Close to the Bone

by William G. Tapply

  There was a kitchen/dining room/living room area with a single picture window that overlooked the marsh. Beyond the living room were two closed doors—bedrooms, I assumed—and one open one, a bathroom. The decor was neo—K Mart—spindly chairs, a round pine table, matching pseudo-colonial sofa and armchair. Magazines and newspapers and shoes and socks littered the floor and furniture. Unopened mail was scattered across the top of the table. The kitchen sink was piled with pots and dishes.

  “Where do we start?” said Olivia.

  I shrugged. “We’re all creatures of habit. Where did Paul usually keep his spare keys?”

  “In his desk drawer.” She looked around. “I don’t see a desk in this place.”

  “There’s probably a chest of drawers in his bedroom. Or maybe the spare bedroom has a desk in it.” I gestured toward the closed doors. “Why don’t you look around in there. I’ll check out here.”

  Olivia headed for the bedrooms. I rummaged through the two drawers that bracketed the sink. One held a jumble of forks and knives and spoons and spatulas and can openers. There were screwdrivers and pliers and a hammer and an assortment of other junk in the other one. No keys. Nothing on the windowsill or on top of the refrigerator.

  I sat at the kitchen table. A bunch of limp daisies drooped in a water glass. From Maddy, I guessed. I picked up a stack of mail and glanced through it. Mostly junk stuff addressed to “Occupant.” I figured Paul hadn’t gotten around to having his address permanently changed.

  There were a few bills—electricity, water, telephone—a bank statement, some catalogs, a couple of Newsweek magazines.

  No mysterious letters. Nothing to indicate what might’ve happened to him.

  From one of the bedrooms, Olivia called, “Got it.” She came out holding up a key. “This has to be it,” she said.

  “Good,” I said. “Let’s go do it.”

  She stood in the living room and nudged a balled-up sweatshirt with her toe. “This is spooky,” she said.

  “Being here?”

  She nodded. “I mean, I know these clothes.” She waved her hand at the shoes and T-shirts and socks scattered on the floor. “I’ve picked them up a hundred times. I’ve picked up his pants and shirts, washed them, folded them, hung them up…”

  I went to her and touched her arm. “Olivia.”

  She looked up at me and smiled quickly. “I’m okay, Brady.” She took a long look around the inside of the cottage, shook her head, and went outside.

  We drove to the boat ramp. Paul’s car was still parked there, and the key opened the door and fit into the ignition. Olivia got in and followed me to the Coast Guard station. We drove directly down to the dock, and by the time we had climbed out of the cars, a young guy had hurried down to join us.

  “Something I can help you with, sir?” he said to me.

  “We came to get the Whaler,” I said, pointing at Paul’s boat.

  “Why don’t you just hang on for a second.” He turned and jogged back to the brick building, and a few minutes later the officer whom I’d seen on my previous visit strode down to us.

  “Mr. Coyne,” he said. “You’ve come for the boat.”

  I nodded. “This is Mrs. Cizek. The Whaler belongs to her husband.”

  He nodded to her and mumbled, “Ma’am.” He turned to me. “No news, huh?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, the Newburyport police tell us they’re done with the boat, and we don’t have any space for it, so I’m glad you can take it.”

  “Want me to back down?” said Olivia.

  I laughed. “I’d be relieved. I’m not very good at backing trailers down boat ramps. I tend to bump into things.”

  “I’ve done it plenty of times,” she said, and she proceeded to do it expertly.

  A half hour later we had parked boat, trailer, and car in the side yard of Paul’s cottage. Olivia insisted on returning the car key to where she had found it. Then we drove back to the Friendly’s lot in my car.

  Olivia suggested we have coffee, but I declined. It was Alex’s turn to cook dinner, and I didn’t want to be late, even if it turned out to be lentil soup.

  16

  ALEX WAS ON the balcony when I got home. She was wearing a pair of my boxer shorts and her own “Walk for Hunger” T-shirt. She was tilted back in one of the aluminum chairs with her legs up on the railing and her eyes closed.

