Mercy (30 page)

His arms tightened around her waist. "Like what?" He could feel her smile. "Like they're trying to kill each other." Cam thought of what he'd felt with Allie in the kitchen that morning. And he wondered if that hadn't been his very motive after all.

"I Vyith a flourish, Audra Campbell opened the courthouse door, Vr smiling with confidence at the collection of media representatives waiting for the outcome of the grand jury hearing.

"Ms. Campbell," a reporter called. "Can you tell us what happened in there?

"

She turned a beaming smile in the direction of the nearest television camer a, wondering how many channels she'd be able to videotape that night. "In t he case of the State of Massachusetts versus James MacDonald, the grand jur y has voted to indict the defendant."

A voice spiraled up through the crowd. "Was this something you expected?"

"Naturally," Audra said, "since he's charged with murder." She glanced arou nd at the people gathered before her, hanging on her words and furiously wr iting them down for posterity in tiny white notepads. "And I'm very confide nt of a conviction when we go to trial." She waved--a dismissal--and steppe d down several stairs, parting the crowd of reporters.

/f she had her choice, Allie would have picked a funeral any day over a wedd ing. When she did the floral arrangements for the foot and head of a casket, nobody complained, and she didn't have to worry about ruining someone's day with a wilted rose or drooping alstroemeria. On the other hand, a bride onl y got to do it once. If the stephanotis wasn't wired quite right, it could f lop out of the trailing bouquet halfway down the aisle, and no one wanted th at on their videotape. If the flowers didn't make it to the church on time, there would be no second chances.

Cam had dropped her off at the church with her buckets of flowers and raffia and Oasis and spools of florist's wire. The tall arrangements were in place on either side of the altar, but she still had to drape a flower garland do wn the pews that were reserved for family. Allie would have been able to do these ahead of time too, but she had been up all Saturday night doing the bo uquets and boutonnieres for the ridiculously large bridal party. She sat down in the quiet aisle of the church and wired a stem of mimosa. S

he had done this so often she did not have to be an active participant. For the thousandth time she wished that Mia had not gone off to her emergency, or that she'd come through the door now and roll up her sleeves and help. The bride was going with a traditional white wedding, accented with some au tumn lilies in rosy shades of crimson. Allie had talked her into this. It w as a Halloween wedding--well, two days before--and the bride had wanted a g arish black and orange. Worse, the guests had been invited to come in costu me. In fact, Allie had met the brother of the bride on the front steps of t he church, dressed as Napoleon.

Now he came through the door of the church and stood beside her. Allie looked up and saw him--an unreasonably tall Napoleon, she thought

--with his hand stuffed into his coat. "Doesn't bother you if I'm here, does it?' he asked.

Allie shook her head. "I can't chat, though. I'm pretty busy."

"I'm supposed to make sure the minister gets here." He smirked. "I thought t hey just lived under the pulpit when they weren't preaching." Allie carefully wrapped a second stem of mimosa. Delicate white flowers, they trembled at her touch. "I take it the minister hasn't arrived yet?" The man shook his head. "Nope."

Allie glanced up. "I can keep an eye out for him. What's he coming dressed as?"

He looked down at her as if she was crazy. "A minister," he said, "what else

?"

At the sound of feet, Allie looked up, panicked. It was only eleven; she ha d two hours left before the ceremony, but there were guests. At least she a ssumed they were guests--a medievally dressed lady, a court jester, and Elv ira, Queen of the Night. "Hey!" Napoleon shouted, waving. "Aunt Anne! You l ook great!"

He went to talk to his relatives for a few minutes--during which time Allie made one entire garland of ivy--but returned as if his presence was a help

. "They're early," he announced to Allie. "They misjudged the traveling tim e from New York."

Allie nodded and plucked a lily out of one of her buckets. The lilies would be at the head of the garland, fastened to the top of the pew, and then the mimosas would be wired to cascade down in a soft, white fall.

"Nice flowers," Napoleon said. He crushed one of the mimosa flowers betwe en his fingers, making Allie grimace. "Smells good."

"Mimosa always does. Watch." She picked the stem of the flower away before h e could do any more damage and brushed her fingertip lightly against another bud. The petals retracted slightly, as if they were shy. "That's why it was traditionally used at weddings. People used to say if a girl passed this pl ant in a state of sin, it would shrink back like it was being touched by som ething evil."

