Joe’s car stopped.
Richie’s car pulled out of the spot.
Then Joe’s car pulled in.
Chapter 48
“YOU EVER USE THIS THING?” Joe was asking me about the stove.
“Sure I do.”
“Uh-huh? So what’s this?”
He pulled a user’s manual and some Styrofoam packing out of the oven.
“I use the stove top,” I said.
He shook his head, laughed at me, asked if I could open the wine and start the salad. I said I thought I could handle that. I uncorked the chardonnay, tore a head of romaine into a pretty blown-glass bowl Joe had given me, and sliced up a tomato. I reached around Joe for the olive oil and spices, patted his cute behind. Then I settled onto a stool near the counter, kicked off my shoes.
I sipped my wine and with a Phil Collins CD playing in the background, listened to Joe talk about three accounts he’d landed for his new disaster-preparedness consultancy and his upcoming meeting with the governor. Joe was happy. And I was glad that he was using his modern, larger, fancier apartment as his office — and making himself at home right here.
And my apartment was a darned cute place, I have to say. My four cluttered but cozy rooms are on the third floor of a nice old Victorian town house, and there’s a deck off the living room where the sun sets on my sliver view of the bay. It was becoming our sliver view of the bay.
I topped up Joe’s wineglass, watched him stuff a couple of tilapias with crabmeat and slide the pan into the oven. He washed his hands and turned his handsome self to me.
“The fish will be ready in about forty-five minutes. Want to go outside and catch the last rays?”
“Not really,” I said.
I put down my glass, hooked my leg around Joe’s waist, and pulled him to me, grinning as I saw my better idea flash into Joe’s blue eyes. He drew me closer, slid me off the stool, and gathered me up, cupping my butt and grunting theatrically as he carried me down the hallway, saying, “You’re a load, Blondie.”
I laughed, bit his earlobe, said, “You didn’t think 130 was a load when you were younger.”
“Like I said. Light as a feather.”
He dropped me softly onto the bed, crawled in next to me, took my face in his big hands, and gave me a kiss that made me groan. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and Joe did the almost impossible, pulled off his shirt and kissed me at the same time, tugged off my pants, and also somehow managed to kick the door shut to keep Martha out of our private moments.
“You’re amazing,” I said, laughing.
“You haven’t seen anything, yet, baby doll,” my lover growled.
Soon we were both naked, our skin hot and slick, limbs completely wrapped around each other. But as we grappled together, making the delicious climb to ecstasy, an image of another man came winging into my mind.
I fought it hard, because I didn’t want him there.
That man was Richie.
Part Three
HOME COOKING
Chapter 49
JASON TWILLY SAT in the front row of the gallery in Courtroom 2C, right behind the elfin Junie Moon, taking notes as Connor Hume Campion answered Yuki Castellano’s softball questions. Twilly thought Campion had aged tremendously since his son disappeared. He looked haggard, stooped, as though Michael’s death was literally killing him.
As he looked at the governor and Yuki together, Twilly felt a shift in his thinking, and a new structure for his book appeared in his mind. Yuki was Michael Campion’s defender, and she was the underdog; feisty and shrewd and at the same time endearing. Like now. Yuki was using the former governor’s celebrity and heartbreak to both move the jury and block the defense.
Twilly would start the book with Yuki’s opening statement, flash back through time using poignant moments in the boy’s life as told by the governor, flash forward through the trial and the witnesses. Focus on Davis’s maternal defense. Linger on the vulnerable Junie Moon. Then end the book with Yuki’s closing argument. The verdict, the vindication, hurrah!
Twilly turned his attention back to the governor.
“Mike was born with a conductive defect in his heart,” Campion told the court. “It was being managed medically, but of course he could die at any time.”
Yuki asked quietly, “And what did Michael know about his life expectancy?”
“Mikey wanted to live. He used to say, ‘I want to live, Dad. I have plans.’ He knew he had to be careful. He knew that the longer he lived, the more chance —”
Campion stopped speaking as his throat tightened and his eyes watered.
“Mr. Campion, did Michael talk to you about his plans?”
“Oh, yes,” Campion said, smiling now. “He was training for an upcoming world chess tournament, on the computer, you know. And he’d started writing a book about living with a potentially fatal illness. . . . It would’ve made a difference to people. . . . He wanted to get married someday . . .”
Campion shook his head, looked at the jury, and addressed them directly.
“He was such a wonderful boy,” he said. “Everyone has seen his pictures, the interviews. Everyone knows how his smile could light up the darkness, how brave he was — but not everyone knows what a good soul he had. How compassionate he was.”
Twilly noted that Diana Davis’s face was pinched, but she didn’t dare object to Campion’s meandering testimony about the pain of losing his son. Campion turned and looked squarely at the defendant, spoke directly to her, sadly but not unkindly.
“If only I could have been there when Michael died,” Connor Campion said to Junie Moon. “If only I could have held him in my arms and comforted him. If only he’d been with me, instead of with you.”
Chapter 50
“THE PEOPLE CALL Mr. Travis Cook,” Yuki said.
Heads swung toward the double doors at the back of the courtroom, and a young man about eighteen years old, wearing a gray prep school blazer with a crest over the breast pocket, walked up the aisle, came through the gate.