  I eased up her T-shirt to expose some smooth skin and kissed her belly. Her fingers moved in my hair. “Mmm,” she said. “Nice. What was that for?”

  “Does it have to be for something?”

  “It’s better if it isn’t,” she said.

  “It’s because I don’t smell lentil soup.”

  She grabbed a handful of my hair, pulled my head up, and clamped both arms around my neck. She put her mouth on my ear and whispered, “Hungry?”

  “How do you mean that?”

  She kissed my mouth, then sat up. “For now, I’m talking about dinner. Go grab yourself a beer and then stay out of my kitchen. I’ll call you to the table.”

  “You’re awfully sexy when you’re bossy,” I said. “And you’re particularly sexy in my boxer shorts.” I snapped her a salute. “I will obey, sir.”

  I changed into my jeans and took a beer onto the balcony, where I watched the setting sun splash colors on the cloud bank that was building on the horizon. Thoughts of Eddie Vaccaro and Paul Cizek flitted in and out of my consciousness. I willed myself not to focus on them, and had good success at it.

  An hour or so later Alex called, “Come and get it.” I went to the table.

  Grilled lamb chops, boiled potatoes doused with melted butter and sprinkled with parsley, stir-fried snow peas, avocado on beds of Bibb lettuce, a sweet German wine. “You’re an amazing woman,” I said to Alex. “Do you make your own clothes, too?”

  “No, I steal them from men,” she said. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. Are you going fishing tomorrow?”

  “I’d like to. I’m going to call Charlie.”

  I did, and he was eager. We debated our options and decided on the Farmington River in Connecticut. We always found rising trout on the Farmington. I told him I’d pick him up at eight.

  At six in the morning, when I woke up, an easterly wind was driving hard raindrops against the windows. They sounded like buckshot rattling on the glass. I stood there sipping my coffee and staring down through the sliding doors at the gray, churning surface of the harbor.

  I felt Alex’s hand on the back of my neck. Then her arms went around my chest and I felt her breasts pressing against my back. “It’s a pretty lousy day,” she murmured.

  “Too lousy for trout fishing.”

  “I thought rain was good for fishing.”

  “No. That’s a fallacy. This kind of rain ruins trout fishing. The Farmington will be high and muddy and the trout will be sulking on the bottom. Besides, it’s no fun getting soaked.”

  “Macho-type men like confronting the elements, don’t they? Isn’t getting wet and freezing your ass off what it’s all about?”

  “No. Enjoying a pleasant June day and catching trout on dry flies is what it’s all about.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess you’ll go tomorrow, huh?”

  “No,” I said. “Tomorrow is Sunday, our only day together. Charlie and I can go fishing next Saturday.”

  “You can go tomorrow, Brady. I understand.”

  I turned around and hugged her. “It’s not a sacrifice, you know, spending a day with you.”

  She looked up at me. “Mean it?”

  I kissed her. “Yes.”

  She took my hand. “Since it’s raining and you can’t go fishing,” she said, “you might as well come back to bed.”

  “I already had a mug of coffee. I’ll never get back to sleep.”

  “Exactly,” she said.

  Sunday, of course, dawned clear and sunny. It would’ve been a perfect day for trout fishing.

  “Why don’t you go?” said Ale
x as we spread marmalade on English muffins at the table.

  “I want to be with you.”

  “You deserve a nice fishing trip.”

  “One of these days, maybe I’ll have one,” I said. “Anyway, I also deserve a nice day with you.”

  “Well,” she said, “we’re going for a drive. You can bring your stuff, maybe stop somewhere along the way.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Maine.”

  “Is this a real estate excursion?”

  She nodded.

  “I thought you were interested in Vermont.”

  “I was. I’ve made a lot of calls. Vermont’s too expensive. There are places in Maine I can afford. I found a nice real estate lady who’s got several places for me to look at.”

  “How far up?”

  “Not far. Maybe three hours from here.”

