Acts of Love (24 page)

“Approximately how far away would you say the victim was standing from the gun?”

“Five feet would be accurate, give or take a couple of inches.”

“And were you able to determine the trajectory of the bullet?”

“The bullet perforated the skin and soft tissue before entering the skull. It then passed through the frontal bone before exiting from the right rear part of the skull, passing through the occipital bone. The overlying scalp had a one-inch defect with torn margins.” Sandy, seated a few yards away, shut her eyes. “The victim died instantly.”

Reardon paused. A number of the jury turned once more to see Ted's reaction, but his eyes were lowered, illegible. “Dr. Peloit, is this consistent with the gun being fired at shoulder range?”

“Yes.”

“So it is your conclusion that gun was not fired from below the shoulder, as it would be, say, if someone had jumped on the arm of the person holding the gun?”

“No. The bullet was fired at shoulder range.”

“Thank you, Dr. Peloit. I have no further questions.”

Fisk stepped up to the witness stand. “Dr. Peloit, were you in the house at 374 Sycamore Street on the evening of October 22?”

“No.”

“Then you didn't actually see the events that transpired there?”

“No.” A disdainful weight dragged down the corners of Peloit's mouth.

“Are you able to tell if the shot was fired accidentally or on purpose from your examination?”

“No,” Peloit admitted.

“I have no further questions.”

 

J
OHN
N
ORWOOD STOOD
in front of the counter of his sporting-goods store staring at Sandy. “I'll pick them up at four,” she told him.

“But…”

She turned and slid resolutely through the heavy glass door before he had the chance for further protestation.

John watched until she had disappeared from view, then finally looked down at Julia and Ali standing before him, clearly as uncomfortable as he. “Well,” he stammered. Julia crossed her arms on her chest, while Ali smiled up at him expectantly. “Let's see.”

“Sandy said we could work here,” Ali offered helpfully.

“Oh, she did, did she?”

Ali nodded.

“Maybe he doesn't want our help,” Julia countered.

John frowned. “Of course I want your help. Come in the back and let's see what we have.” He led them to the storeroom. “Here, let's start with this.” He began to show them how to stack boxes of sneakers according to size and style, watching them grip the cartons, which fit so easily into his large palm, with both their hands, their nails so short and clean and translucent.

“I could work here every day,” Ali suggested, as she reached past him.

“What about school?”

“I like this better.”

John smiled. “I think you'll have to settle for weekends for a while. Say, the next ten years. I have to go up front now. Why don't you girls line up all the basketball sneakers on the table? Anything that pumps or puffs. Can you do that?”

Julia and Ali nodded.

He watched them for another moment, resisting the urge to straighten the corners of the boxes that were beginning to amass by their feet, and then he went up front to check on a customer who was trying to return a baby-blue warm-up jacket that had obviously been worn. There were mustard stains cascading down the front, but the young man was loudly insisting that it had come that way. The cashier, one of the high-school kids John made a point of hiring for weekends and summers, looked helplessly at John.

Julia and Ali heard only the echoes of the ensuing argument as they continued to examine the stickers on the sides of each box and stack them accordingly.

“Do you think we'll live with Sandy forever?” Ali asked as she handed a box to Julia to put on a shelf that she could not reach.

“I don't know.”

“I miss Daddy.”

“I don't.”

“Not at all?”

“No.”

“But if there was a way…”

“A way to what?”

“I don't want him to go to prison.”

Julia stared at her. “I hate him. I wish he wasn't our father. I never want to see him again.”

Ali turned her back to her sister, twisting the lace from a sneaker round and round her forefinger, until it began to glow magenta.

John, who had been standing just outside the doorway, watching them, studying them, turned and walked slowly away.

 

T
HIS TIME
, when Julia saw Peter Gorrick walking up the pathway to school at three o'clock—easy stride, baggy khaki pants, Reeboks—she was not surprised. Still, she felt herself flush at his approach, one of the things that, despite her efforts and her exercises, she was not yet able to control, this red veneer that smeared across her neck and face when a teacher called on her to speak in class, when she heard others whisper her name, their backs to her. She should have been able to control it better, she could control so much. She hoped he wouldn't notice.

“Hi,” he said, smiling.

“Hi.”

“Your sister has her after-school art group today, doesn't she?”

Julia nodded. He was, like her, a collector of facts, information, and like her, he left his sources vague.

“You want to go out for a hamburger?”

“Okay.”

She got in his car, a white Volvo he had bought used three years ago. He turned on the heat and it wafted through dusty vents to the front seat. She had never been alone in a car with a man before except her father, though she wasn't quite sure if Peter Gorrick was a man precisely, in the adult sense—the baggy pants, the cockeyed grin. Still, it was something. She sat up straight and tried to look nonchalant while he turned the radio to a pop station.

“How about the Platter Puss?” he asked. It was five miles from school; they would be less likely to be seen there.

“Okay.”

“Kids picking on you?” he asked when they stopped at a light.

“It's okay.”

“The trick is not to let them see you get upset. It'll drive them nuts if they think they can't get to you.”

“I know.”

They drove a little bit in silence.

“What street did you live on in New York?” Julia asked.

“East Sixty-first.” He thought briefly of the large, rambling inherited apartment he had grown up in, which belied the fact that there was no money left in his family. He had gone to a nearby private boys' school on a scholarship. “Why?”

