Widow's Row

by Lala Corriere

  “I can’t imagine. Maybe someone meant it for Ari. Everyone wishes he’d go home, wherever that is.”

  “I’ll be gone soon enough. Adam has his mind set on an October third wedding. The way he’s approaching it the whole thing has all the intrigue of a pre-arranged marriage.”

  Kate pooh-poohed my negativity. “You just have cold feet. A case of nerves.”

  “There must be some reason why we’ve been engaged for two years and not going forward.”

  “I think you’re just afraid of the process. The grandness of it all. You’re embarking on a fantasy and that makes the fancy wedding a must. And all the more romantic.”

  I’d just decided to build a fire when we heard the car pull up in front.

  Jonathan strode through the front door, loaded down with groceries, packages, and mail. Lucky for Kate, he dropped a couple envelopes in the entryway or I think he would have disappeared without even glancing our way. She jumped to her feet.

  “Jonathan, this is my friend, Kate Vander Ark. Kate, meet Jonathan Marasco,” I said, shifting my weight and twisting strands of hair, uncomfortable in making the introductions. I watched for anything Jonathan’s mouth wasn’t telling me. A lawyer thing to do.

  “I’m sorry we haven’t met, but I own The Lost Cat,” Kate said. “It doesn’t allow me to get out much. Join us for a glass of wine?”

  Kate? Not get out much? My eyes rolled to the ceiling, an old habit when I heard someone lying. I did it so much that in one courtroom the judge almost fined me for contempt.

  Jonathan retrieved the dropped mail and pulled his belongings closer to his chest. “Thank you, no.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Benny’s Story

  “You told me he isn’t exactly friendly,” Kate said. “You should have told me Jonathan Marasco is downright rude.”

  “Sorry. I know you were looking forward to this.”

  “Forget it,” she said, reassembling our wine glasses and slicing the cheese. I watched as she palmed a third glass and tucked it back in her pack. “He seems like a real whacko badly in need of a shave. This town has a serious testosterone problem.”

  “You should come with me on one of my trips to Washington. The male pool’s a little larger there, but then again, I’m not saying it’s any better.”

  Kate paused, changing the topic of conversation with a tired sadness edging her voice, “How’s your dad?”

  “His nurse says he’s doing fine. She tells me he’s talking, but he won’t say a peep when I’m around.”

  “How’s the novel coming along?”

  “Do you know, Kate Vander Ark, you are the first and only one that has even asked me about it?” I raised my glass to toast her thoughtfulness.

  Kate’s returning smile flashed across her face. “The day’s not a total loss, then. So, tell me.”

  I’d been struggling with outlines, wrestling with conflicting premises and inconsistent plots, when finally it dawned on me I wanted to write two books. That morning I decided not to move back to D.C. until I was satisfied with outlines and a decent start on both of them.

  “Remember when I told you I just wrapped up a law case, one that left me soured on my profession?”

  Kate regarded me with curiosity.

  “I took on a client, a man named David Anderson. He was charged with sexually molesting four young children—three girls and a boy. There were horrendous accusations I couldn’t fathom any man guilty of, and I was certain authorities were making him a scapegoat. I was willing to stake my reputation on it.” I took a sip of wine, fighting back the old tears. “I really believed in him.”

  Kate shoved a piece of bread into my hand with a flicker of apprehension in her brown eyes. “What happened?”

  “We went through an arduous trial, sickening at times, but I got him off on all four counts, and he went out to celebrate our victory.” I again sipped on the cabernet, hoping my pause would keep me from breaking down.

  “He did his celebrating with a six-year old boy. Bless that little boy’s soul; he identified his assailant as being my defendant, David Anderson, right before he slipped into a coma. He died two days later from internal bleeding.”

  Kate leaned back against the large sofa, placing her glass on the antique Besarel table. She fingered the toile cloth in her lap, waiting for me to speak when I was ready. I think she would have waited until dawn.

  “Kate, my dad chose my career for me in law, but I was the one that decided to go into criminal defense. God knows there are accused parties out there guilty as charged, but I always thought I had an innate ability to see the truth. And my batting average slammed the best of the major league baseball guys, without any steroids. I trusted myself to know whom I could trust. And I fucked up.

  “At first I resented my dad for forcing me to go into law, but I guess I realize it’s really not his fault. So now I write. I write to cleanse my soul, recharge my mind, and maybe, if I’m lucky, I can get my message out. I’m going to write two books. One’s fiction and one, non-fiction.

  “Wow,” Kate said. “You’ve been busy. How far along are you?”

  “Not much more than titles and loose outlines that are just beginning to make sense. I call the non-fiction, ‘Stained Sheets and Legal Loopholes’, with a tag line ‘The Truth About Child Molestation and Our Legal Defense System’. It’s pretty much going to be a tell-all. And I have a working title on the novel, ‘Because My Daddy Loves Me’. Same subject, only fiction.” God. If only child molestation was only fiction.

