Accused

by Lisa Scottoline

  “No, that’s not the case—”

  “If it’s not, it’s close enough.” Richard checked his stainless steel Rolex with a scowl. “Excuse me, I have a meeting shortly and I have to prepare for it.”

  “I’m not here about Allegra, I’m here about Fiona.” Mary knew she had about thirty seconds to spit it out, so she stepped over to his desk. “I have information that leads me to believe that Lonnie Stall did not kill Fiona. I think he was wrongly convicted and I’m trying to get the case reopened. I believe that Tim Gage killed Fiona because she broke up with him.”

  “Tim?” Richard recoiled. “Your facts are completely wrong. You don’t know what you’re talking about. The police caught Stall fleeing the scene, with my niece’s blood all over him. The blood of a beautiful young girl, an innocent young girl.”

  “I understand that but—”

  “You don’t understand anything. The jury convicted him, and they were right to do so. I sat in the trial every day, and I listened to every word of testimony. So did Edward, all of us. It was a horror. Tim wasn’t even at the party that night.”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  “I have proof.”

  “What proof?” Richard asked, in disbelief.

  “One of the parking valets remembers him, and his fancy car.” Mary didn’t know if she should be telling him, but it was time for a full-court press. Richard was in no mood to listen now, but he could come around later.

  “Everybody at that party has a fancy car.”

  “Not like Tim’s, a vintage Jaguar.”

  Richard hesitated. “Car or no car, I’m not surprised you can get some valet to come forward. This is a chance to make a few bucks and get your name in the paper. He wants to be some kind of hero, have his fifteen minutes of fame. I heard the testimony, and it was a fair jury.”

  “If you would just keep an open mind—”

  “Who are you to say that to me? I’ve never heard anything like this. A lawyer who would represent a daughter, suing her own mother and father? Over a tragic murder that almost blew our family to bits?” Richard’s tone was angry, yet controlled, and underneath Mary could hear his anguish.

  “Think of it this way. I was hired by Allegra. She’s in your family, too, isn’t she?”

  “Way to miss the point. You entertained Allegra’s crazy notions. Look where she is now, because of you. My brother’s right, you should be ashamed of yourself.” Richard flushed under his smooth shave. “What are you in this for? Your fifteen minutes of fame, too? I’ve heard of Bennie Rosato, but I’ve never heard of you, and she’s not exactly averse to headlines, either.”

  Mary got to the point. “I’d like to know if you saw any instances in which Tim was angry or abusive with Fiona. I’m asking because I know that he was resentful of the time she spent working for you on the Meyers project. I’m hoping that maybe you heard something, her talking or fighting with him on the phone, or maybe you saw them quarrel.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Or maybe you saw Tim and Fiona fighting in the house, when you were working here, in the cottage.” Mary found herself gesturing toward the house. “You can see a little through the evergreens. Just think about it, is all I’m asking.”

  “You have no right to ask me anything.” Richard rose behind his desk, against a backdrop of corporate awards and framed photographs of buildings. “I don’t know what scam you’re pulling with that man out there, or why my sister-in-law admitted you to the farm, but your actions can’t be ethical. I should have Neil bring you up on charges. Do they have charges for attorneys? Or is there no shame?”

  “Nothing I’m doing is unethical, and there’s no scam.” Mary stood her ground. “If I didn’t think Tim Gage was a credible suspect, I wouldn’t have gone this far, but he lied to you, me, and everybody else about where he was that night, and he had motive to kill Fiona. Motive and opportunity is a case, Richard.”

  “The case is over, and Stall should rot in jail forever. He’s still breathing every day, which is not something I can say for my niece.” Richard walked stiffly around the side of the desk, strode toward Mary, and pointed into the hallway. “If you don’t leave now, I’m calling 911.”

  “Okay, fine.” Mary edged backwards out the door. “If you have any second thoughts, or anything occurs to you, even the smallest thing, please call me. Even the smallest bit of evidence could tip the scales. It might not seem significant—”

  “Out!” Richard raised his voice, pointing.

