by Neil Plakcy
“You can’t tell that,” Mark said. “When I was in college, I went on a summer study program in England, and a girl I was friendly with started to date this bartender at the local pub. A bunch of us used to hang out with him, play darts, drink pints, talk. When the summer was over I went back to college and she stayed in Cambridge with him. A couple of months later he got angry at her and broke her neck.”
“That’s awful,” I said.
“And all that time my friends and I spent with him, none of us had any idea he could do something like that.” He shook his head. “You’re crazy, Steve. Do you have some kind of death wish?”
“No, I don’t,” I said. “I just get an idea and I have to see it through.”
That sounded eerily like my justification for hacking, and all of a sudden the aftereffect of all the adrenaline hit me, and I sunk back in my chair. Why did I keep doing things that put me in danger? It wasn’t a death wish. I wanted to live too much for that. But it was the same kind of insatiable curiosity that had gotten me into trouble in the past.
I’d escaped this situation without harm. But what about the night before, when someone had shot at me on Ferry Road? It had to have been Eben. Why else did it seem like his Mossberg had been recently fired? Had Rick asked Peter Bobeaux if he’d shot at me? Surely he’d have mentioned it if he had, and if Bobeaux had admitted then Rick wouldn’t have let him go.
I’d have to get Rick to ask Eben where he’d been the night before, and if the cartridges the crime scene team had found matched Eben’s gun. If they did? Then despite what I’d said to him about prosecution from the past, I’d see that he was arrested for attempted murder. Nobody shot at me and got away with it.
The realization hit me, and I shuddered. Suppose he’d hit me, killed me? Lili would have been devastated, and I would have put Rochester through the same thing he’d gone through with Caroline.
He sat up on his haunches and rested his head against my knee. I loved that familiar pressure, that physical sense of connection with him. We were bonded. How could I have risked that for something so stupid as a cowboy challenge to Hosford?
Could I even have shot the man if it looked like he was going to shoot me, or anyone with me? I thought I could. I remembered the feel of my hand on the gun’s butt, the heaviness of the metal, the sense of power that holding it gave me.
I’d met some stone cold killers when I was in prison, even got friendly with one of them, a Mexican-American named Balbino. I never asked if that was his first or last name, but I spent a lot of time with him in the prison library, researching other cases like his. He told me that every person he’d killed had taken a little something out of him, to the point where he wasn’t sure what was left.
That was the case with Eben, it seemed. There were plenty of old hippies around; I’d seen them in New York, Silicon Valley, and Bucks County. Some of them had been addled by drugs, while some simply loved the lifestyle they had found way back then. But what was wrong with Eben was more than just the passage of time, or being left behind by a culture that hadn’t survived. The death of Don Lamprey, whether it was his fault or not, had taken something out of him.
Mark was still lost in his own thoughts as Gail came out of the café. “What was that all about?” she asked. She sat between us and set her cell phone on the table. “I couldn’t hear inside the café but when I saw that shotgun come out of his bag I completely froze.”
Mark explained to her, frequently stopping to complain about my actions. By the time he finished I felt even worse. Rush hour traffic on Main Street crept past, all those commuters and soccer moms having no idea what had just happened, probably complaining about traffic and how their kids wasted too much time online, and what were they going to have for dinner that night?
“He seemed like such a nice old man,” Gail said. “I’ve bought candles and soap from him in the past but I didn’t need anything today.”
“You’re probably the only person in town who thinks he’s nice,” I said. “Most people think he’s a crank. Even the Quakers don’t like him, and they’re supposed to be nice to everybody.”
“Even more reason why you should have avoided him,” Mark said. “When I first moved here, I thought Stewart’s Crossing was this charming little town where nothing bad happened.”
I shook my head. “Everybody has secrets, whether they live in a big city or a small town. And bad things happen wherever you go.”
