Courting Trouble

by Lisa Scottoline

  Anne jumped into the Beetle and twisted on the ignition, but couldn’t shake the memories. Her mother hadn’t even cared enough to get her the operations she needed to fix her cleft. It had been a stranger who had done that; a neighbor who’d been a nurse had taken it upon herself to apply for the free surgeries, at a teaching hospital. In truth, Anne’s mother had never been there for her. Anne had cobbled together school and federal loans to fund college and law school, and she’d be repaying them the rest of her life. Her heart hardened to bone. She pulled out of the space and took after Matt.

  Anne sized up the situation. She was considering driving to Matt’s house, but it would take too long to get there, given that it was the heart of the historic district, and then she might lose Kevin. She checked her watch. 1:15. The sun was high and hot, people were everywhere, and the city was alive with Fourth of July festivities. She decided to get back on track and keep leaving a public trail, so Kevin could find her.

  An hour later, Anne had parked the car illegally, but not in a tow zone, and was threading her way through the crowds on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, brushing her tiny bangs off her forehead, showing her scar, enjoying the freedom of going without disguise or lipstick.

  “Hey, aren’t you that girl they thought was dead, that lawyer?” asked a man in a red Budweiser hat. He was holding a little girl’s hand, heading with the crowd to the Party on the Parkway.

  “Uh, yes.” Anne introduced herself and shook his hand, pleased that her picture was getting out, and he smiled like he’d met a celebrity. She hoped he’d spread the word and she was caught up in the flow of people. Workmen hoisted a plastic banner that read DOLLAR-A-HOAGIE on a huge white tent on Eakins Oval, and she paused to call Matt on his cell, house, and office phones. Still no answer. She didn’t see Kevin but she didn’t lose hope. The smell of grilling hamburgers and chicken kebabs wafted through the air, and she dug out some money. Anne felt like everybody else on the Fourth of July, killing time until it was dark and the fireworks could begin. She checked her watch. 3:15. Time for the party.

  Anne slowed her step as she reached her block, which had been closed to traffic with blue-and-white police sawhorses. Waltin Street was packed with people, at least sixty adults, children, and pets, mingling in the dappled sunshine under the leafy maple trees. She eyed the crowd for Kevin. He could have seen those BLOCK PARTY 3–5 P.M. signs. He could be watching her, waiting for his chance. She didn’t worry about drawing him here; he wasn’t a danger to anyone but her. She wedged her way around a sawhorse at the top of the block, where an elderly man wearing a spotless polo shirt and pressed slacks was apparently checking IDs.

  “Ms. Murphy, no need to prove you live on our street,” he said, his face lighting up when he saw her. “I recognize you! I saw you on TV!”

  “Thank you, Mr.—”

  “I’m your neighbor Bill Kopowski. I live in 2254, with the red shutters. There.” He pointed. “Nobody knew whether to hold our party, but we went ahead. My wife Shirley and I were concerned, you should meet her!” Mr. Kopowski reached with a shaking hand for an older, plump woman standing next to him, and she turned around, her aged eyes lighting up when she saw Anne.

  “Oh, my goodness, it is you!” Mrs. Kopowski exclaimed. She wore a beige linen dress with a necklace of amber beads.

  “Yes, hello,” Anne said. She extended her hand, but Mrs. Kopowski reached out and swept her into her arms, pulling her close into her soft bosom. She smelled like Shalimar and lavender soap.

  Heads in the crowd started to turn to Anne, as neighbors surged toward her, chattering and chuckling. “Ms. Murphy!” shouted a middle-aged man in a madras shirt and Bermuda shorts. “We haven’t met, but I live across from you, in 2258.”

  “Hi—” Anne started to say but was interrupted by a woman in a blue foam crown.

  “Anne Murphy! Anne Murphy! You’re not dead! I saw your mother in the newspaper. It was moving, very moving!”

  “I see that, too!” another neighbor called out in accented English. He was an Asian in a red-white-and-blue T-shirt. “On TV! She look just like you! You call her, she love you!”