  Kate sliced off more cheese and refilled our glasses, stood and stoked the fire. “You are something, girl,” she said. “You bottled all this stuff up inside of you? Does Adam even know what you’re writing?”

  “No way. He thinks I’m writing a technical mumbo-jumbo legal guide, and that’s it. Truthfully, I don’t want to tell him. He’ll worry it might tarnish his image somehow. It always comes back to being about Adam.”

  The wind started howling, sucking and dragging at the flames of the fire. “I probably ought to be heading back to The Lost Cat.” Funny, she never called it home. “Rosa will be leaving and I have a late arrival coming in.” She poured more wine into her glass, then allowed the last few drops of burgundy liquid to trickle down in my glass. “The last drop in a bottle is the happiness, you know.” Kate kneeled on the floor and began putting her things in the daypack. “Hey, what about the kitten?”

  “How could I forget? Let me run go get him. He’s almost doubled in size.”

  When I returned I saw the look of loneliness taking up residence in Kate’s eyes. “He’s beautiful, that’s for sure. Looks like he’s real happy here. What did you end up naming him?” She was tying her skirt scarf, our picnic blanket, back around her waist.

  “Benny,” I said.

  “That’s a funny name for a cat.”

  “It was the name of the little boy that died. Benjamin.”

  Kate winced with my own pain. She reached weightless arms around me, giving me a hug as she looked out and noticed the activity down by the chinchilla runs. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Just who is that hunk of man?”

  I swung around to the picture window, spying the black Mercedes sedan pulled up to the front of the run, next to Ari’s old truck. “You mean Ari?”

  “Fuck Ari! The man he’s talking to. Now that man is interesting.” New life pumped into my friend’s needy veins.

  I squinted to make out the imposing figure now reclining against the Mercedes, reaching into his pocket, and handing something to Ari. The man was bald and I was certain, like the man in the hospital visiting my father, not a snippet of hair would be found on his body. It was the same man.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Betrayal

  From back at my third floor window, I gazed across the grounds and followed Kate’s tigress like prowl toward the two men. She play-scuffled with Ari, then extended her hand to the bald man, whom I remembered introducing himself to me only as ‘George’.


  Soon, Kate was running lacy fingers through her short locks of blonde hair, collapsing her face into her chest in bursts of laughter, and tightening the scarf around her already tiny waist, flicking the fringe across her torso. When snow started dumping from the skies like an upside-down popcorn popper, she ran to her yellow car and pulled away from the ranch. The black Mercedes followed.

  My phone rang at 2:30 A.M. It wasn’t easy, but I soon ascertained it was a guest of The Lost Cat on the other end, screaming something unintelligible about Kate.

  “You need to slow down,” I said, jumping out from under the covers and already climbing into jeans. “Take a deep breath, then talk to me. Slowly tell me what’s wrong. Is Kate all right?”

  “Kate. Kate. Yes, she’s okay. Stoned out her skull, and sprawled out on the sofa. And we’ve got trouble. We need help and she can’t even feel her toes!” The voice trailed off, whimpering.

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “One of us,” the person gasped. “GRS guest. She’s cramping and bleeding something terrible.”

  “Hang up and call 9.1.1., for crisakes!”

  “No! I can’t. Not just yet. She won’t let us. She’s a real well-known name, you know. Hell, he was a celebrity, and she’s terrified someone will learn she’s here. Do you understand?”

  I squirmed into my sweater. “Why are you calling me?”

  “I met you when you were staying here. Your phone number was on top of Kate’s dresser here in the bedroom. I don’t know who else to call.”

  “Have you called the visiting nurse that treats you there?”

  “No.”

  “I’m on my way. Hang up. Call the nurse. She needs medical help. Do you understand me?”

  I pounded on Ari’s door until finally, somehow, I managed to awaken his numb body. He detested Kate’s B&B guests and made no bones about it, but I knew the asshole adored Kate and I convinced him to come with me over to The Lost Cat on a humanitarian mission.

  We rushed through Kate’s door, hearing the flurry of activity at the top of the staircase. I glanced into the parlor and spotted Kate passed out on her favorite sofa. The fainting couch. She was oblivious to planet Earth.

  Five people crowded the tiny guest room. Two of the ladies stepped outside to allow us access.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Ari yelled. Blood saturated the Laura Ashley bed linens. “Damn good for nothin’ trannies.”

  “We don’t know what to do for her! The nurse says he’s on his way, but he was in Pueblo for the day. And in this snow...”

  “...Get out of my way,” Ari said, pushing the guest aside. The bleeding woman was propped up in her bed against a wall of pillows.

  “Semiconscious. No shock yet,” Ari murmured. “Okay, sweetheart,” he put his face within three inches of hers. “You’re going to be just fine. I promise you.” His voice was both tenacious and calm, like the lone log stretching across the banks of a vicious roaring river.

  He felt her skin, and nodded to me to do the same. It was an odd combination of cool to the touch and clammy. She was pale and her lips were blue.

