Love Nest

by Andrew Coburn

  “You’re a wonder, Paige.”

  “Are you just discovering that?”

  “I’ve never underestimated you,” he said softly. Then he grinned. “And I always knew, some way or another, we’d be partners.”

  His arm slid around her. She removed it. “You’re the junior partner,” she said.

  She descended to the lobby, where Attorney Rollins was waiting patiently, briefcase in hand, his head a shade tilted as if from a crick in his neck. He said, “Mrs. O’Dea would like a word with you.”

  “Sounds ominous. Where is she?”

  “Phillips Academy. Addison Gallery.”

  “What in God’s name is she doing there?”

  “Getting culture,” Rollins said tonelessly and extended an arm. “I’ll drive you.”

  The sun shone brilliantly on the venerable brick buildings of the academy, the grounds meticulously groomed, the green of the grass almost as rich as in summer, as if landscaping were an extension of the curriculum. Rollins parked the Mercedes across from the chapel, and together he and Paige Gately followed a shrub-shaded path to the impressive stone stairs leading to the gallery.

  “I’ll wait here and enjoy the weather,” he said. “The exhibit’s on the second floor. Contemporary British painting and sculpture, on loan from the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy.”

  “Sounds like you know all about it.”

  “I viewed it yesterday.”

  “You haven’t told me what she wants, William.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I honest-to-God don’t.”

  She examined his pale face, then gazed off at the rolling expanse of the campus. “This is the best prep school in the country, but it didn’t do much for you, did it?” The words were cruel, but she did not mean them that way. “It didn’t do much for Biff either.”

  Rollins said, “Don’t keep her waiting.”

  Not too many people were at the exhibit, a few instructors from the academy, some students, a townie or two. Rita O’Dea was easy to find. Wrapped in a flowing cape, sunglasses pushed into her black hair, where they glinted like added eyes, she pondered a semiabstract piece of sculpture entitled Seated Woman with Arms Extended. Without looking at Paige Gately, she said, “A tiny head and no boobs. Looks more like a beetle or a ladybug. What do you think?”

  “I didn’t realize you were interested in art.”

  “I’m fitting in, didn’t you know? I finally got around to joining the Newcomers Club. You know what a newcomer is in this town? Anybody who wasn’t born here. I went to my first meeting and all they did was jabber about this exhibit. I figured I’d better take a look so I’d know what they’re talking about. Now I’m here, I think they were pulling each other’s chain.”

  A head turned.

  “You understand any of this stuff?”

  “I pretend,” Paige Gately said.

  They moved on to a piece that was more a carving than a sculpture. Called Curved Form, it was an undulating U with a hole in its bottom. Rita O’Dea’s sizable arms came out of her cape in a gesture of frustration. “Am I supposed to make something of this?”

  “It had a certain fluidity,” Paige Gately offered carefully.

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  A startled security guard stared.

  Rita O’Dea suddenly gazed upon Paige Gately’s trim figure with an air of envy and anger. Then, vaguely apologetic, she lowered her voice. “My brother all the time used to tell me not to draw attention to myself. Hey, I got a choice? I just step out the door, I got people gawking. You got thin genes, I got the kind make you fat.”

  Paige Gately did not know her well, but she knew enough to treat her with caution, respect, and a certain amount of flattery. “You have a beautiful face.”

  “And gorgeous hair. My body had been better to me, I could’ve been a terrific hooker. I started getting heavy when I was twelve, time I was twenty I was this.“ She spoke with self-mockery and plucked the sunglasses from her hair, snapping the wings in.

  They approached a foot-high sculpture on a pedestal called Family Going for a Walk, beside which, by the same artist, was a painting of the identical subject. In both works the figures were busily united into a streak as if by sticky clothing.

  “This, maybe, I could put in my living room,” she said, gesticulating with her glasses at the sculpture. “Let people talk about it … if I was giving a party or something. I guess you give a lot of parties.”

  “No.”

  “But you go to plenty.”

  “Not many.”

