Tell Me No Secrets (12 page)

“The man was an abusive bully who couldn’t stand the fact that his wife had finally worked up the courage to leave him,” Jess countered. “Don’t try to tell me this was a crime of passion. It was murder, pure and simple.”

“Not so pure,” Greg Oliver stated. “Anything but simple.” He paused, possibly waiting for Jess to say something, continued when she didn’t. “She ridiculed his sexual prowess, remember. A lot of male jurors are going to understand and sympathize with his response.”

“So, let me get this straight,” Jess said, finishing her drink and grabbing another from a passing waiter. “You think it’s acceptable for a man to kill his wife if she insults his precious manhood?”

“I think Bristol might be able to convince a jury of that, yes.”

Jess shook her head in disgust. “What is it—open season on women?”

“Just warning you. I was right about the Barnowski case, remember.”

Jess scanned the room, hoping to find someone she could wave to, someone she could gravitate toward. Anyone. But there was no one. It seemed that everyone was either paired off or already engaged in pleasant conversation. No one even glanced her way.

It was her own fault, she realized. She didn’t make friends easily. Never had. She was too serious, too intense. She frightened people, put them off. She had to work hard to establish friendships, harder to maintain them. She’d given up the pretense. She worked hard enough at the office.

“You’re looking very delectable tonight,” Greg Oliver was saying, leaning closer, his lips brushing against the side of her hair.

Jess spun around, whisking her hair none too gently across Greg Oliver’s cheek, seeing him wince. “Where’s your wife, Greg?” she asked loud enough to be heard by those in the immediate vicinity. Then she turned and walked away, though she had no idea where she was going.

She spent the next fifteen minutes in earnest conversation with one of the waiters. She couldn’t make out most of what he was saying—the room was starting to sway slightly—but she managed to look interested and nod politely at appropriate intervals.

“Go easy on the drinks,” Don whispered, coming up behind her.

Jess stretched her neck back to rest her head against his chest. “Where’s Mother Teresa?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Teresa,” Jess repeated stubbornly.

“You mean Trish?”

“Trish, yes. Sorry.”

“She went to the washroom. Jess, why did you ask me about Rick Ferguson’s car?”

Jess told him. About her narrow escape on Michigan Avenue, her near collision in Evanston, the white car waiting outside her apartment. Don’s face registered interest, concern, then anger, in rapid succession. His response was characteristically direct.

“Did you get the license plate number?”

Jess was horrified to realize she hadn’t even thought of it. “It all happened so fast,” she said, the excuse sounding lame even to her ears.

“There are a lot of white Chryslers in Chicago,” Don told her, and she nodded. “But I’ll check it out, talk to my client. I can’t believe he’d do anything so stupid so close to trial.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Jess heard Trish’s laugh, saw her arm snake around Don’s waist, to reclaim her territory. She turned away, watching the room spin to catch up. A young woman was striding purposefully across the floor toward the deck, a large portable cassette player in her hands. There was something out of kilter about her. She looked wrong, displaced. There was a kind of desperateness to her heavy makeup, as if she were trying to hide who she really was. Her legs wobbled on a pair of too-high heels. Her trench coat was old and ill-fitting. And something else, Jess thought, watching the young woman as she approached the birthday boy. She looked scared.

“Leo Pameter?” the girl asked, her voice that of a lost child.

Leo Pameter nodded warily.

The young woman, whose face was surrounded by a huge mass of unruly black curls, pushed a button on her tape cassette and suddenly the room reverberated to the traditional bump-and-grind music of a striptease show.

“Happy birthday, Leo Pameter!” the young girl shouted, throwing off her trench coat and skipping around the deck in a white push-up bra and panties, complete with matching garter belt and stockings.

There were loud hoots from the men and embarrassed laughter from the women as the young woman shook her larger-than-life breasts in their direction before concentrating her energy on the hapless birthday boy.

“Jesus Christ,” Jess moaned, burying her eyes in her glass of wine.

“Those can’t be real,” Trish exclaimed from somewhere beside her.

