Mystic River
Page 43
“Me, too.” He kissed her.
They leaned back against the wall together, a steady stream of people passing by along the sidewalk in front of them, and then Celeste suddenly stood before them. Her skin was pale and her hair was speckled with dandruff and she kept pulling on her fingers as if trying to pop them from the sockets.
She blinked at Sean. She said, “Hey, Trooper Devine.”
Sean held out his hand because she looked like she needed contact or she’d float away. “Hi, Celeste. Call me Sean. It’s okay.”
She shook his hand. Her palm was clammy, her fingers hot, and she let go almost as soon as they’d touched.
Sean said, “This is Lauren, my wife.”
“Hello,” Lauren said.
“Hi.”
For a moment, no one knew what to say. They stood there, stilted and untethered, and then Celeste looked across the street and Sean followed her gaze to Jimmy, standing there with his arm around Annabeth, the two of them shining as bright as the day, surrounded by friends and family. They looked like they’d never lose anything again.
Jimmy’s eyes swept past Celeste and met Sean’s. He nodded in recognition and Sean nodded back.
Celeste said, “He killed my husband.”
Sean felt Lauren freeze up against him.
“I know,” he said. “I can’t prove it yet, but I know.”
“Will you?”
“What?”
“Prove it?” she said.
“I’ll try, Celeste. I swear to God.”
Celeste looked out on the avenue and scratched her head with a lazy ferocity, as if digging for lice. “I can’t seem to put a finger on my mind lately.” She laughed. “That didn’t sound right. But I can’t. I just can’t.”
Sean reached out and touched her wrist. She looked at him, her brown eyes wild and aged. She seemed sure he was going to slap her.
He said, “I can give you the name of a doctor, Celeste, someone who specializes in those who’ve lost loved ones to violent crime.”
She nodded, though his words didn’t seem to provide any consolation. Her wrist fell away from his hand, and she tugged at her fingers again. She noticed Lauren watching her, and she looked down at her fingers. She dropped her hands, then raised them again and crossed her arms over her chest and tucked her hands under her elbows as if trying to keep them from flying away. Sean noticed Lauren giving her a small, hesitant smile, one of abject empathy, and he was surprised to see Celeste respond with a tiny smile of her own and an acknowledgment of gratitude in the blink of her eyes.
He loved his wife then as deeply as he ever had, and he felt humbled by her ability to convey instant kinship with lost souls. He was sure then that it was he who had wronged their marriage with the emergence of his cop’s ego, his gradual contempt for the flaws and frailty of people.
He reached out and touched Lauren’s cheek, and the gesture caused Celeste to look away.
She looked out onto the avenue as a float in the shape of a baseball glove drifted by, ringed on all sides with Little Leaguers and T-ball teams, the kids beaming and waving and going crazy with the adoration.
Something about the float chilled Sean, the way the baseball glove, maybe, seemed less to be cradling the kids and more on the verge of enveloping them, the kids oblivious, smiling like mad.
Except for one. He was subdued and he looked at his cleats, and Sean recognized him immediately. Dave’s son.
“Michael!” Celeste waved to him, but the kid didn’t look back. He kept his eyes down even though she called his name again. “Michael, honey! Sweetie, look! Michael!”
The float kept drifting along, and Celeste kept calling, and her son refused to look her way. Sean could see a young Dave in the kid’s shoulders and the droop of his chin, his almost delicate good looks.
“Michael!” Celeste called. She pulled her fingers again and stepped off the curb.
The float passed them, but Celeste kept following it, moving through the crowds, waving, calling her son’s name.
Sean felt Lauren idly caress his arm, and he looked across the street at Jimmy. If it took him the rest of his life, he was going to bring him down. You see me, Jimmy? Come on. Look over again.
And Jimmy’s head swiveled. He smiled at Sean.
Sean raised his hand, the index finger pointing out, the thumb cocked like the hammer of a gun, and then he dropped the thumb and fired.
Jimmy’s smile broadened.
“Who was that woman?” Lauren said.
Sean watched Celeste as she trotted along the line of parade watchers, growing smaller as the float continued up the avenue, her coat flapping behind her.
“Somebody who lost her husband,” Sean said.
And he thought of Dave Boyle, and he wished he’d bought him that beer like he’d promised on the second day of the investigation. He wished he’d been nicer to him when they were kids, and that Dave’s father hadn’t left him, and his mother hadn’t been nuts, and that so many bad things hadn’t happened to him. Standing along the parade route with his wife and child, he wished a lot of things for Dave Boyle. But peace mostly. More than anything, he hoped Dave, wherever he was, got a little of that.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Sergeant Michael Lawn, as always, of the Watertown Police Department; Boston City Councillor Brian Honan; David Meier, chief of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Homicide Unit; Teresa Leonard and Ann Guden for catching my errors; and Tom Murphy of James A. Murphy and Son Funeral Home in Dorchester.
A particular debt of gratitude is owed to Trooper Robert Manning of the Massachusetts State Police, who put the ball in play and answered all my questions, no matter how stupid, with a straight face.
Deepest thanks to an extraordinary agent, Ann Rittenberg, and a brilliant editor, Claire Wachtel, for guiding me through.
