The Secret Hour (29 page)

 
I wish. School isn’t my best subject. (Ha, ha again.) I’m not like Teddy who everything he touches turns to an A. Not just for effort, either. Teddy’s a genius, like our dad. And like Gramps. He’ll probably be a “brilliant legal scholar” too. Ho, hum. Get tired of hearing that phrase around here, because there are so many of them running around!

 
Me, I’m more like my mother. Except she liked to shop and I don’t, except for stuffed animals and books, and that I’m a tomboy and she was a beautiful model-type. She was, really. I’m not just saying that. Open any magazine, and the models you’ll see aren’t as pretty as my mom. Even the gorgeous-est ones.

 
I have new curtains.

 
Red-and-blue plaid ones. To make the room private so people can’t spy in from outside, to “protect my privacy”—like anyone would want to check out MY dumb bod! But Dad’s overprotective, and we love him for it, so no use fighting city hall! And this is only at Gramps’s—by the time we move back home, after some fairy godmother baby-sitter flits down from her pink cloud to grace us with before-and-after-school care, I’ll have new curtains there, too.

 
Dad seems very hepped up on this—probably ’cuz of the “slime”
^*
he defends. And the ugly tricks those bad guys play to get into all our living rooms.

 
Ever have a dad who’s a well-known defense attorney? Try it sometime!

 
Well, got to go brush my teeth. Teddy says hi. Dad does, too. I have to get your address from him, so when I mentioned it, he told me to tell you about the curtains, and to tell you to make sure you have some of your own down there in Washington. Do you know the president? Senators? Etc.? Must be cool; the ninth grade got to go down for spring vacation last year.

 
Maybe when I’m in ninth grade, I’ll get to visit you! Only a few years to wait…(boo-hoo.) Miss you, Kate. Wish you lived here—wish you were our fairy godmother baby-sitter instead of what Dad says you are, a marine conservation scientist. Although that sounds neat, too.

 
Thanks again for my scarf!

Love, Maggie O’Rourke

^*
footnote: I don’t call his clients “slime,” but half the world does! My friend Carlie’s mother says it every time I go to her house. Which is why I stopped going…Are you surprised I’m only twelve and use footnotes? Another thing about growing up with lawyers everywhere!

 
When Maggie asked Teddy if he’d drop off the letter to Kate at their father’s office to be addressed and mailed, he asked if he could add a P.S. Maggie said sure, as long as he didn’t read her part of the letter. Ever since Dad had hung those new curtains in her room, she’d become very into privacy—a fact that Teddy found endearing and hilarious. But writing to Kate, he made a point of covering up Maggie’s words.

Dear Kate,
(Teddy wrote)

 
How are you? How was your trip—or, as you said in your note to Maggie—your journey?

 
A journey sounds like something I would like to take. Planes, trains, boats…just to get on something and go away. Not that I don’t like my home—I do. Or that I don’t love my family—I do. But I think it’s important to go other places, too.

 
With that said, do you think I could visit you in Washington sometime?

 
I know we don’t know each other too well, but we had that talk about our sisters, and then you gave Brainer that bath. I knew you were special. Hope you don’t mind me saying that…

 
Anyway, I want to come to Washington someday, so I can visit the Supreme Court and my dad’s law school. No rush, but sometime when you’re not busy, maybe I could take the train down.

 
Kind of a start to a journey, right?

 
Anyway, hope you’re doing well. Say hi to Bonnie for me; Brainer needs another bath, and Maggie and I are going to take him to the car wash, like you did! Soccer’s done for the year. We finished second in our division, just ahead of Riverdale. Thanks for coming to that game.

 
Take care, Kate.

Your friend,

Teddy O’Rourke

 
Sitting in his office, John pulled Kate Harris’s card from his wallet. Regarding it, he wrote her office address on Maggie’s envelope. Then he placed the letter in his out box, for Damaris to stamp and send.

 
The sight of Kate’s name did something to John’s insides. He knew there was a large degree of guilt-induced paranoia involved: When would he get the call from the Connecticut State Police Major Crime Squad, that a woman had called with the news that John had implicated his client in her sister’s long disappearance?

 
But the feeling contained other elements—not linked to guilt of any kind—as well. John couldn’t get her kiss out of his mind. He was absorbed and obsessed with it, like a teenage boy who’d held a girl for the first time. The picture filled his mind twenty times a day: the dark parking lot, the light in Kate’s eyes, the knowledge they had just helped a family protect their child, the lightning bolt of lust that had overtaken him…

 
It was mad, and he couldn’t get rid of it.

 
Yesterday, sitting across from Merrill and Phil Beckwith, John had drifted off—to Kate and the kiss. Merrill said something, repeated it once, then again. With a smile in his voice, he’d then said,

 
“You’ve got it, haven’t you, John?”

 
“What, Greg?”

 
“A touch of the curse…or the gift…”

 
“What curse? What gift?”

 
“The obsession…you’ve met a girl! Go on, tell me, John. Share with me, as I’ve shared with you: You’re in love! I see it in your eyes.”

 
“Just tired, Greg,” John had said, lowering his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose, attempting to hide the jolt of alarm that coursed through him, knowing that Merrill could discern anything about him, that he would think he could relate to John’s feelings about Kate. “Overworked.”

 
Merrill had shaken his head, undeterred, the smile widening. He had tapped the table, to get the psychiatrist’s attention. “Obsession, Doctor: Am I right? Can you see it in his eyes?”

 
“You’re my subject today, Mr. Merrill,” Dr. Beckwith had said dryly without even a glance at John. “Not your attorney.”

