Matter of Trust (10 page)

‘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.

‘W
e were planning a reunion,' said Chris, the words now coming calmly, easily.

‘A reunion,' repeated McNally, an old detective's habit of repeating the previous assertion so that the subject would go on.

‘Yes,' said Chris with a nod. ‘It's been almost twenty-five years since we first started to hang out together – me and David here and our friend Mike – and Marilyn and her friends from Saint Agnes's.' A pause when McNally did not respond.

‘About a month ago, I ran into Marilyn in the city and I suggested we should get together – the lot of us from Saint Stephen's and St Agnes's. And she said we should do it properly – like some sort of unofficial reunion, and I agreed, and she said she'd help organise it, and I said I'd ask Cavanaugh here to help and . . . it all sort of went from there.'

David was in shock, his entire body left numb by the lies his friend was telling.

‘So Marilyn and I exchanged numbers and we kept in touch, and I finally managed to clear a weekend so David could come down and we could get together and plan something – you know, for old times' sake.'

‘Sure,' said McNally. ‘Nothing like a stroll down memory lane with people you actually want to catch up with – the folks you actually chose
to mix with when—'

‘Exactly,' said Chris, cutting the detective short. ‘Those official school reunions can be pretty trying, but we saw this as a sort of smaller, more relaxed version.' He looked toward David as if the two of them had agreed upon this whole reunion thing weeks ago. ‘Believe it or not, we were quite a gang way back then, Detective. In fact, most days I'm surprised we turned out as well as we did.'

Chris smiled while the irony of his last comment washed over David in waves.

‘And given how busy we all are,' Chris continued, ‘the stresses of our personal and professional demands, we figured a chance to reminisce on the good old days would do us all a world of good.'

Chris went on to explain that he'd spent the past week or so trying to get in touch with Marilyn, to confirm she was fine for this weekend before David made the trip south. He explained he'd even called her place of work and went to her apartment building where he'd spoken to the super who said he'd not set eyes on Marilyn since Saturday the twelfth.

‘It's just not like her,' said Chris, despite the fact that just an hour earlier, he'd been cursing Marilyn for her unreliability. ‘Or it wasn't like the girl we remembered.'

We, thought David. He said ‘we'. Chris was pulling him into this lie, lock, stock and barrel, and there was nothing David could do about it.

‘When I couldn't get in touch with her, I was going to call David's visit off, but then I saw that piece in the paper about the drowned woman, and . . . the description . . .' Chris hesitated. ‘I told David and he suggested he make the trip in any case. He said he knew you, and that you weren't the type of cop who'd label us a couple of worrywarts for fronting to ask if . . . well, if there could be any possible connection between this poor drowning victim and the Marilyn we knew . . . I mean,
know
,' he corrected himself.

McNally blinked, before turning in his chair and leaning forward to meet David's eye. David winced, ever so slightly, at both McNally's stare and the piney scent that came from the clever detective sitting before him. And that was when he noticed that McNally's hair was still damp around the collar and realised that McNally had been sitting in on the ME's examination all morning – and that the shower, the dousing of cologne, were
the results of his trying to rid himself of the sickening smell of the autopsy that had eaten into his skin.

‘That's a lot of foresight on your part, David,' said McNally, his face stony before relaxing ever so slightly. ‘But that's the trouble with us cops and lawyers,' he added. ‘We look at everything like it's an investigation waiting to happen. Am I right?'

David went to answer – to say . . . he was not sure what. But Chris interrupted again.

‘I know this is crazy,' Chris began. ‘But I guess we wanted to rule it out so we can stop worrying.' He shook his head. ‘We spent our teenage years looking out for each other, Detective, and I guess that's a hard habit to break.'

David winced again, and despite the fact that McNally's attention was now back on Chris, David was certain the detective caught it, out of the corner of his eye.

‘All right, then,' said McNally at last. ‘Here's the thing. I would love to put you two friends at ease. But I'm afraid there's only one way to do that, and it isn't going to be easy.'

‘You want us to identify the body,' said David, the sound of his voice foreign in the mix.

McNally nodded, his eyes now drifting back to Chris. ‘But once again, I stress that this isn't going to be pleasant. This poor woman was in the water for close to two weeks so . . . Then again, I hate to say it, but the timing on your friend does fit, so . . . you'd be doing me a favour if . . .'

‘We want to do whatever we can to help,' said Chris, the twitch in his left eye returning, just for a second. ‘So, let's do it,' he added, looking at David as if to say, ‘She was our friend, DC, it is the least we can do'. ‘Let's do it now.'

