“Tell me what happened to your lip, then tell me about your mom.”
“My lip doesn’t matter, my mom does.”
“Your lip matters to me.” Frank frowned. “I can’t let people take shots at you and get away with it.”
“Listen, I appreciate it, but that’s not what’s on my mind right now. My mother’s the thing that’s on my mind. My mother is important.”
“What’s important is that people are attacking you, physically.”
“Can’t I identify what’s important, to me? Can’t I decide what I want to talk about?” Judy couldn’t tell if she was picking on him or if she was right, but it bugged her just the same. “It’s about my need to talk, isn’t it? It’s not about your need to know. It’s not about you.”
“Where’s this coming from, babe?” Frank was taken aback, looking at her like she was crazy. “I ask how you are and you are pissed at me?”
“I answered how I am, but I told you that I wanted to talk about my mom.”
“If you’re in danger, I want to know about that.” Frank threw up his hands. “What’s the point of keeping me in suspense?”
“I’m not keeping you in suspense.” Judy didn’t want to fight, but she wanted to be heard. “I told you I’m fine.”
“Okay, have it your way.” Frank folded his arms, his expression newly tense. “Tell me about your mom. You fought over nothing again, right? Because you two always fight. You’re oil and water. Am I right or am I right?”
“No, not exactly,” Judy said, dismayed. “It wasn’t about nothing, and we didn’t fight. We talked.”
“Okay, tell me what and your mother fought about, or sorry, talked about.” Frank sat down in one of the beach chairs in front of the loft, next to a round wooden table.
“Oh, jeez.” Judy sank into the other chair. “What are we fighting about? Do we have to fight?”
“Lately we do, that’s what it seems like. You’re unhappy all the time, and I think I know why.” Frank unfolded his arms and leaned forward, a familiar warmth returning to his rich brown eyes. “It’s not your mom, and it’s not even your aunt, getting sick. You’ve been upset from before that, since Mary and Anthony decided to get married.”
“No I haven’t,” Judy said reflexively. She didn’t want to talk about it now, but she was surprised that he’d noticed.
“Yes you have, and I know how women are.” Frank’s features softened. “It’s like when one goes to the ladies’ room, you all go to the ladies’ room.”
“No, I’m not that girl, the one who needs to go to the bathroom just because everybody else is.”
“I think you’ve been worrying about why we’re not married, and when I’m going to ask you to marry me.” Frank smiled gently, and Judy started to panic inside.
“No, that’s not it. I swear, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is. I’m not dumb.” Frank buckled his lower lip, regretful. “We never really talked about it because we both assumed it would happen. But that’s not good enough for you anymore. It’s not good enough for me anymore, either.”
“No, it’s fine,” Judy rushed to say. “We don’t have to get married just because somebody else is getting married. What’s right for one couple isn’t right for another.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that it’s just a matter of time that we’re going to get married, and I want you to know, right now, that I’d marry you in a minute.” Frank caressed her arm and smiled crookedly, his trademark loving grin. “I sensed that you weren’t ready, and I was waiting for you to come around, but if you’re ready, I’m ready. Hell, I’m more than ready. I’ve got five years on you. I can’t wait to make babies and buy a house of our own. In fact, Judy—”
“No, stop.” Judy felt a bolt of alarm, realizing from the look in his eyes that he was about to propose. “Frank, listen to me. I don’t think I’m ready. I’m not ready.”
“I don’t believe you,” Frank said softly, stroking her arm. “I think you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“I think you’re scared of taking it to the next level, which is natural, or you’re waiting to make partner, which I get, but I say enough is enough. It’s time I made an honest woman of you.” Frank took her hands in his and began to lower himself off the chair, as if he were going to kneel on bended knee, but Judy yanked her hands away.
“No, Frank, I”—Judy felt pain knife her heart, but realized what she had to do, to be fair to him—“I know what I feel, and I don’t want us to get married.”
Frank’s lips parted, and he eased back onto the chair. “You mean now, right?”