  “But you’re asked. That’s the difference. We come from different worlds, don’t we, Mrs. Gately? I’m the wop sister of a dead mafioso and you’re an Andover Yankee full of airs. You got class, I got greaseball written on me. I fart, people hear me down the street. You probably do it dainty. That’s a difference. I finger myself and howl when I come. What do you do, squeak?”

  Paige Gately’s face was dead white and partially frozen.

  “But under the skin we’re not so different. We got the same instincts, Mrs. Gately.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “You got something up your sleeve buying the Silver Bell.”

  “If you feel that way, why did you consent to the sale?”

  “Maybe I want to see how smart you are. Or how dumb. Maybe I’m a little bored and can use some fun.”

  They viewed a large, doleful painting in muted shades of gray and blue depicting the chalky protoplasmic shape of a dog peering over the edge of a gutter through the bars of a catch basin.

  “This sucks.”

  “Yes, it sucks,” Paige Gately agreed. The air seemed to vibrate between them.

  “Or maybe,” Rita O’Dea said, “I don’t mind another woman getting ahead, even at my expense. A man, of course, would be different. I’d have to cut his balls off, otherwise people back in Boston would think I’m getting soft.”

  She smiled, and Paige Gately searched the smile for twists of truth. The red mouth, like the large smooth baby-soft face, was unreadable. The black eyes were dazzling.

  “You call me Rita from now on. I’ll call you Paige.”

  “What’s all this leading to?”

  The sunglasses vanished into a pocket of the cape. “That’s for you to figure out.”

  “I’m afraid I’m slow, Rita.”

  “No you’re not.” They were poised now before a big oil painting of a ghastly red-fleshed figure. The figure, female, lay sprawled against flaming colors on a pink sheet in a deep sleep less like death than belated birth. “This, I look at it long enough, would piss me off.”

  Paige Gately said, “You want a piece of whatever.”

  “You got it.”

  • • •

  The medical examiner conducted a private practice in offices in downtown Lawrence, across from the common, where Sergeant Dawson hunted him down. He was sitting on a bench, taking advantage of the mild weather and brilliant sunshine, his wispy hair lifting a little in the soft breeze. “Nice life,” Dawson said, plopping down beside him.

  “You think so, Sonny? You want to trade?”

  “You have a patient coming in at two. Your secretary said to remind you.”

  “What do you think of my secretary? Usually I wouldn’t hire one that young and pretty. Distracting. But as I get older, I think about sex less and less.”

  “I think about it more and more,” Dawson said.

  The doctor laughed, sunlight shifting over his face, illuminating all the hollows. A brightly dressed Hispanic woman was sitting at a nearby bench, her black hair as sleek as a crow. Her children were untidy, noisy, and rambunctious. “Get married, Sonny, that’ll cool you down.”

  A denim-jacketed youth swaggered by, sweeping his hair back with a long black Ace comb that looked like a weapon. Dawson said, “I had my chance, muffed it. But that’s not my problem.”

  A number of city hall workers with scarlet Irish faces paraded by, each greeting the doctor. On the opposite
bench an elderly woman hiked up her triple layer of dresses to sun her stunted knees.

  “What is your problem? Medical? Maybe I can help you.”

  “I’m wondering how good a cop I am. If I have a right to be one.”

  “Career crisis, huh?”

  “More than that, Doc. It’s a moral one.”

  “Christ, those are the worst. I hope you’re not going to make me listen.”

  “Did you know the Bauer boy was my suspect in the motel murder?”

  “I figured that. I know how shook you were when he hanged himself.”

  “I put heat on him, Doc. That’s how certain I was. His suicide, much as it horrified me, was the clincher. I mean, why else would he do that? Would you have an answer?”

  The doctor gazed off at two drunks propping each other up like lovers, their free hands groping for a bench. Closer by, the Hispanic woman opened up a loaf of plain bread and doled out slices to her children. “Different world over here, huh, Sonny? Not like Andover. Biggest fear in Andover is some spic from Lawrence might bust in and steal the stereo. Small chance, right? Any spic trespassing ten feet over the line immediately has a hundred eyes on him.”

