Blood Orange Read online

  Now, lying in bed, she kept hearing Lexy’s words. You know. You know.

  She had been careless and cruel, and, yes, she did know why Micah shot himself, but she would never tell Lexy, because then David would have to know.

  The man asleep beside her was capable of the most intense and complicated legal thinking, and his compassion ran broad and deep. But his thoughts about loyalty and honor were as black-andwhite as those of a knight in medieval times.

  She slipped out of bed and into her running clothes. Outside, she sat on the edge of the deck and laced up her Nikes. After midnight in the middle of the week the streets were silent except for the occasional yip of a coyote and the yowls of a pair of cats facing off under a parked car. She felt safe in Mission Hills at any hour of the day, but she avoided the unlighted park and ran along the sidewalk to the end of Miranda Street, where she turned up toward the lights of Fort Stockton Boulevard. All along the way, like spectators at a race, blue and black trash cans were lined up at the curb for emptying the next morning.

  She let herself into Arts and Letters, locking the door behind her. As she did, the air went out of her. The lump she had been carrying between her breastbone and her ribs since she’d opened the mail that afternoon suddenly gave way. Her legs wouldn’t hold her up. She leaned against the door and slid to the floor. A sound issued from her mouth, a low, sustained cry like a woman in difficult labor.

  Micah would probably be alive if not for her, and Bailey would not have gone missing. Lexy would not be suffering.

  She had slashed through the lives of everyone she loved.

  /hat’s up, Boss?”

  Gracie stood in the door of David’s office, leaning one leather-skirted hip against the doorjamb. Beat-down exhausted he might be, but the sight of her made him smile. David wondered how long he had to work with a woman, respect her as a colleague and love her as a friend, before he’d finally stop noticing her breasts and hips and the way her skirt rode halfway up her thigh when she crossed her legs.

  She said, “You look like someone stepped on your face.”

  “You’re a real confidence builder.” He knew how he looked. He had gotten home after midnight, his thoughts in turbo drive, slept badly, and not at all after he heard Dana leave for her run just before dawn.

  Gracie sagged against the door. “Oh, God, am I tired. Tell me again why I wanted to be an attorney. My husband is still in bed, I haven’t been to the gym in three days, and I haven’t eaten anything since-

  “I fed you lunch yesterday.”

  “Half a vegetarian sub. BFD.”

  At the credenza she poured coffee from the pot David made for himself. She settled into the wing chair, slipped out of her stiletto heels, and tucked her feet under her. He had seen Gracie in cutoffs, her face scrubbed, and her hair knotted and clumpy, and she was still sexy. Born that way, he thought.

  “How late were you here last night?”

  “Quarter to one.”

  “Shit, David, you got less life than me.”

  “I went to see Frank yesterday,” he said. “I wish I didn’t …”

  “Hate him?”

  “No, no, I don’t hate him.” At least he hoped he didn’t. “But I always feel like I need a shower afterwards.”

  Gracie laughed. “Oh, Boss, welcome to the world of women. There are so many men out there make me feel dirty just breathing the same air. Frank’s worse than most, though. It’s a matter of degree.

  “Do I make you-“

  She laughed again. “When you look me up and down-and you do, you know you do-it’s like you’re still that twenty-year-old quarterback, Mister Squeaky-Clean.”

  David wondered if he should be insulted.

  “The thing about Frank is, even when he’s washed his hands there’s still shit under his nails.” She took a sip of coffee, looked over her shoulder at the closed door, and leaned forward. “Personally, I wouldn’t mind if we lost this one.”

  “Peluso doesn’t have a case.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve been thinking about that. If he plays it right he doesn’t need one. The better I know our Frank the more sure I am the jury’s gonna get one look at-“

  “Allison says he’s good-looking.”

  “I worry about that girl.”

  Gracie was a good friend, a trusted colleague. David could say what he really thought.