  “I don’t know any good trout rivers in southern Maine.”

  She reached across the table and touched my hand. “Brady, I mean it,” she said. “I wish you’d go fishing.”

  “I mean it, too,” I said. “I want to go to Maine with you. I want to help you find a nice place to live.”

  Alex hugged my arm. “Oh, Brady,” she said. “This is it. Don’t you think?”

  It was just the third place we’d looked at, a modest post-and-beam home that sat on a dirt road in Garrison, Maine, due west of Portland near the New Hampshire border. The entire first floor was a single open room with a wooden spiral staircase leading to the upstairs. A big picture window overlooked a valley and low rolling hills beyond. There was a wood stove at one end and a big fieldstone fireplace at the other. A fairly modern kitchen extended across half of the back wall. The double windows over the sink looked out into the woods.

  Upstairs there were three decent-sized bedrooms and a bath. The place hadn’t been lived in for a year, and the monthly rent had been reduced a few times. Now it was half what Alex was paying for her two-bedroom apartment on Marlborough Street in Boston.

  The real estate agent, a gray-haired woman named Alice, said that the town kept the dirt road plowed in the winter, and a local man would keep her supplied with firewood and perform a variety of handyman chores.

  “I think it’s perfect,” I said to Alex.

  “But—”

  “But nothing. It’s perfect. Grab it.”

  She did. We drove back to the real estate office, where Alex signed a one-year renewable lease and wrote a check for two months’ rent. The place would be hers on the first of September.

  I bought us each a Pepsi at a Maine backroad mom-and-pop store on the way home. We leaned against the side of the car outside the store. I held up my Pepsi can. “To your new home,” I said.

  She gave me a small smile, then touched her can to mine.

  “You’re thinking it could be our new home?” I said.

  She shrugged. “Something like that. Yes.”

  I nodded. “I guess it could. It’s a nice place. I like it.”

  “I will never pressure you,” she said. “You see the place. You know what it is. You know I’m going to be living there. Now you’ve got to decide what to do.”

  “Yes, I do. I don’t have a choice. If I don’t decide, that will be a decision, too.”

  “I’ll love you no matter what you do,” she said.

  Yes, I thought. But it would never be quite the same.

  We didn’t talk much on the way home. I wanted to be more enthusiastic for Alex. I just couldn’t fake it. And I suspected she was struggling to dampen her own enthusiasm out of deference to my feelings.

  We stopped at a little Italian restaurant in Burlington for supper. The pasta was good and we split a carafe of the house wine. Alex chatted about her book and a couple of stories she was working on, trying very hard to avoid the subject we were both thinking about. I nodded and smiled in the right places, but after a while our conversation petered out.

  It was dark when we got back to the city. I pulled into my parking slot beside Alex’s car. “I think I’ll go home now,” said Alex.

  “Oh?”

  She tried to give me a bright smile. “I’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”

  “Sure. And you probably have laundry to do. Wash your hair, pay your bills, make some phone calls—”

  She grabbed my arm. “Listen to me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was being childish.”

  “So was I,” she said. “I wasn’t saying what I meant. Let me try again.”

  I touched her face. “Okay.”

  “I just think… if I stayed tonight we’d feel—tension. I really don’t want to influence your thinking. I’m not sure I know how to act right now. I’m excited by my new place. I’m sad because it’s making a problem for you. Do you see?”

  “I think so.” I smiled. “Is this our first fight?” I tried to make it come out like a joke, but it didn’t sound like one, even to my ears.

  Alex shrugged. “We’re—having a conflict. I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight or argue or do anything but be happy with you. I don’t want to be apart from you, but I’m going to be living in Maine, for the next two years. I really want to share my life with you. I want you to want that, too.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to share my life with you,” I said.

  She looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “I believe you.”

  “You won’t stay with me tonight?”

  She shook her head. “No. I don’t think I should. Not tonight. It’ll be easier for you if I’m not around.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said.

