Courting Trouble raa-9

by Lisa Scottoline

  “Let’s go get him.” Anne was already heading for the door, but the manager frowned.

  “No, we stay here. My security guards will get him.”

  “I didn’t see any security out there.”

  “They’re there, and they know what they’re doing. They’re trained to deal with situations like this.”

  “Of course they are, and what do I know? I’ll just stay here and wait.” Yeah, right. Anne held on to her stovepipe, opened the door, and bolted out, leaving the startled manager behind.

  “Wait! What are you doing?” he shouted after her. “I can’t have you running around my bar, fucking up my tea dance!”

  Anne found herself plunged into darkness again, but this time the manager caught up with her and grabbed her hand, less friendly than before. The two Uncle Sams tugged at each other until he gave up, evidently not wanting to make a scene. He began searching with her, moving them both quickly and expertly through the crowd, looking at everyone and talking into his Madonna headset, looped over the brim of his stovepipe.

  Anne didn’t see Kevin yet, but the scene in the bar had changed. Men stuffed the dance floor, but they weren’t dancing, they were clapping at a show on the elevated stage. She looked up. best buns contest, read a placard on an easel, and a row of semidressed men stood on the stage with their backs turned to the audience. They were dressed in only their underwear, a crazy-quilt of tiger print, stars-and-stripes, and zebra stripes, and a drag queen in red sequins was emceeing. She bumped her microphone against a tush in leopard print. “Give it up for Couple Number 1!” she shouted, and the crowd went nuts.

  The manager and Anne searched for Kevin, eyeing each face, most of them turned to the stage. Security guards in black T-shirts with white staff lettering on the front prowled through the crowd, and the manager was talking into his headset.

  “Let’s hear it for Couple Number 2!” the drag queen shouted, and the clapping intensified. Stars-and-stripes trumped tiger print. It was a patriotic crowd. Too bad they couldn’t serve in the military. But where was Kevin?

  Suddenly the manager stopped, holding his earpiece, then turned to Anne. “Head for the front door.”

  “Did we get him?” Anne asked, her heart leaping up, but the manager held fast to her hand and pulled her through the crowd to the front door. The doorman she had talked to before was there, and the manager gestured him over.

  “Did you see him?” he shouted to the doorman.

  “Joe Camel? I think I did. I told Julio, I think I remember him leaving about five minutes ago.”

  “You think? Did you or didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I saw him.”

  “Never let that guy in again, and if he ever comes to the door, call me immediately and don’t let him in.” The manager turned to Anne. “Well, he’s outta here. Sorry,” he said, but she was already shaking her head.

  “But, the doorman’s not sure. Maybe he’s wrong. I talked to him before, and he said he hadn’t seen a blond man come in, and we know that’s wrong.”

  “That was before I heard about the Joe Camel T-shirt,” the doorman shouted defensively, but the manager placed a heavy hand on Anne’s shoulder.

  “Honey, he’s my doorman, and he knows what he’s doing.”

  No! “Why don’t we go back to your office and check the tape? It would show for sure if Kevin left.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. It sounds like he got out while we were playing it, and it doesn’t record while it’s playing. Now it’s time for you to go.” The manager escorted Anne to the door and opened it, just as the dance music started playing a campy version of “The Party’s Over.”

  She would have protested, but she heard her cell phone ringing and she found herself outside the bar, blinking on the sunny sidewalk. She reached in her pocket for her cell phone and opened it up. She couldn’t read the blue numbers in the sunlight. “Hello?” she said into the phone.

  “Anne, Anne!” It was Judy. “Where are you?”

  Uh. “I’m out!” Of the closet?

  “Anne, hold on.” There was silence on the phone, then a new voice came on.

  “Murphy! Murphy! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?”

  Bennie Rosato, their own Muscle Queen. What to do? Anne didn’t reply, but Bennie didn’t seem to notice.

  “Murphy! I don’t want you out there! I can’t believe you and Carrier made these flyers! Are you nuts? Come to the office, right now! Come in through the back! NOW!”

  Damn! Anne couldn’t bring herself to give up on Kevin, and she couldn’t say no to Bennie.

  Then she got an idea.

