Margrit pulled her lips back from her teeth in a false snarl. “You’ve known me too long. Let me tell myself little white lies, Cole. I like to pretend I’m not spoiled rotten. ‘Mom and Dad paid for school’ sounds so snotty. Anyway, I still won’t have a job if I don’t get my work done, and this place needs rent paid on it just like everywhere else.”
“Did it ever occur to you working for somebody who paid better than Legal Aid might help with that?”
“Only every time I talk to Mom, so don’t you start. That’s what they get for sending me to Townsend. Oaths to make the world a better place stick with you. Legal Aid needs all the help they can get. And I’m good at it.”
“You have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, you know that?” Cole sighed, giving up the argument. “You should cook some kind of vegetable to go with the meatloaf. And go to bed so you can get to work early enough to leave at a decent hour so you’re not running around Central damned Park in the middle of the night.”
“I will,” Margrit promised. “Swear to God. As soon as I’ve finished going over these papers.” She gestured at the dining room table. “I’ll be in bed by midnight.”
“Margrit, it is midnight.”
Margrit cast a guilty look toward the clock. “It’s only a few minutes after eleven!”
Cole eyed the clock, then Margrit. “You know that going over papers doesn’t mean going into the living room and turning on the TV?”
“Yeah. I’ll be good. You can go to bed.”
Cole drew his chin in and scrutinized her. “Promise?”
“I promise. Scout’s honor.” Margrit held up three fingers.
“Okay. Should I wake you up on my way out?”
“At four-thirty?” Margrit couldn’t keep the horror out of her voice.
Cole shook his head. “I don’t start until seven. Chef Vern’s got a catering event tomorrow night and wants me to do the pastries for it, so somebody else gets to make the doughnuts.”
“No wonder you’re up so late.” Margrit frowned. “When was the last time you made a doughnut, Cole?”
“Christmas,” he said placidly. “You remember. Cam asked me to make them for breakfast.”
“I meant for work.”
“Oh. Probably in culinary school. Don’t be difficult. Do you want me to get you up?”
Margrit pulled her hair out of its ponytail and scrubbed her hand through it, fingers catching in springy curls. “Yeah.”
“Okay. Get your work done and go to bed. Night, Grit.” Cole smiled at her and disappeared down the hall.
“Night, Cole,” she called, and waited. When his door clicked shut, she grabbed the plate of meatloaf, a carton of double-swirl chocolate fudge chunk ice cream, a legal brief from the table and a pen from the birdcage, and sauntered into the living room to plunk down on the couch. Soft cushions grabbed her hips, sucking her in with the confidence of an old lover. Margrit spilled her armload onto the cushion next to her and switched on the TV, flipping to the news as she rescued the meatloaf before it stained her paperwork.
She elbowed open her binder and twisted her neck to read it as she ate. The television droned on in the background: a dockworker had drowned and the union was striking; two murder victims had been found in Queens. A note of local interest news was wedged between sound bites of doom and gloom: a 1920s speakeasy, recently discovered hidden behind a collapsed subway tunnel, was being opened to the public on a limited basis. Lest the site opening be considered too cheery, the reporter continued on to solemnly report a Park Avenue suicide. Margrit smiled ruefully at the endless bad news, its dismaying litany unable to deflate the good cheer she felt from her run.
“Irrational creature,” she mumbled, then frowned at the ice cream carton. “Spoon.” She fought her way out of the couch and brought the meat loaf plate into the kitchen, the binder still in her free hand.
She’d spent enough late nights on the case-a plea for clemency for a woman convicted of murdering a viciously abusive boyfriend-that she could see the annotated pages and carefully printed facts when she closed her eyes. Luka Johnson had served four years of a twenty-year sentence, only allowed to meet with her daughters once a week under highly supervised conditions. The case had been dropped in Margrit’s lap literally weeks out of law school. She’d been Luka’s advocate for the entire length of her incarceration.
Four years. It didn’t seem so long, but Margrit had watched Luka’s youngest daughter grow from a squalling babe in arms to a thoughtful, talkative little girl in that time. The children lived with a foster mother who cared for them very much, but every week that they left Luka behind in prison was a little harder for everyone. The trial judge was sympathetic to their cause; the state coalition against domestic violence had given its support. The governor was expected to hear and make a decision on the clemency within the week. Margrit couldn’t stay away from the paperwork, grooming it for the hundredth time, wondering if she’d missed anything that might cost Luka and her children more years of their shared lives.
Ir-ra-shun-al, a corner of her brain chanted. Margrit smacked her head with the spoon. As if doing so turned up the reception, the TV in the other room suddenly got louder, a female reporter’s voice cutting through the quiet apartment: “…park improvements will have to be delayed….” The sound cut out again. Spoon in her mouth, Margrit went back to the living room and dropped into the couch, juggling ice cream and the remote to turn up the volume as she watched the pink-cheeked reporter.
“This area of the park, scheduled for renovation, is tonight the scene of a crime the likes of which has not been witnessed in over a decade,” the woman said earnestly. Locks of hair blew into her eyes and she tucked them behind an ear with a gloved hand. Margrit sat up straighter, clutching the ice cream carton. “A young woman was brutally murdered here tonight, just beyond where I’m standing now, Jim. I have with me Nereida Holmes, who witnessed the attack.”
The reporter turned, angling her microphone under the mouth of a petite woman with large eyes and carefully arranged, flat shining curls. She wore a chocolate-brown coat, the collar lined with darker fur. In the hard white light of the TV camera, the fur looked stiff and unyielding, as if it would prick the woman’s chin.
“It looked like he hit her, no?” Nereida Holmes’s words were tinged with a faint Spanish accent. “He was crouched over her, like he was some kinda animal. Growling. There was blood on his hands. And then he saw me and ran away.”
The reporter pulled the mike back, demanded, “Can you tell us what he looked like?” and thrust it toward Nereida again.
“Um, yes, he was a white guy, maybe so tall?” she lifted a hand well above her head, some inches beyond the top of the reporter’s head, too. “He had long legs-you could see that even when he was down low. And he had light hair, real light, and good shoulders. I couldn’t see nothing else, ’cept he was wearing a business suit, but no winter jacket.” She shook her head. “He musta been cold.”
“Anything else you can tell us?”
Nereida blanched even more. “I heard that girl screaming. It was terrible. I hope they catch that bastard.”
“Thank you, Ms. Holmes.” The reporter turned back to the camera. “Anyone wishing to report seeing a man of this description in Central Park between the hours of 10:45 and 11:15 p.m. this evening, please contact the police immediately. This is Holly Perry, reporting for Channel Three. Back to you, Jim.”
Ice cream slid off Margrit’s spoon and plopped onto her running tights, the chill immediate and sharp against her thigh. She startled, stuffing the spoon back into the carton, and reached for the remote. She turned the television off and sat, silent, staring at the blank screen.
CHAPTER 2