Where Nobody Dies (2 page)

Judge Bettinger relaxed, gave Dawn what passed with him for a fatherly smile, and said, “Submit order.” We had won.

Linda rewarded the judge with a dazzling smile, her tiny even teeth white in her dark face. The sound of chairs slamming behind me was Brad's only response. I thanked the judge and promised to get the order in as soon as possible. Now that the case was over, the adrenaline that had kept me going on four hours' sleep abruptly dissipated. I was bone-tired. I picked up my down coat and my leather briefcase, eager to exchange the dingy, overheated courtroom for the crisp January air.

Linda grabbed her fur jacket and purse, then stood tapping her foot as Dawn struggled with the zipper of the pink ski jacket. Dawn glanced at her mother in mute apology, but her shaking hands refused to grip the zipper and she continued to fumble, making little noises of frustration. Finally, she got it zipped and stood expectantly, like a dog waiting to be walked.

Looking at them together, I was struck forcibly by the contrast. Linda, tiny and trim, dressed meticulously, wearing clothes that fitted perfectly and choosing colors that flattered her dark beauty. Yet the pink of Dawn's ski jacket was all wrong for her honey skin, and she had grown so much in the last year that an inch of wrist showed white against the frayed cuff. I shrugged; it was none of my business, but I found myself hoping that, once in Washington, Linda would give Dawn's wardrobe even a quarter of the attention she lavished on her own.

It must have been my tiredness that put me off guard. I'd actually expected to be able to leave the courthouse and get some lunch without interruption. I should have known Brad wasn't finished.

He walked up to Linda, towering over her. She stood unmoving, looking up at him with a challenge in her eyes, daring him to start something. “Okay, Linda,” he said quietly enough, but with an air of menace. “That was round one. You won it on a technicality.” He glared at me, then turned his attention back to his ex-wife. “But round two”—he stabbed the air with a thick finger—“that one's gonna be mine. Just wait and see.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Linda's voice managed a weary indifference, but her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“You gave me no choice in there.” He pointed at the closed courtroom. “You put me on the spot. I couldn't say no to Dawnie.” His face clouded. “It was a dirty trick,” he added, like a kid who'd been cheated at marbles.

I was inclined to agree with him and opened my mouth to say so, when Linda cut in, her voice artificially sweet. “All's fair in love and war, Brad,” she said. Brad's hands clenched into fists, and he moved one step closer to his tiny antagonist. I stepped back instinctively, but Linda never moved an inch. “Besides,” she added with a toss of her head, “it was for Dawn.”

“Don't give me that!” Brad exploded. “You don't care about her. You never did. You only wanted her in the first place because you knew how much it would hurt me. And now”—his voice cracked—“you're taking her away.” He turned his head sharply but not before I saw his eyes fill.

I turned toward Dawn. She was as rigid as her mother, but her fingers, still shaking, played uncontrollably with the zipper of her jacket. She was biting her lips, her teeth making little bloody indentations. Linda waited coolly for Brad to compose himself, then said softly, “You'd better get used to it. Dawn's coming to Washington and that's that. There's nothing you can do about it.”

“Oh, yeah?” Brad was in control again, his grief transmuted into belligerence. “I can come back into this court tomorrow if I want to and get another judge to modify the order.”

I wasn't surprised at Brad's mastery of the jargon. He and Linda had been coming to Family Court regularly since their divorce, each trying to one-up the other on matters of custody, support, and visitation. “You might have to make a lot of trips in from Washington to come to court,” Brad taunted. “How will your new boss like that?”

Linda laughed. It was a silver laugh that held no humor. “Is that all you can find to threaten me with?” she asked. “If you think Art's going to fire me—”

“Art?” The name came out like a slap. I'd grown so used to Linda referring to her boss by his first name that I no longer noticed it, but to Brad it had only one meaning. “You're having an affair with him.” His face was a mixture of shock and deliberate blankness. I knew him well enough by now to know he was masking a deep hurt.

“Jealous, Brad?” Linda's silver laugh sounded a little tarnished the second time around. Her smile was the same one she used when someone complimented her on a new outfit.

