Authors: Gail Bowen
“Let’s take a chance and stay outside,” I said. “Zack’s having a great time.”
“I thought he always had a great time,” Mieka said.
“The last couple of weeks have been difficult.”
“Because Sean’s case hasn’t been going well,” Mieka said, and her face was troubled.
“It has nothing to do with Sean,” I said. “Zack’s been a lawyer for twenty-five years. He knows that no one wins every case.”
“Then what is it?”
“Zack’s having a hard time dealing with Ned Osler’s death.”
“That’s the old lawyer who shot himself,” Mieka said. “Sean told me about it.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Second mention of Sean in ten seconds,” I said.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Mieka said. “He came over to the house with some papers for me to sign about the divorce, and we talked a little. Actually, we talked about Zack. Sean was worried about him too. I guess suicides are always hard.”
“Ned Osler’s death was particularly sad,” I said. “His wife died last year. Apparently theirs was a great romance, and Ned didn’t want to face his last years without her.”
“So he chose his own time,” Mieka said thoughtfully. “Sean said he didn’t have a family.”
I gave my daughter an appraising glance. “Third mention of Sean – not that I’m counting.” In the distance, thunder rumbled. “Time to get the cake,” I said.
Mieka frowned. “Are you sure about this?”
“No, but everybody’s having fun. I don’t want to spoil the mood. Let’s take a chance.”
“Hey, you take a chance the day you’re born. Why stop now?” Sean Barton’s voice was decisive. “I have now officially contributed my two cents’ worth. I’m here on a champagne run – a mission of mercy for the dry and needy.”
As soon as she heard his voice, the colour spread from Mieka’s neck to her cheeks. I understood. Sean was an extraordinarily good-looking man – tall, blond, fine-featured. Only his crooked grin saved him from male model perfection.
“Plenty of champagne in the fridge,” I said. “Birthdays come but once a year.”
Sean nodded. “Right,” he said. “Joanne, I haven’t had a chance to thank you for making Ginny welcome. There’s been so much hostility towards her lately, I thought she could use some friendly vibes.”
“My pleasure,” I said. “Ginny’s good company. I just wish some of our other guests had been more open to her. She has a tough battle ahead.”
“Then she’s lucky she chose a good lawyer,” Mieka said.
Sean lowered his gaze. “Maybe I should get you to write a letter of reference.”
“Anytime,” Mieka said. She picked up the tray with the dessert plates, cutlery, and napkins. “Grab the cake, Mum. The window of opportunity is about to slam shut.”
As we started down the lawn, I gave the sky one last anxious glance. It was lowering. No doubt about it, we were in for a gully-washer, but as I placed the cake in front of Zack and our guests gathered to sing “Happy Birthday,” I was glad we’d taken the chance. The warmth towards Zack was palpable and there was no rain. Our luck was holding. I leaned over and lit the candles.
When they blazed, a smile of pure delight spread across Zack’s face. He took my hand. “Want to know what I wished for?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Because if you tell before you blow out the candles, your wish won’t come true.”
“Then I’d better get to work,” Zack said. He bent towards the blazing cake and blew. The candles guttered a little in the wind but remained stubbornly alight. Our twelve-year-old daughter, Taylor, and her two best friends, Isobel and Gracie, had crowded in beside Zack for the big moment. Bright as tulips in their spring dresses, the girls pressed their hands to their mouths, stifling laughter as Zack tried again to blow out his candles. Successful trial lawyers have a sixth sense about hidden motives, and as Gracie Falconer, her face as innocent as a pan of milk, urged Zack to give the candles another try, he smelled a rat. He leaned back in his chair and eyed the girls. “I’m exhausted,” he said. “Why don’t you young women take over?”
The girls exchanged furtive glances. “They’re trick candles,” Taylor said finally. “The only way to put them out is to drop them in water.”
“I grew up with brothers,” Mieka said. “I’ve dealt with these candles before.” She reached for the cake and began plucking out candles and extinguishing them. “Zack, if you’re interested in revenge, give me a call,” she said. “I know some really cool tricks with whipped cream.”
“Make a list,” Zack said. “If I remember correctly, Isobel has a birthday coming up.”
“My pleasure,” Mieka said. “But let’s deal with this cake first. You slice the first piece, and I’ll do the rest.” She glanced at the guests who, champagne glasses in hand, had gathered round for the celebratory moment. “Would it be okay if I propose the toast?”
