Blood Orange

by Drusilla Campbell

  What Lexy sensed was that Ellen didn’t know what to say.

  “Does she have cancer? Is she suffering?”

  “She’s remarkably healthy. She’s almost blind, but her hearing’s as good as mine. She’s tired, though.”

  Ellen’s laugh reminded Lexy of a small dog’s yap.

  “She’d like to see you.”

  “Would she?”

  “Do you have a way to get here?” Lexy had a meeting the next morning, but she could be late, drive up to Del Mar and get this woman. “I could come-“

  “Of course I have a way to get there. I have a car. I have a garage full of cars. That doesn’t mean I want to see her.”

  An Alaskan chill came down from Del Mar, but Lexy persisted. “I wish you’d reconsider, Ellen. I believe your mother would like to let go of life, but there’s apparently some unfinished business.”

  Again that laugh. “You bet there is.”

  Whatever had made Lexy think she could be a priest? It wasn’t enough to love God, you had to be able to love the child of God in women like Ellen Brownlee; and this evening, right now, not only could she not do that, she lacked even the will to try.

  “You can tell my mother she’ll have to die without my help. And if you’ve managed to save my mother’s soul, my hat’s off to you. For me, I’m not in the soul-saving business.”

  “Mrs. Brownlee, we don’t know each other, and-“

  “And we never will.”

  “There’s a great deal I don’t know about your mother. But you and she-“

  “I’m not coming down there so she can relieve her conscience and die in peace.”

  Cliches were a kind of verbal shorthand people used when they did not want to think or feel.

  “Think of it as something you might do for yourself. We’ve all got wreckage in our past, Ms. Brownlee, and once your mother is dead-“

  “You’re saying it’s a use-it-or-lose-it thing? I’ll take my chances, thanks.” The phone clicked dead.

  t six-thirty that same evening Luigi’s delivered two large deluxe, everything-on-them, double-cheese pizzas to the conference room at Cabot and Klinger. To make room for the feast on the scarred conference table inherited from the office’s previous occupant, Allison pushed aside documents, laptops, water bottles, soda cans, and mugs half full of scummy coffee while David’s administrative assistant, Geoff Woodworth, distributed paper plates and napkins with the flair of a blackjack dealer.

  David hated pizza. It reminded him of being a student and always broke.

  Gracie came into the room and closed the door behind her. Avoiding David’s eyes, she snagged a plate and a wedge of pizza.

  “He says no,” she told the room in general, as she pulled out the chair at the end of the table farthest from David. “I quote, `Fuck, no, no way.

  “That Marshall,” Geoff said, smirking. “Always so indecisive.”

  David said, “Did you tell him it’s important?”

  Gracie used her long silvery fingernails to pick the green pepper off her pizza. “And he said the condo’s not big enough for the two of us, forget a pregnant woman with attitude.” Finally she looked at David, her almost smiling expression telling him she was glad to be off the hook. “You can’t blame him for not wanting to give up his home office for Marsha Filmore.”

  “She’s right,” Geoff said, reaching over and putting the discarded peppers on his own pizza slice. “There’s a limit, Boss.”

  “By which I take it you and Billy-Bob would not-“

  B’ y Ray.

  “You guys have that big house-“

  “Abso-fuckin’-lutely N-O.” Geoff rolled his eyes in horror.

  David didn’t bother asking Allison if she’d take in Marsha Filmore. Allison lived in a two-bedroom apartment with two other young paralegals, all of them just getting by. For the sake of show he tried to look put out; but he had known from the start how the play would go. Still, it never hurt to have the team feel a little guilty; that way they owed him.

  “I’ll talk to Dana.”

  Geoff whooped. “Can I watch?”

  “Boss,” Gracie said, her voice sinking, “you can’t do that. Not after what she’s been through.”

  People seemed to believe he had not suffered sufficiently during Bailey’s absence because he had gone to work every day and most weekends, because while Dana fell apart he had remained onehundred-percent functional. It was no way to get sympathy, but it was the only way he knew to behave in a crisis. Sophomore year of high school he played a whole season with a severely sprained knee. If he’d sat out, the season would have been a bust; as it was, even with a gimpy quarterback they’d won two thirds of their games, which wasn’t great, but not a humiliation either. You hurt all over, and that’s when you play your hardest. You play all four quarters. But that doesn’t mean you don’t suffer.

