Puppet Read online

  “And how did you interpret that?”

  “That he was going to kill my ass,” Caroline Fletcher explains.

  Amanda stares directly at the jury. Surely, her eyes are saying, they can’t consider this outburst a serious death threat. She grabs her pencil, adds bran flakes to her makeshift list of groceries.

  “Go on, Miss Fletcher.”

  “Well, he was banging on the door and screaming, and so, of course, Tiffany woke up and started crying.”

  “Tiffany?”

  “Our daughter. She’s fifteen months old.”

  “Where was Tiffany during all this?”

  “In her crib. In the living room. That’s where we keep it. The apartment only has one bedroom, and Derek says he needs his privacy.”

  “So his yelling woke up the baby.”

  “His yelling woke up the whole damn building.”

  “Objection.”

  “Sustained.”

  “And then what?”

  “Well, I realized that if I didn’t open the door, he was just gonna break it down, so I told him I’d open the door, but only if he promised to calm down first. And he promised, and then it got real quiet, except for the baby crying, so I opened the door, and next thing I knew, he was all over me, punching me and ripping at my dress.”

  “Is this the dress?” The assistant district attorney maneuvers the distance from the witness stand to the prosecutor’s table in two quick strides, retrieving a shapeless, gray jersey dress that has obviously seen better days. He shows it to the witness before offering it up for the jury’s inspection.

  “Yes, sir. That’s it.”

  Amanda leans back in her chair, as if to indicate her lack of concern. She hopes the jury will be as unimpressed as she is by the two tiny rips to the bottom of the dress’s side seams, fissures that could just as easily have resulted from Caroline Fletcher pulling the dress down over her hips, as from Derek Clemens pulling it up.

  “What happened after he ripped your dress?”

  “He threw me down on the bed, on my stomach, and bit me.”

  The incriminating photographs appear, as if by magic, in the hands of the assistant district attorney. They are quickly introduced into evidence and distributed to the jury. Amanda watches the jurors as they examine the impressions of Derek Clemens’s teeth branded into the middle of Caroline Fletcher’s back, disgust flickering across their faces like flames from a campfire as they struggle to maintain the veneer of impartiality.

  As always, the jurors are a decidedly mixed lot—an old Jewish retiree squeezed between two middle-aged black women; a clean-shaven Hispanic man in a suit and tie next to a ponytailed young man in a T-shirt and jeans; a black woman with white hair behind a white woman with black hair; the heavyset, the lean, the eager, the blasé. All with one thing in common—the contempt in their eyes as they glance from the photographs to the defendant.

  “What happened after he bit you?”

  Caroline Fletcher hesitates, looks toward her feet. “He flipped me over on my back and had sex with me.”

  “He raped you?” the prosecutor asks, carefully rephrasing her answer.

  “Yes, sir. He raped me.”

  “He raped you,” Tyrone King repeats. “And then what?”

  “After he was finished, I called the salon to tell them I’d be late for work, and he grabbed the phone out of my hands and threw it at my head.”

  Resulting in the charge of assault with a deadly weapon, Amanda thinks, adding a legitimate question to her list of groceries. You called the salon and not the police?

  “He threw the phone at your head,” the prosecutor repeats, in what is fast becoming a tiresome habit.

  “Yes, sir. It hit the side of my head, then fell to the floor and broke apart.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I changed my clothes and went to work. He ripped my dress,” she reminds the jury. “So I had to change.”

  “And did you report what happened to the police?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “When was that?”

  “A couple of days later. He started hitting me again, and I told him if he didn’t stop, I’d go to the police, and he didn’t stop, so I did.”

  “What did you tell the police?”

  Caroline Fletcher looks confused. “Well, what the officer already told you.” She is alluding to Sergeant Dan Peterson, the previous witness, a man so nearsighted his face virtually vanished inside his notes for most of his testimony.

  “You told him about the rape?”

  “I told him that me and Derek had been fighting, that Derek was always slapping me around and stuff, and then he took some pictures.”

