“Why?”
“To ask if she would see me. I told you, I respected her independence.”
Terrific. “That call will show up on a bill, now that the suburbs have a new area code.”
“Yes.”
“It won’t look good, Fiske. A call right before she was murdered.”
“I didn’t know she’d be murdered! If I were going to drive to her house and kill her, would I have called first?”
I considered this, and evidently so had he, about ten steps before me. Fiske was a chess player, nationally ranked. He even played by mail, sending postcards that bore gobbledy-gook like Be3 and Bg7. Suddenly, something fell into place and I turned cold. “Fiske, you know what I think? I think you knew all of this was going to happen.”
He turned toward me in the shadows. “I knew Patricia was going to be killed?”
“No, you knew that I would find out about you and her.”
“I didn’t plan for this to happen.”
“Maybe not, but it was inevitable, wasn’t it? Look, nobody in the family knows about the affair, do they?”
“No. Kate doesn’t suspect anything. She thinks Patricia was an opportunist.”
“And Paul?”
“Of course not.”
“So you kept it from the family. But when you had a chance to hire a lawyer, you chose a lawyer close to the family. Practically in the family.”
“Well, yes.” Fiske acted only vaguely aware of his own mind, but I didn’t believe it for a minute. My father had been right, which annoyed me no end.
“You hired me to use me, Fiske. You used me then and you’re using me now.”
“That’s not true!”
“Then why let me be the one to find out about your affair? Because you thought I’d keep it secret?”
“Any lawyer would have done that. It would be privileged.”
“You thought I’d be loyal to you no matter what, even to the point of keeping quiet about a murder. What other lawyer could you ask to do that?”
“I didn’t murder Patricia!”
“Then why me?”
“I didn’t think it would turn out like this, I tell you.”
Liar. Cheater. Bastard. I reached for the ignition, but Fiske gripped my forearm.
“Wait. Maybe … part of me did. Part of me must have wanted you to find out. So that it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.”
“Bullshit. Two-bit psychology.” I turned on the ignition despite his grip. “You wanted to destroy your life? Screw up your marriage?”
“I … think I must have,” he said, his tone anguished. “Yes.”
I looked at him while the engine rumbled. His face was obscured and he made no sound, but I had the sense he was about to cry.
“I think … I
wanted
to tell Kate,” he continued, almost thinking out loud. “I wanted her to know. It just … got out of control. I loved Patricia, Rita, and somebody killed her. I want to know who.”
It rang true. He sounded determined and bewildered, both at once. A natural reaction given the circumstances. Maybe he was innocent. Wrongly accused, or about to be. If so, his world was on the brink of falling to pieces, at his own hand. He slumped forward and rested his temple in his hand, inadvertently reminding me of a face card again. Not the king of diamonds this time. The king of hearts, the suicide king. Fiske was either that or a cold-blooded killer.
Why were men so damn
complicated
?
8
T
hey have no right,” Paul said as he glared at the TV screen.
A black reporter stood on the wet flagstone path leading to the door of the Hamiltons’ huge house, a three-story stone Tudor with diamond-paned windows, an arched front door, and spiky turrets on both sides. Any idiot could see the place looked like a minicastle, which wouldn’t help public relations any.
“This isn’t news, it’s harassment,” Paul said, naked except for the towel around his waist. He’d taken a hot shower but it hadn’t relaxed him any. “
This
is harassment!” He aimed the remote control at the TV like a weapon and clicked up the volume.
The reporter fairly shouted, “We have tried to reach Judge Hamilton, but he has not been available for comment.”
“He’s asleep, you prick!” Paul shouted back. “Is he supposed to stay up all night to talk to you?”
“Relax, Paul,” I said, but I knew this case was blowing up in our faces. It was all over the radio and TV news. Our answering machine tape had a slew of calls from the press and three from the managing partner of my firm. His final message was to meet him in his office first thing in the morning. I wasn’t looking forward to it.
“They’re showing it again,” Paul said. “Can you believe it? The same goddamn tape over and over. My
family
, for God’s sake.”
