Simple (12 page)

Which there appeared to be. Christie said, “Let's be hopeful.”

She turned searching eyes on him. “You said you wanted to talk to me.”

“If you would. I was wondering, could you give us some history—where your son worked before he started doing handyman jobs, where he lived, that kind of thing.”

“He lived with me over in East Liberty until two, almost two years ago. Then he told me he wanted to go off on his own. I was glad for the most part. This was the right thing for a young man to do. He'd been saving some money. I'd been saving, always did. He wanted a house, he said. He told me he always wanted to fix up a place. He even thought he might fix up places to sell once he got established—you know, how people buy up properties and work on them, then turn them over. That was his idea.”

“Had he always worked on houses for a living?”

“No. He was always handy, doing things for me and for other people. No, he worked in a restaurant for a couple of years out of high school. Got tired of it, and then for a while he helped with the grounds at the place I work—for Mr. Connolly. He was good at it, too. This one landscaper wanted to hire him permanently, but he didn't go for it.”

“Why?”

“He just wanted to be on his own, not have any kind of boss. That was that.”

“Did you know the woman, the deceased?” Christie asked.

“No, I never heard of her. I gather he worked for her.”

“Did he never mention her to you?”

“No.”

“Who else is he close to? His father?”

“His father left when Cal was two. He's dead now.”

“Can you tell me some more about that?”

“I asked him to leave because of his drinking. I couldn't take it, watching the money drain away and him falling apart like that.”

“Did he leave when you asked?”

“Oh, yes, he didn't give me a fight. He couldn't beat the alcohol. He died not long after.” She seemed sad.

“So Cal never got to know him?”

“No. Two-year-olds don't remember much, it turns out. Cal's father was nice when he wasn't drinking. That was the shame of it.”

Christie studied her, puzzled. Something about her voice, her syntax, kept making him think she was African American, but she was light-skinned and green-eyed. “Was his father white or black?”

“White.” She considered Christie's question. “Did Cal tell you he's got African American blood? He sometimes likes to explain that. He's a quadroon.”

“No, he didn't mention it.”

“My mother.” She said this and everything with a tightly held dignity.

“About the idea that he might have blacked out. Can you tell us anything about that? Is there an illness in his background?”

“Other boys were the illness.” Then she explained about her mother running down the street when she heard about the beating he took, the slow medics, the concussion. Dolan paced back and forth, distressed and moved. Christie found himself losing his objective edge, wishing things would somehow go the boy's way for once, the mother's way.

*   *   *

THE FOUR DETECTIVES
met back at Christie's office at five. They had caught up midafternoon by phone and then gone off to dig at other sources.

“Do Coleson and McGranahan know we're on this case yet?” Colleen asked uncomfortably.

“I called them.” Christie looked through the others, then past them. “It wasn't easy. You can be sure they're on the phone to each other. Where are we now?”

Artie Dolan spoke first. “Just came from East Liberty where he used to live. Nothing. No violence. No prior fuss of any kind. Everybody liked him, all that.”

Christie said, “I talked to the behavioral people. They're going in to see him Monday. Psychological portrait is going to be important. The guy was battered badly in his childhood but shows no anger. What's it about?”

Dolan worried the palm of his hand, shook his head. “Sainthood, I'd say.”

Colleen told about the late-afternoon visit she and Potocki had made to Paul Wesson Realty. “He wasn't there. His secretary told us he's been at this cleaning-up-Oakland project for about five years. There were signs all around the place.
OWN OAKLAND. CLEAN IT UP. TAKE BACK THE CITY. GOOD HOMES FOR GOOD PEOPLE.
She told us where the guy lives, so we went to see him. Here's the thing. It gets really interesting. He sold to Cal Hathaway. He sold to a bunch of people, but Cal Hathaway was once of them. So was Cassie Price.”

Christie and Dolan perked up. “There's a connection?” Christie asked.