  Everyone started calling to Anne, asking so many questions she couldn’t begin to respond, and she felt someone clapping her on the back. She turned, startled, but it was another smiling neighbor, thrilled that she was alive, worried that such an awful thing had happened on their street, wanting to know the details. In no time the crowd had completely absorbed her, taking her in like the neighbor she’d never been, welcoming her with open arms and warm beer. She understood for the first time how many people are affected by even a single murder, and how profoundly it had shaken everyone on the block. The whole time she scanned the crowd for Kevin and if he were among them, she hadn’t found him yet. She was worried about Matt, and curious where Bennie and the girls were. Sooner or later they’d find her, and she hoped it wasn’t before she flushed Kevin out.

  “Ms. Murphy, Ms. Murphy! A few questions please!” A man called from behind Anne, and she felt her back shoved rudely. She turned and banged into the lens of a videocamera. A reporter popped up beside the camera, a beefy man in a white T-shirt and jeans, his potbelly hanging over a gold belt buckle. “Ms. Murphy,” he asked, rapid-fire, “what’s the real story on Kevin Satorno? Any comment? Ms. Murphy?”

  “I’m not going to answer any questions,” Anne said, trying to get her bearings. The press was here. It made sense that they’d come to her street. This crew had lucked out in finding her. Had she lucked out, too?

  “Come on, come clean. Is it true you were engaged to Satorno?” The camera lens trained on Anne, and her neighbors looked on in annoyance. An older man she recognized as a retired chemist was wedging his way toward the reporter, wagging a bony finger at the camera.

  “You’re not invited here, sir,” he called out, his voice quavering with age. “It’s residents only. We have a permit. How did you get past Mr. Kopowski? He fought at The Bulge.”

  Mr. Berman appeared beside him. “Are you reporters? You don’t live here! Better get out, before we call the cops. One of you knocked the flowerpot off my front step yesterday!”

  But Anne was thinking of her plan. “Hey, buddy,” she called to the reporter, “why don’t you ask me what I’m going to do next, now that I’m not dead? Like they do after the Superbowl?”

  “She’s going to Disneyworld!” Mr. Simmons, another neighbor, chimed in, and neighbors behind him closed in, encircling the reporter and cameraman.

  “Yes, ask her what she’s going to do next!” Mr. Monterosso called out.

  Another yelled, “Yes! Print some good news for a change!”

  A third neighbor cried, “You won’t show that on TV, will you? You never run anything nice, even on the holiday.”

  The reporter turned to Anne, chuckling. “Okay, Ms. Murphy! What are you going to do next? Are you going to Disneyworld?”

  “And leave Philly on the Fourth of July? No way!” Anne answered into the camera, knowing it would be aired for Kevin to hear. She thanked God that Bennie hated TV. “Tonight, I’m going to celebrate the country’s birthday, Philly-style! Eat a hoagie at the Dollar-A-Hoagie tent, then watch the fireworks at the Art Museum! Happy Fourth, everybody!”

  The neighbors cheered loudly, laughing and hooting, and Mr. Berman wielded his cane like a drum major. “Now, Mr. Reporter, you have your story! Go print it! Vamoose!”

  “Yeah! Get outta here! You don’t live here! Waltin Street residents only!” Mrs. Berman shouted, and a teenager, the tattooed daughter of a psychology professor, started chanting.

  “Waltin Street rocks! Waltin Street rocks!”

  “Waltin Street rocks! Waltin Street rocks!” the neighbors all began to chant, blasting the reporters and cameraman away with the power of their voices, singing out as one.

  “Waltin Street rocks, Waltin Street rocks!” Anne chanted loudest of all, yelling at the top of her lungs, no longer so Kevin Satorno would hear it but because it made her feel good
and happy and a part of a very special group, one that inhabited a block that formed one of the many blocks in the historic grid that built the United States of America. Ben Franklin himself designed the grid, she remembered with a new pride. Mental note: Patriotism is really about belonging, and Anne belonged right here.

  But now it was time to get busy.

  28

  The sun was still high but glowing a late-day orange, scorching a slow descent through the sky. The air had grown oppressively humid, making Anne’s dress stick to her skin. She picked trash up off her street and from between parked cars, and stuffed it into a large Hefty bag, eyeing each person who walked by. She didn’t see Kevin and couldn’t help but feel increasingly tense.

