Free A Flower in the Desert by Walter Satterthwait Page B

the correspondence course that it was a good way to go when there was nobody around to beat up.”
    He smiled. Again he looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, and again he made up his mind. “Melissa Alonzo,” he said, “is one of the bravest women I’ve ever known.”
    He said it with a casual matter-of-factness that was more impressive, and more believable, than an intense conviction. That told me a few things. It told me that possibly he cared for Melissa beyond the boundaries of the lawyer—client relationship. And it told me that, because he might, I’d have to be careful with the questions I asked him. It told me, too, that I’d have to be careful with the answers he gave. He might not consciously lie to me, but if he were involved with Melissa, or if he’d wanted to be, his attachment to her might color his perceptions. I glanced at his left hand. No wedding ring.
    It could be. Even lawyers, I had heard, can make fools of themselves for love.
    And so, I had heard, can private detectives.
    â€œBrave how?” I asked him.
    â€œShe has this … she has a really remarkable inner strength. She’s—you’ve seen pictures of her? You know what she looks like?”
    I nodded.
    His eyes were brighter now and his face was animated. “Well,” he said, “here’s this slight, slim woman—she’s in her thirties but she looks like a teenage girl—and you think, Jesus, a strong breeze would blow her over. She’s very open, very unguarded, very … innocent. Almost an Alice in Wonderland figure. And she gives you the feeling that she could be hurt extremely easily. And she could be. She is . She’s certainly sensitive, and she’s certainly had more than her share of pain and disappointment. But beneath all the other qualities there’s an amazing strength of character. All through the trial, with reporters badgering her, her family ignoring her, her husband lying through his teeth up on the stand, she never broke. She had some rough moments. She had some extremely rough moments. A couple of times there I thought she was gone. I thought she’d crumble. But she always picked herself up and got on with the business at hand. She’s an extraordinary woman.”
    I nodded. I no longer wondered whether the man had been attached to Melissa. Any lawyer learns early on to hide his feelings. And a divorce lawyer can see people at their worst, at their most wounded, their most malicious. A lot of divorce lawyers become hardened. He hadn’t. Or, if he had, something about Melissa Alonzo had caused him to open his shell to her. And now to me.
    â€œAnd she was a wonderful mother,” he said. “Caring. Supportive. Protective of Winona without trying to smother her.”
    â€œAfter the trial,” I said, “or during it, did Melissa ever talk about running off with Winona?”
    He considered his answer. Finally, expressionless once again, he said, “I’m sorry. That would have been privileged communication. I can’t answer that question.” He was trying, I thought, to walk a line that wound precariously between his legal ethics, his residual wariness of me, and his desire to help find Melissa. But he must have known that by refusing to answer the question, he was permitting me to assume that Melissa had in fact mentioned the idea of running off.
    I said, “Can you tell me if she ever discussed the Underground Railroad with you? A network that helps hide women and their children?”
    He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t answer that either.” Which again, if I was reading him correctly, probably meant that Melissa had discussed the Railroad.
    â€œWere you surprised when Melissa vanished?”
    â€œYes,” he said—more at ease, apparently, now that he could answer without playing games. “Completely surprised. We had an appointment at my office on the