The Last Place

by Laura Lippman

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said, standing. Then, without really understanding what she was doing, or why, she turned back and gave him a sudden swift kick in the ribs.

  If she had been wearing boots, he might have wakened at the impact, but the flat ballet-soft shoe she had worn to minimize her height didn’t pack much of a punch. Still, it was hard enough to bruise his rib, to give him one last souvenir of their evening together.

  Or so the Baltimore County cops told her the next day, when they took her into custody.

  CHAPTER 2

  Baltimore County surrounds Baltimore City like a moat. Or a vise, depending on one’s vantage point. The two broke up more than 150 years ago, heading their separate ways, and they’re still fighting about who got the raw end of the deal. The city is broke, crime-ridden, and incapable of expanding. But the county is one of those no-there-there places. To city-born Tess, it might as well have been a foreign country.

  Her trip through its legal system did little to change that perception.

  “Hey, that’s a thought,” she said, sitting in the hallway of the county courthouse three weeks to the day after her date with Mickey Pechter. “Is it too late to petition for extradition?”

  “I’m glad you can joke about this,” said her lawyer and sometime employer, Tyner Gray. “I kept thinking at some point in the process— when they arrested you and kept you in county lockup overnight, when they fingerprinted you, when they charged you with felony assault—that you might start taking it seriously. But no, here you are, about to be sentenced, and you’re still acting like it’s one big hoot.”

  “It’s not as if there’s much suspense,” Tess pointed out. “It’s not even a sentence, really.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. Probation before judgment simply means you won’t have a record once you complete the terms of your probation.”

  “Now that’s an interesting philosophical question: If a PBJ falls down in the forest and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound?”

  “Not funny, Tess.”

  “There are times in this life,” she said, “when you can laugh or you can cry. I choose to laugh.”

  Tess had cried a little bit over the past three weeks, but always in secret. She never would have revealed such weakness to crusty old Tyner, or to anyone else for that matter. She had maintained a tough facade even in front of her boyfriend, Crow—not that he was fooled. Her lackluster appetite had betrayed her.

  But now it was almost over, another bad memory to be condensed into one simple sentence for future biographers: “When I was thirty-one, I got into a little trouble with the law, but it was all a misunderstanding.” The very term used for her plea, probation before judgment, PBJ, sounded innocuous, as if they were discussing peanut butter and jelly.

  Tyner’s mind must have been following a similar food track, for he suddenly said, “Time to make the doughnuts,” did a neat three-point turn in his wheelchair, and rolled into the appointed courtroom.

  Mickey Pechter sat in the first row, behind the prosecutor. It was the first time Tess had seen her “victim,” as the legal system would have it, since that night in the parking lot. The hair on his head had grown back, duller but thicker. Perhaps she had found a cure for baldness. His skin looked normal to her, and she wondered if he had really suffered the severe allergic reaction he had claimed. Then again, he had wound up in the emergency room. She caught his eye and watched the emotions that played on his face: a reflexive fear, like a dog cowering before someone who had hurt him, a wisp of a smile, and, finally, a narrowed gaze of pure hatred.

  It was all she could do not to mouth the word rapist at him.

  Tyner tugged on her braid, reminding her to stand for the judge.

  “All rise.”

  Judge Dennis Halsey was young for a judge and just missed being handsome. He had all his hair—why was she noticing men’s hair more and more?—but there was a squareness about the head and body suggestive of a robot or Frankenstein’s monster. Still, he was an up-and-comer, well respected. Short of a disastrous misstep, he would continue to rise ever higher in the state’s judicial system, perhaps one day wearing the red robes of Maryland’s highest court.

  “Baltimore County circuit court is now in session.”

  And Halsey’s career to date had been anything but disastrous. He had presided over the very date-rape trial that had provided Tess with her knowledge of roofies. The case had dozens of hot buttons—the defendant was white and upper class, his victims black, and everyone involved had blown blood alcohol levels well past the state’s new legal standard of .08. Truth be told, they had blown past the old one of .10 as well.

