Match Made in Court

by Janice Kay Johnson

  She remembered Tess’s broken collarbone. A skiing accident, she’d claimed. And the wrist—she’d slipped on ice and banged it against the porch step’s railing. Both explanations had been made in Finn’s hearing. If he was the one to have hurt her, would she really have lied to protect him? Would she have forgiven him, not once, but twice? Or had he raised a hand to her other times, too?

  Tess, Linnea thought, would have struck back. Then what? Did those fights end in black silences or laughter at their idiocy or even passion?

  Huddled there in her car, she thought, We’ll never know. Not truly. Finn is incapable of honesty, not when it would show him in an unfavorable light.

  A hand rapped on her side window, and her heart jolted as if electrified. She reached frantically for the gear shift even as she turned her head to see who wanted to talk to her.

  It was her dad’s face she saw. He was stooped to peer worriedly in at her.

  Shakily, she wondered what she’d expected. The entire press corps, who of course would have streamed in pursuit of her, because she was such an important player in this trial? The ogre of underground Seattle? Her parents had followed her into the parking garage earlier and parked right beside her small car.

  She rolled down her window. “Dad.”

  “Are you all right? The way you ran out of there…”

  Her mother appeared at his shoulder. “It didn’t look good, Linnea. Surely five more minutes wouldn’t have mattered to Hanna’s sitter.”

  A snapshot from the funeral flashed before her mind’s eye: Matt, watching his sister’s coffin being lowered into the ground, his face contorting. Finn’s expression one of deep sadness, unchanged from the moment she’d first seen him in the church. He might have practiced it in a mirror, or—fine actor that he had always been—perhaps he hadn’t needed to do that. How odd, that she was so certain he was thinking about the TV cameras trained on him and not Tess’s burial at all.

  “I’m not coming again,” she said.

  Her father’s face creased in perplexity and increased worry.

  “Of course you are,” her mother snapped. “You know how important appearances are. We have to be seen supporting your brother.”

  Linnea shook her head and kept shaking it. “I won’t. I think…I think he did kill Tess. I won’t say that to anybody but you, but I also won’t play a part in convincing the jury that he’s a wonderful family man who couldn’t possibly have done something like that.”

  For once, she’d shocked her mother, who gasped, “What a terrible thing to say.”

  Linnea looked straight at her mother. “I was scared of Finn. Did you know that? He didn’t hit me, but he said cruel, hateful things all the time.”

  Somehow her father had faded back. He was unlocking their car doors, pretending, probably, that this wasn’t happening.

  The lines in her mother’s face, Linnea realized, were becoming permanent. Furrows in her forehead, carved from unhappiness and irritation. Her nostrils flared. “That’s absurd. This is the influence of that man, isn’t it? Oh, Linnea. Why can’t you see—?”

  “I do see,” she said flatly. The truth was determined to spill out as if she had suddenly exceeded her capacity for hiding it. “He could never do wrong in your eyes, and I could never do right. Every time I tried to talk to you about him, you’d twist whatever I said until I was at fault.” Her mother tried to interrupt; Linnea talked over her. “After a while, I started believing I was. I believed I wasn’t entitled to an opinion, that I wasn’t very smart or pretty or capable. But you know what, Mom?”

  Her mother’s mouth worked like a puffer fish’s.

  “Lately, I’ve realized that I might be as smart as Finn. And I am pretty and capable, too. Why did you try so hard to make me think I wasn’t?”

  “Did it ever occur to you that I was being realistic?” Mom’s voice was as sharp as glass, shattered into shards. “That I was protecting you by not letting you get your hopes up too much?”

  Linnea felt…nothing. The numbness would wear off, but she was grateful for it.

  She only shook her head. “What you did to Finn isn’t any better, Mom. He needed to be told no, to be punished when he lied, to learn humility and empathy and regret. He never had the chance.”

  They stared at each other. Her mother’s face was frozen, like a death mask, shock congealed.

