Perfectly Criminal

by Celeste Marsella

  “I don't get it,” Mike said to Marianna. “Is she telling her that she should dump Chuck or that she shouldn't?”

  “Both,” Marianna said. “But for different reasons.” And then she looked at me. “She should dump him because he's married but insists on an exclusive relationship from Shannon, but she shouldn't dump him if he's just nixing Boardman as her choice of an extracurricular affair because he thinks Boardman's a murderer.” Then she looked back at Mike. “You understand?”

  “I understand that this is last time I eat with you girls. I'm still hungry, I have indigestion, and my head is spinning.”

  “Come on, Mikey” Laurie said. “Let's blow this nuthouse.”

  Marianna and I sat silently as they walked out together. When Mike was safely out the door, she let turnble out the rest of her and Mike's confidential conversation vis-a-vis Chief Chucky. “Mike told me the chief and Marjory split up.”

  I raised my brows.

  “Hey, I don't know if it's because you dumped him and he's taking it as some kind of ultimatum, but she's moved in to the family house in Pennsylvania. Trial separation, the chief called it.”

  I shook my head in disgust. “You know what really bites me about that, Mari? All these years I've been a mensch by not pulling his chain over being married, and he stays married. And when it finally looks like I'm acting like a dweeb broad and giving him marriage ultimatums, he decides to ‘do the right thing.’ Fuck that, huh? The slimy female route works after all.”

  “Don't look at it that way, Shannon. It's not that you've done anything right or wrong. It's men who make us act like jerks, because that's what they respond to. They need to be given boundaries. They beg for us to give them limitations, to rein them in, to socialize them. That's what my father always said, anyway. He always used to say, if it weren't for women, men would still be roaming around in packs and living in caves. It's not the Greeks or the Romans or any other nation that gave us civilization. It's women.”

  For the briefest second I allowed myself to envy Marianna. She had a mother who cooked, cleaned, and dispensed love in all directions, and a father who left for work in the morning and arrived home early enough every night to calm his fold by translating the terrors of the big bad world into a few succinct words of wisdom.

  Everything I learned about love, family, and life, I'd gleaned on the front steps of my house in South Boston from the evening newspaper, and from the boy who'd delivered it.

  MARIANNA AND I WALKED BACK TO THE OFFICE in silence. I left her at her office door and I went off to mine, picked up the phone, and called the chief. I would refuse to discuss our love life, except insofar as the topic included references to Scott and murder. Out of allegiance to Mike, and a genuine desire not to discuss it, I intended to keep my trap shut about his recent split from Marjory. I limited myself to one major mission at a time, and what I needed to determine, once and for all, was whether Scott Boardman was a killer.

  “Shannon!” I could hear the sun rise in Chuck's voice when he recognized mine. “Come on over,” he said. “I'm busy as hell here, but for you, I'm always free.”

  But did I want to dance into the police station past Patrolman Kent and wave hello as I twirled into Chuck's office?

  My silence flicked the light on in the cluttered attic of Chuck's dimly lit brain. “Urn… no, I guess that's not a good idea, huh? How about lunch? I'll meet you at twelve-thirty What's that French place McCoy and Marianna go to all the time? The one on Hope Street.”

  “So suddenly we can meet at a fancy local restaurant in public?” Before he could answer, I picked the usual spot of our past rendezvous and secret lunchtime dalliances. “The Captain Jaynes House,” I said. “Except this time don't bother booking a room.” I hung up.

  From Providence it took about thirty minutes to get to the inn in Worcester, Massachusetts. In some fairness to Chuck, it really wasn't a bad place. The quaint colonial-era inn had earned its reputation over the past hundred years or so just by withstanding time. Chuck and I always took room number 3—1 liked the white four-poster bed—where a hundred and fifty bucks plus tax got us a queen-size bed and a private bath.

  At 12:42 Chuck was already posted at the bar with Teddy the bartender. Their attention was glued to an ESPN program where a group of has-been sports figures were still commiserating over the 2008 Patriots' Super Bowl loss after their perfect season.