  Yet Judge Halsey had kept the defense attorney in check, protecting the victims as much as possible, never letting it be forgotten who was on trial. Three juries had returned with three verdicts of rape in the first degree, and Halsey had sentenced the predatory premed to the harshest penalty possible.

  So it should have been Tess’s lucky day when her case ended up in his courtroom. Instead, it was just another fiasco, like everything else that had happened since that early spring night.

  The first bit of bad luck was Mickey’s allergic reaction to the chemicals in Nair.

  “Oh, yeah,” Tess had told Tyner, when Baltimore County police finally allowed him to see her. “You’re supposed to do a scratch test with that stuff.”

  “A scratch test?”

  “In the bend of your elbow. But no one ever does. Jesus, he broke out? What a wimp.”

  “He suffered burns, Tess. He had to be hospitalized.”

  And that was only the beginning of her mistakes. The second one had been showing Mickey Pechter her license. The police were at her door before noon the next day, with a search warrant for her weapon, described as “a chemical defoliant in a pressurized can and/or spray bottle.”

  They didn’t find it, of course, but they did find the bottle of roofies. That would be mistake number three, keeping the roofies, which Pechter claimed were hers. After all, the drugs were in his system. Tyner had gotten the evidence excluded, pointing out that it was not reasonable to believe that a can of Nair would be in a woman’s jacket pocket. Still, the roofies convinced the prosecutor, a sanctimonious preppie, that Mickey Pechter was a victim. The state’s attorney and the detectives thought the drugs established her intent, that the assault had been planned in advance. No, really, she kept telling them, I just wanted to find out his name. So I could do something really classy like— um—blackmail him!

  In Baltimore City, its courtrooms clogged with homicides and all the collateral damage of the nation’s failed war on drugs, Tess’s misadventure in vengeance would have been treated like the ill-conceived prank it was. But here the prosecutor was happy to take her on. Tess was charged with felony assault, and the prosecutor wanted to pile a rape charge on her as well, but the evidence wouldn’t support it. Fortunately, the case stayed below the media’s radar, but only because all the men involved felt sorry for Mickey Pechter.

  However, Judge Halsey was fascinated. “I am interested in the violence that flows between men and women,” he had told Tyner and Tess at their first plea-bargain meeting. “It is a two-way street, despite what most people think. Physiologically, women are more likely to be victims, yes. But if they are strong enough—if they are, if you will, emancipated—will they turn on men, use violence as men have used it? Was your client really acting out of the need to protect teenage girls from an on-line stalker, or was something deeper provoked? There is so much anger, so much hostility, between men and women. I see it in my courtroom every day, and I find it unfathomable. The war between the sexes is far from over.”

  Tess would have been happy to tell him why she did what she did. But she had been slightly hamstrung by her impromptu decision, when the county cops first crossed her threshold, to say she acted alone. Not even Tyner knew Whitney had been present. Her muddled reasoning was that she was protecting Mercy, whose name she had never revealed,
so she needed to protect Whitney as well. As a result, Judge Halsey looked down from the bench and saw some Super-woman, capable of drugging a man, dragging him through a parking lot, and then depilating his body and skull.

  Yet Halsey wasn’t so caught up in the sociological implications of the case that he couldn’t notice inconsistencies in the evidence.

  “The police find it odd that Mickey Pechter had so few abrasions,” he had said at one point, when he and Tyner had discussed the terms of her PBJ in the judge’s chambers.

  “Abrasions?” Tess had echoed.

  “Clearly, you had to drag him. But it seems more likely that you would have dragged him by his legs, not under his arms. Yet his shins are scraped as if someone had him by the armpits.”

  “What does Mr. Pechter say?”

  “He says he doesn’t remember anything.”

  “Hmmmm,” Tess had murmured, but volunteered nothing more. Most liars are too emphatic, too definite. They talk too much. She knew this about liars because she had met more than her share. She knew this about liars because she was a good one when she needed to be.