  Dawson brought a hand to his throat, loosened his tie, and opened the top of his shirt. His revolver pressed uncomfortably against his hip like something unwanted.

  “Have you heard this one, Sonny? When a woman in Lawrence gets mad at her husband she throws dishes at him. A woman in Andover peels the little alligator off his polo shirt.”

  Dawson gave a faint nod, then skewed his head around, as if he thought someone were creeping up behind him. It was only a pigeon. The doctor smiled.

  “Have you heard this one?”

  Dawson’s ear was half-tuned to the tireless hum of traffic on Common Street, where the buildings were a gritty monochrome, some in need of repair.

  “In Lawrence a woman has her faults. In Andover she’s a shade too perfect, result of a facelift.”

  “What are you telling me, Doc?”

  “It’s hard for me to get excited over what happens in Andover.”

  “Then you don’t have an answer for me.” He started to rise, but the doctor stopped him with a small gesture.

  “There was something peculiar. Maybe I should’ve thought about it more. When I examined the boy’s body I found semen stains.” The doctor lowered his head and his voice. “I may not have mentioned it in my report.”

  Something heaved inside Dawson’s chest. “What does it mean?”

  “It might not have been suicide.”

  “What else could it have been?”

  “An accident.”

  • • •

  Rita O’Dea drove herself from the Addison Gallery to the Bauer home on Southwick Lane. Harriet Bauer answered the door on the first sounding of the chimes, failed to hide a trace of displeasure, and said, “Alfred’s not here.”

  “I know that,” Rita O’Dea said.

  They kissed politely.

  A window was partly raised in the sun room, where heavy cream-colored cushions gave substance to the white wicker furniture. Harriet, wearing one of her husband’s shirts, the tails flapping, served Rita a blend of fruit juices in a crystal tumbler. Rita took a small swallow, then a deeper one, and licked her lips.

  “Not bad. What is it?”

  “Coconut, pineapple, and a touch of something else. I forget.”

  “How are you bearing up?”

  The shrug was barely perceptible. The eyes were tired. The windows looked out on a stand of spruce, through which jays swooped, driving away much smaller birds anonymous in their drab dress. Rita spoke in a flat tone from deep in a chair.

  “I loved him too, you know.”

  “I loved him more.”

  “Of course. You were his mother. But life must go on. I know that better than anybody.”

  Harriet had not taken a chair but stood like a stray piece of statuary, tight jeans molded to her strong legs. Her fair hair was yanked back, but much of it was escaping the knot. Her eyes were small from a lack of proper sleep. Rita gazed up at her.

  “Women should stick together at a time like this.”

  “I’ll survive. I always do.”

  “You’ve never liked me, have you, Harriet?”

  There was a hesitation. “I’ve never trusted you.”

  “You should play everyone by ear. That’s something my brother taught me. You knew him well enough, didn’t you?”

  “I was young.”

  “How was he? I mean, as a man.”

  Harriet pretended to remember. “He was the best.”

  “He was a magnifico. When he was alive, everybody kissed my ass. Cops, bankers, politicians. Anything for Tony’s sister. That’s how big he was.” Her eyes started to fill, but she quickly recovered. “Someone, wasn’t him, he never talked about that stuff, told me you were a class act. If you’d stayed in the business, you could have written your own ticket.”

  “Yes, I was good,” Harriet said simply.

  “Good as Melody?”

  There was no answer, none expected. The screech of jays came through the raised window as if the shot of unseasonable weather had jarred their senses. Rita spoke slowly.

  “It’s not the cop you want, is it?”

  Harriet turned her face away, sharply, with a cataclysm of feeling, and drew her lips forcibly over her large teeth.

  “No, I didn’t think so,” Rita said, a suspicion confirmed.

  In what seemed a moment of weightlessness, Harriet glided to the open window and raised it more. She went up on her toes and breathed deeply, sunlight irradiating her. Rita regarded her at length.