Judy’s mouth went dry. “No. I mean ever.”
Frank recoiled slowly, his dark eyebrows lifting in astonishment. “I don’t get it. You love me, right?”
“Yes, I love you. But I don’t think we should get married.”
“Ever?”
“Ever.”
Frank blinked a few times, then his eyes filmed, but he masked his emotions with a rueful smile. “Oh, man, this sucks. I’m trying to propose, and you’re trying to break up.”
“I’m really sorry,” Judy told him, from her very soul. She met his eye, even though she was responsible for the hurt that was plain in them. “I wish it were otherwise because you’re wonderful, you really are.”
“Not wonderful enough,” Frank said, pursing his lips, but without rancor in his tone.
“Wonderful enough, but that’s not the point.” Judy flashed unaccountably on what her mother had told her, about how nature couldn’t be denied. “We’re just not a good pair. We don’t fit together so well, when it comes down to it.”
“But we love each other.”
“We do, but we’re not right for each other.”
“That sounds like something a lawyer would say,” Frank said, with a shaky smile.
“There’s a reason for that.” Judy felt her eyes film. She’d come here for comfort, not to end their relationship, but it looked like it was happening and she knew it was the right thing.
“Well. Okay.” Frank exhaled, angry. “I certainly don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t appreciate me. I don’t have to.”
“I agree, you don’t, and you shouldn’t.”
“You’re making a huge mistake.”
“I could be, I know,” Judy told him, meaning it.
“But you’re doing it anyway.”
“I have to.” Judy meant that, too, somehow.
Frank met her eye, wounded but still proud. “So that’s that?”
“Yes.”
“You’re something, Carrier,” Frank said, shaking his head, pained.
“I’m sorry.”
“Gimme a hug, woman.” Frank raised his arms for a final embrace, and Judy almost melted.
“I’d love to,” she said, with feeling.
Chapter Thirty-five
Judy got off the elevator and walked through an empty reception area, barely glancing at the gleamy ROSATO & DINUNZIO plaque, feeling lost and rudderless. She hadn’t known where else to go except to work, because she didn’t want to go home and deal with her mother, or rather, her aunt. The lights were on in the office, but she doubted that Bennie or anybody else was in, because the only sound was a vacuum cleaner and the cleaning staff never started until the lawyers had gone.
She took a right down the hallway and spotted the black electrical wire running into her office, so she ducked her head in and waved to the cleaner, an older woman who looked up, startled, then waved back with a reassured smile. Judy turned around and walked down the hall to her new war room, where she paused in the threshold, taking in the scene. Allegra must have worked her little buns off because the cardboard boxes were gone, evidently broken down and whisked away. Instead, red accordion files, each one representing a separate case, were lined up on the conference table in three rows, like so many legal dominoes. Next to them sat a stapled list.
Judy walked over, set her purse on the table, and picked
up the list. New Matters, it read at the top, and she skimmed the list of case captions, organized in alphabetical order: Morris Abellmen v. Bendaflex industries, Inc., Sam Atwater v. Bendaflex industries, Inc., Melissa Baxter v. Bendaflex industries, Inc. She flipped the pages idly, coming to the end, which was case number 76, Jennifer Zwitz v. Bendaflex industries, Inc.
Judy set the sheet down, reached for the first accordion file, and pulled out the pleading index, a long binder that held all of the papers filed with the Court during the case. She sank into a chair at the head of the conference table and flipped through the cleaning index, skimming the Complaint, the defendant company’s Answer, and an endless series of interrogatories, losing focus as she read on. She kept thinking of Frank, hugging her one last time. Then her mother, talking about the problem. And Aunt Barb, lying alone in a hospital bed, afraid that she would die before she could answer the questions of her only daughter. And poor Iris, whose death could be mourned, if not completely understood. And a priest, a man of God, dead.
