Blameless (35 page)

Diana’s stomach squeezed as she placed her change in her wallet. What were her options? Either she pretended she hadn’t seen them, and stayed in her corner until they decided to leave, or she went over for a moment to say a quick hello. She supposed she could leave without speaking to them, but, given their proximity to the door, this seemed a rather difficult feat to pull off. She rummaged through her purse for her car keys. The last thing she wanted right now was to have a friendly chitchat with Adrian and Jill.

A sharp knock on her table jolted her from her reverie. Startled, she dropped her purse on the floor. Her wallet skidded across the tiles; her lipstick and a small prescription bottle rolled under the next table. The remainder of the contents of her purse lay in a messy pile at her feet.

“You lucked out,” Marcel said, knocking on the table again. He pointed across the restaurant at Jill, who was still smiling and waving. “Your friend and the professor are here.”

Diana crouched on the floor, grabbing for her wayward possessions. “Thanks,” she managed to mutter. “I sure lucked out.”

“Yoo-hoo, Diana!” Jill called.

Marcel grunted and slipped back under the bar. Diana stood and gathered her things. She walked resolutely toward their table.

“Adrian,” Diana said, slipping on her coat and throwing her purse over her shoulder so as to leave no doubt as to the imminence of her departure. “Jill.”

“It’s so great to see you,” Jill said, as if she really meant it. She reached out and grasped Diana’s hands, as if they were old chums. “You must sit down with us for at least a few minutes. You must!”

Before Diana could answer, Adrian said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but maybe some other time would be better.” Although ostensibly speaking to Diana, he was looking at Jill.

“I can’t right now, thanks,” Diana said, detaching her hands from Jill’s. “I really have—”

“Nonsense,” Jill interrupted, smiling warmly up at Diana. “We won’t take no for an answer.” She removed her jacket from the extra chair and hung it on the back of her own.

Diana looked to Adrian for help. Jill wasn’t a bad actress, although the clipped preciseness of her words told Diana that this facade of friendly cordiality was all too thin. Adrian met Diana’s eyes for a moment, but his expression was inscrutable. He shrugged in defeat. Jill pointed to the empty chair and tugged on Diana’s sleeve. Diana sat.

For a few moments, the silence was thick and uncomfortable, the tension between them almost palatable. Jill smiled brightly, clinking her ice with a stirrer, while Adrian stared into his drink and Diana fidgeted with the strap of her purse.

Diana took a deep breath and looked right at Adrian. “So how long have you two known each other?” she asked, tipping her head and trying to smile. Although she and Adrian had had their problems of late, they had been close at one time; the two of them had spent many a lunch discussing Adrian’s marital difficulties.

Adrian had the grace to blush slightly and shrugged again. Before he could speak, Jill answered Diana’s question for him. “We’ve
known
each other since I first moved to Boston.” She smiled wickedly. “But if you’re speaking of the biblical sense, it’s been just over a year.”

“We ran into each other again at Quincy Market last summer,” Adrian added.

“And as they say”—Jill pinched his cheek—“the rest is history.”

Adrain twisted his face away from Jill’s hand and shot her a look that clearly told her he was not happy with the conversation.

Jill tossed her head and turned to Diana. “So,” she said with the overly festive voice of a hostess attempting to liven up a dull dinner party. “It seems to me that the last time we met, we were talking about drinking and bartender liability.” She chuckled. “And here you find me in a bar with a drink,” she raised her glass as if in toast to Diana, “in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon.”

Diana looked at her in confusion, then, just as Jill had desired, she went cold at the memory. Once again she was in Jill’s apartment watching Jill’s charm disintegrate into fury. Once again she was on her knees, a poker being held to her stomach.

“Diana stopped by for a little chat,” Jill was explaining to Adrian. “We had coffee and a bit of girl talk.” She flashed Diana a playful smile, as if intimate secrets had been shared between the two women that no man could ever be expected to understand. Then she turned back to Adrian. “It seems to me, we were discussing responsibility …”

“Don’t do this,” Adrian hissed at Jill, slamming his drink down on the table. “How’s your research going?” he asked Diana. “Still having those sampling problems?”

