The Murder List Read online

Lovely. Is this how it’s gonna go? But her nasty—is it?—comment makes me realize I’m seeing this murder scene through Jack’s eyes. Exactly what I need to do. If I were defending an accused killer and not prosecuting, and someday I will be, I’d be looking for evidence of another truth. For ambiguity. And remnants of what happened before.

  BEFORE

  SIX YEARS EARLIER

  “Hello?” I picked up the phone, heart racing, blinking in the pitch dark. I almost said “Office of the Senate President.” It took me a beat to let go of my dream. Another to get my bearings. Home. Couch. “Hello?”

  Midnight, the muted TV told me. Friday. Well, into Saturday now. What the hell? “Hello? Hello?”

  Nothing. Stupid wrong numbers. I hung up, wrapping the fuzzy blanket around my shoulders. My thinning Depeche Mode T-shirt was no match for February in Boston. I’d lucked into this quirky ground-level apartment, three short blocks from my statehouse office where I’d snagged the almost-not-entry-level job as constituent services aide for Senate President Thomas Rafferty. Cheap enough for my taxpayer-dollar salary, because even though the living room faced a London-esque Beacon Hill side street, the bedroom and bath were on the ground floor. “Ground” meaning “below the ground.” So, this time of year, it was not only freezing, but dark. Buried alive always crossed my mind. But now it was almost spring, if you convinced yourself to believe that.

  I burrowed myself into the corner of the couch again. Then leaped to my feet.

  Someone was buzzing my door. A mistake? A prank? Some sort of horrible news? About the senator?

  “Shut up, Rach,” I instructed myself. Unsettled and preliminarily anxious, I wrapped the couch throw tighter. Then, with one finger curling the pale linen, I pulled back the curtain over my front window to look out onto Lime Street.

  Through a powder of languid snow and the flare of my streetlight—a black car. Idling at the snow-banked curb. I squinted but couldn’t see anyone inside. No one in sight, not anywhere. And then I saw the footprints. Clear and precise outlines in newly fallen snow. Coming up my front walk.

  Emily and Martine lived in the apartment above, but they were out of town. Unless this was some moron with a wrong address, this visitor wanted me.

  At midnight? On a Friday?

  The buzzer rang again. If I answered, that assured the villain-burglar-rapist that I was home. The blue TV light coming through the front window might already have given that away, as well as my silhouette against the window when I looked out. Were the buzz and the phone call connected?

  If I answered the buzzer, I decided, it didn’t mean I had to open the door. I pushed the button for the intercom.

  “Yes?” It came out a dry-throated whisper.

  “Rachel?”

  I recognized that voice.

  There was no time, no time to do anything, not to comb my hair or put on makeup or change to real clothes. The senator was here. Senate President Thomas Ames Rafferty. Tom. Here. At my apartment door. Unannounced, unscheduled, astonishing. I had imagined this moment. So many times. Not like this, certainly, but our lives are full of the unexpected. That’s what dreams are about.

  Rachel, he’d said. That one word he spoke through the intercom seemed to hang in the air. Even over the muffled fuzz of the old-fashioned speaker, that single word, my name, seemed filled with promise. Prince Charming’s not going to come knocking at your door, Mom had insisted to little-girl me. Wrong.

  “Yes?” I leaned in close to the speaker, feeling his presence, pretending I didn’t know who it was. Pretended to do what anyone would do if they were surprised by the doorbell on a snowy Boston midnight. Pretended my knees were working. I drew the soft woolen blanket closer around my shoulders.

  “Rachel? It’s me,” he said. “May I come in?”

  It was ridiculous, something out of a Lifetime TV melodrama, but I felt like crying. With joy.

  Because this visit was about us, my only-imagined Rachel and Tom. It had to be.

  What should I do?

  I pushed the door-release buzzer. Heard the front door unlatch, then close again. I picture him, walking down the corridor, walking toward me. Why was he here? I closed my eyes a fraction of a second, considered tossing my tawny shawl-blanket over the entryway chair. No underwear, my brain managed to remind me. I kept the shawl in place as I opened my door.

  “Are you all right?” The words came out before I could filter them. “Senator? Is something wrong?”

