Binds that tie, p.21
Binds That Tie, page 21
He laced his hand through hers, his thumb caressing the pad of her palm, and she felt liquid. She shook her head, mouthing, “No.”
He pulled on her hand, and she let him until her face was inches from his. “Say it, Maggie. Tell me the truth.”
When she kissed him, his mouth tasted like whiskey. He pulled her toward him, and she straddled his lap. The heat from his body rising through his trousers onto her bare thighs ignited her. She tugged at his tie and pulled open his shirt, running her hands up and down his chest. He peeled her shirt up and over her head. In one movement on the way down, he unhooked her bra. His hands ran down her sides, over her breasts, his thumbs sliding over each peak, and she nearly jumped with need.
He slid her skirt up to her waist, lifted her up onto the table, and kissed each inner thigh. The coarse sandpaper of his cheek scratched her skin, leaving it pulsing. His hands skimmed her hips, and he pressed his thumb, softly but insistently, through the flimsy fabric of her panties. He hooked his index finger around the thin film of lace and tugged them down. She watched his eyes, dark and hooded and clouded with want, as his gaze lingered over her body.
She fumbled with his belt, pushed his pants and boxers to his knees, and slid her hands around to his bottom, pulling him to her. His mouth found her breasts then her neck and her ear. His hand got lost in her tangle of hair as he tugged at the base of her neck. She wrapped her legs around him, and for a brief moment, she clenched her thighs and considered stopping. What was happening, or about to happen, would be a betrayal to both Chris and Miranda. But Miranda had never seemed to care much about betraying Maggie.
When Maggie felt him slide inside her, as quickly and easily as though they’d never been apart, she abandoned rational thought. All that existed was Jake, and for a moment, she pretended they were back in college. Before there were consequences, careers, babies, and murders. The act felt easy, freeing, and she moved with him. Her legs tightly flanked his hips, her feet moving slowly up and down the backs of his thighs, and she felt pulled closer to the edge. When his mouth once again found her breast, he laid her back onto the table, pushing aside all the papers and debris. The remnants of real life scattered beneath her, and Maggie arched her back and gasped. Pleasure came in undulating waves, and for those few seconds, Maggie felt only faintly tethered to reality. The most real thing on earth was the weight of Jake’s body and the feeling of his back beneath her fingertips, the valley of his spine that she’d longed to touch again for as long as she could remember.
When Maggie woke tangled in the guest bed sheets, where she’d curled against Jake’s back all night, the bed was empty. She checked the bedside clock: seven a.m. He was probably gone, preparing for his cross-examination of Tiny—court started at nine. She gathered the sheets tightly around her and drew her knees up to her chin. The low-level jitters she’d been living with for weeks seemed to have upped their game; her heart raced as if she’d had several cups of coffee already. She felt slick and sticky. The memory of Jake and his weight on top of her pulled tight and sharp in her belly. In a whiskey-induced haze in the wee hours of the morning, Jake’s hand had found her breast and she complied, sleepy and wanton. They hadn’t used a condom. Maggie had been off birth control for months. After they’d lost the fourth one, their sex life had dwindled. She’d read that the pill could worsen depression, so she’d quit. She never even told Chris.
She sat upright, mentally calculating. Two weeks. No, four. No, six? Pulling on Jake’s blue dress shirt, she crept out of bed and down the hall, the hardwood cold against her bare feet. The house was still and silent, and she snuck downstairs to her purse. She pulled out her calendar and flipped back and forth through the pages. Eight weeks? Had she been that distracted? Murdering a man will do that.
She took the steps two at a time, her heart thumping in her throat. She dug under the bathroom sink, emptying the cabinet’s contents onto the bathroom floor. She found what she was looking for in the back, behind an aging bottle of Calgon. The box with her remaining two pregnancy tests was yellowed and dusty. She had no idea if the tests were any good, but she remembered from nursing school that there was no such thing as a false positive. She tore the wrapper and, with shaking hands, removed the plastic stick.
