First Class Killing

Chapter 34

JAMIE’S NEW HOUSE INWESTCHESTER WAS impressive. It was not exactly a castle, but with its stone façade, arched windows, multiple chimneys, and massive front door, it wasn’t far from it. It stood, as did all of the dwellings on the street, on a large lot clustered with big, sheltering trees that had been there for generations. There were pumpkins on porches and swing sets in yards and a fading afternoon light that bathed everything in early-autumn gold.

I went down the walkway, climbed the steps, and stood on the porch. I had a bunch of flowers in one hand and champagne in the other. The flowers were for Gina, because I wasn’t exactly sure how else to approach the woman who was married to my brother to whom I had not spoken in almost a year. The champagne I had hoped to break out when I announced my new career, the successful completion of our first case, and the possibility of a long-term contract. But that whole idea of celebrating a prostitution case seemed grossly out of sync in this bucolic setting. This was a place for families.

Before I had a chance to ring the bell, the knob turned, and the massive door swung open. Gina reached out. “Come here, you.” She pulled me into a warm embrace, hammering home the realization that any worries about getting a cold shoulder from Gina were more about my head than her heart.

“It is so good to see you,” she said, stepping back to let me in. She looked the way she always did, as if she could feed Cheerios to the kids with one hand, review a corporate contract with the other, and run straight up Mount Rainier and back before lunch. “You’re staying with us tonight, aren’t you? Maybe tomorrow, too?”

“Yeah.” I realized I had left my overnight bag in the trunk. I handed her the flowers. “These are for your new house. It’s good to see you, too.”

“They’re gorgeous. What kind are they?”

“I don’t know. I picked them because I liked the way they smell.”

She closed her eyes and breathed in their sweet fragrance. “They smell so fresh. Look at these, Maddy.”

Peeking out from behind her was a big-eyed girl whose head came to the back of Gina’s knee, and I realized what a difference there was between a two-year-old and a three-year-old. Madeline looked like a person now, albeit a very small one. I squeezed myself down to her height. She had fine blond hair that recalled her mother’s Swedish heritage, two perfect curves for eyebrows, and deeply mischievous eyes that hinted at my own mother’s sense of rowdy fun. She also had no idea who I was.

“I brought flowers for you, too, Madeline.” I fished around in my backpack until I found the tiny pink T-shirt with a bright bouquet of daisies embroidered on the front. It had looked like a doll’s shirt when I bought it, but when I held it up to her, it seemed that I had guessed right, and I took satisfaction in that. Her entire face smiled when she saw it.

“Is it for me?”

“You’re the only one around here who will fit it.”

She touched the shirt as if it were made of the finest silk; then she filled both fists with wads of it and held it up. “Mommy, look.Look, Mommy.”

“It’s beautiful, and so very you. Did you say thank you?”

“Thank you, um…um…do you want to see my new dress?”

“Yes,” I said, honored to be asked. “I do want to see your dress.”

She peeled off and started up a grand staircase in the middle of the foyer. Even at three years old, she moved with the solid confidence of the athletes both her parents were. Even so, judging from the number of stairs she had to negotiate, she would be gone for a while.

“She’s amazing, Gina.”

“Isn’t she?” Gina absentmindedly reached to close the door but misjudged its width by half and laughed at her own confusion. “Have you ever seen such a big door? It’s embarrassing. I feel as if I live in a barn. Let’s go to the kitchen, where I can get my bearings. Bring the champagne.”

Given the design of the house, I half expected to find an open hearth in the kitchen with a rabbit on a spit turning above it. Nope. It was a cook’s kitchen with black marble countertops, a powerful gas stove, and all the sleek, obligatory Sub-Zero accoutrements. It looked and smelled as if Gina had cooked there for years. Whatever we were having for dinner smelled great.

“Jamie should be home any minute,” she said. “He called from the airport.”

“Was he traveling?”

“He had another overnight trip to LA.”

“Your house is beautiful. I like the way it feels.”

“Do you? I’m beginning to like it. Jamie wanted it the minute he saw it. Men are so impressed by size. But I had to be convinced.” She spoke slowly and thoughtfully, as many people do from the Northwest, without the verbal flourishes and smug self-assuredness one might expect of a corporate lawyer. “We don’t have enough furniture, and half the time I don’t know where my children are. You can sit if you want.” She pointed me toward the kitchen table. It was covered with cookie sheets, Ritz crackers, small boxes of raisins, a jar of peanut butter, and pretzel sticks. “You can help me make spiders.”

“Spiders?”

She brought a fully assembled arachnid over, a peanut butter Ritz cracker sandwich with pretzel legs and raisin eyes. “The kids got bored, but I’m still stuck making thirty more for Sean to take to school tomorrow. Couple of smart gals like us…we should be able to knock them out in no time. Don’t you think?”

“I’m ready.”

“Oh, wait. Let me find something for these.” She started a search of her lower cabinets while I rolled up my sleeves and got into assembly mode.

“What are you doing, Mommy?” Sean had materialized at his mother’s side. He put his arm around her neck and leaned against her the way kids do. She pulled him into a quick Mommy squeeze and gave him a big smooch on the cheek. “I’m looking for something to put these flowers in.”

Gina reached up and pulled down the bunch so he could see. “Those are beautiful, Mommy. Where did you get them?”

“Your aunt Alex. Go say hello.”

He turned and looked at me for the first time. He was as I remembered him, only more so-a handsome boy with the kind of openly expressive face that draws the eye of even the other parents at the Christmas pageant. He was blond, like his mother, but his steady dark blue eyes were all Jamie-curious and serious and soulful.

“Hi, Sean.”

“Hi.” He sidled over, flopped an arm onto the kitchen table, and pigeontoed one foot on top of the other.

