An Officer and a Gentle Woman

by Doreen Owens Malek

  Lafferty stared at her. How could she be so detached, acting the suburban hostess with such aplomb? Did she really have no idea that she was sinking slowly in quicksand?

  Alicia looked back at him and could see exactly what he was thinking. He watched her draw a deep breath and pass a slim hand lightly over her hair.

  “Yes, Detective, I have a complete understanding of my situation,” she said flatly, answering the question in his eyes. “If I didn’t before, Mr. Landau, the attorney my grandmother engaged, explained it to me very thoroughly this morning. What you see before you is reliance on form, falling back on ritual when you can’t think what else to do. Though I must confess I don’t know how much longer I can maintain this act. It’s beginning to wear on me.”

  “That’s understandable,” Lafferty said.

  Alicia sighed, her expression grim. “Would you like to hear what my famous attorney told me, Detective Lafferty?”

  Lafferty opened his mouth to reply negatively, but she went ahead before he could speak.

  “He told me that he doesn’t care if I’m guilty, that it doesn’t matter to him.”

  Lafferty didn’t comment. That sounded like Landau, a high-priced mouthpiece with a florid face, snow-white iridescent hair and the genial benevolence of a carnival showman.

  “He said that if I plead innocent and the judgment goes against me, as it surely will in his opinion, I could receive the maximum penalty,” Alicia went on. “If I plead guilty with special circumstances, a good choice according to him, I could get off with the minimum at a white-collar jail, tennis everyday, library privileges, movies every week, early probation, the works. You will not be surprised to learn that pleading guilty is what he advised.”

  Lafferty met her gaze slowly.

  “It did not seem to interest him that I didn’t do it,” Alicia added dryly. “In fact, my insistence that I didn’t kill Joe seemed to annoy him a great deal, as if I were dragging in irrelevant information that would just muck up the works.”

  Lafferty looked away from her. He didn’t want to tell her his opinion of Landau, whom he had last seen on television wearing a double-breasted sharkskin suit with spectator shoes and a flowered tie, holding forth on the protections afforded criminal defendants by the fifth amendment. Lafferty detested celebrity lawyers, and he thought Landau was among the worst of them.

  Alicia closed her eyes, recalling the interview. “He kept calling me little lady and acting like I was some feeble-minded female who had gotten her silly self into a big bad mess and now had to be bailed out of it by good old Uncle Harry. But when I resisted his wisdom about my case and expressed dismay at the idea of pleading guilty to something I had not done, Uncle Harry became flinty fairly quickly.”

  “So the choice was to do what he told you or go elsewhere?” Lafferty asked quietly, getting drawn into the conversation despite his resolve to remain detached.

  “Pretty much. I think I will be going elsewhere.” She laughed shortly. “Not that I have a clue where else to go,” she said.

  “Mrs. Walker...” Lafferty began.

  “He kept referring to what ‘we’ were going to do, as if we were both facing a criminal indictment,” Alicia murmured, not looking at Lafferty as she relived it, talking to herself. “He is not charged with murder, I am. And what kind of attorney doesn’t care if his client is guilty? He didn’t even consider the possibility that someone was setting me up.”

  “Who would do that, and why?” Lafferty asked.

  Alicia glanced at him. “You sound like Uncle Harry. That’s exactly what he said. And when I couldn’t supply a list of alternative suspects he said that ‘we’d’ better take a long look at reality and prepare my case accordingly. By that time I was already firing him in my mind.”

  “Mrs. Walker, I really shouldn’t be talking about your case with you,” Lafferty said flatly, falling back on correct procedure to stem the flow of her discourse. He was distressed by the lifeless, hopeless tone of her voice.

  “According to Mr. Landau,” Alicia continued, “all of this means that I had better take whatever deal is offered and be thankful for it.”

  “That’s usually the approach of an attorney who feels there is no case to argue in favor of his client.”

  Alicia shook her head. “I know it doesn’t look good for me, Detective Lafferty, but I refuse to believe that my only recourse is the jaded representation of Harry Landau, the last refuge of the guilty defendant.”

