Hold Still (9 page)

SEVENTEEN

October 7th

“Mommy, Mommy. Can I watch
Chicken Little
on the TV? Can I have chocolate milk in my cup? Can I eat soup for breakfast?”

At eight a.m. Jocelyn rose from bed bleary-eyed, mumbling “yes” to Olivia’s litany of demands as she made her way to the bathroom. Olivia stood before her as she relieved herself, clutching her little pink bear, Lulu, and telling Jocelyn about her dreams.

“There was a big spider and he liked to eat pizza.”

“Pizza?” Jocelyn exclaimed in a voice far more cheery than she actually felt.

Olivia smiled and nodded, swiping a brown lock of hair out of her tiny face. “Yeah,” she said, rocking her whole body up onto her toes and back. “He liked to eat pizza, and he was a pizza spider!”

“Pizza spider? Wow!” Jocelyn responded as she flushed the toilet.

“And he drove an orange car,” Olivia continued.

They brushed their teeth and hair and made their way downstairs, where Jocelyn flipped on the coffeemaker. As she waited for the pot to fill, she put
Chicken Little
on the TV, pausing momentarily to take in the latest breaking news on the Kaufman abductor. After a ten-hour standoff with Philly SWAT, he had put a bullet in his brain.

“There is a God,” Jocelyn said.

“What, Mommy?”

Jocelyn tousled Olivia’s hair and kissed the girl’s forehead. “Nothing, baby. Watch
Chicken Little
. I’ll fill up your sippy cup. How about an egg for breakfast?”

“Soup,” Olivia declared.

Jocelyn sighed. The kid was on a soup craze. It was almost the only thing she would eat lately. The pediatrician said it was normal for toddlers to be picky eaters, but Olivia defied pickiness. She went through phases where there was only one food she would eat. Jocelyn had never worked as hard interrogating a suspect as she had trying to convince Olivia to vary her diet. She offered Olivia a wide variety of food, but it all went uneaten. Last month, her food of choice was macaroni and cheese. This month it was soup.

“You had soup for lunch and dinner yesterday. Let’s have eggs for breakfast.”

A pout. “Soup.”

“Eggs,” Jocelyn said firmly.

Olivia studied her for a long moment, assessing just how far she could push Jocelyn on the egg issue. “Okay,” Olivia agreed finally. Then, “Can I color while I’m waiting for my egg?”

Jocelyn smiled. “Sure.”

Olivia ran to the living room and began pulling out her crayons and paper. Jocelyn busied herself in the kitchen, making Olivia’s egg and downing a cup of coffee. The doorbell rang. Olivia called out, “Mommy, Mommy! Someone’s at the door.”

Jocelyn set the egg on a Disney princess plate to cool and went to the front door. They didn’t get many visitors. She peered through the peephole while Olivia tugged on the hem of her T-shirt. “Who is it, Mommy? Who is it?”

“It’s Uncle Simon,” she said, opening the door.

Olivia squealed with delight and promptly hid behind the couch. Simon Wilde stood on Jocelyn’s porch. His suit was gray, his blue dress shirt open at the collar, revealing a few springy chest hairs. His black hair was nearly half gray—it had started going gray the day Jocelyn’s parents died. Although he was thin and nearing seventy, his long rangy limbs and Al Pacino face still made him imposing. Except to three-year-old Olivia, whose giggles increased when she heard his voice. Jocelyn opened the door, and Simon slipped past her.

“Where did Miss Olivia go? I was sure she lived here,” he said, scanning the room.

Olivia’s head popped up from behind the couch. Never one to stand anticipation, she said, “I’m here! I’m here!”

Simon’s face lit up. He chased her around the living room, finally catching her and scooping her into his long arms. He squeezed her and planted a loud kiss on her cheek before releasing her. Olivia made no move to escape. Instead, she tugged at his hand, urging him into the dining room to look at her toys.

Jocelyn positioned herself at the edge of the room, arms folded across her body. “What are you doing here?”

Simon gave her an impish smile—the one he’d been charming lady jurors with for almost forty years. When her father was alive, he and Simon had made a formidable team. Rush and Wilde was still one of the most feared and highly respected defense firms in Philadelphia. Jocelyn’s dad had been the intimidator, Simon the charmer. Hard and soft, yin and yang. Jocelyn hated to admit it, but she’d always secretly liked Simon better than her father. She’d loved her father, but he’d been a hard man, and after the business with the rape, she had lost all respect for him.

“I’m here to see my lovely niece and grandniece,” Simon said.

Jocelyn smiled wryly. “Please. I’ve never known a lawyer who didn’t have an ulterior motive.”