  “Get these pillows out from underneath her,” he charged me. “We need to lay her down flat. She might just stay with us that way.”

  “What about a tourniquet?” one of the guests pleaded.

  “What the fuck you gonna tie up? Her goddamn stomach?” Ari stormed.

  Stammering, and consumed with helpless amazement, I asked the man I called a cantankerous prick, “What can I do?”

  “Keep her still, and warm,” Ari said, gliding his rough fingers across her swollen abdomen. She writhed and moaned in pain.

  “Fuck it! You call a goddamn ambulance now or you’ll have the paparazzi crawling all over here covering a death,” he ordered out to anyone that would move. I lifted a heavy quilt over her shoulders.

  The woman coughed, spewing blood, and I watched as fibers of the quilt began sucking in the thick liquid. I saw my hands drenched in a pool of blood. I admit the fear of AIDS crossed my mind, and I admit my prejudice was enhanced by the bizarre fact that the woman in front of me was born a man. Conflict. Bad messages. Thoughts that had no residence in my heart. I didn’t flinch, nor did I let go my hand now holding tight onto hers. When the paramedics arrived and raced to the top of the stairs, Ari resumed control once again.

  “She’s my sister,” Ari told the paramedic taking down vital information. “Her name is, uh, Alice. Alice Christenson.”

  When the ambulance sped away, I looked at Ari. He displayed the comforting demeanor of a broomstick offering up its bristles. “Ari, how is it you decided to give that woman an alias?”

  “It was some damn dog hung around the old neighborhood when I was a kid. I kinda felt sorry for the thing. Ah, hell. It was a goddamn mutt that had his weenie cut off in some crazy cult ritual. That’s what made me think of it.”

  I’d been restless for a couple of weeks. The B&B guest was in full recovery while I that felt like I was bleeding to death. It was Valentine’s weekend. It was time to make full amends with Adam, accept the wedding date he wanted, and accept my destiny. Get on with things. Leave anger behind. Leave behind this growing distrust that never once resided in my soul.

  D.C. was host to a series of memorials and grand soirees honoring history’s greatest couples. Hotels and flights were overbooked. I upgraded to first class; the only way to secure a last minute seat on my flight to Dulles Airport.

  Adam was in final preparation for his trial of a lifetime. I knew he felt overwhelmed with work and the excruciating demands of his senatorial campaign, but I also knew my surprise visit would please him. It was an act of brilliance when I thought to arrange for the press. He would be forever in my debt, if even for a long weekend in his bed. A debt we would gladly settle.

  When I pulled up to Adam’s apartment building my favorite reporter from the Post stood outside, alongside her photographer. The doorman studied me with observant eyes. “Ms. Lemay. Is Mr. Chancellor expecting you?” His voice was polite, but insistent.

  “Of course,” I said.

  As I unlocked the door to Adam’s penthouse, a warm glow of excitement swooped over my heart. I envisioned Adam’s smile widening when he saw me, and the reporter capturing the moment.

  The warmth chilled to a surge of trepidation riveting down my spine, and I knew my life changed course, right then and there.

  The red cashmere coat graced the arm of the Kreiss Collection sofa we’d shopped for together. A matching scarf and pair of red high heels lay tousled across the hardwood floor beside it, next to the matching handbag.

  I left the reporter and her photographer, finding myself moving down the long hall and fingering the oak wainscoting, making my way toward Adam’s bedroom.

  I knew what was inside that room. Apparently the reporters did too as they hesitated, staying behind in the living room. Swinging the door open, I found the kind of hurt that takes your body hostage while leaving your heart to take the hard blows. While my stomach churned with nausea, my weak legs felt stuck in place like hot syrup was pouring over them and sealing my fate to the floor. The air in the room became feculent. My whole world faded as my eyes fixated on the sight of Adam Chancellor in bed with a naked redhead riding on top of him.

  Based on the next day’s headline, the reporter and her cameraman must have found the entire scene delightfully juicy.

  Chapter Nineteen

  First Words

  Adam called daily, and every day I let his messages go to voicemail, hitting the delete button without hearing them. Nothing he could say would save our relationship no matter his expertise in bed, which at least one too many women knew about.

  Then again, he might have been calling to scream his head off. I’d read the scintillating article in the newspaper. Even the A.P. picked it up. Adam Chancellor would have a rough go of it, in need of a serious needle to mend his reputation if he was going to win the election. I’d heard rumor his image consultant was
gearing up to re-present him as a ‘world’s most-available-bachelor’ type thing.

  Dropping by my father’s house became a routine chore. I’d put the activity right up there with going to the dentist or getting a pap smear.

  “Dad, I know you can talk. Everyone tells me you’re talking so good you could challenge Clarence Darrow in the courtroom. Why won’t you even acknowledge me?”

  His nurse served us chamomile tea at the kitchen table, giving me a firm nod to keep pushing him to speak.