  11

  Fifteen minutes later, a cherry-red Mustang idled in an illegal parking space, pointing toward an unsuspecting gay bar. The car contained four women on their maiden stakeout: Bennie at the steering wheel, Judy riding shotgun, and Mary in the backseat with Anne. Bennie had driven over, but was delayed because the Mustang had been out of gas and they had to stop to fill up. The bar was closing its doors, and the tea dance had ended with no sign of Kevin. Anne had told Bennie and the others everything, but she couldn’t leave without making sure he really hadn’t been inside.

  “I think I won’t fire you yet, Murphy,” Bennie was saying, in the front seat. A red flyer lay crumpled on the dashboard, presumably where she’d thrown it. “You either, Carrier. Because that would be too easy. It would be capital punishment instead of life in prison, and I’m philosophically opposed. You get my drift, girls?”

  “You want us to suffer?” Anne ventured.

  “Exactly. You, in particular.”

  Anne kept her eyes trained on the bar. Judy’s and Mary’s were, too. The black door of the entrance had been propped open, and men were leaving in droves. Some dispersed down the street or hailed cabs, but most lingered, laughing, chatting, and smoking in small groups on the sidewalk, enjoying the shade cast by the buildings. There had to be two hundred men that they’d seen leave, and Anne never would have guessed that they had all fit inside. The bar was a clown car for gay men.

  Bennie continued, “There’s only one rule at Rosato & Associates, and it’s this—I’m the boss. I’m Bennie Rosato. I own Rosato & Associates. See? It rhymes.”

  Anne nodded again. No Kevin. Damn!

  “Murphy, I tried to explain to you that I am chargeable with your actions, and it follows from this that nothing happens in my law firm without my approval. No employee of mine does anything insane without clearing it with me first. This is because I pay the salaries and bills, including but not limited to rent, light, water, casebooks, Pilot pens, and fresh coffee beans.”

  Anne’s hopes were sinking. The sidewalks were full of naked chests, tank tops, and short shorts, but Kevin’s Joe Camel shirt wasn’t anywhere in evidence.

  “I was trying to reach Detective Rafferty when I heard that my newest associate was in a gay bar dressed in an Uncle Sam outfit, trying to catch a psychotic killer. Imagine my surprise at the news.” Bennie paused. “Not only were you supposed to be researching Willa Hansen, you were supposed to be dead. This leads me to believe that you missed the point of my earlier lecture. As I told you once already, Murphy, I was the one who identified your body.” Bennie’s voice caught abruptly, and the sudden silence got everyone’s attention.

  Anne checked Bennie in the rearview, and her eyes flickered with pain. Judy looked over, and Mary hung her head.

  Bennie was clearing her throat. “The physical details aren’t the point. Mostly what I saw, what all of us saw, lying in a very cold, stainless-steel drawer, is what Kevin Satorno is capable of, if it was him. He didn’t just want to kill you, Murphy. He wanted to destroy you. He aimed right for your beautiful face and he blasted it to kingdom come. Given the opportunity, he will do it again.”

  Anne swallowed hard. It sounded as if Bennie had been worried about her. Cared about her. It was a new thing. “I’m sorry, I really am,” she said, meaning it.

  “Good.” Bennie checked her watch, and Anne and Judy returned their at
tention to the bar. But after a minute, Anne became aware that Mary hadn’t lifted her head and she did something she had never done with another woman; she reached over and held Mary’s hand. Just then a familiar stovepipe appeared at the front door of the bar, schmoozing with a crowd of partiers.

  “That’s the manager,” Anne said, watching. The manager was withdrawing a large key-ring from his blue satin pants and shooing everybody out of the way. Closing time, at least until they reopened. Then he went back inside the bar, presumably to lock the front door from the inside.

  Goddamnit! “Maybe Kevin’s hiding inside,” Anne said, but even she didn’t believe it. She met Judy’s eye, and she looked almost equally bummed. Anne was feeling better about her since the red flyer. Almost.

  “I’m sure they get everybody out before they close,” Judy said. “So if he was still there, he’s not anymore. I think we lost him, Anne. At least for now.”

  Mary raised a small, manicured fist. “Don’t give up! We’ll get him yet. He will feel the wrath of girls!”