  Lafferty didn’t comment. He agreed with her about Landau, but it was not his place to say so.

  Alicia met his gaze, and she seemed to realize suddenly that she had been rambling. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Of course I shouldn’t be burdening you with this. Please excuse me. I don’t know quite how to act under these circumstances. I have never been a murder suspect before, and the protocol is new to me.”

  “No problem,” he answered shortly, relieved that she would now stop confiding in him. He wanted to know what was happening with her, more than he should, but at the same time he was aware that he was pushing the limits of professional behavior by conversing with her on this subject.

  “Well,” she said briskly, rising, “let me see about some lunch for you.” She took a step, then faltered, her hand clutching at the back of the sofa.

  He was at her side in an instant, setting his drink down on an end table and catching her as she fell. She felt like a bundle of sticks in his arms, her bones as light as air. He went to put her on the sofa and then remembered about the boy coming home for lunch. He didn’t want the kid to see his mother passed out on the couch. He earned her into the hall, looking around for the servant, then took her up the staircase to her room.

  Her lashes fluttered as he set her down on the bed. He let her go reluctantly, cradling her slim shoulders in the silken blouse an instant longer than he had to, inhaling the clean scent of her skin, her hair. As he released her she stirred and murmured, “Oh, no. Did I faint?”

  “I think so,” he replied, sitting next to her.

  “I haven’t done that in years,” she said, blinking and struggling into a sitting position. “I used to do it all the time, low blood sugar or stress or something. Did you catch me?”

  “I had to, or you would have hit the floor.”

  She flushed deeply. “How awful for you to be caught in such a situation. I really have been a problem since you first met me, haven’t I?”

  They looked at one another, Lafferty studying the fine, flawless quality of her skin, Alicia noticing the row of lashes that gave depth and character to his eyes. They stood frozen in place when they heard Maizie’s voice from the intercom on the wall.

  “Mrs. Walker?” the housekeeper called.

  They started guiltily, like clandestine lovers caught in a stolen embrace.

  “I’m up here, Maizie, in the bedroom,” Alicia called, thumbing back her hair and slipping her legs over the edge of the bed. Lafferty moved to assist her, and as she rose she turned against him. His arm came around her tightly, and she allowed herself the luxury of accepting it, shocked by how much she suddenly seemed to need his support. Her head fell against his shoulder and she felt his answering movement, the muscles tensing in his arm, his back. He smelled of soap and starch and the tropical wool of his suit jacket, and she had an irrational impulse to fling her arms around him and bury her face in his chest. Here was the strength she’d sought in Joe and never found, here was the basic decency she’d yearned for when she discovered her husband didn’t know the meaning of the word. She sighed and clutched him, her eyes closing, and she felt the hardness of his response against her thighs.

  They both heard the housekeeper’s footfall in the hall and she stepped away from him just as Maizie came through the door.

  “Mrs. Walker, what’s wrong?” Maizie asked, glancing from one to the other in concern.

  “Nothing, Maizie. I felt a little faint and Detective Lafferty brought me up here, that’s all.” Alicia avoided looking at him
as he made his way to the door.

  “It’s no wonder you’re fainting, you don’t eat enough to keep a bird alive,” Maizie said. “Do you want me to call Dr. Gleason?”

  “No, no, I’ll be fine. Is Joey home yet?”

  “That’s why I was looking for you, he just got here. You’re having some lunch with him, if I have to force feed you.”

  “I’ll be going now, Mrs. Walker, if you’re sure you’re all right,” Lafferty said from the doorway, his expression unreadable.

  “Yes, thank you, Detective. Goodbye.”

  “I’ll show you out,” Maizie said.

  “Please send Joey up to me,” Alicia said to Maizie, and watched as the two of them left. She sat on the edge of the bed and lay back against the pillows, staring at the ceiling.

