How unattractive, he thought.
37
Marta couldn’t stop shaking. Her left hand trembled around the pritchel and she forced the tool into her pocket. She crouched on the wooden bench in the shower stall and waited for her tremors to subside. She had killed a man, self-defense or not. The legal excuse didn’t alter the moral question. The quivering in her muscles taught her that lesson, and she knew it was one she would never forget.
Marta was a killer now. The thought nauseated her. Frightened her. She thought back through the clients she had defended. Murderers, some of them rich. Most too high profile to do it again or not crazy enough. But they did it once, as Marta had. Did you get one free murder if you were a Richter client? Did she? Marta trembled on the bench, waiting to feel like herself again. Hoping the quaking would pass, and the questions.
She wiped her eyes on a clean part of her coat sleeve and rose stiffly. Her knees wobbled and she groped for the shower wall. She found the front door, felt for the bolt, and drew it back with fingers that were slick with warm blood. The door swung open. The sight was grotesque. Bizarre.
Bogosian was still standing, dead on his feet.
Marta gasped. She didn’t know people could die standing up. Maybe there wasn’t enough wind under the house to knock him over, or his feet were too big. It made her sick to think about it. Then she felt a momentary tingle of fear. He was dead, wasn’t he?
Marta forced herself to step closer to check. Bogosian’s dull brown eyes were rigid, fixed. His coarse features were frozen in agony. Blood streamed from his head in rivulets. Marta looked away, sickened. She’d seen enough autopsy photos to know Bogosian was dead. She wasn’t about to feel his pulse.
She hurried by the corpse. The Magnum must have fallen in the snow, but she didn’t see it. She didn’t need it anyway. She didn’t even want to touch it. She hustled under the deck to the beach, then turned into the wind.
Marta made a beeline for Steere’s house, the only light on the beach. Wind filled her hair and briny snow pelted her face. This time the mist from the ocean felt cool and cleansing. She scooped a handful of snow and rinsed her cheeks and hands. It was freezing, but it heightened her senses. Her relief. She was alive. Safe.
She began to run to the house. Alix was locked in the office, and there was a lot Marta wanted to know. What had Alix been searching for? Did it have to do with why Steere killed Darning? Her stride lengthened as her plan took shape. She would get Alix to give a statement in return for immunity, then turn it over to the D.A. It would put Steere away forever. He might even get the death penalty.
And what about Marta? Steere would retaliate and send somebody else after her, but she would have hired security by then. She had the resources to protect herself. Money would do that. Insulate her behind anonymous walls. Pay for plane tickets to her different houses. Send her to deserted islands in the Caribbean. Get her lost. Marta didn’t care if she didn’t practice law again. She couldn’t turn back now anyway.
She inhaled a lungful of cold, salty air, and it sped her like a spinnaker toward the house. Time to close this case. She would bring Steere to justice. The lights of the mansion house got closer, jittering with each hasty step, and soon Marta could see the French doors to Steere’s office. Something was flapping there, fluttering.
She squinted against the driving snow. Sheer curtains flew from the doors in the wind, sucked from the room like an incubus. The French doors were slamming back against the house in the wind. Steere’s office was empty.
Alix was gone.
Once inside Steere’s office, Marta tried to shut the French doors against the storm. The wood around the doorknob had been broken and was too splintered to close completely. Why hadn’t Alix unlocked the door from the inside? It must have been locked with a key, one she couldn’t find in her haste. Alix had apparently escaped off the second-floor deck, taking her answers with her. And Marta’s hopes of learning the truth about Darning’s murder.
Marta spun around in frustration and surveyed the ransacked office. Walnut file drawers hung open and folders spilled onto the floor. Messy papers blanketed the glass top of the desk. A cushy leather desk chair had rolled to the wall. The computer on the desk had been disconnected and its fifteen-inch monitor lay smashed beside the French doors, gray wires dangling from its back. Alix must have used the monitor to break the doors. It was the heaviest thing in the office. But what had Alix been looking for? She undoubtedly didn’t find it. She would have run from Bogosian without continuing her search.
