Rebecca Schwartz 05 - Other People's Skeletons

good.”
    “It gets worse.”
    “Tell me.”
    “The witnesses say it looked like a deliberate hit— the car swerved to hit McKendrick, he tried to dodge it, then it backed up for another try and chased him almost up on the sidewalk. That’s why they’re handling it like a homicide.”
    I shrugged. “No big deal. It was clearly the most horrifying thing they ever saw. No wonder they screwed up the license number.”
    But I was blustering and we both knew it. They had plenty to arrest her on, especially if they found physical evidence on her car. A good alibi could save her in the long run, but they sure weren’t going to go checking it out that night.
    Desperate, I said, “How are we going to get you out of here?”
    “I told them I’d talk after you got here.”
    “Great. What are you going to say?”
    “I was lying. I thought you could talk Martinez into letting me go.”
    “Oh, sure. He loves me like a daughter.” I was impatient with her, couldn’t help feeling she didn’t understand just how much trouble she was in. “Did they say when McKendrick was killed?”
    “About eight-thirty. One of the witnesses called 911.”
    “Where were you then?”
    “At somebody’s house.”
    “Whose? A guy’s?”
    “No. Someone you don’t know.”
    “Fine. Who?”
    “A woman named Rosalie.”
    “Rosalie who?”
    “I don’t know her last name.”
    I didn’t say anything, just tried to digest all this, when she said, “I don’t know her. I was just … at her house.”
    “Was anybody else there?”
    “Yes. Three or four other people.”
    Oh, God, I was thinking. Three or four. Which? Three? Four? Couldn’t my law partner count anymore?
    This whole deal was crazy. I realized suddenly that I’d been pulling reluctant little factoids out of her as if she were a client referred by a third party— someone I’d never met; and furthermore, someone acting guilty. Someone with a lot to hide from her lawyer.
    I said, “Chris, what’s going on?”
    She looked at me a moment, then stared off into space. She was wearing a white cotton sweater, which didn’t help her color any. She was so washed out she was almost ghostly.
    Finally she clasped her hands, composing herself, and looked back in my direction. “It’s not something I can talk about.”
    Martinez would have loved to arrest her, and Curry always went along with Martinez. But she’d agreed to a voluntary mug shot, which they’d probably showed to the witnesses, or would in the morning. Either way they didn’t have an ID. We figured that out because they let her go.
    But if their physical evidence panned out, and if they turned up anything at all that passed for a motive, I was pretty sure they were going to arrest her.
    Chris knew it, too. As soon as we got in the car, she said, “Oh, man, am I in
trouble
. Jesus shit, Rebecca, this is unbelievable.”
    “Tell me about it.” It was partly just a remark and partly a plea.
    “You don’t know the half of it.”
    “Whose fault is that?”
    “I’m sorry— it’s just that I’m going to look guilty as hell. And that’s still not the worst of it.”
    I was getting impatient. “Look, were you having an affair with McKendrick? You know I’m not going to get judgmental about something like that.”
    “Yeah, but you will about what it actually was.”
    “Well, just tell me, Chris. Then we’ll deal with it.”
    “You’ll never speak to me again.”
    I decided to let it go. It was a decision that lasted all of two-and-a-half seconds. A horrible notion at the back of my consciousness was inching forward and starting to nag. “Drugs?” I blurted.
    She turned toward me. Watching the road, I couldn’t see her face, but I felt the indignation that flamed in every cell of her being.
    “Of course not. It’s nothing illegal, Rebecca.”
    Just something so shameful she wouldn’t even tell her best friend and partner about it.
    She didn’t talk for the rest of the ride, but she said a strange thing when I dropped her off: “Go see Rosalie. Talk to her and the others. I want you to see what we’re up against.”

Chapter Two
    Fortunately, I didn’t have to be in court the next morning.
    I phoned our secretary, Alan Kruzick, filled him in, told him I wouldn’t be in until ten or eleven, and asked him to cancel my one appointment. For once— and I almost gave him a raise for this— he behaved in a businesslike and responsible manner.
    It was an odd request Chris had made, to spend the