She tossed her jacket on the sofa. She was wearing tight black jeans, a tight black sweater, black leather calf-high boots. Her auburn hair looked almost red against all that black.
I whistled, and she put one hand on her hip and the other behind her head and thrust out her chest. Then she grinned and gave me a goofy, cross-eyed look.
She tilted up her face and sniffed. “Smells good.”
“It needs to simmer for another hour or so,” I said. “That’s a hint.”
She came over to where I was sitting, put her hands on my shoulders, bent to me, and kissed me lightly on the mouth. I reached up with both hands, held her face there, and kissed her properly.
She pushed her forehead against mine and blinked her eyes. Our faces were so close that our eyelashes brushed. “So,” she said. “Do we just want to be held tonight?”
“Being held,” I said, “would be mere prologue.”
We made love, napped for an hour or so, showered together, wolfed down the chowder with pilot crackers and a chilled sauvignon blanc, played a game of Trivial Pursuit, and sipped Rebel Yell while we watched a fifties movie called The Man with the Atomic Brain on my old black-and-white TV. Around midnight, we pulled on sweatshirts and went out on my little balcony to sniff the wintry ocean air and check the sky.
Then we went to bed and made love again.
Then we slept.
If I had any dreams, I forgot them before I woke up.
A perfect Saturday night.
It was snowing the next morning. Hello, there, Punxsutawney Phil.
We had English muffins with marmalade and orange juice and coffee on the living room floor, passed sections of the Sunday Globe back and forth, and heated the leftover chowder for lunch. We agreed that it tasted better reheated. Gave the flavors a chance to mingle.
The snow changed over to rain sometime in the middle of the morning, but by early afternoon it had changed back to snow, so Evie decided to head back to her condo in Concord before the roads got icy.
My apartment felt suddenly empty after Evie left. I realized I’d barely thought about Jake and Sharon Gold while she’d been there with me.
Julie had already left the office the following Tuesday afternoon, and I was rinsing out the coffeepot when the phone rang.
It was Gus Nash, the DA I’d run into at the Reddington Police Station.
“Glad I caught you, Counselor,” he said.
“Lucky you,” I said. “I was just shutting down the office for the day.”
“How about that drink we talked about?”
“Sure,” I said. “When?”
“What’s wrong with right now?”
“Okay. I could use a drink. You buying?”
“I said I would,” he said, “and I’m a man of my word.”
“The entire Commonwealth knows that, Gus, assuming they believe what you’ve been telling them.”
His booming laugh caused me to jerk the phone away from my ear. When I put it back, he was saying, “ … Copley Plaza in half an hour?”
“What’s the agenda?”
“No agenda, Brady. Meet me in the bar.”
The Copley bar featured muffled, conspiratorial voices, dim lighting, and dark woodwork, and when I walked in a few minutes after six on that grimy Tuesday evening in February, it was half empty. I looked around, and Gus Nash waved at me from a table in the corner.
I draped my topcoat over the back of the chair and sat down across from him. He was cupping a half-empty glass of dark beer in both hands.
A waiter appeared almost instantly. I ordered a bourbon old-fashioned on the rocks, and when the waiter left, I lit a cigarette, leaned back, and let out a long breath. “So what’s up, Gus?”
“Up?” He shrugged. “Nothing’s up. It’s been a while since you and I had a drink, I was in the neighborhood …” He peered at me. “You look like shit, you know that?”
I waved my hand. “That tragedy in Reddington. I’m identifying big-time with the parents. I’ve got a couple boys of my own, you know. It’s been kind of a reality check for me. Reality sucks.”
He reached across the table and gripped my arm. His eyes behind his glasses were intelligent and sympathetic. “Anything I can do?”
I smiled. “Find Brian Gold’s body.”
He nodded. “We’re working on it.”
The waiter brought my drink and asked Gus if he wanted another. He shook his head.
When the waiter left, I said, “So let’s talk about you. Rumor has it you’re running for AG.”
He smiled. “You should know better than to listen to rumors.”
“It’s not true?”
He shrugged. “I’ll tell you the truth. I wouldn’t mind being attorney general. And, yes, there is some talk about it. But I’m not running for anything. I guess if they end up asking me to run, I’d probably do it.”
“So this—” I waved my hand around, indicating the Copley bar “—has nothing to do with politics?”
He grinned. “And what could a candidate possibly gain from buying you a drink?”
I looked at him for a moment, then smiled. “Valid point,” I said. “Sorry. I’m just in a crappy mood.”
He waved his hand. “Ah, don’t worry about it.” He sipped his beer, then wiped his upper lip on the back of his forefinger. “That accident,” he said. “Damn shame. Terrible thing.”
I nodded.
“Devastating for that little community,” he said after a minute. “Ed—Ed Sprague, the police chief—he’s very upset. Takes that sort of thing personally. Reddington’s got a lot of healing to do.”
“And he’s anxious to get on with it,” I said. “The healing, I mean.”
Gus nodded. “Well, yes. Naturally. Small-town police chief, that’s part of his job.”
