa Hansen believing she was Ms. Murphy. Kevin Satorno is still your shooter, Detective. Find him.”
“I do have a few more questions for Ms. Murphy, who intentionally deceived us as to her whereabouts, which constitutes obstruction of justice. As does your conduct, by the way, and those of the other ladies here.”
Bennie didn’t bat an eye. “That’s not exactly the law, but I’ve no time to teach it right now. My client is happy to answer your questions, when I let her. Ask away.”
The detective returned to Anne. “Run this by me again, Ms. Murphy. You rented the Mustang on Friday night, July first. Late Friday night, you were erroneously reported murdered. Then Judy Carrier was in the car on Saturday and stopped for gas, using her credit card. July second.”
“Yes.” Anne tried not to look at Judy, who had to be kicking herself. It had happened when they’d gassed up. random, random, random.
“Then Ms. Carrier left her credit-card receipt in the car, and it’s dated July second.”
“Yes.”
“Then you parked illegally on Sunday morning, and the car was towed.”
“Yes.” Now Anne was kicking herself.
“The rental contract was found in the car, identifying the Mustang as rented to you. The gas receipt with Carrier’s name on it was also found, dated the day after your supposed murder. Are we all clear on the facts?”
“Yes. But how did these jerks get the receipt?”
“They were tipped off by the tow yard, who called one of them when the car came in.” Detective Rafferty consulted his skinny notebook. “The yard owner called Angus Connolly because he wrote the story in City Beat. The yard owner sold him the information, photocopies of the rental contract, and the gas receipt. He also contacted the National Enquirer and Hard Copy.” Rafferty looked over steel-rimmed reading glasses at Anne. “Do you have any information relating to that, Ms. Murphy?”
“No.”
“So all you know is that you’re alive?”
“And that Kevin Satorno will kill me if he finds out.”
Rafferty was shaking his head. The heavyset partner was typing slowly. The newest line of the white interview sheet rolling out of the typewriter read KILL ME IF HE.
Bennie pressed on Anne’s shoulder to quiet her. “We’re asking you for one more day, Detective. Just one day, then you can go public with it. The world still thinks Anne’s dead. Let’s let them keep thinking it for one more day. If you release this information, you’ll lose any chance of catching Satorno and you’ll place my associate in jeopardy.”
“I don’t see what difference one day will make.” Rafferty couldn’t stop shaking his head, which Anne didn’t take as a good sign.
Bennie leaned over. “It won’t be July Fourth weekend, that’s the difference, and it’s all the difference in the world. Like you said, the tests wouldn’t be delayed if not for the weekend. Later, you’ll free up personnel. The holiday will be over, the traffic will settle down, and everybody will be back to work. Think about it, Detective.”
Rafferty stopped shaking his head.
“When the world finds out that Anne is alive, the story will explode. Especially after the debacle at the memorial service, with her colleague accused of her murder in front of everyone. Hard Copy, Court TV, CNN, all the networks will pour into town, if they haven’t already. You really think you can handle that kind of deluge today, with two uniforms on duty?”
“We have more than that.”
“Not much, and consider, it’s the Fourth of July celebration, in the city that gave birth to the nation. All eyes are on us, Detective. You really want Philly to look bad right now? What will it do for the department? You really want national attention focused on the fact that the department didn’t notice the mistaken ID of a murder victim?”
Rafferty started to listen, and Anne knew Bennie was throwing anything against the wall that might stick, a time-honored tradition among trial lawyers.
“Detective, we all agree that Anne Murphy was doing nothing but trying to save her own life, and hide from a man who had tried to kill her in L.A. You really want to charge her with obstruction, Detective? You really want to take this woman and hang her out to dry, for all the country to see, on Independence Day, in Philadelphia?”
Rafferty groaned. “You saying the women’s groups gonna be on me now? Why does everything have to be ‘woman this, woman that’?”
“It’s not a woman thing, it’s a victim thing.”
“I’m not a victim,” Anne blurted out, and Bennie said:
“Shut up.”
Rafferty was shaking his head again. “I don’t like being threatened, Rosato.”
“Nether does Anne Murphy, and neither do I. All I ask is one day, one lousy day. I’ll turn her in on Tuesday morning, and we’ll break it to the press together. Hold a news conference, all of us making nice. Safeguarding victim’s rights, after we catch the bad guy.”
Rafferty’s gaze slid toward his partner, who had stopped typing at FINDS OUT. “What do you think, Beer Man?”
Anne didn’t need an explanation for the nickname.
“Tuesday isn’t one day from now,” the partner said. “It’s Sunday, so Tuesday is two days.”
Bennie didn’t hit him. “It’s right after the holiday weekend. Tuesday morning, bright and early.”
Rafferty looked like he was thinking about it. “I don’t know if I have the authority to do something like this.”
Anne opened her mouth to say Bullshit, but Bennie buried strong fingers in her shoulder. “Let me talk to your captain, then,” Bennie said. “Let me make my case.”
“Can’t. He’s in the emergency room at Temple. Broke his ankle in a softball game.”
“The lieutenant then. I’ll talk to him.”
“He’s down the shore, at his house in Longport for the weekend.”
“The inspector?”
“He’s at PAL parties, for the neighborhood kids. He goes to thirty of them today. Sack races and roasted marshmallows. Fireworks, the whole thing.”
“Only you and me working today, huh?” Bennie shrugged. “Then I guess you have the authority, Coach.”
“Maybe.”
“The real question is, what are you gonna do with those clowns in stir, those so-called reporters?” Bennie frowned. “I want them charged. They ruined our chance to catch Satorno and they attacked Carrier. Murphy almost got stampeded because of them.”
“Right,” Judy added. “And now everybody in the city thinks I’m Anne’s killer.”
“Don’t come cryin’ to me.” Rafferty gestured at Anne and Judy. “You girls brought it on yourselves. You sent out the flyer. You whipped up the media, you told ’em to go get the big scoop. You shoulda known that you were gonna get legit reporters—and knuckleheads like those kids—all riled up.”
Judy looked down, and Anne’s fair skin turned pink. Unfortunately, the detective was making sense. Anne was happy she didn’t have to speak for herself, for once. Mental note: Nothing wrong with the term “mouthpiece.”
“That doesn’t excuse what those two men did, Detective,” Bennie answered, angry. “What is this, trial by tabloid? If they had evidence relating to a murder, gas receipts and such, then they should have turned it over to you.”
“Like you did?” Rafferty snorted. “You had knowledge that Murphy was alive. Did you call us?”
“Please. I wasn’t trying to make money, or get famous. I was trying to protect my employees, which is hardly the same thing, and we did call you in time. If you’re not going to charge those two assholes, you’d better keep them away from me.” Bennie was almost spitting-mad. It was like having a mother grizzly for a lawyer.
“Cool it, Rosato. They’re kids. The one with the jungle hat, he’s cryin’ like a baby.” His high forehead creased deeply. “The real question is what you’re gonna do for me, if I let your girl stay dead.”
“Anything. Almost.”
“This is what I want.” Rafferty turned and pointed a finger at Anne. “No more amateur cop, you. We got the resources. We got the expertise. We got a homicide fugitive squad, joint with the Feds, and they’re all over it. We link up with all the states, all the networks. We’re the cops, you’re not, get it? So, no more, young lady!”
“Agreed.” Anne didn’t add, But I flushed him out with a bunch of flowers.
