by North, Will
seventeen
THE STRONG COMPOUND WAS SMALLER than the Petersens’ but, perhaps because of its slightly elevated position, always seemed to possess a certain graciousness that the more rustic Petersen houses never achieved. Where the Petersen cottages tended to ape the architecture of New England—weathered shingles and bleached white trim—the Strong houses were exemplars of Northwest vernacular, marked by wide overhanging rooflines and darker woods and stains, a design style that emphasized shelter and solidity against the region’s notoriously foul winter weather.
The Strong family had arrived in Seattle by way of James J. Hill’s Great Northern Railway. Thomas Strong, Old Adam’s father, was a Hill protégé and a bright young legal advisor for the company. By the late 1890s, Thomas had moved from the railroad’s headquarters in St. Paul to its terminus in Seattle, started a family, and become a founder of the now venerable Seattle law firm: Strong, Penfield & March. An ardent civic booster, a champion of organized labor, and a wise real estate investor in the bordering communities he knew someday would become a part of the expanding city, Thomas had quietly amassed a formidable fortune.
His son Adam, fresh out of Harvard Law, joined the family firm in 1935 and immediately made a name for himself as Seattle’s lawyer of choice for difficult criminal cases. And in time, Adam Strong went from arguing cases to deciding them as a King County Superior Court judge. After several decades on the bench, he’d finally retired—respected equally in the end by both trial lawyers and the police, a rare combination.
***
JUSTINE SETTLED HER brother in one of the judge’s guest rooms and looked in on her great-uncle. She found the bony old man propped up on his pillows, reading a Readers’ Digest hardcover that included four novels condensed to roughly the length of his current attention span. Old Adam had always bored easily, but especially now, in his nineties.
“What are you doing up at this hour, you old relic?” Justine chided, giving his skeletal limbs a hug.
He winked. “Too old to have sexy dreams; might as well stay awake.”
“You’re disgraceful,” the girl said, straightening his covers.
“So are you. It’s our bond.”
“Damn right!” she said, hugging him again.
“You’re my favorite great niece.”
“I’m you’re only great niece, Adam.”
“Well argued. Make a good lawyer, you would.”
“Like my father? No, thanks.”
“Your father’s a terrible lawyer. Hasn’t ever had a clue how to put together a case. Hasn’t the focus or discipline. The firm’s had to carry him for years. Embarrasses the hell out of me, tell the truth. Hired him because his own father, rest his dear sweet soul, was my kid brother. Family, you see. They’ll boot him out when I’m gone, if not sooner.” He shook his head like a dog shaking off a swim. Then he squinted at Justine. “You didn’t hear that from me.”
“Shit, Adam, if they do dump Dad, what happens next? What happens to Mom?”
“Pete’s got her own resources, thank God. Old Robbie left her the shipping company. She’s set—always assuming that nitwit absentee father of hers, ‘the Pope,’ hasn’t signed the shipping company’s assets over to the Knights of Malta or something.”
“He’s an Episcopal, Adam.”
“Well he acts like the goddamn Pope…Mr. High and Mighty. When’s the last time he came down from the Mount and visited the beach, huh?”
“When Two died, I think.”
“And didn’t that just do a world of good! Guy comes over from town, delivers a bunch of pious, empty homilies for a grandson he barely knew, then catches the next ferry back. Not a thought for what his daughter was going through. Pompous ass! Don’t know how your mother puts up with him, frankly. Patience of a saint, that girl. You have any idea what a great mom you got?”
“I’m learning, Judge.”
The old man sighed and shook his head, smiling. “For a smart girl, you’re a damned slow learner.”
Justine laughed. “I know.”
“What the hell you think I’m hanging on for in this life? Waiting for you to happen, that’s what! Don’t know how long I can wait, tell the truth. I’m older than dirt!”
Justine looked away but the old man’s eyes never left her.
Then he softened. “What’re you doing here, anyway? Shouldn’t you be shacked up with somebody?”
“Don’t start, Adam,” she said, wagging a warning finger, “I may be a girl but I know how to punch.”