Zack was clearly surprised. “Is it going to be like the trick candles?”
Mieka had made no secret of her opposition to our marriage the year before, but Zack had obeyed his first rule of dealing with opposition: stay in your opponent’s face. You’ll either win them over or they’ll walk away. Mieka hadn’t walked away.
“No trick candles,” Mieka said. “Also no whoopee cushions or dribble glasses, but don’t expect eloquence. Public speaking is number one on my personal fear factor list.” She tapped her glass and called for attention. As all eyes focused on her, she fiddled with the neck of her sweater, but when she raised her glass, her voice was clear. “To Zack – everyone here is glad that you’re part of their life.”
There was a murmur: “To Zack.” At that moment, a thunderclap split the evening quiet, and the skies opened. Laughing, gulping champagne as they ran, our guests sprinted towards the house. Mieka picked up the cake, and Zack began wheeling his chair up the ramp that led to the deck and the safety of the kitchen.
I ran over to him. “Are you doing okay?” I asked.
“Couldn’t be better,” he said, navigating the turn on the ramp. “I’m interpreting that thunderclap as a cosmic sign of approval,” he said.
I shook my head. “You are one confident guy.”
The party continued. The kids cajoled our bouvier and our mastiff into slinking back upstairs, and when Zack pushed the piano bench out of the way and moved his wheelchair into place, Willie and Pantera lumbered over and collapsed on the floor beside him. In the year and a half Zack and I had been married, the dogs had developed an insatiable appetite for show tunes. Zack has never had a piano lesson, but he has a good ear, and as he played, Taylor and her friends danced with the little kids and then, thrillingly, with some boys their own age who, according to the girls, had just happened by. In the hall, Angus and his girlfriend, Leah, alternated between slow dancing and smooching. Ginny and Ed were more public. It turned out that they were both passionate tango dancers, and as they glided by in their matching buttercup silk, Ed dipped towards me. “How do we look?”
“Like the finalists in a ballroom dance contest,” I said. Clearly the celebration was moving in a good direction.
Mieka and I had just started taking the coffee around when Sean stepped in and took my tray. “Mieka and I can handle this, Joanne,” he said. “Why don’t you kick back and spend some time with the birthday boy?”
“Good plan,” I said. “Thanks.” I went over to the table where the bar had been set out, poured two small cognacs, went over to Zack, placed his snifter on the piano, and whispered, “I’m plying you with liquor.”
He gave me a sidelong glance. “I don’t need to be plied. When it comes to you, I’m ever ready.” He let his fingers drop from the piano keys to caress my leg.
“Better hold off on that,” I said under my breath. “We have a houseful of guests.”
“Send them home,” Zack said. “Tell them your husband can’t keep his hands off you.”
I brushed an imaginary crumb from his shirt and let my fingers linger. “That works both ways, you know.”
“Whoa. Everybody out of the pool.” Zack thumped a chord that brought the loin-throbbing rhythms of
Jalousie
to a halt, picked up his brandy snifter, and swivelled his chair to face me. “I’m at your service.”
At that moment, his cellphone rang. “I thought you turned that off,” I said.
Zack shrugged. “I forgot. Want me to let it ring?”
“No,” I said. “Probably just somebody wanting to wish you a happy birthday.”
Zack flipped open his cell and answered. One look at his face and I knew the call was serious. He listened without comment. Finally he said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. And, Debbie, thanks for the heads-up.”
“Problems?” I said.
“There’s a situation,” Zack said evenly. “And it’s something you and I should talk about.”
“Can it wait?”
“No,” Zack said. “It can’t. Let’s go to our room.”
I’d left the sliding doors to the deck outside our bedroom open to catch the fresh breeze, but now the storm was lashing and the hardwood in front of the doors was wet. I picked up a towel from my bathroom and skated it across the hardwood until the floor was dry. Zack watched as I pitched the towel in the hamper. “You are admirably unflappable.”
“Comes in handy since I met you.” I sat on the bed. “So what’s up?”
“That was the cop shop. Inspector Debbie Haczkewicz says they need me to come down.”
I groaned. “Come on, Zack, a client –
tonight?”
“There’s no client,” Zack said. “I’m the one they want to talk to.”
“About what?”
