I shift into reverse, wait for a few cars to pull out of the DA’s office parking lot, and contemplate Martha Gardiner’s lunch-table heart-to-heart. “How I spent my summer” will be working a big murder case. And being the protégé of a top-notch prosecutor. And doing valuable personal research. I chose you, she’d said. She believes in me. Even though Jack’s pegged her as Satan in pearls, I win. I get to learn from the best.
I wonder, as I stare out the windshield, if Jack has also some scoop on our adversary, Lizann Wallace. Maybe I can get him to tell me and use some of that info to impress Martha. Like why Lizann left the DA’s office, and how she got on the murder list.
I keep my foot on the brake even though all the other cars are gone. I need to stop and consider what direction I’m going.
Might Martha not be the enemy? If she sees potential in me, for me, and she’s up-front enough to single me out, might it make sense that she’s honestly trying to warn me about—something? She’d talked about women sticking together—or whatever she said—and helping each other, and maybe she was signaling something specific. “I’ve known your husband longer than you have,” she’d said. That was no tossed-off remark.
Is she trying to protect me from Jack? Or conscript me to harm him?
I shift into park now, the parking lot deserted and silent, only a few random cars waiting in their yellow-lined spots for owners at work in the office building behind me. Car windows open, I can hear the underscore rumbling of the highway traffic behind a barrier of spindly evergreens. I cross my arms on the steering wheel and rest my chin on my hands.
Lunch. Martha. Jack.
She and I had stayed at “lunch” far past three. Sal had brought chocolate-chip cookies, tiny ones, for dessert. Martha had checked in once with Leon, then clicked off without explanation.
“Can I be honest with you?” she’d asked.
Which frightened me, because wasn’t she before? But I understood it was simply an expression. “Always,” I said.
“So, Jack. Your husband. Did he—show you those crime-scene photos he kept out of the security-guard case? Blood on the walls?”
“He did,” I’d been relieved to say. “He doesn’t keep anything from me.”
Martha smiled. “I’m sure. Did he tell you how he’d filed a formal complaint against me? With the Board of Bar Overseers?”
“A complaint? Why?”
“Ask him, Rachel. He as much as called me a criminal. Oh, the complaint was dismissed. But not before he’d unloaded a complete load of crap. On me.”
This is thin ice, but I need to defend him. “There must have been a reason.”
“A reason. Oh. Most certainly.” Martha raised an eyebrow. “I knew his first wife, did he tell you that? Helped her find a divorce attorney. Guess he didn’t approve. So he took it out on me, as well as on Caroline. But. As you say. I’m sure you knew.”
Jack had told me his ex Caroline was “a nag” and “a princess.” Until now I’d been happy to agree. Now it sounds Neanderthal.
“Did he tell you about little Tory Makinnis?” Martha continued. “Tory—he was six—was killed by a drunk driver. A driver who Jack had gotten acquitted a week before—after a police officer made a piddly time error on a traffic ticket. Have you asked how he feels about that? Tory’s mother died soon after. Her husband says it was from grief.”
“Jack doesn’t control the world,” I’d said. “He makes sure everyone follows the rule of law.”
She’d surprised me by laughing. “The rule? Of law? Oh, my dear. Ask him about Pasco Duff. Who violated a restraining order and killed his wife with a corkscrew. Your husband convinced the jury he was insane. He’s out now, by the way.”
“Well, you’d have to be insane to kill someone,” I’d said, wondering if that was true.
“Ask him.” Martha pointed at me with a forefinger. Then shrugged. “Just so you know. You said he tells you everything. Maybe he—forgot about those things.”
I wondered where Martha was going with this. I knew Jack hated her. I always thought it was because she’s one of the few who can beat him. Maybe she hates him equally as much. Is that why we were here? So Martha could ruin his marriage by making me disloyal? That seemed—complicated. I steeled myself to ask her. She’s the one who’d said she was being honest.
But then—as quickly as she’d targeted Jack, she pulled back.
“I always wanted to be on this side of the law,” she’d revealed, rattling the ice cubes in her empty lemonade glass. “My father was a prosecutor. My mother was a law professor, one of the first women at Yale. So it’s in my family.”
“My mom was—” I began. Then stopped. Cancer’s a bitch.
“I know.” Martha nodded. “I’m so sorry. And you were so young. Your father was a single dad, then, after she died? Correct? That must have been a difficult childhood.”
I’d skirted that, as well. “Yes, he was a lawyer, too.” I told her. “Just, you know, taxes. But I first went into politics, and then…” No reason to go into that, either, I’d decided. Plus, it sounded like she’d backgrounded me. But makes sense she would have. I picked up another cookie instead.
