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"I'm sorry, Caroline. You never told me." Which was strange, he thought. "When did he die?"

"Beginning of the summer."

"How did it happen?"

"What difference does it make?" she snapped. She met his eyes, lowered hers, then spoke quietly. "He was killed."

"Killed?"

"I think 'rubbed out' is the expression they used. Look, I don't know why you started on this, but I'm getting the feeling it's not all that casual. If that's true, okay, but at least admit it. And tell me what you want to know."

"We're just talking,"
Janek
said softly. "It's you I want to know." He paused. "If you'd rather not..."

"No, no," she said. "I guess I've been avoiding this." She seemed to relax a little then. "It's such an awful thing, so miserable. And there really isn't much to tell. Dad was a cop for a few years when I was little. Then he left the force. He went into business, failed at it and about that time left my mother and moved away. He owned a bar for a while and then he lost that too. He was sort of a marginal character in the end. A drinker, gambler, that type of man. He used to come around to see me, not especially often, and I can't remember a time he did that I didn't smell whiskey on his breath. He'd call on Christmas and my birthday. When my Vietnam book came out he asked for copies so he could give them to his friends. In the end he got involved with mobsters—in debt to them, I think. The story I got was that he didn't pay up and that he antagonized important people. So they made an example of him, killed him gangland style. A bullet in the back of the head, then his body stuffed into the trunk of a stolen car."

"Where did this happen?"

"Jersey. Where else? They said he was probably shot in the Meadowlands. The car was left on a Hoboken street."

"And that's it."

"Isn't that enough?" A touch of anger in her now.

Janek
spread his hands. He could feel her anguish. He wanted to comfort her, but he was sure that there was more. "Since I'm a detective and your father was murdered, there's a chance I could find out more about it, if you were interested."

She turned away.

"What's the matter?"

"I can't stand to talk about it. I really can't."

"Have you been talking about it to someone else?"

She didn't answer, and then, suddenly, he understood. "You talked about it with Al, didn't you?"

She turned back. "You knew that?" He shook his head. "But—"

"How did you meet him?"
Janek
asked.

He was watching her closely now. He saw her begin to speak: she was going to repeat the story she'd told. When she stopped he knew she was not a practiced liar. He felt relieved, then loving toward her, and then that the time had come to clear the air.

"You fell off your bike just as Al happened to be walking by. I'm sorry, Caroline. I can't buy that. Al didn't take walks, especially in neighborhoods he didn't know." She turned away again as if ashamed she'd been found out. "Listen—I believed your story at first. I thought it sounded a little pat, but I bought it anyway. I liked you. I didn't have any reason not to believe you, and that day I got assigned a horrible case, so maybe my mind wasn't as sharp as it should have been. But it bothered me. There was something wrong. I didn't think about it again until the other night. Now I feel it's important that we clear this up. Not because how you met Al is so important in itself, but because we have to be straight with each other or we won't have anything at all."

"I see," she said. "Well, of course you're right. That isn't how I met him, though I did fall off my bike and there was a man who helped me up and walked me home. I thanked him at the door and never saw him again. I spliced that story in. Not too well thought out, I guess."

"Why make up a story at all?"

"Because I didn't want to go through all this."

"Through what?"

She paused as if deciding whether she should answer. When finally she looked up he knew she was going to tell the truth.

"Al called me blind one day last June. He introduced himself and asked if he could come over here and talk. Sure, I said; why not? So he came and he was upfront about the reason. He told me he was a retired detective and that he and Dad had been good friends years ago. He hadn't seen much of Dad in a long while, but he thought there was more to his death—no, he didn't tell me that till later on. He just said he wanted to find out who killed Dad and why, and he asked me a lot of questions and pretty soon he realized I didn't know anything at all. And then it was just the way I told you. He started stopping by afternoons. We became friends. We liked each other. I liked listening to him and having him around. So the only thing I told you that wasn't true was the way we met, the accident."

She stopped as if waiting for his next question, then remembered he'd already asked her why she'd lied. "I didn't know you,
Janek
. You came up to me in the cemetery, then you called that night and said you wanted to ask some questions. I didn't know what you were after. I assumed it was about Dad and I was sick to death of that. So when you asked me how I met Al I combined the story of the bike accident with a true account of our relationship."

"I still don't see—"

"I just didn't feel like having another detective coming around talking about that awful case. I felt that if I told you about it you'd want to take it over, and then you'd get obsessive about it the way Al did, and I knew I couldn't deal with that. And there was something else." She paused. "I had this strong reaction to you. I didn't want to spoil it or mix it up with Dad. Who cares now what gangsters killed him? He's dead. Al shot himself. I mean—I've had enough."

"The next night we became lovers. Why didn't you tell me then?"

"What difference would it have made?"

"I can understand why you fibbed at first, but later, when we got so close, didn't you want to clear it up?"

"I just have. It's cleared. I think you knew all this anyway."

Janek
shook his head. "I didn't know about your father or Al's interest in him. I didn't know any of this until just now."

"Then you really are a terrific detective. You bluffed me out and now I've spilled my guts. There's nothing else untrue between us. I feel good about that. I'm glad we're clear."

He tried to smile but found he couldn't.

"Still don't believe me?" she asked.

"It's not just a question of how you met," he said. "I asked you if Al was working on something. You told me he wasn't. And now it turns out you knew he was."

