Tell No Lies (4 page)

"Hey, Steve, how are you?" Jack extended his hand.

"Jack, my boy, it's been too long."

Yeah, right
.
 

"What brings you up here?"

"I'm walking Jenny to her car. We just came from the bar association dinner. She left the keys in her office."

Only then did Mendelsohn acknowledge Jenny's presence. His eyes traveled the length of her long body, both lecherous and disapproving at the same time. Jenny straightened her posture as she mumbled, "Hello," and Jack wasn't sure whether it was her way defending herself or was an instinctive response to being looked at like that. Despite his earlier, internal pep talk, Jack felt himself getting worked up over the jerk.

"You two are still friends? That's great. I love it how you kids are able to have a social life outside of work. That's really great."

Jack wanted to tell Mendelsohn that he was thirty-five years old and had two kids of his own. But he knew Mendelsohn still thought of him as unformed larva, fresh out of law school. So he restrained himself—barely. "You should try it, Steve. It is great."

Mendelsohn looked at him curiously, then let out a deep, low laugh and patted him on the back. "How's life at the DA's office treating you? You keeping those drunk drivers off the streets?"

To hell with restraint
. "Actually, I just tried the Adler murder case. I'm sure you read about it in the papers."
 

"Oh, that was you?" Mendelsohn asked.

"Yup, that was me. The jury returned a guilty verdict just today." Jack hoped Mendelsohn was beginning to realize that the man standing in front of him was not the same young lawyer he had fired years before on a night very similar to this one.

"Well, congratulations are in order." The fake smile had left Mendelsohn's face. "Shall I show you to Ms. Dodson's office, Jack?" He looked at Jenny once more. "I'm not sure she's in a condition to remember where it is."

Jenny glared and began to speak, but Jack interrupted her. "That's not necessary, Steve," Jack said. "
I
remember where it is."
 

Jenny cut loose as soon as they'd reached her office and she'd slammed the door behind her.

"The fuckin' asshole! I could poke his beady eyes out, looking at me like that! If he thinks he's going to oust me from this firm or screw up my partnership chances, he's got another think coming!"

"Jenny, calm down. What are you talking about?"

She continued to rant as she walked to the file drawer where she kept her purse. "He's trying to blame me for all the shit happening with Maxine Shepard, and I'm not going to let him. He's into something—I don't know what, yet—but I'm not letting him make me take the fall for his crap!"

Jack searched her purse as he tried to make sense of what she was saying. The only part that sounded familiar was the mention of Maxine Shepard. "Crazy Maxine," as Jenny always referred to her, was one of Jenny's least-favorite clients. She was a spunky widow whose husband had left her with more money than she knew what to do with. Sixty-two years old, Maxine wore Levi's and sweatshirts at the same time as she wore a three-carat emerald-cut diamond ring. She smoked Virginia Slims menthols incessantly and spoke with a permanent rasp in her voice. Maxine had come to Newman around the same time as Jenny, after her husband's children from his first marriage—a brother and sister—had contested their father's will and attempted to obtain control of the large estate that had been left to her. As told to Jenny later by Maxine, the children had disliked her from the day they were first introduced.
 

"'I'm sure it had something to do with the coat I was wearing that day, some beastly old fur their father had given me—how was I supposed to know it had been their mother's?'" Jenny had mimicked Maxine's deep voice when she first told Jack about her.

Maxine prevailed, and with her caustic personality and seemingly never-ending supply of litigation work for the firm, she soon became a legend around the office. Jenny's first face-to-face meeting with her had occurred just last summer, after another of Maxine's investment deals had gone sour and Jenny was asked by Mendelsohn to "go after the crook that bilked her out of her money." When Jenny didn't immediately warm to Maxine's style—kisses on the cheeks upon greeting, "honey" substituted for names—and Maxine didn't warm to working in the shadow of Jenny's youth and beauty, a cold war ensued.

"Are you having trouble with Maxine?" Jack asked. He handed her the purse, minus her keys.

