by Joy Fielding
The familiar clicking of the elevator cables interrupted the drama of her thoughts, and she heard elevator doors opening and closing down the hallway, followed immediately by the sound of voices. It was only as they turned the comer and came into view that Jill realized what it was that Don Eliot had said only minutes before. "We're coming up," his words now echoed. We, plural, not I, singular.
"Hello, Don," Jill said pleasantly, shaking his hand as he walked through the door into her apartment.
"Hi, Jilly," he said, obviously upset by the day's developments but not upset enough to have already talked to David. "You remember Nicki, don't you?" he added, almost as an afterthought.
Jill watched as Nicole Clark, stunning in shades of purple and black, put first one foot and then the other inside her front door. She's in my home, Jill thought, swallowing hard as she watched Nicole's eyes absorb everything that lay before her. She's invading my territory—looking at my belongings, passing silent judgments on my taste, touching, examining, leaving her mark like a dog pissing on the side of a lamppost, Jill thought, relishing the image. Stealing my sense of privacy like a thief in the night. That's what she is, Jill decided, satisfied with the metaphor. A thief in the night.
"I'm sure she remembers me," Nicole said with pleasant confidence, cutting past Jill directly into the living room where she was already sitting down, making herself quite comfortable, when Jill finally summoned up the courage to join them.
Chapter 19
It was almost another half hour before David returned home.
Jill moved from her position on one of the wing chairs (Don sat on the other, with Nicole between them on the sofa) as soon as she heard the key turning in the lock, and went to the door to greet him.
"Don's here," she whispered as he walked inside.
He didn't wait for further explanation, simply moving by her into the living room, laying his wallet and his car keys on top of the stereo as he went. Jill was behind him, unable to see the expression on his face when he saw Nicole. "Don, Nicki," he said easily. "When did you get here?"
Jill watched as David moved to occupy her former position on the large wing chair, feeling very much an outsider in her own quarters, not sure whether to join the three attorneys or leave them alone, retreating to the den or the bedroom like a good little wife.
"Well, what are you going to do, Jill?" asked David, reading her thoughts. "Stand there? Sit down?"
Jill realized that the only place to sit was on the sofa next to Nicole, affording her husband a fine view for comparison. Jill knew that her jeans-clad body and pink-slippered feet had no chance against the rich silks and high heels of Nicole Clark.
"I'll make some coffee," she said, retreating to the kitchen.
"We got here about thirty minutes ago," she heard Don Eliot say. "Probably just after you left."
"I had to drive the kids’ home," David explained.
"So Jill was telling us," Nicole offered. Jill didn't like the sound of her name on the other woman's lips.
Jill quickly poured the necessary amount of coffee and water into the coffee machine and waited for it to brew. After half an hour of numbing small talk, she was eager to hear what these two people had come to say.
"So, what's up?" she heard David ask. "Something else happen?"
"I declined to defend Beth Weatherby," Don said solemnly.
"He's feeling very guilty," Nicole quickly explained. "I suggested we come here and talk to you."
Jill felt a sinking sensation at the pit of her stomach. She wasn't sure if it was Don's withdrawal of support for Beth Weatherby or Nicole's subsequent suggestion to see David which was responsible.
"I'm glad you did," she heard David say. "What happened?"
Jill reentered the room as Don was discussing Beth's confession. "First of all," he was saying, "as an attorney and her friend, I'm appalled that she would do such a thing, make a public confession without even consulting me—"
"She's very confused," Jill interrupted without meaning to, putting a small tray with coffee mugs and bowls of cream and sugar on the square glass coffee table in their midst. "It doesn't sound as if she knows what she's doing."
"I think she knows exactly what she's doing," Jill heard David say, and only a second later realized it had been Nicole who had spoken. Reluctantly, she walked around Don Eliot's chair and sat down only several feet away from Nicole.
