She shrugged. “Okay. Now you have.”
“Look, we haven’t always gotten along great—”
“You don’t think so?”
Frost flushed, as he always did when caught in an awkward moment. The guy had a face like a stoplight, turning red at the first hint of embarrassment. “What I mean is, we’re not, like, buddies.”
“What, you want to be buddies now?”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
“Okay, we’re buddies,” she said brusquely. “Come on, let’s get going.”
“Rizzoli?”
“What?”
“I’m here, okay? That’s all I want you to know.”
She blinked, and turned to her side window, so he wouldn’t see the effect his words had on her. For the second time in an hour, she felt tears coming. Goddamn hormones. She didn’t know why Frost’s words should make her cry. Maybe it was just the fact he was showing such kindness to her. In truth, he had always been kind to her, but she was exquisitely sensitive to it now, and a small part of her wished that Frost was as thick as a plank and unaware of her turmoil. His words made her feel vulnerable and exposed, and that was not the way she wanted to be regarded. It was not the way you earned a partner’s respect.
She took a breath and lifted her jaw. The moment had passed, and the tears were gone. She could look at him and manage a semblance of her old attitude.
“Look, I need that Tylenol,” she said. “We gonna sit here all day?”
He nodded and put the car into gear. The windshield wipers whisked snow off the glass, opening up a view of sky and white streets. All through a blistering summer, she’d been looking forward to winter, to the purity of snow. Now, staring at this bleak cityscape, she thought she would never again curse the heat of August.
On a busy Friday night, you couldn’t swing a cat in the bar at J. P. Doyle’s without hitting a cop. Located just down the street from Boston PD’s Jamaica Plain substation, and only ten minutes from police headquarters at Schroeder Plaza, Doyle’s was where off-duty cops usually gathered for beer and conversation. So when Rizzoli walked into Doyle’s that evening for dinner, she fully expected to see a crowd of familiar faces. What she didn’t expect to see was Vince Korsak sitting at the bar, sipping an ale. Korsak was a retired detective from the Newton PD, and Doyle’s was out of his usual territory.
He spotted her as she came in the door and gave her a wave. “Hey, Rizzoli! Long time, no see.” He pointed to the bandage on her forehead. “What happened to you?”
“Aw, nothing. Had a little slip in the morgue and needed a few stitches. So what’re you doing in the neighborhood?”
“I’m moving in here.”
“What?”
“Just signed a lease on an apartment down the street.”
“What about your house in Newton?”
“Long story. Look, you want some dinner? I’ll tell you all about it.” He grabbed his ale. “Let’s get a booth in the other room. These asshole smokers are polluting my lungs.”
“Never bothered you before.”
“Yeah, well, that’s when I used to be one of those assholes.”
Nothing like a coronary to turn a chain-smoker into a health freak, thought Rizzoli as she followed in the wake left by Korsak’s substantial frame. Although he’d lost weight since his heart attack, he was still heavy enough to double for a linebacker, which was what he reminded her of as he bulldozed through the Friday evening crowd.
They stepped through a doorway into the nonsmoking section, where the air was marginally clearer. He chose a booth beneath the Irish flag. On the wall were framed and yellowed clippings from the Boston Globe, articles about mayors long gone, politicians long dead. The Kennedys and Tip O’Neill and other fine sons of Eire, many of whom had served with Boston’s finest.
Korsak slid onto the wooden bench, squeezing his generous girth behind the table. Heavy as he was, he still looked thinner than he’d been back in August, when they had worked a multiple homicide investigation together. She could not look at him now without remembering their summer together. The buzzing of flies among the trees, the horrors that the woods had yielded up, lying among the leaves. She still had flashbacks to that month when two killers had joined to enact their terrible fantasies on wealthy couples. Korsak was one of the few people who knew the impact that the case had had on her. Together, they had fought monsters and survived, and they had a bond between them, forged in the crisis of an investigation.
Yet there was so much about Korsak that repelled her.
She watched him take a gulp of ale, and flick his tongue over the mustache of foam. Once again she was struck by his simian appearance. The heavy eyebrows, the thick nose, the bristly black hair covering his arms. And the way he walked, with thick arms swinging, shoulders rolled forward, the way an ape walks. She knew his marriage was troubled, and that, since his retirement, he had far too much time on his hands. Looking at him now, she felt a twinge of guilt, because he had left several messages on her phone, suggesting they meet for dinner, but she’d been too busy to return his calls.
A waitress came by, recognized Rizzoli, and said, “You want your usual Sam Adams, Detective?”
Rizzoli looked at Korsak’s glass of beer. He had spilled it on his shirt, leaving a trail of wet spots.
“Uh, no,” she said. “Just a Coke.”
“You ready to order?”
Rizzoli opened the menu. She had no stomach for beer tonight, but she was starved. “I’ll have a chef’s salad with extra Thousand Island dressing. Fish and chips. And a side of onion rings. Can you bring it all at the same time? Oh, and could you bring some extra butter with the dinner rolls?”
Korsak laughed. “Don’t hold back, Rizzoli.”