  “Thank you for your time.” Mary left the office, getting out while the getting was good.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Mary sat in a blue bucket seat in the ER waiting room, at the head of a forlorn little row that included her father, Tony-From-Down-The-Block, and Pigeon Tony. The air smelled like Febreeze and stale coffee. They were in a small rural hospital, remarkably new and modern, if barely used. They’d been sitting here an hour, and in that time, only one other patient had come in, a man who’d fallen off the tractor and broken his arm. Mary knew it would have been a different scene in a Philadelphia hospital, but out here in the country, the only things that got shot were deer.

  Sunlight flooded the small waiting room, which was empty, with fresh magazines on the end tables and a flat screen television playing the afternoon soaps on mute. Pigeon Tony was glued to the television, and she suspected he was a closet fan of The Young and The Restless, though he was neither young nor restless.

  “HE’S GOTTA BE OUT SOON,” her father said, with a worried sigh. His soft shoulders sagged, and he held his hands linked in his lap, which rounded his shape to a human meatball. He had made the trip in the ambulance with Feet, since Pigeon Tony didn’t speak any English and Mary had worried that if she put Tony-From-Down-The-Block in the ambulance with Feet, only one octogenarian would’ve gotten out alive.

  “I’m sure he’ll be out soon.” Mary checked the wall clock, which read 2:06. She had used the time to answer email from her other clients and the text from Anthony, asking how she was doing. She answered fine, because no text could begin to describe the situation, and she noted that Allegra had called her three times, a number that seemed a tad excessive. Mary hadn’t called back yet because there were signs everywhere forbidding cell-phone use. She could still be on time for her meeting with Hannah Wicker, if they left within half an hour, but she was here for the duration. Feet took top priority, and Mary was already feeling responsible for getting him in this fix in the first place.

  Tony-From-Down-The-Block nodded. “Matty, it’s good you called his son. That’s the only family he has, right?”

  “No,” her father answered quietly. “He has us.”

  Touched, Mary looked over at her father. His head was tilted slightly downward, and he was rubbing one battered thumb over the top of the other. His hands were beat up from a lifetime spent setting tile, and he used to say his grout was like sugar. To look at her father’s hands was to see his life story, and she realized that he and his friends experienced a hospital emergency room in a very different way than she did. She wondered if her father were thinking about life and death right now. Her throat caught, and she reached out for his arm and gave it a warm squeeze.

  Suddenly, a pretty young nurse in blue scrubs appeared at the doorway, pushing a wheelchair that held Feet. His Mr. Potatohead glasses had been repaired with a piece of Scotch tape at the bridge, so now he had two pieces of tape, and he was wearing a wan smile and a heavy plastic boot on his right foot. “Here we go, gang,” she said with a grin. “He’s all yours, but we’ll miss him. He sang Frank Sinatra to us.”

  “Dean Martin,” Feet corrected her, glancing up.

  “Hi, Feet!” Mary rose quickly, and the others less so, though they clustered around him, even Tony-From-Down-The-Block.

  “Welcome back, Feet,” he said, gesturing at the wheelchair. “Hey, you got yourself a convertible and a pretty girl. Nice work if you can get it.”

&
nbsp; “HEY, PAL! HOW’D YA MAKE OUT!”

  “Tony, come stai?”

  “So what’s the diagnosis?” Mary asked the nurse, who handed her a flurry of papers stapled together.

  “Not too serious. A mild sprain, if that.”

  “Yay!” Mary couldn’t have taken the guilt, if the news had been worse.

  “Bravo!”

  “He was lucky, that’s for sure.” The nurse patted Feet’s shoulder. “The doctor told him, from now on, no more long walks without a cane.”

  Feet frowned, glancing up again. “I walk to the corner to get the newspaper every day, and I don’t need a cane.”

  “I KNOW YOU DON’T. I DON’T NEED A HEARING AID, EITHER.”

  Mary assumed her father was kidding, but she could never be sure. “So why does he have the boot?”

  “To hold the foot rigid, so the ankle can heal.” The nurse pointed to the stapled papers. “Those are his discharge instructions, which show the care he’ll need. Will you sign them for me?”

