Blood Orange (19 page)

“You think she’s complicit?”

Gracie shuddered. “You’re creeping me out.”

“Why? Doesn’t perversion come in both sexes?”

“Yeah, but I see her for a victim, not a perp.”

“Me too. But she knows more than she’s saying. You agree with
that?”

“Well, yeah, she’s the wife. But so what? Neither of them’s going
to testify. And the case’s got so much reasonable doubt, if I didn’t
know Frank Filmore personally, I’d never believe he did it.”

“Maybe.” Circles inside squares inside triangles inside circles.
“We start getting complacent and I start to worry.”

“Suppose we’re wrong, David, and Marsha was part of it.” Gracie
narrowed her dark eyes when she was worried. “Do you want her
staying at your house near Dana and Bailey?”

“That’s no problem. Marsha’s strange, but she’s not a killer.”
David stood up. “And anyway, she won’t be in our house. She’ll
have the apartment over the garage.”

‘e found Dana reading in bed when he got home. Her hair was
loose and a little curly from a shower.

“I need to talk to you, David.”

Trouble.

He leaned in and kissed her. “You smell like Johnson’s baby
powder.”

“Bailey got carried away at bath time.”

“That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”

“It’s been a long day.”

He knew she wanted him to ask what happened, but he had
been listening to complaints all day. Enough.

He went into the closet, loosened his tie, and pulled it over his
head, thinking how to tell Dana that Marsha Filmore was coming to
live in the garage apartment. He used a shoehorn to remove his
shoes, put trees in them, and laid them on the shelf of the closet.
When he could afford it, he was going to have a pair of Italian shoes
for every day and to hell with shoe trees. In his boxers and T-shirt
he sat at the end of the bed. Dana reclined against a pile of pillows,
a book on her lap, dressed for the night in a cream-colored night shirt patterned with sleeping bears. If she had the slightest interest
in sex, she would have worn something else. Stress and fatigue had
drawn lines in her cheeks. He felt a pang of remorse mixed with sorrow when he contemplated the extent to which he had failed her.
He had not built a safe home for her to raise their daughter. It was
his fault Dana no longer glowed with security and confidence. He
almost didn’t blame her for going off sex. Almost.

At Miami University, the prof in American History had asked
her a question for which she wasn’t prepared; and David, sitting
one row behind her and two seats over, saw the bright rose blush of
embarrassment rise in her cheeks. The sight called up a primal desire to punch out the prof. Instead, after class he caught up with her
before she left the building, introduced himself. She didn’t recognize his name, which knocked him back a little because it meant she
didn’t follow sports at all. He had never been attracted to a girl who
didn’t. Still, he asked her out for coffee. When he knew her better
he realized how rare it was for her to be unprepared in class and
that if she had answered the professor’s question unhesitatingly, he
might never have paid attention to her. There were plenty of pretty
girls at Miami University, less prickly girls than Dana, girls who
lived to serve a star quarterback. His life might have been more relaxed with one of them, but Dana was the only woman he had ever
loved. He once told Gracie this. She said he was the sweetest white
boy she knew.

Not now he wasn’t.

He did not want to talk about Marsha Filmore or Bailey or anything else. His dearest wish was for Dana to strip off that dumb
night shirt and give him the blow job of his life and send him off to
sleep, a contented man. But there was no way that would happen;
and if he didn’t talk about Marsha, get it over with, he’d be awake
all night.

He watched her face as he laid out his case. “Fixing up the
garage apartment would only take us a weekend. Both of us work„
ing.

“You’d help? Really? I couldn’t do it myself.”

It ticked him off that she thought she had to say this. As if he
never did anything to help. “We’ve got a problem with Marsha
Filmore. Both Gracie and I believe she’s got things to say that the
team needs to know.”

“Like what?”

“Jesus, Dana, if I knew, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” He went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth ferociously.
He could not hear what she was saying over the sound of the electric toothbrush, and he didn’t care. He was so tired the soles of his
feet hurt. At the end of the requisite two minutes he turned the
brush off and wiped his mouth. He returned to the bedroom. Dana
still sat with the book open, facedown beside her. It didn’t look like
she had moved.

“The other day, didn’t you tell me the Filmores’ little girl fell
down a well?”

“That’s the story.”

“You don’t sound like you believe it.”

“Police said it was an accident.” What he knew was that both
Filmores had lied about having a daughter, and lies made David
suspicious. His Uncle Ed had warned him he would hate the law
because of the dishonesty. “Be a fireman,” Ed told him. “When a
house is in flames no one has time to lie.”

As often practiced, the law was a dishonest profession in which
one side-the accused-almost always lied, so the other side
thought it had the right to do the same. To level the playing field.
Cops lied to convict whomever they arrested. Jurors lied during voir
dire about their prejudices, their pertinent experiences, to avoid duty or get on the panels they wanted. Witnesses lied for revenge or
righteousness, or to protect themselves, to inflate their egos, to escape responsibility. Some judges took bribes or reached decisions
by throwing a dart; David wished he were wrong, but why should
they differ from the other players in the game? Defense attorneys
knew prosecutors lied to muscle up weak cases, and prosecutors believed that defense attorneys did the same. It was here David’s reluctant acceptance of the status quo hit snags. As he understood the
role of the defense attorney, his only job was to make the prosecution prove its case within a reasonable doubt and to play by the
rules while they did it. He deeply believed that without being called
to the test in every trial, the state would take the law into its own
hands as frequently as possible. There was no reason for a defense
attorney to lie, because he was the only person in the system not required to prove or decide anything specific.

