Blameless

by B. A. Shapiro

  Levine nodded to Craig, appearing truly thankful for the information. Then he turned to Diana again. “Isn’t it unusual for a therapist and her patient to eat lunch together—as you and James Hutchins are reported to have done in the Public Gardens during the summer of that year?”

  “What?” Craig demanded, dropping his arm from Diana’s shoulder.

  “Lunch at the Public Gardens,” Levine repeated, although neither Diana nor Craig seemed to hear him. For they were carrying on a silent conversation: Diana begging Craig to understand and Craig challenging her to come up with an explanation he could accept.

  “We just ran into each other,” Diana stammered in answer to both Levine and Craig. “It—it was pure coincidence.” When the men just stared at her, obviously doubtful, she launched into a long-winded, bumbling explanation of how she and James had just happened to be at the Boston Public Library the same morning—she to research a new grant application, and he to get information on competing mutual funds for his boss. How stuffy and airless it had been inside the library. How the sun had flickered through the fair weather clouds and the breeze had been coming in off the ocean. How they had grabbed a couple of sandwiches from a kiosk in Copley Square and wandered over to the Public Gardens to eat their lunch in the shade of a huge oak tree. “It was harmless,” she finished lamely, her face hot with shame at being caught in a breach of professionalism. “Completely harmless …”

  “I’m sure that it was,” Levine said, snapping his notebook shut and putting it in his pocket. He smiled pleasantly as he headed down the steps. When he reached the sidewalk he turned and waved. “And I’m sure I’ll be in touch soon.”

  As Diana closed the door behind the detective, sweat ran down between her breasts, and she knew if she didn’t sit down fast, she was going to faint. She closed her eyes for a moment and pressed her hot cheek to the cool plaster wall. When she opened them again, Craig was staring at her. “It—it really wasn’t any big deal,” she stammered, reaching her hand out to him.

  “Probably not,” he said, stepping away from her and pulling the door open. “I’m going for a walk.”

  It was almost midnight when Craig finally returned. He walked into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. “Diana?”

  “I want to explain—” Diana began, sitting up and pulling the blanket around her.

  “I think we need to hire that criminal lawyer,” he said as if she hadn’t spoken. “Valerie’s partner.”

  Diana touched his hand. “He needs fifty thousand dollars up front—we don’t have that kind of money.”

  “We’ll borrow against the five hundred grand you’re going to get from James’s estate.”

  “The bank won’t—”

  “Why not?” he interrupted, moving his hand away from hers. “Valerie said we should get the money within a few months—that seems like pretty sound collateral to me.”

  Diana fingered the edge of the sheet, letting her hair obscure her face.

  “We’ll invest what’s left in your charity trust, if that’s what you’re so worried about—fifty thousand more or less isn’t going to make that big a difference,” he said. “This is an emergency.”

  “You don’t understand,” Diana whispered, still keeping her eyes lowered.

  “I understand plenty.”

  “No, you don’t,” she said, finally looking at him. “You can’t inherit money from someone you’re accused of murdering.”

  Craig stood abruptly. “Then we’ll work out some kind of a deal. Call Valerie. They’re lawyers—they’ll come up with something.” Towering over her, fists clenched by his side, Craig threw a long, menacing shadow across the bed. “We have the baby to think of,” he said calmly, his composure more terrifying to Diana than the most ferocious anger. “I won’t allow her to be hurt by all this.” Suddenly he slammed a fist into his palm. The sound cracked like a whip through the nighttime stillness; Diana’s body involuntary jerked. “I won’t allow it,” Craig repeated, his voice still soft and even.

  Diana placed her hands on her stomach and took a deep breath. “I didn’t kill him,” she said quietly, straining to match Craig’s calm, although her heart was pounding and her stomach felt as if it were being squeezed by iron fists.

  “Of course you didn’t,” he snapped. “I might not be sure of much anymore, but I’m still pretty damn sure you couldn’t blow a man’s brains out with a shotgun.”

  She looked up at Craig in relief, but his gaze was focused on the wall over her head. “I’ll call Valerie first thing in the morning,” she promised, reaching over to touch his arm.

