Rosa's Diner was small, crowded and smelled of bacon and biscuits and rich, dark coffee. Beth was aware that her entrance resulted in a brief silence, but she ignored it and went to the lone empty booth in the back.
The waitress filled her coffee cup without asking, slapped a menu on the table, then walked away.
"My, my, Rosa's hasn't seen the likes of you in a long time."
Beth was searching through her briefcase when the teasing voice interrupted. She looked up to see Zachary leaning against the wall opposite her, a mug of coffee cradled in his hands. He looked less like a lawyer and more like a good ol' country boy than ever. His hiking boots were heavy and caked with mud, his jeans were faded, and his shirt was flannel in a red-and-gold plaid. The sleeves were rolled to his elbows, revealing some sort of long-sleeved thermal shirt underneath. He looked like a logger or a hunter or some other outdoorsy type—anything but a lawyer.
He looked wonderful.
"Mind if I join you for breakfast?"
She gestured toward the empty bench. As he sat down, he called to the waitress to serve his meal over here. When he was settled, she said, "I went by your office."
"I'm not there."
"No kidding," she said dryly. "Do you always sleep late, then eat a leisurely breakfast before showing up at the office?"
"Sleep late?" he echoed. "I've been up since five o'clock, lady, working up at the farm. If you'd told me you would be here at such an indecent hour, I would have been in my office waiting."
Beth pretended not to notice his easy use of the word lady. "Eight o'clock is indecent?"
"It is for business. Nothing gets going around here before nine or nine-thirty except the diner and the feed store." Without a break, he asked, "How was your weekend?"
She blinked, unsure how to answer. Of course she exchanged social niceties with the people in her office and her clients, but that was all they were. Niceties. Questions asked because it was polite. Questions whose answers didn't matter and often weren't even heard. But Zachary was waiting for her reply, and he certainly seemed interested. "It was all right," she said cautiously.
"What does that mean, 'all right'? That there weren't any major disasters? That you rested and relaxed? That you worked all weekend?"
Her patience slipped just a bit. "It means that it was okay. How was yours?"
"Productive. Relaxing." He gazed out the window for a moment before looking at her again. "Lonely."
Her throat was suddenly dry, but she couldn't take a drink because her hands were too unsteady to lift the cup. How could he say so much with only one small word and those pretty blue eyes of his? Because she knew he was talking about her, about being lonely for her. She knew it instinctively, in ways she couldn't begin to explain or even understand, ways she didn't want to understand.
Another bad sign, she thought uneasily. She could deal with her own errant thoughts. She could control those. But how could she deal with his?
"I had dinner with Sarah and Daniel yesterday. Sarah said to stop by if you have time."
It took her a moment to understand what he was saying; then she nodded. "I plan to. Now … about this interview…"
Zachary picked up the menu and offered it to her. "Order breakfast first."
"I never eat breakfast."
"You should. Didn't your teachers in those very expensive, snooty schools ever tell you that breakfast is the most important meal of the day?"
"But I'm not—" She broke off as the waitress set a platter in front of him. Ham, fried potatoes and onions, biscuits and cream gravy. Pure calories and cholesterol, her mind warned her. Heaven, her appetite disagreed.
"Same thing for the lady, Marcy," Zachary requested with a grin.
This time, as the waitress walked away, Beth fixed a cross scowl on him. "Don't call me that."
"I've never met a woman who objected so strenuously to being called a lady. Makes me wonder why."
Because every time he said it, she remembered what he'd said last week: You must be a lady for somebody. Because she knew all too well what it meant to be somebody's lady. Because she feared she could learn to want that, to enjoy it.
Because she feared she might want to be his lady. Zachary's lady.
"Why should I object to being addressed in such a sexist fashion?" she asked coolly, praying as she looked at him that he saw nothing in her face, no hint of her thoughts in her eyes.
Zachary was quietly thoughtful as he split and buttered a biscuit, then offered her half. She accepted it after a moment's hesitation. "I don't think I'm sexist," he said seriously. "Most of the strongest and most capable people I've ever known are women. I was raised by two independent, strong-willed, opinionated women who taught Alicia and me that every woman has the right to do or be whatever she wants. My grandmother was a schoolteacher and counselor who refused even to consider getting married and raising a family until she became the first female principal in the county. On the other hand, my mother chose to be a full-time wife and mother."
Then he chuckled softly. "Just yesterday I was defending my sister's views to my father, who is sexist, and now I'm defending my own to you. Sorry, Beth, but I can't see that calling you a lady is any more offensive than me being called a gentleman … except when your secretary does it. She manages to put a generous amount of disdain into that one word. I figure she must be an outstanding secretary, because you certainly didn't hire her for her personality."
"Actually, I didn't hire her at all. She came with the office. She is a little distant, but she's very good at what she does."
Of course, he thought. Beth was used to having the best. Could she ever settle for someone less than the best, the brightest, the most ambitious, the most successful? Would it count for something that he was trying to be the best person he could be? Did her methods of determining quality even remotely resemble his? He wasn't sure. Success for him meant having friends and family, helping people who needed it, managing his career the way he wanted, accepting payment for his services in free electrical work or a tune-up for his truck or a dozen jars of freshly canned preserves. It meant having time to go fishing and coach the Little League team and build his own house.
