One Good Turn (27 page)

He never seemed particularly unbalanced to me,
she had said, describing another Matthew Sullivan—one with a different name, living at a different time and a different place but suffering from the same brutal psyche.
We were friends.

Over the past weekend Luke had labored with all his might to teach Jenny how to trust. After a verdict like this, how could she ever trust anyone? How could she trust Luke? He was the epitome of mental balance, and he was her friend.

“Is she all right?” he asked the receptionist.

“I beg your pardon?”

It dawned on him that by implying that Jenny might be unhinged by the verdict he was jeopardizing her position in the D.A.’s office. “Is Jenny disappointed?” he amended.

Again the receptionist paused before answering. “Verdicts are a matter of public record, Mr. Benning. The personal reactions of our attorneys aren’t.”

If the receptionist couldn’t tell him, it must be bad. Maybe Jenny had broken down in court. Maybe she was right this minute ranting and raving before the press corps.

“I’m sorry to take up your time,” he said quickly. “Please tell Jenny I called.” Then he slammed down the phone and headed back to the conference room to say good-bye to Taylor and the others.

He completed the trip to Cambridge in under an hour and a half, but never had a drive seemed so long to him. In his haste, he almost forgot to lock his car after parking it, and he ran to the courthouse building with the speed of an Olympic sprinter. Too anxious to wait for the elevator, he dashed up the stairs to the second floor. Emerging from the stairwell, he tore down the hall to the D.A.’s office and burst through the door. “Where is she?” he demanded of the receptionist.

She peered up at him suspiciously. “Where is who?”

“Jenny Perrin. I’m Luke Benning.”

“You telephoned earlier, didn’t you,” the young woman said, her eyes narrowing on him. “I gave her your message.”

If Jenny had tried to call him back she wouldn’t have been able to reach him. If she hadn’t tried... He didn’t even want to consider what that might imply.

“Where is she?”

“She’s in a meeting.”

“Still?” An hour and a half fencing with reporters? Or had she told the receptionist to lie to Luke so she could hide from him? “When I telephoned, she was in a meeting,” he said, bearing down on the woman behind the desk, hoping to intimidate her into revealing Jenny’s whereabouts.

“That was a different meeting,” she said placidly. “Right now, she’s with District Attorney Blair.”

“Fine.” Not bothering to request permission, he barged down the corridor of partitions, searching for Blair’s office, ignoring the receptionist’s shout of protest. Through an open door he heard voices, and he peeked into the doorway to see Jenny’s genial, bald boss standing in front of his desk, two other men in business attire facing him, and in the center of this trio of towering men, a petite red-haired woman in a chic gray suit and spectator pumps.

Seeing how tiny she looked surrdounded by the men wrenched Luke’s heart. Not caring about the consequences, he stormed into the office and called her name.

They all turned to stare at him. And then Jenny’s lips curved in an enchanting smile of surprise. “Luke! What are you doing here?”

Her smile was the most reassuring sight in the universe. It banished his anxiety, slowed his pulse, neutralized the overabundance of adrenaline pumping through his body. She was okay. She had survived. She was stronger and tougher than even he had given her credit for being.

“Hello,” he mumbled, abruptly embarrassed by his rude invasion of this professional confab. “I’m sorry to interrupt—”

“No, that’s all right,” Jenny said. “We’re basically done here. You remember Steve Blair, don’t you?” She gestured toward the district attorney, who nodded at Luke in recognition and extended his hand. After they’d shaken hands Luke was introduced to Jenny’s fellow assistant D.A., Willy Taggart, and the third man, a police lieutenant from Sommerville. More hand-shaking, and then Jenny excused herself and led Luke out of the room.

“What are you doing here?” she asked again as they walked down the corridor to her own cramped office.

“I heard about the verdict,” he explained.

“Really? How”

“I called to talk to you, and the receptionist told me.”

Jenny nodded and crossed to her desk, which was uncharacteristically messy, scattered with papers and folders. She eyed the disorder, then turned her back on it and faced Luke. For the first time since he’d found her, she didn’t look happy. “So. You know.”

“You seem to be taking it well,” he observed, although his voice rose in a question.

She took a deep breath and let it out. Then she shook her head. “It sucks,” she said tersely.