"At any rate," Don continued, dismissing Jill's interruption, "it would make it very hard under the circumstances for me to defend her even if I’d never heard of a man named Al Weatherby. As it stands now, the knowledge that she says she did, in fact, murder a man who was one of my closest friends, and that she is making up such a pack of lies to try and cover up her actions—"
"How do you know they're lies?'' Jill asked, again without meaning to.
"Oh, come on, Jilly, you can't believe what she's saying about Al?" Don asked in disbelief.
"I find it hard to believe," Jill concurred. "But I also find it hard to believe that Beth would be making all this up. I guess I just don't know at this point what to believe."
"Well, I do," Don Eliot said with defiant certainty. "Take my word for it, Jilly. I've known Al Weatherby—" He stopped, correcting himself. "I knew Al Weatherby for almost as long as Beth did. He was one of the kindest, gentlest men I've ever met. He'd take a spider outside in his handkerchief rather than step on it. You're trying to tell me that that kind of man would be capable of abusing his wife for twenty-seven years?"
"You're forgetting that Jill is a close friend of Beth's," David explained quietly. Jill was glad for his soft-spoken support and smiled in his direction, but he wasn't looking at her.
"Well, all right, then!" Don Eliot exclaimed, as if the entire issue had been suddenly resolved. "Did she ever, in all the time you've known her, tell you that Al was beating her? Have you ever seen her with any bruises? Has she ever given you any indication at all that she was a battered wife?"
Jill shook her head. "No."
"Well...?" Don said wearily, leaving her to draw her own conclusions.
"Maybe she's protecting someone," Jill said. "Maybe Michael—"
"Michael has at least a hundred other worshipers who are prepared to swear he was with them all day and night.
They never go out alone, you know. They even sleep together on the floor. No, it was Beth's nightgown that was covered with Al's blood, not Michael's flowing robes. It's her fingerprints all over the hammer. She did it, Jilly. She says she did it. I think we have to accept that."
"What seems to be the general consensus?" David asked.
"That the woman's crazy," Nicole answered. "A breakdown of sorts. Anyway, most people at the office seem to believe that she cracked up and just exploded."
"And you?" David asked her directly. "What do you think?"
"How do you know that's not what I think?" she asked, a curious twinkle suddenly appearing in her eyes. Jill began to squirm uncomfortably.
Her husband looked right past her to stare into Nicole's eyes. "Because it's too facile an explanation. It's too easy," E>avid answered. "I just can't believe that a heretofore perfectly healthy woman would go from sanity to madness overnight. With a breakdown, there are telltale signs along the way, even from the point of view of hindsight. There's nothing here, no evidence at all to indicate a breakdown."
"I agree," echoed Nicole, sipping at her coffee. "I don't think she had a breakdown and I don't think she was battered. I think she's been reading too many novels."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jill asked sharply.
"Well, you have to admit, it's the current vogue," Nicole said with just a touch of superiority. "You kill your husband, claim he abused you for years, plead temporary insanity and get off scot-free."
"If Al didn't beat her up, who did?" Jill demanded. "How do you explain her injuries?"
"Some were self-inflicted," Nicole stated confidently. "Some were the probable result of Al waking up in mid-attack
and fighting for his life."
"You sound like you should be working for the D.A.," Jill told her.
Nicole returned her coffee mug to the glass table. "Well, it would certainly be an interesting case to prosecute,” she began, moving her eyes from Jill to David, "since she's rejected a plea of temporary insanity and instructed her lawyers—Bob Markowitz and Tony Bower, incidentally— to plead self-defense."
"What?" David shouted.
"She says she wasn't insane, not even temporarily. She's insisting on pleading not guilty because she says that if she hadn't killed him, he would have killed her."
"Despite the fact that he was sound asleep at the time," Don Eliot sneered.
"Just a minute, what is this?" Jill asked, also returning her coffee mug to the table and watching as some of it spilled onto the glass top. "I don't believe I'm hearing this from a bunch of lawyers." She turned directly to David. "You're always saying that a lawyer has no right to judge his client, that his sole purpose is to defend his client to the best of his abilities, and that if lawyers tried to set themselves up as judges and juries, our whole system of justice would fall apart!"
