by Lia Matera
“And somewhere in all this,” his voice deepened, “we’ve got Perry Verhoeven quitting because he’s pissed off that you’re disloyal—whatever that means. And we’ve got someone going to a whole lot of trouble to make Steve Sayres look incompetent.”
“Every cloud has its silver lining.”
“You don’t know how bad off Gold is?” he asked.
I repeated what I’d already told him. “I only know the bullet went through her upper arm—I don’t even know if it hit the bone. She hasn’t exactly phoned with details. In fact, she left instructions at the hospital that no one’s supposed to talk to me. If it weren’t for Uncle Henry, I wouldn’t know anything.”
“Well, there’s the other possibility: the person was after Gold. She’s a DA. It happens.”
“What are the odds of my being there when two different people in two different towns are shot by someone in a ski mask?”
“Maybe he was after you and Gold.”
“We have nothing in common.”
“The Rommel case. You have that in common.”
I toyed with a notepad my uncle kept near the hall phone. It was plain white paper with a city and county of Hillsdale logo on top. There were a dozen or so sheets folded under. The topmost page was scrawled with phone numbers of construction consultants.
I flipped idly through the previous pages. They read like a log-book of the week’s disasters: appointments with council members, messages from the sheriff, results of lab tests on the backyard bucket of blood.
One page had a corner ripped off. I wasn’t sure why that disturbed me. I fingered the ragged edge, feeling scared. Something about it focused my anxieties like sun through a magnifying glass.
Another minute and I’d have understood. But the door buzzer sounded.
“Hold on, Sandy.”
I set the phone down and walked to the door. Plagued by reporters, my uncle had installed a peephole showing the front porch. I squinted through it. Three grim-looking men in suits faded in and out of the fog. One held a badge ID up to the fisheye.
I opened the door to them. An imposing man stepped forward. He looked upholstered, in his plaid wool. The porch light mantled him in fog.
“Laura Di Palma?” He didn’t wait for me to respond. He knew me from the courtroom or the news. “I have a warrant for your arrest.”
He brandished a document, its paper bright in the spotlight of my shock. “You are under arrest for conspiracy to murder Constance Gold. You have the right to remain silent.”
Other rights, too. He recited them.
Beyond him, a car braked to a stop beneath a street lamp. A district attorney—not Connie Gold, but one of her underlings—erupted from it, leaving windshield wipers up, headlights on. Slick concrete glared like ice.
I had a sudden glimpse of chaos: unpaid bills, client in need, calls to make here, appointments in the city.
All I could think to say was, “I was shot at, too. Twice.” But I hadn’t been hit. Perhaps that aroused their suspicion. “Someone’s trying to kill me. In San Francisco, in Jocelyn Kinsley’s office—you know about that. He missed me by inches. He’s been after me ever since.” The bullet that got Gold was certainly meant for me. Didn’t they understand that?
I thought of going on, but there was too much to explain. And too much of it would rouse their ire. It would say to them, I don’t trust you backwater cops, I don’t trust the DA to draw the correct conclusions. And obviously, I was right.
To myself more than to them, I said, “I’m unpopular with the DA’s office. That’s all this is about.” I’d waged war on Connie Gold, fighting for my wrongly-accused client. Trying to keep her from twisting her prosecution into screenplay material. But up here, three hundred miles from the nearest city, it was a short step from logging town to banana republic. I mastered a desire to rail against the ugly provincialism of it.
The deputy DA stood before me now, her hair sugared with mist, her heavy-browed face harsh in the lamplight. She shook her head.
I felt a fresh and slicing fear: maybe there was more to it. Maybe they had evidence I didn’t know about. Maybe they could make a case.
One of the plainclothesmen began patting me, searching for weapons. The DA watched, tight-lipped and stiff-shouldered. I tried without success to remember her name.
“I need to call San Francisco. I need to speak to my lawyer.”
