Blood Orange (41 page)

‘hen Dana looked up four stories and saw the light on in
David’s office, she wasn’t sure if she felt relieved or just
frightened. She knew what she had to tell him but had no idea of
how to be honest and persuasive at the same time. She had no fine
feelings for herself or important-sounding excuses for anything she
had done. She felt as if, with all the tears and talk, she had spilled
herself upon the ground and become nothing but a body with
needs. Maybe an infant newly born, if it had adult consciousness,
would describe itself the same way.

The office was locked, but she had her own key and opened the
door quietly. In the semidarkness the place looked a mess, crowded
with cluttered desks and bookcases and untidy, disorganized desktops. Papers and file folders and boxes of documents were piled on
the floor and on chairs. Cabot and Klinger could not keep an office
manager for more than six months, and it showed. If David ever
forgave her maybe she would sign on for the job. She no longer had
any intention or desire to finish her Ph.D. She might win the lottery
and buy Arts and Letters from Rochelle.

She knocked on David’s office door and turned the knob. “May
I come in?”

He looked terrible, bone-weary and worn to the nub of himself.
Dana knew she looked the same. The remains of a pizza sat in its
oil-saturated box on the edge of his desk.

“Don’t tell me to go away, David.”

“Peluso’s not going for the deal. He just called.”

“What deal?”

He told her.

“You’re stuck then.”

“Looks that way.” His face sagged. “Gracie says I should ask you
what to do next.”

“If I hadn’t come, would you have called?”

“No.”

She realized how far out in the cold she was.

“He’s a killer, and he’ll kill again. I know it like I know you.” He
reddened as they realized together what a faulty analogy this was.
“If I get him off, it’s like I’m killing that baby Marsha’s carrying, a
little girl like Bailey.”

In all their late-night conversations about The Law and Justice
and the Rights of the Accused, David had never conceived of a
defendant like Frank Filmore: rich, educated, and so obviously
evil.

Dana said, “I think you have to go to the judge and ask him to
take you off the case.”

“You and Gracie.”

“Even if he turns you down, if you do your best to convince him
you have irreconcilable differences with your client, that you can’t-“

“Wecker won’t care. This judge, once you’re on his docket he
sets your name in concrete.”

Dana heard the scratch of his whiskers as he raked his jaw with
his nails.

“If I go to him he’ll keep me on the case and make my life miserable.”

“Couldn’t you just go to court and do a halfhearted job?” She
knew the answer already. It was not in David to do anything halfway, not his work or his marriage.

He said, “The bitch of it is Peluso’s got no case. I could probably
try the case by phone and get Filmore off.”

The office was dark except for a circle of light from David’s desk
lamp. They sat in silence with only their thoughts between them.
From the corner of her heart Dana heard a thin but hopeful melody.
They had talked without arguing and tried to solve a problem together. This effort, though unproductive, might be a step toward
reconciliation.

“About us …” David’s face had a blank openness that revealed
nothing but fatigue.

The music stopped, and her heart seized.

“I have to say, Dana, that compared to this thing with Filmore,
the stuff between you and me doesn’t seem like much. I can’t think
about both at the same time.”

“Then don’t think, David. Just give me another chance. You believe in second chances. I’m not Frank Filmore. What I did was
wrong, and it had monstrous consequences, and I take responsibility for all of it, but I’m just an ordinary person. Not bad like he is.”
She paused a second, longing for a nod or an affirming word. He
stared down at his desktop. “I’m a good mother, and I love you even
if you can’t see that now.”

She wanted to touch him but didn’t dare. She wouldn’t survive
the pain if he cast her off. “Go to the judge tomorrow. Lay out as much as you can. Maybe he’ll surprise you, and if he doesn’t, at least
you’ll know you did what you could.”

It was a feeble solution and satisfied neither of them. But couldn’t
he at least nod to let her know that he was listening?

“When it’s all history,” she said, “you have to be able to live with
yourself.”

He looked up. “What about you? Can you live with yourself?”

She twisted her hands together. “Barely.”

“That baby’s going to die and it’ll be my fault.” It always came
back to this.

Another time she would have put her arms around him and told
him he was not alone. What happened to him, happened to her. She
wanted to do it now but knew that he would interpret it as manipulation.

“Where’s Bailey?” he asked suddenly.

“Imogene.” She smiled. “And you know what? She was thrilled
to stay over. She laughed, David. And twirled like she used to.
When I left, Django was making her a hot dog and Grandma was
teaching her the C scale.” She added, “We have so much we need to
talk about, David.”

“I can’t think about anything but the case now.”

“Are you glad I came?”

“Go home.”

She held out her hand. “You too. Come with me.”

“I told you,” he said, sounding for the first time more irritable
than tired. “When the Filmore thing is finished we can talk.”

As she pulled into the driveway she saw Marsha Filmore at the
top of the stairs, wrapped in her mink, a cigarette glowing between
her fingers. Dana had avoided the freeway and taken surface streets home, cruising up Fifth Avenue like a tourist with all the time in the
world, thinking about what had to happen next.

“Care for a snort?” Marsha asked, holding up a bottle half full of
red wine. “This is the last of Frank’s cellar. When he gets out and
sees I drank up several thousand dollars of wine I’ll have to hire a
bodyguard for protection.” She giggled as she poured a glass for
Dana. “I wish you smoked. I get so fucking sick of being the only
smoker all the time.”

“It’s bad for the baby.”

Marsha shrugged.

“You want me to think you don’t care, but I know you do.”

“In my experience, it doesn’t pay to get too attached.”

“I don’t think you mean that.”

“How the hell do you know what I mean?”

Dana said, “It’s cold out here, and I’m famished. I didn’t eat dinner. Come down to the kitchen. I’ll make us both a BLT.”

