“Don’t be such a snob. Smart people commit murder. White people commit murder, too.”
“I didn’t say they didn’t—”
“Murder is an irrational reaction to a given set of circumstances. It can be planned out, premeditated, or happen in an instant, but it’s still emotional. And the emotions are strongest when it’s a love relationship—boy meets girl, boy kills girl when she runs around.”
I thought of Paul again, this time with a chill, and reconsidered what I was doing here. If Tobin was going to help me, and it seemed like he could, then I’d have to confide in him. Part of me didn’t trust him, but part of me wanted to take the risk. So I took a deep breath and told him the whole story, about Fiske’s affair with Patricia, and, because he listened so thoughtfully, even about Paul and Patricia. I told it as calmly as I could, and when I had finished, picked up my wineglass with a hand that shook only slightly.
“Holy shit,” Tobin said.
“You got that right. So I guess what I have is Kate, Paul, and maybe Fiske, with motive out the wazoo and no credible alibi. Then I have a motorcycle rider to track down, the other boyfriends to question, and no murder weapon.”
“That’s one way to look at it. If you’re blind. Willfully.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you have a prime suspect you don’t want to deal with. Richie Rich.”
No. “Paul?”
“Come on, Rita, look at the payoff. Whacking that girl solves everything for him. He silences the girl, the lawsuit drops out, and he gets off the hook.”
“Why would Paul want the lawsuit ended?”
“Because it could expose him, too. Tell the whole world he was screwing his father’s girlfriend. How would that play out in the vanilla suburbs? He has his own business, doesn’t he? A reputation to protect?”
“But why would he kill her?”
“He pays her back for fucking around on him. For fucking up his life. Look, he lost you, didn’t he?”
Did he? “Still, Paul is close to his father. He wouldn’t frame his own father for murder.”
“Not even if Daddy is screwing his girlfriend and cheating on Mommy? Maybe he’s figuring you’ll get Daddy off the hook. Wake up and smell the reality.”
I couldn’t believe it. “Tobin, I saw what was done to that woman. Paul is not capable of that. He just isn’t.”
“Almost anybody is capable of it, given the right set of circumstances. Where was Richie Rich that day?”
“Running errands.”
“Sounds airtight to me,” he said abruptly, then looked away at the passing traffic. The sun was gone, the crowd had died down. The diners had been replaced by couples holding paper cones of water ice, window-shopping up and down Main Street. Manayunk, being near the river and its own snaky canal, stayed reasonably cool at night. The candle on the table danced in its glass cup.
Tobin turned back and his eyes met mine. “I think you’re in deep shit, good lookin’.”
“Why? I have months before the trial.”
“I’m not worried about the trial, you got the trial covered. If you prove what you told me about the Jag and raise the question of the motorcyclist, you got reasonable doubt. I could win that case. You probably could, too.”
“I’m ignoring your arrogance.”
“Everyone does.”
Testosterone should be a controlled substance. “I want to find the motorcycle rider and question him.”
“No. You’re better off not finding him. Leave him wherever he is. Use him like a nice big question mark at the trial, to beef up the reasonable doubt. A black kid on a motorcycle on the run? He’s more useful to you lost than found, especially with a white Main Line jury. It’s like a gift. Happy Hanukkah.”
“But what if he committed the murder?”
“Not your problem. You’re the judge’s lawyer. Get the judge off.”
So much for justice.
“Listen, Rita, the biggest problem is that you’re trying to catch a killer and you’re way too up-close-and-personal.”
“I can handle it.”
He leaned forward on his elbows, gold-circle cuff links glinting like half-moons from beneath his sleeves. “I’m not talking about whether you can handle it, I’m talking about whether you’re in danger.”
“From what?”
“Let’s say Richie Rich framed his father, knowing that he has his ace lawyer girlfriend on the hook for the defense. He knows the girlfriend is skilled enough to get his father off and also that she’s too much in love to suspect him. He gets it all, and he gets away with murder. It’s perfect. The guy’s a genius.”