  “Sure.” Mary reached into her purse, rummaged around for a pen, and signed the papers on the bottom, while the nurse continued.

  “He’s already taken Advil, and we gave him some to take home. He should stay on that for the next few days, as you’ll see in the instructions. He’s tired, and I know you have a long drive back to the city, so unless I miss my guess, he’ll sleep the whole way.”

  “I’m not tired,” Feet corrected her.

  Mary smiled. “It’s been a busy morning. I think they’re all tired.”

  “I’M NOT TIRED.”

  “Me, neither,” said Tony-From-Down-The-Block.

  “Che?”

  Mary let it go. “What about the boot?” she asked, handing the nurse the signed forms.

  “He’s going to be wearing the boot for three weeks, but he’ll take it off at night or in the shower. It has to be put on and taken off properly, and I can show you how it works. It can be complicated, and the straps are Velcro. He’ll also need cold compresses for the first few days.” The nurse eyed the group, bewildered. “Who’s going to be helping him with that? He told us he lives alone.”

  Tony-From-Down-The-Block stepped forward like a soldier reporting for duty. “I’ll do it,” he said, practically clicking his heels together.

  Mary looked over, surprised.

  Her father looked back at her, flaring his eyes in another Meaningful Look, which meant did-you-see-this-coming?

  Pigeon Tony looked at the television, still young and restless, at heart.

  Feet looked up at Tony-From-Down-The-Block, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “You? You’ll probably kill me.”

  Tony-From-Down-The-Block squared his soft shoulders. “Feet, I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.”

  Feet leaned back in his wheelchair, dubious. “Did Mary make you apologize?”

  “No.” Tony-From-Down-The-Block shook his head, with its patch of Elmo-red hair. “She gave me the idea, but what made me do it was when I saw you drivin’ away in the ambulance. Life’s too short to fight with your friends.”

  “I thank you,” Feet said, nodding in his wheelchair, as magnanimous as a king in a throne.

  Mary swallowed the lump in her throat, and the nurse looked choked up, too, because nurses were soft-hearted, by nature.

  “YOU TWO KISSED AND MADE UP? THEN LET’S GET OUTTA THIS JOINT! WE’RE TOO YOUNG TO BE INNA HOSPITAL!”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Fifteen minutes later, Mary was driving the Buick back to Philadelphia, while her father, Feet, Tony-From-Down-The-Block, and Pigeon Tony fell soundly asleep. She kept the windows closed so they wouldn’t wake up, though the afternoon sun heated the car’s interior, which was filled with the sound of snoring, a deviated septum, and an incipient allergy to pollen, if not fresh air. They had caused their share of trouble today, but she couldn’t have gotten any of the information she had without their shenanigans. It made her want to kiss each of them on the forehead.

  She noticed the scenery becoming more suburban, with less open space and more homes, then thought about returning Allegra’s call, because her father wasn’t awake to nag her about using the cell phone. Still she waited until she stopped at a red light to dial the number, because she was that good a daughter. It took a while to get to Allegra through Churchill’s operator, but she finally did. “Allegra?”

  “Hi, Mary!” Allegra sounded eager to speak with her. “You called at the perfect time. I just met my team, and they have me scheduled for an individual session in fifteen minutes.”

  “Good, you sound better than last night,” Mary told her, meaning it.

  “I slept okay, but I still want to get out of here. Can you get me out of here?”

  “Not yet, but I did want to update. We got the bees installed in their hives, and I spoke with Alasdair.”

  “Oh that’s great! You didn’t get stung or anything, did you? Did he get stung?”

  “No, everybody’s fine, and we had some help from some friends of mine.”

  “Great, I was so worried. Were the bees okay? Was the queen alive? Sometimes they die in the mail.”

  “She’s fine, sitting on her tiny bee throne as we speak.”

  “Thanks so much for all you and your friends did. Alasdair will take care of the work at the hive from now on, he knows what to do.”

  Mary hadn’t realized there was more work to do, but she was officially out of the bee business.

  “That’s why I called you so many times, I was hoping nobody ended up in the hospital.”

