Running From the Law

by Lisa Scottoline

  “Waiting to kick some wrinkly butts.”

  Cam laughed. “Oh yeah?”

  “Hah!” my father said. “I got an ass like a baby.”

  But David kept looking at me. “I thought with the harassment suit, you’d be—”

  “I took the night off.”

  “I just heard about that woman, the plaintiff.”

  “Siddown, kid,” Herman said. “I’m waiting for the shoe to drop here.”

  “What’d you hear?” I asked. “That she was a Girl Scout, a budding Cassatt, or—”

  “You don’t know?” David pulled out his vinyl chair.

  “Know what?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Dead?” I said, stunned.

  “She was murdered. I heard it on the radio in the car.”

  “Patricia Sullivan, murdered?”

  David wiped rain-soaked bangs from his forehead. “They said her throat was cut. They found her at home.”

  It seemed impossible. Patricia, dead? My father’s eyes met mine. They looked worried, which worried me almost as much as what I was hearing. “I have to go,” I said, feeling a warm hand on mine.

  It was Cam. “You all right, Rita?”

  I would have answered him, but for the second time that day, I had no idea what to say.

  6

  Maybe it was because I had just left a poker game, but when I spotted the Hamiltons they struck me as the king, queen, and jack of diamonds. Satisfied and privileged, face cards all, nestled in a corner of this exclusive Main Line restaurant. They looked surprised as I dripped my way to their table, so I gathered they hadn’t heard about Patricia’s murder. The news had galvanized the city, but the staff wouldn’t disturb their entrees. That was my job.

  “Honey!” Paul said, and both he and his father stood up. “I’m so glad you’re here. Did you leave the game early?”

  Are you kidding? The game is just starting.

  “Hello, Rita,” said Kate warmly. Her face, though lined from the sun, was a handsome one, with high cheekbones and an almost mannish chin. Her hair, a polished silver, fell softly to her shoulders and her wide-set eyes were an unusual shade of gray, with dark eyebrows. Tortoiseshell half-glasses hung from a scarab lorgnette around her neck, for reading the menu. Everything so orderly, about to be disordered. I felt sick for her.

  “Won’t you join us?” Fiske asked. He was still standing, in a dark suit with his napkin in hand, and Paul was, too. I sat down and the men followed. “What would you like for dinner, Rita? The rack of lamb was wonderful, but we can get you a vegetable platter.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nonsense,” Fiske said. “We’ll order dessert while you have your entree.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “You’re not eating?” Kate asked.

  “So you left the poker game,” Paul said again, taking it as proof of love.

  I wasn’t supplying. “Not that I wanted to.”

  Fiske smiled. “I hope you weren’t losing. I told Paul I’d bet on you any day.”

  Ha. He seemed only half-aware of the irony. I looked at him for a minute. His forehead seemed untroubled and his blue eyes were relaxed under eyebrows just beginning to silver. He had a large face, symmetrical and therefore appealing. But there was no warmth in it, just facial expressions that changed in increments. His was the perfect demeanor for a judge and the worst possible for a human being. Without knowing exactly why, I wanted to destroy his composure. So I said point-blank:

  “Patricia Sullivan was murdered tonight.”

  Kate’s hand flew to her mouth. Fiske blinked once, then twice. “Oh, my,” he said. “Are you sure?”

  What kind of question was that? “Of course. KYW news is sure. Channel 6 is sure. Channels 3 and 10 are probably sure, but I can’t get them on the car radio. Her throat was cut. They think the murder weapon was a hunting knife, but they haven’t found it yet.”

  “I don’t understand,” Paul said, leaning back into his Windsor chair.

  I was only beginning to understand it myself. Fiske had lied to me, gotten me into the middle of something awful. “The radio said her jewelry and valuables were left alone. So robbery was not the motive.”

  “Oh, God,” Kate said. She looked around the dining room. I read her mind: Does everybody know? Does anybody know?

  “Did they say when it happened?” Paul asked.

