“Benny,” I said, in a whisper-shout because court would be in session at any moment.
“Yeah.” Gruff and manly, that’s how I like them. Not a whisper or a shout, just a grunt of a quick, staccato reply.
“She’s here,” I said, my Boston accent like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting, even when I’m whisper-shouting, detectable even to me. They say we can’t hear our own accents, but yesterday, when someone asked how I was and I replied, “If I were doin’ any bettuh, it’d be a sin,” I cracked myself up at my wit and my dialect, both of which were sharp.
Benny craned his tree trunk of a neck. Wouldn’t I love to cup the back of that trunk with both hands, stand on my tippy-toes, and reach up for a kiss. But the courtroom is our workplace, and Patty’s already been startin’ shit about Benny and me coming in at the same time three mornings a week. Benny thought we should stagger our arrival, me comin’ in ten minutes behind him. But I’m thinkin’ if anyone saw us in the parking lot together and then saw that I walked in later, they’d be onto our scheme better than if we just walked in at the same time like co-workers who punch a clock do.
Besides, I don’t care who knows. I’m proud to be takin’ this man home three nights a week. I can’t wait to see his place and meet his mother. But first, I’d be happy if he took me on a proper date.
Benny spotted Karen Read, the one we’d been waiting for. She’s pretty and smart. They don’t bring functioning society members into court in orange jumpsuits and chains. She’ll get to go home tonight, but not her own home. Too many people want to kill her or worse. She’ll return to wherever she hides at night.
“All rise,” Marie said. “Court is now in session, the Honorable Beverly Cannone presiding.”
Honorable, that’s a good one. More like Aunt Bev, the Drunken Petty Tyrant. Or hadn’t you heard? That ring of cop families with the stink all over them said on Facebook they’d be summering at the Cape and staying at “Aunt Bev’s house.” That’s “Her Honor,” and they didn’t say the drunken part, I did. To look at her, you really couldn’t draw any other conclusion.
Karen looks elegant in her designer suit. She’s pretty. I know Benny thinks so ’cause it’s all he can go on about when we get in the car to my place after work. I bet he thinks about her during our sex. I don’t want him to, but what am I gonna do?
I’d love to hate her, but I know she didn’t kill her boyfriend, and I can’t believe what I’m witnessin’ every day at my job. Her life is over even if they don’t convict. Most of the time, I just wanna give her a hug, even when I can see Benny lookin’ at her like he’d like to do a whole lot more than that.
You know who I’d like to hug and more: Yannetti. Everyone makes a big case about Alan Jackson, and he’s the one I want if I’m accused of killin’ my boyfriend—not that I have one, Benny sayin’ we should take it slow, even though we take it fast three times a week—but David Yannetti, he seems sweet, protective. He’s a good one.
Jackson is a flashy California lawyer. He’s got fancy suits and even fancier words, but Yannetti looks like he’d back Karen in a fight. The way he turns his body to shield her from the dead guy’s family sitting right next to her and giving her the stink eye … I love him for that. I bet Karen loves him for that.
“Mr. Carter,” Aunt Bev says to Benny. “Would you secure the courtroom?”
What the fuck now? Secure the courtroom? Why?
“Yes, Your Honor.” So full of shit. Benny hates Aunt Bev even more than I do. Karen is lookin’ at my man, but not the way I catch him lookin’ at her. She doesn’t want him. She watches everyone, hanging out in this courtroom every day fighting for her life. She knows every inch of this place and every flinch and flicker from anyone here.
She knows my Benny intimately, but only like she knows us all, because she’s put in the time. I try to smile at her like I’d want someone to do for me if I were on trial for killin’ my man and didn’t do it. How’s she gonna prove what we all have eyes to see, that the crooked Canton cops framed her? She’s got the hottest shot lawyers and all kinds of evidence, but the people in Dedham might be too dumb to care.