Courting Trouble

by Lisa Scottoline

  She was finishing her morning run, having hated every step of three miles down the windy boardwalk, at fourteen minutes per. Okay, it wasn’t the fastest pace, but Anne was sweating respectably through her big T-shirt and bike shorts. She was panting, too, but that was because her sports bra was cutting off her oxygen supply. Mental note: Satan exists and he works for Champion.

  While Anne waited for her breathing to return to normal, she wiped her eyes behind black Oakley sunglasses and smoothed her hair back into its damp ponytail. A generous dollop of zinc oxide concealed her top lip. Other runners jogged by in smugly oversized triathlon watches and brand-new Sauconys, their cushioned footsteps thundering on the old gray boards. There were so many more people on the boardwalk than when Anne had started her run. The Fourth of July weekend had evidently begun, and a family pedaled past in a rental surrey with a red-and-white striped awning. A few male runners broke stride to check her out on the fly, which was when Anne decided to go home to her little apartment and get to work.

  She started to walk back, but the breeze was too warm to cool anything and she stopped at a newsstand on the corner for a bottle of water and a Philly newspaper. She bought both with soggy bills, stepped away from the newsstand, and was about to crack the white plastic cap to the Evian when she unfolded the newspaper, saw the headline, and froze.

  LAWYER FOUND MURDERED, it screamed, and plastered underneath it was Anne’s own law-school graduation picture. Cheap inks colored her eyes the candy-coated green of M&Ms, and her hair was an orange-red seen only on hunting gear. A black band framed her photo, but the caption read simply, Anne Murphy.

  She laughed, nervously. The lead story was evidently about her death, but she wasn’t dead. Tired, yes, and retaining water. But not dead. It was obviously a mistake, a huge mistake. She opened the newspaper, but a gust of wind pungent with she-crab and diesel fuel whipped off the ocean, catching the pages like a sail. She defeated the unruly paper and read the lead paragraphs:

  Anne Murphy, 28, an attorney representing Internet company Chipster.com, was found slain at her home last night. Police have ruled the death a homicide resulting from gunshots fired at close range. Murphy was pronounced dead at Temple University Hospital at approximately 11:48 p.m. Friday night.

  Police were called to Murphy’s home at 2257 Waltin Street when a neighbor reported hearing shots. There was no sign of forced entry, and police have no suspects in the slaying at the present time.

  Anne took off her sunglasses and read the paragraph again. Her sense of humor vanished. She had to be seeing things. It didn’t make sense. Maybe the address was wrong? She double-checked it. 2257 Waltin Street. It was her house, but she wasn’t dead. She wasn’t even there.

  Oh, my God. Suddenly her throat caught. She realized with a horrifying jolt what must have happened. It must have been Willa’s body the police found.

  Could this be? Could this really be? Was Willa dead? Anne’s heart stalled in her chest. Her eyes welled up suddenly, blurring the busy boardwalk. She slipped her Oakleys back on with a trembling hand.

  Kevin did this, whispered a voice in her head, a voice she’d thought she’d finally banished. You know Kevin did this.

  She struggled against the voice and the conclusion, but she couldn’t help it. Willa, dead? No! Anne needed to know everything, all the details. She reread the article, but it was only a summary of her legal career, with a group photo of the Rosato lawyers under the subhead a woman’s touch. It told her nothing more about the murder.

  She couldn’t wrap her mind around it. She held off panic vainly, like a hand raised against the ocean tide. What had happened? How could this be? She blinked tears from her eyes and ripped through the rest of the paper, but it was all Independence Day highlights: red, white, and blue sidebars about parade schedules and fireworks at the Art Museum. A cyclist with sculpted thighs eyed her as he sped past, followed by a trio of lanky runners, turning toward her as one. She tore back to the main story and read it over and over, trying to comprehend what had happened.

  Kevin got out, but how? Why didn’t they tell me?

  Anne couldn’t stop the voice, or the questions. Had the cops mistaken Willa for her? How? They didn’t look anything alike. Willa had brown eyes, her nose was different, and she had no scars. Who had identified the body? Then Anne thought again. She and Willa were roughly the same height—both five foot five—and the same size, a six. Willa’s hair was as long as Anne’s, and her new haircolor was so similar.