Marta’s gaze fell on the cardboard box that Alix had tried so frantically to open. She knelt before it and yanked on the box top. Trifold brochures were stacked inside, describing a resort development deal. Was that what Alix wanted? Unlikely. Marta closed the top, leaving a watery red print of her own palm. This wouldn’t do. She’d leave blood everywhere. It gave her the creeps.
Marta got up and found a bathroom in the hall that connected to the master bedroom. She flicked on the light with her arm. The glistening white counter was well stocked with cosmetics. Lipsticks plugged the holes in a plastic organizer; eye pencils rolled around a Lucite tumbler. It must be Alix’s bathroom. A magnified makeup mirror extended over the sink, and Marta caught sight of her reflection.
She almost screamed. Her magnified face was red with watery blood. Her hair hung in thick ropes around monstrous blue eyes. Marta couldn’t go around looking like this, especially if she went back to the city. She’d have to shower. On the bathroom sink was a white tube of facial cleanser. Clarin’s Doux Nettoyant Moussant, it said. Alix’s self-important face wash. Marta grabbed it and took it into the shower.
After a warm shower, Marta padded into the bedroom to find something to wear. Just as she’d suspected, a walk-in closet next to Steere’s was stuffed with women’s clothes. Marta scanned the perfumed clothes, and picked out a tan cashmere sweater and camel pants. What the well-dressed mistress will wear. She slipped into the clothes, then searched the closet for good measure. She went through the silk blouses on padded hangers and looked behind the dresses. No clues of any sort. She moved on to the night tables and storage bins under the bed. Nothing. Marta thought a minute. Alix had been searching office papers.
Marta hurried back to Steere’s home office and the drawers Alix had ransacked, hoping she’d find what Alix hadn’t. Hair dripping wet, she yanked open a drawer and read through the labels of the accordions in it. A divider read BUSINESS PROPERTIES and contained manila folders for five different areas of Philadelphia. One folder read CENTER CITY, and Marta pulled it out and opened it up.
Steere’s major buildings and the loan documents for each. He had more property than she thought and it was highly leveraged. There were lenders in and out of state and the notes were spread among a number of different banks. No single bank would know how much Steere owed, and from the looks of it, his debt was huge. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Marta closed the manila folder and reached for the next.
BUSINESS PROPERTIES — NORTHEAST. More properties, more loans. Even a criminal lawyer could see that Steere’s business operations were precarious, the properties heavily leveraged. Each lease was held in a corporate name and Marta counted at least twenty different names. None of them appeared to have partnerships, since no partners had signed on any of the notes. Steere was the key man in every transaction. Marta closed the file folder and replaced it. It was intriguing, but it wasn’t what Alix had been looking for. What had she wanted, and why now?
Marta paused. Why now? That could be the answer. It could be that the missing papers would implicate Steere in Eb Darning’s murder. Otherwise, why the frantic activity at this point? Assume Steere had sent Alix to get these papers after Marta had told him she’d find evidence against him. He did have a portable phone. Maybe Steere called Alix and told her to find the file and hide it elsewhere. Or shred it, keep it secret. If Steere wanted it secret, Marta wanted it all the more.
Marta stood at the file cabinet, thinking. Then she rememb
ered that the police had searched Steere’s city town house when he was first arrested. The D.A. tried to get a warrant to search Steere’s beach house, but Marta had successfully opposed it for lack of probable cause. But Steere wouldn’t have taken any chances. If there were any evidence here relating to the crime, he would have had it hidden, or disguised it. It could be something that looked innocent but wasn’t. Like Steere himself.
Marta’s gaze circled the home office. Across the room was a small credenza with two drawers left open. She hurried to it, opened the top drawer, and thumbed through it. Personal records. One manila folder read ANTIQUES and was filled with furniture receipts. English Interiors — One mahogany lowboy, $1550.00, read the one on top. Marta slipped it back.
She pulled the next file, labeled BOAT. Boat? Marta didn’t know Steere had a boat. She flipped to the bill of sale. FOUR WINNS 258 Vista Cruiser, twenty-five feet long. It had cost $47,425 and had been bought almost four years ago. Also in the folder were insurance documents and docking bills from LBI Marina. Piratical was the boat’s name. Perfect for Steere, but not helpful.
