Defenseless

by Celeste Marsella

  “Do we have any Coke?” Cassie asked. She pulled the door of the refrigerator open and banged things around until she located the milk. “I guess I’ll have milk. Why don’t you get a new job and tell your boss to pound sand?”

  “Or get married,” my father suggested.

  Cassie rolled her eyes as she sat at the kitchen table next to my father and pored over the donut box, rummaging until she found a chocolate-filled donut with sprinkles from which she took a bite before setting it down on the bare table next to the carton of milk.

  “A glass,” my mother said to her.

  “The carton’s almost empty.” She took an aggressive swig, the milk splashing over the front of her face and onto the floor. She choked and as she stood my mother patted her briskly on the back. I slipped the plate of biscotti onto the enameled yellow table, placing it next to the box of donuts under which my mother had already, with a bit of domestic sleight-of-hand, slid a lace paper doily. My mother went on speaking to me as she patted Cassie’s back. “Maybe you should get a cleaner job, Marianna. Not with the criminals all the time.”

  Cassie stuffed the rest of her donut into her mouth. “Does your boyfriend know you were actually fired from your job?” she spit at me through a mouthful of dough.

  My father pounded his fist on the table. “Cassie, your sister and that Irishman were just friends.”

  “Jeff wasn’t Irish, Dad. And we haven’t been friends for months.”

  “Your problems started when you turned your back on your own blood. You don’t want to be Italian anymore?”

  “Alfeo,” my mother said, “have your coffee.” She pushed the sacrificial box of donuts under his nose and poured the black mud into his cup. My father noticed the biscotti and lifted one up to his nose. “What is this? Stale already?”

  “They are supposed to be hard like that. It’s one of those fancy cookies you dip in the coffee.” My mother took the biscotti from his hand and creased back the cover of the donut box so it would stay open.

  My father mumbled discontentedly as he pushed the donuts away, laying his thick hands flat on the kitchen table. Though my father never bit his fingernails, they looked bloody and gnawed to the quick because the leather tanning oils he worked with stained the cracks of his dry skin and ragged nails. He polished each pair of shoes after it had been reheeled or resoled. It was a special touch that kept customers coming to his shop from miles away. I was never able to walk into his shop without cringing from the smell, wishing my father’s hands were soft and white. I looked down at my own fingers and noticed my new French manicure, the polish already chipping. “Right, Marianna?” Cassie woke me out of my reverie. She was tapping away on her newest handheld techno-contraption. Somehow she’d found a way to use it to study for her SATs.

  “What?”

  “I don’t need to study. You’ll get me into your old college.”

  “You’ll need at least an 1800 to get into Boston College—or a trust fund initially endowed by slave traders so you can add a new library wing.”

  “I don’t need college.”

  “Cassie, you are the most unadulterated, cocky little brat I’ve ever known. Get your gutter-low scores up on those SATs, otherwise the only place you’re headed is the take-out window at Burger King.”

  My cell phone rang and Cassie grabbed it from the table. After saying “yup” a few times she held it out to me. “It’s some man with a fussy accent.”

  I spit my chewed wad of diet Dentyne into the trash under the sink and took the phone.

  The “accent” was Dean Kenneth Carlyle’s stodgy Brahmin speech pattern. He said he’d called my office and, after learning I was on leave, had tried my cell.

  “I’d like to meet with you again, Miss Melone.”

  “AAG Shannon Lynch has the Hastings case. You’ll want to talk with her now.”

  “Yes, I know. But it’s you I want to see. Monday morning at nine?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Summons

  AT EXACTLY 8:52 MONDAY morning, still on unpaid leave, I was picking away at a fresh manicure outside Dean Carlyle’s office when his secretary appeared from the end of a long hall. She looked like a pigeon as she made her way toward me, head down, pecking at seeds. Not wanting to seem too curious, I kept my own birdbrain lowered too, posturing that I was lost in important thoughts. Her thick-soled Mary Janes made a swooshing sound as she dragged her heavy, support-hosed feet over the burgundy oriental runner, worn to the threads as a proud testament to the age of this venerable institution. At the last believable moment I raised my eyes and resisted the urge to shout Boo.