Although she would have loved to rub her latest data in his face, Diana controlled herself. Now was not the time to antagonize him, not when she needed him as an ally against Jill, not when she wanted to get information out of him on his own possible alibi—or, she hoped, lack thereof. “Oh,” she sighed, figuring two could play the actress game, “you know how difficult it is to achieve statistical significance with such small samples.” She shook her head and frowned. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s ever going to happen.”

Adrian’s grin contradicted his words. “Too bad,” he said. “I know how tough that can be. How disappointing.”

“That’s enough shop talk about your silly statistics,” Jill declared, patting Adrian’s hand and shaking her head. “I’d much rather just gossip.” She took a sip of her drink and leaned closer to Diana. “Let’s talk about our mutual friends.”

“I didn’t know we had any,” Diana said, wondering what Jill was getting at.

“Why, but of course we do.” Jill’s voice was perky and cheerful. “There’s Adrian, here.” She tilted her head and looked at him with the amused smile of an overindulgent mother. “And then there’s Ethan and Sandy—and of course there was James.” As she pronounced her brother’s name, Jill’s voice wavered and her face lost its polite veneer, but she recovered quickly. “Poor Sandy seems to be having quite a difficult time these days,” she said with great sincerity. “I do worry about her.”

It struck Diana that Jill’s smile was taking on a touch of shrewdness, that her eyes were slightly glazed. Diana wished she too had a drink. “I’m hopeful that Sandy’s going to be just fine,” she said carefully.

“It’s this whole alibi thing that she’s doing for you.” Jill sighed and put her drink down on the table with a resounding clank.

“What are you talking about?” Diana was completely confused by this turn of conversation. “I don’t have an alibi.”

“Yeah, right,” Jill said, looking directly at Diana. “As if you didn’t know Sandy was planning on going to the police to tell them she had an appointment with you that afternoon.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Diana said. “And it isn’t true.”

“Then how come you convinced her that she was with you?”

“I never convinced her of any such thing,” Diana sputtered. She looked at Adrian. “You know full well I’d never do anything like that.”

“Oh, right,” Jill said, waving her hand dismissively. “You had nothing to do with creating your own alibi.” She leaned even closer to Diana, pushing her face so near that the gin on her breath made Diana recoil. “Do you want to hear the really interesting part?”

“Stop it, Jill!” Adrian ordered.

“The really interesting part is that when I went through Sandy’s appointment book, I couldn’t find any entry for that particular day—and you and I know, Dr. Marcus” —Jill’s smile was wide, smug, and full of hatred—“that Sandy would never miss an appointment with you, her idol.”

“Of course there was no appointment in her book,” Diana snapped. “She didn’t have an appointment—”

Jill continued as if Diana hadn’t spoken, all pretense of cordiality gone. “No one ever forgets an appointment with the perfect therapist,” she spat at Diana. “Not the most perfect one!”

Adrian touched Diana’s arm. “Go,” he said, his voice low and insistent. “Now.”

But Diana didn’t move. “Why are you doing this?” she asked Jill.

“You don’t know the half of it.” Jill’s laughter was tinged with hysteria. Her eyes gleamed with hatred. “You don’t know the half of what I’ve done to you.”

“Diana,” Adrian pleaded.

“What?” Diana demanded, beyond caring about anything but the danger Jill’s madness posed to her. “What other half?”

“Your journal. Detective Levine.” Jill’s voice began to rise and Adrian put his hand on her arm. She shook it off with disgust. “I’ve had a lot more to do with your troubles than you’ll ever—”

“Jill,” Adrian said sharply.

“Why, I even knew you’d be in here spying on us.” Jill continued as if Adrian hadn’t spoken. “Sandy told me you’d come.”

Diana gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles white. “I don’t understand,” she said, her voice shaking slightly. “What have you done?”

“You killed my brother,” Jill said, her voice suddenly soft, but somehow even more ominous. “You killed James, and I’ve been doing everything I can to make you pay.” She placed her fingers on the table and leaned toward Diana again. Her breath was foul, but this time Diana didn’t move. When Jill began to speak, her voice was barely a whisper. “Who do you think got her dear, sweet friend Ida Manfredi to babble to the cops?” she asked, beginning to chuckle softly. “Who do you think stole your precious journal and sent copies to the
Inquirer
? Or told Mr. Fake Friendly Detective to look at the end where you implicate yourself in spades?”

