"No."
He looked surprised. "You're not. I would be."
She shrugged. "It was always a detention case. I knew that going in."
"Okay. So what are you mad about? You are a little pissed off."
"Yeah, I am pissed off."
"You mean me chasing off that married dweeb?"
"His name is Wayne."
"Oh, excuse me, Wayne. Maybe you didn't hear me, but I just offered to buy him a beer. That's not chasing him off."
"You chased him off. You ever think about what if I liked him?"
"It never crosssed my mind. Did you like him?"
"I didn't not like him. He seemed nice enough."
"Very strong. If he meant that much to you, I really am sorry I ruined your night."
"You didn't ruin my night and that's not the point anyway. The point is it's my life and it's got nothing to do with you."
Brandt put a hand to his chest. "And I would be the last to deny it. But all the books say you don't want to get involved with a married guy."
"Jesus, Jason, he bought me a drink, that's all. That's not exactly involved."
"It's not exactly uninterested either. Did he let his hand, however casually, fall and rest upon any part of your body?"
"My shoulder. One second, leaning over to pay Cecil. That was all."
"I'm sure. But you notice I managed to pay Cecil already without touching anybody. Did he tell you you looked good?"
"Yes, he did." Finally, beginning to be worn down, she broke a small smile. "He said I was too pretty to be a lawyer."
"I love that. Like what, they have an ugly contest to get into law school?"
"I know," she said. "But guys say it all the time. Like it's a compliment. Wow, imagine that, a woman with enough brains to be an attorney and yet not a total scag."
"Not even half a scag, in your case. Not trying to kiss up or anything."
"No. Calling me half a scag is not kissing up."
"Okay, you're way less than even half a scag. You planning to have another drink?"
"You buying?"
"One. If you promise not to touch me."
"You're safe," she said.
7
For eighteen hundred dollars a month, Wu rented a twenty-by-thirty-foot studio apartment on the top floor of a large building on Fillmore Street, north of Lombard. The unit was essentially one large, high-ceilinged room, with a small but functional open kitchen, a tiny toilet and shower-only bathroom in the back corner, a decent clothes closet. The futon she slept on converted into a sofa during the day. She also had an old upholstered reading chair next to an end table where she kept her magazines. The only really nice pieces of furniture, aside from a relatively new, high-tech television set, were a Japanese changing screen and a cherry dining table that her father had bought her when she passed the bar. More often than not this doubled as her work desk.
The best thing about the apartment, and the reason for the ridiculous rent, was the windows- two oversized ones along the Fillmore wall, and another couple over the sink and counter in the kitchen area. From their vantage four stories up, all of these afforded really nice views of Marina Park, with the Golden Gate Bridge off to the left, Marin County just a swan dive and a long swim away.
The built-in bookshelves on the opposite wall were filled to bursting with her CDs and law books and a wide selection of hardbacks, mostly nonfiction- history, biography, political science- but one shelf of novels. A bright multicolored eight-by-ten rug covered most of the hardwood. She kept the place neatly organized and very clean.
Now, wrapped in a heavy turkish nightgown, she sat at her table with her briefcase open and her third cup of morning coffee in front of her. The sun, just up, came in over the sink windows and sprayed the wall to her left. She'd been awake for forty-five minutes, had taken the hottest shower she could stand and gulped down four aspirins. She'd eaten a banana, half a canteloupe, and then three eggs scrambled up with soy and leftover rice. Two cups- not demitasses, but her old cracked mug- of espresso. The throbbing in her head was getting to the manageable state, she thought, but still she hesitated before opening the folder she'd just taken from her briefcase. She had picked it up- newly transcribed interviews, more discovery- from Boscacci.
Last night she'd never gotten to them. Instead, like almost every other night for the past few months, she had gone out to find a party. For a moment there, in the dead of the night with Jason Brandt, it had almost seemed as though it would turn out to be more than that. But by the time the alarm went off, he had gone.
Just as well, she had told herself after the initial stab of realization that he'd left. Probably just as well.
Now that she'd committed her client to admitting the petition against him, she had a long moment of terror imagining that she'd find something among this latest evidence indicating that Andrew had not in fact murdered his teacher and his girlfriend. She didn't believe it was likely, but Dismas Hardy's reaction had brought home to her the seriousness of the situation. She'd leveraged not just herself and her client, but the reputation of the firm.
If she didn't deliver, it would be bad.
Finally, she reached into her briefcase for the folder, pulled it out and set it in front of her, then opened it.
She sat with Hal and Linda at the dining room table again. No sign of the maid this time. The house was almost eerily quiet to Wu after she'd finished acquainting the Norths with the most recent developments in the case. She needn't have worried about finding exonerating evidence. The new discovery was, if anything, more damning than what they'd seen so far- the testimony of Andrew's best friend, motives, more about the gun. Tension between the couple was thick but transparent, and to break it, Wu had asked if there was anything else about Andrew that she might need to know.
"You already know about the joyride," Linda said.
"No," Wu replied. "I mean before that. Did Andrew have any kind of history of misbehavior or violence? Anything like that?"
"No," Linda said. "Nothing serious."
Hal North cleared his throat. "Well…"
"I said nothing serious," Linda snapped. "I didn't say nothing at all. Don't give me that look, Hal. I'm not trying to hide anything."
"I'm not giving you a look. We just disagree about what was serious or not."
"Maybe it would be better," Wu interjected, "if you just told me everything and let me decide whether it seems important now or not. I gather there were a few incidents."
"Years ago," Linda said. "Literally, when Hal and I were first together."
"What happened?" Wu asked.
Linda drew a labored sigh. "All right. The one, it was when I told him that Hal and I were getting married. I remember it was a Saturday afternoon, a nice sunny, warm day, and we had the windows open in the kitchen. Andrew was about ten, and still at the age where he liked to sit on my lap, you know?" She sighed again. "Anyway, Alicia- our daughter, Hal's daughter, really- she was there, too, so we could all share the good news." She stopped.
"And what happened?" Wu prompted her.
Linda's lips were pressed tightly together as she fought for control. "He just… He just lost his temper."
"Did he hit you?"
When it became obvious that Linda couldn't or wouldn't answer, Hal took over. "He hit her, me, Alicia. He went over to the sink and started throwing the dishes at us. I took a couple of stitches in the face stopping him." He touched a still-visible scar along his jaw, let out a deep breath. "It wasn't pretty."
"But that was seven years ago," Linda said. "And it was my fault anyway. I think I must have just been a terrible mother."
"You are not."