  “So what’s it mean? If we get him off and he goes and does the same thing again?”

  “Can’t think about that. It’s the way the system’s set up, Boss.”

  He knew the mantra like his own name: Better that a guilty man go free than an innocent man be punished. David believed this the same way he believed a good man took care of his family and played all four quarters.

  He turned his swivel chair to face the window. Cabot and Klinger had their offices in an older building without air-conditioning. On the fifth floor they kept the windows open most of the year, and this morning the breeze off the water was sharp with the changing season. He thought wistfully of the rain that lay a month or so in the future.

  “Can I ask you a personal question, David?”

  He turned his chair. “Be my guest.”

  “How’s it going with you and Dana?”

  She had caught him off guard, which he didn’t like. “We’re great. We’re always great.”

  She eyed him over the rim of her cup.

  “Do you know something I don’t?” he asked.

  “It’s none of my business, David. I’ll back off.”

  “I don’t want you to back off. I want to know why you asked the question.”

  “I’ve known you two since Charger days.”

  He felt a pressure in his chest, the kind that could only be relieved by a heavy sigh. He held it back and then let go. It felt good to let go. “It’s obvious?”

  “To me,” Gracie said. “First year, my girlfriends and me used to say you and Dana were Super Couple. You seemed perfect for each other.”

  David had believed that what he and Dana had at twenty could only get sweeter and stronger with time.

  “If you want to talk … ” Gracie said.

  His inability to put his finger on anything specifically wrong embarrassed him. He told Gracie something Daniel Boone was supposed to have said, how he’d never been lost but he’d been bewildered a time or two.

  They sat in silence, and the quiet was companionable. David could not remember the last time he and Dana had been as comfortable together as he and Gracie were now.

  “Maybe there’s something you aren’t seeing. You get tunnel vision when you’re on a case.”

  He heard what Gracie said, and because he respected her opinion he made a space in his mind for seeing. But nothing came, and as easily as the space had opened, it closed.

  “Allison asked me the other day how come you guys don’t have more kids.”

  “What’d you tell her?”

  “None of her business.”

  “We stopped after Bailey because of money.” They had planned to have a second child when they could afford it, but that changed when they learned Bailey would probably require expensive special schools and care for the rest of her life. He explained this to Gracie, adding, “Dana blames herself.”

  “She’d take responsibility for the Holocaust if she thought that’d explain her mother leaving her.”

  “It’s worse now than it used to be. The guilt, I mean.”

  Gracie swallowed the last of her coffee, put her shoes on, and stood up. “You guys need to talk.” She flipped her jacket over her shoulder. “I gotta meet with Geoff to work out the questions for jury selection.”

  As David watched her cross the office, he thought about sex. Between Dana and him it had become a matter of routine and occasional lust. No surprises, no blood-rushing thrills. He knew she sometimes pretended to be asleep when he came in late.

  The night before he had been reluctant to go home, even though it was after midnight when he left the office. He tho
ught of stopping at Dobson’s for a nightcap, and his spirits had sunk deeper in anticipation of the people he would see there. The crowd would be the heavy drinkers, the men and women with nowhere special to go, desperate to hook up.

  When he pulled into the garage he had seen Marsha Filmore sitting on the top step with a blanket around her shoulders. Already she seemed like a fixture in their lives.

  She raised her wineglass. “Want some?”

  Across the yard and deck, upstairs, the bedroom light had been off and the blinds closed. A little wine might help him sleep. He sat on the stairs, using the garage wall as a backrest. She handed him a glass of burgundy with a rich woody bouquet.

  “This bottle cost fifteen bucks when we bought it,” she said, watching him sip. “It’s worth over a hundred now. Frank could sure buy wine. I told him he should open a wine and cheese place.”

  David tried to imagine Frank Filmore behind a counter, taking orders and cleaning up other’s messes.

  Marsha blew smoke up from the corner of her mouth, away from David. “So, Counselor, what’s going on in the big wide world?”

