“What is it, Carrier?”
Judy didn’t answer Bennie, and Mary turned completely around, which wasn’t easy, considering the size of her belly.
“Judy, what?”
Judy bit her lip. “There’s something I have to tell you. You should know it before the police find out.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Mary didn’t understand why Judy was stopping them before they went into the Roundhouse. Her best friend’s face was visible in the ambient light, and Judy looked stricken, her agonized expression incongruous with her pink hair and the quirky, multicolored poncho.
“Honey, what’s the matter?” Mary asked, concerned.
“Um, well.” Judy looked down at her hands, fumbling with a ball of soggy tissues. “There’s something you guys should know before we go in. I’ve been keeping it from you. I should’ve told you before now but, well, uh, I didn’t. I didn’t know how you would react.”
Mary frowned, pained. “Honey, you can tell me anything. I won’t react any way. You know that, I love you.”
Bennie looked over at Judy. “Carrier, just tell us,” she said, her tone uncharacteristically gentle.
Judy heaved a sigh that shuddered as she exhaled, then lifted her gaze, which was teary, glistening in the light. “John and I, well, we weren’t just friends. We were dating.”
Mary blinked, hiding her shock. She felt surprised that Judy would keep it from her, but this wasn’t the time or the place for that, and Judy’s heartbroken demeanor made complete sense. Judy was taking John’s murder so hard because she had been seeing him.
Bennie frowned. “Wait. You were dating Foxman? An associate?”
“Yes.” Judy sniffled.
“You can’t do that.”
“I knew you wouldn’t like it. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
“That doesn’t make it right, that only makes it secret.”
Mary flared her eyes, interjecting, “Bennie, really? Now?”
Bennie sighed. “Sorry, Carrier.”
“I’m sorry.” Judy nodded, miserably.
Bennie added, “But I hate surprises, and now we have to deal with this. We’re blindsided.”
Mary interjected again, “Bennie?”
Bennie pursed her lips. “Carrier, how long did you two date for?”
“We’ve been dating for, almost, eight months.” Judy’s wet gaze met Mary’s directly. “Since you found out you were pregnant, Mary. After your case with Simon and his daughter. It started with a friendship, then I started seeing him in a new light. I guess I always crushed on him, but we’re so different, like, he’s so straight, but anyway, we got together. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I wanted to, so many times.”
“It’s all right.” Mary managed a reassuring smile, though she felt bewildered. “You could’ve told me, but it’s okay that you didn’t. What really matters is that I’m very sorry that you lost him. I knew you were friends, but I didn’t know you were, well, closer.”
“We are, I mean, we really were.” Judy dabbed her eye with the soggy Kleenex. “I should have told you, but you were so busy with the pregnancy and I didn’t want to take the focus off of you, and we weren’t sure when we wanted people to know in the office. We were keeping it to ourselves until we knew it was working out.” Judy turned to face Bennie. “I didn’t think you would approve. I was a partner and he was an associate, but if you remember, you kinda sprung partnership on me, when you thought the firm was breaking up. Anyway, I didn’t know how you would feel about an office romance, especially since I was technically his boss. I didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell anybody.”
“Understood,” Bennie said quietly, without rancor. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you guys.” Judy sniffled, and Mary could see she was fighting to remain in control.
“It’s okay, honey, don’t worry about it.” Mary couldn’t reach Judy to touch her, but in the next moment, Bennie did, surprisingly, patting Judy’s hand.
“Carrier, that’s the last thing you should be worried about. But it’s good that we know that before we go into the police interviews.”
“Wait, there’s more.” Judy sniffled, half chuckling. “Arg, I know, it sounds like those dumb commercials. ‘Wait there’s more!’”
“What more?” Bennie asked, calmly.
Mary glanced at Anthony, who was listening, his head cocked.
Judy swallowed hard. “I was there tonight, at John’s.”
Mary recoiled, unable to process the information fast enough. Her first thought was that it wasn’t a good thing.
“What time?” Bennie kept her hand on Judy’s.
“I guess until about nine o’clock, and we had a big fight.” Judy raked her fingers through her hair, shaking her head. “It’s just so sad, and so awful, I don’t even know where to start, I mean, I can’t believe he’s gone.”
“Carrier, begin at the beginning.” Bennie’s tone strengthened. “Tell me the chronology of your day. We were together in the morning, then you took Mary to the doctor.”
“Right.” Judy nodded, sniffling anew.
“What time did you leave the doctor?”
“Anthony picked Mary up at around two o’clock.”
“What did you do then?”
“I went to John’s.”
“How did you get there?”
“I took a cab.”
“Why did you go there?”
Judy sniffled, wiping her eyes again. “We were in a fight from the night before, when the Complaint came in from Machiavelli. I was so surprised and shocked, really. I didn’t know John had said any of those things about us and I didn’t even know he was looking for a job. He kept it from me, and we had a big fight about it, on Friday night, and uh we—” Judy’s eyes welled up, and Bennie squeezed Judy’s hand.
“Stay with me. We need to figure this out and we need to figure it out right now.”
“Okay, okay,” Judy said, trying to recover.
“All you have to do is answer my questions. Let’s back up to Friday night. What time did you go to his house Friday night?”
“After work, at seven o’clock.”
“And what happened?”
“I told him I was really mad at him about the Complaint and the things he said, and also at the press conference, because that was such a mess and I didn’t know that he had even been interviewing for a job. He hadn’t told me.” Judy hesitated. “And well, he, uh, said he was interviewing because he didn’t think we could work at the same firm if he was an associate and I was his boss, and he wasn’t going to tell me until he had an offer he wanted, so that’s why he didn’t tell me, but anyway we had a big fight.”
“What time did you leave his apartment?”
“I left around one in the morning. We fought, like, all night. It was horrible, and now I feel horrible—”
“Was there shouting?”
“Yes.” Judy blew her nose. “Me, mostly. You could’ve guessed that.”
“Okay, let’s return to Saturday. So you go to his apartment at two o’clock.” Bennie paused. “Wait a minute. Didn’t he have a job interview? I remember he said that, and he was dressed for it.”
“Yes, but it was over by two.”
“Do you know who it was with?”
“No.” Judy shook her head, distraught. “I didn’t know he was doing any of that. I feel so terrible that he said such bad things about us, and I can’t believe that he really felt that way, and that’s what we were fighting about, back and forth.”
“Okay, so you were at his apartment from two o’clock today. What did you do there?”
“We tried to work it out and we talked, and we fought, and we ordered in, but we couldn’t work it out, and I was so angry at him and he was angry at me for being angry at him and anyway, so, well, uh, we broke up.”
Listening, Mary felt a wave of profound sympathy for her best friend, who must’ve been suffering so deeply. Judy was one of the most sensitive creatures on the planet, despite her happy-go-lucky exterior, and Mary’s heart went out to her.
Bennie asked, “Was there more yelling?”
“Yes.”