by Joy Fielding
Vicki guided Tracey to her chair, sat her down, knelt before her on unsteady knees as the door to the room opened and a muscular guard with a surprisingly feminine face peeked inside.
“Everything all right in here?” the guard asked.
“Yes, thank you,” Vicki told the woman, although in truth the answer was no, nothing was all right. Nothing would ever be all right again. And it was about to get a whole lot worse. She was sure of that.
The guard nodded and left the room, closing the door after her.
“Tell me what happened, Tracey.”
“You’ll hate me.”
“I won’t hate you.”
“I didn’t mean to do it.”
“I know you didn’t.”
“I didn’t want to hurt her. I begged her to stop.”
“Stop? Stop what?”
Tracey shook her head so hard, her hair whipped around her neck, catching Vicki in the face. Tears automatically sprang to Vicki’s eyes. She pushed them aside, waited for Tracey’s response.
“It was around nine o’clock,” Tracey began. “Chris had already left. Mom said she was going to have a nice hot bath and crawl into bed.” Tracey stopped, stared intently at the wall ahead, as if it were a movie screen. “She asked me to scrub her back, and I did. Then she asked me if I wanted to sleep in bed with her. I used to sleep in her bed a lot, but not lately. I didn’t think it was such a good idea anymore.”
Vicki shifted uncomfortably on the balls of her feet. Where was this going?
“I said okay, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want her to …”
“You didn’t want her to what?” Vicki repeated in a voice not her own.
“You know.”
“I don’t know.” What was Tracey trying to say?
“I didn’t want her to touch me.”
“Touch you? What do you mean, touch you?” Vicki pushed herself to her feet, her arms twitching with growing agitation.
“You’re angry,” Tracey said immediately. “You hate me. I knew you were going to hate me.”
Of course I hate you, you stupid, lying twit, Vicki raged inwardly. What she said was, “Of course I don’t hate you. Go on. Please, Tracey, tell me what happened.” Then go to hell, you lying little bitch!
“She was always touching me.”
“She was your mother, Tracey. Mothers touch their daughters.”
“Not like this. Not on their breasts. Not between their legs.”
“Your mother touched you between …” Vicki couldn’t bring herself to say the words. It took all her resolve to keep from slapping Tracey’s face, from wringing her stupid, lying little neck.
“She called it our little game. We’d been playing it for years. I said I didn’t want to play it anymore. She said I had no choice, that she was my mother, and she could do whatever she liked. I begged her to stop. I begged her to leave me alone. But she wouldn’t. She took off her engagement ring, put it on my finger, said I was her one true love.”
Vicki looked away. “And then what?”
“I don’t remember exactly. I guess I kind of blanked it out. After it was over, she fell asleep. I just lay there, shaking. Sometime during the night, I went downstairs, got the golf club out of the hall closet. It was like I was in some kind of trance, like I was outside myself, like it wasn’t me at all. I went back up to her bedroom. I remember standing over her. She opened her eyes, reached for me. And I remember thinking, I can’t let you touch me anymore. I have to stop you. You’re my mother and I love you, but I can’t let you keep hurting me. I have to make you stop.”
Vicki sank into the nearest chair, gritting her teeth tightly together to keep from throwing up. She knew everything Tracey had just said was a pack of filthy lies. Barbara was no more capable of sexually abusing her daughter than she was of shaving her head and wearing Birkenstock sandals. There wasn’t the slightest chance anything Tracey had just told her was true. Was there?
Was there?
“My mother always said if I told anyone, no one would believe me, that everyone would hate me,” Tracey cried. “And I can see it in your eyes. You don’t believe me. You hate me.”
Vicki said nothing. She felt as if Tracey had wielded her murderous weapon once again, this time squarely at her head. She rubbed her forehead with fingers as cold as the grave.
Dear God, what was she supposed to do now?
Thirty-One
What the hell are you talking about!”
Vicki took a step back, sought refuge behind her massive new desk. “Susan, calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down.”
“Then please lower your voice.”
“Tell me what the hell is going on here.”
“I’d be happy to, if you’d give me half the chance.”
“What is this nonsense I’ve been reading about?”
“It’s not nonsense.”
“Tracey killed Barbara in self-defense! You don’t call that nonsense?”
“I call it a reasonable line of defense.”
“It’s an indefensible line of defense,” Susan countered, taking several giant steps across the recently purchased Indian rug that graced the floor in front of Vicki’s desk. The move caused Vicki to take another step back, raise her hands in warning.
“If you’d just sit down …”
Surprisingly, Susan plopped down into one of the two new bloodred leather wing chairs that sat like sentinels in front of Vicki’s desk. She was wearing a smart black pantsuit and a white turtleneck sweater. Her light brown hair fell gently to her chin, framing cheeks flushed with righteous indignation. “Talk,” she said as the phone began to ring.
Vicki ignored it, exhaled a deep breath of air, stayed on her feet. More power this way, she decided, although she was starting to wish she’d worn flatter shoes. Flats were easier to run in, easier if it became necessary to make a quick escape. “You know I wouldn’t be doing this—”
“Why are you doing this?”
