Death Gets a Time-Out Read Free Page B

people and a very dirty house.
    I had initially suffered from the delusion that it would be a breeze to work part-time while the kids were in school. However, I hadn’t yet ever managed more than a forty-five-minute workday. By the time I dropped Ruby and Isaac off at their two different schools, and ran whatever errands were absolutely critical to the continuation of our existence as a family, I had exactly enough time to make two phone calls or write half a letter before I had to race off to pick them up again. So far Al had been remarkably patient with my glaring absence from our joint venture, although he
had
taken to calling me his invisible partner.
    Lilly narrowed her eyes and leaned forward. “What kind of work are you doing?”
    “Criminal defense work, primarily,” I said. “Lawyers hire us to investigate their cases. You know, take pictures of the crime scene, track down witnesses, that kind of thing. And we’ve done some death penalty mitigation work, too.”
    “What’s that?” Stacy interrupted. “How do you mitigate the gas chamber?’
    “We dig up what we can on a defendant’s background to help the lawyer convince the jury that executing him wouldn’t be fair. You know, like if he was an abused child, or was really nice to his grandmother. That kind of thing.”
    Lilly stood up and grabbed my arm. Her face was flushed and beads of sweat stood out on her upper lip. “I need to talk to you,” she said in a low voice.
    “Um, okay,” I said, taken aback by her vehemence.
    Lilly glanced quickly around and met Stacy’s eye. She bit her lip. “In private,” she muttered.
    Stacy raised her eyebrow and smiled stiffly. “I’ll see you back at our table, Juliet,” she said. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Green.” But Lilly had already started to hustle me across the ballroom floor. I stumbled along, doing my best to keep fromlooking as though I was being dragged against my will.
    “Hey Lilly, ease up,” I said. “I can barely walk in these shoes.”
    She dropped my arm. “Sorry,” she said. We’d come out into the hallway outside the ballroom. We were on the second floor of the hotel on a kind of mezzanine, looking out over the opulent lobby. The hall was empty except for a short line of women standing outside the ladies’ room. A dumpy woman in a viciously patterned, skin-tight gown looked over at us. Her eyes widened and she jabbed an elbow into the side of the woman standing next to her. A ripple ran through the line, and within seconds everyone was either staring at Lilly, or very obviously and carefully
not
staring at her. I had a sudden insight into what Lilly’s life must be like. These women were all in the movie business, and even they were incapable of treating her normally. How much worse must it be out on the street?
    “Let’s go in here,” Lilly said, opening a door into an empty room and pushing me through. It was another ballroom, although a much smaller one. She pulled two chairs off a stack against the wall and motioned me to sit down.
    I perched on the crushed velvet seat and poked at the matching curtain draped along the wall. “I haven’t seen this much mauve since my cousin Dara’s bat mitzvah reception at Leonard’s of Great Neck.”
    “What?”
    “Never mind. What’s going on, Lilly? Is everything okay? Are you okay?”
    “I have to talk to you about something,” she said, worrying the silk of her skirt with agitated fingers. I cringed, sure she was going to tear through the gossamer fabric. The dress probably cost more than my monthly rent. This kind of anxiousness just wasn’t like Lilly. She was not a nervous person—she had always exuded the kind of serene confidence specific to very beautiful, very successful women, even when it had looked like her career might begin and end with movies in which her heaving breasts were mauled by flesh-eaters.
    “Sure, fine, but don’t tear your beautiful dress, okay?”
    She let go of her skirt and clasped her hands,