Cook’s bushy hair looked patted down rather than combed, and his shoes needed a polish. He looked uneasy as he swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but. Then he stepped up to the witness stand.
Yuki said good morning to her witness and then asked, “How did you know Michael Campion?”
“We went to Newkirk Prep together.”
“And when did you meet Michael?”
“I knew him in our freshman year, but, uh, we became better friends last year.”
“In your opinion, what caused this friendship to grow?”
“Uh, Michael didn’t have many friends, really,” Travis Cook said, meeting Yuki’s eyes briefly, then looking down again at his hands. “People liked him, but they didn’t get too close to him ’cause he couldn’t play any sports or hang out or anything. Because of his heart condition.”
“But you didn’t have the same problem becoming friends with Michael?”
“I have severe asthma.”
“And how did that affect your friendship?”
Travis Cook said, “What he had was worse, but I could relate. We talked about how bad it sucked living with these things hanging over us all the time.”
“Now, did there come a time when you told Michael about the defendant, Ms. Moon?”
“Yeah.”
“Travis, I realize this may be a little uncomfortable, but you’ve sworn to tell the truth.”
“I know.”
“Good. And what did you tell Michael about Ms. Moon?”
“That I’d been with her,” he mumbled.
“Please speak up so the jury can hear you,” Yuki said.
The boy started again. “I told Michael that I’d been with her. A lot of us had. She’s a nice girl for someone who . . . anyway. She’s not crude or anything, and so . . .” Travis sighed. “And so she’s a good person to break you in.”
“Break you in?” Yuki asked, turning away from the witness, looking at the jurors. “I�
�m not sure what you mean.”
“Do it for the first time. You’re not worried about what the girl’s going to think of you or anything. I mean, you get to be yourself, have fun, pay her, and leave.”
“I see. And what did Michael Campion say when you told him about Ms. Moon?”
“He said he didn’t want to die a virgin.”
“Travis, did you see Michael the day before he disappeared?”
“I saw him on the lunch line.”
“And how did he appear to you?”
“Happy. He said he had a date that night with Junie.”
“Thank you, Travis. Your witness,” Yuki said to L. Diana Davis.
Davis was wearing a blue double-breasted suit with two rows of four large white pearl buttons and a triple strand of pearls at her throat. Her silver hair was crisp, almost sharp.
She stood up and spoke from the defense table, saying, “I only have one question, Mr. Cook.”
The boy looked at her earnestly.
“Did you see Michael Campion go into Junie Moon’s house?”
“No, ma’am.”
“That’s all we have, Your Honor,” Davis said, sitting down.
Chapter 51
TANYA BROWN WAS ENJOYING HERSELF, giving Yuki a headache at the same time.
Ms. Brown smiled at the bailiff, tossed her hair as she swore to tell the truth, and modeled her orange jumpsuit as if it were designed by Versace. She was the third of Yuki’s three jailhouse witnesses, all “in the system” for dealing drugs, prostitution, or both, and all of whom had met Junie Moon within the walls of the county jail. And while the testimony of jailhouse snitches was generally considered suspect or useless, Yuki was hoping that the virtually identical statements of these three women would together substantiate Junie Moon’s confession.
Yuki asked Tanya Brown, “Did the prosecution offer you anything in exchange for your testimony?”
“No, ma’am.”
“We didn’t offer to get you transferred, or get you time off or better treatment or more privileges?”
“No, ma’am, you said you weren’t going to give me anything.” Tanya Brown wiggled her fanny in the witness seat, poured herself a glass of water, smiled at the judge, then settled down.
“All right then, Ms. Brown,” said Yuki. “Do you know the defendant?”
“I wouldn’t say I know her, know her, but we were cellmates one night at the women’s jail.”
“And did Ms. Moon say why she was arrested?”
“Yeah, everyone gets a turn at that.”
“And what did Ms. Moon tell you?”
“She said she was a working girl and that she had a date with Michael Campion.”
“And why did that stick in your mind?”
“Are you kiddin’? It was like, Whoa. You did the dirty with the golden boy? And like what was that like? And by and by it came out that he died when they were doing it.”
“Is that what Ms. Moon told you?”
“Yeah. She said he had a bad heart, and that happened to me once, too, but my john was no golden boy. He was a smelly old man, and he died in the front seat of his Caddy, so I just opened the door — oh, ’scuse me.”
“Ms. Brown, did Ms. Moon say what she did when Mr. Campion had a heart attack?”
“She got all weepy-like,” said Tanya Brown. “Said she and her boyfriend got rid of his body.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“She said Michael was the sweetest boy she ever met and how bad it sucked for him to die on the happiest night of his life.”
Yuki thanked the witness, made sure she didn’t roll her eyes as she turned her over to L. Diana Davis.
Davis asked Tanya Brown the same question she’d asked each of Yuki’s previous two jailhouse witnesses.
“Did Ms. Moon offer you any proof that she’d been with the so-called victim? Did she describe any distinguishing marks on his body, for instance? Show you any souvenirs? A ring, or a note, a lock of his hair?”
