The Last Good Day (49 page)

“There are going to be others who come out of the woodwork,” Harold said. “Aren’t there?”

Mike probed the inside of his mouth with his tongue, finding a new canker sore in the wetlands of his cheek. The walls were narrowing on him. He had to give himself some breathing room.

“All right, so I had a thing with her,” he said. “Is that what you want to hear? I got her doing sixty in a forty-five zone.”

“This is when you were doing road stops?” asked Paco.

“Right after my brother got shot.” Mike nodded. “Totally legitimate tactic. You never know when you’re going to pull somebody over and find a gun in the glove compartment.”

He saw Harold and Paco exchange skeptical looks, but in his heart he knew it was true: a part of him still dreamed of pulling over the Chevy his brother stopped that night on River Road.

“You thought that little baby-sitter was carrying a gat?” Paco arched one eyebrow.

“Okay, I caught a rap with her,” Mike admitted. “I told her my mom looked after other people’s kids too …”

“You banged her in the car and then tore up the speeding ticket,” Paco interjected.

“Was it a chocolates and roses romance? No, probably not. Was she pissed about it later? I guess, maybe. She filed paper on me. Is it my proudest moment? Hey, I was going through a hard time.”

“What about that answering machine tape?”

“Shit.” Mike looked down at his thumb, seeing the nail hanging halfway off. “I made mistakes. I MADE SOME FUCKING MISTAKES. I knew I had a shot at the chief’s office, and I freaked when her complaint came in. And then Marie got wind of it, and I was hanging by a thread. So I left this stupid message. Was I actually going to do anything? Come on, Harold. Don’t you know me better than that?”

Mike looked up at the chief, trying to find some small shred of understanding or fellow feeling to grab on to.

“I thought I did.” Harold’s eyes went cold. “But then you started doing all this crazy shit again. What about Sandi?”

“What about her?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were doing her?”

A hard lump of mucus lodged at the base of Mike’s throat. “Who says I was?”

“Come on, Mike,” said Harold. “We were all at the funeral. I saw you take the shovel out of the husband’s hands.”

“I was just paying my respects to a friend.”

“Sure.” Paco stepped up, crowding him a little more on the stairs. “Look, man,
de verdad,
I got you working on her fence. I got you signing out early all summer to go see her. I just went back and got Sandi’s baby-sitter telling us she heard you upstairs while your truck was in the driveway. And now I got your computer.”

He nodded toward the unplugged ProGen in the open cardboard box.

“What about it?” Mike swallowed hard, noticing the table saw had been pulled out and was lying on its side, teeth gleaming. “I use it to help the kids with their homework sometimes.”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that, Topcat,” said Paco. “We’re going to confiscate it and see what kind of e-mails you sent her.”

They had him. Brick by brick they’d been building a wall around him, hemming him in. They moved closer as they stood over him on the stairs. Paco’s belt buckle was level with his eyes, and the sight of the silver tongue poking through leather made him think of torture.

“All right, so what?” Mike said, realizing he’d waited far too long for this. “She wasn’t getting any from the old man, so I helped her out a little. You gonna lock me up for that?”

“No, not for that,” said Harold.

“Oh, come on. Everybody lies about sex. You know I’ve been trying to get back with Marie and the kids. I didn’t need her to know I’d slipped up a couple of times. I’m a dog. I’m sorry. I’m a goddamn dog. But that doesn’t make me an animal.”

“Down at the train station,” Harold murmured, studying the dust on his wing tips.

“Come again?”

“Down at the train station. You never said anything. When the body washed ashore. You saw the tattoo on the ankle. You saw the surgical scar on the breast and the liposuction scar on her ass.”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“Of course you were sure.
You were fucking her, and you never said a damn thing to me about it!
”

They’d moved in so tight around him that he could barely breathe.

“I panicked, all right?” Mike shouted, trying to get them to back off. “I’d been fucking her and then she was dead. I knew how that was going to look when it all came out.”

“And how’s that?” Paco half-smiled.

“Listen, I’m not going to bullshit you anymore.” Mike ignored him, appealing to Harold directly. “I got a wife and kids who I don’t wanna lose. I kept thinking I was going to tell you, but things kept coming up.”

