Blood Orange (29 page)

She let herself into Arts and Letters, locking the door behind
her. As she did, the air went out of her. The lump she had been carrying between her breastbone and her ribs since she’d opened the
mail that afternoon suddenly gave way. Her legs wouldn’t hold her
up. She leaned against the door and slid to the floor. A sound issued
from her mouth, a low, sustained cry like a woman in difficult labor.

Micah would probably be alive if not for her, and Bailey would
not have gone missing. Lexy would not be suffering.

She had slashed through the lives of everyone she loved.

/hat’s up, Boss?”

Gracie stood in the door of David’s office, leaning one
leather-skirted hip against the doorjamb. Beat-down exhausted he
might be, but the sight of her made him smile. David wondered
how long he had to work with a woman, respect her as a colleague
and love her as a friend, before he’d finally stop noticing her breasts
and hips and the way her skirt rode halfway up her thigh when she
crossed her legs.

She said, “You look like someone stepped on your face.”

“You’re a real confidence builder.” He knew how he looked. He
had gotten home after midnight, his thoughts in turbo drive, slept
badly, and not at all after he heard Dana leave for her run just before dawn.

Gracie sagged against the door. “Oh, God, am I tired. Tell me
again why I wanted to be an attorney. My husband is still in bed, I
haven’t been to the gym in three days, and I haven’t eaten anything
since-

“I fed you lunch yesterday.”

“Half a vegetarian sub. BFD.”

At the credenza she poured coffee from the pot David made for
himself. She settled into the wing chair, slipped out of her stiletto
heels, and tucked her feet under her. He had seen Gracie in cutoffs,
her face scrubbed, and her hair knotted and clumpy, and she was
still sexy. Born that way, he thought.

“How late were you here last night?”

“Quarter to one.”

“Shit, David, you got less life than me.”

“I went to see Frank yesterday,” he said. “I wish I didn’t …”

“Hate him?”

“No, no, I don’t hate him.” At least he hoped he didn’t. “But I
always feel like I need a shower afterwards.”

Gracie laughed. “Oh, Boss, welcome to the world of women.
There are so many men out there make me feel dirty just breathing
the same air. Frank’s worse than most, though. It’s a matter of degree.

“Do I make you-“

She laughed again. “When you look me up and down-and you
do, you know you do-it’s like you’re still that twenty-year-old
quarterback, Mister Squeaky-Clean.”

David wondered if he should be insulted.

“The thing about Frank is, even when he’s washed his hands
there’s still shit under his nails.” She took a sip of coffee, looked
over her shoulder at the closed door, and leaned forward. “Personally, I wouldn’t mind if we lost this one.”

“Peluso doesn’t have a case.”

“Yeah, but I’ve been thinking about that. If he plays it right he
doesn’t need one. The better I know our Frank the more sure I am
the jury’s gonna get one look at-“

“Allison says he’s good-looking.”

“I worry about that girl.”

Gracie was a good friend, a trusted colleague. David could say
what he really thought.

“So what’s it mean? If we get him off and he goes and does the
same thing again?”

“Can’t think about that. It’s the way the system’s set up, Boss.”

He knew the mantra like his own name: Better that a guilty man
go free than an innocent man be punished. David believed this the
same way he believed a good man took care of his family and played
all four quarters.

He turned his swivel chair to face the window. Cabot and Klinger
had their offices in an older building without air-conditioning. On
the fifth floor they kept the windows open most of the year, and this
morning the breeze off the water was sharp with the changing season.
He thought wistfully of the rain that lay a month or so in the future.

“Can I ask you a personal question, David?”

He turned his chair. “Be my guest.”

“How’s it going with you and Dana?”

She had caught him off guard, which he didn’t like. “We’re
great. We’re always great.”

She eyed him over the rim of her cup.

“Do you know something I don’t?” he asked.

“It’s none of my business, David. I’ll back off.”

“I don’t want you to back off. I want to know why you asked the
question.”

“I’ve known you two since Charger days.”

He felt a pressure in his chest, the kind that could only be relieved by a heavy sigh. He held it back and then let go. It felt good
to let go. “It’s obvious?”

“To me,” Gracie said. “First year, my girlfriends and me used to say
you and Dana were Super Couple. You seemed perfect for each other.”

David had believed that what he and Dana had at twenty could
only get sweeter and stronger with time.

“If you want to talk … ” Gracie said.

His inability to put his finger on anything specifically wrong embarrassed him. He told Gracie something Daniel Boone was supposed to have said, how he’d never been lost but he’d been
bewildered a time or two.

They sat in silence, and the quiet was companionable. David
could not remember the last time he and Dana had been as comfortable together as he and Gracie were now.

“Maybe there’s something you aren’t seeing. You get tunnel vision when you’re on a case.”

He heard what Gracie said, and because he respected her opinion he made a space in his mind for seeing. But nothing came, and
as easily as the space had opened, it closed.

“Allison asked me the other day how come you guys don’t have
more kids.”

“What’d you tell her?”

“None of her business.”

“We stopped after Bailey because of money.” They had planned
to have a second child when they could afford it, but that changed
when they learned Bailey would probably require expensive special
schools and care for the rest of her life. He explained this to Gracie,
adding, “Dana blames herself.”