 
“God is good!” Merrill had said, head thrown back in absurd joy. “He shows us the way, whether we ask or not…God is using me to show John, and using John to show me: We’re all the same under the skin. Our hearts beat alike, Dr. Beckwith. Obsession, by any other name, is just love.”

 
“Let’s get on with this,” John had interjected, his neck hot, his stomach upset, thinking that what Greg said was actually true—he couldn’t chase Kate’s kiss from his mind even here in Winterham Prison.

 
“Yes, Mr. Merrill,” Dr. Beckwith had said, unflappable and urbane as he leaned forward to smile. “Are you ready to do some good work here today?”

 
“Yes. I’m ready…”

 
“Let’s begin, shall we, with…” the doctor checked his notes, “Anne-Marie Hicks. Tell me, if you would, how you came to meet…and what happened next…”

 
John had risen to leave, to allow his client time alone with the eminent expert and their best hope for a mental disorder defense. Beckwith had worked miracles on other cases for John—but Merrill was really custom-made for his area of expertise.

 
Now, a day later, staring at Maggie’s letter in his out box, he was no further away from thinking about Kate’s lips on his.

 
“Good afternoon, Counselor,” came the gruff voice from the door to his office.

 
“Hey, Dad,” John said, rising to shake his father’s hand. “Come on in. What brings you downtown?”

 
“Had to stop by the pharmacy, get some medicine for Mae—
my
—bunions. Hurting like hell, they are.”

 
“Come on, Dad,” John said, grinning. “You’re shopping for Maeve. I know, so quit trying to hide it. What’s going on between you two, anyway? You can tell me.”

 
“Mind your own business, you whippersnapper,” his father said, trying to look stern but unable to keep from smiling.

 
“Okay, have it your way.”

 
His father nodded, glad that was settled. “I went to the courthouse, but there’s nothing going on today. Time was, not a day went by without some lawyer or another arguing a case. First me and my colleagues, later, others coming before me to be heard…”

 
“Those were the days, right, Dad?”

 
“Right, John. What about you? You still hung up with Merrill?”

 
“I wouldn’t say ‘hung up.’ We’re making progress.”

 
“How do your partners feel? Their star defense man tying up all his time on such thankless work?”

 
“In all honesty, they’re divided,” John said. Gesturing for his father to sit down in the Windsor armchair—bearing the seal of Georgetown in gold across the back—John leaned back in his desk chair. “Pretty much right down party lines. Those who oppose capital punishment are supportive, those who don’t are getting impatient.”

 
His father chuckled. “I can imagine. You’re a young buck, well known in the community, supposed to be bringing honor on the firm. Instead, you’re pissing off the whole state, trying to save a man no one wants to see saved.”

 
“I know.”

 
“They’re judging him for his crimes, missing the main point: He’s still a human being. He has the right to the best defense possible under law.”

 
“Try to get the brick throwers to see it that way.”

 
“I know, I know. It’s unfortunate you had to hang your hat on such a loathsome example. People round here all know someone who knows someone who knew one of those girls…”

 
John nodded, thinking of Kate. He thought of kissing her, and then he thought of what he’d told her. He felt himself redden, and his father caught him at it. Now he had the old man’s attention. His father stared, peering, waiting for John to speak.

 
“I did something…questionable,” John said.

 
“Yeah?”

 
John nodded slowly. Standing up, he walked across his office and gently closed the door tight. “I’m glad you’re here, Dad. I’ve needed to talk to you about something. Something important.”

 
His father tilted his head, just waiting.

 
John took a deep breath. His gaze took in all his diplomas and certificates, his gallery of family photos—from his parents’ wedding picture to his and Theresa’s, to Teddy’s first-grade photo, Maggie with her first tennis racket, both kids on their bikes at Paradise Ice Cream…

 
“I breached lawyer-client confidentiality,” John said.

 
His father’s eyes widened with surprise. The Judge puffed out his cheeks, nodded gravely, said, “Go on.”

 
“It wasn’t someone from court, no one previously connected with the case…”

 
“Merrill’s case?”

 
“Yes.”

 
John gazed into his father’s eyes, needing guidance, fearing disapproval. It was worth it to him to swallow his pride, get this off his chest and hear what his dad had to say. Another man might ask whether the indiscretion might come back to haunt him, but not John’s father. The issue of true—inner, spiritual, moral—culpability was much greater to the Judge than the possibility of being caught and punished—as it was to John himself. Still, he found himself answering as if his dad had asked the question.

 
“I don’t think she’ll tell…something makes me believe she’ll shield me.”

 
“A woman?”

 
John nodded. “The sister of a woman who’s missing. Been missing for six months…”

 
“A long time,” his father said with sorrow in his voice. “A very long time to be wondering.”

 
“Yeah,” John said. “That’s what I thought.”

 
“So, what’d you do?”

 
“We met,” John said. “In Fairhaven, Massachusetts—by accident. A huge coincidence. She had given me a tip that made me ask Greg Merrill about a place he’d been that wasn’t in the record—a story he’d never publicly told. I went there to check it out…”

 
“And so did she.”

 
“Right. Her sister had been there, too, around the same time, it seems.” John closed his eyes and saw the girl’s window, the candle-lit procession, and Kate’s river eyes. He felt the kiss again—he couldn’t help it. The feeling filled him, making him wish she was here right now, that he could do it again. He physically flinched, and he knew his father had seen. “I had to tell her,” he said. “I couldn’t let her go on wondering.”