  Anne felt her heart wrench. Then she remembered that before she’d left, she had lent Willa her T-shirt from the office, the one with ROSATO & ASSOCIATES printed across the front. But so what? Anne didn’t understand anything all of a sudden. The cops didn’t rely on clothes, hair, or dress size to identify bodies. They used DNA, dental records, scientific methods, stuff like that, didn’t they?

  Kevin would know it wasn’t me.

  It didn’t make sense. Or maybe he’d hired somebody? No. Never, not even from prison. He’d want to do it himself. She felt stricken. Who was killed in her house? Why did they think it was her? Her head throbbed. The newspaper itched in her hand. She didn’t want to hold it a minute longer. She whirled around, dropped her water bottle, and collided with another runner, a middle-aged man who looked delighted to catch her in his arms.

  “Excuse me, Miss,” he said, then frowned behind glasses strapped on by thick red Croakies. “Are you all right? You’re shaking so much—”

  “I’m fine,” Anne answered, breaking away. She stumbled to a wastebasket chained to the boardwalk rail and threw the newspaper into a nest of empty Budweiser cans and Fritos bags. Her knees went loose, as if somebody had kicked out the jambs.

  She steadied herself against the trash can. Her heartbeat hurried out of control. The sun burned. The garbage reeked. Flies droned. A wave of nausea swept over her and she lurched away from the wastebasket, but she suddenly couldn’t see anything around her. The sun bleached the people bone-white. The sky and clouds swirled together like boardwalk spin-art.

  “Miss?” said a man’s voice, and through the whiteness Anne could barely make out another man coming toward her. Then more, running to her.

  The middle-aged man was saying something. The second man was in her face, his breath like coffee, and he gripped her arm and hoisted her. A third man pulled her other arm as if he were helping her to her feet, but Anne didn’t think she had fallen. Their grips closed like handcuffs on her wrists. Her heart fluttered with fear. Her brain struggled to function. She had no protection. No gun, no cell phone. Not even a restraining order.

  Adrenaline flooded her system. Her heart threatened to explode. She struggled against the men, twisting out of their grasp, shouting words even she couldn’t hear. They backed off and stood stunned as Anne pulled herself to her feet, bit back the bile in her mouth, and fixed her gaze on the seesawing horizon. She stared down the sky until it righted itself. The sun resumed its position, and the clouds took their places. She grew steady, and the men surrounding her came back into focus as the volume came up:

  “Don’t try to stand, you’re having a seizure! Are you diabetic?” “I’ll call a doctor! I have my cell with me!” “Honey, can you hear me?” “Miss? What’s your name?” “I’m telling you, she’s dehydrated. She needs water, I have a bottle.” “Here, let me help you up.” “I’m calling 911!”

  Kevin is back.

  Fear cleared Anne’s head. Chased her nausea and set her leg muscles twitching. Reminded her body of that most ancient of instincts. She took off, sprinting away without another word. The men would forgive her her bad manners. She was running for her life.

  Her feet thudded on the boardwalk. Her thighs strained with sudden effort. The steel railing along the boardwalk blurred to a silver bullet. The Atlantic streaked to a choppy blue. Her breath came in ragged bursts. Her sneakers thundered on the boards, barely landing before she took off again.

  She tore down the stairs to the empty beach, then raced towa
rd the water. Hot sand sprayed from her heels. Sea air filled her lungs. A fishy chill cooled her cheeks. Her legs pumped hard, and she hit speed, then began to fly. A twelve-minute pace, then quicker, breathing easily, her heart squeezing and body functioning on its own now. She’d never run this fast, but fear fueled her.

  Salt stung her eyes. The wind blew harder, buffeting her ears. Her Reeboks crunched on shards of seashells. She reached hard sand at the water’s edge and ran in sea foam that splashed against the back of her calves. Water soaked her socks and shoes. She leapt over a broken bottle, its green glass glinting jaggedly in the sun, and hurtled forward, straight down the beach, parallel to the sea. She raced the horizon, flying into the distance until they both disappeared.

