Dying in the Dark (7 page)

“I'm fine!” I stepped away from him, my tone letting him know that although his presence might frighten Liston, it didn't impress me. One way or the other I would have handled it myself.

“You're not as tough as you think. They might come back. Let me walk you to your car.”

“That's really not necessary. I'm fine,” I said, but he followed me anyway. We didn't say much as we walked toward the car. I didn't look at him as I unlocked the door and climbed in.

“I need to talk to you,” he said.

I started my car. ‘About what?”

‘About Celia and her boy. What are you doing now?”

“Going to pick up my son.”

“How about later? Can I call you?”

I thought about it for a minute, wondering what he could tell me and if it would be worth my time. “Okay,” I finally said.

I was halfway down the street before I realized I hadn't given him my telephone number. Then I remembered that my number, address, and every other bit of personal information that he needed to know about me was laid out on the top of his desk in triplicate.

CHAPTER SIX

E
ver heard of a guy named Larry Walton?”
I asked my friend Jake Richards. We were sitting at his kitchen table drinking red wine. After my run-in with Brent Liston, I needed something stronger, but manners and the fear of looking like a lush prevented me from asking. Jake dropped his eyes the way he does when he thinks, and I took the opportunity to gaze at his face. He got better with age. The gray in his hair and beard gave him a distinguished, wise demeanor, yet still managed to play up the kindness in his eyes. He had the kind of face I could never get tired of looking at.

“No, I can't say that I have.”

“What about Brent Liston?”

“Jesus, Tarn, I hope you're not having dealings with him?” He sipped his wine and scowled, which made me smile.

“Well…”

He laughed despite himself. “Try to stay out of trouble, Tamara.”

“I'm already in it.”

“What am I going to do with you?” I was tempted to tell him, but swallowed some wine instead.

“So what do you know about him?”

“He is bad news, as simple as that. One of my guys defended him on an assault charge, and he got pissed at the way the judge ruled and threatened to beat the dude up. Like I said, bad news. He hasn't threatened you, has he?” His forehead wrinkled with concern, which reminded me of Jamal and his need to protect me.

“No, not really What about Rebecca Donovan? Ever heard of her?”

“Is she related to Clayton Donovan?”

“I don't know.”

“What does she look like?”

“I haven't seen her yet, but I think she's what some people might call ‘ninety’ “

Jake laughed. “‘Hincty’? I haven't heard that one in a while, but I guess that's probably what some folks would call the honorable judge's wife. I don't know if that's what I'd call her, but Rebecca is the quintessential judge's wife in the ‘here come da judge’ tradition. She was, anyway. How is she involved in this?”

“I don't know yet. So they're divorced?”

“No, she's widowed. He died last August.”

“Was he murdered?” The thought that Brent Liston could somehow be tied to the judge's demise crossed my mind.

“Judge Donovan? No. Died in bed, in a hospital. Walking pneumonia.” Jake shuddered slightly, like a man reminded of his own mortality. “I argued a case before him on a Monday and was at his funeral a week later. Shook everybody up. Everybody.”

“You liked him then.”

Jake shrugged noncommittally ‘As much as you can like somebody who was crazy as all hell and just this side of shady. The judge
pushed the limits. Took chances. Rode the wild side, as they say. Sky diving, Harley the whole bit. But he was always fair to me. A lot of the prosecutors used to say he ruled for the bad guys because he identified with them, but when he threw the book at somebody he threw it hard.”

‘And Rebecca was the lady who cleaned up his messes?”

Jake thought for a moment. “There really wasn't all that much to clean up. If the judge was anything, he was discreet. There was a lot of whispering about his carrying-on, but very little proof. Word was, he was a lady's man in spades, and he liked his women cut from the same cloth as him—a little crazy, a little shady with a touch of wild-ness. There was a young assistant DA who was carrying on with him for a while. But it didn't last long. He's the kind of man who plays at night, but always goes home to mama in the morning; he would never leave his wife. Rebecca Donovan was definitely the angel to his devil. So why are you so interested in the late Judge Donovan?”

