Defenseless

by Celeste Marsella

  “Elliot, I want you to publish a story about these murders. Any angle you want. Just make sure you stress that no Holton students or faculty have been implicated and how you think it’s unfair that the AG made the statement at the press conference a few hours ago. I assume you heard it?”

  “I was there, yes. But Carlyle’s already pissed that I never wrote the story he wanted me to write about you.”

  “Remember that speech you gave me about having intestinal fortitude in a place like this? Well, get some and stop quivering, because after you write the first story I want you to print another one. But I need your blood promise that you will not double-cross me regarding how you got this information.”

  “Sure. Whatever. But why are you suddenly trusting me?”

  “Quite simply because Carlyle gave me an idea and I’m running with it, but you have to pretend you’re a real reporter and refuse to name your sources even under threat of a lengthy prison term.”

  “Prison might be more interesting than this place. Anyway, I enjoy doing things for you. You’re the only real person I’ve met here.”

  Of course, I thought, because I’m the only one who doesn’t belong here. With the possible exception of Mike, but Mike seemed a lone ranger who didn’t quite fit in anywhere.

  “For now,” I continued, “say the information is from unnamed sources. A female student is preparing to claim date rape by another student. Say that you’re outraged that the male student’s reputation is apparently more important than sexual assault and personal safety. Yada yada yada. You understand?”

  He stared out the window as I spoke. “You want me to publish a story in the school paper saying that Emily Barton is being ignored because this other student has more clout with the administration than she does because his family donates megabucks to this school every year. Is that about the gist of it?”

  I shot Elliot a sidelong glance. “Exactly where do you get your info?”

  “I told you it’s a small school. How do you think the reporter at the press conference knew enough to ask about a sexual predator in our midst?”

  “Remind me never to let you read my diary. Anyway, write the story—leave all names out for now. Print a special edition if you need to. I want it out ASAP.”

  I couldn’t wait to see Carlyle pee in his pants when he read it. Ah, the power of the press, especially bad press. I’d learned more things from Vince than I knew.

  Elliot silently packed up and left with what I discerned was a slight smile spreading across his self-righteous mug.

  As the day inched forward I realized I was missing the girls like caffeine withdrawal. I’d come to depend on the sounding boards of Laurie, Shannon, and Beth. Here I thought our drinking sprees were just a way to relax, to blow off the steam of overheated courtrooms and hot tempers, when in fact we’d actually been helping each other figure things out. Whether it was one of our daily trial tactic dilemmas or the latest abdominal cramp that could be ovarian cancer, we each brought our troubles to the table (or the bar in our case) and hashed them out.

  I got a cup of caffeine for my ever-threatening migraine and headed back upstairs to my office. Lo and behold, as soon as I negotiated the last turn of the hallway, I stumbled upon Rita whispering “Mademoiselle?” as she pressed an ear against my closed office door. So intently was she listening for my answer from within that she was unaware I was approaching from behind.

  Rita cracked open my door and padded like a cat into the office. I followed on her heels.

  “Oh, Rita?” I sang.

  She jumped around, stifling a scream. “You frightened me.”

  “You seem a bit on edge.”

  She retreated to my doorway, muttering haltingly as if she were angry with herself. “Well, yes, everyone is. Students dying . . . such violence . . . it’s not right. Not right at all.”

  “Are you looking for me?”

  She looked around my office and then focused her view to the empty hall beyond. “Too quiet here. I was looking for . . . just some company. . . .”

  She whimpered something else as she walked out of my office and down the hall to hers and I picked up my phone to call my friends and arrange a fun-and-frolic at Nick and Tony’s on the Hill for a slice, a shot, and a schmooze—just like old times.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Good Night, Gracie

  NICK AND TONY’S GOURMET Pizza on Atwells Avenue was a hangout for all the local colleges (and for younger high school kids who wanted to hang with the bigger fish). Although we were all in our thirties and well over the college-age hill, the girls and I were always more comfortable in places where the décor was unsophisticated and the food fried.