"She fancies herself some worldly businesswoman just because she inherited all this money. But she doesn't have the business sense she needs to play the part. She refused to listen when some of the guys in Corporate suggested she hire someone to handle her investments. She keeps getting screwed, and if I'm not able to clean up the mess, she blames me." Jenny lowered her voice. "And Mendelsohn blames me, too."
 

"What did you mean, 'he's into something'?" Jack didn't trust Mendelsohn either.

But Jenny only shook her head and didn't elaborate. She was winding down, and he let it go. He'd ask her about it later, when she was sober.

Her phone rang, and they both stared at it as if it'd just come to life.

"Who's calling you at this hour?" he asked.

She made a dismissive noise and waved it off. "Let it go."

This time Jack persisted. "You think it could be Mendelsohn?"

She ignored him and headed for the door, but he reached for the phone. She saw him do it, and before he had a chance to speak, she snatched it from his hand and hung it up. "It's not Mendelsohn, Jack. I'm certain it was Alex and I can't deal with him right now, okay?"

Before they finally left her office, he called for a taxi to meet him at Jenny's house in an hour. Plenty of time to get her car and drive her home. They walked along Broadway toward the garage. She was quieter now, but he knew from the skip in her step that the alcohol hadn't begun to wear off. She seemed to have forgotten the run-in with Mendelsohn and the call from Alex. The streets had dried, but a damp smell still hung in the air.

They passed the open door of a sports pub, and Jenny tugged on Jack's sleeve to stop him.

"Uh-uh, no way," he said.  "There's gonna be a cab wait—"

She shook her head and put one finger to her lips to quiet him, then pointed into the pub, over the bar. Jack looked up to see his own face on the television screen above the bartender's head. The bartender had his back to the bar and had paused in the middle of pouring a beer to watch. The faces of the three patrons sitting at the bar turned up toward the TV at the same angle.
 

"It's the eleven o'clock news. They're talking about your win today," Jenny whispered.

Jack fidgeted under the neon light above the doorway. His face and gestures on the screen were animated—"approachable," Earl called it—as he answered the reporter's questions about the Adler case. Jack always enjoyed the interviews while they were happening, but watching himself afterward made him uncomfortable. Tonight was no exception, particularly because the next questions were about the recent arrest of Clyde Hutchins, the accused in the Barnard case. He'd known Jenny Dodson long enough to know where that topic would take them.

"Come on, Jenny, I've already lived this episode," he joked, as Hutchins's photo appeared on screen. He took her hand and led her away from the doorway just as the reporter made the switch. But it was too late.

"They should fry his ass," she announced. When Jack didn't respond, she stopped on the sidewalk. "Oh, come on, don't tell me you wouldn't like to see that creep get what he deserves. The guy tortured that little girl! And then he left her out in the cold to die a slow death!"

Jack tugged on her sleeve to get her moving again. There was no use trying to have a serious discussion now, so he merely said, "Let's just get him convicted first, why don't we. Okay?"

"But if there was ever the perfect argument for the death penalty, don't you think this case is it?"

He sighed. "I don't think there will
ever
be the perfect argument for the death penalty."
 

As they rode the parking-garage elevator to the fifth level, neither spoke. Jack watched Jenny; she kept her head down, looking at her hands. He wondered if the embarrassment of the bar dance was beginning to sink in or whether she was just thinking about Mendelsohn. Or Alex.

He saw her car, a bright red Jeep Wrangler, as soon as they stepped off the elevator. It was one of only a few still parked on that level. They crossed the cement, illuminated by the yellow overhead lights on the ceiling and the ambient glow of the lights of surrounding office buildings that filtered in through the open sides of the garage. Their footsteps echoed, and for a moment they walked in step with each other. When they reached the car, he retrieved her keys from his pocket and started to unlock the door. She reached down and softly touched his hand.

"Will you dance with me now?" she whispered.

Jack remained still, his eyes on their motionless hands, but he felt his heart beating wildly, uncontrollably, in his chest. He knew, he just knew, what was going to happen, and he stood there frozen; he should just say no and open the car door as he had planned. But there was something in her voice, something that said,
Don't reject me again, like you did back in the bar
.
 