  “You’re in tremendous shape. Most ex-hookers let themselves go. Thirty-five, they look fifty. Forty, forget it. Christ, you look like you could crawl into a ring, win on points.”

  Harriet turned about casually. “I live by my body.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Alfred didn’t marry me for my brain.”

  “But you’ve got one. My brother said to me, long time ago, watch out for you.”

  “Your brother was smart.”

  “He was a genius. He said you got the brain but you don’t always use it. He said you were like me that way.” Rita loosened her cape and spread her knees. “You told me what Alfred married you for. What’d you marry him for?”

  “Same thing.”

  “You worshipped the ground he walked on, way we saw it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Before you came into the picture, when he was trying to get on the good side of my brother, he wined and dined me at Locke-Ober. The bottle of wine cost three-hundred dollars. Got me tipsy. End of the evening, in his car, I gave him a blow job. He ever tell you?”

  Harriet was playing with a button on her shirt. She said, “He may have. I don’t remember.”

  “Did you blow my brother?”

  She answered without thought or memory. “Probably.”

  “Fiddling with your shirt that way makes you look a little like Melody. That what you want?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Then you ought to be careful. Every couple of weeks I used to pay Melody a hundred bucks for a massage. She had good hands. You got good hands, Harriet?”

  “You know I do.”

  “Been a long time, hasn’t it? I got Ralph doing me now, he’s not so good.”

  “If I ever need a hundred dollars I’ll call you.”

  Rita grimaced. She liked the fruit drink but wanted no more of it. “Here, take it,” she said, and Harriet came forward and relieved her of the tumbler. “You finish it.”

  “Yes, I won’t waste it,” Harriet said, her dull expression undeviating, something Olympian in her stance.

  Rita let her voice drop drastically. “You’re going to throw everything away, aren’t you?”

  “Nothing’s clear in my mind.”

  “I think everything’s crystal clear,” Rita said, and each gazed at the other with a sort of fascination,
as if fully seeing each other for the first time, deep inward looks surgical in nature. Then, with a heavy effort, Rita rose from the chair and pulled at her cape. The floor seemed to quiver under her weight. “I don’t think it’d do much good to argue.”

  Harriet raised the tumbler to her lips. “I don’t think you would anyway.”

  “You act like I don’t care.”

  Harriet gave out a smile both desolate and wise. “Oh, you care all right.”

  In the foyer Rita added sunglasses to her face and inspected herself in the oak-framed mirror. Something of her image saddened her, and she toyed with the idea that back in time she had been someone else, someone less emphatic but more secure. Harriet waited for her at the open door, toward which she moved with a pinch of regret in her expression, her arms extending out of the cape.

  Their embrace was brief but full of feeling, as if they might not see each other again.

  • • •

  Chief Chute said, “I don’t have so many detectives I can have one working on a case that’s closed.”

  “It has a life of its own,” Dawson said, “almost nothing to do with me.”

  “The chief and I don’t understand talk like that.” The speaker was the district attorney, Ned to his friends. He had dense, iron gray hair, a large, virile face with an eagle nose, and the padded bulk of a former college football player. He consumed a chair near Chief Chute’s desk. “Or maybe the chief understands. He knows you better.”

  Dawson sat in a smaller chair with one long leg flung over the other. The chief had summoned him to his office a half hour after the district attorney had entered it.

  “Fact is, Sergeant, you never should’ve been on the case. If I’d known about your involvement with the victim you wouldn’t have been. But I can understand the chief doing for you. You’re his favorite. I got favorites of my own I stick my neck out for.”

  Chief Chute stirred uncomfortably at his desk, his soft chin rising above the busy braid of his shirt. “I thought it best to tell the D.A. everything. To protect you, Sonny.”

  “She was kind of young for you, wasn’t she, Sergeant?”

  Dawson flushed faintly and bit back what he was going to say, which would not have been politic. The district attorney flashed a smile meant to be man-to-man.