"This is hardly the same thing," David replied, testily.
"What you're saying is very true, Jilly," Don Eliot added, "and in a curious way we're saying the same thing. A lawyer has no right to be a judge. Whether my client is guilty or innocent is beside the point because my job is simply to provide that client with the best of all possible defenses, which I simply wouldn't be able to do in this instance. Aside from the obvious conflict of interest here—the man she murdered having been a partner and close friend—I believe she's lying through her teeth. The sight of her repulses me."
"Then why do you feel so guilty?" Jill asked.
"He shouldn't," Nicole answered for him. "He's the one who recommended Markowitz and Bower. They were brilliant enough to get Beth out on bail."
"What do her children think?" David asked.
Nicole shrugged. "That she's flipped out. They're hoping, of course, that they can persuade her to plead temporary insanity before the case comes to trial."
"She will," David said with great assurance. "In the meantime, the press will have a field day with this self-defense crap and by the time the case comes up, there won't be a potential juror who can read who won't be convinced she's off her rocker."
"So, you don't think she's crazy at all?" Nicole asked.
"Crazy like a fox," he answered, repeating the phrase he had used to Jill in their earlier phone conversation. "I think she obviously wanted to get rid of AI, who knows why— the money, another man maybe—anyway, he went to sleep early one night. She saw her chance. Bingo—one dead husband, one instantly battered wife." He started to laugh.
"What's funny?" Nicole asked before Jill had a chance to.
"Well, the damn thing's almost foolproof! Anyone who knew Al knew the man was incapable of the things she's accusing him of. She'd have to be crazy to think people would believe that ridiculous story! Which brings us back to square one—the crazy lady."
"Crazy like a fox," Nicole said, using David's words to separate the two of them from the others in the room. Jill felt as if she had just become invisible, as if the words Nicole had uttered were part of a magic spell and she and Don Eliot had just been made to disappear. The only two people in the room were her husband and Nicole Clark. She had never felt so negligible in all her life.
Jill watched in awe of Nicole's performance. The girl actually managed a tear or two as she lowered her eyes and continued to speak. "And a man like Al Weatherby," Nicole said haltingly, "not only dies, but has his name and memory dragged through every dirty puddle in town. It isn't fair."
She looked over at Jill, as if trying to take her into her confidence. "He helped me so much, you know. He was always very supportive, giving me tips on this or that, telling me the best way to make a positive impression, how to be tough. He thought I needed to be tougher." She laughed feebly. Jill fought the urge to join her. "He was the one to suggest I join the firm after Tm called to the bar. He was even going to come to the ceremony this Friday because my own father can't make the trip." Her voice caught in her throat. "How could anyone believe he was the kind of monster who would abuse his wife for over twenty-five years?!"
"No one does," David answered, obviously moved by Nicole's seemingly impromptu speech.
"Even his children are horrified and shocked at their mother's accusations," Don Eliot said, also impressed.
"And you?" Nicole asked, again looking over at Jill.
A neat touch, Jill thought, realizing that her reply was about to place her in absolute isolation. "I just don't know," she answered, opting at the last instant to stick to the truth rather than try to ingratiate herself back into the group by lying. David was always telling her that once a witness started lying, he was doomed. She looked around at the three bewildered faces, taking quick note of her surroundings. This was her living room, not a court of law. She was not under oath. She was not on the witness stand.
For a few minutes, nobody said a word.
"Would anyone like a piece of chocolate cake?" Jill asked, trying to break the tension. "I made some for dessert but we never did get around to it."
Her offer was politely declined.
"How old are your children, David?" Nicole asked.
David had to think for a few seconds. "Jason's twelve," he said finally. "Laurie's fourteen. Typical teenagers, I'm afraid." Nicole smiled as if she understood.
"You're too hard on them," Jill said.
''Somebody has to be a little tough with them," David answered.
"I guess it's hard to know when to draw the line," Nicole offered.
“Do you have any children?" Jill suddenly asked her.
