No Safe Place (21 page)

For Kerry to put Anthony Musso in prison, he must persuade this boy to believe in
him
.

From the first moment, sitting with Kerry in the witness room, John Musso could not look at him.

He was pale, Kerry saw, with lank, dark hair and the habit of clenching his jaw, as if to withstand whatever might happen next. His fear showed in a convulsive swallowing.

“My name is Kerry,” he said gently.

John would not look up. The only sign of his having heard was that his head became quite still; only his throat moved. No wonder, Kerry reflected, that at first the cops had thought this boy autistic.

“I work with the police,” Kerry went on. “My job’s to help you and your mom.”

John was silent. Kerry took a rubber ball from his pocket and placed it on the wooden table, resting it beneath his fingertips.

The boy’s eyes moved, surreptitiously, to the ball. “Do you like balls?” Kerry asked.

No answer.

“I’m giving it to you,” Kerry said. “Hold out your hand, all right?”

For a moment, the boy remained still, blue eyes fixed on the table. His hand slid toward Kerry, as if it had a life of its own. When Kerry placed the ball in his open palm, John flinched, and then his fingers clutched the red sphere so hard that his knuckles turned white.

“Roll the ball to me,” Kerry said, “and I’ll roll it back. It’s a game.”

John swallowed again; at once, Kerry saw that he did not want to let go. “It’s okay,” Kerry told him. “You can keep it.”

More from fear than a sense of play, Kerry thought, the boy let the ball slip from his fingers and roll across the table. Kerry took the ball and placed it in John’s hand.

“Again?” Kerry asked.

As if in answer, John rolled the ball to Kerry. Rolling it back, Kerry wondered who played with this boy. John regarded others with suspicion, his second grade teacher had told Kerry, and his grades and attendance were abysmal. In school, his only animation was flashes of anger.

Silent, they rolled the ball back and forth. For John Musso, the dismal witness room was a refuge, Kerry realized—a few moments with a stranger who, whatever he wanted, did not
seem to pose a threat. Kerry let the silence grow around them; the few times he had thrown a ball with his father, he remembered, there had been no need to speak.

What to say? Kerry wondered. When the answer struck him, its difficulty gave Kerry a window to the boy’s soul, and his own.

“Can I tell you something?” Kerry said at last.

The ball froze in John Musso’s hand. “When I was eight,” Kerry began, “my dad did things to my mom.”

The boy was still.

“He hit her. Like your dad does. I couldn’t make him stop.”

The boy swallowed again. His mouth, Kerry noticed, was not as tight. Kerry’s own mouth was dry.

“I’d lie in bed,” Kerry went on, “and wish that someone could help us.”

John was silent. His hand clutched the rubber ball again.

For the first time, Kerry took the ball from his grasp, then rolled it back to John. “I hated what Da did to my mom. I know you hate it too.” Kerry kept his voice soft. “If I can make him stop, maybe your mom will get better. But I’ll need your help for that.”

Kerry stopped there, letting the hope settle in John’s mind. The boy’s swallowing seemed convulsive now. Then his fingers loosened, and the ball slid from his hand.

Taut, Kerry watched it roll into his own. “You remember that night, John, when the police took your mom to the hospital? How did your dad hurt her?”

There was a long silence, and then John Musso looked up into Kerry’s eyes, lips trembling, shutting his eyes just before he whispered, “He smashed her face into the sink.”

This time, Kerry drove to the shelter to visit Bridget Musso.

It was a warm spring morning, and Kerry had the top down on his ten-year-old Volkswagen. The weekend promised to be a fine one, reminding Kerry that he had no girlfriend, no dates, no plans. That was another way he was unlike his brother, Kerry thought ruefully. But one look at Bridget Musso, and he forgot all that.

She was lolling on a battered couch, slack-faced again, and the tip of her nose was red. Quite deliberately, Kerry glanced
around the barren meeting room, as depressing as a flophouse hotel, then asked, “Is this what you want for your son? Or you?”

She stared through him, wordless. Kerry sat beside her on the couch. “He doesn’t want you beaten anymore, Bridget. He doesn’t want you drunk anymore.” He paused, softening his tone. “Do you
hear
me?”

Almost imperceptibly, she nodded.

“Then
listen
.” Kerry’s eyes bored into hers. “Even though he’s frightened, your eight-year-old son is willing to go to court for you. Will you go for
him
, Bridget?”