The cop’s expression said, No shit, Sherlock. “You’ll be given that opportunity.” He began walking me out. No handcuffs. Small-town informality, perhaps. More likely a bow to my uncle, the mayor.
“You’ve hardly had time to investigate.” I cast a wondering glance at the deputy DA. “You can’t have any evidence.”
“We can, and we do.” Her voice was smugly musical, full of querying lilts, an LA voice. One of many Southern Californians finding nature in the redwoods below Oregon? “We try to act quickly. We try to protect our citizens.”
Unlike sleazy defense lawyers? I bit my tongue. No one could match the Hillsdale DA’s office for politically selective enforcement.
As we walked to an unmarked black car, drizzle cooled my adrenaline-scalded skin. There had to be some pretext for my arrest. The DA had proffered something to get the warrant. What could it be?
In the car’s back seat, I closed my eyes. Yesterday, a man had come out of nowhere, masked and supple, to shoot me. But this time I’d seen him coming. This time I hadn’t fallen accidentally out of the way—I’d ducked. Connie Gold had been standing beside me. And now she was a wounded grizzly, out for blood.
Just last week, I’d told Sandy he was crazy, that no one was after me.
Just last week, my biggest problem had been that I hated Steven Sayres.
33
I’d never been arrested before, though I’d come close.
I seemed to fixate on all the shined surfaces leading to the holding cells. The flecked linoleum gleamed, glass cabinets and one-way mirrors flashed back fluorescence, metal desktops made bright snakes of the long bulbs, chrome chair legs glinted. Other times I’d been here, it had seemed a place of sickly beiges and yellows. Tonight it was like being inside a flashcube.
I trotted beside the arresting officer, noticing the enormity of his arm, the roughness of his hand as he fingerprinted me, his foot-to-foot shuffling, as if his bulk were a difficult burden, while I was being photographed.
I gave my full attention to details—the facial hair of the policewoman snapping my picture, the paperwork my arrest was generating, the smell of moist towelette as I wiped away fingerprint ink. I was determined to back-burner my anger. I would show more sense than some of my clients. I wouldn’t rail at the cops, they didn’t care if I was innocent. They didn’t care if Connie Gold was a scoundrel. They were just doing their jobs.
Instead I forced myself to focus on the patina of waxed linoleum, to follow its sheen toward lock-up. I didn’t let myself think about Gold. I strained against the floodgate.
It had been years since I’d seen the inside of the jail. I always spoke to Brad in the visiting room. I watched with interest as two separate doors, each several inches thick, were unlocked from inside after documents were slipped through narrow slots in them.
Finally, I was turned over to a chunky woman in a strangling police uniform. She glanced through my papers, exchanged a few words with the refrigerator of a cop who’d arrested me, and led me off to the farthest of four small cells, the other three unoccupied.
My cell contained a vinyl shelf and a seat-less toilet. I wore a gray dress that tied in the back like a hospital gown with overlap. I still wore my street shoes, gray suede flats. I was sorry they matched the dress; they would always remind me.
When I got out, I would challenge this arrest. I would try to make it cost Hillsdale money, not because I wanted to burden its beleaguered coffers, but because the city needed to
realize how expensive a bad DA could be.
I sat on the vinyl bench. It was as cold as steel through my cotton dress. At the other end of the room, the seam-straining cop put her feet up on her desk and commenced reading a paperback.
My Uncle Henry would detonate when he heard about this. He would bring me some lawyer he knew from the Elk’s Club. And that would be fine for now. I’d guide him until I could get someone experienced.
I expected to be granted bail. I’d be out before this reached arraignment, if it did. That was a big if. Gold and Bartoli had managed to get me arrested, but that didn’t mean much. The whole town was in a panic over the mall, over the shooting. The knee-jerk response—grab the first person the DA claimed to have a case against—was typical of backwater justice. But the charges wouldn’t hold up. I’d probably be released soon. The DA wouldn’t want to go public with an embarrassing nothing of a case.
