Final Appeal

by Joanne Fluke

  Ebony Rose sighed. She’d broken a lot of rules last night, and now she was paying the price for it. Her regular regime was very stringent. She ate the proper foods, and she didn’t smoke. She never touched drugs of any kind, and she took no pills unless her doctor prescribed them. She limited herself to one glass of premium wine a day, and she only drank that on special occasions.

  She supposed the girls regarded her as a bit of a prude, if that was possible for a woman in her line of work, but Ebony Rose followed her self-made restrictions for a very good reason. It was a rough world out there and there were plenty of people who’d like to knock her down a peg or two. She had to be healthy and alert if she wanted to stay on top.

  An hour later, finished with her workout for the day, Ebony Rose tossed her special blend of herbal essence into the Jacuzzi and climbed in to relax her tired muscles. She loved her Jacuzzi. The closest she’d ever been to a Jacuzzi in her childhood was the lukewarm bath she’d taken once a week in the old-fashioned tub at the end of the hall.

  Ebony Rose sighed deeply as she remembered those occasions. Almost every time she’d climbed in the tub, the man in the next apartment had banged on the wall to use the toilet. She’d suspected he did it on purpose, watching her go down the hall, giving her enough time to get in the tub, and then pounding on the bathroom door to yell that he had an emergency. The bath water had always been cold by the time he came out, and there was never enough hot water to run more.

  She’d known it would do no good to complain to her mother. They couldn’t afford to move into a place with its own private bathroom. But she remembered sitting at the old kitchen table and dreaming over the glossy decorator magazines her mother had brought home when her ladies had thrown them out. Jacuzzis, swimming pools, decks, and tennis courts. Kitchens with butcher-block tables and a whole array of copper pans hanging from the beamed ceilings. A dining room with crystal goblets and a lace tablecloth. A master bedroom suite with an enormous round bed covered with a pink satin coverlet, and huge walk-in closets with mirrored doors holding more clothes and shoes than you could find in a store. And if you actually owned a mansion like the ones in the magazines, you didn’t have to lift a finger. There would be a housekeeper to clean, and a cook to prepare the meals, and a maid to help you dress, and a butler to answer the door, and a chauffeur to drive you wherever you wanted to go. Ebony Rose was determined to have all that someday.

  Her mother’s dreams hadn’t been that elaborate. When Ebony Rose had asked, she’d said all she wanted was a nice two-bedroom apartment with wall-to-wall carpeting and a bathroom with a tub and shower.

  It gave Ebony Rose satisfaction to know that she’d made a few of her mother’s dreams come true during that last painful year of her life. Her mother had loved the apartment Ebony Rose had rented for her with the view of the park and the full-time maid who was a registered nurse. It had been proof that her daughter had made it up out of poverty, the first of the family to go to college and the first one ever to make that much money.

  Even though Ebony Rose had some regrets, she was glad she’d dropped out of college and gone into the business so she could give her mother a little of what she deserved. It was just a pity her mother hadn’t lived a few years longer. Now she could easily afford to buy her a big house and staff it with plenty of domestics. Her mother would probably have insisted on doing most of the work herself, but Ebony Rose knew she would have loved sitting in the back of a limousine for a drive through the old neighborhood.

  A few minutes later, dressed in a shell-pink caftan, Ebony Rose sat down at her French provincial desk to make out the daily schedule. The red light on her answering machine was blinking, and she pressed the play button. She’d been too tired to take her messages when she’d come home, and she’d forgotten all about checking it earlier.

  “Hello. You have eight messages.”

  Ebony Rose stifled the urge to say thank you to the recorded voice and picked up a pen to write down her messages. The first was from Miles, her hairdresser. He’d be here at five this afternoon to do her hair, if that was acceptable. It was. The second message was from a client who wanted Giselle and Leona to work a party tonight. Ebony Rose checked their schedules, booked them, and made a note of the time and the address. The third message was from her boyfriend and it made her laugh in delight. He was very naive sometimes, and she found that refreshing. He was also the brightest man she’d ever met, and he treated her like a lady, even though he knew damn well she wasn’t. He was the only person she still saw from her old life.