As she took the test, she searched her memory for the how, the when. After she’d met Logan? The night she had seduced Chris felt like years ago, the memory as old and yellowed as the box in her hand. At the time, she had hoped that night would be a new beginning, a fresh start. She tried to fix her disdain with love, but she’d felt only the cool detachment of an intangible wish. The hope on his face had broken her heart; she hadn’t felt that kind of hope in years. Then his face had looked crestfallen when she sat up and, out of her control, her mind handed her snapshots of Tracy straddling his legs, his lips on her breast. Sometimes, she didn’t know what she’d seen and what she’d invented.
Maggie sat on the edge of the tub, balancing the capped stick on her knee, and waited. She pushed her left hand under her thigh, her diamond ring gouging into the sensitive skin, and stared at the oval window. In less than a minute, a purple vertical line. Almost instantaneously, a bright horizontal line developed, forming a formidable cross. Despite the test’s age, Maggie had no doubts. Her middle-of-the-night vomiting came back to her in a rush. The feeling of cold sweat dripping down her back in court. All the things she had chalked up to anxiety.
Maggie was two months pregnant.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chris
Jake flipped through pages of notes on his legal pad, and when Judge Puckett cleared his throat, he glanced up. “May I have possibly three minutes, Your Honor?”
The judge nodded and sat back in his chair, closing his eyes. When Jake stood, the judge made no move to sit up. Jake coughed.
Without opening his eyes, Judge Puckett said, “Are you ready now, Mr. Philadelphia?”
“Yes, Your Honor. I apologize for the delay, and thank the court for your patience.”
“Proceed.”
Jake approached the podium. “Mr. Richter, who is Emily Masterson?”
Tiny shifted in the witness chair. “She’s… uh, Logan’s ex-girlfriend.”
“An ex-girlfriend? Amicable break-up?”
“No. Are any, Mr. McHale?”
“True. But do most involve a charge of attempted rape and a restraining order?” Jake snapped.
“Is that an actual question? I’m sure Mr. Richter isn’t an expert on all relationships, Your Honor,” Janice called from the prosecution table.
“I’ll rephrase,” Jake said. “Did Emily Masterson accuse Mr. May of attempted rape?”
“Yes, but it was bogus. He dumped her, and she was pissed.”
“What about the restraining order? It’s still upheld, by the way. They generally have a two-year expiration date. Which means that as little as a few months ago, Emily Masterson was still fearful of Mr. May.”
“Your Honor!” Janice stood. “Objection. That’s not a question either!”
“Mr. McHale, please keep your monologues to yourself.” Judge Puckett yawned and nodded to Tiny to answer the question.
“Um, yeah, she had a restraining order against him,” Tiny said. “I don’t know all the details, but Logan said she was nuts. For a while after they broke up, they kept hooking up. Logan tried to get back together. Then this attempted rape bull. He tried to talk to her a few times—talk some sense into her—then she pulled out this restraining order, and he washed his hands of her.”
“So Mr. May had a temper?”
“Well, yeah kind of. I never saw him beat up anyone the way he beat on that guy at the Hut, though. I’ve actually never seen him fight at all.”
“Okay, let’s talk about that night. Did the guy Mr. May attacked have friends with him?” Jake asked.
“Yeah, I think so. He was with one guy who hung with me while we waited for the squad. He was okay. A little pissed off.”
“What happened to him?”
“What do you mean? Nothing.”
“I mean, after the squad came and took his buddy away, where did he go?”
“Oh, no idea,” Tiny said.
“Could he have gone after Logan?”
“I guess. He didn’t seem all that pissed, though. He was like me, kind of. Friends with a hothead.”
“But your buddy just put his friend in the hospital. Could he have gone to look for him?” Jake asked.
“Uh, maybe. I really have no idea. I didn’t even get his name.”
“Okay, Mr. Richter. Before Mr. May fled the scene, did you see him call anyone?”
“No.”
“You didn’t hear him speak to anyone?”
