M ary arrived home, shed her purse and coat on the chair, and flopped on the living room couch. Her apartment was quiet, and even her block outside had the stillness that comes from endlessly bad weather. Nobody home was going out in this rain, and everybody else was at work. She felt out of sync, neither here nor there, and reflexively retrieved her BlackBerry. She e-mailed Judy a quick note telling her she’d found Trish and not to worry about her, then she read her long-neglected e-mail, trying not to think about Trish, Bobby, Giulia, or Joe Statio.
No, I’m just a husband.
Mary deflated as she scanned her e-mail, each piece an electronic demand, a mile-high mess of get-back-to-me and I-didn’t-get-a-reply and you-have-to-let-me-know. Randomly she picked one to answer, but couldn’t find her old groove. She didn’t care about any of them. She didn’t even know if these clients were still hers. She tossed the damn BlackBerry aside. Could she take her clients with her? Should she leave them with Bennie? Would she ever work with Judy and Anne again? Could she get another job? What would she do now?
T was my maid of honor, both times.
Mary checked her watch. 10:05. Brinkley had said his press conference would be held at ten. She found the remote in the cushions, aimed it at the TV, and stared glassy eyed at a Slim-Fast commercial, until the news came on. On the screen, the police commissioner, in a dark suit and tie, stood behind a lectern that bore the bright blue-and-yellow emblem of the Philadelphia police. Brinkley, Kovich, and an array of suits stood behind him, flanked by the American flag and the bright blue flag of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” he began, in an official voice. “We would like to make a brief statement regarding the recent outbreak of violence among certain elements of organized crime…”
Mary listened with complete attention and somehow, in the next minute, fell sound asleep.
Bzzz! She woke to the sound of her downstairs buzzer, in a darkened room, disoriented for a moment until she realized she was home, it was Friday, and she was jobless and dateless. The TV flickered, and the evening news was talking about the stock market, down by sixty points. Bzzz!
“Coming.” Mary roused, dry-mouthed, got up, and sleepily made her way to the buzzer next to the door, navigating by the light from Katie Couric’s smile. She pressed the speaker button. “Yes?”
“Lemme in,” Judy said, her voice tinny through the antiquated speaker system.
Mary hit the button. “We don’t want any.”
“I got double cheese, triple sauce.”
“Then hurry.” Mary switched on the living room light, and in the next minute heard the ladylike clomping of Dansko clogs on the staircase.
“Open, sesame!”
Mary opened the door to see her best friend walking down the hall in baggy painter’s pants, a turquoise T-shirt, and a jeans jacket covered with embroidered patches, colorful smiley-face buttons, and silver jewelry, all of which she wore with a pink bandanna wrapped around her forehead like an effeminate ninja.
“How was court?” Mary asked with a smile.
“Good one.” Judy balanced an aromatic pizza box on her spread fingers as she came through the door. “You been busy, huh? You’re all over the newspapers.”
“Great.” Mary closed and locked the door. “I’m Rip Van Winkle. What year is it? Do I have a date yet?”
“Listen to you, all funny.” Judy clomped ahead to the kitchen, turning on lights as she went, and Mary followed like her small and slightly errant child.
“My self-esteem is at an all-time low.”
“So what else is new?” Judy set the pizza box on the table. “You’re not happy unless you’re unhappy.”
“That’s not true,” Mary said, unhappily. Or happily.
“You should be overjoyed.” Judy went into the cabinet for two dinner plates, retrieved them, and plunked them down. Amber light glowed from the ceiling fixture centered over the table. “You completed your mission. You found Trash. Sorry, Trish.”
“No, she’s Trash again.” Mary went for two glasses, scooped some ice out of the freezer, and grabbed two cans of Diet Coke.
“Whatever you say. She’s alive, you found her, and the cops are after the Mob guy who killed Bobby Mancuso.”
“I wish them luck.” Mary popped open a soda and filled the glasses. “Because I think Trish killed Bobby.”
“What?” Judy frowned as she opened the pizza box, filling the room with the aroma of hot mozzarella and wet cardboard.
“You heard me.” Mary sat down. “I think she did it.”
“Then she’s in trouble.”
“On the contrary, she’s in the process of getting away with it.”
“Really.” Judy’s eyes widened like a fourth-grader’s. She took her seat, then pulled a piece of pizza from the pie and dripped goopy mozzarella onto her plate.
“You should wait before you eat that.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Judy folded the slice expertly and chomped down on the pointy end, squinting as she seared the roof of her mouth.
“First degree or second?”
“Mmmm. Burny.”
“You’re so silly.” Mary smiled and slid a piece of pizza out from the pie, waiting for the slice to cool properly, Gallant to Judy’s Goofus. “Who woulda thought that between us, I’d be the one who got fired?”
Judy laughed, and then so did Mary, until they had to put their slices back down and laugh some more, and when they were finally finished, Judy said, “Okay, so fill me in.”
And Mary did.
“Quite a story,” Judy said gravely, eyeing the empty glasses of melting ice. Pizza crusts sat piled in the open box, like ribs bleached by a desert sun.
