Perfectly Criminal

by Celeste Marsella

  He followed me halfway to the door, where I stood not looking back.

  “Wait,” he said.

  He held me with electric gray eyes and a rueful grimace in his twisted smile. A child who'd spilled milk, standing contrite, asking for his mother's love with the certainty of knowing it was there and always would be. “Don't leave me now, please.”

  “I'll call you,” I said, and walked through the door without looking back. I was certain I would never call him. Confident I'd finally broken the spell between us. The flame had been lit but I had the willpower to simply never call him again.

  I reached the lobby and pushed the revolving door to the street side, listening as it whooshed behind me—and twirled me back in.

  WHEN I RETURNED TO SCOTT'S ROOM, THE DOOR was still ajar. He was standing just inside, had retrieved his scotch, and was sipping it as he leaned against the wall—waiting for me. He didn't say anything when I slipped back in and stood with my back up against the door, pushing it closed with my foot. I expected him to smile, self-satisfied and cocksure. But he didn't. He stood quietly looking at me as if I'd never really intended to leave, he'd never expected me to return, but was happy I had. Without more than a handful of words, we decided to do something normal—like have a quiet dinner—instead of falling into bed and screwing our brains out. Scott donned a Patriots baseball hat and pulled it low on his head. With his baggy sweats and tattered sneakers, he looked younger, less sure of himself, more ready to trip over the untied laces of his suddenly messy life. We took back alleys and side streets until we stumbled upon a restaurant I'd not been to in years—a romantic French place with formal dining upstairs and a windowless bistro in the basement, to which we descended without discussion.

  The downstairs bar at Pot au Feu was a cranky old wood structure surrounded by hundred-year-old stone walls. We sat. Ordered onion soup. But it wasn't until our second beer that Scott started talking.

  “Funny how I'm not sad that all this happened. It probably makes me look guilty, but I'm glad in a way. If losing everything got me where I am right now, it's not such a bad thing.”

  “Your wife is dead, Scott. What are you saying?”

  “I don't mean that. I mean my career and the politics. I'm not really sure I wanted to keep going. I felt as if I was on the crest of a wave and if I stopped, I'd drown. I had to keep riding it.”

  “So it crashed to shore and you fell off.”

  He nodded into his beer. “And I'm not sorry.” He looked up into my eyes. “Do you believe at least that?”

  “I believe people are either good or bad. Black or white. And I think whatever you were as a child you'll be at death. People don't change. So my question is, which are you?”

  “What color is a coward?”

  I laughed softly. “Black in my book.”

  He nodded. “I agree. So I guess I'm a bad person.” He found my hand where I had it tucked in my pocket, rolling my little silver cell phone around like a giant worry bead. He pulled my hand out and held it open on the bar. “But you're not a coward, Shannon. That's one of the things I love about you.”

  “Love?”

  “Okay, admire. You're right, ‘love’ is a little ambitious at this juncture.” He pulled his hand out of mine and brushed it through his hair. “I could go to jail over all this. Even if I'm innocent.”

  “Make a deal—a plea bargain—and you'll be out in no time.”

  He didn't look at me right away. He waited. Picked up his beer and took the last swig. Put the glass down on the bar. And still staring at the liquor bottles on the wall facing us, he nodded. “How long? If I admitted to killing my wife, how long would I be locked up for?”

  I played the game with him because I believed we were playing. Scott had already confessed once, he wasn't going to do it again. I shrugged. “Maybe ten years. Maybe less if we can find mitigating circumstances.”

  “When I got there, Pat drew a gun from the bedside table drawer. She pointed it at me. When I tried to yank it from her hand, it went off.” He was still talking to the wall. “How's that sound?”

  “Not bad. But there were two bodies, remember. How did they both die from your one gunshot?”

  “Pat killed Muffie before I got there. When I arrived, Pat tried to shoot me, and in struggling to take the gun away, I shot her by accident.”

  He glanced away from me. A thought remembered? Or a self-defense plea discarded? He was tired. His eyes blinked slowly open, closed, and then open again as he looked at me full-face. “But that's all a lie,” he said. “That's not what happened.”

