Blood Orange Read online

Right now David was less interested in Filmore’s answers to Gracie’s questions than he was in his client’s mannerisms and body language, the way his right eyebrow twitched and he rubbed at it with the knuckle of his index finger. David learned a lot about people when he tuned out the words and just watched the body.

  On television child killers were invariably homely, with pocky skin and small, mean eyes. Filmore was fit and handsome in a slick, saturnine way. A “hottie,” according to Allison, who believed him innocent, framed by cops trying to cover up sloppy police work. She was twenty-two, and this was her first case. Her reaction to Filmore’s appearance would be important information for David when it came time to choose a jury. Who would find him most appealing? Young women without children, or thirty-something guys resentful of authority and short on empathy?

  David’s stomach growled. After tennis and a massage, what he wanted was a three-inch filet so rare it moaned when he cut into it. But he couldn’t charge another expensive dinner. Dana wrote the checks, and she knew how much interest they were paying on their MasterCard and Visa accounts, all seven of them. One of these days, David thought, he was going to be able to throw down cash for a hundred-dollar steak dinner. Frank Filmore was going to do it for him.

  Gracie asked Filmore to account for his activities on the day three-year-old Lolly Calhoun was snatched from her backyard. He answered calmly, with a slightly clipped accent.

  David interrupted, leaning forward. “You English, Frank? South African, maybe?”

  “People ask me that.” Filmore had a good smile and even white teeth with a chip out of a front incisor. Allison said it was the kind of imperfection that gave his face appeal. “Born and raised in California.”

  The movie-star smile was all wrong on a man facing a possible death penalty. And jurors did not like defendants with phony accents.

  David, Gracie, and Les Peluso had been study partners in law school, and there had been a time when they were either young or foolish enough to confide their ambitions to one another. Peluso wanted to be mayor. David wanted the big-ticket cases where drama and stakes were high. Gracie the same. He wondered as he watched Filmore answer Gracie’s questions if it was really ethical to see a client as a means to a career goal, as a way out of debt and on to Court TV.

  Gracie disliked Filmore as much as he did, but she hid her feelings behind a cool authority. She listened to him, her gaze locked on his, her expression impassive and clinical. In all things legal she was implacably self-contained. And just as ambitious as me, David thought. He liked that about her.

  The mystery of Gracie tantalized him. She was his best friend, the person apart from Dana whom he trusted most. But friendship and respect didn’t stop him from wondering about her body and what she would be like in bed. Last year she had worn a backless dress to Cabot and Klinger’s Christmas party, and for a couple of weeks afterward David could not look at her without thinking of her gorgeous honey brown back, the shapely and muscular swale of her spine. He wanted to put his hand on the small of it to know if it felt as warm as it looked. He had caught a glimpse of a tattoo and fantasized about it, imagining something African, winged and tribal extending down the curve of her hip.

  Gracie asked Filmore, “Why didn’t you go to work that day?”

  “I told you, my wife didn’t feel well.”

  “Do you always stay home if your wife’s sick?”

  “When I can.” Circles of sweat ringed the sleeves of Filmore’s cotton shirt, but he flashed the smile and beaming teeth. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “The problem is,” Gracie said to Filmore, “your wife didn’t tell anyone at work she was sick.”

  “She’s not a complainer; and, besides, we made a deal we wouldn’t tell anyone about the baby until after the first trimester. We were sort of superstitious-you can understand. If we said anything too soon and it didn’t work out …” He massaged his thick knuckles. “We’d been trying a long time. Years. We’d begun to lose hope, and then Marsha came up pregnant.” He looked at Gracie and flashed the smile again. “It just seemed too good to be true.”

  None of this was new, though Filmore’s answers were getting more detailed and emotionally nuanced. For now that was okay.

  Gracie said, “According to her coworkers she seemed perfectly well.”

  “And she was. She ate a few crackers. That’s all it took to settle her stomach. Sandra had a harder time.” A flicker of confusion jerked across Filmore’s face. “I suppose poor Sandra Calhoun’s still pregnant. Is she?”

