The Brutal Heart Read online

  “Plenty of champagne in the fridge,” I said. “Birthdays come but once a year.”

  Sean nodded. “Right,” he said. “Joanne, I haven’t had a chance to thank you for making Ginny welcome. There’s been so much hostility towards her lately, I thought she could use some friendly vibes.”

  “My pleasure,” I said. “Ginny’s good company. I just wish some of our other guests had been more open to her. She has a tough battle ahead.”

  “Then she’s lucky she chose a good lawyer,” Mieka said.

  Sean lowered his gaze. “Maybe I should get you to write a letter of reference.”

  “Anytime,” Mieka said. She picked up the tray with the dessert plates, cutlery, and napkins. “Grab the cake, Mum. The window of opportunity is about to slam shut.”

  As we started down the lawn, I gave the sky one last anxious glance. It was lowering. No doubt about it, we were in for a gully-washer, but as I placed the cake in front of Zack and our guests gathered to sing “Happy Birthday,” I was glad we’d taken the chance. The warmth towards Zack was palpable and there was no rain. Our luck was holding. I leaned over and lit the candles.

  When they blazed, a smile of pure delight spread across Zack’s face. He took my hand. “Want to know what I wished for?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “Because if you tell before you blow out the candles, your wish won’t come true.”

  “Then I’d better get to work,” Zack said. He bent towards the blazing cake and blew. The candles guttered a little in the wind but remained stubbornly alight. Our twelve-year-old daughter, Taylor, and her two best friends, Isobel and Gracie, had crowded in beside Zack for the big moment. Bright as tulips in their spring dresses, the girls pressed their hands to their mouths, stifling laughter as Zack tried again to blow out his candles. Successful trial lawyers have a sixth sense about hidden motives, and as Gracie Falconer, her face as innocent as a pan of milk, urged Zack to give the candles another try, he smelled a rat. He leaned back in his chair and eyed the girls. “I’m exhausted,” he said. “Why don’t you young women take over?”

  The girls exchanged furtive glances. “They’re trick candles,” Taylor said finally. “The only way to put them out is to drop them in water.”

  “I grew up with brothers,” Mieka said. “I’ve dealt with these candles before.” She reached for the cake and began plucking out candles and extinguishing them. “Zack, if you’re interested in revenge, give me a call,” she said. “I know some really cool tricks with whipped cream.”

  “Make a list,” Zack said. “If I remember correctly, Isobel has a birthday coming up.”

  “My pleasure,” Mieka said. “But let’s deal with this cake first. You slice the first piece, and I’ll do the rest.” She glanced at the guests who, champagne glasses in hand, had gathered round for the celebratory moment. “Would it be okay if I propose the toast?”

  Zack was clearly surprised. “Is it going to be like the trick candles?”

  Mieka had made no secret of her opposition to our marriage the year before, but Zack had obeyed his first rule of dealing with opposition: stay in your opponent’s face. You’ll either win them over or they’ll walk away. Mieka hadn’t walked away.

  “No trick candles,” Mieka said. “Also no whoopee cushions or dribble glasses, but don’t expect eloquence. Public speaking is number one on my personal fear factor list.” She tapped her glass and called for attention. As all eyes focused on her, she fiddled with the neck of her sweater, but when she raised her glass, her voice was clear. “To Zack – everyone here is glad that you’re part of their life.”

  There was a murmur: “To Zack.” At that moment, a thunderclap split the evening quiet, and the skies opened. Laughing, gulping champagne as they ran, our guests sprinted towards the house. Mieka picked up the cake, and Zack began wheeling his chair up the ramp that led to the deck and the safety of the kitchen.

  I ran over to him. “Are you doing okay?” I asked.

  “Couldn’t be better,” he said, navigating the turn on the ramp. “I’m interpreting that thunderclap as a cosmic sign of approval,” he said.

  I shook my head. “You are one confident guy.”