  Mary almost told her that they had, but they didn’t have much time on the phone, and she felt relieved that Allegra had a good explanation for calling so often. “The headline about this morning is that you were right about Tim Gage. He was at the party the night Fiona was killed, and he left upset, though there were no signs of blood or anything like that on him. Our investigator found a parking valet who gave him the information.”

  “That’s amazing,” Allegra said, her tone turning hushed. “So he was there. I knew it, all this time, I knew it.”

  “Also, Alasdair told me that Tim was really upset that Fiona broke up with him, so we are beginning to get some evidence of motive.”

  “Oh, wow. I didn’t know that. So is Tim your main suspect?”

  “Only a working theory, but I have to keep plowing ahead. We’re not going to get answers overnight, so I don’t want to get you too excited, or to expect that.” Mary had misgivings about updating Allegra in any detail, especially in real time, given her mental state. Even though she didn’t believe Allegra required residential treatment, she kept hearing Judy’s voice in her head, telling her she couldn’t be sure. “And before we go any further, I just want you to know that even though I’m updating you, I don’t want you to focus too much on this. You hired me to do it, and I will. While you’re at Churchill, I want you to focus on yourself and on getting better.”

  “You sound like you think I need to be here.” Allegra emitted a disappointed groan, which Mary recognized as the characteristic whine of the American teenage girl.

  “I don’t think you need to be there, but that’s not the point. It would be upsetting for anybody to be going over the details of her sister’s murder, day in and day out. Right now, that’s my job. We on the same page?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, I also went to the cottage, spoke with your Uncle Richard, and asked him if he knew anything about Tim and Fiona’s relationship, but let’s just say he wasn’t inclined to speak with me.”

  “Did he throw you out of his office?”

  “Basically, but I’ve been thrown out of offices before, so don’t take it too much to heart.” Mary steered the car onto a two-lane road that she vaguely remembered led to the highway. “I also met your Uncle Edward, but only briefly.”

  “That must have been fun. He’s the baby of the family, my dad says. He doesn’t come over to the house much anymore, or the cottage, since he quit the business. My dad’s the one
who runs the show, but he usually works in town, he’s like the big boss. He only works at the cottage when he’s feeling lazy or if he has a cold. Or, like, I remember he used to work at the cottage in the morning, if Fiona had a field hockey game in the afternoon. He went to all of her hockey games, we all did.”

  Mary remembered that Edward had been kind to Feet after he’d fallen, but her attention wandered as she approached a fork in the road, at a John Deere dealership. She tried to remember which way to go, because if she were late, she’d miss the meeting with Hannah. Of course, the Buick didn’t have GPS. She was lucky it had an engine. In the meantime, Allegra didn’t need to be prompted to continue talking, her loneliness evident.

  “Richard works mainly at the cottage, but he goes in town sometimes. I think a lot of his clients are near us, and I know he’s expanding the business in Delaware and Maryland. They always talk about that. Work is all he talks about, ever. They think I’m obsessed, but they are. It may be a family business thing, but whatever. Uncle Edward used to work in the business, but he doesn’t anymore, not really. He’s a sweetie.”

  Mary took the left fork, hoping for the best. She didn’t see any landmarks, only a few white clapboard Cape Cods that looked remarkably similar, except for a variety of different lawn ornaments. She passed a fake plastic deer, a beaver carved from a tree stump, and finally a statue of the Virgin Mary, which made her feel right at home.

  “Edward is an antiques dealer,” Allegra was saying. “He’s really smart, he went to Yale, and he knows a lot about art and antique furniture and rugs, too. He collects needlepoint samplers, and he sells them for thousands and thousands of dollars. Edward works his farm, it’s organic, and he grows corn and soybeans with his wife. Her name is Polly. Polly’s pregnant now, three months, but it already shows. It took them a long time and they had a lot of trouble, but I don’t know too much about that. Richard has a son, Ryan, he’s kinda hot but I hardly know him. He’s about Fiona’s age and he lives with his mom in San Francisco. Richard’s divorced because he’s a worse workaholic than my dad, even.”