  The conference-room door opened again, and the firm’s other associate, Larry McFarland, came in and helped himself to pizza. The chair beside Allison groaned as he settled his big frame.

  “You do it, Larry,” Gracie said. “You take in Marsha Filmore.”

  McFarland didn’t even bother to respond.

  “If you don’t, the Boss will.”

  “Jesus, David,” McFarland said, his mouth already full of pizza, “you can’t do that to Dana.”

  David pushed his pizza away. What he wanted was a steak.

  “Run it by me again,” Allison said. “Why are we rescuing Marsha Filmore?”

  “Yeah,” Geoff said. “She’s the one who went and got herself pregnant.”

  “And now we know she’s been there before,” Gracie said. “It’s all in Buddy’s report.”

  Buddy Collins was the smartest and fastest investigator David knew. According to the report he submitted that afternoon, Frank and Marsha Filmore had lived across the border in the early nineties in Rosarito Beach, where many of the residents were snowbird retirees or Americans like the Filmores taking advantage of Mexico’s favorable exchange rate. Filmore had commuted to work just inside the U.S. border while Marsha stayed home with their daughter, Shawna. According to Collins’s report they had moved north after Shawna’s death.

  “She fell down a well, for chrissake,” Geoff said. “She was down there three days before anyone thought to look. The guy who owned the well had been warned twice already to cover the top.”

  Allison asked, “Do you think the prosecution knows?”

  “If they don’t yet, they will,” David said.

  Mexican officials had found Shawna’s death to be a tragic accident.

  “What I’m wondering is, what’s not in the Mexican report?” David said. He looked around the room. “Who’s taking notes?”

  “Me, Boss,” Allison said.

  “Okay, make a note to send Buddy back down there, talk to folks, see what he comes up with.”

  “It’s years ago,” Larry said.

  “Yeah, but there’s a big expat community in Rosarito. Once they get used to Mexico, a lot of ‘em stay put.”

  “I’d like to give Marsha a little truth serum,” Gracie said.

  “That’s my point.” David hit the table with the palm of his hand. “That’s why I wanted her to live with you guys. You could do the female bonding thing.”

  “Did you say bondage, Boss?”

  Gracie said, “I don’t think Dana’s going to want to be Marsha’s new best friend.”

  “Maybe not,” David said, “but if she gets ready to share the secrets of her heart, I want our side there to listen, not someone Peluso plants in the local Starbucks.”

  Geoff said, “Can we move on to something else?”

  David threw up his hands.

  “It’s about the hate mail.”

  Threatening and abusive letters arrived at the office two or three times a week. The police checked each for identifying marks, but it was hard to get clues from a sheet of ordinary paper and a message typed or written by hand or in cutout letters glued to the paper
with the kind of glue stick found in stores and offices and schools everywhere. Lieutenant Gary didn’t think there was necessarily a connection between the rock thrown through the Cabot’s window and the messages addressed to the office. There were plenty of crazies to go around, he said. The most recent letter had called David a baby killer.

  “It’s so irrational,” Gracie said. “What kind of jackass can’t distinguish between a lawyer and his client?”

  Darryl Klinger wanted David to hire a bodyguard for Dana and Bailey. He knew a woman, ex-Navy; David had been carrying her phone number around with him for two weeks.

  Geoff said, “We’d all feel a lot better if we knew someone was watching your back, too.”

  “No,” David said too quickly. He knew he sounded defensive. “We can’t afford bodyguards. We’re scraping bottom as it is.”

  Sometimes he awoke in the night shivering cold and saw the debt piling up like snow around a house, the storm of the century. Everything depended on winning this case. “I want Buddy back in Rosarito asking more questions.” When Frank Filmore was a free man, the word would go out, and the big clients, the Court TV clients, would line up and take a number. They’d get out of debt, and Dana would relax and start being her old self again.