"There's no music."

She understood then that he had accepted. "That can be remedied," she said as she took the keys from him and, with much concentration, opened the door herself. She sat down in the driver's seat, her legs still outside, and put the key into the ignition. The music she had been listening to on the way to work began again. "Crash Into Me." She leaned over and turned up the volume slightly. The slow, gentle sounds of an acoustic guitar and brushed cymbals floated through the humid air of the garage and out into the night. Had he not known better, he would have thought she'd planned all this.

She stood and took his hands, intertwining their fingers. They moved together away from the car, and she moved closer to him. For the first time in nine years he felt her body against his, and even with their clothes as a barrier, it was exactly as he'd imagined—and feared. He felt the fullness of her breasts as they pressed on his chest, and her hips as they brushed up against his. She began to sway to the music, taking him with her.

"Jenny . . ." He tried to speak, but it came out hoarse and he was forced to clear his throat.

"Shh. Just listen. Move with the music," she murmured. She closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder.

He stared out at the lights of the city, trying to regulate his breathing.
This is the alcohol
, he told himself. He prayed she wouldn't let go of his hands because he knew he would have no control over them.
 

She began to lead them around in slow, easy circles. His head reeled, but she seemed unaffected by it all, so relaxed, and he suddenly worried that this
pas de deux
had a whole different meaning for him than for her. Maybe she did just want to dance.
 

He tightened his hands on hers, discreetly taking the lead. He felt her tense up and knew she had sensed the switch. He stopped the turning, led them back to the car as slowly as she had led them away, and backed her up against it. She lifted her head and looked at him, startled by his sudden authority.

"You don't step on toes," she said.

"No, I don't," he said, admitting his lie.

Her dark brown eyes were black tonight, and he stared into them, trying to see behind them. She met his stare, as if they were locked in a contest, but finally gave in and looked away.

"Look at me." He turned her cheek so that she faced him again. "What are you doing?"

"What are
you
doing?" she replied without hesitation.
 

He asked himself the same question as he bent his head down to meet hers. As he felt her lips and then her tongue, he finally submitted completely, his fingers caressing the heavy strands of her silky hair.

His tongue explored her mouth, slowly and gently, without urgency. He felt her hands move to his shoulders, and she exerted light pressure in no particular direction, as if she was unsure whether to push him away. He disregarded it, determining her intentions instead from the hungry response of her mouth.

Later, he wondered how they hadn't heard the elevator cables moving, how they hadn't heard the doors opening and then closing, hard and resolute. They hadn't heard the footsteps or even, unbelievably, the opening of the car door on the other side of the garage. It was the start of the car's engine that startled him and caused him to back away from her, and only because, for less than an instant, he imagined the sound had somehow come from Jenny's car.

"Come on." He grabbed her arm and led her quickly around to the passenger side. The spiral ramp that led to the exit was on their side of the garage and he wanted them inside her car before the other one reached them. She seemed not to have the same sense of urgency. The soporific effects of the alcohol had kicked in, and she stumbled as she tried to get in.

"Jenny, please," he begged. Without looking, he could see the headlights approaching. He turned his back to the car as it passed slowly behind hers.
Keep going, keep going
, he thought, knowing that had he been the driver, at this hour, he would stop, wondering if the woman was there willingly.
 

It passed without stopping, and he thanked it and cursed at the same time, hoping it was indicative of his good fortune and not some girl's bad luck in the future. He waited until it drove onto the ramp before walking to the other side of Jenny's car. When he got in, he looked over at her; she had her head back against the headrest with her eyes closed. He leaned across her to grasp her seat belt, taking care not to let their bodies touch again. As he struggled with the buckle, he watched her face, wondering if she had fallen asleep. And then he saw it. A tear. Just one, in the outer corner of her eye, pooled in the space between her upper and lower eyelids, caught heavy in flight by her black lashes.