And success for Beth? It meant respect. Admiration. Outrageous fees. A partnership in an old, established firm. Name recognition. Thumbing her nose at her father.
Their perceptions of success were hardly compatible.
Marcy brought Beth's breakfast, and they remained silent for the first few minutes. When they were almost finished eating, Zachary said, "I asked the Morrises to bring the kids to my office. They'll be there at nine."
"How are the children?"
"Frightened. The little one doesn't understand what's happened, of course, but he misses his mother. The others are afraid that they're going to lose her for good."
"Have they talked to their grandparents about what happened?"
Zachary shook his head. "Ruth has tried, but they just clam up. I imagine they were under orders from Carrie not to talk about their father's temper. She was ashamed of what he did to her, so she wouldn't want them telling anyone."
"Probably. But they're going to have to talk to us. We need their help."
He pushed his plate away, then rested his arms on the table. He didn't like the idea of interviewing the children. This business was ugly enough as it was; did they have to bring three little kids into it?
But the kids had already been brought into it. They had lived all their lives with the violence, the threats and the fear. It was all they knew.
"I know you don't want to do this," Beth said quietly. "If there's any way we can avoid putting them on the stand during the trial, we will. But I need to talk to them. We need to know whatever they can tell us."
"I understand that. I just think children should be protected somehow from adults' problems."
"That's a nice sentiment," she said flatly. "But it doesn't work. People like Lewis, people like—" She stopped suddenly, discomfort and embarra
ssment shadowing her eyes and her voice when she began again. "People like that don't care about what they're doing to their children. Their only interest is themselves—satisfying their needs, expressing their anger."
Had she started to include her parents in that statement? he wondered. They had worked at making each other miserable, Sarah had said. Screaming matches and smashing breakables were a daily routine. Beth herself had admitted that her mother and father tormented and degraded each other. And they obviously hadn't cared about what they were doing to their daughter. They hadn't cared that she had witnessed their fights, that she must have been frightened by them, that she must, to this very day, bear the secret scars caused by them.
Considering her own childhood, why had she taken Carrie's case? She had known from the beginning that there were children involved. Surely she had realized that it would stir old memories, old resentments. Why hadn't she told him, "Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not interested"?
He wished he could ask her, but he knew she wouldn't answer. Not only that, but she would probably find his nosiness offensive, and whatever little bit of progress he'd made with her would be undone.
When she finished the last of her coffee, he stood up, pulled some money from his pocket and tossed it on the table. He helped Beth with her coat, then retrieved his fleece-lined jacket from a rack near the door.
"Your town must not get many visitors," she remarked as they started down the street toward his office. "Everyone in there stared when I came in and again when we left."
"Well, you are a beautiful woman," Zachary said.
She replied wryly, "Oh, yes, red hair and pale skin are such a lovely combination."
He gave her a long, leisurely look, then softly repeated, "Yes, lovely." Then, his voice normal again, he added, "And, of course, everyone in town knows that Sarah Ryan's big-city, red-haired lawyer friend is defending Carrie, and that she has access to all the juicy secrets they can't find out."
"Ah, gossip. You must be a popular man."
"Not where it counts." He felt her sharp gaze on him, but he didn't look at her, didn't explain what he meant. She was a bright woman. She would figure it out.
At his office, he turned on the lights and the heat, then hung his coat on the tree beside the door. Beth kept hers on, although it didn't take long for the two rooms to warm up. Of course, compared to her office, both rooms were small. It wasn't as if the heating system was even close to overtaxed.
The Morrises were a few minutes early for their appointment. They shepherded the children in, then spent the first few moments unbundling them. Ruth looked tired, Zachary noticed. Caring for four young children at her age couldn't be easy. Maybe once Carrie's trial was over and it was certain that the kids would be with the Morrises for a long time, one of their other three daughters or their son's wife could help out on a regular basis.
He shook hands with Dutch and greeted Ruth, then introduced Beth to everyone.
"Mr. and Mrs. Morris, would you please take the younger children into the next room?" Beth asked. "I'd like to start with Tyler, and I'd like to talk to him alone."
Zachary escorted everyone else into the reception area, where he pulled a box of toys from underneath the empty desk. When he offered them to the children, the nine-year-old held back, but the younger two showed no qualms about digging through the contents.
He returned to his office, closing the door behind him. Beth was seated at his desk, and Tyler remained where he'd been, arms at his sides, head bowed, gaze directed downward. The bruises on his face were no longer vivid and puffy, but they still commanded attention. They were still the first thing he noticed about the boy.
Zachary touched his arm as he passed. "Have a seat here, Tyler," he suggested as he dropped into one of the chairs in front of the desk.
The boy stiffened and drew away from the contact, but accepted the offer of a chair.
"We're your mother's attorneys," Beth said, sounding as professional and businesslike as always, Zachary thought—maybe too much so for a fourteen-year-old boy. "We need to ask you some questions about your parents, starting with the night that your father was killed. What happened that evening, Tyler?"