“No running around, no funny hats, no happy horseshit, understand?” The detective shifted closer, and his pantleg slid up, giving Anne a glimpse of an ankle holster holding a dark-handled revolver. A .38 caliber Smith & Wesson, not a knock-off. She wished she had one of those babies, but knew it wasn’t the right thought at this moment.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“This is for your own good, Miss Murphy. Fugitive apprehension is a dangerous business. If I catch you outta line one more time, I’m lockin’ you up. Got me, counselor?”
“Understood,” Anne said. She did understand. Next time, she wouldn’t get caught.
The detective eyed her warily, then Judy and Mary. “You read me, ladies?”
“Yes, sir,” said Mary.
“We’ll be good,” said Judy.
“We got a deal?” Bennie asked, but she already knew the answer.
Half an hour later, the lawyers were running the media gauntlet outside the Roundhouse, barreling in mourning clothes through reporters, cameras, videocams, shouted questions, and klieg lights. Bennie broke the throng with a strong arm, clutching Anne’s elbow. Judy and Mary flanked them like a moving offensive line.
Anne had kept her head down, wearing Judy’s sunglasses and a canary-yellow PAL baseball cap they stole from a desk in the squad room. They’d made it to the curb, grabbed a cab, lost the newsvan that gave chase, and ended up back at Rosato & Associates, piling into Bennie’s office. Anne had been in here so rarely she couldn’t help looking around when she was supposed to be off with the others, making the requisite coffee.
Overstuffed tapestry-covered chairs in tones of pink-and-claret ringed Bennie’s desk, and the desk chair was of cherry wood, covered with buttery, burgundy leather. The rug was a nubby Berber, and the office was even more cluttered than Anne’s, with law books, papers, case files, and exhibits cramming the bookshelves and covering the large desk and countertops. Certificates and awards from the federal and state bar associations and civil liberties groups blanketed the walls, and Anne wondered if she’d receive even one of those awards in her career. But first she’d have to live long enough. She made it her business to do so. The secret in her bra would help. Not that secret, the other secret.
“Our luck has to get better, doesn’t it?” Judy breezed into the office and handed Anne a cup of coffee, which she accepted with thanks from her somewhat bedraggled colleague. Judy’s black skirt and clogs were drenched with flower water, and she’d lost an earring in the melee. The remaining silver teardrop dangled from her ear and it caught the sunlight as she took the seat next to Anne. “We agreed in the coffee room, the memorial was a fiasco.”
“I’m sorry, Judy,” Anne said. “I hate that everyone will think you’re a murder suspect, even for a day.”
Judy waved it off. “The cops will make a statement that I’m not under suspicion.” Bennie and Mary came into the room bearing coffee, and took their seats, Bennie in her cozy desk chair and Mary next to Judy.
“But nobody will believe it,” Anne countered, and Mary’s face went red.
“I should have checked for pocket cameras.”
Bennie shook her head, taking a sip of coffee. “He was posing as a guest, they both were, and we never thought to search the guests. We weren’t worried about the press, we were worried about Kevin.” She took another quick sip. “And I should have thought about the rental car, when you told me it had been towed. Everybody keeps the papers in the car, they’re temporary registration. I just didn’t think of it.”
“Me neither,” Anne said. “Look, let’s not get crazy over it. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just one of those things that happen.” She thought about explaining random, then decided against it. It would make her look ditzy, like memorizing most of I Love Lucy. Okay, all of I Love Lucy. Then she remembered her conversation with Gil and his admission of his affair with Beth. She couldn’t keep it from them. They were all on the same side now, and girlfriends didn’t keep secrets, Anne knew from TV. “Guys, there’s something we should discuss,” she began, and told them the story. When she had finished, the women were uniformly stony-faced.
“The man is a slimeball,” Judy said.
“A pig,” Mary said.
“A liar,” Anne said.
“A client,” Bennie said.
“Not anymore. I told him to get another lawyer,” Anne shot back, and Bennie set down her coffee mug in surprise.
“Oh, really?”
“Damn straight.”
“You’re fired.”
Ouch.
“I’m kidding, but you shouldn’t have done that.”
“Bennie, Gil lied to me. For almost a year, over and over. You think I didn’t cross-examine Gil about Beth Dietz? I’m not that naive.”
“Then get over the fact that he lied to you. Clients lie. People lie. They want others to think better of them than they are.”
Anne squirmed even on the soft chair. “He cheated on his wife.”
“Since when do you have standing to assert that? You her lawyer? This a divorce action?” Bennie’s blue eyes flashed. “You’re a very smart girl, Murphy, so think analytically. Reason it out. The man is right when he says that it changes nothing, in terms of his lawsuit. And you’re right when you say you don’t put him or the wife up on the stand. I won’t have you suborning perjury.”
“I should tell him to go to hell.”
“No, you have no business speaking that way to a client. I’m sure he knows you were only blowing off steam. What you do now is tell him how to win this lawsuit, because that’s what he’s paying you for. Strike that. Me for. Even better.” Bennie grinned, but couldn’t coax one from Anne.
“So what do I do, Bennie? How can I win this case? Matt is totally right. He has the facts.”
“Matt’s a genius,” Judy said. “A legal genius. He’s Louis Brandeis with hair, Earl Warren with muscles, Felix Frankfurter. With a frankfurter.”
Bennie and Mary laughed, but Anne was trying not to. “Forget I said that. Leave Matt out of it, okay?”
Judy giggled. “Anne, when we said to beat his pants off, we didn’t mean it literally.”
Anne pretended to ignore her. “Bennie, what do I do? Not with Judy, who is completely hopeless, but with Gil.”
“Now it gets interesting.” Bennie picked up her java diva mug again. Everyone in the office knew who it belonged to. “He tells the truth.”
“A novel defense strategy,” Judy interjected, but Bennie had had better practice at ignoring her.
“You put him up, and he says there was an affair, but that it was consensual. You get all the details from him, like how they got together, how it all happened. Times they met, what they did. See if there are any cards she sent him, any notations of their meetings on calendars, any time they went to hotels or restaurants. You want evidence that it was an affair. You will prove it was an affair, and you’ll win.”
Anne shuddered. “Sounds ugly.”
“It is.” Bennie nodded. “Ask Clarence Thomas.”
“I still believe Anita,” Judy said.
“You know what’s really interesting about this development?” Mary asked, and they all paid attention, because she usually left it to others to advance legal theory. She cleared her throat. “What’s interesting is what Matt knows. In other words, has his client lied to him, like Anne’s client lied to her? Does Matt think the affair was consensual or forced?”
“Forced,” Anne answered quickly. Too quickly, she realized, because the others were watching her. They wanted inside information. Pillow talk. Maybe this was why you weren’t supposed to share pillows with opposing counsel. “I don’t think he’d bring the case if he knew it was a lie.”
“Really?” Judy asked. “Plenty of lawyers would.”
“Not him,” Anne said, but everybody was too kind to question her. She had a feeling she would be questioning herself anyway. And she was still wondering why Matt had brought the Dietzes to her service.
Mary nodded. “I’m sure you’re right, Anne. But another issue is why Beth Dietz filed the suit.”
“The affair was over and she was pissed,” Anne answered. “Revenge. That’s what Gil thinks anyway. He said so.”
Bennie stood up and stretched. “Okay, kids, we have a lot going on. The key thing right now is for us to keep Anne safe until the cops pick up Satorno. Here’s what we do—”
“I’d love to get showered, changed, and get back to work on Chipster,” Anne interrupted. She was thinking of the secret in her bra, and she still had no panties. She was having definite lingerie issues. “Can I go back to your house and get cleaned up, Bennie?”