Napoleon laughed. "So much for my sister's storybook wedding." He waved h is hand over the half-finished garland. "The

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whole thing'll curl up and die. She's been living with Pete for a year now alr eady."

Allie hung the first garland up as a terrorist, Shirley Temple, and a hippie came into the church. They sat down behind the other guests and began to talk quietly. "I'm never going to finish," Allie murmured to herself.

"Hey," Napoleon said, standing. "I heard a car. It must be Reverend Allsop.

" He started down the aisle, his Hessians muffled by the long white runner. She gritted her teeth when she heard the man's voice again, pitched against a different voice, higher and soft. "I found someone who was looking for y ou," Napoleon said, and Allie glanced up to see Mia standing just behind hi m.

Her face broke into a smile. "You couldn't have staged a better entrance. Gi ve me a hand, will you?"

Mia had already flung her knapsack, which was meowing, into a pew, and crou ched beside Allie to wire a lily stem for the next garland. Allie gestured to a completed garland and held the top of it against a pew, pu lling a nail from her apron to peg it into place. "Just drape up the bottom ha lf," she instructed.

Mia picked up the long chain and walked backward. She touched her fingers t o one flower, which had become twisted in the process of movement. The mimo sa's petals shrank away, as if it were embarrassed. And then the next one c losed, and the one next to that, and so on, until all the buds had retreate d, shaking and modest, and there was no beauty at all.

"ITA/"hy is it that only in the very beginnings of a relationship are Vr you aware of the heat coming from inside a person, of the number of inches you would have to move for your shoulders to brush as if it were an accident?

Cam kept his eyes on the road. Funny, how he could bump into Allie forty time s a day--in front of the refrigerator, or near the bathroom sink--but he was never aware of her proximity, never felt as if all his nerves were reaching j ust a tiny bit farther. He wondered if, years ago, he had sat beside Allie in a car thinking of ways to press his leg up against hers and blame it on the frost heaves in the road.

On the other hand, Mia was sitting so close beside him he could smell the woo l of her sweater. At red lights, from the corner of his eye, he could see the pulse beating behind her left ear.

He hadn't said much to her at all since he'd corne to pick up Allie at the ch urch and found Mia working beside her. It had shocked the hell out of him; se eing her bent over a bucket of tiny white daisies, her hair twisted on her he ad and knotted with a strategically speared pencil. Cam had stood in the aisl e of the church, feeling something swell up inside him that might have simply been relief, but that felt like a rush of heat, an explosion of hope.

"Hey," he had blurted out. "You're back. How was your aunt?" The words tumbled out onto the bride's white runner before he realized that he h ad just fabricated a level of detail he should not have known. Allie had been stuffing her floral wire and Swiss army knives back into the little red toolbox she used for transport. Her hands, chafed and green-stain ed, fiddled with the catch that closed the box. "How'd you know it was her a unt?" she asked, and then she stood and kissed his cheek. He looped his arm around Allie's waist only because it was expected. "It's al ways an aunt," he said, looking to Mia for help.

"She's fine," Mia replied, and with her eyes she threw back the thread of th e lie, knowing it would soon be a net as big as those on a shrimper's boat, and equally as easy to become entrapped in.

Allie's car was in the repair shop for a broken taillight, which was why Ca m had dropped her off at the church in the first place, and why he was now driving her and Mia back to Glory in the Flower. But he'd had to take the u nmarked car, whose trunk was full of boxes containing pamphlets and T-shirt s and caps to promote the DARE program at the area schools. Which meant tha t the extra buckets of flowers and the mound of supplies had to ride in the back seat, while he and Allie and Mia shared the front.

Mia was doing her damnedest to stay on Allie's half of the front seat--Ca m wondered how she had wound up in the middle, anyway--but every now and then a bump in the road would throw her up against him. Cam noticed the s mell of Mia too, the woody pine of her hair and skin mixing with Allie's light apple perfume to make him slightly sick.

"Six-two-one to four," the radio crackled. Cam looked down to see it cutting into Mia's thigh. He reached down and pulled the unit free. "Four to six-twoone," Cam said, followed by a string of other letters and numbers. Finally he set the receiver back against Mia's leg. "I've got to go," he told Allie. He stepped on the gas so that the car raced a little faster, and pulled into th e parking lot of the flower shop. "Can you handle this stuff?" Allie nodded. "I'm an old pro." She slid out of the car and reached into the back seat to grab two buckets of flowers.

