Move to Strike (11 page)

D
eirdre McCall lengthened her torso, lowered her arms and turned her feet out as she stopped to survey the wide-eyed students before her. She was tired, stiff, her neck protesting at such a long Saturday's work, but she did not show it – no, she stood tall and graceful, her slim body defying the spread of ‘late middle age', her legs still toned, her skin supple, despite what life had dealt her and the heavy price she'd paid for refusing to
ever let go
.

She closed her eyes, slowly, deliberately, and imagined a different group before her – Roxy on her right and Gigi on her left, Marilyn diagonally in front and Cindy far stage left. They were doing the stardust number – the one with the pink flamingo headdresses, the crystal knickers and the long cords of fake diamonds wrapped around their bodies just so. And their smooth skin shimmered with every move, their pert breasts barely flinching as they kicked and spun and glided across the stage in heels so high they seemed to defy gravity. And she counted off the steps – one, two, three – and relished in the memory of the show-stopping finale and the inevitable deafening applause.

‘Miss Deirdre.'

She heard the words, but refused, at least for this moment, to recognise their owner as she willed the memory to its wonderful conclusion. And she saw his face then at the back of the crowded room – the tall, skinny ‘unlikely' one who had caught her eye and, despite all the advances, all the offers and proposals from movie stars and business tycoons and other men of means, had stolen her heart with the genuineness of his smile. And they were happy, and life was good, until their twosome became a three-some and their whole pretty picture got shot to Goddamned . . .

‘
Miss Deirdre!'
called Susie Bonkowski – the blue-eyed, buck-teethed brunette in the second row. ‘Are we almost done? It's after four and our moms are waiting.'

‘Yes, yes of course,' recovered McCall, smiling at the attentive seven-year-olds before her while wondering which ones would make it, which ones would not, and which ones would think they had, only to find out that life had pulled a swift one on them after all.

‘You may go,' she said as she curtseyed to her class. ‘Good afternoon, children.'

‘Good afternoon, Miss Deirdre, and thank you, Miss Deirdre,' they replied – a singsongy response in appreciation.

And then the pitter-patter of their ballet slipper-shod feet, the music of their after-class laughter, the cumulative whoosh of their quick excited breaths filled the room only to dissipate quickly, painfully, as they opened the door and the outside world sucked them from her once again.

She grabbed her wrap and changed her shoes and bolted the double hall doors behind her, deciding to walk the fifteen blocks home rather than wait for the bus – stretching her journey from a pathetic twenty minutes to a decent, time-consuming forty-three.

After she opened the door to her second-storey apartment, she did what she always did when she came home for the night. She moved straight through the entryway and into the living area towards the treated pine coffee table where she picked up the remote and filled the room with noise before the loneliness of the present and the memories of the past took their shot at embracing her with all the cold determination they could muster.

And she left the TV on as she took her shower and defrosted her dinner and settled in for the long dark hours of nothingness. She watched
the dramas and the late night news, taking a bizarre form of comfort in knowing there were other lonely souls, other unwitting victims of life out there suffering, just like her.

And then she saw it. The headline story. And it all came back to her – just like that. There had been a murder – in a fancy brownstone, in a fancy suburb, in a fancy city some thousands of miles away. The TV celebrity was being taken away in handcuffs, his murdered wife removed like a clump of meat under a bright blue tarpaulin, the kids sheltered by some good-looking friend, the Barbie Doll District Attorney facing the cameras with some all-important information to divulge.

Deirdre tried to concentrate – to listen,
carefully
, and take it all in – which was hard considering her brain was not exactly firing on all cylinders.

‘
Accident'
, the serious-looking reporter kept saying – and then she heard other words like
‘rifle'
and ‘
famous
' and ‘
tragedy
' and ‘
children
' and ‘
shock revelation'
and other similar phrases.

Despite the fact that her hearing was not at its optimum, and regardless of the fact that close to a quarter of her brain had been removed almost eighteen years ago after the accident that took her husband's life, and notwithstanding the fact that she was on her fourth glass of chardonnay, Deirdre McCall knew, then and there, that the twenty-nine inch scene before her, distanced by geography and economy and every other thing to do with her lower middle-class life, was not so disconnected after all.

