fall during the game, and I asked if I could help. She just about took my head off! She said she was fine, she didn’t need anybody. Then she jumped up and hobbled off.”
When I came out of the shower that night, Zack was already in bed, working on his laptop.
He patted the spot beside him on the bed. “Take a look at this,” he said.
I got into bed and slid over. The Care Bear website was on the screen. There were postage-stamp-sized pictures of each bear and, at the bottom, a note. I read it aloud. “Wherever the Care Bears go, and whatever the Care Bears do, in their soft, fuzzy, and funny way, they share their special gift of caring with everyone they meet.” I shuddered. “That makes my teeth ache.”
“Mine too,” Zack said. “But my job is to be Francesca’s advocate and her adviser. I’m supposed to understand what she wants and what she needs, and I haven’t got a clue.” He turned off his laptop and moved it to his night table. “I’ve been able to figure out ways to make justice serve the needs of psychos, sickos, and run-of-the-mill sons of bitches, but Francesca has me stymied.”
“What’s going to happen to her?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure I can convince the judge that locking Francesca up is not in her best interests or in the best interests of the community, but my client is going to have to control herself.”
“Has that been a problem?”
“Not in the courtroom – at least not yet – but there was another incident in the courthouse when we came back for the afternoon session.”
“What happened?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out. After I took Francesca back to the office to show her that her bears were safe, we had to deal with lunch – not a simple matter as it turned out. Francesca can’t eat indoors because the artificial light makes her head buzz, so Norine ordered some sandwiches for us to take to the park. Anyway, Francesca and I had a nice time, listening to the traffic and the birds. She was relaxed, and she was lucid. I thought she was in great shape to prove to the judge that she could live safely in the community.”
I hugged my knees to my chest. “So what went wrong?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Zack said. “When we were coming back into the courthouse, we ran into Ginny and Sean, and Francesca went nuts. She started screaming.”
“What was she saying?”
“Two things, over and over. ‘I know who you are,’ and ‘I know what you did.’ Sean tried to hustle Ginny away, but Francesca clawed at him. The security guy was on his way over. I didn’t want that, so I told Sean to get Ginny out of there. Once they were gone, Francesca calmed down.”
“Did you ask her why she’s so angry at Ginny?”
“No, because I didn’t want another outburst. But I did tell her that she was going to have to control herself if she wanted to keep living on her own on the street with her bears.”
“How
“Handouts. Her new neighbours give her money – guilt, I guess. The gentrification of the neighbourhood has pushed people like Francesca out of their little warrens.”
“So she gets by.”
“Yes,” Zack said. “She gets by.”
“And you’re acting for her pro bono.”
Zack met my gaze. “No, the file is being billed at the usual rate.”
“So who’s picking up the tab?”
Zack’s smile was wry. “I’ve been waiting for that question. If you’d asked me yesterday, I could have told you I didn’t know, and that would have been the truth.”
“But now you do know,” I said.
“Yes, Blake called just before you got home. He said you’d been by the office, and that you might bring up the subject of billing. Blake thought you should know that the person who was paying for Francesca’s defence was Cristal Avilia.” Zack shifted his body so we were face to face. “I know it’s hard to believe, but I honestly wasn’t aware of this till this afternoon.”
“How could you not know?” I said.
Zack shrugged. “Law firms have people who take care of billing. That’s their job. My job is to get the best possible outcome for my clients. Period.”
“And nobody ever told you that a woman you’d been intimate with was paying the shot for a case you were handling?”
“Blake was the only person who knew there was a connection between Cristal and me. As long as the money was handled according to Hoyle, it didn’t matter. Money laundering is a huge issue for law firms and for the Law Society, so we’re careful. If a client wants to pay cash, both the client and a representative from the firm have to sign the receipt. If a client pays by a cheque, a credit card, or debit card, the account number can be traced. And it’s not just the Law Society who has an interest in this. It’s us, the partners. The money for legal services has to be accounted for. If it isn’t, we breach our partnership agreement.” He looked at me hard. “Too much information?”
“No,” I said. “Not enough information. Blake brought the case to you, but you were the one who knew Cristal. Why didn’t she get in touch with you herself?”
“Because I’d stopped seeing her, and Blake hadn’t.”
“Blake was seeing Cristal too?”
“Yes.” Zack reached down and rubbed my foot. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“I don’t know what to say. Gracie was here this afternoon. The idea of her father spending time with a high- priced escort is pretty repellent.”
“You know what Blake’s marriage to Lily was like,” Zack said. “He had this aching love for her, and half the time he didn’t know where she was or who she was with.”
“So he found solace with Cristal.”
“Apparently.”
“And he was still finding solace with Cristal when she died.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Lily’s been dead for almost two years. Blake’s alone. He’s good-looking; he’s successful; he’s charming. Without even trying, I can name a dozen women who’d be delighted to be with him. Why would he still be paying for sex?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if he even had sex with Cristal.”
“Then what was he paying for?”
Zack dropped his eyes. “Intimacy? Blake’s relationship with Lily just about killed him. If he hadn’t had Gracie, I suspect he would have just checked out.” Zack ran his hand across his head. “Jo, I’m not a shrink. Blake and I are probably as close as two guys can be, but even when I could see that Lily’s infidelity was destroying him, I never brought up the subject.”
“So he carried all that inside him,” I said.
“Apparently not,” Zack said. “He told me this afternoon that he talked to Cristal about it. I guess he talked to Cristal about a lot of things. Go figure. Blake’s surrounded by people who love him, and he still has to pay for a friend.”
“Zack, did Blake say why Cristal paid for Francesca Pope’s defence?”
Zack’s face relaxed. “Actually, that’s a question I can answer. According to Blake, Cristal wanted to help Francesca because Francesca was being dicked around by men. Cristal said she knew what that was like.”
“So she was just being a good Samaritan?”
Zack shook his head. “No. Francesca wasn’t a stranger to her. There’s a little shed at the back of the warehouse next to Cristal’s condo. It’s one of Francesca’s favourite haunts. It’s abandoned, so nobody cares that she’s there.”
“Francesca and Cristal were neighbours.”
“Oh, I think it went beyond that,” Zack said. “According to Blake, Cristal gave him a very large retainer and told him she’d pay whatever it took to keep Francesca free.”
