Accused: A Rosato & Associates Novel

by Lisa Scottoline

  Lou laughed. “Never touch the stuff. Ask Michelle.”

  Mary sat down next to Judy, logged onto the Internet, and started typing. “Judy, while you do that, I’ll email Allegra and ask her who Fiona was with that night, and even if she wasn’t there with her girlfriends, to give me the name of her three closest girlfriends.” She logged into her email account and started typing. “I’d call, but I don’t want to risk her parents’ catching her on the phone.”

  Lou looked from Mary to Judy and back again. “You guys slay me. Since when did detectives become typists?”

  “Yay!” Suddenly Judy threw her arms up in the air. “Tim Gage attends Wharton grad school at the University of Pennsylvania. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.”

  “Penn is my alma mater.” Mary hit Send on her email to Allegra and shifted over to see Judy’s laptop screen. “That means we can run down and see him. What’s he look like?”

  “What’s his story?” Lou picked up his black reading glasses from the letter pile, came over to stand behind Judy, and slipped them on. “Looks like a nice kid.”

  “Hardly.” Mary pointed to Gage’s Relationship Status, which read, Random Play.

  Lou frowned. “What does that mean?”

  Judy snorted. “It means he’s a jerk.”

  Mary smiled up at Lou, explaining, “It means he doesn’t want a steady girlfriend.”

  Lou frowned. “So he plays the field?”

  Judy snorted. “No, he screws the field.”

  Lou burst into laughter, gesturing at the laptop. “A guy can just say that straight out? That he only wants to fool around? What girl would say yes to that?”

  “Exactly.” Mary eyed the photo of Tim Gage, who was handsome, with big brown eyes, a patrician nose, and a broad, confident smile. Straight brown hair flopped casually onto his forehead, and Mary was already hating on him, which she knew was probably her residual class-warfare impulse. She knew she had to get over that, now that she was an adult partner and everything. She hoped someday her inside would catch up with her outside.

  “Let’s look at his Spring Fling album.” Judy opened one of Gage’s many photo albums and clicked through an array of beautiful young men and women at a party, holding Solo cups. “Did you ever notice how everybody’s photo albums look alike?”

  “I know, right? College kids keep Solo cups in business. Go back to his Wall.” Mary read Gage’s Wall, after Judy clicked back. “He likes Coldplay and Maroon 5, he was an Econ major at Wharton, and he played varsity lacrosse. Classic profile for a murderer.”

  Lou laughed. “Or the CEO of any Fortune 500 company.”

  Mary sniffed. “Also he lives at St. A’s, the preppy frat. Why am I not surprised?”

  Judy looked over. “So when do you want to go, or do you want to wait until Allegra gets back to us about Fiona’s girlfriends?”

  “No, we can do that on the fly. Let’s go as soon as I’m finished here.”

  “Okay. Let me take a second to see what else I can find out about Gage.” Judy started typing, and Mary logged on to Facebook and searched under Allegra Gardner, scanning her page when it popped onto the screen. Allegra had most of her profile settings on private, but she named her interests as beekeeping and criminalistics. She had ten friends, whose names were not public, but they were all in the Milton School network.

  Mary groaned. “Poor kid.”

  “What?” Lou asked, reading over her shoulder. “Is that the client? Why are you looking up the client?”

  “I just want to know more about her.” Mary navigated to the menu and sent Allegra a friend request. “She hardly has any friends. I feel so bad for her.”

  Lou placed a warm hand on her shoulder. “While you guys are doing that, let me step outside and make a few phone calls to my buddy at Blackmore.”

  “Thanks,” Mary said, as Lou left the room. She started searching Facebook for Jane Gardner, which returned hundreds of names. She scanned the pictures to see if any of them were Allegra’s mother.

  “What are you doing?” Judy asked, puzzled.

  “Just seeing what the mother’s really like, who her friends are. You never know what you might turn up.” Mary clicked to the next page, but didn’t see any thumbnails of her. Many of the profile pictures weren’t of the person, but of a dog, a flower, or a cartoon, which didn’t help. “Something could lead to something else. That’s the way we always do it, right?”