"It didn't seem all that important at the time. More like something his wife was curious about. He wasn't working officially, so it didn't weigh on my conscience. Anyway, it concerned me and my father, not Al, or Al's wife, or even you." She left her chair, came over to his side of the table, sat down next to him and took his arm. "You thought I was perfect and now you're disappointed. I've confessed everything. Can't we leave it alone awhile?"

"Everything?"

"What else could there be?"

"You said Al told you he thought there was more to your father's death than... Then you broke the sentence off."

"Shit!"

"What did he say?"

"He had some crazy idea."

"What?"

"
Dammit
, I don't know. It's over. Forget it. He never came up with anything. He was an old man playing detective, obsessed and secretive and sly. It got so I just couldn't stand to listen to him go on about it. Not about the case but about how tortured it made him feel. I told him that and we made a pact. He wouldn't mention it anymore. And after that he didn't."

"You're telling me he never said anything substantive about your father's death?"

"Nothing. Just that he didn't think it happened the way it looked."

Janek
stood up.

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know."

"You're not going to stay?"

He shook his head.

"Why not? To punish me?"

"I'm all wound up."

"So am I. I'll put on some music. Let's open another bottle of wine and relax."

"I played my accordion for you."

"I loved you for doing that."

He stood silent, his mind churning, fearing he was getting too close, feeling too much pain. "Maybe I need time to cool off. Maybe it's just my pride. You told me a story no decent detective would believe. I believed it. So now I feel like a jerk."

"You're not a jerk. You're a brilliant man."

"And now you don't want me looking into your father's death."

"No."

"But I have to."

"Why?"

"Because now it turns out Al
was
working on a case, and that's a very peculiar thing. Because when a detective like Al works a case that's personal he's not inclined to shoot himself."

"I don't—"

"Why
did
he shoot himself?"

She shook her head. "Depression. Burnout, like you said."

"You told me he felt tortured."

"So maybe that's why he did it. I feel guilty about that. I cut him off. I wouldn't let him talk about it. When I did that, maybe...
don't you see
?"

Janek
shook his head. He turned to her, took her face in his hands, gently touched her cheeks running now with tears. "It wasn't you, Caroline. And it wasn't the case either. Or that Al was bottled up. That's the kind of torment that would keep him going, not the kind that would make him feel shitty about himself and eat his thirty-eight."

"What are you going to do?"

"Look into it."

"His suicide?"

He nodded. "Al's investigation too."

She gazed at him stunned; she finally understood. He saw her expression change from wonderment to recognition, then she snapped back her head from his hands. "You know, I'm getting a very funny feeling about this conversation. About everything that's happened here tonight. Like the very casual way you started asking about my father. And then the way you shifted the talk over to Al, as if you already knew."

"I told you, I didn't."

"Yeah. But that sounds a little pat to me. This was an interrogation, wasn't it?" He shook his head. "Sure it was. I see it now. You knew everything. So maybe you haven't been that straight yourself. Can't blame you. I lied first. Oh, excuse me, I mean fibbed. So you had every right to try and worm the story out. Except that we're supposed to be—what? Lovers? Or more than that?" He reached for her, but she broke away, stood up fast and began to pace the loft.

"Fuck it anyway. I can't believe you'd come on to me the way you did just
to
..." She kicked the wall; when she turned back
Janek
saw that her foot had left a mark. "No, that's impossible. You couldn't be so false. Forget it. I'm sorry. So, okay, you're going to look into it. Al was working on a case and you owe it to him to investigate. You're going to do that whether I want you to or not." She stopped, turned and stared at him. "Am I right?"

He nodded.

"Fine. Do it. Get obsessed." There were tears in her eyes again. "Maybe you'll end up shooting yourself, too. That would be just great, wouldn't it? Great for me. Two detectives. Plus my dad."

She turned suddenly and strode into her darkroom, the portion of the loft partitioned off from the rest. She came out a few seconds later and handed him a photograph.

"Here! Take it! Torture yourself. Get obsessed—just like Al." She wiped her eyes. "He gave this to me the last time he came. That was about four days before he died. I don't know why. To me it's just a picture of three guys. But he gave it to me with some ceremony, pressed it into my hand like it was special. The guy in the middle
is
my dad. And of course that's Al on the left. I don't know who the other guy is. I'd say this picture was taken by an amateur about twenty-five years ago. That's all I know. You're the detective. You figure it out. And now I'd like it if you'd leave."

"When we've cooled off—"

"I love you." She stamped her foot.
"So
damn
much.
"

"
Caroline—"

She turned away. "Just go now. Please."

"We'll talk tomorrow."

"Sure."

Janek
stood there feeling helpless, wanting to move toward her but knowing from her posture she'd rebuff him if he tried. He backed toward the door, then stopped again waiting for her to turn. She didn't. "Good night," he said. Then, very quietly, he left.

He sat in his car staring at his hands. They
were
shaking and he couldn't make them stop. He knew he had opened up some kind of awful wound, and yet he did not see how he could have avoided it. He sat for a while and then, when the shaking stopped, he drove slowly back to New York.

Later, at home, lying on his bed, he examined the snapshot: three men, three cops in uniform, their arms tossed lightly about one another's shoulders, grinning, almost leering at the lens.