“No.”
“Did you call anyone?” Jake asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, did you call anyone after Logan fled the parking lot?”
“I called 9-1-1.”
“Besides that,” Jake said.
“Uh, yeah. I called someone.”
“Mr. Richter, who did you call?”
Tiny leaned back against the witness box like a deflated parade float. “I called Marcus. I knew he could help me track down Logan. I went to Logan’s apartment to wait for him. The police were looking for him, and I wanted to get to Logan before they did. But Marcus, he knew the cops, you know? He knows everyone in town. I needed him to know that if he saw Logan, he should tell him to come home.”
“Was there another reason you called Marcus?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Tiny’s voice edged up a little higher, almost imperceptibly.
Chris found himself leaning forward.
“Okay, let’s try again,” Jake said. “Was beer the only substance in Logan May’s body that night?”
“Objection Your Honor, this is beyond hearsay,” Janice said. “Unless Mr. Richter saw Mr. May take another substance.”
The judge stroked his chin and leaned forward. “Go ahead, I’ll allow it.”
“What was the question?” Tiny asked.
“Was alcohol the only substance in Logan May’s system that night?” Jake said.
Tiny stubbornly folded his arms. His nose twitched. “No. Logan had done a few lines before we went out.”
“So, cocaine then?” Jake clarified.
“Yeah. Cocaine.”
“Did Logan do cocaine a lot?”
“Uh, I think so,” Tiny said. “He was discreet about it, but I think it was more of a problem in the last year or so.”
“How many times a week?”
“I’m not sure. Every time I’d seen him lately, I think he was high.”
“Did you try to talk to him about his problem?” Jake asked.
“A little, but coke makes guys punchy. I’ve seen it before. Logan got a little hyper when I tried to bring it up.”
“What do you mean hyper?”
“Uh, defensive. He denied being high a lot, but well, I’m not an idiot.”
“Do you know how extensive his hobby was?” Jake asked.
“Not really. I asked him how much he was spending on that shit, and he said it was nothing. Like a few hundred a week. Which is a lot of money to me.”
“Right. How did he pay for it?”
“Well, he had a job,” Tiny said. “He worked at Jiffy Lube doing oil changes. It didn’t pay that well, I don’t think. But I didn’t ask too many questions.”
“Do you know the name Winston McInerney?”
“Uh, I don’t think so.”
“You might know him as Mickey Bricks.”
Tiny inspected his hand. “Yeah, Bricks is one of Marcus’s jerk-offs.”
“Do you know him at all?”
“Nah, I steer clear of that guy.”
“Did Logan?”
Tiny went back to his fascinating hands.
He took so long to answer that Jake had to prompt him. “Mr. Richter?”
“No.” Tiny sighed. “Bricks was Logan’s hookup. Logan was under his thumb.”
“Did Logan owe Bricks money?”
“Yeah, I think so. He had a monthly payment schedule going. I don’t know if he kept up with it. I think he was in trouble.”
“How so?” Jake asked.
“He called me, like, a month ago, begging to borrow two thousand bucks. I let him but said not again. I don’t have two thousand bucks. That was my grandmother’s money.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“Yeah. I did.”
“And what did he say?”
Tiny sighed. He fixed his gaze on the rear of the courtroom and narrowed his eyes as though the answer would appear engraved across the door. “That if he couldn’t pay him back, Bricks would kill him.”
During the day, Chris sat in court with heartburn and a sick, twisted feeling in his gut that only seemed to intensify as the day wore on. He had nowhere to go that was better than that hard wood chair in an oak-paneled courtroom. When Janice stood at the podium, he sat impossibly straight, his muscles aching with tension. Jake was conciliatory. He anticipated Janice’s questions every morning and explained what his cross would be. He’d tap Chris’s elbow during particularly damning questions, a reminder to relax. But the nights were always the same, and the final bang of the gavel seemed to coil his stomach tighter every day. Chris dreaded the nights with their emptiness.