“So I hear. From the police. Heard you’ve cleared the bar a couple of times. Made me right proud, that did.”
“Oh, shush,” she said, flicking a hand. “No big deal tossing a couple of drunks. Speaking of which…”
“What?”
“Mom and Dad are drunk and fighting. Again. I brought Young Adam over here to sleep. Found him on the beach. He’d run away from the house.”
“Great kid. Great name, too.”
“Yeah…whatever. He overheard them fighting tonight. Mom said Dad is having it on with Peggy March.”
The old man looked hard at the girl, then gripped the bedclothes and pulled them back.
“Son of a bitch!”
“Adam, relax.”
“I should thrash him! Bad seed from that whore mother of his, pardon my French. Told her she wasn’t welcome here, time she showed up with Richie’s successor; imagine having the gall to come here at all! Her son’s no better, is what I say. Watched him for years now. Loved his father, I did, such a gentleman, and a hero to boot. Never warmed up to that Tyler, though, even after he married Pete. Never seemed wrapped too tight, even as a kid, but after he killed Two—that’s what he did, you know; his fault that boy died—he’s got even more unhinged. Like those damned fireworks tonight: fine one minute, then boom! Unstable is what I think.”
“Adam, hey. He’s my father.”
The old man snapped out of his rant.
“Right. You’re right. Sorry. You’re so terrific I forget that. Apologies, my dear.
“And besides, this is just what Young Adam said he heard.”
“Tell you something, girl: whatever that kid brother of yours says, I’d believe. He doesn’t miss a trick. Comes over here and borrows my books, did you know that?”
“He told me. Sherlock Holmes.”
“What is he, third grade? Asked him why he didn’t read the stuff they give him at school. Know what he said? ‘Boring.’ He’s a pistol, he is. Just like you. Just like your mom, both of you. Sharp.”
Adam suddenly remembered what they had been talking about and said, “Which is more than I can say for that father of yours. What the hell’s he thinking? Peggy March? Okay, that’s some set of water wings she’s got on her, no question. A sweet enough girl, too, but not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. And Rob March—shit, he’s practically family! Not to mention I hear Rob just took his old man’s place as partner in the firm! And your father’s banging his wife?”
“Adam had been asleep. They woke him up. Maybe he got it wrong.”
The old man sank back into the pillows.
“You’re right, counselor: insufficient evidence; jury’d never convict.” The old man sighed; he’d run out of steam. Then his eyes narrowed. “Tomorrow! I want to see you and Young Adam in my chambers tomorrow morning, first thing! We’ll get to the bottom of this case.”
“It’s already tomorrow, Judge.”
“Then get the hell out of here, girl; you’re keeping me from my beauty sleep!”
Justine leaned toward him, fluffed his pillows, kissed his cheek, and slipped out of the room.
She thought about returning to the beach, to the guy she’d picked up at the bar. No way. Loser. Doper. Nothing new there, she thought, you’re a loser magnet, you are. No, that was unfair; she didn’t attract losers, she sought them out. Nothing to do with them, really; everything to do with her: if you picked a loser, there was no risk of making a real connection, and therefore no risk of loss. Smart, Old Ada
m had said. Yeah, right.
Justine pulled an old Hudson’s Bay blanket from the cedar chest in Adam’s front hall and went out to the porch. She laid it on an Adirondack chair, slid in, and wrapped the scratchy wool flaps around her, like a mummy.
One thing about Old Adam: he said what he thought. And he was nobody’s fool. But she’d never known he’d had so little respect for her father. It wasn’t like it came as a shock when she thought about it—the old man had never been especially warm toward her dad—polite was more like it, out of respect for her mom, she guessed. Still, his anger shocked her. And he was right; her father changed after Two was killed. He’d always been moody—up one day, down the next—but after Two was killed it often seemed like his mind was somewhere else, like somebody walking down the street listening to an iPod: there, but not there.
Shit, who am I to talk?
