Never Sorry: A Leigh Koslow Mystery (12 page)

Leigh smiled sadly and shook her head. "You're good, detective, but as I told you, I'm no idiot. If you want to talk about the weather, fine. But until my lawyer—" Catching some movement outside, she stopped and smiled. Warren's "shark among women" had arrived.

Attorney Katharine Bower blew into the room like a small hurricane, angry and building up steam. "My client will not answer any questions until we've had a chance to review the evidence," she said authoritatively, glaring openly at Frank as he followed her through the door.

Frank's dark eyes shot daggers back at her. "Your client hasn't said beans," he said with a pained smile. "If I didn't know better, I'd say she was stalling to avoid transport."

"Then she's damn smart," Katharine snapped, still looking only at Frank. "But in this case, we'll have to hurry up the process. She's got a bail hearing in"—she glanced at her watch—"exactly three hours. So juice up the paddy wagon."

Leigh's heart jumped, warmth quickly radiating through her chest. She was going to get out on bail. Today! She beamed at her attorney with the kind of visual worship she usually reserved for confectioneries.

"How the hell'd you do that?" Frank exploded.

Katharine shrugged. The lawyer and detective continued to spar with frightening glances and frosty words, but Leigh paid little attention. What mattered was when she got out, not how.

She endured her tour of Pittsburgh's criminal accommodations with a mixture of hope and creativity: the hope that she would never be back, and the creativity of pretending she was never really there. Imagining she was an undercover reporter proved helpful—by the time she was piled into a van for final transport to the courthouse, her piece on the treatment of local prisoners was already half written in her head. She even had a marketing strategy for selling it to the
Post
.

But her optimism couldn't last forever. It was not until after the hearing had begun that she realized bail might require money. She considered the sum total of her assets, and hoped that the judge was having an extraordinarily good day. She was already indebted to Warren for Katharine's bill, which could be enormous if this nonsense carried on. Her parents would do what they could—but they certainly weren't wealthy. How bad would it be?

Leigh waited anxiously as the prosecutor impressed on the judge the heinousness of the crime, requesting that bail be denied. She was certain for several horrifying minutes that this logic would prevail, but she had underestimated Katharine Bower. The attorney quickly took charge of the proceedings, convincing the judge that choir-girl Leigh, active member of the Greenstone United Methodist Church, was no threat to anyone, much less a flight risk. Katharine was so persuasive that Leigh found herself hoping for a bail with four digits. She was to be disappointed.

When the judge announced the final figure, Leigh's heart fell into her shoes. She didn't know exactly how bail bonding worked, but even ten percent of that awful number was more than she could make in a year. Her parents couldn't quickly pull together that kind of money, either.

She was going back to jail.

Katharine noticed the horror in her client's eyes, but instead of sympathy, she offered reproach. "You should be smiling," she chastised. "Do you have any idea what kind of odds we just beat?"

Leigh laughed sadly. "Half a million dollars? What good does that do me?"

Katharine softened. "Relax, will you? The money's being taken care of. I assumed you knew."

The blank look on Leigh's face urged Katharine to continue.

"Your policewoman friend Maura Polanski called me early this morning and tipped me off that your arrest was imminent. I made a quick call to the docket clerk—who owes me a few. Not just everyone gets a same-day hearing, you know, so keep that under your hat. Your cop friend also said that she was making bail arrangements, and that price would be no object. So cheer up."

Leigh continued to stare blankly. How did Maura know she was being arrested? And what was this nonsense about price being no object? Had the policewoman lost her mind? With her mother facing assisted living, Maura had worse money problems than Leigh did.

"I'll meet you back at the jail," Katharine continued. "You have to be processed out before you can go home." She looked at her watch. "Warren should already be there waiting for you."

The faint tinge of jealousy overriding Katharine's last comment was not lost on Leigh, but she had other things on her mind. The handcuffs, the escorts, arrangements mysteriously made—the day's events were making her feel very much like a marionette.

Her escort (a stocky young man with a trace of B.O.), reapplied her handcuffs and led her out of the courtroom. She stopped cold in the hallway as a familiar figure started toward her.

"Leigh! Are you all right?"

She looked up into the genuinely concerned, ridiculously handsome face of her cousin-in-law. "I'm okay, Gil," she answered, marshalling all the dignity she could for someone whose hands were cuffed behind her back.

"The bail's taken care of," he said quickly. "You don't need to worry. You're getting out, and you're not going back in. This whole arrest is ludicrous!"

So that was it. Maura had gone straight to Cara, knowing that Cara would offer the money in a minute. Leigh looked at her cousin's husband with a mixture of gratitude, embarrassment, annoyance, and some other feeling she refused to acknowledge. He was even more gorgeous when he was angry, and this anger was righteous indignation toward the police, a sentiment she wholeheartedly approved of.

"I'm sorry you guys got dragged into this. Cara's all right, isn't she?" she asked.

"She's worried sick about you, of course," Gil answered honestly. "We're both anxious to help. Just let us know what you need, all right?"

"How about a one-way ticket to Rio?"

He looked at her sternly, and Leigh laughed out loud. Some people had no sense of humor. "I'm just kidding, Gil. Make sure you tell Cara I was cutting up in my hour of darkness, okay?"

He smiled slightly.

"And—" Leigh's voice broke. This was the hard part. She hated taking charity from her cousin, much less her cousin's husband. No one should have to bankroll an in-law. But no way was she rotting in the county jail out of stubborn pride. She wasn't that noble. She cleared her throat. "Thank you."

He started to answer, but Leigh's escort gave her arm a visible tug. "We'll see you later," Gil said instead, turning to leave. "Take care of yourself."

Leigh watched his perfect, photo-ready form stride away before the guard moved her along. He and Cara made such a perfect couple. She was glad she had set them up. Really, she was.

