Blood Orange (36 page)

“Maybe.”

Filmore sat straighter. “I want to testify.” He smiled and ran his
hand back over his temples. “I’ll make a good impression. They
won’t want to convict me once I tell my side of the story.”

“Sorry, Frank, I can’t let you do that.”

“What do you mean? Who the fuck’s paying you?”

“I can’t let you go on the stand because I know you’ll lie. As an
officer of the court and your attorney, it’s my responsibility to see
you don’t perjure yourself.”

“I’ll toss you out.” He slammed his fist onto the metal tabletop.
“Defend myself.”

And if it could happen that way I would bless your name and walk
out of this jail a free man. But the judge is a hardnose. He’ll never let
it happen.

Filmore’s eyes lighted. “That’s what you want. To get off this case.”

David tried to look aggrieved.

“I’m paying you a lot of money. Every time you come here
you’ve got your hand out. I paid for you to defend me, and that’s
what you’re going to do.”

“And that’s what I’m doing. I’m telling you how to keep from
tasting gas. I’m giving you the scoop on your chances. As your
lawyer, I advise you to take a plea. If you can get one. We’re talking
life and death here. You want to roll the dice?”

David was worn out when he left the jail fifteen minutes later
and drove his car across Mission Valley and up the hill to the parking lot opposite the Church of the Madeleine. He rolled all the windows down and let the cool westerly wind rush through the car. The
Madeleine Hill was one of the highest points in the city. From his
car he looked down on the park surrounding Mission Bay, where jet
skiers in wet suits bucked on the choppy water. Slightly south, the
Point Loma peninsula extended into the Pacific like a thumb, dividing Mission Bay from the harbor and skyscraping profile of the city.
He could see the naval hangars on Coronado Island, the sweeping
curve of the bridge, and even farther south an occasional beam of
late-afternoon sunlight flashing off the hazy outline of the Tijuana
hills.

He felt like a complete shit.

And yet as he waited for Les Peluso to join him, he knew he was
doing what he had to in order to live with himself. Long ago his
uncle had told him that a man could betray anyone in the world and
probably get away with it. He just couldn’t betray himself, because
he could never walk away from that. David knew that if he went
ahead with the trial and got Frank off, he would betray all that was
strongest and best in himself.

The Madeleine was Peluso’s church. He’d know where to come.

Forty minutes later the prosecutor pulled into the lot and parked
his little black Boxster alongside David’s Honda. He laughed as he
got in beside David.

“This is real cloak-and-dagger stuff, man. Feels like TV.”

“Great view, huh? Once I saw the constellation come in from up
here. Huge motherfucker. If the church had to pay taxes on this
property it’d be out of business in a minute.”

Peluso’s wide mouth grinned. “And this is why you’ve brought
me up here? To discuss the church’s tax-exempt status?”

“My guy wants to plead.”

“No kidding.”

“Take his plea. Give him life forever. Let’s get this thing done
with.”

Peluso chuckled. “I seem to remember I warned you you’d be
sorry you left the good guys.”

“Point of view, Les, point of view.”

Peluso rested his elbow on the open window. “Why don’t you go
to the judge, get him to take you off the case?”

“Wecker the Wanker? I’d have to be dying of a contagious disease.

“You were headed for the top in the DA’s office. If you’d given it
a little time …” Peluso shook his head. “You ever miss football?”

“August to January, but never on Monday mornings.”

“You weren’t that great, but you were better than the idiot they
got now. When I think what management paid for him …”

“Quit stalling. Do we have a deal?”

“Well, the thing is …”

“You want the case to go to trial so you can look good. The
Sword of the People and all that.”

Peluso pretended to be shocked.

“I’m offering you a guy we both know stinks. I’m saving you
time, and I’m saving the city maybe a million bucks. You’ll get your
camera time.”

Peluso shook his head. “A case like this, David, I think the people need to see the trial, see justice in action.

“When the crime is really horrible, a nightmare scenario, a plea
doesn’t satisfy the people’s indignation. They need to see justice
done. It helps them believe in the system.”

“I don’t need a civics lesson.”

“And you’ll excuse me if I’m just a little suspicious. How come you’re copping a plea now, not a couple of months ago, when I
might have taken it?” Peluso chewed his lower lip and watched out
the window. “It’s all over the news that Marsha Filmore’s living at
your place, which makes me think maybe she knows something. I’m
thinking I should send the cops over there to chat with her. She
might be more forthcoming now.”

“Another way of thinking is that if you lose this case, you won’t
be able to get elected dogcatcher.”

“You’ve got a point there.” Peluso chewed his lip some more.
“Let me think about it. I’ll be in touch.”

avid did not sleep well that night, and consequently neither
‘did Dana, who lay awake feeling the bed shift each time he
turned. Around two he got up and took a pill. Always a bad sign.
The next morning he blew up when Guadalupe came through the
back door at eight A.M. He gestured Dana to follow him out of the
kitchen and upstairs. He closed their bedroom door.

“What’s she doing here again? If you don’t work, you don’t need
help five days a week. Every time that woman comes up here from
Mexico you have to pay her cash, cash that comes out of our checking account.”