  He looked at his team. He cared for every one of them. Loyal, hardworking: he could depend on them to give their best effort and then a little more.

  “I’ll be okay, guys. Trust me.”

  It was after nine when the strategy session finished and the defense team filed out of the office.

  David hailed Gracie, who was the last to leave.

  “Can you stick around?”

  “Sure, Boss. What’s up?”

  His eyes burned with fatigue. “What’s your gut tell you about this case?”

  “Are you kidding? He’s guilty as Nixon.”

  David grinned. “But he’s not a crook, right?”

  “I’d say he was more a shit-eating pervert.”

  He had not asked Gracie to stay behind so he could hear his own thoughts affirmed. “The thing is,” he said, “I keep thinking there’s something we’re missing here. That’s why I want Marsha-“

  “I told you, Boss,” she looked wary, “Marshall says no, and when he-“

  “I’m not talking about that. She’ll stay at our place. Dana’ll fuss at first, but she’ll come around.” David leaned back and kicked his feet up onto the conference table. Folding his hands behind his head, he said, “Let me talk this out, okay? I mean, if I’m going in the completely wrong direction, you’ll tell me. Right?”

  Gracie nodded.

  “Okay. Here’s Marsha Filmore. She’s got a twenty-thousanddollar diamond ring and a five-thousand-dollar watch. She’s eight months pregnant and living in a housekeeping suite in Mission Valley, and all she does all day is sleep and watch television. And cry.

  “Only her eyes are never swollen. You notice that?”

  “No, I hadn’t, but you’re absolutely right.” He jotted a note on the yellow pad beside him. “She has no family on the West Coast, and apparently her friends have all deserted her. Not that she and Frank ever had much of a social life. The way she describes it-their life together-except for the Calhouns next door, they kept to themselves pretty much.” He doodled a moment, drawing circles inside squares inside circles.

  He asked, “You know what cognitive dissonance is, when your brain gets conflicting messages about something?”

  “Like she’s supposed to be a very smart and savvy business woman, but you’d never know it now. She can’t even get to the doctor’s office on time. All that expensive jewelry, and she dresses like a bag lady.”

  David said, “Married to a kid killer, that’d throw anyone off.”

  “Boss, it’s more than that.” Gracie leaned forward. “The way she talks about him, it’s too weird. She thinks he’s some kind of superbrain. The other day when I walked her to the elevator, she just suddenly stopped and told me how powerful he is. She talks like he’s the Godfather and if I step out of line I better watch out. That’s off, Boss. Plus, she says she loves this guy, but she hardly ever goes to see him. She says she cries, but we never see any sign of tears. And if you hadn’t read between the lines, we’d never know about the first child. Shawna.”

  “You think she’s complicit?”

  Gracie shuddered. “You’re creeping me out.”

  “Why? Doesn’t perversion come in both sexes?”

  “Yeah, but I see her for a victim, not a perp.”

  “Me too. But she knows more than she’s saying. You agree with that?”

  “Well, yeah, she’s the wife. But so what? Neither of them’s going to testify. And the case’s got so much reasonable doubt, if I didn’t know Frank Filmore personally, I’d never believe he did it.”

  “Maybe.” Circles inside squares inside triangles inside circles. “We start getting complacent and I start to worry.”

  “Suppose we’re wrong, David, and Marsha was part of it.” Gracie narrowed her dark eyes when she was worried. “Do you want her staying at your house near Dana and Bailey?”

  “That’s no problem. Marsha’s strange, but she’s not a killer.” David stood up. “And anyway, she won’t be in our house. She’ll have the apartment over the garage.”

  ‘e found Dana reading in bed when he got home. Her hair was loose and a little curly from a shower.

  “I need to talk to you, David.”

  Trouble.

  He leaned in and kissed her. “You smell like Johnson’s baby powder.”

  “Bailey got carried away at bath time.”

  “That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”

  “It’s been a long day.”

  He knew she wanted him to ask what happened, but he had been listening to complaints all day. Enough.

