Courting Trouble raa-9

by Lisa Scottoline

  “She mentioned a trust fund.” Anne watched Bennie pull out a sheaf of papers and read through them, her mouth tightening like a rubber band. Anne got a bad feeling. “What’s the matter?”

  “She had an inheritance. Willa’s family was evidently from Holland, Michigan, and her parents died there, two years ago. This is their will. It was probated there.”

  “No. Really?” Anne felt so sad, for Willa. About Willa. She held out her hand for the papers, and Bennie passed them over without a word. They were so cold and white, the paper stiff and unusually thick, folded in thirds. She skipped the boilerplate to the bequest, to see if Willa had any siblings. But the bequest referred only to “our daughter, Willa.” Willa was an only child, and, with the death of her parents, alone in the world. Anne felt her eyes welling up, and bit her lip, but Bennie was already leafing through another set of stapled papers.

  “It looks like the parents had an auto accident, from the executor’s report. Extensive hospital bills were paid by the estate, for both of them. They died within a week of the accident.” Bennie folded up the papers, then dug for more in the folders. “That’s tough, on a girl so young. She must have come here to go to Moore, then her parents were killed and she dropped out. What a shame.”

  Anne wiped her eyes when Bennie bent over, rummaging in the drawer. She didn’t want to explain her feelings to Bennie. She couldn’t explain them to herself.

  “It was a large estate, almost a million dollars. It’s held in trust, wisely invested. I should give the trustee a call, at some point.” Bennie was reading from something that looked like financial schedules. “If Willa lived carefully, as she obviously did, she’d be set for the rest of her life. That’s why she didn’t sell the drawings. She didn’t have to.”

  No, it isn’t, Anne thought, but didn’t say. “So there’s no family to notify,” she said instead, and even those words caught in her throat. It was hard to hold back an overwhelming sadness. Willa lived alone, in a black-and-white world of her own, cutting herself off from everyone around her. The only color in her life was her hair, and that Anne couldn’t quite explain. Willa had only her work for company and she didn’t share even that with anyone. She lead a completely insular life, and Anne sensed it had begun when her parents had been killed. It was a normal response to trauma, and an uncomfortably familiar one.

  “Oh, well.” Bennie returned the documents to the drawer and closed it. “I guess, at this point, I’m fairly convinced that nobody wanted to kill Willa Hansen. Given what we learned today and tonight, I think Kevin is the murderer and you the intended victim. I was wrong. Sorry about that, Murphy. You were right.”

  She was killed because of me. “No I told-you-so here,” Anne said, forcing a pat smile.

  It was late by the time they got to Bennie’s house, and Anne settled onto the warm dining room table, trying to shake her gloom and her fatigue. Bennie had gone to fix some dinner for her and to get Mel a saucer of milk. The cat crouched at Anne’s feet while Bennie’s golden retriever, Bear, snuffled up his fur with a wet nose, leaving slobbery patches in the cat’s usually immaculate coat and misaligning his dark stripes. Anne’s hand hovered protectively nearby. For the dog’s protection.

  “How they doin’?” Bennie called from the kitchen, just out of eyeshot.

  “Oh, they’re becoming fast friends!” Anne called back. Mel took a declawed swipe at Bear, which would remain their little secret. It did nothing to deter the dog, a hundred pounds of red fur with a pink tongue. Bear had been in constant motion, dancing around Mel when Anne first set him on the floor, then bowing in front of him to play, and finally pawing the air between them. She marveled that Bear craved such instant intimacy and attributed it to a disturbing lack of discretion on the animal’s part. In other words, a dog thing.

  “Is the cat okay?” Bennie called out again. From the kitchen came the clink of glasses, and in the living room Mel took another swipe with his paw, which Bear misinterpreted as an invitation to frolic. Anne was getting the distinct impression that goldens believed everyone really loved them, despite any and all evidence to the contrary. They could be the erotomanics of the dog world.

  “Not to worry!” Anne called back.

  “Two percent or light cream?”

  “Two percent is fine!”

  “I have a can of tuna, too.”

