Courting Trouble (10 page)

Herb’s gaze zoomed in on her independent woman as she reached the desk. “Hello, honey,” he said, with what he hoped was a sexy smirk. He reeked of Aramis, and his navy uniform fit taut against his short, heavyset frame. He wore his pants with the belt buckled high, like Fred Mertz. “Why are you dressed like Uncle Sam, for a job interview?”

“It got me past the reporters, didn’t it?” Anne kept her head down, pulled over the black spiral log book, and scribbled 36C on the solid line. “If I’m hired today, I don’t want them recognizing me and following me everywhere.”

“So why don’t you take it off? You’re inside now.”

“I like the power.”

Suddenly the elevator doors opened with a discreet
ping,
and Mary rushed out like the cavalry. She couldn’t hide her smile. “Dressing for success?”

“You must be Mary DiNunzio.” Anne extended a hand as if they hadn’t met, just as a commotion began at the entrance, behind her. They turned around in time to see a familiar figure coming through the revolving door, with a group of people.

Oh, no.
Now Anne was in real trouble.

A
nne fled to the back corner of the elevator as Matt Booker stepped in with his clients, Beth Dietz and her ponytailed husband, Bill. On his right side stood Janine Bonnard, a pretty young woman in a gray Gap suit, who was being deposed today. Anne kept her stovepipe down and prayed Matt wouldn’t recognize her, though he seemed so preoccupied he wouldn’t have noticed if she’d been Godzilla.

She stole a sideways glance at him. Dark circles ringed his normally bright eyes, his broad shoulders slumped in a navy suit with no tie, and his thick hair wasn’t neat enough for a deposition. She wondered if he was upset because of her. His briefcase at his side, he looked over at Mary.

“Mary, I’m so sorry about Anne,” he said. Grief weighed down his usually confident voice. “Have you heard anything more from the police, since we talked? Don’t they have any leads on who . . . killed her?”

Oh, jeez.
Anne’s face was on fire. She felt terrible, seeing him like this.

“Not yet,” Mary said. “But they’re working on it, I know.”

“Please give my condolences to her family, and if there’s anything I can do to help you . . . or the police, please let me know. Keep me in the loop, okay? I’d like to know what’s going on.”

“I will, thanks.”

“I can’t imagine who would do this. I just can’t . . .” Matt’s voice trailed off and he hung his head.

“None of us can,” Mary told him, her face tight. Obviously, she didn’t like lying as much as Anne did.

“Please give our sympathy to her family, as well.” It was Beth Dietz, and her husband nodded.

“I will,” Mary said. “Listen, I’m running a little late for the deposition. I have to get this new messenger started.” She gestured quickly at Anne, who kept her head down. “Can you let me have an extra ten minutes?”

“Of course. Like I told you on the phone, I would have agreed to move the dep back if you wanted to.”

“Thanks, but it won’t be necessary.”

“Who will be trying the case, now that Anne is—”

“God knows.”

Ping!
The elevator doors slid open on the third floor. Rosato & Associates, read the brass letters on the wall, above the familiar rug, cloth chairs, and glass coffee table. Anne felt strangely as if she were coming back into her own life, but she couldn’t risk lingering. She got off the elevator last and hurried out of the reception area, with her back turned to Matt.

Mary lead Matt and his clients to one of the two conference rooms off the reception area and opened the door for them. “If you’ll wait for me in there, I’ll be right out. The bathrooms are on the left, and the court reporter’s already set up inside. I’ll be back in ten.”

“Thanks,” Matt said, and Mary scooted down the hall, right behind Anne.

“
You’re alive!
” Mary bear-hugged a startled Anne, yanking her close to a linen blouse that smelled of Ivory soap and powdery antiperspirant. Anne’s Uncle Sam disguise lay discarded on Mary’s neat desk, where Mel was sniffing her fake beard delicately. His coat looked silky in the sunlight streaming through the window, a fuzzy cat against smooth legal briefs. Lawyer Cat. Mary was beside herself. “I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it! This is so great!”

“Let her go before you kill her,” Judy said from the door to Mary’s office, but even she was smiling. Bennie stood next to her, grinning over a white porcelain mug that read java diva.

“I’m so happy!” Mary segued into rocking Anne. “I’m so happy you’re alive!”