  Gracie didn’t miss a beat. “Go on with your story, Frank.”

  “Oh. Well, in the morning-we were all early risers-Marsha and Sandra Calhoun liked to hang over the fence, drink a cup of coffee.” Again he grinned disarmingly. “They were never too sick for coffee.”

  “You said it was a secret, this pregnancy.”

  “Under the circumstances, two women, neighbors and both pregnant, Marsha had to tell Sandra. They’d compare how crummy they felt, and then they went on with their lives. At least Marsha did. I worked at home that day, I have that kind of job.”

  “Did anybody see you at home that afternoon?”

  Filmore pursed his lips. “I’ve told you, I don’t like outside help in the home.”

  A privacy nut with a twitchy eyebrow.

  “What about the mail or UPS?” Gracie asked.

  “I talked to my wife during the day. On the phone. I made some business calls. Does that help?”

  David hoped phone company records would back this up, but even if they did, it would not prove much. Frank Filmore had plenty of time between calls to dart into the backyard of the house next door, snatch Lolly, and deposit her in the trunk of his 2002 Lexus sedan. Les Peluso would be sure to mention this. The good news for the defense was the police had found no evidence of her body anywhere in either the Lexus or the BMW Marsha Filmore had driven to work that day. But they hadn’t stopped looking. They expected a flake of skin or drop of blood to turn up eventually. They would dismantle the cars down to the atomic level if they had to.

  Gracie said, “According to the police report Sandra Calhoun called 911 a bit after nine, but before that she knocked on your front door to see if Lolly was with you. Why did she do that?”

  “How should I know? We were neighbors. And Lolly was a sweet kid. I liked her when she wasn’t whining.”

  “You didn’t answer the door.”

  “Well, no, I didn’t.”

  “Why was that?”

  He lifted his hands, showing his smooth pale palms. “My office is on the other side of the house, Ms. Perez. I had the door closed, and I listen to music with a headset when I’m working. Helps me focus.”

  “Cops knocked on the door, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am. If I had heard them … “

  “Do you love your wife?” Gracie asked.

  “Of course I love her. And I’d never do anything to hurt her, to spoil what we have. She knows that.” Filmore’s large dark eyes filled with tears. “She knows I never-“

  “Then in the late afternoon you went out,” David said. “Where’d you go?”

  “Well, again, I’ve said this before, I try to run several times a week. My time was good in the San Diego Marathon last year.”

  Big fucking deal.

  “Where did you run that day?”

  “Catalina Avenue, down the grade to the place where they train the dolphins, and then back up.”

  “You live in University City and you drove all the way to Point Loma?”

  “Obviously you’re not a runner or you’d know that variety keeps the training fresh.”

  Filmore loved the sound of his own voice. He definitely could not be trusted on the stand.

  “Anyone see you?”

  “If you mean that I talked to, no. No one.”

  Outside, a siren wailed up First Street headed for Harbor View Hospital. In the wake of its passing, David heard the clang of the trolley one block up. F
our people in the tiny interview room, four sets of lungs inhaling the air-conditioned oxygen, exhaling lunchtime garlic and coffee: no wonder David had a headache. Filmore appeared not to mind the crowd. He probably thought he deserved Jesus Christ and the Twelve Apostles at his table after writing a check for one hundred thousand dollars payable to Cabot and Klinger. Their biggest retainer to date.

  Not for the first time, it occurred to David that for a man who loved to be out of doors and who enjoyed the camaraderie of sport, he’d chosen a strange, confined, and confining profession. Maybe he should have been a coach. That’s what his uncle wanted for him. Instead he was going to spend the next thirty years in jails and courtrooms defending the Constitution. Which nobody seemed to care about anymore.

  Gracie might hate Filmore or feel nothing at all; you’d never know from her cool velvet voice, almost a monotone but with a hint of challenge, like she dared Filmore to give her a hard time. She asked, “What happened after your run?”

  “I’ve said this before.” He looked over at Allison. “Don’t you read her notes?”

  “Tell us again,” David said.

