Lisa Scottoline - Legal Tender

And as long as I could remember, she had been bitter, resentful. Then the resentment turned to a rage and the rage burrowed inside her and ate her up. That’s how I saw it as a child, even though they called it “bad nerves,” then a “nervous breakdown.” Later science entered the picture and the doctors decided my mother had an “electrolyte imbalance,” as if all she had to do was drink Gatorade. We went through medication, Pamelor, then Elavil, but she wouldn’t take either. She was getting older and harder to handle. We ran out of medication just about the same time we ran out of patience and money.

Though one uncle had sent the funds that supported us, the relatives who had been helping slipped away as I grew older, attriting for various reasons that all amounted to the same reason. Some died off, and at one point I wondered if that were the only way out. But before I knew it I was coping with it, getting two jobs after school and applying for aid for her. Meeting with the doctors, even as a seventeen year old, and eventually giving up on them because they had nothing to offer her, and changing her diaper myself.

Then I found Hattie and could breathe, for the first time. Went to college on scholarship, close by to Penn, then to law school, on half-scholarship. Graduated and made the money to keep alive the figurine in the bed. A little old Italian lady, but tough; like an aging hen, wasting, exhausted, but still fighting. I used to think she was fighting death. Until I realized she was fighting life.

“Bennie, Bennie, come quick!” It was Hattie, standing in front of the television in the kitchen. Bear turned, too, ears lifted at the alarm in her voice.

“What?” I closed my mother’s door.

“Look, on the TV. Isn’t that your law firm?”

I ran to the TV and froze at the image on the screen. A black body bag was being wheeled out on a steel stretcher and loaded into a black coroner’s van. The scene changed to the brick townhouse, then a close-up of the plaque that said Rosato amp; Biscardi. I turned up the volume, but somehow I couldn’t hear the news. Couldn’t bear to hear it.

“Mark.” Hattie pointed. “Somebody killed him.”

MOBILE CRIME DETECTION UNIT, it said on the boxy white and blue van parked in front of the townhouse. Police sawhorses and squad cars blocked the cobblestone street. A group of reporters pressed against the yellow crime-scene tape. I ducked the cordon and pushed my way to the door, showing my ID to the cops who tried to keep me from Mark.

By the time I got there he was long gone, they’d taken him for an autopsy. The thought of it made me sick. I couldn’t respond, couldn’t speak sensibly when the uniformed cop started asking me questions. Mark. I’d walked out on him. I’d cursed him. They would be the last words he heard from me.

“Come along, Ms. Rosato,” the uniformed cop was saying. “The homicide detectives want to speak with you.” He hustled me into the town-house as the press cameras clicked away.

It was a madhouse inside. Marshall was standing near the reception window, crying and hugging Amy Fletcher. Wingate slumped in aRIDIN ’THAT TRAINT-shirt on the sofa, his face wan, sitting next to Jennifer Rowland, whose cheeks were tearstained. Renee Butler was talking with Jeff Jacobs in the library, and looked at me oddly as the cop tugged me down the hall. I felt a strong arm pull on my shoulder from behind.

Grady Wells. “Are you okay, Bennie?” he asked. He was wearing his gray suit and print tie, and his eyes looked slightly red behind his glasses.

“Grady, Jesus.”

He tried to pull me out of the cop’s grasp. “I’d like to speak with Ms. Rosato for a minute, Officer.”

The cop yanked on my elbow on the other side. “Not now. Detective Azzic wants to see her.”

“This is firm business, which has to go on despite your investigation.”

“The detective’s been waiting-”

Suddenly Grady wrenched me free from the cop and hustled me back past a stricken Marshall. We banged through the door to her office behind the reception desk and Grady locked it behind us. “Bennie, listen,” he said. “Mark was stabbed to death last night. At his desk.”

“My God.” I sank down next to the telephone console.

“Now listen, they don’t have the murder weapon, they don’t have anything. They’ve been calling your apartment all morning. They want your fingerprints, they want to talk to you. Where have you been?”

“My mother’s.”

“What about last night?”

“I was the last to leave, I think. I locked up.”

“The murder took place around twelve o’clock, I heard the assistant M.E. talking. Where were you at midnight?”

“On the river, why?” I felt bewildered, almost dizzy. I was rowing when Mark was killed. I should have been here with him. I could have stopped them, whoever it was. “Who did this? Did they break in?”

“No. There was no forced entry and nothing was taken. The police think you killed Mark, Bennie. You’re the prime suspect.”

“What?” It came as a jolt, like an aftershock after the main quake. “Me?”

“The police want to question you, but you can’t go in without a lawyer. Let me represent you. I can do it.”

It was happening too fast. Mark, gone. Now this. “Grady, I don’t need a lawyer. I didn’t kill Mark.”

Boom, boom, boom! came a pounding on the door.

“Bennie, listen. Think,” Grady said, touching my shoulder. “You were the last one with him. You locked up, so whoever got back in either has a key or was let in by Mark.”

“That doesn’t mean I-”

“They’re questioning the associates, taking them down to the Roundhouse. They already questioned me, I was in early. Every associate told them about the fight you and Mark had. Wingate, especially, he heard it all. The cops know Mark left you for Eve and also that he wanted to dissolve R amp; B. You’re the one with the motive, and if you’ve got no alibi, we have a problem.”

I closed my eyes. How had this happened? My heart beat faster.

Boom, boom, BOOM!

“Wait a minute!” Grady shouted at the door. “Bennie, let me represent you. You can’t be questioned without counsel.”

“I can represent myself.”

“With the cops? Are you nuts? You cost the police department a fortune, heads rolled because of you. No, they’re loaded for bear out there. I’ll table my other clients, and when the cops charge you-”

“ Charge me?” I said, panic constricting my throat. “How can they charge me? What evidence do they have? Christ, I didn’t do it!”

“Bennie, focus,” he said, grabbing my arm. “You need help now, you’re in trouble. I haven’t done many murder cases but I know the facts inside out, and I can handle myself in any courtroom. I wouldn’t be a fact witness, anything I’d testify to, any associate could testify to. So hire me. I’m here and I’m ready.”

The doorknob twisted back and forth, jarring me into clarity.

“We don’t have a lot of time, Bennie. Say yes. Now.”

In a blink, I became the client, not the lawyer. I tried to listen to Grady argue with a uniformed cop, but I was disoriented, shaken by Mark’s murder and the police presence. The last time I’d had a uniform in my office was when I deposed him. Now it was me they were after. Everything was turned topsy-turvy. The world stood on its head.

“There’s no reason to question her at the police station,” Grady was saying, trying to persuade one Officer Mullaney, a martinet with a mustache.

“It’s not my decision, Mr. Wells. It’s up to Detective Azzic. He asked me to remain with Miss Rosato until he takes her downtown.”

“Ms. Rosato has clients to deal with, many of whom will have questions about the firm and their cases. She can’t be out of the office for the morning. She’s the only principal left in Rosato amp; Biscardi.”