  The party continued. The kids cajoled our bouvier and our mastiff into slinking back upstairs, and when Zack pushed the piano bench out of the way and moved his wheelchair into place, Willie and Pantera lumbered over and collapsed on the floor beside him. In the year and a half Zack and I had been married, the dogs had developed an insatiable appetite for show tunes. Zack has never had a piano lesson, but he has a good ear, and as he played, Taylor and her friends danced with the little kids and then, thrillingly, with some boys their own age who, according to the girls, had just happened by. In the hall, Angus and his girlfriend, Leah, alternated between slow dancing and smooching. Ginny and Ed were more public. It turned out that they were both passionate tango dancers, and as they glided by in their matching buttercup silk, Ed dipped towards me. “How do we look?”

  “Like the finalists in a ballroom dance contest,” I said. Clearly the celebration was moving in a good direction.

  Mieka and I had just started taking the coffee around when Sean stepped in and took my tray. “Mieka and I can handle this, Joanne,” he said. “Why don’t you kick back and spend some time with the birthday boy?”

  “Good plan,” I said. “Thanks.” I went over to the table where the bar had been set out, poured two small cognacs, went over to Zack, placed his snifter on the piano, and whispered, “I’m plying you with liquor.”

  He gave me a sidelong glance. “I don’t need to be plied. When it comes to you, I’m ever ready.” He let his fingers drop from the piano keys to caress my leg.

  “Better hold off on that,” I said under my breath. “We have a houseful of guests.”

  “Send them home,” Zack said. “Tell them your husband can’t keep his hands off you.”

  I brushed an imaginary crumb from his shirt and let my fingers linger. “That works both ways, you know.”

  “Whoa. Everybody out of the pool.” Zack thumped a chord that brought the loin-throbbing rhythms of Jalousie to a halt, picked up his brandy snifter, and swivelled his chair to face me. “I’m at your service.”

  At that moment, his cellphone rang. “I thought you turned that off,” I said.

  Zack shrugged. “I forgot. Want me to let it ring?”

  “No,” I said. “Probably just somebody wanting to wish you a happy birthday.”

  Zack flipped open his cell and answered. One look at his face and I knew the call was serious. He listened without comment. Finally he said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. And, Debbie, thanks for the heads-up.”

  “Problems?” I said.

  “There’s a situation,” Zack said evenly. “And it’s something you and I should talk about.”

  “Can it wait?”

  “No,” Zack said. “It can’t. Let’s go to our room.”

  I’d left the sliding doors to the deck outside our bedroom open to catch the fresh breeze, but now the storm was lashing and the hardwood in front of the doors was wet. I picked up a towel from my bathroom and skated it across the hardwood until the floor was dry. Zack watched as I pitched the towel in the hamper. “You are admirably unflappable.”

  “Comes in handy since I met you.” I sat on the bed. “So what’s up?”

  “That was the cop shop. Inspector Debbie Haczkewicz says they need me to come down.”

  I groaned. “Come on, Zack, a client – tonight?”

  “There’s no client,” Zack said. “I’m the one they want to talk to.”

  “About what?”

  “It’s complicated,” Zack said. “But it starts with the reason Ned Osler committed suicide.”

  “He didn’t want to live after his wife died,” I said. “I thought that was common knowledge.”

  “He was also being blackmailed by a prostitute,” Zack said. “She’d filmed their sexual encounters and she was going to put them on the Internet un
less Ned paid her off. That isn’t common knowledge and I hope to God it doesn’t get to be.”

  A finger of lightning arced from sky to earth, throwing the trees along the creek into sharp relief. “I can’t believe this,” I said. “Ned was such a gentleman. When the three of us had dinner at his apartment, it was like stepping back in time. He was so gracious, helping me off with my coat, holding my chair before I sat down at the table. And the next day, there was always a hand-delivered note thanking me for the pleasure of my company and mentioning some detail of the evening that had brought him delight.”

  Zack nodded. “Ned was a gentleman of the old school. That was the problem. Most of the guys I know would have told a lady threatening blackmail to go for it, put the tapes on the Internet, show the world Super-Stud in action, but Ned was a principled man. When this woman said she was going to make his private life public, he found the prospect insupportable.”

  “Did he pay her off?”