“Is she always like this?” Anne asked as she swayed back and forth, and Bennie nodded.

“Yes, I’ve delegated all of my emotions to her. She has them for me, Carrier, and the entire Philadelphia Bar Association. It frees us up to bill time.”

“This is
so
great!” Mary finally released Anne and stood in front of her tan credenza near the door. Her hair was still a messy ponytail and her brown eyes flashed with animation. “Tell us everything, girl! I thought you were a ghost!”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Anne said, but Mary’s forehead wrinkled.

“Of course there is.”

Chick is a little crazy.
Anne let it go and reached for Mel to give him a kiss hello. He greeted her with a where-were-you sniffing of the tip of her nose. Eskimo Cat.

“Tell us what happened, from the beginning,” Bennie said. She eased onto the credenza with her coffee, and her smile faded. “I
identified
you, Murphy. I swear I saw you, dead, at the morgue. It was horrifying.”

“But the face had to be—”

“It was, I could hardly bring myself to look at it. Your—or
her
—face was a mess, and there was cotton wadding from the blast, embedded where your eyes would have been. We all saw the body, but I made the ID, I signed the papers. I didn’t think to question it. She had on your clothes, and her hair was red, even though it was covered with—”

Anne waved her off. “I get the picture. And I could see how you made the mistake.”

“So, tell us what really happened,” Judy chimed in quickly, eager to change the subject. She hopped up on the credenza and took a seat beside Bennie, dangling her red clogs. With her overalls she wore long silver earrings that swung whenever she moved.

How weird. The four of us together, in Mary’s office.
Anne knew it had never happened before, and they stood in the same office she had crashed only yesterday. She was having a hard time looking Judy in the eye, knowing what she felt inside, but the girl was so cute, with her face round as a circle, Campbell’s-kid smile, and chopped-off crayon-yellow hair. Anne suppressed her resentment and let it rip. She told them everything, starting last year with Kevin, then fast-forwarding to Willa’s murder, and how she had seen them at her house, then the call from Dr. Goldberger about Kevin’s escape. She edited out her eavesdropping on their conversation, and if anybody realized she had overheard them, they didn’t mention it.

Even Judy stilled as the story ended, her baby face positively colicky, but Mary looked shaken and grave. On the credenza, Bennie’s gaze remained out the window, and her empty coffee mug hung from a thumb. She spoke first:

“I’m wondering about a critical assumption you’re making, Murphy. You assume that the killer is Kevin and he meant to kill you, and I see why. The facts look like that, especially given his escape.” Bennie looked at Anne directly, her blue eyes cutting like ice. “But it’s at least a possibility that the killer isn’t Kevin, and also that, whoever he is, he did mean to kill Willa.”

Anne didn’t get it. “Bennie, you said exactly the opposite to the cops. You said it was a no-brainer that it was Kevin.”

“I didn’t know then that Willa was at your house, so that changes the facts for me. It should for you, too.” Bennie’s eyes narrowed. “Was Willa seeing anyone? I assume she wasn’t married, if she agreed to cat-sit for you.”

“She was single, and I know she wasn’t dating anyone.”

“How old was she?”

“About my age.”

“Where did she work?”

“At home, I think. She was an artist, she worked alone.”

“She must have had friends, family.”

“I guess so, but I don’t know anything else about her, except that I think she lived off a trust fund. I know she’s not from here, originally. She told me that once. I have no idea where her family lives or how to reach them.”

“We have to find them. She was their daughter, their sister. They have a right to know she’s dead. Where did she live?”

“In town, somewhere. I only knew her from the gym.”

“You can find out where she lived, how hard can that be?” Bennie didn’t wait for an answer. “Tell me about the last time you saw Willa. You said she ran to your house from the gym. Did she have anything on her? A purse or a gym bag? Keys? The police found no identification on her.”

Anne flashed on Willa, huffing on her front step. “No. Her hands were empty.”

“Do you need to show ID or a membership card to use your gym?”

“Yes.” Anne finished the thought. “So Willa would have had to bring her ID and her purse with her, to get into the gym. It may still be there, with her keys, and the lockers are usually unlocked. I never leave my stuff there. I bring just my keys, membership card, and a dollar for a bottle of Evian.”