“You did the best you could.”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “That’s what Steve and Mike were saying in Steve’s office. Willy was just there to offer moral support.” She sighed again. “We have no grounds for appeal. It was a fair trial. There’s nothing more I can do.”

He scrutinized her. “How’s the girl?” he asked. “The victim. Is she all right?”

“I talked to her on the phone as soon as the verdict came down.” Jenny’s voice faltered slightly, and she lowered her eyes. “Needless to say, she’s devastated. I promised I’d drop by her house this evening and talk to her. I know you and I are supposed to have dinner, but—”

“This is more important,” he said. “We’ll eat later, or—whatever. You’ll go and see her right after work.”

She sent him a look of gratitude. “I was hoping you’d understand.”

Something in her expression—the defiant tilt of her chin, the metallic glint in her multicolored eyes—puzzled him. Her words implied that, although justifiably disappointed, she had come to terms with her loss. Yet he sensed a strain of resistance in her, something below the surface, contradicting her superficially calm acceptance of the courtroom defeat. “What are you thinking?” he asked.

She met his steady gaze and one corner of her mouth lifted in a wry half-smile. “Do you know why I lost the case? I’ll tell you: because
these things happen
. The same reason I was raped:
these things happen
. It’s not my fault, Luke. It wasn’t my fault seven years ago, and it’s not my fault now. It’s this society we’re living in. The jurors were candid about it. They thought Sullivan was a dick, but hey, that’s men for you. Two of the jurors came over to me after court adjourned and spelled it out. They said, ‘What he did was wrong, but that’s what men do. That’s how they operate. They’ve been that way since the beginning of time. You can’t criminalize the male instinct.
These things happen
.’”

Luke absorbed her words. He couldn’t refute the truth in them, even though he wanted to. “These things
shouldn’t
happen,” he muttered.

“But they do. And there isn’t a hell of a lot I can do about it—except keep on fighting.”

Keep on fighting. His soul filled with a profound exhilaration at her quiet pledge. It really was simple, after all. What a person could do was keep on fighting.

One loss couldn’t destroy Jenny, not anymore. She was already gearing up for the next battle. She was no longer willing to run away. She was too angry, too spirited, too principled to give up.

This was the Jenny Luke had fallen in love with so long ago—strong, self-righteous, noble and fearless. She was back, in full flower.

“Do you know how much I love you?” he murmured, crossing the room and gathering her into his arms.

“It better be a lot,” she said as she nestled her face against his shoulder. “You got me through this, Luke. You got me through the verdict, through the press conference, through the whole thing. I ducked into the bathroom for a minute because I thought I might want to cry—but I didn’t. The urge vanished. I just thought about you, and I felt better.”

As thrilled as he was by her words, he didn’t see what he could have done to help her through this frustrating defeat. “How did I help?”

“You didn’t give up on me. You kept on fighting.” She leaned back and looked squarely at him. “When we believe in something, that’s what we have to do. I used to know that, and then I forgot. And you taught me, all over again. You’re a very good teacher.” She rose on tiptoe and kissed him. “I’ve always believed in you, Luke, but you taught me to believe in myself. It was something I needed to learn.”

They kissed again, a deeper, fuller kiss. If Willy hadn’t entered the cubicle and cleared his throat loudly, they might have continued kissing forever. When Jenny broke from Luke, he felt mildly embarrassed, but she didn’t look the least bit abashed. “Knock next time,” she scolded her colleague.

He gave Luke a thorough inspection. “This is your gentleman caller, I take it.”

“This,” Jenny declared, sliding her arm around Luke and holding him tight, “is my gentle man.”

My gentle man.
Luke decided that sounded right—not just the “gentle man” part but the possessive pronoun. Especially that.

HIS MOTHER STOOD
amid the confusion of the kitchen, sipping Evian from a highball glass. “Help me out, Luke,” she said, brushing a wisp of ash-blond hair back from her brow and gazing around her. “I know Aida put the cranberry sauce somewhere, but I can’t seem to find it.”