  “I knew it was the night my wife was going to her book club …”

  But that night Marsha Filmore had stayed home, had gone next door to give moral support and comfort to Lolly Calhoun’s mother and father.

  “So I just pulled on my sweats and drove up to Carlsbad to see Lord of the Rings. It was so good, I stayed to see it twice.”

  It was a lame alibi. Without proof no jury would buy it.

  “Why’d you go to Carlsbad?”

  “I wanted to stop at the outlet stores, but when I got there I didn’t have my credit card so I just went to the movie.”

  The alibi wasn’t lame, it was paraplegic.

  At the theater no one remembered his good-looking face, and he hadn’t kept the ticket stub. David wrote a note to send Allison out to the theater with photos. A pretty blonde with blue eyes and plenty on top, she might be able to coax something out of one of the guys there.

  Three-year-old Lolly had been chloroformed and strangled. The evidence against Filmore was flimsy. A few fingerprints that could have been left at any time over the last few months and a crummy alibi. Surprising, really, that the government thought it had enough to convict.

  Lolly had been tied in a plastic bag and tossed down the side of a hill near Lakeside. By the time a rider found her body, coyotes had torn the bag open.

  David drank from his water bottle, hoping to wash away the bile burning his throat. He thought of Bailey, of the life bursting out of her. He could not think of her as retarded or emotionally disturbed; he never used these terms to describe her. She was Bailey, and he loved her, and if anyone ever laid a hand on her he would commit murder.

  He had to figure out a way to keep Bailey out of his thoughts or he’d lose the objectivity he needed to defend his client.

  Frank Filmore was saying something, declaring something. Gracie looked at David and raised her perfect eyebrows. His attention snapped back.

  “I did not do this … this awful, this horrendous thing. You must believe-You believe me, don’t you, David? I’m innocent.”

  David heard his father’s voice saying only an idiot lawyer believed his client.

  “It really doesn’t matter if I believe you or not, Frank, and it’s not my job to prove your innocence.”

  “I have a lovely wife; we’re expecting a baby. Why would I do such a thing? And Lolly, I loved Lolly, I used to watch her swimming in her little pool-“

  “I don’t want to hear this.”

  “But how can you prove I’m innocent if you don’t-“

  David rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s not my job to prove you’re innocent. What Gracie and I do is, we make the prosecutor prove you’re guilty. We see that justice is done. That’s all we do.”

  Frank Filmore looked offended. “You’re saying you don’t believe me?”

  “I’m saying what I believe is irrelevant. You can be telling the truth or lying like crazy, what we have to do is make the prosecutor prove his case one hundred percent. It’s like in football.”

  Allison laughed, then quickly covered her mouth.

  “The ref’s job is to make sure the teams play fair, win fair. That’s all a defense attorney’s supposed to do, make sure the prosecutor follows the rules.”

  Gracie said, “David used to play ball, Frank.”

  “I hope you won. I hope you won all the time.”

  A guard knocked on the door of the interview room and told David he had a phone call. “She says it’s urgent.”

  On the other end of the phone Dana was almost hysterical. David could barely make sense of what she said.

  Iwo white cars with Union-Tribune logos on their doors were parked against the curb, and television vans blocked Miranda Street in front of the Cabot house. On the edge of the park neighbors and busybodies stood and stared and gossiped.

  Between phone calls to the police and David and the appearance of the first reporter, Dana had hung a sheet over the broken window in the living room. Now there were police in the house and strangers under the olive tree, some of them flicking cigarette butts into the beds of white impatiens. Bailey loved every minute of it. While Dana sat on the stairs in the entry, the little girl kept up a vivid commentary from the dining room, where she stood on a chair watching the street through a pinched-back corner of the blinds.

  The eleven o’clock news would show her elfin face peering out at the world as if the daughter of the man defending Frank Filmore were herself a prisoner.

  “Daddy’s home,” Bailey cried as she jumped off her chair and ran across the tiled entry to the front door, ponytail flying. Dana grabbed for her arm. Screaming, Bailey twisted away. She was agile, too fast for Dana and twisty as a morning-glory vine climbing a fencepost. David opened the door and Bailey leapt for him. On cue, the flashbulbs flared, shutters clicked, and the video cams pressed forward.