  Bennie waved the associates into silence. She opened her cell phone and made a call. “Is Detective Rafferty in yet?” she asked.

  But Anne was already thinking ahead. Mary had given her an idea, when they had all met, earlier in the office. Anne would start working on it as soon as she got back to the office.

  She could hardly wait.

  Bennie and Judy were meeting with the detectives in a conference room, giving them the reconstructed details of the sighting of Kevin at the gay bar. Mary had left for Anne’s neighborhood, to find any witnesses to what happened the previous night. Anne was sitting at her desk with Mel, making the last of her phone calls to set up Plan B. It had taken some doing, but she was pretty sure she could catch Kevin this time, especially now that she knew he was in the vicinity. She would have to tell the others about it, even Bennie, because she’d need their help. And she was trying to play well with others.

  The office fell quiet except for the shh-chunk of the printer outside Anne’s office, spitting out copies to further Plan B. Anne’s gaze strayed to her office window, and the smoked glass reflected her latest incarnation. She couldn’t run around forever as Uncle Sam, so she’d chopped her hair into a short cut and dyed it Rich Sable, #67 from Herbal Essences. The box promised a “rich, dark brown” but Anne didn’t like being a brunette. It made her worry about her credit balances. Eek.

  Mel sat upright on a stack of depositions, and Anne smoothed his whiskered cheeks. His green eyes elongated with each stroke, transforming him into the politically incorrect Chinese Cat. It was one of Anne’s favorites. She felt mildly fresher, having showered at the office and changed into clean clothes from the firm’s closet of spares; a khaki skirt from Banana Republic and a white T-shirt that read i make boys cry. She kept her Blahniks but wore no lipstick, caving in to peer pressure now that she had peers. Mental note: Progress brings its own downside.

  Now that Plan B was almost in place, Anne wanted to find Willa’s family, to notify them. But where to begin? She took a last sip of cold coffee and logged onto whitepages.com, an online phone directory. She typed in “Willa Hansen” and “Philadelphia” for the city, but the answer came back: Sorry, no people match the phone search criteria you entered.

  Hmm. It meant Willa was unlisted. Anne felt her energy returning. It wouldn’t make sense to search under Hansen, because she didn’t know where Willa’s family lived. Then she got another idea. She picked up the phone and called her and Willa’s gym. A young man answered, and Anne tried the ditzy voice she’d heard on their solicitations: “Hi, I’m Jenny, the new massage therapist, in the spa? I’m the one who does the in-homes?”

  “Jenny? I heard about you. It’s Marc. Wanna do my in-home?”

  “Ha!” Anne forced a giggle. “Hi, Marc. I’m calling because I’m on my way over to one of the member’s houses, but I Iost the sheet with her phone number and address. Her name is Willa Hansen. Do you have her info?”

  “Sure.” Keystrokes clicked on the other end of the line. “Willa Hansen lives at 2689 Keeley Street. The phone is unlisted, but she put it on her ap. You want it?”

  “Please.” He read it off, and Anne took it down. The address was across town around Fitler Square. She knew only because she got her hair cut near there, when she wasn’t cutting it herself. “Do you have any other information about her in the computer? Anything in her member profile that would help me? I need to build up my client base.”

  “Let’s see.” A few more keystrokes. “Not much, Jenny. Her account shows she’s a two-year member, but she never took any of the spinning, yoga, or cardio classes. She didn’t fill out the member profile. She checked ‘single’ on her application, but she didn’t sign up for any of the singles nights. She doesn’t sound very friendly.”

  “Not at all.” Anne couldn’t avoid the irony. It could easily have been her own member profile. “Anything else? Anything at all?”

  “Let’s see, she rents her house and is self-employed. She didn’t fill in the blank for her yearly income, but that was optional. She’s a slow pay on the dues. I’m looking at her picture, we have it on file, but I don’t remember her at all, and I’ve been here three years.”

  “Great. Gotta go.”

  “Listen, Jenny, I’m having a party on Monday night for the fireworks. If you—”

  “Thanks but no.” Anne hung up, thinking. 2689 Keeley Street. She had to get over there. Somewhere in the house would be something that would tell her about Willa’s family and how she could get in touch with them. She would tell Bennie as soon as she got free. It would make Bennie feel better, but it was having the exact opposite effect on Anne. She was the reason Willa was dead.

