“A pattern,” she said.
“Yes. Reasons. Logic. Sequence. Cause and effect. I’ve got to see how everything fits together.”
“If it does.”
“Well, yes. But it has to.”
“Things aren’t always neat,” said Kat. “There’s a lot of randomness in this world.”
“Well, I don’t believe in randomness. I believe randomness is just a rationalization. Something for the simpleminded. A way of accounting for what we don’t understand without needing to explain it.”
“What about faith? What’s left over after we understand all we can, the randomness, the unexplained, if we attribute it to God, or the gods, we can account for everything.”
“I don’t think we need God for that. God is just as bad an explanation as randomness. God is for lazy people.”
“Or frightened ones.”
I finished my coffee and put the mug on the table. I stood up.
Kat watched me out of big, solemn eyes. “Are you leaving already?”
“Yes.”
She got up and walked with me to the door. “Going home to do some knitting, huh?”
I smiled. “It’s a weakness of mine. Trying to make order.”
She put her hands on the fronts of my shoulders with her head bowed. “Well, good luck, I guess,” she mumbled.
I kissed the top of her head. “Thanks.”
“I suppose you’ll lay awake all night.”
“It happens to me sometimes.”
She lifted her face. “You probably don’t want to kiss me.”
I touched her cheek. “Thanks for the coffee,” I said.
As I walked down the corridor from her door, she said, “Be careful, Brady.”
I turned. She lifted her hand to me and then closed the door.
It was a little after eleven when I got back to my apartment. My bottle of Jack Daniel’s was on the counter where I had left it when Ernie Cooper called me. I found the tumbler on the table by the sliding doors that opened onto my balcony. There was about a half inch of piss-colored dregs left in the bottom. I rinsed it out, poured in some more Black Jack, dropped in four ice cubes, and took it out to the balcony. I sat on the aluminum chair, tilted back, and propped my feet up on the rail.
I realized I hadn’t eaten any supper. Somewhere along the way hunger had come and gone. The hell with it. I could think better on an empty stomach anyway, with maybe a little sippin’ whiskey to lubricate the gears.
The big sky over the harbor was full of stars. The moon was low and big, a few days shy of full, and it lit up the flat black skin over the ocean and the islands scattered out toward the horizon. First booze, then coffee, then booze again. I figured they all neutralized each other.
I drank and smoked and thought. The breeze came at me from the sea, moist and organic. The bell buoy out there clanged its mournful rhythm. From behind me came the muffled city noises—the wheeze of traffic through the nighttime streets, the occasional punctuation of siren and horn, the almost subsonic hum and murmur of dense human life.
I remembered the Vermont woods, and my picnic with Kat, and how the birds and bugs and animals and river sounded, and how the pine forest smelled, and how my rainbow trout never missed his mayfly.
And while one part of my mind registered all of these surface things and wandered freely on its own associations, a different part of it looked for pattern and purpose in three North Shore murders, and a third part watched what was going on and tried not to judge it or guide it.
I might even have dozed, because the buzz of the telephone startled me.
I went inside and picked up the receiver in the kitchen. I tucked it against my neck and said, “Coyne,” as I poured more whiskey into my glass.
I heard silence. “Yes? Hello?” I said again, taking the phone on its extra-long cord to a chair by the table, from which I could continue to watch the harbor.
After another long moment, a soft voice said, “Brady?”
“Kat? Is that you?”
I could hear her breathing. “Yes.”
“What’s up?”
“Oh, Brady…”
“Kat. Are you all right?”
She yawned softly. “Oh, yes. I’m fine. Sleepy.”
“Feeling lonely?”
A quiet chuckle seemed to get stuck in her throat. “You got it all figured out yet?”
“I don’t—”
“All the murders.”
“I’ve done some thinking.” I sipped my drink and looked out at the night.
“I didn’t mean to,” she said after another long pause. “She hit her head and her eyes… She was lying there, her head was all twisted, and she was looking at me and I knew she couldn’t see me. She just slipped when I pushed her. I didn’t mean for it to happen that way. But I couldn’t let her tell. She was going to tell him.”
I sat erect in my chair. “Kat?”
“Shh,” she said. “You’ve got to understand. He couldn’t know. She was going to tell him. She said when we got home she was going to tell him. I was just trying to make her not tell. It was just for him. Everything was for him. Oh, I miss her so.”
“How did it happen?” I asked quietly.
I could hear her breathing. She didn’t speak.
“Kat? Tell me how it happened.”
“He came into my room. Oh, I loved him so much, then, and he touched me here… and he touched me here… oh, it feels… he made me feel so good when he came into my room at night when they were sleeping and I was sleeping and he’d wake me up touching me here and whispering and we had to be so quiet… And then she took me away and I was sick and it hurt and hurt and she was going to tell him, she said she had to tell him, and I said you can’t. You can’t tell him. It’s not fair. I told you. It’s a secret. And she said she had to anyway. So I pushed her, and she… her eyes… So I took her purse by the trains, I left her there and I got on the train and I saw the people running and rushing and yelling and I watched from the window and then the train moved faster and faster.”
