Rosato And Associates: Accused Part 28

"Sure, go ahead."

"Do you know if Fiona had any kind of relationship with Lonnie? He was one of the waiters at the catering company her parents used, and he was working the party that night."

"You mean did she date Lonnie? The guy that's in jail?"

"Yes."

Hannah frowned. "No I don't know anything about that. The only person she ever dated was Tim Gage. He was her high-school boyfriend."

"Before we talk more about him, let me ask you another question. Do you know if Fiona ever did any babysitting for Allegra?"

Hannah shook her head. "No, I don't know anything about that, either."

"If she had been doing either of those things, would you have known about it, or would one of the other girls?"

"I was closest to her when we were younger because we were both in Pony Club. Typical girls, crazy about horses, you know."

Mary nodded, though she didn't. When she was little, she was crazy about saints, studying their stories and their suffering, which was probably why she'd grown into such a carefree and well-balanced adult.

"We'd been friends for so long, the four of us, that I think our alliances shifted a whole bunch of times over the years, you know how girls are, especially growing up."

"Please, we've all been there."

"But the thing is, none of us were good at keeping secrets, especially each other's, so we all knew everything about the other. We were a bunch of blabbermouths. If Fiona told any one of us about a fight with Tim, we all knew about it by the end of the day." Hannah smiled briefly, but somehow it looked like she was wincing. "So, to answer your question, I don't remember anybody's saying anything about her dating a waiter, and that's juicy stuff. We all would've known about that. As for the babysitting, it doesn't make sense to me, because they had Janet and also because Fiona was mad busy with practice, homework, and working for her family."

Mary made a mental note that it was just what Allegra and Alasdair had said. "Let me ask you a hypothetical. Let's a.s.sume that the killer wasn't Lonnie Stall, but was someone else, whether they were at the party or not. Just right off the top of your head, who would you suspect, if anyone?"

"That's easy. Tim."

"Really." Mary hid her surprise because she didn't want to taint Hannah's answers. "What makes you say that?"

"Because he's a jealous and abusive jerk, and he was furious that she broke up with him. We all wanted her to dump him for a long time, but she didn't. He's just a bully."

Mary couldn't process the information fast enough. "How do you know that? Would she tell you guys about fights they had?"

Hannah shook her head, gritting her teeth. "In the beginning, she did, then when we started to rag on him, she shut up. It was like she was protecting him."

"n.o.body wants to hear bad things about her boyfriend, especially when they're true."

"Right. And we were young, we didn't really know about abusive boyfriends or domestic violence, and all that. Our families might suck in various ways, but n.o.body gets beat up, at least not that I know." Hannah hesitated, then bit her lip.

"What? Spit it out. We're brainstorming, and this is really helping."

"This is going to sound weird, especially since I just trashed him, but, after it all went down, I guess I started seeing Tim. Romantically."

Mary hid her surprise again, hoping she was getting better with practice. "How did that come about?"

"Oh boy." Hannah raked her funky haircut with grimy hands and exhaled. "After everyone was gone, we started hanging out to console each other. One thing led to another, and it made me feel closer to Fiona to still have him, because he was such a part of her life. He felt the same way, too, he told me. It was good between us, in the beginning. We really helped each other through a hard time, an impossible time."

"Then what happened?" Mary asked, but she had a few guesses.

"He became jealous of everyone I talked to, boys, girls, even my shrink. He didn't like that I spent time doing anything but being with him." Hannah's blue eyes glittered with fresh anger. "I'm not blaming him, and I take full responsibility, but I think I started using to get away from him. I needed to escape, and after I started using, I fell in with another whole crowd and finally, he ditched me."

Mary was trying not to leap to conclusions, but Hannah was sketching in the details she needed to flesh out Tim's personality. But what she didn't have was proof. "What if I told you that he was at the party that night?"

"Tim?" Hannah's mouth dropped open. "He was? You're sure? We didn't see him, none of us did. One of us would have told the other if we had."

"You weren't with her every minute, were you? Where were you around nine o'clock? Were you in the library with her?"

"No, no. We had been without her for about half an hour. I remember that."

"How?"

"The band was actually decent. We were dancing. We a.s.sumed Fiona was with her family, making the rounds with her parents."

"Tim was there, Hannah. I have proof."

"My G.o.d." Hannah's face went almost as white as her toothpaste hair. "Then I would say he did it. He killed Fiona."

"You sound so sure. Why?"

"Because I remember something he said, one night. It was early on, before we were hooking up, and he was talking about how much he loved Fiona and how much it hurt when she broke up with him." Hannah looked away, shaking her head at some faraway memory. "He told me that if he ever saw her with another guy, he didn't know what he'd do."