  “And find out what you have to do to get that fucking detective off our backs,” Craig ordered, shaking off her hand. Then he turned and walked from the bedroom.

  20

  DIANA SPENT A FITFUL NIGHT, TOSSING BETWEEN wakefulness and flickering dreams. She raced down a long hall to an arched doorway behind which she knew lay safety. But when she reached it, she found herself facing a towering blank wall—the door had shrunk into a miniature of itself, barely big enough to slide her fist through. In the midst of a loud and crowded party, she offered her brother Scott and Detective Levine cocktails off a round silver tray, but they were laughing so hard, they were unable to grasp the drinks that kept slipping through their fingers. And then right after dawn, Diana dreamed she was a little girl, standing at the water’s edge on a late summer afternoon. Her mother was singing and wrapping her in an oversized towel, hugging her and nuzzling her neck as she rubbed the water and sand from Diana’s small body.

  When Diana woke, there were tears in her eyes. To be that little girl again. To start over. To have the chance not to make mistakes. An impossible, unattainable, and foolish wish, she chastised herself, reaching out to touch the cool sheet where Craig should have been sleeping. But he wasn’t there, and the stillness of the house told her he had already left for the day.

  Slowly she pulled herself into a sitting position. She paused for a moment at the edge of the bed and pressed her palms to her stomach, hoping to feel the butterfly movement of a tiny foot. But there was nothing.

  Valerie was very annoyed. “You better come up with the cash to retain Mitch Calahane,” she snapped after Diana described Levine’s visit. “Either that, or come up with enough sense not to answer any questions—or at least, to call me before you do. The cop’s got no case,” she added. “He’s fishing, and you’re biting at his bait like some pea-brained salmon.”

  Diana murmured apologies as Valerie ranted on. Finally, when Valerie calmed down, Diana said, “Look, we don’t have fifty thousand dollars, you know that. We can’t hire Calahane straight out, but I can’t just sit here either. I won’t,” Diana declared. “There’s got to be something else we can do. Some way that I can exonerate myself without spending all that money.”

  “I understand your position,” Valerie said. “But I still think Mitch’s your best bet.”

  Diana hesitated, not knowing what to say. She was no good at this; she always paid too much for cars and had been at a complete loss bargaining in Mexico. “Is, ah, is there any other way we could possibly pay for his services? On some kind of piecemeal basis?”

  Valerie hesitated. “You know,” she finally said, a sly tone to her voice, “there just might be a way to finagle this for you.”

  Diana pressed the phone tighter to her ear. “Oh?”

  Valerie was silent for a few moments, then she said, “Perhaps something involving the Inquirer suit … Some kind of swap for straight hourly rates …”

  Diana could almost hear Valerie weighing the firm’s one-third of the Inquirer award versus what they might lose by not making Diana pay Calahane’s retainer. Obviously, Valerie thought the Inquirer was a good bet.

  “The reason for the large retainer on a murder case is that the legal fees can run well over six figures. Sometimes even seven,” Valerie was saying slowly, obviously thinking out loud. “And often defendants don’t have that kind of cash.”

 
; “And if they’re convicted,” Diana said dryly, “you might never get paid.”

  “But, as it’s highly unlikely this case will ever go to trial,” Valerie continued, ignoring Diana’s remark, “the firm might be willing to take the risk. And the truth is, Mitch’s a pretty good detective. He’s got quite a knack for getting people to talk—I swear he could get a Mafia hit man to sing on his charm alone.” The clicking of computer keys came over the line. “I’d have to check it out with a few of my partners—and with Mitch, of course,” Valerie finally said. “But I think that maybe we can put something together for you.”

  “As long as I agree to going ahead with the Inquirer suit?”

  “Of course,” Valerie said sweetly.

