The Last Night Out

by Catherine O'Connell

  ‘I have a new case,’ I said. ‘Or actually an old case.’

  ‘Wha—?’ His eyes stayed riveted to the television. ‘Wait till a commercial.’

  I sat down on the sofa and waited. Our company does basically divorce and subpoena work, and it is quite lucrative. In fact, business actually increased after the recession started. It seemed everyone was suing everybody, looking for where some spare change might be hidden, and as a result we were delivering subpoenas like they were Christmas cards.

  When the game went to a commercial break, the Bears were winning 10–0. Ron muted the screen and turned his now entirely silver head towards me. I told him about Maggie’s story and how Steven Kaufman’s truck was somehow on the other side of her street the next morning. He rolled his eyes in exasperation as he revisited my relentless pursuit of the guy all those years back. But our marriage has endured, despite some rocky times, because we recognize what is important to the other. And without my saying another word, he knew this was important.

  So we opened a new file.

  Naturally, it had been so long since that last night out, that the odds of learning anything locally was slim to none. Neighbors seeing a truck at four in the morning twenty-five years ago? Right. At first, I was scratching my head at where to even start. That’s when my brilliant (believe me I don’t use that term often) husband suggested we head to New Hampshire and talk to Steven Kaufman’s first two wives.

  I started doing a little research on the Internet, and bingo, found Heather Kaufman living outside Concord where she and the carpenter had owned their home. I’ve always found you get better results when you confront someone in person without giving them a heads-up that you’re coming. A phone call puts them on alert or gives them an opportunity to turn you down. So Ron and I got on a plane for New York and transferred to a commuter to Concord.

  Since I had Heather’s physical address, with GPS it didn’t take us much to find where she lived. But when we pulled up to the house, I thought I must have made a mistake. For some reason I envisioned the high school sweetheart first wife to be living in some crumbling cabin or cramped apartment. After all, she hadn’t changed her name, which indicated that she hadn’t remarried after Steven. That translated to poverty for me. So when we saw the huge English Tudor where she lived, Ron and I were both stunned.

  We were even more stunned at the woman that answered the door. I thought I was going to have to haul my husband’s jaw off the ground. She was extremely pretty with shoulder-length dark hair and very large breasts. She looked to be about thirty-five even though, if you did the math, she had to be in her mid-fifties. We told her that her first husband had died within the last year and we were looking for possible heirs. (I’ve learned, no matter how rich the person, the possibility of more money is always a great way in the door.) Her face took on a guarded look at the mention of her ex, but luckily, New Englanders tend to be trusting and friendly, and, after giving it some thought, she threw the door wide open.

  New Englanders also tend to be neighborly. She offered us coffee and donuts, which I declined and Ron readily accepted. We sat in her warm great room in front of a roaring fire.

  ‘So now what is all this about Steven and some inheritance?’

  Ron is always good at deflecting, so I let him proceed. ‘I understand you were high school sweethearts,’ he said, taking in the rich surroundings.

  Her pretty face screwed up like there was vinegar in her mug instead of coffee. ‘Where in heavens did you get that one? I met Steven when he was doing some carpentry work here in the house for my dad. Dad’s dead now, rest his soul. My mother too, so the house is mine.

  ‘Anyhow, when Steven was working here, he wasted no time in trying to get into my pants. And unfortunately he succeeded. When my father found out, he confronted Steven who agreed to marry me. So we got married and he deserted me not long after. Here one day, gone the next. No explanation. Nothing. I think my father carried his hatred for Steven to his deathbed.

  ‘I didn’t hear boo from him, and then two years later I read in the paper that he had been accused of assaulting his wife. His wife? He already had a wife, thank you, all of one hundred miles away. And get this. He did it again. His new wife was the daughter of the construction company owner. He clearly had a thing for his bosses’ daughters.’

  Ron gave me a long inquisitive look before asking, ‘So did you ever end up getting divorced from him?’

  ‘Yep. And she did too. About twenty-five years ago, some big-time attorney from Chicago stepped in to negotiate both deals. Gratis. I even got a cash settlement. And the charges about him assaulting his other wife? They were dropped. It was like someone waved a magic wand and all his problems went away.’

