Free Final Appeal by Lisa Scottoline Page B

Hypothetically?”
    He gets up with an audible sigh, pushing down on his thighs like a much older man. “You know, there are support groups.”
    Support groups. Therapy. He sounds like Ricki.
    “Listen, Miss Rossi. You may never understand it. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
    I meet his cool eye. He’s a detective, an experienced one. Maybe he is right about Armen. Still, maybe he’s not.
    I leave the police station and walk to my wagon, parked at a meter across the street. Bernice has escaped from the cargo area and is nestled officially in the driver’s seat, but she doesn’t notice me coming toward her. She’s watching a thick-set man get into a black boxy car a couple down the line.
    Odd, he looks like someone I saw yesterday in my neighborhood.
    I watch the car pull out quickly. A new car, American-made. The license plate is from Virginia.
    Strange.
    “ Roarf! ” Bernice says, startling me.
    “Get back, beast,” I say to her through the car window.
    You’re no fun, say her eyes.
    Christ. I fish in my blazer pocket for my car keys, but they come out with a folded strip of legal paper. I figure it’s an old shopping list until I open it up:

    Grace—
    This is only the beginning for us. I love you.
    Armen
     

    P.S. I hope you find this before your dry cleaner.
    I look at the note in disbelief. I read it again. Armen.
     
    I love you . My God. I feel a wrenching inside my chest.
    It’s his handwriting; it always looked like he was writing in Armenian, even when he wasn’t. How did this get here? When did he write it?
    Of course.
    The last time I wore this jacket was Monday, the night we were together. It was slung over the back of my chair.
    I check the other pockets, but they’re empty. When did Armen leave this note? Then I remember. I used his bathroom before we left. My jacket was at the conference table.
    This is only the beginning for us.
    I shake my head. Not the sentiment of a man intending to kill himself. Not at all.
    “ Roarf! ” Bernice barks again, trying to stand in the seat. Her slobber has smeared up the window.
    I look back at the police station and consider running back inside. No. I’d have to tell the detective everything, and he’d find a way to dismiss it anyway. He’s one hundred percent, he said.
    I look down at the note in my hand, feeling a surge of pain inside, and with it, a certainty. Armen didn’t commit suicide. He was murdered. I know it now. I’m holding proof positive. Exhibit A.
    Unaccountably, I think of the black car. I look down the street, but it’s long gone.
    Someone’s life is at stake , Armen had said. Get involved .
    I put the note back in my pocket and slip my car key in the door. There’s going to be an investigation, but it’ll have to be my own. Because I’m involved, starting now.
    As soon as I can get into the driver’s seat.
     
    The intercom buzzes on my telephone as soon as I get to my desk in the vacant clerks’ office of the judge who lives in North Jersey. It’s lined with case reports and lawbooks, and furnished in a cheap utilitarian way, with a wooden desk, side table, and chair. “Yes?”
    “Grace? I’ve been calling you at home, it’s your day off, isn’t it?” It’s Sarah. My heart gives a little jump.
    “Yes, but I’ll be in every day for a while, and today I have to look at that marshals’ tape.”
    “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ll be right over.”
    My heart pounds as we hang up. Jesus, is she going to confess to murder? What will I do? I open my desk drawer, and a gleaming pair of scissors glints from a logjam of yellow pencils. I put the scissors near my right hand on the desktop, feeling idiotic for arming myself against a baby lawyer from Yale.
    “Knock knock,” Sarah says. She leans confidently against the doorjamb. A filmy skirt billows around her freckled ankles; a melon sweater complements her hair.
    “That was fast.”
    “We need to talk, you and I.”
    I let my hand linger near