  David kicked the door shut behind him. His color was high, and his eyes flashed when he grinned at Dana and brushed back the thick hank of black and silver hair that had fallen across his forehead.

  He loved being in the middle of things.

  He lifted Bailey into his arms and held her. “What a scene, huh?”

  “You squeeze,” Bailey cried, shoving her hands against his chest.

  Sweat beaded his forehead.

  Dana said, “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t call them.”

  “Roses? Big old red cabbage roses? Jesus Christ, Dana, can you think how that sheet’s going to look on TV?”

  “It’s the only one big enough to cover that window.”

  “I had to park a block away. Felt like a tight end making it through the crowd to the door.”

  “DaddyDaddyDaddy.” Bailey put her hands on David’s cheeks and turned his head so he looked at her. “The s’cream man banged Moby and a rock crashed-“

  David looked at Dana. “Ice cream?”

  “Moby got broke.”

  “How’s he do-?”

  “Mr. Cabot?” The speaker was a moon-faced young police officer in a beige uniform stretched tight across his muscular chest and shoulders. “Patrolman Ellis.” The men shook hands, and as they began to talk Dana headed for the kitchen.

  She had already explained to the police about the white van and Moby and how she had left the dog for the night at the emergency clinic and come home just before five, driving fast all the way be cause while sitting in the clinic she had remembered the sound of shattering glass. Something thrown from the white van had broken the large, triple-arched window at the front of the house. No, she told the police, she did not get the license number of the van. No, she could not say how many passengers were in it or what they looked like. There was a bumper sticker on the back fender, driver’s side; no, she did not remember what it said.

  While Patrolman Ellis had asked Dana questions, Bailey tugged and hung on his arm. “The s’cream truck hurt Mo
by.”

  Ellis-no wedding ring, a bachelor unused to a nagging, dragging child-looked at Dana with eyes that cried, Get this kid off me.

  Bailey patted Ellis’s hand as he tried to write down Dana’s answers. “Policeman, policeman, policeman,” she chanted excitedly. “Policeman, policeman, policeman.”

  Dana sat on the couch in the living room and watched him suffer.

  He managed to ask about the rock. “And you picked it up.”

  “Moby Doby got hurt.”

  “Of course I picked it up.” She had not thought about fingerprints. “I saw the rock and the paper around it-“

  “What did you do after you read the note?”

  “I called 911 and my husband.”

  The boy cop made her feel guilty for doing what any person would, and she disliked him for ignoring Bailey. Television, she realized, had given her unrealistic expectations of police officers.

  Dana hoisted Bailey onto the counter beside the sink. Bailey immediately began banging her heels against the cupboard, chanting, “Brown s’cream, white s’cream, pink s’cream,” and so on through all the colors she knew, which were blessedly few.

  Above the sink and along the speckled granite counter, a line of square windows the size of playpens overlooked a wide redwood deck and back garden separated from an alley by a six-foot wall overgrown with Carolina jasmine. To the right there was another wall and a gate between the garden and the driveway. A UnionTribune truck was parked in front of the garage, and a man with a camera snapped pictures of the back of the house. The pots on the deck needed watering, Dana noticed. News at Eleven: Dana Cabot neglects her garden. She yanked the blinds down, plunging the kitchen into gloom.

  “How you holding up, Number One?” David asked as he entered the kitchen. He kissed the top of her head.

  Gratefully she turned and laid her head against his chest. She timed her breathing to match his and relaxed a little.

  On the counter, Bailey held out her arms. “Me, Daddy, me, me, me.

  “Come ‘ere, Buckaroo.” He held them both easily.

  In college and as a pro, David had a reputation for being a quarterback who stayed cool in the pocket as three-hundred-pound, cornand potato- and pork-fed Nebraska farm boys barreled down on him with mayhem in their eyes. She had worried about him before games. He’d told her, “They won’t run me down if we don’t let them.” A team, he believed, could do anything if it worked together.