  Linnea’s numbness cracked, and horror suffused her. She was being hateful. So what if Mom did look back and realize how unequally she’d treated her children? What purpose was served now by her feeling even partially responsible for the crime Finn had committed?

  I should have let it go, Linnea thought in anguish.

  She opened her mouth, but her mother recovered her voice first.

  With dignity, she said, “I hope by tomorrow you regret saying such hateful things and are ready to apologize.”

  She turned away, opened her car door and got in, staring straight ahead as if Linnea wasn’t there. Paavo looked over the roof of the car at Linnea and said in a soft voice, “We’ll understand if you don’t want to come tomorrow, Linnie. Finn will, too. Today was hard.”

  A small sob escaped her. Had he listened to her? Had he ever, really?

  “Dad…” She shook her head. “Never mind.” With a push of the button, her window glided closed. Still dry-eyed, Linnea put her car in gear, looked both ways and backed out.

  She started home on autopilot, remembering every word she’d said, every word her mother said. One minute she thought, I was childish and petty. The next instant, she knew she’d needed her mother to hear how hurt she was, if only this once. Whether their relationship could be repaired, she had no idea. Linnea wasn’t sure she cared.

  Somehow, tears never came. Instead of going straight home, she picked Hanna up and they went out for hamburgers and french fries. Afterward, she listened to Hanna read then read in turn to her. Before bedtime, she laid out their clothes for the morning. She’d asked for the whole week off, but she would call the library in the morning and see if she could go in after all.

  Not until she had turned out the lights and gone to bed, Spooky a comforting, warm lump against her side, did Linnea identify an odd sensation she’d been aware of all evening. It was more an absence of something than an addition, as if a weight had been lifted from her. Her heart ached, yes; she was conscious of lingering regret every time she pictured that frozen, somehow ugly, expression on her mother’s face. But she also felt…

  “Free,” she whispered in the dark, her hand going to stroke Spooky’s head when it lifted at the sound of her voice.

  She didn’t care what Finn thought, when she didn’t go to sit in that courtroom. She didn’t care how angry her mother was.

  Linnea thought, If I get permanent custody of Hanna, I can move away if I want. I can live on my savings and go to grad school without any help from anyone. I can…stretch.

  It was odd to realize this was exactly what Matt had wanted for her. Only, he was used to making things happen, and it wasn’t in him to be patient, so he’d tried to propel her forward using his momentum and not her own.

  Had he seen how she’d stifled herself? she wondered. Had he tried to nudge her forward because his ego demanded that his wife be someone more than a meek library clerk and dogwalker? Or because he wanted for her what she wanted?

  Another answer she’d never learn. Another twist of pain, stronger than regret, to join the knot in her chest.

  Linnea stared into the darkness with dry, burning eyes and wished…The puff of air that escaped her lips was almost a laugh. She wished for so much, but perhaps most of all that Matt Laughlin loved her.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MATT STRETCHED OUT HIS LEGS under the table at the pizza parlor and reached for a second piece of pizza. A family a couple of booths away was laughing, and some young teens in the arcade area hooted. Hanna, he couldn’t help noticing, hadn’t eaten half her first slice, and since those few bites had done nothing but fiddle with it,
mangling the crust.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” he asked.

  She didn’t lift her head. “Daddy called this morning.”

  Obviously startled, Linnea said, “When? Oh, was I in the shower?”

  She nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  They were two weeks into the trial, and Matt had felt soul-sick when he walked out of the courthouse today. The prosecution had wrapped up their case last week; since then the defense had dragged in expert witness after expert witness to puncture holes in the central arguments, saying that neither the force of the blow nor the angle of the wound to Tess’s head could be explained by her falling. She had to have been standing, not prone, when the table struck her head, and it had to be propelled by greater force than a fall could account for.

  Tonight was Matt’s usual evening to take Hanna out. When he called earlier, he’d gotten Linnea. He’d asked, rather abruptly, “Would you join us tonight, Linnea? Just for pizza?”

  Somewhat to his surprise and very much to his relief, she’d agreed. He was in a lousy mood. Spending time with her as well as his niece was making a difference.

