The Devil's Advocate (26 page)

He moved quickly to her side and gazed out. Norma and Jean were in their robes, too.

"What happened?"

"She went wild," Norma said. ' Stabbed Mrs. Longchamp in the arm with a pair of scissors."

"What?"

At that moment the door to the Scholefields' apartment was opened and two ambulance attendants from Bellevue wheeled Helen out on a stretcher. She was belted down tightly. Paul, Dave, and Ted followed closely behind. Helen was turning her head rapidly from side to side as if trying to deny the reality of what was happening to her. Kevin pushed his way past Miriam and approached Paul.

"It was very bad," he said. "She just got up out of bed and attacked the nurse.

Fortunately, it wasn't a bad wound, but I shouldn't have kept her in the apartment.

They gave her a sedative, but it hasn't taken hold yet."

The elevator doors opened, and the attendants pushed the stretcher into the elevator. Paul turned to Dave and Ted.

"You don't have to come. It's late. I'll handle it."

"You're sure you're all right?" Ted asked.

"No problem. Everybody just get back to sleep. I'll talk to you all in the morning."

He stepped in beside the stretcher. The attendants turned it a bit to make room for him, and Kevin saw Helen Scholefield's face. Her eyes widened when she confronted him. Then she suddenly began to scream. It was a sharp, piercingly shrill shriek that made him wince. Even after the elevator doors closed and the elevator began its descent, he still heard her wail until it died out in the floors below.

"Knew this was coming," Dave said, turning away.

"Too bad," Ted said, shaking his head. "Jean?"

"Coming."

The three women embraced each other at Kevin and Miriam's doorway, and then Norma and Jean joined Dave and Ted to return to their apartments. Kevin watched them go.

"Kevin?"

He looked at Miriam and then looked at the Scholefields' doorway. Where was the nurse? he wondered. If she had been stabbed in the shoulder, why wasn't anyone concerned about her? He started for the doorway.

"Kevin, what are you doing? Where are you going? Kevin?"

He knocked on the door and listened. There was nothing, no sound, no voice. He pushed the buzzer.

"Kevin?" Miriam was out in the hallway. He still heard nothing.

He turned back to her. "They're lying," he said.

"What?"

He walked past her into the apartment.

"Kevin?" She followed him down the corridor to the bedroom. He sat on the bed staring down at his hands. He tugged at the gold pinky ring, but his finger was so swollen, he saw he would have to cut the ring off.

"Kevin, what are you saying? You saw how she was."

"They're all lying. They know she told me something. The nurse told them."

Miriam just shook her head. "You're acting very weird, Kevin. All of this is frightening me."

"It should." He stood up and took off his robe. "I don't expect you to understand what I'm saying right

now, Miriam. I have some ideas which I'll pursue

tomorrow. For now, there's nothing to do but go to

sleep."

"That's a very good idea," she said and went out to turn off all the lights.

In the morning Kevin called the office and told Diane he wasn't coming in.

"Need a day's rest," he said.

"Understandable. Mr. Milton isn't coming in today, either. Isn't it terrible about Mr.

Scholefield's wife?"

"Oh, you know about that already?"

"Yes. Mr. McCarthy called first thing. Maybe this is for the best, though. Maybe they'll be able to help her."

"Oh, I'm sure they will," he said. He didn't think she picked up his sarcastic note.

He put on his overcoat, but Miriam didn't ask him where he was going and he didn't volunteer information. She didn't seem all that interested in knowing, anyway. Norma and Jean called just as he was about to leave, and the three of them began making plans to cheer themselves up.

"After all," he heard Miriam say, "it was such a downer last night."

"I see you're all overwrought with sympathy," Kevin remarked as soon as she cradled the receiver.

"Well, there's nothing we can do about it, Kev. Bellevue isn't the kind of place you go to pay a visiting call, and I don't think sending her flowers or candy would make much sense."

"No sense at all." He saw another one of those black and blue marks, this one on the back of her left calf muscle. "You've got another mark on you." He pointed.