  “Mare, we have to keep our eye on the ball on this case.” Judy gestured at the bulletin boards that Mary had made and set up on easels on the other side of the table. “I understand why you searched for articles about Fiona’s murder, but I’m not sure I follow why articles about Allegra being a girl genius are relevant to finding out who killed Fiona.”

  “They’re not, I guess. But they’re interesting and they might be helpful.”

  “And sending her a friend request? Is that helpful?” Judy gestured at the massive pile of letters that Allegra had written to Lonnie Stall. “And the letters, you told Lonnie you wanted to get the rest, and you said something about wanting to go through them. What did you mean by that?”

  “Just what I said. I want to go through them.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to read them, try to understand her thought processes about her sister’s murder.”

  “They all say the same thing.”

  “So I’ll reread them.” Mary blinked. “I’d like to try to pinpoint when it turned from interest to obsession, and try to determine what caused it. To try and see why she’s so alone, on her own.”

  “But—” Judy caught herself, and Mary knew her well enough to know that she was choosing her words carefully.

  “What? Say it. I won’t be mad. And I won’t fire you.”

  Judy didn’t smile. “I just don’t want you to take on this kid’s problems. I know why you would, and I love you for it, but you can’t make her happy, or healthy, or cool. You can’t give her friends, or make up for the friends she doesn’t have. I don’t know much more about her than you do, but I don’t see her as a victim.”

  “Why not?” Mary asked, surprised. “She is one. She’s been a victim of bullies, she told us as much, and so did her parents. And we know she’s a victim of crime, because we both know how much a family’s affected when there’s a murder. I even think she’s a victim of her parents, the way they push her around.”

  Judy frowned, in thought, if not disagreement. “I don’t think her parents push her around, necessarily. They’re doing what they think is right for her.”

  “They’re chilly.”

  “Not every family is like yours. You have a really special, loving family. She doesn’t have that, even I don’t have that.”

  Mary agreed with that much. “So I can’t account for the disadvantages of the upper class, like extraordinary wealth, private schooling, and trees with names.”

  “Exactly.” Judy smiled. “I see what you mean about her being a victim, and maybe you’re right. But as for her lack of friends, or her aloneness, I think that’s her choice. She isolates herself, don’t you think?”

  Mary shook her head. “Nobody her age isolates themselves.”

  “They do when they surround themselves with thirty thousand bees.” Judy looked behind her as Lou entered the conference room, slipping his cell phone into his slacks pocket with an unhappy frown.

  “Ladies, bad news.”

  “What?” Mary and Judy asked, in unison.

  “It’s radio silence.” Lou folded his arms, standing with his feet apart. “My buddy, Ray Morley, is now the head of security at Blackmore.”

  Mary didn’t understand. “Isn’t that good for us?”

  Lou shook his head. “Only insofar as he told me, confidentially, that he’s already been given my name and both of yours, with express instructions not to talk to us or permit us at the corporate offices of the Gardner Group. He was told that if anybody from Rosato & Associates comes knocking, calling, or asking questions
, to notify him immediately and he’s supposed to call one of the Gardner lawyers, I forget his name, Patel.”

  Judy nodded. “Neil Patel.”

  “That’s the one. They’re shutting us out, and they’re not wasting any time. I didn’t even ask him about the videotape or the guest lists, because I didn’t want him to know we’d be looking for it.” Lou permitted himself a brief smile. “In fact, I told him that you guys were driving me crazy, tracking down all the trial experts in the case. That will give them something to chew on.”

  Judy’s eyes lit up. “Love that. We’re waging our first disinformation campaign. Do you think he believed you? Nobody would believe that we would drive a man crazy.”

  Lou laughed, and Mary smiled, but her thoughts clicked away. “So that means we should tell Allegra not to tell her parents that we were asking about the names of Fiona’s girlfriends.”

  “Correctamundo.”

  “Damn.” Mary could have texted Allegra, but chose not to. “It doesn’t feel right, telling a thirteen-year-old to keep secrets from her parents.”

