Mittman, Stephanie (24 page)

"No
p-p-p-"

In
the overheated greenhouse, frustration seeped along with sweat from every pore
of Davis's body. Cabot sat in his chair, watching the boy without offering so
much as a guess at what he wanted to say, though clearly it was a comment on
the idea of poetry. Charlotte bit her tongue, caught between her admiration for
Cabot's devotion and her need to rescue Davis from his own inadequacy.

Cabot,
for his part, sat very still. His fingers didn't tap, his lips didn't twitch.
"Think what you wish to say," he told the boy. "Let the words
become clear in your mind."

Davis
pointed at the watch that sat neglected in Cabot's hand.

"I
have as long as it takes," he assured the boy. "You were about to
tell me something with regard to poetry, I suspect."

The
boy struggled to answer him and Charlotte lost the battle to remain outside the
room. "He probably hates it," she said, coming in and approaching the
pair. "Boys always hate poetry."

The
boy nodded emphatically. She'd only seen him from the back, but coming around
him she found a new bruise had joined several other faded ones on his face. She
hated boxing, hated fisticuffs of any sort. Still, she couldn't help wishing
that once Moss Johnson could go a few rounds with Ewing Flannigan. Without
gloves. Or a referee. Or a bell for him to be saved by. All right. Twice. Or
every day...

Davis
glared at her, daring her to say something about his appearance. Instead she
continued her attack on poetry as if she hadn't even noticed that anything was
so terribly, critically, crucially wrong.

"What
use has a boy for
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

"A
poem, Charlotte, is many things for many people. For some men it is merely an
illusion used to feign culture and refinement, and for others it can be a trick
to appear in love or worse—besotted. More than a few women have been known to
use a poem as a yardstick to measure the affections of their suitors, always
finding them inadequate when compared to Mr. Shakespeare. A teacher employs a
poem as a test of memory and devotion to study. An intellect, praised be the
lonely soul, can be amused, fascinated, and entertained by a poem.

"For
Master Flannigan it will be a tool with which to train the tongue."

He
snapped shut the green cloth volume that had lain open on his lap. In gold
lettering across the cover, the tide proclaimed the volume to contain the
Practical
Treatment of Stammering and Stuttering.
Illustrated, no less.

"You
will remain in this room until you have repeated the alphabet no fewer than
five times, noting, on a tablet, in one column, which of the letters cause you
difficulty and, in a second column, those sounds that do not."

The
boy's eyes widened, his split lip trembled.

Cabot
closed his eyes and shook his head in utter disbelief. "You don't write,
do you?"

"No,
s-s-sir."

The
disappointment on Cabot's face was replaced by a grin so sly that Charlotte
squinted in search of yellow feathers sticking out of the man's mouth while he
handed Davis a book.

"Copy
the letters in this book. Fill three pages with the smallest letters you can
make. We'll make sense of them tomorrow."

"I
could teach him his letters," Charlotte offered. "After he's..."

"He's
what, Charlotte?" Cabot asked. "What is it you're thinking?"

"Davis,"
she said, bending slightly so that she was on eye level with the boy, "I'd
like to file a suit against your father."

The
boy shook his head, as vehemently as she supposed he could do without causing
himself great pain.

"He's
hurt you again," she said softly. "I can't let him do that. You
deserve better than this and I can—"

"No!"

Well,
she'd found a way to cure his stammering. Just threaten to take him away from
his father.

"I
can't let your father do this to you," she said.

Again
he shook his head.

"You
will stay here," Cabot said. "And I'll work you twice as hard as your
father ever did and you won't enjoy a moment of it. But you won't have any
scars to show for it, I promise you that. You'll have diplomas and
degrees."

The
boy looked doubtful.

"Don't
let Mr. Whittier frighten you," she said. "He only wants what's best
for you. As do I."

"You'll
file the papers on Monday, Charlotte, when you get the extension in Ashford's
case," Cabot said, beginning to wheel toward the door. "And you can
do an extra page for the trouble you've caused," he shouted over his
shoulders at the boy. "As small as you can do it."

"Cabot,
there's no reason to punish the boy," she said as she closed the
conservatory door behind them.

"Really?
Then why do you suppose he stays with his father?" he answered. "And
if he's so eager to be punished for something, at least I can oblige him in a
way that won't do him any harm."

She
wondered whether Cabot might be right as she followed along behind his chair,
studying the top of his head. When she'd met him, his hair had been dark and
sprinkled with the occasional silver strand. Now it was more silver than black.
Ash's hair was a soft brown. Soft on the eye, anyway.

She
had never touched a man's hair, never thought about it, or wanted to before
now. She bet that Ash's hair was as soft as it looked. Lost in thought, she
took several steps after Cabot's chair had stopped moving. Her knee hit the
back of his chair with enough force to jolt him and send a sharp pain running
up her shin. It also brought her hand down against his head.

Wiry.
Coarse. But his hand was smooth and soft as he took hers and removed it from
him.

"Are
you quite all right?" he asked, holding her as far away as his arm could
place her.

"Your
hand is really soft," she said before he jerked it away and glowered at
her. "I mean your grip is very strong, but your skin is soft."

"I'm
sorry," he said, fighting with the knob on the door. It was a difficult
maneuver for him, getting close enough to hold the knob and then backing up to
make room to open the door without crashing it into his chair.

"For
squeezing my hand, or for letting it go?" she asked. "Or for never
having held it before?"

He
fought harder with the door, backing up against her boot until it was clear
that she had him trapped. She reached out and put her hand within inches of his
tightly closed fist.

"Am
I soft too?" she asked.