“I ran into him a couple times over the weekend,” I said. “He probably thinks I’m a nosy pain in the ass.”
“Yeah, probably. Hell, you are a pain in the ass. Ask anybody.” He smiled quickly. “Sprague understands. I told him he should be cooperative with you.”
“He’s been fine. Seems like a good guy. I just feel bad for Jake and Sharon.” I peered up at Nash. “I met a couple of kids when I was out there on Saturday. I’d’ve sworn they knew something.”
“Like what?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. They clammed up when Sprague arrived.”
“Clammed up? They had secrets to tell you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”
He grinned. “I know you, Coyne. You think there’s some mystery to be solved in Reddington, right?”
“Unanswered questions, that’s all. Brian Gold’s body hasn’t been found. How’d that car go off the road? Where were those kids headed? What was on their minds?”
“I’m still negotiating with the state cops,” said Nash. “Hopefully we’ll get a boat and some divers back out there, find the boy’s body.”
“Yeah,” I said, “that would be a start.”
Nash smiled. “You’re a terrific lawyer, Brady. You take good care of your clients. You go after the facts. You’re dogged. No one pulls any surprises on you. You—”
“Come off it, Gus,” I said. “Why’re you buying me a drink? What do you want?”
“I don’t want anything,” he said. “I’m buying you a drink because we’re old friends and because I was in the neighborhood.”
“Did Sprague put you up to this?”
“No one puts me up to anything, Brady. You should know that.” He leaned across the table toward me. “Ed’s an old friend. He’s a good man. He’s one of those cops who takes things hard. Damn few of them around. But he doesn’t tell me what to do.”
“I riled him, though, huh?”
“Yes.” He smiled. “In fact, you did, a little. Ed’s easily riled. He’s very protective of his community.”
“Snoopy Boston lawyer, poking around his peaceful little town, annoying the local kids, stirring thing up.” I nodded. “Hard to b
lame him for getting riled.”
Nash shrugged.
“And you’d rather I didn’t rile him anymore.”
He spread his hands. “You’ll do what you’ve got to do anyway, Brady.”
“I’m really not contemplating a lawsuit, if that’s what’s bothering Sprague. I’d just like to know what happened, that’s all.”
“I’ll tell him that,” Nash said. “I’m sure it will ease his mind.”
I finished my drink, then stood up. “You did say this was on you, right?”
“Of course.”
I slipped into my topcoat. Nash stood up, and we shook hands.
“Thanks,” I said.
He waved his hand. “You can buy next time.”
“I mean for not talking politics,” I said.
“Oh, that’s way down the road,” he said. “Believe me, I don’t even think about that.”
“Because if you had,” I said, “I would’ve told all my friends not to vote for you.”
He smiled and clapped my shoulder. “All three of them, huh?”
SIX
Gus Nash called me a couple of days later. He’d pulled every string he could think of, but the state police underwater search team wasn’t going back to Reddington. Gus said he was sorry, and I believed him.
When I called Jake, he told me Chief Sprague had already been there. Sprague had apologized, but Jake claimed he’d already resigned himself to the fact that they’d never find Brian’s body. He said Sharon was doing as well as could be expected, whatever that meant. Her mother was staying with them, keeping Sharon busy, dragging her off to the mall every day, doing the cooking and vacuuming, insisting that both of them eat. Jake sounded grateful.
He’d been putting in his time at the community college, trying to restore some rhythm to his life. Looking out over a classroom of young faces, he said, sent an arrow into his soul. He was waiting for it to get better.
There was nothing I could do, he told me, and I figured that seeing me would just remind them of Brian and crack open whatever fragile shell might be growing over Jake’s and Sharon’s hearts.
So I stayed away from Reddington, and I didn’t call the Golds, and they didn’t call me.
Sometime in the middle of the following Tuesday morning, Julie scratched at my door. I called, “Enter, if ye dare,” as I always do, and she came in bearing coffee.
“Let’s take a break,” she said.
I don’t argue with Julie. We took the coffee over to my conference area.
“I bet you don’t know what tomorrow is,” she said.
“Ha!” I said. “It’s Wednesday. Gotcha.”
She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t think so.”
“What am I missing here?”
“You got plans with Evie tomorrow?” she said.
“Of course not. Not unless they’ve decided to stick an extra Saturday in between Tuesday and Wednesday. I see Evie only on weekends. You know that.”
“You’re sending her flowers, at least, right?”
“Flowers?”
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I’ll take care of it. You want the card to say love or lots of love or I love you, or is there some private mushy thing you two say to each other?”
I gazed out my window for a minute before I turned to her and said, “Aha.”
“The light dawns.”
“Valentine’s Day, right?”
“You like Groundhog Day,” she said. “Women like Valentine’s Day.”
“Thank you just the same,” I said. “I will take care of everything.”
And I did. After we finished our coffee and Julie went back to her desk, I called the florist and told them to deliver a dozen long-stemmed pink roses to Evie’s desk on Wednesday.
The card I dictated said:
Violets are blue
Roses are red
I can’t get you
Out of my head.
Or bed.
Nor do I want to.