"What?" She looked down. "Oh, yes," she said and followed it with a short laugh.

"Aren't you concerned? I'm telling you, it could be a nutritional problem or something."

She stared at him a moment and then smiled. "Kevin, don't be such a worrywart.

It's nothing. I've had it happen before, especially before a period."

"Is your period due?" he asked quickly.

"Past due." Her eyes twinkled mischievously, but he didn't smile back.

"I'll call you later," he said and hurried out. He took the elevator down to the parking garage, got into his car, and drove off, heading upstate to speak to Beverly Morgan.

It was a crisp, cold winter day with a dark blue sky and clouds so still against it, they looked frozen in place. During the trip upstate, Kevin reviewed the past few months and thought about the things that had bothered him, things he had to admit he had chosen to ignore, now that he was honest with himself. How did John Milton and Associates come to know so much about him and Miriam before he arrived? How did John Milton know so much about the Lois Wilson case? And what about everything being so perfect, such as the beautiful rent-free apartment that just happened to have a spinet and some of the other things Miriam always wanted? Was there something supernatural to the coincidences and the good fortune, or was he just being paranoid now? Was Miriam right? Was he reacting to the babblings of a mentally ill and depressed person? Maybe he was overworking.

Surely there had to be a logical explanation for Beverly Morgan's reversal. Perhaps she just didn't trust him because he was so young. If that were the case, she probably wouldn't talk to him now, either, he thought.

Kevin pulled up in front of the small house in Middletown. The windows were dark, shades drawn. A thin ten-year-old black boy eyed him suspiciously from the sanctuary of his own front porch as Kevin got out of his car and walked to the front door of Beverly Morgan's sister's house. He knocked and waited. His rapping echoed and died within and brought no response. He knocked again and then peered in a window.

"They ain't home," the little boy said. "They went off in the ambulance."

"Ambulance?" Kevin moved quickly to the side of the porch. The little boy retreated a few steps, frightened by his abrupt movement. "What happened to Mrs. Morgan?"

"She got drunk and fell down the steps," he said and pushed a metal toy firetruck along the chipped porch railing.

"Oh, I see. So they took her to the hospital, huh?"

"Yep. And my mother went, too. She drove Cheryl."

"Oh. Which hospital did they go to?"

The little boy shrugged.

"Probably only one hospital here anyway," Kevin mused aloud. He hurried back down the sidewalk to his car and drove off. At the first intersection, he got directions to the Horton Memorial Hospital and made his way there as quickly as he could.

The kindly faced elderly woman in pink behind the reception desk had no information concerning any Beverly Morgan being admitted. "She might still be in the emergency room," she offered as the only possible explanation. She gave him directions, and he hurried down the long, wide hallway.

He was surprised at the activity. Small city or no small city, emergency rooms were all the same, he thought. Nurses moved frantically from one examination room to another. An overwhelmed intern stood staring at his clipboard while another nurse recited the symptoms of a patient in the room behind her. No one seemed to notice Kevin. He spotted two black women standing outside an examination room door on the other side of the emergency suite talking softly and made his way to their side.

"Excuse me."

They turned curiously.

"Is Beverly Morgan in there?"

"She sure is. Who are you?"

"I'm Kevin Taylor, an attorney. I defended Stanley Rothberg."

"Oh, well, what do you want with my sister now? She told everything in court, didn't she?"

"Is she all right?" he asked, smiling.

"She's goin' to live," her sister said, smirking. "But things are sure goin' to change in my house if she wants to live there."

"I bet." He nodded and looked at the other woman, who stared at him as if he were some total nut. "Do you think I could speak with her for a few minutes?"

"Well, seein' as we're goin' to be waitin' here forever to get her into a room, I guess so. She ain't fully sobered up yet, though," Beverly's sister said. Kevin didn't hesitate, however. He walked into the examination room.

Beverly Morgan was on a gurney, the thin white blanket brought up to her neck.

Her head was wrapped in a gauze bandage; there was a blood stain over the right side of her forehead. She stared up at the ceiling. Her sister and their neighbor came in behind him and stood in the doorway. He approached Beverly slowly.

