Until Love Do Us Part

by Anna Premoli

  God, she hoped it would be a long time before she saw Ryan again.

  12

  On Sunday morning, just a few hours later, the ringing of her cell phone awoke her. Amalia began seriously thinking of consulting a fortune teller or someone who might be able to rid her of whatever damn curse had obviously been put on her. Her new bedside clock showed a quarter to five, and it was still pitch black outside. She just about managed to open her eyes enough to locate her phone on the dresser, a few yards away. She got up, annoyed that someone had dared to play this kind of low joke on her.

  “Hello?” she answered angrily, her voice still hoarse with the sleep from which she had been so rudely awakened.

  “Am I speaking to Ms Berger, the lawyer?” she heard on the other end of the line. The voice sounded business-like and, as if by magic, was enough to wake her up.

  “Yes, speaking,” she confirmed immediately, realizing that it was something serious.

  “This is the sixth precinct of the New York City police. Can you please hold? We have a Miss Liz Stubbs here who is under arrest and she claims that you are her lawyer. Will you agree to talk to her?”

  Amalia ran her hand over her face and inhaled deeply. “Yes, ok. Please put her on.”

  After waiting for a few seconds she heard the girl’s desperate sobs.

  “Liz, you have to try and calm down and talk to me. What have you been arrested for? What’s the charge?” she asked, trying to reason with the girl. Which was not an easy job at the best of times.

  There were a few more sobs from the other end of the line.

  “They say I’m under arrest for murder…” she managed to utter before breaking down in tears again.

  Goodbye forever, dear bed, thought Amalia bitterly.

  “Ok, try to stay calm, I’ll sort everything out. Right, I’m going to call your father and we’ll be there right away. But try to calm down! You’ll see, we’ll sort everything out, you just stay calm.”

  “But how can I?” was the girl’s feeble response.

  “First of all, stop crying. Pull yourself together and try to remember everything that happened – and don’t talk to anyone! Keep your mouth shut until I arrive. Is that clear? Quiet as a lamb, okay?”

  “Yes…” was all Liz managed to add.

  “Good. See, we’re already making progress. I’m on my way. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Hold on.”

  Amalia just had time to slip on her black pants and a grey twin set with a wide neckline and grab her bag. Then she had to disturb Mr Stubbs’s sleep while she was on her way to the police station by taxi, trying to calm him down and asking him to meet her there as soon as possible.

  Well, here’s another perfectly valid reason for not having children, she thought.

  Liz was a girl who was prone to getting into trouble, but murder seemed a bit unlikely. Kids like Liz were generally just trying to attract a bit of attention by committing crazy acts of youthful rebellion, not by killing people. She just didn’t have the backbone for it.

  *

  The police station was full of people, as usual, and this being a Saturday night it had magically filled its cells and interrogation rooms. Amalia reported to reception and insisted on being taken immediately to Liz, who had been ushered into one of those impersonal rooms while she waited to be interrogated.

  “Has she said anything?” she asked the officer before entering.

  “Just that she wanted to wait for her lawyer,” was the laconic response.

  “Good girl. At least that’s something,” muttered Amalia. “What’s the charge?”

  The officer had to look through his papers. “The attempted murder of Thomas Delaney.”

  “Attempted?” Amalia said. “So she didn’t actually kill anybody, then.”

  “Apparently she wasn’t successful this time,” came the officer’s sarcastic reply. “But it was very close. Delaney O.D.’d because of a dose of cocaine that he claims he received from Miss Stubbs. The paramedics say that they only just managed to save him.”

  Amalia preferred not to comment.

  “Ok, I’m ready to go in.”

  When she walked into the room, a sobbing Liz collapsed into her arms.

  “Calm down, I’m here now and your father is on his way. Come on, enough with all these tears.”

  The poor girl couldn’t help herself, though.

  “But they say I killed Tommy!” she moaned through her sobs.

