Sasha McCandless 03 - Irretrievably Broken (30 page)

In retrospect, he realized that had been a mistake. If Clarissa hadn’t died, he would have looked like he was bluffing when Prescott opened the picture.

So, this time, he needed to do everything in the proper order: tear Martine and Tanner apart; wait until she took steps to divorce Tanner; then kill her; and, finally, drop off the third picture.

He hit the hammer against his palm once more with a dull thud.

No surprises this time.

CHAPTER 51

“Where’s Leo?” Sasha’s mother asked, enveloping Sasha in a hug and a cloud of Clinique Happy as soon as she walked through the door.

The scent meant Sunday to Sasha. Valentina McCandless loved perfume, but she saved it for church, her birthday, and her anniversary. One year, Sasha had given her a large bottle for Mother’s Day, so that she could wear it whenever she wanted. The bottle had lasted six years.

“Hi, mom,” Sasha said, kissing her mother’s cheek and ignoring her question.

 Her brother Sean stepped through the doorway between the dining room and the family room carrying a tray of nachos and cheese dip. Jordan, his wife, followed with the beers.

“Hi, Squirt,” Sean said, nodding his head toward her. “Where’s your boy? He’s going to miss kickoff.”

“Hi, Sean, Jordan. He’s out of town,” Sasha answered.

She hurried to the kitchen in the back of the house to avoid further questions about Connelly.

Riley, her brother Ryan’s wife, sat at the table, chopping vegetables for the salad.

“Hi, Sasha,” she said in her soft voice. She sliced the mushrooms in a quick, precise rhythm. Her uniform pieces would have made Connelly proud.

“Hi. How are you feeling, Riley?” Sasha asked. Riley was, as usual, pregnant.

“Pretty good. A little tired, but that could be from chasing the hooligans around, too. Hey, I saw you on the news yesterday!  You were being interviewed about the men who killed their wives,” Riley said, her eyes wide.

“Allegedly,” Sasha said.

“What?”  Riley blew her long bangs out of her eyes and kept slicing while she talked.

“Nevermind. Nothing. So, what did you think?” Sasha said as she walked to the refrigerator and looked inside, out of habit more than hunger.

“I liked your suit,” Riley said.

Sasha’s mother walked into the kitchen and closed the refrigerator door. “You’ll ruin your appetite,” she told Sasha. Then she turned to Riley. “What suit?”

“Sasha was wearing this really cute dress and jacket on television,” Riley explained, waving the knife for emphasis.

“You were on television, and you didn’t tell your mother?” Sasha’s mom said. “Dad and I would have recorded it, honey.”

“It wasn’t a scheduled thing, Mom. I just got nabbed by a reporter who had some questions about a case. It was no big deal, really,” Sasha explained. She gave Riley a long, meaningful look.

Riley nodded, wide-eyed, to let Sasha know she understood. She’d been married to Ryan long enough to know that Valentina would not view murderous husbands, alleged or otherwise, as appropriate pre-dinner conversation.

“Where’s Ryan?” Sasha said to change the subject.

“Out back with your dad and the kids,” her mother answered, turning her attention to the two plump, naked chickens destined for the roaster.

Sasha watched through the small window as her father threw the ball in the general direction of the knot of grandchildren at the far end of his backyard and they tumbled after it like puppies.

Ryan caught her eye and waved. She waved back.

“Do you need any help, Mom?” Sasha asked.

“From you? Heaven forbid. I wish Leo were here, though. I wanted to get his recipe for the potatoes. You don’t happen to know it, do you?” her mother said over her shoulder, with her hands inside a chicken.

“Uh, the roasted ones? Rosemary, sea salt, and olive oil,” Sasha said, impressed with herself for remembering.

“Amounts? Temperature? Time?” her mother responded.

“Oh, yeah, I don’t know,” Sasha answered.

Behind her, she heard Riley swallow a giggle.

Valentina just shook her head and said, “Go outside and get some sun. You look pale.”

Sasha didn’t argue. She stepped out on the big back deck and settled into the teak glider.

“Hi, doll,” her father called from the yard.

“Hi, Dad,” she answered, rocking the glider back and starting its gentle motion.