  She kept an eye out for him as she helped her neighbors gather bottles for recycling, fold up aluminum picnic tables, and Saran-Wrap an awesome leftover pasta-and-pepper salad. They all dragged the police sawhorses away from the top of the block, only reluctantly opening to the rest of the city the enclave that had been Waltin Street. Foot traffic increased, spilling into the street as everybody streamed to the Parkway to get the best spaces to watch the fireworks. They carried beach chairs, rolled tatami mats, and spare bedspreads. One kid trailed his father carrying a set of lighted brown punks, tapers that scented the air with their distinctive acrid smell.

  She checked her watch. 7:15. Time was hurrying along and taking her with it. She had seen a schedule of July Fourth events on the Parkway, starting with a “celebrity reading of the Declaration of Independence,” then the Dollar-A-Hoagie sale, which ended at nine o’clock with the fireworks. She figured she would linger on Waltin a while longer, then head over to the Dollar-A-Hoagie tent, where Kevin would know to find her. It was almost time.

  She bent down and picked up a smashed cellophane wrapper of Cherry Nibs, then put it in the trash bag, and, as she leaned over, felt the weight of her Beretta in her pocket. She had almost forgotten about the gun in the rush of good feeling generated by the block party. She began having second thoughts. Was there any other way? No. If this doesn’t end tonight, it will never end. Not until I’m really dead. She stowed the trash in the bag and was moving on to a discarded paper cup when her cell phone rang.

  She stuffed the bag under her armpit, dug in her other pocket for the phone, and flipped it open to see who was calling. Matt’s cell phone number glowed on the screen in bright blue digits. She hadn’t answered Bennie’s many calls, but this call she’d take. She pressed Send. “Matt?” she asked, lowering her voice. “Where are you? I’ve been trying—”

  “I got your messages.” His voice sounded anxious. “How are you? Are you okay?”

  “Fine, fine, really.” Anne cupped a hand over her free ear to hear better, and left the noisy street. She told him briefly about her debacle at the Dietz house, omitting the assault-and-battery part. No need to heighten his already heightened protectiveness. “Why did you tell Dietz about us? That was our business!”

  “I had to. I called Beth and told her that Satorno was stalking her, but she didn’t take it seriously, so I went over. I think it was because Bill wasn’t buying it. He has a lot of influence with her.”

  “Duh.”

  “I had to tell Bill what happened to you, to make him believe it. He asked me how I knew so much, and I told him. I had to, or she’d be in danger.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Anne said, chastened by the explanation. Between his client’s safety or his own representation, Matt had made a choice she admired. How could she have been angry at him? “I feel awful that you got fired. What are you going to do?”

  “Clean up the file and hand it over. I think they’ll use Epstein now. Watch out, Anne. The good lawyers are coming.”

  “Bullshit.” Anne bit her lip. “Can I help, or have I screwed things up enough already?”

  “No, you didn’t do this. I did. I admit, I needed to lick my wounds after he fired me, and I wished I’d talked to Beth alone, but it’s okay now. He was my client, too, and he always speaks for Beth. You’re the one I’m worried about. Bennie called my house, saying you had given them the slip. She’s looking for you. She went up to your street to find you and there’s a block party, but some old guy wouldn’t let her in. Even Mary couldn’t sweet-talk him, or Judy.”

  Anne smiled. Mr. Kopowski took no prisoners.

  “She even called the cops, told them to look out for you. Where are you, Anne? You shouldn’t be alone, not with Satorno still loose. I want to see you, to be with you.”

  Anne couldn’t let that happen. She’d involved enough people in this nightmare. “I’m fine, Matt. I don’t need my hand held.” People flowed past her on the sidewalk, her neighbors waving good-bye as they left for the fireworks.

  “This guy is a killer,” Matt was saying. “He could be stalking you right now. Where are you? I hear people in the background.”

  “I’m in a cab, I’m on my way over to your house, right now. Just stay there and wait for me.” It was a good idea, and would keep him in place until she caught Kevin. “I gotta go. Hear that beep? I’m low on batteries.”

  “I don’t hear a beep. I’m worried that you’re going to do something crazy. Bennie said you own a gun. Is she right?”