It was in high school that she started “acting out,” as one of the shrinks called it; running away, taking drugs, hanging out with older guys, men with criminal histories as haunted by past events as she was. Two had died when she was at the wheel of the speedboat. That was all you needed to know about Justine Strong. Grieving was her breathing. His death was her life.
All she’d really wanted, all those years growing up, was for someone to see her, to acknowledge her as the living child, as the first child. She wanted to be cherished, but instead she kept feeling sidelined by her parents’ grief. Maybe she was just a painful reminder of what they’d lost. Maybe, had she never happened, none of this would have happened either. No Two being killed. No alienated, angry parents. No ghosts.
She had not made a great success of her life; as far as her parents and some of the public authorities in Seattle were concerned, she was a fuck up. But this summer, finally, she sensed something in her changing, turning like a sloop coming out of irons and catching the wind; she was moving, even if she didn’t know yet in which direction. It was like she’d been trapped for years in the flat, still, weed-entangled Sargasso Sea, turning in an endless gyre ever so slowly and going nowhere. Then, suddenly, she wasn’t in the doldrums anymore. She was making way.
She knew that the change was due partly to having decided to live permanently on this island, to become a part of its tight and supportive community. But it was also due to Janice Fradkin, the brassy owner of the bar where Justine now worked. Janice had been around, and her body and face showed it. Overweight from drinking, face a starburst of red veins, body worn from years of late nights, and soul wounded from men who were all wrong, Janice saw something in the girl who’d begged for work as a waitress at the end of May. What she saw was herself. She saw a second chance, a way to reverse what sometimes seemed an inexorable downhill slide. Here was someone young and bright and tough, someone who still had years stretched out before her. Janice had no children. In fact, she’d never married anything except the bar. But if she’d had a daughter, she’d have wanted her to become Justine.
After only three weeks of waitressing, she’d taken Justine aside, given her a crash course in mixology, and put her behind the bar where the tips were better. Then she sat back and watched the girl grow. It was almost physical, what she saw happen; Justine didn’t tend the bar, she ruled it. She developed an instinct for limiting extraneous movement while mixing drinks, for husbanding her energy, for staying on top of the crowd late into the night. But something else, too: she seemed to think of the bar between her and her customers as a stage, a platform to entertain, console, encourage, and charm. Justine behind the bar was a civilizing influence; in no time at all Janice’s oldest and most troublesome customers were going out of their way to gain Justine’s approval and her genuine, if arm’s length, affection. Justine was a tamer. And not one of those “heart of gold” types, either; no, this girl had a head of gold, too, and not because of her hair, either. She was wicked smart.
Justine had her father’s height, which gave her presence, but also her mother’s delicate features, which gave her class: same ash blonde hair, streaked platinum by the sun in summertime, eyes even bluer than a July sky, small breasts, broad shoulders, well-defined arms, legs that had gone, imperceptibly, from bony to lithe. She held herself with a certain unconscious authority…like a Siamese cat. Were it not for the fact that her preferred place to shop for clothes was the dollar rack at Auntie’s Attic, the thrift store in town, she’d have been besieged with suitors, but her slouchy, shapeless wardrobe worked as a formidable barrier. She didn’t display herself behind the bar, either, the way the waitresses did to get tips. She dressed conservatively but nonetheless managed, with the lift of an eyebrow, or a sideways smile, or a tilt of the head, to telegraph warmth.
She held them all in thrall, but the customers also soon learned Justine had boundaries you were wise not to cross. A lewd remark and you were cut off for good; get rude and you were out on your ear. More than once, she had leaped across the bar and slugged a customer. That was all she needed to do; her devotees did the rest and the guy was soon in the street.
It was only on the beach, in her faded black bikini, that anyone could appreciate Justine’s native grace. There, on her solitary walks, you could see past the fake diamond nose stud, the eyebrow ring, and the tramp stamp tattoo that spanned the dimples at the base of her long spine. And what you saw behind the camouflage was near perfection.
The tattoo had driven her mother into a frenzy of outrage.
“What the hell is that?!” Pete exclaimed this year on their first day on the beach.
“Oh, Mom, relax, it’s just a tat.”
