Acts of Love (38 page)

“If Sandy comes home, tell her I'm having dinner there, okay?”

Ali nodded.

Julia left the room and bounded down the stairs two at a time. Outside, she began to walk the mile and a half into town. The dark streets were striped with the white streams of the street lamps, and Julia skipped from one cone of light to the next, jumping over its boundaries, hurrying on.

She slowed when she came to town and walked purposefully down Fieldston Street until she came to number 54. Looking up, she saw that it was an old yellow wooden building with three stories. Peter Gorrick's name was the second on the intercom. She pushed the plastic button.

“Who is it?”

“Julia.”

The buzzer rang.

He was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. “Julia, what are you doing here?”

She didn't answer but followed him into his apartment.

“How did you know where I lived?” he asked as he stood in the living room.

“I looked it up in the phone book.”

He nodded, watching her curiously, waiting to see what she might do.

She looked around the room. There were large bay windows overlooking the street, and two dying ferns hanging like discarded wigs from the curtain rod. There was a faded Oriental rug on the floor, a roll-top desk with numerous tiny drawers, and a green-and-navy-striped canvas couch. A glass of red wine sat on the coffee table beside a pile of books and pads and papers. She sat down on the couch, her coat still on. He sat on the chair across from her. The liner beneath her right eye was smudged, a smoky thumbprint shadowing her pale skin.

“I told you not to talk to my sister,” she said.

“I just wanted to meet her.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She looked down—
because you're mine.
“She's not ready to talk to you,” she said.

“I didn't mean any harm.”

Julia nodded.

Peter reached over and took a sip of his wine.

“Can I have some?” Julia asked.

He laughed. “Don't you think you're a little young?”

“No.”

“Well, maybe next time.”

She looked around the room. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

Peter smiled. “Not at the moment.”

She nodded slightly, taking in the information, digesting it, collating it.

“Sandy has lots of boyfriends. Did you sleep with her?”

“No,” he answered evenly.

“Do you think she's pretty?”

“Sandy?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose so.”

Julia nodded again. “Do you think I'm pretty?”

“I think you're better than pretty. I think you're striking.”

“Why is striking better than pretty?”

“Anyone can be pretty. Only special people can be striking.”

Julia crossed her legs.

“Who is Sandy seeing besides John Norwood?” Peter asked.

Julia shrugged evasively. Looking right at him, she reached over and took a sip of his wine. The unfamiliar bitterness made her eyes water, but she only pursed her lips delicately and put the glass carefully back on the table.

He watched her, amused. “Does Sandy know where you are?”

“No. I don't have to tell her everything I do.” She frowned. “Are you going to stay in Hardison after the trial?”

“I don't know yet.”

“I wouldn't.”

“I know.” He leaned forward. “Be patient, Julia. When you're a little older, you'll be able to go wherever you want.”

“Did you think about what I asked you?”

“What was that?”

“About taking me with you to New York,” she replied impatiently.

“Well, Julia, you know I'm very busy now with work, the trial.” He said the last word carefully, testing it. “I don't think this is a good time to get away.”

“Later, then?”

“We'll see,” he said. “Why don't we talk about it when the time comes?”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” He looked over at her, her long legs crossed beneath her short skirt, her face, with its colorful mask of maturity slipping only at the corners. “When do you think Ali will be ready to talk to me?”

“I don't know.”

“I'd like it very much, Julia.”

She nodded.

He waited until her head was stationary, upright on her slender neck. “Is there anything else you wanted to talk about tonight? Anything you wanted to tell me?”

She shifted toward him just a quarter-inch—she measured the air between them in fractions—and shook her head.

“Don't you think Sandy will worry about you?”

Julia shrugged and reached over and took another sip of his wine.

“Can I come here after school sometimes?” she asked after she rested the glass back on the table. “Just to study, you know. It's so noisy at Sandy's house.”

“How about if we think about that one? But meanwhile, it's getting rather late. Why don't I drive you home? I'll let you out a block away, if you're worried about the neighbors finding out about us.” He gave her a smile, lopsided and short, and once more, she was unsure of its intent.

She nodded. “Okay.”

She followed him reluctantly down the stairs. His car was parked across the street, and she waited while he unlocked her door and held it open as she slid in. She leaned over and unlocked his door for him, the smallest of movements, but one that somehow indoctrinated her into the world of women; this, after all, was what women did. They drove out of the quiet town, the shops dark save for the two restaurants and the magazine store on Main Street, and down the empty steets of Hardison, cutting silently through the night. Julia breathed deeply, inhaling the car smell, the closeness of his body.

He pulled up to the curb around the corner from Sandy's house and left the motor running.

“We'll talk about going to New York soon,” he said.

She smiled slightly, then reached over suddenly, kissed him on the cheek, and hurried from the car.

 

“M
AY
I
REMIND YOU
that you are still under oath, Mr. Waring,” Judge Carruthers said solemnly.