  At four o’clock that afternoon Diana found herself seated in the mahogany wainscoted reception room of Bogdanow, Federgreen, Starr, and Calahane, antique brass sconces fighting off the encroaching dusk with their soft rose-hued light. The reception area had been carved out of the same ballroom as the conference room where she had gone through James’s Mass General records, the room where she had turned her life in a new direction—although it was far from clear whether the new direction was an improvement over the old. Today, as she stared through the mullioned panes at the Public Gardens, at the paper cups and used napkins caught between the naked branches of the scraggly bushes, Diana avoided looking at the oak tree.

  “Here she is,” Valerie’s voice boomed as she strode across the plush carpet. Mitch Calahane, who resembled a good-natured bear with his thick mane of white hair and his rumpled suit, ambled in behind her. “Diana Marcus,” Valerie said, waving at them as they shook hands. “Mitch Calahane.”

  Mitch’s handshake was as substantial as he was, and his smile lit up his face in a way that made Diana understand how he got all the “courtroom gab.” It wasn’t that he was handsome—although he wasn’t bad-looking—it was just that he was irresistibly likable in a jolly Santa Claus kind of way. “Nice to meet you, Dr. Marcus,” he said as if he really meant it.

  “Diana,” she corrected.

  He rewarded her with an even broader smile and a request for her to call him Mitch. After reminding them to keep their “little swap” under wraps because “Bogdanow would have a shit fit” if he ever found out, Valerie excused herself. Diana followed Mitch into his office. It was much larger and better appointed than Valerie’s, he being a senior partner, and its understated elegance made Diana nervous about how high even his hourly rate might be.

  She quickly launched into her story. Mitch listened patiently, taking notes and nodding his head as she recounted the details. He stopped her a couple of times to ask questions in a very mild Southern accent. He told her he had worked with Herb Levine, adding that he had always found Levine to be a very good and a very “plain dealing” cop.

  Diana wasn’t sure whether this was good or bad news. “I didn’t kill James Hutchins,” she said. “And Detective Levine was acting as if he was …” She paused. “Well, as if he was sure that I had.”

  Mitch chuckled softly. “That’s Herb Levine’s style, Diana. Don’t take it personally.”

  “But it is personal,” Diana said. “It doesn’t get any more personal than having to prove that you aren’t a murderer.” She leaned forward in her chair. “Do you think you can help me?”

  Mitch was silent for a moment, turning his pencil with his thumbs and forefingers. “What you need to understand is, from the police’s point of view, this is one bitch of a case.” He smiled sheepishly and tilted his head. “Excuse my French.”

  “Because of the lack of physical evidence?”

  “Combined with reasonable doubt,” he added. “Herb Levine’s problem is getting hold of enough evidence to build up a case that’ll convince a jury that you’re guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. So, the question is: How is he going to do that?”

  “Not easily?” Diana said, her hopes rising.

  “Slowly,” Mitch corrected and Diana’s heart sank. “Piece by piece. Remember that Robin Benedict case a few years back?”

  “The one where they never found the body?”

  “Never even knew for sure that she was dead,” he said, “But they convicted that professor anyway. Weight of evidence.” He paused and twirled his pencil once again. When he continued, it was as if he were speaking more to himself than to Diana. “At least Levine’s got the fact that there was an actual DB going for him.”

  “DB?” Diana asked.

  “Dead body.”

  Diana cringed at the image Mitch’s words brought to mind. “But Levine’s evidence is so circumstantial,” she said, pushing the image away.

  He nodded. “That’s how you build a case like this.”

  “But it’s just a bunch of little bits of nothing …”

  “Herb Levine’s no fool. He obviously thinks it’s all going to add up to something.” Mitch raised his hand and began ticking off his fingers as he spoke. “Number one: he’s got motive—five hundred thousand dollars’ worth—with may be even a few extra motives thrown in to spice up his case.”

  “Does he need more than one?”

  “No,” Mitch said. “But a thwarted lover, a difficult patient, perhaps a threat to professional security—these possibilities wouldn’t hurt him a bit.”

  Diana twisted her wedding ring.

  “Number two,” Mitch solemnly held up a second finger, “there’s opportunity. Unfortunately, Diana, you haven’t been able to come up with an alibi for the afternoon of the murder.”

