“I see. But you still wouldn’t have called him your friend?”
“Naw. More of an acquaintance.”
“Do you know the other kinds of people Vincent Camden was hanging around with?”
Jimmy grimaced again. He genuinely looked in pain.
“Vincent didn’t have many friends besides Marcie. I know he loved her a lot, even though he complained about her all the time. That’s just what guys do, you know? We take what we can from the women we love, and then we complain about it.”
This time, when he smiled, he showed a gold tooth off to the left side of his mouth.
“But anyway, he wanted to make some extra cash, and he got to talking to another buddy of mine, who could hook him up with another guy — a big dealer in the area. At least, that’s what some say. I’m not really into anything hard, you know?”
“I see. So you suspect that Vincent was dealing drugs?”
“I don’t suspect it. I know it for a fact, ma’am. And the higher-ups he was dealing with weren’t exactly on the nicer side. And Vincent, like I said, he was strapped for cash. I heard even as early as last summer that Vincent wasn’t really making the appropriate payments to the higher-ups. Still, he and Marcie seemed just about broke at all times.”
Susan furrowed her brow. “Where do you think the money was going, if not to these higher-ups and not back to their lifestyle?”
Jimmy shrugged. “It’s always the same, isn’t it? He was using. I saw him on the street, maybe late October, and he was skinny as a palm tree. He could hardly keep himself upright. If someone else didn’t kill him, he was well on his way.”
There was a gasp from Vincent’s mother. Several people in the court turned heads and whispered to one another frantically. The judge pounded his gavel against the wood and hollered for silence, and slowly everyone calmed down again. But clearly, Jimmy had caused a fuss.
“Is it reasonable to assume that one of these people involved in this drug world killed Vincent and not Marcie?” Susan asked, point-blank.
Jimmy nodded. “Definitely. Much more likely than Marcie doing it. Marcie and Vincent had their problems, but they would have never turned on each other like that.” He gave a final nod off in Marcie’s direction, but Marcie didn’t lift her eyes to see it.
Susan had, of course, told Marcie about the Jimmy situation. She’d also informed Marcie that she planned to have Marcie on the stand next. Still, once Marcie sat in the very chair Jimmy had just left after a lackluster cross-examination from the prosecutor, she looked squeamish and strange. If Susan hadn’t known better, she might have suspected the girl was guilty. This sort of look back-tracked on the good that Jimmy had just done. Inwardly, Susan cursed.
“Marcie. I want to ask you today about Vincent’s drug use. It’s been suggested that he was using pretty heavily during his final days.”
Marcie’s chin began to quiver. Her hands then shot over her cheeks as a sob escaped her throat. Again, the courtroom muttered with surprise.
“He was so messed up,” Marcie cried out. “So messed up, I can’t even — it’s so hard to talk about.”
Susan’s heart dropped. This wasn’t how she had expected Marcie to answer; in fact, they’d rehearsed it far differently.
“He just changed so much. His personality was all over the place. He was often violent. He threw things! He once threw a lamp across the room! I was like, how do you think we’re going to pay to buy a new lamp? And he just laughed in my face. It was awful.” Marcie continued to weep.
Susan allowed the girl a moment to cry. She then stepped forward, dropped her chin, and said, “Marcie. I know this is painful for you. I understand your boyfriend was violent due to drug use. But tell us here, now. Did you kill Vincent Camden on that day in November?”
Marcie shook her head wildly so that her blonde hair uncoiled from its up-do. “No. I didn’t kill him. I couldn’t have.”
At least there, she sounded somewhat resolute.
But when the prosecutor, Paul Soloman, stood for cross-examination, Susan watched as Marcie melted in the palm of his hand.
“Marcie. We learned a great deal today about your boyfriend’s temperament,” Paul said. “Tell us. What did you do all those times that he became violent? Did you just stand there and take it?”
Again, Marcie’s chin began to quiver. She started to answer, but Paul cut her off.
“Did you just let him rip into you? Did you think, even once, to call someone for help?”