  “Great! Thanks!” Anne lifted the cat onto her lap before he blinded his new best friend. Mel settled into Sphinx Cat, and by the time Bennie entered the room with a tray, he looked completely innocent. He was scary-good at it.

  “Here we go,” Bennie said, setting the tray down on the oak table. The tray had a frosted-glass bottom, funky blue handles, and a price tag stuck to the side. $12.98, Michael Graves, on sale at Target. Anne was no sleuth but she figured Bennie didn’t entertain much, and she’d heard something about Bennie breaking up with her live-in boyfriend. Mental note: You can never tell who’s lonely just by looking.

  “Thanks.”

  “Can this tiny thing feed this creature?” Bennie asked, holding up a white ramekin of milk.

  “Sure. Just set it on the floor.”

  “No way. Not with a golden in the tri-state area. Food on the floor is fair game.” Bennie set the ramekin on the dining room table, as Mel watched. “Murphy, you want to show it to him or something?”

  “He sees it. He’ll have some when he’s ready.”

  “Amazing.” Bennie rolled up the sleeves of her workshirt. Between it, her worn shorts, and her slightly grubby bare feet, she looked remarkably comfortable, not only in her own house, but in her own skin. “A dog never delays eating. See?” Bear’s tail wagged like crazy and he was already sniffing the ramekin. He would have snorted it empty if Bennie hadn’t leaned over and moved it out of reach. “I hope the cat doesn’t wait too long to have some.”

  “Guaranteed that he will, for purposes of doggie torture.” Anne stroked Mel’s head and he purred. She reached for her soda and took a long, cold slug. “Thank you for the drink and the hospitality.”

  “I’m happy to do it.” Bennie cocked her head so that a tangle of ponytail tumbled over her shoulder to her breast pocket. “I checked on what I have for dinner. Oranges and three eggs. Sorry, I haven’t had the chance to go food-shopping, with depositions and the near-death experience of one of my best associates.”

  “I’m not really hungry. I usually have cereal for dinner.”

  “That I can cook.” Bennie turned, headed for the kitchen, and returned with two tablespoons, two bowls, a half-quart of Wawa milk, and a box of Shredded Wheat, which she put on the table and sat down in the chair opposite Anne. Track lighting that ringed the room set a soft glow to her face and highlighted her blond hair. “Dinner is served.”

  “Great!” Anne said, though she usually avoided Shredded Wheat. The box remained on the table: squat, red, and remarkably smug for a breakfast food. Its long list of “Nutrition Facts” faced her, reporting alarming amounts of phosphorus, magnesium, zinc, and copper. Metal belonged in plumbing, not breakfast, but Anne reached for the cereal, fixed herself a bowl, and pretended it was Captain Crunch.

  “So, let’s review,” Bennie said, swallowing. “You’ve survived a stalker who wanted to kill you, a client who wanted to fire you, and haircut by office scissors.”

  Anne managed a smile. “One of these things is not like the other.” She took another bite of Shredded Wheat, which didn’t taste bad because it lacked taste altogether. She glanced around the polished pine table for a sugar bowl, but it was completely bare except for the woven place mats of yellow straw. Maybe that’s what was in this cereal. “May I have some sugar, please?”

  “No,” Bennie answered.

  “Kidding?”

  “There’s no sugar in the house. No sugar and no TV. They’re both bad for your health.”

  Anne thought this must be some form of insanity. No Lucy? “No sugar?”

  “Ever hear of sugar blues?”

  “Is it how you
feel when there’s no sugar in the house?”

  Bennie smiled. “Forget it.” She finished another mouthful of Shredded Wheat. “You don’t like sports, do you, Murphy?”

  “I shop. It takes stamina. I train by eating Cocoa Krispies. Now that’s dinner.” Anne became vaguely aware that she was trying to make Bennie laugh, and wondered why that was so.

  “I admire you, Murphy. I do.”

  “Me?” Anne almost choked, but it could have been the place mat.

  “I think you’re handling your situation like a champ. I’ve taken some heat in my time, but not like this. I’m proud of you. This is just awful, and I know how horrible you feel about Willa.”

  “Thanks,” Anne said quickly, feeling her face warm. “I do appreciate everything that you, and the others, have done for me.”

