I didn’t care. I sat in front of the door hoping death would come quickly, realizing the sink, the window, were only temporary respites. The smoke would eventually invade my lungs wherever I was, whatever I did, and I would die. Then the flames would lick at my extremities, nibble and gouge me to death with fiery teeth, and I would end up as what Duncan Pitt had called a roast. A piece of charred meat.
I heard whimpering. I looked around wildly, then realized it was me. I hated myself at that moment, hated my weakness. I sobbed aloud, pounded and kicked the door. I think I screamed out the words that had made me a lawyer at the age of four: It’s not fair! I threw myself against the door in a paroxysm of rage, the kind of tantrum toddlers throw in the supermarket, then sat spent and staring.
It was time to get up. I did it mechanically, wearily, yet with a deep and utter calm. I walked to the window, leaned out as far as I could, and took long yoga breaths. I tried to hold the air in as long as I could, but I was stopped by racking coughs. I brought up acrid black sputum and spat it into the courtyard, then inhaled again and again, gradually replacing the smoke with life-giving freshness. The cold air felt good to my sweaty, tear-streaked face, and I finally woke up enough to wipe my running nose with my now-dry shirt. I was almost alive again.
Alive enough to realize I wasn’t whimpering or kicking anymore. Alive enough to think. Sound was out. The hearing people within earshot had put me where I was. The people who could help me couldn’t hear. What could they do? They could, I decided, see. What I had to do was give them something to see.
I bent down and picked up the weight I’d used to break the window. It had hit a bar and fallen back inside the room. It was a small hand-weight; probably Gorgeous George lifted it with his pinky. But to me it was heavy. And I had to hurl it out the window, across the courtyard, through the alley, and out into the street. This from the girl chosen last for every softball game Chagrin Falls, Ohio, ever had.
I swung back my arm, trying not to notice the immediate protest lodged by stiff shoulder muscles. I flung the weight, holding my breath involuntarily. It got about halfway across the courtyard, landing with a dull thud even the hearing wouldn’t have noticed. The second weight I threw went almost to the alley. I was getting better. The third hit the opposite wall, chipping a brick. The fourth was the last one I felt I could throw with any success, and I stood in indecision, hating to let it go, when I suddenly had a flash of inspiration. The jump ropes! I ran to the wall, through the black cloud of smoke, ripped the ropes of the wall in one motion, then ran back to the window, gulping more air and spitting out smoke. When I was reasonably recovered, I pulled the handles off the ropes and tied them together with hands steadier than I thought possible.
I threw without hesitation, my aim good enough this time to send the weight into the alley itself. I had to smile with pride. That pitch could have evened a lot of scores back in Chagrin Falls. I grinned as I pulled the weight back in and prepared to try again.
I had my arm raised when I saw it. A movement at first, it soon resolved itself into a sleeve, and then a jacket—a jacket with the colors of the Unknown Homicides on the back!
The boy was facing the street, away from me. I had to force down the shout that wouldn’t be heard. Summoning up everything I had, I flung the weight into the courtyard, into the alley, where it landed just short of the boy. Anyone else would have turned to look at the source of the unexpected sound, but the boy just stood.
It was back to prayers again. I was afraid to haul the weight in, afraid my next try wouldn’t get it that far. All the boy had to do was turn around and look down. I begged him to do it. The sight of one of George’s weights attached to a rope would have to lead to an investigative walk into the courtyard, where he’d see me waving frantically in the window. My mind screamed what I knew it would be futile to cry aloud.
The boy in the alley walked away as quickly and silently as he had come. I saw red, then black, before my eyes as I hung, defeated, in the window.
At first, I didn’t even hear the noise, but then, restored to my senses, it sounded as loud and welcome as any sound I’d ever heard. It was the rasp of a key turning in the lock on the steel door.
Frantic, I ran for the door, my breath coming in sobs and coughs; when the door opened, I rushed through it—and flung myself into the arms of Ira Bellfield.