“No reason.”

“This isn't connected to Brent Liston, is it? He was one of those dudes who got the book tossed upside his head.”

“What did he do to make the judge mad?”

“I don't know, but it must have been something bad. The brother had just done time for murdering a family member, and the judge sent him back on an assault charge for another few years. He just got out of prison a couple of months ago.”

I filed that away for later reference.

“So you're not going to tell me why you're interested in Donovan?”

“I think I might have known him in high school,” I said, connecting
the Clayton Donovan that Jake just mentioned with the Clayton that Larry Walton said had been his friend. “He ran with Larry Walton, part of a trio of guys who were the hottest things around. At least in high school.”

“So the name of Larry Walton comes back again. I'm not surprised Donovan was popular in high school. Some folks are born charismatic, and he was one of them.”

“Have you ever heard of Annette Sampson? How about Aaron Dawson?”

Jake laughed. “Wow, baby! What are we playing here, twenty questions? Come on, Tarn, I don't know everybody in Newark. Most folks don't come anywhere near my radar. Is Annette Sampson married to Drew Sampson?”

“Yeah, I think she is,” I said, remembering his name in Morgan's guest book.

“Now
that
name, Drew Sampson, is familiar. So you're working on a new case?” He refilled my glass and then his own. ‘And this case is paying well,” he added. Jake worries about my finances almost as much as I do.

“The client is deceased.” I avoided his eyes.

“Deceased! I assume said client paid you before he died.”

“More or less.”

“More or less? Tamara, you've got to do better than that.”

“I know,” I said, like a recalcitrant child.

“Listen, I've recommended you to a guy I know, a very rich guy I might add, who is looking for somebody good to do some work for him. You ever heard of Francis B. Cosey?”

“Isn't he that big-time developer from Short Hills?”

“Yeah. He said you did some work for a friend of his, Sam Henderson, on a divorce case he was handling, and Henderson is still singing your praises. I told him I was certain you'd take the job. Hope you don't mind. Call him as soon as you can, and it's yours.”

“So Cosey's getting a divorce?”

“No, corporate stuff, boring but it pays, and you won't have any losers like Brent Liston drifting into your life. But the case will take some time, and he'll need you a week from next Monday or the deal is no good. Are you going to be finished with this craziness by then?”

“Craziness?”

“If it involves Liston that's what it is. I assume you'll be ready by then, right?”

Jake is tender-hearted, but he's practical, and the look he gave me told me I would
want
to be finished with whatever I was doing in a week and a half. I knew he was right. He knew and I knew I had to start packing away some serious money for college. Soon I would have to let Celia and her wayward son drop back into my past.

“Yeah, I'll be finished one way or the other.”

“You've got to be. Since you're obviously not doing whatever you're doing for the money, why is it so important?”

“Remember Celia Jones?”

He looked puzzled for a moment, then his eyes softened the way everyone's eventually did when her name came up. “From high school, yeah. She was younger than me, about your age, right? I remembered the name because I had an aunt named Celia, and I loved Celia Cruz. I read in the paper that she was killed.”

“Murdered and so was her son, Cecil. He came to see me a couple of days before he died with a retainer to find his mother's killer.”

“So I take it her son is your deceased client. I remember now. The kid was killed last week. He was around the same age as Jamal so it made an impression. Another bad day for our side.” He shook his head, as he often did when remarking on “bad days” for his beloved city. “Listen, a cop I know is working on the kid's murder. Red. You might remember him as Griffin, from when Hakim was killed.”

I did recall him and along with that memory came the sorrow that always comes when I remember the murder of Hakim, Jamal's best friend and half brother. Jake still bore a physical scar; Jamal and I carried ours in our hearts. Griffin remembered my brother Johnny and had gone out of his way to be helpful and kind to me and my son on that terrible day. As far as I was concerned, Griffin had a special pew in heaven. Jake wrote down Griffin's telephone number on the back of an envelope and gave it to me.

“He may be able to give you a sense of where the case for the son is going. Tell him I told you to call him, but he probably remembers you anyway. Hey, Tarn, be careful!”