‘Dear God,' she said, not noticing that her empty plastic glass had slipped from her sofa and made its way silently to the floor.

‘He's doing it again,' she whispered, nodding her head in inevitability. ‘He's doing it all over again.'

W
hen Chelsea Logan was seven, her father gave her an ink blot test. It was one of those standard things you saw on TV – dark blobs on white cardboard, negatives of things only
you
were supposed to define. She found it uncomfortable, distressing even, as she had no idea which answer was correct. She rattled off her feigned perceptions one after the other, at a speed that was bordering on ridiculous – a house, a sailing boat, two people playing tennis, a bicycle, a palm tree, when in reality all she saw in the blots was ghost after ghost after ghost.

And that is how she felt right now, as if her brain was firing images at her, defying her to make sense of them – to
work this out
! They were like determined shadows whispering in her ear, taunting her with the knowledge that failing was not an option, that as of two nights ago, she was her brother's only protector, and if she failed to ‘perform', the truth would be redefined and their desperate little ‘plan' would take a catastrophic turn for the worst.

‘Do you think he got the letter?' asked a soft-voiced J.T., who had spent a second night on the floor next to her bed.

‘Not yet. It's Sunday,' she replied, staring at the ceiling. ‘He'll get it tomorrow.'

‘I don't think he'll get it when he gets it.'

‘Even if he does,' said Chelsea, knowing she should in the very least be
trying
to stay upbeat for the sake of her little brother, but not sure as to how this could be done, ‘I am worried that . . . well . . . considering what Katherine plans to show him, we have to be prepared for the possibility that it won't make any difference.'

Chelsea had heard the entire conversation held in Katherine de Castro's living room the afternoon before. She had been perched on the bottom of the staircase, listening to the lawyers listening to Katherine as she repeated the story Chelsea's father had told his business partner mere weeks before.

They had met David and Sara who were nothing but kind and understanding, which made Chelsea think that perhaps she should consider straying from the plan after all and trust them enough to . . .

‘David Cavanaugh was meant to be on our side,' interrupted J.T., as if reading her mind.

‘And maybe he still is,' said Chelsea. ‘If everything else fails, J.T., we may have to contemplate . . . telling him the truth,' she said, needing to broach the possibility.

‘
No
,' he reacted without hesitation. ‘Maybe before, but now he is working for father, and you know that no matter what we say, Father has a way of . . .'

‘I know,' she said, angry at herself for being a leader with no idea how to lead.

‘We are losing control,' said J.T. after a time.

Chelsea did not argue because she knew it was true. They were losing – or had already lost – any semblance of control over a situation they naively assumed they could manage. And now she realised just how foolish they had been for thinking they had the power to alter the universe they had existed in since birth.

‘Don't worry, J.T.,' she said, wanting desperately to offer him some words of comfort. ‘We haven't lived like we have for all these years without learning a thing or two.'

‘But I won't be around to help you,' he replied – and she knew that he knew that she knew.

After a long pause she spoke. ‘Then you must trust me to finish what we started.' She draped her hand over the edge of her bed so that her
brother might grasp it from below. ‘I won't let her down, J.T., I promise. No matter what, one way or another, I will find a way to see this through.'

It was Sunday and it was late, and Sara and David were tired. They had met with Arthur and filled him in, and after several long hours of working on tomorrow's arraignment, David had taken a call from Katherine de Castro who explained that the video was in a safety deposit box that she could not access on the weekend. And so with nothing more to do until tomorrow – and after realising they were going home to an apartment low on food and, more importantly from Sara's perspective, strong Arabica coffee, they decided to do a grocery shop before heading back for a quiet night in.

‘Brazilian coffee,' said Sara as she dragged her feet in feigned exhaustion through the Huntington Avenue entrance of the well-stocked Shaw's in Copley. ‘I need some pure Brazilian coffee now!'