  “Oh, get over it,” I said, standing next to Chuck but addressing them both.

  “He had this station on when I got here,” Chuck said, turning to me and putting his hand on my back. “This guy,” he nodded at Teddy, “is the obsessed one. He says he put a hole through his basement wall when the Giants hit that final touchdown.”

  “There's counseling available for that,” I said to Teddy. “And give me a cup of coffee over at that booth.” I pointed to one of the two tables out on the small enclosed porch. “This big fella and I have to talk in private.” I whacked Chuck on his broad back and walked away.

  Chuck followed with his beer and waited for me to sit first. He was quiet and tentative and I knew what he was thinking: A private talk between us in this out-of-town venue had to be about Marjory and their recent separation.

  When he sidled in next to me on the banquette, he gave me a sheepish smile to which I responded with a furrowed brow. “Don't flatter yourself, Chuckster. We're here to talk about my love life, not ours.”

  While Chuck absorbed the operative pronouns of my statement, Teddy brought me a coffee and resumed his position around the corner at the bar.

  “What do you mean by that?” Chuck asked. “If it has to do with you, it has to do with me,” he said confidently (and rather sweetly, I might add). “So if it's about your love life, it's about mine too.”

  “I guess—indirectly—you're right. Like if I got married tomorrow, you could be sure that you and I would never see each other again. So, yeah, I guess indirectly my love life affects yours.”

  Chuck looked beyond me out the window at the lunchtime crowd dining under umbrellas on the deck. He took another slow sip from his tall beer glass, and then looked at me. “Go ahead. Say what you came to say. I can take it.”

  “How long have you known Jake Weller?”

  I could almost see the question bounce around in his spacious head, where it obviously came to rest unsatisfied. “What's Weller got to do with us?”

  “Make the big leap, Chuck,” I said with a tart sarcasm in my tone. “Weller's got nothing to do with us—but a lot to do with Scott Boardman. And Scott Boardman has a lot to do with us.”

  He nodded but remained silent.

  “But before you take that statement and run home with it, let me say this: Boardman has less to do with our problems than you think. He was just a catalyst, a symptom of the underlying disease of this rotten relationship. Like my arrest—when you left me to your wolves—that was the terminal death knell. So let's not skewer Scott Boardman over a couple of broken hearts. If he's guilty, I'll help you fry him, but if he's innocent, I want to know. And none of that has anything to do with us and this diseased relationship.”

  Chucky, still quiet, began to grind his jaw. “I hate it when you start jogging in circles like this.”

  “Well, pick up the speed and follow me closely. Jake Weller is convinced that Scott Boardman killed Pat Boardman, Muffie Booth, and Leo Safer, and then he shot himself in the arm to make the whole victim routine ring true. So tell me how long you've known Jake Weller, how well you know him, and whether you think he's a no-good rotten liar like I do.”

  Chucky began his answer with a nod of his head followed by a brisk shake. “I've known him a long time… well, since college, but not that well. We went to UConn together. He was a grade behind me but we had the same major. Poli-sci. He was an okay guy. No reason not to trust him. If he's wrong about Boardman, it's just because he's wrong, nothing more serious than that. I don't think he knows anything more than the rest of us. He's just scared because he's involved i
n the whole mess and doesn't want to be implicated in a murder charge. Think about it, Shannon. Even if Jake is totally innocent and knew nothing about what went on that night, if Scott Boardman goes down for the murders, Jake's reputation is in the toilet too. It's like getting a tattoo when you're asleep—it's still permanent in the morning no matter how much you didn't want it there in the first place.”

  “So he's just scared. That's your opinion?”

  He bit his bottom lip and nodded, looking into my eyes as if he had more to say. “Can we talk about us now?”

  “No. I'm not finished.”

  Chuck got up from the table without a word and walked to the bar. A couple of minutes later he returned with a fresh beer and slid back into the banquette. “Go ahead,” he said.

