Close to the Bone

by William G. Tapply

  “Males didn’t have hysteria.”

  “No,” I said. “Being deprived of uteruses and all. When males had those symptoms, they figured there was really something wrong with them.”

  “The doctors giving those diagnoses being predominantly male.”

  “Exclusively male back then, I believe,” I said.

  She rolled onto her side and kissed my shoulder. “I’ll have to move,” she said softly. “I’ll need a quiet place. In the country, probably. Maine, maybe, or Vermont. Someplace cheaper. I’ll have to get a leave from the paper, and I’ll have to live on the advance for two years, and anyway, I want to move. But…”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “Do you? It’ll be someplace not—not so near to you.”

  “We’ll work it out.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said.

  “What have you been thinking?”

  “You could come with me. It wouldn’t be Montana, but…”

  “It’s something to think about,” I said quietly.

  We lay there in silence for a few minutes. Then Alex said, “Brady?”

  “What, hon?”

  “You’re more important to me than a book, you know?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Hey?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  I hugged her against me. “Sometimes you think too much,” I said.

  “I want you to be happy.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “I want both of us to be happy.”

  When both of my sons fled the East Coast for Western time zones, I stopped being frightened when the phone awakened me in the middle of the night. Billy liked to tell me about the trout he was catching in Idaho. Rubbing it in, I called it, but I was always happy to hear from him, even if it did interrupt my sleep. Joey called less often and less spontaneously than his brother, but as smart as he was, he always seemed surprised when I reminded him that eleven o’clock in the evening in California was 2:00 A.M. in Boston.

  So when the telephone shrilled in the dark that night, it didn’t jar me upright in bed the way it used to when the boys were still teenagers living with Gloria and my first waking thought was of automobile accidents.

  I fumbled for the phone, got it after the second ring, and held it to my ear. “H’lo?”

  “Brady?” It was neither of my sons. Billy calls me Pop and Joey calls me Dad, and both of them generally call me collect. Anyway, this voice was female.

  “Yes, this is Brady,” I mumbled.

  “It’s Olivia.”

  “Oh…?”

  “Olivia Cizek. You were the first person I thought of to call. I’m sorry to wake you up.”

  “It’s okay.” I bunched my pillow behind me and pushed myself into a semi-sitting position. Beside me Alex twitched and groaned. “What’s the matter?” I said softly into the phone.

  “It’s very strange. It’s…”

  “Olivia, are you okay?”

  “I don’t know. I—the Coast Guard just called. They found Paul’s boat.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I heard her exhale a loud breath. “His boat. It was drifting somewhere out around the Merrimack River. They towed it in, and then they called me, and—”

  “Where’s Paul?”

  “I don’t know.” She hesitated, then said, “Oh. You probably don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  I heard her take a breath. “Paul and I separated a couple months ago, Brady.”

  “I didn’t know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “He’s been living up there. On Plum Island. Since we—we split. Up there in that—he calls it a shack. They called here for him. They got the numbers off the boat and this was the address, but—”

  “Olivia, listen,” I said. “We’ve had a big storm tonight. Paul’s boat broke away from its moorings, that’s all. Call him and tell him what happened. He’s pretty lucky they found it in this storm. It could’ve been sunk or gone halfway to Labrador.”

  “I tried calling him. There was no answer.” She paused. “You don’t get it,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He doesn’t keep his boat moored. He trailers it. Do you understand?”

  Alex mumbled something and rolled toward me. I reached for her and pulled her against me.

  “Brady?” said Olivia.

  “I understand,” I said quietly. If Paul trailered his boat, he did not keep it moored at any marina. He kept it in his garage or driveway. Paul’s boat would be in the water only if Paul was on it.

  “I told them something happened,” said Olivia. “He went out in that storm.”

  “I’m sure there’s an explanation.”

  “I gave them your name,” she said. “Was that all right?”

  “Sure, Olivia. Anything I can do to help…”

  “You are our lawyer.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “So now what? Now what’m I supposed to do?”

  “What did the Coast Guard tell you?”

  “They said someone would be in touch. I guess they’re… they’re looking…”

  “There’s nothing else you can do,” I said. “I’m sorry. It’s hard. But all you can do is wait.”

  “He never wore a life jacket,” she said. “He loved to go out alone at night. Especially when it was stormy. He said that a storm would churn up the bait, get the fish excited. It’s so dumb.”

  “Hang in there, Olivia. Call me when—”

  “When they find his body.”

  “Anytime. Call me when you hear anything. Or even if you don’t. Whatever I can do to help, call me.”

  “Thank you,” she said in a small voice. “Thank you, Brady.”

  I hung up the phone. Alex mumbled, “Everything okay?”

  “No,” I said. “Paul Cizek took his boat out this evening. The Coast Guard towed it in. Paul wasn’t on it.”

  8

  I LAY THERE FOR A WHILE with Alex’s cheek on my shoulder and her leg hooked over both of mine, but I couldn’t get back to sleep. So I slid out from under her, pulled on my jeans and a clean T-shirt, and padded into the kitchen. I plugged in the coffee and leaned against the counter until it finished perking. Then I poured myself a mugful and took it out onto the balcony.