  “No, guns are scary. They go off by themselves, did you know that? There’s the beep again. I’ll be over as soon as I can. The traffic is a mess. Wait there for me!” Anne pressed the End button, and suddenly another message popped onto the phone screen. one call unanswered, read the blue letters. Probably Bennie again, but it could give a clue as to where she was. Her last two calls had been from her cell, and a mobile Bennie threatened Anne’s plan. She dialed for her voice mail, then listened.

  It was Gil, not Bennie. “Anne, I’m really sorry for what I did last night.” His words sounded slurred and sloppy. “I never shoulda tried to, you know. Jamie’s thrown me out, and I was wondering if I could see you tonight, you know, just to talk it over . . . oh, shit! Willya look at that! I’m in the bar on the corner of Sixteenth and the Parkway, you know the one, and I’m watching you on the TV right now! Damn, you look awesome! I love your—”

  Disgusted, Anne deleted the message, then hit End, troubled. Gil was only five blocks away and he’d seen the footage about the Dollar-A-Hoagie tent. She could only hope he wouldn’t interfere. She hit the Power button to shut the phone off, then slipped it back into her pocket. She glanced up at the sky, which had grown darker. The sun had dipped below the maple trees, flat rooftops, and loopy antennae. Its dying rays flooded the sky with a fierce orange. It was time to get started.

  Anne removed the trash bag from under her arm, closed the drawstring, and set the bag down with the others, near the front of the alley. She couldn’t help noticing it was the same alley that she’d scooted down in her Uncle Sam stovepipe, now so long ago. She took off for the Parkway, pausing as she passed her house, with flowers still on the stoop. She knew what lay beyond her front door and flashed on the blood spattered on the entrance hall. The obscenity of the murder. The stench of death. Willa had died there, and now her killer would be brought to justice. Anne bowed her head, then slipped off into the twilight.

  She joined the crowd flowing to the Parkway, scanning the people as she walked, remembering the details of Kevin’s newly dark hair and the shape of his head, watching for even the least sign of him. God knew what he’d be wearing. Something that blended in. She looked around. There were three hundred flag T-shirts in the moving crowd. Anne scooted along to catch up and check out as many as she could. None of them was Kevin.

  She kept walking, slipping her hand inside her pocket for the Beretta, to reassure herself. She headed with the crowd onto the Ben Franklin Parkway, where the rowhouses disappeared. Eight lanes of the boulevard opened onto a sky washed with hazy pinks, aquamarine blues, and the most transparent of amethysts. Dusk settled, hard to discern, visible only in contrast to bright spots of unexpected light; the red glowing tip of a lighted cigarette, the hot pink of a child’s neon bracelet,
a white pool of flashlight borne by a sensible older couple.

  The geometric skyline of the city had been colored red, white, and blue for the holiday. The lighted sign at the top of the Peco Building read happy fourth in a continuous loop of dotted lights. The night air was filled with talk, laughter, and babies crying, and the breeze scented with insect repellent and domestic beer. To Anne’s right was the Art Museum, the immense Grecian building usually bathed in tasteful amber spotlights, now colored a gaudy red-white-and-blue, with lasers that roamed the night sky. The huge limestone staircase that Rocky Balboa scaled in the movie was hidden by a massive temporary scaffolding, a stage of stainless steel, and panels of stage lighting. A warm-up band played on the stage, their electric guitars twanging through the speaker system mounted on the trees.

  Anne checked her watch. 8:00. It was almost dark. She was running late. She picked up the pace as she crossed the Parkway’s baseball diamond, set up for kids’ T-ball but now covered with blankets, collapsible chaise lounges, and the citizenry of Philadelphia, eagerly awaiting fireworks. She picked her way through the vendors dispensing sodas, hot dogs, cotton candy, funnel cakes, and Mr. Softee. Anybody who wanted a hoagie for dinner would already be thronging across the street at the tent, and Anne made a beeline for it, as a drum solo thundered through the loudspeakers and reverberated in the night air.

  She crossed the street with difficulty, as the crowd began cheering the band off, wanting the celebrities who were going to read the Declaration of Independence. A million people were expected at the fireworks and it was almost impossible to make it through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd. Anne kept her hand on the Beretta in her pocket and pressed past people’s sweaty backs and chests, making her way across the Parkway to Eakins Oval, a circle of grass, gardens, and fountains that fronted the Art Museum.