“No. I don’t want you out of my sight. You can use the office shower, like you did before, and we have plenty of clothes here.”
Damn. Anne had to execute her new Plan B and she couldn’t let Bennie in on it. The boss would never agree, after that meeting with the cops. “Please, the clothes here scream fashion mistake. I’ll be safe. Mary and Judy can come with me. They’ll be my bodyguards.”
“You can use my apartment, if you want,” Mary said. “I can lend you some clothes. We’re about the same size.”
Judy finished her coffee. “I’ll watch them both, Bennie,” she offered.
“So can we go, Mom?” Anne asked.
Bennie looked dubious, but this time it was Anne who already knew the answer, and they left the office, sailed down the elevator and out the back entrance, sweltering in black. Anne waited until they had all squeezed into the sweaty backseat of a cab and were five blocks from the office before she reached into her bra.
And the three girls went after Kevin Satorno.
20
SCHWARTZ’S FLOWERS, read the sign outside, and the dark-haired sales clerk was so harried that she barely looked up when the empty shop was invaded by three lawyers in black. She had a cordless phone crooked under one ear and was tapping away on an old keyboard at the computer/cash register. “We’re closed,” she said, hitting the Enter key. “I didn’t have a chance to turn the sign over yet, but we’re totally closed.”
“I just have a question or two,” Mary replied, planting herself at the counter. The girls had agreed by process of elimination that she’d do the questioning; Anne couldn’t draw further attention to herself, Judy was already in the news, and Mary needed assertiveness training.
The clerk only grunted in response, taking an order over the telephone, and Anne took the opportunity to glance around. The store was a single room, square like a corsage box, and the air smelled floral and vaguely refrigerated. The floor was of green indoor-outdoor carpeting, and potted plants ringed the room. Against the walls sat stainless-steel display cases of Gerber daisies in orange and gold, tall iris in characteristic blue, white gladioli, carnations sprayed pink, and long-stemmed white roses. Despite their beauty, Anne felt a dark shiver.
Kevin had been here.
Her eyes fell to the counter cluttered with ribbon snippings, a leftover clump of baby’s breath, and a stray fern. Next to the cash register sat a rack of small gift cards, many of which bore preprinted messages: With Sympathy, Thinking of You, For a Speedy Recovery. Anne’s spotted a plain white card like the one she’d recovered from the floor at the Chestnut Club and had tucked in her underwire. She plucked the new card from the rack and turned it over in her hand while the sales clerk, behind the counter, hung up the phone.
“We’re closed, honest,” the sales clerk repeated. Her eyes were a hazel brown, catching the light that streamed in the storefront window facing her, and her makeup had worn off. She wore a white T-shirt and jeans under a tall, white apron with a green FTD logo on it. Her nameplate read rachel, in kelly green. “I’m already cashed out for the day. I can’t sell you anything.”
“I don’t want to buy anything,” Mary said. “I’m looking for a man named Kevin Satorno, who brought or delivered red roses to a memorial service today. You either employ him or he picked them up here and brought them himself. Can you help? I won’t take up much of your time.”
“His name is Satorno? I can tell you he doesn’t work here.” Rachel smiled. “You gotta be family to work here. If he’s not a Schwartz, he’s not an employee.”
“So you know all the delivery people?”
“They’re all family.”
“No temps?”
“You can’t be a temporary Schwartz.”
Mary smiled. “Okay, that’s a great help. So, that means he bought roses here and delivered them himself.”
“Whatever.” The cordless phone rang, and Rachel picked it up. “No, Twenty-second Street! Twenty-second Street! Not Twenty-third!” She hung up. “My brother is a complete idiot. This is the bad thing about a family business. Your family.”
“Were you working here earlier today and yesterday?”
“Yes. I’m the Schwartz who can count. My brother hates math.”
“This man bought a dozen red roses here, today or yesterday. He delivered them with a card from this shop. He looks like this.” Mary pulled half of the red flyer from her purse and showed it to Rachel. They had decided it was almost as good as Kevin’s mug shot and didn’t tip off that he was wanted by the cops, thus avoiding any pesky questions. “He’s white, tall, young, and good-looking. He has blue eyes, and his hair used to be pale blond, but he’s since dyed it black. It was either blond or black when he came here. I know it’s not overly helpful, but it’s all I’m sure of.”
“Either way, his face doesn’t look familiar.” Rachel handed the flyer back.
“You don’t remember him?”
“No way. Do you have any idea how many people have been in this store over the past two days, buying red roses? Everybody orders red for July Fourth, for entertaining and such. It’s red-white-and-blue time. I can’t keep anything red in stock.” Rachel gestured at the display case. “See that iris? It’s gorgeous but it’ll rot there. July Fourth is almost as bad as Valentine’s Day.”
“I see. Do you keep records of what people order, when they buy?”
“Sure. I fill out an order for the sale, even walk-ins, if that’s what you mean.”
“Does it contain any personal information, like name or address?”
“Sure, I ask everybody for name, address, and phone number, but not everybody wants to give it. They don’t have to legally, but we ask anyway, for the mailing list.” Rachel looked defensive. “If it’s really busy though, I don’t always get a chance to write out the order. I just fill it and give ’em the flowers. Drives my dad nuts.”
Anne was already eyeing the counter for the order forms.
“This Satorno,” Mary continued, “may not have used his real name and he may have even used a fake address, but he bought a dozen red roses here either yesterday or this morning. Do you have any way of looking him up, seeing if he had an order? We need to find him. It’s really important.”
“Find his order?” Rachel wiped a dark strand of hair from her damp brow. “Listen, I’m sorry, but I have to close and I have a shitload to do before I leave. You know how long it would take to go through the orders for red roses? They’re not even sorted and they’re all mixed in. I wasn’t going to deal with it until Tuesday.”
Anne kept looking for the order forms. Behind the counter, next to a multicolored ribbon rack, sat a series of gray loose-leaf notebooks that contained catalogs, then she struck gold. Order slips. Some were stacked on an old-fashioned spike, but most were in disarray. She nudged Mary, whose gaze had already located them.
“Rachel, I know you’re busy, but we can help. If you’d let us look through the order forms, maybe we could find him. With the three of us, we could look through them in no time, and we’d leave the orders sorted for you. You wouldn’t have to do it on Tuesday. We could do it while you closed up and we’d be finished right away. Your dad would think you’re a star.”
“No, sorry.” Rachel shifted her weight behind the counter. “I’d like to, but I can’t.”
“A woman’s life depends on it. She’s about your age, and but for the grace of God—”
Anne stepped forward. “My life,” she said, surprised at the desperation straining her voice. “Please, we won’t keep you, I swear.”
Rachel looked at Anne, and sighed heavily.
Half an hour later, the sign on the door had been flipped to closed, but anyone looking through the storefront window would have seen three women in black, standing on the far side of the counter in front of three stacks of order slips. Mary, Judy, and Anne were each paging through the weekend’s slips, but so far no red roses had been sold to a Kevin Satorno, anyone with the initials K.S., or any other aliases he would have used.
At least one that Anne could imagine. She had only ten orders left and she was already feeling it was a fool’s errand. Kevin would never leave his real name or a real address. He was a fugitive and he was smart. But she wanted to be thorough and she tried not to be discouraged. There were two other piles. “How you doing, Mary?” she asked. “Any luck?”