  Scott paid the check. He took my hand as we walked down the street together, bringing my fingers up to his mouth and kissing them lightly at every corner, where we looked both ways and continued on to the Biltmore, where he wanted me to come upstairs with him. I refused, not for any of the silly reasons, like playing hard to get, or pretending I didn't want to, or suddenly becoming the scrupled girl-next-door, but because I was suddenly afraid of Scott Boardman. Suddenly suspected there really was something in the man that was life-threatening, like he was standing next to a dark hole of mystery I was afraid of tumbling into.

  So I sent Scott Boardman up to his suite alone—by the back staircase—and I went to find my car, parked on a side street a few blocks away. I was sorry I'd dispatched Chief Chucky with such little forethought. His would be the perfect arms to fall into and wind around myself to keep me from hotfooting it back to Scott Boardman. But alas, I'd unceremoniously sent Chucky to the benches to sit this one out, so resisting Scott Boardman was something I had to do alone.

  A FEW LAUGHS

  HAVING SPENT THE WEEKEND BY MYSELF, I strutted into my office Monday morning with new resolve, until I got to the threshold of my office door and heard Marianna on my phone. She was sitting at my desk, facing away toward the window, her feet balanced on the trash can.

  “That brown shirt and orange print tie? You look like a used-car hawker from Seekonk. Pink shirt, navy blazer… Yes, you can wear pink. Don't get homophobic on me, Mike.”

  I remained just outside the door, eavesdropping on a civilized conversation between two people in a normal relationship. Or at least as normal as a relationship can be between a hypochondriac depressive (Marianna) and a sliver-brained NASCAR enthusiast (Mike). But they sure as hell didn't sound like Scott and me—so far our love spats had revolved around bloody fingernails, who murdered whom, with what weapon, and whether Brooke Stanford, his unscrewed ex-lover, drove the getaway car. Compared to my relationship with Scott Boardman, the ex-triangle between Chucky, Marjory, and me was beginning to feel like a heartland romance.

  Marianna's next words woke me from a rare moment of self-reflection: “Shannon's cracking up. All the years I've known her I never even suspected she was capable of such emotional gaffes…. Me? Oh, fuck you, Mike. ‘Hot-tempered Italian’ my ass. That's such stereotypical bullshit …”

  They talked a few more minutes and I listened to the denouement of their love-tangled pas de deux. As Marianna was saying good-bye I revved myself up and walked briskly in, pretending to be slightly out of breath.

  “Hey there, Mar, what's cookin'?”

  “Your goose, you ass. Where the hell have you been?” She swirled front and forward and popped out of my chair.

  “I'm all done with Boardman,” I answered. “At least bedroom-wise.”

  “It's about time,” Laurie said, appearing in the doorway. Beth snuck by Laurie and nabbed a seat in front of my desk. “I told you, Mari, if we left her alone, she'd come to her senses.”

  I was standing by my windows looking at the crew who had appeared in my office as if rappelled in on a military mission: Marianna, standing sentried just behind my desk; Laurie, guarding the doorway; and Beth, seated comfortably in a chair as if waiting for her next undercover assignment. “I hate it when you all think you can read my mind and predict my moves.” I looked around at my crowding office. “I need a vacation from this. Just butt out, all of you.”
/>
  Marianna came around from my desk and faced me. “We can only read the same freakin' mind you had last week and the week before, but if it's this new mental state you're fogged up in, I'm not so sure that even you can predict what you'll do next.”

  I ignored her and sashayed behind my desk, plopping into the seat that was still warm from Marianna's zaftig ass.

  Marianna considered me a minute before speaking. “Jeff called me this morning.”

  I threw my bag to the floor. “To gloat? The Cohen case sucked from the start. It was a giveaway. What does he want now?”

  “He wanted to meet me about Brooke Stanford.” Just at that moment Marianna decided to check out her manicure, counting her fingers like maybe she forgot how many she had or something. “But if you want us all to butt out, I guess we can move this meeting to my office.”

  I began grinding my jaw. “Mar, those ten fingers you're busy counting will be nine or less if you don't start talking.”