  “My problem with Weller is I don't see as much of a motive for his lies as you do, but then again I don't know him like you do—”

  Chuck waved his hand at me. “I didn't say I necessarily trust him not to lie. I just think these murders have scared the bejesus out of him. Violence is not in his nature. He was always the quiet type, the thinker type… more the kind of guy who would do what he's doing now. Ratting on people to save himself.” He put his beer down and looked off into the distance again, and I watched his eyes focus on something outside the window and then beyond it into his past. “See, like, there was this time once, one of the girls in a history class got her hands on a final exam. A few of us used it and aced the exam because we cheated. When the professor realized we'd gotten hold of the questions, he rounded us all up, and none of us would give the girl up—except Jake. And he was really sweet about it and all—he gave this big speech to the professor about our ‘complicity’ and some such shit—but he still ratted her out.” Chuck reeled himself back to the present and looked at me for my reaction. “See what I'm saying here?”

  I nodded.

  “So, I think he's an honest guy, just not a stand-up kind of guy. You know the difference. Right?”

  I nodded again, remembering Jake Weller's admission of being in love with Pat Boardman. I believed him—that he truly loved her—but he should have stopped there. Ratting Scott Boardman out wasn't going to bring her back. And I didn't believe his motive for pointing the finger at Boardman was altruistic. I believe it was just fear that he'd wake up in the morning with that tattoo on his chest that would forever brand him as the PR guy for a murderer.

  Chuck let me ruminate on my thoughts awhile, but then he pulled us back to the issues he wanted to deal with. “So, can we talk about something else now?”

  I snapped myself out of prosecutor mode and into girl-dom. “Listen, Chuck, I don't want to tumble down Heartbreak Road with you. You do whatever is best for you and I'll do the same, and if we meet up at the end of the line… well, we just do. That's all. And that's all I have to say.”

  “Well, that's not fair.” He gently but firmly laid his beer glass on the table. “I need you with me on this—”

  “Why? Did I ever ask anything of you. Ever? If I hadn't met Scott Boardman, you'd still be happy in our little threesome of you, me, and Marjory. You see, Chuck, I'm not going to be the reason you leave your wife. You are. That's between you and her. You and Marjory have to figure it out without me.”

  He repeated the only words that seemed to come to his lips. “That's not fair.”

  “And since we're on this topic that we've so tirelessly avoided over the years, does Marjory even know about me? Or has she just accepted your double life and is settling for what she's got?”

  He shook his head, ready, I thought, to answer at least one segment of my compound question, but instead he avoided my simple yes-or-no questions by switching topics to one more philosophical and much harder to solve. “You don't understand what it's like to be with someone for thirty years. Have kids together, go to funerals, watch each other throw up—those kind of intimacies, day after day for thirty years, it's not love anymore, Shannon. After thirty years, it's family. Yeah, in a way she's like blood to me—a sister or a mother. Marjory and I could get a divorce tomorrow, but she's never going to be out of my life until one of us dies. You gotta understand that.”

  “Oh, I do understand. Maybe not emotionally, because I've never even had a close family, let alone a relationship with a guy that lasted thirty years, but I get what you're saying. And that's why I never pushed you for anything more than what we had. And I'm not going to do it now. But what you have to understand, Chuck, is that I'd be doing what I'm doing with Boardman whether you were married or not. My feelings for him have nothing to do with you and Marjory. If you did ‘get a divorce tomorrow,’ as you put it, I'd still be dicking around with Scott Boardman.”

  I could almost see my last statement hit him like a rock. He pulled his head back slowly, absorbing the impact of my words.

  I knew I was ripping his heart in half, but truth is, I didn't want him to do something he'd regret and eventually blame me for. And I didn't want Marjory to be hurt as collateral damage just because I was shooting a hole through Chuck's heart. What Chuck didn't understand was that maybe Scott Boardman coming into my life was the best thing that could have happened for all three of us, because I truly believed Chuck and Marjory belonged together. My crime with Chucky wasn't the breaking of his heart, it was the adultery I'd jointly committed with him over the years. And throughout those years, I'd felt honorable that I'd never once asked him to leave his wife for me. I never once demanded him on a full-time basis. But there was no honor in that. It was an excuse to cover the real crime. The crime where Chuck was the perpetrator, I was the accomplice, and Marjory was the victim.

