Little Deaths(71)

She went in with her head high, asked to call a lawyer. Devlin said she didn’t need one. She asked again and he said she must have something to hide. She kept asking and he took her to a phone and she called Arnold Green.

When he answered, he sounded distracted. When he realized who was calling, his tone became guarded.

“Mrs. Malone. How can I help?”

“I’m at the police station. I think . . . I need a lawyer.”

There was a moment of silence and then, “I’m a divorce attorney, Mrs. Malone. I deal with family law. Civil matters.”

“I don’t . . . I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t help with your current situation.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but the phone was dead.

She turned to Devlin, standing behind her and, without looking at him, told him she needed a lawyer.

“You mean you need us to appoint someone for you?”

She stared at a mark on the wall somewhere to the left of his head. “Yes. That’s what I mean.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Keep in mind,”—and she heard the smile in his voice—“it might take a while. I can’t imagine what lawyer would take the case.”

They put her in a locked room with no windows and the heat turned up, and a door that only opened from the outside. Quinn came in to tell her they were trying to get hold of someone from the public defender’s office. She didn’t look around, just waited for the door to close.

Hours later, the door opened again and she heard Quinn say, “She’s in here.”

She glanced up and saw a stranger. A man in his fifties, with silver hair and bright blue eyes. He was wearing a beautiful suit, a tie pin, an immaculate white shirt. She was suddenly aware of how hot the room was, of how she must look. She pushed her hair back, half-stood, and he waved her to sit down, held out his hand.

“I’m Henry Scott. I’m your lawyer.”

His skin was dry. She could smell his cologne: something woody. Fresh.

She blurted out, “You’re not from the public defender’s office.”

He smiled at her, reminding her of someone.

“No, I’m not.”

Then he turned to Quinn and his voice was sharp.

“This room is stifling. Get the temperature fixed, or find us another room. Bring us some water. And some coffee and sandwiches—and make sure my office has copies of all my client’s interview tapes and the transcripts by tomorrow morning.”

Quinn blushed and nodded. Once he’d left, Scott turned back to her.

“I’ve been retained by Mr. Gallagher. I believe he’s a friend of yours.”

She realized then that it was Lou he reminded her of. She had the same feeling with them both: here was a guy who knew what he was doing. Who could take care of her.

Scott put his briefcase down, shook his head.

“Pathetic.”

She looked at him. He smiled again, nodded toward the door.

“Clearly they’ve got nothing on you. They’re subjecting you to these conditions to try and break you. If they had any real evidence, they’d come out with it. This”—he gestured around the small room—“this tells me they have nothing and they’re trying to put pressure on you to confess.”

She had a sudden, dizzying sensation of being able to hand over responsibility to someone whose job it was to take care of her. She tested the feeling cautiously. Sat up, looked him in the eye, and waited for him to begin.


Scott was in the chair next to her. She could just make out the smell of his expensive cigars beneath the cigarettes that the rest of them were chain-smoking. Across from her was Devlin and, next to him, a thin-faced guy she had never seen before. Carey, Caruso—something like that. He had a furtive look, like a rat.

There were four people in the room, but it was just her and Devlin as far as she was concerned.

He leaned forward, his eyes drilling into hers, pressing deeper until she felt him inside her head. She struggled to push back. To keep him out. To keep her thoughts her own.

Without taking his eyes off her, he held out his hand so that the rat-faced man could place a manila folder in it. He laid the folder on the table between them and opened it. Spread out the photographs that were bundled inside like a dealer at a card table. And all without taking his eyes off hers.

“Look at them, Mrs. Malone.”

She couldn’t look away from his face. If she looked away, he would see it as a sign of weakness.

“Look at them, please.”

She heard Scott’s voice, as though from a distance. “I really must object to this. My client . . .”

She blocked him out, kept her eyes on Devlin’s.

“LOOK AT THEM!”

His voice, his fist on the table, made her jump: shock made her pull back, look down.

At first, her mind couldn’t make sense of what her eyes were seeing. There were leaves, shadows, twigs. Then she made out a shoe. And a foot inside it. What she had taken for a slender branch was a leg. What she had thought was a knot in the wood was a bruise.

She reached out and stroked it gently. She’d seen that bruise when it was a raw scrape, still bleeding. She’d bathed it with warm salty water, she’d dabbed iodine on it. She’d held it firm as it wriggled to escape from the stinging. She’d kissed it better.