Buried Evidence (8 page)

When Richard had added the second story a few years back, he’d also remodeled the thirty-year-old kitchen. The counters were now a rust-colored granite, the cabinets constructed out of the finest cherry. Although he had admired the Tudor mansion
where Lily rented her guest house, he preferred the clean, uncluttered look of contemporary design.

He was about to take a bite out of his apple when an attractive blonde came sashaying into the room. She was dressed in her exercise clothes, a pair of black tights and a halter top; therefore, he assumed she’d been working out in the basement gym. Her body was one of her finest attributes, and she seized every opportunity to display it. She had large breasts, a tiny waist, long legs, and her buttocks felt like rolled-up balls of steel. She might visit a plastic surgeon once a year for what he classified as a tuneup, but she could certainly turn heads. They’d been living together for three years, and even today he couldn’t say for certain how old she was. She told everyone she was thirty-five. Somehow she’d managed to get a driver’s license using what he suspected was a phony birth certificate. He’d never pressured her for the truth. What did he care if she wanted to shave a few years off her age? When a single woman got close to turning forty, insecurity became a major problem.

“Where have you been?” Joyce Lansing said, snatching the apple out of his hand. “I was about to call the police.”

Richard said, “I’m handling a serious case, Joyce. My client was accused of poisoning his daughter. I’m late, okay. Does that mean I don’t get to eat? Shit, woman, it’s only an apple. A man could starve with the stuff you buy at the grocery store. What happened to food? You know, steaks, chicken, apple pie, ice cream.”

“Don’t lie to me,” she said, glaring at him. “People don’t have meetings at this time of night.”

“Good Lord,” he said, “it’s not even ten o’clock.”

“You could have called,” Joyce said, impulsively hurling the apple at him.

With the time she spent lifting weights, she could pitch like a man. If Richard hadn’t ducked at just the right moment, she would have popped him one. “Are you having a PMS attack?” he asked, picking the apple up off the floor and rinsing it in the sink. “Or do you just want to make certain you have my undivided attention?”

“Not funny,” she said, smacking a wad of gum. “Now will you answer my question?”

“The battery went dead on my phone.” Standing over the sink until he finished eating, Richard decided that the worst invention in the universe had to be the cell phone. When the only means of tracking people had been a pager, a man could still manage to make himself scarce. Now a woman could call you in the men’s room while you were taking a leak. And boy, did they get ticked off when you didn’t answer. In addition, they demanded an hourly report on your whereabouts and activities. Joyce and her girlfriends called each other incessantly. Most of the phone calls he had overheard were inane. The latest rage was designer phones that allowed a person to snap on different-colored exteriors to match their clothing. When the silly phone rang, it sounded like a little girl’s music box. He’d seen women call each other from the next aisle over at the department store. If they weren’t calling each other on their cell phones, they were shopping or trading stocks over the Internet.

“Marty talked me into taking on a couple of cases in Santa Barbara,” Richard said, drying his hands with a paper towel. “That’s why I had to take off so early this morning. The arraignment took longer than I thought, then I got stuck in traffic. Is that enough to get me out of the doghouse? Maybe you’d prefer that I start at nine this morning and give you a blow-by-blow of my entire day.”

“Stop talking ridiculous,” Joyce said, taking a seat at the kitchen table.

Bone tired, Richard rubbed his eyes. He didn’t mind arguing a case in court. At least in most instances, he could look forward to being compensated. Domestic squabbles were a waste of energy. Defending himself when he’d done nothing wrong was irritating enough. Tonight, however, he had something to feel guilty about. Joyce probably sensed it. He could douse himself with the most pungent cologne in the world and it wouldn’t help. He might not have slept with Lily, but he had certainly thought about it. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did you whip up a special macrobiotic
dish or something? Is that why you’re so bent out of shape?”

“You could have called me from a regular phone.”

“We discussed the case over drinks.” Richard had been afraid the dead battery trick wouldn’t pass muster. He momentarily turned his back on her, not wanting her to see the smile on his face. The majority of his tricks were dated. Old dog, he thought. “I tried to call you from the pay phone in the bar, but it was out of service.”