“I didn’t know what to do. I knew he was messed up on drugs, and I—”
“But what made you stay with him? Isn’t it possible that you stayed until your breaking point? Isn’t it possible that you told yourself, always, ‘I’ll stay one more day,’ or, ‘He’ll change. He’ll change!’ and then one day, he came after you while you held a knife, and—”
“NO!” Marcie wailed the word.
But Susan could sense it in the eyes of the jury. Paul had painted a near-perfect picture. And perhaps Susan’s strategy had backfired. Susan leaped up from the wooden bench and cried, “Objection!”
And the judge sustained it.
But the damage had already been done.
Chapter Sixteen
Susan placed her suit jacket into her suitcase and muttered to herself angrily. When she walked across the hotel room, her heels clacked a little too loudly. She yanked her curling iron out of the power outlet with such force that Amanda whistled. “Mom, you gotta calm down. Today wasn’t as bad as you think it was.”
“I just hate the way he picked her apart,” Susan snarled. She took to the zipper on her suitcase as though it, too, were an enemy. “I just feel she came off a bit whiny today. A bit like she’s guilty. I don’t know. I could sense it in the air. Couldn’t you?”
Amanda grimaced. “It isn’t over. There’s still time for more witness testimony from Jimmy. And maybe Jimmy can lead us to another option. Besides, he did create reasonable doubt —”
“Sure, but I think that reasonable doubt died on the hardwood floor,” Susan replied. She placed her hands on her waist and blinked out the window into the late-May sunshine. “Maybe I shouldn’t leave Boston yet. I should stick around here.”
“Mom. Don’t you remember? We have plans this afternoon,” Amanda reminded her. “And you promised me you would take a small break from the case.”
Susan furrowed her brow. “Okay. I kind of remember that.”
Amanda jumped up and laced her arms around her mother from behind. “Don’t you remember? You made a promise to that other child of yours. Tall? Handsome? Name starts with a J?”
Susan’s heart warmed the slightest bit. “He must think I’m a monster of a mother. I don’t think I’ve called him in over two weeks?”
“Naw. He has enough on his plate with Kristen’s pregnancy,” Amanda said. “And the twins! Gosh, they must be even bigger than the last time we saw them. Remember last year? How they howled non-stop, no matter what?”
“Yeah. I’m sure by now they’re reciting Shakespeare and holding intellectual discussions about astrophysics,” Susan said with a funny grin.
The drive from Boston to Newark took a little less than four hours. It was a warm morning, and Susan drew the driver’s side window open the slightest bit and eased her fingers over the glass. Beside her, Amanda hovered over a law textbook; she’d decided to take a heavy online summer course load, with the potential to return to Rutgers in person in the fall. She hadn’t yet decided, she’d said, but beyond anything, they both knew that Amanda would ultimately return to the Sheridan Law Office once she had passed her bar and practice alongside Susan and their new attorney, Bruce.
“And your father is really going to come for lunch?” Susan asked after nearly an entire hour of silence.
Amanda lifted her chin. “Yes. He said he would. Is that okay for you?”
“Of course.” Susan cleared her throat and then added, “Maybe it’s weird to say to you since you’re his daughter, but I hardly
remember my feelings for Richard. It feels like a thing that happened to some other person, in some other life.”
Amanda shrugged. “It doesn’t affect me to hear that. Jake and I always knew you guys weren’t so well-matched. Great in the courtroom, though— an unstoppable force.”
Susan chuckled. “That’s right, we were. No better team on the east coast. I’ll never forget.”
SUSAN PULLED UP INTO the once-familiar driveway of her son’s large four-bedroom house, located not far from the home where she’d raised her babies with Richard. Around a year before, just before she had headed to the Vineyard for a “surprise visit,” she’d planned to reside for a while at this very home. “Can you believe I actually offered to care for the twins for Jake and Kristen?” Susan said as she gathered up supplies from the back of her car, including two bottles of chilled wine from the nearby grocery store and a big thing of potato salad.
“You would have gone nuts,” Amanda agreed.
