Little Deaths(77)

“I don’t know, Johnny. I can’t think about that right now.”

She held his hand tight, squeezing as she spoke, but she could hear the desperation in his voice. His eyes filled with tears.

“Ruth. Ruthie. Please. I love you. You know I love you. I want to marry you, baby. We could have more kids. Together. I could give you more kids. I love you, baby. Please.”

She held tight to his hand, watched his face as he cried, marveled at the disgust that rose in her: this was a man she’d admired once. She tried to shush him, to tell him that everything would be okay, but he kept shaking his head.

“Not without you, baby. Nothing’s okay without you. I need you, baby . . . please. Say you need me too. The way you used to. You told me that you needed me to make you feel good . . . that no one else could make you feel the way I did. We can have that again, baby . . .”

As he spoke, he sank to the floor again, began to run his hands up her legs, over her thighs. She pushed them down, pushed her skirt down, tried to take hold of his hands, but he kept moving them back, sliding them higher.

“This isn’t . . . it’s not you, Ruthie. I know you. It’s Frank or this lawyer, this Scott, they’re making you do this. But you want me, you want me as much as I want you . . .”

“Johnny, this isn’t helping either of us. Please try to understand. This is for the best. The trial’s coming up and . . .”

“Fuck the trial. This is about me and you. When the trial’s over, what then? What then?”

She raised her hands, started to speak, saw Scott in the doorway and sagged with relief. She smoothed her skirt again, sat up.

Scott took his time closing the door and walking to the far side of his desk, giving Johnny a few moments to pull himself up into the chair. He sat with his head in his hands, sobbing. Ruth looked helplessly at Scott.

“Mr. Salcito? We really need to talk about the trial. I’m going to get Louise to bring us in some nice strong coffee, okay?”

Scott came out from his side of the desk, took a crisp white handkerchief out of his breast pocket, held it out. At last, Johnny reached up and took it. His sobs slowed; he blew his nose.

Scott returned to his seat, picked up his telephone receiver.

“Coffee for three, Louise. And could you bring in some of the lemon cake that my wife made? Thank you, dear.”

He waited until Johnny had finished wiping and blowing, and then said firmly, “Mr. Salcito, the prosecution will call you to give evidence. I need to know what you’re going to say. We need to plan for it.”

Johnny tore his blurred gaze from Ruth.

“What will you say when they ask you about the events of that night? The night the children disappeared?”

He sniffed. “Well, just what I’ve always said.”

“Good. So let’s recap: you called Ruth the night the children went missing, everything seemed as usual, yes?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

He looked over at Ruth and she gave him her hand. He kissed it, rubbed it against his face. She felt a sick shudder deep in her rib cage. Clenched her other hand so hard that her nails dug into her palm. Smiled at him.

“And since that night, Ruth has never said anything to you regarding the children?”

“Just that she missed them. Just that the police weren’t doing nothing to find the guy.”

“That’s fine. That’s very good, Mr. Salcito.”





17


Ruth stood between two guards in the hallway. She tried to breathe deep, tried to hold onto herself.

She was the same person she had always been. Nothing they could do to her in this room would change that.

The heavy wooden doors opened. She took a breath. Bit the inside of her cheek. In front of her: a flight of worn steps. A smell of polish and the dry dusty scent of old paper. Then a sudden sense of space and light as she reached the top. A room full of murmuring voices and hard eyes.

And somehow she was sitting at a table between Scott and his assistant with the horn-rimmed glasses, whose name she kept forgetting. The murmuring had swollen so that she could make out individual voices. She could feel the weight of those stares.

She risked a glance behind her and saw that the public benches were full. Rows of strangers. Mostly women. Their mouths moved but they never took their eyes off her.

She looked to the side, and the first figure she saw was Devlin. The cop who looked like an actor was rehearsing his lines from a notebook. Now and then his head came up and his stern, steady gaze swept the room. As she watched him, his eyes met hers. She almost smiled at him—she knew him so well, and here they were, playing opposite each other—but she remembered in time and let her gaze fall and her lips settle back into a somber line.

In the second row: the bit parts. That journalist Gina had brought around—he was there, pushing his hair off his forehead, leaning forward so as not to miss a single moment. And Johnny Salcito in his sad suit, with his shaking hands and the Scotch veins on his cheeks.

And there was Frank, frowning, looking around him as though he wasn’t quite sure how he’d come to end up here, nodding sadly at her when their eyes met.

Three years ago, she thought. Three years ago we were just another married couple with two kids. How did we get here?

Tears pricked her eyes at that, so she moved her gaze on, searching for something to distract her. And there, at the end of a row, was Lou. Her heart sped up as she looked at him sitting there, one elbow on the back of his seat, as calm and as confident as though he was in his own office. She thought of what it could cost him to be here for her, showing his belief in her, and she felt a great rush of gratitude.