  “No, they say you almost killed Tommy. That’s quite a big difference. He was almost a goner but they saved him. He’s doing so well in fact, that he managed to accuse you of having given him a dose of cocaine,” she said, without meaning to.

  “I don’t really know what happened…” said Liz, while Amalia pushed her away and sat her down on a plastic chair near the table.

  “Gently, in your own time. Now calm down a bit and then tell me everything right from the beginning.” She handed her a Kleenex and waited until Liz had finished composing herself. “So where were you this evening?”

  The girl stared at her, her big eyes were red from all the crying.

  “At a party at my friend Masha’s, and then we went dancing in a club, near here, on Broadway.”

  “How many of you were there?” She asked, patiently.

  “I don’t know exactly. At the party there were at least a hundred people. I think half of us ended up at the club, but I don’t remember who.”

  Amalia raised her eyes to the ceiling but chose to remain silent. That kind of party was very common among the young offspring of New York’s high society: too much money, too much leisure time and parents who were way too absent.

  “But this Thomas Delaney was at the party and at the club…” she prompted, to try and get her to continue.

  “Well, yes, I think so…” was Liz’s reply.

  “You think so?” insisted Amalia.

  “To be honest, I don’t remember seeing him at the party, only later, at the club. He came up to me and we started to dance.”

  “And how well do you know this guy?”

  “Tommy’s the son of a close friend of my dad’s. I’ve known him all my life. I mean, it’s not like I know him really well – just we bump into each other every now and then…”

  “Yes, I know the kind of friendship…” Amalia interrupted her. She too had plenty of acquaintances who had seen her grow up and with whom she had probably exchanged not more than a hundred words in her entire life. “But now we get to the difficult part: the cocaine. Whose was it exactly?”

  Liz paled further before answering, clutching at the handkerchief she held in her hands.

  “I guess it was mine…”

  “Liz, guessing is not enough,” Amalia said, trying to remain impassive. “I need facts. Was the cocaine that Thomas took yours? Are you absolutely certain?”

  “He asked me if I had a bit and I gave him some. All that I had on me, which can’t have been much more than a dose… I wasn’t in the mood, so I decided to be nice.”

  Amalia couldn’t hide her disapproval. “Really nice,” she said. “And then, what happened?”

  “Nothing special. The evening went on, we kept on drinking and dancing, and we were all about to go home when I heard people shouting. Then the ambulance came, and right after that the police arrived. A lot of people took off, but I stayed because I saw Tommy lying on the floor. The doctors tried to revive him, and after about a quarter of an hour they finally managed to. Then they loaded him into the ambulance and took him away.”

  “And did you see him talk to the police officers?”

  “Yes. Maybe. Just before the ambulance left.”

  Amalia flexed her shoulders in attempt to soothe a sore muscle caused by her rude awakening earlier.

  “And now we come to the bad bit. The cocaine – how did you get it? Do you use it regularly?”

  Liz had the good sense to show how embarrassed she was. “I don’t use it much. Only on special occasions, like for a party or some
thing. And no, I don’t do it very often… and then I always split what I’ve got with my friends.”

  “Yes, your friends,” said Amalia sarcastically. “And who gets it for you?”

  “There’s a guy in our group, Andrew Trenton,” she finally admitted. “He gets it for all of us.”

  “Has anyone else ever had any kind of bad reaction to it?” Amalia asked.

  “Not that I know of…” muttered Liz sadly.

  Amalia paused for a moment, thinking silently about what she had just learned. Then she looked up and gave the girl a decisive look.

  “There’s no point making up some stupid story. You know as well as I do that this matter is complicated, especially because this is the second time you’ve been arrested in a month, Liz. The judges tend to be lenient the first time, but they have a nasty habit of coming down hard in cases like yours. They’ll take a look at your file and then decide that you haven’t learnt your lesson – and then there’s a good chance they’ll decide to prosecute.”

  Liz froze immediately, staring grimly at her.