I fumbled for a cigarette. When I held a match to it, I saw that my hands were trembling.
“Oh, Brady. Oh I want you. But I can’t. And you won’t. Since he came into my room at night and touched me oh I just can’t.” She sighed deeply. I waited. “I tried to be so good,” she whispered in a slurry voice. “For him. Perfect. I could make it all right if I was perfect. But then that man… He knew and he told her so I had to…”
“Greenberg?” I said.
“Oh, shh,” she said. “Please. Shh.”
“Did you kill Greenberg, Kat?”
“He wanted to… you know, he wanted… what they all want. All except Brady. Brady’s always knitting, knitting…”
A cloud drifted across the moon. I heard Kat yawn.
“Blood, blood, blood. And she laughed at me, lying there all sleepy-eyed, full of her sex, I couldn’t let her laugh like that.”
“Kat, listen to me. I’ll be right there, okay? Don’t do anything, don’t go anywhere. Just wait for me.”
“Her eyes, just like when the train, and her eyes, too, and it made me remember and I didn’t want, I never want to remember, I sometimes forgot for a minute and it was like dreams underwater all fuzzy and faraway, and then she laughed so I had to make her stop before she found out. Brady? Brady? Are you there, Brady?”
“I’m here, Kat. And I’m going to come to be with you.”
“No. You keep knitting.” She yawned. “It’s all soft and cottony here. See, oh, it was his fault, when he came to me and touched me here like this. So he had to pay the way I had to pay but he never knew so he couldn’t feel it the way I always felt it. He didn’t have it, that hurt in my belly, Brady, always there, and the buzzing always in my head. And that’s why… I didn’t think about her children, little things in their pajamas, but that wasn’t fair, either, not when I had to… I was just a little girl, then, and I always felt like a little girl, and her children were crying at the blood
but it was only fair that he should pay, too.”
“Who, Kat? Say the names for me.”
I could hear her breathing, quick and shallow, as if she had been running. “You should have made love to me,” she said, her voice sudden and loud. “Everything would have been different. You should’ve fucked me, Brady. When that fish ate the bug you should’ve fucked me instead of knitting. Then it would’ve been all right.” She sighed. “I was waiting for that. A long time waiting.” Her voice softened and blurred again. “But Brady’s gotta knit. Always thinking, no place for God, no randomness, no redemption, no salvation. No good stuff. Don’t you think God, Brady?”
“No, Kat. There’s just us.”
“I tried. But even he doesn’t think God’s there anymore. How could I if he doesn’t?”
“He loves you, Kat.”
“God? God’s not there. You told me.”
“Not God. Des. Your father. He loves you.”
“That’s because he doesn’t know.”
“He’ll forgive you.”
“God won’t, he won’t.”
“I’m going to hang up now, Kat. You wait for me. I’ll be right there. Have some of that coffee and wait for me. Okay?”
“Wait,” she said. “Mmm.” She yawned. “Wait for Brady. Knitting.”
“Kat, listen.”
I could only hear her breathing.
“Kat. I love you. Wait for me.”
“Love me, do. Oh.”
“I’m coming.”
I got up from the table and depressed the telephone hook. I held it down until we were disconnected. Then I dialed 411.
“What city please?” came a female voice.
“Newburyport. Hurry up.”
“Yes?”
“The police emergency number there. Get it for me.
“I’m sorry, sir. You’ll have to dial it yourself.”
“Dammit! Okay. What is it?”
“One moment please.” There was a click. Then a computerized voice told me the number. I disconnected, then dialed it.
“Newburyport police. Sergeant Casey.”
“Send an ambulance to—shit! I don’t know the name of it. The new condos on the river by the bridge.”
“Who is this?”
“Brady Coyne. Listen. Katherine Winter, okay? I’m her attorney. Second floor, in the rear. Okay?”
“What’s the problem?”
“Christ, I don’t know. Pills or drugs or something. I was just talking to her on the phone. She’s fading. Hurry up.”
“Where are you now, Mr. Coyne?”
“I’m home. What’s the difference?”
“Give me your address and phone number, please.”
I gave them to him.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Please hurry.”
18
TWIRLING ORANGE AND BLUE and red lights ricocheted off the brick and glass of Kat’s building and illuminated the solemn faces of the gathered crowd. I counted three cruisers angled near the doorway with their motors running and their doors hanging open. A monotonous female voice rasped and crackled over a police radio. The ambulance was backed up to the door.
I got out of my car and jogged toward the building. I pushed my way through the people gathered there. “Excuse me,” I said. “Let me through, please.”
A cop held his forearm across my chest. “You can’t go in there, buddy,” he said.
“I’ve got to see her. I just talked to her, and—”
“Sorry, pal.”
“You don’t understand. I’m her lawyer. I’m the one who called. Please.”
“Relax,” said the cop.
