Courting Trouble (33 page)

Oh no.
Anne’s mind was reeling. She didn’t see Dietz’s hand coming. He cuffed her across the face. Her cheek exploded in pain. She stumbled backward and grabbed the porch railing to keep from falling down the stairs.

“Bill, no!” screamed Beth, clutching her husband at the front door. “Stop! Come inside!”

“Get out of my sight!” Dietz bellowed, shaking Beth off.

Anne scrambled to her feet. She thought of the Beretta but would never go there. She bolted from the porch and ran.

A
nne dashed down the sidewalk to Judy’s car. Her breath came raggedly and her knees had gone weak. She looked behind her. Dietz wasn’t chasing after her. The porch was empty and the front door was shut. Beth must have coaxed her husband inside. Still Anne jumped into the car and fumbled for the keys, slamming them into the ignition despite the wrench in her shoulder.

She turned on the ignition, hit the gas, and tore out of the parking space, with one eye plastered to the rearview mirror. A block away, she reached for her cell phone, flipped it open, and pressed in Matt’s cell number.

Come on, Matt. Pick up!
But the ringing stopped and a mechanical voice came on. “The Verizon customer you are calling cannot be reached . . .” Anne sped away from Moore Street as the beep sounded.

“Matt, call me on the cell!” she shouted into the phone. “I just had a fight with Dietz. Why did you tell him about us? I heard he fired you. Call me as soon as you can.” She hit the End button and tossed the phone onto the seat. She didn’t breathe easier until she was two blocks away and the rearview mirror was filled by cars driven by normal people.

Anne’s heartbeat slowed, but her shoulder hurt and her cheek stung. She checked the mirror. Her cheekbone was swollen and puffy, but the skin wasn’t broken. She felt angry, frightened, and bewildered. At a stoplight, she tried to reconstruct what had happened. Matt had told Dietz about their night together, in a moment of what? Honesty? Conscience? Closeness? She shook her head as the light turned green. Lots of plaintiff’s lawyers got friendly with their clients, but this was ridiculous. Mental note: Men may be better at intimacy than Dr. Phil thinks.

Anne pulled up beside a minivan flying the American flag from its antennae and played out the scenario. Dietz was trying to deep-six the lawsuit because of the CD, but Matt didn’t know that. So Dietz must have taken the opportunity, when Matt told him about their affair, to fire him. Now Dietz would come home, tell Beth the news about Anne and Matt, and blame it all on them. How could she have let herself get in this position?

Anne cruised behind the minivan and switched the air-conditioning up to
MAX,
letting it blast away at her stinging cheek. She remembered Kevin. He could be watching, waiting, listening. Fear shot through her but she willed it away. She had to draw Kevin out or she’d never catch him. She searched the street but she didn’t see him; then again, she wouldn’t. Then it struck her: If Kevin had overheard that scene on the porch, he learned that Anne had been sleeping with Matt. The news would enrage him and place Matt squarely in jeopardy. Anne’s thoughts raced. Matt was stranded in West Philly without a car. Where had he and Dietz gone? What had they bought?

She gunned the engine to the end of the block, then crossed onto the next. It was a residential neighborhood, with not a store in sight. A young mother with two kids stood waiting to cross the street, and Anne called out, “Do you know if there’s a convenience store around here? One that sells charcoal?”

“The minimart at the gas station. Up five blocks, then take a right. They’ll have charcoal, if they’re not out of it already.”

“Thanks!” Anne waved them across and followed the directions to the minimart. A bright-white building with gas pumps and a bustling parking lot in front. Matt wasn’t outside, but Anne pulled in, switched off the ignition, and jumped out of the Beetle. She hurried into the store, past a pyramid of Kingsford charcoal. She looked around quickly, but no Matt. If he had been here, he’d gone. She was about to head for the exit when she spotted a ratty black-and-white TV set on a counter behind the register, and the image on the TV screen stopped her.

It was her mother, standing with the deputy commissioner. It must be the press conference. Anne screened out the noise in the store and leaned over the counter toward the TV.

“In answer to your question,” her mother was saying, “I am overjoyed that my daughter is alive, and I won’t be filing a lawsuit now or at any other time against the police department, the city, or the medical examiner’s office.”

Anne blinked in surprise. Her feet itched to go, but she stood on the spot as if rooted.
Her mother, turning down money?