It was, in fact, a lovely tattoo, a fanciful butterfly executed with a Celtic twist: graceful, almost architectural.
“I can’t believe you would do this to yourself!”
“You just can’t cope with the fact that I’m different, that I don’t conform.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, girl, don’t you see? There’s nothing nonconformist about it at all! It’s like the piercings! You’re not making a statement, rebellious or otherwise; you’re just doing what everyone else your age does. That’s what makes me crazy: It’s so common! Your statement is, ‘I’m just like everyone else!’ And you’re not! You’re so much more, so much better!”
And that was the moment, on the Fourth of July, just two months earlier, when Justine knew her mother had a respect for her that Justine herself hadn’t yet achieved. It was how she knew her mother believed she was unique and had value. It was how she knew her mother was her friend. She just hadn’t figured out how to thank her yet.
Justine pulled the rainbow-striped blanket tighter and stared out over the dark water. It was very late. Or very early, depending upon how you measured time. The moon, which had silvered the wavelets on the outer harbor earlier, had slipped behind the hill to the west. She remembered a line from an old song. “And the darkest hour…”
She was asleep in seconds.
eighteen
MUCH AS HE LONGED TO, Old Adam could not sleep after Justine tucked him in. He stared at the paneled wall opposite his bed—tongue and groove cedar planks gone orange with age—and played out the end-of-summer Labor Day weekend party on the wall like a flickering old home movie, the kind they’d all shot from jumpy Super 8mm cameras, long before cell phones could do the same thing.
He loved summers on the beach and had the gnawing fear that his were coming to an end. When his old friend Doc Stevens told him—what, fifteen years ago?—he had prostate cancer but that it grew so slowly he’d die of old age first. Adam hadn’t counted on living this long, longer even than his doctor. In other respects, however, he was disgustingly healthy. But with a lawyer’s attention to verbal details, he did notice that for some years now any upbeat declarative statement about his person—by doctor, relative, or friend—was followed not by a period but by a comma and the inevitable subordinate clause, “for someone your age.”
Lately, though, he could feel himself weakening, especially in the knees; and the shiny blackthorn walking stick he’d long ca
rried, a gift from that Irish vet, Colin Ryan, had become a necessity.
The damp months in Seattle were an indistinguishable blur, especially since he’d retired from the bench. He sat on corporate boards in meetings that left him certain they should be called “boreds.” He walked a treadmill at the Washington Athletic Club downtown. But the long, wet Seattle winters left him feeling as unfocused and blurry as the perpetually rain-streaked windows in his den at the family home on Capitol Hill.
But the summers, the summers—they shimmered like gems, each one different, each precious. He took a special comfort from the certainty of the cycle that repeated each Fourth of July, generation after generation, here on Madrona Beach, cycles as regular as the moon and the sun and the tides.
This afternoon, for example, long before the end of season party had begun, he’d been sitting in a lemon yellow Adirondack chair on the porch of the Petersen Old House, sipping a tall glass of sun tea with spearmint his dear Pete had brought him. He watched the children in the water and thought about the magnetic properties of floating diving rafts. This was something science needed to look into; you built a wooden platform roughly eight feet square, attached floats to the underside, anchored it, and the next thing you knew kids were all over the thing—pushing and jumping, daring and diving, running from one corner to the other to make it pitch and roll. Shouts and shrieks of happiness all around, generation after generation.
He could see his childhood pal Robbie Petersen long ago, a bony kid if there ever was one, disheveled mop of Nordic blond hair, rallying the other boys to stave off a wave of girl cousins wearing those old black wool “bathing costumes” and threatening to occupy the platform. Four years older than Adam, Robbie and Adam’s older brother Richie had been his idols. And despite the age difference, they always included him. He and Robbie had remained friends for life, and it was Robbie who got him through the horror of Richie’s death. But then death took Robbie too, less than a year after his son Justin was lost at sea. Robbie was only fifty-five. Broken heart is what Adam put it down to, something he well understood. His wife Emily was gone by then, too: breast cancer.