Her oldest nephew, Liam, turned at the sound of her voice.

“Aunt Sasha!” he whooped and took off running toward her.

Siobhan, Colin, and Stefan were right behind him, squealing and laughing as they raced across the yard. Daniella lagged behind, pumping her chubby toddler legs as fast as she could. They thundered up the stairs and piled onto the glider in a tangle of arms and legs.

“Hello, five little monkeys,” Sasha said, reaching to tickle five bellies.

Ryan and her dad stayed in the yard and gave the football a few last throws. Even at sixty-four, her dad’s arm could still send a bullet whizzing through the yard. Padric McCandless had quarterbacked the Central Catholic high school football team. He’d handed each of his three sons a pigskin as soon as they’d been able to stand without assistance and, to his wife’s dismay, had seen no reason to treat their peanut-sized daughter any differently. Sasha had a framed picture in her office of the two of them. She couldn’t have been much older than a year, dressed in a lacy pink dress and white shoes. Her father crouched beside her, correcting her form as she tried to throw a regulation-size football to one of the boys.

Sasha watched them toss the ball and listened to the kids talk over one another in a rush to fill her in on school, sports, and the eight-and-under social scene. With their excited voices in the air, the sun on her skin, and Daniella snuggled on her lap, she took in the moment and gave no thought to dead lawyers, broken marriages, or demanding boyfriends.

Then Sean appeared in the doorway.

“Dad, Ry, come on! Game’s about to start,” he called.

“Go, Steelers!” Colin yelled, and the entire mass of wriggling children slipped off the glider and swarmed into the house.

Sean stepped down onto the deck to let them pass. He looked at Sasha and took a swig from his beer.

“How’s Leo feel about your representing the Lady Lawyer Killers?” he asked in a deliberately neutral voice.

Sasha glanced up at him, shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand. His face was blank.

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t consult him about my work,” she answered, matching his tone.

Ryan and her father clomped up the steps and stood beside Sean.

“No Leo?” Ryan asked her.

“Not today,” Sasha said.

“Maybe he doesn’t approve of Sasha’s choice of clients,” Sean said.

Don’t take the bait. De-escalate.

“He’s out of town on business,” she said, looking at Ryan and her dad.

“Oh? Did he decide to take that job in D.C.?” her dad asked.

Sasha stared at him. Connelly had talked to her father about his job offer before he’d mentioned it to her? She felt betrayed by two of the men she loved.

Finally, she said, “Yes.”

Ryan looked at her closely. “You gonna move there?”

Sasha shook her head. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

Sean said, “He’s a good man. He’ll take care of you.”

“I don’t need to be taken care of, Sean,” she said, forcing herself to speak calmly. She reminded herself that Sean was trying to fill a role he was neither born to play nor particularly well suited for. When their oldest brother, Patrick, had been killed at age thirty, Sean, two years his junior had tried to step into his shoes. He seemed to think he had a responsibility for his youngest sister, despite the fact that Sasha was, herself, well into her thirties now.

Ryan, ever the pacifier, stepped in. “Of course, you don’t. We all know that. It’s just, Leo seems to make you happy. You’ve kept him around longer than all the rest. And, plus, I’m sure mom and dad would like you to give them some grandchildren at some point.”

Sasha cocked her head at him. “I think you guys have the grandkids pretty well covered, don’t you?”

Her father laughed and said, “Boys, leave your sister alone. Go in and save me a seat in front of the TV.”  He tossed the football at Sean and sat next to Sasha on the glider.

Sean and Ryan walked into the house. Their sister’s romantic situation already forgotten, she could hear them arguing over the point spread for the game.

Sasha and her father sat and moved the glider forward and back on its rockers, not speaking. Finally, he said, “You want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

They rocked some more. Sasha stared at the sturdy deck rails directly in front of her. The deck wrapped around the side of the house and then down into a second level. It was massive, impressive, and functional.

“Remember when you and the boys built the deck?” she said, still looking straight ahead.

“Sure,” he answered. “Summer of ‘98. All the boys helped. Patrick, the most.”

“I was home from college, working the dinner shift at The Colony. I’d wake up every morning to the sound of hammering. And every day, more deck would appear. I remember thinking it was amazing that you guys could create
this
out of nothing but a pile of wood and nails and your effort,” she said, sweeping her arms wide.