Gail’s phone buzzed, and she said, “I realized while I was watching Eben that if anything happened to me, I didn’t want to die feeling like I’d missed any chances. So I called Declan and left him a message.” She picked the phone up and stood, then walked a few feet away to talk in private.
“Listen, I’m sorry I put you in danger,” I said to Mark. “Once he pulled out that shotgun I should have just sat down and shut up and waited for Rick. That was a stupid move on my part. I get caught up in my own head, and I forget about the effects what I’m doing will have on other people.”
“I’ll survive,” he said. “You had no way of knowing he had that shotgun with him. And you did a good job of talking him down.” He sighed. “And I agree with Gail. You know, life is short, don’t let opportunities pass you by, all that crap.”
“Thomas Hobbes said life is nasty, brutish and short,” I said.
“Yeah, well, old Tom got it right,” Mark said. “I suppose I could look for some new carpet for Friar Lake. Maybe even get Joey to help me with the samples.” He smiled.
Gail came back to tell us she had plans to see Declan on Saturday night, and Mark said he’d call Joey and see if things could still be salvaged. He left, and Gail went back inside, but I stayed at the café, finishing my coffee and petting my dog. I drove Rochester back to River Bend, and we took a long walk around the community.
A little girl with training wheels on her pink bike rode past, wearing a matching pink helmet with a silver tiara glued to the top. I remembered riding my bike into Stewart’s Crossing, baseball cards flapping on the spokes, blue plastic tassels hanging from the handlebars. The sense of freedom I felt, able to go wherever I wanted. I might have only had change in my pocket, but the world was mine.
Our parents had never thought of bicycle helmets then, car seats or not smoking or drinking during pregnancy. And we’d survived. I knew a lot of kids who died, but it was the kind of thing you couldn’t prevent – leukemia, head-on collisions, house fires and plane crashes.
Did I still think I was bullet-proof, the way my Eastern students did? That because I’d survived childhood, I could make it through anything? But mine had been a simple, protected life back then. My parents loved me, gave me shelter and food and books and the sense that I could do anything I wanted if I only tried hard enough.
I had fulfilled those dreams they had for me – a very good small college (Eastern); an Ivy League graduate school (Columbia); a decent career and marriage to a nice Jewish girl. Then, like a house of cards I was tired of playing with, I had knocked it all over. Goodbye career, wife, freedom.
I thought I’d learned a few lessons in prison, but here I was, forty-plus years old and still doing dumb stuff. Would Lili break up with me over my actions? My head said that I’d acted rashly and put myself and others in danger. But my heart said I’d do it all again. Would I ever be able to marry those two so that I’d act like a real grown-up all the time?
I pulled my cell out of my messenger bag, eager to speak to Lili and tell her everything that had happened. I’d missed having someone in my life like that for too long, and I knew I was lucky to have found her. But then I put the phone away. This had to be handled face to face, as I’d done when I told her about hacking into the reunion database.
Rochester hopped into the front seat of the Beemer and we headed upriver. It was going to be sweet when Lili and I lived together, I thought. No more long phone calls, no more drives between our homes. As long as she would still have me when she knew what I’d done.
38 – Barbecue
There was no answer at Lili’s apartment, and her phone went right to voice mail. Could she still be at work? I dialed her office, but it was after five and neither she nor Matilda answered.
That’s when I noticed the text message icon on my phone. Developing more pix @Adam’s. TTY 2morrow.
Crap. I didn’t want to have to wait that long to tell Lili what had happened, and I didn’t want to leave her a voice mail, or a note on her door, or send her an email. I wanted to see her, talk to her, hold onto her and make sure she was all right with what I’d done.
But I couldn’t. So instead, I drove Rochester back to River Bend, poured some chow for him and boiled some pasta for myself. After we ate, I turned on one of the dog shows on TV, and I pointed out things to Rochester that I thought he could do. On screen, a German shepherd posed, an Afghan hound walked with her tail erect, Yorkies and Maltese obeyed commands, Shih-tzus flowed across the stage as if their coats were watery. The trainers had an almost mystical rapport with their dogs, an unspoken connection that led to seamless movement.