  The storm had swept the air clean, and the sky was turning pink out on the eastern horizon. I didn’t need a wristwatch to tell me that it was close to 5:00 A.M., because at that time of June the sun rises a little after five, and when I’m on my balcony I can see it happen.

  Olivia Cizek, I figured, had called around four.

  I imagined her sitting somewhere in her house sipping coffee and staring out the window waiting for the phone to ring. She and Paul had separated. But being separated wouldn’t stop her from caring.

  I remembered the last time I’d seen Paul. It had been at Glen Falconer’s victory party. He’d asked for my help, and I’d tried to give it to him. But as far as I knew, he hadn’t accepted it. Maybe I could have tried harder.

  No. I’d done what I could. I was not responsible for his leaving Olivia.

  The sun cracked the horizon on schedule, a sudden flare of light in the clear morning air. “Daybreak,” it’s called, and the word applies literally when it happens over the ocean.

  It took only a few minutes for the earth to rotate far enough to reveal the entire circumference of the sun. The color quickly burned out of the sky, leaving it pale blue and cloudless. It promised to be a perfect Saturday in June.

  Ideally I would spend a perfect June Saturday at a trout river. Mayflies of various species hatch from April through October on New England rivers, but their name is no coincidence. They hatch most prolifically in May and June—big, smoke-winged Hendricksons; March Browns and Gray Foxes, which look like miniature sailboats on the water with their barred wings unfurled; little yellow sulphurs and big yellow Light Cahills; and green drakes, which are really more cre
am-colored than green and look as big as sparrows when they lift off a river.

  Mayflies are among Mother Nature’s most graceful and beautiful creations, and I think I’d believe that even if trout didn’t gluttonize on them when they ride on a stream’s currents to dry their wings.

  But trout do gluttonize on mayflies, and when they do, they can be fooled into eating an imitation made of feathers and fur and hair wound onto a small fishhook, provided, like the real thing, it drifts freely and naturally on the surface of the stream.

  Selecting the best imitation to tie onto the end of my leader, casting it so that it drifts directly over a feeding trout, and doing it so cleverly that the trout confuses that fur-and-feather concoction with a real mayfly and pokes his nose out of the water to eat it—that is the appeal of trout fishing in June.

  I figured I wouldn’t do any fishing on this particular Saturday in June, keeping my nonfishing record for the season intact. Paul Cizek had gone overboard during the storm. Olivia would need me.

  I was smoking a cigarette, working on my second mug of coffee, and watching the gulls cruise over the harbor when Alex kissed the back of my neck.

  “Good morning, sweetie,” she said.

  I turned my head so she could kiss my cheek. Then I kissed hers. “Hi,” I said. “Coffee’s all brewed.”

  She showed me the mug she was holding. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m pretty worried about Paul.”

  “Tell me about it. I was kind of out of it when the phone rang.”

  She sat in the aluminum chair beside me and held onto my hand while I talked. When I told her that Paul and Olivia had separated, she squeezed my hand a little harder.

  “You think he went overboard during the storm,” she said when I finished.

  “I guess there are a lot of explanations for finding his boat out there without him on it,” I said. “But that’s the one that makes the most sense.”

  “If he went overboard—”

  “He probably drowned. He never wore a life jacket. I’m trying not to create scenarios. There’s nothing I can do about it. I’m just trying to wait and see what happens.”

  “His wife will call you again?”

  “I expect so. If she doesn’t, I’ll call her.”

  “You were hoping to go fishing,” she said.

  “Yes. I was going to call Charlie and see if he wanted to go. If he didn’t, I’d probably have gone alone. I haven’t been all year. I’ve pretty much lost my heart for it now.”

  She lifted her mug, drained it, then stood up. “I’ve got to get to the office,” she said. “Will you be okay?”

  “Sure. It’s Olivia I’m worried about.”

  Olivia called a little after eight. “They want to talk to me,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “The Newburyport police.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as I can get there.”

  “If you want,” I said, “I can be in Newburyport in an hour.”

  “Oh, yes, thank you,” she said softly. “I could really use your support.” She was silent for a moment, then she said, “Brady?”

  “Yes?”

  “What do you think they want?”

  “I guess they’re just trying to figure out what might’ve happened.”

  “If they found him—his… his body—they would’ve told me, wouldn’t they?”

  “Yes, I think they would.”

  “So…”

  “Try not to jump to conclusions, Olivia. Let’s take it a step at a time. How well do you know Newburyport?”

  “I’ve been there. Not well, I guess.”

  “When you turn off the highway onto Route 113 you’ll see a Friendly’s ice cream place on your left. I’ll meet you there. We’ll have a cup of coffee, then we can go talk to the police together. Okay?”

  “Yes. Okay.”

  I hung up the phone and headed for the shower. The police wanted to question Olivia Cizek because they always want to question the spouse when someone dies mysteriously or violently.

  The police were already assuming Paul Cizek had died.