  But this…

  “What did your dad say?” Matt asked.

  Hanna drew her head in, turtlelike, and kept twisting and tearing at the narrow slice of pizza. Her hair veiled her face. “He sounded funny.” She paused. “Like…he was sad.”

  When she didn’t go on, Linnea cleared her throat. “What was he sad about?”

  “He said he missed Mommy. And me. He asked if I was happy with you.” She stole a look at her aunt Linnie. “When I said I was, and I like school ‘n’ stuff, he said good, only his voice was all choked, like…”

  “Oh, pumpkin.” Linnea smoothed her hair back, then drew her into an embrace.

  “I think he was crying.” Hanna’s face crumpled. “Why was Daddy crying?”

  Because the son of a bitch knew he was going to prison, Matt thought. Because—maybe—it had finally hit him that his ugly temper tantrum had cost him everything. Maybe he’d even realized that his smart, gentle, sweet daughter was the most precious thing he’d lost.

  “I think,” Linnea murmured, “he really does miss you.”

  “He said—” Hanna’s eyes were wide and scared. “He said he was sorry, and he loved me. And then he hung up.”

  Did Finn have a conscience after all? Matt didn’t know if he believed it. But it was important that Hanna did.

  “You know about the trial,” he said.

  The little girl nodded. Linnea eyed him askance but didn’t signal him to stop.

  “Your grandma and granddad have been going every day. So have I. I loved your mom. I’m…bearing witness.”

  Of course he had to pause to explain what he meant and wasn’t sure Hanna understood. But finally he continued, “In another few days, the lawyers will be done presenting their cases.” He asked a few questions, and found that Linnea had told Hanna the parts performed by the prosecution and the defense as well as the judge and jury. So he said, “The jury will go off to a room by themselves and talk about everything they heard over these weeks. And they’ll decide whether they believe your dad killed your mom or whether it was an accident. I imagine your dad is pretty scared right about now.”

  Face stricken, Hanna nodded.

  “If they decide he’s guilty, he’ll go to prison. He’ll lose his job because attorneys can’t have committed a crime themselves. And he knows that, by the time he gets out of prison, you’ll have grown up quite a bit and may want to stay with your aunt Linnie or me and not go back to live with him.”

  She took all that in, her eyes shadowed. At last she said, “If he’s sorry, does that mean…?”

  “He did kill your mother?” Matt kept his voice steady, quiet. “I don’t know. He may just be sorry all of this happened and that you got hurt.”

  She nodded and bowed her head again. After a minute she pushed her plate away. “I don’t want any more.”

  “Okay.” Linnea kissed the top of her head. “I’m done, too. Matt?”

  They got a box for the leftovers and he drove them home. When he pulled up to the curb, Linnea asked, “Would you like to come in?”

  Very aware of Hanna in the backseat, Matt said casually, “Sure. Will you read to me, Hanna?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Linnea smiled at him, causing a bump in his chest. “Have you heard her read these past few weeks? If not, you’re going to be impressed.”

  He cranked the wheels to make sure the car didn’t roll backward, then accompanied the two inside. Hanna dug a book out of her school bag, and they settled on the sofa while Linnea went to put the pizza in the refrigerator.

  He knew that Hanna was reading exceptionally well, at least a grade ahead of most of her classmates, according to Linnea. As she got into the story, she gradually relaxed and her voice gained animation. When she finished a chapter, she looked up at him. “This is a good book, isn’t it, Uncle Matt? I wish I had a pony, like Jessica does.” In the chapter book, Jessica had been surprised by her parents on her birthday morning with her very own pony. “Only I want mine to be white.”

  “I’ll bet a white one would be hard to keep clean. Horses like to roll in the dirt or on grass, you know.”

  “Have you ever had a horse, Uncle Matt?”

  “No, but I had a friend who did,” he told her. “His name was Gabe Mackey. His dad was a horse trainer, and I rode with Gabe sometimes. It was fun.”