Her lips parted, but she made no sound. Sensing her uncertainty, Kerry put aside the fact that John Musso had not yet promised to testify, that he was using each of them to strengthen the other. “What is that boy worth to you?” Kerry asked. “Anything? Because unless you change things, all he’ll ever know is all
you’ve
ever known. And all he’ll ever
be
is like his father.”

The woman blinked, turning away.

Kerry wanted to grab her by the shoulders, make her look into his face again. He forced himself to be still. “
Look
at me, Bridget.”

Slowly, she turned.

Kerry’s face was inches from hers. “If you help John,” he said, “I’ll put Anthony in jail. After that, he’ll be afraid to hurt either of you again.”

For a long time, she stared into his eyes. Then, as if Kerry had willed it, she nodded.

That evening, self-doubting and far more lonely than he cared
to be, Kerry decided to drop by McGovern’s for a beer.

To Kerry, McGovern’s was the last great Irish bar. Vailsburg had changed so quickly that its own bars were dying off, turned to shops or meeting places or, in one startling twist, a black apostolic church. But McGovern’s remained as it was in the 1930s, with Irish memorabilia on the walls and fire and police hats suspended from above its oval wooden bar. Its rules were as timeless. Smoking was fine, but a man would be thrown out for cursing in front of a lady. There was no television to impede conversation, argument, or the chance to meet a prospective mate under acceptable circumstances: this was not a pickup bar, everyone knew, but a social club, and the common saying was that “more marriages are made at McGovern’s than in church.” The jukebox featured Irish tunes, and its longtime proprietor, an immigrant given to dancing the occasional jig, might stand a round or two. Because McGovern’s was near the law schools at Rutgers and Seton Hall, it was a favorite haunt of courtroom types; the bar’s ad in the law school newspapers read “McGovern’s—the only bar you’ll never want to pass.” More than one legal hopeful, Kerry thought wryly, had passed out at McGovern’s after failing the bar exam.

It was a Friday, and McGovern’s was filled with smoke, laughter, the sound of debate or gossip or flirtation. To his surprise, Kerry saw no one from the office. He thought about leaving, then contemplated another night spent with Southside Johnny and took the one empty seat at the bar.

Instantly, the proprietor, Bill Carney, a trim man of sixty with bright eyes and a gray mustache, appeared with a cool bottle of Kerry’s favorite, Killian’s Red. “‘Kerry Kilcannon,’” he said, smiling, “‘the fighting prosecutor, valiant for truth.’”

Kerry grinned. They had been playing this game since the night Kerry was sworn in, and his every appearance required a new billing. “‘Bill Carney,’” Kerry answered, “‘tax chiseler, refugee from the law, and scourge of the English Crown.’”

Bill laughed. “Would that it were true—the tax chiseler part, especially.” He poured Kerry’s beer. “So how
are
things on the frontiers of urban justice?”

Kerry sipped his beer and chose to tell some semblance of the truth. “Tough cases, long days. Today, especially.”

Bill gave him a quick shrewd look, born of ten thousand nights spent divining moods in an instant, and his eyes moved
from Kerry to the woman on the next stool. “Do you two know each other?”

Kerry had hardly noticed her. She turned, giving him a quick, mock-critical appraisal. She was pretty, he saw at once—short auburn hair, a snub nose with freckles, large green eyes, and a generous mouth that formed dimples as she smiled at Bill. “Should I?” she asked.

Bill gave an elaborate shrug. “Jury’s still out on that one. Some days I hardly know him myself.” He turned to another customer, leaving Kerry and the woman to fend for themselves.

Somewhat embarrassed, Kerry said, “Bill’s at work again.”

Once more, the dimples flashed, this time in a smile that seemed slightly sardonic. “My parents met here,” she said wryly. “Bill thinks that’s a heartwarming link in a great tradition. I’ve no heart to tell him how miserable they are.”

The remark was so unexpected that it made Kerry laugh. With a few candid words, the woman had taken what might be a sentimental story and inverted it, easing Kerry’s sense that Bill Carney had assigned them to each other. “I’m Kerry Kil-cannon,” he said, and held out his hand.

Her own hand was cool and dry. “Meg Collins. And I
do
know you. From school at Sacred Heart.” She smiled again. “You were much older. Maybe ten.”