  “No problem, but it’s not over yet. Tomorrow is the big day. The memorial service.” Bennie ate more cereal and washed it down with Diet Coke. “We will get this asshole. DiNunzio’s tougher than she looks, and Carrier comes through in any clutch. They both do.”

  “I bet.”

  “But I have an apology to make, on their behalf and my own.” Bennie paused, eyeing Anne directly. “None of us was welcoming when you first came to the firm, and it’s my fault. I didn’t take the time to get you assimilated. I didn’t realize how important it was. None of us acted very well, and I’m very sorry for that.”

  “That’s okay.” Anne swallowed the thickness in her throat. She set down her tablespoon and vowed never to eat home furnishings again.

  “No, it’s not okay. I’m a good lawyer, but I see now I’m not a good manager. I’m not so good, I think, at making sure everybody is getting along, being happy. Working together. I usually make sure we win.”

  “Winning is good.”

  “Not good enough. Things fall through the cracks, and people. Like you.”

  “I wasn’t so friendly—”

  “The burden was on us. On me. You came to my city, to my firm. However you acted was understandable, considering what you’d been through.”

  No time like the present. “I have a question, Bennie. You knew everything about Kevin. About my past.” She thought of her mother’s bouquet of daisies. “How was that?”

  “One of your work references told me about Kevin. That he’d tried to kill you, that you’d held up under extreme pressure and put him in jail.”

  “They’re only supposed to verify term of employment,” Anne said, surprised.

  “They wanted you to get the job. They were trying to help you change your life. And when I heard the full story, it sold me. I knew you could take anything I could dish out.”

  Anne smiled. She really wanted to ask about her mother, but it seemed so awkward.

  “The rest I researched. I have lots of friends in the criminal defense bar out there, and I asked around.” Bennie sipped her soda, and the ice made a sound too festive for the conversation. “I remembered from the interview that you said you had no family. But you didn’t say anybody had died. And there was no mention of a family or even birthplace on your résumé. So I had our firm investigator look into it. You know Lou, don’t you?”

  “You investigated me?” Anne tried not to sound too pissed.

  “Sure, and I don’t apologize for it. I can’t have just anybody at my firm, and people don’t spring from somebody’s head. Everybody has a family, whether they deny it or not. Not just a family, a context. Like a word, with meaning in a paragraph.” Bennie smiled over the rim of her glass. “And with some work, I found your context.”

  “My mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not my father.”

  “No.”

  Anne felt her heart quicken. “Where was she, anyway?”

  “Southern California.” Bennie set her glass down. “That’s all I should say. She asked me not to tell you, and I promised I wouldn’t.”

  Anne held her features rigid. A knife of familiar anger sliced near her heart. “How nice of her.”

  “I am sorry. I respected her wishes, but I thought it was hurtful, too.”

  “I don’t care enough to be hurt,” Anne said quickly, and she sounded lame even to herself. She wanted to scream. How can a parent have this power over a grown child? Even the worst of parents?

  “I think she wasn’t very proud of herself, and that’s why she didn’t want you to know.” Bennie paused. “There is a drinking problem, I gather.”

  “Meaning she was barely coherent when you spoke.” Anne knew just how that conversation would go, and her face flushed with sudden shame. “She didn’t ask you for money, did she?”

  Bennie didn’t confirm or deny. “My family is no model either, but I miss my mother every day. Well. We all make mistakes.”

  Anne’s chest felt tight. “Has she contacted you, since then?”

  “No, but I remind you. She left the flowers you’ve been driving around with.” Bennie smiled softly. “Not that you care.”

  “I only had to die to get her attention. She phoned it in. The card was typed at the store.” Anne stared at her leftover cereal and tasted a bitterness in her mouth that wasn’t magnesium. “I don’t even know how she got my home address.”

  “I told her,” Bennie answered, and Anne looked up.

  “You? When?”

  “When I spoke to her last year, when you moved here.”

  Anne fell silent. So it’s not even like she follows me in the newspapers.

  “You wish I hadn’t. I’m sorry.” Bennie sighed. “We always wish our parents were better than they are. Bigger, stronger, richer. Better people, more reliable. But they’re not, they’re just not. Sometimes, the best course is to try to accept that, as truth.”

