The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (121 page)

“You were there for her when she needed you.” Though at family week Liz had seemed dragged there against her will. It was only toward the end that she’d opened up.

Liz’s mouth stretched in a mirthless smile. “I did it for Anna. As far as I’m concerned she’s the only sister I ever had.”

He eyed a framed photo on the mantel of a smiling, gap-toothed boy. “Your son?”

Her expression softened. “Dylan. He’s eight.”

“Good-looking kid.”

“He’s at his dad’s. Brett has him two nights a week.”

“Sounds like a good arrangement.”

Her cheeks colored as if she’d read more into his offhanded remark. Just then a man’s voice speaking low into a phone drifted from down the hall.

Liz hurried out of the room, returning moments later with a tumbler of ice water in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. As she handed him the water, he caught her eyeing him with her old wariness: She had a jaundiced view of shrinks. “Don’t take it the wrong way, Doc, but isn’t this outside your jurisdiction?” She spoke lightly, but he caught the edge in her voice.

He smiled. “I’m not here in a professional capacity.”

She cocked her head, regarding him with a puzzled look. Then her eyes widened in comprehension. “I see.” The surprised hurt on her face said it all: Why hadn’t Anna trusted her enough to tell her? “I guess I don’t know my sister as well as I thought.”

He could see that she was curious to know more, but all he said was, “The only thing that matters now is getting her out of jail. I’m here to help however I can.”

With a deep sigh Liz dropped into the chair opposite him. “So what happens now? Laura said something about an arraignment.”

“We should know more tomorrow.”

“But you
do
believe she’s innocent?” Marc let his silence speak for itself, prompting Liz to speculate darkly, “I’ll bet Glenn had something to do with it. I never trusted that guy”

“Glenn?” He leaned forward with interest.

“Monica’s agent. I’m surprised Anna didn’t mention him.”

“What makes you think he’s involved?”

She shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they were lovers and he caught her in bed with another man. Or maybe he thought he could make more money off her dead. All I know is, he puts the sleaze in sleazy agent.”

A man stepped out of the hallway into the living room just then. He was tall and tanned, with the kind of ail-American good looks you’d expect to see on a box of Wheaties. “Hi, I’m David.” He smiled genially, extending his hand. In his tan slacks and blue Izod shirt, a lock of sun-streaked brown hair dipping over his forehead, he might have been a first pick in the NFL draft, though he had to be closer to Marc’s age.

Marc stood to shake his hand. “Marc Raboy. Sorry for busting in on you like this. Liz didn’t tell me she had company.”

“No problem. I was just on my way out.” His smile faded, replaced by a look of concern. “How’s Anna? I came over as soon as I heard. I thought …” He and Liz exchanged a coded glance. “Anything I can do to help?”

“We’ll let you know.”

David turned once more to Liz. “You’ll call me?”

“Of course.” She spoke lightly.

“Stop by the cafe if you get a chance,” he told Marc. “It’s the Tree House. Ask anyone, they’ll point you in the right direction.” Marc noted his wedding band. So that’s why Liz had seemed so nervous—not that Marc was in any position to judge.

He smiled. “Thanks. I just may do that.”

David reached for the blazer folded over the chair by the door. “Well, it was nice meeting you. When you see Anna, tell her that her friends are behind her a hundred and ten percent. If she needs anything, all she has to do is ask.”

“I’ll walk you to your car.” Liz leaped to her feet, looking flushed. Marc didn’t think it was from the wine.

When she returned several minutes later, he stood up. “I should be going, too.”

She followed him to the door. “I know what you’re thinking,” she blurted as he was stepping outside. He paused. Clearly she needed to get it off her chest. “He’s married, okay, but there’s more to it than that.” She leaned into the doorway, one bare foot atop the other, an expression on her face like that of a guilty child wanting desperately to be forgiven.

“You don’t owe me an explanation,” he said gently.

She let out a ragged breath. “You won’t say anything to Anna, will you?”

“Like I said, it’s none of my business.” He didn’t add that Anna had far more pressing concerns at the moment.

“David’s a friend of the family,” she went on regardless. “We all used to hang out together at the cafe back when David’s father ran it. He and I even dated for a while in high school.” She gazed sightlessly out at the wooded darkness. “We both got married around the same time. It’s only since my divorce that we …” She brought her gaze back to him with a rueful little grimace. “And here you thought this was all about Anna.” Her eyes searched his face. “What’s going to happen to her, Marc?”