Mary felt a chill, even though she was still sweating.

"I thought it was such a scary thing to say, because we both knew that he meant some sort of violence. When he said it, it was the last thing I ever figured him for. Then, when I started dating him myself, I used to think back to that night and what he said, and realize that not only did he mean it, he would do it. He would go through with it." Hannah swung her head back to Mary, and the two women locked eyes. "I know Tim, and I knew Fiona, and I can tell you that if he was at the party that night, he was there to see if she was dating someone new. And if he believed she was, I don't think he could control his anger. Tim Gage may not look it, but he's capable of murder."

Chapter Thirty-five.

Mary stepped off the elevator into a sunny Rosato & a.s.sociates reception area. A vase of fresh flowers sat on the end table, which meant Bennie and Anne had won their trial. All lawyers had victory rituals, and the women of Rosato were no different: Bennie always bought flowers, Judy threw a tequila party, and Anne got a mani/pedi. Mary never got mani/pedis because she felt sorry for the manicurists at her local salon, who emigrated from Bulgaria with a Ph.D. in astrophysics but couldn't get jobs here, so her victory ritual was going out to dinner. Some lawyers had defeat rituals, too, and Mary hated the defeat ritual at her old firm, Stalling & Webb, where the men dumped their used socks on your desk if you lost, so you could smell defeat. The lawyers at Rosato & a.s.sociates didn't have a defeat ritual, because they were women and knew better.

"Hi, Mary!" Marshall called out with a smile, her usually cheery self even at the end of the day. "Hey, where's your ring?"

"Getting resized."

"Gonna make it smaller?"

"Yes."

"I meant the stone."

"Very funny." Mary reached the reception desk, checking the clock. It was 4:50, which gave her just enough time to meet with Lou, then get back to South Philly for El Virus's birthday party. "How was today? Busy?"

"Not too. Here's your mail." Marshall handed her a thick packet of letters and professional magazines. "Bennie and Anne won, and you missed the pizza party."

"Rats. Where's Judy?" Mary asked reflexively, then realized it wasn't supposed to matter where Judy was.

"She's at a client's. She had four pieces of pizza. A new world record."

Mary smiled. Judy's carbohydrate intake was a matter of legend. "Her brain burns calories."

"She said she's not on Gardner anymore, but didn't say why. What happened?"

"Nothing. We decided the case didn't require the both of us."

Marshall leaned over the desk. "Between us, she seems b.u.mmed."

"Really." Mary felt a guilty pang. "Thanks for letting me know. So where's everybody else?"

"Bennie's in her office, Anne's at a deposition, Lou's waiting for you in the conference room, and I'm almost out of here. Good night."

"Thanks for everything. Good night." Mary headed for the conference room glancing through her mail. It could all wait until tomorrow, mainly because it would have to. She stopped into her office, dumped her mail, keys, purse, and messenger bag on the chair, then went back out and hurried down the hall to the conference room, where Lou was talking to Bennie, both of whom fell silent when she appeared. They looked over, Lou wearily but Bennie revitalized, undoubtedly because of her victory. Mary would've hugged her, but Bennie wasn't the huggy type. "Hi, gang. Bennie, congratulations on your win. Way to go!"

"Thanks." Bennie beamed, hoisting her purse and a black nylon gym bag to her shoulder. "It was awesome. Sorry you missed the party. Carrier wrapped up some leftover pizza for you. It's in the refrigerator."

Mary felt another guilty pang, probably her three hundredth of the day, and she still was under quota. "You must be exhausted."

"No, not at all. I'm happy to have my life back. I'm about to go rowing." Bennie gestured at Lou. "We're just getting up to speed on Gardner. Looks like you have a theory."

"More than that, a suspect." Mary came into the cluttered conference room, sat down next to Lou, and got them quickly up to speed, and they both listened silently, saying nothing, even when Mary mentioned Allegra's involuntary commitment. "So you see, it makes absolute sense that Tim Gage is the killer. The only problem is proving it."

Bennie folded her arms, planting her two strong legs. "Understood. That's exactly the problem. It's really a shame that we weren't defense counsel. This kind of evidence would have been a home run at the time of trial. I would've gone in and raised reasonable doubt about Lonnie Stall. We would've gotten an acquittal."

"I know." Mary felt her heart sink, because Bennie was right. It was the cla.s.sic third-man defense that she had explained to Stall's lawyer, but the jury never got to hear it.

"But at this point, it comes too late. It's just not legally sufficient."