  The incident with Lafferty was not significant, she knew that. It only seemed that way because a man had not touched her with longing in so many years that she had almost forgotten what it was like. Some of Joe’s aides had looked at her, sure, but they had been far too intimidated by him to try anything. It was a heady experience to feel the tension of desire in a man’s body after so long, even if he would have responded that way to any woman.

  She closed her eyes and put the back of her arm across her forehead. Joe had just died, and here she was lusting after the cop who had arrested her for his murder. Of course she’d had no relationship with Joe, so it was not exactly disloyal to think about someone else. Of course nothing would happen with Lafferty, because she’d be in jail. The fates were surely standing in the wings jeering at her, as they had been for years. All that time playing the loving wife, covering up the emptiness and the lone-liness—maybe it had driven her crazy and she just didn’t know it. Her behavior lately was not exactly the hallmark of stability; an attractive man assists her when she’s fainting and she’s ready to fling herself into his arms. She had to calm down and concentrate on the main problem at hand: defending herself against the murder charge. Everything else was secondary.

  “Hi, Mom,” Joey said from the doorway.

  She smiled at her son.

  Well, not everything.

  Lafferty came in from a game of handball that night and headed straight for the refrigerator, popping the tab on a can of beer. Leaning against the counter of his kitchenette, he took a long drink. The exercise had not accomplished its objective, it hadn’t eradicated his visit to Scarsdale from his mind. It was not exactly his practice to play clutch and grab with murder suspects, but then again, most of them had few teeth and reptilian tattoos and bore no resemblance to Alicia Walker.

  He sighed heavily and looked around the room. The apartment was a mess, but then, folded stacks of underwear and neatly hung suit pants made him nervous, anyway. His ex-wife had marveled at the chaos that traveled with him, from which he always emerged as spotless as tennis whites. She had loved him madly, but divorced him anyway when he wouldn’t quit the police force and go to law school.

  Lafferty rubbed his hair, still damp from his shower, and took a long pull of his beer. He glanced out the window idly, then more intently as a limo pulled to a stop at the curb in front of his building. Limousines were not a common sight in his area of Queens, and especially not on his street, which was lined with brick tenements inhabited by moderate-income types. He watched as a chauffeur got out of the front seat and opened the back door for an elderly lady who emerged slowly, walking stick in hand. He looked on for a moment longer and then remembered his cheeseburger. He unwrapped it and put it into the microwave. When his doorbell rang, he looked at the door in surprise, as if it had spoken. Had he forgotten to pay the paperboy? He strolled barefoot across his sister’s cast-off carpet and yanked open the door.

  The old lady from the limo was standing in the hall.

  “Detective Lafferty?” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Hannah Green, Alicia Walker’s grandmother. We spoke on the telephone regarding Alicia’s children. May I come in?”

  Dumbfounded, Lafferty stood aside as she proceeded into his living room, looking around at the barbells stacked in a corner, the books piled randomly on the coffee table, the discarded shoes on the floor. She watched him, boyish in his college gym shorts and NYPD T-shirt, as he shoved a stack of papers onto the floor to make room for her in the most comfortable chair. She sat, leaning her stick against the arm, and waited as Lafferty cleared a space for himself on the couch. When he looked at her, his forearms resting on his knees, she smiled.

  “My sources tell me you’re the only one on the police force who is questioning this frame that’s been constructed around my granddaughter,” she said.

  Lafferty stared at her, a slight old woman dressed in black taffeta with a fichu of lace at her throat fastened by an ivory cameo. Her sources? What did she have—ESP? The only one he had talked to was Chandler, and Chandler would rather spit out his tongue than give away inside information, especially to somebody like Hannah Green. Who was she paying?

  Mrs. Green read his mind. “I haven’t bribed anyone, Detective, nor do I intend to do so. If District Attorney Woods got wind of it, my granddaughter would be sacrificed.” She waved her hand dismissively at his stare. “Rich people have means, that’s how we stay rich.”

  “I can’t discuss your granddaughter’s case with you, Mrs. Green,” he said, finding his voice at last.