Judy let the pleadings of index flop closed, and her thoughts finally came to rest on Domingo, the young man who had translated for her at the barracks. Her heart went out to him, and Iris, Frank, her mother, Aunt Barb, and Father Keegan as she eased back in her padded chair and faced her damages cases. She realized that she was surrounded on all sides, by all sorts of damage. In her work, in her family, in the man she loved, and in the world entire.
She closed her eyes, feeling a wave of exhaustion and profound sadness wash over her, not for herself, but for everyone. And when she felt herself drifting into sleep, she let slumber come, surrendering.
She woke up to the sound of her cell phone ringing and opened her eyes, trying to orient herself. She was still in the conference room, and the windows were still dark, so it was before dawn. Her cell phone rang again, the sound emanating from her purse, and she reached for it, worried. The call could have something to do with Aunt Barb.
Judy opened the flap to her purse and quickly pulled out the phone, and the screen said 5:06, with an UNKNOWN NUMBER in the 999 area code. “Hello?” she said, rubbing her face to wake up.
“Miss Judy, is that you?” asked a man with a thick Spanish accent, and Judy recognized the voice, though he was slurring his words as if he had been drinking.
“Domingo?”
“Yes, Miss Judy, it’s me. I need to see you. I need to see you right away.”
“What about?” Judy wondered where he had gotten her cell number, then remembered it was on her business card, which she had given him.
“I need money, Miss Judy. I need money to get out of here. I need to go far away from these men, these bad men.”
“Are you okay?” Judy asked, alarmed. “Have you been drinking?”
“A thousand dollars, Miss Judy. You have that much money, you are a lawyer.”
“Where are you, at the barracks?”
“No, I left. If you bring me the money, I will tell you what you want to know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bring the money. I know a place to meet. Don’t tell anyone. No police, no one else. Just you. Now.”
“Now? I’m in the city. I don’t understand. What’ll you tell me?”
“Pay me, and I will tell you what they did to Iris.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Judy raced west, as the sun rose behind her in a clear sky, spilling brightness into the back window of her VW Beetle. She’d hit the highway before rush-hour traffic, having made great time to Chester County. The dashboard clock read 6:15, and she zoomed through East Grove, a small town consisting of an off-brand gas station and a Turkey Hill convenience store. The farther from the city Judy got, the more she left behind what was going on in her personal life and turned her attention to Iris’s death. She’d been right that it had been a murder, and that fueled her. She’d tried to convince Domingo on the phone to let her go to the police, but he’d insisted that he wouldn’t tell her anything if she did. She’d complied so far, but intended to convince him to notify the authorities, though she had plans even if he didn’t.
She accelerated onto a paved country road, then turned left and right, following the GPS directions past fenced pastures with grazing horses in muddy blankets, then long stretches of cornfield, and acres of open space, covered with underbrush. She was heading for a sandwich shop in East Grove, which Domingo had said was hidden enough for their meeting, and her heart began to hammer from a half a mile away. She took another right, then left, in light traffic, mostly pickup trucks, one full of baled hay, and a rusty red Farmall tractor, which pulled over to let her pass.
She spotted an Agway feed store up ahead, then the coffee shop came into view, a white shack with a faded sign that read HALTMAN’S HOAGIES. The two stores sat together alongside the road, and beyond them stretched yet another open field thick with underbrush, then in the distance, a large bluish building with a corrugated roof. Birds flew over the building, seeming to congregate, and Judy didn’t know why until she pulled into the side parking lot next to the sandwich shop, turned off the engine, braked, and stepped out of her car. The air reeked of compost, and she assumed that the building out back was a large mushroom grower, which could explain why Domingo had said that nobody ate at the sandwich shop.
Judy could barely take the stench, trying not to breathe as she hurried past a white Ford pickup, went around the building, and entered the sandwich shop, which was practically empty. Domingo had told her that he’d meet her at six thirty, and she was early, so she didn’t worry that he’d be a no-show. There were two rows of small white tables on the right, and on the left was a stop-time soda fountain with an older man behind the counter, wearing a white apron over his T-shirt and pants. He was filling up a line of plastic catsup bottles, balancing one upside down on top of another, and he looked up when Judy came in.
