Close to the Bone

by William G. Tapply

  She continued holding my arm. I could feel her soft breast pressing against it. I gently pulled away. “Maddy, remember the man we saw in the street that day?”

  “Sure. The big guy with the black beard.”

  “That’s the one. You told me you’d seen him before.”

  “Yes. He was with Paul. They were sitting on his deck talking one night.”

  “You didn’t hear what they were talking about?”

  She shook her head. “When I saw that Paul had company, I just left. I mean, how was I to know who that man was? It might’ve been embarrassing if I’d walked up to them and sat on Paul’s lap and gave him a big fat kiss, you know?”

  “Is that what you usually did?”

  “Sit on his lap and give him a kiss?” She smiled. “Sure. Geez.” She cocked her head at me. “You’re not, like, old-fashioned, are you?”

  “Me?” I shrugged. “Sometimes I guess I am. I try not to judge things.”

  She shook her head. “I wish I knew what happened. The hardest thing is not knowing.”

  Olivia had said the same thing, I recalled. “So you don’t know what they were talking about that night?” I said.

  “Paul and that man?” She shook her head. “It looked like Paul was doing all the talking. I think he was angry.”

  “Paul was angry?”

  “Yes. By the way he was sitting. Sort of tense and leaning forward. I didn’t hear what he was saying, but I remember the tone of his voice, too. Like he was really giving it to him.”

  I took out my cigarette pack and held it to Maddy. She shook her head.

  I lit one. “Have you seen him again?”

  “That man with the beard, you mean?”

  “Yes, him.”

  “No. Not since that morning when you were here.”

  We stood there in the moonlight. After a minute, Maddy said, “Why?”

  “Huh?”

  “Why did you come here tonight? Why are you asking me these things? Is something going on?”

  “No, not really. It’s just puzzling. He was my friend. Anyway, I just needed to get out of the house.”

  “Problems with the wife, huh?”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  “Well,” she said, “you should come on in and party with us. Cheer you up.”

  “That’s very kind,” I said. “But I don’t think so.”

  “It’d be okay, you know. I mean, you being, um, older and all.”

  “Thanks, Maddy. Maybe another time. I’ve got to get going now.”

  She leaned against me, tilted up her face, and kissed my ear. “What is it with you older guys, anyway?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re all so sad.”

  “We are, aren’t we?”

  Maddy and I said good-bye, and I walked back through the moonlight to Paul’s house. I found the key under the flower pot on the deck and went inside.

  I turned on the light and looked around. Nothing had changed since I’d been there with Olivia a couple of days earlier. Dirty clothes still littered the floor. Magazines and newspapers were still strewn around the furniture. Mail was scattered over the top of the kitchen table.

  It was the dwelling of a man with minimally developed nesting instincts. The cheap furniture probably came with the place. No paintings or photographs hung on the wall, no CD’s or records crammed any shelves. There was no television or audio system. The few meals Paul ate here, I guessed, he either took out to the deck or gobbled over the sink. He obviously didn’t sit at the table.

  According to Maddy Wilkins, Paul had said he wasn’t going to be around much longer. She thought he meant that he planned to kill himself.

  People who intend to die soon don’t bother building comfortable homes for themselves.

  On the other hand, I’d lived in my apartment on the harbor for many years, and the spare bedroom was still full of unopened boxes and assorted junk. I tended to leave socks and newspapers strewn around the floor, just like Paul.

  A calendar hung on the kitchen wall. The month of June featured black-and-white cows in a green pasture. Compliments of Skibbee and Fosburg Realtors.

  I turned the pages back. Paul was not, evidently, a man who noted his appointments on wall calendars.

  I started looking in one of the bedrooms. There was a single bare twin bed in the first one. On it were piled several fishing rods, a few tackle boxes, and a pair of rubber chest-high waders. Sweats and flannel shirts and foul-weather gear hung in the closet. Otherwise, the room was empty.