  I recalled what Ron had overheard Vince Columbo say to Steven, when they were standing over Salvatore Gianfortune’s body on the deck of the Giovanna Anna. ‘I’ll get you the best of attorneys.’ I had no doubt it was Vince and a lot of fertilizer that made all of Steven’s problems go away.

  Steven’s second wife didn’t buy into our pretext of an inheritance and refused to see us. She had remarried and obviously wanted to distance herself from her past. Still most of New England is like a small town; people know other people’s business, so it wasn’t too hard to garner some more information regarding Steven’s alleged assault on his second wife. Some said her father was the one who put the hurt on her face for marrying Steven in the first place. Others said she’d done it to herself to get even with him for leaving her. But most concurred he probably did it after catching her on the floor of a jobsite with another man.

  Regardless, having learned basically all we could in New Hampshire, we got on a plane and headed home.

  Back in Chicago, I made an appointment with Anna Columbo. We weaseled our way into her offices under the guise of doing a feature on her in a local business magazine. It was general knowledge that she was a publicity hound. Her father, who was richer than ever, had his name plastered on just about every new construction project in the city. She was still beautiful, but far thinner, and was dressing in a far subtler manner than she had those many years ago. We were admitted to her office and sat in a conversation area, looking out over the Anish Kapoor kidney doing its backbend in Grant Park. Ron was feeding her some lame BS about business conditions in the city, when she must have recognized him, and her eyes narrowed in visual dissection.

  ‘What’s this really about?’ she demanded.

  ‘Just a couple quick questions. You knew Steven Kaufman. He worked in your house.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ she said standing, still unruffled. ‘You can just get the hell out of my office.’

  But I wasn’t finished. This is how you do it. Good cop. Bad cop. This time we were both playing bad cop. Like I said before. The element of surprise doesn’t give them time to prepare the safe answer.

  ‘You were sleeping with him, weren’t you?’ I snuck the question in before she could show us the door. The assertiveness of her answer told me everything I needed to know.

  ‘You’re kidding, right? He was the help.’

  And then she showed us the door.

  That night over linguini in clam sauce, Ron and I discussed possible scenarios. We figured one of the scenarios could have gone something like this.

  Of course, Kaufman was banging Vince’s daughter. That was his MO and he was probably supposed to meet her on her father’s boat later that night which meant she would have had the boat keys on her. But she’d gone to the Overhang first to check out her rival after hearing her father talking to Suzanne on the phone. When Kaufman saw Anna hanging with Sal, he decided to show her by going after Maggie. But when Maggie passed out before he could get lucky – yes, that was the reason she hadn’t used her diaphragm that night – Kaufman decided to rethink his rendezvous with Anna, after all. So he headed for Belmont Harbor. Somehow he stumbled across Angie’s body and realized that in her vitriol, Anna had killed a woman she mistakenly thought was her father’s lov
er. Knowing full and well that he might end up associated with the murder, he sped back to Maggie’s unlocked apartment and a rock solid alibi. Of course, by then his original parking space had been taken, so he was forced to park across the street.

  That is just one of the many scenarios we came up with. Here is another.

  Maybe, just maybe, unlike all those other I’ll call you one-nighters who never do, he left after Maggie passed out, but had second thoughts after driving away – turning back when he realized he had left something very special behind.

  I’ll leave the decision of the true scenario to you.

  Acknowledgements:

  First and always, I must thank my agent, Helen Breitwieser of Cornerstone Literary Agency. We have been through many ups and downs together and she has always been there to support me. She’s absolutely the best.

  And to my editor, Holly Domney, who has helped shape The Last Night Out, my publisher at Severn House, Kate Lyall Grant, who has taken support to a higher level, and Jamie Byng, of Canongate, whose enthusiasm for the book is overwhelming. I couldn’t hope to be supported by a better publishing team as well as one with a shared psyche. Here’s to our future successes.

  I can’t let this book go to print without mentioning six special friends who date back to whenever – and who may or may not have provided inspiration for this novel. In alphabetical order: Alison, Carol, Iris, Jane, Rosie, and Vita. Love you girls.

  And lastly, to Aspen Words, the literary branch of the Aspen Institute, which tirelessly works to bring readers to writers and vice versa. As Seneca said, and I paraphrase, ‘Life is short, but art is forever.’ Aspen Words work to fill that mission and hopefully people are talking about our present day art long into the future.