  Tyrone King lifts long, elegant fingers into the air, signaling for his witness to pause while he locates several more photographs and shows them to Caroline Fletcher. “Are these the pictures the police officer took?”

  Caroline winces as she looks over the various pictures. A nice touch, Amanda thinks, wondering if she’s been coached. Don’t be afraid to show some emotion, she can almost hear Tyrone King whisper in his seductive baritone. It’s crucial that you appear sympathetic to the jury.

  Amanda looks toward her lap, tries picturing the photographs through the jury’s eyes. Not too damning really. A few scratches on the woman’s cheek that could easily be the result of her daughter’s groping fingers, a slight red mark on her chin, a fading purple blotch on her upper right arm, either of which could have come from almost anything. Hardly the stuff of a major assault. Nothing to directly implicate her client.

  “And that’s when I told him about Derek biting me,” Caroline continues, unprompted. “And so he took pictures of my back, and then he asked me if Derek had sexually assaulted me, and I said I wasn’t sure.”

  “You weren’t sure?”

  “Well, we’ve been together for three years. We have a baby. I wasn’t sure about my rights until Sergeant Peterson told me.”

  “And that’s when you decided to press charges against Derek Clemens?”

  “Yes, sir. So I pressed charges, and the police drove me back to my apartment, and they arrested Derek.”

  A phone rings, disturbing the natural rhythms of the room. A tune emerges. Camptown ladies sing dis song—Doo-dah! Doo-dah. And then again. Camptown ladies sing dis song …

  Amanda glances toward her purse on the floor by her feet. Surely she hasn’t left her phone on, she hopes, reaching inside her purse, as do several women on the jury. The Hispanic man reaches for his jacket pocket. The prosecuting attorney looks accusingly at the woman who is his second chair, but she shakes her head and widens her eyes, as if to say, Not me.

  Camptown ladies sing dis song—Doo-dah! doo-dah.

  “Oh, my God,” the witness suddenly exclaims, the color disappearing from her already pale face as she grabs her enormous canvas bag from the floor beside her and rummages around inside it, the tune growing louder, more insistent.

  Camptown ladies sing dis song …

  “I’m so sorry,” she apologizes to the judge, who peers at her disapprovingly over the top of a pair of wire-rimmed reading glasses as she switches her portable phone off and flings it back in her purse. “I told people not to call me,” she offers by way of explanation.

  “Kindly leave your phone at home this afternoon,” the judge says curtly, taking the opportunity to break for lunch. “And your gum,” he adds, before telling everyone to be back at two o’clock.

  “So where we going for lunch?” Derek Clemens asks casually, his arm brushing against Amanda’s as they rise to their feet.

  “I don’t do lunch.” Amanda gathers her papers into her briefcase. “I suggest you grab a bite in the cafeteria.” Instantly she regrets her choice of words. “I’ll meet you back here in an hour.”

  “Where you going?” she hears him ask, but she is already halfway down the center aisle of the courtroom, the ocean roaring in the distance as she steps into the hallway and runs toward the bank of elevators to her
right. One opens just as she approaches, which she takes as a good omen, and she checks her watch as she steps inside. If she moves fast enough, she can just make it to the club for the start of her spinning class.

  She checks her phone for messages as she runs south along Olive toward Clematis. There are three. Two are from Janet Berg, who lives in the apartment directly below hers, and with whose husband Amanda had a brief, and unnoteworthy, fling several months earlier. Is it possible Janet found out about the affair? Amanda quickly erases both messages, then listens to the third, which is mercifully from her secretary, Kelly Jamieson. Amanda inherited the relentlessly perky young woman with spiky red hair from her predecessor at Beatty and Rowe, a woman who’d apparently grown disillusioned with being a grossly overworked and woefully underpaid associate in the busiest criminal legal firm in town and left to become the trophy wife of an aging lothario.

  Nothing wrong with that, Amanda thinks, nearing the corner of Olive and Clematis. She considers trophy wife a noble profession.