Joyce let out a long sigh. “I understand about your work, Rich,” she told him. “All I ever ask is that you call. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable demand, do you?”

“Not at all,” he said, hanging his head. The fastest way to turn things around was to act contrite. Women loved it when a man groveled. As soon as they were certain you felt like hell, they were ready to jump in bed and console you.

“The least you could do is make up a decent excuse,” she said, a smile lifting one corner of her mouth. “Don’t tell me there isn’t at least one phone that works somewhere between Santa Barbara and Ventura.”

“I was preoccupied,” he said. “You know how I am when I have something on my mind. I’m juggling eight cases right now.” He paused, clutching the bottle of tea in his hand. “I thought I could plea-bargain this drug case and get it out of the way. How did I know the idiot had two priors?” She was flirting with him, leaning forward so he could see her breasts, purposely posing to make certain they looked even larger than they were. He was about to reach the finish line.

“Don’t you check all that out?”

“Why would someone be stupid enough to lie to his own attorney?” Richard asked, walking over and kissing the top of her head. He gazed at her breasts. Even if they weren’t real, they looked and felt real. In today’s world, everything was an illusion anyway. Perhaps this was part of Lily’s appeal. She didn’t have Joyce’s body, but it wasn’t always a person’s physical appearance. When you genuinely cared for someone, as he did for Lily, you connected on a much higher level.

Joyce gazed up into his eyes, trapping his hand and placing it over her breast. He had crawled in the door like a snake, and already he had his hands in the cookie jar. Now he realized why married men had affairs. Not only was it physically exciting, the planning alone was challenging. The beauty of his situation was the fact that Joyce was not his wife. She might act like his wife, but without a formal commitment, there was only so much guilt she could lay on him. By taking on the Middleton case, he had provided himself with a way to spend time with Lily. Now he considered taking it a step further, possibly convincing Joyce that he should stay in a hotel during the course of the trial rather than exhaust himself by making such a long drive.

What in the hell was he thinking?

Men went off their rockers when it came time to end a relationship. The worst experience of his life had been discovering that Claire was having an affair. The fact that she’d fallen in love with a woman had been a jolt to his masculinity, but the wound itself had turned out to be nothing more than a mosquito bite. What difference did it make who she’d been having an affair with? She’d violated the sanctity of their marriage vows. He might toy with the notion of becoming a contemporary Don Juan, leaping in and out of beds from Ventura to Santa Barbara, but underneath he was a die-hard traditionalist. When you loved someone, you married them, remained faithful to them, devoted your life to them. If you didn’t love them… well… this was the muddle he found himself in with Joyce. The sex was great. Everything else was mediocre.

Richard walked over to the small built-in desk in the corner of the kitchen, thumbing through a stack of mail. The envelope containing his American Express bill was over an inch thick, and the telephone bills were astronomical. Joyce might not be aware of it, but even before he had seen Lily today, he had been racking his brain trying to figure out a way to disentangle himself from their relationship. They’d been together for three years. This time he had let things rock along past the breaking point. He was a three-year man, particularly when the woman started throwing
things at him. The next time he pissed Joyce off, she might pitch one of her multicolored weights at him and crack his skull open.

Joyce owned her own business, a small marketing and research firm. The past year or two had been difficult due to the massive amount of competition she’d encountered from similar companies on the Internet, some firms as far away as Alaska. Formerly, she had relied on her interpersonal skills, drawing most of her clients from the local community. Many of these accounts had fallen by the wayside, since the great majority of what she did could be handled remotely.

His friends thought he was a fool for setting up housekeeping, then insisting on paying the majority of his girlfriend’s expenses. Most of his buddies had been married for years, though, and their wives ordered them around like drill sergeants. He certainly wasn’t going to take their advice. In addition, his married friends had no concept of how much time, energy, and money were involved in the process of dating. His law practice was thriving. So what if he spent a few thousand extra each month? All he was doing was buying himself a companion. Overall, it wasn’t such a bad situation, especially if a man had a tendency to get lonely. Slightly shallow perhaps, but since his relationship with Lily had ended, falling in love had not been at the top of his list of priorities.