"Beverly?" Kevin said. "How are you doing?" She blinked, but she didn't turn his way. "It's Kevin Taylor. I'd like to talk to you, if I can, even though the trial is over. Beverly?"

She turned her head slightly.

"She's too drunk to hear ya, mister. She don't even know where the hell she is.

Went head over heels down the stairs. I didn't find her right away. Lucky she's livin'."

"Beverly," he said, ignoring her sister. "You know I'm here. You know it's me.

You have to talk to me, Beverly. You know it's important."

She turned her head some more until she was facing him. "He send you?" she asked in a hoarse whisper.

"Who? Mr. Milton?"

"He send you?" she asked again. "Why? What's he want now?"

"He didn't send me, Beverly. I came on my own. Why did you change your story, Beverly? Did you tell the truth in court? Or were you telling me the truth when I came to see you in your sister's house?"

She stared at him, and he thought it was going to be useless. "He didn't send you?" she asked suddenly.

"No. I came on my own," he repeated. "I didn't know you were going to change your story until I asked you those questions in court, and I didn't believe you, Beverly. Even though you helped me win my case, I didn't believe you. You lied, didn't you?"

Tears began to flow from Beverly's bloodshot eyes.

"Hey, mister, what are you doin' to my sister?"

"Nothing," he said, practically snapping at them. He turned to them. "I've just got to get some answers from her. It's very, very important. Beverly, you lied, didn't you? Didn't you?" he pursued.

"Mister, you'd better go," her sister demanded.

Beverly nodded.

"I knew it. But why? Why did you lie? How did he get you to lie?"

"He knows," she whispered.

"Knows what?"

"Mister, you better leave her be now."

"Knows what?" he insisted.

Her lips began to move. Kevin lowered his head. She whispered her confession into his ear as if he were a priest. Then she turned away.

"But how did he know those things?" Kevin wondered aloud. She didn't attempt any answer, but he didn't need the answer. It was already in his heart.

* * *

It was a strange ride back to the city. He was in such deep thought most of the way, he couldn't recall the drive. Suddenly, he found himself approaching the George Washington Bridge almost as if he had been transported to it. He shuddered. Perhaps he had. Where was reality in relation to illusion? What was magic and what was not? Was Mr. Milton just a shrewd, conniving, and ruthless man or. . . was he more?

How could John Milton have known the sins Beverly Morgan had locked in her heart: that she had stolen from Maxine Shapiro's mother while she was taking care of the old lady after her stroke, and that she had been doing the same thing to Maxine—pilfering jewelry, loose cash, fobbing from the dead; she had characterized it herself, for they were in death's grasp. Once he knew those things, how easy it was for him to blackmail her, telling her she would become a prime suspect now, not accidentally killing Maxine through negligence brought on by her alcoholism, but deliberately, planned. Maxine had found out what she was doing and what she had done, as had, God forgive her, Maxine's mother.

Too much digitalis, undetectable unless the pathologist had reason to look for it.

She had pushed the old lady on to glory and kept herself from being exposed.

Kevin had heard it all, but, unlike a confessor, he gave her no hope of redemption, for at the moment he wondered if he had any hope for redemption himself.

But he had no time to think about himself now. Helen Scholefield's warning was for Miriam, not for him. Helen had said the same thing that had happened to Richard Jaffee's wife would happen to Miriam. How much of what he felt and knew had Richard Jaffee known?

Now that his curiosity about the firm and the other associates had peaked, he decided to go to the offices and do some research himself. He had an idea about where to look, and he knew he had to have something more concrete to go on, something more that he could tell Miriam and anyone else, for that matter.

Diane was surprised to see him. "Oh, everyone's left for the day, Mr. Taylor,"

she said. "Matter of fact, Mr. McCarthy just walked out." Kevin knew that. He had seen Ted emerging from the office building and had remained back so Ted wouldn't spot him.

"That's all right. I just wanted to clean up some loose ends and look up something."