Tobin had chosen an upscale sidewalk restaurant on Main Street in Manayunk, a town along the Schuylkill River, on the outskirts of town. Twenty years ago, Main Street was a gritty strip of shoe and textile wholesalers that served as the backdrop for a hilly clumping of brick row houses. But Manayunk, like all of us, hippened up in the nineties, attracting an annual bicycle race to its hills, restaurants like this one, and countless boutiques vending black clothes. Now there were twelve-cylinder Mercedeses lining the street and ponytails who dressed like Tobin.
“I love it here,” he said as he dumped ketchup onto a ten-dollar cheeseburger and a mound of french fries. “I got a loft down the street, above the interior designer’s.”
“We’re too old for lofts.”
“Speak for yourself, teach.” He dug into his burger with abandon and didn’t seem to mind being on display despite his table manners. More than one woman, walking by, cruised his Nautilus-powered Armani. “So, this is quite a little murder investigation you’re running.”
“You approve? That means so much to me.”
“I knew it would. What’s next?”
“I go motorcycle shopping with Herman tomorrow. We try to find out who bought that blue BMW motorcycle.” I speared a salad composed of greens apparently picked from the shoulder of I-95. I should have asked what a mesclun salad was before I ordered this thing.
“You going with a kosher butcher, on a Saturday?”
“He’s not that kosher.”
He nodded. “Neither am I. So, let’s see, you got Herman the butcher, you got Cam with one arm, you got your little Uncle Sal. It’s a Dream Team.”
“Watch it, pal. That’s my family you’re talking about.”
“Interesting family.”
“You don’t get to define it, I do.”
He wolfed down a canoe of a french fry. “Back off, I’m not criticizing. It’s a big case and it’s just starting. You should be getting your team together, before trial. Take all the help you can get.”
“I am.”
“Except mine.”
I considered this. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“I didn’t ask you to dinner to help you. I asked you to dinner to find out if you’re gonna marry Richie Rich.”
“Who?”
“That slice of white bread you bring to the Christmas party. I heard you live with him.”
I can’t say it took me aback, given his reputation, but I wasn’t prepared for it before the crème brûlée. “You’ll explain to me why this is any of your business.”
“I’m your partner.”
“So are thirty-five other people.”
“And they’re all talking about you behind your back. Is she really gonna marry the judge’s son? They don’t think you can do any better, but I do.”
I guessed from his smirk he was kidding. “You defend me from vicious gossip?”
“At every turn.”
“But then again, you eat Sno-caps for lunch.”
He scarfed down another french fry. “So?”
“So what?”
“So you’re not engaged or you’d have a ring.”
I felt a twinge. “Not engaged.”
“Not only are you not engaged, you’re fighting with him.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you ignored him at the preliminary hearing and he spent the whole fucking time trying to get your attention.”
I hadn’t noticed. “He did not.”
“And I hear you been together forever.” He sucked ketchup from a finger. “So I’m thinking either Richie Rich won’t marry you or you won’t marry him. And since it’s impossible for me to believe a man won’t marry you, there’s only one thing I want to know.”
Christ. “My favorite color is red, but I won’t tell you my age or weight.”
He looked at me directly. “What’s holding you back?”
“You’re right, it’s silly of me. Sexist, even. I’m thirty-two years old.” Roughly.
“You avoid commitment, like all the other girls?”
“All right, I’ll tell you. I weigh a hundred and five pounds.” Or would, if I worked out.
“Or maybe you don’t love him enough?”
Ouch. Maybe I do. “You’re not getting the message, Tobin. This is none of your business.”
“You want to tell me anyway?”
“Why should I?”
“Because despite the way I look or the way I act with my so-called partners, or the shit you’ve heard about me, I’m a pretty decent guy. And I’m very attracted to you.”
I avoided his dark gaze and watched the candle on the table flicker in its frosted glass. His words were having some effect; my female ego must’ve been bruised more than I thought. “I don’t want to have this conversation.”
“But you are having it.”
“No, I’m not.” I looked away, but the people on the street were walking so close to our table they could see the ragweed in my entree. “Let’s just drop it, okay?”
“You’re telling me this is an arms’-length dinner?”
“Exactly.”
“Professional colleagues? Not even friends? Like in high school, we’re both in chess club or some such shit?”
“You got it.”
“Wonderful.” He drained the beer from its green bottle and looked around for the waitress. “I need another beer.”
“You had three already. I hope you’re walking home.”
“They’re Clausthalers, Mom.”
“What’s that?”
“Denial beer. Nonalcoholic, like me. It was not always thus.”
I hadn’t known. “Really?”
“Really.” He gave up on the waitress and faced me. He suddenly looked tired, which made him look more human, worn in. “So, what’s the status of the murder investigation so far?”
“I have some suspicions, but more questions than anything else. Nothing really logical.”
“Murder is never logical. It’s emotional.”
“But you can use logic to solve it.”
“No, you can’t. To think like a killer you have to think emotionally. Murder is reactive, an emotional reaction to something. You have to figure out what set it off.”
I remembered Paul, his confidence in deductive reasoning. “How do you know this, Tobin? The guys you defended were lowlifes. They committed murder on drugs or while they were drinking, right?”
“Don’t be such a snob. Smart people commit murder. White people commit murder, too.”
“I didn’t say they didn’t-”
“Murder is an irrational reaction to a given set of circumstances. It can be planned out, premeditated, or happen in an instant, but it’s still emotional. And the emotions are strongest when it’s a love relationship-boy meets girl, boy kills girl when she runs around.”