He didn't speak, didn't look at them, didn't give any sign that he'd even heard her question.
Beth glanced at Zachary, then asked again, "What happened that Sunday night? How were your parents getting along?"
There was still no response.
"We're not asking you to say bad things about your father," Zachary said gently. "We just want the truth. We need to know the truth, Tyler, so we can help your mother."
He looked at Zachary then, his dark eyes cold and filled with anger. "You can't help her. She killed him. She murdered him. The police said so. She said so."
Leaning back in her chair, Beth gestured for Zachary to go on.
"Why did she kill him?"
"To make him stop."
"To make him stop what? What was he doing, Tyler?"
"He was hitting her. He was always hitting her. And nothing ever made him stop, not calling the police or threatening to leave, not anything." The anger disappeared from his eyes, leaving an emptiness that was terrible to see in one so young. "So she killed him."
"He hit you, too, didn't he?"
The boy raised his hand to the bruises, touching them, pressing on the worst one in a way that must have been painful. He was reminding himself, Zachary thought, of what his father had done to him. He was remembering the pain and the fear and the utter helplessness he'd felt that night.
"What happened Sunday night, Tyler?"
"He came home drunk, like he usually did. He—" He broke off, and for a moment the only sound in the room was the squeak of his tennis shoe when he twisted it against the wooden floor. Then he continued, his voice lower, more subdued. "He beat her up, like he usually did. Only usually he quit when he hurt her, but this time he just kept hitting her. Her eye was all swollen, and there was blood all over, and every time he hit her, the blood splattered on their clothes and on the wall behind her."
"Where were you when this happened?"
"With the other kids. Watching." He sounded rebellious, defensive.
Guilty? Zachary wondered. Did he feel guilty because he hadn't been able to help his mother? Or because maybe, if his father hadn't hit him, he would still be alive? "What happened next?" he asked quietly.
"He finally stopped. He fell asleep on the sofa. Mom went in the bedroom and stayed there."
"And what did you do?"
"I got the kids some supper, then put them to bed. Then I went to bed."
Each time he'd referred to his brothers and sister, Beth noticed, he called them "kids," as if he wasn't a child, too. But, age notwithstanding, maybe he wasn't a kid. Maybe he'd witnessed too much violence and brutality to retain any of the gentler qualities of childhood.
"What time was it when you went to bed?" Zachary asked.
He gave it a moment's thought. "About eight-thirty."
"Isn't that kind of early?"
The boy's look was tinged with cynicism. "When he was like that," he said flatly, "you didn't want to be around when he woke up."
She understood that in a way Zachary couldn't, Beth thought sadly. All he had ever experienced with his parents was love and respect. He didn't know what it was like to live with anger, rage, hatred and fear on a daily basis. He didn't know that in bed, surrounded by darkness, you could pretend that nothing else existed—only what was there, what you could see, which was nothing. If you tried hard enough, you could will yourself away to someplace safe. You might even fall asleep, in spite of the shouts and the crashes and the screams. You might even dream happy dreams.
And even she didn't understand in the way Tyler did. With all the anger and noise and rage of her parents' arguments, there had never been any physical violence. They might have thrown things at each other, but neither had ever raised a hand against the other in anger. What a terrifying thing to watch, knowing that you co
uldn't stop it.
"What do you remember after that?"
"My mother woke me up about ten and told me to get dressed. She said she had killed my father and that the police were coming to get her and that I needed to get the kids up and dressed."
"How did she act? Was she crying or frightened or distressed?"
Tyler gave Zachary another of those cynical looks. "She acted relieved. We were all relieved."
* * *
After the Morrises had taken their grandchildren home, Beth helped Zachary pick up the toys that littered the reception area. "You're the first lawyer I've ever known who kept a toy box in his office," she commented.
"This is a small town. People can't always afford or even find a baby-sitter every time they need to see a lawyer." He added the last stuffed animal, then slid the box under the desk again. "Katie Ryan is the real reason I bought these, although the other kids appreciate them. She was taking my office apart every time Daniel came in on business or to visit. I had to find a way to distract her."
Beth leaned against the desk. "You did a good job with Tyler. Sometimes I think I've forgotten how to deal with children. Other times I'm convinced I never knew."
"What do you think? Do you still want to talk to the younger kids?"
Tyler had blown up when she had suggested that he wait outside with his grandparents while she and Zachary talked to his younger brother and sister. The kids couldn't tell them anything that he hadn't already told them, he'd insisted. If they wanted his cooperation, they had to leave the little ones alone.
"Tyler doesn't strike me as the type to make meaningless threats," she remarked. "If we try to interview the other children, I believe he will refuse to cooperate. Since we may need his testimony, that's not something we want to risk."
"I feel sorry for the kid," Zachary said. "For all of them, but especially Tyler. He's too grown up, too responsible, too…"
"Damaged." Beth returned to the inner office to get her coat and briefcase. "He may never get over everything that's happened."
"I don't know. Love can heal almost anything, and even if they can't give him much of anything else, Ruth and Dutch can love him."
Somebody's Lady Page 9