  “No. He refused to capitulate to behaviour that, in his view, was as unacceptable as his own.”

  “Did he consider going to the police?”

  “Believe it or not,” Zack said, “I suggested that. But Ned said the acts he’d indulged in were unspeakable, an insult to the life he and his wife, Evvie, had together. He said he’d rather die than stain his wife’s memory. I asked him to give me the name of the woman who’d threatened him, and I’d take care of it, but he said he’d made up his mind: he was going to exit honourably. That was it. Ned poured us each a serious slug of single-malt Scotch, and when we’d finished our drinks, he thanked me for my friendship and said goodbye. Three hours later, he shot himself.”

  I took his hand. “I wish you’d told me.”

  “I couldn’t. I’d given Ned my word, Jo. The only reason I’m telling you now is because of that phone call from Debbie.”

  “Something’s happened.”

  Zack sighed. “Boy, has it ever. I’ll give you the broad strokes. At Ned’s funeral, I watched his partners march up the aisle and I knew that before the sod on Ned’s grave had taken root, the woman who’d tried to blackmail Ned would be knocking on the doors of Osler Meinhart and Loftus. Anyway, I hired a private detective to track her down to see if I could head her off.”

  “Did you find her?”

  “Actually, she found me. Her name is Cristal Avilia. She called this morning and said she needed to talk to me about Ned.”

  “So you saw her.”

  “Yeah, I did.” He stroked my hand. “Christ, I’d give anything not to be having this conversation with you. Yes, I saw her, and as it turned out, it wasn’t the first time we’d met. I’d used her services myself, Jo.”

  My heart squeezed. “Since we were together?”

  Zack leaned towards me. “Oh God, no. Jo, you’re all I’ve ever wanted and then some. But as you know, the mechanics of sex don’t always work for me. With us, it doesn’t matter, we just fool around till we’re both happy, but it was different for me before. I could be dynamite in the courtroom all day, but if I couldn’t get it up at night, it drove me nuts.

  “So you went to a prostitute,” I said.

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Zack said dryly. “Most of the women I could have had sex with were other lawyers. It’s an adversarial relationship, and you don’t want your adversaries to know you’re a dud in the sack. So I kept searching for the magic bullet. Cristal was just the last of many. I’m not proud of it, but there it is.”

  “So was Cristal the magic bullet?” I asked.

  His nod was almost imperceptible. “She was very skilful. Then I met you, and you know the rest of the story. I never saw Cristal again until today.”

  There was a tap at the door, and Mieka opened it and peeked in. “The girls and I are taking off. They wanted to say goodnight, but if we’re interrupting…”

  Zack’s face softened. “Couldn’t ask for a more welcome interruption.”

  Sleepy but still coasting on a sugar high, Madeleine and Lena raced in and crawled up on Zack’s lap.

  “Did you like our present?” Madeleine asked.

  “A man can never have too many flashlights,” Zack said.

  “It’s for flashlight tag,” Madeleine said. “We can play it next time we come over.”

  “Somebody’s going to have to teach me the rules,” Zack said.

  “I will,” Madeleine said. “Lena doesn’t care about rules. But she’s a really good runner.”

  “I’m not much of a runner,” Zack said. “So what can I do?”

  Lena rubbed at a grass stain on her knee of her jeans. “You can be It,” she said thoughtfully.

  Her sister frowned. “Nobody can always be It.”

  “Zack can,” Lena said. Then she aimed a kiss at Zack’s cheek, slid off his knee, and both girls ran to their mother. Zack wheeled his chair after them. “Mieka, I didn’t have a chance to thank you for the toast.”

  Mieka met his gaze. “I didn’t exactly have them rolling in the aisles, but I meant what I said. I’m really glad you’re around, Zack.”

  I closed the door after them and Zack turned to me. “Do you think she’ll still be glad to have me around when she finds about Cristal Avilia?”

  “Is there a reason why she needs to know?”

  There was a crack of thunder and Willie, who’d followed Mieka and the girls to the bedroom, whined. I rubbed his head. “It’s just thunder,” I said. “You’re okay. I’m okay. We’re all okay.” I turned to Zack. “We are okay, aren’t we?”