Mary sighed inwardly. "We have an innocent man behind bars, but we can't prove it, as a matter of law or procedure. Don't you hate it when law gets in the way of justice? They're supposed to be on a first-name basis, aren't they?"

Bennie smiled, without mirth. "It's not the first time and it won't be the last. The days of Perry Mason are over."

"We've only begun to fight." Mary was trying to rally. "We learned a lot in a short time, we just have to go after Gage in greater depth."

Lou c.o.c.ked his frizzy gray head. "That's the spirit. I've already been digging into his family background, but there's nothing that leapt out at me, and he doesn't have a criminal record. I'm also making inquiries to see if he was ever disciplined in that ritzy school, but so far I'm coming up empty."

"So what's your next step?" Bennie asked Mary.

"I was thinking about it on the way back, and I know what we should do next. We just learned that Tim Gage is abusive and controlling, and we know that that kind of guy doesn't change. He didn't, from Fiona to Hannah."

Lou nodded. "I'm following you."

"The murder was six years ago, and my guess is, Tim Gage has been abusive since then, or maybe even violent. I don't think these guys get better, they get worse." Mary was thinking out loud, and the more she said it, the better it sounded. "I'm wondering if we could figure out, maybe from Tim's Facebook page, who he's been dating, go talk to those girls, and see if he's been violent with any of them. Or maybe he's even talked about Fiona and said something more pointed than what he told Hannah."

"Good thinking," Lou said, gravely. "These guys like to do a little bragging, too, and I had a case once where someone drank too much and spilled the beans to his wife about a home invasion. I'll get on it right away, too."

Bennie walked to the doorway, where she turned. "You've got a tough row to hoe, partner. But you know what they say about when the going gets tough."

"The tough get going to the office refrigerator?"

Bennie laughed, rapping the door trim with her knuckles, which was Rosatospeak for h.e.l.lo and good-bye. "By the way, what happened with Carrier? She told us at the party that you two decided you should work the case alone, but she didn't say why."

Lou looked over, shifting upward in his seat, and Mary realized that was probably what they'd been talking about when she came in.

"That's it, basically." Mary didn't want to say anything that would make Judy look bad. "It doesn't require two lawyers, and Lou and I can get it done together."

Bennie smiled, and if she suspected there was more to the story, she kept her cross-examination to herself. "Good for you. It's a prudent decision, considering that we're working pro bono."

Mary blinked, because Bennie didn't seem angry. It couldn't have been the post-coital bliss of her trial victory, because that would evaporate when it came to fees. "Sorry, I owe you an explanation, and-"

"Stop right there." Bennie waved her off. "You don't owe me an explanation at all. You're a partner now and you run your case. You decide the staffing, as you have, and you account to yourself for the resources it uses or brings in, at the end of the quarter. It's on you. Welcome to my world."

Mary didn't know how to react, for a moment. She felt strange without a boss to persuade, be afraid of, hide things from, b.i.t.c.h about, or blame. "But the other day, you said that we should get out of the case fast, and that it shouldn't be a priority for the firm."

"That's right, and like I told you, I was wrong. Remember?" Bennie smiled, her expression softening. "Because the other day, you told me that you were a partner and you would make your own decisions about the case and the firm's priorities."

"Oh. Right. I forgot." Mary suppressed a smile.

"Look, DiNunzio, Mary, whatever your name is, it's going to take us both some time to figure out our respective roles in this brave new world. We'll get it straight, sooner or later." Bennie rapped the doorjamb again. "I'm out of here. Have fun, you two."

"Bye," Mary and Lou said in unison, then, when they were both sure Bennie had gone and the elevator had pinged, Mary smiled. "Looks like I'm wearing the big girl panties now."

Lou burst into merry laughter. "It's a trip, watching the two of you. I think it's actually going to work, as a partnership. You and Bennie are really different, but you get each other."

"Maybe that's true," Mary brightened, rea.s.sured. "I hope so."

"I know so," Lou said warmly. "I've been at this firm from the day you joined it, and I've watched you go from a.s.sociate to partner. You're ready for this, and so is she."

"Aw, thanks." Mary felt a rush of affection for him, but she was too tired to get up and give him a hug. "You should have been at the first meeting we had with Allegra."

"Why?"

"Allegra told us that you can't have two queen bees in the same hive. Looks like maybe you can, right?"

Lou lifted a graying eyebrow. "No, not really. Any man will tell you that. You can't have two queens in the same hive."

Mary didn't get it. "But you just said, Bennie and I are getting along great. There's no power struggle between us. We're going to work out just fine."

"I wasn't talking about you and Bennie." Lou's smile faded. "I was talking about you and Judy."