Despite their heavy day, David sought comfort in the banality of steering a shaky-wheeled trolley around a busy supermarket – and could tell that Sara felt the same. She took his hand and squeezed it as they moved past the fruit and vegetable section, stocking up on everything from organic Granny Smith apples to fresh, imported kiwi fruit.

‘I thought you were going strictly decaf,' said David, as they rounded the coffee section and Sara moved ahead looking for the finest mountain grown beans that she could find.

‘And I thought you had agreed it was more than okay for me to enjoy at least one small shot of genuine caffeine per day.' She looked back at him with a smile.

‘I think you are over-exhausted and I do not have the energy to argue with you,' he said, smiling in return.

‘And I think you are a very perceptive man,' she said, moving backwards to kiss him squarely on the cheek.

Just then they were interrupted by a shout from behind, a man's voice calling David by a nickname only his family and his oldest college buddies still used.

‘DC,' said Tony Bishop, as he moved up the aisle towards them, his arm outstretched. ‘It's good to see you, man. I heard you didn't make it this morning either?' he added, referring to their weekly round of alumni
rugby. ‘I was a no-show too – and Negley has already left a message on my home machine ragging us both out for bailing. But well, given the news – about Stephanie . . . I still can't believe it, DC.'

‘I know,' said David, taking Tony's hand and patting him on the shoulder. ‘It was a shock to me too.'

‘She was always so full of life, you know?' Tony said, genuine sorrow in his eyes. ‘She was the unstoppable one – the girl who was meant to . . .' And then he hesitated, Sara stepping forward to fill the void.

‘It's good to see you, Tony,' she said, reaching out to take his hand. ‘And I am sorry for your loss – David told me you and Stephanie were close.'

‘We were,' he said, taking Sara's hand with gratitude. ‘In fact once we were more than close. You know, I always wondered if things would have been different if we might have . . .'

‘Well, hello there,' interrupted another voice from behind, this one softer, smoother, with a certain tone that said ‘
fancy meeting you here'
. Amanda Carmichael was striding up the aisle towards them, a bottle of imported mineral water in her pale, slender hand. ‘It's good to see you again, Counsellor,' she said, shifting the bottle to her left hand so that she might extend her arm towards David. ‘And you must be Sara Davis.' She smiled, nodding at Sara. ‘It's a pleasure to meet you at last.'

Tony draped his arm around the shoulder of the beautiful blonde prosecutor before them, and Sara's jaw dropped.

‘Of course,' said Tony. ‘You guys know each other?'

‘We do,' said Amanda. ‘In fact, I've been an admirer of David's for years,' she said, her eyes flicking briefly towards Sara. ‘Professionally, I mean. In fact, due to the unfortunate nature of our professional responsibilities, we have a date in court tomorrow. How terrible that we should be pitted against each other in a case such as this, David. Tony has told me so many wonderful things about Stephanie Tyler – and I can only imagine how difficult it must be for you to be representing her killer.'

David said nothing – too floored to even begin to respond.

‘Amanda . . .' began Tony.

‘No,' said David then. ‘Amanda is right. But as my client explained in his statement, his wife's death was an accident and the Stephanie I knew would want me doing everything I could to make sure the father of her kids was home to look after them.'

‘From what I saw, at least one of those kids seems extremely capable of fending for himself.' It was a surprising statement – almost shocking in its frankness.

‘Guys,' said Tony then.

‘I'm sorry, Tony,' smiled Amanda. ‘You're right, this is no time to be talking shop,' she said, lifting her arms at her surroundings. ‘No pun intended.'

There was an awkward pause, with none of them saying anything until . . .

‘You live around here, Miss Carmichael?' asked Sara.

‘No.' She shook her head. ‘I have an apartment on the waterfront,' she added, casually dropping the fact that she resided in one of the most sought after locations in the city. Condos on Boston's popular harbourside piers went for anything between one and six million and David guessed Amanda Carmichael's, given her family connections and money, would not be one of the ‘cheaper' varieties.