  The girls were bringing me Lisa Cummings’s autopsy reports to add to my file on Hastings that I had photocopied from the AG’s before I left. Emily Barton’s sexual harassment complaint would be my newest addition to their case file. And my senses were telling me all these events had an ominous coherence.

  I arrived early and sat at the bar. Booths lined the windows and a pinball machine and a coin-operated video war game flanked the restrooms. Red-checked tablecloths had recently been Americanized with paper placemats to save money on cleaning. Worn-out Frank Sinatra CDs droned in the background. Frank, the Chairman of the Board, Old Blue Eyes. He was as close as Nick and Tony could get to American music without feeling like traitors to the homeland. Not that I minded. With Frank crooning in the background, it took a beer and a half to get me all wound up in some blue romantic mood, even in a greasy joint with sticky plastic menus.

  “Salute, Nick. Salute, Tony,” I called out to the two brothers who worked behind the U-shaped bar.

  Tony waved as his brother Nick walked out from behind the pizza oven. Nick’s hair fell in damp curls around the yellowed collar of a white chef’s jacket bloodied with tomato sauce.

  “Salute, Marianna. Long time, no? You forget your old neighborhood now you’re a big-shot lawyer?”

  Nick and Tony had come to America as kids. After years of working in coffee shops and restaurants, they’d bought their own pizza parlor. Tossing pizzas. Selling beer. Never aspiring to more, they’d taken the quick route to a buck. Nick had wanted to marry me when we were kids. At thirty-eight, he was still single. Tony was a few years older and married, with two young boys who were often with him in the kitchen after school sprinkling the pre-grated mozzarella cheese on large slabs of dough and then dropping dollops of thick red sauce on top of the cheese, before their father slid it onto a wooden pallet and into the flat ovens. It was Tony’s special pizza recipe—he put the cheese on first so the sauce didn’t “sog up” the dough. Father and sons worked in one smooth assembly line of duties: cheese, sauce, oven; cheese, sauce, oven. Tony would one day retire. His sons would become men and take over. Cheese, sauce, oven. Cheese, sauce, oven.

  “Where are your putana friends?” Nick asked.

  “My friends know what putana means. So cut the crap or I’m going to Domino’s.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t get the beer there, eh? We have the liquor.”

  Nick and Tony had gotten their Class B liquor license thanks to me, with a little help from Vince. It was damn hard to get a liquor license in Federal Hill because there were so many churches in the neighborhood. City ordinances forbade the sale of liquor within a two-hundred-foot radius of a school or place of worship.

  “Your friends can hear me?” He made an exaggerated show of looking around the bar. “Eh? They can hear me now?”

  “Just lose the machismo attitude fast. It’s because of us you’ve got booze in here.”

  Nick said something to himself. I may have detected the word “alcoholics” in his mumbling, but then again, “alcoholics” was a pretty big word for him. He had probably just reiterated his belief that we were all a troupe of sluts, especially because of our drinking habits. Maybe he considered me salvageable because of my Italian heritage.

  Nick was six foot two. With the right haircut and a Paul Stuart
suit, Madison Avenue might have snatched him up in a New York minute and plastered him across the cover of GQ. But as far as Nick and Tony were concerned, short hair was for gay men and they’d never heard of Paul Stuart.

  In Italian I ordered a beer from Nick. They got a real kick out of me speaking Italian to them. They were always accusing me of being too uppity.

  “Zat all the Italian you know, for Chrissake? Let me teach you. Eh? I give you the private lessons.”

  “Eh!” Tony laughed from the kitchen. No matter where they were in the restaurant, they always picked up flawlessly on each other’s sexual commentary.

  He leaned toward me as I gulped my beer, refilling my glass from the tap as soon as the beer level declined an inch or so. “You alone tonight? We go for a ride later.”

  “My girlfriends will be here in about fifteen minutes, otherwise I’d jump at the chance. Do you have a cigarette?”

  “Eh? Your father knows you smoke? Nice girls don’t smoke.”

