Matter of Trust

by Sydney Bauer

  ‘So she doesn’t want to see us?’ asked Chris, gesturing at Mike. But David knew his question was more specific than it sounded.

  ‘I’m sorry, Chris. She doesn’t want to see you. This whole thing – with Anna Chesnokov and Jack Delgado – she needs to come to terms with her role in it. She didn’t say so specifically, but I’m sure she blames herself – at least to some degree.’

  Chris nodded, but his expression spoke of all the things he wished he could, but knew he couldn’t, and perhaps would never be able to, say.

  ‘I should get going,’ he said after a long pause, looking at his watch before turning to David once again. ‘I told Rebecca I’d be home before eight.’

  And Mike and David knew that no matter what else, Chris Kincaid would be heading home feeling grateful for the woman he called his wife.

  ‘You’re sure you won’t stay the weekend?’ he asked David then.

  ‘No. I’m heading off the moment I settle Connor’s plea with Marshall – which should be tomorrow or Friday at the latest. My poor mom needs a break, and I have a stack of work to get back to in Boston.’

  Chris nodded before taking David’s hand. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow then?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And, DC, I . . . I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘That’s because there’s nothing to be said,’ replied David as Chris drew him into an embrace.

  ‘I love you, bro’,’ he said quietly into David’s ear, not realising the significance of his words.

  ‘Me too, my friend,’ David replied. ‘Me too.’

  105

  Friday – four days after trial

  ‘All set?’ asked his mother as they placed a sleeping Lauren into her car seat. ‘Yeah, thanks, Mom.’ David popped the trunk, and Sean helped him load their three pieces of luggage into it.

  ‘God, I’m going to miss you Patty,’ said Sara, taking her mother-in-law into her arms. ‘None of this would have been possible without you offering us your home and looking after Lauren.’

  ‘Nonsense, this isn’t my home, it’s our home,’ said Patty, gesturing at her family around her. ‘And as for that little girl,’ she bent forward to look at her sleeping granddaughter now bundled in a cotton blanket in the back of the car, ‘I am going to miss her so much.’

  ‘You’ll be up for her first birthday in August, right?’ asked Sara, hugging Patty tight.

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it,’ replied Patty. She opened the passenger-side door for Sara before turning to face her son.

  ‘Would it be too big a request if I asked you to stay out of trouble for a while?’ She smiled.

  ‘That depends on how you define trouble, Mom,’ he replied, returning the smile.

  She glanced at Lauren again, and then moved forward to take his hands. ‘You know, when you were little, I used to creep into your room in the middle of the night and just stand there and watch you sleep. There were times when I would marvel at the miracle that you were, and I used to wonder what your father and I did to deserve you.’

  ‘Now I look at you and wonder the same thing,’ replied David.

  Patty smiled, the slightest trace of tears in her eyes.

  ‘If you want to tell him, you can,’ she said.

  ‘No, Mom,’ replied David. ‘I thought about it, but if anyone is going to tell Chris, it should be his mother.’

  Patty nodded, and David pulled her close.

  ‘I don’t want things to change, DC,’ she said quietly, ‘how you see your father, I mean. You said the other night that you were like me, but what you did, the lengths you went to to seek the truth to help Chris and his son, that was your father – his strength, his determination. He lives in you, David, and that means the world to me.’

  ‘I still love him, Mom,’ he said, kissing her softly on the forehead. ‘Always will.’

  And Patty nodded again, before stepping back so that David might say his goodbyes to his brother.

  ‘You’re going to miss me,’ said David, shaking Sean’s firm hand.

  ‘Like a hole in the head,’ replied Sean, before pulling his brother into a quick, slightly awkward embrace. ‘I said some things I regret,’ he said, stepping back once again.

  ‘And I regret some things I said,’ returned David.

  Sean nodded, his eyes finally meeting his brother’s. ‘I was wrong,’ he said. ‘About you choosing the lawyer thing, I mean.’

  ‘There were moments last week when I would have disagreed with you. And I couldn’t have done it without you, Sean. What you said, about Cusack’s links to his father, I would never have come up with the DNA thing without you.’