Boston, Massachusetts

‘A
penny for them . . .' said Nora Kelly as she reached for the sugar. She and Sara were at Myrtle's having a late afternoon tea, Lauren sound asleep in the buggy beside them.

‘I'm sorry, Nora,' said Sara after Mick had refilled her mug of coffee. ‘I know I've been a little distracted.'

‘Is it this trip to Newark?' the perceptive office assistant asked, knowing the answer before it was offered.

Sara smiled and gave the woman she thought of as a mother the slightest of nods. ‘David said it was just an overnight stay so . . . Oh, Nora, tell me I'm being silly?'

‘I would if you were, lass.' Nora returned the smile as she stirred her tea. ‘I am sure David will be home lickety-split, but you wouldn't be you if you weren't a little concerned about his rushing off to help his friend like this.'

Sara realised just how lucky she was to have this woman as a friend. ‘I'm not sure Newark is good for him,' she said after a pause. ‘He wants the best for his friends and he loves his family, but you must have noticed how he avoids visits home.'

Nora nodded. ‘So why do you think that is, lass? What makes going home so . . . uncomfortable?'

Sara took a moment to think on this, her hands cupped around her steaming hot coffee. ‘I know this is going to sound strange, but I think a lot of it has to do with guilt.'

‘Now I know guilt comes with the Irish Catholic territory,' said Nora, ‘but what on earth does David have to feel guilty for?'

‘For choosing to lead his own life – for leaving the one carved out for him.'

Sara saw the look on Nora's face – a need to understand and, more importantly, to help if she could. And so Sara started at what she thought was the beginning – or at least what she'd gleaned from the scraps a reluctant David had shared with her over the past four years.

‘I suppose you could say David is your typical middle child – a combination of his sunny schoolteacher mom and determined dock-worker dad. David speaks freely of his affection for his mother, but he has always found it hard to talk about his relationship with his dad. It's almost as if the two never quite got each other; David at pains to comprehend how a man such as his father – resilient, stoic, smart – didn't want more from life than what he already had, and his father frustrated by his son's restlessness and his need to seek more.' Sara took a breath.

‘The differences seem to have been exaggerated by David's older brother Sean – who seems set on replicating his father's existence – marrying early, having three kids, and taking pride in being his father's apprentice in a shipping business he now runs. You've met Sean,' Sara continued after a pause. ‘He's a good man.'

Nora nodded, obviously remembering David's stockier, dark-haired, somewhat reserved older brother from the night he had visited their offices a few years ago.

‘But he is just so . . .' Sara searched for the right word to describe her brooding brother-in-law, ‘. . . rigid. I don't think a day goes by without him silently cursing David for leaving Newark – for turning his back on the family business, for leaving their mom. And despite the fact that I know David is sure he did the right thing, in many ways I think he lives in the shadow of Sean's disappointment, a dissatisfaction that grew tenfold when their father died almost a decade ago.'

Nora nodded again. ‘And Lisa?' she asked, referring to David's younger sister.

‘Is fantastic,' smiled Sara. ‘She totally understands the friction between her brothers, but accepts them for who they are. I think she spent the bulk of her first nineteen years acting as a buffer between them. But then she followed David to Boston which, of course, gave Sean another reason to blame his brother.'

‘So where do David's old friends fit in to all this?' asked Nora. ‘You mentioned they were a mischievous band of three. If David has always felt uncomfortable trying to live up to the demands of his older brother, perhaps these boys were his way of . . .'

‘Escaping?' finished Sara. ‘I think so. By the sounds of things, Chris Kincaid and Mike Murphy were nothing like Sean. I think all three of them were dreamers who spent every day trying to push at the boundaries – to seek, to reach, to explore.'

‘Which, in all fairness, Senator Kincaid has done,' said Nora. ‘But what about the other boy – the one named Mike?'

‘I'm not sure,' said Sara, her brow now twisting into knots. ‘Like anything to do with Newark, David doesn't talk about him much. The only new piece of information about Mike or Chris that I managed to extract from David before he left was that Chris's mother was one of those relentless, domineering types. Chris's father was Governor of New Jersey, the family came from money, and, from what I can gather, Chris's mom is driving her son's career.'

‘Does David think the mother knows about this other woman?'

‘Reading between the lines, David believes there is little Chris's mom
doesn't
know.'

They sat in silence for a while, finishing their drinks.

‘Listen, Sara,' said Nora then. ‘David's a big boy and he's probably spot-on when he says he'll be down and back in a jiffy. He's told you he's committed to staying at home, to playing things a little on the safer side now that he's got you and Lauren.'

‘But what if he can't help himself?' Sara asked the inevitable.