Joel Goldman - Motion to Kill

“I don’t want to go to the police until I’m certain,” Mason continued. “There are a few details about Richard’s past that I need to clear up. Let’s talk in the study.”

Mason led the way, not giving her the chance to object. He hoped that taking charge in her own house would keep her off her guard. The study reeked of Pamela’s long night. She didn’t smoke. Mason wondered who did.

The sofa cushions had been left in casual disarray, with two of them piled at one end. Pamela sat on the sofa, holding a cushion in her lap, her arms wrapped around it. Mason chose the wingback chair opposite the sofa, setting his jacket next to the ornamental letter opener on the small table next to the chair, the Bible tucked inside the jacket.

A dark walnut butler’s table separated them, adorned with an empty wine bottle and two glasses turned on their sides. Two streaked glasses, one with lipstick on the rim. He pretended not to notice. It wasn’t any of his business if Pamela skipped the grieving-widow stage and jumped into friendly arms.

Pamela squeezed the cushion in her lap as if she were trying to pull herself inside it. She hadn’t uttered a sound since he’d told her why he was there. Not even a monosyllabic “Who?” The silence was so puzzling that he decided to wait her out and make her ask him who did it.

Smiling at Pamela, Mason stood and began a quiet survey of the books lining the shelves behind Sullivan’s desk. He had a theory that you could learn a lot about a person by the books they kept. Some people kept them for show, while others intended to read them someday, though they never would. Still others read them, loved them, and took comfort in being around them. The bindings on Sullivan’s books were crisp and virginal. Having them was what counted. Not knowing them.

Mason stopped in front of a volume half-hidden by the vertical molding at the end of the middle shelf. The top half of the letters in the title was visible enough along the book’s spine that he could read Rogersville H.S. 1973 Yearbook . He sat down in Sullivan’s desk chair and began leafing through the book. Pamela was still mute.

“Did you and Richard get back to Rogersville very often?” Mason asked, looking at Pamela as she rocked back and forth on the sofa. Her eyes bore down on the intricate pattern in the Persian rug as if the answer could be divined in the weave.

“Pamela, over here,” he said, breaking her spell. She jerked her head up and raised her lids halfway in his direction. “Did you and Richard get back to Rogersville very often?”

“Not in years.”

Mason found Sullivan’s senior class picture and index of achievements. Crew cut, shiny cheeks, cocked, arrogant smile, head tilted at a jaunty angle. Look out, world, here he comes. Lettered in track and cross-country. Choir. Junior Achievement.

“Why not?”

Flipping through the pages, Mason ran his finger under the names beneath the pictures, stopping at Meredith Phillips’s photograph. Pageboy, wide nose, wider face, crooked smile, square chin. Unremarkable, yet vaguely familiar. Home Economics Club.

“No reason to,” she said to the floor. “We wanted out.”

The girl in the photograph next to Meredith’s had long dark hair tucked behind her ears, bangs pulled across her forehead, oval face with perfectly aligned teeth, dimpled cheeks. Cheerleader, Homecoming Queen. Pamela Phinney. Mason looked up. There was no doubt. Pamela Phinney Sullivan lay back against the couch, her eyes raised to the ceiling.

“You knew Meredith Phillips?”

“We were best friends,” she said softly.

“And you didn’t know about the baby?” Some best friend.

“Best friends in high school-not later.”

“What happened?”

“She and Richard dated all through school. No one could figure it out. Great-looking guy and the homely girl.”

“No competition. Maybe Richard was insecure in spite of his good looks.”

“Maybe. Anyway, she was a small-town girl. Richard and I couldn’t wait to escape.”

“And you ended up with Richard.”

“I chased him for four years in high school. That’s why Meredith and I were best friends. She kept me close to Richard. Back then, he was loyal. But I got him in the end.”

“But not before he and Meredith had one last stroll around the park.”

“No-not before.”

“And you didn’t know about the baby until I told you yesterday?”

She hesitated an instant before answering. “Not before-”

“Not before what?” Diane Farrell asked, one hand on her hip, the other on the entry to the study. She was wearing a half-buttoned man’s pajama top that fell to mid thigh and, nearly as Mason could tell, nothing else.

Pamela paled and shook at Diane’s appearance, growing smaller behind her pillow. “Diane-please don’t do this to me.”

Smiling voraciously, Diane walked toward her. “Pamela dear, I told you last night that I wasn’t like the society lesbians you cheated on Richard with.” She stood in front of Pamela, reaching down and stroking her hair. “You didn’t tell me we were having company for breakfast.”

“I was in the neighborhood.”

“Pamela, you’re ruining my new dress under those pillows.” She reached behind a cushion and extracted the wrinkled dress Pamela had given her on her birthday.

“Please, Diane-no,” Pamela managed, her lips barely moving, her face downcast.

“But, Pamela, it’s all I’ve got to put on. After all,” she giggled, “I didn’t pack my overnight bag.”

She shook the wrinkles out of the dress and looked at Mason again. “If you don’t mind, Mason. I’m a little modest around men.”

Nodding, he stood and turned his back, placing the yearbook on the credenza behind Sullivan’s desk. Trusting that Diane had her eyes on Pamela, he set his smart phone down and turned on the voice-recording app.

“Okay, Mason, you can turn around. I’m decent.”

“Not by half,” he said as he pushed Sullivan’s desk chair back, blocking her view of the credenza.

“Mason,” she said, sticking out her lower lip in a mock pout, “I sense your disapproval. How provincial. This is the new millennium.”

“Leaving someone their dignity never goes out of style.”

“Noble horseshit. Now, tell me what you and Pamela were talking about. She seems to have lost her spark. Probably needs a drink to get her motor going.”

“I was asking her if she knew where you worked before you came to the firm.”

“You came here at eight o’clock on Sunday morning to ask Pamela about my work history? You can do better than that.”

“Actually, I’ve taken up genealogy. I’m trying to figure out if pathological behavior is a generation-skipping phenomenon.”

He returned to the wingback chair and picked up his jacket. She held her ground by the sofa, warily appraising his comments, calculating her response. Pamela’s muted sobs were buried in her pillow, the undercard to the main event about to begin.

“In that case, my family wouldn’t interest you.”

“Why not?”

“Every generation has been pathological,” she said without a trace of humor.

“Tell me about them. Maybe I’ll change my approach.”

“Oh, Mason, you’re being so coy. Why don’t you ask me what you really want to know?”

Diane sat next to Pamela, draping her arm around her. Pamela froze at the gesture, then shook her off and stood, smoothing her robe and glaring at Diane, who smiled serenely in reply.

“You should leave her alone,” Mason said to Diane.

“She’s a big girl. She can make her own choices.”

Pamela moved to the windows and turned to look at Mason, her eyes searching the room as if to find someplace else to go. Diane smiled at her like a mother encouraging her shy child. Pamela sighed and made her way back to the sofa, accepting Diane’s outstretched hand.