Simon laughed but didn’t respond. Instead, he folded himself down onto the floor and took the Lalaloopsy doll Olivia handed him. They were new to the toy market, thin-bodied dolls with giant heads and button eyes—derivatives of Raggedy Ann and Andy but made entirely of plastic instead of cloth.

Jocelyn motioned toward the kitchen. “Well, if you’re staying, you’ll have to eat an egg.”

Olivia looked at Simon with a serious frown, eyebrows drawn together, the skin at the bridge of her nose bunching. For a split second, she was the spitting image of Jocelyn’s mother. Simon saw it too. Jocelyn could tell by the sudden, unguarded look of sadness on his face.

“Uncle Simon, do you like eggs?”

With a quick glance at Jocelyn, he said, “I love eggs. I eat two eggs every morning for breakfast.”

Olivia beamed and jumped up and down. “Me too! Me too!”

An hour later, they’d eaten a half dozen eggs, played with every Lalaloopsy doll that Olivia owned, and moved on to crafts. Simon was knee-deep in Olivia’s creations. They’d devised a system where he made an origami figure and she colored it. They were everywhere—flowers, cranes, swans, butterflies, and pinwheels.

Eventually, Olivia grew bored and went back to drawing. She drew a series of princesses with butterflies and lollipops before moving on to mermaids.

“She’s very advanced for her age,” Simon noted.

Jocelyn smiled. She sat on the couch, legs tucked beneath her, cradling her third mug of coffee in her hands. It was strange to be home with Olivia and not be the one on the floor with her. But when Simon was around, Olivia didn’t even notice Jocelyn.

“So,” Simon said. “Have you seen Camille?”

“Last night,” Jocelyn said. “She got picked up for prost—for solicitation.”

Simon shook his head and made a noise deep in his throat.

Without looking up from her drawing, Olivia asked, “Mommy, what’s ’licitation?”

Simon looked alarmed. Without missing a beat, Jocelyn said, “Solicitation, honey. It means when you try to sell someone something.”

“Like the man at the Super Fresh?”

“Sort of. Solicitation is more like when someone comes up to you or comes to your house and tries to sell you something.”

“Like the ice-cream man?”

Jocelyn laughed. “Yeah, more like that.”

Simon let out a long breath and raised an eyebrow at Jocelyn. “Impressive.”

“She’s in Riverside,” Jocelyn said, referring to the Philadelphia prison system’s correctional facility for women.

“Well, I need to speak with both of you about your parents’ estate.”

Jocelyn held up a hand. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Simon looked around. As if for the first time, Jocelyn noticed the carpet peeling up in the corner of the living room, the subtle cracks in the ceiling, and the broken lock on the front window that she had wedged closed with a two-by-four. Things in ill repair. She barely registered them anymore.

“You could use the money,” Simon said.

Jocelyn ignored him. Simon’s lips pressed into a thin line. “There’s something else. Your mother asked me to—”

“Uncle Simon, Uncle Simon! Look! Look at this!”

Olivia pulled on Simon’s arm with all her might, drawing him closer. He leaned over her shoulder to see her newest drawing. “Wow,” he exclaimed loudly. “Olivia, that is very beautiful.”

Jocelyn leaned forward to look at the mermaid Olivia had drawn with pen and colored in with crayons. “Sweetie, that’s incredible.” She nudged Simon. “Look, she even drew shells where the breasts would be.”

Simon laughed. Olivia shot Jocelyn a serious look. “It’s a seashell bra, Mommy.”

Jocelyn nodded. “You’re right, honey, and you drew it so well.”

“We have to put it on the fridge,” Olivia said.

Simon’s cell phone chirped, and he slid it out of his back pocket to look at the screen. He frowned as he scanned the text message and quickly responded to it. “I have to get back to the office,” he said.

Olivia pushed the mermaid drawing in his face. “But first help me put it on the fridge.”

Simon stood up with difficulty, his knees creaking. He’d always been so energetic, so vital. It was strange for Jocelyn to see evidence of his advanced age. He wouldn’t be around forever. The thought made her heart heavy. She had so little family left. Still, she smiled as Olivia tugged him into the kitchen.

“Good luck finding room,” Jocelyn called after them.

Her fridge was almost entirely covered with Olivia’s artwork. Some days it was work finding the door handle. Jocelyn was unable to part with a single drawing. After a few hushed moments of rustling pages and magnets clattering to the floor, Olivia returned to the living room triumphant.

“Find room?” Jocelyn asked.

“Yep.”

Simon came in behind her, a cream-colored page in his hand, his left eyebrow arched severely. “So you did get my letter,” he said, handing it to her.

