Matter of Trust (14 page)

Connor was having sex. She was sure of it. The item in the trunk of her BMW SUV had told her as much. But, surprisingly, this did not worry her. In fact, in many ways she was glad her son, despite his intensity – and a self-consciousness she was sure he had inherited from her – appeared to have avoided her own sexual timidity. Connor had spent much of the past year concentrating on his sporting and academic responsibilities and spending time with his two public school friends, so it would be nice for him to have a girl in his life – a girl who, considering the expense of the item in question, Rebecca guessed to be the pretty Tremont teenager from next door.

She had not removed or mentioned the item, figuring Connor or the Tremont girl would eventually find the opportunity to retrieve it, undetected. She was all too familiar with the sting of embarrassment in her own youth, and did not wish such discomfort on anyone, least of all her own similarly self-affected son.

And so, as the choir burst into a hearty rendition of ‘On the Good and the Faithful', Rebecca said a private prayer for the tall boy standing beside her, then turned slightly to look for the altar boys who would precede the popular parish priest up the aisle.

And that was when she saw him standing next to his mother. And that was when he met her eye. And that was when she knew that all was far from well, as she turned away, her heart now beating double time, the congregation singing of the virtues of love, the promise of salvation, and the wickedness of sin.

W
ill Cusack was the third of the three. Well, strictly speaking he was the
first
of the three, but just appeared to be the third of the three because he wasn't, at least on paper, as ‘accomplished' or ‘connected' or ‘popular' or ‘good-looking' as the other two. But as his asshole father used to say before he got himself buried under a billion tonnes of rubble, Will was a dark horse just waiting to break loose from his stable. It was the only back-handed compliment his father had ever offered him, given most of the time the back of his hand was used for something else.

Will was pissed. His ability to lead was grounded in the fact that he had always had his finger on the pulse of everything that went down around him, that he was always in
control
. And that was probably why it grated so that Jack was losing focus and had started channelling Connor Kincaid's incessant fears and reservations. It was like poison by osmosis – fed by Kincaid's lack of fucking balls.

Will shot a sideways glance at Jack and knew the guy was freaking. Worse, he had the feeling Jack was considering a change of direction – which, under the circumstances, was definitely
not good
. He had sensed something had been going on in that Harvard-focused brain of his all week, a suspicion that had been confirmed last night when Jack had been less than enthusiastic in his efforts to help calm Connor the fuck down. Will
knew that his repeated reinforcement that they had to stick to their plan and lie low was making Connor uneasy, which was why Jack's involvement was crucial, moral fucking quandary or not.

‘And therefore, it is my pleasure,' said the mayor, finally drawing his mind-numbing monologue to a close as he balanced on top of a shaky wooden dais set up in the restaurant of the fancy New York hotel ridiculously known as ‘The London', ‘. . . to hand Vicki Delgado this cheque from the city to the value of $150,000. And with it goes our heartfelt thanks for all she is doing for the families of 9/11 and the legacy their loved ones left behind.'

Vicki smiled, shook hands, air-kissed the mayor, held up the cheque, turned to her left, hugged Kincaid, and positioned herself front and centre on the same vibrating platform so that she could put in her two cents worth before anyone was allowed to eat.

‘How long is this thing going to drag on for?' Will whispered to Jack who was sitting quietly beside him.

‘No-one forced you to come,' replied Jack, uncharacteristically dismissing him in a whisper out of the left-hand side of his mouth. Now Will was sure that Jack was caving, and as such decided it was time to pull his ‘poster boy for patriotism' friend safely back into line.

‘Stand up,' said Will.

‘What?'

‘Stand up and follow me to the lobby.' Will didn't give his friend a chance to argue, but simply stood and apologised his way toward the back of the room.

‘What the fuck is going on?' he said when Jack caught up.

‘Jesus, what do you think is going on, Will?'

‘Oh, for fuck's sake,' said Will, loud enough for the front desk clerk, a pretty Asian girl framed by some childlike piece of artwork featuring London's Hyde Park, to shoot him a disapproving glance. ‘You know I need you to keep Connor focused and last night you were almost as pathetic as him. What happened happened – and this ethical bullshit is a goddamned waste of time.'

Jack took a breath. ‘It was a mistake. We should never have considered it.'

‘No, Jack. It was no mistake. You're a smart fuck and you saw a way to
solve your problem, so you took it. We had no choice, Jack, and hiding the truth was the best way to—'

‘Best for
who
? That poor woman now lying in the morgue?'

‘You saw her, Jack – a woman like that was going to end up in the morgue in any case.' Will caught the look of displeasure on his friend's face and realised that if he was to keep Jack in check, the tough guy approach was not the way to go.

‘Look, you're a good friend, Jack,' he said, placing his large right hand on his friend's left shoulder. ‘I know you wanted to protect Connor, but he was going to find out what his father was capable of sooner or later.'

‘But you heard him last night. He said he overheard his dad talking to his lawyer about the police. The cops aren't stupid, Will. This is going to come back to bite us. Maybe we should come clean and explain how we found her and—'

‘
No
!' said Will, now squeezing his friend's shoulder, just a little. ‘We have to look at the big picture. Our evidence will destroy Chris Kincaid and his family along with him.'

‘Not to mention—'

‘Exactly,' interrupted Will before his best friend could voice it. ‘There's too much at stake here, Jack, for everyone.'

But Jack was still shaking his head. ‘So you can live with what happened, and with covering it all up?'

‘Sure I can,' he replied, but he could see Jack wasn't convinced. ‘Listen to me, Jack. Who the hell knows what went down in that apartment before we got there? I know how much you respected the senator, but you of all people should know people aren't always as you want them to be.' He saw Jack flinch. ‘Kincaid was sleeping around, his wife is frigid, he's still young, good-looking and he's famous. Is it so hard for you to believe that he wasn't getting a little on the side? The woman threatened to expose him – she was a whore – she said so
herself,
so maybe Kincaid had no choice, maybe things got a little out of hand and—'

‘Jesus, Will. You
saw
her.'

Will sighed. ‘Okay, she didn't look the best, but . . . that part wasn't our doing.'

Jack met his eye, his shoulders slumping just a little, as if the burden of guilt lay heavily upon him.

‘Jack,' Will picked up the pace, sensing it was time to move in. ‘It's not like you to stress like this. You are Mr Invincible, remember? You and your mom are defined by the good deeds that you do – and in the end you'll realise that hiding things the way that we did, it was just another good deed. One that is now over, and you have to let it go.'

Finally Jack nodded and Will felt relief at his friend's gesture of surrender.

‘I know it's hard to imagine now, Jack, but everything's gonna blow over,' said Will. ‘Just you wait and see.'

D
avid shifted from foot to foot. He felt like a small boy hankering for acknowledgment from the most popular kid in school. He was lining up, for Christ's sake, his mother by his side, obviously sensing his discomfort.

‘You've been away a long time,' she reminded him for the second time that day.

‘Obviously not long enough,' he said, before adding, ‘Sorry.'

‘It's all right,' she whispered. ‘Knowing the past as I do, I think if I were you, I'd be more than a little rattled as well.'

But rattled came nowhere near covering it. What the hell am I doing here? he asked himself then. Why am I standing in the rain in a goddamned queue of sycophant parishioners hankering for a moment of an old friend's time? Why aren't I at home – with Sara and Lauren? I'm at home and I feel homesick, and what for? So I can help my adulterous friend lie about his lifelong addiction to a woman he could not have – to a woman beautiful enough to sleep with, but not good enough to marry?

Chris didn't kill Marilyn, he was sure of it, and with David's help he'd convince the authorities of such before the press even got hold of it. But that didn't mean Chris wasn't guilty – in fact, the more David thought about it, the more he realised that Chris Kincaid had a lot to answer for on all
fronts – to his family, his friends, his voters and, considering the way he liked to wear his religion on his sleeve, to his ‘all merciful' God as well.

They were almost at the front of the queue now and David could hear the voice he had listened to a million times before. It hadn't changed. It still turned up at the end of a sentence as if there was even more interesting news to come.

And then, as the last of the loyal worshippers moved aside and his mother instinctively took a step back so that David was left standing solo, the friend looked up and met his eye. David was surprised to find that the uneasiness of things left unsaid seemed to wash away as if the face before him had the power to cleanse him of awkwardness and regret.

‘DC,' said the man, forgoing all religious decorum to reach out and pull his old friend close.

‘Father,' said David, taking comfort in his friend's easy affection.

‘Don't you dare call me Father,' whispered Mike before pulling back once again. ‘The only time I ever heard you call someone “Father” was when you were covering your ass.'

‘Or your ass more like it,' smiled David.

‘Or Chris's,' said Mike.

And the irony of Mike's words hit David squarely in the face. ‘You free for lunch, Mike?' he asked.

‘Considering all I've had today is a piece of communion and a sip of very ordinary Italian wine, I'd say I was more than up for it. As long as you're paying,' he added, lifting his arms to display his white and gold robes. ‘Despite the fancy get-up, I'm not exactly flush.'

David smiled.

‘It's good to see you, DC,' said Mike, pulling David close once again.

‘It's good to see you too,' replied David. Despite the mess of the current circumstances, and those of their past, he meant it.

 

Ten minutes later, while Father Mike Murphy was changing into his civvies in the vestibule adjoining the church, David saw his mother to her car. The rain had finally stopped but the wind was making up for any lapse in discomfort. David was used to the harsh Boston winters but he'd forgotten the pure force of the gales that blew from the south-west across an icy Newark Bay.

‘I'm sorry about the day, Mom,' he said. ‘I promised to spend it with you.'

‘It's okay,' she smiled. ‘Something tells me we're going to have more than enough time to catch up in the next few weeks. Although,' she added, ‘I hope I'm wrong.'

David nodded – loving his wise, devoted mother more than ever. ‘Since when have you been so clever?' he asked.

‘Since I gave birth to my second child,' she replied, holding her long strawberry blonde hair in a fist to stop it from blowing in front of her pretty, pale-skinned face, ‘. . . since I realised this one needed something different from his brother and, later on, his sister. I've spent a good deal of my life trying to read that complex mind of yours, David. Now I do it without even trying.'

‘Am I that transparent?'

‘Only to me – and to Sara,' she said.

The very sound of her name made David feel warm and guilty at the same time.

‘You haven't filled her in.' His mother lifted her voice over the wind, reading his mind once again.

‘Not yet. I rang late last night, but there was no answer. Lately, when Sara actually does get the chance to sleep, she tends to dive deep.'

‘These days they call it power sleeping,' smiled Patty. ‘I still call it pure exhaustion. But,' she added, her expression a mixture of understanding and reprimand, ‘she'll be waiting for your call.'

‘I know. I'll call her now, while Mike's changing.'

Patty nodded before releasing her hair and turning to open the door of her 1998 Camry.

‘Tell her the worst of it, David,' she urged. ‘When it comes to your being stuck here in Newark, I mean.'

David nodded. ‘I'm not stuck, Mom,' he said.

And she was too kind to contradict him.

Boston, Massachusetts

‘H
e back yet?' asked Joe Mannix down the line to Sara.

‘No,' she answered before relaying what David had told her mere moments ago. Joe sensed she was editing the conversation somewhat, not because she didn't trust him and understand that Joe knew David better than most anybody, but because she sensed her husband was on the cusp of a controversial case waiting to happen, and Joe
was
a cop after all.

‘He's an idiot,' said Joe freely and he noted that Sara didn't contradict him.

‘What's he getting himself in for here, Joe?'

‘The usual,' he said, knowing no further explanation was needed. They both knew David had a tendency to jump off the cliff without thinking.