“Then we’ll do our best for you.”
He nods, then asks, “How do you see this unfolding?”
“Too soon to know,” I say. “We wait for the Crown prosecutors to tell us what evidence they’ve got. Disclosure, it’s called. That will take a few weeks, maybe more. Then there’s a preliminary inquiry, where the judge decides if there’s enough evidence to send the case for trial.”
“And how long does all that take?” Trussardi drums his fingers on the tabletop.
“We can make it take up to a year just for the preliminary, if you want.”
His gold-rimmed eyes lock on mine. “That long?”
“Depends on the prosecution, of course. They could prefer a direct indictment. Or they could dillydally so long we can get a Charter stay because you haven’t been brought to trial within a reasonable time.”
“Perpetual purgatory.”
“There are worse things. Like jail.” Cy’s premature verdict comes back to me, Guilty as sin. He’s got Trussardi in his sights. “I have a feeling the prosecution won’t let this case drag.”
“I don’t want to rush to trial if it means a verdict of guilty. But I don’t think I can wait two years for this to be over.”
“In that case, let’s get down to business, Mr. Trussardi. We’re going to need access to your house, your friends and family. We need to build a picture of your late wife’s life, get an idea of who she was and who could have done this. We need to know everything about her.” I drop my voice. “Everything about you.”
“I understand.”
“I’d like to start by looking at the crime scene.” I flick through my electronic calendar. “I’m tied up in another murder trial all next week. As soon as it’s over, I’ll contact you.”
His mouth twists. “Under the circumstances, it is highly unlikely I shall be straying far.”
“I’ll want to talk to your sister, Raquella. Is there anyone else?”
“The housekeeper, Carmelina Cappelli. My sister lives in a suite on the ground floor of my residence, so you won’t have to go far.” He sags in his chair, all at once tired. “Can we leave the rest until later?”
“Fine.” I shift. “One more thing. We’ll need a deposit to keep working on the case. Fifty thousand—in trust, of course—for now.” Debbie would be proud of me, I think.
“Certainly, Miss Truitt.” He takes out his fine Italian-leather checkbook, writes out the check, and hands it to me as he gets to his feet. Meeting over.
“I look forward to seeing you the week after next, Miss Truitt. May I offer you dinner when you come?”
Don’t get close to the client—rule number four of criminal practice.
“We’ll see,” I say.
CHAPTER 6
VINCENT TRUSSARDI IS SCARCELY OUT the door before my cell phone buzzes.
“Hi, Mike.”
“Jilly, can you meet me at Carrall and Hastings at two? Got some stuff on this afternoon, and I’d like you to come with. Maybe we can do dinner after?”
Stuff, I think, how enticing. Still, I haven’t seen Mike for weeks, what with my cases and his trips to San Fran chasing legal apps for IBM.
“Sure,” I reply. “I’m finishing up here soon.”
Michael St. John and I have been together since first year law, best friends and occasional lovers. He went the high-tech IP route and now earns a fortune on apps. I went into criminal law.
At the appointed hour, I’m standing at the street corner, surveying the sea of traffic that stalls, comes at me, stalls again. I spot the ancient silver BMW that once belonged to Mike’s mother. I wave and Mike does what he can, which is nothing, to angle his vehicle in my direction.
I cut through the lane of traffic, ignoring the angry horns, breaking all the rules.
“Hi,” I say, when I get into the passenger seat of Mike’s car.
Mike’s eyes slide from my face and down my legs to my strappy black shoes. “Hi, Jilly. Long time no see.” He’s a man of few words, and those he does offer take a while to come out.
“What’s with the suit?” I ask. Mike is given to cladding his lanky form in jeans and sweaters—maybe a jacket thrown over for a really dressy occasion. Today he wears a suit and tie like he was born to it. Which, I remind myself, he was—they teach young men these things in the preppy schools he attended in his youth. “Where are we going?”
“Patience, Jilly, never your strong suit.”
I smile at him. He has irregular features and a beaky nose, but he looks good to me. “Come on.”
He gives me a strained grin. “To a funeral.”