I felt my heart beginning to pound. “But what about the Jag? The steering wheel?”
“Maybe he gets the car on a test-drive like you think, maybe he borrows Mom’s when she’s fucking around with the roses. He forgot about the wheel on the right, but that’s a detail. All he wants is revenge on the girl. Didn’t he get you hired for the sexual harassment case in the first place?”
Paul had encouraged Fiske to hire me.
“I bet he was real interested in the case, too.”
It had almost saved our relationship.
“He wanted you to stay with the representation, for murder?”
True.
“And he knew when you took the harassment case that you’d be prosecuting his lover? What a scam!”
“Fuck you.” I rose to go.
Tobin laughed. “Oh, I see. You can handle it, you just can’t discuss it.”
I sat back in my uncomfortable chair and folded my arms. “Okay, discuss.”
“I think Richie Rich set you up. I think if you get close to finding out that it’s him, he’ll kill you, too.”
It seemed impossible. Paul hurt me?
“So I think I’ll stick around for a while.”
“What’s that mean, ‘stick around’?”
“Be your bud, check in from time to time. That’s what chess club is all about. Aren’t you glad you joined?”
I felt uneasy. Paul was probably cooling his heels on the porch at home. What would be his next move? “Do you play chess, Tobin?”
He smiled, his crow’s-feet deepening. “Are you kidding? I suck at chess. I can’t think two steps in front of me.”
“You play cards?”
“No. I’m not a game player.”
“Except with women.”
“You got me all wrong. I don’t play any games at all.”
“Right.”
“It’s the truth. Whenever I play, it’s not a game,” he said, and this time he wasn’t smiling. “Now, let’s get a coupla sundaes.”
After dessert, Tobin walked me back to the canal-side parking lot and put me into my car with a friendly pat on the back. On the short ride home, I thought about what he had said, trying to wrap my mind around it. It seemed possible only if you didn’t know Paul. He’d always been nothing but peaceable, intellectual, and he rarely lost his cool. But then again, I’d never given him cause to be jealous. Until tonight.
When I pulled into the driveway the Cherokee was already waiting.
21
Paul’s car was parked in front of the garage and its interior was dark. I guessed he was waiting on the front porch, having discovered his key no longer fit the front or back doors. I cut the ignition and got out of the car warily, despite my doubts about Tobin’s scenario.
I headed across the lawn, which felt wet. Paul must have watered it, his mother had taught him to water after dark. I thought of what Tobin had said. Paul was close to Kate; he’d even been teased at school as a momma’s boy. Would Paul have framed Fiske for cheating on her? I kept walking.
The outside and house lights were off. Our house, a stone and shingle colonial with a welcoming front porch, loomed large and dark. The neighborhood was quiet, probably most of my neighbors were out. A humid breeze rustled the trees shading the porch. I looked through the branches as I passed by but didn’t see Pau
l waiting where I expected he’d be, on one of the white Adirondack chairs he loved. I climbed the stone steps to the porch and looked around. No Paul.
It didn’t make sense. The Cherokee, but no Paul. He couldn’t get in, maybe he went for a walk.
I checked my watch. It was 9:35. If he’d arrived on time, as he always did, he would’ve been waiting for over two hours. Enough time to walk up to Lancaster Avenue and grab dinner. I dug in my purse for my keys and opened the front door. The entrance hall was dark and silent. I closed the door behind me and clicked on the deadbolt.
“Lucy, you got some ’splainin’ to do,” said a voice, mock-Ricky Ricardo. It was Paul, his voice coming out of the darkness in the living room. I would’ve turned on the light, but it was closer to him.
“How did you get in?”
“You changed the locks on me, Lucy. That wasn’t very nice,” he said, slurring his words slightly.
“How did you get in here?”
“We have one fight and you go and change the locks on me. You locked me out of my home.”