"Oh, no," Nicole laughed. "Not even any younger brothers or sisters. Just one older sister, ten years older, so we were never very close." She laughed again. "No, no children." She looked directly at Jill. "I'm old-fashioned enough to want to have a husband first." She smiled. Your turn, she seemed to be saying.
"Then you would like children eventually?" Jill asked, taking up the challenge.
"Oh yes, very definitely," came Nicole's reply. "I don't think a woman is really complete unless she's experienced having a baby."
"One doesn't have a baby just for a new experience," Jill told her.
Nicole's answer was swift. "No, of course not. I didn't mean to imply that at all. I just feel it's something no woman should miss."
Jill said nothing, feeling smugly one-up for the first time all evening.
“Tell me, Jilly," Don Eliot said abruptly, as if no one else had been talking in the interim since he last spoke, "as Beth Weatherby's close friend, didn't you feel a sense of betrayal when you heard her confession over the radio and not from the woman herself? I mean, you tried to help her. You went to see her." Jill felt her face becoming warm, knew she was beginning to blush, and hoped Don Eliot would be too self-absorbed to notice.
"Is something wrong?" Nicole said quickly, noticing everything.
"She knew," David's voice said softly.
"Knew what?" both Don and Nicole asked as one.
Jill cleared her throat. “Beth told me that she'd killed Al about a week ago when I went out to her house to visit her."
There was a moment of stunned silence. Jill looked nervously at her chewed cuticles. The jury is back, she thought. Their verdict—guilty as charged. Their sentence—death by humiliation.
“I don't understand," Nicole was saying.
"Neither do I," Don Eliot agreed sadly.
"You're not the only ones," David concurred, crossing the invisible line over to their side, leaving Jill alone in a leaky lifeboat.
"It happened right at the end of my visit," Jill tried to explain. "She caught me completely off guard and I was very shaken, to say the least." She searched their faces for a glimmer of understanding, but found none. "She said only that she'd killed Al. She didn't explain the hows’
or the whys’. I didn't ask. I didn't know what to think or what to do. So, I didn't do anything. I didn't feel I had the right to say anything."
Don Eliot was shaking his head. "I don't know, Jill," he said, for the first time since she'd known him leaving out the diminutive at the end of her name, making it sound stiff and formal. "I don't understand. I'm very disappointed in you."
David spoke. "Don, she didn't even tell me," he said.
"I'm sure Jill did what she did out of a misplaced sense of loyalty," Jill heard a voice say and turned quickly to her right, listening to the voice of Nicole Clark speaking eloquently in her defense. "Beth is a close friend of hers, after all, and Jill is a teacher, not a lawyer. She obviously doesn't relate to the issue in the same way that we do. She felt that if she said anything, she would be betraying a friend, a confidence. It's a difficult spot to be in. I'm not sure I would have done it any differently had I been in her shoes."
Don Eliot stood up, pulling at his yellow and black tie. "Well, I guess you women will always find some way to stick together. Now, I really should be getting home.”
Jill remained seated, too stunned to speak. Nicole's support of her position had been as surprising as it was articulate. Why then did she feel like jumping over and throttling the young woman? She felt the sofa move beside her and looked up to see Nicole Clark rising and walking with Don Eliot toward the door. She got quickly to her feet, reaching the door just as Nicole was about to make her exit.
"I'm sorry I had to cancel our racquetball game last Friday," Nicole was telling David. "I booked a court for Wednesday at five-thirty. How's that?”
"Should be fine," David acknowledged.
Don Eliot was already halfway down the hall.
"See you tomorrow," Nicole continued. "Goodbye, Jill. Nice to see you again."
Jill said nothing, feeling her bile rising inside her body. If only she could keep her anger from exploding till after she'd heard the elevator depart. She walked back into the living room as David remained by the door. When he finally closed it, she was furiously stacking the coffee mugs inside the dishwasher. He paused by the kitchen doorway, about to proceed to the bedroom, when her voice stopped him.