I also told them to deliver a mixed bouquet to Julie’s desk, and be sure there was one of those big red balloon hearts with it. Julie loved balloons.
Her card read:
Violets are blue
Roses are red
Without you
I’d be dead.
Having flowers delivered to their offices, I knew, was inspired. Women like to display flowers on their desks so that all visitors, strangers and acquaintances alike, will know that they are beloved.
Besides preventing my personal life from falling into complete disarray, Julie works harder than I do, and she’s much smarter than I am when it comes to doing business. Julie, for example, believes in keeping full and complete records of billable hours. Telephone time is eminently billable. A three-minute phone conversation is billed as ten minutes, the minimum segment as specified in the standard agreement she designed for me and insists that my clients sign. Travel time is likewise billable. So, of course, is research time. I’m supposed to bill my clients for having drinks while I consult or negotiate with other lawyers, and Julie gets furious if I’m sloppy about keeping track of my court time, including all the hours I inevitably spend sitting around courthouse lobbies waiting my turn. Every ten-minute increment of my workday, in fact, must be accounted for, and since Julie knows I’m careless about my time, she has devised a variety of ways to keep track of it herself. Julie knows when I go to the bathroom and when I leaf through fly-fishing catalogs and when I make weekend plans with Evie.
Julie believes in being aggressive, going after business, getting there first. If she had her way, I’m convinced she’d have me chasing ambulances.
The early bird gets the worm. That’s her motto.
I remind her that it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese.
If Julie’s merely meticulous about record-keeping, she’s downright Machiavellian when it comes to creating what she calls “the proper impression” for clients and other lawyers. She chose all the furnishings and appointments for our suite of offices and arranged them to create the illusion that I am a smart, powerful, wealthy, and in-demand Boston attorney.
She believes that if a lawyer can see a client who has neglected to make an appointment, it conveys the impression of actually needing clients, and any lawyer who actually needs clients cannot be smart, powerful, wealthy, or in demand.
The fact is, I am smart enough, and I have no interest in accruing any more power or wealth than I already have. I have as many clients as I want, which is considerably fewer than I could handle if I really wanted to work hard. The demand for my services is greater than my supply of enthusiasm for performing them. I’ll trade billable hours for a day of trout fishing any time.
When I try to explain this basic economic equation to Julie, she rolls her eyes and shakes her head.
So when she buzzed me on Thursday afternoon to announce that Jake Gold was there and wanted to see me, I was suspicious. “How long have you kept him waiting?”
“He just arrived. I explained that you’re busy.”
I knew she was talking for Jake’s benefit. Julie’s desk is right there in the reception area.
“I’m not busy at all,” I said. “I was just daydreaming about fly-fishing on Martha’s Vineyard next September with J. W. Jackson, in fact. We’re planning to enter the Derby this year, you know.”
“You’re almost done, then,” she said.
“Julie, for Christ’s sake, there’s no need for this charade. You know what Jake’s been through. Bring him in here.”
“Excellent,” she said—a bit frostily, I thought.
A moment later she scratched on my door, and when I called “Enter,” she pushed it open and held it for Jake.
I got up from behind my desk and went around to shake hands with him. “How’re you doing, Jake?” I said, though I could see how he was doing. His face was pinched and there were dark circles under his eyes. Jake was in his late fifties. Today he looked about eighty.
“I’m all ri
ght,” he said.
“Coffee, gentlemen?” said Julie.
Jake shook his head.
“No, thank you,” I told her.
She gave Jake her pretty Irish smile, stuck out her tongue at me, and pulled the door shut behind her.
I took Jake’s elbow and steered him to the informal conference area in the corner of my office, which Julie had arranged with an oxblood leather sofa, a pair of matching leather armchairs, a glass-topped coffee table carefully strewn with copies of Field & Stream and the Yale Law Review, framed Audubon bird prints on the wall, and a view of Copley Square out the big double window. Jake sat on the sofa. I took one of the chairs across from him.
He had a large manila envelope tucked into his armpit. He put it on the coffee table, then looked at me. “Well,” he said, “we’re split.”
“Huh? Split?”
“Sharon and I. We decided we needed some time apart.”
“God, Jake. I’m sorry.”
He shrugged.
“It’s temporary, I hope,” I said.
He bowed his head and clasped his hands between his knees. “I don’t honestly know, Brady. It’s just … she can’t stand the sight of me, and I can’t bear it anymore. It’s all mixed up with Brian, of course.” He forearms were braced on his thighs, and he was talking down at the floor. His voice was soft and mournful. “We’re—neither of us is doing very well with it, and instead of consoling each other, we seem to be reminding each other about it. She blames me, and I guess I blame myself, so every time we see each other, it’s a reminder. Of him. Brian. Of what happened. Of … of how it used to be.” He shook his head. “It seems like a long time ago.”
“How does Sharon feel about this … your splitting?”
“Her mother’s with her. She probably doesn’t even notice I’m gone.”
“Haven’t you talked with her about it?”
“Talked?” He smiled. “I bet we haven’t exchanged ten words since … since the accident.”
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