by Sydney Bauer
Will had told him to chill – to go about his life and pretend that nothing had happened.
‘You know what you know,’ Will had said. ‘But you’re not going to do your father any favours by opening your goddamned mouth.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Connor had replied. ‘It’s hard – pretending none of this has happened, hiding what I’m thinking . . . doing nothing.’
‘You’ve had that poker face since birth, Kincaid,’ Will had retorted. ‘Just how fucking hard can it be?’
It was true what Will had said about the poker face. Connor Kincaid had been born without a personality. He was a mistake, an inconvenience, an embarrassing gaffe. He was the reason his parents had married. He knew this despite the fact that his parents never said it out loud. His grandmother had alluded to it, of course – usually when she wanted to bully his mother into something his mother didn’t want to do. It was Gloria’s way of reminding his mom that she was lucky to be a Kincaid in the first place – that the only reason she was brought into the fold was because she’d slept with his father and fallen pregnant during an unlikely one-night stand.
His father had managed to mould the mistakes of his past to his advantage. For all intents and purposes, his marriage appeared solid – a romance between two friends celebrated in an early wedding and a baby son, their devotion consolidated years later by the birth of angelic identical twins.
The strange thing was that despite ‘Senator Kincaid’s’ current success, it was his father’s former life that Connor aspired to – the one filled with those wonderful stories of his youth. His father’s tales of his early teenage adventures, of the things he and his friends David and Mike used to get up to, of their disregard for authority, their crazy, fearless pranks. It was during the telling of these stories that Connor felt closest to his dad – most likely because he sensed that his father was speaking of his real self, the one he had boxed away in the name of progress all those years ago. And Connor would forever be grateful that his father chose to share these memories with him – recollections that made his father seem truly alive, if only for the time of their telling.
Connor was not stupid. He knew that his determination to forge and maintain a friendship with Jack and Will – two boys removed from his current private school circle – was his own unconscious effort to re-create what his father once shared with David and with Mike. But it wasn’t like it was an effort. Connor liked Jack and Will, looked up to them even. He respected the fact that they were more like brothers than friends – Will replacing the twin that Jack had lost, and Jack becoming the sibling Will had never had – and Connor was happy to play the ‘third wheel’ if that was the price of their friendship. Connor saw his father’s delight at their comradeship, revelling in the moments when his dad shared stories of his own wayward youth with Jack and Will.
Ironically, it was his father’s sharing of one of these misadventures that had started this whole mess in the first place. But even now, Connor did not regret it – even now.
As a solitary tear cut a swathe down his irregularly stubbled face and he felt his heart pound deep underneath the private school costume that he was still wearing, he promised himself that no matter what, he would garner the courage to see this thing through. He’d work out a way to repay his two best friends for the sacrifices they had made, find it in himself to forgive his father for his catastrophic lapse in judgment, and finally, become the son that a man like Chris Kincaid deserved.
16
There is an interesting anecdote about Newark Liberty Airport that goes something like this: in the early 1930s the then Mayor of New York, Fiorello LaGuardia, had been campaigning to build a new airport for his home city. He was on a flight returning from Washington when the plane landed at Newark (the only commercial airport servicing NYC at the time) and taxied up to the terminal. Upon the opening of the doorway, the mayor took a breath and stood firm before declaring, ‘This isn’t New York, it smells like Newark. My ticket reads “New York” and I demand to be taken to New York.’ So the pilot cranked up the engine and flew him to Floyd Bennett, an airfield on Long Island. The whole thing was a clever publicity stunt so that the mayor could make the point that NYC needed an airport of its own – and an obliging press, who were more than willing to give LaGuardia’s cause their backing, gave the mayor’s little stunt headline coverage the very next day. Within months, construction on LaGuardia Airport had begun and by 1939 NYC’s first commercial airport was open for business.
David contemplated this thought as his plane taxied to the terminal, and when the American Airlines flight attendants finally opened the doors, he realised that despite LaGuardia’s theatrical intentions, the man was actually right. Newark did have a smell all of its own. The scent was both unpleasant and comforting – a thick, dry, musky odour that came from decade upon decade of industrial progress and growing populations. It was the smell of sea and salt, of smog and sweat, of concrete and grime, of people and food and families and friends and the places that they worked in so that they could afford the heating or the airconditioning that in the very least whipped those smells around and settled them in a way that sat easily in the atmosphere about them.
It was the smell of home, thought David, as he retrieved his bag from the overhead locker. A thought that immediately made him miss the home he had left behind less than an hour earlier – the one that held his future, the one where he belonged.
Sometimes David wondered if he had married his best friend – as so often Sara’s reactions would mirror Joe’s. This morning’s discussions were no exception – right down to the argument that ‘New Jersey Law is a whole new kettle of fish’.
‘Sara, I’m going to Newark as Chris’s friend, not as his lawyer,’ David had restated his case.
‘Friends invite one another to weddings and birthdays and senatorial inauguration dinners,’ Sara had returned – making the point that Chris had not invited David to any of these events in recent years. ‘Not to police stations for discussions with homicide detectives about other friends who may be living or dead.’