“She’d take responsibility for the Holocaust if she thought that’d
explain her mother leaving her.”

“It’s worse now than it used to be. The guilt, I mean.”

Gracie swallowed the last of her coffee, put her shoes on, and stood up. “You guys need to talk.” She flipped her jacket over her
shoulder. “I gotta meet with Geoff to work out the questions for
jury selection.”

As David watched her cross the office, he thought about sex.
Between Dana and him it had become a matter of routine and occasional lust. No surprises, no blood-rushing thrills. He knew she
sometimes pretended to be asleep when he came in late.

The night before he had been reluctant to go home, even though
it was after midnight when he left the office. He thought of stopping
at Dobson’s for a nightcap, and his spirits had sunk deeper in anticipation of the people he would see there. The crowd would be the
heavy drinkers, the men and women with nowhere special to go,
desperate to hook up.

When he pulled into the garage he had seen Marsha Filmore sitting on the top step with a blanket around her shoulders. Already
she seemed like a fixture in their lives.

She raised her wineglass. “Want some?”

Across the yard and deck, upstairs, the bedroom light had been
off and the blinds closed. A little wine might help him sleep. He sat
on the stairs, using the garage wall as a backrest. She handed him a
glass of burgundy with a rich woody bouquet.

“This bottle cost fifteen bucks when we bought it,” she said,
watching him sip. “It’s worth over a hundred now. Frank could sure
buy wine. I told him he should open a wine and cheese place.”

David tried to imagine Frank Filmore behind a counter, taking
orders and cleaning up other’s messes.

Marsha blew smoke up from the corner of her mouth, away from
David. “So, Counselor, what’s going on in the big wide world?”

He shrugged. “Saw your husband today.”

She nodded.

“He says you haven’t been to see him in a while.”

It was her turn to shrug. “I’d have to call a cab. The driver might
tell the press where I am.”

“I’ll drive you.” Or he could get Dana to do it.

“Maybe.” She reached behind her for the wine bottle and refilled her glass. “So whaddya think? You gonna get him off?”

He had thought then of her unborn child swimming in burgundy, breathing Virginia’s finest.

“There’s always room for surprises, Marsha.”

She snickered. “Can’t pin you down, huh?”

“Like I said-“

“What happens if they find him not guilty?”

“He goes free.”

“If we move to Idaho he won’t have to register or something?”

“Why should he? He won’t have a record.”

“And if he changed his name there’d be no way to connect him
with any of this?”

“Not easily.” He had held the wine in his mouth a moment, letting it burr his taste buds as he tried to picture Frank Filmore
among the cowboys and survivalists of Idaho.

“Frank wants to live somewhere we can support ourselves off
the land. He’s studying up on it. Frank can do anything once he
makes up his mind,” she said. “Did you know his IQ’s over one
hundred and fifty? That makes him a genius. He says he can make
the time we’ve been in San Diego like it never happened.”

Not even Frank Filmore could do that. Dealing with the justice
system was like walking a hazing line. A man might come through
the experience, but he was bruised and lumpy with scar tissue afterward.

Across the street in the park, a late-night dog walker whistled to his animal. The dog yapped, and the high, light notes of female
laughter floated on the damp night air.

“If I had the guts,” Marsha said, “I’d throw myself down these
stairs. It’d be easy.”

He stared at her.

“Frank’d probably sue you for not having a railing. It’d be a tort,
right? How much could he get?”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Maybe I don’t want to live in the country. Idaho, that’s the
boonies. “

“Then don’t.”

David recalled her tolerant smile. “If Frank wants to go to
Idaho, we go.”

“Marsha, you don’t have to stay married to him.”

“I know that. No one’s forcing me.”

“But you were just talking about killing yourself. You make it
sound like you have no choice in any of this.”

“Choice isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

Talking to Marsha Filmore made his head spin.

David watched her empty the bottle into her glass. The diamond
on her left hand flashed in the porch light, and he thought about the
bargains married couples made to get along.

She said, “You don’t have to understand this or agree, but I
think we ought to get something straight between us. I like Frank
being in charge. Mostly, life works better that way. He says it’s the
same as the military: if there weren’t any generals the whole thing’d
fall apart.”

“A marriage isn’t the army.”

“Frank’s boss in our house, and if he wants to go to Idaho, I’ll
pack the bags and go.”

He had offered Marsha the garage apartment hoping to learn
more about her husband. If he pointed out all the contradictions in
what she’d said she would probably clam up.

“It won’t be easy with a baby, making such a big change.”

“Oh, she’ll behave. She’ll learn the rules.” She squinted at him.
“Why are you smiling?”

“I guess it was the idea of a baby learning rules.”

“You think it can’t be done?”

“Not with a baby.”

“Frank says you have to let them know who’s in charge from the
git-go, soon as they’re born.”

David thought of a baby being “trained” by Frank and Marsha
Filmore and a sick revulsion filled him. He suddenly longed to see
Bailey sleeping safely in her bed and to smell the sweet damp spot
behind her ears.

He watched Marsha drain her wineglass.

“What if she doesn’t learn the rules?” he asked.

“She’d be better off dead.”

Sitting in his office hours later he still heard the way she said it.
Not as an overstatement or a sick joke but like a statement of fact.