  “How can I come up with an alibi I don’t have? I was working at home all afternoon—alone. Before that I wandered around Copley Place—alone.” Diana shrugged. “End of story.”

  “Think about the day for me one more time,” Mitch pressed, scribbling on his pad. “Relive it in your mind. Did you talk to anyone on the phone? Buy anything at Copley Place? Charge anything to a credit card?”

  Diana did as Mitch asked, then shook her head in frustration. “I’ve replayed that afternoon over and over again. And the answer to all your questions is still no.”

  Mitch pushed his legal pad away from him and just looked at Diana.

  “So this is worse than I thought?”

  “Maybe yes,” he said slowly. “Maybe no.”

  “Maybe no?” Diana asked, hearing the desperation in her own voice.

  “We can’t forget there are two other suspects with qualifications almost as good as yours.”

  “Except that Detective Levine seemed to imply that Jill has come up with an alibi,” Diana said glumly. “And that Ethan might have one too.”

  “That’s something I can check on for you,” Mitch offered.

  Diana nodded vigorously. “Please.”

  “But my guess is,” he continued, “unless their alibis are airtight, those two are our answer.”

  “Our answer?”

  “Look, all we have to prove is that someone else might have done it. That’s the way the law works. You and I figure out a way to show that either one of these other jokers had equal motive and opportunity …” Mitch paused and looked Diana straight in the eye. “And you’re off the hook.”

  “It’s that simple?”

  “And that difficult.”

  It turned out that Mitch was every bit as good a detective as Valerie had reported. By the following Monday he called Diana with the news that the police still hadn’t found Ethan, but that Jill Hutchins’s aunt, a Molly Arell of Norwich, Connecticut, had signed an affidavit that she had been visiting with Jill on the afternoon of James’s murder.

  “She’s lying,” Diana told Mitch, explaining that James had told her right before his death that neither he nor Jill had seen their aunts for at least five years.

  “You really could use a private detective more than a lawyer,” Mitch told her. “But as long as Valerie’s cooked up this deal—and in case the worst does materialize and we end up in court—here’s my suggestion.” He outlined a plan in which he, Valerie, and a private detective he
often used, worked together. He proposed a three-pronged strategy: researching both Ethan and Jill’s backgrounds using his police contacts and access to various national databases; tracking down Ethan; and visiting Jill and James’s hometown to investigate Molly Arell’s story and just plain snoop around. “I’ve got a feeling about this last piece,” he said. “I’m no detective, but there’s something to be found in Norwich. I just know it.”

  As Diana listened to his reasoned plan, her hopes soared, but when Mitch told her the estimated cost, she was crushed. Although the price was a fifth of his retainer, it was still far too high. “It all sounds wonderful,” she said softly, “but we can’t afford it.” She couldn’t tell Craig they had to spend ten thousand dollars to get her out of this debacle of her own making. Ten thousand dollars that they didn’t have. Ten thousand dollars that would put him years behind in his plans for Frey and Associates. “We just can’t afford it,” she repeated.

  “What can you afford?” Mitch asked, undeterred.

  When Diana told him, he paused, and she could hear the tapping of computer keys. “My hourly rate is higher than Valerie’s … As long as we don’t tell Bogdanow, we could move some of my hours over to her column and save you a few more bucks. And, if I gave you a courtesy discount for a proportion of my time …”

  “I couldn’t ask you—”

  “Would you be willing to be the detective?” he interrupted.

  “You mean, I would work for you?”

  His chuckle was warm. “In a convoluted, incestuous sense.”

  After she hung up, Diana stared at the phone. The final price she and Mitch had negotiated was still far more than they could afford. But she had almost two thousand dollars in her business account, and they would just have to make up the difference by borrowing from her parents.

  She knew her parents would be more than happy to help out; relieved even, that she was finally letting them do something for her. She also knew that Craig wouldn’t like it at all—but that he would agree with her decision. Hiring Mitch had been his idea in the first place, and, of course, he would have no qualms about trying to stick it to the Inquirer. The truth was, as they were all too aware, there was little choice.