Lisa Scottoline - Legal Tender

“Read to me. Read to me. Read to me.” She began to tear at the Kleenex. “Now. Now. Now.”

“Well, today she found out that the man she loved was murdered,” I said, and told the whole story. She muttered throughout, not listening to anything I said, and if the truth be told, I didn’t listen to her either.

It was Hattie I was thinking of.

Later, I stood in the middle of my living room with Bear, listening to Sam’s worried voice on my answering machine. He’d called five times to see how I was, his messages interspersed with the reporters’, but I couldn’t return his calls just yet. I was assessing the damage wrought by Hurricane Azzic.

The apartment was messier than even I liked it. Books had been torn from the shelves and spilled onto the rug. The contents of a drawer had been dumped on the coffee table in front of the TV and the stack of CDs had been rifled. The couch pillows, upended, lay on the floor next to the remote control. At least the cops had managed to find the remote. It must’ve been in the couch. It’s always in the couch.

I stepped through the rubble into the kitchen with Bear at my side. Pots and pans littered the counters. An open box of Müeslix lay on its side and the kitchen drawers hung open. Fingerprint dust covered the counters and cabinet doors. Bear sniffed around, much as the cops had before her. What were they looking for? Mark had never even lived here, he’d always kept his own place. Why did they do this? Because they could.

The worst was the bedroom. I stood in the portal, taking it in. My bedclothes had been stripped and the mattress showed an old menstrual stain the size of a calf’s liver. Christ. I imagined the cops joking over that.

I went to my bureau. My underwear drawer was in total disarray, invaded by unseen hands. The other drawers had been searched, too. Sweaters tumbled with T-shirts; pantyhose and socks were intertwined, half on the floor. Rowing gear had been jettisoned. My photos of Mark were gone, as were his early love notes and Valentine’s Day cards. Even my diaphragm was missing. Terrific. Exhibit A.

I crossed over the debris to the closet, where it was more of the same. Suits had been trashed, even my silk dresses ended up on the floor. My shoes were piled in a mound. It was a nightmare, even for a slob.

I sighed, kicked off my pumps, and padded into the bathroom. A jar of Lancôme moisturizer was open, the costly creme churned up by a grubby finger, and the toothpaste was squeezed out into a turquoise squiggle. The door to the medicine cabinet was ajar; the aspirin and other pills had been uncapped and presumably gone through. I plopped onto the closed toilet seat and slipped the papers out of my jacket pocket; a search warrant, a list of what had been seized, and an affidavit of probable cause. I remembered affidavits as long as these from the old days. Now my name was on the caption.

Bear settled onto the cool tile floor and looked up questioningly, so I read aloud: “‘Letters and correspondence, personal computer and diskettes, office supplies, files of household bills and the like, articles of clothing.’” I assumed this referred to the outfit I was wearing the day Mark was murdered, for fiber samples. Also all the clothes in the hamper, since police like that for evidentiary as well as shock value. Going through your dirty laundry, literally.

The list continued. “‘Shoes and sneakers, overcoats and topcoats, and certain jewelry items as follows,’” and they catalogued every piece of jewelry I had, most of which was my mother’s. They even took her engagement ring, a diamond chip from a man who didn’t stick around for the wedding.

“Goddamn it,” I said, and threw the paper on the bathroom floor, where it landed next to a large black smudge.

More fingerprint soot. I followed the smudge trail to the bathtub, where the cops had taken more fingerprints and probably samples of my head and pubic hair. Wonderful. At this point the police knew more about my reproductive system than I did. I rested my chin on my hand. The Thinker, on the potty.

Bear meandered over, turned around, and plopped her heavy tush onto my toe. Then she threw her head backwards and smiled at me, almost upside down. Someday she would figure out it was easier to see someone if you faced them. I scratched the spray of butterscotch fur behind her ears, and she eased sleepily back to the floor, nestling her head between her paws and flattening her body like a bathmat. Only her eyes stayed on me, brown marbles asking, “So, you gonna clean up or you gonna feel sorry for yourself?”

“I’m gonna clean up, okay?”

Satisfied, Bear closed her eyes.

I got off the seat, found the CD player, cranked up Bruce Springsteen’s greatest hits, and went to work. In no time I was caterwauling along with Bruce, lost in my task, but then I reached a song that made me stop singing. A song that forced me down on the floor, to deal with what was going on.

“Murder, Incorporated.”

Mark was dead. Someone had killed him. Deep inside was anguish, but out there was his murderer. Someone who drew breath while Mark didn’t. It was unjust. Obscene. I knew what I had to do.

I had to find Mark’s killer.

Istopped by my mother’s apartment early the next morning and stood at the door, briefcase in hand, as if it were a typical day and I still had a law firm to run. Hattie was rinsing the coffeepot at the sink, dressed but still in her rollers. Later she would press her hair with an old curling iron, and the acrid smell would fill the apartment, upsetting my mother and costing me two boxes of Kleenex. I always teased her about it, but I wouldn’t this morning.

“Hattie, I’ve been thinking about what you said. I decided you’re right about Mom. You want me to call the doctor?”

“No, I’ll call him.” She was rinsing out the pot again and again, her back to me. Her shirt saidI ’M A WINNER! and red dice were sequined on her scapula. “I got the time.”

“No, that’s all right.”

“You’re the one who’s busy. You got your apartment to fix up.”

“I cleaned up last night.”

“All of it? I heard the music, but I fell asleep.”

“It’s all taken care of.”

“I’ll call about your momma. I want to do it.”

“You sure now?”

“I’m sure.”

We weren’t talking about the call, we were making up. Or at least trying to, as easy as that was without saying the words or even meeting each other’s eye. “If the appointments are early morning, how will you do it? You’ll have to get up early.”

“I’m up anyway. Makes no never mind.”

“I’ll help you get her up.”

“I can do that, too. I did it for the hospital, I can do it for the electroshock,” she said, finally twisting off the water and placing the glass pot in the coffeemaker. Her back was still to me, and I wanted to go before she turned around. I didn’t want to face her, because I was choking now, finding I couldn’t say what needed to be said. But she turned suddenly, her eyes dark and sorrowful, and said to me, “You have a good day, now.”

Thank you for smacking me last night, Hattie. I’ve never been smacked before. No one noticed how stupid I can be, or how careless my words.

“You too, Hattie,” I said, and left.

I started the day at Groan amp; Waste, so early that the receptionist on Sam’s floor wasn’t in yet. I powered past the secretaries’ empty workstations, ignoring the associates who were in at daybreak and walking around conspicuously enough to get credit for it. I never would’ve made it at Grun. When I get in early, I like to work. So does Sam, who was going full steam ahead when I walked into his office, his custom English suit bent over financial printouts.