“Like what?” asked Harold.

He thought of explaining about all the little mistakes he’d made, all the opportunities he’d missed. How he’d choked that first time Harold asked him about Sandi, how he’d been all set to come clean until he’d found that thing in the diary about strangling her. But then he stopped himself, realizing that he was in enough trouble.

“I made some bad decisions. By the time I was ready to turn around and give it to you straight-on, it was too late.”

“So you deliberately impeded an investigation? Is that your story?” Paco tugged on his earring, playing the wiseass. “Tell me something: is that your baby she happened to be carrying?”

“Huh?”

“You said the old man wasn’t giving her none. You could save us the expense of a DNA test right here.”

“I don’t know.” Mike buried his face in his hands. “I seriously don’t know.”

“So why’d you kill her?” asked Harold.

“I didn’t! It’s the husband. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along. He must’ve found out about us.”

“But then why are you the one who’s been covering up all along?” asked Harold.

“
I’m telling you,
I thought I could stay on top of it. I thought I could keep my name out of it. I fucked up, okay? I didn’t want to lose my job
and
my family. I was fighting for my life.”

The red mist had fallen over him. His brain had locked up. He was off-balance, not fully in control of what he was saying. There was a part of him that knew he should stop talking immediately and call his lawyer.

But then Harold took the hand off his shoulder and hunched down so they were eye to eye with barely enough room for a closed fist between them.

“Michael, listen to me,” he said. “I want to talk to you as a friend.”

“A friend.”

“I mean it. You have a choice here.” Harold held his gaze. “You can keep going down this road and end up in a prison cell.”

Mike gingerly pressed the blackened nail back onto his thumb. “My father worked at the prison.” He grimaced, trying to hang tough.

“Then what about leaving your family destitute after all the lawyers’ bills come through?”

Mike felt a bubble of misery form and expand inside his chest. “And what’s my other choice?”

“You put an end to this right now and spare us all the charade and expense of a criminal trial, where you’ll have to pay for an attorney out of your own pocket.” Harold started to pull off his rubber glove. “I’ll talk to the Town Board about setting up Marie and the kids with your three-quarters’ pension. We’ll do it quietly, as if it’s survivors’ benefits they’re entitled to.”

“Like I’m already dead to them,” said Mike glumly.

“Yeah.” Harold nodded, not trying to put a bow on it. “Like you’re already dead.”

Mike watched each of Harold’s fingers pop out one by one with a little puff of resin. “What if I want to take it to trial?”

“Rearranging deck chairs on the
Titanic.
” Harold hunched his shoulders. “We’ve already found bloodstains down here. As soon as we send them to the state crime lab, there won’t be a thing I can do for you. Deal will be off the table.”

But at that moment, Mike saw the chief’s windbreaker ride up, revealing a band of navy Kevlar underneath. And in that small stretch of dark fabric, he saw a tender vulnerability, a piece of history, a place to strike.

“You’re lying,” he said.

He watched Harold’s jaw grind and then loosen. The man was scared. So scared he’d put on a body armor vest today. Right over the place where he’d been stabbed by Brenda Carter.

“Okay,” said Harold, feigning nonchalance. “I’m lying.”

“You didn’t find anything down here,” Mike said, realizing he’d been gulled into saying more than he needed to. “You didn’t find dick.”

He stood up slowly, reclaiming the physical space and forcing them both back a foot. They’d been playing him, trying to make him feel cut off, as if the only way out was through them. He’d done it himself a hundred times at least, only better. He picked up the warrant that had fallen at his feet.

“I don’t know what the hell you thought you’d find down here anyway,” he said, studying the warrant as if he’d just woken up. “This is off a three-year-old complaint. It’s got nothing to do with Sandi.”

“Prior bad acts,” Paco said quietly. “We’re establishing a pattern.”

“You’ll get laughed out of court.” Mike looked from one to the other, nudging them farther back with his eyes. “Judge would’ve tossed anything you found here anyway. Fruit of a poisoned tree.”

“If you say so.” He saw Harold give Paco a worried glance, not ready to be challenged so directly.

“You never were worth a damn as an interrogator, Harold.” Mike handed back the warrant and closed a fist around his thumb. “You couldn’t even get Saint Augustine to confess. You always needed me to do the heavy lifting.”