  “About six o’clock, they think. There’ll be reporters waiting for us at the house, so I want us to go home together. They obviously don’t know you’re here, right?”

  “I drove to the club first, then went out the service entrance in the back,” Kate said.

  “Good.” A neat trick in a black Jaguar that matched Fiske’s. They had his-and-hers Sovereigns, except that Fiske, an Anglophile, had bought his in England. “Fiske, would you take a drive with me? Paul and Kate can stay here until we get back.”

  “Why?” Paul asked. Kate looked equally puzzled.

  “It’s important,” I said, but Fiske had already taken his napkin off his lap and was standing.

  “Rita and I need to talk, Paul. The press will have a field day with this. We ought to make some sort of statement. What do you think, Rita?”

  A practiced liar. “I agree. Kate, I need to borrow him for twenty minutes.”

  “I suppose we could go ahead and order dessert,” Kate said uncertainly, but Paul frowned.

  “Eat? Now? I can’t sit here and eat as if nothing were going on.”

  Fiske, stepping away from the table, put a hand on Paul’s shoulder. “You help me most by staying with your mother.” He flagged down a young waiter, passing by.

  “Yes, Judge Hamilton?” the waiter said, jerking bangs out of his eyes. He wore a tight leather choker around his neck, reminding me ominously of the way Patricia had been killed. One reporter said she’d been almost decapitated.

  “My wife and son would like more coffee. And dessert.”

  I watched Fiske, so composed, and found myself wondering what time he’d left chambers for the day. Patricia’s house was on his way home; he lived only fifteen minutes from her. And Fiske knew how to handle a hunting knife. He’d taught the whole family to hunt and even took hunting vacations in Texas.

  “We’ll be back by the second cup, dear,” Fiske said. He bent down and gave Kate a dry kiss on her cheek. Her hand reached up for his and he squeezed it.

  My thoughts raced ahead. Fiske had an obvious motive. Patricia and her lawsuit threatened to expose him, to destroy his professional and personal world. And he knew the affair could come to light, I’d recommended as much as a defense on the telephone after the dep. Then he’d said he’d find a solution. I felt a chill, and it wasn’t from my damp clothes.

  “Shall we go, Rita?” Fiske asked.

  “We’ll take my car,” I said, just as I allowed myself to think the unthinkable: Had Fiske killed Patricia? And could he actually have believed that would solve anything? We walked out of the restaurant and bolted in the rain for my red BMW. We climbed in and I looked over at him coldly.

  “Fiske,” I said, twisting the ignition key, “you’re taking this news rather well.”

  “It’s not news to me.”

  “Say what?”

  The engine roared to life. I hit the gas and tore out of the lot.

  7

  We parked on a private road next to the pond at Haverford College, which was dark except for the flickering gaslights along the road. The air inside the car felt hot and rain pounded on the taut ragtop. I could barely hear myself think over the thumping, but I didn’t mince words with the man. “What the fuck is going on, Fiske? Level with me, because I’m in the middle of it.”

  “I knew Patricia was dead. She had to be.”

  “Did you kill her?”

  “Of course not. How can you ask me that?” I couldn’t see his expression, but I could tell by his tone he was shocked.

  “How could I not ask you that?”

  “You suspect m
e?”

  “How’d you know she was dead?”

  He turned away to look out the window, past the raindrops into the night. “I could never harm Patricia.”

  “You had an affair with her, right?”

  “Yes. It lasted about six months.”

  So it was a love affair and she was crying sexual harassment. Why? A woman scorned? “How did the affair end?”

  “She ended it.”

  “She did?”

  He watched the rain. “I wouldn’t leave Kate, Patricia knew that from the outset. I told her. So she ended it, one day. She’s like that. An artist. Impulsive, unpredictable. Passionate.” His voice sounded far away. “It was for the best. I had Kate.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this? Didn’t you think I’d find out? A first-year law student—”

  “Is she really gone?”

  “Patricia? Of course.”

