Mercy Read online

  Presented with her first chance to get close to people in over ten years, Mia wanted to become totally immersed. It was why she had become obsessed with Allie and Cam, or at least this was what she told herself. She did not notice that she spent far more time looking at Cam's things than she did Allies, that for a full five minutes she had traced his monogrammed initials on a pressed white dress shirr. She did not notice that as she moved from room to room, she tried to seek out certain places--the snug hollow of an armchair, the spot in front of a dresser--where she knew Cam must have been.

  Mia had come to the house to get Kafka, but she was far more interested in spying. She'd checked the books on the nightstand-- Allie favored romance novels, Cam--to her shock--poetry; she'd sat, like Goldilocks, on all six different cushions of the living room couches. She'd even sprayed a line of Cam's shaving foam across her forearm and sniffed at it, trying to determine if that was the scent that had stayed with her all morning. And Mia, who was so sensitive to sounds that she could hear a fly brush a window screen and the moon shifting in the middle of the night, had become so absorbed in the contents of the bedroom that she had actually been discovered in the act.

  Cam took a few of the photographs from her and held them up to the light. Mia did not look at him. "You caught me," she said quietly. "I was snooping."

  To her surprise, Cam laughed. "And?"

  She raised her chin, figuring if she could not be brave about this she would never survive it at all. "You wear boxers, not briefs; you had more blond in your hair than red when you were little; you get your uniforms dry-cleaned in Hancock."

  "And Allie?"

  Mia plucked at the quilt on the bed. "I haven't gotten around to her, yet." The corners of her mouth lifted. "I found your stash, too. The travel magazines inside your tool chest."

  Cam took a second group of photographs from Mia's hands. It didn't bother him that she knew about the magazines, not nearly as much as it had bothered him yesterday to think of Allie knowing this. Maybe it was because he knew that Allie would not even begin to understand. You simply could not define freedom to someone who did not realize they were caged.

  "I read the article on Tibet," Mia admitted.

  Cam nodded. "Ever been there?"

  She shook her head. Stooping low, she took the last collection of spilled photographs from the floor. She leafed through a few shots of Allie as a young girl; a wedding picture of Cam, breathtaking in full Highland dress regalia. She seemed to be looking for something in particular, so Cam uselessly shuffled through the pile of photographs he held, as well, as if he could divine what she was missing.

  "Here," she said, holding out a photo of a lush green valley ringed by mountains, with an imposing white stone keep to the left. "I've been here."

  "You've got to be kidding," Cam said.

  "It's in Scotland, isn't it? Near Glencoe?" She ran her hand over the folded tartan blanket at the foot of the bed. "Is this the place where you're all from?"

  He stared into Mia's dark eyes, thinking this all hit a little too close to home to ring true, and folded his arms over his chest. "Prove it."

  Later, Cam wondered whether things might have worked out differently if Mia had been able to tell him the number of cobblestones in the front walk of the Great House, which he'd counted as a child when he was bored by the adult conversation inside; or if she had remembered that under the rosebush to the left of the gate was a small gravestone for an old terrier who used to stand guard beneath it. As it was, Mia simply shook her head. "It was a long time ago," she said, "and anything I would be able to remember is something I could have seen on a postcard." She shrugged lightly and stared at the skin at the base of his throat, which was so fine and white she could see the blue veins mapped beneath it. "I guess you'll have to trust me."

  That was the moment Cam thought it was possible he had seen someone who looked like Mia Townsend at Carrymuir, maybe the time he went when he was eight, maybe when he was eighteen. Perhaps she had walked with a lighter step; perhaps her hair was a little shorter, but surely he remembered that delicate carriage, those spiraling curls. And because he felt it was the only way to be perfectly sure, he leaned across Che inches between them and kissed her.

  She fit. Through slitted lids he saw that her eyes were still open and this became his goal: he wanted to see them drift shut. So he ran his tongue across the line of her mouth and kissed the edges. He was not thinking clearly. He told himself that if she tensed just the tiniest bit beneath his hands, he would break away. He told himself he would count to ten and see if this happened.

