Mercy (10 page)

"I have to go," Mia was saying. "I have to go now." Afraid she would stand up and run out the door and possibly straight out of this town, Cam reached for her hand. "I'll take you back to the flower shop,

" he said, the sounds thick and unfamiliar to his own ears.

"I have my car."

"Leave it," Cam said. "Allie will drive you back later." They stared at each other, unwilling to even suggest that this might happen again; that either one might want or not want the other to be in the same house another night. Finally Mia nodded, having based her decision on the f act that she could not stand knowing what Cam would say to Allie if she was not present in the room when he got there.

He did not touch her while they were walking downstairs. He stayed a single step behind Mia, walking quickly to catch the scent

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she left behind. With every movement it got harder to believe that he had kissed a woman he hardly knew in his own bedroom, and he let the guilt gro w. He had a wife that he loved. A murderer who still had to be arraigned. He did not know what he had been thinking. He did not want to acknowledge that he simply had not been thinking at all.

At the bottom of the stairs, Mia scooped Kafka into her arms and headed for t he front door. She paused at the threshold. "I need to know what you're going to tell her," she said, trying to sound glib and failing miserably. Cam let her walk out the door and then started to lock it behind them. "That I thought you were a burglar and pulled a gun on you. That I scared you to death."

"Well," Mia said, moving to the police cruiser, "it wouldn't be a lie." After Allie had finished her bonsai wiring for the day, and had dropped Ver ona MacBean's centerpieces off at the library, she decided to visit Jamie M

acDonald. She told herself that it wasn't really going against Cam's wishes

. If anyone, like Hannah, asked what she was doing visiting a man Cam was g oing to book for murder--well, she'd just say he was family. She made him a nosegay of flowers that she thought might help: roses for lov e, marigolds for grief, violets for faithfulness, chrysanthemums for cheerfu lness during adversity. She filled these in with statice and quaking grass. She knew it wouldn't be allowed in the cell, but even Cam couldn't object to having it hung on the swing lock outside. She waited until Cam's police cru iser had been gone from its spot for fifteen minutes. Then she checked her h air and brushed dried bits of petals off her clothes and began to walk down the street.

Casey MacRae was the only person, other than the prisoner, inside the poli ce station. Hannah had called in sick, and Cam was, as Casey put it, God k nows where. "Hey," he said, looking up from a game of solitaire he was pla ying on the booking counter. "It must be MacDonald day at the station." Allie unbuttoned her coat and hooked it on the knob of Cam's locked office door. "Who else has been here?"

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Casey smiled. "Old Angus. Middle of the night, in his bathrobe." Allie laughed. "Cam must have loved that. Do we know for a fact he's still in town? Or did Angus ride him out on a rail?" She sat down in Hannah's swi vel chair and pushed it back on its ball bearings, whizzing on the scratche d linoleum floor.

"Allie," Casey said, "I really don't know when Cam's coming back." Allie set her feet and smiled. "Oh, I didn't come to see Cam. I want to talk t o Jamie."

"He'll &//me."

"He doesn't have to know." Allie jumped out of the chair and walked past C

asey into the booking room. "We can sit right in here. You can cuff him an d even stand by to referee." She knew she was going to win. In the end, sh e promised him a free coupon for a dozen roses sent at Valentine's Day to the woman of his choice--a seventy-dollar value--in exchange for fifteen m inutes with Jamie MacDonald.

He came into the booking room looking a little the worse for wear. His shir t was wrinkled from having been slept in; a fine red stubble traced the lin e of his jaw. Casey's beefy hand was locked around his upper arm, and his w rists were ringed with old handcuffs. "Mr. MacDonald," Allie said, her thro at suddenly dry. What did you say to someone who had killed his wife?

"Please," he said, sitting down across the desk from her, "call me Jamie."

"Then I'm Allie," she replied, taking a deep breath. She smiled at him, start ed to speak, and then stopped. Finally she shook her head. "I can't very well ask you how you're doing, can I?"

"You can ask whatever you like," Jamie said. "I just may not answer." He le aned forward to rest his arms on his knees, and the sudden movement made Al lie shift back in her chair. Jamie stared at her. "I won't hurt you."