  The fourth and fifth messages were just heavy breathing with a couple of extremely rude phrases that where far from original. It was probably the usual hassle from some joker down at the police station. They were still mad that she’d walked away from their last attempt to bust her.

  The sixth message was from her lawyer, and it was important. He said there was no problem he could anticipate with the corporation she wanted to form, Ebony Rose smiled. It really paid to hire a high-priced, powerful attorney. He had connections, he kept her out of trouble, and his advice was always sound. It was definitely worth the five-figure retainer that she paid him.

  The seventh message presented a problem. It was a dinner invitation from an important private client, eight o’clock this evening at Le Petite Chateau, a well-known French restaurant in Beverly Hills. Ebony Rose shook her head as she listened. She was spending the evening with her boyfriend, and there was no way she’d break that date. Even if she’d wanted to go, and she didn’t, her lawyer had advised her never to appear in public with a client, especially a private client.

  Ebony Rose stopped listening to her messages and called Chloe to book her for the client. Her client had admired the color of Chloe’s aquamarine eyes. The tinted contact lenses had been a wise investment.

  Chloe was thrilled with the invitation. Eight o’clock? That was perfect. What should she wear? The little black dress, Ebony Rose advised her, with a rope of pearls. Real pearls, not that costume junk that Chloe liked to wear. She could drop by at seven to get something out of the safe, and Ebony Rose would help her choose the correct accessories. This was an important evening, and if Chloe played her cards right, she could make a real conquest.

  A moment later, Ebony Rose had her client on the phone. She was sorry to tell him that she had a touch of the flu and she wouldn’t want him to catch it. It was really quite a coincidence that he’d mentioned Le Petite Chateau. She’d heard Chloe say just the other day that she’d always wanted to go there. Chloe would fit right in with his sophisticated crowd, and she’d tell her to wear something very special. She was certain that they’d have a wonderful evening. And she’d be sure to get some rest and drink plenty of liquids. It was very sweet of him to be so concerned.

  When Ebony Rose hung up, she gave a big sigh of satisfaction. She was free and clear, if Chloe did things right. He’d been the last of her private clients. She’d managed to refer all the rest to other girls without causing any hard feelings on anyone’s part. It just went to prove that she was a great matchmaker. Her boyfriend would be relieved to know that she was finished with that aspect of her life. Not that he hadn’t understood, but he’d been concerned for her safety in spite of her lawyer’s expertise and the other precautions she’d taken. Ebony Rose knew she’d been playing on the edge. Now she’d be legal, completely and totally legal. There was one last call on her answering machine, and Ebony Rose smiled as she listened to it. It was her boyfriend again, promising to call her today and reminding her that they had a date for tonight.

  The recorded voice came on again. “That was your last message. To save your messages, press nine. To erase your messages, press seven. Edony Rose pressed the button to erase her messages, and the voice spoke again. “I will erase your messages.”

  The machine made a mechanical sound as it erased everything except her outgoing message. Her lawyer had been very emphatic about erasing her messages after she’d played them. She’d almost bee
n caught in a very bad situation when she’d forgotten to erase a couple of messages in the past. Luckily, her client hadn’t left a number and her lawyer had convinced the police that it had been a crank call.

  Ebony Rose glanced at the diamond wristwatch she’d bought right after she’d formed her first corporation. It was almost four o’clock and she had just enough time to drink a cup of herbal tea and read her morning paper before Miles arrived to make her pretty for the man she loved.

  CHAPTER 26

  Michael made himself another cup of coffee and sat down at the table. He had run with Toni at one-thirty and had breakfast at her apartment. Then he’d come back to his place to shower and dress in clean clothes. Right now he was about to read the morning paper, even though it was after three-thirty in the afternoon.

