Missing Pieces by Joy Fielding Page B

early,” Jo Lynn said, “or I won’t save you a place.”
    I scoffed. “This is it for me.”
    Jo Lynn only smiled, lazily lacing a bright fuchsia scarf through her blond curls, then securing it with a saucy little bow at the side. The scarf matched her lipstick and sling-back, high-heeled shoes. In between, she sported a clinging, low-cut white jersey dress with a thigh-high slit up the side. Standing next to her in my conservative, albeit fashionable, beige Calvin Klein suit, I felt like an old frump, the still-virginal maiden aunt who stands in judgment, showering her disapproval on everything the younger folksdo. People walked by, smiled and nodded at Jo Lynn, scarcely aware of my presence.
    It was the same whenever I went anywhere with Sara. Men craned their necks to get a better view of my daughter, visually pushing me out of the way. Why was I wasting my money on expensive designer fashion when it obviously didn’t matter what I looked like? No one saw me anyway.
    I pictured Sara, still flopped across her bed when I left the house, which meant she’d be late for school again today. Of course, her lateness yesterday had been my fault, she claimed. I was the one who started the fight, who had to butt my nose into her business. I reminded her that her business became mine when I got phone calls from the school. She told me to get a life. Despite the insights I’d received at the coroner’s office, despite my best intentions and newfound resolve, the discussion went downhill from there. It ended with the front door slamming, Sara’s final words reverberating down the otherwise quiet street: “Thanks for making me late for school,
Ms.
Therapist!”
    A man approached, medium height, slightly scruffy in jeans and a lightweight navy sweater. He told Jo Lynn he was going across the street for a cup of coffee and asked if he could get her anything.
    “Coffee would be great, Eric,” she told him. “How about you, Kate?”
    “Coffee,” I agreed, smiling my appreciation. He didn’t notice.
    “Cream and two sugars, right?” he asked Jo Lynn.
    “You got it.”
    “Just black for me,” I said, but he was already on his way. “And who is Eric?” I asked her.
    She shrugged. “Just a guy I met in line the other day. He’s been coming since the beginning of the trial.”
    The trial was in its second week. According to newsreports, it was expected to last until Christmas. I looked around, casually perusing the faces of the others waiting behind me. Just a bunch of ordinary people, I realized, awaiting their opportunity to glimpse into the heart of extraordinary evil. The young outnumbered the old; the women outnumbered the men; the young women outnumbered everybody, undoubtedly drawn here by the powerful twin magnets of revulsion and attraction. Did being here make them feel safer, I wondered, more in control? Were they confronting their own worst fears, staring down their demons? Or were they here, as was my sister, to ask for the demon’s hand in marriage?
    It was the first time I’d been inside the new courthouse, which had been completed in May 1995. My eyes swept the foyer, trying to see it as Larry might, with a builder’s appreciation for detail, but all I saw was a lot of glass and granite. Maybe I was too nervous. Maybe I already regretted my decision to be there.
    Eric returned with our coffee. Mine, like Jo Lynn’s, contained cream and enough sugar to induce a diabetic coma. I smiled my thanks and held the undrinkable thing between my palms until it grew cold. At least Eric had remembered I was here.
    About an hour later, a large contingent of men and women appeared, seemingly from out of nowhere, and swept past us through a set of glass doors. “Press,” Jo Lynn whispered knowingly as my eyes trailed after them, my attention focusing on the profile of one man in particular, thinking he looked vaguely familiar. He was about fifty, slim, maybe five feet ten inches tall, with autumn-brown hair that