It was like a scene from a romance novel. I buried my head in his coat and sobbed with relief, my fingers kneading his back. His arms were around me, holding me up, and his voice whispered soothingly, “It’s okay now. The fire’s out. Don’t cry.” It was a touching moment, except for one thing—I was still convinced it was Ira who’d tried to kill me in the first place.
We hobbled out of the building together. My legs were still too wobbly to support me on their own. I wanted to sit down, but the cold, broken pavement in front of the building didn’t appeal to me. “I’m taking you to my car,” Ira said in my ear. “You’ll be out of the wind there, anyway.” I didn’t protest as he opened the door of a black Mercedes and gently lowered me into the passenger seat. I leaned back against the leather upholstery and closed my eyes. I was no longer crying, but tears coursed down my cheeks.
A touch on my shoulder startled me. I jumped, then turned to see Tito, looking anxious, holding my now-grimy down coat. I mustered a smile and let him tuck it around me like a blanket. I was trying to reassure him that I was all right, and finding it pretty hard going without Frankie the interpreter, when Bellfield came back, followed by the rest of the Homicides. He handed me a Styrofoam cup. “Coffee,” he explained. “I thought you’d like something to drink.” I tore off the lid and sucked thirstily at the deli coffee Bellfield had brought. It was overmilked, oversugared, and utterly wonderful.
“It was just a couple of mattresses set on fire,” Bellfield said, gesturing toward the building. “Turk put the fire out with an extinguisher he keeps in the basement. Coulda been kids.” He gave me an appraising look, then added, “Anyway, no harm done. Thank God for that.”
“You thank God,” I snapped, my voice an ugly and unexpected croak. “Kids, my ass. Somebody locked me in that room—and the only person I know has a key is that gorilla of yours. Turk, is it? What’s his last name?” I glared at Bellfield. “I’ll need it for the police report.”
I wasn’t sure what reaction I expected, but what I got surprised me. “Let’s not be hasty, here, Miss Jameson,” he said in a smooth, confident tone. “If the police get into this, they could hear evidence that could cut both ways.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Those boys of yours”—Bellfield gestured at the Homicides, who were watching us intently but without comprehension—“have already been charged with arson once.”
“Why would any of them want to hurt me?” I responded with scorn. “I’m on their side, and they know it.”
Bellfield shrugged. “Some people are crazy about fires,” he said. “They don’t care who they hurt as long as they get to see the pretty flames. Or maybe,” he went on, “it was an accident. Maybe somebody tossed a match in the wrong place, and being deaf, didn’t hear the flames start to crackle. Could be a lot of explanations. ’Course,” he went on, giving me a piercingly shrewd glance from under the gray hatbrim, “it’s up to the fire marshal to decide what really happened.”
The fire marshal. Duncan Pitt. My heart sank, and the anger that had led me to threaten Bellfield with the police evaporated. Pitt would write in his report whatever Bellfield told him to write. Turk wouldn’t be mentioned at all, and if anyone got the blame, it would be the Unknown Homicides. Maybe someday, the whole mess would be straightened out, but in the meantime, I’d be a complaining witness against my own client. It would be the end of my representation of Tito Fernandez.
Suspicions creased my forehead. I turned away, ostensibly to finish my coffee and dispose of the cup in Bellfield’s plastic litter bag, but really to think. Had that been the reason for the fire—to trap me into f
iling a complaint and removing me as Tito’s lawyer once he turned out to be the person charged? If so, why was Bellfield telling me his plans before the trap was sprung?
It made no sense, and yet, clearly, he had placed me in danger. Equally clearly, he had rescued me from the danger. Conclusion: He wanted me scared, not dead. I turned from the inside of the car toward Bellfield’s face. It wore the same mildly solicitous expression he’d worn before, but the eyes seemed implacable, cold, calculating. I shuddered, a great racking shiver that traveled through my body and made the coat jump off my shoulders. If Bellfield wanted me scared, I admitted sourly, he’d achieved his purpose.
“You know,” he said conversationally, “it’s just as well they can’t hear. Some things you and I ought to talk about that maybe it’s better they don’t hear.”
I had to clamp my lips shut to keep my teeth from chattering. It made for clipped answers. “Like what?”