  ‘I’m not sure it served its intended purpose.’

  ‘It resulted in us finding out the truth, and in the end that’s what justice is all about.’

  Sean nodded.

  ‘I want to thank you,’ said David after a pause. ‘For being here for Mom. I don’t think I’ve ever said that.’

  ‘It’s not like I do it under sufferance,’ replied his brother before using his right hand to gesture toward the car. ‘Your home is with Sara and Lauren. Me and Mom, well . . .’ he opened the driver’s-side door for David, ‘just make sure you visit more often. For Mom’s sake, I mean.’

  David shook his brother’s hand once more, before climbing into the car and winding down the window so that he could wave them a final goodbye.

  He took Sara’s hand and squeezed it before looking back at his baby daughter and turning the key to start the engine. And then he switched on the lights, and clicked in his seat belt, and put on the turn signal before pulling away from ‘home’.

  ‘Home?’ said Sara, mirroring his thoughts and speaking of somewhere completely different altogether.

  ‘Almost,’ he said. ‘I just have one more stop to make.’

  Sara smiled. ‘It’s late.’

  ‘That’s okay. It just means he’ll be expecting me.’

  ‘They’re back,’ said David as McNally pushed through his front screen door.

  McNally nodded. ‘Strangely enough, I’m glad,’ he said, gesturing at the gypsy moths above them. ‘As much of a mess that they make, I kind of miss them when they’re not around.’

  David smiled. He knew McNally was talking about more than just the gypsy moths.

  ‘You wanna come in?’

  ‘No, Sara and Lauren are in the car.’

  McNally looked over and waved to Sara. ‘You’re a lucky man, Cavanaugh,’ he said.

  ‘I know,’ smiled David. ‘I need to get them home, McNally – which is why we’re leaving tonight. But before I go, I guess I just wanted to – you know,’ David wasn’t sure how to say it. ‘I hope everything is okay for you back at work?’

  ‘Work’s good. The NYPD found Alexei Chesnokov. He’s in a holding cell at the 15th. A detective named Sipowicz nabbed him at an illegal gambling house, and he’s making him uncomfortable until I pick him up tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s good news, Harry,’ smiled David. ‘So, it’s a wrap then.’

  ‘Pretty much. Cusack got himself a lawyer – a guy named Hasko that Carla Torres knows from her neighbourhood. Carla says he’s good, dedicated.’

  David realised McNally had helped Will Cusack find an attorney. ‘That was good of you, Harry.’

  ‘The kid’s got his issues, but like your old priest told us way back – he’s had it tough.’ And then McNally hesitated before: ‘I’m not sure I did everything I could, David,’ he said.

  ‘You did the job of twenty men – you nailed Chesnokov without backup.’

  ‘I had backup,’ said McNally.

  ‘Sure – the kind that almost gets you sacked, and asks you to bend the law, and risk your future.’

  ‘You’re not responsible for my future, David.’

  ‘Maybe not, but I . . .’ David stopped as he heard the sound of someone else moving about inside. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘you’ve got company.’

  McNally’s cheeks reddened. ‘It’s Salicia Curtis.
She came round tonight after my shift with a bag of groceries – offered to make me supper.’

  David smiled. ‘That’s good,’ he said, feeling genuinely pleased for his detective friend as one last thought crossed his mind. ‘Does Curtis still have Chris’s DNA on file?’

  ‘Sure,’ said McNally, his brow creasing just a little. ‘But it won’t be going into any crime databank if that’s what you’re asking. Kincaid was acquitted so eventually that sample will be destroyed.’

  David considered the possibility – of approaching the ME and asking her to test his own DNA against that of his old friend’s to prove or disprove his father’s mistakes. But then he realised that either way, it would make no difference to how he felt about Chris – nor about his father.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘That’s good to know,’ he added before offering his hand to McNally. ‘You’re a good cop, McNally.’

  ‘And you’ve got that attorney thing covered,’ McNally replied with a grin. ‘Don’t be a stranger,’ he added, as David turned to leave.

  ‘I’m like those gypsy moths, remember,’ said David. ‘I have a way of turning up on your doorstep whether I’m welcome or not.’

