Turning Angel

“So would half the town. My so-called friends, especially. They want to express their sympathy. Right. Those jealous bitches are so giddy with glee they could just shit. ”

Ellen is clearly drunk. Maybe not on alcohol, though. Maybe it’s hydrocodone, as Drew warned me last night. Or maybe both. She flings an arm toward the street.

“Look at them! Vultures, every one.”

Across the street, the porch lights of two houses are burning brightly. Looking closer, I see neighbors standing in little knots in the yards, staring unabashedly at Ellen and me. I can’t make out Walter Hunt, but he must be there.

Ellen tosses the bow into the yard, takes two steps toward me, and gives me a withering glare. “Well? Is it true? Are you representing Drew?”

“I’m just trying to be a friend, Ellen.”

“A friend,” she says skeptically. “Yeah, I’ll bet. I know how you guys stick together. You probably knew about it all along, didn’t you?”

“About what?”

“Little Katie-poo, of course. The backstabbing slut.”

“Absolutely not.”

She gives me a knowing gaze. “Be honest, Penn. You didn’t sit around over a couple of scotches while Drew told you how great it is to squeeze a pair of seventeen-year-old tits again?”

“I had no idea anything like that was going on, Ellen. That’s God’s truth.”

She waves her hand dismissively and turns away from me. “Whatever. You’re probably doing Mia over at your place every chance you get.”

“What?”My face heats with anger. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Come on,” she says, looking back over her shoulder. “As much as Caitlin is out of town? I know these girls, Penn. I hear them talk. They’re nothing like the girls I went to school with. No guilt, no repression. Those days are gone, honey. These girls are the lucky ones.”

“How so?”

She gives me an intoxicated smile. “You know what the difference is between then and now, babe?”

“What?”

“These days, good girls do. ”

I hold up my hands in a beseeching gesture. “Ellen, I’m just here to offer any kind of help I can.”

She swings her head around and belly-laughs as though I’ve just told a dirty joke. “Get real, Penn! You’re here for damage control. Admit it. You want to know what I’ve told the cops, or what I might tell them tomorrow.”

Is that really the reason I’ve come? I wonder. I’d like to think I’m the gentleman that Jenny Townsend believes I am, but maybe Ellen is right. “I won’t deny I’d like to know that. It could have great impact on Drew’s future.”

Ellen grins slyly. “You bet your ass it could. He’s sweating it over there in jail, isn’t he?”

“Have you seen him?”

Another preening smile. “Yes, I have. And it was pretty goddamn satisfying. It’s a new experience for him, I’ll tell you that. Jail is about the last place our golden boy ever thought he’d wind up. But that’s where he belongs, if you ask me. It’ll give him a littleperspective. Remind him of what’s important in life.”

“Which is?”

“Family. Sacrifice. That’s what it comes down to in the end. You can do what you want to do, or you can do what’s right. And the two aren’t ever quite the same.”

“I’m not sure that’s always true.”

Ellen gives me a piercing look. “You know it is.”

“I was thinking of my wife.”

A shadow of regret crosses her face. “I’m sorry. Sarah was as good as they come. But Drew ain’t. I used to think he was, once. But he’s just like the rest of them.”

“The rest of who?”

“ Men,sugar.” A wild light flashes in her eyes. “When it’s all said and done, they only care about one thing.”

“What’s that?”

Ellen thrusts out her left hip and slaps her rump. “Dipping their wick in a piece of ass that’s attached to a smiling, subservient, and preferably young woman. And if not young, then different from what they’re used to. Capisce? ”

Her gesture has caused one surgically enhanced breast to fall out of her housecoat. When she sees me looking, she does nothing to cover herself. “See what I mean?” she drawls. “Nothing stirs a man’s loins like a little strange, right, Penn? Oh, I know the story well.” She covers herself with a jerk of her gown and surveys the wreckage of her husband’s possessions.

“Ellen, if you want to be crude about this, let’s be crude. What happened to you and Drew is simple. He was unhappy, and his dick led him astray. You’re worldly enough to understand that.”

“Oh, I understand that all too well. I went astray myself one night in Jackson with a darling little tennis pro.” Her eyes flicker at a memory that cuts through her chemical haze. “But that’s not what this affair was about. No, sir. This was love, capitalL-U-V. Didn’t Drew tell you? This was soul mates, poetry-and-candle-light, I-want-to-have-your-baby-and-do-mission-work- together-in-Peru stuff.”

Drew, you stupid asshole,I curse silently. Couldn’t you keep your mouth shut? Did you think you’d confess your secret dreams about your mistress, and your wife would understand? Like many men who have come to the point of needing a lawyer, Drew Elliott is his own worst enemy. And thanks to him, there’s not much I can accomplish here.

“Ellen, let me just say this. Because of Kate’s death, Drew’s smallest actions-and yours-could have far more serious consequences than you might imagine. We’ve got a politically motivated district attorney who’d like nothing better than to convict a rich, white doctor for murder.”

“Yes, we do,” Ellen drawls. “That black boy is definitely hungry for some white meat. And he’s got his eye on Drew, all right. He already asked me to come down and talk to the grand jury.”

My blood pressure plummets. “What did you tell him?”

“I’d think about it.”

“Did Shad threaten to subpoena you?”

“He’s not that stupid. Shadrach was sweet as pie, honey. He knows he can’t force a wife to testify against her husband.”

A wave of relief rolls through me, but Ellen instantly dashes it. “Don’t look too secure. Shad may not have to worry about that problem too much longer.”

I don’t want to encourage her by asking, but I have no choice. “Why not?”

“Tomorrow I’m driving up to Jackson and hiring the meanest divorce lawyer in the state.”

“Ellen, you don’t-”

“Don’t what?” She cocks her perfectly plucked eyebrows. “Do you have a comment, Counselor? Do you think I’m un justified in this course of action?”

I shake my head slowly. “It’s your life. I’m just sorry to hear this. I think something brought you and Drew together all those years ago, and there has to be something left of that. Tim, at the very least.”

For the first time I see tears in her eyes, little silver drops that she quickly wipes away. “I used to think there was,” she says in a hoarse voice. “But I was a fool. And whatever hope I had left, Drew just crushed in about as public a way as he could. I couldn’t go back to him now if I wanted to.”

“Ellen-”

“Don’t talk to me about swallowing my pride for Tim’s sake! I don’t like the taste of it! I’m not going to watch Drew mourn that little bitch for the rest of my life. Timmy’s better off with me alone than with a father who’d run off with his goddamn babysitter.”

There’s nothing more to be said. Ellen is dead set on a scorched-earth campaign, and the only thing that could