Fuck. What time was it? Marta checked her watch. 1:45 A.M. She tensed. The jury would resume deliberations in seven hours. Could Christopher turn them around? Where could those papers be? Maybe hidden elsewhere in the house. Somewhere she wouldn’t expect. Marta abandoned the credenza in a hurry, then checked the other rooms for anything that seemed out of the ordinary. Nothing.
Marta hurried downstairs and searched the first floor. She rummaged through bookshelves and kitchen cabinets. Highboys and lowboys. Nothing. She didn’t even know what she was looking for. It was an impossible task. She plopped on the living room rug. Her fatigue was catching up with her. She didn’t know what else to do. On the living room wall hung a large framed blueprint of the mansion. BUILT IN 1888, TODD HUNTER, ARCHITECT, read the architectural block lettering.
Marta blinked, distracted. She loved houses, even plans for houses. The blueprint was a deep marine color, and the architect had drawn in white. She could see the ruled lines describing the living room and dining room, then the dotted swinging lines for the double door between them. This was an old, old house. No wonder it wasn’t up on stilts like the others she’d driven by. Marta knew from her beach house on Cape Cod that the newer houses would have bedrooms downstairs and living areas on the upper floor, to take advantage of the ocean view.
Marta frowned, the house hunter in her disapproving. It was a problem with Steere’s house, for all its grace and elegance. No water view. She looked at the bank of windows that faced the beach. They were large, but dunes obscured the ocean view. Snowy mounds lay around the house like loose pearls.
Marta thought a minute. Why would Steere, who could afford any house on Long Beach Island, choose one that had no ocean view? Then she remembered something. What had Steere said? In the interview room at the courthouse? I love the beach, but I hate the water. The memory jerked Marta awake. Steere hated the ocean. He hated it so much he’d bought a house with no view of the water. So why did he own a boat?
Marta scrambled to her feet and sprinted back upstairs.
38
Judge Rudolph stood behind his desk in his chambers and frowned at the handwritten motion for a mistrial, which had been hand-delivered to his chambers. His law clerk sat across the desk, red-faced. Joey had been stupid enough to accept service of the motion papers. Strike three. Judge Rudolph wouldn’t take him to the high court, if he ever got there, now. “You should have refused it!” the judge snapped, throwing the papers onto his desk in anger.
“I’m sorry, Your Honor.”
“You should have told her to file it during business hours.”
“I know, Your Honor.”
“It doesn’t have a clerk’s time stamp. There’s nothing official about it. You could have told her you didn’t have permission to take it.”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“You could have asked for her ID, for God’s sake. How did you even know who she was? Why do you let strangers into my chambers like that?”
“She wasn’t a stranger. It was Judy Carrier. I know her from court, Your Honor.”
“Don’t backtalk me! I have my personal things in here! This is my chambers, not yours!”
“Yes, Your Honor. I know.” Joey sat on the chair opposite the judge’s desk. His head hung over the legal pad and photocopied cases in his lap.
“The woman shows up to serve papers and you hold out your hand?”
“Carrier said she filed it, Judge.”
“At one o’clock in the morning?” The judge was shouting now. “How could she file it, you idiot?”
“She said it was an emergency.”
“It’s her emergency, not my emergency. You know how many papers we get here that some lawyer calls emergency papers? How many, Joey? A million? Everything’s an emergency to a lawyer!”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Who runs this case anyway, the lawyers or me? It’s not an emergency unless I say it’s an emergency! Until then it’s just more paper. Another lawyer with another pleading. Paper. Garbage. Trash. How many times do I have to tell you?” Judge Rudolph snatched off his tortoiseshell glasses and rubbed his eyes irritably. “My God. I hate this.”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Will you shut up? Will you just shut up?”
Joey nodded. He thought about saying “yes,” but decided against it. It was a confusing question.
“Did you research the legal issue at least?”