I looked at the TV and caught the film of Paul, Fiske, Kate, and me, trooping across the front lawn under umbrellas. We’d left the restaurant in a homecoming I’d orchestrated, so I couldn’t help objectifying the scene. Fiske, vital and self-assured, didn’t look the part of a murderer, and projected like Blake Carrington with bona fide business acumen. When the reporters shouted questions at him from the sidewalk, he declined comment with a Windsor wave and the smile of a majority shareholder.
“People walking into a house is news?” Paul said. “I give up.” He sank to the foot of the bed and lowered the volume. “My poor mother.”
I squinted at Kate’s image on the TV screen, but I didn’t see his mother the way he did. Kate didn’t look poor, in close-up. On the contrary, she looked wealthy and haughty, with cheekbones that could cut hard cheese. The kind of wife you would cheat on with your pretty young secretary, whose soft, windswept photo came on next. I looked at Paul’s back as he watched TV. Beads of water glistened on his shoulders. His tan line peeked out from under the towel.
“Rita, look,” he said. “It’s you again.”
A picture of me came on. Brown eyes with smudgy eye pencil, a strong nose that needed powdering, crow’s-feet only surgery could improve, and a mound of long, dark hair exploding in the humidity. “Another bad hair year.”
“Silly. You’re beautiful.”
Bullshit. I watched him watch me as I said from the screen, “We are all very sorry about the death of Miss Sullivan, and our thoughts are with her family at this difficult time. We have no further comment.”
“You were great,” Paul said to the TV. “You were wonderful, Rita. You’ve been wonderful. None of us could get through this without you.” He turned suddenly toward me, and I didn’t know whether he’d caught me looking at his tan line.
“Sure you could.”
“Can’t you just take the compliment? I’m trying to tell you how much I appreciate you.” He edged closer to me on the bed and rubbed my instep, but I didn’t want his touch or his words to warm me.
“Hey, stop.”
“No, I’m going to compliment you. You ready?”
“Come off it, Paul.”
“No. Hold still. This will only hurt a minute. I think you’re a great woman and a great lawyer.”
“Paul, stop. You just like the fee.” I shifted away, but his hand chased my ankle and caught it.
“Oh, really? You think you’re cheap?”
“Say what? I think I’m free.”
“You,
free
? Just look around this room.” He clicked off the TV as Patricia’s attorney, Stan Julicher, came on, crying crocodile tears in front of his firm’s large nameplate. Now that Patricia was dead, the harassment case was over. Julicher would miss his contingency more than he would miss his client.
“Hey, I wanted to see that,” I said.
“How about this bed, huh? You think that came cheap?” Paul pointed at our four-poster, whose turned spindles stretched to a delicate arched canopy.
“This bed didn’t cost anything. You built it.”
“It still costs, honey. It’s all cherrywood. The labor I threw in for free, because I liked you so much.”
“What a guy.” The bed was a birthday present Paul had built in his father’s garage. I’d loved it the instant he’d taken me to see it, then I’d brought him wine and wrenches while he disassembled the contraption to get it out the door. He was never as good a planner as his father, which was part of his charm.
“And how about that armoire, huh?” He jerked his head at the cherry cabinet across the room. “Made to order, all by yours truly. With big drawers for my best girl’s shirts and little drawers for her lovely undies. Just like you asked, right?”
I didn’t say anything. I remembered him refinishing the armoire, hand-rubbing it with a chamois. I tried not to think about how good his fingertips felt on my leg.
“Wasn’t it just like you asked? Wasn’t it exactly how you wanted it? With the pull-out drawer for your extra decks of cards?”
I wanted to smile, but it caught in my throat. “Not for cards, you.”
“For poker chips then. Poker chips to your heart’s content.”
“Not for chips, either.”
“But it’s a pull-out drawer, is it not?”
“Paul—”
“Your Honor, please direct the witness to answer the question.” He caressed my leg. “My Honor says you have to answer. Yes or no.” He liked to play lawyer and was good at it, from a lifetime of hanging around judges, lawyers, and courthouses.
“Yes.”
“I rest my case. Call your next witness.”
“Give me a break.”
The light from the bedside lamp gave his amused expression a soft glow, and he rolled onto his side and played with my knee. “Do you still like this?” he asked softly.