  He took one of his hands and slapped it against the other to suggest I needed a bit of male discipline. Reaching under the counter, he pulled out a pack of Marlboros, rapped the pack hard a few times against the heel of his hand until a cigarette popped up, and then held the pack out to me. “But you go outside, eh? No smoke inside or I get a ticket.”

  “Call the cops. By the time they get here, I’ll be done.”

  He gave me a sour look and was probably ready to bitch-slap me with some macho retort, but a shriek of laughter distracted him. A group of young adults was on the far side of the bar, playing a pinball machine and drinking beer by the pitcher. “You see over there?” he continued. He nodded toward the pinball machine. “All young, they feel nothing except the minute it hurts, then”—he snapped his fingers—“nothing. You have too much emotion. You get older. Time to get married.”

  “Jesus, Nick. That’s one depressing marriage proposal.”

  “You think I’m stupid because my English is not good and I make pizza all day. I take my money to the bank every day. I’m not so stupid. I make a good husband.”

  Nick continued his unorthodox proposal of marriage. “You need babies. Then you have no time to sit around in bars.”

  All the pinball players started screaming at once. Someone had won. I recognized Rod Lipton when he thrust his fist in the air like a kid from the hood.

  “Hey!” Tony came out from the kitchen for a break. Sweat was pouring down his face. Unlike his brother, Tony’s hair was thin and golden, balding at the forehead. He kept it shorter than Nick’s but it was greasy and unkempt. “You keep it down, eh! I got other customers.” Tony came from around the bar and took their empty beer pitcher away. Only when he was out of earshot did Tony swear at them under his breath.

  Rod approached the bar to get Nick’s attention. “We’ll have another round, old chap.”

  Rod saw me, and his frown turned to a smile.

  “Marianna, isn’t it?”

  Nick walked slowly away but stayed near the bar watching us.

  “Hello, Mr. Lipton.”

  “Why not call me Rod? We’re off campus.”

  “Okay. And you can still call me Miss Melone.”

  He reared his head back and smiled. Lipton in his own supercilious way was trying to be friendly. So what’s a girl to do? I tried to be civil without fraternizing and risking the chance that we’d be seen drinking together in a bar.

  “Sure, Miss Melone, if that makes you more comfortable.”

  He sat on the bar stool next to me. I found myself involuntarily gritting my teeth. Nick was right, I couldn’t hide my feelings well enough for the smooth crew at Holton. I was hopelessly animated, emotional, and thus, transparent. I sat up straighter and tilted my chin toward my chest while stubbing out my half-smoked cigarette and trying to act like I was real happy he was there.

  “I’m expecting some friends,” I said.

  Was I apologizing for being a single woman alone at a bar?

  “You shouldn’t smoke,” he said. “I hate to see a beautiful woman smoking.”

  “How about we just talk about you.”

  “Ooh, you’re so feisty.”

  “Feisty?”

  “Yeah, spunky.”

  “Rod, really, we shouldn’t be seen together at a bar, and I really am meeting some friends here shortly.”

  He glanced at the front door, signifying that he barely believed me, then moved to the edge of his bar stool and whispered in my ear, “I’ll just sit here and wait with you. I want to talk to you about something kind of private anyway.”

  I remained silent. Nick was staring at us from the cash register.

  “Emily Barton,” he whispered again. “You know all about that, right? She was at one of our parties the other night.”

  I focused on the Budweiser On Tap handle in front of me as I readied to hear his justification of rape. Maybe Shannon would bolt through the doors on cue with her six-guns loaded. Not that I was a distressed damsel, but at the AG’s, if a defendant got rough, I’d call in one of the cops and he’d twirl the bum around a few times until he got dizzy and fell over. While he was down, I’d dig a six-inch stiletto heel into his back and ask him if I could help him up. Muscle was the only thing I lacked to be an excellent thug. Shannon at least had the size if not the bulk.

  But Rod Lipton wasn’t some gang-rape defendant (yet), so I summoned the ghost of Grace Kelly to cool me down. I smiled graciously and said, “Yes, I’ve heard about those parties. They sound like quite a good time.”

  He drew his head back again. A demure smile, slightly raised eyebrows. “You are a surprise. I like it.”