Just before they got to the front door, Jake flung it open. He had one of the twins — his daughter, Samantha, straddled at his side, and it looked like he had a bit of toothpaste in his hair. He was every bit Richard Harris from some twenty years ago, but with that typical Jake smile.
“Jake!” Susan cried as she flung her arms around both him and his daughter. “Look at the two of you! And oh my goodness, it already smells so good in there.”
“Kristen decided to try a new recipe,” Jake said with a grimace. “So we’ll see if it turns out.”
“I heard that!” Kristen called from the kitchen. After a moment, she, too, appeared. Her pregnant belly bulged beneath her light pink, spring dress, and her right hand led the sheepish-looking other twin, Cody.
Susan stepped forward, knelt down, and in a flash, Cody rushed for her. Susan had been petrified that her grandchildren had forgotten her, as she had been gone during this formative year. But Cody squealed, “Grandma!” directly into her ear, proof that they’d not forgotten, and they hadn’t gotten any quieter, either.
“We set up a big table in the sun outside,” Kristen said as she dropped a kiss on Susan’s cheek. “Go out and make yourselves comfortable. Richard and Penelope will be here shortly. Apparently, Richard wanted to stop at some new natural wine store. You know how he and Pen are. Always hip with the trends.”
Susan laughed inwardly as she joined Amanda, Jake, Cody, and Samantha outside at a large glass table. It felt strangely outside of time, this reunion. She tried to imagine explaining it to a previous version of herself. “Listen up, Susie; you and Rich won’t make it. And someday soon, you’ll be engaged to Scott and meet with Richard and that little secretary of yours, who is pregnant with his baby— and the weirdest part? You’ll be absolutely fine with it.”
Richard appeared out back a few minutes later. He lifted the natural wine in greeting as his eyes met with Susan’s. They glittered with recognition as he said, “Susan. It’s so good to see you. I couldn’t help but notice that case of yours. I’ve been following it closely. It seems like a real doozy.”
Susan stood and gave Richard a half-hug. Penelope appeared behind him in an iconic dark blue dress, with a large slit up the left leg. Her pregnant belly was fit for a pregnancy magazine, and she held it tenderly as she gave Susan a strangely jealous look. Obviously, Richard had tried to discuss the case with Penelope, who probably hadn’t understood a lot of the intricacies.
Not that it mattered at all.
“It’s been a real trip,” Susan affirmed. “I was asked last minute to take the case on. Actually, trip isn’t the right word. Nightmare is more like it.”
“But you know how Mom loves a good puzzle to solve,” Amanda said as she uncorked the wine bottle and began to pour helpings all around.
Kristen served lemon chicken and a light pasta salad, along with freshly-baked bread and slabs of various fine cheese from a nearby dairy farm. She sat, exhausted next to Jake, as Cody and Samantha ran rampant around the yard.
“Do you think they want to eat?” Amanda asked.
“It’s just better to let them tire themselves out when they feel like running,” Kristen said. “We’re basically slaves to their every whim.”
“Can’t wait for parenthood,” Penelope said with a vibrant laugh.
If Susan wasn’t mistaken, Richard turned the slightest shade of green at that. But in a flash, he grabbed Penelope’s hand and lifted it to his lips to kiss it. Obviously, he was leaning in. He had to.
“And how is that idiot ex of yours, Amanda?” Richard asked mid-way through the dinner. His voice was loud, domineering and Susan resented it.
Amanda just shrugged, though. “He’s halfway around the world like he’s been since he left me at the altar.”
Penelope buzzed her lips nervously. “The way you say it. Like you don’t care at all!”
“It was for the best. Look.” Amanda leafed her phone from her purse and began to flash images up for all to see. “Look. He went skydiving and learned to scuba dive and caught this enormous fish outside of Tokyo and well, he’s done a whole lot more living in the past few months than I ever dreamed of doing. I say good for him.”
“Healthy,” Penelope affirmed as she plopped an olive on her tongue. “And I don’t suppose you have anyone else lined up?”