“Last chance.” Harold stooped his shoulders, the vest appearing and then disappearing under his jacket. “This is your only exit.”

“My lawyer.”

“You sure about that?”

“I want to speak to my lawyer. You don’t have a case.”

“As we say at my other office: your funeral.” Harold reached into his pocket and took out a pair of handcuffs.

“What the fuck’s this?” Mike backed up on a step. “You don’t have enough to charge me for the murder.”

“But I got more than enough to get you on harassing and intimidating Muriel Navarro. Sorry, Mike. We’re still within the statute of limitations. You’re under arrest, my friend.”

53

“OH.”

The bright-pink hoop of Molly Pratt’s mouth curved into a frozen smile as she realized it was too late to pretend she hadn’t seen Lynn standing in line at the post office just before lunch.

“So, what brings
you
here?” Her mushroom-shaped hair bounced as she came over, but her cheeks looked filled with solidifying concrete.

“Just buying stamps,” said Lynn, slumped and shy in the confines of her barn jacket.

A red dotted arrow flashed on the wall, moving the line along. Was everyone really looking at her? Testifying in open court had made her feel not merely ashamed but fundamentally unclean. She’d noticed several other moms hurrying past her with their eyes lowered when she’d dropped off Clay this morning.

She told herself that her reputation couldn’t already be in ruins. It was mathematically impossible. Each friend who’d been in court would’ve had to tell ten people, who in turn had told ten others. But somehow she couldn’t escape the feeling that wherever she went the person she used to be was strutting visibly and wantonly alongside her, like an image from a double-exposed photo.

“So is anybody talking about getting the book group together again for Tuesday?” she asked, noticing a clerk in a VFW cap, a white man in the gathering dusk of his years, staring at her through the thick glass partition.

“Oh, I don’t know about this last one.” Molly frowned disapprovingly. “I have such a hard time with not-so-happy endings and characters who do things that I’d never do.”

Lynn hesitated, not sure how to take this. Again, she felt the bleak chill of Sandi’s absence, of missing the one friend who’d goof on Molly’s neo-Victorianism to her face.

“Well, it would just be nice to see everyone at something other than a funeral or a hearing.” Lynn moved up a place in line, noticing the Wanted posters taped to the wall.

“I know what you mean.” Molly nodded and looked at her watch. “It’s gotten a little grim around here.”

“Call me, all right?”

“Will do.” Molly took two steps and then came back, realizing something else had to be said. “Lynn, I just want you to know that we’re all still with you, and no one’s judging you for the other day.”

Lynn just stared at her as the red arrow flashed again. Judging
her?
As if none of them had ever done anything remotely scandalous. What about Anne Schaffer breaking her leg in three places driving drunk into a tree on Prospect? What about Jeanine stealing her father’s prescription pad so she could sell drugs at BU? And what about Molly herself, busted for screwing the circulation manager at work and ruining her marriage?

Did they all think that Lynn was the one who’d been on trial? Hadn’t they heard that Michael had been arrested yesterday morning and charged with harassing another woman?

“Hey, lady, next window’s open,” a man behind her said.

“I’ll call you.” Molly edged away with a fragile wave.

Feeling tainted afterward, Lynn decided to go on a cleaning purge to set her house in order. As soon as she walked in the door, she stripped off her clothes, put on some sweats, wiped the counters, did the laundry, mopped the floors, changed the linens, then took out the summer clothes and started to fold them to go back in the attic. Why did she wait so long?

She turned her attention to Barry’s closet, deciding to be appalled before she even slid open the door. Wasn’t some of this his fault as well? He hadn’t exactly been a mediating influence, had he? To her disappointment, his suits were all hanging handsomely on evenly spaced wooden hangers.
When did he get to be so anal?
she thought. She slid the door open all the way, seeing his shoes lined up neatly and having the distinct sensation of being unwelcome. The only thing out of place here was an old Nike sneaker box jutting off the top shelf. Where did that come from? She stood on her toes, reaching, wondering if he was stowing a second set of tax receipts that he hadn’t told her about. Ever since she’d realized he’d been lying to her about work, she’d found herself snooping around, trying to see what else he’d been concealing.