  Her lips opened to display a mouthful of crooked yellow teeth as she looked at me with a sour smile. Was that expression of hers really as arrogant and astonishingly Fellini-esque as it looked? Did it convey a pathetic pleasure in being Carlyle’s gatekeeper? Was I having a nervous breakdown?

  “Good morning again, Miss Melone. I’m so sorry for the wait. Dean Carlyle will see you now. Please follow me.”

  In contrast to the plump body sucked in firmly by her high-necked wool suit, her voice was elegant, resonating with a clubby tone of private enclaves, special privileges, and secret passwords.

  She ushered me into Carlyle’s office. He was beaming while standing tall and erect beside his desk. Today he reminded me of one of the news anchormen on the BBC cable channel out of Boston and, just a bit, of the gynecologist who’d laparoscopically plucked that ovarian cyst out of me. I decided I was feeling a little stressed.

  “Had you noticed our extensive renovations?” he began, fluttering his airborne hand, which I was tracking like it was an encephalitis-bearing mosquito.

  “This entire floor, for instance, though gutted to the studs, was essentially retained,” he went on, “as were most of our antiques, some of which date back to the school’s inception almost two hundred years ago. We’ve made certain to incorporate them in every office, so that each office is pretty much identical in style and no single functionary has the appearance of seniority. Something everyone learns here is that we’re a team. One for all and all for one. The Musketeers. It may sound hokey but conceptually it’s critical for us. Teamwork and dedication. It’s a mantra here at Holton.”

  I would have made Vince proud had I stood up right then and told Carlyle to shove his tortoiseshell reading glasses down his throat. Or, perhaps, just shoved them down there myself. (And then maybe I could watch Carlyle don duck-hunting attire, throw me in the air, shoot me, and hand me over to his cook for supper.) I fought these impulses, still hoping in the back of my soggy brain that somewhere in this lecture would be some juicy information I could take to Vince and get back to work.

  “Sit, please,” Carlyle said, motioning to the couch. “Okay, let’s see. Why did I ask you here?”

  He waited for me to sit. Then, pulling those atrocious tortoiseshells down from the top of his head, he readied to pronounce his hefty agenda.

  “Mr. Piganno wants the police to begin an investigation of our students. Did you know that?”

  “I’m no longer privy to what our AG wants, Dean. As you know, I’m on leave.”

  Carlyle continued. “Would you mind if I asked the details of that . . . ah . . . suspension? Did he perhaps learn of our brief chat at the Kendalls’ dinner party?”

  “I’d rather not discuss it, Dean.”

  He nodded. “Mr. Piganno doesn’t like this school and everything it stands for. He resents our tax-free status. He doesn’t understand the value of what we do here. He’s trying to indict the entire school over the unfortunate death of one of our students. Crime in this part of the state is rampant. The Journal is rife with stories of street gangs in the area. It’s absurd to assume that Melinda Hastings met foul play at the hands of another Holton student.”

  “Street gangs.” I nodded. “From my experience they drag girls into allies, beat them senseless, rape them, and then leave them there for the morning trash pickup. Not exactly this killer’s MO. The mur
derer might not necessarily be another person of Miss Hastings’s social standing, if you will, but let’s not forget her body was found with a bloody Holton blanket.”

  “But do you agree that descending on our grounds with a sweeping investigation of all our students is overbroad? Vince Piganno would have DNA collected from every male on campus if he could.”

  “I assume the police are questioning some of her closer friends and associates and trying to narrow it down.”

  Carlyle pulled a chair in front of me and sat, rubbing his bony hands on his skinny knees. “Can I be honest with you, Miss Melone? I’m afraid. Afraid of a public investigation of this school that will permanently tarnish our reputation.”