  The medicine cabinet in the bathroom held razor blades, shaving cream, underarm deodorant, toothpaste, Rolaids, aspirin.

  The second bedroom was evidently the one Paul used. There was a rumpled twin bed with the blankets thrown back. An alarm clock and a lamp and a paperback copy of The Great Gatsby sat on the bedside table. It had one drawer, which contained a bottle of aspirin, some coins, and the spare key to his car. It also contained a tube of KY lubricating jelly and a package of condoms. The tube had been squeezed several times and the condom package was almost empty.

  I wondered what Olivia had thought, seeing that tube of “personal lubricant” and those condoms in there when she was looking for the car key, and again when she’d returned it to the drawer. Lieutenant Kirschenbaum had asked her if Paul was involved with another woman. Olivia, I recalled, had replied that she didn’t know. But maybe she did. Maybe she’d known all along. Or suspected. Or didn’t care.

  Three medium-weight business suits, a couple of linen sport jackets, and several dress shirts hung in his closet, reminding me that Paul had been commuting to his office from this place. I rummaged through his clothes and found a sheer, lace-trimmed nightgown hanging among them. It was pretty apparent that Maddy—or somebody—had done more than sit on Paul’s lap and kiss him. It didn’t shock me.

  I went back to the kitchen, sat at the table, and thumbed through Paul’s mail, which, I inferred, Maddy brought in every day. No warning letters from would-be assassins, no ransom demands from kidnappers, no threats from blackmailers or clients or jealous boyfriends. Nothing personal whatsoever. No clues. Just junk mail and catalogs and magazines and bills.

  I thumbed through the mail. There were two telephone bills and two bank statements, which I shoved into my hip pocket. Then I stood up, shut off the light, and went outside.

  I was tucking the key back under the flower pot when something crashed against the side of my head.

  19

  I STAGGERED FORWARD AND went down on one knee. Before I could shake the cotton batting out of my head, he was on me. A forearm clamped around my throat and bent me backward. I grabbed at it with both hands, gagging for air. It felt like a steel band crushing my larynx. White lights began to explode in my head.

  Then, abruptly, he shoved me down and my throat was free.

  I lifted myself onto my hands and knees, sucking in long gulps of air.

  “Why’re you doing this to me?” It was a low, harsh voice.

  I turned. Thomas Gall was squatting there. In the moonlight his eyes glittered. His face was a shadow behind his bushy black beard.

  I pushed myself up and slumped into one of the deck chairs. I rubbed my throat. “What are you talking about?” I said.

  “If you don’t leave me alone,” he said, “I’ll kill you.”

  “Mr. Gall,” I said, “I’ve never even met you. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  But as I said it, I realized that I did know what he was talking about. I had mentioned him to both the Newburyport and the Concord police. I guessed that somebody, in turn, had mentioned me to him. I didn’t figure he was clever enough to figure it out by himself.

  I fumbled a cigarette from my shirt pocket and got it lit. I noticed that my hands were a little shaky, and the smoke felt harsh in my throat.

  Gall stood up. He was a big man, taller than me and considerably bulkier. He held his arms away from his sides as if he had too many muscles
to let them dangle straight down. He glared at me for a minute, then said, “Just get off my case, that’s all. Okay? Get it? ’Cause I mean it. I’ll kill you. I got nothin’ to lose.”

  “I’m sorry about—”

  He raised his fist. “Don’t,” he said quickly. “I don’t wanna hear it. I don’t wanna listen to you. You stay away from here, and you mind your own business, that’s all. Understand?”

  I nodded.

  “I mean it,” he said.

  “I believe you.”

  He bent over and put his face close to mine, and in the moonlight I saw tears welling up in his eyes. He grabbed a handful of my hair. His mouth was twisting as if he were trying to speak. But no words came out. The tears began to overflow and dribble down into his beard.

