“It’s in Southie, just around the corner from where Vincent and Marcie lived together,” he said. “You can’t miss it. I mean, it just feels like a drug house outside, you know?”
Susan had grown up on cozy Martha’s Vineyard, but upon her arrival to Newark and after her fall into the world of criminal law, she’d seen her fair share of drug houses.
“I know what you mean,” she told him. “It’s all fascinating how close you are to this trial.”
“Too close,” the bartender said. “But like I said. I just think about Marcie sometimes. She must be terrified. I don’t know how they managed to frame her for something like this. But just look at that sweet face. She never did drugs a day in her life.”
Susan wasn’t so sure about that, either. She had seen plenty of sweet-faced women over the years who were big into drugs.
But he was right. Marcie seemed different than them, somehow.
Susan ate her veggie burger and drank one-half of her beer. She then left a thirty-five percent tip and bid the bartender goodbye.
“Hope you’ll be back soon?” he said as she stepped back toward the door.
“It’s my new favorite place,” she told him.
In a sense, her current rush toward Boston really reminded her of her long-ago run to Newark. Everything in her life back on the Vineyard seemed suddenly unstable; Scott had stepped back a bit, and the future was now in flux. She had to be powerful in ways she couldn’t fully understand. As she drove toward Southie, she thanked the stars above that she wasn’t nineteen any longer. At least now, she had wisdom to lean on.
The house around the corner from where Vincent and Marcie had once lived and loved did, in fact, feel like a “drug house.” Susan cut the engine about a block away and rifled through her glove box for pepper spray, which she tucked into the very top layer of her purse for easy access. When she placed her heel on the pavement outside of her car, her heart screamed with anxiety, but she lifted her chin. The witnesses she’d collected weren’t enough. She needed something more. And maybe this guy Jimmy had some kind of clue.
Three men stood outside of the house smoking cigarettes and chatting in that way men like that did — as though everything they said was meant to make the others jealous. Susan slowed her walk as she approached so that the man in the midst of his story yanked his head around.
“Hey, pretty mama,” he said.
It had been a really long time since Susan had been cat-called. She forced herself not to think about it. Instead, she brightened her face and said, “Good evening. How are you guys doing?”
“Not too shabby,” another of them said. He blinked at her with distrust and sucked at a cigarette until the tip of it burned bright orange.
Susan’s eyes turned toward the house. It flashed with light from the television.
“Can we help you with something?” one of the guys asked.
“Actually, yes,” Susan said. “I’d like to speak with Jimmy, if possible.”
The three of them turned their heads inward. The guy on the right shrugged and muttered, “She doesn’t look like a cop.”
Another of them said, “She could be like, a relative or something.”
“I don’t mean him any harm at all,” Susan said suddenly. “I just want to ask him about a mutual friend we have. I need his help.”
The man in the middle asked her to follow him up the steps. Once up there, he said, “Stay here on this stoop, okay?” It seemed like they didn’t want her to enter and that was fine with her. The place terrified her to the bone.
Susan waited outside. The other two stomped up the stairs and then asked her if she wanted a cigarette. She thanked them but declined, although she was almost jittery enough to accept, just to do something with her hands. A few minutes later, a man of about thirty-five came outside. He puffed on what looked like a joint, and he looked at her with glossed-over eyes.
“I’ve never seen you before in my life,” he said.
“Hi. My name is Susan,” she said. “You must be Jimmy.”
“Who told you to find me here?”
Susan gave a half-shrug. “Friends of mine.”
“That sounds pretty weird. What do you want here? You want me to sell to you or something?”
Susan hoped that her plan of attack was appropriate. She remembered the pepper spray; she had it right beneath her hand.
“I’m actually the lawyer representing Marcie George, the young woman whose boyfriend was murdered not far from here,” she explained.
Jimmy’s eyes widened the slightest bit. “You’re repping Marcie, huh?”
Susan nodded. Her heart quickened.