  “No,” he said. “We’re not.” He splayed his hands on his knees and stared down at them. “Cristal’s dead, Jo.”

  “Oh God. What happened to her?”

  “She was murdered. At some point between the time I left her around two this afternoon and six tonight, when the lawn service went out to fix the underground sprinklers, Cristal fell, jumped, or was pushed over the railing of her balcony. The police are leaning towards the third possibility.”

  “How do they know it wasn’t an accident or suicide?”

  “They don’t know,” Zack said. “Cristal’s condo was on the fourth floor. She could have fallen or jumped, but her body had been pulled towards the side of the building so the other tenants wouldn’t discover it when they came home from work.”

  I felt my nerves twang. “Zack, the police don’t think that you – ”

  His laugh was short and humourless. “There aren’t a lot of advantages to being a paraplegic, but I think even the cops would see that a guy in a wheelchair would have trouble pushing a healthy thirty-four-year-old woman over a balcony railing, then zipping down to the place where she fell so he could pull her body out of sight.”

  I walked over and pressed my forehead against the cool glass of the patio doors. The rain was falling hard now, and the trees at the bottom of our yard were thrashing in the wind. “Thirty-four,” I said. “Mieka’s age.”

  “Too young to die,” Zack said. “Also too young to have lived the life she lived.” He moved his chair to the place beside me, and for a moment, we were silent, looking out together at the night.

  Finally, I said. “How did they connect you with this?”

  “Through one of my more egregious fuck-ups. I thought I was handling the blackmail threat exactly right. I played hardball. I told Cristal I knew she’d been taping her clients, and I wasn’t going to deal until the camera was turned off. It was in a smoke detector on her bedroom ceiling, angled to pick up the bed and a special chair she reserved for what she called boutique requests. Of course, while she was boutiquing, her camera was able to get a nice clear shot of her client.”

  “Including you?” I said.

  Zack shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. Logic would suggest that I’d be worth taping – I have money and people know my name – but she never approached me.”

  “But the police called you. They must have found something.”

  “They did indeed. They found the camera that I so shrewdly insisted s
he turn off. She must have forgotten to turn it back on.”

  “So as far as the police know, you were the last one to see her alive.”

  “Right,” Zack said, “but looking on the bright side, they didn’t hear me offer her $10,000 for the Osler DVDS.”

  “So they don’t know about Ned’s involvement with Cristal.”

  “No, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “Had she agreed to take the money?”

  “I thought she had. She brought out the DVDS. I put one in the machine to make certain I wasn’t paying $10,000 for Bambi. I watched long enough to see what I was buying, then I took out the envelope with the cash. That’s when it got weird.”

  “Weird how?”

  “Cristal wouldn’t take the money. She said she never dreamed that Ned would commit suicide. In her words, his death was just ‘tragic collateral damage.’ ”

  “That sounds as if she had a larger agenda.”

  Zack sighed. “No flies on you, my love. I should have picked up on that myself, but at that point, Cristal started to cry. She said she knew she’d made a mistake. She’d deleted the files from the camera, but she wanted me to know she was trying to rectify what she’d done. Giving me the DVDS was the first step.”

  “Why did she care about what you thought?”

  “She’d been at Ned’s funeral. I didn’t notice her, but there were hundreds of people there. I probably wouldn’t have recognized her anyway. She’s changed her hair – it’s lighter or something. I don’t know – she just looked different. Anyway, she told me she couldn’t stop thinking about that poem I used in the eulogy. Remember? It was the one Ned e-mailed to me after 9/11.”

  “ ‘September 1, 1939,’ ” I said. “Auden really made the rounds after the World Trade Center was attacked.”

  “I don’t exactly travel in literary circles, but I must have received six copies of that poem,” Zack said. “Anyway, Cristal latched on to what I said about how Ned never let the darkness engulf him and how he believed it was our duty as human beings to show ‘an affirming flame.’ Then she announced she was going to change.” Zack pounded his palm with his fist. “It really pissed me off.”