“You think I care who you—” Brad's rough voice stopped just short of the word, after a hasty glance at his daughter. “Just be careful in front of Dawn,” he warned, his fist slamming into his open palm. “I don't want her exposed to your filth, Linda. Understand?” The sound reverberated through the hallway. It was, I knew, simply Brad's equivalent to Dawn's playing with her zipper.

Unfortunately, the court officer who'd been watching this exchange didn't see it that way. Stepping quickly between Linda and Brad, he laid a hand on Brad's clenched arm and said, “Calm down, buddy. I don't want no trouble.”

It was the worst thing that could have happened. Brad, whose rage had been checked by Dawn's presence, turned on the officer, eyes blazing. “Get your fucking hand off me,” he snarled, twisting out of the officer's grip. It may not have been meant as an aggressive move, but Brad had a good eight inches on the court officer, who fell back against a wall. He shouted for help, ripped his handcuffs off his belt, and lunged at Brad.

Brad set his feet apart and spread out his arms, ready for a wrestling match. His breath was coming fast, and he seemed almost glad that things had moved to a physical level. He dared the officer to come at him. I looked around; six officers were about to weigh in on the side of law and order. “Listen, Brad,” I began, hoping to avert disaster. But Linda had other ideas. Turning to one of the officers, she murmured, “Just don't let him hit me. He's always trying to hit me.”

“Don't worry, lady,” the officer answered grimly. “We know how to take care of guys like him. Tough guys who like beating up on women.” He jumped into the fray, whirled Brad around, and before he knew what had hit him, Brad was standing in the center of a circle of blue, chained like a baited bear.

“What the fuck—” Brad cried, as puzzled as he was hurt.

“Shut your foul mouth,” the officer who had cuffed him yelled, punching him on the arm for good measure.

“Not till I finish talking to my wife,” Brad shouted, his face bright red.

“She don't want to talk to you,” the officer replied, prodding Brad in the ribs.

Brad pulled away and faced Linda, his breath coming in little gasps. “Your fault,” he panted. “You bitch! You'll be sorry for this, Linda. I swear you will.” One of the officers told him to shut up, jerking him along like a puppet on a string. As they led him away, he shouted, “I'll kill you for this, Linda.” Double doors banged, and the phalanx of officers led Brad, still shouting, behind them.

Linda watched, calm as a summer breeze, her dark eyes unblinking. Then she turned to her daughter. “Come on, Dawn,” she said briskly. “Show's over.”

Dawn, whose eyes had been fixed with mute sympathy on her father, put her trembling hand to her bleeding mouth and did what her Aunt Marcy had told me she did before every one of her tennis matches. She threw up. Personally, I thought the kid had a point.

2

Thank you, God, I prayed silently, forgetting for the moment that I'd become an atheist at twenty. Relief flooded through me; sweat poured in rivulets inside my down coat. My breath still came in icy gasps that stabbed my lungs, and my legs were rubber. But it was all right. My house was safe. It wasn't a fire.

Then the medics brought the body out. I must have gasped audibly. Someone in the crowd said, “It was that woman who lived on the top floor. The one with the daughter.”

Linda! My head reeled as I tried to assimilate the news. It had been a week since our victory in Family Court. A week full of cases and clients and a thousand other things that had almost driven the memory of Linda's triumphant smirk and Brad's hate-twisted face out of my mind. Almost—but not quite.

“My God,” I breathed. I stood a moment, trying to readjust my mind from relief to shock to sorrow. Then I trudged slowly up the steps, stopped at the top by a uniformed cop.

“Look, lady,” the cop said wearily. “You can't go in there.”

“I live here,” I said, pointing to my name in gold on the parlor floor window.
CASSANDRA JAMESON
,
COUNSELOR
-
AT
-
LAW
. It winked at me through the strobelike flashes of the police lights. I didn't wait to be asked for ID, just turned the key in the lock and went into my office.

I headed straight to the filing cabinet, opened the drawer marked
CONFIDENTIAL
, and took out the bottle of expensive Scotch Matt Riordan had given me when I opened my own office after leaving Legal Aid. I poured a little into my coffee mug and drank it neat. Its warmth felt good, but it didn't stop the shaking. I sat down hard and took another sip. I was still shaking, but now there was an overlay of giddiness. Not a good state in which to talk to cops.