And despite the fact that part of him knew she was right, he’d simply smiled and kissed her hard on the lips before promising to be back for work on Monday, a promise he was determined to keep, no matter how the afternoon’s events transpired.
Moments later, David was entering the busy terminal, his small silver Samsonite trailing smoothly behind him. He spotted Chris the second he turned the corner – tall, handsome and imposing, his long navy cashmere overcoat hanging perfectly on his shoulders, people pausing as they passed, no doubt trying to place him as that famous local politician, or some good-looking actor from the TV.
‘Hey,’ said David, switching his bag to his left hand so that he might reach out for Chris with his right.
‘Hey, yourself,’ said Chris, immediately pulling his old friend into a tight embrace. ‘You’re looking good, DC.’
‘Not as good as you,’ replied David, meaning it. ‘But at least I have an excuse.’ He smiled as Chris directed him toward the baggage claim. ‘My six-month-old daughter has a serious issue with sleeping and eating.’
‘Sounds like she’ll make a great US senator,’ said Chris. ‘Some days I barely have a second to do either.’
‘Yeah, well . . . it doesn’t show.’
‘It’s the overcoat,’ smiled Chris. ‘It makes me look like Jimmy Smits.’
David laughed, as the overcrowded baggage area came into sight. ‘Oh, sorry. I should have mentioned that I only have carry-on.’
Chris looked surprised, disappointed even.
‘I can’t stay long, Chris, I . . .’
‘Right, of course,’ Chris’s smile returned. ‘I figured you may have wanted to stay a few days – you know, catch up with your mom.’
‘I’m staying with her tonight. Not that she knows that yet. I called to fill her in this morning, but she was out.’
‘Your mom’s the best, DC,’ Chris said, now steering David
toward the foggy glass doors that led outside the terminal. ‘I never felt more welcome anywhere than at your place – even if your brother used to scare me a little. He still a stern-faced son-of-a-bitch?’
‘Does it still snow in winter?’ asked David in reply.
Chris laughed.
Reunion or not, all this friendly banter was starting to unnerve David a little – and it continued all the way to the car park. Chris didn’t mention Marilyn once – didn’t even look like wanting to ask what else David may have discovered since they had last spoken. David knew his friend was now a polished politician, but there was something about this overly casual facade that made him think that it was Chris who had something to tell him, not the other way around. He hoped that once they reached the privacy of Chris’s car that his friend would finally have the courage to voice it – given it was almost two-thirty, and Chris had said he would arrange the appointment with McNally for three.
‘There was a small piece on the news,’ said Chris finally as he weaved his Mercedes smoothly out of the airport’s short-stay car park.
‘What did it say?’
‘Just that a female body had been found, that she was blonde, most likely in her thirties, and that Detective Harold McNally was in charge of the investigation.’
David nodded.
‘You said you know him.’
‘I do, but only a little. He helped me out with a family problem a few years back.’ This was true. The then Sergeant McNally had been the point person in a series of false accusations made against David’s schoolteacher mom – false accusations planted by some people trying to derail a defence David was mounting at the time. McNally had been nothing short of helpful, and David would never forget the man’s kindness to his mother.
‘You know,’ Chris went on. ‘I’m beginning to think we might be panicking a little too much over all of this. I mean, this city, sad as it is, doesn’t have the best record when it comes to violent deaths and suicides. This woman could be anyone, DC. And Marilyn’s never been the predictable type, she might well have decided to up and take a vacation or . . .’
‘Then why did you call me, Chris?’ asked David, now more than just a little frustrated at his friend’s change of attitude. ‘Why am I here?’
‘I guess I let things get a little carried away in my own head, and then, your story about this drowning victim . . . I’m concerned we put two and two together and came up with five.’
‘You don’t think this woman is Marilyn?’
‘I think the chances are unlikely.’
David wondered whether his friend was trying to convince David or himself.
‘I mean, you knew Marilyn,’ Chris continued.
‘Not as well as you did,’ he said, trying to force the point.
‘Exactly, which is why I feel that when we see this McNally, we need to make sure he understands we’re just two old friends concerned that a third has failed to check in over the past week or two.’
‘I haven’t spoken to Marilyn in years, Chris.’
‘Sure, sure. But I have, and as I say, she was, well . . . you know, a little on the unpredictable side.’
But David had had enough. ‘Listen to me, Chris,’ he said, turning in his seat, the beige leather soft underneath him. ‘If we are going to do this, we have to be one hundred per cent up front. I know this McNally and he’ll smell a story the second it comes out of your mouth. You’re worried about Marilyn. You cared for her, loved her even.’ David saw Chris’s left eye twitch. ‘And given your history together, that is totally understandable. But whether you like it or not, the moment you walk into that police station, everything you say will count either for or against you.’
‘You think all I care about is saving my own ass,’ said Chris, his eyes diverting from the road to meet David’s.
‘I think you are terrified of what might happen to you if you don’t. But a woman is dead, Chris, and if worst comes to worst – if that drowning victim is the girl you and I grew up with, then you’re going to have to tell McNally everything you know. Because if you don’t, it’ll come back to bite you – and I promise you, you will regret it for the rest of your life.’