  He winced in the semi-darkness. “It doesn’t seem possible.”

  Get a grip, pal. “It’s more than possible. It happened.”

  “I saw the ambulance, the police cars. I couldn’t believe it. There were so many.” He shook his head slowly.

  “What police cars? Where?”

  “Out in front, on the lawn.”

  “In front of what?”

  “In front of her carriage house.”

  “When did you see cars in front of her house?”

  “Patricia wouldn’t have liked that, right on the lawn. It was unnecessary.”

  I touched the wet sleeve of his trench coat. “Fiske, look at me. Are you telling me you were at Patricia’s carriage house?”

  He faced me, in a kind of shock. “I didn’t kill her, Rita. You must believe that.”

  Jesus. Bullets of rain hit the roof. The car grew hotter, the windshield fogged with steam. “When did you go to the carriage house?”

  “I stopped by on the way home, after you and I spoke on the telephone. After the deposition.”

  “Why did you go there?”

  “To convince Patricia to drop the lawsuit. Our affair would come out, everything would come out. There was no other way to solve the problem.”

  I recoiled, letting go of his arm, and searched his face in the dark. “And when she wouldn’t drop it, you killed her?”

  “No! When I got there, police cars were everywhere. The neighbors were out. I knew something terrible had happened. I kept driving.”

  “Where did you drive? Did you go home?”

  “No, I just drove around.”

  “Where?”

  “Around. I don’t remember exactly. Just driving, trying to figure out what had happened to Patricia. I was a little late to dinner. Kate got to dinner in her car, with Paul.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t process it all fast enough.

  “You know I didn’t do it, Rita.”

  “How do I know that?”

  “Because you know I love Patricia. Loved her. Only you know that. You know about the spider mums. Why would I kill her, if I loved her?”

  “Pick a motive, any motive.”

  “Don’t be so glib.”

  Fuck you. “Because she ended the affair.”

  “But I knew it would end. I knew it wouldn’t last forever. I’m not a child.”

  “Because she was trying to ruin you, then.”

  “No, she wasn’t.”

  “Of course she was! Why would she sue you?”

  “I don’t know. She is … was a very complicated woman.”

  “Oh, please.” When will men stop calling manipulative women complicated?

  “You don’t think so? You met her.”

  “It’s not as if Patricia and I had lunch, Fiske. I took her deposition because she was suing you. She had your name and photo in every newspaper in three states. You need to think in realistic terms. Patricia’s been murdered and you could end up a suspect. You have a big-time motive and a see-through alibi.”

  “You think I’m a suspect?”

  Hello? Anybody home? “Yes. I would say the prime suspect, if I practiced criminal law, which I don’t. You need a criminal lawyer, Fiske. You must know some, the best.”

  “You’re my lawyer.”

  “Not anymore.”

  He looked angry. “You won’t represent me? Why not?”

  “You lied to me, for starters.”

  “I didn’t lie. I just didn’t explain the whole … I didn’t think it would all come out. I’m sorry. But I want you to represent me.”

  “It isn’t my field. I hate criminal law, it’s dirty work. You want Leslie Abramson, not Rita Morrone.”

  “I want Rita Morrone.” He shifted toward me, his shoulders bulky in the leather bucket seat. “We have time. I’m a judge, a prominent member of the legal community. They won’t indict me unless they have their ducks in a row.”

  “What ducks, if you’re innocent?”

  “The same circumstantial evidence you have.”

  “You mean the paintings, the florist?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are there hotel bills?”

  “Never a hotel.”

  Like a judge’s chambers is better? Your tax dollars.

  “I went to her house, once or twice, at night,” he said. “But she was never at my house. Our house.”

  What a guy. “How about your phone bills?”

  “I don’t think they show calls to her, but I didn’t call her often in any event. She asked me not to, and I respected her time. She had to paint when she wasn’t working.” He paused. “But I did call before I left my chambers tonight. Before I went over.”

  “Why?”

