Courting Trouble

bothered.

If the light had been out in the entrance hall, there would have been no illumination on Willa when she went to answer the door. If the living room light had been on, which it probably was at night—since Willa had evidently been sitting in the living room, watching TV and drinking something—the light from the living room would backlight her, at best. Willa would be a silhouette when she answered the door, and one that was the same size and shape as Anne. In Anne’s shirt.

Anne gazed at the scene in her mind’s eye, heartsick. It all made sense, now. Kevin had shot Willa, thinking he had shot Anne. He still might not know that he had killed the wrong woman. She had been right to play dead. She felt both relieved and horrified. But how had Kevin gotten out of prison? Was it possible it wasn’t Kevin? She rose bewildered from bended knee and stood staring at the spot, her thoughts coming around to Mel. Had Kevin taken him? Where could he be? Then she remembered a place the cat hid when the gas man came.

“Mel! Mel!” she called out, then turned around and hurried upstairs, into her bedroom. He wasn’t on the bed but the louvered door to her closet lay partway open.

“Mel?” Anne ran over and slid open the door at the same moment as she heard an indignant meow. Mel had been sleeping among the Jimmy Choos and was stretching his front legs straight out.

“SuperCat!” Anne scooped him up, and his warm throat thrummed in response. She teared up at the softness of him, though she knew her emotions had only partly to do with his recovery. “Let’s get outta here,” she said, her voice thick. She left the room but the cat stiffened when they reached the top of the stairs.

“It’s okay, baby,” she soothed, but then she heard the sound of footsteps on the front stoop, outside her house. Then the metallic jiggling of the knob on her front door.

She stopped at the top of the stairs. Somebody was at her door. She edged backward, out of the line of sight.

Right before the front door swung wide open.

6

Anne stood in her second-floor hallway, scratching Mel to keep him quiet and listening to the shuffle of feet below. It sounded like a crowd, and she hoped it wasn’t the mobile crime unit. She could hear the noises of holiday traffic coming in through the open doorway. Whoever had come in the door must have been standing in the entrance hall, where Willa had been killed. Then she heard a man’s voice:

“It looked pretty clear to us, from the spatter pattern on the east wall, here, and against the entrance-hall door. Typical full-force spatter, from the shotgun. See, here, on the frosted glass? And the floor. The rug.”

Shit! He sounded like a cop or a detective, and Anne drew away from the stairs, hugging Mel. As much as she wished she could go to the police and tell them everything, she would never do that again. They hadn’t been able to protect her last time, and she couldn’t forget the image of a steel gun-barrel pointed at her.

The detective was saying, “The young lawyer, Murphy, answers the front door. The shooter hits twice, two shots to the face. She falls in the entrance hall. The shooter drops the gun and takes off. He leaves the front door open. He’s gone. He’s outta there.”

Upstairs, Anne felt vaguely sick and clutched Mel, for comfort this time. She had been right about the way it had happened, but it was so awful to contemplate. Poor Willa.

A woman spoke next. “He dropped the gun? This guy’s no dummy.”

Anne felt a start of recognition at the voice. It’s Bennie Rosato. What’s she doing here? She’d never been in Anne’s house before, even though she lived less than five minutes away. But Bennie visited the crime scene in murder cases she defended. It was the first step in any investigation, to meet the arguments of the prosecution and build the defense case. So why was she here?

The detective again: “Yeh, he’s good. Ballistics has the gun. They’ll check it for prints, but that’ll take days, given the holiday. Fourth a July weekend, we had to dig to get anyone at all. My guess is it’ll turn up nothin’.”

“I agree,” Bennie said. “This guy had this planned. Perfect timing, perfect execution.”

“No pun,” added another man, with an abrupt laugh.

“What did you say?” Bennie demanded.

“That’s not funny,” chorused another voice, a woman’s.

Another surprise. It was Judy Carrier. She must be down there, too. Judy had never come to Anne’s house when she was alive; she had turned Anne down every time she asked her to lunch. And if Judy was down there, then so was Mary, because they were joined at the hip. Anne almost laughed at the absurdity. Bennie, Mary, and Judy in my house? What provoked all this sudden interest in my life? My death?

“I won’t waste my time teaching you manners, Detective,” Bennie said coldly. “Your apology is accepted. But I want you to know that Anne Murphy was in my care. She was my associate. She moved here to work for me and she was killed on my watch. I told her mother I’d take care of her, and I failed.”

Told my mother? What? When? Anne was astounded. How had Bennie found her mother, much less spoken to her? And why? What was going on here?

“I’m sorry, Ms. Rosato—”

“Not sorry enough. Hear me—holiday or no holiday, you better find who murdered Anne Murphy before I do.”

Upstairs, Anne felt stunned. Bennie was going to do what? Why? Anne could count on one hand the number of conversations she’d had with Bennie Rosato during the entire year she’d worked for her.

“Now, tell me you surveyed the neighbors,” Bennie was saying.

“Last night and this morning. Nobody saw anybody running down the street from the house, or anything suspicious at all. Everybody was either at the Party on the Parkway, or out of town, avoiding the Party on the Parkway.”

“May I have the specifics?” From below came the sound of papers rustling, and Anne guessed that Bennie was pulling out a legal pad, and the detective his notes. But Anne couldn’t get over what she’d already heard. Told my mother she’d take care of me?

“Here goes. House number 2255, Rick Monterosso, not home, he’s the neighbor on the east side. House number 2259, Millie and Mort Berman, neighbors on the west side, not home either. The couple across the street in 2256, Sharon Arkin and Rodger Talbott, the same. 2253, no answer at door last night or this morning, possibly out of town. 2254, the Kopowski family, out to dinner at Striped Bass. 2258, the Simmons, they were at the Parkway and didn’t get home until after the murder.”

“So both next-door neighbors were out. Who called 911 on the gunshots? If the door was open when he shot her, which it had to be, then the shots would be heard easily down the street. And it’s not a big street.”

“People musta thought it was firecrackers. We only got the one 911 call, guy named Bob Dodds, in 2250. I interviewed him last night, and that’s all he knows.”

“But you have at least the one good lead, don’t you? Kevin Satorno, the stalker. If he’s out of prison.”

What?! How did Bennie know about Kevin? Anne almost gasped. She hadn’t told anyone in Philly about him. She had wanted to put the past behind her when she moved here, and had kept him a secret. Nor had she breathed a word about Kevin in her interview with Bennie. She wanted the job and didn’t want to seem like the kind of loser who dated psychos. So how did Bennie find out? Anne felt completely bewildered. Mental note: It’s confusing to be alive after your own death.

Bennie was saying, “Given what I read in the court file, if Satorno is out, he has to be the number-one suspect. He tried to kill her once. He may have escaped and tried to kill her again. It’s a no-brainer. I had the case file hand-delivered to you. Did you read it?”

“I read the file, of course,” the detective replied, testy. “I called the DA in charge in Los Angeles. I’m waiting on the call back, but it’s Fourth a July in California, too, Ms. Rosato. He’s on vacation.”

“They told me that, too, but they wouldn’t give me his number in Hawaii. Do you have it?”

“I didn’t ask. He’s on vaca—”

“I don’t get something. Kevin Satorno is a state prisoner in California. How hard can it be to find him?” Bennie laughed without mirth. “You’re supposed to know where he is, at least most of the time.”

Give ’em hell, Bennie. Anne felt heartened. She went to the banister and peeked