I was amazed they’d found pretext enough to put me away for a night. It was certainly a tribute to my unpopularity.
I was startled by a buzzer almost as loud as an air horn. The policewoman yawned and put down her novel. “ID?” she said into the intercom.
“Sheriff’s Investigator Jay Bartoli,” a voice crackled.
The cop took a folder from the metal pass-through tray. She looked through it, then hit the unlock button.
Bartoli pushed the door open. “Why don’t you take a break while I talk to Ms. Di Palma.” It wasn’t a question.
“Fine.” She didn’t sound happy about it. “I’ll be out there. Buzz for me.”
I remained seated, staring down at my shoes. I heard the squeak of leather soles on the shined floor. I didn’t look up.
Bartoli cleared his throat, grabbed a bar, his wedding ring clinking against the metal. “Are you comfortable?”
I said nothing, being under no obligation to do so. I wouldn’t be here if Jay hadn’t cooperated with the DA. If he wanted to pretend we were going to chat sociably, that was his problem.
“I shouldn’t do this,” he said.
I looked up.
Bartoli was pale, gray circles beneath his blue eyes. He wore the same sport jacket and slacks he’d worn this morning. Apparently he hadn’t been home.
“I shouldn’t tell you this, Laura. But you’ll find out soon enough, and at least this way you’ll understand why the DA had you brought in.”
He waited for me to say something. But I had nothing to say.
“The piece of paper, that’s what did it. The piece of paper I showed you yesterday in Turitte’s office.”
The paper in the zip-lock baggy had been similar in size and shape to the missing corner of my uncle’s telephone message pad. I’d been on the verge of realizing it when cops appeared at my door to arrest me. “I have nothing to say until I my lawyer arrives.”
“I’m here as a friend, not a cop.” Jay stepped back as if I’d slapped him. “The phone number on the paper is—”
“Shut up, Bartoli.” I rose, crossing swiftly to the bars. “Right now I have no idea what the number on that piece of paper is.” I mentally kicked myself for not memorizing it while I had the chance. “Or why it’s so important. That won’t be true if you tell me. And since there’s nobody here with us, all you’d have to do is deny you mentioned it.”
He was less than half a foot away from me. I could have slugged him through the bars. But it would have approached the harm he could do me with his inexplicable confidences.
“I just thought you’d like to know.” His voice was husky, tinged with wronged nobility.
“No, I don’t want to know. Go away, Jay. I don’t trust you.”
“It was the Southbay’s number,” he continued.
I turned away.
“The Southbay Motel. We’ve been going through the registrations checking for false names and addresses, phony driver’s license numbers, all that. We’ve turned up two already. Gold got the warrant after the first one.”
So they’d been fishing for hired guns at the Southbay Motel. But even if they got lucky, even if the gunman had stayed there, he’d be long gone by now. And maid service would have wiped away his fingerprints and stray hairs.
I returned to the cot. They found a motel phone number on a slip of paper. They connected it to me. I could only think of one reason why. And as soon as they found a false registration, they arrested me. I wondered how many people didn’t give real names to motel clerks, didn’t think it was anybody’s business. Didn’t want their adultery discovered.
“Go away,” I repeated. “It’s improper for you to be here without my lawyer present.”
“I’m trying to help you.” His blue eyes glinted. “Friend to friend. I couldn’t keep Connie—her pals in the office—from going after you over this. But I wanted you to know how come. I wanted you know what they had.”
“I’d have found out when my uncle brought me an attorney. If you’d wanted to be a friend, you’d have gone to my Uncle Henry.” I felt a sudden stab of paranoia. Did they find my uncle’s prints on the paper? Could they possibly suspect him, too? “You’d be talking to him now, helping him choose the right lawyer.” I submerged the renegade fear. “You’re not here to help me, and you’re no friend of mine, Jay.”