“Yes. There’s no case directly on point, but I found a good law review article and researched analogous cases on the Manson trial, and—”
“Don’t write me a book, Joey. This Carrier broad filed a motion for a mistrial. I want to deny it. Will I get reversed?”
“Not if the defendant opposes the motion, which he does in his letter.”
Judge Rudolph stared at Joey in disbelief. “What did you say? The defendant wrote a letter, opposing?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Steere himself?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Christ! Why didn’t you say so, you moron?”
“You were yelling—”
“Give me that letter! Christ! What’s the matter with you?”
The judge snatched the paper from Joey’s outstretched hand and slapped his reading glasses back on. The letter was handwritten and the judge read its contents aloud, his voice full of wonder. “ ‘My lawyer filed a motion for mistrial in this matter without my knowledge or authorization. I oppose this motion for a mistrial … hereby ask the Court to consider it withdrawn … I expressly do not wish a mistrial … I wish to proceed as my own counsel … Signed, Elliot Steere.’” The judge pulled his chair out and eased into it in amazement. What luck! It was almost too good to be true. “How did we get this?”
“One of the sheriffs brought it up from the lockup.”
“So it’s really from Steere.”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
Judge Rudolph shook his head, his eyes glued to the letter. He’d never had a case like this one. Had never read a case like this one. It had a life of its own.
Joey cleared his throat. “I found cases saying that a defendant has the right to proceed pro se in a criminal case, even if he fires his lawyer in the middle.”
“Of course he does.” Judge Rudolph skimmed the letter over and over, incredulous as a lottery winner. “It’s the defendant’s right to counsel. It’s a personal right. He can exercise it or waive it.”
“Yes. True. I knew that. I found cases saying the rights in a criminal trial are personal to the defendant, analogous to those cases where the defendant wants the state to execute and the courts won’t let the lawyers intervene.”
“That’s not on point.”
“Well, in the Manson case—”
“Shut up, Joey.”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“You’re embarrassing yourself.” Judge Rudolph looked up from the letter. “
Has this letter been served on the D.A.?”
“I don’t know. Ms. Carrier told me she served the motion on the D.A., but I don’t know about the letter from Steere.”
Judge Rudolph paused. He wasn’t in the clear yet. “Get me the D.A. Think you can handle that?”
39
Judy had only one lead to follow and it brought her back to the Twenty-fifth Street Bridge. She had grabbed a lone cab at the courthouse and the ride took only a half hour through plowed streets. There was no traffic because nobody but Judy was crazy enough to brave the blizzard.
Grays Ferry was deserted and Judy felt uneasy as soon as the cab turned onto Twenty-fifth Street. The scene chilled her. Mary had been shot here only hours ago, yet no sawhorses or yellow tape marked the spot. Bennie had told her at the hospital that the cops were shorthanded, but what would become of whatever evidence was at the crime scene? Judy found herself staring at the spot where Mary had been shot. Fresh snow buried Mary’s blood, concealing what had happened. Even Judy’s skis were lost in the snow or long gone.
“Miss? The fare?” said the cabdriver.
“Sorry.” Judy fumbled in her zipper pocket for a bill and handed it to him. “Keep it, okay?” She stepped out into the cold and walked up the street to the house.
Judy climbed the familiar, snowy stoop next to the brown living room curtains and knocked hard with her good hand. She didn’t expect an instant answer, it was the middle of the night. Judy knocked until a light went on inside the house and kept knocking until she heard voices near the front door. Then she started shouting. There would be time for apologies later. Now she had to get in and get answers.
Judy sat across from the mother in her living room, telling her the whole story. The room was cramped and its furnishings old, but clean and simple. A worn couch, an old TV, and a radio-cassette player on a table with some cassette tapes beside it. Children’s books and X-Men comics were stacked on metal tray tables that served as end tables. The thin-paneled walls were covered with children’s photographs, all boys. Their front teeth vanished in one picture and reappeared in the next, playing photographic peeka-boo. The focus of the living room was a large portrait that hung over the couch, a posed photograph of the mother and her three sons, with the small Dennell in her lap.