That's why I was reluctant to wake her when Elliot called. But she woke on her own a few minutes after seven and joined Grace and me in the kitchen. Lauren was wearing a long T-shirt from a Race for the Cure that I knew she hadn't run in. I didn't think I had run in it, either. I embraced her and kissed her on the top of her head.
"Good morning. How are you feeling?" I asked as I handed her the baby. She focused her attention on Grace, shaking her head to tell me she felt pretty much how she looked.
I said, "Let's go sit down someplace comfortable. There's something I need to talk to you about."
She was so intent on Grace that I didn't think she'd heard me. But she turned around and walked toward the living room where she curled up on the sofa with Grace on her lap. The little dog, Anvil, a black miniature poodle whom we'd inherited from a former patient of mine, noodled his way into position on the part of Lauren's lap to which Grace hadn't staked claim. I sat beside them on the sofa and took Lauren's free hand. She tried to smile as she said, "Hey, now that I'm back on interferon and I can't breast-feed anymore, I can have real coffee. With caffeine. That's a good thing, right? So what's up? What did you want to tell me?"
I waited for her to find my gaze. The moment she shifted her attention from the baby to me, I said, "Royal's dead, babe."
"What?" Instantly, her eyes began to fill with tears.
"He was beaten to death in his home last night. That was Elliot who called early this morning."
"Roy?"
Involuntarily, she gripped Grace even tighter and began to kiss her as the first of her tears dripped into the baby's black hair. I suspected that Royal's death would not be uncomplicated news for my wife. During Lauren's time in the DA's office Roy Peterson had been good to her in many ways, but a few years ago he'd also been one of the first to turn his back on her when she'd been mistakenly arrested for murder. She'd never forgiven him for his lack of faith, or his political opportunism, or whatever it was that had motivated him to betray her.
The phone rang. She waved for me to get it. I wasn't surprised when I answered to hear the voice of Mitchell Crest, the chief trial deputy in the DA's office. Mitch had been a close friend of Roy's, and I offered my sympathy to him before I gave the phone over to Lauren. She grabbed it eagerly.
She would learn all about Royal's murder from somebody who actually knew the details.
Lauren insisted on going into the office. I argued with her briefly. I thought I had good arguments. It was Sunday, she was sick from the interferon, she was still officially on pregnancy leave, her body was sending out lots of signs that the MS bears might be stirring from their long hibernation, and she should probably avoid stress.
I made my case.
She went into the office.
CHAPTER 4
Lauren didn't return home until after Grace and I had finished dinner. For the third night in a row I put the baby to bed by myself. Lauren was sound asleep by the time the bedtime ritual was complete. I joined her in our bed shortly after ten and tried to remember the last time we'd made love, but I couldn't.
The next morning the phone rang early again. Unlike the previous morning, this time it did wake me. The night before I'd set my alarm for 5:45, so even in the foggiest recesses of my brain, I knew it was real early. I grabbed the receiver and said, "Hello," trying to make my voice sound like I hadn't been asleep. I don't know why I always did that.
"Sorry, Alan," Sam Purdy said. "And, yeah, I do know what time it is."
I glanced at the clock. Four-twelve, God help me. "You want to talk to Lauren?"
"Eventually, yeah, I do. First, let me tell you something. You don't talk with anybody but your wife about this, okay?"
"Sure."
"I can't believe I'm saying these words, but I just picked up Lucy for questioning for Royal's murder."
"What? Lucy who? Lucy Tanner? Your Lucy?"
"Yeah. My Lucy." The words sounded heavy, as though they weighed him down like an anchor. He sounded so tired. I guessed that he hadn't slept for more than an hour or two since Royal's body was discovered thirty hours before. If that.
"You think Lucy murdered Roy?" The words felt as oxymoronic as "Congress passed campaign finance reform?"
"That's the way it looks. Witnesses, fingerprints, other stuff. It's a mess. A total damn mess."
My end of the conversation was causing Lauren to stir. When I looked over, she was sitting up next to me, her breasts swollen with milk that Grace was no longer consuming. "What's going on?" she asked.
I covered the microphone on the handset. "It's Sam," I said. "He just picked up Lucy for questioning in Roy's murder."
"What? Give me the phone." She did a much better job of sounding awake than I did.
I gave her the phone. She said, "Sam, what the hell are you talking about?"
As Lauren questioned Sam, I heard the first signs of stirring on the baby monitor. Seconds later, Grace started to cry.
Lauren raised her eyebrow and mouthed, "Do you mind?"
I threw back the comforter and headed down the hall. I was almost to Grace's door when I heard Lauren call, "Wait, Sam wants to talk to you again." Lauren and I-both naked-passed in the hallway and I grabbed the phone from our bed.
I said, "I can't believe Lucy killed Royal, Sam."
"Yeah, I know, I know. Listen, taking Lucy in was my last official act in the investigation of Roy's murder. As you could probably have guessed, they wanted me off the case as soon as I told them where this was headed. I had to sell my soul to even be allowed to bring her in myself."
"Conflict of interest?"
"I'd like to think so. It's certainly the public face they're going to put on it. But part of me thinks that the big boys are actually worried I might have been part of whatever came down at Royal's house on Saturday night."
"You're kidding?"
"I wish I was."
"They said something to you?"
"No. They didn't have to. Hey, I didn't roust you out of bed to bitch at you about my bosses. What the brass thinks about me isn't my immediate problem. I need your advice on something else. Lucy was smart enough not to say a word to me after I went to her house and woke her up and told her what was coming down. I didn't really press her to talk on the drive over. Once I got her to the department, though, she asked me to help her pick a lawyer. Said she'd sit tight until she heard from one. So she's sitting mute in an interrogation room on Thirty-third Street waiting for me to find a lawyer to tell her what to do next."
I waited for Sam to go on.
"Anyway, so here's what I'm thinking: I'm thinking about that guy who helped the Ramseys-what's his name, Hal Haddon? Do I got that right? I always get those Ramsey lawyers mixed up. The one I think is Haddon struck me as a sharp guy. Principled, you know. But I keep wondering whether principles are a good thing in these circumstances, and I'm worried that his profile's too high after all the heat he took over the Ramseys. You think? I want some advice."
I thought for a moment before I replied. I didn't want to get into a political discussion with Sam about legal ethics, and certainly didn't want him to go on yet another vertigo-inducing harangue about the JonBenet case. I said, "That's a realistic concern, Sam. Public opinion could be against someone like Haddon right from the start. That could rub off on Lucy. That wouldn't help."
"My other thought was either Cozier Maitlin or Casey Sparrow. Lucy might like to have a woman involved. I'm wondering how you two felt about the help they gave Lauren that time when she was, you know…"