"I know," Allie whispered. She folded her hands in her lap and realized she still carried the dried flowers. Nervous, she thrust them at Jamie. He reach ed for them with his manacled hands, his fingers brushing hers briefly. She was surprised at their warmth and their softness, as if their very substance seemed incapable of violence.

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"A housewarming gift," he said dryly, turning the small bouquet over in his hands.

Allie bit her lip. This wasn't going the way she had planned. She had figure d, oh, she'd walk in like some kind of Florence Nightingale and let Jamie po ur out his heart before being arraigned. Sort of like being shrived before j ustice. Instead, she had nothing to say, and Jamie wasn't in the mood for co nfidences. She was just about to wish him the best at his arraignment and bo lt from the booking room, when he shifted in his chair, catching her attenti on. "Did you come in spite of him?" he said.

Allie froze. "I don't know what you mean."

"It can't look very good for the chief of police when his wife pays a mercy vi sit to the guy he thinks is a murderer."

"This isn't a mercy visit," Allie said automatically. Her eyes scanned behind Jamie's head to a row of clipboards Cam had hung strategically for the parttime officers to peruse at their leisure: staff notices, weekly schedules, th e FBI's Most Wanted.

"No? Then it's a social call." He stared at her. "What would happen if you r husband found out you came to see me?"

Allie shrugged, but it seemed more like a shiver. Cam wouldn't yell, he cert ainly wouldn't threaten her, but he'd withdraw. He would think that she didn

't support him or believe in him, and because that hadn't happened in the fi ve years they'd been married, it would cut him to the quick. "It has nothing to do with you, Jamie, or what you did," Allie said slowly, carefully picki ng her way through her own words. "I just don't want to hurt him." A smile stole across Jamie's face, so completely transforming him that Allie would not have recognized him if she'd seen him on the street. "Then you're the one."

Allie blinked at him. "The one what?"

"The one who loves more." He moved closer to the desk, and the handcuffs ta pped against the metal edge as he inadvertently made gestures. "You know it

's never fifty-fifty in a marriage. It's always seventy-thirty, or sixty-fo rty. Someone falls in love first. Someone puts someone else up on a pedesta l. Someone works very hard to keep things rolling smoothly; someone else sa ils along for the ride."

Allie opened her mouth to protest, but saw that Jamie wasn't even looking at her anymore. "When I first saw Maggie, she was

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standing knee-deep in water at this little duck pond, scrubbing the bottom w ith a long-handled brush. I thought she worked for the town, but she told me later that she did it once a month because nobody else bothered to. She was wearing a yellow slicker and baggy striped shorts and diamond earrings. Tha t's what made me come closer. They kept catching the light of the sun and wi nking at me. I mean, here she was covered in mud and droppings, but she was still wearing diamonds.' He shook his head. "I took the scrub brush from her and helped her onto the grass. I lived right on the other side of that park

; I passed it ten times each day, and suddenly I knew that the next time I p assed it, if she wasn't there, it was going to look all wrong." Allie covered her mouth with her hand and turned away. She pictured Magg ie MacDonald on the embalming table. She tried to remember if Maggie had been wearing earrings.

"I'm the one like you," Jamie said. "The one who fell first. The one who wou ld do anything to keep it the way it was at the beginning." Allie felt the room closing in on her. She forced herself to her feet. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Seventy-thirty," Jamie replied.

"But you killed her."

Jamie shook his head. "I loved her," he said quietly. "I loved her so much I l et her go."

From the corner of her eye, Allie could see the door of the police station swing open and for a horrible moment she thought it would be Cam and she would be well and truly caught. Her stomach flipped as she waited for the newcomer to step into the main area of the station. A young man, someone s he'd seen before but couldn't quite connect with a name.

"Not Cam?"

"No," Allie breathed, before realizing that Jamie had just proven his point. Casey MacRae stuck his head in the door of the booking room. "Allie, I'm go ing to have to ask you to leave. MacDonald's counsel just arrived." Allie nodded, and Casey ducked back out. She turned to Jamie. "I wish you lu ck," she said stiffly.

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Jamie reached out and took her cold hand between his own. She tried to imag ine him pressing those hands over Maggie's nose and mouth, pressing hard an d not relenting, but she could not really do it. "Allie," he asked softly,

"do you think I'm guilty?"