Jess looked up only when the music stopped. The young woman stood nude except for a G-string in front of Leo Pameter, who had the good grace to look embarrassed. She leaned over and planted a hot pink kiss on Leo Pameter’s forehead. “From Greg Oliver,” she said, then quickly gathered up her things, threw her coat over her shoulders, and fled to a smattering of self-conscious applause.

“How enlightened,” Jess muttered as her colleague approached.

“It’s you who have to lighten up, Jess.” Greg’s eyes directly challenged hers. “You have to learn to have fun, let yourself go, tell a few jokes.”

Jess downed the remainder of her drink, took a deep breath, and struggled to keep her eyes from crossing. “Did
you hear about the miracle baby that was born at Northwestern Memorial Hospital?” she asked, feeling all eyes turn toward her.

“Miracle baby?” Greg repeated, clearly wondering what this had to do with him.

“Yes,” Jess said loudly. “It had brains
and
a penis!” In the next instant, the room was spinning, and Jess was on the floor.

“Really, Don, this isn’t necessary,” Jess was saying. “I can take a cab.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m not letting you go home alone.”

“What about Mother Teresa?”

“Trish,”
Don emphasized, “will meet me back at my apartment.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your evening.”

“You aren’t, and you didn’t, so don’t worry about it. Just get in the car.”

Jess crawled into the front seat of the black Mercedes, heard the car door shut after her. She leaned against the soft black leather, eyes closed, feeling Don assume his place behind the wheel, start the engine, pull away from the curb. “I’m really sorry,” she began again, then stopped. He was right. She wasn’t sorry.

No sooner had they started, than they stopped. She heard a car door open, then close. Now what? she thought, opening her eyes.

They were in front of her brownstone. Don came around to her side of the car, opened her door, and helped her out.

“That was fast,” she heard herself say, wondering how much time had elapsed.

“Think you can walk?” Don asked.

Jess said yes, though she wasn’t at all sure. She leaned against Don, felt his arm slip around her waist, allowed him to guide her from the car toward the front door of the large house. “I can do the rest on my own,” she told him, watching him search through her purse for her key.

“Sure you can. You don’t mind if I just stand here and watch, do you?”

“Could you do me a favor?” she asked once they were inside the foyer, three flights of stairs stretching before her.

“You want me to leave?”

“I want you to carry me up.”

Don laughed, draping her left arm around his right shoulder and supporting her weight with his own. “Jess, Jess, what am I going to do with you?”

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” she muttered as they began their slow climb.

“Only to girls named Jess.”

What on earth had possessed her to drink so much? Jess wondered as she groped for the stairs. She wasn’t a drinker, rarely had more than a single glass of wine. What was the matter with her? And why did she seem to be asking herself that question so often lately?

“You know,” Jess said, recalling the sneer in Greg Oliver’s voice when he told her to lighten up, “it’s not that I don’t like men. It’s lawyers I have a problem with.”

“Are you trying to tell me something?” Don asked.

“And accountants,” Jess added, recalling her brother-in-law.

They opted for silence the rest of the way. By the time they reached the top of the stairs, Jess felt as if she had
conquered Mount Everest. Her legs were like jelly, her knees refusing to lock into place. Don continued propping her up as he twisted the key in the lock. Somewhere a phone was ringing.

“Is that your phone?” Don asked, pushing the door open. The ringing got louder, grew more urgent.

“Don’t answer it,” Jess instructed her ex-husband, closing her eyes against the lights as he lowered her to the couch.

“Why not?” He looked toward the kitchen where the phone continued its insistent ring. “It could be important.”

“It isn’t.”

“You know who it is?”

“My father,” Jess told him. “He’s been trying to set up a good time for me to meet his new friend.” I’ve met enough new friends for one night, she thought, but didn’t say.

“Your father has a girlfriend?”

“Well, I’d hardly call her a girl.” Jess curled up inside her sofa, drawing her knees against her chest “I’m an awful person,” she moaned into the velvet cushion. “Why can’t I just be happy for him?” The phone continued to ring, then suddenly, mercifully, stopped. She opened her eyes. Where was Don?

“Hello,” she heard him say from the kitchen, and for a minute, she thought maybe someone else had entered the apartment. “I’m sorry,” he continued. “I can’t understand what you’re saying. Can you speak slower?”