“Not so far.”
“Don’t give up!” Judy said, but Anne could see her pile was down to five orders. No way was there an order for Kevin. It was a waste of time. She couldn’t face it. If they didn’t get him now, when would they? At her funeral? How many fake ceremonies could they stage? She returned to her receipts. Invoice # 00547, Invoice # 00548, Invoice # 00549.
Anne sighed. That was it. No more orders. She fought back tears of frustration. “Somebody please tell me that they found his order,” she said aloud.
Mary bit her lip. Her stack had been searched and turned over. “No Satorno. No name here even remotely suspicious. Just a bunch of orders for red roses and red, white, and blue carnations.”
Judy was examining her last invoice. “Lots of roses, none to him. Most of these orders were bought by women, but he wouldn’t have gone that far with an alias.” She turned to Anne. “Maybe we should just take all the red-rose orders and go to each house that’s listed, regardless of name.”
Anne shook her head. “No. He’d leave a fake address. Why wouldn’t he? I bet he walked in, paid in cash, got his flowers, and walked out.”
Rachel came from the back office, her apron gone and her hair swept back by a headband made from a leftover ribbon. She held a Hefty bag full of trash. “I’m all done locking up out back. I even cleaned out the delivery vans. Did you find him?”
“No,” Anne answered, dejected.
“I’m sorry. If I could think of another way to help you, I would.” Rachel logged off the computer at the counter, then unfolded the Hefty bag and snapped it open. “I only have one chore left, then I really do have to go. My family expects me at a barbecue.”
“Sure, I understand,” Anne said. She was wracking her brain. What else could they do? Should they go to the houses? Check if the addresses really were fake?
“My brother’s already there, and my parents.” Rachel reached under the counter, pulled out a large wastebasket painted with flowers, and hoisted it with one skinny arm. Anne grabbed the Hefty bag by its yellow drawstring and held the other side open for her, having nothing else to do but cry. “Thanks,” Rachel said, with a grateful smile. “My brother always leaves the trash for me. Pig.”
“Thank you for trying to help.” Anne held her side of the Hefty bag while piles of silver flower-wrap, green tissue, and plant material tumbled inside, followed by a discarded catalog and soggy paper towels. Then she saw it. A plain white card. I love you, it said. Or did it? White freesia buds buried it like an avalanche. Was Anne seeing things? Wasn’t that a card, like the one he’d delivered to the memorial? Wasn’t that Kevin’s handwriting?
“Wait!” Anne shouted. She shoved a hand in the trash, attacking it like a madwoman, shifting through the papers and cards and ferns. “Did you see? I thought I saw another card Kevin wrote.”
Mary came over. “Like the first? Another one?”
Judy reached for the Hefty bag. “In the trash?”
Anne rooted around the trash, fishing for the card. “Can I dump it, please? Please? Rachel, please? I’d owe you so big-time, I swear.”
Rachel half-smiled. “Sometimes I hate this job.”
“I’m sorry, I really am. It’s just that I saw something he wrote.” Anne took the bag and dumped it on the floor, shaking it empty. She knelt down beside the filth and started sifting.
Mary held up the plain, white card they’d brought with them. “It looked like this, and says, ‘I love you.’ That’s all.”
Rachel took the card from Mary’s hand, examining it. “This looks familiar to me. I remember this. I don’t remember the guy, but I remember the cards.”
“Cards?” Judy asked. “What do you remember? Cards? Plural?”
“Cards!” Anne almost cried, half-listening as she went through the trash. Rosebuds, daisy petals, gum, cigarette butts, and inventory sheets went flying. There was the card! She picked it up and held it high. “’I love you,’ it says.” Then her eyes fell on another card atop the trash. I love you. Again, in Kevin’s writing. “Look at this! There’s more!” She searched. I love you I love you I love you I love you. Four more cards, all in Kevin’s hand. Then another. “There’s five of them here! Wait, six!”
“My God,” Mary said, hushed, and Judy bent over the trash pile and started looking.
“Here’s another!” Judy said, finding a white I love you card. “I don’t get it. They all say the same thing?”
“I thought that was a little weird!” Rachel exclaimed. “It’s coming back, now. This dude wrote the card at the counter, which a lot of people do, but he wrote it over and over. At first, I thought it was so cute. He wanted it to be just right. I made a joke but he didn’t laugh. He kept writing them over and over. Is he the guy?”
“Yes!” Anne was arranging the cards in a line on the counter. Eleven cards lined up like a dotted line. I love you I love you I love you I love you. “So, where is his order?”
“Oh, no. I was mad busy. He must have been one of the ones I didn’t fill out.” Rachel’s face clouded. “He must have come at the worst time. I didn’t have a chance, I just wanted to make the sale and not hold anybody up. That’s why I don’t remember his face, I guess.”
“No address?” Anne’s heart went through the fake-grass floor, but she didn’t want to make Rachel feel bad. Kevin had probably planned it that way so he wouldn’t be recognized, or maybe he just got lucky. “He wouldn’t have left a real address anyway. Did you see where he came from?”
“No. I’m so sorry.” Rachel looked so crestfallen, Anne reached out and touched her arm.
“It’s all right. Did he drive or was he on foot, do you know?”
“I don’t know, but you can’t park around here. He must have walked.”
“Do you recall how he paid?”
“Cash, I think. Yeah, cash.” Rachel screwed up her cute nose. “It is weird to write the same thing so many times, isn’t it? I mean, some people mess up or get obsessive, but not like that.”
“He’s more obsessive than most.” Anne found a laugh, and suddenly Rachel brightened.
“Wait! I remember, he left his pen! He left his pen! He was writing so many cards and he was so happy when he got a good one, and then I made the joke and noticed him, and he got pissed off. He walked out so fast he left his pen. Does that matter?”
“I doubt it, but let’s see.” Anne couldn’t help but feel excited, and Rachel was already grabbing the tall white pen-and-pencil holder.
“I put it in here. His pen, with the others.” Suddenly she dumped the cup on the counter. Pens, pencils, a screwdriver, and an Exacto knife clattered onto the clean surface and started rolling around. There had to be thirty pens; red, green, blue, and white, piled like a child’s pick-up sticks. Then Anne noticed something about the pens.
“They have logos! Maybe they’ll say where they’re from.” Anne scooped up a navy ballpoint, twisted it, and read the imprinted letters out loud. “Property of The Best Grandpop in The World.’”
Judy was reading a purple pen she’d found. “’Claritin-D 24-hour.’”
Mary squinted at a black pen. “‘Ace Appliance.’ I use them!”
Anne grabbed a white pen, read it, and felt a jolt like electricity surge though her system. She thrust it into the air, and it shot up like a Roman candle. “We got him!”
21
Anne was surprised to discover that a lime-green VW Beetle could be almost as much fun as a Mustang convertible. Okay, not really, but she was so excited that they were finally going to get Kevin that she was trying to convince herself. Judy was driving her car, Mary was in the passenger seat, and Anne bounced along on the cloth-covered back bench as the VW chugged its way up the incline of the Ben Franklin Bridge. Mental note: Any vehicle with daisies in the dashboard is not a muscle car.
Anne rolled the white pen from the florist’s between her fingers. It was a cheap plastic ballpoint with gold-toned letters that read daytimer motel. Underneath was the motel’s address and phone, in Pennsauken, New Jersey. It had been the only motel or hotel pen in the pencil cup at Schwartz’s, and Anne was praying that Kevin had found a room at the Daytimer. The Beetle reached the top of the bridge and slowed behind snaky lines of traffic.