  My boss did not answer or cross the threshold of my apartment door. He stood, eyes locked with mine. His dark hair glistened with melted snowflakes, droplets of the powdery white spackling his navy overcoat. His dear face seemed red, maybe because I’d left him waiting in the cold on my front steps. No hat, no scarf, no gloves. He carried a manila envelope in one hand.

  “You must be freezing.” I stepped away from the door, allowing him to walk past. This had never happened before, and the way things were now, there was no conceivable reason why he’d show up here. This time of night, or ever. Unless something was truly wrong. Or, I dared think, truly right. But so much would have to change to make it so.

  What should I do?

  I closed the door as he entered my foyer. He’d initiated this, this unlikely visit at an impolitic time. The first move had to be his. Only then could I gauge mine. Your wife, I wanted to say. Your career. Mine. Ours.

  Outside, the wind had picked up, and the snow. Icy flakes tapped on my front windows, rattling the aging glass panes in their weathered wooden frames.

  “I’m probably making footprints on your oriental,” he said.

  I looked down. Two arms’ length between us, but on the rug, our shadows overlapped.

  “Do you want to—” I stopped. Want to what? Take off your coat? Take off everything? Kiss me? Stay the night? “It’s okay,” I said, waving away his concern. “It’s seen worse. But Senator? Is everything okay?”

  “So. Rachel. I know it’s late. I came from the office.”

  I had never seen Tom—the name came easily now, for some reason—fidget or look uncomfortable. Here was a man who thundered his passion from the well of the Senate chamber, who fired articulate and informed answers to clueless reporters, savvy enough to negotiate the elements of laws that would change lives. Now here he stood, red-nosed and damp, awkward as a wet puppy.

  “Okay, no problem,” I began. I was an employee, after all, and possibly he had an urgent task for me. But the senator seemed uneasy. Why? If he was about to cross a line, that would be a move that, once made, check and mate, could not be undone. “What’s up?”

  “This is for you.” He handed me the envelope, a blank eight-by-ten rectangle, its clasp closed, the flap sealed. “Can you hang on to it for me? I didn’t want to wait until Monday.”

  I took it with one hand, clutched my blanket closer with the other. He kept his hand on the envelope, too, didn’t let go of the paper connection between us. I felt a signal, somehow, a communication, pass between us. He was asking me a favor, and not from the black leather chair behind his hundred-year-old Senate desk. In my living room. At midnight.

  Politics—like life—is driven by the balance of power. Working in the status-driven machine of the statehouse on Beacon Hill, it hadn’t taken long for me to learn that. Tom Rafferty claimed Beacon Hill’s top rung. Why would he jeopardize his leverage? What was in this envelope?

  “Dare I ask? What’s inside?” I kept my voice light, trying to decide how to play it. Wondering whether I was an obedient employee or trusted professional confidante or potential soul mate.

  Or, it crossed my mind, dupe.

  Handing a mid-level staffer a sealed envelope on a snowy midnight was almost preposterously the fodder of that Lifetime melodrama I’d imagined. Not to mention the stuff of blazing political headlines, and if I let my imagination run, reputation-ruining humiliation. Even prison. Handsome and charismatic leading man or not, romantic fantasies or not, I did not intend to play the hoodwinked heroine.


  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Hey you. So, Mrs. Kirkland, how was your first day on the job?” Jack opens our back door before I can get my house keys out. He’s wearing a navy canvas apron over his Red Sox T-shirt. The apron, double-tied around his waist, has the state shield logo of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the public defender agency of Massachusetts. CPCS oversees the murder list, the group of hotshot lawyers not only qualified to handle murder cases for indigent clients, but also benevolent enough to take them for a reduced fee. (Jack sometimes says those defendants are his own personal murder list—the list of accused killers whose cases, and lives, he’s responsible for.) That’s how Jack got assigned to represent now-convicted slasher Marcus Simmons Dorn. But most of his career involves handling high-paying cases. Including the one that brought us together. In flowery font that mimics the US Constitution, Jack’s apron says TO SERVE MAN.

  “Hey you,” I say, our call and response. “Well, Mr. North, it was fine, thank you.”

  If Jack’s going to be conciliatory, I’m all about that. Early on, he’d asked whether I’d change my name to Kirkland when we got married. I’d suggested he change his to North. We kept the status quo, but it stayed our private joke.