  “I believe it’s important for administrators to stay involved with students on their level. Be approachable.”

  He nodded slowly, not quite sure of me. “Cory and I were housemates at Reese, then we found this great place at Riverside Park. I know Barton’s claiming it happened at our place.”

  I moseyed closer to him.

  “But there were a lot of guys there that night. Most of the students at Holton were in or out that night. And the girls at Holton have been around the block a few times, you know. And they can drink, too.”

  There it was. The Emily-as-drunken-slut defense. I took a deep breath, remembering Nick’s comment about my innate inability to control my emotions. I had a bad temper and was dangerously close to pushing Rod off the bar stool and shoving a broken beer bottle down his throat. Instead I offered a bit of sympathy for what he was suggesting was a trumped-up charge by a sloshed, oversexed coed.

  “Why would Emily make this up?”

  Rod moved back on the stool and broke our stares. “Who knows? It got a little too rough maybe? She drank too much?” Then he quickly added, “You know who Cory’s uncle is, right?”

  “Movie producer?”

  Rod nodded, briskly this time. “Is she blaming Cory for this?”

  “Confidentiality, Rod. I can’t say.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. But you have to understand a guy like Cory. He’s not going to admit anything. I mean, he wouldn’t even dignify these allegations with a defense. But I know how rumors can get out of hand. Cory’s a little naive.”

  “Sherman’s uncle is a Hollywood movie producer, and Sherman’s naive? That’s a stretch. And don’t forget, I met him, and he seemed about as naive as—”

  “Okay then, cocky. Cory’s too cocky for his own good. What I’m saying, Miss Melone, is that a lot of people are out to get him because he’s from a famous, rich family. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Goodness gracious,” I said in my best Scarlett O’Hara impersonation. “Are you suggestin’ that a young woman would yell rape to blackmail someone who is famous and has scads and scads of money?”

  He moved back to the middle of his bar stool and smiled. Rod was smart and slick—unlike me. He always waited a few cool seconds before he sallied.

  “Good show, but don’t put words in my mouth, huh?”

  Rod Lipton, Cory
Sherman, Ken Carlyle—they all could have taught me a thing or two about Jeff Kendall—if only I’d met them first. But then, Jeff Kendall had taught me some things too.

  “Rod, why don’t you say exactly what you mean and stop buttering up your words.”

  Rod either took my statement as a compliment or he was reacting to the sexually charged word “butter,” because he smiled slickly before he answered. In a cool, matter-of-fact drone he said, “I’m simply saying that if Emily stays clear of us, we’ll do the same. Okay? You won’t hear another word about her. She should find the guy who did it, but it isn’t one of us.”

  “Did Cory know Lisa Cummings?”

  He shrugged. “Um . . . Yeah, a little. They were friends . . . I guess.”

  “Good friends? Like in boyfriend-girlfriend?”

  He snickered. “How quaint.”

  “Were they?”

  “I don’t know what they did behind closed doors.”

  “Did she come to your parties?”

  “It wasn’t her style. She was too snobby to mingle with nouveau riche Hollywood money.”

  “But she and Cory knew each other?”

  “Everyone knows everyone else at Holton. Small school.”

  “Sure, of course.” I lifted my empty beer glass and gave him a mock toast. “Well, thanks for talking to me about Emily.”

  “Anytime, ma’am.”

  “ ‘Ma’am’?”

  “Well, maybe you should let me call you Marianna.”

  At my tacit acquiescence Rod leaned calmly back on his bar stool and smiled. I could see his brain sizzling away while he quickly weighed the consequences of his next sentence. I smiled to help him make up his mind.

  “I swear there’s nothing going on at our place that you need to worry about. It’s just a good time had by all.”

  “Maybe I should come by one night then?”

  “Yeah . . . I guess that would be all right with Cory. Why not?”

  I assumed Rod Lipton paid half the rent, so why wasn’t he confident enough to extend a unilateral invitation? But I didn’t need an engraved one. If I managed to get a five-minute lay of the land—or wolf’s den as Mike called it—that was fine with me.