by Joy Fielding
“I’m a receptionist at an advertising agency. Smith-Hallendale. Maybe you’ve heard of them. They’re at the corner of Vine and Fourth.”
Montana shook her head no.
“My boss is this really great woman. Emily Hallendale. I met her when I worked at the Mariemont Veterinary Service.” Chris thought back to that awful day when she’d fled the doctor’s office with her pockets full of sedatives and her thoughts full of suicide. She felt the hand on her elbow, watched herself spin around, saw the look of concern in Emily Hallendale’s eyes. She’d reluctantly accepted Emily Hallendale’s offer of coffee, then gratefully accepted her offer of a job. At Smith-Hallendale, Chris had met the great love of her life. So funny how things work out, she remembered thinking at the time.
So funny how things work out, she thought now.
“Do you really think Tracey murdered her mother?” Montana was asking, her voice low, as if afraid someone might be eavesdropping on their conversation.
“I don’t know what to think,” Chris answered honestly.
“I never knew her very well.”
“No,” Chris agreed.
“But she always seemed nice.”
“Yes, she did.”
“I don’t think she did it. I mean, how do you kill your own—” Montana broke off, looked uneasily around the room. “I really have to go.” She pushed herself off the chair. “You won’t tell Dad …”
“Of course not.” Chris followed her daughter to the door, knowing it was pointless to protest. “Could we do this again sometime?” she asked, feeling like a nervous suitor.
Montana nodded slowly, her back to her mother. “I’ll call you.” She opened the door, about to walk through.
“Montana?”
Montana stopped, held tight to the doorknob. “Can I hold you? Just for a minute? Would that be all right?”
Montana swiveled slowly toward her mother’s open arms, hesitated, then stopped, drew back, shook her head.
Chris reluctantly dropped her arms to her sides. Clearly her daughter wasn’t ready for such a momentous step. It had taken all her energy, all her courage, just to reestablish contact. Chris felt a slight tear in the muscles around her heart. “That’s all right. I understand.”
Montana turned back toward the door. “I’m glad you’re okay. I’ll call you.”
And then she was gone, the door closing behind her.
Chris stretched out her arms to embrace the lingering aroma of baby powder mixed with a hint of lemon. She took a deep breath, wrapped her arms around the bittersweet scent, held it tight against her lungs. “I’ll be waiting,” she said to the empty room.
Thirty
Vicki pulled her black Jaguar into the crowded lot next to the Helen Marshall Correctional Institute for Women so that it deliberately straddled the dividing line between two parking spaces. Let them yell at her, she thought, climbing out of the car and making her way across the lot toward the depressingly modern eight-story structure that housed female offenders, the top two floors of which were reserved for those awaiting trial. At least she wasn’t driving a Camry or LeSabre, or any of those other luxury wannabes with delusions of grandeur she occasionally saw overlapping two parking spaces, as if it mattered whether someone took a nick out of their sides.
She walked briskly up the front steps and into the spacious foyer of rose granite and black marble, sweeping through the metal detector as she handed her brown alligator purse and matching briefcase to the security guard for inspection. She retrieved both, signed her name to the registrar, and headed for the bank of elevators on the right side of the lobby, head judiciously down, a message to all who saw her that she had no time for casual distractions.
“Vicki,” someone called out anyway, and Vicki looked up to see a lawyer whose name was either Grace or Joy or Hope or Faith, one of those inspiration-filled monikers that almost guaranteed disappointment, waving to her from beneath a predominantly orange-and-red tapestry that stretched across one wall. “Great picture of you in the paper the other day.”
Vicki nodded her thanks, although she was more miffed than thankful. She hadn’t thought the photo all that great. If anything, it made her look dour and even a little jowly. She’d have to be careful how she stood in the weeks ahead, to make sure she kept her chin up and her eyes down, confident but not cocky. Just a trace of the coquette. Enough to intrigue, not enough to alienate. It was tricky, but manageable. Tracey wasn’t the only one about to go on trial.
And she’d do better to stick with darker colors. Thank God it was the end of September and fall colors were starting to reemerge. Aside from being naturally slimming, darker tones were more dramatic, especially in print. And Vicki expected to see a lot of herself in print over the coming months. She’d already been the subject of two articles, one in the Cincinnati Enquirer, the other in the rival Post. Of the two, the Enquirer’s profile was decidedly the more flattering. The Post continued to see her as merely an ambitious extension of her husband. A luxury wannabe, Vicki thought with a defiant shrug of her shoulders. The article had questioned her motives, her capabilities, even her judgment in agreeing to defend a young girl charged with the cold-blooded murder of one of her closest friends.
They weren’t the only ones.
Susan, Chris, and even Jeremy had questioned the wisdom of her taking on this case.
“What if she’s guilty?” Susan and Chris had asked almost in unison.
“What if she’s not?” Vicki countered.
“What if you lose?” Jeremy asked.
“What difference would it make?” Vicki said, knowing that, down the road, the public would remember her name, not whether she won or lost.
Besides, she didn’t intend to lose.