  Abruptly he let go of my hair. He straightened and held his hands up, palms outward, as if he were fighting against the temptation to hit me again. He stared down at me, then, without another word, turned and walked away. A minute later I heard the sound of an engine starting up, and I listened until it faded into silence.

  I sat there on Paul Cizek’s moonlit deck and finished my cigarette. Then I got into my car and headed back to Boston.

  I didn’t know whether to feel sorry for Gall or to fear him. Both, I decided. The man had lost his wife in a senseless, random way, and the person responsible for it had gone free. Grief combined with betrayal could make a man crazy.

  When I got home, I found my apartment as empty as Paul’s little cottage on Plum Island had been. The red light on my answering machine glowed steadily. No messages. Alex was not there, and she had not called me all day, and by comparison, my encounter with Thomas Gall somehow seemed trivial.

  Since Alex had started spending a lot of time at my place, I’d tried to confine my littering of dirty clothes to the floor of my bedroom. The top of my kitchen table was generally cleared off now, because Alex liked to set places when we ate at it. I still left magazines and newspapers strewn on the coffee table and sofa. Alex did the same thing in her apartment on Marlborough Street.

  I wondered what kind of a nest she’d build for herself in Garrison, Maine.

  It was around ten-thirty. The same full moon that had lit up the sand on Plum Island shone down over the harbor. Alex would not be asleep yet. She had come over at ten or ten-thirty in the evening plenty of times. She loved to sit out on the balcony and watch the moon reflecting off the water.

  It had only been yesterday that we’d driven up to Maine. It felt like it had been a very long time.

  I was being stubborn and childish, waiting for her to call me.

  I poured some Rebel Yell into a glass, dumped in some ice cubes, sat at the table, and dialed her number.

  It rang several times before she answered.

  “Did I wake you up?” I said.

  “Oh, hi. No. I’m awake.”

  “How was your day?”

  “Fine. Busy. You know?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Me, too.”

  I heard her chuckle.

  “What?” I said.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You laughed.”

  “Nothing, really.”

  “Is something funny?”

  “If I laughed,” she said, “it was not a laugh of humor. It was a small, wry laugh. The way one laughs at the ironies of life and the ways people try to deal with them.”

  “Listen,” I said.

  “What?”

  I felt myself shaking my head. “Nothing.”

  We were silent for a moment. Then Alex said, “I’m sorry for making you sad.”

  “It’s my problem.”

  “Yes, I guess it is. But when you’re sad, I’m sad.” I heard her take a long breath and let it out. “I can’t not do this, Brady. If I didn’t do this because I didn’t want to make you sad, I’d always regret it. And I’d resent it. I’d resent you. Do you understand?”

  “I want you to do it,” I said. “It’s not what you’re doing. I’m happy for you. It’s just me. I went to Paul Cizek’s place tonight.”

  “Oh Brady…”

  “No, listen. Back in the winter, he told me he was feeling discontented, unfulfilled. He didn’t like the people he had to defend. I guess his marriage wasn’t working. So what did he do? He left. He got himself a new place, a new life.”

  “And then—”

  “I know. And then something happened. But my point is, he just did it. He made a change. I’ve got a lot more incentive than Paul had. To change my life, I mean. I’ve got you. So what’s the matter with me?”

  “It’s hard, Brady. I think there’s something wrong with people who do it easily.”

  “There’s a beautiful full moon tonight,” I said. “It’s like daylight out there. You should see it on the water.”

  She chuckled softly. “I’m not coming over.”

  “I know.”

  “On September first I’m moving to Maine. I want you to always be in my life. So I need to know what you’re going to do. That’s all. When you figure it out, whatever it is, tell me. We’ll take it from there.”

  “That’s fair, I guess.”

  Neither of us spoke for a long minute. Then Alex said, “I’m sorry about the moon on the water. I bet it’s pretty.”

  “It is,” I said. “It would look a lot prettier to me if…”

  “I know,” she said quietly.

  “Well, good night, Alex.”