“Well, that’s too bad what happened to Vincent. But he honestly had it coming,” Jimmy said finally.
Susan arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“I guess since you found me here, you know that Vincent was involved in some bad stuff. He owed me a lot of money — no two ways about it. I’m not the murdering type, but others around here, well. I’m sure they didn’t go there to kill him. Maybe just scare him? Who knows. But they’re good at what they do. And they somehow pinned it on Marcie. I know Marcie and Vincent had their problems, but she loved that man to pieces. She loved him more than he deserved to be loved. And I don’t think she cares just what happens to her, now. She looks so defeated when I see her on TV.”
Susan’s heart swelled. “I have to get her out of this, Jimmy. She doesn’t deserve life in prison. And she’s so young. She deserves to find space and time to heal. She deserves to build a new life.”
Jimmy furrowed his brow. “I guess you’re struggling, building a case.”
“I kind of fell into this at the last minute. But I’d like to ask you if you’d consider testifying with what you know,” Susan said.
“On the witness stand? Like on TV?” He looked doubtful.
“It really could save Marcie forever,” Susan said. “And I wouldn’t ask you any questions that led anyone to build a case against you. You wouldn’t be in any trouble. Please. Maybe you don’t know who actually killed him, but you can build a reasonable doubt that Marcie wasn’t the one who did it.”
Jimmy turned to watch as a dark car eased down the block, a bit too slowly. Susan’s ears screamed with fear.
Finally, he nodded. He stabbed his hand in his pocket, seemingly exasperated, and said, “Okay, Susan. Let me give you my number. We’ll make this work.”
Susan could hardly believe it. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Let’s get Marcie back out in the world,” Jimmy said. “She deserves to see the sun again.
Chapter Fourteen
The prosecution pulled out several witnesses the following day — neighbors who had heard Marcie and Vincent fighting, friends who had seen Marcie once throw a glass of wine at Vincent’s head, and of course, all of Vincent’s family, who pointed to Marcie as the “devil” who’d broken up their family and turned Vincent into this bad person. Susan did her best to cross-examine every witness, asking if they had ever grown angry with their partners or had little arguments that had resulted in bigger outcomes. Obviously, every one of them had had to say yes. Still, one of the final witnesses of the day did dig a wrench into things. Apparently, once Marcie had had a bout of road rage and actually purposefully ran her car into another man’s fender. Susan turned her eyes toward Marcie’s face, which told a story of regret and shame.
“What happened there?” Susan asked Marcie after the session had concluded for the day.
Marcie shrugged. “I had just been fighting with Vincent. I’d threatened to leave him, and he hadn’t acted like that was a big deal at all. I lost my mind. Anyone who got in my way, I would have done something like that too. I felt crazy like I was going to lose my mind.”
Susan buzzed her lips. She lifted her watch to check the time and noted that she still had enough of it to head back to the Vineyard to meet her family for a festival that was happening in Oak Bluffs. She and Marcie had had a lo
nger meeting earlier that day, during which Susan had told her about Jimmy and the potential of these other dealers, who’d probably had something to do with Vincent’s murder. Marcie’s reaction had been strained, hardly visible. Susan had wondered if this meant that she barked up the wrong tree. Still, Jimmy was the only leg on which the case stood. He had to come through in some way.
Susan arrived back to Oak Bluffs around seven in the evening, just as the festival flourished with bustling crowds and live music and vibrant clowns and full sails from approaching boats. Susan parked her car off to the side, near to the Sunrise Cove itself, and stepped out just as Lola and Tommy ducked off of Tommy’s boat on the nearby docks. Tommy’s arm wrapped firmly around Lola’s waist as they walked, and Lola tenderly lifted her chin to dot a kiss on his lips. Susan’s heart surged with love for them. All those years, she had thought her baby sister, Lola, would never find lasting happiness with the perfect guy. But she did and she’d never imagined any of this.