***

With her clothes returned and her orange jumpsuit abandoned, a released and unshackled Leigh was able to meet Warren with some trace of dignity
.
Neither Maura nor Warren had chosen to show up at the hearing, and she was grateful. There was a fine line between providing moral support and adding to one's humiliation. Warren rose to greet her without a trace of worry in his face, and Leigh suspected he'd worked hard to look that way. She would soon get all the worry she needed from her mother—Frances Koslow's worry capacity being equal to that of ten regular mothers.

Warren smiled and stretched out his arms, and Leigh fell into them gladly. They had always been affectionate pals, and he knew when she needed a lift. An awkward moment of silence followed, heightened by Katharine Bower's distinct look of disapproval, which Warren seemed to find extremely amusing.

"It's about dinnertime, by my watch," he said cheerfully. "And I'm starving, as usual. Can I take you ladies out?"

Katharine eyes danced a little at the invitation, but she declined, saying something about billable hours. Leigh knew that she was a third wheel as far as Katharine was concerned, but she didn't particularly care. Warren was her friend first, after all, and she had had a rather despicable day. Leigh thanked Katharine profusely for her stellar work, promised to meet with her first thing in the morning, and headed towards the door with Warren.

Ignoring the small throng of reporters awaiting them outside the jail, they took off in the VW and drove back to the North Hills, where Leigh assuaged a small portion of her guilt by covering the bill for takeout from a Chinese buffet. Ordinarily, she would have taken a seat and stuffed herself silly on General Tso's, but she was weary of crowds, and Warren didn't seem to mind.

As they carried their paper-sack booty across the parking lot and up to the main entrance of their apartment building, they nearly collided with a startled Tanner, who was just turning to leave.

"Leigh! Thank God!" he hugged her close, squishing what was probably egg drop soup out of the bag and onto her shirt. She reddened at the greeting and held the food out to the side.

"Mike! What are you doing here?"

He smiled and shook his head. "What do you think? You were whisked away in handcuffs, was I supposed to go on about my business? I called around and found out you'd been released—I was hoping you'd be home. Are you all right?"

Leigh's heart warmed. "I'll be fine. Thanks for coming by."

"Warren Harmon," said the forgotten man at Leigh's other side, who knew his friend too well to wait for an introduction. "I presume you're Mike Tanner?"

Tanner nodded, and the men shook hands. Leigh noticed absently that Warren was taller—she would have guessed the other way around.

"Would you like to come up to my place for some Chinese?" she asked Tanner, smiling. "I think we loaded up enough for three."

Within a few minutes, she was playing hostess to two attractive, single men in her own humble kitchen—a rare event indeed. Warren didn't officially count, but the illusion was nice.

"So, who paid your bail?" Tanner said curiously, digging into some twice-fried pork. "And what about that fancy lawyer? I thought you were having money problems."

Leigh wished he hadn't asked, since it really wasn't any of his business, but she couldn't very well dodge the issue under the circumstances. She opened her mouth to answer, but Warren cut her off.

"Leigh has some rather wealthy family connections," he said smoothly, "but she doesn't like to advertise it."

Tanner's eyebrows rose, but he said nothing. Having worked with Leigh's father, he no doubt knew she couldn't expect any windfalls from that quarter. Randall Koslow was an excellent veterinarian, but no one would ever accuse him of being a shrewd businessman.

Tanner surveyed Warren with a suspicious look, though his tone remained casual. "Are you a relative?"

Warren smiled. It was a smile Leigh knew well—the one that said he was secretly amused by something. "Just an old friend," he answered.

"Do we need more rice?" Leigh asked nervously. There was something about Tanner meeting Warren that she decided she didn't care for. Warren was one part of her life, Tanner was another. They should have stayed that way.

"You make rice?" Warren teased.

Leigh whacked him with an empty carton and got up. "I am capable of boiling instant rice, yes. But only when absolutely necessary. More pop?"

She went to the refrigerator and pulled out two more cans, the last cold ones. She'd have to make do with a lukewarm one herself, since the ice cube trays had been empty for weeks. No matter. It was a bonus there were cans at all —she'd have never found three matching tumblers.

She returned to her plate of the General, and joined Warren in steering the conversation away from the obvious. They talked first about the weather, then national politics, which led quickly to Pittsburgh politics and a heated debate over the necessity of new sports stadiums. Given that Warren was an experienced debater and well versed on the facts to boot, Tanner wasn't coming off too well. Leigh grew annoyed, making an ill-fated attempt to change the subject to methods of rodent anesthesia. When dinner was finished, Tanner threw an easily interpretable look at Leigh.
Are we going to be alone anytime soon?

Leigh tried to send Warren a visual invitation to leave, but not only did he avoid her eyes, he started clearing the table. A noble gesture that Leigh ordinarily approved of, but in this case, blasted awkward. He drifted comfortably around the kitchen, giving every indication he knew it intimately. In reality, he almost never went near the place, declaring it woefully unequipped.

It soon became apparent that Warren had no intention of leaving first, and though Leigh would ordinarily feel no compunction about booting him out, something about his footing her legal bills made that seem crass. Tanner eventually gave up, made an excuse to leave, and asked Leigh to walk him out.

"I can't tell you how terrible I feel about all this," he said for the umpteenth time as they walked down the hall and boarded the elevator.

"You have," she answered, "repeatedly. And as I keep telling you—it's not your fault. It's not anybody's fault."
With the possible exception of one Detective Gerald Frank
. "It's just my dumb luck. But I'll be okay. The worst is over, you know. I'm not going to jail. No way."

Tanner smiled. "You got guts, you know that?"

"Not guts," Leigh answered honestly. "Just a good self-defense mechanism for blocking out reality."