  Olivia may not have realized it, but she needed a lawyer.

  I found her sitting at a booth staring into a cup of coffee. It didn’t look as if she’d slept much.

  I slid in across from her. “Good to see you again, Olivia.”

  She looked up and smiled quickly. “Thank you for coming,” she said. She had pale gray eyes, almost silver, and a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and when she smiled the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes and her mouth crinkled.

  I reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “It’s a tough time for you. I’m your lawyer. And your friend.”

  “I’m a lawyer, too, you know.”

  I nodded.

  “They think I might’ve done something,” she said.

  A waitress appeared at the table. “Just coffee, please,” I said. “Bring the lady a refill.” When she left, I said to Olivia, “You know how it works. You’re the spouse. But I doubt if the police are pursuing any theories right now. They’re investigating. They want all the information they can get. It’s logical for them to talk to you, that’s all.”

  “But you think you should be with me.”

  “Yes.”

  “To protect me.”

  “To protect your rights, yes. But mainly because I figured you could use a friend right now.”

  “I sure can. That’s why I called you.” She smiled quickly. “And I guess I understand that if that friend is also a lawyer, so much the better.”

  “So tell me about last night.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What you did.”

  She frowned, then said, “Oh. Like, do I have an alibi?”

  I shrugged. “Yes.”

  “I had a meeting up in Salem until about seven-thirty or eight. Then I went home.”

  “Directly home?”

  “Yes. Directly home.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then nothing. I went home, heated a frozen chicken pie in the microwave, ate it while I watched the news on CNN, and went to bed. I read for a while and then went to sleep.”

  “Any phone calls?”

  She frowned for a moment, then shook her head. “No. No calls. Nobody to verify where I was. That’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it?”

  “The police might ask,” I said.

  The waitress brought our coffees. Olivia stirred milk into hers.

  “I don’t have any alibi, Brady,” she said. “After I left the meeting I went straight home. I had no visitors. I didn’t talk to anybody on the phone until I got that call from the Coast Guard. I could’ve gone up to Newburyport and dumped Paul off his boat. There’s nobody to say I didn’t. Except me. And if you don’t believe me—”

  I gripped her wrist. “Stop,” I said softly. “Cut it out. The police might ask these questions, and I want to know the answers before they do. No one’s accusing you of anything.” I let go of her wrist and took a sip of coffee. “It would help me to know what happened to the two of you.”

  She shrugged and looked down into her cup.

  “You were separated,” I said. “Paul moved out. What happened?”

  She lifted her cup to her mouth and held it there for a moment. Then she put it down. “We just drifted apart, I guess.”

  “That’s no answer, Olivia.”

  She looked at me, then nodded. “No. It’s really not. It’s true, but it’s not really what happened. See, as soon as Paul took the job with Tarlin and Overton, he changed. Before, when he was prosecuting, he was a wild man. Just bubbling with energy and enthusiasm and—and righteous zeal. Oh, he loved to nail the bad guys. He was making justice happen, he liked to say. He really believed in it. He was like a kid. It was like electricity just crackled out of him. We had so much fun. I loved it. I thought he was the sexiest man. You know?”

  I nodded. “I know what you mean,” I said. �
��I knew Paul back then, too.”

  She took a quick sip of her coffee. “I mean, sometimes he’d work fourteen or sixteen hours a day. And when he got home he’d be absolutely wired. He’d keep me up half the night talking about his cases. We didn’t see that much of each other. But when we were together, it was intense. I had my own career.” She smiled. “Our life was full and complicated and exciting.”

  She bowed her head for a moment. When she looked up, she was no longer smiling. “Everything changed when he took that job. He still worked long hours, and he was making about ten times as much money. We bought a nice house and he got a new boat and everything, and we tried to pretend things were great. We were moving up in the world, right? But when he’d come home, he’d plop himself in front of the TV. Or during the fishing season he’d just change his clothes and hitch the trailer to his car and take off. He didn’t talk much about his work. When he did, all he’d say was that he was keeping bad guys out of prison. He didn’t really complain about it, at least not at first. It took me a while to realize that he was trying to protect me. He didn’t want to make me unhappy or to make me feel like he was suffering on account of me. But I knew he didn’t believe in what he was doing. And he kept getting worse. He kept winning cases, and they’d reward him by giving him nastier people to defend. I mean, he had that child molester, and he had that Mafia man, and then he got that drunk driver—”

  “I talked him into that one.”

  She shrugged. “It didn’t matter. If it hadn’t been that man, it’d’ve been someone else. The point is, gradually we just stopped talking. I finally started telling him he should quit and go back to work for the DA. He’d just smile. I tried to talk him into getting help. He was depressed, and I was worried about him.”

  “Did you ever think—?”

  “He’d kill himself?” she said. “Is that what you think happened last night?”

  “He’s seemed awfully depressed to me last time I saw him.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. He had his fishing. During the season, he seemed okay. Getting out on his boat alone at night always seemed to make him happy.”

  “He’d been worse lately, though?”

  She smiled. “He never left me before.”

  I nodded.