“Paul—”
“Talk about hardball. You lawyers are somethin’ else.” I heard the chink of ice in a crystal tumbler. He drank scotch, but never to excess before.
“Tell me how you got in.”
“I know this house better than you. I know which windows are loose and which aren’t. I spend more time here than you. You have to go out and make the proverbial big bucks.”
An old wound I thought we’d gotten over.
“Go ahead … say your line,” he said.
“What line?”
“Whenever I say that, you say, ‘Paul, you were bom with more money than I’ll ever make.’”
I didn’t like the way he imitated my voice. “I think you should go. Now.”
“Aw, come on, mang,” he said, Cuban again. “You’ll be happy I’m here when I tell you what I found out, Lucy.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“All right, you’re the one who likes Lucy and Ricky anyway. All the time I’m hard at work, solving a murder. Where were you?”
“None of your business.”
The lamp came on, illuminating Paul’s face. He sat slumped in the leather Morris chair against the bookshelves, tumbler in hand, his head slightly to one side. “I know who murdered Patricia Sullivan.”
Christ. “Who?”
“Tell me where you were and I’ll tell you who.”
“Come on, Paul.”
“You’d like to have that answer, wouldn’t you? Because you’ve been wondering. Maybe even about me, who’s practically your fiancé.”
“Who is the killer?”
“But your practical fiancé has no alibi, you’ve been thinking. He says he was doing errands, but what errands? Does he have the receipts? What store clerks will remember him? Like you were asking my mother. How stupid do you think she is?”
“Who is the killer, Paul?”
“Not yet. Tell me who you were with tonight.”
I’d play a minute longer to get the answer. “My father.”
“Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. I called the hospital. They said he was sleeping. I even called your friends the poker players.”
Shit. “I visited my father, then I went to work.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Called there, too.”
“I was in the library.”
“You, not check your voice mail? Liar, liar, pants on fire. Are they, by the way? You’re home early.”
“I’m not going to play games with you, Paul. Tell me what you know or I go to the police.” I reached for the deadbolt and twisted it loud enough for him to hear.
“Guess what I found out? I found out where you were tonight. I just wanted to hear it from your own mouth.”
My throat tightened. I didn’t know whether to believe him. “Who is the killer?”
“You lied to me.”
“You lied to me.”
“Oh, is that it?” he said, his tone angry. “Tit for tat? A retaliatory fuck?”
Don’t get sidetracked. “Who is the killer?”
“Morrone’s on the job, folks. All business. But she wasn’t working tonight, was she?”
“That’s it, I’m leaving.” I turned my back on him and opened the door.
“Aramingo Avenue, in the northeast. Greater Northeast, as they say on the news.”
I turned back. “Who?”
“Drives a blue motorcycle, paints. Plays guitar, of course. He ran a personal ad, that’s how they met. Only he didn’t mention he had a cocaine habit, even convicted of dealing, once. Or that he’s a very, very jealous young man.”
“What’s his name?”
“Tim Price.”
“How’d you get the address? Deductive reasoning?”
“‘Fraid not,” he said, half to himself. “I’m not a very good architect or I’d make more money, right? If you’re so smart, how come you’re not rich? Like Dad?”
I turned the knob. “I have to go.”
“I saw a letter he sent her, with the return address. He was crazy about her, but he was just a toy to her. So were we all. She played games, that woman.”
“Did they live together?”
“Sort of, but he was away a lot, and when the cat’s away, well … you hate clichés, don’t you? When I figured out the game, I broke up with her—when he figured it out, he killed her. Not a good game, was it? Not a safe game, like poker.”
Fuck you. “If he killed her, why did he leave his motorcycle behind?”
“I don’t know the mechanics of it, dear. No pun.”
“Then why do you say he’s the killer?”
“She told me she was afraid of him, that he’d hit her. Beaten her when he was high. Still, she let him come back. He had that bad-boy appeal some women like.” Paul held up his glass, examining its facets in the lamplight. “Long hair, maverick type. That your thing, too, Rita?”