  The sun burned high by the time Anne reached the clapboard duplex she was renting, and she chased up the weathered wooden steps to the second floor. She hit the front door with her chest heaving, her shirt and shorts so sweat-soaked she looked as if she’d gone swimming in her clothes. Her sneakers left blurry, sopping footprints on the splintery floorboards. Gritty, wet sand caked her ankles.

  Her hands trembled as she fumbled inside her hidden shorts-pocket for the door key. Behind her came the carefree sounds of vacationers heading to the beach, chatting and laughing as they carried striped umbrellas on their shoulders. Their kids toddled along swinging plastic pails, and one boy rode a tricycle with a tiny American flag duct-taped to the handlebars. Anne unlocked her door and hurried inside, snatching her sunglasses off before her eyes had adjusted to the sudden darkness.

  The apartment was a one-bedroom, its paneled walls festooned with hokey fish-netting, desiccated starfish, and a red plastic snow crab. Childproof fabric covered a cushy tan sofa flanked by white wicker chairs and end tables, with glass tops. Anne crossed quickly to the telephone on the end table. She couldn’t believe Willa was dead. She snatched up the phone and punched in her own phone number, praying there’d be an answer.

  She counted one, two, three, and four rings, then her answering machine picked up. She hung up quickly, not wanting to hear it, a sourness in the pit of her stomach. Was Willa really dead? Why else wouldn’t she pick up? Where was she? She could be out, maybe running. But no answers came out of the blue, and the only sound in the still apartment was Anne’s ragged breathing. She picked up the receiver and dialed her number again, just in case she had it wrong the first time.

  Please, Willa, pick up. Again, the answering machine was the only reply.

  Anne struggled to make her brain function, her fingers curling around the receiver. What next? Who would know where Willa was? Her family, but Anne had no idea where they lived. She didn’t even know where Willa lived. Maybe Willa was just out. Maybe she wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be.

  Anne’s thoughts tumbled over one another in confusion. Okay, she didn’t know where Willa was yet, but she had to tell the world she was alive. She thought of her own family, then skipped it. She couldn’t find her mother to tell her, and she’d never met her father, a studio guitarist who had simply moved on before she was born. So much for that.

  She thought of Gil and Chipster. Gil would need to know she was alive and that his case was going forward to trial on Tuesday. Chipster.com was on the line, and a jury verdict against it would kill a coming IPO, delayed once already. She picked up the receiver and called Gil’s cell phone. Four rings, then five, then voice mail clicked on. She waited for his message to end, then the tone sounded and a mechanical voice said, “This service is presently accepting no more messages.” The line went dead.

  “Damn!” Anne pressed the button and tried again. Gil’s voice mail must have been full. She listened again to the message and the aborted beep. She slammed down the receiver, her thoughts racing. God knows, there were plenty of other calls to make.

  She picked up the receiver and phoned the office. Somebody should be at work. Mary was taking a deposition for her today, of a witness in Chipster, and it was being held at the office at one o’clock. The call connected almost instantly: “You have reached Rosato & Associates,” said the office answering machine. “We are closed until Tuesday, July fifth, in observance of the death of our associate Anne Murphy. Please leave a message and your call will be returned as soon as possible.”

  Anne hung up the phone, amazed. They had closed the office? They didn’t even like her! She thought about reaching Mary on her cell phone, but what was her number? Anne didn’t know it, but her cell phone did.

  She hung up the living room phone and ran into the bedroom, where she’d pitched her temporary war room. The double bed had been transformed into a desk, sleep, and staging area; her thick Dell laptop sat open on its pillow-desk, and black binders filled with notes lay in a semicircle on the double bed. Her silvery cell phone, a Motorola Timeport, glinted in the sunlight streaming through the open window. She dove for the phone and flipped it open.

  The screen was an opaque black. The batteries had run out. In her hurry last night, she had forgotten to recharge it in the car. “Shit!” Anne shouted, slamming the cell into the mattress.

  Kevin is out. Kevin is free. Kevin did this.