“—unless there was a good reason.”
“I’m waiting.”
The office door opened a sliver and Vicki’s secretary’s head popped into view. “It’s Marina Russell from Global TV. She says you promised to get back to her by three o’clock and it’s ten past.”
“Tell her I’ll have to call her first thing in the morning. And hold the rest of my calls.” As if on cue, several other lines began ringing at once.
The secretary nodded, closed the door after her. The phones stopped ringing, only to start up again.
“Busy time,” Susan observed.
Vicki shrugged, choosing to ignore the bitterness in her friend’s voice, the accusations in her eyes. “I have to be very careful what I say,” she told Susan after a lengthy pause. “You know about attorney-client privilege.”
“No. I’ve been living on Mars for the last forty-four years.”
“I can do without the sarcasm.”
“I can do without the bullshit.”
“Great.” Vicki decided to sit down after all, collapsing into the enormous new swivel chair behind her desk, crossing one leg over the other beneath her beige Armani suit, leaning her head against the deep red leather, closing her eyes, wishing she’d kept her old office furniture. Her other chair had been much more comfortable. She hadn’t felt so swamped, so overwhelmed, each time she sat down. Of course, she usually didn’t have her closest friend raging at her, Vicki thought, trying not to feel wounded by the disdain in Susan’s angry eyes. When this was all over, Susan would understand why she’d had to do this. “You know I can’t betray my client.”
“But you have no trouble betraying your friend.”
“I’m not betraying my friend. I’m protecting the very thing that friend valued more than anything in the world.”
“Thing is certainly the right word for her. How can you do this?”
“Tracey is entitled to the best defense under the law.”
“And that would be you?”
; “In this case, yes.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Vicki repeated. What kind of question was that?
“Why does it have to be you?”
“Because Tracey trusts me. Because she needs me. Because I honestly believe it’s what. Barbara would have wanted.”
“Barbara would have wanted you to defend the person who murdered her?”
“In this case, yes.”
“She would have wanted her memory sullied, her reputation destroyed?”
“It’s not my intention to do either of those things.”
“Oh, really? You don’t think her reputation might suffer just a bit once you label her a child molester?”
“I have to defend my client.”
“And the best defense is a good offense?”
“Sometimes.”
“This time?”
Vicki looked toward the window, watched the rain falling to the street below. “I was as shocked as you are by the things Tracey told me.”
“Yes, the papers have been trumpeting your shock across the front pages every day. You wouldn’t be trying to influence the potential jury pool, would you?”
“The public has a right to hear both sides of the story.”
“The public has a right to the truth.”
“Oh, please,” Vicki said. Could Susan really be so naive?
“Are you telling me you actually believe the garbage Tracey is spouting?”
“It’s irrelevant what I believe.”
“Don’t give me that crap,” Susan said dismissively. “I may not be a lawyer, but I watch enough TV to know you can’t put a witness on the stand knowing they’re deliberately going to perjure themselves.”
“Who says Tracey’s going to perjure herself?”
“I do,” Susan said adamantly. “And so do you, if you’re being honest.”
“Are you questioning my integrity?”
“I’m questioning your motives.”
“What are you saying? That I’m in this for the money, the fame, the publicity?”
“I don’t know. Are you? Whose attention are you really trying to get here, Vicki?”
Vicki felt her pulse quicken and her cheeks flush warm with anger. What the hell was Susan getting at? “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you?”
“This isn’t about me,” Vicki snapped, in a voice that warned Susan she was on dangerous ground.
“Exactly,” Susan countered, refusing to be intimidated. “Look,” she continued in the next breath. “Barbara was sound asleep. Even if you accept the ridiculous things Tracey is saying, which I don’t for one minute, how can you possibly argue that Tracey was afraid for her life at the time she killed her mother? What threat could Barbara possibly have been when she was sleeping?”
Vicki let go of the air trapped in her lungs, happy to be back on more comfortable terrain. “Tracey was convinced that when her mother woke up, the abuse would continue.”
“And what? She couldn’t run away? She couldn’t tell her father? Murder was her only option?”
“She says the abuse had been going on since she was a little girl, that no one had ever done anything to help her.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“Do I? Do you?”
“What!”
“How can you be so sure that Barbara never molested Tracey?”
Susan shook her head. “This is absurd.”
“The fact is, you can’t be sure. None of us can be sure, no matter how good friends we all were.”
“I’m sure,” Susan insisted stubbornly.
Had Susan always been so damn confident about everything? “Would you categorize Barbara as a good mother?” Vicki asked suddenly.
“Of course.”
“An involved mother?”
“Yes.”
“Might you describe her relationship with Tracey as being a bit overly involved and enmeshed?”
“No, I might not. I would not.”
“Think about it for a minute,” Vicki instructed.
“You think about it. Just because you grew up without a mother …”
Vicki felt the word like a slap on the face. “Can we leave my mother out of this?”
“I don’t know. Can we?”