  “I can understand your fears, Dean Carlyle, but—”

  “Please call me Ken.” He leaned toward me like a father ready to tell his young child a family secret. “I don’t know, Marianna. May I call you Marianna?” He shook his head. “Is there a real need to publicize the investigation? This entire matter could be kept private? Am I right?”

  Sure he was right. But there was this little problem of Vince Piganno and privacy being one of his least favorite things.

  “Sometimes publicity is a handy tool in arriving at the facts, sir. People come forward who otherwise wouldn’t when they read the ongoing coverage in the paper or on the six o’clock news. But I agree that a certain amount of privacy or dignity is owed to the deceased’s family as long as you aren’t using it to cover something up.”

  “I agree. I agree.” Carlyle stood from his chair. “I like the way you think, Marianna. And this is actually why I called you here today.” He stood abruptly and beamed at me with a full mouth of gray teeth. “I have a proposal for you. . . .”

  From behind it, he nudged his chair closer to me and sat facing me again.

  “Since that day we met with the Hastingses, I’ve been thinking about you. You have a flair about you, a certain style. Tough but fair, strong but with a gentle spin.”

  He was making me sound like a Maytag washer.

  “Have you ever considered changing your employment situation?”

  “To what? I’m a lawyer.”

  “Of course, but there are other areas in which to practice those skills outside a courtroom. Hmm? Here, for instance.”

  “You’re insulting my intelligence, Dean Carlyle. I told you I no longer have control of the Hastings case. There’s nothing I can do for you at the AG’s.”

  “Now you’re insulting my intelligence. This has nothing to do with Melinda Hastings.” He popped up from his chair again and took a few steps away from me. “Let me try to explain. I know a little bit about you, Marianna Melone. For four years you worked during the day and at night attended Suffolk Law and made law review? Correct?”

  I sat still and listened.

  “Initiative and perseverance. I like that. And you’ve been employed as a prosecutor since you graduated?”

  “I’ve been with the AG for five years, yes.”

  He crossed the room slowly, lifted a piece of paper from his desk and held the paper in the clawlike clasp of his long fingers. Despite in all likelihood having memorized the thing, he was making a show of slowly rereading it now.

  His glasses kept sliding down his nose.

  “Went to Classical High.”

  Again, I was silent as he read.

  “Graduated with honors from Boston College. You made the dean’s list every semester.”

  “I take education very seriously.”

  “Yet you didn’t apply to a better law school?”

  “I couldn’t afford a better law school. I had to work during the day to pay for tuition.”

  As I listened to Carlyle talk about me, I realized that his translucent skin marked him more as a sixty-than fifty-year-old. His knees were sharp under loose-cut flannel pants. His shoulders were a narrow hanger for his boxy suit and button-down white shirt, all of which seemed not so much clothing as a uniform for properly bred gentlemen. It galled me to begin noticing something comfortably attractive in this man’s patrician authority and dated, conservative dress. I wanted to believe he saw some special worth in me. I wanted him to like me. Was Vince right? Did “wet dicks” like Ken Carlyle and Jeff Kendall impress me?

  “What is this all about, Dean Carlyle? Is that my resume you’re reading from?”

  He shook his head dismissively. “Just some notes.” Carlyle held up his hand, then returned to his chair across from me, leaned forward, and folded his hands. “From time to time we encounter minor problems here on campus, with a student or two. Small indiscretions. Too much coddling at home can produce . . . the occasional bad egg.”

  He paused. I blinked, and he smiled at me.

  “But obviously nothing resembling what you’ve seen as a . . . ah . . . prosecutor.” He smiled again. “As far as I know, we’ve admitted no serial killers.” He broke into a broader smile. He looked genuinely happy. A regular Steve Martin.

  Then his face got all craggy again. “And this, Miss Melone, is where you would come in. Indeed, some of these student indiscretions have the potential to border on—appearance-wise at least—the outer fringes of criminality.” He let the sentence sink in. “I need someone who knows the law, can intervene promptly and forestall any inadvertent disasters with whatever means are at one’s disposal, and God knows, in the unlikely event that—”

  “That there’s an arrest?”