  The thought momentarily paralyzed her. Last year, she had moved cross-country, to get as far away from Kevin Satorno as possible. She had met him at the supermarket at home in L.A.; he’d told her he was a Ph.D. candidate in history at UCLA. She had gone out with him once, a dinner date that had ended in a chaste kiss, but that single date had turned her life upside-down.

  Afterward Kevin had started calling her all the time, talking marriage and kids, sending her gifts and red roses. Somehow he had gotten the idea that she loved him. At first she felt terrible that somehow she’d led him on, but she turned fearful when he began dropping in at her office unannounced and his ten phone calls a day grew to thirty. In no time Kevin began following her everywhere, stalking her.

  She had gone to the authorities, where she learned about erotomania, or de Clérambault’s syndrome, in which a person had the delusional belief that someone was in love with them. She’d gotten a restraining order as soon as she could, but it hadn’t protected her the night Kevin attacked her at her door—and pulled a gun on her. It had been profound good luck that a passerby heard her scream, and Anne had moved to the East Coast to get safe and start over. Kevin had ended up in prison, but only for two years, on an aggravated assault charge. She’d put an entire country between them, changed her life and her job. Now Willa could be dead, because of her.

  She closed her eyes in pain. But she opened them in anger. She was supposed to be calling the police to tell them she was alive, but first she had to find out if Kevin had been paroled. She grabbed the bedroom phone and called L.A. information for the district attorney’s office. The DA who convicted Kevin might know where he was, but when she reached his office, his voice mail said: “The district attorney you have reached—Antonio Alvarez—will not return to the office until July fifteenth. Press one to leave a message, press two to return to the receptionist . . .”

  Anne hung up, flipping through a mental Rolodex to remember who else was on the prosecution. It was reliving an awful memory; identifying Kevin in the police line-up, testifying against him, pointing him out as he sat at the defendant’s table, which provoked his leaping up and lunging at the witness stand. She found herself shuddering despite the warm house, but a name entered her consciousness:

  Dr. Marc Goldberger, the court-appointed psychiatrist who had evaluated Kevin and testified against him. The psychiatrist had explained to the jury about erotomania, and the graveness of the threat to Anne for some years to come. Most erotomanics were intelligent, well-educated, and resourceful enough to pursue the object of their obsessions for as long as a decade.

  She snatched up the phone, called L.A. information again, and got the psychiatrist’s office number. There was no answer, but she took down the emergency number that the answering machine gave her and called it directly. The call connected, and Anne recognized the sympathetic voice, like a
n echo in her memory. “Dr. Goldberger?”

  “Yes, who is this?”

  Anne was about to give her name, then stopped. He might be bound by privilege, and maybe he wouldn’t talk to her if he knew who she was. “My name is Cindy Sherwood. I was a reporter on the Satorno trial, if you recall.”

  “I don’t, I’m sorry. It’s quite early in the morning, Ms. Sherwood, and on a holiday weekend. I don’t speak with reporters and I don’t remember being interviewed in connection with that case.”

  “Please, I was wondering if you had any information on the current whereabouts of Mr. Satorno. I am trying to do a follow-up story.”

  “As far as I know, Mr. Satorno is in prison. If you want to know more, speak with Mr. Alvarez, the district attorney.”

  “If you do happen to learn more about Mr. Satorno, would you please call me? The area code is Philadelphia, where I live now, since I got married.” Anne left her cell number, and he was kind enough to take it down before they hung up.

  She hung up the phone, thinking ahead, trying to keep her cool. If she lost control she’d be that girl racing down the beach, running scared. In a way, she had been doing that until this very minute, every day since she’d met Kevin Satorno, and she couldn’t let that happen anymore. She was already getting a better idea.

  She sprang to wet sneakers, but this time it wasn’t flight, it was fight. She grabbed her briefcase and gym bag, and hurried to pack her papers and clothes. For the first time since she’d seen the morning newspaper, she was functioning. She had to get back to Philly, and find out if Willa was dead and who had killed her. And there was only one way to do it. If the world believed Anne was dead, then she was going to stay dead. Play dead.

  For now, it was the only way to stay alive.