He had let his guard down; in his eyes she could see the effort it cost him to simply sit upright; the pain caused just by breathing; the shimmering mem ories of a slow, moonlit fox-trot around a duck pond. "That depends," she sa id, allowing herself to smile, "on what you think you're guilty of."

"I Vyithin five minutes of meeting Jamie MacDonald, Graham Vr MacPhee rea lized the man would have gladly welcomed the death penalty, had it been a n option in Massachusetts. He did not want counsel, especially not someon e who was a notch above your average public defender. He simply wanted to be convicted and to spend the rest of his life wasting away in a bigger cell.

"Tell me again," Jamie said, pacing in the small booking room. "Who hired you on my behalf?"

"A friend. Someone who wants you free."

"I don't have any friends in this town." Jamie thought of Allie, and Angus-neither of whom would have access to the funds necessary to retain a crimina l defense attorney.

Graham was beginning to lose his patience. This was his first real case--a w hopper of a court case, at that--and his goddamned client didn't even want t o defend himself. "Look, it doesn't matter if your fucking fairy godmother h ired me. I think we can get you off the hook for this and I intend to do so." Jamie remained very still for a moment, and then, as if all the energy had sim ply left his body, he slowly folded into a chair.

Graham sighed. "Tell me what happened."

For forty-five minutes, Graham took notes on a yellow legal pad. Finally, when Jamie fell silent, he drummed two pencils on the table and reviewed what he had written. And as he did, Jamie MacDonald watched Graham throu gh lowered eyes, his head bent down, tracking Graham's moves. Graham wond ered what he was getting himself into. In criminal defense, it was common for an attorney not to trust his client; this was the rare case where th e relationship seemed to have been turned around.

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Then Jamie locked his gaze on Graham's, and Graham froze. He found himsel f thinking about what kind of man could have done what Jamie had done. Wa s it really out of love? What else might have provoked it? For all he kne w, Maggie and Jamie Mac-Donald could have been in the middle of a knock-d own-drag-out divorce, and the killing was the result of one snide remark that took Jamie over the edge. For all he knew, Maggie might have held a million-dollar life insurance policy with Jamie as beneficiary. For all h e knew, Jamie MacDonald could have been the consummate actor. But he didn't think so.

"You've lived in Cummington for the past sixteen years, you've been marrie d for eleven of those, and your wife was suffering a long and painful deat h. You were overcome with emotion and distraught and in a moment of weakne ss you killed your wife, hoping to put her out of her agony." Graham smile d tentatively. "Not guilty by reason of temporary insanity." Jamie knew better than to tell Graham it hadn't been quite like that. Still, he did not know if he could put his faith in a lawyer so new at his job that his cordovans squeaked a bit when he walked the length of the room. Sensing Jamie's hesitation, Graham sat down on the edge of the desk in front of him. "Did you sleep last night?"

Jamie glanced up. "No," he said.

"Why not?"

Jamie stared at this man, this gift from an unknown benefactor, as if he we re crazy. "Because I'd killed someone I loved hours before? Because I kept seeing those few minutes every time I closed my eyes? Take your pick." He t urned away, disgusted; angry at Graham for being such a novice, angry at hi mself for revealing even that much. For a few moments neither man said a wo rd. When Jamie spoke again, he had to strain to hear his own voice. "Becaus e it was the first time in eleven years I had to sleep without her next to me."

Graham grinned. It took all his self-control not to jump off the corner of the desk. "That is why we're going to win this case." Jamie shook his head slowly. "They have a body, a signed confession, fingerp rints, scratches."

"Maybe so," said Graham MacPhee, "but we have you." 71

Martha Sully, one of the magistrates at the Wheelock District Court, was a sassenach, but she usually agreed with Cam when it came to setting amounts for bail. She sat behind her podium desk reading Cam's arrest and custody r eport, noted that the complaint was based on "information or belief." She h ad already asked Jamie to enter his plea.

"So," she said, glancing up at Cam. "Been busy out on your end of town?" Cam grinned. "You could say that."

He liked Martha Sully; he liked her clipped English voice, with its trillin g dips and draws. She sounded remarkably upper-class, like she was hiding c akes and crumpets just behind her gavel stand. Cam knew her to be a fair ma gistrate. He had only been the subject of her wrath once, when Angus, in a fit, had started screaming at her in the town coffee shop about the need to get those goddamned Windsors off a Stuart throne.