Kerry gave her a puzzled look and then made a connection of his own. “I saw you at a law school party, I think. Aren’t you Pat Curran’s wife?”

“You
did
. And I
was
. We barely outlasted the party.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it.

“Oh, it’s all right, really.” She spoke with brisk good humor, as if to ward off sympathy. “Without children, it’s more like a train wreck than a lingering illness. Suddenly your husband’s gone, and you never have to talk to him again.”

What had happened? Kerry wondered. But the empathy that made him curious kept him from asking; all he could offer was honesty. “Some days, being alone is better than others, I guess. There’s no one to talk to, but you can do what you want.”

Meg nodded. “That’s what I’m trying to learn,” she said. “Like going to the movies without a girlfriend, or coming here. It’s amazing—they don’t teach women that, do they?”

Beneath her question, Kerry heard an undertone of resolve,
then wondered if he was in the way. “You shouldn’t feel stuck with me,” he said, then tried to ease this by adding, “You know, like on that game show where the date some woman’s picked comes out from behind the screen, and she looks at him like ‘There’s no way
this
guy is ever getting near me.’”

Smiling, Meg touched his arm. “If I’d wanted you to leave, you’d know by now. My eyes get really blank, like by the end of one of Father Joe’s homilies.” She took another sip of beer. “That show
is
awful, though. The point must be to give you someone else to feel sorry for.”

Beneath his own smile of relief, Kerry had an unwelcome thought:
As long as I’m working domestic violence, I’ll never need them.
What he did need, Kerry realized, was to talk about John Musso. But this was not a subject for a first meeting, and it felt too close to his own life. “So what are you doing now?” he asked.

“I’m a legal secretary.” Again, Meg made her tone indifferent. “I’d do that till Pat got through law school, the plan was, then be free to finish college. Instead I’m getting my teacher’s certificate at night.”

The indifference was practiced, Kerry sensed; sheltered by her guise of fatalism, Meg was still back in the marriage, sadly pondering its end. “I guess Pat didn’t quite make a husband,” he ventured.

She looked at him, suddenly pensive, then gazed down at the bar. Around them the smoke and talk and laughter afforded a cocoon of privacy. “He was young,” she said. “He kept wanting change, excitement, new things. Marriage isn’t like that, I discovered.”

For a moment, Kerry’s heart went out to her; she had offered him a piece of honesty in return, a brief glimpse of her own heart. But he had no experience to offer, knew too little about Meg’s to say. They sat together in silence.

“Anyhow,” she said at last, “I really should go home. Finals start on Monday.”

Wondering if this was true, Kerry felt hesitation overtake him. But Meg
was
pretty, and he was curious about her. Standing, he asked, “Can I take you home, at least?”

Meg paused, considering him, and then she smiled again. “You always
seemed
nice, Kerry. At least to girls.”

She lived on the bottom floor of a duplex in Down Neck, the old Portuguese section, now favored by some young people for its low rents and good restaurants. On the way, they chatted about Vailsburg and common memories. “You looked so serious,” Meg told him. “Sometimes I wondered what was wrong.” But Kerry had learned the uses of humor. “Not serious,” he answered. “Prayerful. It was my only hope of decent grades.”

Arriving at Meg’s duplex, Kerry walked her to the porch. They stood facing each other in the cool night air.

“This was nice,” she said. “Seeing you again.”

The evening was over, Kerry knew. But she had not dismissed him, quite.

Looking into her face, he gently cradled her chin. Her eyes were wide, questioning. As he bent his head to hers, they closed.

Her mouth was soft and warm. He felt the smallest shudder of her body, and then, slowly, she ended the kiss.

Her gaze was serious, direct. “That was nice too,” she said. Then she backed away slowly and opened the door behind her, still looking at Kerry.

Driving home, he felt an unfamiliar lightness.

For the next two weeks, they went to movies or dinner, met at McGovern’s after work. Meg laughed easily now, spoke readily of her parents. With a certain dryness that did not quite conceal her resentment, Meg portrayed her father as an authoritarian misogynist, puzzled that any woman went to college. The unspoken subtext, Kerry sensed, was that her father and her husband had made her wary; she might consider marrying again, but not at the risk of losing herself. Though she sometimes seemed drained by the stress of job and school, the next day Meg would bounce back, cheerful in his company.