Dumping the suitcase onto the floor at the foot of the steps that led to the second floor, she returned to the front door and retrieved the rest of her belongings, kicking envelopes, catalogs and other assorted mail out of the way. She turned on the light nearest the sofa, scooped up the mail and dropped it on the table in the entry. It could all wait until tomorrow. Tonight she was too tired to read another word.
The light on her answering machine blinked incessantly. Too many messages to listen to now. The morning would be soon enough, she decided with a shrug as she turned the key in the deadbolt lock on the front door. Dragging the suitcase up the steps, she sought the peace of her bedroom, where she had created a little getaway of sorts for herself. She turned on the overhead light and sighed. It was good to be home. Tonight she was exhausted, the emotions of the past week having taken their toll on her mind and her body. Every inch of her craving sleep, she all but crashed face first onto her bed. Tomorrow she would read her mail and listen to her messages and call Aunt August. Tonight she would, for a while, put aside her work and all it entailed, all the dirty, ugly things that people do for reasons no sane person could ever comprehend, and she would lose herself to sleep.
The rude buzzing of the alarm awakened a reluctant India at six. Through barely opened eyes, she took in her surroundings and was surprised to find herself, not in Devlin’s Light, as she had been in her dreams, but in Paloma. Instead of the faded yellow daisy wallpaper of her old room on Darien Road, this room was painted white, as was the furniture. The carpet was softest plush blue, the curtains a blue and white stripe. Across the foot of the white iron bed rested a blue and white floral comforter, which coordinated perfectly with the bedskirt, pillow covers, sheets, and a lightweight summer blanket. From the small wingchair right inside the door tumbled an array of pillows, all made by August from the hand-embroidered linens India had begun collecting as a young girl.
India rolled over and looked at the clock, groaning when she realized that she did, in fact, have to obey its command. She swept her hair from her face and tottered into the bathroom across the hall and turned on the shower, hoping it would revive her. It did.
She dressed hastily for work, pulling on a somewhat casual, totally comfortable pantsuit of soft gray and white pinstriped linen, since it was not a court day and she did not need to “dress.” That would come on Monday, with the start of the Thomas trial. Before closing the closet door, she checked to make certain that her favorite dark blue suit was clean. Smiling to herself when she saw that it was, she closed the door. She always wore that suit—her lucky suit—on the first day of a trial. She had never lost a case when she delivered her opening statement wearing that suit. India wasn’t going to take any chances. The suit was a go for Monday.
Breakfast was a cup of coffee in the car and a bowl of fruit at her desk, lunch was less. Before she knew it, it was four o’clock and she still had two more briefs to read and respond to. Roxanne Detweiler, the inhabitant of the cubicle next to India’s, stuck her curly dark head through the doorway at seven-twenty and asked, “Want Chinese? Herbie is calling in an order.”
Lost in thought, India nodded affirmatively.
“What do you want?”
Not raising her head from the file spread across the top of
the desk, Indy replied absently, “Pepperoni, mushrooms, whatever you’re having.”
Having seen India so immersed in her work in the past, Roxanne grinned devilishly.
“You want a little sweet and sour bat wings on that, Indy? Maybe a side of frog toes and fried slugs?”
“Sure, Roxie.” India waved a hand indifferently. “Whatever.”
“What’s she want? Herbie’s waiting.” Singer poked Roxanne in the back.
“Get us an order of hot and spicy chicken and an order of rice noodles with oriental vegetables and some steamed dumplings.”
Roxanne folded her arms across her chest, well aware that India had no clue that someone was in her office. There was a joke circulating around the D.A.’s office that you could rob India’s office of everything except the file she was working on at that moment and you’d most likely get away with it.
“India has been like that for as long as I’ve known her,” Roxanne once told the rest of the staff. “She has the enviable ability to block out everything and totally focus on the business at hand. She did it in college, she did it all through law school, and she’s still doing it. She says she tries to hear the person’s voice when she’s reading a statement, to see the scene as the victim did, to hear what they heard and feel what they felt.”
“Spooky” was the consensus of India’s colleagues, but every one of them agreed she was the best at what she did. Her uncanny ability to block out what she considered irrelevant might be responsible for a good part of that success.