“It doesn’t have to be this way.” He shook his head sadly. “All this court business. You and me on opposite sides.”
I couldn’t think of a two-word answer, so I just sat, trying to look receptive. In truth, I was curious as hell to see where this was leading.
“All I wanted,” he went on, “was to find out who torched my building. I thought it was your boy. Maybe”—he spread his hands and smiled ingratiatingly—“maybe I was wrong. Maybe Turk got the wrong idea. He’s a good super, Turk, but a pretty dim bulb, if you know what I mean. Plus, he hates your boys like poison, calls ’em dummies. He was always on my case to get ’em outa the building.”
“I know,” I said. Clenched teeth made the answer sound snappy, so I went on. “So what?”
“So maybe he jumped to conclusions when he seen your boy inna hallway there. Maybe your kid did get the kerosene on him from slipping in a puddle. Who knows? I wasn’t there that night, all I know is what I get from Turk. And if he was wrong, or just saying something to get your kid locked up, well, it’d be a real shame for a kid like that to do time for something he didn’t do, wouldn’t it?”
I was having a hard time accepting Ira Bellfield, the voice on the tape, as a passionate advocate for the rights of deaf defendants. What, I wondered, did he really want?
“I don’t know much about the law,” Bellfield went on, “so let me ask you something. What would happen in court if there wasn’t enough evidence against your boy? If, say, one of the witnesses didn’t show up in court? Or told the DA his memory wasn’t too good? They’d throw the case out of court, right?”
“It depends,” I answered. I was playing for time. This was the kind of conversation lawyers are taught to be very careful about. One wrong word and I was up to my ears in collusion. The bar association could get very interested. “My advice,” I said slowly and deliberately, in case the conversation was being recorded, “would be for that witness to come to court and tell the truth.”
Bellfield nodded his approval, whether of my advice or of my discretion, I wasn’t sure. “But sometimes,” he said insinuatingly, “it’s hard to say what the truth is. It could be one thing one day and another thing tomorrow. It all depends.”
“On what?” My teeth had stopped chattering, but terse answers had become a habit.
“On which side of the bread the butter’s on,” he replied. “On whether or not certain people stay out of other people’s business.” He leaned forward, close enough that I could smell his aftershave. “I would advise certain people to do just that. You see where poking your nose into things got you today. It could happen again, lady, and maybe if it did, I wouldn’t be around to help you out of it. Got me?”
I got him, all right. Stepping out of the car, I pulled on my coat with hands that shook and walked away without a word. The Homicides surrounded me, fingers flying, eager to learn what they’d missed. I wanted distance between me and Bellfield, so I kept walking until we were around the corner. Then Frankie stepped in front of me. “Talk,” he ordered, in his eerie voice, “tell us. We have a right to know.”
I sighed. It was true. They did have a right to know. But could I tell them that I could get Tito off the hook if only I’d agree to suppress evidence about Ira Bellfield? Their answer would have to be that Tito should be saved at all costs, regardless of what that meant to Bellfield’s past and future victims. And as Tito’s lawyer, wasn’t that supposed to be my perspective too? Was I in a conflict of interest between living Tito Fernandez and dead Linda Ritchie? If I was, then one of them would have to go.
It didn’t bother me in the least, I realized, that Bellfield would use perjured testimony to release Tito. Since the case against him had been a frame from the beginning, I couldn’t let myself get hung up on the means of opening the trap.
“It could be,” I began carefully, “that some new evidence that could help Tito might turn up. We can’t count on it,” I went on, raising my voice instinctively as the boys began a laughing, back-slapping celebration. Realizing that loudness wasn’t the answer, I grabbed Frankie’s sleeve. “Tell them not to get their hopes up,” I said. “It might not turn out that way.” But it was too late; good news was so rare that they had to enjoy it. Even as Frankie solemnly promised, his grin split his face wide open. He and Tito exchanged open-palm slaps and the boys headed down the street. I realized for the first time that they walked with the same rhythmic beat, the same air of walking to internal rock music, that characterized Hearing ghetto kids.