The letter was on heavy bond paper—Rush and Wilde letterhead. It had spent a month on Jocelyn’s fridge being buried by Olivia’s many drawings. Hidden but not forgotten. Simon slid his jacket on. “For God’s sake, Jocelyn, you need to come to my office and meet with me. There are things we need to discuss.” He glanced pointedly at Olivia, who was pressing buttons on the DVD player, trying to get
Chicken Little
to come back on for the second time that day. “Privately,” Simon added.

Jocelyn stared blindly at the letter. She didn’t need to read it again. She’d read it so many times, she could recite it word for word.

Dear Ms. Bishop:

Simon had crossed out
Ms. Bishop
and handwritten
Jocelyn
.

I am writing at this time to notify you that your parents’ assets have been liquidated after the sale of their home in Ardmore as well as their properties in New Jersey and the Poconos. The total value of their estate is $16,100,000.00. Your share of that is $8,050,000.00, which is presently in an estate account. Prior to making distribution to you and your sister, I must meet with you to discuss a codicil of your mother’s will. Please contact me upon your receipt of this letter to arrange an appointment to discuss the same.

Simon hugged and kissed Olivia good-bye. Jocelyn was still staring mindlessly at the letter when Simon bent to kiss her cheek. “Come to the office,” he said. “It’s important.”

EIGHTEEN

October 8th

Jocelyn arrived at work the
next afternoon with her ass dragging. Exhaustion tugged at every muscle in her body, making her limbs heavy and slow. Her eyes burned, and her broken wrist ached like something decrepit and arthritic. She hadn’t gotten home the night before until four a.m. She and Kevin had been out on a late call. She’d slept just long enough to have the nightmare again before whisking Olivia back to Martina’s house for the entire day so she could get to court by nine.

It was the part of her job most people didn’t realize was necessary. Court appearances. She and Kevin were scheduled to testify in a trial that week for an armed robbery case they’d closed over two years ago. The trial had started that morning, and, despite the prosecutor’s assurances that they would be put on for testimony the first day, they had waited all day in the hall of the Criminal Justice Center. The other witnesses’ testimonies had gone longer than expected. Kevin had spent the entire day sleeping upright on the benches lining the hall, snoring lightly. Jocelyn had tried to follow suit, but she’d never been able to doze in public places.

By three thirty, it was time to go to work for the evening. Jocelyn was tired and cranky that she had wasted an entire day that could have been spent with Olivia. Guilt made her stomach burn. Basically, she wouldn’t see Olivia for twenty-four hours; she hated days like that. She had already called Martina three times and asked her to put Olivia on the phone. She missed the kid like hell. Maybe later in the week she would take her somewhere special, like the Please Touch Museum.

Sighing, Jocelyn sifted through the paperwork on her desk. Kevin placed a cup of coffee in front of her. The scent immediately soothed her. He sat across from her at his own desk.

“You two look like shit,” Chen said as he passed.

He dropped a stack of phone messages next to Jocelyn’s coffee.

“No hard calls tonight,” Kevin called to Chen. “I want easy calls, like suicides.”

Jocelyn winced and looked up at Kevin. “What is it with you and suicides?”

Kevin shrugged. “What? No witnesses to track down. Very little evidence. No file to prepare for the DA. Come on—it’s easy.”

Jocelyn’s brow creased. “The families, Kev. It sucks telling the families.”

“You got issues, Sullivan,” Chen said.

“Me? Please. You all work here too. We all got issues.” Kevin waved a piece of paper in the air. Upon closer inspection, Jocelyn could see that it was an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch sheet of cream-colored paper encased in a plastic sleeve. “Speaking of suicide, this ain’t ours.” He thrust the paper in Jocelyn’s face. “This ain’t ours, right?”

It was fancy letterhead—thick woven paper, the lettering at the top embossed in maroon ink, much like the letter she had received from Rush and Wilde. Pricey. At the top it said, “From the Desk of Michael Pearce.” The name jolted her. She wondered immediately if it was the same Michael Pearce who had been involved in Camille’s rape. Some of the names of Camille’s rapists—like this one—were more common than others. She had seen a few Michael Pearces and some James Evanses during her career, but none of them were the same men who had raped Camille.