“I’m hungry.”
“You know what that fried stuff does to your arteries?”
“Okay, then. You don’t get any of my onion rings.”
The waitress looked at Korsak. “What about you, sir?”
“Broiled salmon, hold the butter. And a salad with vinaigrette dressing.”
As the waitress walked away, Rizzoli gave Korsak an incredulous look. “Since when did you start eating broiled fish?” she asked.
“Since the big guy upstairs whacked me over the head with that warning.”
“Are you really eating that way? This isn’t something just for show?”
“Lost ten pounds already. And that’s even off cigarettes, so you know it’s, like, real weight off. Not just water weight.” He leaned back, looking just a little too satisfied with himself. “I’m even using the treadmill now.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Joined a health club. Doing cardio workouts. You know, check the pulse, keep tabs on the ticker. I feel ten years younger.”
You look ten years younger was what he was probably fishing for her to say, but she didn’t say it, because it would not have been true.
“Ten pounds. Good for you,” she said.
“Just gotta stick with it.”
“So what’re you doing, drinking beer?”
“Alcohol’s okay, haven’t you heard? Latest word in the New England Journal of Medicine. Glass of red wine’s good for the ticker.” He nodded at the Coke that the waitress set in front of Rizzoli. “What’s with that? You always used to order Adams Ale.”
She shrugged. “Not tonight.”
“Feeling okay?”
No, I’m not. I’m knocked up and I can’t even drink a beer without wanting to puke. “I’ve been busy,” was all she said.
“Yeah, I hear. What’s with the nuns?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“I heard one of the nuns was a mommy.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“You know. Around.”
“What else did you hear?”
“That you dragged a baby out of a pond.”
It was inevitable that the news would get out. Cops talked to each other. They talked to their wives. She thought of all the se
archers standing around the pond, the morgue attendants, the crime scene technicians. A few loose lips and pretty soon, even a retired cop out in Newton knows the details. She dreaded what the morning papers would bring. Murder was fascinating enough to the public; now there was forbidden sex, a potent additive that would keep this case front and center.
The waitress set down their food. Rizzoli’s order took up most of the table, the dishes spread out like a family feast. Attacking her food, she bit into a french fry so hot it burned her mouth, and had to gulp her Coke to cool things down.
Korsak, for all his self-righteous comments about fried foods, was staring wistfully at her onion rings. Then he looked down at his broiled fish, sighed, and picked up his fork.
“You want some of these rings?” she asked.
“No, I’m fine. I tell you, I’m turning my life around. That coronary might be the best thing ever happened to me.”
“You serious?”
“Yeah. I’m losing weight. Kicked the cigarettes. Hey, I think I even got some hair growing back.” He dipped his head to show her his bald spot.
If any hair was growing back, she thought, it was in his head, not on it.
“Yeah, I’m making a lot of changes,” he said.
He fell silent and concentrated on his salmon, but did not seem to enjoy it. She almost shoved her plate of onion rings toward him out of pity.
But when he raised his head again, he looked at her, not at her food. “I’ve got things changing at home too.”
Something about the way he said it made her uneasy. The way he looked at her, as though about to bare his soul. She dreaded hearing the messy details, but she could see how much he needed to talk.
“What’s happening at home?” she asked. Already guessing what was about to come.
“Diane and me—you know what’s been going on. You’ve seen her.”
She had first met Diane at the hospital, when Korsak was recuperating from his heart attack. At their first encounter, she had noticed Diane’s slurred speech and glassy eyes. The woman was a walking medicine cabinet, high on Valium, codeine—whatever she could beg off her doctors. It had been a problem for years, Korsak told her, yet he had stood by his wife because that’s what husbands were supposed to do.
“How is Diane these days?” she asked.
“The same. Still stoned out of her head.”
“You said things were changing.”
“They are. I’ve left her.”
She knew he was waiting for her reaction. She stared back, not sure whether to be happy or distressed for him. Not sure which he wanted to see from her.
“Jesus, Korsak,” she finally said. “Are you sure about this?”
“Never been more sure of anything in my whole frigging life. I’m moving out next week. Found myself a bachelor pad, here in Jamaica Plain. Gonna set it up just the way I want it. You know, wide-screen TV, big fucking speakers that’ll blow out your eardrums.”
He’s fifty-four, he’s had a heart attack, and he’s going off the deep end, she thought. Acting like a teenager who can’t wait to move into his first apartment.
“She won’t even notice I’m gone. Long as I keep paying her pharmacy bills, she’ll be happy. Man, I don’t know why it took me so long to do this. Wasted half my life, but I tell you, that’s it. From now on, I make every minute count.”
“What about your daughter? What does she say?”
He snorted. “Like she gives a shit? All she ever does is ask for money. Daddy, I need a new car. Daddy, I wanna go to Cancun. You think I ever been to Cancun?”
She sat back, staring at him over her cooling onion rings. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Yeah. I’m taking control of my life.” He paused. Said, with a note of resentment, “I thought you’d be happy for me.”
“I am. I guess.”
“So what’s with the look?”
“What look?”