About the Author
DENNIS LEHANE is the author of A Drink Before the War, which won the Shamus Award for Best First Novel; Darkness, Take My Hand; Sacred; Gone, Baby, Gone; Prayers for Rain; and the New York Times bestseller Shutter Island. He lives in the Boston area.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Praise
DENNIS LEHANE
MYSTIC RIVER
“PENETRATING…HEART-SCORCHING…A POWERHOUSE…[Lehane’s] deeply scored characterizations of three former friends carries the soul of this story…. If you want to know when innocence dies, just look these people in the eye.”
New York Times Book Review
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“A LITERARY MURDER MYSTERY OF THE HIGHEST ORDER…The way this story unfolds and wraps itself around your innermost fears makes it a gut-clenching winner.”
USA Today
“LEHANE’S BEST BOOK…It shimmers with great dialogue and a complex view of the world.”
Newsweek
“ONE POWERFUL, WRENCHING TALE OF MURDER, REVENGE, THE MEANING OF FRIENDSHIP, AND THE VAGARIES OF FATE…LEHANE HAS CRAFTED HIS BEST STORY YET.”
Denver Rocky Mountain News
“GET DENNIS LEHANE’S MYSTIC RIVER. BOY, DOES HE KNOW HOW TO WRITE.”
Elmore Leonard
“A DARK THRILLER THAT SHINES WITH PSYCHOLOGICAL INSIGHT…Lehane elevates a mystery into a work of literary prowess.”
New York Daily News
“ONE OF THE BEST WRITERS OF HIS GENERATION, PERIOD…MYSTIC RIVER IS THE NOVEL MOST WRITERS CAN ONLY DREAM OF WRITING…the sort of novel that haunts you for days after you finish it, its moodiness (and especially its ending) not quite letting go…a testament to the power of a truly gifted writer.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer
“A DEEPLY MELANCHOLY, OFTEN BRILLIANT TALE…Dennis Lehane is one of the strongest voices in contemporary detective fiction.”
Seattle Times
“POWERFUL AND RIVETING…MOVES WITH THE SPEED AND INTENSITY OF A TWISTER…With Mystic River, Lehane steps into the b
ig time.”
Tampa Tribune
“BRILLIANT…A TOUR-DE-FORCE…AS CLOSE TO PERFECT AS ANY READER HAS A RIGHT TO EXPECT.”
Providence Journal
“OUTSTANDING…THE FINEST MYSTERY OF THE LAST DECADE, AT LEAST…A novel with rich and real characters, a compulsive story, and some of the most burning, incisive prose between two covers…. It’s also a big, important novel, the kind that begs to be read by anyone who has ever, even for a moment, fallen under the spell of a good book.”
Memphis Commercial Appeal
“POWERFULLY WRITTEN, OFTEN WRENCHING…A FINE, SAD BOOK…Dennis Lehane delivers the whole package here—humanly drawn characters, tragic encounters, a plot that never stops developing, and loads of sorrow to be shared.”
Detroit News
“BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN…INSIGHTFUL, SHARP, AND INTELLIGENTLY PLOTTED…a soul-searching novel that explores the darkest hearts and moral complexities of our time.”
Arizona Republic
“[THE] SUSPENSE AND PACING [ARE] IMPECCABLE. Combining the tension of a thriller with the dramatic inevitability of a Greek tragedy, Mystic River ranks as a high-water mark for an author who is navigating his way to literary stardom.”
People
“DENNIS LEHANE IS ONE OF THE TEN BEST CRIME NOVELISTS IN THE UNITED STATES AND WITH THIS NOVEL, HIS FINEST TO DATE, HE MOVES UP A NOTCH.”
Toronto Globe and Mail
“A TERRIFIC NEW BOOK…Rooted in family, faith, and an inescapable sense of place, this thriller moves fast—and stays with you.”
New Orleans Times-Picayune
“AN INTRIGUING, SUSPENSEFUL NOVEL that makes the reader want to skim it more quickly to reach the next twist or character revelation. But Lehane’s stylistic prose works like a governor, forcing the reader to slow down and savor every well-crafted sentence.”
Denver Post
“A REMARKABLE CRIME NOVEL…unfailingly absorbing…Lehane displays extraordinary gifts.”
Toronto Star
“DENNIS LEHANE MAY BE THE BEST MYSTERY WRITER WE HAVE IN THIS COUNTRY TODAY.”
Boston Magazine
“FIRST-RATE…EFFECTIVE AND COMPELLING…A MOVING AND MEMORABLE NOVEL.”
Portland Oregonian
“A RIVETING RIDE…An elegant stylist…[Lehane] speeds the plot with a viselike grip that doesn’t loosen until the final page, but the writing makes the reader want to slow the pace long enough to savor the storytelling.”
Dayton Daily News
“HAUNTING…Lehane unravels the plot in unexpected ways, pulling and reweaving old threads of innocence and evil, friendship and betrayal, into a new and heartbreaking whole.”
Orlando Sentinel
“LEHANE’S WRITING HAS NEVER BEEN SHARPER, with a wonderful ear for dialogue and a knack for making even his secondary characters seem real.”
Bergen Record
“GRIPPING…DISTURBING…FASCINATING…This novel should bring Lehane a legion of new fans.”
St. Petersburg Times
Other Books by
Dennis Lehane
SHUTTER ISLAND
MYSTIC RIVER
PRAYERS FOR RAIN
GONE, BABY, GONE
SACRED
DARKNESS, TAKE MY HAND
A DRINK BEFORE THE WAR
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
MYSTIC RIVER. Copyright © 2006 by Dennis Lehane. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © AUGUST 2006 ISBN: 9780061827426
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