Easy Innocence

Chapter 25

AFTER SPENDING an uncomfortable night on Sam's couch, Georgia rented a steam carpet cleaner, went home, and spent the day scrubbing. She scoured the steps and the landing with carpet shampoo and an enzyme cleaner until most of the smell was gone. The only way you could pick up anything at all was to burrow your nose into the carpet fibers. She half expected to run into her neighbor, but he didn't appear.

It was a crisp fall day with an achingly blue sky, and late that afternoon she went for a run. She jogged east to the lake and then up to Northwestern, making a loop around Evanston. As she reached the campus, she passed a couple strolling by the lake, their bodies melded together in a two-step of total absorption. She remembered that absorption: the overpowering need that only one person could satisfy, the joy that came from satisfying it. That joy, the joy that framed the corners of most people's lives, made only a temporary foray into Georgia's life. A dull pain gathered at the center of her chest.

Back home she showered, dressed, then returned the carpet cleaner to the supermarket. She must have still had soup on the brain, because she picked up a container of tomato bisque along with her other groceries. She wasn't exactly sure what bisque was. It looked like cream of tomato but was more expensive. What was the difference, besides the fancy French name? She poured it into a pan and set it on the stove.

She'd never been a soup person until Matt. He loved it. Said it must be the peasant stock in him. Shit. She was doing it again-using Matt as a benchmark for the events in her life. When would she stop? She stared at the bisque, then took it off the stove and poured it down the drain.

She was lugging a load of clean laundry up from the basement when the phone rang inside her apartment. She sprinted up the last flight to get it.

"Hello?"

"Davis," a tinny voice responded. "It's Paul Kelly."

Saturday night. She hadn't figured the lawyer for a weekend worker. "Hey, Paul. What's up?"

He cleared his throat, and there was a moment of silence. Then, "I was just going over my notes on the Jordan case and wanted to check in."

"It's been an interesting couple of days." She told him about the fish guts. "I could have used your help."

Kelly mumbled something she couldn't make out.

"What?" She smiled. "You don't think cleaning up fish crud is in the line of duty?"

"It was the first thing I learned in law school."

"Along with due process?" She opened her door to gaze at the now clean carpet. "Well, given that this was the same thing that was dumped on Sara Long's head, I'd say someone was trying to send me a message."

"Brilliant deduction," Kelly said. "But fish guts? It's crude."

"That may be the only thing they could think up."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm wondering if the perpetrator was a kid. From the hazing."

"You have any leads?"

"You're not going to like this, but one name keeps surfacing."

"And who would that be?"

"Monica Ramsey."

She heard him suck in his breath.

"Just listen, Paul. Apparently Tommy Cashian-he's the Ramsey girl's boyfriend-had the hots for Sara Long. They hooked up over the summer. It didn't last, but according to her friends, Monica knew about it. When I talked to the kid, he admitted he was crazy about Sara. He would have broken up with Monica, except Sara told him not to. In fact, she dumped him."