  “Perhaps. And again, I am not referring to the Hastings matter. You would have absolutely nothing to do with that case if you came on board.”

  His eyes were focused with crystalline clarity on mine. What was he really saying? That the position required, above all, a good sense of prosecutorial discretion and great personal sensitivity, given that these college kids and their families were the hoi polloi. Was I being sounded out re my willingness to use my connections to smother potential criminal charges against the students? Did Carlyle think I had the power to talk the AG’s office out of anything? Especially now, having been excommunicated. Vince would enjoy nothing better than blowing Holton up, with my head as the fuse, and then using the vacant hallowed grounds as a bocce court.

  But I had a vague sense that somewhere in this mire of conflicting worlds—Carlyle’s and Piganno’s—there was a solution for my present job predicament. Perhaps the cobblestoned path back to the AG’s office was littered with fallen petals of Holton ivy. There was no doubt that somewhere within Holton’s impenetrable walls lay some secrets to Melinda Hastings’s untimely death. Maybe if I gathered rich bouquets of evidence and delivered them to Vince, he’d soften and let me through the back door to my dingy minuscule office with the rusty metal desk under the cracked ceiling fixture. . . .

  Confronted with my poker-faced silence, Carlyle continued, lecturing me as if I were a child being taught how to cross a street.

  “Marianna, someone like you understands the importance of confidentiality. A school of this caliber can’t have its linens aired in public. The alumni don’t like it. The families of our students don’t like it. I need someone like you to keep this place in shape morally. In short, I need you on my side.”

  I kept my mouth shut, since I was pretty certain I was being offered a job, not because of my sterling academic and professional history, but because I had done such a stellar job of convincing him, that night at Jeff ’s parents’ house, that I was crooked to just the right degree.

  His abdomen caved in slightly as he caught his breath. He exhaled slowly, took another more normal breath, and then continued.

  “You haven’t said a word. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “Well, let me sum this up, Dean. You want me to supervise and discipline a pack of silver-spoon brats who screwed around in high school and aren’t used to opening books or taking notes, yet they want to graduate from a prestigious college, but could never get into or out of one without Holton’s special kind of leniency. Now then, are you sure you want me to work here?”

&nbs
p; Surprisingly, he chuckled in response, but then his face went suddenly blank, as if he had experienced a small electric shock.

  “Assistant Dean of Student Ethics. I was going to wait until the fall semester to institute the position, but after learning of your recent employment difficulties, I decided to launch it without delay and offer it to you. You’d have the critical role of enforcing our standards and keeping everybody happy in the process. . . .”

  Carlyle stood and walked to the window. His office sat above a quarter acre of lush New England lawn leading up to the building’s black wrought-iron gates. Lining the walkway like palace guards were twenty-foot-tall Bradford pear trees, austere in their winter bareness. The trees thrust hundreds of gray spiny branches into the sky like tall rifles held to attention.

  Carlyle spoke to the window. “None of what you hear or see at Holton must ever go beyond our walls. Especially this discussion of ours today. The press is never far from our gates, and they do not see those gates as hallowed, Marianna. Reporters sniff the ground like stray dogs for scraps of gossip on those students of ours who come from political families, or those students with celebrity parents. . . . You understand.”

  “Dean Carlyle.” I breathed deeply. “I do understand what your concerns are. It’s so important to have a strong value system in any organization. To keep the machine running smoothly . . .”

  I went on and on, barely cognizant of the slippery babble flowing from my lips designed to soothe Carlyle’s deepest fears of negative publicity, incipient indiscretions, and rotten eggs. But as I spoke to him I was thinking only of how to use Carlyle’s fears to the advantage of the AG’s office and, concomitantly, of mine.

  Carlyle turned and looked into my urgent hazel eyes with one of the most heartwarmingly paternal and crinkly grins I had ever seen. “Consider this an interim position until you find something more suitable. Of course this means you would have to officially resign from the AG’s office. Maybe you’ll be pleasantly surprised and actually enjoy it here.”