As a teenager, it had taken her some time to figure out who the five boys were, but it wasn’t difficult to do. One by one, their fathers showed up at the Rush home, looking shamed, repentant, and scared shitless. Each one spent more than two hours behind the doors of her father’s study. She knew them and their sons because four of the boys had been in her class. Only one of them was younger—in the class between Camille and Jocelyn. They were all popular, successful in academia and sports, headed for Ivy League colleges. One of them had already gained early admission into Harvard. They were all good-looking, neat, and put together. They were never without crisply pressed khaki slacks and polo shirts. They wouldn’t look wrinkled if you ran them over with your car. Some of them had spiky hair, but even that was flawlessly tousled. They were chiseled and perfectly proportioned. Strong chins, straight teeth. Tan in the winter, bronze in the summer, with shiny silver watches that weighed three pounds and cost more than Jocelyn made in a week. They looked like they should be lifeguards. They were the type of boys who grew up to be doctors, lawyers, and accountants. They had perfect lives, perfect wives, and dirty secrets. Jocelyn hated them.

They had traveled in the same circles as Jocelyn and Camille, although Jocelyn never saw them after that summer—the summer after Camille’s rape and Jocelyn’s accident. The summer when their own perfect family fell completely apart. Jocelyn had finished her senior year at home, having already been accepted into Princeton.

She’d stopped checking on them years ago. One of them was dead, killed by a drunk driver. One of them was in prison for murder. She had no idea what had become of the other three. Unless this was the same Michael Pearce.

Kevin rustled the stationery inches from her nose, drawing her attention back to the letter. It was a typed note but had been signed in pen.

Dear Mom: Things were not as they appeared. I promise you that. Please take all my money and the house. Take everything. Find a good home for Nibbles. All my love, Michael.

Jocelyn tried to swallow, but her throat felt like sandpaper.

“We didn’t handle this call, right?” Kevin asked.

Jocelyn shook her head.

Chen had weaved his way back to their desks, and he leaned over Kevin’s shoulder. “Oh, sorry,” he said. “That’s the guy who jumped off the Henry Avenue Bridge. Apparently, he was out on bail awaiting trial on child pornography charges. You’re right—that’s not yours. The mom is coming by to pick it up.”

“His mom?” Jocelyn croaked.

“Yeah, she needs it for something.”

Just then, Captain Ahearn stuck his head out of his office. “Sullivan, Rush. Get your asses in here,” he bellowed.

Relieved to have an excuse to get away from the creamy suicide note, Jocelyn jumped up. Her chair skidded backward and nearly fell over.

“Slow your roll, Rush! I’m not in that much of a hurry to get my ass handed to me,” Kevin said. He handed Michael Pearce’s suicide note to Chen.

Jocelyn muttered a “piss off” and made her way toward Ahearn’s office. Kevin followed close on her heels, his coffee breath on the nape of her neck. “We’re fucked,” he whispered. “This is about that SVU case. We shoulda let those assholes rot until SVU came.”

Jocelyn rolled her eyes. “Shut up,” she hissed as they crossed the threshold into Ahearn’s office. They stood side by side in front of the captain’s desk, like children in a principal’s office. Ahearn sat behind the desk in just his dress shirt, his suit jacket slung over the back of his chair. His office was even warmer than the detectives’ rooms and smelled like lemon. He studied his cell phone as he spoke to them.

“You guys handle a call for SVU the other night?” he said gruffly.

Beside Jocelyn, Kevin fidgeted, his feet shuffling back and forth. Jocelyn couldn’t read Ahearn’s tone. “Yeah,” she said.

“Well, we didn’t take it,” Kevin clarified. “The vic would only talk to Rush. SVU approved the interview—”

Ahearn cut Kevin off with a wave of his hand. Annoyance pulled the corners of his mouth down. “Lieutenant Vaughn called me personally to thank me for our assistance with the case, especially in light of the Kaufman thing. It was all hands on deck with that shit-storm. Anyway, he said you guys did good work.”

Jocelyn allowed herself a small sigh of relief. Kevin stilled beside her.

“Only thing he wanted to know is if you had anything else on.” Ahearn paused and looked at a pad on the corner of his desk where he had jotted down some notes. “Alicia Herrigan.”

“Hardigan,” Jocelyn corrected, drawing a sharp glare from Ahearn.

“Vaughn wanted to make sure you filed everything with your report,” he went on.

Kevin made a sound of exasperation. “Cap, we gave them what we had. It’s not our job to follow up on leads.”

Jocelyn elbowed Kevin sharply in the ribs, silencing him. “We’ll double-check our notes,” she said.

Ahearn stared at the two of them for a long moment with a look that said,
I don’t know what’s going on with you two, but knock it off.

“Fine,” Ahearn said. “But don’t keep wasting your time on an SVU case. We’re strapped as it is.”

“No problem,” Jocelyn said.

“Sullivan, Rush,” Chen called as they stepped out of Ahearn’s office. “I got a hospital case. Einstein.”

“We’ll take it,” Kevin said.