  Judy nodded. “Agreed, but it’s inevitable in this case, which is why I’m already hating it, and why Bennie was, too. If we represent a minor, we automatically get issues like that. The case is intertwined with the family. You can’t separate the two.”

  Mary met her troubled eye, then turned to Lou. “So what should we do now, gang?”

  “I have a few ideas I can try,” Lou folded his arms. “But if you want to see that Gage boy or any of the girlfriends, I suggest you hit the road.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Having grown up in South Philadelphia, on Mercy and 9th Streets, Mary had gone to college at Penn at 38th and Spruce Streets, and then to the University of Pennsylvania Law School at 34th and Walnut Streets. So as soon as she stepped off the Route 42 bus with Judy and set foot on the corner of 38th and Walnut Streets, she felt her life conflate on the spot, her present collapsing into her past, and her past crashing her present like a house party. There were advantages and disadvantages to living your entire life in a three-mile radius, and the advantage was that you never got lost, but the disadvantage was that you could be disoriented in other ways.

  So when Mary looked around at the intersection, she knew she had been here before, heard the hydraulic case of the very same bus, as well as the metallic slap of its doors folding closed, but for a moment, she felt confused. Her physical location was clear, but her temporal location less so, and she was back in college with Angie beside her, because Angie had gone to Penn, too. The twins had been in every grade together, even in the same class, and they’d gotten identical scholarships here, and Mary felt bewildered because the best part of her college life was missing, in the form of her other half, which, she suspected, also included her heart.

  “Mary, are you okay?”

  “What?” Mary looked over at Judy, seeing Angie’s face, then it vanished. “Oh, sorry. I’m a little tired.”

  “We didn’t eat anything. Maybe we should get something from one of the food trucks.”

  “Good idea.” Mary tried to shake it off, watching the traffic speed in three lanes down the street, heedless of the crowded sidewalks, the drivers trying to make the lights, which were badly timed. It was almost the end of the day, and they were all tear-assing out of the city, heading for the expressway ramps at 30th Street. The college branch of her and Angie’s bank was on the left, and opposite was the modern building that housed Annenberg Center, the theater where she and Angie had worked part-time as ushers in their work-study program.

  “That falafel truck looks good.” Judy stepped off the curb as soon as the light changed. “Let’s get a nice, thick falafel. It’s too hard to get hummus breath otherwise.”

  Mary tried to pick up the pace, not to get lost in the crowds crossing the street. Students were heading home after their last classes, heavy knapsacks and purses hanging over one shoulder as they yapped away on cell phones or laughed together in groups, a bobbing mass of double ponytails and backwards baseball caps. Mary and Angie used to travel in groups, but always together, the quieter Angie tagging along with Mary’s friends, she realized now, with a pang. She hadn’t seen it then, but she saw it now. She wondered if Angie had to go so far, merely because they had been so close. After all, if you’d started life sharing the same womb, maybe you’d have to live it on different continents. Mary never felt that way, but she knew Angie did, and she wondered if Angie would come home even if she got married. She didn’t really know if Angie was estranged, or merely away, but she had a feeling she was going to find out, sooner rather than later.

  “Rats, this is kind of a long line,” Judy said, when they reached the other side of the street and joined the line at the falafel truck. It was yellow and red, with a whirring bulb of a fan on top, scenting the air with frying grease. “Let’s see if it moves quickly or not.”

  “Okay.” Mary had smelled that fried odor more times than she could count, and it always made her mouth water. Angie loved the Chinese food truck that used to park two blocks up, and its owner was named Ruben, which they always thought was funny. She found herself looking down the street, but Ruben’s truck was gone, replaced by a gourmet ice cream van.

  Judy followed her eye. “If you’d rather, we can get ice cream. It might be quicker.”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “I don’t know if we have time for this. It makes me grumpy.” Judy checked her watch. “What do you think?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  Judy frowned, her eyes searching Mary’s. “You sure you’re okay? You want to do this? Should we just go interview the guy and forget about food?”

  “Maybe we should skip the food and go see the kid, before the Gardners close in.” Mary didn’t want to worry Judy, nor did she want to tell her all her amazing new insights about how much life sucked without Angie. It wouldn’t serve any purpose, and it would only make Judy feel bad, which was the last thing she wanted. “What do you say?”