“Connection? Yes. This Own Oakland project is part of an urban renewal initiative that Connolly works on. Maybe the whole law firm gets behind it. For sure the young Connolly does. He was into it as congressman, then as state senator. He's big into public service and attention to cities. So what happens is Wesson sells these places for pretty low prices on the condition that the owners will stay and improve the properties. He said Connolly recommends him to anybody who might even be thinking of buying a house.”

There was a collective “hmmm.”

“What does he do for Connolly?”

“Money for the campaign? Status? I didn't get the impression it was anything sneaky.”

“Potocki?”

“At the risk of sounding naive, Wesson seemed like an eager beaver. Like he'd discovered doing good. He straight out admired Connolly.”

“Tomorrow morning at eight,” Christie said. “I'll call everybody in. Let's get some collective wisdom going. Forensics won't be ready with details until Monday's meeting, but we'll have some basics.”

*   *   *

AT NOON ON THAT DAY,
Mike Connolly had taken his phone to one of the chairs on the deck near the pond. He was sick of talking to people, which he had done all morning, and he fantasized, briefly, of throwing the phone into the water, but he didn't do things like that. He had had so many instructions to stay away, to remove himself from the mess, that he felt almost invisible. The drink hadn't helped. Or the lack of sleep.

On a normal Saturday he would have worked in his home office or gone into the firm or traveled to Harrisburg, but not today. His life was on hold. Elinor brought him lunch, a thick chicken salad sandwich with a side of chips. On the tray was also a tall glass of iced tea.

“You've got to eat.”

“Thank you. But … go home. You don't have to be here.”

“I wanted to do a few things here. Now those things are done and I'm going to go see to my son,” she said. “Mrs. Connolly said to tell you she ordered flowers to the girl's hometown, the funeral home.”

“Thank you.”

He watched Elinor go back to the house. He couldn't imagine how she held on, working, when her son, whom she adored, was in jail.

He ate the sandwich gratefully, realizing how much he had needed to put food in his stomach. Outdoors, in his private patch of natural world, he entered a different zone, felt a Zen-like acceptance. The trickle of water from the fountain he had installed at the pond comforted him.

It was going to hit eighty today, though the sun didn't feel direct. It was already moving toward its autumn position. After he ate, he walked over the deck and down the path through the trees to the pool. The twins were in the water, horsing around. Monica sat at the side of the pool, using a pink marker on a huge textbook. He felt uncertain about everything. Go upstairs and make himself work? Play with the kids? He dropped into the water. He was still exhausted from not sleeping and not at all happy he'd put so much drink in him.

The cool water jolted him. His limbs went almost numb as he moved into a water-tread. In a moment the twins were on him, grabbing him around the waist, dunking him. He slithered away and swam a lap, making them chase him. They were fast, sloppy swimmers, and they caught up to him easily. He turned quickly and thrashed back to the deep end. They yelped with pleasure.

One more time, for the boys, he told himself. He pushed off, swam back to the shallow end, and let them grab at him for a while. They wanted rough play, but he hugged them tight and kissed their wet hair.

“Are you depressed?” Christopher asked.

“No. Sad. I'm sad for the young woman who died.”

“Did you know her?”

“Not really. Just to hand projects to, to say hello. Still, she worked for us.”

“Did you know Elinor's son did it?”

He nodded.

“Why?”

“We don't know.”

With that he climbed out and toweled off.

Monica asked, “What's next?”

“Nothing. Thanks for sending the flowers. I'm allowed to go tomorrow. Up to wherever she's being laid out.” The boys listened to his phrasing. “Will you go with me?”

“Yes. Of course.”

Then he walked back, keeping the towel around his shoulders, to his secluded spot near the pond. Again his limbs were heavy as he dropped, almost out of control, to the chaise. He closed his eyes. He thought, I can't give her anything now, except that I can think of her.