  At about the same time his heart began to beat again, one curl of her hair wound its way around his finger, as if it could will him to stay.

  Mia's eyes began to close and she wondered what in the name of God she was doing. Her blood was running fast, not simply because of this man with his big hands framing her face, but because she had known this was coming and now it had finally happened.

  Cam buried his face against her throat. For a man who longed to travel, who had known the comfort of a wife and a job and a mortgage, he had the strangest sense of coming home. He felt the vibrations of her voice against his lips, motions that hummed through him for several seconds before he realized they were words.

  "I have to go," Mia was saying. "I have to go now."

  Afraid she would stand up and run out the door and possibly straight out of this town, Cam reached for her hand. "I'll take you back to the flower shop," he said, the sounds thick and unfamiliar to his own ears.

  "I have my car."

  "Leave it," Cam said. "Allie will drive you back later."

  They stared at each other, unwilling to even suggest that this might happen again; that either one might want or not want the other to be in the same house another night. Finally Mia nodded, having based her decision on the fact that she could not stand knowing what Cam would say to Allie if she was not present in the room when he got there.

  He did not touch her while they were walking downstairs. He stayed a single step behind Mia, walking quickly to catch the scent she left behind. With every movement it got harder to believe that he had kissed a woman he hardly knew in his own bedroom, and he let the guilt grow. He had a wife that he loved. A murderer who still had to be arraigned. He did not know what he had been thinking. He did not want to acknowledge that he simply had not been thinking at all.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Mia scooped Kafka into her arms and headed for the front door. She paused at the threshold. "I need to know what you're going to tell her," she said, trying to sound glib and failing miserably.

  Cam let her walk out the door and then started to lock it behind them. "That I thought you were a burglar and pulled a gun on you. That I scared you to death."

  "Well," Mia said, moving to the police cruiser, "it wouldn't be a lie."

  After Allie had finished her bonsai wiring for the day, and had dropped Verona MacBean's centerpieces off at the library, she decided to visit Jamie MacDonald. She told herself that it wasn't really going against Cam's wishes. If anyone, like Hannah, asked what she was doing visiting a man Cam was going to book for murder--well, she'd just say he was family.

  She made him a nosegay of flowers that she thought might help: roses for love, marigolds for grief, violets for faithfulness, chrysanthemums for cheerfulness during adversity. She filled these in with statice and quaking grass. She knew it wouldn't be allowed in the cell, but even Cam couldn't object to having it hung on the swing lock outside. She waited until Cam's police cruiser had been gone from its spot for fifteen minutes. Then she checked her hair and brushed dried bits of petals off her clothes and began to walk down the street.

  Casey MacRae was the only person, other than the prisoner, inside the police station. Hannah had called in sick, and Cam was, as Casey put it, God knows where. "Hey," he said, looking up from a game of solitaire he was playing on the booking counter. "It must be MacDonald day at the station."

  Allie unbuttoned her
coat and hooked it on the knob of Cam's locked office door. "Who else has been here?"

  Casey smiled. "Old Angus. Middle of the night, in his bathrobe."

  Allie laughed. "Cam must have loved that. Do we know for a fact he's still in town? Or did Angus ride him out on a rail?" She sat down in Hannah's swivel chair and pushed it back on its ball bearings, whizzing on the scratched linoleum floor.

  "Allie," Casey said, "I really don't know when Cam's coming back."

  Allie set her feet and smiled. "Oh, I didn't come to see Cam. I want to talk to Jamie." "He'll kill me."

  "He doesn't have to know." Allie jumped out of the chair and walked past Casey into the booking room. "We can sit right in here. You can cuff him and even stand by to referee." She knew she was going to win. In the end, she promised him a free coupon for a dozen roses sent at Valentine's Day to the woman of his choice--a seventy-dollar value--in exchange for fifteen minutes with Jamie MacDonald.

  He came into the booking room looking a little the worse for wear. His shirt was wrinkled from having been slept in; a fine red stubble traced the line of his jaw. Casey's beefy hand was locked around his upper arm, and his wrists were ringed with old handcuffs. "Mr. MacDonald," Allie said, her throat suddenly dry. What did you say to someone who had killed his wife?