It wasn’t until Roxanne called over the partition to tell her that her phone was ringing that India heard it. Searching through piles of papers, she finally located it and picked up the receiver.
“Oh, hello, Aunt August.” India’s eyes sought the small desk clock. It was almost seven-thirty. “Oh, Aunt August, I am so sorry. I meant to call last night but it was so late when I got home, and then this morning just sort of got away from me and before I knew it …”
“I understand, India.” Aunt August, as always, went straight to the point. “However, there is someone else to be considered now.”
“Corri. Oh, damn, I meant to call her …” India dragged her hand through her hair and sighed deeply, berating herself for the oversight.
“She’s right here, Indy.” August handed the phone to Corri.
“Indy?” The sweet little girl voice poured like liquid sunshine through the wires.
“Hey, sugar.” India tried to think of some excuse for not having called in the morning, as she had said she would do. “Corri, I meant to—”
“It’s okay, Indy. Nick took me fishing,” she announced.
“This morning?” India relaxed. Corri wouldn’t have been home if she had remembered to call.
“No, this afternoon. To make me feel better.”
Ouch.
“Did you feel badly because I forgot to call?”
“I just felt sad because you weren’t here. But Darla said that after you put the bad guys in jail you’ll come home.”
“Darla is right, sugar.”
“Indy …”
“What, Corri?”
“Do you have to put away all the bad guys, or just a few, before you can come home?”
India smiled. “Just the ones that get caught in Paloma. I doubt anyone could put away all the bad guys.”
“You could,” Corri said confidently. “Ry said you were the best prostitutor in Paloma.”
“That’ss ‘prosecutor,’ Corri.” India laughed, and through the phone line, she could hear August laughing too. “Say the word, so you’ll remember it correctly.”
“Posse-cutor.”
“That’s a little better, but you still need some practice. Maybe you’ll have that down pat by the time I come home.”
“When will that be? Tomorrow? It’s the weekend.”
“I’m afraid not, sweetie. I have to get ready for Monday. I have a lot of reading to do between now and then.”
“But when the bad guy’s in jail, will you come home?”
“You can bet the ranch,” India told her.
Corri giggled. “We don’t have a ranch.”
“Oh, you’re right. Well then, you can bet the dunes.”
“Will it be next week?”
“Next week might be a little too soon.”
“That’s what Nick said. He said he thought it might take a while. He said this was a really bad man and it might take a while for everyone to come in and tell the judge just how bad he is.”
“Nick is a pretty smart fellow.”
“He is, Indy. Oh, he said to say hi for him when I talked to you. So hi from Nick.”
“Tell him hi back.”
Roxanne called over the intercom that dinner had arrived.
“Listen, Corri, I’m going to go and have some dinner.” India was suddenly starving.
“We had dinner,” Corri told her. “We had fish that Nick and I caught. Aunt August let him stay for dinner. And Ollie and Darla and Jack too.”
“You must have caught a lot of fish,” India noted somewhat wistfully, imagining them all in the Devlins’ old kitchen, crowded around Aunt August as she worked miracles with an old black iron griddle and some freshly caught fish. Her mouth began to water at the thought of it. “Is he still there? Nick?”
“No. He left to drive Darla and Jack home. Ollie is sleeping over with me. Tomorrow Aunt August is taking me and Ollie to the library for the story hour.”
“That sounds like fun. Call me tomorrow night and you can tell me all about the story, okay?”
“Okay. I will.”
“Now put Aunt August back on the phone,” India instructed.
“You did miss a lovely dinner,” August told her. “Corri and Nick caught a couple of blues that would have knocked your socks off.”
“I am sorry I missed it.” Mentally, Indy amended her earlier fantasy. Bluefish would have been stuffed with a savory stuffing—cornbread, perhaps, or maybe sage—and wrapped in foil and baked in the oven to the perfect degree of flakiness.
“And we all missed you,” August told her. “Nick asked for your phone number. I didn’t think you’d mind if I gave it to him.”
“Not at all,” India said, playing with the cap from a Bic pen. “He promised to get me a list of Ry’s acquaintances from Bayview and from the Save the Bay group.”
“Well, I’ve no doubt if there’s anything to be found, the two of you will find it,” August said. “Must run. I have two little girls here who are waiting to make peach ice cream.”