Susan headed toward the crowd. She wasn’t quick enough to catch Tommy and Lola, but she soon ran into several people she knew well, including her best friends from high school, Lily and Sarah, who she hadn’t caught up with in quite some time.
“Where the heck have you been!” Lily cried as she wrapped her in a hug. “Sarah and I were just saying that we felt like we lost you again.”
“I’ve been so swamped with this case. I just got back from Boston, in fact. I’m trying to do too much at once.”
“As usual,” Sarah affirmed. “Have a glass of wine with us! We insist.”
Susan scrunched her nose and scanned the crowd. In truth, she wanted to find Amanda and debrief her about what had happened at the trial that day. As it stood, however, she couldn’t avoid her dear friends forever.
They waited in line near the music tent for a glass of wine. Zach Walters stood center-stage with his guitar and crooned out. His blue eyes were iridescent, even from fifty feet back. Susan drew a line from his eyes, all the way through the crowd, where she discovered Christine and Amanda together. Susan reasoned that Audrey had had to stay home with the baby.
Lily and Sarah tried their best to keep Susan for longer than a single glass. But mid-way through their sip and catch-up, none other than Scott and Kellan marched directly past their table. Susan’s heart leaped into her throat. Since their heart-to-heart chat by the water, she hadn’t seen nor heard much from Scott. She had suspected they both had a lot to think about.
Now, though, as their eyes met, Susan felt suddenly overwhelmed by it all. She nearly toppled the table over as she stood to greet him. It was as though her body had craved him, especially after all the fearful and dangerous things she had done in Boston.
“Kellan! Scott!”
“There she goes. Our little runaway,” Lily quipped as she clucked her tongue.
“I’ll explain later. But I really have to go,” Susan said as she lifted her wine to cheer them. “It’s been a complicated time for me. But I love you two forever and it was so nice seeing your beautiful faces. You know that.”
“We know,” they said in sing-song voices.
Susan stepped easily toward Kellan and Scott, who were in the midst of a vibrant conversation about the Boston Red Sox. Scott beamed at her as Kellan illustrated his point with a fist slammed against his opposite palm.
“Things are getting pretty heated around here,” he explained to Susan.
“I can see that.”
Kellan drew himself around, surprised to see her. “Oh. Hi, Susan. Good to see you.”
Susan was surprised not to hear any hint of jealousy or anger, or annoyance within his voice. A step in the right direction, she supposed.
“Hi, Kellan! What do you think of our festival here in Oak Bluffs?”
“It’s really nice, actually. I just won this stuffed animal at the game over there.” Kellan drew himself further around to show a stuffed duck beneath his arm.
Susan laughed and said she was impressed. “I don’t think I’ve ever won anything here. I’ve lost a lot of my dignity, though. That’s for sure.”
Scott placed a hand on her lower back, even as she and Kellan continued to talk. This pleased her and she felt it proved to Kellan that she and Scott were together, whether he liked it or not. Scott even offered to grab them both second drinks, including a coke for Kellan. This left Kellan and Susan in conversation, which seemed to flow naturally.
“How has it been at school these days?” Susan asked. “I guess the year ends pretty soon?”
“Yeah. It took a bit of adjusting. And I guess I won’t really get over that for a while,” Kellan explained. “But generally, the people here on the island are friendlier than they are back in Boston. I have to take my wins where I can.”
“That’s all we can do in this life,” Susan said. “And you know, me and your dad met at that high school if you can believe it.”
“He told me. I mean, he wouldn’t shut up about it last year,” Kellan told her. “He’d asked me years ago if I ever wanted to come live with him here on the island. He said it was the perfect place to grow up. But I was always resistant. Maybe I was a momma’s boy for a while. I don’t know.” Kellan shrugged.
“No harm in loving your mom,” Susan replied.
Kellan gave her a somber smile. “I guess not.”
“And you’re still so new here. I think your dad’s right. This is a wonderful place to grow up. You’ll find your footing, eventually. And we’ll help you if you’ll let us.”