  “I accepted that a long time ago,” Anne said, then hated the way she sounded. She pitied herself for pitying herself, and even more because Bennie was right.

  Mental note: Maybe bosses became bosses for a reason.

  15

  Outside the second-story window, dimestore firecrackers popped and holiday lasers sliced the night sky, but Anne ignored it all in favor of the computer monitor. She sat at the workstation in Bennie’s messy spare room, which contained old athletic equipment, a white Peugeot bicycle, and boxes of old files, which had been stacked on the skinny daybed against the wall before they had cleared them off. Anne would have gone to bed but she couldn’t help finishing her Internet search of Bill Dietz’s background. The top of the screen read:

  Your search has revealed 427 persons named William Dietz with criminal convictions.

  She had picked up reading the listings at 82, and she was already at 112. She still didn’t know why she was doing it. She didn’t know if she’d find anything and didn’t know why it mattered. Only that she had looked into Bill Dietz’s eyes and remembered malevolence behind them. Evil masquerading as concern for his wife; abuse dolled up as protection, even love. She returned to the search.

  At 226, Anne was in the zone of eliminating Bill Dietzes and taking a caffeinated pleasure in the accomplishment of a simple task. Click on a listing, read it, click on the next. It was easier than redrafting her opening argument or trying to guess which guise Kevin would take in his next incarnation. At 301, she’d still had no luck.

  “Murphy, it’s very late,” Bennie said, from the threshold of the office. “You have to get to sleep.” She entered with Bear behind her, his nails click-clacking on the pine floorboards. She wore a white terry-cloth bathrobe and her hair had been piled into an unruly topknot, but when she got closer Anne could see that her eyes were tinged with pink and vaguely puffy.

  “What’s the matter? You getting a cold?”

  “I guess I’m allergic to cats. My face itches, and I can’t stop sneezing.”

  “Oh, no.” Anne felt terrible. “When did this start?”

  “After dinner. I took a shower but it didn’t help.”

  “Should I leave and take Mel?”

  “No, you don’t have anywhere else to
go. Just keep him in the room. On the bright side, our eyewitness Mrs. Brown is all over the news. On TV, on the radio. The cops announced they’re officially looking for prison escapee Kevin Satorno in connection with your murder. He’s a wanted man.”

  “The wish of erotomanics everywhere.”

  “Which brings me to my next point. Since Satorno is on the loose, I wanted you to have some peace of mind. I can protect us, if need be. Don’t freak out when you see this.” Bennie stuck her hand in her bathrobe pocket and extracted something. Its silvery finish caught the light from the lamp.

  “A thirty-eight special, huh?” Anne reached for the gun and turned it over expertly in her palm. Its stainless-steel frame felt cool, and the hatchmarks on its wooden handle were slightly worn, as was the gold-toned Rossi logo. She thumbed the cylinder-release latch and let the cylinder fall open into her hand. The revolver was loaded with five Federal bullets. She closed the cylinder with a satisfying click. “It’s about ten years old. You musta bought it used.”

  Bennie cocked an eyebrow. “Yes. How do you know that?”

  “These guns don’t circulate much anymore. Rossi made ’em in Brazil. They were a bunch of guys who spun off from Smith & Wesson. That’s why it looks like one.” The clunky gun was a knock-off, but Anne didn’t say so. She wouldn’t like people saying bad things about her gun. She turned the revolver over in her hand, appreciating its heft, if not its style. “It’s a good gun. Practical. Plenty of stopping power. Good for you.” She handed it back.

  “So you’re not freaked.”

  “By a gun? Not unless it’s pointed at me. I’m not a gun nut, but I bought one after Kevin attacked me. I own a Beretta thirty-two, semi-auto. Fits in my palm. Cute as a button. I don’t even have to rack the slide to load it. It pops up, so I don’t break a nail. A great girl gun.” Anne could see that her boss was looking at her funny, so she explained. “I tried therapy, Bennie, but I sucked at it, and I’m not the support-group type. I went to the shooting range four nights a week. After a year I can kill a piece of paper, and I feel a helluva lot safer.”