  “Jeff knew Boardman got Brooke the job here. He thinks she and Boardman are still concocting stories—”

  “Bullshit. And you know why it's bullshit? Because Jeff wouldn't tell us that even if it were true. Jeff hopes this whole office blows up in a conflagration of incompetence. He can't wait for us all to fuck up. And you're the last person he'd call with inside info. He wants you to be the fuse that detonates us.”

  “Right,” Marianna said. “I know that, sweetie. So I'm reading between the lines here. Which is what you'd be doing if you weren't brain-damaged by recent events.”

  “You know what, Marianna? You can't break my heart, so fuck you.”

  “I wouldn't even attempt to slum in the dark chambers of your heart—assuming you had one. It's your brain that's on the blink anyway. It started with the Cohen case. Sure, it was a shit case with no evidence, but in the past you could have been in a coma and won a case against Jeff Kendall. Something about that case knocked you for a loop.”

  “I'm burned-out—”

  “We're all burned-out, Shannon,” Laurie said, taking the seat next to Beth. “Go cry it on the mountain and then climb back down to reality.”

  The chair springs screamed as I flopped back. “The truth is, I thought the Cohen woman shot herself. I didn't think the husband did it.”

  Marianna, who had been standing by the window, suddenly bolted forward and slammed her fist on my desk in front of me. “See! That's what I mean. In the past you would have told Vince to pass the case off to Laurie or me. Or, failing that, you would have tried to convince Vince to drop the charges. If you thought Cohen was innocent, you shouldn't have taken the case. Falling into Boardman's arms is a symptom, not a cause. You were on a downward spiral before Boardman twirled you in his arms.”

  I kept my eyes to the ceiling, attempting introspection. Failing that, I was watching a spider who seemed to be watching us back. Marianna interpreted my silence as acquiescence and I had no particular interest in bursting her bubble, or worse, revving her back up into another sermon. I won the stare-down with the spider and he toddled off to his corner web. When I lowered my glance to Marianna, she was still nodding her self-righteous head, waiting for my response.

  “You really aren't done with Boardman, are you?” Beth said.

  She had a quiet way of interjecting herself into our high-voltage meetings. She spoke softly, almost as if she were thinking out loud.

  I gently pushed Marianna's face away and sat up. “Huh?”

  Laurie was nodding her head. “Your normally gutter-focused head is still floating around like a helium-filled balloon.”

  “Midlife crisis?” Mari suggested.

  “Too young,” Laurie answered.

  “Late-onset autism?” Beth said, safely following their lead.

  “Too old,” Mari said.

  “My mother?” I said.

  Silence.

  “Yeah, it's like a nightmare that I keep thinking about all day. Except there was never any nightmare. I've been thinking about my mother. And I don't know why.”

  “What's that got to do with Scott Boardman?” Beth asked Laurie, still too timid to question me directly.

  “Not a freaking thing, Beth,” I answered. “Boardman's in my blood and I can't sucker him out. I think it's one of those things that has to melt down like a candle at its end.” I looked back up at the ceiling for my spider. He was still there in his little web of a house. “But you're right. I'm not done with him yet.”

  “So what should we be doing about that?” Beth finally looked me in the eyes.

  “I'm not your fourth Musketeer. I can take care of myself.”

  “Listen up, Shorty,” Laurie said. “We can all take care of ourselves. We're lawyers and prosecutors to boot.” She patted Beth on the back to assure her that her day at the legal bar would be arriving soon. “But isn't it better when you have help?” Laurie's chin was pointing at me. “A few laughs along the way?”

  “I haven't heard any good jokes from any of you lately. All I'm hearing is bleak Armageddon scenarios.” I leaned forward in my chair again. “Maybe if I find out who killed his wife… I can blow his fucking candle out once and for all.”

  Marianna nodded. “That's what Mike has been saying all along, but you aren't listening.”

  “Because Mike's convinced Boardman did it. But what if he's innocent, Mari? What if?”