Scott arrived back with the drinks, and the conversation flowed elsewhere. But throughout, Kellan frequently met Susan’s gaze and asked decent questions. He seemed to find some kind of grove after so much bad footing. When he went off to the bathroom about an hour later, Susan lifted her eyes to Scott’s and said, “What kind of witchcraft did you do to make Kellan act so much... better toward me?”
Scott laughed. He then turned his eyes out toward the horizon as though he wanted to gather his thoughts. “To be honest, Susan, he’s noticed how down I’ve been since the other night. He finally got it out of me— that we weren’t sure about the wedding. That things are up in the air because of him. He took a really long walk down the beach. I was afraid he would never come back. But when he returned, he just said, ‘I want to make this work and I don’t want to be the cause of anything.’ And he’s tried to change a lot since then. We still have tiffs, of course. And I know it’ll take time. But I think we’re headed somewhere and he’s really making an effort to change. And we want you within our lives, forever. That said, I don’t know fully about this June 19th
date yet.”
“I understand.”
“But I do know that we have to decide soon. Sooner than soon.”
“Yes. Preferably, sooner than soon,” Susan affirmed with a smile. Her heart felt squeezed at the idea of calling it off the day before. The island would say — like daughter, like mother, and all in the same year!
“Tell me. How did it go in Boston today?” Scott asked. His eyes sparkled with intrigue.
“It went well, I think. I’m moving in a good direction. It’s been complicated and emotional. But then again, everything in this business is like that,” Susan said.
“You amaze me. Every single day,” Scott said. He then dropped down and kissed her softly, tenderly. “And I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you. Lucky for me, the rest of my life started all those years ago. And I never really let you go.”
Chapter Fifteen
The following afternoon, the ever-organized, ever-stellar Amanda was so nervous during the beginning of the trial that she tore at the edge of her pad of paper, making little scraps of yellow fall to the floor. Susan grabbed her wrist and nodded to the wreckage, and Amanda’s eyes widened humorously. “Oh! I didn’t even notice,” she said.
“It’s okay,” Susan breathed. “I feel a bit outside my element, too.”
At that moment, the guards led Marcie Shean into the court. She slid onto th
e wooden bench alongside Susan and dropped her chin in greeting. She seemed somehow more sallow; the bones on the upper part of her spine popped up even more on her neck, and her fingers were mere bones, splayed out across her knees. Behind them, Mr. Shean spoke in hushed, angry tones to the younger brother. Susan wasn’t sure why the younger brother wasn’t in school, as there were still a few weeks left of school before summer break. Probably, Mr. Shean didn’t have anyone to ask to look out for the boy. Or, she supposed, if these were the last moments the brother would see Marcie out of prison, perhaps he wanted to count them up.
But these were heinous thoughts. She had to remain positive and clear-headed.
And it was finally her turn to call her witness from the drug house— Jimmy.
Jimmy sat fidgeting in the witness chair. His “I swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth” oath was said with sloppy syllables, and when Susan got a tiny bit too close to him, she caught a horrible whiff of cigarette smoke and something else — maybe dirty laundry. Still, it was clear he very much represented a world Vincent Camden was a part of. Jimmy would paint that picture for the jury.
“Hello, Jimmy. Thanks for being here today.”
“Hi.” His shirt looked uncomfortable on him. He tugged at the collar and glanced toward the clock.
“I wonder if you could describe to the court a bit about your relationship with Vincent Camden, the man who was murdered on November 13th.”
Jimmy cleared his throat. “I knew Vincent for years. Guess I met him about five years ago. He worked at that restaurant at the time, the expensive one he met Marcie at. Was a good guy.”
“Were you good friends with Vincent Camden?”
“I wouldn’t say that, no,” Jimmy replied. “Although we ended up living close to one another, so I saw him around quite a bit. And he stopped by my place a lot.”
“Why did he stop by your place?”
Jimmy’s eyes glittered. “Well, he and I tended to like the same pastime, if you know what I mean. Something to kickback. Unwind.”
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