  “Was it really necessary to go to a party where people were doing drugs?” asked Amalia.

  “It’s just that… we all do…” the girl admitted, despite herself.

  “Well we’re going to have to talk about that,” said Amalia. “Ok, that’s it for the moment. You’ll have to repeat everything in front of the police officers in a few minutes, but I will be present. First I want to talk to your father for a second, though, so we can agree on our line of defense.”

  Liz nodded sadly, then started crying again.

  Amalia walked over to her and put her arm round Liz’s shoulder.

  “Don’t worry. What you did was really foolish, but Thomas’s overdose wasn’t your fault. It still remains to be proven that the drug he took was the one you gave him. But we’ll have to admit possession, I can’t see any alternative. A lot of people will have seen you buying it at the party and could testify that it’s something they’ve seen you do on other occasions. There’s absolutely no point trying to deny that. The crucial issue will be the dose that Thomas took. I want to see how they are going to connect you to that.”

  Liz smiled weakly, breathing nervously. “I trust you. I will do whatever you say.”

  Amalia stroked her hair and then knocked on the door to be let out. Outside the room a large group of people had assembled. Mr Stubbs had arrived and was visibly shaken, but he wasn’t the only newcomer. A few yards behind him, in fact, was the outline of a man she now knew well. She should have known that he would have been called – seeing as he had handled the first case, why not give him the second too?

  Ryan studied her for a long time and then decided to come over to her. “I wish I could say that it’s good to see you, but as you can imagine it’s not the best way to be woken up,” he said.

  “Tell me about it,” was Amalia’s caustic comment.

  *

  By now it was ten o’clock, and Amalia’s head felt as if it was bursting. It was pounding from chronic caffeine withdrawal and it didn’t look as though there was much chance of the situation improving any time soon. She had been sitting in the interrogation room for hours, next to a Liz who was coping better than she had dared to hope, while in front of them was a taciturn police inspector, a policeman with a big belly and the assistant district attorney. A formidable trio, it went without saying.

  “My client has repeated her story at least five times since we’ve been here,” said Amalia, now feeling dead tired. “I’m personally sick to death of hearing it. I can’t see anything about her story that isn’t clear and I will say again that you have no way of proving that Mr Thomas Delaney overdosed because of cocaine that Miss Stubbs gave him. Not to mention the absurd idea that she gave it to him on purpose…”

  Ryan leaned forward. “We have Mr Delaney’s word in person,” he said firmly.

  “What? Tommy thinks I tried to kill him?” Liz stammered, terrified. Amalia held her hand to calm her.

  “I am confident that Thomas didn’t say anything of the sort. This is just the assistant D.A.’s personal interpretation of the events. He must be hallucinating this morning.”

  He glared at her. “Not at all. But I don’t think that will make much difference to Miss Stubbs. Delaney has clearly named her as the guilty party.”

  Amalia was about to lose her temper.

  “Delaney – who, by the way, can’t really be taken as a paragon of virtue or someone in full possession of all their mental faculties, seeing as he had just been saved from overdosing when he opened his mouth, has only confirmed what we already know: my client doesn’t deny having bought a dose of cocaine nor does she deny the fact that she gave it to Mr Delaney. That’s not the point, and you know very well that you have no way of proving that it was the dose that Miss Stubbs gave him which almost sent him to meet his maker. For all we know, he could have been given a thousand doses by a thousand different people, or he could have even bought it himself. He could have taken other questionable substances throughout the evening in question, which might have created a lethal mix. And that being the case, you can’t prove anything about anything.”

  “I’m sure that when we get the results of the blood tests back from the lab, the question will be much clearer,” Ryan said.

  “Maybe. Or maybe not. I’ve seen plenty of blood tests that weren’t particularly clear over the years,” Amalia felt compelled to point out. “Until then, however, we are talking about assumptions.”

  “The fact remains that Miss Stubbs cannot leave,” interjected the inspector.