“Are you listening to me?” Dana touched his wrist. “I asked you
if it would be safe having her here.”

“Well of course it is. Do you honestly think I’d put you and
Bailey in danger?”

“No. Not on purpose.”

“Shit, Dana, give me some credit. She’s harmless. Pitiful.”

He sensed Dana’s mind circling, stirring up the atmosphere in
the bedroom. In such a mixing bowl he would never get to sleep.
There were tablets in the bathroom cabinet, but he did not like to
take them. When he thought of the vials of pills in his mother’s
bathroom and bedside table, he couldn’t even take an aspirin without feeling weak.

“You’ve been mad at me since I came in the door,” he said, taking the book from her hands. She folded her arms across her chest.
“What happened today?”

“Nice of you to ask.”

This was the way she fought, with the big chill and sarcasm and
snotty back talk. She never yelled or threw things. It would be better if she did. It might help break through the wall between them.

She shoved her extra pillows onto the floor. “My grandmother
called. She needs more money this month.”

Imogene.

“That’s what you wanted to talk to me about?”

“No.”

“Did something happen today?” He sounded angry, but he
wasn’t. Not very. He was just sick of the tension between them and
everything being so complicated. He had a sudden flying memory of
himself at ten or eleven, riding his bike, no hands, down the hill behind his uncle’s house. He wanted to feel that way again. He wanted
to be happy and fearless to his toes.

He said, “Tell me what’s up.”

“Can you come home early tomorrow and watch Bailey? I hate
to take her over there. She bangs on the piano and Grandma says
it’s okay but I can tell she doesn’t mean it…. I know I’m being a
bitch, David, but I get so tired. If it isn’t Bailey, it’s Grandma, and
now it’s Marsha Filmore moving in.”

It was the closest he would ever get to an apology from Dana.

“Yeah,” he said, “it’s a bitch.” He got into bed. “Did you call
Lieutenant Gary?”

“I’ve told you, I don’t want-“

“This isn’t about you, Dana.”

She sat up, hugging her bent knees and glaring at him. “If you
were really concerned about Bailey, you’d agree that the best thing
for her is to be left alone. Why can’t you just trust that I know what
I’m doing with her?”

Sometimes she made him so angry his throat closed up.

“I’m convinced, David, completely and totally convinced, that
she wasn’t mistreated. I can’t prove it, but I sense it; really deep
down I know she’s okay. But she was traumatized, and it’ll take a
long time for her to come around.”

“And talk?”

“Of course she’ll talk. David, she gets closer every day. She plays
more, she has more enthusiasm. She had a great time at Bella Luna,
and tonight she sprinkled powder all over the bathroom.”

“Being a mute is not okay, Dana.”

“Don’t call her that.” She threw back the bedcovers and stormed
into the bathroom, not turning on lights. He heard the pop of a pill
vial opening. Water ran, and a moment later she came back to bed.

“So. What about coming home to babysit? Can you do it, or
shall I call Guadalupe?”

He used to enjoy being with Bailey, just the two of them. Though
she was slow and her behavior unpredictable, happiness and affection for people and animals and life in general had bubbled up in
her irrepressibly. He compared the new and old Bailey; and what he
felt-the mash of anger, frustration, impatience, the compulsion
to find and punish her abductor-made it hard to be alone with
her.

“We could work something with Marsha where she could babysit once in a while. Could be a real plus for both of you.” As soon as
he spoke he regretted his words.

Her lips made a seam and almost disappeared inside her mouth.
For the first time that he could ever remember he thought she
wasn’t pretty, that he could do better. The disloyalty made him sick
to his stomach. There was no one better for him than Dana, and he
loved her with every neuron. He could not stand to think that their
love for each other had gotten lost somewhere and that they would never be able to reassemble the scattered pieces of it. What kind of
glue was there for a broken marriage?

Lately he had been thinking about marriage. How, despite the
odds against success, no couple ever thinks its marriage won’t work
out. It’s never in the playbook that giddy newlyweds will end up
hurting each other just by breathing. And they can’t imagine ahead
how the loss of love will surprise them. It was like in a game, being
taken down from behind, slammed into the turf and piled on. You
feel your brain slosh around in your skull like an egg shaken in its
shell, you lose sense of where and who you are, and your Osterized
brain is asking, Huh? How? What did I do wrong?

“You’re not paying attention.”

“I am.”

“I said I feel sorry for her, but no way do I want her babysitting. “

She was really saying, Abandon your clients and cases and forget
about the payroll at the end of the month, and come home and watch
Lion King for the tenth time with a seven-year-old who won’t even
talk to you.

Allison would do it for him. He was her hero. He made the suggestion to Dana.

“Allison’s a paralegal, David. A professional. You ask her to
babysit and she’ll quit on you. And I wouldn’t blame her.”

He laid his forearm over his eyes. They were talking about
Allison and babysitting when Dana hadn’t yet given an okay to the
Marsha deal, and her sleeping pill would kick in soon.