Finding Isadora(20)

“Maybe I can persuade you.” He reached for me, pulling me against his body so I could feel that he was aroused again. “I’m a lawyer. I can be very persuasive.”

* * *

“Isadora? Are you there? I tried your cell.” My mother’s voice spoke out of the answering machine on my kitchen counter a couple of nights later.

Owl, perched on one of the wooden dinette chairs, said, “Hey, cutie, why don’t you come over and see me some time?”

I didn’t answer the phone, just plugged my run-down cell into its charger and went back to fixing quinoa salad. Much as I loved Grace, I wasn’t in the mood for talking. I just wanted a peaceful evening alone with my menagerie. This queendom might not be mine for too much longer.

Richard and I were probably going to move in together. We’d started with him favoring his apartment because it was bigger, and me preferring mine because it was so close to the clinic and I loved it. In the end, we agreed to go apartment-hunting together, whenever we could find time, and choose a place that worked for both of us. As was our pattern, we’d chosen practicality over spontaneity. I tried to persuade myself that augured well for our future. Our decisions would always be well thought out.

I hadn’t told my parents yet. Not that they’d have any moral objection to living together. But they did have reservations about Richard, and I didn’t have the energy to defend our decision.

In fact, I was fresh out of energy. My brain was exhausted from spinning hamster-like on a Gabriel DeLuca loop that was going nowhere. Why couldn’t I get the man out of my mind?

“Give me a call as soon as you come in,” Grace continued. “They’ve arrested Jimmy Lee and he’s in jail and—”

I dropped the knife and grabbed the phone. “What? What’s he gone and done now?”

“So you are there. They’ve charged him with arson.”

“Arson!” My heart leaped into my throat and lodged there. “Jimmy Lee wouldn’t.”

“Of course not. It’s all a mistake.”

How many times had I heard those words? Sometimes they had proved true and sometimes not. Jimmy Lee took the active in activist seriously, but I honestly didn’t think he’d commit arson. “What’s he accused of setting fire to?”

“The Cosmystiques lab out in PoCo. But he had nothing to do with it.”

The cosmetics company in Port Coquitlam used animals in their testing and deserved to be shut down. But not burned down. “Why did the police arrest him if he had nothing to do with it?”

“We were there last week, picketing, and maybe he said some things he shouldn’t have.”

Of course he’d mouthed off. He was Jimmy Lee Wheeler. I asked the usual question. “Have you got a lawyer?”

She gave the expected answer. “We can’t afford one. It’ll have to be duty counsel.”

I huffed out an exasperated sigh. “Duty counsel might be okay if it was just another disturbing the peace, but arson’s serious. He’s never been accused of arson before. And they usually release him, they don’t hold him overnight. You need a good lawyer.”

Yet my parents didn’t have the money to hire one. My parents never had any money. Although they had both passed sixty, they hadn’t saved a nickel. Grace, a teacher by training, was morally opposed to the public and private school systems, and tutored special needs kids, often for free. Jimmy Lee had a real job as a social worker with a community outreach organization, but any spare cash went to my parents’ causes.

For years, I’d realized I would be looking after them when they were old. That was part of the reason I was so determined to achieve financial security.

I had just saved two thousand dollars to put toward paying off my student loan, which would have meant six thousand left to go. Now I’d have to use the money to hire a lawyer. I could only pray the police would soon discover they’d arrested the wrong person, or else legal fees would eat up my next pay checks.

How were we going to find a top-notch criminal defense lawyer? Jimmy Lee usually relied on duty counsel. Well, except for the time Gabriel DeLuca had represented him… And Gabriel respected my dad. He wouldn’t treat Jimmy Lee like a flake, as many lawyers did. He’d be fair with his fees, too. But could I bring myself to call him?

It was absurd to avoid him. The man was going to be my father-in-law. Besides, right now all I should be concerned about was getting the best representation for Jimmy Lee. “Grace? I have an idea. Let me see what I can do.”

It was past six o’clock. Would Gabriel still be at his office? I had to find someone to represent Jimmy Lee because my dad would have to appear before a judge tomorrow. Would a duty counsel be able to get him out on bail? Growing up with my parents, I had a fair bit of experience with the court system, but arson was more serious than anything either of them had been charged with before.

Gabriel would know what to do. I squared my shoulders, turned on my laptop, and went on the Internet to find his work phone number. Expecting either a receptionist or an answering machine, I almost dropped the phone when a male voice snarled, “DeLuca.”

“Uh, G-Gabriel?” Terrific. Now I was stuttering.

There was a pause and then, “Isadora?”

Again I almost dropped the phone. “You recognized my voice?”

Another pause, even longer, then he said, “Lucky guess.”