  He leaned back in his chair and groaned. Even a twenty-minute shower under water as hot as he could stand it hadn’t taken the kinks out of his back. He felt like he’d been chopping wood in his sleep. Maybe he had. At least Toni hadn’t noticed that he’d gone out to drive her car again last night. And just like the other times he’d driven in his sleep, he didn’t have the slightest notion where he’d gone. The only thing he’d been able to remember was a sign for a freeway with two numeral ones in it. That didn’t help much. He’d checked the map, and it could have been the 110, the 118, or the 101. And it was always possible he’d seen the sign and not taken the freeway. Not being able to trust his sleeping body to stay in bed was driving him batty.

  Michael took the little red rubber band off the newspaper and hung it over the kitchen doorknob. He had quite a collection of red rubber bands by now, one for each day that he’d been out of the hospital. They represented his freedom, or he supposed he should call it semi-freedom. He didn’t feel free enough to go outside the apartment without being extra cautious, and he had to be home for Stan’s call at nine every evening. But it was a far cry from the hospital, with its rigid schedule and restrictions. Now he could be by himself whenever he needed solitude, and work whenever he wanted, even at midnight. And he could see the people he really cared about at any time.

  That meant Toni. He cared about her more than anyone else. Michael was sure he’d be content to live the rest of his life with Toni, but it was much too soon to tell her that. He hadn’t even mentioned the word love. When his appeal was decided and he was truly free, he’d confess everything about his life that he’d held back, and tell her that he loved her.

  The front page of the paper didn’t hold any surprises. The president was trying to push his current legislation through Congress. There was a big picture on the first page of the nation’s leader squaring off against one of the more vocal Congressmen. Michael stared at his face and remembered that he hadn’t known who the president was until he’d escaped from the hospital. Maybe there was some truth to that adage, “Ignorance is bliss.” There was trouble in the Middle East again. That seemed to be a constant. And there was a feature story about a man who’d won over four million dollars in the Powerball lottery. They hadn’t had that lottery before he’d gone to prison. Perhaps it had begun when he was in the hospital. He had no way of knowing. Every time he saw an article about the lottery, he had the urge to run out and buy a ticket. But if, by some strange miracle, he won anything big, they’d have to know who he was. The lottery was something else that would have to wait until Stan got the verdict on his appeal.

  Michael skipped the comics and the editorial page. He’d come back to those later. Metro was the section he needed to read. If he’d done anything at all while he was driving last night, it would be reported in Metro.

  “Death at Gateway University.” The headline caught his eye. Michael felt sick as he read the article. Professor James Zimmer had been killed last night, the victim of a violent mugging. Why hadn’t Stan called to warn him? Perhaps he had, but the professor had ignored Stan’s warning.

  Michael felt sick as he finished the article. He knew a mugger hadn’t attacked Professor Zimmer as he walked across the college campus. It had only looked like a mugger, the perfect cover-up for the deliberate murder of another juror. He wanted to call Stan to find out when he’d warned the professor, but he couldn’t call from the phone in his apartment. Stan had been very specific about that. But he could call from a pay phone at the shopping center. Toni had told him about the mall that was only a few blocks away. Not even a paranoid like Stan could object to that.

  He grabbed his keys and ran down the hall to Toni’s apartment to borrow her car. At least he’d be asking this time, instead of commandeering it in the middle of the night.

  Toni frowned as she picked up Mike’s keys and headed for the door. She’d told three lies. First, she said her house keys were difficult to take off her key ring, although they snapped right off.

  Then she asked Mike if he could please leave his keys since they could unlock the laundry room door and some of her clothes were drying downstairs. That was lie number two. She never used the apartment laundry room. She had her own washer and dryer hooked up in the hallway closet. Fortunately, Mike had never noticed.

  Finally, she asked Mike to drop by the stationery store in the mall to pick up some paper for her printer because she’d just used the last ream. She had another case and a half on the shelf in her office, but she needed some time before he came back. The clerks in the stationery store were always slow about getting things out of the back room.