“We’ll follow up on that, too.” Bennie paused. “Another thing. Did you really have a date last night? Was that true?”

Anne avoided Mary’s eyes. “No date. I haven’t gone out in a year. Kevin Satorno was my last date.” She had to get Bennie back on track. “That’s why I know Willa wasn’t the intended victim. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was Kevin and he wanted to kill me. He’s been in prison, probably following my career, maybe even reading about me and Chipster. The Philly papers are on-line. And the sawed-off shotgun, the attack at the front door, everything is the same as before, in L.A. He’s probably been watching my house since he escaped.”

Bennie cocked an eyebrow. “Then why didn’t he see you leave for the shore last night? Why didn’t he see Willa come over?”

“Maybe he wasn’t watching at that moment, and I didn’t go until it was almost dark, a little after nine o’clock. I hung around, we talked a little and played with Mel. I lent Willa my shirt and a pair of clean shorts, since she’d come straight from the gym. What time did the murder take place, do they know?”

“About eleven o’clock, they think so far.” Bennie mulled it over. “And your hallway light didn’t work? How do you know it didn’t burn out this morning, when you turned it on?”

“I never used it, not once. I doubt there’s even a bulb in it.” Anne kicked herself for not checking. “Bennie, I’m telling you, it was Kevin who came to shoot me last night, just like before, and I’m certain he thinks he killed me.”

Judy was shaking her head slowly. “But Bennie could be right. It’s at least a logical possibility somebody meant to kill Willa, for some reason. We know so little about her.”

Mary shot her a sidelong look. “No, I think Anne is right. An attempt was made on her life, just a year ago. Kevin was the one who tried to kill her before, and he’s escaped from prison. He’s obsessed with her, he’s a stalker. She’s the much likelier victim. No doubt.”

Eeek. Our first fight.
Anne could feel battle lines being drawn. Mel chose her side, even though he had fallen asleep on Mary’s desk. Loyalty Cat.

Bennie raised a hand like a traffic cop. “Hold on, let’s table the discussion for a minute. There’s another assumption I don’t like, Murphy. If the killer is Kevin, why do you assume he’s still in town? If he’s a fugitive and he killed you, why wouldn’t he just run? His job is done and he doesn’t want to get caught. Any murderer would bolt.”

“Not an erotomanic. That’s not the way they think. Kevin views himself as linked to me, romantically, forever. It’s all imagined, of course, but it’s strong. He’ll want to see where I worked, maybe even see you guys.”

“I agree, stalkers are in a league of their own,” Mary said quietly. Her brown eyes flickered, and she raked a dark-blond strand back with manicured fingernails. “You know, once I had a problem with . . . someone.”

“Really, you?” Anne looked over in surprise, though she knew the statistics. Three out of every ten women will be stalked in their lives. So she and Mary did have something in common, after all. She just wished it were something good, like compulsive spending.

“My case was a little different, because I didn’t realize I was being stalked. But I remember, you have to be careful how you deal with a stalker, and it’s no win. If you go to the cops, it makes him crazy. If you don’t, you’re unprotected.”

Right
. It was so nice to finally be understood, and by somebody who wasn’t court-appointed. “That’s why I never should have gotten the restraining order against Kevin. It punctured his delusion that I loved him. It was the ultimate rejection, one even he couldn’t deny, and it became a declaration of war.”

“But you had every right to go to court!” Judy said, and next to her Bennie nodded.

“You did the right thing. You were trying to protect yourself.”

Anne tried to explain. “Ten percent of women in abuse or stalking scenarios are killed right after they apply for a restraining order. In New York, they found one woman dead—with her restraining order knifed to her chest.” She fell silent at the horrible image. “These obsessive types, they’re different from normal murderers, if there is such a thing. That’s why Kevin will stay in town. He’ll want to be around me, to walk places I walked. To stay near me, even in death.”

Mary shuddered. “I would bet this guy won’t leave Philly before your funeral.”

“True,” Anne said, though she hadn’t thought far enough ahead to a funeral. “But it’s Willa’s body in the morgue. What will they do?” They all looked at Bennie, since she always knew everything.

“The medical examiner won’t release the body for two or three weeks, given the holiday and the backlog.”