“What at the end? What are—”

“And don’t think I’m going to stop,” Jill continued, speaking between hysterical cackles. “I won’t stop until your life has been ruined just like you ruined James’s!” Her laughter broke into tears, and she began to sob quietly. “Just like you ruined mine …”

Adrian rose from his chair and knelt by Jill’s side. He gently wrapped his arms around her. “It’s okay, baby,” he murmured, rubbing her back. “It’s going to be okay.”

“It’ll never be okay,” Jill wailed. “It’ll never stop hurting,” she sobbed into Adrian’s shoulder. “It’ll never go away.”

Adrian held Jill more tightly and kissed her brow. He looked up at Diana. “Do you think you could go now?” he asked.

Diana stumbled out the door. She stood, stunned, on the sidewalk, unable to remember where she had parked the jeep, unable to comprehend the full impact of all she had just heard. Confused, she looked around her, trying to ground herself in some reality she could grasp. A Salvation Army Santa swung his bell on the corner, indifferent to the fact that no one was putting money in his bucket. A large woman, overdressed and smelling of far too much perfume, elbowed her way between a group of teenage boys wearing dark leather jackets. The gang strutted toward Diana, but still she didn’t move. For a moment she was encased in shoulders and darkness and marijuana-tinged body odor; then she was in the open again, staring into the street. A screech of tires jolted her, and she watched in dazed surprise as a car and a truck came to a simultaneous stop—about two inches from each other and about a foot from her.

Stepping backward until her coat touched the cold facade of the building, Diana pressed herself into the brick, relishing the iciness as it seeped through to her skin. Harder and harder, she twisted her shoulders and head until her shoulder blades hurt and her hair felt as if it were being ripped from her scalp. But it was okay. It was just physical pain, and nothing on a purely physical plane could possibly match the despair within her. A despair that threatened to engulf her, obliterate her. Jill would never make a plausible suspect. For Jill was far too grief-stricken and crazed over James’s death for anyone ever to believe that she had killed her brother. And moreover, Diana knew that Jill had not; she had seen it in her eyes.

Diana felt as if she had been turned inside out, as if the innermost part of her being was raw and exposed, just waiting for execution. She stepped from the building, and the physical pain disappeared. She pushed backward again.

A chill wind ruffled her hair, carrying the scent of winter. She glanced upward and recognized the low white-gray sky. The first snow of the year was inside those clouds. Her gaze returned to the street, and as she watched the world going about its business she wondered how soon it would be before she had no business to go about at all.

29

I
T WASN’T UNTIL
D
IANA REACHED THE CORNER OF
M
ASS
Ave. and St. Stephen Street that the world began to return and she realized she had no recollection of her drive from Central Square. Slowly, as if emerging from under water, she became aware of the low rumble of the car stopped next to her, of a horn honking on the other side of the street, of two women chatting as they stepped into the crosswalk in front of her idling jeep. Diana blinked. Dusk was beginning to fall, and she was freezing.

It was over. She had come to the end of the line. Jill was not a plausible suspect. Craig was furious with her. And Herb Levine was soon going to knock on her door with an arrest warrant in his hand.

Still, despite the gathering gloom, Diana found herself fighting against the inevitable. Jill might be a lost cause, she thought as she pulled the heat lever to high, but what about Ethan? There had to be something that would impress Levine with Ethan’s viability as a suspect. Staring out the window, she was hit with an ugly, tempting thought. She could plant something incriminating in her notes. She could write that Ethan had stayed late one afternoon, after everyone else had left, and broken down and confessed to killing his girlfriend. She would tell Levine that she had been horrified at the time, of course, but doctor-patient privilege had kept her from going to the police.

An insistent horn from behind brought Diana back to reality, and she threw the jeep into gear. No, she thought, it was a completely contemptible idea. She couldn’t blame a man for a murder he possibly didn’t commit. It was disgusting of her to have even considered it. Plus it wouldn’t work anyway. The same laws of confidentiality that had held then would still hold now.

As she walked into the house and hung up her coat, Diana’s thoughts turned to Sandy; she wondered why Sandy had suddenly decided she had had an appointment with her on the afternoon of James’s murder—and why now. Although Sandy had had a few minor delusional episodes in the past, if she insisted that she had been at Diana’s despite the fact that it wasn’t recorded in her day-timer, if her delusion could stand up against such irrefutable evidence, then Sandy was in worse shape than Diana had thought.