Newark Police Department’s 3rd Precinct sat like a cliché on Market Street. It was a narrow, pale-brick building with its main entryway framed by a pitted sandstone arch. On either side of the arch sat two round white lights with the word POLICE sitting front and centre and above the arch flew the American flag – a symbol of freedom, equality and truth.
Chris hit the door first, and once again David noted his apparent air of confidence. But David reminded himself that bravado was a prerequisite for Chris’s job, and his easy entrance certainly made a better impression than skulking in as if he had something to hide.
‘Good afternoon,’ Chris said to the desk sergeant, immediately extending his hand. ‘My name is Senator Chris Kincaid and this is my friend, attorney-at-law David Cavanaugh. I was wondering if we might have a word with Detective Harold McNally.’
‘Ah,’ said the sergeant, a pepper-haired African-American who David guessed was not used to shaking hands with famous politicians on a Saturday afternoon. ‘I think you might be in luck, Senator. I believe the detective is on station which is not always the case on a weekend. If you want to take a seat, I’ll see if I can locate him.’
That’s odd, thought David. Chris had said he would call ahead and make an appointment with McNally. So why had he looked slightly taken aback when the sergeant mentioned McNally was on station?
‘I thought you said you were going to call ahead,’ whispered David as they took a seat on a long wooden bench beside the main entranceway.
‘I did say that,’ replied his friend, the tiniest beads of sweat now forming above his top lip. ‘But then, after I thought about it for a while. I decided it would be better if we . . .’
Chris was interrupted by the sergeant who told them McNally was up on the second floor. ‘Just take the stairs to the left,’ he said. ‘The detective will meet you up there.’
This time Chris allowed David to take the lead as they walked one behind the other toward the green linoleum-covered stairwell beyond.
‘Mr Cavanaugh,’ said McNally as he met them at the second-floor landing and reached out to shake David’s hand.
David noted the detective had lost quite a few pounds since they last met. In fact, he thought, the man is looked pretty fit for someone who must be pushing fifty.
‘It’s David. And it’s good to see you again, Detective,’ he said. ‘Congratulations on your move to homicide.’
‘Thanks,’ replied McNally. And David sensed he was about to elaborate but thought better of it.
‘Detective,’ said Chris then, extending that practised hand once again. ‘Chris Kincaid.’
‘It’s nice to meet you, Senator,’ said McNally with a smile.
David noted how well the detective was at hiding his curiosity.
‘Why don’t you come down to the homicide unit and we can sit and chat?’ McNally went on. ‘You guys want a coffee, a soda?’
‘I’m fine,’ said David.
‘Actually, I could use a soda,’ said Chris.
And so McNally directed them to a cubicle in the far corner of the cluttered but largely deserted detective unit before heading for the kitchen – a now slightly nervous-looking Chris taking a seat by the window, while David pulled a blue vinyl chair from a nearby empty desk so that he could sit close to his friend.
‘Chris,’ he whispered. ‘Is there something I should know about here?’
He was hoping Chris’s uneasiness had more to do with the fact that they were sitting at a homicide detective’s desk rather than any other reason, but he knew Chris Kincaid, and he had the feeling he was up to something – a feeling soon confirmed by the furtive expression that came across his friend’s face as he looked from the detective’s room to the kitchen doors beyond.
‘Listen to me,’ said Chris. ‘I sent the detective for
a soda so I could explain.’
‘Explain what?’
‘You have to trust me, David. Take my lead.’
‘What the fuck are you going on about?’
‘I wanted to explain earlier – in the car but . . . I didn’t think McNally would be in. I thought we’d have more time to think about the way we should be handling this thing – or rather how I’d decided to handle it.’
‘Jesus, Chris,’ said David, unable to believe what he was hearing. ‘What in the hell are you planning?’
‘I thought we could wait until the body was identified.’
‘Look Chris, this isn’t some game. This man is not a potential voter. He’s a homicide cop for Christ’s sake.’
‘David, please.’ Those dark, familiar eyes – which had asked him many a favour in the past – were now asking David to back him up once again. ‘It is not as if I had anything to do with her death.’
The reality of Chris’s words hit him. ‘You do think it is Marilyn.’
Chris nodded, his left eye twitching once again. ‘But if it is her . . . if she’s gone,’ he took a breath. ‘Then there is nothing we can do about it and . . . and . . .’ Chris was trying desperately to maintain his composure, ‘and life goes on – your life, my life, the lives of my wife and my children.’
‘And your career,’ said David.
McNally returned, and David could have sworn, as the detective’s pale blue eyes flickered between his two visitors, that he had picked up on the recent tension between them.
But the look of suspicion was soon gone, replaced by a smile that spoke of years of experience in dealing with potential suspects.
And in that moment, David saw a wave building behind Chris Kincaid – and while it now ebbed silently, unthreateningly, he knew that it was on the verge of rising into an almighty swell and pulling Chris, and all who stood with him, into a current from which there might be no return.