Vicki held her breath, tried counting to ten, barely reached five before she exploded. “Okay, enough of this dime-store psychological shit! My mother is not the issue here. Contrary to what you might think, I am not using this case as a way of getting my mother’s attention. Nor am I trying to destroy Barbara’s reputation as a mother because I have a ‘thing’ against mothers in general, due to the fact that my mother deserted me when I was a child.”
Susan looked genuinely startled by Vicki’s unexpected outburst. “I didn’t say that. I didn’t even think it.”
Vicki jumped to her feet, feeling a dangerous quiver in the muscles of her thighs. She grabbed the back of her chair for support. “You think you’re so goddamn smart. You think you know everything. Did you know that Barbara used to make anonymous calls to Ron’s house at all hours of the night?” Vicki asked, abruptly shifting gears, trying to regain control of the conversation.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“So, it appears there are some things about our friend you didn’t know after all.”
It was Susan’s turn to look distinctly uncomfortable. She fidgeted in her chair. “All right, so, big deal. Even assuming Barbara made some ill-advised phone calls, which I don’t necessarily believe …”
“Of course not.”
“That’s still a very long way from molesting your child.”
“Why would Tracey lie?”
“Gee, I don’t know. You think getting out of jail might have something to do with it?”
“You think she’s making the whole story up?”
“I know she’s making the whole story up.”
“How do you know? You spent less than two days with her. How can you claim to know her so well?”
“I don’t know her at all! But I knew Barbara. And so did you, dammit.”
Vicki walked to the window, stared down at the street. Wait for me, she called silently after the pedestrians hurrying about below. “Okay, so what have we got here?” She turned back to Susan, noticed the tears in her eyes, pretended she didn’t. “We’ve got a sixteen-year-old girl who’s admitted to killing her mother.”
“After lying repeatedly to the police. To me. To you.”
“Yes, she lied.”
“So what makes you think she isn’t lying now? Do you have even one shred of evidence to support her allegations?”
Vicki bent her head back over the top of her shoulders and rubbed the muscles at the base of her neck. Susan was right. She had no evidence, nothing to back up Tracey’s stunning accusations. A jury would need more than a few crocodile tears to return with a verdict of not guilty.
“You don’t have any evidence, do you?” Susan demanded.
“There has to be a reason Tracey did what she did.”
“Says who?”
“Girls don’t just murder their mothers on a whim.”
“Maybe Tracey didn’t like not being the center of her mother’s universe anymore. Maybe she didn’t like that her mother was building a life of her own. Maybe she didn’t like what Barbara served for dinner that night.”
“Or maybe her mother was molesting her,” Vicki stated flatly. “Tell me, Susan. Would you be so quick to discredit Tracey if she’d made these charges against her father? You can’t dismiss Tracey’s allegations just because Barbara was a woman.”
“I don’t dismiss them because she was a woman. I dismiss them because she was my friend.”
“And if I were to call you as a witness …”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Vicki shrugged. “You’re not me.”
Susan walked to the door, flung it open, stepped into the hall. “And I thank God for
that every day.” Then she slammed the door behind her.
“Goddamnit! Shit!” Vicki scooped a Mont Blanc pen from the top of her desk and hurled it at the door just as her secretary peeked through it. It missed the young woman’s head by only a fraction of an inch. “Goddamnit, don’t you ever knock?”
“I heard you yell,” the secretary began, then burst into tears. “I’m sorry.” She made a hasty retreat, closed the door after her.
“Goddamnit.” Now she’d have to send the homely young woman flowers, Vicki thought. Worse than that, she’d have to apologize. Maybe she could just give her a raise. Goddamnit, why did everyone have to be so damn sensitive these days? Chris had been so distraught over Tracey’s allegations, she’d refused to return Vicki’s phone calls; Susan, suffering from no such timidity, had stormed into her office and openly challenged her motives and integrity. Those ridiculous inferences about her mother, for God’s sake. Even Jeremy had questioned the wisdom of what she was doing.
“Maybe you should let someone else handle this case, darlin’,” he’d advised.
“Maybe you should mind your own business,” she’d snapped.
Why couldn’t she listen to them? Was defending Tracey really worth the loss of her husband’s respect? Was it worth losing her best friends? Did she really believe Tracey was anything other than a cold, calculating little psychopath not above using today’s popular psychology to escape the consequences of her actions?
“I don’t know,” Vicki cried in frustration. What she did know, what she knew deep down in her bones, despite what Susan and Chris and Jeremy thought, was that she was doing what Barbara would have wanted, that above all else, irrespective of everything else, Barbara would have wanted her daughter protected. If Tracey had killed her mother for no other reason than she damn well felt like it, Barbara would still have wanted Vicki to defend her, to do everything in her power to keep her daughter out of jail.
She was doing the right thing, Vicki told herself.
Even suspecting that Tracey was dangerously unbalanced and possibly a threat to others? a little voice whispered. Even at the expense of everything she held dear?
“This isn’t about me,” Vicki repeated. The offers from New York, the queries from Hollywood, the attention of the media, none of that mattered. What mattered was honoring her friend’s memory the best way she knew how.