If Marsha preferred to stay on the stairs, Dana would stay with
her; but it would be easier to accomplish her task in the comfort of
the warm kitchen.

“I can’t smoke in your house.”

“Come on,” Dana said, using a girlfriend voice. “You can do
without nicotine for an hour.”

In the kitchen Marsha moved around restlessly as Dana gathered
the bacon and tomato for the sandwiches.

Marsha stood before the wall where Dana had arranged a dozen
family photos. “Who are these people?”

“Friends, David’s family.”

“Where’s yours?”

Dana sharpened a knife on the diamond steel. “I never knew my
father, and my mother left me with my grandmother when I was lit tle.” Spoken aloud in a matter-of-fact voice, the truth sounded
commonplace.

“I always wanted a big family,” Marsha said. “Guess I married
the wrong guy for that, huh?”

“I’d like to have another baby.”

“The one you’ve got’s enough.”

“I think she’d like a sister or brother.”

“You might get another one the same.”

“No. I doubt that.”

“Your funeral.”

Dana held her breath to keep back the sharp retort that sprang
instantly to mind.

Marsha sat at the counter and stretched her pale, thin legs out in
front of her.

“Don’t you want to take off that coat?”

“I like it.” Marsha laid her palms on her stomach. “This one
won’t stop moving. She’s always butting and kicking around like
she’s mad at me.”

Dana took a breath. “She better calm down before she meets her
father.”

“What’s that mean?”

Dana was so nervous she was afraid her voice would give her
away. “I don’t want to say it.”

“I get it; you’ve been talking to your husband.”

“I was the one who found the receipt from Owens Garage. I figured it out myself.”

“Arid now you think you know what’s best for everyone.”
Marsha’s tone was insulting. She wrapped her coat around her as if
she were cold.

“I don’t know what’s best for everyone. Just for that baby.” Dana turned the bacon in the skillet. “Frank belongs behind bars where
he can’t hurt any more children, Marsha. You know that, but he’s
got you so tied up, you’re afraid to say it.”

Marsha took her cigarettes out of her coat pocket and turned the
package end over end on the kitchen counter. “He’s my husband.”

“He’s a man who kills children.”

“He needs quiet to think.”

Dana sat at the counter opposite her. “Maybe he does. But that
doesn’t change the fact he’s killed at least two little girls, and when
he has to, he’ll do it again.”

“You think you know, but you don’t know anything. It’s not his
fault it happens. He never plans it. It’s just he’s so high-strung, and
you know how it is with babies, the noise, and sometimes you
can’t-“

“Then he needs to be where there aren’t any babies.”

“Geniuses have special needs.”

“Call the police. Tell them the truth.”

Marsha stood up. “You think you can turn me against him.”

“Think about Shawna.”

Marsha’s breathing broke into a short, sharp cry.

Dana reached across the counter and took a cigarette from her
pack and lighted it.

“I haven’t smoked since high school.” Now was not the time to
think about the surgeon general’s report. She took a shallow puff,
held the smoke in her mouth and exhaled it as Marsha lit up one of
her own. She laid her cigarette across the saucer they were using for
an ashtray and assembled the sandwiches.

“Did Shawna get on your nerves, too?”

Marsha’s stubborn expression caved. Dana had never seen a
more unhappy woman.

“You think you’re better than me,” Marsha said. “Frank says
you’re too middle class to understand someone like me … or him.”

Dana chuckled. “I am middle class. He’s got me there.”

“He says your husband’s a good lawyer, though. He says he’ll get
him off, and when it happens we can move up to Idaho and start all
over.

“Use your head, Marsha. You know that’s a daydream. In a few
weeks you’re going to have a baby daughter, and all babies whine
and cry. Every one of them. There’s no way you can train it out of
them. It’s normal. And when she does it, you’ll be waiting, knowing
what he might do. Even if he does nothing, you’ll never know.
You’ll always be afraid.” Dana picked a piece of bacon from between the slices of bread and fed it to Moby. “Frank’s not the only
smart person in your family. You’re no dummy. You can figure out
what’ll happen. Maybe not right away, maybe you can protect your
little girl for a while, but sooner or later …

“If I tell the police, they’ll put me in prison. Frank says I’m as
guilty as he is because I knew, I covered up.”

“The cops don’t want you. Peluso’ll grant you immunity.” Maybe he would, maybe not. Dana didn’t really care. The point was to
get Marsha to tell her story to the authorities. “You’ll be free. Free,
and safe with your daughter.”

“He’ll get out and come after me.”

“He’s never getting out of prison.”

“He’ll send someone after me.”

“Were you always so scared, Marsha? Can’t you remember a
time when you weren’t?”

“Where would we go, my baby and me? How would we live?”

“You’re an accountant, apparently a good one. People are always looking for someone to manage their money.”

Marsha squinted at Dana through a blue haze. “I don’t get this.
If I go to the cops, there won’t be a trial. Your husband loses his big
chance to make a splash.”

Dana nodded.

“But if I keep quiet, he can win. It’ll be a big deal.”

“Forget about David. And your husband. Do it for Shawna and
the new baby.”

Marsha stared at the ash end of her cigarette.

Dana stubbed out her own and went to the sink to wash her
hands. “It wasn’t your fault what happened to Shawna, or to Lolly,
either. You didn’t know he was going to kill them. But if something
happens to this little girl, it will be your fault because you know
now. You know, Marsha.” This was the last of Dana’s arguments.
“You have the power to give this little one a happy life. And to give
yourself another chance at the same time.”

Marsha stared at her, eyes wide and her mouth slightly agape.

“Think about it.”

“If Frank finds out-“

“It won’t matter. He’ll be behind bars. He won’t be able to hurt
you or anyone ever again.” Dana waited a beat, then reached for her
cell phone and laid it on the counter between them.