  Amalia looked at him in surprise. “Do you really intend to carry on with this absurd theory of attempted murder?” she asked the three of them.

  “As far as I’m concerned, this is attempted murder,” said Ryan confidently.

  “Yes, of course, why not? And if she’d knocked someone over whilst she’d been driving what would that have been – a terrorist attack? Come on…” she cried impatiently. “Let’s not start with your usual nonsense. We know that the D.A. is coming up for re-election, but that doesn’t entitle you to start throwing crazy accusations left, right and centre.”

  The assistant D.A. smiled politely.

  “If it were up to me, Miss Stubbs would already be in prison,” he had the effrontery to say. “Never mind partying and taking cocaine…”

  “Oh, I forgot. The archangel has come down to earth to punish us poor mortals,” snorted Amalia, who was never in a good mood when she was dragged out of bed so early in the morning. Not to mention that police stations were not exactly her favorite places.

  “As you can see I was right. Just like always, I’m tempted to say. But no, you have to obstinately stick up for your peers…” he let slip.

  The policeman and the inspector both turned towards Ryan, looking at him curiously. There was a strange kind of familiarity in the way he had addressed the defense attorney – a familiarity the assistant D.A. himself also had the good sense to notice, flushing a little.

  Amalia decided to change the subject and put a stop to all this embarrassment. “Let’s get back to serious matters. Are you really intending to go ahead with this nonsense of attempted murder?”

  The two men looked at Ryan once again, with expressions of doubt and expectation on their faces. It was obvious that if it were up to them the indictment would not be automatic.

  “Absolutely,” the assistant D.A. confirmed finally.

  “Ludicrous.” was Amalia’s only comment. “I’d like to ask you to give me five minutes so that I can speak to my client. Alone.”

  Ryan rose from his chair, the others followed suit. “I’ll see you outside in the corridor,” he said, turning to Amalia.

  “I can’t wait,” she replied dryly.

  Once left alone, she tried to reassure Liz. “Ok, you heard. They are going to continue with this farce. It’s only for political reasons, don’t worry. I will discuss your case in court first thing tomorrow morning. Tod
ay’s Sunday, so we can’t do much until then. You’ll have to spend a night in jail, but don’t get upset, it’s only one night. Tomorrow we’ll sort out this mess. All right?”

  Liz nodded, then started crying. “Can I see my father?” she asked.

  “Of course, I’ll call him in now.”

  They then let Mr Stubbs into the room and she left them alone so they could have a few minutes of peace and quiet together. What a fine mess Liz had got herself into!

  Ryan was standing a few yards further down the corridor, with his arms folded across his chest, waiting for her, as promised. He was wearing a light grey suit, a blue shirt that was a bit creased and no tie. It was evident that he, too, had been dragged out of bed and hadn’t had time to think much about what to wear.

  “Can I get you some coffee?” he asked, seeing her coming towards him.

  “With poison in it?” inquired Amalia.

  Ryan started to smile. “I haven’t got the strength to think about something that horrible.”

  They put on their coats and went out into the street, which was still fairly empty – something that could only happen on a Sunday. They walked a few yards and slipped into a diner crowded with people having breakfast. Mostly policemen, given the proximity to the precinct.

  They ordered two coffees and took a seat in a booth not far from the counter. Ryan also ordered a blueberry muffin.

  “It’s not good for you to work on an empty stomach,” Ryan said seriously, biting into his breakfast.

  “I never eat in the morning,” she told him.

  “That’s no good. You’ll end up having indigestion and stomach problems.”

  She looked exasperated. “I haven’t had breakfast in over twenty years. I think I’ll be able to manage for another twenty.”

  “What? Your parents let you skip breakfast when you were a teenager?” he asked in amazement.

  “My parents weren’t even at the table when I was having breakfast as a teenager,” she revealed reluctantly. He took hold of the steaming mug the waitress had just brought over.