  He shrugged. “Saw your husband today.”

  She nodded.

  “He says you haven’t been to see him in a while.”

  It was her turn to shrug. “I’d have to call a cab. The driver might tell the press where I am.”

  “I’ll drive you.” Or he could get Dana to do it.

  “Maybe.” She reached behind her for the wine bottle and refilled her glass. “So whaddya think? You gonna get him off?”

  He had thought then of her unborn child swimming in burgundy, breathing Virginia’s finest.

  “There’s always room for surprises, Marsha.”

  She snickered. “Can’t pin you down, huh?”

  “Like I said-“

  “What happens if they find him not guilty?”

  “He goes free.”

  “If we move to Idaho he won’t have to register or something?”

  “Why should he? He won’t have a record.”

  “And if he changed his name there’d be no way to connect him with any of this?”

  “Not easily.” He had held the wine in his mouth a moment, letting it burr his taste buds as he tried to picture Frank Filmore among the cowboys and survivalists of Idaho.

  “Frank wants to live somewhere we can support ourselves off the land. He’s studying up on it. Frank can do anything once he makes up his mind,” she said. “Did you know his IQ’s over one hundred and fifty? That makes him a genius. He says he can make the time we’ve been in San Diego like it never happened.”

  Not even Frank Filmore could do that. Dealing with the justice system was like walking a hazing line. A man might come through the experience, but he was bruised and lumpy with scar tissue afterward.

  Across the street in the park, a late-night dog walker whistled to his animal. The dog yapped, and the high, light notes of female laughter floated on the damp night air.

  “If I had the guts,” Marsha said, “I’d throw myself down these stairs. It’d be easy.”

  He stared at her.

  “Frank’d probably sue you for not having a railing. It’d be a tort, right? How much could he get?”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Maybe I don’t want to live in the country. Idaho, that’s the boonies. “

  “Then don’t.”

  David recalled her tolerant smile. “If Frank wants to go to Idaho, we go.”

  “Marsha, you don’t have to stay married to him.”

  “I know that. No one’s forcing me.”

  “But you were just talking about killing yourself. You make it sound like you have no choice in any of this.”

  “Choice isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  Talking to Marsha Filmore made his head spin.

  David watched her empty the bottle into her glass. The diamond on her left hand flashed in the porch light, and he thought about the bargains married couples made to get along.

  She said, “You don’t have to understand this or agree, but I think we ought to get something straight between us. I like Frank being in charge. Mostly, life works better that way. He says it’s the same as the military: if there weren’t any generals the whole thing’d fall apart.”

  “A marriage isn’t the army.”

  “Frank’s boss in our house, and if he wants to go to Idaho, I’ll pack the bags and go.”

  He had offered Marsha the garage apartment hoping to learn more about her husband. If he pointed out all the contradictions in what she’d said she would probably clam up.

  “It won’t be easy with a baby, making such a big change.”

  “Oh, she’ll behave. She’ll learn the rules.” She squinted at him. “Why are you smiling?”

  “I guess it was the idea of a baby learning rules.”

  “You think it can’t be done?”

  “Not with a baby.”

  “Frank says you have to let them know who’s in charge from the git-go, soon as they’re born.”

  David thought of a baby being “trained” by Frank and Marsha Filmore and a sick revulsion filled him. He suddenly longed to see Bailey sleeping safely in her bed and to smell the sweet damp spot behind her ears.

  He watched Marsha drain her wineglass.

  “What if she doesn’t learn the rules?” he asked.

  “She’d be better off dead.”

  Sitting in his office hours later he still heard the way she said it. Not as an overstatement or a sick joke but like a statement of fact.

  Later, he had lain in bed, his hands shaking, the back of his neck and shoulders rigid. He hadn’t bothered to brush his teeth, just dropped his clothes on the floor and got under the covers. Dana slept on her side with her back to him. She had not moved since he came into the room.