“I wish I could tell you … but there are times when even shrinks don’t have all the answers,” he said with a touch of irony.

The phone rang just then, and Liz dashed back inside to answer it. After a moment he heard her say breathlessly, “Okay … yeah … I’ll be there … thanks.” She hung up and looked back at Marc, standing on the stoop, his heart beating in time with the moth pummeling itself to death against the porch light. “That was Laura,” she told him. “The hearing’s tomorrow at eleven.”

A
NNA GLANCED ABOUT
the courtroom. The last time she’d been there had been years ago on jury duty—a malpractice suit that was settled out of court. The high ceiling and dark oak wainscoting, the gilded state seal over the judge’s bench, had seemed grand then, not frightening. She looked over at Rhonda, seated beside her, cool and poised in her gray suit and pearls, while Anna felt heavy with exhaustion, every muscle aching from her night in jail. A pulse throbbed in one eyelid, and there was a taste like old pennies in her mouth. Glancing over her shoulder, she was relieved to see Laura seated up front, with Hector, Maude, and Finch. Marc and Liz rounded out the row—the six of them forming a bulwark against the reporters and thrill seekers packing the gallery.

The formalities had been dispensed with. Now the judge leaned forward, his gaze directed at Rhonda. “Ms. Talltree, does your client wish to enter a plea at this time?”

Rhonda stood up. “Yes, Your Honor—not guilty. At this time I’d like to move that the charges be dismissed. They’re entirely unfounded, and the so-called evidence linking my client to this crime is flimsy at best.”

“That remains to be seen, Counsel.” His gaze was flat, unreadable. “Motion denied.”

Anna found herself staring at the clumps of hair sprouting from the nostrils of the Honorable Emory Cartwright, an otherwise perfectly presentable middle-aged man with pale blue eyes and thinning brown hair. She remembered seeing him in church. An Episcopalian married to a Catholic, he compromised by occasionally attending mass with his wife. She recalled, too, that Leonore Cartwright’s contribution to their last bake sale had been a sour cherry pie—her husband’s favorite, she’d said.

Rhonda didn’t look fazed. “In the matter of bail,” she went on smoothly, “I move that Ms. Vincenzi be released on her own recognizance.”

He glanced at the file. “No prior record, I see.”

“She also has deep ties to the community and is active in her church.” Rhonda rested a hand on Anna’s shoulder. “Her mother and surviving sister live here as well. In fact, I’ve asked Liz Vincenzi to testify today on her sister’s behalf.”

The judge directed his gaze at the D.A., a heavyset man in a double-breasted suit with a ruddy face and blond comb-over. “Mr. Showalter?”

Showalter whispered something to one of his cronies and rose. Anna was reminded of a fifth-grade bully looking for someone to pick on. “Your Honor, I’m sure Ms. Vincenzi is kind to animals, too, and that she gives to the March of Dimes.” She cringed at his snide tone. “But we’ve all known wolves in sheeps’ clothing. We’re talking about a woman who pushed her sister, a paraplegic, into the pool and watched her drown, ignoring her cries for help.” He turned slightly as though addressing the thronged gallery, pausing for dramatic effect. “A woman like that would stop at nothing.”

Anna felt the blood drain from her face, but Rhonda remained calm. “Your Honor, even if she
wanted
to, my client is in no position to go anywhere.” She submitted Anna’s expired passport and bank records, before calling Liz to the stand.

“Ms. Vincenzi, what is your relationship to the defendant?” Rhonda asked after she’d been sworn in.

Liz, elegantly feminine in a navy suit and shirred pink blouse, leaned into the microphone. “I’m her sister.”

“What was your reaction when you heard she’d been arrested?”

Liz sat up straighter, her eyes flashing. “It’s beyond outrageous. Anna wouldn’t hurt a fly! Whatever you’re up to here—” She shot a fierce look at Showalter.

The judge warned her to refrain from such comments.

Anna felt as if she were observing it all from a distance, hearing them talk about someone she didn’t know. Even sounds were distorted, the rustles and coughs and shuffling of feet seeming to echo as if in a cavern.