“Like I’ve sprouted wings.”
“I’ve just got to get used to the new Korsak. It’s like I don’t know you anymore.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No. At least you’re not blowing smoke in my face anymore.”
They both laughed at that. The new Korsak, unlike the old, wouldn’t stink up her car with his cigarettes.
He stabbed a lettuce leaf and ate silently, frowning, as though it took all his concentration just to chew. Or to build up to what came next.
“So how’s it going between you and Dean? Still seeing each other?”
His question, asked so casually, caught her off guard. It was the last subject she wanted to discuss, the last thing she expected him to ask about. He’d made no secret of the fact he disliked Gabriel Dean. She had disliked him too, when Dean had first walked into their investigation back in August, flashed his FBI badge, and proceeded to take control.
A few weeks later, everything had changed between her and Dean.
She looked down at her half-eaten meal, her appetite suddenly gone. She could feel Korsak watching her. The longer she waited, the less believable her answer would be.
“Things are okay,” she said. “You want another beer? I could use a refill on my Coke.”
“He come up to see you lately?”
“Where’s that waitress?”
“What’s it been? Few weeks? A month?”
“I don’t know.…” She waved to the waitress, who didn’t see her signal and instead headed back to the kitchen.
“What, you haven’t been keeping track?”
“I’ve got other things going on, you know,” she snapped. It was her tone of voice that gave it away. Korsak sat back, looking at her with a cop’s eye. An eye that saw too much.
He said, “Good-looking guy like him, probably thinks he’s a hot ticket with all the ladies.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not as stupid as I look. I can see something’s wrong. I can hear it in your voice. And that bothers me, ’cause you deserve better. A lot better.”
“I really don’t want to talk about this.”
“I never trusted him. I told you that, way back in August. Seems to me, you didn’t trust him back then, either.”
Again, she waved at the waitress. Again, she was ignored.
“Something sneaky about those fibbie guys. Every single one I ever met. Real smooth, but they’re never straight with you. They play head games. Think they’re better than cops. All that federal bigshot crap.”
“Gabriel’s not like that.”
“No?”
“He’s not.”
“You’re only saying that ’cause you got the hots for him.”
“Why are we having this conversation?”
“Because I’m worried about you. It’s like you’re falling over a cliff, and you won’t even reach out for help. I don’t think you got anyone to talk to about this.”
“I’m talking to you.”
“Yeah, but you’re not telling me anything.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“He hasn’t been up here to see you lately. Has he?”
She didn’t answer, didn’t even look at him. She focused instead on the mural painted on the wall behind him. “We’ve both been busy.”
Korsak sighed and shook his head, a gesture of pity.
“It’s not like I’m in love or anything.” Mustering her pride, she finally met his gaze. “You think I’m gonna fall apart just because some guy dumps me?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
She laughed, but it sounded forced, even to her ears. “It’s only sex, Korsak. You have a fling, and you move on. Guys do it all the time.”
“You telling me you’re no different from a guy?”
“Don’t go pulling that double standard bullshit on me.”
“No, come on. You mean there’s no broken heart? He walks away, and you’re fine with it?”
She fixed him with a hard stare. “I’ll be fine.”
“Well, that’s good. Because he’s not worth it, Rizzoli. He’s not worth one minute of grief. And I’m gonna tell him that, next time I see him.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Interfering. Bullying. I don’t need this. I’ve got enough problems.”
“I know that.”
“And all you’re doing is making things worse.”
He stared at her for a moment. Then he looked down. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “But you know, I’m only trying to be your friend.”
Of all the things he might have said, nothing could have affected her more. She found herself blinking away tears as she stared at the bald spot on his bowed head. There were times when he repelled her, times when he infuriated her.
And then there were times when she’d catch a startling glimpse of the man inside, a decent man with a generous heart, and she’d feel ashamed of her impatience with him.
They were silent as they pulled on their coats and walked out of Doyle’s, emerging from the cloud of cigarette smoke into a night that sparkled with fresh snow. Up the street, a cruiser pulled out of the Jamaica Plain station, its blue lights veiled by a beaded curtain of falling flakes. They watched the cruiser swoop away down the street, and Rizzoli wondered what crisis awaited it. Somewhere there was always a crisis. Couples screaming, wrangling. Lost children. Stunned drivers huddled beside their smashed cars. So many different lives intersecting in a myriad of ways. Most people were wrapped up in their own little corners of the universe. A cop sees it all.
“So what’re you doing for Christmas?” he said.
“Going to my parents’ house. My brother Frankie’s in town for the holidays.”
“That’s the one who’s a Marine, right?”
“Yeah. Whenever he shows up, the whole family’s supposed to get down on our knees and worship him.”
“Ouch. Little sibling rivalry there?”
“Naw, I lost that contest a long time ago. Frankie’s king of the hill. So what’re you doing for Christmas?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
There was an unmistakable plea for an invitation in that answer. Save me from a lonely Christmas. Save me from my own screwed-up life. But she couldn’t save him. She couldn’t even save herself.
The Rizzoli & Isles Series 11-Book Bundle Page 77