“It’s complicated,” Zack said. “But it starts with the reason Ned Osler committed suicide.”
“He didn’t want to live after his wife died,” I said. “I thought that was common knowledge.”
“He was also being blackmailed by a prostitute,” Zack said. “She’d filmed their sexual encounters and she was going to put them on the Internet unless Ned paid her off. That isn’t common knowledge and I hope to God it doesn’t get to be.”
A finger of lightning arced from sky to earth, throwing the trees along the creek into sharp relief. “I can’t believe this,” I said. “Ned was such a gentleman. When the three of us had dinner at his apartment, it was like stepping back in time. He was so gracious, helping me off with my coat, holding my chair before I sat down at the table. And the next day, there was always a hand-delivered note thanking me for the pleasure of my company and mentioning some detail of the evening that had brought him delight.”
Zack nodded. “Ned was a gentleman of the old school. That was the problem. Most of the guys I know would have told a lady threatening blackmail to go for it, put the tapes on the Internet, show the world Super-Stud in action, but Ned was a principled man. When this woman said she was going to make his private life public, he found the prospect insupportable.”
“Did he pay her off?”
“No. He refused to capitulate to behaviour that, in his view, was as unacceptable as his own.”
“Did he consider going to the police?”
“Believe it or not,” Zack said, “I suggested that. But Ned said the acts he’d indulged in were unspeakable, an insult to the life he and his wife, Evvie, had together. He said he’d rather die than stain his wife’s memory. I asked him to give me the name of the woman who’d threatened him, and I’d take care of it, but he said he’d made up his mind: he was going to exit honourably. That was it. Ned poured us each a serious slug of single-malt Scotch, and when we’d finished our drinks, he thanked me for my friendship and said goodbye. Three hours later, he shot himself.”
I took his hand. “I wish you’d told me.”
“I couldn’t. I’d given Ned my word, Jo. The only reason I’m telling you now is because of that phone call from Debbie.”
“Something’s happened.”
Zack sighed. “Boy, has it ever. I’ll give you the broad strokes. At Ned’s funeral, I watched his partners march up the aisle and I knew that before the sod on Ned’s grave had taken root, the woman who’d tried to blackmail Ned would be knocking on the doors of Osler Meinhart and Loftus. Anyway, I hired a private detective to track her down to see if I could head her off.”
“Did you find her?”
“Actually, she found me. Her name is Cristal Avilia. She called this morning and said she needed to talk to me about Ned.”
“So you saw her.”
“Yeah, I did.” He stroked my hand. “Christ, I’d give anything not to be having this conversation with you. Yes, I saw her, and as it turned out, it wasn’t the first time we’d met. I’d used her services myself, Jo.”
My heart squeezed. “Since we were together?”
Zack leaned towards me. “Oh God, no. Jo, you’re all I’ve ever wanted and then some. But as you know, the mechanics of sex don’t always work for me. With us, it doesn’t matter, we just fool around till we’re both happy, but it was different for me before. I could be dynamite in the courtroom all day, but if I couldn’t get it up at night, it drove me nuts.
“So you went to a prostitute,” I said.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Zack said dryly. “Most of the women I could have had sex with were other lawyers. It’s an adversarial relationship, and you don’t want your adversaries to know you’re a dud in the sack. So I kept searching for the magic bullet. Cristal was just the last of many. I’m not proud of it, but there it is.”
“So was Cristal the magic bullet?” I asked.
His nod was almost imperceptible. “She was very skilful. Then I met you, and you know the rest of the story. I never saw Cristal again until today.”
There was a tap at the door, and Mieka opened it and peeked in. “The girls and I are taking off. They wanted to say goodnight, but if we’re interrupting …”
Zack’s face softened. “Couldn’t ask for a more welcome interruption.”
Sleepy but still coasting on a sugar high, Madeleine and Lena raced in and crawled up on Zack’s lap.
“Did you like our present?” Madeleine asked.
“A man can never have too many flashlights,” Zack said.
“It’s for flashlight tag,” Madeleine said. “We can play it next time we come over.”
“Somebody’s going to have to teach me the rules,” Zack said.
“I will,” Madeleine said. “Lena doesn’t care about rules. But she’s a really good runner.”
“I’m not much of a runner,” Zack said. “So what can I do?”
Lena rubbed at a grass stain on her knee of her jeans. “You can be
It,”
she said thoughtfully.