  “I understand that.”

  “I’m sorry you came all the way out here for nothing, but—”

  The buzzer on the microwave went off loudly.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Dinner,” he said.

  “Oh, am I interrupting you?” she asked politely.

  “It can wait.”

  “May I go on?”

  “Mrs. Green, as I said, I don’t think—”

  She held up her hand. “Please, indulge me. Just give me a few minutes of your time.”

  He hesitated, then nodded.

  She linked her gnarled hands in her lap, a huge diamond winking on her ring finger like a pier light.

  “Alicia was a very sheltered child, an innocent, which contributed, I think, to her infatuation with Joe Walker. She was twenty when she met him, twenty-one when they married, and she thought he was Adonis and Jack Kennedy and Andrew Carnegie rolled into one. I had misgivings but finally gave my blessing to the match. He could offer security and stability and she had a family that went back to the Mayflower. If our name was older than Joe’s, well, this is America, is it not? The marriage seemed a fair bargain.”

  Lafferty said nothing.

  She sighed. She brought her stick round in front of her and folded her hands on top of it

  “Things degenerated rapidly. She found Joe with some woman two weeks after they came back from their honeymoon. At the end of a year Alicia wore the expression of a survivor of a plane crash, but she was already pregnant and determined to make a go of it. After the second child was born they led separate lives. She ignored the absences, the affairs, what have you, but her tolerance took a terrible toll on her nerves. She became distant, reserved, even withdrawn—the woman you see today. I told her to divorce that bastard six years ago, but she wouldn’t do anything to harm the children or expose them to scandal. Joe made it clear that he didn’t want a divorce—very bad for the image of a public figure—and that if she filed it would be a bitter battle and the children would suffer. And then, of course, with his entry into politics the intact family became even more important, and she went along with it, again for the sake of her kids.”

  Lafferty waited.

  “District Attorney Woods would now like us to believe that this same woman would shoot her husband in front of several reliable witnesses and expose her children to a hundred times more ridicule and abuse than a divorce would cause. Does that reasoning make sense to you, Detective?”

  “She’s been positively identified by Walker’s press aide, a man who knew her for years.”

  “It could have been an actress sele
cted for the resemblance, dressed and coiffed and prepped to impersonate Alicia,” she said, watching his reaction.

  “I doubt if such a performance would fool a man who saw her so frequently,” Lafferty said.

  “Why not? At a time when everyone is shocked and horrified there is mass confusion and mistakes are made.”

  “Your granddaughter’s fingerprints were found on the gun, which was hidden in her town house.”

  “It was her gun! Joe bought it and kept it for prowlers, I’m sure she told you that.”

  “Nobody else’s prints were on it.”

  “Then the murderer wore gloves.”

  “Mrs. Green,” Lafferty said, rising, “I can’t be drawn into this discussion.”

  “Why would she kill him?” Hannah Green persisted. “After putting up with him all these years? Do you think she had a psychotic episode? Talk to her doctor, she’s as sane as I am.” She leaned forward intently. “I understand District Attorney Woods. I understand that he has earned everything he has by himself and must make political hay out of this case to get ahead. He doesn’t have private means and so must pursue those avenues which open up to him. Under other circumstances I would find his determination admirable, but he is not going to climb over my granddaughter’s body to get what he wants.”

  “Woods doesn’t have to manufacture a case, Mrs. Green. It’s already there.”

  “Don’t you care that you’re about to participate in a miscarriage of justice?” she demanded.

  “You could be wrong about this, Mrs. Green.”

  “You sense it, too, don’t you?” she said. “You feel that something is wrong.”

  “My job is to go with the available evidence, not with my feelings.”

  She sat back in his chair and fixed him with a gimlet stare. “Detective Lafferty, I am eighty-two years old, and I have seen a lot of things and known a great many people. I am not wrong about this. Alicia is innocent.”

  Lafferty faced her down, feeling as if he were back in elementary school, on the carpet before a principal who was deciding whether or not to suspend him.