Amanda's Blue Marine (3 page)

* * * * *

Mandy went back to her cubbyhole in the District Attorney’s office and tried to concentrate on the material she was reading, but thoughts of her visit with the police kept intruding as she made notes and formulated arguments for the case she was supporting. By the time Karen Warren stuck her head into Mandy’s cubicle and announced, “Lunchtime,” Mandy had accomplished very little and had worried quite a bit.

“So?” Karen said. “How did it go with the cops?”

Mandy shrugged as she shut down her laptop and rose to go, picking up her purse. “I don’t know. Lieutenant Manning was very nice, but he would be polite to me for my father’s sake even if he thought I was hallucinating the whole problem.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t think that,” Karen said. “You’ve turned over the notes to the police, they’re real. You haven’t been sending them to yourself.”

“Who can guess what they think? They all have this veneer of surface courtesy but you can tell their minds are whirring away behind their eyes, sorting and filing.”

Mandy followed Karen into the hall and then through the large marble floored lobby of the District Attorney’s office building. They paused at the revolving door at the entrance and then slipped through it. The two women trotted down the steps and traversed the intersection outside to reach
Salon Verde
, a lunch spot which serviced office workers across the street.

“You’ve had enough experience with cops to know that is standard procedure,” Karen said, as they got in line for the salad bar behind a stream of management assistants and state workers, attorneys and paralegals. Karen surveyed the offerings on the buffet and made a face.

“I don’t know why we come here. The lettuce is wilted and the tomatoes look anemic. They’re sunset orange.”

Mandy didn’t reply. Karen was one step away from anorexia, she barely ate and complained bitterly about the quality of the meager supply of nourishment that she permitted herself. She had always been that way and hadn’t died yet, and Mandy had known her forever, so it seemed unlikely she would drop now. They shuffled along as Mandy asked, “So how are things in the ER?”

Karen shrugged. “The usual.” Karen was an emergency medicine resident at Mercy Hospital. Her frustrating patient load of overdosing addicts, gasping asthmatics and expiring senior citizens had made her even more cynical than she had been in school. She was always maintaining that she would leave the hospital and open up a spa dedicated to emptying the wallets of the idle rich.

It hadn’t happened yet.

“So who did they assign to your case?” Karen asked. She knew many of the policemen who worked at Metro from her job. She met them when they interviewed and arrested some of the less than law abiding members of her ER clientele. She had an opinion on all of the cops, often not a favorable one.

“Somebody new,” Mandy replied. “A sub for a senior officer who got injured, apparently. My guy used to be in this district, then was transferred out a couple of years ago. They brought him back when he was promoted. A detective named Kelly.”

“They’re all named Kelly,” Karen said darkly. “Or Riley or Dunphy or Murphy. I don’t recall a Kelly.”

Mandy grinned. “Oh, you’d remember this guy. He’s very tasty.”

Karen’s antenna rose visibly as she selected a piece of rye bread from the wheel displayed on the counter and then dropped it onto her plate. She turned to look at Mandy. “Tasty?” she said. “Young?”

Mandy nodded. “Tall, black wavy hair. Spooky pretty eyes, very light and changeable, long lashes. Great smile, white teeth but slightly crooked, no orthodontia. Late twenties, maybe thirty.”

“Hmm. Sounds like you got a real good look there, Nancy Drew. You do realize he’s probably married with four kids at home in Mayfair. The important question is, does he know what he’s doing?”

“He seems to. I don’t think Manning would have assigned him to me if he were a slacker.”

Karen completed her rejection of the salad bar’s contents and turned to pull out a chair at a table behind them. “Of course not. Must take care of Jonathan Redfield’s little princess. Does this tasty cop know who you are? Does he know that your father is spearheading that marina project when he’s not printing money in the Redfield cellar?”

“I’m sure Manning gave him the specifics. Kelly was very deferential, you know, careful.” Mandy sighed. “I hope he’s good at his job because these little missives are making me very jumpy.” She sat across from Karen and contemplated a shrunken carrot stick. Karen was right. They really needed to find another lunch place. Convenience wasn’t everything.

* * * * *

Amanda finished her day at work and then met her father for a drink at 5:30 at the Rittenhouse Square Athletic Club. She had chosen to meet him there in order to avoid her mother, who was losing her grip over the stalking situation. Amanda was telling her very little and communicating with her father, which was the posture Mandy usually adopted when her mother was unable to handle something.

Amanda and her father were very close as a result.

Jonathan Redfield was waiting for her at the bar and stood when she arrived. He was white haired and dapper, but today was looking rather worn. His concern for Amanda’s situation was weighing on him.

“So what do you think of this detective?” her father asked, sitting again and sipping his scotch. “Ted Manning says he’s young, but very good at his job. The details I gave you all came from Manning, who is very high on him. What’s his name? Keely?”

“Kelly.”