He gripped the bars as if to strangle them. “You were like this in school, too, but not this bad. Why do you always have to be such a bitch? Why do you always have to be like this?” He tried to shake the bars, his body shaking instead. He was red-faced, his light brown mustache and brows looking blond in contrast. “Why can’t you ever let me in?”
It struck me as an ironic metaphor. “Go away.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that from you before!” He released the bars, giving them a whack with the sides of his fists.
He paced angrily to the desk, rummaging through its drawers. He withdrew a key ring.
I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. A moment later, I heard the sound of metal against metal, the turn of a lock. I never thought I’d dread the sound.
I backed up, feeling cornered.
I felt the rush air before Bartoli grabbed two fistfuls of my dress. Its back laces gave as Bartoli pushed me against the wall.
“No, you can’t let me in, can you? I was your friend that whole fucking year, wasn’t I? And I knew there was plenty wrong between you and Gleason.” Gary Gleason, the boy I’d married out of high school. “You came to me to get laid when you heard about him and Kirsten, but you wouldn’t even return my god damn calls after that—you didn’t even answer the door when I came to your house.”
The wall was cold against my back where the dress gaped. Bartoli pressed against me. I could feel his chest heave with twenty-year-old anger. Maybe I had treated him badly. But it was so long ago.
I looked up at him, reminding myself not to fight back, not to hit a cop. The smallest bruise or scratch on him would excuse any punishment he inflicted.
“I can hear what you’re thinking.” His voice was a harsh whisper, his breath sharp with coffee. “That it’s ancient history. Well, maybe it would have stayed that way if you hadn’t come here. Broken up my marriage.”
I held my breath, feeling my ribs would crack if he didn’t back away. I certainly hadn’t broken up Jay Bartoli’s marriage. I hadn’t even known it was in trouble.
“What did you call this town the other day? A pissant little borough?” He backed up, giving himself just enough room to slam me against the wall again. “Yeah, sure. You went off and became a big-city lawyer, right? And I’m just a pissant cop. You let me take you to dinner, and you play ice queen. It’s only when you talk about your scummy murdering client that you come alive. He’s the one you’ve got the hots for. Yeah, well fuck you, Laura! You won’t take any help from me? Fuck you.”
He slammed me twice more against the wall.
Rage rose in me with a ferocity that was much mo
re my enemy than Jay Bartoli. It took everything I had not to fight back. There was no way I’d prevail, no chance I’d be believed afterward.
I managed to keep my fists at my sides. But I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
“You put that slip of paper into my pocket. You put it in there, Bartoli. I gave you my jacket so you could stop Gold’s bleeding. That’s the only place the paper could have been to get me arrested. You ripped it off the pad in my uncle’s hallway. You did it when you visited him. You wrote the phone number on the paper and you put it in my pocket when I gave you my jacket.”
He kept me tight against the wall. His mustache bristled on my forehead.
“The Southbay’s the biggest motel in town, isn’t it, Bartoli? So it’ll take a while to check on everyone who registered day before yesterday, everyone who checked out yesterday or today, every call to every room. And then it’ll turn out it to be a dead end. Just a way for you to get me arrested and get me in here and pretend to do me a big favor by telling me what the DA had on me.” I could hardly catch my breath, he leaned so heavily against me. “But I won’t play. I don’t take favors from cops. And I don’t believe their bullshit, either.”
He backed off. Turned and left the cell, slamming the door behind him.
He hit the buzzer, letting himself out when the policewoman, thumb in her paperback, came back in.
If she was surprised to see me trembling against the wall, dress hanging askew, cheeks scarlet, she didn’t show it.
I remained there, heart pounding, for a few minutes. I remained there wondering.
Did Bartoli take the slip of paper for some legitimate reason? Did he tear off a corner to write a note to himself? Did the phone-number scheme suggest itself when I handed him my jacket?
Or did he take it knowing he’d be planting a phone number in my pocket? Did he take it knowing the occasion would arise? Knowing someone would try to kill Connie Gold?