  "Please," he said, sitting down across the desk from her, "call me Jamie."

  "Then I'm Allie," she replied, taking a deep breath. She smiled at him, started to speak, and then stopped. Finally she shook her head. "I can't very well ask you how you're doing, can I?"

  "You can ask whatever you like," Jamie said. "I just may not answer." He leaned forward to rest his arms on his knees, and the sudden movement made Allie shift back in her chair. Jamie stared at her. "I won't hurt you."

  "I know," Allie whispered. She folded her hands in her lap and realized she still carried the dried flowers. Nervous, she thrust them at Jamie. He reached for them with his manacled hands, his fingers brushing hers briefly. She was surprised at their warmth and their softness, as if their very substance seemed incapable of violence.

  "A house warming gift," he said dryly, turning the small bouquet over in his hands.

  Allie bit her lip. This wasn't going the way she had planned. She had figured, oh, she'd walk in like some kind of Florence Nightingale and let Jamie pour out his heart before being arraigned. Sort of like being shrived before justice. Instead, she had nothing to say, and Jamie wasn't in the mood for confidences. She was just about to wish him the best at his arraignment and bolt from the booking room, when he shifted in his chair, catching her attention. "Did you come in spite of him?" he said.

  Allie froze. "I don't know what you mean."

  "It can't look very good for the chief of police when his wife pays a mercy visit to the guy he thinks is a murderer."

  "This isn't a mercy visit," Allie said automatically. Her eyes scanned behind Jamie's head to a row of clipboards Cam had hung strategically for the part-time officers to peruse at their leisure: staff notices, weekly schedules, the FBI's Most Wanted.

  "No? Then it's a social call." He stared at her. "What would happen if your husband found out you came to see me?"

  Allie shrugged, but it seemed more like a shiver. Cam wouldn't yell, he certainly wouldn't threaten her, but he'd withdraw. He would think that she didn't support him or believe in him, and because that hadn't happened in the five years they'd been married, it would cut him to the quick. "It has nothing to do with you, Jamie, or what you did," Allie said slowly, carefully picking her way through her own words. "I just don't want to hurt him."

  A smile stole across Jamie's face, so completely transforming him that Allie would not have recognized him if she'd seen him on Che street. "Then you're the one."

  Allie blinked at him. "The one what?"

  "The one who loves more." He moved closer to the desk, and the handcuffs tapped against the metal edge as he inadvertently made gestures. "You know it's never fifty-fifty in a marriage. It's always seventy-thirty, or sixty-forty. Someone falls in love first. Someone puts someone else up on a pedestal. Someone works very hard to keep things rolling smoothly; someone else sails along for the ride."

  Allie opened her mouth to protest, but saw that Jamie wasn't even looking at her anymore. "When I first saw Maggie, she was standing knee-deep in water at this little duck pond, scrubbing the bottom with a long-handled brush. I thought she worked for the town, but she told me later that she did it once a month because nobody else bothered to. She was wearing a yellow slicker and baggy striped shorts and diamond earrings. That's what made me come closer. They kept catching the light of the sun and winking at me. I mean, here she was covered in mud and droppings, but she was still wearing diamonds." He shook his head. "I took the scrub brush from her and helped her onto the grass. I lived right on the other side of that park; I passed it ten times each day, and suddenly I knew that the next time I passed it, if she wasn't there, it was going to look all wrong."

  Allie covered her mouth with her hand and turned away. She pictured Maggie MacDonald on the embalming table. She tried to remember if Maggie had been wearing earrings.

  "I'm Che one like you," Jamie said. "The one who fell first. The one who would do anything to keep it the way it was at the beginning."

  Allie felt the room closing in on her. She forced herself to her feet. "I have no idea what you're talking about." "Seventy-thirty," Jamie replied. "But you killed her."

  Jamie shook his head. "I loved her," he said quietly. "I loved her so much I let her go."