  Jack’s welcoming hug and promissory kiss on the neck almost evaporates the residual stress of my first day on the job. As I’d parked my Jetta in our driveway, I’ll admit my first thoughts were of sweatpants. And wine. And Jack, of course. Driving home, I’d debated with myself about how much to tell him about today. How much I was allowed to tell, given the constraints of what’s probably—clearly?—privileged information versus my leeway as a spouse. Issue, rules, analysis, conclusion.

  Jack untangles us with a final peck on the cheek.

  “First day of anything is always the worst,” he says. “Can’t wait to hear about it. What you’re willing and able to reveal at least. No pressure.”

  From down the hall in the kitchen, I hear something beeping.

  “Is the oven beeping?” I ask. “Are you cooking?” Jack’s not much in the kitchen. Microwave popcorn for Red Sox games—that he can do. He makes a mean martini. But usually I’m the cook. I know it’s old-school. But he pays the mortgage, so it’s a balance.

  “Run and change. Take a shower.” He points toward upstairs. “Wash off the stink of the prosecution.”

  “Hey!” I drop my briefcase, slam my fists onto my hips. Honestly? He’s going to do this?

  “Kidding, sweetheart,” he says. “I know it’s good experience. But I loathe that woman.” Whatever is beeping keeps beeping. “Meet you in what, fifteen? And I chilled our martini glasses in the freezer. To celebrate.”

  “Oh, honey.” I stand there, looking at my Jack, my dear Jack, who’s passionate about his work and can’t let it go, but in the end, we’re married and nothing can change that. Jack’s a lawyer, and lawyers like to win. I should remember that even when the stakes turn personal, Jack’s laser-beam approach is difficult for him to shake. Also to remember that a conversation between two reasonable people needn’t escalate into a disaster. Or a guilty verdict.

  “I’ll hurry.” I stash my briefcase by the hall table and trot up the stairs.

  Only a few more than fifteen minutes later, my hair damp and dripping wet spots on my black T-shirt, I’m smiling with the anticipation of our rapprochement. Maybe I can tell Jack a little of what happened today. After all, he fills me in on his cases, knowing I understand how to keep a secret. I stop in the middle of our claret-and-navy carpeted hallway, laughing for a moment at myself. That’s an understatement.

  “I’m late, I know,” I call out as I reach the end of the hall. I stop. Sniff. And then, although my every instinct is screaming at me not to, I take the final three steps into the kitchen.

  Jack’s got the oven door open, his face flushed in the heat. Both hands are encased in bright-blue oven mitts. “You’re gonna be so proud of me,” he says into the oven. “I got home early and got inspired. And I made this from scratch. Your favorite. For you. My darling little D-A.”

  I can smell it, sharp and pungent, before it comes out of the oven. And then I see it. It’s square, not round like Oregano Brothers. But unmistakably, sickeningly, pizza. I stare, touch one hand to the kitchen wall. Become acutely aware of my knees. Something happens to my stomach. I see past the counter to our kitchen table. Ours has nobody—no body—underneath.

  “I know, I know, it’s not the prettiest,” Jack says, setting the aluminum cookie sheet onto the stove top.

  The fragrance of oregano is unbearable.

  “Fine. It’s damn wonky,” Jack is saying. “I know I’m not the best in the kitchen. But you’ve got to give me points for effort. If you drink enough martini, you won’t even notice.”

  “It looks—it smells—” I search for a word. A word he’d approve of. After all, he has no idea about today. “Perfect,” I say. “But I forgot something. Upstairs. Be right back.”

  Down the hall, up the steps, into the bathroom. I lean on the counter, close my eyes. Splash cold water on my face. I refuse to get upset by pizza. I am not Tassie Lyle, and life goes on. This is one of those coincidences that—that’s a coincidence. Jack’s being loving and caring. Being a husband. I am being an idiot. A weak-stomached idiot. I puff out a breath, change the expression on my face. I almost pinch my cheeks to get the color back. Too bad no one could do that for Tassie Lyle. A dead girl’s face almost replaces mine in the mirror. I close my eyes again and shake it off. When I open them, the mirror shows only me.