Watching them, I realized I couldn’t just reject Bellfield’s proposition. For all I knew, he’d punish Tito if I did, coming up with even more phony evidence against him. I owed it to Tito to figure another way out. I thought long and hard as I watched them head for the subway. Tito versus Linda—and Dawn.
In the station, I saw further evidence that the Unknown Homicides had made themselves part of the neighborhood. Under the vivid spray-painted hate slogans Death to the Jews and Death to the Arabs, someone had scrawled, Death to the Hearing.
15
“Taste,” Dorinda urged, holding out a small dish of something tomatoey. I slurped up a spoonful and rolled it around my tongue. Not ratatouille, and not the vegetable stew she’d stopped serving because it was too bland. Whatever this stuff was, blandness was not one of its problems. The taste was familiar, but …
“Goulash!” I exclaimed. “Hungarian goulash without meat! Dorinda, you’re a genius. This stuff has some serious paprika in it.”
Dorinda beamed. “Yeah. I picked it up the other day at the spice market on Reade Street.”
“This is perfect,” I went on. “Noodles or rice?”
“A choice. Whole-wheat noodles or brown rice.”
I groaned. “Dorinda, do yourself a favor. Brown rice if you must, but make it egg noodles. The broad kind, with plenty of butter. Forget cholesterol for once.”
Dorinda wrinkled her forehead in thought. “With poppy seeds?”
“Okay, with poppy seeds. What’s on the side?”
“A red cabbage and apple salad and black bread.”
“Sounds great. Save some for me. I’m afraid I’ll miss lunch tomorrow. I’m starting trial.”
“Which case?” I was pleased to note that even though the noon rush was on, since hiring a third waitress, Dorinda had a minute to talk.
“Terrell Hopkins. The kid with the grandmother.”
“Good luck. Are you ordering now or waiting for someone?”
“Waiting,” I replied, then added, “here she comes now.”
The door opened and Mickey Dechter came in, looking around for me. I waved her over. Her face was red from the windy walk down Court Street. Although the Morning Glory was a long way to travel from Brooklyn Family Court for lunch in January, she’d agreed to meet me here, knowing how dangerous it would be for us to be seen together too close to the court. We were supposed to be on opposite sides.
“Nice place,” she said, settling her coat behind her and looking around. “Real homey. I like that.” The slight Southern accent I’d noticed before came t
hrough loud and clear.
“Where are you from?” I asked. It was question my flat Midwestern A’s had let me in for a good deal.
“You wouldn’t recognize the name,” she replied. “It’s just a one-horse town just outside of Knoxville.” She pronounced it “Knoxvl,” and lifted her voice in a near-question at the end of the phrase.
“What brought you to New York?” I asked, then softened the inquisitory style by remarking, “I’m from Ohio myself. A one-horse town near Cleveland. I came to the city to go to law school.”
“I came with my ex-husband. We met at UT—the University of Tennessee?” Her trick of lifting her voice at the end of statements had me nodding when no answer was required.
“He was in the business college and I was in the school of social work. We met in an industrial psych class. Next thing I knew, we were pinned, and back then in Tennessee, pinned was prett’ near engaged.”
“So you decided to go all the way?”
The grin she gave me showed she was no pure-minded Southern princess. “Honey, we’d already done that in the back of Hal’s ’sixty-three Valiant.”
I laughed. The new waitress came over to take our order. As a regular, I knew what I wanted. “I’ll take the pasta e fagioli,” I said, “with house dressing on the salad.”
“Well, I’ll be! I haven’t seen this item on a menu since I left the Smokies. I didn’t know you Yankees even knew about bean soup and cornbread. I’ll have that, and to hell with my diet!”
“Good choice. Dorinda puts bits of corn in the cornbread and serves it hot. Don’t expect ham in the soup, though. She’s a total vegetarian. Anything that tastes like meat is probably a smoked soybean bit.” I was aware that I was talking about everything except what we’d come here for, but I was unwilling to push my companion. She could be risking her job by talking to me about Arnette Pearson. Still, I decided, someone had to begin, or we’d spend the whole lunch on small talk.
“That’s some difficult case you got me into,” I remarked.
Where Nobody Dies Page 14