  In the end, her incomplete version had triumphed, more or less, because Mickey Pechter was such an unappetizing victim. He had crashed his computer’s hard drive, thinking it would destroy the evidence. But Tyner had paid Tess’s friend Dorie Starnes dearly to recover every incriminating message, every keystroke: the instructions on how to get a fake ID, the gentle pressure to come by public transportation so he might drive her home. Only the roofies and his intent were left to he-said/she-said uncertainty. Suddenly, everyone—the cops, the prosecutor, Mickey Pechter himself—just wanted the case off the docket.

  Everyone except Judge Halsey. “Vigilantism must not be condoned in a civilized society,” he had told Tyner, when the lawyer petitioned the judge to drop the charges. “Whatever his intent, whatever your client’s intent, the fact is she hurt him, and there must be an acknowledgment of this. A fine and some sort of community service, I think.”

  Tyner, who had convinced Tess they should avoid a trial at all costs, agreed. “As long as it’s PBJ and her record is expunged in six months, I don’t have a problem with that.”

  Six months, Tess thought, sitting in the courtroom. It was April 22 now, and the courthouse grounds were riotous with daffodils and tulips. The air was soft, and the breeze carried the wonderful greenish smell of fresh-mown lawns and just-spread mulch. In six months, the flower beds would be barren. It would be cool again, the days growing shorter, the rowing season drawing to an end. It seemed like a long time in some ways, but it was really the blink of an eye. Six months and all this would vanish, as if it never happened.

  Her case was being called. Time for blind justice to hoist her scales.

  Halsey placed his hands over the microphone in front of him. “The victim wants to enter an impact statement into the court record.”

  “But there’s not going to be a record,” Tyner said.

  “Not once she fulfills the terms of her probation,” the judge agreed. “But what’s the harm in letting Mr. Pechter read his statement?”

  During the weeks it had taken to reach this moment, Tess had been uncharacteristically well behaved. She had not contacted Pechter and told him what a worm he was for filing charges against someone he had planned to rape. She had not used her friends at the Beacon-Light to spin her own version of events, lest the publicity disrupt her plea bargain. She had sat still and nodded at the judge’s ponderous exegesis on the violence between men and women. That was his phrase, always: “the violence between men and women.” Halsey might be progressive as a judge, but he liked the sound of his voice as much as any man Tess had ever known. Still, she had listened, never contradicting and never daring to suggest that she knew a little bit more about such violence than this sheltered jurist.

  Today, inches from the finish line, she snapped.

  “He’s not a victim,” she said. “That’s the harm in letting him enter an impact statement. It just punctuates this stupid, politically correct charade.” Although she spoke in the raspy tone of a whisper, her voice carried to where Mickey Pechter sat, and he flinched at the very sound.

  The judge’s expression was inscrutable. He looked at Tess, then at Tyner, who shrugged apologetically, and then over at Mickey Pechter, who was so focused on appearing angelic that Tess was surprised a cartoon halo didn’t appear above his head.

  “I think I’ll allow Mr. Pechter to read his letter,” he said. “It would not hurt you, Miss Monaghan, to be reminded that you did harm someone: You took the law into your own hands and put a man in the hospital.”

  Mickey unfolded a single sheet of lined notebook paper with sweaty, shaky hands and began to read.

  “Since the vicious assault I received on the night of April first—”

  Tess jerked her chin up at the word vicious but said nothing.

  “—I have had trouble sleeping because of the injuries done to my skin. When I do sleep, I often have nightmares. My work has been affected as well. I estimate that I have lost money because I cannot work as much overtime as I used to. Respectfully submitted, Mickey R. Pechter.”

  He looked up expectantly.

  “Is that all?” Judge Halsey asked.

  “Do you want to know how much money?”

  “How much overtime you’ve lost? No, I don’t think that’s necessary.”

  “Not just overtime,” Mickey said, “but pain and suffering, too.”

  “It’s part of the plea agreement that Miss Monaghan or her insurer will pay your medical expenses.”