His words of caution made me grin. “Hey, Jake, I'm always careful!”

That made
him
grin, which I love to see because it lights up his whole face and when you see it, you know everything is going to be okay. And if it's not, he'll make it so. We sat there grinning at each other for a minute enjoying each other's company. Until the front doorbell rang and Jake answered it. Then the grin dropped off my face. My intuition told me who it was. I gulped down what remained of my wine; I'd need the fortification.

Ramona Covington swished into Jake's kitchen as if she belonged there. Although I didn't like to admit it, she was an undeniably attractive
woman. Her short hair framed her pretty, square-jawed face in a style that said whoever wielded those scissors knew what he was doing. Her light-brown eyes were made up so flawlessly they looked natural, and her cherry red lips told me lipstick had just been applied. She was dressed casually, and her red cashmere sweat suit, if you could call it that, showed off the finer points of her well-toned body in sexy detail. Obviously surprised at my presence, she tossed me a grimace that only a fool could mistake for a smile and turned to Jake.

“So where have
you
been? I missed talking to you last night,” she didn't so much say as purr as she settled into the chair next to him, crossing her legs seductively. I noticed with annoyance that there was nary a spot on her blindingly white sneakers.

Jake looked mildly embarrassed. I wasn't sure if it was because of what she said or my hearing it. ‘At a game.”

“Game?” she asked as if she'd never heard the word before.

“Basketball. I tookjamal, Tamara's son, to see the Nets. Big fun. Nets won.”

Has he rhymed the words intentionally or did her presence have that effect on him?

“Oh, that's right, you mentioned it. So you're Jamal's mom.” She turned to me with a phony smile.

And you're the hitch from hell,
I thought.

“Yes, we've met before,” I mumbled, pulling my lips into what probably resembled a sneer.

“Oh, that's right! I remember now,” she said, her condescending smile assuring me how easily forgettable I was. “How nice to see you again.”

There was no need to dignify
that
remark with a response so we
simply gazed at each other in awkward silence until Ramona turned her attention back to Jake, essentially sweeping me from the room with a toss of her head. There seemed to be no graceful way for me to enter their conversation, so I watched them without saying anything, desperately trying to figure out what this woman really meant to my friend.

Ramona Covington had popped into Jake's life a couple of years ago. She was a hotshot young prosecutor who left Trenton for Newark because she'd heard that Newark was where the action was. They were both lawyers, so they had that in common, and Jake liked smarts and spunk in women, so I knew he admired her. He'd never actually said there was anything romantic between them, but I could feel the chemistry, and where there's smoke, fire usually smolders. There was smoke between me and Jake, too, but we've always smothered any flames. I suspected that he and Ramona were sleeping together, but I wasn't sure. I did know, however, that Jake Richards was and had always been a gentleman. There wasn't a cruel or arrogant bone in his body, and I knew he would be too polite to tell her to get lost. But I sensed he probably wouldn't want to. I was also sure that she was a woman who wouldn't take “no” lightly. She was the kind of person who always got what she wanted, be it a job, a prime piece of real estate, or somebody else's husband. Ramona Covington had the instincts of a predator, and Jake Richards was fair game for a woman who put relationships with men in the same category as hunting and fishing.

Jake loved his wife, Phyllis, and I'd seen him through many of her “spells” as he called them. There was always sorrow in his eyes when she was around, an edginess that shadowed whatever he did. He
seemed relaxed this evening, so I knew Phyllis was in the “rest home” where she goes when she gets overwhelmed by things that most of us handle easily. Phyllis had always been a fragile woman who brought out the protector in her husband. I admired him for both his love for her and his loyalty.

Even if I could, I'd never try to step into her shoes. Although there have been times when Jake and I have nearly crossed the line that separates friendship from something else, one of us has always pulled back. We both know that if we took that step, it would be impossible to come back to what we have, and we both value our friendship. Neither of us wants to lose the relationship that nurtures both of us as well as Jamal and Jake's daughter. Jake and I are truly comfortable with each other, and that is no small thing to be with a man.