  She put her arms around my neck and gave me a long, hungry kiss. When she pulled back, her eyes were glistening.

  When I got up to my apartment, I sloshed some Rebel Yell into a glass, added three ice cubes, and went out on the balcony. I sat there in the dark for a long time, sipping my drink and smoking cigarettes and watching the play of lights over the harbor.

  After awhile I went to bed.

  My pillow smelled like Alex’s hair. I stared up at the ceiling. It took a while, but eventually I fell asleep.

  The next morning I noticed that the light on my answering machine was blinking. I had forgotten to check it when I got home after my day of house-hunting with Alex.

  I pressed the button. The machine whirred. Then a voice said, “Mr. Coyne, this is Brenda Falconer. Glen’s wife. It’s Sunday, around three in the afternoon. Something has happened. The Senator wants you to call him at home.”

  17

  I POURED A MUG of coffee, lit a cigarette, and dialed Roger Falconer’s number in Lincoln. After several rings, a woman’s voice said, “Yes?”

  “May I speak with Roger?”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “It’s Brady Coyne. Is this Brenda?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry. I was sleeping. I had a late night.” She paused, and I heard rustling noises that suggested she was sitting up in bed. “Thanks for calling back. The Senator’s not here. I know he’s eager to talk to you.”

  “Your message said something had happened.”

  “Oh, geez. You don’t know.”

  “Know what?”

  “Glen’s in the hospital.”

  “What happened?”

  “We’re not sure. It was a bicycle accident. He’s—he’s in bad shape.”

  “How bad?”

  “He’s been unconscious since they found him. That was Sunday morning. He’s got a fractured skull, broken pelvis, internal injuries.”

  “He was on his bike?”

  I heard a short, ironic laugh. “Yes. He was apparently driving drunk again, only this time he didn’t kill anybody except maybe himself. Since his last, um, accident, he’s stopped driving automobiles. He’s too weak to quit drinking, so he quit driving. He pedals around the back roads of Lincoln and Concord and Sudbury to the houses of people who will give him booze, and to bars and restaurants, and he gets plastered and brags about staying out of prison and talks about driving
automobiles again pretty soon, and then he wobbles home. Saturday night he didn’t make it. Some joggers found him in the morning, lying in the weeds beside the road near the river at Nine Acre Corner. They figure he’d been there for several hours, bleeding and his brain swelling.” She blew out a breath. “I’m sorry to rattle on like this. It’s been pretty stressful around here lately.”

  “Where is he?” I said.

  “Emerson Hospital. His father spent the night there. He’d like to see you.”

  “Why does he want to see me?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Coyne. I think he just needs comforting, and there’s nobody else to give it to him.”

  I inferred that either Roger’s daughter-in-law lacked the inclination to offer him comfort, or he lacked the inclination to accept it from her. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

  I called the office and left a message on the machine, telling Julie that something had come up and I’d probably not get in much before noontime. Then I showered, got dressed, and took a mug of coffee down to my car.

  I pulled into the visitors’ lot at Emerson Hospital in Concord a little after eight. The woman at the desk said Glen Falconer was in the intensive care unit and told me how to find it.

  Roger was sprawled on a chair in the waiting room. His legs were stretched out in front of him and his arms were folded across his chest and his head was thrown back. He was wearing a wrinkled seersucker suit. His necktie was pulled loose around his neck, and he looked more like someone who’d just crawled in from a bench on the Common than a man people called “Senator” out of respect for his power and wealth. His mouth was open and his eyes were closed and white whiskers sprouted on his jaw, and for the first time in my memory he looked older than his years rather than younger.

  I sat in the chair beside him and poked his arm. “Hey, Roger,” I said in a loud whisper.

  He mumbled something, took a quick breath, and sat up. “What?” He looked at me. “Oh. Brady. What happened? What time is it?”

  “You want some coffee or something?”

  “Huh? Oh. No. Did you hear anything?”

  “I just got here. Brenda called. It’s Monday morning, around eight.”