Off-screen, one of the reporters was asking, “Mrs. Murphy, why weren’t you called to identify your daughter’s body?”

Anne held her breath for the answer.

Her mother bent her head and, when she looked up, her eyes were teary. “I wasn’t called to identify Anne because she had no idea of my whereabouts. I have made some terrible mistakes in the past, but the biggest one was abandoning my daughter, long ago.”

Anne was amazed at what she was hearing. She wanted to go, she wanted to stay.

“As terrible as it sounds, it took the report of my daughter’s death to make me realize what I had lost, in her. I have an opportunity that many parents don’t get—a second chance. I only hope she’ll let me set things right. Anne, if you’re out there, please know how sorry I am for what I’ve done.” Her mother looked into the camera with a new earnestness.

Anne felt her chest tighten. “
Bullshit,
” she heard herself saying reflexively, and the cashier looked at her sideways.

Anne hustled for the exit, running away from the TV, trying to forget the image. It was too little, too late. For as long as she could remember, her mother had blamed her addictions on casting directors and small-time agents who didn’t recognize her talent. Anne had grown up shuffled from baby-sitter to neighbor to stranger, moving though a series of apartments, and usually finding herself alone, doing her homework in front of a television. It wasn’t so bad. In her mind, she lived at 623 East 68th Street, in a modestly furnished New York apartment, with one wall of exposed brick, painted white, and a fireplace mantel that held two Chinese figurines, a clock, and an occasional pack of Phillip Morris cigarettes. Her mother was Lucy Ricardo, her father a handsome Cuban bandleader, and they were all very happy until little Ricky came along. Nobody needs a little brother.

Anne jumped into the Beetle and twisted on the ignition, but couldn’t shake the memories. Her mother hadn’t even cared enough to get her the operations she needed to fix her cleft. It had been a stranger who had done that; a neighbor who’d been a nurse had taken it upon herself to apply for the free surgeries, at a teaching hospital. In truth, Anne’s mother had never been there for her. Anne had cobbled together school and federal loans to fund college and law school, and she’d be repaying them the rest of her life. Her heart hardened to bone. She pulled out of the space and took after Matt.

Anne sized up the situation. She was considering driving to Matt’s house, but it would take too long to get there, given that it was the heart of the historic district, and then she might lose Kevin. She checked her watch. 1:15. The sun was high and hot, people were everywhere, and the city was alive with Fourth of July festivities. She decided to get back on track and keep leaving a public trail, so Kevin could find her.

An hour later, Anne had parked the car illegally, but not in a tow zone, and was threading her way through the crowds on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, brushing her tiny bangs off her forehead, showing her scar, enjoying the freedom of going without disguise or lipstick.

“Hey, aren’t you that girl they thought was dead, that lawyer?” asked a man in a red Budweiser hat. He was holding a little girl’s hand, heading with the crowd to the Party on the Parkway.

“Uh, yes.” Anne introduced herself and shook his hand, pleased that her picture was getting out, and he smiled like he’d met a celebrity. She hoped he’d spread the word and she was caught up in the flow of people. Workmen hoisted a plastic banner that read DOLLAR-A-HOAGIE on a huge white tent on Eakins Oval, and she paused to call Matt on his cell, house, and office phones. Still no answer. She didn’t see Kevin but she didn’t lose hope. The smell of grilling hamburgers and chicken kebabs wafted through the air, and she dug out some money. Anne felt like everybody else on the Fourth of July, killing time until it was dark and the fireworks could begin. She checked her watch. 3:15. Time for the party.

Anne slowed her step as she reached her block, which had been closed to traffic with blue-and-white police sawhorses. Waltin Street was packed with people, at least sixty adults, children, and pets, mingling in the dappled sunshine under the leafy maple trees. She eyed the crowd for Kevin. He could have seen those
BLOCK PARTY
3–5
P.M.
signs. He could be watching her, waiting for his chance. She didn’t worry about drawing him here; he wasn’t a danger to anyone but her. She wedged her way around a sawhorse at the top of the block, where an elderly man wearing a spotless polo shirt and pressed slacks was apparently checking IDs.

“Ms. Murphy, no need to prove you live on our street,” he said, his face lighting up when he saw her. “I recognize you! I saw you on TV!”