Vicki stepped into the elevator, staring resolutely at her brown Ombeline pumps as several bodies carelessly brushed up against the tan suede of her jacket. “Seven, please,” she said to no one in particular, watching out of the corner of her eye to make sure the appropriate button was pressed, not looking up until she heard the elevator doors draw to a close. A slight bump and the elevator began its painfully slow ascent.
It stopped again almost immediately. Vicki looked to the panel above the doors. The second floor, for God’s sake. She watched a heavyset woman amble out, clearly in no hurry to get where she was going. Would it have killed her to take the stairs? Vicki wondered, reaching over to press the door-close button, tapping an impatient foot when the door failed to respond quickly enough.
“Big date?” a familiar voice asked from behind her.
Vicki didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. “Michael,” she acknowledged, spinning around slowly, more to ascertain who else was in the elevator than because she was eager to see the assistant state’s attorney who was her former lover. A woman in jeans and a sloppy yellow sweater stood near the back of the elevator seemingly absorbed in her newspaper, oblivious to the two attorneys. “How are you?”
“Great,” he said.
In truth, he did look pretty terrific. Vicki noted that his hair was parted differently from the last time she’d been this close to him. She smelled his familiar aftershave, felt an unwelcome tingle between her legs. Yes, indeed, Michael Rose looked very dapper in his dark blue, pin-striped suit, pale blue shirt, and plain power-red tie. Every inch the successful prosecutor, she thought, fighting the urge to run her hand across the front of his trousers for old times’ sake. Vicki shook the unwelcome thought from her head. She had no real interest in traveling down that path again, especially since she’d soon be seeing a great deal of Michael Rose in court.
“I understand Time magazine is doing a cover story on you,” he said sarcastically.
“Not yet,” Vicki said with a smile. In fact, she was considering an offer from Vanity Fair for an interview with regard to an article they were writing on the case, as well as a request for a photograph of her with her young client. A major law firm in New York had made polite inquiries about dispatching a represen
tative to Cincinnati to meet with her over lunch when she had a free moment. A Hollywood agent had offered his guidance and expertise should she choose to spread her wings and fly west.
How long before she was chosen one of People magazine’s Fifty Most Beautiful People? How long before Time actually did put her on its cover? Even if she lost this case, Vicki knew she’d already won.
The elevator stopped on the fourth floor, and the woman reading her newspaper flicked it closed and stepped out.
“Visiting your client?” Michael asked as the doors slowly came together again.
Vicki glanced at the keyboard, noted Michael was also going to the seventh floor. “You?”
“A sweet young lady who hired a hit man to kill her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend says she’s ready to talk a deal.”
“I take it the hit man was an undercover cop?”
“Aren’t they all?”
Vicki thought the girl should take her chances in court. Michael Rose, while a decent prosecutor, was as unimaginative in court as he was in bed. A good lawyer could run circles around him. And she was a very good lawyer, Vicki thought, a smile stretching across her narrow face.
“You might be smart to consider a plea bargain yourself, Counselor,” Michael offered.
Vicki arched one eyebrow. Plea-bargain the biggest case of her career? Was he crazy? “What are you offering?”
“Man one. She serves the maximum.”
“You’re dreaming. Besides, she didn’t do it. Why would I plead?”
“The evidence is pretty conclusive. Headlines are one thing. Substance is something else.”
“A lot of people only read the headlines.” God, how long did it take to get to the seventh floor?
“And that’s all that matters to you? Headlines? I thought the murdered woman was a friend of yours.”
“My motives—and my friendships—are hardly your concern, Michael.”
“God, she speaks my name. Be still my heart.”
Vicki took a deep breath, reached for her most conciliatory voice. “Let’s not do this, okay?”
“My wife’s suing me for divorce,” he said, managing to sound as if it were somehow her fault. “Did you know that?”
“Yes, I think I heard something about it. I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
“Not really, no,” Vicki snapped, her patience completely gone. “Look, I don’t mean to sound—”
“Like a bitch?”
“I think this conversation is over.”
“I’m dismissed?” Michael asked as the elevator doors opened.
Vicki brushed past him into the corridor without a word.
“You know, I’m really looking forward to beating your ass,” he called after her.
Vicki threw her head back and laughed. “My ass is way out of your league,” she said without looking back.
“Am I ever glad to see you.”
Vicki entered the small, windowless room at the end of the long hall. The walls were a sickly shade of green, like a too ripe melon, and not helped any by the recessed fluorescent lighting overhead. In the center of the room was a rectangular table of inferior walnut, heavily scarred with graffiti—There is no gravity, the earth sucks! Martin loves Cindy, Cindy loves Joanne. Fuck you. Fuck the fuckers. Fuck the lawyers. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. So many fucks, Vicki had lost count during her last visit.
She sat down in the straight-backed wooden chair across the table from Tracey. Aside from her obvious restlessness at having been confined for more than a month, Tracey looked remarkably well. Her color was good, despite the fluorescent lighting, her hair clean and brushed away from her face. There were no bags under her eyes, no sign she spent her nights crying herself to sleep. The pale blue of her prison uniform actually flattered her. Her arms looked newly toned, as if she’d been lifting weights, which was probably the case. Vicki shuddered as she realized that Tracey looked wonderful, that life inside the Helen Marshall Correctional Institute for Women actually seemed to agree with her.
“Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah,” Tracey said easily. “Except for my roommate. That’s why I called you. I need you to get her transferred.”
Vicki dug her freshly manicured nails into the alligator briefcase that rested on the table in front of her. “That’s what was so urgent you needed to see me right away?”
Tracey seemed genuinely puzzled by Vicki’s surprise. “She just sits on her bed all day crying. It’s kind of nerve-racking after a while.”
“What’s she crying about?”
Tracey shrugged, shaking loose several curls. She pushed them away from her forehead. One fell back. “She just keeps moaning. You know—she’s sorry about what happened. She didn’t mean to kick the kid so hard. She wants her mommy. Stuff like that.”
“All that talk about her mother,” Vicki offered generously. “I guess that upsets you.”
“Yeah, well, like I said, it gets on your nerves.”
“Do you miss your mother, Tracey?”
Tracey looked startled by the question. Her shoulders lifted toward her ears. “I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Do you think you can get her transferred?”
Vicki nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks.” Tracey smiled.
“How’s everything else?” Vicki opened her briefcase, drew out several files.
“Fine.”
Vicki shook her head, afraid to lift her eyes to her client lest her eyes reveal what was going on inside her head. How many people would describe life behind bars as “fine” and sound as if they meant it? “How’d your meeting go with Nancy Joplin?”
Tracey looked blank.
“The staff psychiatrist,” Vicki elaborated. “Weren’t you scheduled to meet with her this morning?”
“Oh, yeah. She was nice.”
“Nice,” Vicki repeated, chewing on the word as if trying to digest it. “What sort of questions did she ask you?”
Tracey pushed the lone curl away from her forehead. “Things about my mother. You know.”
“I don’t know.”
“Um, let’s see. What kind of relationship we had, if we were close, how I felt about her engagement, stuff like that.”
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth. Like you told me to. That we had a great relationship, that we were very close, that I liked Howard.”
“What else did she ask you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Tracey, time is running out. We go to court in January. I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”
Tracey stretched her legs out in front of her, looked to the ceiling. “She asked me about the night my mother died.”
“What did you tell her?” Vicki asked.
“You know.” Tracey folded her arms across her chest, her lips gathering into a stubborn pout.
“I don’t know,” Vicki insisted, not bothering to hide her growing frustration. How many times did they have to go over the same territory? “You told her that a masked intruder killed your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Then why is there no evidence such a person exists?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let me explain what we’re up against here.” Hadn’t she explained this a hundred times already? “Aside from no signs of forced entry, no blood anywhere but in the bedroom and all over you, there’s the little matter of the murder weapon the police found hidden in your closet and covered with your fingerprints, there’s your mother’s missing diamond ring that the police discovered in your jewelry box.…”
“I know all that.”
“How did the murder weapon get into your closet?”
“I don’t know,” Tracey insisted. “Maybe he put it there.”
“Who? The Lone Ranger?”
Tracey’s response was a nervous giggle.
“When did he put it there?”
“I’m not sure.”<
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“You said he didn’t come into your room, that you confronted him in the hall.”
“Then he must have come in later, when I was with my mother.”
“But you said he ran down the stairs and out the door.”
Tracey jumped to her feet, began pacing back and forth. “I don’t know what he did. I’m confused. You’re confusing me so much I can’t remember what happened.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“Why not?”
“Why not!” Vicki repeated in amazement. “Because you can’t keep changing your story. You can’t say one thing and then another. The district attorney is going to pounce on each and every little inconsistency. Michael Rose may not be the best prosecutor in the world, but he won’t need to be. He’s got a mass of forensic evidence; he’s got opportunity; he’s got motive.”
“Motive? What motive?”
“He’ll say you were jealous of your mother’s relationship with Howard Kerble.”
“That’s not true. I like Howard.”
“That you’d gotten used to having your mother all to yourself.”
“So what?”
“That you killed your mother in a jealous rage.”
“I didn’t kill her in a jealous rage!”
“Why did you kill her?” Vicki shouted.
“Because!” Tracey shouted back, then gasped, as if trying to pull the word back into her mouth. She stood very still, stared at the wall.
Vicki held her breath, her whole body shaking. My God, had Tracey actually admitted killing her mother? Was she about to confess? Vicki felt her muscles turn to jelly. She grabbed the side of the table to keep from sliding off her chair to the floor.
“Because,” Tracey repeated, as tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
“Tell me what happened that night, Tracey.”
Tracey shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Please.” Vicki slowly pushed herself to her feet, her knees knocking together as she approached Tracey, who’d begun spinning around in increasingly frantic, tight little circles. Vicki reached out her arms, gathered Tracey inside them as a desperate wail escaped Tracey’s throat.
“I can’t tell you. I can’t. Please don’t make me. I can’t. I can’t.”