I had that with Rochester, I thought. Sure, he pulled on his leash, hid sometimes when I called him, wouldn’t take pills easily. But give us a case to work together, and we were a machine.
At eleven, I took Rochester out for a solitary walk. It was chilly, and an angry wind swept the dead leaves past the darkened houses of my neighbors. A straw couple in patchwork clothes swayed together, an owl hooted, and Rochester chased after something that scurried beneath Bob Freehl’s hedge. I looked up at the sky, hoping for a star to wish on, but all I saw were clouds scudding past.
I drove to work Friday morning in a dark mood. I needed to talk to Lili and make sure she was okay with the way I’d put my life, Rochester’s, Mark’s and even Gail’s in danger the day before. She could see that as indicative of the fact that I was too much of a loose cannon to commit to.
On one hand, I had found some measure of justice for Don Lamprey – but had I ruined my own future in doing so? Even Rochester seemed aloof, as if he was mad at me, too.
It was hard to concentrate at work, and I often found myself staring into space, wondering about Lili and our future together. At lunch, Rochester and I walked down the hill to the lakefront, and the old ranch house where the mendicant friars had lived. It was chilly, with the bite of winter in the air, and I was glad I’d brought a jacket with me.
While he nosed around the corner of the house, I thought about the way those mendicants had lived, forsaking worldly attachments for a life of service. I had no interest in that—I wanted to have people around me, to go out to dinner, luxuriate in possessions, enjoy the company of my dog.
But everything I did seemed to contradict those goals. I didn’t kid myself; my marriage to Mary had been on the rocks long before I hacked into the credit bureaus. But it was that act that drove the knife into our marriage. By the time I returned to Stewart’s Crossing I had no money and only the few things my father had left me in his will.
Rochester had started me on the road back to life. I knew I had to get a job to provide for him. Instead of wallowing in self-pity I had to walk him, feed him, play with him. I thought that must be how Tamsen had felt after her husband died in Iraq – that she couldn’t go on, but that she had to, for the sake of her son.
Rochester had gotten over his pique, and he romped over to me, a stick in his mouth. I tugged on it. “You’ve got to release it if you want me to throw it for you,” I said. He did, and I sent it sailing across the overgrown lawn between the house and the lake.
This was my life, I thought. If I had nothing else, if Lili broke up with me, if I lost my job and the friendships I’d cultivated with Rick, Mark, Gail and others – I’d still have my dog. He rushed back to me with the stick in his mouth and an expression of doggie devotion on his glowing, golden face.
Around three o’clock, Rick showed up at Friar Lake. “What brings you all the way up here?” I asked.
“I took a full statement from Eben last night, but I need to get one from you, too. Since I appreciate the help you gave me yesterday in talking him down, I thought I’d save you the trip to my station and come up here. Thought I’d see what the place you’re always talking about looks like, too.”
“I’ve been thinking about yesterday,” I said, as Rick sat down across from me. “I should have been mature enough to realize that Eben was dangerous, and that it was up to you to resolve the situation. I have been so focused on not hacking , that I lost sight of the fact that hacking is just a symptom of my not thinking through the consequences of my actions.”
“Don’t beat yourself up too much. I guess the saying isn’t true after all,” he said, smiling. “If you’re actually learning from your mistakes, that means you can teach an old dog new tricks.”
“Hey, you’re older than I am,” I said.
When he smiled and said, “By three months,” I knew we friends again.
“I spoke to the DA this morning,” he continued. “He agrees that the statute of limitations for the theft of the money and the drugs has passed. But Eben doesn’t have a sportsman’s permit or a license for the Mossberg. That’s either a third-degree felony, or a first-degree misdemeanor. Basically a slap on the wrist.”
“That’s all?”
“There’s one other option.” He paused. “The crime scene guys retrieved a couple of shell casings from the entrance to River Bend, where you were shot, and they match Eben’s Mossberg.”