  “Oh, she’s arranged that already. But, you know, I figure this is where I get my pain and suffering.”

  The judge was mystified. Tess wasn’t. Mickey Pechter thought a victim impact statement was akin to filing a civil suit. He wanted to be paid for being depilated. Even as she smiled at his clueless greed, she tried to remember if her umbrella insurance policy would cover such a nuisance claim. Or did it cover her only when she was working? Could she claim Mercy Talbot was a client? No, that would mean invoking the girl’s name, the one thing the Talbot family didn’t want.

  Mickey said, “I talked it over with some friends, and we thought five hundred thousand—if it’s not taxed as income—seven hundred and fifty thousand if it is. In other words, I think I should net five hundred thousand dollars.”

  “You are such a pathetic prick,” Tess said softly. His head turned quickly at the sound of her voice, and she realized he was still scared of her. It was an interesting feeling. She liked it. “Instead of worrying so much about money, why don’t you get treatment so you’ll stay away from underage girls?”

  “I never thought you were seventeen,” he said. “Not once I saw you. A man would have to be pretty damn nearsighted to think that.”

  “Whether they’re seventeen or seventy-one, you can’t get them into bed unless they’re unconscious. Loser.”

  “Bitch.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Ball-buster.”

  “Like you have any to bust.”

  “Whore.”

  “Eunuch.”

  The bailiff was scrambling to his feet, as if he expected a fight to break out, but the judge simply raised his palm and the courtroom was still.

  “I am ready to pronounce sentence. As for pain and suffering—if you think you have a case, Mr. Pechter, then hire a lawyer and file one in the proper court. However, I will remind you that your lifestyle, your character, will be open for full and complete examination in a civil trial.”

  Mickey looked crestfallen. “Okay, so I’m not going to get any money. But why is she getting off without a real sentence? I know what probation before judgment is. In six months, it will be as if this never happened. That’s not right.”

  “I can assure you, Mr. Pechter, that in six months Ms. Monaghan will be a changed person. She will be rehabilitated—which is, in case anyone has forgotten, one aim of the criminal justice system. Not just to punish but to chang
e.”

  Tess tried not to smirk. If Halsey thought she would be a changed person after paying out fines, medical bills, and donating time to a program for abused children, the agreed-upon community service, so be it. Given the chance, she knew she would do it again. Maybe not the kick, but the kick had never been the issue. But the Nair, the roofies— she figured she had taught Mickey Pechter an important lesson in empathy. Perhaps she should have insisted on a trial, just to see if he had any other victims who wanted to come forward.

  Mickey returned to his seat and Tess stood to receive her sentence, her eyes downcast, her smile barely hidden. She had not let Crow come to court with her—as much as she craved his company, she didn’t want him anywhere near this sordid episode—but they had made plans to go to lunch, to treat the day as a celebration. They were going to drive into the country, with their dogs in the back of the car, and find a place to let them run. Then they planned to find a tavern or restaurant with outdoor seating, where the dogs could accompany them to lunch. One of the lovely perks of self-employment was that you didn’t have to squander the beautiful weekdays that had a habit of cropping up after weekends where it did nothing but rain.

  Tess was so far into the future that the judge’s voice was washing over her, his words stuck together like so much melted chocolate. Then an unexpected phrase popped out, forcing her to focus. “And of course Ms. Monaghan also will be asked to complete a six-month counseling session in anger management, either in one-on-one treatment or a group therapy setting.”

  She knew better than to speak but she looked at Tyner, who shrugged, surprised as she was. The words meant nothing to Mickey Pechter, who looked distracted, as if he were mentally returning all the things he had planned to buy with his phantom $500,000. The harried assistant state’s attorney already had another file open in front of him. Justice ground on.

  “Miss Monaghan will meet monthly with a parole officer and present evidence that she has attended weekly sessions with a psychiatrist, psychologist, or clinical social worker. She may choose the professional of her choice, but the court stipulates that the sessions must be focused on anger management and the issues that arise from this condition.”