  From the corner of her eye, Allie could see the door of the police station swing open and for a horrible moment she thought it would be Cam and she would be well and truly caught. Her stomach flipped as she waited for the newcomer to step into the main area of the station. A young man, someone she'd seen before but couldn't quite connect with a name.

  "Not Cam?"

  "No," Allie breathed, before realizing that Jamie had just proven his point.

  Casey MacRae stuck his head in the door of the booking room. "Allie, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. MacDonald's counsel just arrived."

  Allie nodded, and Casey ducked back out. She turned to Jamie. "I wish you luck," she said stiffly.

  Jamie reached out and took her cold hand between his own. She tried to imagine him pressing those hands over Maggie's nose and mouth, pressing hard and not relenting, but she could not really do it. "Allie," he asked softly, "do you think I'm guilty?"

  He had let his guard down; in his eyes she could see the effort it cost him to simply sit upright; the pain caused just by breathing; the shimmering memories of a slow, moonlit fox-trot around a duck pond. "That depends," she said, allowing herself to smile, "on what you think you're guilty of."

  Within five minutes of meeting Jamie MacDonald, Graham MacPhee realized the man would have gladly welcomed the death penalty, had it been an option in Massachusetts. He did not want counsel, especially not someone who was a notch above your average public defender. He simply wanted to be convicted and to spend the rest of his life wasting away in a bigger cell.

  "Tell me again," Jamie said, pacing in the small booking room. "Who hired you on my behalf?"

  "A friend. Someone who wants you free." "I don't have any friends in this town." Jamie thought of Allie, and Angus--neither of whom would have access to the funds necessary to retain a criminal defense attorney.

  Graham was beginning to lose his patience. This was his first real case--a whopper of a court case, at that--and his goddamned client didn't even want to defend himself. "Look, it doesn't matter if your fucking fairy godmother hired me. I think we can get you off the hook for this and I intend to do so."

  Jamie remained very still for a moment, and then, as if all the energy had simply left his body, he slowly folded into a chair. Graham sighed. "Tell me what happened." For forty-five minutes, Graham took notes on a yellow legal pad. Finally, when Jamie fell silent, he drummed two pencils on the table and reviewed what he had written. An
d as he did, Jamie MacDonald watched Graham through lowered eyes, his head bent down, tracking Graham's moves. Graham wondered what he was getting himself into. In criminal defense, it was common for an attorney not to trust his client; this was the rare case where the relationship seemed to have been turned around.

  Then Jamie locked his gaze on Graham's, and Graham froze. He found himself thinking about what kind of man could have done what Jamie had done. Was it really out of love? What else might have provoked it? For all he knew, Maggie and Jamie MacDonald could have been in the middle of a knock-down-drag-out divorce, and the killing was the result of one snide remark that took Jamie over the edge. For all he knew, Maggie might have held a million-dollar life insurance policy with Jamie as beneficiary. For all he knew, Jamie MacDonald could have been Che consummate actor

  But he didn't think so.

  "You've lived in Cummington for the past sixteen years, you've been married for eleven of those, and your wife was suffering a long and painful death. You were overcome with emotion and distraught and in a moment of weakness you killed your wife, hoping to put her out of her agony." Graham smiled tentatively. "Not guilty by reason of temporary insanity."

  Jamie knew better than to tell Graham it hadn't been quite like that. Still, he did not know if he could put his faith in a lawyer so new at his job that his cordovans squeaked a bit when he walked the length of the room.

  Sensing Jamie's hesitation, Graham sat down on the edge of the desk in front of him. "Did you sleep last night?"

  Jamie glanced up. "No," he said.

  "Why not?"

  Jamie stared at this man, this gift from an unknown benefactor, as if he were crazy. "Because I'd killed someone I loved hours before? Because I kept seeing those few minutes every time I closed my eyes? Take your pick." He turned away, disgusted; angry at Graham for being such a novice, angry at himself for revealing even that much. For a few moments neither man said a word. When Jamie spoke again, he had to strain to hear his own voice. "Because it was the first time in eleven years I had to sleep without her next to me."