  The martini is perfect. The bullet of lemony chilled vodka begins to erase my memories of murder, and I take my place at our kitchen table—trying not to look beneath it—and pretend Jack’s pizza has nothing to do with Tassie Lyle’s. I haven’t had the courage to take a bite yet. Soon, Jack will notice.

  I use my fork to cut off a tiny corner. Take another sip of my drink, the sleek gold-rimmed martini glass frosty from the freezer.

  “You’re quiet,” Jack says. He’s chewing at the same time, but we’re married, so I know not to sweat the small stuff. It’s not like I’m going to change him.

  “Well, yeah.” I put down my fork, stalling. Then give up. I grimace, telegraphing I’m about to confess. “It’s the pizza, I’m afraid. Martha Gardiner took me with her to a murder scene this morning. Some first day, right? It was so—upsetting. And there was pizza. I mean, the victim had ordered pizza. She didn’t have time to eat all of it. Or, I don’t know, someone stopped her from eating it.” I suppose someone stopped her. And I guess it won’t matter that I told him that stuff. Clea Rourke’s probably already put it on the news. Along with every other reporter. “So, you know. I’ve got a little PTSD, maybe. This beautiful martini is helping, though. Medicinal.”

  “Oh, crap, honey.” Jack stands, whisks away my essentially untouched slice. He stops, plate midair. Frowning. “That bitch took you to a murder scene? For the love of—Where? Who’s the victim? How’d they die?”

  I reach out, take back the plate. “Of course you didn’t know about the pizza,” I say. “And I’ll be fine. It’ll be yummy. In a minute.”

  “I bet it was that nurse,” Jack says. “It was on the TV news. That reporter. Rourke.”

  “Am I allowed to talk about it?” I look out the window beside me instead of looking at Jack or the pizza. I can see across the street to Crystal Lake, this time of year, even now, after seven in the evening, the sun glints on the water, sugar maples and sycamores fully green. It’s a pointillist painting in motion, with bicyclists and joggers and dogs pulling at almost-invisible leashes, a silhouetted family of mallards gliding soundlessly, left to right. I’ve watched those ducks, or ones like them, close-up, from one of the wood-slatted benches surrounding the lake, the place I go to sit when I need solitude or solutions. I study the V-shaped wakes left by their invisibly paddling webbed feet. The water gets disturbed, changed, diverted—but only temporarily. Then every trace of the ducks vanishes. Like they were never there.
r />   “Talk about what?” Jack fishes a green olive out of his martini glass, then sucks it and the vodka from his fingers. “Rach? Where’d you go? Is something happening out on the lake? Talk about what?”

  “You know, today. The murder.”

  “Why not? What would be secret?”

  “Well, that’s what I’m asking you. I mean, Gardiner didn’t tell me not to say anything to you, but maybe she figures she doesn’t need to tell me. I couldn’t very well ask her, ‘Hey, am I allowed to tell my husband about this?’ And, Jack, you can’t take this case anyway, because—” I stop. My shoulders drop. “I mean, this is okay, isn’t it? It’s not like I’m stealing a potential defendant from you.”

  “No?” Jack bites the corner off his slice.

  I remember what Gardiner said outside Tassie Lyle’s house. ‘It’s a pity your husband won’t get assigned to defend this case.’ I decide to leave that out of this conversation.

  “I mean, because you were assigned the Dorn case, you can’t be next up on the murder list. Right? And there’s not even a suspect yet.”

  “No?”

  “What do you mean, ‘no’?” That’s a strange thing for him to say. “Have you heard there is?”

  “How could I hear there is, Rach?” Jack stands, plops his plaid cloth napkin on the table. “I’m getting more of this awesome pizza. Is that okay with you?”

  He’s about to drive me up the wall, answering questions with questions, but that’s what he does. I understand why witnesses break down under his skepticism or doubt or suspicion or whatever combative attitude he’s trying to convey. He’s making me second-guess myself. I almost wonder if I’m not the only one hiding something.

  “Jack? This is nuts.” I look away as he transfers another cheesy-gooey slice to his plate, then steel myself and look at him. “Look. I know you hate Martha. But can you not take it out on me? I’m doing my best here to balance my need to stay professional in a difficult situation with my”—I flutter my eyelashes, dumb, but trying to change the mood—“my unending lust for you. And supreme respect, of course.”