  Just as she was about to go out the door, the telephone rang. It had been sitting there as mute as a giraffe for hours. But now, the moment she’d mustered the courage to do a little snooping, it was ringing its little bell off. Was it a sign from above that she should leave well enough alone? Unlikely. It was probably another wrong number, and if it was, she might just say something positively rude.

  “Hello?” Toni answered, but there was silence. It was a long distance call. She could hear static on the line. Even though each long-distance carrier claimed their system was superior to every other carrier, they all had a certain amount of static on the line. Toni was about to hang up when she heard a series of clicks and then the static abated somewhat.

  “Toni? Is that you?”

  Toni smiled as she recognized Muriel’s voice. “Yes it’s me. Hello Muriel. Are you having trouble with your office phone? Your voice is really faint.”

  “No, Toni. I’m not calling from the office. It’s past seven in New York, and I don’t work that late.”

  “Of course you don’t.” Toni felt silly for making that mistake. “I always forget about the time difference.”

  “That’s okay. Everyone else forgets about it, too. You have no idea of the number of calls I get at the office after five. I have to make this fast, Toni. I’ve got a train to catch if I ever want to get home tonight. Your guy is good, really good.”

  For a moment, Toni was confused and then she caught on. “You mean Michael?”

  “Yes. I started reading those pages you sent me on the train this morning, and I got so involved that I rode right past my stop. I talked to my boss about it, and he said to have Mike’s agent call him to discuss terms. Just don’t, and I repeat, do not send me any more of Mike’s pages at the office. Send everything to my apartment. It’s going to take me an extra hour to get home tonight and I’m just lucky I didn’t end up in—”

  There was a loud burst of static and then Muriel’s voice came back on the line. “It’s definitely good, Toni. Mike reminds me a lot of James—”

  The line went dead before Muriel could finish. Toni stared down at the phone and listened to the dial tone for a moment. Then she hung up. James who? James Joyce? James Fennimore Cooper? James Baldwin? James somebody-or-other she’d never heard of? It didn’t really matter which James it was. Muriel had loved Mike’s book and Devonshire Publishing wanted to buy it!

  Toni glanced down at the keys in her hand. Should she? Or shouldn’t she? She should, of course! Now that Mike would soon have a book contract, he needed his wits about him. If she could
figure out whatever thing in his past was causing his sleepwalking, he’d be better able to concentrate on giving Muriel his best work.

  Was that a rationalization? Toni hurried out into the hall and unlocked Mike’s door. Of course it was a rationalization, but that didn’t matter. She wanted to do everything she could to help the man she loved. If she could satisfy her own curiosity in the process, so much the better.

  Michael held the phone away from his ear as his brother ranted and raved. He’d known that Stan would be upset at his call, but he hadn’t expected him to fly so completely off the handle. He waited for a break in the conversation and then he jumped in before Stan could get started again.

  “Stan, calm down a minute. I’m calling from a phone at the mall. You know the one. It’s only a couple of blocks from the apartment. It’s perfectly safe.”

  That set Stan off again, and Michael sighed. If he’d known his brother’s reaction would be this bad, he would never have called. Finally, after another few minutes, Stan slowed down a little.

  “You’re sure no one spotted you, Mike? Absolutely positive?”

  “I’m sure, Stan. There’s about a million people out today. It’s some kind of giant sale, and all the stores have tables set up in the mall. Nobody’s interested in looking at a guy using the phone when there’s a whole lot of bargains out on the tables.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry I yelled, but you can understand my concern. What’s this emergency, Mike?”

  “Professor Zimmer.”

  “Oh, hell, Mike! I really am sorry. I made a mental note to call you, but it just slipped my mind. The police think it was a mugging, so you don’t have to worry about it. Now go right back home and don’t stop off anywhere. You can’t be too careful.”

  “Stan?” Mike couldn’t believe his brother was being so casual. “That’s not the point. I need to know if you warned the professor.”