  I finished the last of my cold coffee, pushed my hands into my pockets, and sat back. I had nothing else to say.

  “So that's it, then?” he said. “You're all done with me?”

  I pushed the small table forward and stood. “Stop being so melodramatic.”

  Chucky rose too. Faced me with his square chin sticking out at me like an ornery bulldog. I gave him a tender punch in the shoulder, hoping we could get past the emotional stuff to a place where we could still relate on a professional level. “So, do you have anything new on the Boardman case, or is a killer going to walk away after three murders?” I said.

  He softened his canine attack position by lowering his chin and turning away from me. “We've got your un-shot gun and a glass vase with no unidentified fingerprints, which means we know all the players, and we got a lot of people lying. It's almost as if the murderer is being protected by people who know who did it. Like a mob hit. You know what I mean? All in the family. So my inclination is to let them all go rot in hell. If the socialite politicos want to punch each other's lights out, that's fine by me.”

  “That doesn't sound like a cop talking, Chucky.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe it's time for me to retire. I'm sick of it all.” He poked me softly in the shoulder, mimicking my shoulder jab at him. “You hear me, Shannon? I'm sick and tired of all of it.”

  “Sorry to hear that, Chief. Really sorry to hear that. And I'll be sorry to see you go. But we all gotta do what we all gotta do.”

  I waited as Chucky settled up with Teddy at the bar, and then Chucky and I walked out to the parking lot together, standing side by side in silence while the valet fetched our cars. Mine came first, and Chucky opened the door for me. “You're a good woman, Shannon, better than you give yourself credit for. Any man would be lucky to have you. So don't make any mistakes, huh?”

  “You're giving mistakes a bad rap, Chuck. Sometimes they're friendly. Sometimes mistakes are our best teachers. Think about it. If you never made mistakes, you would have never been with me.”

  THE PINE BOX RELEASE

  I MAY HAVE SOUNDED UPBEAT WHEN I LEFT Chucky, but it was all bravado. The phantom pain in my heart felt more like a very real hole in the pit of my stomach. I was going to miss dialing him up any old time of the day to tell him dirty jokes. I was going to miss cuddling with him on those long weekend nights that he and I
managed to steal away while Marjory was out of town. I was going to miss getting drunk with the girls and dragging Chuck bowling with us, where he'd get the slightest thrill from all the female attention lavished on him by my generous friends, who thought they felt sorry for an old guy stuck in a loveless marriage. For some reason they always took Chucky's side in the game of love. I was the tall sexy blonde, single and ready for life's roll in the hay onward and upward, whereas to them Chucky seemed stuck—gummed up in the thickest part of life, where getting free only meant a final roll on the downside of the hill. Whatever feelings of family Chucky claimed to have with Marjory were oddly similar to the feelings I had for him. Maybe because I'd never had anything close to a real family, I'd let Chucky take the roles of father, brother, and husband. It was a mistake, but as I'd said to him, mistakes didn't scare me as long as I could straddle them without permanent injury. So far so good.

  It was already past three when I rolled back into the office. I thought it perhaps time to do a little legal work in case Vince decided to ask me why he was still paying me a salary to go running around town working a case he'd barred me from.

  I picked up a file and went to the library to do some research on an upcoming trial. Beth was sitting at the long conference table, staring at her cell phone. She looked up at me wide-eyed as if I were an apparition back from the dead.

  “What the frig's wrong with you?” I asked her.

  “Shannon. Why are you here… now?”

  “Shit, Sherlock. I work here.”

  “Did she call you too?”

  I snapped my finger in front of her eyes. “Wake up, Beth. It's only a dream. What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Doogie called me.”

  It took me a minute to figure out the name thing. I still couldn't understand why some people couldn't be satisfied with their birth names and had to make themselves sound like cartoon characters. I decided it had to be some kind of secret membership rite. Maybe a variation of rapper jive: Have silly name—be cool. Like Doogie and Muffie were to Virginia and Martha what Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent were to Calvin and Curtis.