“I told you not to answer it,” Jess said, wobbling into the kitchen, holding her hand toward the telephone.

Don handed her the phone, his forehead creasing into a series of worried folds. “It’s a woman, but I can’t make out a word she’s saying. She has a very thick accent.”

Jess felt sobriety tugging at her consciousness. She didn’t want to be sober, she thought, putting the phone to her ear, her mellowness seeping away from her, like a slow leak.

The woman’s voice assaulted her ears before she had time to say hello. “I’m sorry. What? Who is this?” Jess felt a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of bet stomach. “Mrs. Gambala? Is this Mrs. Gambala?”

“Who’s Mrs. Gambala?” Don asked.

“Connie DeVuono’s mother,” Jess whispered, her hand across the receiver. “Mrs. Gambala, you have to calm down. I can’t understand you. … What? What do you mean she didn’t come home?”

Jess listened to the balance of the conversation in stunned silence. When she hung up the phone, her whole body was shaking. She turned to Don, watching his eyes narrow with unasked questions. “Connie didn’t pick up her son at her mother’s house after work,” she said, dread audible in every word. “She’s disappeared.”

“I
can’t believe I was so stupid!”

“Jess …”

“So stupid, and so damned self-centered!”

“Self-centered? Jess, for God’s sake, what are you talking about?”

“I just assumed he was talking about me.”

“Who? What are you talking about?”

“Rick Ferguson!”

“Rick Ferguson? Jess, slow down.” Don pushed some imaginary hairs away from his forehead, his expression hovering between curiosity and exasperation. “What has Rick Ferguson got to do with this?”

“Come on, Don.” Jess made no attempt to hide her impatience with her ex-husband. “You know as well as I do that Rick Ferguson is responsible for Connie DeVuono’s disappearance. Don’t try to tell me you don’t. Don’t play games with me. Not now. This isn’t a courtroom.” Jess
marched out of the kitchen into her living room, pacing restlessly in front of the birdcage, her canary hopping back and forth between perches, as if consciously mimicking her strides.

Don was right behind her, hands in the air, trying to get Jess to slow down. “Jess, if you would just calm down for half a second. …” He grabbed hold of her shoulders with both hands. “If you would just stop moving for half a second.” The pressure of his palms forced her to a standstill. Don stared into her eyes until she had no choice but to look back. “Now, can you tell me exactly what happened?”

“Rick Ferguson …” she began.

Immediately, he cut her off. “Not what you
think
happened, what you
know
happened.”

Jess took a deep breath, shrugged her shoulders free of his strong grip. “Connie DeVuono called her mother at approximately four-thirty this afternoon to say she was leaving work, she’d be there in twenty minutes to pick up her son, could she please have him dressed and ready to go. Her son has hockey practice every Monday at five-thirty, and it’s always a bit of a rush.”

“Connie’s mother looks after her son?”

Jess nodded. “He goes to her house after school, waits there for Connie to pick him up when she’s finished work. Connie always calls before she’s leaving. Today, she called. But she never showed up.”

Don’s eyes told Jess he expected more.

“That’s it,” Jess said, hearing Don scoff, though in truth, he made no sound.

“Okay. So, what we know,” Don emphasized, “is that Connie DeVuono didn’t pick her son up after work. …”

“After she called and said she was on her way,” Jess reminded him.

“And we don’t know whether or not anybody saw her leave work, or what kind of a car she might have been in, or if she told anybody she had to stop off somewhere, or …”

“We don’t know anything. The police won’t officially start investigating until she’s been missing for twenty-four hours. You know that.”

“We don’t know if she was depressed or anxious,” Don continued.

“Of course she’s depressed and anxious. She was raped. She was beaten. The man who attacked her convinced a judge he’s a model citizen with deep roots in the community, the sole support for his aged mother, and other assorted crap, so they let him out on bail. Connie DeVuono’s supposed to testify in court next week. And your client has threatened to kill her if she tries. You’re damn right she’s depressed and anxious! In fact, she’s scared to death!” Jess heard the shrillness in her voice. Her canary started singing.

“Scared enough to just take off?” Don underlined the importance of his question with a furrowing of his brow.