Amanda’s cheeks flushed pink. Penelope snapped her fingers and said, “She does! Oh, you do. Tell us everything.”
Susan knew it was her turn to save the day. She flashed her eyes toward Richard and said, “I guess you probably haven’t heard that my sister, Christine, is pregnant, too?”
Richard almost spit his drink out but then said. “I thought she couldn’t get pregnant?”
“That’s apparently what the doctors told her, but it happened.”
“I guess there’s something in the air,” Richard replied.
“Sure is.”
Richard chewed contemplatively. “And you’re getting married in about three weeks. Aren’t you?”
Susan hadn’t given true thought to the wedding since she’d last seen Scott. The entire concept terrified her. “Seems like it,” was what she chose to say, which was enough to get her off the hook.
“Jake, I meant to tell you,” Richard said suddenly. “They have an opening for you at the country club.”
“No way!” Jake’s eyes actually lit up. “Golf Sunday?”
“You bet,” Richard said. “Now that we’re both going to be young dads together...”
“We’ll have to stay sane together.”
“Don’t worry, Penelope,” Kristen said mischievously. “We can have our wine afternoons while the boys run all over that green. That is, of course, after the baby comes.”
“I thought you’d never say so,” Penelope said. “Gosh, I know it’s typical, but being a new mom is one of the most terrifying things! I already started looking at preschools. I think it's really important to have all this prepared, even before they’re bigger than a pine cone.”
Kristen laughed. “Don’t I know it! Especially here in Newark. Things get competitive and fast.”
Susan and Amanda exchanged glances. It seemed clear that this was no longer their world. Susan leaned back in her chair and sipped her wine, with its dense texture and musky aftertaste, and allowed the strange sadness to fold over her. It was remarkable that she and Amanda had built this whole other life. But these people — so many of them, she loved with her whole heart. And she knew, in her leaving, she had left a piece of her soul here. One she might never fully get back. Already, Richard and Jake were best friends; Penelope and Kristen were chummy, and the grandkids would grow bigger and more boisterous by the day. Susan would do her best to keep her link, but by the day, it grew weaker. It was just the nature of things and time.
Chapter Seventeen
That evening, Lola and Christine sat at the back picnic table at the Sheridan house, both with their arms crossed over their chests. Their faces were stoic, and their body position was reminiscent of Marcie Shean on the
witness stand. Susan stood before them with a glass of wine in hand as they peppered her with questions.
“We have to tell Charlotte what’s up with the wedding,” Christine said. “Do you and Scott know one way or the other yet?”
“Because Charlotte said we could still get some of the deposit back if we pull out now. But by next week? No way,” Lola affirmed.
“Have you really been telling Charlotte about all my dirty laundry?” Susan asked. She shifted her weight as exhaustion settled over her.
“Come on. She’s family!” Lola replied with a stance.
“Yeah, but she’s not us,” Susan replied.
“We didn’t tell her everything. Just that it’s been complicated with Scott’s son coming to town.”
“Everyone knows that Scott Frampton worships the ground you walk on,” Lola said. “It’s just not fair to anyone — not to you or Scott or the wedding venue or any of the guests, to keep this decision hovering. I know it’s making you sick.”
“That’s not really why I’m sick,” Susan protested.
“We know. We know. The trial is getting to you.” Christine glowered as she sipped her sparkling water. “But come on. You were supposed to be hyper-focused on building this life with Scott. And now, it’s like everything is on the back burner? And you look ill, Susan. Like, your cheeks are hollow and it’s like you’re not eating enough, and...”
Susan dropped down on the other side of the picnic table, placed her glass of wine on the wood, and held her face in her hands.
“Just call him. Ask him point-blank what he’s thinking,” Lola urged. “That way, we can make a new date. Maybe even something in late September, early October? After the tourist season, maybe?”
“It would definitely remove the stress from you both,” Christine said.
“Since when are you the practical one here?” Susan asked sharply.
Christine and Lola exchanged pointed looks.
“Jeez. Sorry,” Christine offered flippantly. “We just want to help in any way we can. And we see that you’re—”
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