A voice came out of the silence. A voice I recognized from the past, from another murder, another body. It felt like the instant replay of a nightmare. I jumped, spilling whiskey on the desk.

When I looked up, I sighed with relief. It wasn't a nightmare after all. The man in the doorway really was Detective Button, the cop who'd shown up when I'd discovered my dead lover's body nearly a year ago.

“Christ, Button,” I said with feeling. “You scared the hell out of me. What are you, the only detective in Brooklyn?”

“Seems like it sometimes,” he agreed. “'Course, this is different,” he went on, moving toward one of the clients' chairs. “You didn't actually find this one, did you, Counselor?”

“No, thank God,” I replied, taking another drink. If we were going to talk about Nathan's death, I was going to need one.

Between the shock and the booze, I was feeling reckless. Gesturing toward the bottle, I offered Button a drink, fully expecting him to decline. He didn't. He poured a generous amount into the coffee mug I kept for clients, took a sip, and said, “You private lawyers sure can afford good booze.”

“It was a gift,” I answered glumly, watching my office-warming present on its way to warming Button's insides.

“Nice office, too,” he commented, looking around appreciatively. “I like the pictures.” Button's gaze rested approvingly on my Depression-era photographs of farm families.

“Must cost quite a bit, a place like this,” he went on.

“I owe the world,” I answered lightly. If Button really wanted a report on my financial situation, he could get it in ten minutes. “The bank, my parents, my brother Ron.”

“Must be nice to have rich relatives.”

I thought of Ron, who for years had lived in the VA hospital in Brecksville, Ohio, near our hometown. Out of boredom, he'd started investing his spare cash in the stock market, until he'd amassed a tidy sum. Now that he had discovered personal computers and ham radios, he had his own expenses, but he'd been more than generous about sharing his money with me.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Silver spoons and all that.” I looked at the detective across an expanse of oak desk, feeling a little like Nero Wolfe. Button had changed not a hair since I'd seen him last. His close-cropped Afro had exactly the same amount of gray, his cheeks were still chipmunk-round, and he still looked like the first black loan officer hired by a midtown bank.

“How was she killed?” I asked, hoping the question sounded more professional than I felt.

“Stabbed,” he replied. “Stabbed repeatedly about the face and body with a butcher knife.” His slight smile told me he knew very well he was speaking in cop-witness jargon. “Knife's still up there,” he went on. “Have to get the scene-of-the-crime boys on it when they get here. Fingerprints, photos, blood samples—you know.” I nodded; my work as a criminal lawyer had made me familiar with police procedure.

“How many times …” I began, then faltered, not sure I really wanted to know.

“Let's put it this way, Counselor,” Button answered, his voice suddenly grim. “You're going to have to put six coats of paint on the walls before you can rent the apartment.”

“I wish you hadn't said that,” I murmured, picturing the upstairs apartment spattered with Linda's blood. Somehow I'd conjured up a vision of a peaceful, Sleeping Beauty kind of death. My mind flashed back to Family Court, to Brad, handcuffed and shouting threats. “You'll be sorry,” he'd told Linda. I recalled his pained cry: “I'll kill you for this.” Had it been the bluster of a man driven beyond endurance, or had it been a promise?

I'm a born defense lawyer. It's a reflex, not a choice. Start bad-mouthing Attila the Hun, and I'll probably come up with a defense. So if Detective Button had been trying to sell me Brad Ritchie as the killer, I'd have bent all my energies on thinking of reasons why he hadn't done it. But Button said nothing of the kind. Suspicion of Brad came from somewhere deep inside, unhampered by my habitual defense orientation.

I told Button everything. How Linda had overcome her usual prejudice against women and hired me after her first lawyer had retired. How I'd gone to court at least eleven times in three months to fight the petty motions brought by Brad and his succession of lawyers. How Brad had reacted when Linda boasted of her affair with Art Lucenti. How Linda had gotten Brad arrested and how he'd threatened her. How Dawn had stood, shaken and sick, in the aftermath of her parents' hatred.