“So he’s the one who shot at me?” My heart zinged for a moment. Got you, creep, I thought. “Why would he?”
“He’s not admitting to shooting you, but my guess is that he must have been paying attention to you. He might have seen you help me out at the Harvest Festival when we found the bones, maybe he saw the two of us around town somewhere. Then you went walking past his house. That must have spooked him.”
“So you can prosecute him, right? Attempted murder?”
“That’s a different story,” Rick said. “His gun was used, and his fingerprints are on it. But to eliminate reasonable doubt, we’d have to prove that he’s the only one who had access to the weapon, and that he had a motive to shoot at you. A good attorney could tear you apart on the witness stand. Were you interfering in the investigation? Had you made any efforts to contact Eben? That kind of thing.”
There was another pause. “His attorney could call me to the stand, too, and make it seem like I violated procedures by using your help.”
“Which would get you in trouble,” I said.
“Yeah. But I’m a big boy. If I have to take my medicine I will.”
I remembered my prison conversations with Balbino. And suddenly, what happened to me didn’t seem to matter so much. “You know what?” I said. “Eben’s paid enough, holding his secrets for forty years. I don’t see any point in dragging this out, do you?”
“He broke down yesterday,” Rick said. “Sobbing. How bad he felt.”
“Where is he now?”
“Had to arrest him for waving that gun around. He spent the night in the county jail, and then he appeared before a judge, who granted him bail.”
“So he’s out?”
“On his way out of the system as we speak. You’ll never guess who’s posting the bond for him.”
“Edith Passis?”
“Close, but no cigar. Hannah Palmer.”
“The clerk of the Meeting?”
“Yup. She says that the Friends look after their own. But if you’re not going to press charges, the judge will probably let him off with a warning and a fine.”
I thought about it for a moment. I could obsess about Hosford, carrying anger inside me the way I’d blamed Mary at first for motivating me to hack into those credit card databases, and all the other things that had sent me to prison. It had taken me a long time to let go of that, to accept my own responsibility and move on. It was time to do that here, too. “I’m okay with letting him go.”
He pulled out a tape recorder, and we went thro
ugh everything that had happened. “When I get this transcribed, I’ll email it to you for review, and then ask you to print and sign it.” He hesitated, then said, “On another subject. I invited Tamsen and her son over for a barbecue tomorrow evening. I was hoping you and Lili would join us with Rochester. You could bring the signed transcript with you then, and it would really help me out. It’s going to be the first time Justin sees me with his mom as more than just his coach, and...”
“I’m not sure I’m still seeing Lili.” I told him about my failed trip upriver, that I was waiting to talk to her in person. “But I can come with Rochester.”
I remembered that Gail and Declan had a date on Saturday night and suggested that Rick invite them. “And Mark Figueroa is supposed to be getting together with Joey Capodilupo. Why don’t you call Mark and invite them, too?” I asked. “Edith, and Hannah and her family? Make it a big party and nobody will feel that awkward.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He paused again. “Thanks for all your help on this, Steve. We can both feel good about giving some closure to the Lampreys, and seeing that Don’s bones get buried out by his family.”
That was cold comfort, I thought, if solving the mystery resulted in losing Lili.
Rick left, and I stared out my office window at the blustery afternoon. Eben Hosford had gotten himself in trouble, I thought, because he had held his secrets for so long. I wasn’t going to do that to myself. I picked up the phone and dialed the main number for the Fine Arts department. “Hi Matilda, it’s Steve Levitan,” I said, when Lili’s secretary answered. “I don’t want to talk to Lili right now – I just want to know if she’s in her office.”
“Some kind of surprise?” she asked.
“Something like that.”
“Yes, she’s here. She usually stays until five on Fridays.”
“I’m on my way,” I said. “If she tries to leave, can you stall her?”
She laughed. “I can do anything if I set my mind to it.”
“Words to live by,” I said.