“Uh, oh. People still going down the shore,” Judy said with a sigh. She had rolled up the sleeves of her blouse and let her left arm dangle out the window. “I was hoping everybody who was going had gone already.”
“Damn.” Anne edged between the two front seats and assessed the traffic through the funky windshield. “This looks bad. How long will it be, do you think?”
“Not too long,” Judy answered. “There’s a line to the toll booths, but they’re not taking tolls this direction, so it’ll move along.”
“It’s enough time to call Bennie,” Mary ventured. “I have my cell. Maybe we should.”
“No,” Judy and Anne answered in unison, and Anne was liking Judy better and better.
“Don’t back out now,” Anne said, to a worried Mary. “We settled this. We’ll call Bennie as soon as we see that Kevin’s checked in at the Daytimer. Why bother her if it’s a dry hole? If this isn’t the pen he left? We’re just taking a chance that he’s at the Daytimer, and it’s a remote chance, at best.”
Judy nodded. “Anne’s right. Also Bennie would never let us do this, and why shouldn’t we? It’s fun! We get to play hooky! Isn’t it so cool up here?” She waved her arm against a clear blue backdrop of sky and a soaring arc of expansion bridge, but Anne couldn’t stop thinking about Kevin. They were back on track, after losing him at the service. She would get him yet. She was so close she could shoot him.
“It’s smart of Kevin to stay in New Jersey, isn’t it?” she asked, idly. “It gets him out of town and takes the heat off.”
Judy agreed. “Plus, it raises a jurisdictional question with the Philly police. Requires cooperation with the FBI, which is problematic.”
Mary covered her ears. “We shouldn’t be discussing this. This is wrong. We’re going against Bennie. She’ll fire us.” She uncovered her ears and turned to the backseat. “Murphy, let’s talk about the case. Chipster. You have to make a new opening argument, now that you’re going to tell about the affair.”
“You’re right,” Anne considered it, then reached into her purse, snapped the phone open, and hit speed-dial for Gil. “Here we go. Everybody be quiet.”
“No fart noises, Mare,” Judy warned. The VW stopped next to a gigantic billboard for Harrah’s Marina, in which a woman drove a steamboat as big as an ocean liner. Sequined letters glittered, i’ll take you there. The call was picked up.
“Gil, it’s Anne.” She cupped the phone around her ear to keep out the traffic noise.
“Anne, where are you? Are you okay? I was so worried about you, after what happened at the Chestnut Club.”
Right, that’s why you haven’t called. “Listen, we need to discuss your new defense. Meet me tonight, at the office at seven and bring any evidence you have of your affair with Beth.”
“Evidence? Like what?”
“Cards, letters, anything.” Anne flashed on I love you I love you I love you. Weird how parallel the relationships seemed. “Cards from flowers. Hotel receipts, phone bills, calendar notations. Any writings at all that show your relationship with Beth was consensual, not a quid pro quo for continued employment. We’re not going to hide the truth. We’re going to prove it.”
“Anne, no! I don’t want that public, not now.”
“It’s the only way you’ll win. We have to preempt any argument Beth may have, any proof of a sexual relationship.”
“She has nothing! I never wrote her anything. You think I’m stupid?”
Don’t answer. It’s not good client relations. “They have Bonnard, the French woman. She’s already testified at her dep that you forced her into sex, so they have pattern and practice. We’re moving to exclude it but the judge won’t rule until next week, and he’ll probably let it in. If they come at us, you’re dead and so is Chipster.”
“But I didn’t force her! I didn’t force any woman! I did have a thing with Janine Bonnard, but—”
Oh, great. “I know, you’ve been fooling around for years. That’s our defense. It isn’t pretty, but it isn’t illegal. We’ll talk when we meet. Just bring the stuff. I have to go.”
“What do I tell Jamie? That I’m going to humiliate her in public?”
You did that already. “Tell her I want her at that trial every day, in the front row. And when I put her up, she’s going to tell the truth. Testify about the pain your affairs caused her, but say that you wouldn’t force sex on anyone. Your philandering will win this case, Gil. Your pattern and practice is cheating, not harassment.”
“That would be awful for Jamie, and for me!”
“No, it will be awful for you, but I have a feeling Jamie would love to tell her story, and she just may save your sorry ass. She’ll be a counterpoint to the plaintiff, and the truth of what happened comes out best through her, because it’s so obviously against her interest to admit. The jury will see that you’ve been punished, and go for the defense.”
Gil sounded distinctly unhappy. “Anne, I have to think about this.”
“We’ll talk tonight, after I see what you got.”
“Does this mean you’re still my lawyer?”
“See you tonight.” Anne snapped the phone closed, feeling uneasy. She’d liked the case so much better when she believed in Gil. Now she knew the truth.
Judy met her eye in the rearview mirror. “Traffic’s starting to move,” she said. “It’s a sign.”
“Let’s go get ’em,” Anne said, and Mary managed a cautious smile.
Fifteen minutes later the VW was zipping through the toll booths and negotiating Admiral Wilson Boulevard, which didn’t show the Garden State to great advantage. Its four lanes snaked through strip bars, liquor stores, then more strip bars and liquor stores. Sometimes the scenic wonder was interrupted by another casino billboard or a strip bar that called itself a gentleman’s club. Anne felt confident that no gentlemen went there. The VW took a left, then a right, winding past tire warehouses, an auto body yard, and a stop for the PATCO speed line, a monorail tram that took commuters over the bridge into Philadelphia. After getting lost a little, the Beetleful of sweaty lawyers finally found themselves in the parking lot of the Daytimer.
It was a small, tawdry motel that looked like it had been built in the sixties, with a low-slung sloping roof at the entrance, which was meant to serve as a carport. The glass over the front door was covered by security bars, and to its right flickered a neon sign that read VACANCY. As disgusting as the place was, it was all Anne could do not to run in. “I can’t believe we’re here. We got him!”
Judy pulled into a space facing the entrance and cut the ignition. “Whoa,” she said, looking over the curved hood. “Take a look at this layout. I like it.”
Anne boosted herself up and realized immediately what Judy meant. The motel had been designed as a short, straight line, like a hyphen set parallel to the parking lot, and it consisted of two floors, so that its two decks of numbered rooms were in full view of the lot and street. “We can see all the doors, and when he goes in and out.”
“Hey, check out the license plates.” Mary was eyeing the parking lot. “They’re all out-of-state. Connecticut. New York. Maine. Virginia. That’s funny. There’s nothing to see around here, no tourist attractions.”
“It’s a cheater motel, dufus,” Judy said knowingly. “Out-of-staters come here to cheat, probably traveling salesmen and people like that. The locals don’t come here to cheat because if they do, they’ll be seen.”
Anne hung over the front seat. “That must be how Kevin got the room here on the holiday weekend. The business trade is down because of the Fourth. Even the cheaters stay home.” The more she thought about it, the more sense it made. “And he’s close to the PATCO speed line, between Philly and Jersey, if he stays here. That must be how he gets back and forth to the city, since he probably doesn’t have a car.”
“Look!” Mary exclaimed, pointing up, and they did. A short, older man dressed business-casual was leaving a room on the second floor. Next to him sashayed a much younger woman in red hot-pants and matching platform shoes. “Is that a—”
“Hooker,” Judy supplied.