After Tiny’s testimony, Chris returned to prison, and for the first time, the knot loosened. Jake walked with him as far as he was permitted, and when Chris turned to say good-bye, he almost hugged Jake. He knew that it had been a “good day in court” in Jake’s book. Jake had a bounce in his step and whistled periodically, until he caught himself and stopped because whistling while walking his client back to lockup was just cruel.
Chris wondered if Jake would stop and have a beer, call Miranda. Did they share victories like that? Chris was half-tempted to call Maggie. He missed having someone to share his day with. Such a silly thing he didn’t know he could grieve for—the exchange of mundane details. Did you call Visa? Wait till I tell you what Ed said.
In the first airlock, as far as Jake was permitted to walk with him, he gave Chris a quick handshake and a gentle nod. Chris was guided by a guard back to his cell.
The beds lined opposite walls with four feet of space between them. Along the back wall, between the beds, was a toilet and a small stainless steel sink. Everything was stainless steel. Steel and gray. The walls, the floor, the bunks; it was so fucking depressing. Maggie had painted their house in bright, vibrant colors. Chris had forgotten to appreciate it.
His cellmate was curled on his bed, his back to the center of the room. Chris had learned his name was Carl a few nights earlier. As Chris shuffled in, the guard closed the door with a metal-on-metal groan.
Carl turned and spoke, his voice low and gravelly. “Hey, how’d you get a lawyer? I thought we all had PDs.”
“Uh, well, he’s my brother-in-law, so he’s sort of obligated.”
“Huh.” Carl ran his hand across his forehead and winced. “I bet he’s expensive?”
“Well, he’s from Philadelphia, not here. I think yeah, probably. But don’t worry, we’re not paying him his full rate.”
“Well, still. Awfully nice of him. At least he cares about you. That’s more than most of us in here have.”
Chris admitted that was true. Sunday visitations were a bit pitiful. The public defenders who routinely trawled the corridors were pallid with loose-skinned, drawn faces, receding hairlines, and polyester-blend suits in a wrinkled rainbow of khaki. Chris was grateful for Jake—his energy and his projection of the belief that he could not fail.
Chris wondered then, for the first time, if the truth mattered to Jake. It didn’t seem so. It was clear that Chris not killing Logan was of no consequence to Jake—it wouldn’t make him work any longer or harder for a dismissal. Jake’s true motivations would never fit into a media-savvy sound bite of sanctimonious declarations about the burden of proof and the presumption of innocence complete with wide sweeping gestures.
When Chris had stood in the doorway of that ridiculously elaborate “cabin” in the mountains of Vermont and watched Jake kiss his wife—and watched Maggie push him off—he realized the only reason Jake had stopped was because Chris had interrupted them.
Maggie had begged Chris not to say anything or to make a scene. “Jake is so drunk. He has no idea what he’s doing.”
Chris had shaken his head. What would be accomplished by blowing it up into a bigger deal? No life-changing decisions would be made off a drunken mistake of a kiss, except to permanently mar the intricate façade of friendship they’d all spent a decade nurturing. For years, the dynamic among all four of them had been so wrong and yet so deeply ingrained that Chris barely knew to question it.
In the cold, cement hollow of his cell, it was so obvious that their whole relationship, the entire playact of friendship, was fucked up. But even with Chris in prison and Jake and Maggie residing under the same roof, Chris worked to bury the threat. It had been long accepted that Jake and Maggie had come first, then Jake and Miranda, and last, Chris and Maggie. Jake and Chris had fit themselves in among whatever relationship was pulling at the time. They shape-shifted as buddies, as bros, giving good-natured jabs with perhaps just a bit too sharp of an edge.
On Chris and Maggie’s five-year anniversary, before any babies, before Chris knew to stop questioning the way things were, they’d drunk two bottles of champagne. Before Maggie became violently sick, they lay on their living room floor on a blanket. The remnants of an indoor picnic were scattered around them, their stomachs full of grapes and cheese and bread and pâté.
