Tuesday’s Child

all of Sophie’s plans for the future. The main plan was relocating and putting down roots someplace where she would be at peace.

Hawaii was that place, Sophie said. But it was so far away. An ocean away, thousands of miles away. There was no way she’d be able to call Sophie and meet for some girl talk. Of course, she could use the Webcam, e-mail, and phone, but it wouldn’t be the same. They would still be thousands of miles and an ocean away from each other. A tear formed in the corner of Patty’s eye, then rolled down her cheek. She brushed at it. No time for tears. Today was a happy day. And it was Tuesday!

The last time she’d spoken to Sophie she’d said the charter flight she engaged had to be canceled because of a family crisis of some sort with the pilot’s son. Sophie said she thought the boy had to have an emergency appendectomy, and she was okay with the delay because the earliest the pilot could commit to was Tuesday, today. Everything happens for a reason, Sophie had said happily. “Remember, I’m Tuesday’s Child.” Like she or any of the others could ever forget that fact.

Patty looked down at her watch. Time for what she hoped was the last meeting of her six-man investigative group. She’d file her last report with Kala and move on. With Sophie’s return, Kala said they would be able to wrap it all up.

Already, the Sophie Lee v. Ryan Spenser articles were relegated to the back pages in the papers. There were too many disasters in the world to keep Spenser in the foreground.

Patty sighed as she picked up a pile of folders and headed to the conference room, which could accommodate twelve people easily at the one-of-a-kind teak table Kala had had specially made in Hawaii and shipped to Atlanta.

Patty poured a cup of coffee from the sideboard and settled herself to wait for the others as she was eight minutes early. In less than three hours, she was going to see Sophie, her best friend in the whole world.

Her thoughts were all over the map. She’d been offered a job with Fox News, and she was a hair away from signing on. Her old boss had sent one of his underlings to her house two days ago, asking her what she wanted, to avoid the lawsuit Jay had filed against the paper. She’d gotten such perverse pleasure flipping him the bird and reminding him that anything he or his boss had to say to her had to be transmitted through her lawyer, and she would certainly tell her lawyer about this improper communication.

What will be will be, she thought. The suit, a judge had ruled, had merit. Discrimination of any kind had to be taken seriously. In the past three days, she’d received numerous phone calls from other fired female employees asking to join her suit. She’d turned them all over to Jay, who was working diligently on the case. She knew that sooner or later, it would all be settled out of court; those things always were. She was okay with that because, for her, it wasn’t about the money, it was about accountability. She, along with all the kids at St. Gabe’s, had been taught that you own what you do, take responsibility. She lived by that rule.

The door opened, and Team Patty, as the group referred to themselves, trooped into the room, plopped down, and gave a collective sigh. All six of them looked weary, their eyes bloodshot, their hair mussed, their clothes wrinkled.

“We’ve been working around the clock to meet your deadline, Patty,” Rob said. “If you hold on a minute, I’ll give you everything we have. Bill, give me a hand, will you?”

Patty watched in awe as the two young men wheeled in two dollies with boxes lined to the top, ten in all.

“These are all the old cases that Ryan Spenser either prosecuted himself or oversaw for his ADAs. In the top box on the second dolly are the affidavits of the different defense lawyers who are out there spinning their wheels hoping to get some of their convictions overturned. It’s not going to happen. There are no irregularities, and we had six pairs of eyes going over these cases with a fine-tooth comb. Sorry for the cliche, but Spenser is as pure as the driven snow. We told you the same thing about the Sophie Lee trial, but you didn’t want to believe us,” Rob Pope said.

“Can we go now? We haven’t had a wink of sleep in three days, and no showers either, and we’re a bit gamey,” Bonnie said.

“You can turn all this over to your licensed investigators to handle now. We made it easy for them by writing a detailed summary of every single case,” Rob said.

Chairs were pushed back, and the six law students prepared to leave the room. “You just ruined a guy who gave his all to the system, you know that, right?” Beth snarled. “You and the goddamn media. You all think you’re God! Tell us all, because we want to know, how does Ryan Spenser get his life back? He did his job, and did it better than any prosecutor we came across, and he’s been vilified. This whole thing damn well stinks!”

The door closed with a bang behind the students. Patty sat for a long time, just staring at the stacked boxes. She felt sick to her stomach. She wondered what Kala was going to say. What could she say, when it came right down to it? She tried to drown out her thoughts by thinking of Sophie’s arrival, but Sophie was suddenly taking second place in her mind.

Patty reached for her cell phone and called Kala, who had elected to stay home to make Jay happy. She answered on the fifth ring. “You are interrupting my bubble bath, Patty,” Kala said before Patty could even identify herself. Caller ID, in her opinion, was a curse. She liked the element of surprise as to who was on the other end of the phone.

“No one I know takes a bubble bath at two o’clock in the afternoon. Please don’t tell me you have scented candles burning and are drinking wine,” Patty retorted.

“Well, since you guessed what I’m doing, then I don’t have to confirm or deny it, and I know at least one other person who takes bubble baths at this hour. Why are you calling me anyway?”

Patty told her why. Kala was silent for so long, Patty had to prod her to see if she was still on the line. “I heard you. I’m thinking. Do me a favor. Call Spenser’s house and ask him if I can stop by. Tell him I need to discuss something important. Forty-five minutes. He doesn’t live far from me. And no, he is not hiding out, although I wouldn’t blame him if he was. Don’t worry, I’ll be at the airport in plenty of time to meet Sophie with you all.”

“Kala, did you finish going through the journals?”

“I did last night. Why do you think I’m taking a bubble bath at two in the afternoon? I didn’t even go to sleep last night. There’s nothing there. We need the last and final journal, and it’s nowhere to be found.”

“Maybe we’ll never find it, Kala,” Patty said, sadness ringing in her voice. “Who is the other person who takes a bubble bath at two in the afternoon?”

“Jay, and he likes blue cypress and lavender bath salts because they calm the nerves,” Kala said as she broke the connection.

“Oh,” was all Patty could think of to say, but she made a mental note to buy some blue cypress and lavender bath salts.

Patty eyed the boxes in front of her before she swiveled her chair around to peck at the phone console. She pressed Jay’s extension and waited. “All the files are in the conference room. Your licensed investigators can have them all now. But be warned, there is nothing in them. Spenser did absolutely nothing wrong. I called Kala and told her. She asked me to call Spenser to tell him she’s on her way to his house, and I’ll do it as soon as I hang up. Then I’m going home to shower and change. I’ll see you all at the airport.”

Ryan Spenser opened the door and stared at Kala, who was wearing a red hibiscus over her left ear and a white one over her right ear. “Covering your bases, eh?” he said, grinning.

“Sort of, kind of. Damn, it’s hot out there. You got anything cold to drink, Spenser?”

“I do. Name your poison.” He grinned again.

“How come you’re so chipper?”

Spenser shrugged. “The weight of the world is off my shoulders. I’m a free agent for the first time in my life. I like the feeling.”

Kala eyed the man who had been her adversary for so many years. It still stunned her that she actually liked him. She smiled at his attire: cargo shorts that were frayed at the hem, a stretched-out T-shirt that said he was a member of some fraternity whose letters were all but washed out. He was barefoot and hadn’t shaved. She liked this new Spenser. Even though he was smiling, his teeth didn’t look so polished. They just looked like he had a good dentist.

“Sun tea. I make it myself.” Spenser reached into the freezer for two glasses that had frost all over them. Kala thought they looked like beer mugs.