Anne was disappointed it wasn’t Kevin, but Mary gasped.
“Is she a hooker? An actual hooker?” Mary couldn’t stop watching the couple as they strode past on the top balcony, the woman’s hips rolling expertly as she walked. “I never saw a real hooker before.”
Anne was intent on getting Kevin. “So now what do we do? We have to find out if he’s registered here, and if he’s in.”
Mary watched the entrance. “I wonder if we should call Bennie, or the cops. Let them take it from here.”
“No!” Anne and Judy answered, again as one.
Anne leaned toward. “Don’t worry. We don’t know anything yet, not for sure, so we shouldn’t call Bennie. And which cops would we call? The Philly police have no jurisdiction in Jersey, like Judy said, and we don’t know anybody in the Jersey police. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“It’s an FBI matter,” Mary said, biting her thumbnail. “We’d start there.”
Judy looked over. “Mare, what’re we gonna do? Call ’em up? Hello, FBI?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Mary answered, but there was little conviction in her voice.
“I don’t think he’s in there,” Anne said, eyeing the motel. Nobody was going in and out of the front entrance. The place looked sort of empty. “We know Kevin was in Philly at noon, at the memorial service. My guess is he’s still there, in town. Watching my house or the office, or hanging out in a gay bar until the excitement from the memorial service dies down. Planning his next move. A fugitive would want to stay mobile, so he can react as the situation changes.”
“This sounds dangerous.” Mary turned around, and Anne could read the fear straining her brown eyes.
“If he’s not in there, there’s no danger. We’re not going to try to take him down ourselves, anyway. We go inside, see if he’s registered, then call the cops. That’s the plan.” Anne’s resolve strengthened. “This is me, planning. Right before your very eyes.”
Judy grinned. “It doesn’t count as planning if you do it when you need it, Anne. It has to be in advance, like premeditation.”
Anne was dying to get inside that motel. “Okay, so we have to find out if he’s registered. Otherwise we’re waiting out here for no reason.”
“How do we do that?” Judy asked, turning to Anne. “He wouldn’t be registered under his real name.”
“We can describe him to the clerk, like we did to Rachel. Maybe the clerk will remember something.”
Judy shook her head, so her lone silver earring dangled. “The clerk won’t tell you, or let you see the register. He’s not supposed to, and I bet he won’t, at a cheater place. Especially to a woman. You could be the guy’s wife.”
“What if I paid him? I could slip him a twenty, or even a fifty.”
“That only works in the movies. This is New Jersey.”
Anne began to smile. “I have a better idea.”
“Is the FBI involved?” Mary asked.
“Quite the contrary. But first, somebody has to go shopping. Mary, you’re elected. Take the car. Cherry Hill Mall is less than ten minutes away. Judy and I will stay here, so we don’t miss Kevin if he comes back. We’ll hide in some car, if one is open.” Anne twisted around, scoping out the surroundings. “Or maybe in that gas station. If Kevin comes back, we call the cops right away.”
“What’s your idea?” Mary asked. “And why do I have to go shopping? I just went shopping!”
“This is what happens when girls fight crime,” Anne answered. And, as politically incorrect as it was, nobody even tried to deny it.
An hour later, three women emerged from a chartreuse VW Beetle and wobbled in red platform shoes across the gritty asphalt parking lot of the Daytimer Motel. Heavily made-up, they wore red satin hot-pants and midriff tops covered with blue-and-white stars. They were supposed to be hookers, but Anne thought they looked like an X-rated women’s gymnastic team. Either way, they were sashaying a step closer to finding Kevin.
“I don’t see why we had to dress all the same, Mare,” Judy grumbled. She was a large-boned, strong girl, but looked surprisingly slender in her midriff and hot-pants. Makeup added years to her face, so she looked almost postpubescent. “I don’t think real hookers dress alike when they go out on . . . jobs. Or whatever they’re called.”
“It saved time to get three outfits the same, and it’s a Fourth of July theme.” Mary’s ankle collapsed, but she righted herself. She cut a curvy, compact figure in her outfit, and the hot-pants made her short legs look longer. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her lips were a crimson red, expertly applied by Anne, who’d had to make them all up. Mary hadn’t resisted the hooker makeover. “Besides, it’s better for the plan.”
“It’s a dumb plan,” Judy said.
“It’s a good plan,” Mary said.
“It’s an awesome plan,” Anne said. “At least the hot-pants are cooler than the black dresses.” She wasn’t a midriff fan, especially since she was still retaining water, but she was in love with the platforms. “Stiletto heels and ankle straps. I love ankle straps. They look like a pair of Bruno Maglis I saw once, for ten times as much.”
“Watch out, a curb!” Mary shouted, like the lookout on the Titanic. The paved curb to the entrance of the Daytimer Motel loomed straight in their path. “Curb! Dead ahead!”
“Heads up!” Judy warned.
“Don’t look down!” Anne advised them. “Hold hands and go for it! On the count of one, two, three!”
“Wheee!” They held hands like paper dolls and jumped onto the pavement. “We did it!”
“I love these shoes!” Anne said, exhilarated, and Mary giggled.
“I like being tall, even if I can’t walk.”
Judy grimaced as they reached the motel’s front door, and she grabbed the smudgy glass handle. “Shopping for clothes, talking about clothes, wearing new clothes. Catching a psycho killer can only pale in comparison.”
And the hookers hobbled inside.
22
There was no lobby in the Daytimer Motel, only a small paneled room with a fake-wood counter that blocked access to the elevators beyond. Folded brochures, improbably for Amish country, flopped over on a metal rack next to an old tan computer, a dirty telephone, and a stack of free newspapers called Pennysavers, their ink so black it came presmudged. The man behind the counter was pushing eighty years old, with greasy glasses, dark eyes, and a stained, white, polo shirt. His grizzled beard enveloped a fleshly leer that appeared the moment Anne walked in the door, leading her cadre of Fourth-of-July prostitutes.
She swiveled her hips as she approached, making the most of the distance to the counter, then leaned over and flashed the clerk an ample view of her stars and stripes. “I’m looking for a man,” she purred. “Me and my friends, that is, we’re looking for a man. We were told that he’d be staying here.”
“He’s a lucky man,” the clerk said, sneaking a peek.
“Oh, he’s very lucky.” Anne batted her eyelashes prettily. It wouldn’t have done much for Matt, but he wasn’t old enough to remember Betty Boop. “We’re sort of a present, for July Fourth. Sent by some friends of his, from his college frat. They wrote the man’s name on a card, but I lost it. Silly me.”
“Poor you.”
“So the only way we can find this frat boy and give him his . . . gift is for you to help us. So will you? Help us?”
“Please help us,” Mary murmured, flirting backup.
“If you don’t help us, we’ll get fired.” Anne pouted. “A girl’s gotta make a living, you understand? We can’t get fired. That would be awful.”
“Terrible,” Mary added.
Judy leaned over. “Then we’d have to go to law school.”
The clerk heh-heh-hehed, his lips newly wet. “Sure, I’d be glad to help youse, all a youse. But how’m I gonna find the guy, if you don’t know his name?”
“We know a little what he looks like. He’s young, with real short hair, and he’s kind of tall. Maybe six feet, kinda muscle-y. He’s got blue eyes, and he’s white. He has either black or blond hair, I forget. He likes to change it around, like a rock star or somethin’. He checked in recently, no more than a week ago at the most. He mighta gone out today.”