I thought of Paul again, this time with a chill, and reconsidered what I was doing here. If Tobin was going to help me, and it seemed like he could, then I’d have to confide in him. Part of me didn’t trust him, but part of me wanted to take the risk. So I took a deep breath and told him the whole story, about Fiske’s affair with Patricia, and, because he listened so thoughtfully, even about Paul and Patricia. I told it as calmly as I could, and when I had finished, picked up my wineglass with a hand that shook only slightly.
“Holy shit,” Tobin said.
“You got that right. So I guess what I have is Kate, Paul, and maybe Fiske, with motive out the wazoo and no credible alibi. Then I have a motorcycle rider to track down, the other boyfriends to question, and no murder weapon.”
“That’s one way to look at it. If you’re blind. Willfully.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you have a prime suspect you don’t want to deal with. Richie Rich.”
No. “Paul?”
“Come on, Rita, look at the payoff. Whacking that girl solves everything for him. He silences the girl, the lawsuit drops out, and he gets off the hook.”
“Why would Paul want the lawsuit ended?”
“Because it could expose him, too. Tell the whole world he was screwing his father’s girlfriend. How would that play out in the vanilla suburbs? He has his own business, doesn’t he? A reputation to protect?”
“But why would he kill her?”
“He pays her back for fucking around on him. For fucking up his life. Look, he lost you, didn’t he?”
Did he? “Still, Paul is close to his father. He wouldn’t frame his own father for murder.”
“Not even if Daddy is screwing his girlfriend and cheating on Mommy? Maybe he’s figuring you’ll get Daddy off the hook. Wake up and smell the reality.”
I couldn’t believe it. “Tobin, I saw what was done to that woman. Paul is not capable of that. He just isn’t.”
“Almost anybody is capable of it, given the right set of circumstances. Where was Richie Rich that day?”
“Running errands.”
“Sounds airtight to me,” he said abruptly, then looked away at the passing traffic. The sun was gone, the crowd had died down. The diners had been replaced by couples holding paper cones of water ice, window-shopping up and down Main Street. Manayunk, being near the river and its own snaky canal, stayed reasonably cool at night. The candle on the table danced in its glass cup.
Tobin turned back and his eyes met mine. “I think you’re in deep shit, good lookin’.”
“Why? I have months before the trial.”
“I’m not worried about the trial, you got the trial covered. If you prove what you told me about the Jag and raise the question of the motorcyclist, you got reasonable doubt. I could win that case. You probably could, too.”
“I’m ignoring your arrogance.”
“Everyone does.”
Testosterone should be a controlled substance. “I want to find the motorcycle rider and question him.”
“No. You’re better off not finding him. Leave him wherever he is. Use him like a nice big question mark at the trial, to beef up the reasonable doubt. A black kid on a motorcycle on the run? He’s more useful to you lost than found, especially with a white Main Line jury. It’s like a gift. Happy Hanukkah.”
“But what if he committed the murder?”
“Not your problem. You’re the judge’s lawyer. Get the judge off.”
So much for justice.
“Listen, Rita, the biggest problem is that you’re trying to catch a killer and you’re way too up-close-and-personal.”
“I can handle it.”
He leaned forward on his elbows, gold-circle cuff links glinting like half-moons from beneath his sleeves. “I’m not talking about whether you can handle it, I’m talking about whether you’re in danger.”
“From what?”
“Let’s say Richie Rich framed his father, knowing that he has his ace lawyer girlfriend on the hook for the defense. He knows the girlfriend is skilled enough to get his father off and also that she’s too much in love to suspect him. He gets it all, and he gets away with murder. It’s perfect. The guy’s a genius.”
I felt my heart beginning to pound. “But what about the Jag? The steering wheel?”
“Maybe he gets the car on a test-drive like you think, maybe he borrows Mom’s when she’s fucking around with the roses. He forgot about the wheel on the right, but that’s a detail. All he wants is revenge on the girl. Didn’t he get you hired for the sexual harassment case in the first place?”
Paul had encouraged Fiske to hire me.
“I bet he was real interested in the case, too.”
It had almost saved our relationship.
“He wanted you to stay with the representation, for murder?”
True.
“And he knew when you took the harassment case that you’d be prosecuting his lover? What a scam!”
“Fuck you.” I rose to go.
Tobin laughed. “Oh, I see. You can handle it, you just can’t discuss it.”
I sat back in my uncomfortable chair and folded my arms. “Okay, discuss.”
“I think Richie Rich set you up. I think if you get close to finding out that it’s him, he’ll kill you, too.”
It seemed impossible. Paul hurt me?
“So I think I’ll stick around for a while.”
“What’s that mean, ‘stick around’?”
“Be your bud, check in from time to time. That’s what chess club is all about. Aren’t you glad you joined?”
I felt uneasy. Paul was probably cooling his heels on the porch at home. What would be his next move? “Do you play chess, Tobin?”
He smiled, his crow’s-feet deepening. “Are you kidding? I suck at chess. I can’t think two steps in front of me.”
“You play cards?”
“No. I’m not a game player.”
“Except with women.”
“You got me all wrong. I don’t play any games at all.”
“Right.”
“It’s the truth. Whenever I play, it’s not a game,” he said, and this time he wasn’t smiling. “Now, let’s get a coupla sundaes.”
After dessert, Tobin walked me back to the canal-side parking lot and put me into my car with a friendly pat on the back. On the short ride home, I thought about what he had said, trying to wrap my mind around it. It seemed possible only if you didn’t know Paul. He’d always been nothing but peaceable, intellectual, and he rarely lost his cool. But then again, I’d never given him cause to be jealous. Until tonight.
When I pulled into the driveway the Cherokee was already waiting.