Ted nodded. He had come to the conclusion that the judge did not like him. With her carefully lacquered hair, her endless array of silk blouses, and her clipped accent, she reminded him of some of the more difficult women he had dealt with in the building business over the years, superior women with superior bank accounts who prided themselves on being impossible to please. He looked down at the court stenographer, his fingers paused in limbo an inch above his machine.

Reardon rose slowly from his desk, rested his hands lightly on its ordered surface, and looked squarely at Ted for a long moment before speaking. “Mr. Waring,” he began, his voice and manner a long, smooth surface compared with Fisk's, “you testified yesterday that you and your wife fought frequently but that you always made up. I'm a little confused. That can't be true, can it, or you wouldn't have been in the process of divorce at the time of Ann Waring's death?”

“We were going to get back together.”

“You've said that you hoped so, but we haven't seen any evidence that that was Mrs. Waring's wish. Quite the contrary. I think previous testimony has indicated that she was taking steps to free herself from you, isn't that correct?”

“I don't believe that.”

“That must have been quite painful?”

Ted didn't respond.

“Would you call yourself a jealous man, Mr. Waring?”

“I've never wanted anything that wasn't mine.”

“And did you consider Ann Waring one of your possessions?”

“I didn't say that.”

“You testified that you spent the entire weekend on your camping trip thinking about a reconciliation and that you presumed Ann was doing the same. But on the Sunday evening when you returned, didn't Ann tell you that she had instead gone on a date with Dr. Neal Frederickson on the previous Friday evening?”

“Yes. But it didn't mean anything.”

“You're saying it didn't mean anything to you that your wife was dating other men?”

“It didn't mean anything to her.”

“So it did mean something to you?”

“I don't know.”

“But you did testify yesterday that you and Ann began arguing when you came home, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“Weren't you arguing about the fact that she went out with another man?”

Ted glanced briefly at Fisk and then back at Reardon. “I didn't like it that she went on a date. But I didn't kill her because of it.”

“In fact, you were enraged to find out that she was seeing another man just when you thought she was considering getting back together with you, isn't that true, Mr. Waring?”

“She still planned on getting back together with me.”

“We'll never know that, will we, Mr. Waring? Isn't it true that Ann told you when you got home that she planned to continue seeing other men, that she planned to start building a new life for herself?”

“No. We were going to rebuild our life together,” he insisted.

“And isn't it also true that you yelled, ‘If you think I'm going to let that happen, you've got another thing coming'?”

“I don't remember what I said. People say things when they argue. It doesn't mean anything.”

“You couldn't stand your wife slipping out of your grasp, could you, Mr. Waring?”

“We belonged to each other.” He could taste the anger, acrid and fierce, rising in his throat, and he tried to force it down. Its bitterness, though, pushed through his tone. “Maybe you can't understand that, but she did.”

“Did you stop at Burl's Lounge on your way home that Sunday afternoon and have a number of drinks?”

“I had one drink.”

“May I remind you that you are under oath. Your blood alcohol was three times the legal limit. That's certainly more than one drink, Mr. Waring.”

“I don't remember.”

“You don't remember? Well, I'm not surprised if your memory of the events of that evening is a little uncertain, with your alcohol level of .300. To the best of your available memory, Mr. Waring, would you say that you were in an agitated state when you arrived home?”

“I arrived home only with the intention of taking my family out to dinner.”

“And, in your drunken state, isn't it true that you reacted irrationally when you saw that this was not to be, when Ann told you of her plans?”

“No,” he answered urgently.

“Didn't you suddenly realize that your marriage, the only thing that ever made any sense to you, as you testified, was finally and irrevocably over?”

“I told you, it wasn't over. It wasn't over at all.”

“Didn't you see everything you had ever wanted suddenly disintegrate, and didn't it fill you with fury?”

“Objection,” Fisk called out. “Counsel is badgering the witness.”

“Overruled.”

Reardon continued. “Didn't Julia in fact scream, ‘Stop! Don't!' when she saw you raise the gun and aim it directly at your wife's head?”

“No.” Ted's face had reddened, and the thick cords of his neck pulsed noticeably. “No! It wasn't like that.”

“And didn't she jump on you only after you fired, in a belated attempt to wrest the gun from your grasp?”

“No. I don't know why Julia did what she did. But it wasn't because I aimed the gun. I would never do that.”

“You killed your wife, didn't you, Mr. Waring, rather than see her with another man?”

“No. I told you, it was an accident. I loved her.” His throat was suddenly parched and the words scraped painfully against it.

“Maybe you loved her too much.”

“I didn't think it was possible to love someone too much,” he retorted.

“Even when you confuse love with possession?”

Ted glared at the lawyer and did not answer.

“Mr. Waring, you testified that you had a troubled relationship with your daughter, Julia, that she held you responsible for the problems in your home?”

“Yes.”

“Isn't it possible that she reacted that way after witnessing years of your abuse to her mother?”

“I don't know why she reacted that way. I wish I did. I never raised a hand to Ann.”

“One last question. At any time from the moment you arrived home until after the shot was fired, was anyone but you ever holding the gun?”