Lying there, he could see the scenes in the office so clearly. The first kisses. The way she walked. The way he heard her explaining in the outer office about the sublet she had taken with a student from the business school. She said she wished she could afford her own place because the roommate was not a neatnik like she was. “Oh,” the others said right on cue, turning to him. “You ought to tell her about Wesson Realty.”

So he did.

She'd been so happy.

She let him know she was happy when they were alone. Publicly … no, she acted aloof. “I'm on it,” she said, all the while hand-numbering the pages of something she was working on. “I'll check it out.”

“You have to commit for ten years. That's part of the low price. There are some legal loopholes. Marriage. Major job offers.”

“It's worth checking out.”

What could explain how good she was at dissembling in public? A natural talent. “You're a possible … politician,” he teased in private. “I see a future for you.”

No, she said, she wanted to do public service law. In private she was utterly frank with him and not always so cheerful. If he'd known in advance that she really was a homeschooled, dyed-in-the-wool virgin, would he have continued? He wanted to tell himself no, but the answer was yes. He simply liked her. He felt good around her, more than good, invincible and worthy.

Finally—the lunch, the swim, the sun did its magic on his body and he slipped into a half-sleep, the best kind, a drowsy in and out that he had no control over. In this state, he both thought about Cassie and dreamed about her, sketches of dreams in which she was still alive. The memory, when he was half-awake, was of their long flirtation. He got her to come in to work in the evenings, and when the last person left, he brought her into his office. They held each other, murmured about not doing anything, all the while building the arousal to an aching that made him feel alive, young, something of who he used to be. He asked her into his office in daytime, too, but only briefly, and she always left carrying work. Oh, he knew she was a good fake—she told him she sometimes grumbled about the work he gave her or looked perplexed and asked for help. But in those few minutes together, they kissed and touched, more and more.

In late June he said, “Would you meet me for dinner on the road, away from all this?”

“Yes.”

“No. I must be going crazy. Someone might see me. My mug's been in the paper. Would you pick up dinner and meet me in a motel?”

“Yes.”

“Something might happen.”

“Yes.”

He knew she was ready. He did not want to believe it was her first time—nobody got to be twenty-three these days without—but it was her first time. The responsibility he felt terrified him. He thought, No more, never again, let her go, let her down easy. Put it behind me.

In his first half-sleep, in the dream that he manufactured, she was still alive. He was happy to see her, tried to say something about the scare she'd given them all. She smiled slyly and walked away toward something—a door? In a motel? She looked like herself, totally, very alive. Loose curly hair, brown he always thought of it, but in some light it seemed almost blond. Trim. Thin, some would say. He followed. He said, “Don't run.” She said, “I know we have to be careful, but I want to stay in a better place.” The dream got more abstract with a long scene of puzzlement, faces making expressions, his trying to read himself and her, and all the while, time passing. “A good hotel,” she said finally.

He woke with a jolt.

Christopher was standing in front of him, holding out a bottle of water. “Mom says you're getting dehydrated.”

“I guess I am. Thanks.”

His watch on the table beside him told him it was very late afternoon. His son climbed onto the chair with him. The wet swimsuit and damp skin on the boy sent a chill to Connolly's warm sun-drenched body. He uncapped the water, drank a bit, and then embraced the boy. Slowly their temperatures merged. He kissed his son's hair again.

“Why do you always kiss me in the hair?”

“The head. I'm kissing your very good brain. Your alertness and awareness.”

“Oh.”

“If you don't like it, I'll kiss your cheek.”

“Head is better.”

“Okay.”

Each time he was really kissing his son's heart, a long spiraling kiss, head to heart, the heart that was fixed and, knock wood, would be fine now forever. Christopher was still a little smaller than his brother, a little more sentimental, but in athletics and in school, he was caught up. No more gray skin, eyes, nail beds. No more congested lungs.

After the surgery, Connolly had sat with his son all day every day, playing games, reading stories, or watching videos. He kissed his son's head again.

They were going to be close for life, having gone through that.