  106

  Boston, Massachusetts; the following weekend – Sunday July 4

  The Mannix house was a four-bedroom Colonial in a leafy part of Boston’s West Roxbury known as Bellevue Hill. It had all the charm of a period home – the original whitewashed wood shingles, sea blue painted shutters, gumwood floors, crown mouldings and wood beam ceilings, and all the comforts of a place packed with kids and driven by chaos. Its backyard was one of those long, wide, patchy-grassed spaces with a homemade barbeque standing dishevelled but functional under an old Norway maple in the far right-hand corner. And today, on this special fourth of July long weekend gathering, the air around it was filled with the smell of grilling sausages, onions and Marie Mannix’s famous seasoned bread.

  Whack!

  ‘Attaboy, Gabe,’ yelled Arthur as Gabe Mannix, the third of Mannix’s four sons, hit the small red ball way down the end of the yard.

  ‘No – you don’t need to drop the bat, Gabe,’ reminded Arthur from the sideline, just as Gabe threw the old plank of wood behind him.

  The Mannix boys were seasoned baseball players and they were finding it hard to master this new game of cricket that Arthur had introduced about an hour ago.

  ‘Quick, lad,’ called Nora as Gabe ran toward the wicket at the other end of the pitch, his little brother Michael matching his runs in the opposite direction.

  ‘Shit, I can’t see it,’ said David now foraging under a honeysuckle bush at the back end of the garden.

  ‘Jesus, David, what the hell are you doing under there?’ asked a frustrated Mannix. ‘These kids are whipping our asses,’ he added, as his two youngest sons made run after run, while the two older ones laughed at the grown-ups’ failed efforts to retrieve the ball.

  ‘Move,’ yelled a ponytailed Lisa Cavanaugh, shoving her big brother out of the way and getting down on all fours. ‘I’m smaller than you. I’ll crawl under and get it,’ which she did – before throwing it hard and fast at the three stumps Joe had made out of old broomstick handles. The two wooden crosspieces known as bails were sent flying, and Michael Mannix was successfully ‘run out’.

  ‘Whoohoo!’ cried Lisa, throwing her arms up in delight. ‘This game rocks, Arthur. Where’d you learn to play it?’

  ‘In Australia,’ smiled Arthur. ‘The same place I learnt how to drink beer.’ He held up his icy-cold longneck bottle of Victoria Bitter.

  ‘Does that mean it’s our turn to bat?’ called an enthusiastic Sara as she handed a giggling Lauren to Nora and picked up the fence paling they were using as a bat.

  ‘Not just yet,’ said Marie Mannix, coming down the steps from the back of the house with two bowls of salad in her hands. ‘Those sausages are burning, Joe,’ she said, placing the salads on the already made-up backyard table.

  Sara dropped the bat. ‘Here Marie, let me help you,’ she said, moving back toward the kitchen to retrieve the bread rolls and ketchup. And before long they were all enjoying a late Sunday afternoon lunch, the petite Lisa surprising everyone by polishing off two steaks, four sausages and three large servings of salad.

  ‘What?’ she smiled as she reached for a second bread roll. ‘I have a healthy appetite.’

  ‘It’s true,’ said David. ‘When we were kids, Mom put a lock on the pantry door just beyond Lisa’s reach.’

  Lisa laughed. ‘Dad had to keep unscrewing it and shifting it up as I grew.’

  ‘But you’re so tiny, lass,’ said Nora.

  ‘I guess I burn a lot of fuel, Nora,’ smiled Lisa.

  ‘Most of it exhausted on that motor mouth of hers,’ joked David.

  They all laughed.

  After lunch David accompanied Joe to his garage, where a second fridge housed the beer and the sodas.

  ‘It’s good to have you back,’ said Joe, handing David a cold Heineken.

  ‘It’s good to be back, but I’m glad I went, Joe.’

  Joe nodded. ‘Try to take it easy for a while now, David. You know, enjoy some time with Sara, and being a dad.’

  ‘Funny, that’s exactly what McNally said to me before I left.’