He must know about Tobin. Maybe I’d been spotted by someone we both knew, or maybe he’d followed me to the restaurant. I felt afraid suddenly and fumbled for the doorknob behind me. “Be gone by morning,” I said, twisting the knob and walking out.
Behind me I heard the crash of a crystal tumbler hitting the wall. “Goddamn it! I live here, too! Rita!”
I started running to the car and didn’t stop until I was inside.
I booked a night at the Four Seasons, in a cushy room overlooking the fountain in Logan Square. Not that I enjoyed the view, I spent the time making phone calls. I called a twenty-four-hour lock service to change the locks again and secure all the windows. For an extra fifty bucks, they’d deliver the new keys to the hotel. I flipped through the Yellow Pages for a burglar alarm company, but there was no answer. Then I called Herman and canceled our date to go motorcyle shopping, since I already knew the motorcyclist’s address, and called my father. He sounded fine but wanted to know why Sal was so dressed up. Finally, I called Cam and told him our gig was moved up to tomorrow.
“Whatever you say, kiddo,” he said.
Then I grabbed a hotel pen and began to draft legal papers on the king-size bed. I’d never practiced family law, but then I’d never practiced criminal law either. I alleged I had reason to believe I was in danger from one Paul Harlan Hamilton, my live-in boyfriend, who had appeared drunk and disorderly at our former home. I asked the court to keep Paul two miles from the property and requested a hearing forthwith. I had the papers photocopied at the marbled front desk, and mailed and faxed a set to Paul’s office with a short note: The next time I find you in the house, I file this. With copies to your parents, the police, and the newspapers.
It was my first protection order, both as a lawyer and as a client. One for the scrapbook. And it was undoubtedly the first time the Four Seasons had served as a women’s shelter. I went back up to my room, chuckling. It was better than crying.
I flopped on the sea of bed and switched on the television. Spectravision, it said, which I guessed was a lot like Cinemascope. I muted the so
und and the pictures flickered by in silence. A man and woman in jeans and sweatshirts clinked coffee mugs over a kitchen table. Dennis Hopper, still crazy after all these years, pushed Nikes. I was waiting for the eleven o’clock news, almost too sleepy to be curious about their coverage of the preliminary hearing, which seemed as if it happened ages ago.
I was still on the job, like Paul had said.
But I didn’t want to think about him now. And it turned out that I couldn’t anyway. After a fire in a Camden warehouse, Stan Julicher was the big news. His ruddy face, behind the black microphone bubbles, was animated by an almost religious zeal. Seated at a press table with him were a trio of TV feminists, angry women with no eyeliner and inmate hair.
“It’s no crime to look good, girlfriend,” I said to the TV. “No matter what Naomi Wolf says.” I clicked up the volume.
“It’s time for the citizens of this city to demand that Judge Hamilton step down,” Julicher was saying. “He is officially charged with the murder of a young woman, who may have died trying to vindicate her right to be free from sexual harassment. Yet the Honorable Fiske Hamilton sits in judgment of us.”
Christ. Julicher was pissed because he’d lost his meal ticket, and he was about to ruin Fiske.
One of the feminists said, “We, too, call for Judge Hamilton to step down from his judicial duties, at the very least until the murder charge against him is resolved. He should not sit on cases of any type, civil or criminal, until his innocence is proven beyond the shadow of a doubt.”
Of all the stupid, wrong-headed, knee-jerk reactions. “I’m not sending you girls any more money,” I said to the TV.
The third woman leaned into the microphone. “We think it is ironic indeed that Judge Hamilton could tomorrow be sitting in judgment on murder cases when he is himself charged with murder.”
I aimed the remote between her eyes. “Murder is a state crime, you idiot, and Fiske’s a federal judge. Other than that, you’re absolutely right.” I nuked her with the off button and reached for the phone to touch base with Fiske, then had second thoughts. I was too tired to give any sensible advice. He’d have to weather tonight alone, and I’d deal with it in the morning.