“Just wondering.” She had taken a guidebook to the city from the library last week, studied the maps closely, tracing the lines of the streets and the avenues with her index finger, wondering where exactly he had been, where he might go.

They pulled in to the parking lot of the Platter Puss. Peter got out of the car first and went to open Julia's door, but she was already standing. He did manage to hold open the glass door of the restaurant for her, though, and watch as she passed through. She hoped the other diners noticed.

They settled into a booth overlooking the parking lot, and Peter ordered them both burgers, Cokes, and a side of french fries to share.

“Does your mother still live in the city?” Julia asked.

“Yes.”

“On East Sixty-first Street?”

“Yes.”

“What about your father?” she pressed.

“He moved out to northern California. Sausalito. He lives on a houseboat with a nurse named Fiona.” Peter straightened the yellowing plastic doily place mat. He vaguely remembered that Fiona had been a dentist, and was at least three girlfriends back. Though he had not planned this particular lie in advance, stories had always emerged easily, unbidden, from his mouth, often surprising even himself. He did not consider this a talent so much as a weakness, though for the first time he saw how it might be useful in his work. “Your mother was a nurse, too, wasn't she?” he asked.

“I told you, I don't want to talk about my mother.”

Peter nodded.

The waitress brought their food and they both began to eat. Julia took small bites, chewed and swallowed as silently as she could, dabbed her mouth daintily to make sure there were no renegade morsels. She was careful to alternate her reach for fries with his, one to one, giving his fingers ample time to retreat.

“My father and I never did get along much,” Peter said. “He had a temper on him, boy. All he had to do was raise one eyebrow and we'd all run for the hills.”

“I thought you said you lived in the city.”

He laughed. “You're an awfully literal-minded kid, aren't you?”

She wasn't quite sure what he meant, or if she should be offended. “Do you go see him in California?”

“Not much. To tell you the truth, I get seasick on that damn houseboat. Besides, I'm not wild about Fiona. It's kind of weird seeing my father with a girlfriend.” He leaned across the table.

Julia lowered her eyes and took a sip of Coke. It was watered down with melted ice and flat. “Were you scared of him?” she asked.

“My father?”

“Yes.”

“Sometimes,” he replied. “He was a screamer. I mean, we're talking lung power. The thing was, you could never quite predict what would set him off, you know? I think that was the worst part. You never knew if he was going to laugh or blow up at any given moment. Are you scared of your father?”

“No.”

Peter deposited the last of his burger in his mouth.

“You're writing about us for the
Chronicle,
aren't you?” Julia asked. “Sandy hides the newspapers, but I know.”

“She means well. She just doesn't want to see you get hurt.”

“Why are you writing about us?”

“I'm writing about the trial. That's my job. But I won't write anything you tell me, unless you want me to. Okay?”

She nodded.

“Come on, I'd better give you a lift back to school. Ali's group is just about to let out.” He took the sole remaining fry, swirled it in ketchup, bit off half, and offered the other half to her. “Fair is fair,” he said, smiling. She took it in her mouth, her lips brushing against his fingers.

 

T
HAT NIGHT
, Peter Gorrick sat down at his kitchen table and got out the notebook where he recorded each encounter with Julia. He had started it to analyze his own behavior as much as hers, going over the notes with a critical eye: this is what I should have said, this is what I should have asked, this is what I must do next time. This is how I'll get out.

He took up his pen and began to write.

 

J
ULIA COULD TASTE IT STILL
, lying in the dark, the salt and the skin of his tawny hand, taste it as she tossed from side to side, knotting the sheets, unknotting them. Ali slept easily tonight, on and on.

She slipped out of bed, went to the secret drawer, the secret bag. She took out the piece of paper with Peter's name and numbers, examined it slowly, put it back. Then she pulled out Sandy's netted lace bikini panties. Sheer, fragile. She hiked up her nightgown and slid out of her cotton briefs.

The panties fit loosely around her narrow hips. She ran her hand down her smooth, flat belly to the lace. There were the beginning tufts of pubic hair only in the deepest reaches of her crotch. “You're a late bloomer,” Ann had said, “just like me.”

Her mother's face, smiling, reassuring, ignorant.

I'm not like you. I'm not like you at all.

She got back into bed, leaving the cotton briefs on the floor.

 

T
HE SNOW HAD BEGUN TO FALL
in sparse white flakes at dawn, gaining momentum as the morning stretched open. They said it was going to be the first real storm of the season, and the few people in town who hadn't yet put their snow tires on were lined up at the three gas stations, cursing their procrastination and inventing excuses to explain their tardiness to their bosses. The first storm was always an event, and its characteristics, its velocity and its force and its moisture content, were scrupulously analyzed for clues as to what the rest of the winter might bring. By nine-thirty, the streets and sidewalks were already tucked under an inch-thick pristine white blanket, and the sky had the viscous pallor of a storm that promised to linger. Ted turned his eyes from the old-fashioned thick glass windows to the judge's desk, where she was once more pouring herself a glass of water from the yellow-and-black pitcher as she waited for the last of the stragglers to arrive. He noticed that there was a chip on the spout, and he wondered if it had been there before or if someone had dropped it as they cleaned up after yesterday's session. Beside him, Fisk rummaged restlessly through his briefcase. He would have been killing time joking and gossiping with the opposing lawyer, if it hadn't been Reardon. The sound of the papers falling against each other, one after the other, grated on Ted's nerves, until he finally scowled at Fisk. At last, they were ready to begin.