  ‘Well, that’s irony for you – us homicide cops specialise in death but spend most of our time dishing out advice on how to live.’ Joe smiled.

  ‘It’s a perk of the job, Joe,’ said David. ‘Seeing one just makes you appreciate the other.’ And they lifted their beers in salute.

  ‘All right, you two, I have to get going.’ It was Lisa at the garage door – her bright green eyes smiling, her ponytail askew. ‘I have a late shift at the hospital,’ she said, before gesturing at her two filthy knees. ‘And I need to get home and clean up.’

  ‘I’ll walk you out,’ said David.

  His sister moved forward to give Joe a hug. ‘Thanks for including me, Joe – it was the best.’

  ‘Any family of David’s is family of ours,’ said Joe. ‘And if you ever get sick of the nursing stuff, you could always consider a career in cricket.’

  Lisa smiled. ‘I’ll give it some thought,’ she said, before turning to walk to her car.

  ‘You look good, DC,’ she said, as they reached her ten-year-old Geo. ‘I thought you might be – you know?’ It was Lisa’s way of asking if he was really okay. She knew better than anyone what Newark could do to him.

  ‘I’m good, Lis,’ he said, meaning it. ‘Home was good.’

  She nodded before opening the car door. ‘Shit!’ she said, ‘I almost forgot.’ She reached across to the passenger seat. ‘This letter came for you during the week.’

  David took the letter. ‘I haven’t lived at your place for over fifteen years, Lis,’ he said, recalling the time Lisa had taken him in after his first wife left him.

  ‘I know. Spooky hah?’ She smiled. ‘Anyway,’ she rose up on her toes to kiss her brother on the cheek. ‘I gotta run. Call me, okay?’ she said, her high cheekbones flushed with life.

  She jumped into her car and started the engine, pushing the Geo into hyperdrive before disappearing in a puff of exhaust around the corner.

  Moments later David took a seat on Joe’s front steps, the worn weather-boards creaking beneath him. He looked at the envelope once again, and while he did not recognise the writing, there was something about it that was strangely familiar.

  He placed his finger under the flap and tore at the seal, to see a piece of lined writing paper sitting neatly inside. Then, as he unfolded it, he knew immediately why the letter had been sent to Lisa’s house – because that was the last address the writer had had for him.

  ‘There you are,’ said Sara from behind him. ‘You’re up to bat and I was told to send out a search party.’

  He turned, the letter now falling open on his lap.

  ‘David,’ she said, taking a seat next to him. ‘What is it?’

  He held up the letter, so that she cou
ld read the first two words. She understood immediately. ‘Dear Rob.’

  And for whatever reason David felt his heart sink, as his eyes watered and the events of the past months came crashing down around him. ‘They weren’t meant to go like this – my friends’ lives, I mean.’

  Sara placed her arm around his shoulders. ‘Maybe not, but sometimes, out of tragedy comes hope and out of hope comes happiness.’

  David nodded, praying beyond anything that she was right.

  ‘I’m going to stand in for you on the bat thing,’ she said, removing her arm before getting to her feet. ‘You take your time, okay. I’m not going anywhere.’

  And he took comfort in her words, as she moved back through the front door, and he picked up the letter to read . . .

  Dear Rob,

  Do you remember when we first met, and I asked Chris to dance and I made you dance with Becca and we left Mike sitting all alone?

  I have been thinking about that night a lot over the past week, wondering if my question – ‘So are you gonna ask me to dance, or what?’ – altered the universe in some way. If I upset the balance of what was meant to be, and set us all on a path unintended.

  I’d like to say I almost asked you to dance, Rob – but I didn’t. I was drawn to Chris from the outset. And there was something about you, something special that told me I wasn’t meant to take your hand – that you deserved somebody better, and at least, on that count, I was right.

  I’m sorry I couldn’t talk to you in Newark – properly, I mean. I was afraid that if I spoke these things out loud that I wouldn’t have the strength to walk away. I wanted to ask you so much – about your wife and your baby girl, about your work and your life and your sister and your mom – and what it feels like to make another life anywhere but here. And most of all I wanted to say I am sorry, for all the trouble I have caused.