  “Good night, Brady.” She hesitated. “I’m glad you called.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  I held the phone at my ear for a long moment after she disconnected. Then I hung up.

  In a week it would be July. Then I’d have two months to decide what to do, to make my choice.

  Or I could not decide. But that would be a choice, too.

  Alex had already made her choice.

  I got up and sloshed a little more Rebel Yell into my glass. I stood at the sliding doors and watched the moonlight dance on the water.

  Then I went back to the table, lit a cigarette, and took Paul’s phone bills and bank statements from my pocket.

  Tearing them open felt vaguely criminal.

  The first bank statement covered the period from April 15 to May 14. I recalled that Paul had moved to Plum Island sometime in March or early April.

  There were just six canceled checks. One was for $476.27 to a bank in Virginia. A credit card payment, I guessed. To Skibbee and Fosburg Realtors, $1,200. Two months’ rent, probably. One each for gas, electricity, and telephone.

  The last check was made out to cash for $40,000. It was dated April 29.

  Forty grand in cash. It left a balance of a little over $2,000 in his account.

  There were five canceled checks in the second bank statement. One month’s rent, $600; $329.40 for the credit card; the three utilities.

  The monthly phone bills, for some reason, covered the period from the twelfth to the eleventh. The first one, from April 12 to May 11, itemized no calls. Nothing collect, no long distance, no credit card.

  The second phone bill showed a cluster of long-distance calls between the fifteenth and twentieth of May. All to the 603 area code. New Hampshire.

  One of the numbers had been called three times on three consecutive days. The rest had been called just once.

  I wondered who lived at that number, and I wondered if that person had collected forty thousand dollars in cash from Paul Cizek, and if so, I wondered what it was for.

  The next morning after Julie and I had reviewed the day’s schedule, I gave her Paul’s phone bill. “See if you can find out who lives at these numbers,” I told her.

  “Why?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What’s the point?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I want to know what happened to Paul.”

  “You think the answer is at one of these places?” she said, tapping her fingernail on the phone bill.

  “Maybe. He apparently talked to several people in
New Hampshire. Maybe he mentioned something to them. He took forty thousand dollars out of his checking account in April, then he made all these calls in May. He called one number three times in three days. Maybe he was paying somebody off or something. I don’t know what I think right now.”

  “How do you want me to handle it?”

  “Call the numbers. Talk to whoever answers. Don’t mention Paul. See if you can get their names. Improvise.”

  “You mean lie.”

  “Sure. Lie. Make something up. Maybe you could be selling something. Lightbulbs. Newspaper subscriptions. Investments.”

  Julie grinned. “Sounds like fun. We haven’t got anything pressing until eleven. We’ll do it now. I’ll go into your office. You stay out here and play receptionist.”

  “I can handle that.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. It’s not as easy as it looks.”

  She went into my office. I sat at her desk. I called Roger Falconer’s number in Lincoln. His answering machine invited me to leave a message. I declined. Then I called Emerson Hospital. They connected me to the ICU. I identified myself as Glen’s attorney, and a pleasant nurse told me that there was no change in his condition.

  About an hour later, the phone rang and a button began blinking on the console on Julie’s desk. I picked up the phone, depressed the button, and said, “Yes? Hello?”

  “Geez,” said Julie. “You’re supposed to say, ‘Brady Coyne, Attorney. May I help you?’ ”

  “I’ll never get it right,” I said. “I’m just no good at this receptionist stuff. I guess I should go back to being a lawyer.”

  “Well, I’m awfully good at lying and wangling information out of strangers,” she said. “Why don’t you come in here?”

  I went in. She had her feet up on my desk and a big grin on her face. I sat in the client chair across from her. “What’ve you got?” I said.

  She touched the phone bill with the tip of a pencil. “I figured this number, the one he called three times in three days, might be the important one. But he called the other ones first, so that’s what I did. I called them in the same sequence he did. There are six of them. He called four of them one day, two the next. Guess what?”

  “Come on, kid. I don’t know.”