“I’m so sorry,” Joyce said, but this time she wasn’t sure she meant it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE TRINA
The meeting with the lawyer was pretty much the same as all the others Trina’d had in the past—too long and too expensive. Trina couldn’t decide if she liked the lawyer, this Blanche Grainger. She was all hairspray and shoulder pads, sat serenely at the head of the table with her arms crossed and a knowing look on her face.
She recommended Trina not talk to the police without her present. She had a few friends on the force, Blanche told Trina and Simon—because of course Simon was there, since he was paying for the meeting and keeping Blanche on retainer for Trina, and honestly that’s the least he could do for Trina after what he did to her life—and Blanche could put pressure for them to back off a little.
“I can’t influence an investigation, obviously.” Blanche looked solemnly at her two clients. “But, I can help maintain a quality of life for my client while the investigation is ongoing.”
Trina wasn’t sure what she meant by quality of life, but assumed it had something to do with keeping the police from showing up at her classes on campus or coming around for questions at her apartment in the middle of the night. Blanche could keep it all “respectable”, as Simon would say.
As they wrapped up, Blanche’s assistant came in with a questioning face and Trina swore she saw Blanche mouth the word “two” with her hot-pink lipstick as she held up two fingers. Trina checked her watch. They’d been there an hour and fifteen minutes, but it seemed Blanche rounded up when it came to fees. Trina just hoped Blanche wouldn’t have the same fuzzy math if she had to negotiate sentencing for Trina.
But that won’t happen. Trina won’t let herself even consider it. This all just needed to go away. Simon should just make it go away. He owed her that.
After the meeting, Simon settled the bill and they all dispersed to their separate channels of life. Outside in the parking lot, Simon moved as though to comfort Trina, and she shifted deftly away from him, climbed into her car, and drove off. They’d spoken enough for one day. He could go home, grab a snifter of whiskey, and feel good about himself for helping Trina.
Trina had other plans.
Monica’s warning from their conversation earlier kept ringing in her head. “He had enemies.” If Trina was going to get out of this mess, she needed to figure out who those enemies were. And to do that, she needed to learn more about Dermot.
She had a class tomorrow she needed to prepare for, because even though she was under investigation for murder the academic calendar does not stop turning and Trina couldn’t risk losing her job. Not now.
She headed back to campus, and by the time she walked the stairs to her office it was too late for her to turn onto another floor when she recognized a familiar voice.
“Oh, it’s you.” Addy Simpson looked just as uncomfortable to see Trina as Trina felt.
Just move on, Trina thought. She gave Addy a curt nod and kept walking up the stairs. Her side satchel felt heavier than usual, weighing down her shoulder so that she was lopsided and curvy-spined as she passed Addy.
The two hadn’t seen each other since the night in the bar, when Addy was drunkenly celebrating passing her dissertation defense and Trina had been doing her usual routine of trying to forget.
“Hang on, would you?” Addy held out a hand towards Trina. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Okay.” Trina turned and waited for Addy.
Addy looked around. A door opened and closed upstairs, and footsteps echoed in the stairwell. “Somewhere private?”
Trina glanced at her watch. She did not have time for this. “I have class in thirty minutes.” She didn’t add that she hadn’t reviewed her material for class yet.
“It won’t take long.” Addy went ahead of Trina, the two women walking in unspoken agreement up the stairs, into the third-floor hallway, and arrived at Trina’s office door.
Trina set her bag down and gave Addy a questioning look.
Addy’s dark hair was in braids today, with bright gold bands wrapped around a few of them. Her sweater flaunted a Fair Isle print, and paired with the slim jeans and knee-high boots she was wearing she could easily have been mistaken for an undergraduate rather than a freshly minted Ph.D.
“I wanted to apologize for what I said the last night.” Addy stared at a brown stain on the carpet. Trina couldn’t remember if it was coffee or whiskey. A blush rose on Addy’s cheeks as she continued. “I was celebrating a little too much.”
“We’ve all been there.”
Addy made a noncommittal noise.
And that’s when Trina remembered what Addy said to her.
“I knew Dermot,” Addy said, as if reading Trina’s thoughts. Addy twisted her hands in front of her like a nervous child. “He was a really good person.”
Trina looked at the young woman in front of her, not sure how to proceed. Eventually, she decided on just being honest.
“I didn’t know him that well, but I’m really sorry for what happened to him.”
Addy nodded, taking that in. Then she seemed to feel the need to explain herself. “We met through friends. I was doing some research with foster kids, and my friend put me in touch with Dermot. He was a social worker, and really nice and friendly. We got along great, and sort of became friends.”
Maybe that’s also why Addy was drinking so much that night, Trina thought.
She repeated, “I’m sorry about your friend.”
Addy locked eyes with her. “They’re saying that you were with him, that night.”
“Who’s they?” Trina asked.
“Everybody. People saw the police talking with you on campus, and so word just started spreading around.”
Trina wondered how much of that was due to Addy herself. A memory flashed up from that night in the bar, Addy saying she knew Trina was in trouble. That rumors were spreading around the department.
“We met at a wedding. He was just a guy who I thought was cute and…” Trina paused, and then just got on with it. “And I slept with him. He had a room at the hotel where the wedding was held. I didn’t know him well, at all.”
“The police think you’re the one who hurt him?” Addy’s face was unreadable.
“I think so. But too many pieces of this situation don’t fit. There are people who say Dermot was such a great guy, but I think he had problems.”