“Huh? No, I mean, no, ma’am, she didn’t.”
“I have no other questions,” said Davis dismissively, again.
Chapter 52
TWILLY PHONED YUKI at the office, asked her to have dinner with him at Aubergine, a hot new restaurant on McAllister. “I’ve got so much work to do,” she moaned. Then she relented. “An early dinner, okay? That would be great.”
At six the restaurant was filling up with the loud pretheater crowd, but she and Twilly had a small table far from the bar, where it was quiet enough to talk. Twilly’s knees bumped against hers from time to time and Yuki didn’t mind.
“Davis is like an IED,” Yuki said, moving tiny bay scallops on her plate with her fork. “She blows up in your face at every checkpoint.”
“Her act is getting old. Don’t worry,” Twilly told her. “She’s probably up every night worrying about you.”
Yuki smiled at her dinner companion, said, “Hey. That’s enough about me.” And she asked him to tell her about his first true-crime book.
“Must I? It sold about two hundred copies.”
“It did not.”
“It did, and I know because I bought all of them myself.”
Yuki threw back her head and laughed, loosening up finally, feeling pleased that she had Twilly’s attention all to herself.
“I wrote it under a pseudonym,” Twilly said. “That way if you were to Google me, that bomb won’t come up on the list.”
“Well, now I know,” said Yuki. “So, what was the book about?”
Twilly sighed dramatically, but Yuki could see he was just revving his motor before rolling out a story he loved to tell.
“It’s about this country-western singer-songwriter in Nashville,” Twilly said. “Joey Flynn. Ever hear of her?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, well, about ten years ago, Joey Flynn had cut a couple of records and was making her way up the charts. ‘Hot Damn.’ You know that song? Or ‘Blue Northern’? No? Well, it doesn’t matter.
“Joey was married to a carpenter, Luke Flynn, her high school sweetheart, and they’d had four kids before they were twenty-five. One day a fan brought Joey a hundred roses at this saloon where she was singing, and her heart went zing.”
“A hundred roses . . . ,” Yuki said, imagining it.
Twilly grinned, said, “Joey messed around with this guy for three weeks before Luke found out and confronted her.”
“Confronted her how?”
“Rapped on the door at the Motel 6.”
“Ouch,” said Yuki.
“So that was the end of Joey’s affair, and Luke never forgave her. Over time, Joey caught on to the fact that Luke was planning to kill her.”
“Really? How?”
“How did she find out? Or how did he plan to kill her?”
Yuki laughed again, said, “Both, and I think I’m going to have that chocolate mousse cake now.”
“You deserve cake for the way you handled the governor today,” Twilly said, touching the sleeve of Yuki’s blue silk blouse, keeping his hand there for a long moment before he signaled the waiter. After ordering dessert, Twilly went on with his story.
“Five years after her fling with that fan, Joey opens the cache in Luke’s computer and sees that he’s been looking up how to poison someone.”
“Oh, my God . . .”
“Joey writes to her best friend saying that if anything should happen to her, the police should question her husband. Ten days later,” Twilly went on, “Joey was dead. Potassium cyanide shows up on the tox screen, and Joey’s best friend turns the letter over to the cops, and Luke Flynn is arrested and charged with murder.”
“This story reminds me of Nicole Simpson putting those Polaroids of her bruises in a lockbox for her sister in case O.J. hurt her.”
“Exactly! So I write a book proposal, get a big advance on a six-figure contract, and I start spending time with Luke Flynn, who’s cooling his jets in jail while he awaits trial. And let me tell you, t
here’s no food like this near the prison in Nashville.”
“Have the rest,” Yuki said, pushing two-thirds of her cake across the table.
“You sure you’re done? Okay, then,” Twilly said, accepting the cake.
Yuki said, “So what happened?”
The waiter dropped the check on the table and Twilly placed his platinum card on it, saying, “I’ll give you a lift to your car. Tell you on the way.”
“Why don’t you follow me home in your car,” Yuki said. “The least I can do is make you coffee.”
Twilly smiled.
Chapter 53
JASON TWILLY SAT in a loveseat in Yuki’s living room, an Irish coffee resting on the low glass table between him and where Yuki was sitting in an upholstered chair six feet away.
Yuki was thinking that Twilly was too good-looking, and that she hadn’t had sex in so long she wasn’t sure she remembered how to do it. Now here was this big-time superstar who would surely break her heart if she let him, and she didn’t have time for fun, let alone heartbreak. She had a conference call with Parisi and the DA early in the morning, she had to prepare herself for the next round in this week’s trial of the century and go to bed. To sleep.
Twilly was excited, hitting the climax of his story. “So now the DA has the letter Joey Flynn gave to her best friend, and turns out she also told her hairdresser that she was afraid Luke would kill her.”
“I’m dyin’,” Yuki said. “You better tell me what happened, Jason, because I’ve got to be in bed in ten minutes and you have to leave.”
“Come sit with me for those ten minutes,” he said.
Yuki felt her heart banging in her chest. And she felt something else: her deceased mother’s clucking presence all around her — in the furniture, in the portrait on the wall — and she knew that her mom would want her to say good night and show the stranger out.
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