“Bye,” Indy said, knowing that August had already moved on.
“You coming into the kitchen to eat, or are you going to eat here?” Roxanne asked from the doorway.
“I’ll come in.” India stood up on legs that badly needed stretching, taking in the mess of papers and files that were her professional life. One wall held her degrees: a bachelor of arts from Middlebury College, her law degree from Dickinson. Between the two hung a framed piece of embroidery, a gift from Aunt August when Indy had passed the bar exam.
Summum ius summa inuria.
The more law, the less justice.
India rubbed her back with one very tired hand and massaged her neck with the other as she followed Roxanne to the kitchen down the hall.
Nick Enright’s big hands came suddenly to mind, and India could not help but speculate on what a great massage one might expect from a pair of hands like that. She brushed the image away abruptly and slid into a seat at the small table in the makeshift kitchen where her dinner awaited. Surrounded by FBI posters—Have you seen this man?— she sat down to her first real meal in forty-eight hours. Not, she silently lamented, perfect baked bluefish, caught by a winsome man with honey-colored eyes and a killer smile and his darling six-year-old assistant, prepared with love by Aunt August, and shared with friends and family in the warm, inviting Devlin kitchen, but half-cold Chinese from the corner takeout. She sighed and for the first time in a very long time questioned her sanity.
Aunt August’s Baked Stuffed Bluefish
1 whole bluefish, split and cleaned (head removed unless it doesn’t bother you. I personally don’t like the idea of the fish watching me while I stuff it.)
Stuffing:
4 cups bread cubes
1 large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
4-5 mushrooms, sliced
1 apple, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
Sauté onion, celery and garlic in butter in large skillet or Dutch oven until onion is translucent. Add mushrooms and apples and cook until the mushrooms just begin to brown and the apples begin to soften. Add seasonings, parsley, lemon juice and lemon peel, sauté for 1-2 minutes. Toss with bread cubes. If bread cubes appear too dry, add a tablespoon or two of boiling water to moisten.
After cleaning the fish and removing all bones, place the fish on a sheet of aluminum foil 2½ times the size of the fish. Place a generous amount of stuffing in the pocket. Wrap the foil around the fish and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until done. The fish is done when it flakes easily with a fork.
Chapter 5
I
need to find some time to rake.
India made a mental note as she kicked through the yellow and green leaves that had begun their descent from the scrawny maple standing in the small front yard and trudged to her car, half dragging the overloaded briefcase, which as always, was too full to close.
Fall had always been a favorite season. India paused on the sidewalk, momentarily lost in the memory of Ry raking leaves in the side yard at the Devlin homestead, piling lofty piebald layers of yellow, brown, red and orange into a heap for a small and eager Indy to jump into. Sitting on the front porch steps eating slices of warm, cinnamon-y apple pie from Aunt August’s oven, talking about the new school year and watching the ever-hopeful Darla sneaking moonstruck peeks at the always-oblivious Ry. Seeking solitary refuge out on the dunes on an October evening, sipping from a steaming mug of cider poured from her father’s old chipped thermos and trying to sort out all the twists and turns that had bent and shaped her young life this way and that. Being fifteen and angry with her mother for dying before she’d had an opportunity to know her. Watching the geese take flight over the bay on a November afternoon, wishing she could take off with them wherever they were going.
The honking of a neighbor’s car horn brought her back to the present and she waved absently.
India swung the heavy satchel onto the backseat. The Thomas trial was into its third hard week. She was taking no chances on losing this one. She would put on every witness, use every piece of evidence, turn herself inside out to put him away. India remained unruffled in the courtroom, seemingly unnerved by the defendant’s bold stare of defiance, meeting his taunting eyes with a cool, level gaze. She would spend hours cross-examining witnesses, shaking his alibi, smoking out the truth. In the end, she would have him. She knew just how to play it. It wasn’t the easiest case she had ever tried; far from it. It was proving to be grueling, emotionally as well as physically, but in the end, she would have him. She owed it to his victims—to all such victims— to prove to the jury beyond a shadow of reasonable doubt exactly what this man was, all he had done, and to make certain that his particular evil was contained for the rest of his days on this earth.