Aida was Luke’s parents’ housekeeper. She had been given the day off for Thanksgiving, but she’d spent the past several days helping to prepare the feast Luke’s mother was about to serve. Aida had cleaned and dressed the turkey, boiled and mashed the turnips, prepared the sweet-potato casserole, chilled the wines, cut the greens for a salad and baked the bread. Luke’s mother had managed to assemble most of the meal, which had all been cooked according to Aida’s instructions and was now spread out on the kitchen’s various counters, waiting to be carried into the dining room.

Luke opened the refrigerator door and located a cut-crystal bowl brimming with home-made cranberry sauce at the back of one of the shelves. “Here you go,” he said, pulling it out and presenting it to his mother with a theatrical flourish.

From the dining room came the shrill sound of Elliott’s daughter explaining the seating arrangement to her oblivious younger brother. From somewhere near the foot of the stairs, Elliott was hollering to his wife to bring him the diaper bag.

Luke’s mother took another swig of mineral water and laughed. “Every year it’s a zoo,” she muttered. “I suppose I should be grateful you all still want to come.”

“You know we wouldn’t go anywhere else.”

“Not even to Jenny’s parents?” she asked, giving Luke a canny look. “I’ll bet they’re are a lot easier to take than we are.”

“We’ll visit her folks for Christmas,” Luke said. “They understood that we couldn’t manage such a long trip twice in two months. It’s hard enough on us that we’re shuttling back and forth between Long Island and Boston every weekend.”

“Speaking of which, how’s the job search coming?” his mother asked as she untied the apron she’d been wearing over her silk slacks ensemble.

“I’ve already gotten an offer from the Billerica school district,” Luke told her. “I’m still waiting to hear from Newton and Belmont. One way or another, Jenny and I are going to have the same address next year.”

“And then you can start making babies,” his mother advised.

He knew she was teasing, and he gave her the appropriate response—a groan and a grimace.

His mother scanned the kitchen one last time. “I’ll start bringing this stuff to the table. You go lure the lion from his lair.”

With another groan, Luke departed from the kitchen to fetch his father from the study where he holed himself up every Thanksgiving, avoiding all contact with his family.

James Benning hadn’t even acknowledged Luke and Jenny’s arrival at the house an hour ago. In fact, Luke hadn’t seen his father in months. The old man had refused to attend the wedding—a small civil service ceremony performed by one of Jenny’s friends on the Massachusetts bench—and he’d made no bones about his displeasure that Luke had gone and married that gullible, mouthy little snip of a girl from Washington, D.C. “That was just a mindless infatuation,” his father had snorted when Luke had informed him, over the phone, that he and Jenny were engaged to get married. “I know she went to a good college, but—what’s her background? What on earth can she bring to a marriage?”

Everything,
Luke had nearly answered. Joy and purpose, faith and trust. “I’m not marrying her for her dowry,” he’d muttered. “And I’m sure as hell not marrying her to earn a pat on the back from you.”

“Well, you sure as hell won’t get one,” his father had snapped back before passing the phone to his wife.

That conversation three months ago was the last time Luke had spoken to his father. They’d been estranged for so long, James Benning’s reaction to the marriage didn’t faze Luke. At least his mother had come to witness the wedding, along with Elliott and his family, Jenny’s parents, Taylor and Suzanne and a few of Jenny’s friends from the D.A.’s office.

Given his father’s cold reaction, Luke would not have been surprised if Jenny refused to go to the Benning home for Thanksgiving. But when he’d mentioned his mother’s invitation, she had urged him to accept. “Sooner or later, your father and I are going to have to confront each other,” she’d said.

Now the time of confrontation was upon them. Jenny and James were going to have to sit at the dinner table together. Even if James tried to ignore her, she would never ignore him.

Resigning himself to the inevitable unpleasantness of their meeting, Luke headed down the hall to his father’s retreat at the rear of the house. To his astonishment, he noticed that the door to the study had been left ajar. Several feet from the doorway, he heard Jenny’s distinctive voice floating out of the room.

It wasn’t proper to spy on one’s own wife, but Luke couldn’t resist. He hovered in the hallway, eavesdropping.

“You’re wrong, Mr. Benning,” she declared.

“I’ve lived a lot longer than you, child,” his father argued. “And I’ve learned a lot about the way things are done in this world. People use the law to get what they want. Period.”