“Really? Whose?”
“Third cousin. You know.”
I don’t know—I possess no cousins of first, second, or any degree; no mother or father for that matter. But something latent within my brain stirs. “This funeral, it wouldn’t be—?”
“Laura Trussardi. Terrible thing. Murdered. Not pretty, I understand. They say her husband—”
A sudden opening appears in the press of cars and Mike’s BMW surges forward. I brace myself against the dashboard. Mike. Laura. Cousins. It was all there on Google. Had I bothered to register what I read, I would have picked up on the name, figured out that Laura St. John Trussardi inhabited the fringes of Mike’s extended family.
“Interesting,” I say, digesting the news as we sail south on Richards.
“What’s the matter, Jilly?” Mike glances over as he slows for a light. “You’ve gone white.”
“I’m acting for him. For her husband. Vincent Trussardi.”
“Tell me you’re joking.”
“No. Dead serious.”
He gives me another side look. “You can’t take this case, Jilly. It’s too close to me. I mean—”
“It’s not like we’re married or anything, Mike.”
“Be that as it may,” Mike says tightly. “From what I hear, it’s open and shut—he did it. Why would you want the case anyway?”
“Because he’s entitled to a defense.” I’m aware my voice has risen. “I defend people. That’s my business. Whether they did it or not isn’t relevant to me.”
Mike’s a lawyer, but the right to a fair trial doesn’t rank number one in the rariefied world of designing apps for commercial solicitors. “Besides,” I mutter, “he says he didn’t do it.”
Mike, slow to speak and slower to rouse, asks, “You believe that, Jilly? From what I hear, whoever did it might as well have written jealous rage on the wall. Who else would have done that to her?”
“I don’t know. A lover, a stranger?”
“Yeah, a lover or stranger with access to the connubial bed,” he says flatly.
I shrug. No point in replying even if I had an answer. Mike changes lanes abruptly and noses the car into an underground parking lot. As we emerge from the car, it comes back to me. “He’s going to be here.”
Mike halts and we stare at each other in the gloom. Forget it, Jilly, he’s going to say. You shouldn’t be at her funeral—and definitely not with me. But he reaches out and gives my shoulder a quick squeeze. “Let’s go.”
* * *
WE SURFACE FROM THE WELL of the parking garage onto the bright street and cross to Holy Rosary Cathedral—a dignified structure of stone and stucco pierced by tall stained glass windows beneath a lofted roof. People crowd the steps that lead to the blackened doors, although the funeral won’t begin for another half hour. Journalists press against the cordon as ushers do their best to fend off the busybodies. A bald, officious man spies Mike through the crowd and waves us toward him. I take the hand Mike offers and follow him through the throng. Ignoring the flashes from the cameras, we move up the steps, down the long center aisle, and into the dimness of the cathedral.
My forensic brain kicks into gear as I peer into the nave. No urn or box—with a murder trial in the offing, Cy has had enough sense to nix cremation. Much may turn on the story the body tells. For Cy’s sake, I hope he’s told them to take it straight back to the morgue after the service; I
could make something of a precipitate rush to burial.
As befits third cousins, we are seated three rows back on the right. I scan the benches around us—pew after pew of family, ahead and behind. I’ve been with Mike for a decade, on and off, and yet I’ve met only a handful of them. The front pew is empty. I wonder if the priests have reserved it for my client.
Mike’s doing the right thing, acknowledging the glances, whispering polite greetings, introducing me to cousin this and aunt that. Nice to meet you, Miss Truitt, they say. And good to see you, Mike—you look well. I am aware of their speculative glances—So this is Michael’s friend. Fortunately for Mike, I happen to be wearing my usual black suit upgraded a notch by the Hermès scarf he bought for me on a trip to La Jolla last year. Inspections completed, they smile thinly and turn to the matter at hand. Terrible business. She was so lovely, such a good person. Unbelievable waste. What a crime. I nod, taking care to remain noncommittal.
The organ sputters alive in an uncertain drone, and the casket, a rich mahogany affair, is wheeled in. Priests in lace mantles swing censers.