“I wouldn’t complain if I didn’t care,” Joyce said. “Linda and Bill were sweet enough to take me out for Chinese. I left some vegetable chow mein in the refrigerator for you. If you skipped dinner, eating an apple isn’t enough.”

“I’m fine,” he said, wishing he could get in his car and drive back to Santa Barbara. Already he longed to hear Lily’s voice, gaze at her enthralling face, feel the rush of emotion that only she could generate. He couldn’t discuss his work with Joyce, reveal his innermost thoughts, banter back and forth without it turning into a full-scale screaming match. Even though he didn’t see eye to eye with Lily on every issue, their disagreements had always fallen more along the lines of a debate than a full-fledged argument. Although she wasn’t an ignorant woman, Joyce’s intellect paled in comparison to that of his former lover. Even with
Lily’s girlish freckles, she was a lightning bolt, a roller-coaster ride, a rare combination of femininity and masculinity. She had not only been his lover, she had been his friend.

“Linda’s trying to get pregnant.”

“Really?” Now that Joyce was no longer angry, Richard would have to engage in mindless chitter-chatter. With Lily there was no such thing. The woman didn’t open her mouth unless she had something meaningful to say. “How does Bill feel about having a kid?”

“He’s thrilled.”

“Are you sure about that?” Richard had been friends with Bill Gordon for years. On at least a dozen occasions he had sworn he would never have children. Since he’d already made a fortune in the restaurant business, he intended to travel and enjoy his success rather than take on the rigors of parenting.

“Everyone wants a family, Rich,” she said, stretching her arms over her head. “That’s why people get married.”

“Well,” he answered, “don’t forget that Bill was a late bloomer. He didn’t get married until he was forty-five. Everyone isn’t cut out to be a parent, you know. Isn’t Linda too old to have a kid?” As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. For all he knew, Joyce and Linda were the same age. Bill was certainly no youngster. His friend had already passed the half-century mark.

“Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Of course not,” he said, fearing another fight brewing. “I’m just trying to have a conversation with you.” Not once had Joyce expressed an interest in getting pregnant. For several months now, she’d been dropping all kinds of hints, not just about having a child, but subtly trying to manipulate him into marrying her. Greg was twenty-two and had received his degree in oceanography from the institute in San Diego the previous year. Richard had no intention of starting a second family at this stage of his life.

Heading to the master bedroom, he entered the walk-in closet to hang up his jacket. Joyce stripped off her exercise clothes and tossed on a robe. Then she followed him into the closet, wrapping her arms around his waist from behind. “You’ve been ignoring
me lately,” she said. “I thought we were going to spend a romantic evening together. Remember? You promised me last week. That’s why I was hurt when you came home so late.”

“Tomorrow,” he said. “Why don’t you make reservations at that Indian restaurant you like? I should be home by seven at the latest.” His conscience kicked in and he quickly added, “I’ll be here by six, okay?”

She circled around in front of him, opening the front of her flimsy negligee and pressing her breasts against his chest. “We don’t have to wait,” she said, smiling suggestively. “It’s not
that
late. Don’t tell me you’re turning into an old man on me.”

Richard felt like he couldn’t catch his breath. How could he have sex with Joyce? What if he couldn’t perform? More important, he didn’t want to have sex with Joyce. No matter how serious the problems surrounding Lily were, all the old feelings had returned. After only a few hours together he felt like a heroin addict in need of a fix. Now that he’d seen her again, he had to find out if there was a chance they could build a life together. Her winsome appearance, her angular yet feminine body, even her unpredictable outbursts—all were intriguing but they were not the fire that fueled him. Even her brilliance and unwavering dedication to her career were commendable yet unexceptional. The world was full of intelligent women, many who were far more accomplished than Lily. As fiercely as she upheld the law, one fact would always remain. Lily had killed a man and gotten away with it. Single-handedly she had tracked down and assassinated a hardened gangster, a man with no regard for human life. In addition, she hadn’t committed her crime under the cover of darkness. She’d shot him with her father’s shotgun in broad daylight on the sidewalk in front of his own home. Faced with the same circumstances, could he have done what Lily did? He hoped he would never have to find out the answer, but how could he not love a woman possessed of such amazing courage?