“Thank you, Mr.—”

“I’m your neighbor Bill Kopowski. I live in 2254, with the red shutters. There.” He pointed. “Nobody knew whether to hold our party, but we went ahead. My wife Shirley and I were concerned, you should meet her!” Mr. Kopowski reached with a shaking hand for an older, plump woman standing next to him, and she turned around, her aged eyes lighting up when she saw Anne.

“Oh, my goodness, it is you!” Mrs. Kopowski exclaimed. She wore a beige linen dress with a necklace of amber beads.

“Yes, hello,” Anne said. She extended her hand, but Mrs. Kopowski reached out and swept her into her arms, pulling her close into her soft bosom. She smelled like Shalimar and lavender soap.

Heads in the crowd started to turn to Anne, as neighbors surged toward her, chattering and chuckling. “Ms. Murphy!” shouted a middle-aged man in a madras shirt and Bermuda shorts. “We haven’t met, but I live across from you, in 2258.”

“Hi—” Anne started to say but was interrupted by a woman in a blue foam crown.

“Anne Murphy! Anne Murphy! You’re not dead! I saw your mother in the newspaper. It was moving, very moving!”

“I see that, too!” another neighbor called out in accented English. He was an Asian in a red-white-and-blue T-shirt. “On TV! She look just like you! You call her, she love you!”

Everyone started calling to Anne, asking so many questions she couldn’t begin to respond, and she felt someone clapping her on the back. She turned, startled, but it was another smiling neighbor, thrilled that she was alive, worried that such an awful thing had happened on their street, wanting to know the details. In no time the crowd had completely absorbed her, taking her in like the neighbor she’d never been, welcoming her with open arms and warm beer. She understood for the first time how many people are affected by even a single murder, and how profoundly it had shaken everyone on the block. The whole time she scanned the crowd for Kevin and if he were among them, she hadn’t found him yet. She was worried about Matt, and curious where Bennie and the girls were. Sooner or later they’d find her, and she hoped it wasn’t before she flushed Kevin out.

“Ms. Murphy, Ms. Murphy! A few questions please!” A man called from behind Anne, and she felt her back shoved rudely. She turned and banged into the lens of a videocamera. A reporter popped up beside the camera, a beefy man in a white T-shirt and jeans, his potbelly hanging over a gold belt buckle. “Ms. Murphy,” he asked, rapid-fire, “what’s the real story on Kevin Satorno? Any comment? Ms. Murphy?”

“I’m not going to answer any questions,” Anne said, trying to get her bearings. The press was here. It made sense that they’d come to her street. This crew had lucked out in finding her. Had she lucked out, too?

“Come on, come clean. Is it true you were engaged to Satorno?” The camera lens trained on Anne, and her neighbors looked on in annoyance. An older man she recognized as a retired chemist was wedging his way toward the reporter, wagging a bony finger at the camera.

“You’re not invited here, sir,” he called out, his voice quavering with age. “It’s residents only. We have a permit. How did you get past Mr. Kopowski? He fought at The Bulge.”

Mr. Berman appeared beside him. “Are you reporters? You don’t live here! Better get out, before we call the cops. One of you knocked the flowerpot off my front step yesterday!”

But Anne was thinking of her plan. “Hey, buddy,” she called to the reporter, “why don’t you ask me what I’m going to do next, now that I’m not dead? Like they do after the Superbowl?”

“She’s going to Disneyworld!” Mr. Simmons, another neighbor, chimed in, and neighbors behind him closed in, encircling the reporter and cameraman.

“Yes, ask her what she’s going to do next!” Mr. Monterosso called out.

Another yelled, “Yes! Print some good news for a change!”

A third neighbor cried, “You won’t show that on TV, will you? You never run anything nice, even on the holiday.”

The reporter turned to Anne, chuckling. “Okay, Ms. Murphy! What are you going to do next? Are you going to Disneyworld?”

“And leave Philly on the Fourth of July? No way!” Anne answered into the camera, knowing it would be aired for Kevin to hear. She thanked God that Bennie hated TV. “Tonight, I’m going to celebrate the country’s birthday, Philly-style! Eat a hoagie at the Dollar-A-Hoagie tent, then watch the fireworks at the Art Museum! Happy Fourth, everybody!”

The neighbors cheered loudly, laughing and hooting, and Mr. Berman wielded his cane like a drum major. “Now, Mr. Reporter, you have your story! Go print it!
Vamoose!
”