“High mass,” Mike whispers.
“I thought you were Anglican,” I whisper back.
“Same thing, except Catholics don’t do eulogies until after mass. Kneel, Jilly.”
Peeking between my fingers, I see the front pew is now occupied. Some side door must have opened to admit my client. The back of Vincent Trussardi’s head glows in the soft light of the stained glass windows, his streaked mane falling elegantly over a starched white collar. Beside him sits a woman in black, a fringe of jet hair visible beneath the veil of a hat—Raquella, Vincent’s sister, I assume. Her neck swivels as she looks back toward the aisle, but I make out only a shadow of profile beneath the heavy veil. I’ll come to know her soon enough, I think.
The priests take their positions behind the high altar. Words float by, Laura, baptized in the church, married in the church, blessed by the church. Lord have mercy. We confess our sins; we pray. The bishop gives a homily on the brevity of life. We pray again. I know some of the prayer—my first foster parents taught me the Lord’s Prayer—but the ups and downs of the mass unsettle me. I do my best to follow the cues, but I miss a few. “Not much good at this,” I mumble as I belatedly rise from a crouch that’s killing my knees.
Mike’s head is bent, eyes closed; he is lost in the incantatory rights. And then the obvious hits me—he is saying his farewell to his cousin. They must have played as children, laughed, perhaps fought. The images pass before my eyes—family dinners, adults sated and tipsy, children liberated to scamper to this attic or that basement of whatever St. John mansion had been chosen for the Thanksgiving or Christmas celebration. And now his cousin is gone. I touch Mike’s hand. His fingers absently entwine with mine as his lips move silently in final communion.
The bishop intones the benediction, swings the censer over the coffin, and sprinkles the holy water. We commit the soul of Laura St. John into thy care, oh Lord. No mention of the name she has used for the past decade—in death, it seems, Laura Trussardi has once again become Laura St. John.
I am relieved that someone—presumably my client—has had the sense to dispense with post-mass eulogies; from my point of view, the less said about the deceased’s exceptional qualities and premature death the better. The pallbearers wheel the coffin down the aisle, and Vincent Trussardi swings in behind, his sister beside him in a wheelchair. I make a mental note.
My client follows the coffin, eyes lowered, just as I instructed him. Good, I think. As he passes, he looks up and sees me standing next to Mike, offers the hint of a sad smile. But it’s the sister’s stare that transfixes me even from beneath her veil. Mike picks up her gaze, follows it to me. Then the cortege passes and the family shuffles, pew by pew, into the aisle.
Outside, the sun hits us in a blinding wash. As my eyes adjust, I make out the black cars in front—one for the body, one for Vincent Trussardi and his sister, a suite of limos for the St. John clan. Cluster by cluster, they make their goodbyes—hushed tones, decorous hugs, a few tears.
A group of well-dressed women has moved down the steps and stands by the hearse as the undertakers close the doors with a solemn thud. I recognize a few lawyers from LEAF, here to mourn their fallen sister. I stood with them on similar occasions in my day. They will not be pleased when they learn I am defending Vincent Trussardi. Criminal lawyer or militant feminist—whoever said you could have it all lied.
Behind the LEAF ladies stands yet another group, this one shabbier, a few of the women gaudy in short skirts and net stockings. One or two carry signs, STOP THE CARNAGE, FIND OUR MISSING WOMEN. I remember Vincent’s bitter tone—Laura and her causes.
Vincent Trussardi, having ushered his sister to the far seat of their limo, moves round the back of the car to the opposite door, while the driver folds the wheelchair and stows it in the trunk. He bows decorously as he closes the door after my client.
The procession of cars inches forward. The crowd, now hushed, steps back.
Then I see him—a tall, slender man stepping out from the crowd toward the hearse, his right arm out, as though willing it to stop. But the car pulls away and the man’s arm falls. His artist’s tam sits askew. He’s wearing a corduroy jacket. When he lifts his face, I see that it is wet with tears. He stares after the departing vehicle for a long moment before stumbling back to the sidewalk, turning, and pushing through the crowd.