  Having been one herself.

  She calls her office, begins speaking even before her secretary has time to say hello. “Kelly, what’s up?” She crosses the street as the light is changing from amber to red.

  “Gerald Rayner called to see if you’d agree to another postponement on the Buford case; Maxine Fisher wants to know if she can come in next Wednesday at eleven instead of Thursday at ten; Ellie called to remind you about lunch tomorrow; Ron says he needs you at the meeting on Friday; and a Ben Myers called from Toronto. He wants you to call him, says it’s urgent. He left his number.”

  Amanda stops dead in the middle of the street. “What did you say?”

  “Ben Myers called from Toronto,” her secretary repeats. “You’re from Toronto originally, aren’t you?”

  Amanda licks at a fresh bead of perspiration forming on her upper lip.

  A horn begins honking, followed by another. Amanda tries to put one foot in front of the other, but it is only when she notices several cars impatiently nudging toward her that her legs agree to move.

  Puppet! she hears distant voices cry as she weaves her way through the moving line of cars to the other side of the street.

  “Amanda? Amanda, are you there?”

  “I’ll talk to you later.” Amanda clicks off the phone and drops it back inside her purse. She stands for several seconds on the sidewalk, taking deep breaths, and exhaling all reminders of the past. By the time she reaches the glass door of the fitness center, she has almost succeeded in erasing the conversation with her secretary from her mind.

  Something else Amanda Travis doesn’t like: memories.

  TWO

  BY the time Amanda changes out of her work clothes, finishes securing her hair into a ponytail and lacing up her sneakers, the spinning class is already under way, and every bike is taken. “Dammit,” she mutters, slapping at her black leotards and realizing she is surprisingly, perilously close to tears. They really should get more bicycles in here, she thinks, deciding that eight bicycles are hardly enough for such a popular class. She toys briefly with the idea of pushing one of the other women off her seat, trying to choose between the well-toned teenager showing off in the front row or the breathless fifty-something-year-old struggling in the back. She settles on the latter, thinking it would probably be an act of mercy to dislodge her. The poor woman will give herself a heart attack, if she’s not careful. Doesn’t she know that spinning classes are for those who don’t really need them?

  Amanda stands in the doorway for several seconds, enviously monitoring the class, hoping that one of the participants will eventually read the desperation in her eyes and relinquish her seat. Don’t they understand she only has so much time? That unlike most of them, she has an actual job she has to return to, that she is due back in court in just over an hour, and that she needs these forty-five minutes of torturous cycling to burn off some morning steam and gather her resources for this afternoon?

  “Okay, everybody, up off your tush,” the male instructor barks over the steady assault of rock music. The women, sweat already dripping into glazed eyes and open mouths, promptly lift their rear ends obligingly into the air, pedaling harder, faster, harder, faster, trying to keep up with their leader, while Blondie sings from nearby speakers.

  The conversation with her secretary suddenly sneaks up on Amanda, whispering in her ear. And a Ben Myers called from Toronto, her secretary says. He wants you to call him. Says it’s urgent.

  Amanda quickly retreats to the main room and jumps on the first empty treadmill in front of the second-floor windows overlooking the street, ratcheting up the speed until she is running. Three television sets look down at her from strategic positions around the room. The sound on all three is turned off, although the closed captioning is unavoidable. It competes with the flow of headline news that scrolls relentlessly across the bottoms of the screens. Amanda feels a headache hovering behind her eyes and turns away as the news announcer begins reporting important, late-breaking news from the Middle East.

  He says it’s urgent.

  “Dammit.” Amanda adjusts the incline on the treadmill to its steepest level.

  “Shouldn’t do that,” a man says, stopping by her side.

  Amanda feels the man’s breath warm on her bare arm. “Shouldn’t do what?” she asks without looking at him. His voice is unfamiliar, and she tries to imagine what he looks like. Thirtyish, she decides. Dark hair, brown eyes. Good biceps, strong thighs.