  “Agree.” Judy clapped her on the arm. “You lead. You know where the frat house is.”

  “I do, but I was only inside once. This way.” Mary turned, Judy fell in step beside her, and they joined the swarm of undergrads, grad students, and university staff, wearing laminated IDs around their necks. They passed the Faculty Club and the Christian Association, and Mary tried not to remember anything that involved Angie, or indeed anything at all. It was time to rejoin the present and investigate a murder case. “The frat is St. Andrew’s or St. A’s. They used to have casino nights with real money and real waiters, in uniform.”

  “Sounds like jerks,” Judy said, as she covered ground with her big stride. She was almost as tall as Bennie, and when Mary walked with Judy, she felt like the stumpy mommy to a child on growth hormones. Obviously, she had been the exact same height as Angie, both were five foot three inches, but she put that out of her mind. She slipped her BlackBerry out of her blazer pocket and checked for Allegra’s email, but it wasn’t there.

  “Allegra still hasn’t written me back about Fiona’s girlfriends.”

  “She’s probably outside, playing with the bees.”

  “We’ll have to tell her to check her email more often. If she doesn’t get back to us by the time we can meet Gage, let’s ask him.”

  “Good idea.”

  “What do we do if he’s at class or something? Wait?”

  “Eat falafel,” Judy answered with a grin, and Mary led them right up Locust Walk, the pedestrian walkway that bisected the campus, lined with tall leafy oaks that cast dappled shadows on the cobblestones and Gothic buildings with authentic Victorian details, like stone gargoyles and bats. The university housed offices like Student Affairs, Alumni Affairs, and the yearbook in some of the buildings, but a few of the homes were owned by fraternities, and Mary halted when they reached St. Anthony’s, an incongruously modern brick building on the right.

  “This is it.” Mary gestured at the building, which seemed oddl
y impenetrable, with white curtains covering its windows and no activity out front, unlike all the other buildings, which buzzed with students hanging out, talking, or drinking sodas on the front steps. St. A’s was the super-exclusive, rich-boy fraternity, the last bastion of old-school preppies and Eurotrash with world-class trust funds. Angie hadn’t liked St. A’s because she didn’t like anything that smacked of materialism, which was why she became a nun. And Mary, who was generally in favor of money, if not an outright money fan, became a lawyer.

  “What are we waiting for?” Judy asked, puzzled.

  “Nothing,” Mary answered, shooing the ghosts away and heading for the door.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mary and Judy were let into St. A’s by a uniformed maid, who’d showed them into a waiting room with cracked leather stuffed chairs and floor-length curtains. On the wall hung framed maps of Philadelphia from the days of Ben Franklin, before Italians moved in and brought the flavor. It was so classy, Mary couldn’t believe it was a real frat house. She muttered to Judy, “What kind of frat house has a maid? I don’t have a maid and I’m a partner.”

  Judy looked over. “You should have a cleaning person. You can afford one. We have someone come in, every two weeks.”

  “You do? Don’t you feel guilty?”

  “No, why? It’s an honest job, and it’s the best money we spend.” Judy stood up, restless, and wandered over to a Penn’s emblem, on the wall. “Mary, what’s the motto mean? You’re the Latin jock and alumna.”

  “Leges sine moribus vanae. ‘Laws without morals are useless.’ Now sit down and tell me about your cleaning person. I’d feel so guilty. What do you do, put your feet up while she vacuums underneath? Sheesh!”

  Suddenly the doors rolled apart, and Tim Gage stepped out with a smile that he flashed at Mary and Judy like it was beamed from a lighthouse. “I’m Tim, sorry to keep you waiting. Linda gave me your business card and told me you were here, but I had to finish, and I’ll be right with you.” Gage turned slightly, and out of the living room bopped a little kid with red hair, freckles, and missing front teeth. “Say hello to William, who’s in third grade at Drew Elementary.” Gage rested a hand on William’s shoulder, in its little white polo shirt. “William is starting his own business and learning to be an entrepreneur. He’s got his own startup. Isn’t that great?”