She felt some of the tension go out of her when the judge pronounced, “Given the defendant’s ties to the community, I don’t think she poses a significant flight risk.” But before she could breathe a sigh of relief, he went on to say, “Nonetheless, due to the seriousness of the charges, bail is set at five hundred thousand.” His gavel banged down. “I want to caution you both,” he warned, with baleful looks at the lawyers, “that any attempts to try this case in the court of public opinion will
not
be viewed favorably.” He pointedly eyed the reporters scribbling in their notepads.

Anna sat there, stunned. Half a million dollars? How could she raise even the 10 percent she’d need to post bond? She was only dimly aware of Rhonda’s squeezing her shoulder. She felt numb all over, as if anesthetized.

“Anna?” Her lawyer’s voice seemed to come from far away.

She tried to stand up, but her knees buckled and she sagged back into her chair. In a calm voice that bore no relation to the thundering in her head, she said, “I’m fine, really. I just need to … to …” Suddenly she was having trouble catching her breath.

Rhonda took hold of her elbow, assisting her to her feet. As Anna stood there, swaying unsteadily and gripping the back of her chair, it occurred to her that she was now in the same boat as her mother—dependent on others for every little thing. She turned to her lawyer, saying in a hoarse whisper, “I don’t have that kind of money.”

“We’ll work something out,” Rhonda murmured, casting a hopeful glance at Liz. But Anna knew her sister didn’t have that kind of money either. Ironically, the only one who could have afforded to bail her out was Monica.

Laura rushed up to throw her arms about Anna. “Thank God! I thought I’d die if I had to sit there another minute.” She glared at Showalter and his cronies as they disappeared through a side door. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her nose pink from crying. Pills of Kleenex dotted the front of her dark green turtleneck. “We’ll get the money somehow; don’t worry.” She cast a wild look at Hector. Anna didn’t doubt they’d have taken out a loan on their ranch if it wasn’t already mortgaged to the hilt.

Hector put a brotherly arm around Anna’s shoulders. He smelled of Old Spice and, more faintly, of the barn where he spent most of his waking hours. “I’ve got a little bit set aside.” It wouldn’t be nearly enough, Anna knew, but the gesture moved her deeply.

“If only we could use the money from the calendar.” Maude’s soft little face crinkled with concern. In her ruffled yellow dress, she might have been a canary that had flown in through the window.

Anna recalled that the calendar, featuring tasteful semi-nude photos of the ladies in Maude’s sewing circle, most of them grandmothers, had created quite a stir when it had gone on sale last Christmas. Thanks to an article in the
Clarion,
its modest first printing had sold out in days and it had since gone back to press several times, making minor celebrities of Maude and her friends. But even if it had been offered to her, Anna wouldn’t have dreamed of taking money slated for charity.

“This sucks.” Finch’s dark eyes glittered and slashes of color stood out on her cheekbones. She knew all too well what it was like to be caught in the slowly grinding gears of the system.

“I’ll be okay,” Anna said softly, touching the girl’s rigid arm. “What counts is that you’re here. I don’t know what I’d do without you guys.” She swallowed against the lump in her throat, glancing from one to the other. Her gaze lingered on Marc, standing slightly apart from the others, and he nodded slowly in return.

Liz slipped a folded piece of paper into her hand. “Dylan made it for you.” Anna unfolded it to find a crude crayon drawing of her house with Boots in front and a fat yellow sun overhead. Printed in uneven block letters across the bottom were the words
DON’T BE SAD
.

She felt a hot pressure behind her eyes and willed herself not to cry, knowing that once she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop. “Tell him I’ll try. And that …” She started to choke up. “His aunt Anna sends him a big kiss.”

Liz looked close to tears herself. “Everything’s all set for tomorrow. I spoke with Glenn. According to him, everyone who’s anyone will be there.” Her distaste for Monica’s agent was written all over her face even as she gave a small ironic smile. “It’s too bad Monica isn’t here to see it. She’d be loving every minute of it.”

Anna felt some of her numbness fade, replaced by panic. In all the excitement over today’s hearing, the funeral had slipped her mind. What if she didn’t get out in time? Not to be at her sister’s funeral … it was unimaginable.

The bailiff was approaching and Finch stepped in front of Anna as if to shield her, saying in a fierce low voice, “Remember—they can’t get to you if you don’t let them.” Anna’s last image of the outside world as she was led away in handcuffs was of a slender dark-eyed girl in a skirt and peasant blouse, scowling at no one in particular.