  He went into the closet, loosened his tie, and pulled it over his head, thinking how to tell Dana that Marsha Filmore was coming to live in the garage apartment. He used a shoehorn to remove his shoes, put trees in them, and laid them on the shelf of the closet. When he could afford it, he was going to have a pair of Italian shoes for every day and to hell with shoe trees. In his boxers and T-shirt he sat at the end of the bed. Dana reclined against a pile of pillows, a book on her lap, dressed for the night in a cream-colored night shirt patterned with sleeping bears. If she had the slightest interest in sex, she would have worn something else. Stress and fatigue had drawn lines in her cheeks. He felt a pang of remorse mixed with sorrow when he contemplated the extent to which he had failed her. He had not built a safe home for her to raise their daughter. It was his fault Dana no longer glowed with security and confidence. He almost didn’t blame her for going off sex. Almost.

  At Miami University, the prof in American History had asked her a question for which she wasn’t prepared; and David, sitting one row behind her and two seats over, saw the bright rose blush of embarrassment rise in her cheeks. The sight called up a primal desire to punch out the prof. Instead, after class he caught up with her before she left the building, introduced himself. She didn’t recognize his name, which knocked him back a little because it meant she didn’t follow sports at all. He had never been attracted to a girl who didn’t. Still, he asked her out for coffee. When he knew her better he realized how rare it was for her to be unprepared in class and that if she had answered the professor’s question unhesitatingly, he might never have paid attention to her. There were plenty of pretty girls at Miami University, less prickly girls than Dana, girls who lived to serve a star quarterback. His life might have been more relaxed with one of them, but Dana was the only woman he had ever loved. He once told Gracie this. She said he was the sweetest white boy she knew.

  Not now he wasn’t.

  He did not want to talk about Marsha Filmore or Bailey or anything else. His dearest wish was for Dana to strip off that dumb night shirt and give him the blow job of his life and send him off to sleep, a contented man. But there was no way that would happen; and if he didn’t t
alk about Marsha, get it over with, he’d be awake all night.

  He watched her face as he laid out his case. “Fixing up the garage apartment would only take us a weekend. Both of us work„ ing.

  “You’d help? Really? I couldn’t do it myself.”

  It ticked him off that she thought she had to say this. As if he never did anything to help. “We’ve got a problem with Marsha Filmore. Both Gracie and I believe she’s got things to say that the team needs to know.”

  “Like what?”

  “Jesus, Dana, if I knew, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” He went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth ferociously. He could not hear what she was saying over the sound of the electric toothbrush, and he didn’t care. He was so tired the soles of his feet hurt. At the end of the requisite two minutes he turned the brush off and wiped his mouth. He returned to the bedroom. Dana still sat with the book open, facedown beside her. It didn’t look like she had moved.

  “The other day, didn’t you tell me the Filmores’ little girl fell down a well?”

  “That’s the story.”

  “You don’t sound like you believe it.”

  “Police said it was an accident.” What he knew was that both Filmores had lied about having a daughter, and lies made David suspicious. His Uncle Ed had warned him he would hate the law because of the dishonesty. “Be a fireman,” Ed told him. “When a house is in flames no one has time to lie.”

  As often practiced, the law was a dishonest profession in which one side-the accused-almost always lied, so the other side thought it had the right to do the same. To level the playing field. Cops lied to convict whomever they arrested. Jurors lied during voir dire about their prejudices, their pertinent experiences, to avoid duty or get on the panels they wanted. Witnesses lied for revenge or righteousness, or to protect themselves, to inflate their egos, to escape responsibility. Some judges took bribes or reached decisions by throwing a dart; David wished he were wrong, but why should they differ from the other players in the game? Defense attorneys knew prosecutors lied to muscle up weak cases, and prosecutors believed that defense attorneys did the same. It was here David’s reluctant acceptance of the status quo hit snags. As he understood the role of the defense attorney, his only job was to make the prosecution prove its case within a reasonable doubt and to play by the rules while they did it. He deeply believed that without being called to the test in every trial, the state would take the law into its own hands as frequently as possible. There was no reason for a defense attorney to lie, because he was the only person in the system not required to prove or decide anything specific.