“What can I do you for?” he asked, with a smile.
“Coffee and a doughnut would be great, thanks.” Judy crossed to the counter and peered at the doughnuts sitting on a cake dish underneath a cloudy plastic dome. Her stomach was too jumpy to eat, but she wanted to get some for Domingo. “What do you suggest, glazed or plain?”
“I’d suggest you go to McDonald’s,” the old man answered, with a dry chuckle.
“What makes you say that? The smell outside?”
“Heck no, I’m used to that. None of us smell it anymore. I meant the pastry. It’s day-old, and my wife is the baker.”
Judy smiled. “I’ll take my chances with two glazed and two coffees, please.” She checked her watch, but it was only 6:27. “Which mushroom grower is back there?”
“In the back field? That’s not a grower. That’s the plant where they treat the compost, then it gets trucked to the growers. The growers don’t treat their own compost.” The old man slid the glass pot from an old Bunn coffeemaker and filled a white mug, the pour making a glug-glug sound.
“I didn’t know you had to treat compost. I thought it was just horse manure.”
“No, it’s horse, chicken, and whatever chemicals they put in it, then they wash it and dry it out. They gotta treat it, you know, make it sanitary, to grow mushrooms on it. Big government got its eye out, you know, comes out here to inspect.” The old man put the two mugs of coffee on the yellowed counter, picked up a plate, and lifted up the lid of the cake dish. “One down, one to go.”
“Thanks.”
“You go pick a table and I’ll come serve you.” The old man retrieved two doughnuts with plastic tongs and put them on the same plate, then reached for a dented stainless steel tray.
“Perfect.” Judy turned around, scanned the tables, and made her way to one in the corner, where they wouldn’t be seen by anybody who came in. The old man followed her, setting down the coffees and the doughnut plate with a napkin.
“Enjoy your meal,” he said, with a wink, then returned to the counter while Judy sat down, taking the seat facing the door. She put her phone on the table and slung her
shoulder bag on the back of her chair. She sipped her coffee, which was bitter and predictably did nothing to settle her stomach. She checked her watch again, and it read 6:33, though when she looked up, Domingo was coming through the door.
His young expression looked grave, his handsome mouth an unsmiling line, and his bright dark eyes seemed sunken, as if he had been awake all night, hung over, or both. He flashed her an uncertain smile, and she smiled back as he walked toward her table, removing his hands from the pockets of a black hoodie, which he had on with a T-shirt, low-slung jeans, and flat sneakers.
“Domingo, hi, please, sit down.” Judy pushed the coffee mug and plate of doughnuts to his side of the table.
“Thank you, I’m so hungry.” Domingo took a chair, gulped some coffee, and set down the mug with a clunk. “Did you bring the money?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see.”
“Okay.” Judy reached for her purse, slid out the white envelope, and passed it to him across the table. She’d gotten the cash from the office’s petty cash and left a personal check in its place.
“Thank you, Miss Judy.” Domingo took the envelope quickly, folded it in half, and stuck it in the pocket of his hoodie. “I am sorry about Carlos, what he did to you.”
“It’s okay.”
“Your mouth, it hurts, from him?” Domingo motioned to his lips.
“No, thanks. How are you? I’m worried about you.”
“I will be okay with money.” Domingo smiled warmly, seeming to relax. He grabbed a doughnut and took a big bite, then another. “I go away, to New York.”
“Why there?”
“My uncle, he washes dishes in a restaurant, a nice restaurant.” Domingo took two more bites and finished the doughnut. “He said he can get me a job. He likes New York very much. I see it on the TV, Saturday Night Live. It looks fun.”
“It is fun,” Judy said, touched.
“I have to go away from Carlos and Roberto.” Domingo’s brief smile vanished. “They are not good man. They are the worst man in the world.”
Betrayed: A Rosato & DiNunzio Novel (Rosato & Associates Book 13) Page 24