  She gazed at him speculatively. “Does he still have a horse?”

  “You know, I have no idea. Gabe’s family moved when we were in seventh or eighth grade. His dad wanted a bigger farm with an indoor arena for riding and more pasture and stalls. Gabe and I wrote each other a few times, but I guess he made new friends and we lost touch.”

  Hanna mulled that over. “I made a new friend, too.”

  “I know.” He grinned at her. “And I’ll bet you’ll make more.”

  “Uh-huh. I like this girl named Calliope, too. She’s in Mrs. Rodriguez’s class, but sometimes she plays with Polly and me. She’s real good at four square.”

  Matt saw Linnea leaning against the doorframe listening. She wandered in and joined them, encouraging Hanna to continue chattering until the disturbing phone call from her father was no longer in the forefront of her thoughts. She went off cheerfully to brush her teeth, and neither Matt nor she mentioned Finn when he read her a picture book and kissed her good-night. He left her bedroom door open the requisite six inches and the hall light on, and returned to the kitchen where he found Linnea lifting a steaming teakettle from the stove.

  “I was making a cup of tea. Would you like one?”

  “Yes, thanks.” Wondering what was up, he watched her put a tea bag in a second mug and pour. “You haven’t mentioned Hanna’s nightmares lately. If she had one at my house last weekend, she didn’t wake me.”

  “No, she’s only had a couple this week. I think they’re fading.” Linnea handed him the mug and said, “Why don’t we go in the living room.”

  He followed her, hungrily taking in the sway of her hips in jeans and the vulnerable, smooth nape of her neck beneath the bundle of silky fine hair. When she turned to settle herself at one end of the couch, her gaze turned startled then shy, making him grit his teeth. Damn it, he had to hide what he was thinking better than he’d apparently been doing if he wanted to regain any of her lost trust.

  He chose the easy chair rather than the other end of the couch, not wanting to alarm her. “I wonder why she didn’t tell you earlier today about Finn’s call,” he said.

  Linnea made a face. “Probably because I hustled her out the door. We were running late this morning.”

  “Ah.”

  She took a sip of tea and seemed to gather herself before meeting his eyes. “Is the trial really almost over?”

  “Maybe a few more days, tops.”

  “Oh.” Her forehead creased. “Um…how do you think it’s going?”

  “I think he’s going
to be found guilty. Not just because that’s the result I want,” Matt said, seeing her expression. “I spend a lot of time watching the jurors. Trying to tell how they react to testimony. There are a couple who seem to like Finn. I’m not sure about them. The rest of them don’t.” He eyed her. “You’ve stayed away since that first day.”

  “Yes.” Her mouth twisted. “I felt too conflicted. Of course, Mom’s mad that I’m not supporting Finn by being there every day. We’re not speaking.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  Her chin came up. “I’m not.” She blinked. “That’s an awful thing to say, but I mean it. Isn’t it strange, that it took something like this to make me see—”

  Careful to keep his tone undemanding, Matt asked, “See what?”

  “How differently Mom treated Finn and me. I don’t know why. I’m not sure she knows. But it hurt. I told her that, which upset her, but I think I needed to say it, if only once.”

  Matt wished he’d been a fly on the wall. No, damn it. What he wished was that he’d been at her side, silently lending his strength, there to listen to her afterward. Yeah, and while he was throwing pennies in the fountain, he’d also wish that he’d troubled to see what was under his nose all those years when he’d dismissed her as inconsequential.

  “That took guts,” he said. “Good for you.”

  “I told her she had some responsibility for the kind of man Finn turned into, too. I don’t think Mom had a clue what I was talking about, and I regretted saying that.” She looked troubled. “I mean, what good does it do now?”

  “It might make her think a little more carefully about what she says to Hanna,” he pointed out. “And you’ll presumably have kids someday. What if she treats them unequally?”

  “I wouldn’t let them see her,” Linnea said fiercely. “She’s—I don’t know what’s wrong with her. But I’ve discovered I’m really angry.”