  Marianna lifted her index finger, signaling a request that I give her a few minutes to talk without biting her head off. “I was just talking to Mike about this. He thinks Jake Weller's the way to go. Think about it. Weller came of his own free will to talk to Chief Sewell. What did he say? Can't you find out? Are you still talking nice to the chief?”

  “I was there during their meeting. He fingered Boardman but with absolutely no evidence. He was babbling about tarot cards or some such shit.”

  “Tarot cards?” Beth squeaked.

  “Or Ouija boards,” I muttered. “Frankly, I think he's a red herring. I'm emotionally up shit's creek without a plunger. I don't know which way to go with this.”

  “Back to Newport?” Laurie suggested. “Let's try the Muffie Booth connection.”

  Marianna nodded. Laurie looked at me for approval.

  “I like it,” Beth said. “Can I come this time? That is kind of my territory.”

  “Yeah, let's take her, Shannon. But how do we get away without Vince missing half his office?” Marianna asked.

  “We don't,” I said. “You and Laurie stay here and work the cases. Keep fighting with the Pig to keep him occupied and out of my hair. Beth's with me. She and the Newport social crowd can share Yankee Doodle Dandy stories.”

  Beth cranked her head to the side and looked at Marianna for confirmation of the plan.

  Marianna answered me in response to Beth's glare. “We'll be shish kebab on one skewer if Vince finds out what you're up to.”

  Beth was busy on her BlackBerry checking dates. “We could say we're going to the flower show. No, wait, that was the last weekend in June. How about the American Cancer Society Tuscan Twilight Ball at Rosecliff? That one's held at the end of July—closer to now. Or we could say it's the Newport Jazz Festival. That's past too, but I'm not sure Mr. Piganno keeps himself abreast of the latest Newport social events, so perhaps we needn't worry too much about exact dates. Verisimilitude in our lies to him should be sufficient.”

  I leaned over the table to her. “Why do you clog up your brain with the freaking Newport social schedule?”

  “Technically, I don't clog my brain with it,” Beth said calmly. “I mean, to me it's not mind-clogging. But then— of course—I'm not you.”

  I looked at Marianna and Laurie for an earthly translation of what she meant.

  “I just know certain things by heart,” Beth answered. “Like the Lord's Prayer. Don't you remember hearing it so often in church as a child that you had it memorized without any effort at all?”

  I shook my head. Not because I didn't know the Lord's Prayer by heart, but because I
was shocked at how— though I'd known her for six-plus years—Beth was sitting in front me like some subspecies from Planet Xenon.

  “But,” she segued without the slightest hesitation, “will Vince fire me if I get myself in trouble with you guys before I even get hired as an AAG?”

  “Beth,” I said, popping up from my chair and heading for my door, “break yourself out of automaton mode and wind yourself up. You'll have to learn that Vince Piganno—despite the fact that he has simian ancestors-is a smart man. There's a reason he hasn't fired us through all our years of bold-faced disobedience.”

  Beth's eyes opened wide and once again she looked at Marianna and Laurie for verification of my hammed assessment of the Pig.

  But Marianna's eyes were drilling through mine as we stood face to face.“‘Simian ancestors’?”

  “He's Sicilian, isn't he?” I said.

  “No, Shannon, he is not Sicilian. But I still resent that kind of comment coming from a potato-eating Irish slug who would still be in a cave if it weren't for the Romans who civilized—”

  I waved Marianna's drivel away like a whiff of bad breath. “Beth,” I said, “after some of the things we've done in this office—and gotten away with—Vince sometimes looks the other way. Mainly because—well, so far— we've managed to come out on top and he's the ultimate beneficiary.”

  “I guess so…” Beth said.

  I whacked her so hard on the back that her headband slid forward over her eyes. “Saddle up.”

  Marianna was shaking her head. “The other thing Beth has to learn is how to deal with you on her own. You think it's easy dealing with you, Shannon? You're a steamroller with teeth.”

  “Mari?” Beth straightened her headband and looked at Mari with an expression something akin to nausea.

  “She won't eat you, Beth, as long as you don't stand still too long.” And with that, Marianna stood and moved past me out the door.

  “I'll toughen your hide in two shakes of your little lamb's tail,” I said to Beth.