  “To ask if she would see me. I told you, I respected her independence.”

  Terrific. “That call will show up on a bill, now that the suburbs have a new area code.”

  “Yes.”

  “It won’t look good, Fiske. A call right before she was murdered.”

  “I didn’t know she’d be murdered! If I were going to drive to her house and kill her, would I have called first?”

  I considered this, and evidently so had he, about ten steps before me. Fiske was a chess player, nationally ranked. He even played by mail, sending postcards that bore gobbledy-gook like Be3 and Bg7. Suddenly, something fell into place and I turned cold. “Fiske, you know what I think? I think you knew all of this was going to happen.”

  He turned toward me in the shadows. “I knew Patricia was going to be killed?”

  “No, you knew that I would find out about you and her.”

  “I didn’t plan for this to happen.”

  “Maybe not, but it was inevitable, wasn’t it? Look, nobody in the family knows about the affair, do they?”

  “No. Kate doesn’t suspect anything. She thinks Patricia was an opportunist.”

  “And Paul?”

  “Of course not.”

  “So you kept it from the family. But when you had a chance to hire a lawyer, you chose a lawyer close to the family. Practically in the family.”

  “Well, yes.” Fiske acted only vaguely aware of his own mind, but I didn’t believe it for a minute. My father had been right, which annoyed me no end.

  “You hired me to use me, Fiske. You used me then and you’re using me now.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “Then why let me be the one to find out about your affair? Because you thought I’d keep it secret?”

  “Any lawyer would have done that. It would be privileged.”

  “You thought I’d be loyal to you no matter what, even to the point of keeping quiet about a murder. What other lawyer could you ask to do that?”

  “I didn’t murder Patricia!”

  “Then why me?”

  “I didn’t think it would turn out like this, I tell you.”

  Liar. Cheater. Bastard. I reached for the ignition, but Fiske gripped my forearm.

  “Wait. Maybe … part of me did. Part of me must have wanted you to find out. So that it wouldn’t be a secret anym
ore.”

  “Bullshit. Two-bit psychology.” I turned on the ignition despite his grip. “You wanted to destroy your life? Screw up your marriage?”

  “I … think I must have,” he said, his tone anguished. “Yes.”

  I looked at him while the engine rumbled. His face was obscured and he made no sound, but I had the sense he was about to cry.

  “I think … I wanted to tell Kate,” he continued, almost thinking out loud. “I wanted her to know. It just … got out of control. I loved Patricia, Rita, and somebody killed her. I want to know who.”

  It rang true. He sounded determined and bewildered, both at once. A natural reaction given the circumstances. Maybe he was innocent. Wrongly accused, or about to be. If so, his world was on the brink of falling to pieces, at his own hand. He slumped forward and rested his temple in his hand, inadvertently reminding me of a face card again. Not the king of diamonds this time. The king of hearts, the suicide king. Fiske was either that or a cold-blooded killer.

  Why were men so damn complicated?

  8

  They have no right,” Paul said as he glared at the TV screen.

  A black reporter stood on the wet flagstone path leading to the door of the Hamiltons’ huge house, a three-story stone Tudor with diamond-paned windows, an arched front door, and spiky turrets on both sides. Any idiot could see the place looked like a minicastle, which wouldn’t help public relations any.

  “This isn’t news, it’s harassment,” Paul said, naked except for the towel around his waist. He’d taken a hot shower but it hadn’t relaxed him any. “This is harassment!” He aimed the remote control at the TV like a weapon and clicked up the volume.

  The reporter fairly shouted, “We have tried to reach Judge Hamilton, but he has not been available for comment.”

  “He’s asleep, you prick!” Paul shouted back. “Is he supposed to stay up all night to talk to you?”

  “Relax, Paul,” I said, but I knew this case was blowing up in our faces. It was all over the radio and TV news. Our answering machine tape had a slew of calls from the press and three from the managing partner of my firm. His final message was to meet him in his office first thing in the morning. I wasn’t looking forward to it.