“Who was that?” I ask Mike.
“Who knows? Some guy who loved her, I guess.”
I want to run after the man, get his name, talk to him, but Mike has my elbow and is steering me away.
CHAPTER 7
TWO HOURS LATER, MIKE AND I are sitting in a private corner of Bishop’s on Fourth, a small restaurant known for the fastidious excellence of its refined cuisine de nature. Mike usually takes me for granted, as I do him. I like it that way, but today, I sense something different in him, and it’s not just saying goodbye to his cousin Laura.
“Mike, what’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” He reaches to smooth his already sleek cap of black hair.
“I mean, you actually went shopping. For a painting—not chopped liver or socks at the Bay. You never shop. And you made a reservation. At a restaurant. Usually, it’s just, what do you want, pizza or Thai?” I reach to cover his hand with mine. “And the suit. I know it was a funeral and all. But you still have it on. Even the jacket.”
“Ditched the tie in the car.”
I take in his open collar. “Don’t miss it a bit.”
“I’m trying to do better.”
“Must have been some blog you read,” I say.
“You could say that.” A darting flash of grin, before he changes the subject. “Do you like the painting, Jilly?”
“Mike, when it comes to paintings, it’s whether you like it. But yes, it’s a lovely painting. It will look fantastic over your fireplace.”
After the funeral, Mike had taken me to see a painting he had his eye on at the Bau-Xi. I was impressed. A Joe Plaskett—lovely angles, soft colors, doors and mirrors—a painting where your eye walks in and wanders along and you forget what it was you came for.
“It’s not something you would buy, Jilly,” Mike had said, and he was right. My taste is brighter, bolder.
“It’s right for you,” I said. “If you like it, buy it.” It’s not like you have to think about it, I’d thought to myself, rolling my inward eye, with what you inherited and what you make.
In the end, he bought it and made arrangements to have it installed on Monday.
“This is a good buy, Mike,” I told him as we headed back to the car. “It’s perfect. A lovely start to filling all your empty space.”
Now, over pre-dinner nibbles, he says, “I actually really like it, Jilly.”
I lift my glass of Prosecco. “To the Plaskett, and to the pleasure it will bring you.”
“Bring us,” he says as he clinks his glass against mi
ne.
We drift into small talk, and Mike fills me in on the doings of friends from law school. Tom and Sally are divorcing. Meanwhile, Ainsley and Fred, who have been casually dating for a decade, have decided on a big July wedding.
“We’ll be invited, Jilly.”
And so it goes. Those who pledged young separate. Those who were more cautious decide it’s time to take the plunge. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, if I care to look for it.
Mike and I are both orphans, in different ways. It’s what drew us together; it’s what keeps us together. I’m a real orphan. Mike is a virtual orphan, the only son of wealthy parents who consigned him to the care of nannies and private schools while they wintered in Nice or caught the opera season in New York. We’re both damaged goods, but we’ve both come through, if not intact, at least without diagnosed afflictions. Along the way, we’ve pulled each other out of bad places.
I think about my dark time sometimes. Nights on the street where packets changed hands and needles were shared. Why did I do it? Life wasn’t so bad. I liked law school and the Maynes cared about me, gave me everything I could ever want. Sure, I wanted to experiment; it felt good, eased the pain. But why? Some angst gnawing at you, said the counselor Mike took me to. Some inchoate longing for the mother you never knew. All I know is that, with Mike’s help, I pulled myself together and came out of the black place that almost claimed me. I will be a lawyer, I vowed, thinking of the deeds I had witnessed on the street, the lost souls I had met. A criminal lawyer.
I permit myself a moment of tenderness. “I’m going to Naramata for a week with Martha and Brock at the end of July,” I hear myself saying to Mike. “Why don’t you come? They’d love to have you.”
“Yeah?”
“Martha thinks you’re good for me.”
“Then how can I refuse?” He cocks his head—what Martha wants is what Martha gets—but his look turns intense.
“Tell me about Laura,” I say, changing the subject, my curiosity getting the better of me.
“Not sure I want to talk about her.”
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