"Of
course you are," he said, still maneuvering his chair.

"How
do you know?" she asked him, offering her hand.

"I
don't know," he said, looking at it without taking it.

She
swallowed. Pride had left a big lump in her throat, but she spoke around it.
"Shouldn't you want to know?"

He
grasped the door handle and pulled back again, the door slamming with a
resounding crack into knees that felt nothing. "Get my brother," he
said while he pushed his chair back against her, the wheel running over the toe
of her boot before she could retract it. "We've got work to do."

Her
fine kid boot came to a point long beyond her foot, so his brusque movements
did it no harm. Her heart, however, was another matter.

"Cabot,
wait," she said as he braced his hands against the door frame and
propelled himself out of the room.

He
stopped and turned to look at her. The corners of his mouth, nearly hidden by
his mustache, were turned down. "Do you want to see my brother go to prison?"

The
knot that had been in her stomach for days tightened.

"It's
in your hands, you know. That's the price of being a lawyer."

***

"Maybe
it wasn't even arson," Ash said. He didn't know what had passed between
his brother and Charlotte, only that yet another barrier had fallen between
them. Charlotte's chair was so close to the wall that the back legs rested on
the edge of the molding, and she tottered slightly every time she shifted her
weight—which was often enough for Cabot to demand she sit still as if she were
some ill-behaved child who was being kept in at recess.

"Of
course it was arson," Cabot said, throwing some papers in his direction.
"'Two separate and distinct locations,' the report says. 'Accelerant,' the
report says. For Christ's sake, they found the cap to the kerosene.
Not even
arson!"
He exhaled hard enough to ruffle the papers on his desk.

"Sam
Greenbough sold those coffee beans to someone," Charlotte said. "My
guess is for a lot more than he put on those books. There's no question from
the way he was living that he's been robbing the company blind."

"And
the company
was
blind, wasn't it?" Cabot asked, staring at Ash as
if trusting his partner was now a crime. "But if your theory is right,
Charlotte, why bother burning down the place if the books had already been
altered? Can you tell me that?"

"Don't
take it out on her," Ash said. "How's she supposed to know how
someone like Greenbough thinks? He's the scum of the earth, and
she's—she's..." He held his tongue. Cabot ought to know what his wife was,
damn it! He shouldn't need to be told.

"You
don't have to roll in the mud to know how the pig got dirty," Cabot said.
"What would Greenbough have to gain if he burned down his own
warehouse?" he asked Charlotte.

"For
one, he'd be able to get rid of any evidence that might incriminate him were
Ash to find it," Charlotte suggested. Her chair inched away from the wall
as she continued. "For another, if he were able to frame your brother, he
could wind up with the whole business instead of just his half interest."

"Weak,"
Cabot said, his hands folded on his desk. "Can't you do any better?"

"I
don't know," Charlotte said, throwing her pad down onto the desk top and
coming to her feet. "If, as usual, you know the answer, why not just tell
us and stop playing with me like I'm still a student?"

"You
are a student of the law until the day you die, Charlotte. Now, sit back down
and learn." Cabot held out her tablet, waiting for her to take it from
him.

"I
am not
your
student anymore, Mr. Whittier," she said, folding her
hands over her chest. "The sign says I'm your partner. If you have a
reason to think it wasn't Greenbough, tell us. If not, I think he's our prime
suspect."

"It's
common sense," his brother said. His tone was conciliatory; his eyes
studied Charlotte's face as if he'd never seen it before. Or perhaps as if
there was something new to see there. "The books that burned up would have
been the perfect means by which to prove his innocence. Doctored, they would
have provided chapter and verse of the fictitious sale. In fact, we're probably
fortunate they went up in the blaze."

Charlotte
reluctantly took back her notebook and regained her seat.

"You
know, Charlotte may still be right," Ash said, hoping to bolster her
sagging morale. Should the woman ever give up the law—and he thought the world
would be the worse for it if she did—he surely hoped she didn't take up poker
playing. He'd have promised her the moon to curve the corners of her mouth up
again. He'd have promised her his soul for a smile. "Greenbough isn't any
smarter than he is honest. He could have panicked that I was back, feared I
would discover his deceit, and set fire to the place to cover his tracks."

"In
law, as in life," his brother began to pontificate, leaning back far
enough in his chair to cross his hands over a belly that had added a few annual
rings since Ash had been home last, "there are only four basic motives.
Naturally, the most common is greed—the crime for profit. We'll skip the second
for the moment and come to the 'cover-up' crime—the one committed to prevent
the discovery of some other deed, to protect another, or to destroy the
evidence that would prove guilt. That's your theory, Charlotte. The last, not
nearly as common as we defense attorneys would have people believe, is
compulsion—insanity, temporary insanity, the need for the thrill."

Ash
shook his head. His brother always broke things down to the point where all
other ideas were reduced to the ridiculous. There was a time, when Ash was
young, that he'd thought of Cabot as some sort of magician. With a wave of his
hand or his wand he could turn black into white or wrong into right. And
nothing had changed.

"But
the most common motive, the one you've naturally overlooked, is the one that
speaks to man's greatest weakness. Anger. Anger that stems from jealousy, lust,
or better still, revenge. Revenge is a powerful motive, Charlotte," Cabot
said, pulling his eyes from Ash to study quite the sort of woman who could
drive a man to the edge of disaster just to keep a smile on her face. "If
one man felt wronged by another, his trust violated, his honor impugned, there
are no lengths to which he might not be pushed by his need for revenge."

Charlotte
shook her head. "Yes, but in this case—" she began.