NYPD Red 2(26)
The first time Gideon said it, Meredith tossed it off. “Fifteen-yard penalty for violating the cardinal rule of friends with benefits—illegal use of the L-word.”
That night, when she was on a high from being assigned to the biggest case of her life, Gideon tried it again. Lying on the floor, breathing heavily, surrounded by magazines from the overturned coffee table, Gideon, still deep inside her, whispered in her ear, “I love you.”
He waited for her to remind him of the ground rules. And then he felt tears rolling down his cheek. Her tears.
“I’m sorry I made you wait so long,” she said, lifting her head and lowering her lips to his. “I love you too.”
Her body relaxed, and her breathing took on a familiar rhythm. “We’re going to win this case,” she said, drifting into sleep. “Right?”
“Mmmm…,” he said, his eyes closed, his breathing in sync with hers. “You can’t lose.”
Chapter 26
“I don’t know why they’re running that shit on CNN,” Meredith said halfway through her fourth margarita. “It should be on Comedy Central, because the whole fucking trial was a joke.”
The other lawyers around the table raised their glasses in solidarity.
“We had fifty witnesses who’d have gladly testified that Rachael O’Keefe was a barfly who would leave her daughter alone most nights,” Meredith said, playing to the partisan audience. “Our mistake was that we only called five of them to the stand. And then we only called three who testified that Rachael felt trapped by Kimi—that she’d sit at the bar swilling white wine and telling anybody who would listen that she wished the kid had never been born. A day and a half of testimony, and did the jury even hear any of it? Yes! They heard just enough to find her guilty of endangering the welfare of a child. The Bad Mommy verdict. That’s like finding O.J. guilty of getting blood all over the sidewalk and fining him for littering.”
Meredith drained the last of her drink. Dave stood up and put his arm around his sister. “Time to sit down, sis.”
She pulled away. “No. I’m still talking.”
“How about you sit down, Dave,” Gideon said. “She’s had a rough couple of months. Let her talk it out.”
Dave shook his head, but he didn’t argue. He went back to his chair.
Gideon handed Meredith his beer. “Here you go, baby. Talk all you want.”
“Okay, let’s pretend I’m Rachael O’Keefe,” she said, slurring her words. “It’s two in the morning, and I am totally shit-faced.”
“I’m convinced,” Gideon yelled, and the group bellowed.
“NYU Drama Club,” Meredith said, taking a little bow. “Where was I? Oh yeah, I’m staggering across the street to my apartment,” she continued, slipping back into her Rachael character. “I look in on my daughter—because even drunk mothers look in on their kids—and poor Kimi, left alone in the dark for four hours, is crying. Damn kid is always crying, I think, so I grab a pillow and put it over her face. I don’t want to kill her. I just want to shut her up. And I do. The kid stops crying. The silence feels so good that I hold the pillow there just a little longer. And then the kid stops breathing. Oops. I didn’t mean to do that. I didn’t mean to kill her.”
Meredith stood up tall, smoothed out her skirt, and addressed the group. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” she said. “Rachael O’Keefe may not have meant to kill her little girl, but once she crossed that line, she did mean to cover it up. Who else would have wrapped her up all nice and neat in a blanket and put her in a garbage bag? Who else could have snuck out through the service entrance and left Kimi’s body with fifty other garbage bags waiting for the morning trash? Bad Mommy? No. Rachael O’Keefe was always Bad Mommy. But that night, she became Killer Mommy.”
“I’m convinced,” Gideon said. “I vote guilty.”
“Thank you,” Meredith said, taking another slug of Gideon’s beer. “You, my handsome friend, should have been on the jury. You know what their problem was?”
Gideon shrugged. “I’m going to go with brain damage.”
Meredith laughed far louder and longer than the joke deserved. “No, the problem with that jury was that nobody actually saw Rachael O’Keefe murder her daughter. Twelve good men and true? More like twelve morons!”
Another swig of beer. “I have a question for you,” she said to the group. “If you wake up one morning and your windows are wet and the sidewalks outside are wet, do you actually have to see or hear the rain to come to the inescapable conclusion that it rained last night?”