“That’s right, Kelly. Do you like the approach he’s taking?”

“I don’t know what to think. He seems to be following standard procedure. He appears confident they’ll catch this guy and I hope he’s right.”

“What’s he like personally?”

Amanda shrugged. “Very polite. Very correct with me, because he’s worried about what I might say to Ted Manning. It’s hard to tell because I haven’t been in this situation before and they’re all tiptoeing around me at the police station, afraid to make a mistake because Big Lieutenant is watching them.”

“His attitude was definitely cautious, but he was also frank and specific about what he wanted to do. He told me that he understood the problem and he told me how he was going to handle it. That was kind of refreshing after several weeks of listening to Mom having hysterics about it.”

“Manning thinks he is. You respect the police and the military and Kelly is both. You can see where protecting and serving would be right up his alley.” She stopped and smiled suddenly. “Listen to me. I don’t even know this guy. But I’ve got a good feeling about him.” Her smiled widened to a grin. “He looks like a recruiting poster for the FOP.”

Jonathan sighed. “Let’s hope he’s as good as he looks.”

Amanda stood. “I have to go, Dad, I’m sorry to make this so short. Tom is waiting for me at my place. I just wanted to touch base with you.”

* * * * *

Amanda drove home to her condominium in suburban Philadelphia, thirty minutes from Center City. Her condo was conveniently located in a safe suburb and nicely appointed. It had been decorated by her mother when Amanda didn’t have the time to do it. Her twenty-fifth birthday had arrived when she was studying for the bar and home décor had taken a back seat to passing the test. Amanda should have told Margaret Redfield that she’d get to it when she was free, but it was convenient to let her mother play with fabric samples and wood grains while Mandy boned up on Civil Procedure and the Rule against Perpetuities. It kept her mother amused and by the time Mandy was admitted to the bar her mother had outfitted the condominium with the latest of everything. It was lovely, but since Amanda had no personal investment in it she always felt like she was staying in a hotel. A five star luxury resort, to be sure, but still an anonymous velvet jewel box.

Her fiancée had made himself a martini and was drinking it when she arrived.

“What happened at the police station?” Tom asked, requiring Mandy to give a recitation of the specifics for the third time that day. He got the short version, since Mandy was tired of talking about it after visiting with Karen at lunch and then Jonathan Redfield after work.

“I don’t know. I am unfamiliar with the protocol for being stalked by a lunatic ex-convict. I’m just assuming that the police know what they’re doing.”

Tom looked at her across the coffee table in her apartment. He was very average physically, average in height and weight, a tan person with brown hair and a medium skin tone, brown eyes and a slightly prominent nose. He was the Republican Congressman from the tenth District, a friend of Mandy’s family, a widower fifteen years Mandy’s senior. His two children were away at boarding school.

They had been engaged for a year.

“Don’t forget that the juvenile diabetes fundraiser is in two weeks,” Tom said suddenly. “I promised Bob Forman that we would go.”

* * * * *

Brendan Kelly worked on his desktop computer, accessing the P.D. data base, until darkness fell beyond his tiny office window and his fingers were stiff from typing. He had heard everyone leaving at the end of the morning shift and everyone arriving for the second shift. He sent out for a sandwich at three o'clock and had routine conversations with people stopping by his office and routine conversations with anyone who called him. The day had passed in relative quiet after his interview with Amanda Redfield and at six PM he finally sat back in his chair and rubbed the nape of his neck wearily.

He had the starting point of the investigation well in hand, but where it went from there was anybody's guess.

He closed his eyes and recalled Mandy sitting in the chair in his office, nervous and rattled but trying hard to handle herself well and hide her reaction to her situation. She had sat bolt upright with her hands in her lap, both expensively shod feet together on the floor, like a bright child in school. He understood very well what it was like to be frightened and fighting to conceal it, so he felt a kinship with her right away.

You never knew where life was going to take you, and this day had certainly tossed him a curve. From a dull case which took him to Boston for some humdrum background checks he had progressed to interviewing Amanda Redfield. That's what he liked about police work, you never knew what was coming up next.

The image of her lingered in his mind. He saw the abundant auburn hair, the pale, dewy skin sprinkled with light freckles and the killer legs flattered by sheer hose and slender high heels. Her rarefied, elusive scent still lingered in his office and he guessed that the cost of her wardrobe probably exceeded the GNP of a third world country. Just his luck. A case that could really help his career centered on the safety of this well groomed and heavily connected young lady. He knew the scenario could sink him if he botched it. But it could also help him a great deal if he played it right.

He would have to be meticulous. She was joined at the hip with Manning and Kelly knew that her well heeled daddy, Manning's pal, was watching the scenario play out with concerned attention.

Kelly examined the crust of his leftover sandwich and then tossed it into the trash.

He wished she weren't quite so attractive. It was going to affect how he dealt with her, no matter how fiercely he tried to control it.