  “You’re just asking for an injury when you make the incline so steep. I speak from experience,” he adds when she ignores his warning. “I tore my adductor muscle last year. Took me six months to recover.”

  Amanda glances in his direction without breaking stride, gratified that he is much as she pictured, except he’s probably closer to forty than thirty, and his eyes are green, not brown. Handsome in an overly groomed sort of way. Never too far from his blow-dryer. She’s seen him here before and knows this isn’t the first time she’s caught his eye. She presses a button, feels the machine’s incline decrease beneath her feet. “Better?”

  “Actually it would be better if you didn’t use the incline at all. You’re already running against pressure. The incline just puts added strain on the groin muscles.”

  “Wouldn’t want to strain those.” Amanda returns the incline to zero. “Thank you.” She wonders how long it’s going to take the man to introduce himself.

  “Carter Reese,” he says before she’s completed the thought.

  “Amanda Travis.” She swallows him in a glance as he steps onto the treadmill beside her: the broad shoulders, the muscular legs, the thick neck. Probably played football in college. Now he plays golf and works out. Most likely an investment counselor. Newly divorced or recently separated, judging by his lack of a wedding band. A couple of kids. Not interested in anything serious. She gives him three minutes before he suggests meeting later for a drink.

  “People call you Mandy?”

  “Never.”

  “Okay, then. Amanda it is. So, you come here often?” he says only half-jokingly.

  Amanda smiles. She likes a man who’s comfortable with clichés. “As often as I can.”

  “I usually see you on those crazy bicycles.”

  “Unfortunately, I got here a little late today. They were all taken.”

  “You live around here?”

  “I live in Jupiter. You?”

  “West Palm. Don’t tell me you came all the way from Jupiter just to exercise.”

  “No. I came from work.”

  “What is it you do?”

  “I’m a lawyer.”

  “Really? I’m impressed.”

  Amanda smiles. “You are?” She wonders if he’s mocking her.

  “Lawyers with great legs impress me,” he continues.

  Amanda’s smile freezes. She should have known. Two minutes, she thinks.

  “And you?”

  “Investment counselor.”

  “Now
I’m the one who’s impressed,” she offers, silently congratulating herself on her intuitive powers, and hoping she doesn’t sound too insincere.

  But if he suspects her compliment is anything less than genuine, he gives no such indication. “So, what sort of law do you practice?”

  “Criminal.”

  Carter Reese laughs out loud.

  “I’m sorry. Did I say something funny?”

  He shakes his head. “You just don’t strike me as the criminal lawyer type.”

  “And what type is that?”

  “Rough, tough, beer belly.” He makes an obvious show of looking her up and down, then smiles appreciatively, as if her flat stomach were sculpted for his benefit. “I’m not seeing any beer belly.”

  “What you see isn’t always what you get,” Amanda warns playfully.

  “I’d like to see more.”

  One minute.

  “What time do you finish work?” he asks.

  “I should be through about five.”

  “About?”

  “More or less.”

  “About?” he repeats, except this time he pronounces it aboot. “Do I detect traces of a Canadian accent?”

  You’re from Toronto originally, aren’t you?

  Amanda bristles. She’s worked hard to eliminate all such traces from her voice. “So, are you going to ask me out for a drink later or what?”

  A slight pause, a grin in his voice. “I was thinking about it.”

  “Think faster. I have to be back in court in less than an hour.”

  He smiles. “A woman who doesn’t believe in beating around the bush. I like that.”

  “The Monkey Bar?” she suggests. “Six o’clock? That’ll give me time to check in with my office.”

  “I have a better idea.”

  This doesn’t surprise Amanda, who is used to the better ideas of men like Carter Reese.

  “I know this great little spot up in your neck of the woods. We could meet there for drinks, maybe have some dinner …”

  “Sounds good.” Amanda watches the grin in his voice spread across the square set of his jaw. He’s feeling terribly pleased with himself, she thinks, feeling pretty pleased herself. After all, when it comes to relieving stress, sex is almost as good as spinning.