  “Dana,” he whispered, fitting his body into the curve of her back. “You ‘wake?”

  Her breathing was regular and deep.

  “I need to talk to you.” He laid his hand on the curve of her hip. Let me hear your voice in my head, not hers. “Wake up and talk to me, Dana. Please.”

  He remembered her sigh and how she stirred just enough to put a little space between them. His hand had slipped from her hip, and then he was asleep.

  he next morning David came into the kitchen and saw exactly what Dana wanted him to see: a sunny room, at his place on the counter a cup of coffee, a glass of juice, and that day’s edition of The San Diego Union Tribune. Bailey smiled when he kissed her and went back to that morning’s fascination, picking blueberries out of her pancakes and pyramiding them beside her plate like cannonballs.

  “Hungry?” Dana asked brightly.

  “Always.”

  She heard the scrape of the stool on the Mexican tiles and the rustle of the paper being unfolded.

  The pancakes did not burn despite the sugary blueberries, and the syrup came out of the microwave at the perfect temperature. Moby barked at the garbage man, and Bailey jumped off her stool and ran to the living room to wave at him from the big window. Dana moved around the kitchen like an ordinary human being.

  She put a short stack of pancakes on his plate.

  “How ‘bout a little sour cream?”

  As she opened the refrigerator she felt him looking at the back of her head.

  “What’s this all about?” he asked.

  “It’s not like I’ve never cooked breakfast before.”

  “Out with it, Number One.”

  She leaned her hip against the stove and stared down at her bare feet. She thought about making up something, but she was tired from her sleepless night, and after yesterday she thought another lie might break her back.

  “You were awake?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “How come you didn’t talk to me?”

  Inadvertently a sheepish smile pinched the corner of her mouth, and immediately she saw confusion cloud his eyes. He was always surprised when people dealt wi
th him unfairly. She thought of the boy parceled off to his uncle in Texas because his mother couldn’t cope without pills. Once he told Dana that though he loved his uncle and aunt, a part of him used to wonder what terrible wrong he had done that his three older siblings had not. There was an innocence in David that she treasured, but it made him vulnerable, even to her.

  He pushed his plate aside and dragged his hand across his face. “I needed you.”

  “You’d been drinking. With Marsha.”

  “She was on the steps.”

  “She’s always on the steps.”

  “Is that why you’re mad at me?”

  She sat at the counter and rested her head in her hands. “I’m not mad at: you,” she said, glad to be able to tell the truth. “Not even a little bit.”

  His voice softened as he touched the inside of her wrist with his fingertip. “Then why?”

  “Did Marsha tell you she baby-sat?”

  “Marsha? You said you’d never-“

  “Lexy needed me.” She couldn’t go an hour without lying. “Her brother shot himself.”

  “Oh, Jesus, poor Lexy.” He pushed his plate away. “And you, you knew him. You said he was kind of weird, but you spent time with him, he showed you around. Honey, I’m so sorry.”

  His straightforward sympathy screwed her guilt in tighter and deeper. Her stomach contracted. She moved away, just a little. Perhaps he would not notice. “I just needed to be … alone, I guess. After you fell asleep I went for a run.”

  “You could have woken me up; we could have talked.”

  Once upon a time that was what they did when one of them was troubled. Dana wondered when they had stopped and why and might it be possible to turn back time in just this small way.

  “I wish you wouldn’t run at night.”

  “It’s safe enough. Isn’t that why we moved to Mission Hills?”

  The subject changed. The morning went on.

  As David was leaving for the office, he paused by the back door. “I almost forgot. Last night I told Marsha you’d take her to see Frank today.”

  She looked at him. “Today? Oh, David, I can’t. Not today.”

  David put his arms around her. “Look, honey, I know you liked Lexy’s brother-what was his name? Michael?-but I really need you to do this for me. If you sit around you’ll just feel miserable.”