“Got it.” The clerk was already typing away on a dirty gray keyboard, checking an ancient 286 computer. His eyes went back and forth slowly as he read the screen, and he popped the Enter key with a dirty fingernail. “He’s staying here, ya think?”
“Yes, we think so.” Anne nodded, as did the others. So say we all, said the nod.
“Come on, honey.” Suddenly the clerk stopped hitting the key and looked skeptically around the monitor at Anne. “You’re lying about the frat boy, aren’t ya?”
Anne tried not to look nervous. “Well, why do you ask?”
“’Cause the man you described, he sounds like this guy in 247, but he’s no frat boy. He checked in five days ago. His hair was blond, but from the cut, I’d bet a million bucks he just got outta prison, not college.”
“Really?” Anne’s heart gave a little jump, in platforms. It had to be Kevin. “Maybe that is the man we’re supposed to party with. Maybe the guys who hired us just didn’t want to say. Not that I’d hold it against him, if he served his time and all.”
“That’s how I feel.” The clerk clicked backward on the computer, then pointed at the screen. “Here he is. The name Ken Reseda ring a bell?”
“Yes!” Anne answered, with excitement she couldn’t hide. Kevin was born in Reseda, California, she remembered from his file. Ken Reseda had to be Kevin Satorno. “That’s him. Aren’t you so smart!”
“Well, I don’t know.” The clerk smiled under his grizzle. “I can spot an ex-con a mile away. You’d be surprised what you learn, people-watchin’. I see plenty here. Been in the hotel business twenty-five years. I own the place, you know.”
“I assumed. It’s so well-run.”
“And homey,” Mary added.
Judy leaned over. “It’s the fucking Ritz.”
Anne suppressed her smile. “So, do you happen to know if Mr. Reseda is in or not?”
“I wasn’t on this morning, but I’ll check.” The clerk looked at the old-fashioned wooden cubbyholes behind him, then turned back. “His key ain’t there. You were right. He musta went out this morning.”
“Oh, that’s okay. Maybe you wouldn’t mind giving us a key for Mr. Reseda’s room and keeping it our little secret? So we can surprise him when he comes home?”
“I think we can arrange that, my dear,” the clerk said, with a wink. He reached behind the counter and took a duplicate key from the cubbyhole.
“And could you ring his room if he gets back while we’re in there?” Anne knew they were taking a risk, but nobody could be convinced to stay behind in the car as a lookout. “We’ll need a little warning if he shows up, so we can . . . get ready.”
“Powder our noses,” Mary said.
Judy leaned over. “I have to build the cage.”
“Okay. Here’s the key, and I’ll make the call, if I see him.” The clerk held the key just out of Anne’s reach, with lecherous grin. “Any chance I’ll get a gift from youse girls in return? I got a good ticker, still.”
Anne laughed it off, or tried to. “I’m not your type.”
Mary chuckled in support. “I’m too expensive.”
Judy leaned over. “I sue people for fun.”
The man’s leer evaporated, and he handed Anne the key with a nervous glance toward Judy. “She’s a little freaky, isn’t she?” he whispered.
“Superfreak,” Anne assured him, and they teetered to the elevator bank.
The tiny elevator was waiting, open, and the girls didn’t start bickering until they were stuffed inside it with the doors closed. Judy pushed a freshly moussed curl from a mascaraed eye, looking wounded at Anne. “You told him I was a freak!” she said, hurt.
“All I did was play along so we could get past the desk.” Anne couldn’t wait to get upstairs, watching the broken floor-number change to two, but Mary looked increasingly worried.
“Are we really going up there alone? Shouldn’t we call Bennie first and tell her? We said we would.”
“Relax, it’s an empty room,” Anne said. “Also, she’ll stop us.”
“I’m not in love with this,” Mary said, but Anne grabbed her hand as the elevator doors rattled open.
“Come on, we’ll be fine.” She found herself on a covered balcony with a vending machine set against white stucco walls, gone gray with grime. Anne led them to the right because there was no other choice. The balcony had a view of the motel parking lot, the gas station, and a tire dump. “Let’s go.”
“I’m no freak,” Judy muttered, tottering behind. “I don’t want to be a freaky hooker, I want to be a normal hooker.”
“Then why’d you say that thing about the cage?” Anne checked the room key on the fly. It was stamped 247. They were at 240. Kevin was so close; at least his room was. Their platforms scuffed on the gritty tile floor as they clomped past 240, 241, and 242, with Judy still pouting.
“I don’t know. My feet hurt.”
“Well, I’m sorry if I libeled you. I really am.” Anne couldn’t fuss with Judy, not so close to Kevin’s room. Her stomach felt tight.
Mary brought up the rear. “He liked you the best, Jude. I could tell, from the way he looked at you.”
“You think? He said I was a freak.”
“That’s how I know,” Mary said. “Men love freaky chicks. Crazy, freaky chicks. This is why I can’t get a date. I’m too Catholic.”
Judy lifted an eyebrow, and Anne fell silent when she reached the door. She slid the key inside the lock in the doorknob and opened the hollow door, her heart starting to hammer. Even though Kevin wasn’t supposed to be here, she opened the door slowly. She felt suddenly loathe to enter his room, his world, his mind. When the door swung open, Judy appeared beside her and Mary filed in behind, surveying the bizarre scene:
The room was small, with a bathroom to the immediate left, but all of the furniture was covered by papers. There were clippings from newspapers, tabloid headlines, written notes, cards, even stacks of photographs. It looked as if it had snowed inside the room, dropping a white blanket on a saggy double bed against the wall and a cheesy desk with a portable TV on a metal stand. Exacto knives and a Scotch-tape dispenser lay strewn on the thin, worn brown rug, along with snippings of newspaper.
Anne felt instantly as if she had seen the room before, then realized she had. She flashed on the pictures of Kevin’s bedroom at his L.A. apartment, which were shown at his trial, exhibits A through whatever. His motel room was a replica of his L.A. bedroom; pictures, clippings, photos of Anne had littered the place, along with maps to her house and her office, with places where she ate and where she shopped encircled. She felt now as if she was stepping into one of the trial exhibits, and the realization momentarily stalled her. It was happening all over again.
Mary closed the door behind them, hurried to the window, and moved the sheer curtain aside slightly. “I’ll stay here and look out, in case he comes back.”
Judy walked past Anne to the bed. “What is all this stuff? Legal papers?” she asked, picking one up. “They are. Here’s the last brief we filed in Chipster.” She flipped through it in surprise, then set it down in favor of the others. “These are all of the papers filed in the Chipster case. Copies of the initial complaint, the answer, even the evidentiary motions, and the complete docket sheet. This is as good a file as ours, and all of it public record.”
Anne willed her feet to move and crossed to the papers littering the desk. Newspaper clippings about Chipster.com lay scattered over the Formica surface, each one carefully razored from the paper. NAKED MAN APPEARS IN COURT, read one subhead, and Anne winced. She sifted through the articles, and it was as if Kevin had scoured all the newspapers; he had all the sidebars on Rosato & Associates and the features on the individual lawyers, as well as the Dietzes. Anne picked one up. It had been printed in color, from the web. How had Kevin managed that? She shoved the clippings aside and buried beneath was a laptop, hooked up to a Hewlett-Packard printer. “Hello. Add receiving stolen goods to the record, ladies.”
Judy had moved farther up the bed and picked up one of the papers. “Look at this. It’s a map of the city with streets circled on it.” She turned on a cheap lamp by the bed and studied the map. “Anne’s house, the office, the courthouse. Weird, but true.”