I gripped his arm. His glance fell to where my hand held him, a warning. I let go. “Look,” I said, taking a deep breath. “My name is Brady Coyne. I’m Katherine Winter’s lawyer. I called the police about an hour ago because I was worried about her. I just broke several of your laws getting here from Boston. Now let me see her.”
The cop shook his head. “You shouldn’t’ve bothered.”
“Huh?”
“Speeding.”
“Can I please at least talk to somebody?”
He stared at me for a moment. “You’re her lawyer, you say?”
“Yes.”
“Say your name again.”
“Coyne. Brady Coyne.”
The cop turned to another uniformed policeman. “Get Fourier. Tell him the guy who called it in is here.”
I waited there with the cop, the people behind me pressing close. I saw Fourier emerge from the doorway. He paused on the steps to blink into the lights, spotted me, and came over. “Hello, Mr. Coyne,” he said.
“The ambulance is still here,” I said. “I figure that means she’s okay.”
He touched my elbow and steered me toward a cruiser. I slid in. He went around to the driver’s side and got in beside me. He reached down and flicked off the radio. “The ambulance is still here,” he said, “because it got here too late.”
I took a deep breath. “Oh, Jesus.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What happened?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Oh, yes. Yes, I do.”
He peered at me for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. She shot herself. She held the muzzle under her chin. She probably died instantly. The M.E. just got here.”
I fumbled for a cigarette. I couldn’t make the matches work. Fourier took them from me and got one lit. I steered the tip of the cigarette into the flame. I couldn’t seem to hold my hands still.
“Take it easy, Mr. Coyne. You did all you could. You did the right thing.”
“You don’t understand,” I said.
“No. No, I suppose I don’t. But I trust you’ll help me understand.”
“It’s my fault, see? If I hadn’t…”
“Relax. We’ll talk about it in a little while.”
“She shot herself?”
He nodded.
“What—what kind of gun did she use?”
“A twenty-two automatic. It was beside her.”
“Sure. I knew that.”
“Of course you did.”
“Did she—was there a note or anything?”
“Yes. It belongs to the medical examiner.”
“Can you—?”
“I read it, yes.”
“Who was it for?”
“No one. There was no name on it.”
“What—?”
“It said, ‘Now I’m going to be with her.’ It wasn’t signed, so they’re going to have to compare the handwriting.”
“Connie.”
“Who?”
“Her mother. Connie.”
Fourier put his hand on my shoulder and frowned at me. “You just take it easy, now, Mr. Coyne.”
He stayed there with me and we didn’t talk any more. I watched the lights flash and revolve on the faces of the people. The noises all seemed to mix together so that it seemed as if I was seated in the middle of an orchestra and all of the instruments were playing different tunes in different keys. It was very loud and it hurt my head.
After a while two men wearing white brought out a stretcher. A blanket was strapped onto it. I knew Kat was underneath. She was a small, shrunken lump. They shoved her into the back of the ambulance and it drove away. It moved sedately. It didn’t bother flashing its lights.
Then a uniformed policeman came to the cruiser where Fourier and I were sitting. He and I moved to the back seat. The cop drove us to the police station. I followed Fourier inside. He took me into a closed room. There were bars on the windows. We sat at an oblong conference table in straight wooden chairs. Fourier told a policeman to bring coffee.
A minute later the cop brought us Styrofoam cups filled with yesterday’s mud. He left and a woman came in. Fourier made a gesture at standing up. “Come on in,” he said to her.
She had honey-blond hair cut short. She wore big hoops in her ears and a white sweater and dark blue slacks. She was
slim and young and pretty. She sat beside Fourier, across from me, and held her hand to me. “Greta Moran, Mr. Coyne. We’ve talked.”
I reached over and gripped her hand.
“You’re the state cop.”
She smiled. “Yes.”
I nodded. “I’m very upset.”
“Of course.”
“I will tell you all about it,” I said. “But if you don’t mind, I don’t want to keep repeating it. It’s complicated. But I’ve figured it out.”
“Can we get a tape recorder?” Greta Moran said to Fourier.
He nodded. “Sure. Hang on.”
He got up and went to the door. Then he came back and sat down. A minute later a female uniformed cop brought in a cassette tape recorder. Fourier fiddled with it, then put it in the middle of the table.
Fourier leaned toward me on his forearms. “Okay, Mr. Coyne. We’re all set. Take your time. Try not to leave anything out.”
I took a deep breath. “Kat Winter was fourteen when it started. That was 1971. In May of that year she and her mother disappeared together. Connie—that was her mother, Desmond Winter’s wife—left Des a note. It said that they would be back, he wasn’t to worry. Connie and Kat went to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, so that Kat could have her baby. Kat used a false name. You see, both Connie and Kat were trying to protect Des. He was a Unitarian minister. A highly moral man, given to quick and inflexible judgments, and a man with an impeccable reputation. If the truth were known, Des could’ve handled it. But Connie was trying to spare him.” I looked up at Fourier. “You know Des?”
He nodded. “Go on, Mr. Coyne.”
Dead Winter Page 19