  “Meow,” Mel said loudly. He was walking back and forth across the Chipster depositions, distracting Anne. She would need to memorize the deps for trial. It might do her good to work on the case and not think about Willa for now, or Kevin.

  She edged Mel off the deposition of the plaintiff, Beth Dietz. Anne recalled Beth as reserved, with an engineer’s superior air despite her mellow smile, hippie clothes, and ratty Birkenstocks. Beth was smart enough to fabricate her case and so was her husband. The courts had become the real-life version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? And the final answer was, everyone. Anne started reading:

  Q: (By Ms. Murphy) Now, Ms. Dietz, you allege in your Complaint that Gil Martin forced you to have sex, during a meeting on September 15th of last year. Please tell me everything that happened in that meeting.

  A: (Plaintiff) Well, I came into his office at about 8:15 that night. It was a Friday, and he asked me to sit down on this couch he keeps along the wall. I thought it was kind of weird, since his laptop was on the desk, and you can’t work on a web application without a computer.

  Q: I see. What happened?

  A: I sat down and right away he put his hand on my waist. Near my breast.

  Q: How close to your breast?

  A: About three inches. On my waist. Then he slid his hand up my shirt and put it on my breast. I pulled away and got his hand out, like pushed it away.

  Anne knew not a word of it was true. No way in the world would Gil Martin tussle on his couch with a programmer, with his board in the next room and his funding for a $55 million IPO at stake. Anne had known Gil from law school, and he was always headed for great things; good-looking, witty, with a sharp legal intellect, but a technical mind as well. It didn’t come as a surprise when he quit after first year, started Chipster, and grew it into one of the frontrunners in web applications. Along the way, he’d married his college sweetheart, Jamie. In the credibility contest that was Dietz v. Chipster, Anne knew Gil Martin was telling the truth. This Tuesday, she’d have to prove it. She read on:

  Q: Is there anything else that he said, or have you told me everything?

  A: He said he thought about me all the time. He said he wanted me to let him make love to me, I had to let him. That I had to let him because he was the boss.

 
; Q: That’s exactly what he said?

  A: Exactly. I am the boss.

  Boss? Anne kept thinking about the word. She couldn’t imagine Gil using that word. It was so old-fashioned, she didn’t know anyone who used it. Then she remembered. Back in the Mustang, on the stakeout, Bennie had said, “I am the boss.” It was a fortysomething thing, not a twentysomething thing. What did it mean? Anything? Would it help? She returned to the dep.

  Q: And what happened next?

  A: He forced me to have sex.

  Q: Right there, on the couch, in his office?

  (Mr. Dietz stands up.) That’s just about enough! She just answered the question, lady! Why do you have to make her say it over and over?

  (By Ms. Murphy): Matt, please have Mr. Dietz take his seat and remain silent during the deposition.

  (By Mr. Booker): Mr. Dietz, please sit down. Please.

  Mr. Dietz: This is absurd! He raped her! He made her fuck him to keep her job! Could it be any clearer? You have to make her spell it out?

  (By Mr. Booker): Bill, please!

  Mr. Dietz: She loves getting this dirt! She wants to hear every gory detail so she can have a good laugh. Her and that asshole, Martin!

  Plaintiff: Bill, please, it’s okay. I’m fine.

  Anne read it over again, flashing on the way Bill Dietz had morphed from hippie to psycho at the deposition, yelling in the quiet conference room. The businesslike Courier font of the deposition page, almost embossed on thin onion-skin paper, could never convey that he’d jumped enraged to his feet, stretched his full-six-two frame over the conference table and begun pointing, his finger almost poking Anne in the face. She had found it almost laughable when she took the deposition. Why was it bothering her so much now?

  Of course. Kevin.

  Anne was seeing the ponytailed Bill Dietz with new eyes. Finding abusive men everywhere. Still, she set the deposition aside and went to the accordion file for the Dietz deposition. She had deposed him for a day in connection with his loss-of-consortium claim, which meant that he was suing Chipster.com in tort, for loss of his wife’s companionship and sex during the marriage. He had kept his temper the whole time, answering even the most personal questions with a cool demeanor. She opened his dep, just to double-check: