“Why not?”
“I don't know,” I said. “I figured Sprague was just watching over his people, trying to help them heal after their tragedy. I got the impression he liked to be in control, didn't like the idea of some Boston lawyer sticking his nose into things.”
“Hard to blame anybody for that,” said Horowitz.
“You should talk to the day man,” I said. “He's the one I spoke with on the phone yesterday. He checked Jake in. He might've seen something.”
“We're looking for him as we speak.”
“So whenâ?”
“The ME says he thinks it happened about forty-eight hours ago. Tuesday night sometime. When was that appointment you had with Gold?”
“Yesterday afternoon. He called me Tuesday.”
Horowitz scratched his eyebrow. “Okay. He called you Tuesday, said he had something to talk to you about. Something that would blow your mind. Wanted toâhow did you say it?âtie up some loose ends first. So you set up the meeting for yesterday. Wednesday. Except he didn't show up. Got his loose end tied up, all right. Then he disappeared himself.” Horowitz shrugged. “The deed was done right there in Unit Ten.” He let out a long breath, then pushed himself to his feet. “Well,” he said, “you ain't much help, as usual.”
“What about Jake?” I said.
“We'll find him.” He arched his eyebrows at me.
I shook my head. “I don't know where he is or what his connection is to this.”
“Would you tell me if you did?”
“Not without his okay. He's my client.”
“Looks like he's your killer,” he said. “You catch up with
him, you better bring him in.” He sighed and pushed himself up from the chair. “Well,” he said, “let's get outta here.”
He opened the door and steered me outside. It was still snowing, and both of us turtled down into the turned-up collars of our topcoats. Several more official vehicles had pulled up in front. Their lights were flashing and their radios were squawking, and a cluster of gawkers had gathered on the sidewalk. Stop-and-go traffic was squishing slowly over the wet pavement of Route 9.
“Gonna be a long fuckin' night,” mumbled Horowitz.
“What happens now?”
“Now we go looking for Professor Gold. You hear from him, you be sure to tell him I'd like to have a chat with him, okay?”
“Hey,” I said. “I'm an officer of the court.”
Horowitz grinned. “Don't you forget it, either.”
A
round noontime the next dayâFridayâSharon Gold called. “Brady,” she said, “what in hell is going on?”
Her voice sounded hoarse and brittle, as if she'd been cryingâor screamingâor maybe bothâand might do so again at any moment.
“Sharon, listenâ”
“Those two police officers just left,” she said. “The one with that evil smile, and the pretty one, and they're asking these questions about Jake, and they won't tell me anything, and ⦠and I just don't think I can do this anymore, Brady, I really don't ⦠.” Her voice trailed away.
“Is your mother still with you?”
“She left a couple days ago. It was bad enough when Jake was here. After he left, I had too much on my mind. I couldn't stand herâher phony cheerfulness anymore. She was driving me nuts. I told her to go home. Told her I needed to be alone for a while.”
“Let's have lunch,” I said.
She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Lunch?” as if she weren't sure what the word meant.
“Sure. Name a place out there in your neck of the woods. I'll meet you. We'll have a nice lunch. We can talk.”
“Today? Now?”
“Why not? It's lunchtime. I can be there in less than an hour.”
She cleared her throat. “Well, okay. That would be nice. I'd like that.”
Sharon told me how to find a place in Reddington near the campus where Jake taught. It was called Drago's. She said it was a bit pricey for the students, so it shouldn't be too crowded, and they even had a smoking section. I told her it sounded perfect. First one to get there would grab a table.
I walked in a few minutes before one. The place hummed with the muffled clink of dinnerware and the murmur of voices. Soft piano music came from hidden speakers. Chopin, it sounded like. Half a dozen men in business suits sat at a bar along the right-hand wall watching stock prices trail across the bottom of the muted TV. The dining section was separated from the bar by a front-to-back head-high partition. Leather-cushioned booths lined the inside walls. A row of tables along the windows overlooked a meadow that rolled away to a wooded hillside. There were white tablecloths and bunches of fresh flowers in little bud vases on each table.
A dark-eyed young hostess standing behind a podium smiled at me. I told her I was meeting Sharon Gold and gave her my name. She checked a list, smiled again, and led me to a booth toward the rear.
Sharon was sitting there twirling a glass of white wine around on the tablecloth. She looked up when I slid in across from her. She was wearing a pale green blouse with a thin gold chain around her throat. She'd tried some makeup tricks, but her eyes looked red and swollen and bruised, as if she'd spent more time crying than sleeping lately.
I told the hostess I wanted some coffee, then reached across the table and took both of Sharon's hands in mine. “Are you okay?” I said.
“Me?” She laughed quickly. “Well, let's see. My boy is dead, in the river somewhere, my husband has disappeared, my friend, our chief of police, he's apparently been murdered, and these detectives are asking me questions that make no sense whatsoever. Should I count any of that? Because if none of that counts, then, oh sure, I'm terrific.”
I squeezed her hands. “I'm sorry,” I said. “Stupid question. I'm a bumbler from way back.”
She tried to smile. “That's okay. Thank you for caring. I reallyâ”
She looked up, and a college-age waitress wearing a white blouse and a short black skirt slid a cup of coffee in front of me. “Would you folks like to order?” she said.
Sharon asked for a Caesar salad and another glass of wine. I ordered a cheeseburger, rare, and asked her to keep my coffee cup topped off.
When the waitress left, Sharon said, “Have you talked with Jake?”
I nodded. “He dropped by a few days ago, told me you guys had decided to split for a while, andâ”
“He told you
what
?”
“You were separating.”
“And did he happen to mention why were we separating?”
“Well, actually he said you, um, you two weren't getting along, had stopped talking to each other, and he felt you were blaming him for what happened to Brian, though he realized he might've been projecting, but either way ⦔ I shrugged.
“Why would he tell you something like that?”
“It's not true?”
“He said we weren't getting along? Weren't talking?”
I nodded.
“That's ⦔ She looked at me, smiled quickly, and shook her head. “I know I've been a total wreck. I was angry and bewildered and I wasn't much good to Jake. He was hurting as much as I was, I knew that, but I just didn't want to talk to him. I didn't want to talk to anybody, really, but especially not Jake.
Brian was so much like him, you know? Always had that same sad, frightened look in his eyes. But Jake and I, we were okay, I thought. Considering the circumstances, I mean. He tried to be sweet. I know he was feeling guilty. So was I. What parent wouldn't? But once in a while he'd hold me and try to talk to me. He kept insisting how we had to accept what had happened, that we had to get on with our lives. He was trying to help me get better. Maybe I wasn't always as receptive or appreciative as I should've been, and I don't think my mother being there made it any easier, but when he left I didn't understand it. It made no sense. It sure wasn't my idea.”
“That's not exactly the way Jake explained it,” I said gently.
“What?” she said. “You think I'm lying?”
“Different perceptions, probably. Why else would he leave like that?”
Sharon rolled her eyes. “Because he was planning to rent a motel room on Route Nine and assassinate our chief of police. Makes good sense to me.”
I smiled. “Have you heard from him since he left?”
She shook her head. “Not a word.”
“He didn't tell you where he was going?”
“He didn't tell me anything, Brady.” She took a deep breath. “Whatever day it was. Sunday or Monday? Sunday, it was ⦠. It's all such a blur lately ⦠. Sunday morning we were sitting in the living room after breakfast. Mother had gone to church. Tried to get me to go with her, but I wasn't up to it. Somehow, religion ⦔ She waved her hand. “Anyway, Jake started talking about Brian. He's good that way. He forces me to think about him even when I don't want to, keeps trying to make me talk about him, remember him. I knew what he was trying to do. He wanted me to accept it. That Brian was ⦠is gone.” She stared down at the tablecloth.
I nodded. “I understand.”
She sipped her wine. “I think that's good,” she said after a minute. “The way Jake forces me to think about Brian. It makes me sadâangry, sometimes, I guess, too. But it helps. Anyway,
maybe I wasn't so receptive, and after a while he wandered upstairs. He did that a lot. Jake would go up to Brian's room and just sit there on his bed. Me, I can't stand to go in there. Too much of Brian in that room. It hurts too much. I keep his door shut. Don't want to be tempted to peek inside. But Jake spent a lot of time in Brian's room. The difference between us, I guess. Jake's a confronter. I'm more of an avoider. I know he was feeling that he hadn't been a very good father. They didn't do much of that father-son stuff, but he really wasn't a bad father. He loved Brian, and Brian knew it. Anyway, that morning he was up there for a long time. I got a little concerned, so I went up. Jake had left the door open, so I peeked in. He was lying back on Brian's bed with his hands under his head, just staring up at the ceiling. So I went back downstairs, and after a while, he came down. He had an overnight bag in his hand, and he told me he had to go somewhere, he'd be gone for a few days, he might not be able to call me, but he didn't want me to worry. He loved me, he said, and he'd be back. That was Sunday. I haven't heard from him since then. I didn't know what he was up to, but he told me not to worry, so I tried not to.” She gave her head a little shake. “Then this morning when those two detectives showed up andâ”
“Horowitz?” I said.
“Yes. And the female officer. I didn't get her name, but she was very sweet. They rang my bell, and when they showed me their badges, my first thought was Brian. Then they asked if I knew where Jake was, and I thought: Oh, no. Oh, God, no. Not Jake, too. I asked them what was wrong, and that man with the evil smile, he said nothing was wrong, they just wanted to ask me a few questions. As if they went around randomly asking questions when nothing was wrong. But they wouldn't tell me anything, Brady. They just wanted to find Jake. That's all they asked me about. And I told them the truth. That I had no idea where he was, that he'd left around noontime on Sunday, didn't tell me where he was going, and I hadn't seen or talked to him since then. That Horowitz man kept smiling like
he didn't believe me, repeating the same questions over and over again, where's Jake, did he own a gunâa
gun
, for God's sakeâand I kept asking him if Jake was all right, and all he'd do is smile. After a while he asked if I had a photo of Jake I could give them, which I did, and then they thanked me and left, and I know goddamn well something's wrong ⦠.” And then the tears brimmed over and spilled down her cheeks. “I don't know if I can do this,” she mumbled.
“
Does
Jake own a gun?” I said.
She shook her head. “Of course not. He hates guns. Jesus. Do
you
think he shot Ed, too?”
“I don't know,” I said.
Sharon patted her face with her napkin, and a minute later our waitress arrived. She glanced at Sharon, then at me, frowned quickly, and put our plates in front of us. She gave Sharon a fresh glass of wine and replaced my empty coffee cup with a full one. “Can I get you something else?” she said.
Sharon shook her head.
“No,” I said. “We're fine, thank you.”
I doused my burger with catsup. Sharon picked up her fork, poked around in her salad, then put the fork down, picked up her wineglass, and took a sip.
“Sharon,” I said, “I know Lieutenant Horowitz. If something had happened to Jake, he'd tell you.”
“He would?”
“Yes.”
“Would
you
?”
I nodded. “Of course I would.”
“Okay,” she said. “So has anything happened to Jake?”
“I ⦠don't know. Not that I know of.”
“But
? I'm hearing a
but
in your voice.”
“Sharon, look. Maybe it's betterâ”
“Tell me,” she said.
“What did you hear about your police chief?”
She took another sip of wine, put it down, then dabbed at
her mouth with her napkin. “One of my neighbors called me this morning. Said she'd heard it on the news. Ed got murdered somewhere in Framingham. That's all I know. I guess that should be a huge shock. But after what's happened, I don't feel like I can even react to it.” She bit her lip. “Wait a minute,” she said. “You don't really thinkâ?”
“Chief Sprague's body was found in a motel room on Route Nine,” I said. “It's the room Jake was renting. He was using a false name. John Silver.”
“A false name?”
I nodded.
She stared at me. “What about Jake?”
I shrugged. “He wasn't there. Neither was his car.”
“So that policeman this morning with all his questions about guns, he actually thinks that Jakeâ?”
“Jake's the obvious suspect, Sharon. Horowitz wants to find him and talk with him. I guess he was hoping you could tell him where he is.”
“Well,” she said, “I don't know.”
“You're sure?”
She held my eyes and nodded. “I would
not
lie to you, Brady.”
“Of course you wouldn't. Do you have any idea why Jake would leave suddenly like that and go rent a room in a motel on Route Nine?”
“No. I've been trying not to let my imagination get the best of me. I don't think I want to know. I can't think of a good reason. A lot of bad reasons, but no good ones. I guess he just needed to be alone for a while. Away from me.”
“He called me on Tuesday,” I said. “He sounded excited, as if he'd learned something. He wanted to meet with me. We made an appointment for the next day, but he didn't show up.”
“What could he have learned?” she said.
“I don't know. I was hoping you might have an idea.”
“Well,” she said, “I don't. Not a clue.”
“It might be important.”