Her dad smiled.

She went on. “I can’t do that. But I can take a pile of words, nothing but a jumble of good and bad facts and good and bad law, and create an argument that will convince a judge.”

“You sure can,” he agreed.

Sasha turned to face him now. “But, for some reason, that’s not worth anything. I should just stop what I do and follow some guy?”

“You should do what makes you happy,” he said, putting an arm around her. “Whatever that is.”

Sasha looked down for a moment, then she said, “Do you think I’m broken inside?”

Padric smiled again. “No, you’re not broken, Sasha. You’re just different from them.” He nodded toward the house.

“Connelly thinks I’m broken,” she said.

“Leo’s probably hurting, honey,” her father said slowly. “You aren’t broken, but you sure are ... self-contained. It seems to me he opened up to you and was expecting you to do the same. But, that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you, baby. You’ve always been that way. Serious and closed off.”

Serious and closed off?

“That
sounds
broken,” she said.

He laughed. “No, that sounds like a small girl who decided to take on big things. You’re just careful, is all. Not as careful as I’d like, with all the flitting around and beating up bad guys, but careful about letting anyone in who might try to distract you from your goals. That’s all.”

“You make me sound like a robot,” Sasha said. Maybe she was emotionally stunted.

“You can’t make yourself crazy over something some boy said in the heat of the moment, Sasha. Come on, let’s go watch the game.”

Connelly wasn’t some boy. He was a man. And she wasn’t a high school girl, either. She had no business moping around her parents’ house like a hormonal teenager while a killer ran around Pittsburgh, knocking off female lawyers and framing their husbands.

She hopped off the glider. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t have come today. Can you tell Mom I’m not feeling well, and I’ll sneak out through the garden?”

He looked at her.

“Please?”

He nodded. Then he kissed the top of her head. “Go on.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sasha had the windows down and the music up as she headed back into the city. The combination of cool air and loud music drove thoughts of Connelly and her brothers from her mind.

The Vickers case was like a splinter in her foot, though. It needled her with each step. She needed to talk to someone who’d been at Prescott & Talbott when the case had been active. Someone who knew everyone. Someone who liked her and would help her. She needed to go see Lettie.

At the last minute, just before the road fed her into the Liberty Tunnel, which carved its way through Mt. Washington and onto the Liberty Bridge, she jerked the car into the far right lane and wound up and around, climbing the steep backside of the hill that sat above the city.

At the top, she slowed and eased the car onto a narrow, hilly side street then made a quick, sharp right onto a narrower, hillier side street. During her eight years at Prescott, she’d driven her secretary home a handful of times. Lettie took the Incline down to Station Square and then transferred to a bus to the office each morning, reversing the trip at night, unless she worked late. Lettie’s husband or son would pick her up if she worked overtime. But, on a few occasions, when they’d gotten an early evening snow, Sasha had taken her home so that her husband wouldn’t have to put out a folding chair and fret that someone might move it and steal his parking spot. Mt. Washington had an exquisite view of the city and its rivers. What it lacked was off-street parking.

Sasha turned onto a narrow street and squeezed her Passat into the first spot she found. She grabbed her purse and started the climb to Lettie’s townhouse near the top of the street. Shouts and cheers floated out through open windows, as families sat in their dens and living rooms rooting for the Steelers.

Lettie wasn’t watching the game. She was working in the small garden bed in the front of her townhouse. She was, however, wearing a Steelers jersey.

“Hi, Lettie,” Sasha said as she drew near.

Lettie turned toward her voice, a spade in one gloved hand, and squinted to see who was calling her. A wide smile spread across her face when she realized it was her former boss.

“Sasha, this is a nice surprise,” Lettie said. She put down her spade and peeled off her gloves, placing them in a neat pile next to the garden tool.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call first. I was on my way home from my parents’ place and just stopped, kind of on a whim,” Sasha said.
Kind of on a whim, and kind of out of desperation
, she thought.

Lettie laughed. “Don’t be silly. It’s great to see you. Do you want to come inside, have a cup of coffee? Gene and Justin are watching the game.”