“Do you remember me?”

“You’re Aunt Alex, only my daddy calls you Za.” He looked everywhere but at me, then searched out his mother, who had found a vase and was now trimming the stems. She wasn’t watching, but she was listening.

“Tell her what grade you’re in, sweetie.”

“I’m in kindergarten.” He stared at his feet until a thought came to him, one of his very own, and then looked up with great excitement. “I’m in a new school, but I don’t have a new best friend yet.”

“New schools can be tough,” I said. “I went to a lot of new schools growing up. So did your daddy.

“Why did he?”

“We moved around a lot.”

“I went to Hartsfield Day School before, and…and…I had…” His eyebrows drew together, and I could almost see the complex process that turns thought into language at work in his head. “I had eight friends there.”

“That’s a lot of friends. Who was your best friend?”

“Zachary Zalinsky.”

“Wow. What a long name he has. Did you call him Zach for short?”

“No.” He said it with absolute conviction. “His name is Zachary.”

“I see. What did you like about Zachary?”

His face brightened even more. “He was funny.”

“Did he make you laugh?”

“Yeah.” The giggles that rolled out seemed to lift him up. They lightened the space around me, too.

“Hey, Sean, do you like Spider-Man?”

“Spider-Man was bitten by a spider, and it was thismagic spider, and it hadthirteen legs, and it hadspecial powers, and it made himsick until Peter Parker became Spider-Man. That’s why he’s Spider-Man.”

I reached into my bag of tricks and pulled out the blue and red Spider-Man T-shirt I’d found at the mall. The gum-snapping saleswoman with the heart tattooed on her wrist had assured me it was all the rage for five-year-old boys. I was relieved to see Sean’s eyes lock onto it when I shook it open for him to see.

“Is it mine?”

“It’s yours.”

He snatched it and raced to show Gina his prize. “Mommy, can I put it on?”

“Did you say thank you?”

He scooted back over-“Thank you for the new Spider-Man shirt”-then bounced back to his mother. “Can I put it on?”

She slipped his soccer jersey over his head and dropped the T-shirt on, seemingly all in one motion. The shirt came down to his knees. “Can I watch my Spider-Man DVD? Can I, please?”

Gina pondered that. “You can watch until Daddy comes home. Then we’re having dinner, and you and Daddy are doing your homework.”

Before she had even finished the sentence, he was gone. I watched him whip past and wondered what it was I had been doing that was so much more important than being part of this, even if it was a small part.

Gina brought the flowers to the table and set them in the one spot not scattered with spider parts. “I love hanging out with them,” she said.

“Jamie told me you’d left your job,” I said. “How long ago?”

“Six months.” She settled in and handed me a couple of crackers and a handful of pretzels.

“Why did you leave?”

“Because kids change everything. I wanted to be with them.”

One of the things I had always liked about Gina was her ability to take a complicated issue and make it accessible and understandable. It’s what had made her a good lawyer. It also made her good for Jamie. He and I both had perfected the opposite trait, which is to take something that should be simple and complicate it to the point where it makes your head explode.

“What about you?” she asked. “Jamie says you’ve made some career choices of your own.” She tucked her hand under her chin and settled in, ready to be absorbed. “I want to hear all about it.”

“There’s not that much to tell.”

“Are you kidding? You’re talking to someone whose longest trip of the day is down to the Grand Union in the minivan. Where was your last flight?”

“ Chicago.” I automatically reached up to touch my throat. The bruises had faded, but it was still my conditioned response to thinking about the trip from hell.

She shook her head and smiled as she graced one of the spiders with its two raisin eyes.

“What?”

“I just…I admire you.”

“You do?”

“I always have. What I did, making the choice to leave my job, I never would have had the guts to do it without the kids. But you did it for yourself. How cool is that?”

As I worked on my spider assemblage, I had the strongest urge to tell Gina about the case. For the first time in a long time, I felt that I had made the right choices, that things would work out for me. I wanted to share that, but not with Gina and without Jamie. I could tell them together later.

The sound of the front door closing floated through the house.

“Where is everyone?” Jamie’s voice echoed ahead of him.

A smaller voice chirped down the front stairs. “Daddy, Daaaaaaddy.”

Jamie came through the kitchen door with Madeline in his arms, her face close to his. In the briefest of glances, I could see in his eyes that something was wrong. He reminded me of the baby titan on my flight to Chicago, the phone flipper who had been almost in tears. “Za, you made it. Any problems with directions?”

“No. I came right here.”

I wanted to ask what was wrong but wasn’t sure it was my place. He crossed the kitchen to give his wife a light kiss on the lips. She smiled at him. He didn’t smile back. He turned abruptly and grabbed a cracker.

Gina was also picking up a strange vibe. I could see it in her face. “How was your trip?” She reached up to straighten the tiny tiara Madeline wore on her head. It went with the miniature pink chiffon prom gown.

“I have to go in early tomorrow.” Jamie looked at Madeline. “Where’s your brother, Princess Magpie?”

“Watching Spider-Man.”

Jamie walked over and looked down at the table. “What are you doing?”

I proudly displayed one of my completed units. “Making spiders.”

“There’s a spider theme around here tonight.” He scooped up a handful of pretzel sticks and headed for the door. “Let’s go find your brother, Magpie.”

She thought that was a good idea, but not so the eating of spider legs, a fact that she commented on all the way up the stairs.

“Mr. Grumpy Guy.” Gina found a big mitt and opened the oven door to check on whatever was in there. It smelled like pot roast. “Jamie’s really missed you this past year,” she said. “In case he doesn’t remember to tell you.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. “Yeah, I’m sorry…about all that. About-”

“I hope,” she said, gently interrupting, “that we see more of you. I really want my kids to know their aunt Alex.”