the TV. The anchorwoman with the emerald green
contact lenses was just introducing the lead story.
Masochistically, he watched.
Except for the arm sling, his bandages were cov
ered by his clothing, but his complexion looked waxy
and wan in the glare of the leeching TV lights, making
his day-old beard appear even darker. When
asked about his injury, he had dismissed the mugging
as inconsequential and cut to the chase.
Being politically correct, he had complimented the
CPD for an excellent job of detective work. He had
dodged specific questions about Alex Ladd and said
only that Trimble's statement had been a turning
point in the investigation, that their case was solid,
and that an indictment was practically ensured.
Standing just behind his left shoulder, lending support,
Steffi had nodded and smiled in agreement. She
photographed well, he noted. The lights shone in her
dark eyes. The camera captured her vivacity.
Smilow also had been swarmed by media, and he
received equal time on the telecasts. Unlike Steffi, he
had been uncharacteristically restrained. His remarks
were diluted by diplomacy and more or less echoed
Hammond's. He referred to Alex's connection to
Bobby Trimble only in the most general terms, saying
that the jailed man had been integral to making a
case against her. He declined to reveal the nature of
her relationship to Lute Pettijohn.
He never referenced her juvenile record, but Hammond
suspected that this omission was calculated.
Smilow didn't want to contaminate the jury pool and
give Frank Perkins grounds for a change of venue or
mistrial, assuming the case made it to trial.
Video cameras captured a granite-jawed Frank
Perkins ushering Alex out. That segment was the
most difficult for Hammond to watch, knowing how
humiliating it must have been for her to be in the
spotlight as the prime suspect in the most celebrated
homicide in Charleston's recent history.
She was described as thirty-five years old, a respected
doctor of psychology with impressive credentials.
Beyond her professional achievements, she
was lauded for her participation in civic affairs and
for being a generous benefactor to several charities.
Neighbors and colleagues who had been sought for
comment expressed shock, some outrage, calling the
speculation on her involvement "ludicrous," "ridiculous,"
and other synonymous adjectives.
When the anchorwoman with the artificially green
eyes segued into another story, Hammond turned off
the set, went upstairs, and drew himself a hot bath.
He soaked in it with his right arm hanging over the
rim of the tub. The bath eased some of the soreness
out of him, but it also left him feeling lightheaded
and weak.
In need of food, he went downstairs and began
preparing scrambled eggs.
Working with his left hand made him clumsy. He
was further incapacitated by a dismal foreboding.
When remembered in posterity, he didn't want to be
a dirty joke. He didn't want it to be said, "Oh, you remember
Hammond Cross. Promising young prosecutor.
Caught a whiff of pussy, and it all went to hell."
And that's what they would say. Or words to that
effect.
Over their damp towels and sweaty socks in the
locker room, or between glasses of bourbon in a popular
watering hole, colleagues and acquaintances
would shake their heads in barely concealed amusement
over his susceptibility. He would be considered
a fool, and Alex would be regarded as the piece of tail
that had brought about his downfall.
He wanted to lash out at those imagined gossips
for their unfairness. He wanted to lambast them for
making lewd remarks about her and their relationship.
It wasn't what they thought it was. He had fallen
in love.
He hadn't been so doped up on Darvocet last night
that he didn't remember telling her that this was the
real thing for him, and had been from the first. He
had met her less than a week ago--less than a
week--but he had never been more sure of anything
in his life. Never before had he been so physically attracted
to a woman. He had never felt such a cerebral,
spiritual, and emotional connection to anyone.
For hours at that silly fair, and later in his bed at
the cabin, they had talked. About music. Food.
Books. Travel and the places they wanted to visit
when time allowed. Movies. Exercise and fitness regimens.
The old South. The new South. The Three
Stooges, and why men loved them and women hated
them. Meaningful things. Meaningless things. Endless
conversations about everything. Except themselves.
He had told her nothing substantive about himself.
She certainly hadn't divulged anything about her life,
present or past.
Had she been a whore? Was she still? If she was,
could he stop loving her as quickly as he had started?
He was afraid he couldn't.
Maybe he was a fool after all.
But being a fool was no excuse for wrongdoing.
He and his guilty conscience were becoming incompatible
roommates. He was finding it increasingly
difficult to live with himself. Although he hated to
give his father credit for anything, Preston had
opened his eyes today and forced him to confront
something he had avoided confronting: Hammond
Cross was as corruptible as the next man. He was no
more honest than his father.
Unable to stomach the thought, or the scrambled
eggs, he fed them to the garbage disposal.
He wanted a drink, but alcohol would only have
increased the lingering muzziness in his head and left
him feeling worse.
He wanted his arm to stop throbbing like a son of
a bitch.
He wanted a solution to this goddamn mess that
threatened the bright future he had planned for himself.
Mostly, he wanted Alex to be safe.
Safe.
A safe full of cash at Alex's house.
An empty safe in Pettijohn's hotel suite.
A safe inside the closet.
The closet. The safe. Hangers. Robe. Slippers.
Still in their wrapper.
Hammond jumped as though a jolt of electricity
had shot through him, then fell impossibly still as he
forced himself to calm down, think it through, reason
it out.
Go slow. Take your time.
But after taking several minutes to look at it from
every conceivable angle, he couldn't find a hole in it.
All the elements fit.