“He must have taught you, then. Prosecutors have to stay vigilant.” Martha stabbed her straw through the slice of lemon at the bottom of her glass. “Justice never sleeps.”
“What if you’re wrong, though? You charge the wrong person?”
“Then let the defense prove that to the jury,” Martha said. “How often do we get the ‘wrong guy,’ as you put it? Let me ask you, Ms. North. What’s the conviction rate for our office?”
I knew that.
“Seventy percent? Or so?” I’d answered. “In thirty murders a year or so in Middlesex.”
“Exactly. And do you think that’s because we cheat? Or lie? Or manipulate? Or we’re wrong?” She rattled her ice cubes again. “No, Rachel. It’s because we work hard. We arrest the criminals. We take an oath, don’t we? To be the ones who help make the world safe. It’s a…” She took a deep breath, as if searching for words. “Powerful responsibility. One I take seriously.”
“Does anyone ever get away with it?” Risky question. I didn’t want to make her angry.
“Not if I can help it.” She raised her glass as if asking for more.
Sal had appeared, silently. Not with more lemonade, but with two tiny chilled glasses filled with lemony liquid, and an ornate bottle to show us it was limoncello. “Beautiful,” he said.
I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but the sun over the river was golden, and a single finger-winged hawk circled the glowing sky.
“To justice.” Martha had lifted her glass. “And to us.”
“Yes,” I said.
Martha didn’t even shift into park when she dropped me off in the DA’s office parking lot a little after five. All the other spaces were empty. I opened the car door, but then, strapped in my seat belt, l turned back to her before I got out.
“Thanks for the lunch,” I’d said. “And thanks for the insight. On everything.”
“See you Monday,” she’d said.
“Have a nice weeke—” I’d begun, but she’d already driven away.
Now I flinch as a car pulls up behind me, the driver poking me with two quick beeps of his horn. I wave across my rearview—sorry—shift into drive, and head toward home, brain in high gear.
Martha trusts me. Okay, that’s good. Trusts me enough to make sure I know what she knows about Jack. To warn me. But there’s the problem. Is that trust? Or is that her insidious way of recruiting me? Is she doing opposition research on me? Or maybe—on Jack?
Which would be hilarious. Because she has no idea I’m doing opposition research on her. Her confidence in me will make that even easier. Lawyers are always in battle, if they’re any good. They’re soldiers of the law. Whichever side they choose.
Whichever side I choose.
What a strange way to look at my life.
Jack’s silver Audi is already in our driveway. I pull up and park beside it, and after a quick glance toward the kitchen window—is he watching me?—I touch the car’s hood with a flat palm. Warm. So he hasn’t been here for long. I laugh out loud at myself. It’s a hot day, so my investigative techniques might not be entirely accurate.
There’s nothing for him to watch, anyway. I dig for my keys and unlock the door, put my briefcase in the entryway for later.
“Hey you,” I call out.
“Hey you.” Jack’s at the kitchen table, laptop open in front of him, cell phone in his hand.
He puts down the phone as I come toward him, and I plant a kiss on his head. He’s been home long enough to change out of his court clothes and into jeans and a Red Sox T-shirt. And that reminds me. For one sweet homecoming moment, I’d forgotten the last time I’d seen him. In court.
I feel my irritation itch to the surface again.
“Anything you want to tell me?” I take two steps away, and as I say it, I can’t keep the tension out of my voice. I’m picking a fight. Something I never do, except if I’m teasing or in mortal combat over the last egg roll. And that makes me even angrier. He picked the fight this morning in court.
“About what?” He flaps down his laptop.
“Newton District Court? Judge Harabhati’s session? This morning? Ring a bell?”
“What about it?” he says. His phone pings with a text, but he ignores it. “Turned out I had to be in court anyway, so I thought I’d surprise you. I wanted to catch up with you after, but looked like you were otherwise occupied. With your new friend. Did you two have a nice day? Did you go shopping, maybe? Shoes?”
Seriously? This is exactly what Martha was talking about. Always an excuse, and then some kind of demeaning woman thing. I wish I could call him on it. But I don’t want to make him angry, though I’m getting increasingly tired of being the submissive one. Martha chose me.
“Honey? It’s a tiny bit tiresome, you know? Your attitude? It’s school, for gosh sake. The world is not about you you you.”
I turn away before he can answer. The whole thing is incredibly disturbing, and unfair, and I’m not sure what I can do to assure him that—well, assure him of what? That I’m doing this for both of us? Am I?
Maybe I’m too mad to think straight. I know I need to be careful of that.