“What’s got into you, David? I pay the bills. I know how much
I’m spending on Guadalupe.”

“Listen to what has to come out of that account.” Dana watched
his jaw grind as he spoke. “The gas and electric, water for your big
garden, two cars, insurance and a special school, and-“

“Honey, your face is so flushed. I think you should check your
blood pressure.”

“I’ve got a resting pulse of fifty-two, God damn it! Don’t make
this about me.”

She began stripping the bedsheets. “If it’ll calm you down, I’ll
send her home.”

“This isn’t about making me calm. It’s about fiscal responsibility.”

“I said I will send her home.” Like hell.

“You told her you’d pay her, and now she’s counting on it.”

“She won’t make a fuss.”

“Dana, that’s not the point.” He watched her unfold a clean
sheet and fit it to the mattress. She knew he was getting ready to
blow. “This is about you, about the way you spend money. How’m I
supposed to pay for your housekeeper and babysitter and-” He
seemed at a loss for words. “We’re not bloody rich, Dana.”

She had intended to tell him she suspected Jason of sending the
hate mail to their home. Immediately after she called Lieutenant
Gary, she had tried to reach David at the office, but he hadn’t answered his phone. Before going to sleep she had written a note in
lipstick on the bathroom mirror-wake me when you get home important-but either he had not seen it or had ignored it.

“What about the message?” he said.

Now he was a mind reader.

“What was so important?”

Just because he could shift moods in a minute did not mean she
could. She did not want to talk to him about anything; she just
wanted him out of the house.

“It can wait.”

And it was only a suspicion she had. Nothing had been confirmed.

“Just go to work, will you? We’ll talk tonight.”

If you can manage to get home before midnight.

Later she went down to the kitchen, where Bailey and Guadalupe were washing dishes. Bailey stood on a stool at the sink with her hands in the water almost up to her shoulders. A Spanishlanguage station was playing on the radio while Guadalupe talked a
streak, though Bailey had no clue what she was saying.

I’m not sending her home. I pay the bills.

Another hundred dollars or so wouldn’t break them.

In the middle of the radio broadcaster’s blast of jackhammer
Spanish she heard Bailey’s name and then David’s and Jason’s. She
ran upstairs and turned on the television in the bedroom. While she
clicked through the channels with her right hand, she turned the
radio dial with her left.

Nothing.

She called Information for the local public radio station and
eventually was connected to the news director, who told her there
had been an arrest in the Bailey Cabot kidnapping. The police were
holding an unidentified juvenile who apparently knew the family
and was active on the committee to find Bailey.

“No,” Dana said.

The juvenile was also in trouble for threatening the family, David
Cabot in particular.

“I never said he took her. I absolutely did not say that.”

“Ma’am?”

She hung up and was about to call Gary when the phone rang.

Lexy said, “The police have arrested Jason Gordon.”

“I just heard.”

“You knew?”

“Actually, Lexy, I was the one who called Gary yesterday. I
wasn’t sure, but I told him about the picture, the one of David with
the noose around his neck, and I remembered Jason took it for the
newsletter the week Bailey came back. Plus, his friend has a white
van.

“He’s confessed to the letter-writing, and now Gary’s accused him of kidnapping Bailey. Beth just called me, half-crazy. They
rousted him out of bed at seven A.M., slapped handcuffs-“

“I must tell Gary who really did it. At first I wasn’t going to,
Lexy, but then I realized I have to.” The receiver was cold in Dana’s
hands. “I’m sure the charges’ll be dropped. There’s no evidence
against Jason. I don’t think he’ll even be arraigned, but they might
keep him overnight. He’s only a boy, and he must be terrified.”

What amazed Dana was that all around her, life thrived. Downstairs Bailey and Guadalupe amused and entertained each other. In
the park the city workers were mowing the grass and yelling back
and forth in Spanish. She could hear the cars speeding down the
Washington Street grade. Busy people, busy lives. And in the midst
of all the normal hubbub, Dana’s life, her family, and friendships,
were all afire; her life was a wildfire no one could extinguish except
her. She could tell Gary everything, the whole truth, and the fire
would be out. But what would remain of her life in the ashes?

She said, “And Beth … she was so good to me, Lexy. I can’t let
her suffer needlessly.”

“I know. Jason’s a jerk, but he’s no kidnapper. But of course
that’s what I would have said about Micah, too.” In the long pause
Dana heard Lexy breathing. “Do what you have to. He’s dead. I
guess it doesn’t matter what people say about him now.”

“Lexy, I am so sorry it came to this.” The phone was dead by the
time she’d said it.

Dana walked down the hall to Bailey’s bedroom, where everything she saw-the cubbies and the oval rag rug, the bunk beds she
and David had put together-glowed with a patina of emotional
significance. It had taken them hours to sand the beds to a satin finish. For several days afterward Dana had awoken in the night with
aching shoulders and the whir of the electric sander still ringing in
her ears. She remembered the laughter and the grousing. When it came to the fifth layer of varnish and yet another sanding, she had
complained loudly, and David had said he’d do it himself, and she
said she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Later they’d ordered
Chinese and eaten it on the back deck with Moby between them,
just a puppy, begging bites of orange chicken. How strong and pure
and good they had been together in those days.