I tried not to pay attention to the sensation of his touch or to his chest, twisted across the white bedspread toward me. I kept thinking of the doctor’s letter.
“Huh? Do you like this, Rita? You used to like it when I did this.”
I knew where he was going. I had a dim memory of it, growing more vivid with each stroke of his hand, like ember to flame. “I used to like a lot of things, Paul.”
“I know. I remember them all.” His hand traveled up to my thigh. “It wasn’t so long ago, you know.”
“Yes, it was.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“It was very long ago. When you liked me and I liked you.” I heard bitterness in my voice.
He drew a line up from my knee with his forefinger. “I never stopped liking you. I like you still. But you stopped liking me, and I’m trying to get you back.” He hoisted himself toward me, and his towel slipped down.
I averted my eyes as if he were a stranger. “You can’t get me back.”
He kissed my knee before I could object. “You wanted me on the first date, remember? I made you a salad for dinner and you were smitten, you said, and you wanted to make love. The first date, the very
first date
. A fast Italian girl, I thought.”
I laughed, the memory was so unexpected. It dawned bright as daybreak, and as undeniable.
“Do you remember what I told you when you asked me, flat-out?”
I closed my eyes and remembered. His kiss traveled to the inside of my knee, slower this time, slightly wet.
“Miss Morrone, are you going to answer the question or do I have to ask My Honor to put you in jail?” His mouth moved along the inside of my leg, kissing me like he had that night in his apartment. The lights had been off. I’d turned them off, the way I liked it.
“No,” I said. “Paul—”
“I told you you had the most beautiful legs I’d ever seen, and as much as I wanted to know more about them, I liked you altogether too much to do that on the first date.”
I kept my eyes closed, remembering. His kisses passed my knee and made a trail on the inside of my thigh. I felt myself easing back into the pillow while he kissed me, this first date that had so much promise. He had thrilled me. An architect with a pedigree and an open heart.
“I told you I thought I was falling in love with you, do you remember? That I was in it for the long run.” I felt his kiss move up my thigh, under my robe. The notepad slipped from my lap and the sound it made as it fell to the carpet came from some other time and place. “I had to put you out that night, like a cat.”
He always said that,
Like a cat
. I used to laugh. I felt myself warming.
“I love you,” he said, and I let myself hear it. Let myself believe it for just a moment. It pushed my problems away, swept aside Fiske and Patricia, my managing partner, and my new HPV virus. I wanted to forget it all, get lost for a while. Slip away. No one had to know, no one had to see. Not even me. I reached up and switched off the light.
“Do you remember what else I told you that night?” he asked, his voice soft in the darkness. Familiar. Like his sigh, and the throatier sound that would come later. “That it wasn’t one night, it was forever.” His mouth reached the top of my thighs, and he kissed them until my legs parted.
I remembered. It was the first date, then the first time we made love. Then the time after that and the time after that, too. All the times, all of the same piece, seamless. When the loving was still there and so palpable you could feel it like the bones on his back when he was on you. You could hear it in the sounds you made, and in his, too, deeper. You could feel it in the slickness between you, belly-level, in summer, and the way it warmed your feet in winter, no matter how cold it was.
That’s what I remembered, all of it came flooding back, and in a minute it was inside me, filling me up, suffusing me with good feeling.
He was right about one thing. I loved him still.
If I could think back.
And the lights were off.
9
T
he office wall was crowded with diplomas and certificates and the slick desktop reflected the squat and omnipotent silhouette of a unique breed of high roller: the managing partner of a law firm. I’d first met Ed “Mack” Macklin when I was a young associate and he had kissed off the last firm that wouldn’t ante up every time he sneezed. Mack became my mentor, although I never realized before this moment how much he resembled Edward G. Robinson. But maybe that was because I was feeling like the Cincinnati Kid.
“Why are you getting out of the
Sullivan
case?” Mack said, relaxed in his cushy leather chair. His office was the largest in the firm, and well-appointed. An expensive leather couch and chairs clustered around a glass coffee table; a wall-length English credenza held some neat files and an expensive, albeit untouched, laptop computer. The virgin laptop was the hottest power prop, signifying that Mack had the juice to make the firm buy him a toy and also that he was too important to play with it. You had no power if you actually used your PowerBook.