It sent a chill through Anne. “I don’t want to live through this again.” It came from her heart, speaking out of turn.
But Judy looked up, the map in her hand falling in jointed sections. “I’m not sure this is about you anymore,” she said, her face grave under her exaggerated makeup. “Beth Dietz’s house in Powelton Village is also circled here, and there’s a notation on a circle in the middle of Fifteenth Street. It reads, ‘Beth eats lunch here.’”
“What do you mean?” Anne went over to the bed, where Judy was holding up a photo of the Dietzes leaving the courthouse after a pretrial motion.
“There’s lots of photos here of Beth. Even one from a website that helps people find their high school classmates. He must have researched her and gone in under a fake name.”
“I know that website,” Anne said, scanning the newspaper photos. “You’re right. There are almost as many of Beth Dietz as of me, and he used that site to research me, too.”
Judy was about to set a photo down on the bed when she stopped in mid-arc. “Oh my God, look at this.” She picked up another photo of Beth Dietz and showed it to everyone. This one had a red heart drawn around her face.
Anne froze. She had forgotten until this minute. “He used to do that to my pictures.”
Judy turned. “What’s going on, Anne? Is he in love with Beth now that you’re dead? It looks like he’s switching over or something.”
“Erotomanics do transfer their obsession.” Anne felt a shudder start at the base of her spine, then inch up. “If he thinks he killed me, he may be letting me go. Maybe he’s going to start stalking Beth Dietz now.”
“So he’s in love with her.”
Anne nodded. “Yes, but that’s not the nature of de Clérambault’s. It’s the reverse, remember? What’s happening now is that Kevin is an erotomanic, so he believes that Beth Dietz is in love with him.”
“But she’s married,” Judy said, puzzled, and Anne tried to explain the inexplicable.
“No matter, he’s delusional. No reality destroys the delusion, except for a restraining order. And we know the Dietzes don’t have the best marriage in the world. Maybe Kevin knows that, too. He watched me for a long time before he asked me out. I didn’t find that out until the trial. He’d been stalking me for months without my knowing.”
“Can this happen even if they never met?” Judy asked. “I mean, I doubt that Beth Dietz ever spoke to Satorno.”
“Again, it makes no difference. It was an erotomanic who stalked Madonna, and Martina Hingis. And Meg Ryan. The man who killed that TV actress, Rebecca Schaeffer? He had de Clérambault’s.”
“That’s so scary,” Mary said. She came over and patted Anne’s shoulder, but Anne wasn’t sure whether she was comforting her or drawing comfort from her.
Anne surveyed the scene, knowing the implications for Beth Dietz as clearly as if she were clairvoyant. It would start with e-mails, visits, then roses, notes and cards, phone calls and gifts, and surprise knocks on the door at all hours of the day and night. And it could end with a gun. Anne struggled to compose herself. “As long as Kevin Satorno is at large, Beth Dietz’s life is in danger. The question is, what do we do about it?”
“We tell the police,” Judy answered. “No question.”
“We also tell Beth Dietz,” Mary added. “No question.”
Anne held up a hand like a traffic cop. “Correction. We make sure the cops tell Beth, and I’ll tell Matt, too. I still play dead until Tuesday. We don’t need Kevin enraged right now, for my sake or for Beth’s.”
“Agreed,” Judy said, and Mary was shaking her head.
“This is strange. We’re going to save Beth Dietz’s life, and she’s suing our client. The line between good and evil is shifting.”
“Yeah, it’s funny,” Anne said, though she knew it was just the random part, from her fake-jogging. “As relieved as I am that Kevin may be letting me go, I still wouldn’t wish him on my worst enemy.”
Judy smiled. “You know what that makes you, Murph?”
“A fool?” Anne guessed.
“A hooker with a heart of gold,” Mary answered, and they all laughed.
Minutes later, the lawyers had closed the door to Kevin’s motel room and were scuffing down the corridor and piling into the elevator. Mary flipped open her cell phone, as they’d agreed, and pressed in the office number. “Bennie, guess what?” she said. “We found Kevin’s apartment. He’s at the Daytimer Motel in Pennsauken under the name Ken Reseda.”
The elevator was so tiny, Anne could hear Bennie yelling, “HOW DO YOU KNOW ALL THAT? YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE TAKING CARE OF MURPHY! WHERE IS SHE?”
Mary cringed. “We’re all together, and it’s kind of a long story. We called you as soon as we were sure it was him. We think he started stalking Beth Dietz. You wanna call the cops or should we?”
The elevator opened onto the first floor as Bennie shouted, “WHERE ARE YOU, DiNUNZIO? TELL ME YOU’RE NOT IN JERSEY!”
“Me? Where am I?” Mary tottered past the reception desk. “Uh, at a car wash?”
Judy burst helpfully into car-wash noises. “Ppppshhhhhh! Pssssshhhhh! Ssshhhhhhh!”
A car wash? Anne couldn’t believe it. It was the lamest lie she’d ever heard. It was the lamest lie in the bar association. She was almost embarrassed to be in its presence. These girls were crying out for her expertise, but now wasn’t the time for a lying lesson. She handed the room key to the surprised desk clerk on the way out. “Thank you for your help,” she breathed, in character.
“Why you leavin’? Reseda ain’t back yet.”
“He’s a superfreak,” Anne answered, and wiggled out the door behind the others. She would have asked the clerk not to tell Kevin they’d been there, but he’d be arrested as soon as he hit the lobby.
She finally had him.
23
There was almost no traffic heading into the city, and the Beetle zoomed up the steep slope of the Ben Franklin Bridge, carrying three happy hookers. Wind blew off the Delaware River, setting everyone’s moussed hair flying, and Anne felt almost high as they sped to the top of the bridge.
They had done it. They had found Kevin. He would be arrested, tried, and imprisoned for good. The nightmare would finally be over for her, and for Beth Dietz, who didn’t even know it had started. For Willa, there would be mourning and justice. Tomorrow would be Monday, the Fourth of July. There would be fireworks and ketchup bottles that burped. And Anne was beginning a love affair; one that felt like the real deal, as they said in Philadelphia. She smiled inwardly, with only one regret. “I wish we could have stayed and seen him get arrested.”
Mary’s hair blew crazily around. “Me, too, but Bennie wanted us out, pronto. It wasn’t safe for us to stay. She called the cops on the other line and they’re on their way. And we have to be back at the office, for you to meet with Gil. We’re already late.”
“Also we could have gotten arrested for indecent exposure,” Judy added. As she drove, she wiped off her makeup with Dunkin’ Donuts napkins.
Anne leaned over the front seat. “I wonder how they’ll get him. I guess they’ll stake out the motel undercover, so he’s not warned when he comes back.”
“Right.” Judy accelerated. The car reached the tippy-top of the bridge, laying the entire city at their feet. The skyline shimmered, festive for the Fourth, with the spiky towers of Liberty Place outlined in red, white, and blue neon, and the tops of Mellon Center bathed in red lights. Stray fireworks launched from the Philly side of the waterfront, and one ersatz comet streaked into the twilight, trailing glitter.
Anne couldn’t stop worrying. “Tell me they’ll catch him, Judy.”
“They’ll catch him,” Judy answered. “He’s smart, but not that smart. They’ll get the Philly and Jersey cops, even the Feds all over it. They’ll face Bennie Rosato if they don’t.”
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