“There’s at least a circumstantial case against Trish.” Mary slid off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, having taken out her contacts. “She had motive and opportunity, and she even admitted that she had time enough to kill him and get back to the Poconos. Also, she has a gun, and they found her opal ring in the alley.”
“But why would she keep the murder weapon?”
“Good question. Maybe to throw the cops off.”
“Nobody’s asking but you.”
“To throw me off, then.”
“And risk it being tested?” Judy shook her head. “You’re over-thinking it, Sherlock. Sometimes the obvious answer really is the right one. Mancuso was a mobster. When murder is an occupation, death is an occupational hazard.”
“But that’s not all. I have no idea when she’s lying to me. I believed who she said her boyfriend was, until I met him. So now I think she was lying when she told me she didn’t kill Mancuso. Or at least I’m kinda sure.”
“You’re confused, Mare.”
“I’ll say.”
“No, you’re really confused.” Judy pursed her lips. “You’re a defense lawyer. Trish’s defense lawyer.”
Mary looked away. She knew where this was going.
“You defended her, very successfully, so far. They didn’t charge her and it looks like they won’t. You handled it just right, going in to Brinkley. You did your job, and, in fact, you paid for it with your own.”
“If she killed him, she’s going to walk.”
“Right, which is this little thing we call the adversary system. Ever hear of it?”
Mary felt sick. “So, happy ending. He gets buried tomorrow, and she gets away with murder.”
“You don’t know that.”
“She’s sleeping with her best friend’s husband.”
“That illegal now?”
“She’s a bad person, Jude.”
“You knew that going in. You call them the Mean Girls for a reason.”
“Giulia’s not like them. Giulia’s a sweetheart. She’s my girl.”
“Gimme a break.” Judy sighed. “Look, I know you care about the justice of the thing, and so do I. But you can’t do anything about that, not in your position. It would be unethical.”
Mary knew justice wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t even that Trish was getting away with murder. It was that Trish was getting away with murdering him. But she still couldn’t bring herself to tell Judy the whole story, about her and Bobby.
“I don’t understand why you’re so on his side, all of a sudden. Please recall, off the record, that he was abusive. Inhuman. A killer. You had a terrified woman crying in your office. I’m not feeling for him, are you?”
The words hit home. Mary was feeling for him, but she couldn’t tell Judy why.
“You’re way too involved with these people. It’s like you forgot your own life. You live in a different world from them now. They’re your past. They’re high school. They’re the past.” Judy threw up her hands. “I went to three different high schools. I can’t remember the name of even one of my classmates.”
“And I can’t forget them.”
“I’m the army brat who never stayed put, and you’re the home-town girl who never moved away.” Judy smiled, more gently. “But you went to college, then law school. You got a chance to reinvent yourself and stop being who you were in high school.” Her tone grew reflective. “The Mean Girls never got that chance, so they don’t understand. You’re not the loser they remember. You’re a lawyer now. You got a life.”
It rang true, but Mary couldn’t get past it. Somewhere inside, she sensed that she’d never get past it unless she started to look the truth in the eye, and that couldn’t happen unless she came clean. She’d told Anthony about Bobby. Why couldn’t she tell Judy?
“You gotta get your ass back into the office and beg Bennie for your job. Go in and face the music.” Judy leaned over the table, on her elbows. “I didn’t bring you up with Bennie, but I know she feels bad about what happened, I can tell.”
Mary wasn’t thinking about her job, she was thinking about what would have been her baby, and Bobby’s. Now he and the baby were gone, and she owed it to them both to find his real killer. She realized then that was why she’d cared so much.
“Bennie’s trial’s over, and the jury should be back on Monday. If she wins, she’ll be in a much better mood. She’ll listen to reason.”
“I don’t know if I can do it,” Mary said, after a minute, only because Judy was looking at her so expectantly, for a response.
“I know you can. Don’t worry. I’ll go in with you. I’ll be right there.”
Mary felt tears come to her eyes, at the offer.
“What?”
Mary couldn’t speak for a minute, her eyes filling.
“You didn’t know that? Of course I would do that, sweetie.” Judy put her hand across the table, and Mary swallowed hard, then took her hand.
“I have something to tell you, something very bad.”
“Like what?”
“I had an abortion,” Mary blurted out, before she lost her nerve. For a minute, Judy remained motionless. They both did, as if the words cast a spell on them both, freezing them in a girlfriend nightmare.
“You did?” Judy asked, after a moment, her voice quiet.
“I went out with Bobby in high school and I was so happy he asked me.” Mary tried to stop her lips from trembling, but it didn’t work. “And later, in the car, we were making out and he kind of pushed the issue and told me something about his blue balls or whatever and then we sort of, we sort of, we had sex, and I got pregnant. It was my first time.”
“That’s so terrible,” Judy said, her voice hushed, but Mary felt her heart breaking inside.
“I’m afraid you won’t be my friend anymore.” A deep sob gave way, and Mary’s nose began leaking like crazy, and while she wiped it with her greasy napkin, she heard the chair across the table move, the clogs clomp across the hardwood floor, and in the next second, Judy put her arms around her, hugging her.
“I’ll always be your friend, Mare.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You know what I love about you, Mare?”
“What?”
And Judy answered: “Everything.”