The conclusion didn't make him happy, but he
couldn't allow himself to dwell on that now. He had
to act.
Scrambling from his chair, he grabbed the nearest
cordless phone. After securing the number from directory
assistance, he punched in the digits.
"Charles Towne Plaza. How may I direct your
call?"
"The spa, please."
"I'm sorry, sir, the spa is closed for the evening. If
you wish to make an appointment--"
He interrupted the switchboard operator to identify
himself and told her with whom he needed to
speak. "And I need to talk to him immediately. While
you're tracking him down, put me through to the
manager of housekeeping."
*
It didn't take long for Loretta to decide that coming
to this fair was a bad idea.
Fifteen minutes after parking her car in a dusty
pasture and going the rest of the way on foot, she was
sweating like a pig. Children were everywhere-- noisy, rowdy, sticky children who seemed to have
singled her out to annoy. The carnies were surly. Not
that she blamed them for their querulous dispositions.
Who could work in this heat?
She would have sold her soul to be inside a nice,
dark, cool bar. The stench of stale tobacco smoke and
beer would have been a welcome relief from the mix
of cotton candy and cow manure that clung to the
fairgrounds.
The only thing that kept her there was the constant
reminder that she might be doing Hammond some
good. She owed him this. Not just in recompense for
the case she'd blown, but for giving her another
chance when no one else would give her the time of
day.
It might not last, this season of sobriety. But for
right now she was dry, she was working, and her
daughter was looking at her with something other
than contempt. For these blessings, she had Hammond
Cross to thank.
Doggedly she trudged from one attraction to another.
"I just thought you might remember--"
"You nuts, lady? We've had thousands of people
through here. How'm I s'posed to remember one
broad?" The carny spat a stringy glob of tobacco
juice that barely missed her shoulder.
"Thank you for your time, and fuck you."
"Yeah, yeah. Now move it. You're holding up the
line."
Each time she showed Alex Ladd's photograph to
the exhibitors, ride operators, and food vendors, the
response was a variation on a theme. Either they were
outright rude like the last one, or they were too frazzled
to give her their full attention. The shake of a
head and a curt "Sorry" was the usual answer to her
inquiries.
She canvassed long after the sun went down and
the mosquitoes came out in force. After several
hours, all she had to show for her trouble was a pair
of feet that the humidity had swollen to the size of
throw pillows. Analyzing the tight, puffy flesh pressing
through the straps of her sandals, she thought it
was a shame that this carnival didn't have a freak
show. "These babies would have qualified me," she
muttered.
She finally acknowledged that this was a fool's
mission, that Dr. Ladd had probably lied about being
at the fair in the first place, and that the likelihood of
bumping into someone who had been there last Saturday
and who also remembered seeing her was next
to nil.
She swatted at a mosquito on her arm. It burst like
a balloon, leaving a spatter of blood. "I gotta be at
least a quart low." It was then she decided to cut her
losses and return to Charleston.
She was fantasizing about soaking her feet in a tub
of ice water when she walked past the dance pavilion
with a conical ceiling strung with clear Christmas
lights. A scruffy band was tuning up. The fiddler had
a braided beard, for crying out loud. Dancers fanned
themselves with pamphlets, laughing and chatting as
they waited for the band to resume playing.
Singles lurked on the perimeter of the floor, checking
out their prospects, assessing their competition,
trying to appear neither too obvious nor too desperate
to link up with someone.
Loretta noticed that there were a lot of military
personnel in the crowd. Young servicemen, with their
fresh shaves and buzz haircuts, were sweating off
their cologne, ogling the girls, and swilling beer.
A beer sure would taste good. One beer? What
could it hurt? Not for the alcohol buzz. Just to quench
a raging thirst that a sugary soft drink couldn't touch.
As long as she was here, she could show Dr. Ladd's
photo around, too. Maybe someone in this crowd
would remember her from the weekend before. Servicemen
always had an eye out for attractive women.
Maybe one had taken a shine to Alex Ladd.
Telling herself she wasn't rationalizing just to get
near the beer-drinking crowd, and wincing from the
sandal straps cutting into her swollen feet, Loretta
limped up the steps of the pavilion.
CHAPTER
32
When Frank Perkins opened the front door to his
home, his welcoming smile slipped, as though the
punch line to a promising joke had turned out to be
a dud. "Hammond."
"May I come in?"
Choosing his words carefully, Frank said, "I
would be very uncomfortable with that."
"We need to talk."
"I keep normal business hours."
"This can't wait, Frank. Not even until tomorrow.
You need to see it now." Hammond removed an envelope
from his breast pocket and handed it to the attorney.
Frank took it, peeped inside. The envelope
contained a dollar bill. "Aw, Jes--"
"I'm retaining you as my lawyer, Frank. That's a
down payment on your fee."
"What the hell are you trying to pull?"
"I was with Alex the night Lute Pettijohn was killed. We spent the night in bed together. Now may
I come in?" As expected, the declaration rendered
Frank Perkins speechless. Hammond took advantage
of his momentary dumbfoundedness to edge past
him.
Frank closed the front door to his comfortable suburban
house. Quickly recovering, he came at Hammond
full throttle. "Do you realize how many rules
of ethics you've just violated? How many you tricked me into violating?"
"You're right." Hammond took back the dollar
bill. "You can't be my lawyer. Conflict of interest.
But for the brief time that you were on retainer, I confided