"I'll give you a hand." Mia reached in as well, refusing to meet Cam's eye. A llie started up the walk, juggling the buckets so she could reach into her po ckets for a key.

"You came back," Cam said quietly.

Mia nodded. She tugged at Allie's toolbox, but it was stuck on some part of a seat belt and would not come free.

"When can I see you?" Cam asked.

Mia glanced up. "You can't." She tugged on the handle of the red box again. Cam twisted from the driver's seat and covered Mia's hand with his own. With a sharp yank the toolbox came flying forward, opening its latch and spillin g floral wire, Oasis, scissors, and knives all over the back seat. "Shit," M

ia murmured, bending to retrieve a length of ribbon that had worked its way beneath the seat.

Cam's hand pulled her up again. He tugged her forward until she was kneelin g in the back seat and then he kissed her. Right in the middle of Main Stre et, with Allie on the other side of an open door. His mouth moved over hers until her stomach knotted up and her sigh became Cam's next breath. When Mia heard the first footstep, she pushed herself away. Cam's face was red and his mouth had a rough ring around it. Mia had no doubt she looked m uch the same. She bent her head so that her curls hid her cheeks and felt a round the car's mealy carpeting for the spilled tools.

Allie opened the other rear door, the one behind Cam, and took one look at the paraphernalia which covered the back seat. She fished a spool of floral wire out of one of the remaining buckets of flowers. "What happened?" She was too busy lugging a tub of lilies out of the car to see Mia and Cam exchange a look. "An accident," Mia said, and then she slammed the car door as if it could truly keep Cam in.

The trial of the State of Massachusetts versus James MacDonald was set for January 16, which meant that Graham MacPhee had little more than two mont hs to pull a rabbit out of a hat. He had been sleeping with a notepad besi de his bed and scribbling down whatever entered his mind for Jamie's defen se. He was still planning to use insanity, but he was going to throw a few wrenches into the prosecution's machine as well. For example, Allie had f ound some friend of Maggie's who could confirm that she had asked Jamie to kill her; that would take some of the deliberation out of the act. And Gr aham also planned to drum up sympathy by subtly playing a euthanasia card. He pictured

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himself in a grand courtroom, his voice echoing as he saved Jamie's pound o f flesh, having rewritten his own speech on mercy.

Graham had been filing pretrial motions for a couple of weeks now--ordinary motions that would help delay the case a little. He had Audra Campbell serve d with a motion that she'd be expecting--one that said they'd be using an in sanity defense, so she could come up with some state shrink to evaluate Jami e for twenty minutes and pass judgment. Then, just to piss her off, he filed a motion to review the prosecution's evidence. It wasn't that Jamie thought she had any aces up her sleeve, but it would take a while to get a copy of the confession, the lab results, et cetera, and he liked the idea of Audra C

ampbell using up valuable time she could have spent preparing a strategy for prosecution.

Today, though, he had come all the way back to Pittsfield in front of Judg e Roarke, fighting a motion that Audra had handed down to him, which reque sted that the words "mercy killing" not be used in the trial at all. Jamie would be referred to as the defendant, or as Mr. MacDonald; the soft edge s of the deed he had performed would be rendered in the prosecution's colo rs of black and white. Audra was smart enough, damn her, to know what aspe cts of the case Graham could use to his advantage. The first time he'd rea d the motion, Graham had doubled over in his chair, staggered by the image of a courtroom that was stripped of mercy. Judge Roarke, a big black bear of a man, upheld Audra's motion. "But Your Honor," Graham said, "we're no t talking about cold-blooded killing here. We're talking about something t hat was done to spare someone else pain. What kind of defense wouldn't cla im mercy?"

The judge leveled his gaze at Graham. "I imagine, Mr. MacPhee," he said, "t hat this is your problem, not mine." Out of the corner of his eye, Graham c ould see Audra's smile, white against the flushed blur of her face. "You wi ll be aware that during the trial, you will not use the words 'mercy' or 'm ercy killing' or ... well, you get my drift. Not in your questioning, not i n you cross-examination, not in your opening and closing arguments. And you will instruct your witnesses not to bring the term up, or I will consider you personally accountable and hold you in contempt. Do I make myself clear