by Joe Clifford
“How is that possible?”
“You tell me.”
“I’ll call you back.”
A nurse came in, all smiles and perky cheer, inquiring whether I was hungry. I told her to leave me alone.
How had Michael Lombardi been able to get in front of this? His office, far from getting blamed, was being lauded. And the press gobbled up the bullshit. A special task force assigned? Were you kidding me? In less than twenty-four hours, fallout occurring in my sleep.
When I saw Jim Case laughing alongside Michael Lombardi on top of the courthouse steps, I understood the fix was in, a lone gunman sacrificed. I scrolled through other stations. More of the same. Nobody connected obvious A to blatant B. No one hinted at impropriety by UpStart. Two independent bad guys, Judge Roberts and North River, spurred by individual greed, had done wrong, everyone else in the clear.
I plucked the card left by IA off the nightstand. I grabbed the phone but stopped short. If Jim Case was standing up there with Lombardi, what was I going to do? Report Michael Lombardi for giving me an unsolicited ride? I had no concrete proof of anything. I buzzed the nurse back, apologized for my rude behavior, and asked if I could get something to eat. “Is there a copy of today’s Herald lying around?”
She returned a little later with runny oatmeal and the day’s early edition. There was nothing on the shoot-out by the lake. I rang Turley.
“How you feeling, Jay? Doc says you’re on the mend.”
“I’m fine. Listen, Turley. What happened? Up on the mountain?”
“What do you mean?”
“The aftermath with those two cops—”
“You were right.”
“Huh?”
“About the diversion center. Snelling and Bernstein were working on orders from that judge they arrested. You asked the right questions. Set the wheels in motion.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Those IA boys. Ludko and Lotko. You’re a hero, Jay. You’ve seen the news, right? Roberts confessed. You helped expose a scandal. The scope of this is huge—”
“I got to go.”
I hung up.
Why was Roberts agreeing to take the fall alone? Everything’s for sale, I supposed. For the right price. Wire enough cash into an offshore account, and Roberts retires on the Fed’s dime, doing soft time in a country club, kids and grandkids inheriting a windfall. One thing was clear: Lombardi wasn’t going down with this ship.
I spent the rest of the morning watching the news and reading the paper. There was a silver lining. News reports had sentences at North River overturned, arrangements rescinded, prisoners released. My going to Jim Case had stirred shit up, forcing Lombardi’s hand. Even if no one was interviewing me for the evening news, I knew I should feel proud of myself. Brian Olisky, Wendy Shaw, all the other teenagers wrongfully imprisoned would be set free because of me. I didn’t need the glory. I knew what I’d done. Except I wasn’t interested in helping kids like Brian Olisky and Wendy Shaw. At least not as much as I was in nailing Lombardi’s ass to the wall. I loathed admitting that.
I was about to switch off the TV when I heard the bubbly blonde reporter mention the moving company. Blue Belle. Owned by Judge Roberts’ brother. A brief mention, passing reference. But it clicked. I recalled those big trucks Charlie and I had seen up at North River. I went to turn up the volume but by then the pretty blonde had already moved onto the next hot-button topic. Today’s viewer has a short attention span.
I thought about Xeroxes and unauthorized copies, the mundane details of conflicting reports and tallies for out-of-state penal colonies, how the quickest route can sometimes be the hardest to find amidst all the misdirection. The outline of a business card suddenly didn’t seem so random. A contact’s name or routing number could make such a business card very valuable; a vendor like that would be the perfect front to launder cash.
I wondered if I should reach out to Fisher and Charlie, see how frequently UpStart used Blue Belle to move freight. How about Tomassi? Michael’s friends in the state Senate? Something told me the answer would be a lot. We didn’t need the actual photocopy to get started. Jim Case might be for sale, but we could keep going. We had the name, a start. The rest would be the tough part. Coincidences, hunches, and guts don’t add up to much without the hard work. If payoffs had been laundered through this Blue Belle, I’d still have to prove that, and I doubted Michael or Adam had grown careless overnight.
And just as fast, I lost heart. I was finally on the mend. Was I really thinking about lacing up the gloves again? After all this fight had cost me? For what? I remembered what Nicki said our last morning together—the same thing Jenny, Charlie, and Dr. Shapiro-Weiss had been trying to pound into my thick skull ever since Chris died. Nothing I did could ever bring my brother back. Of course I knew that. In my head. But I always found ways to circumvent the irrefutable, convince myself of some greater cause, another injustice that needed my intervention. Which was all bullshit. No matter what lies I told myself, I’d been chasing the impossible. I could never resurrect the dead.
I knew I should take the small victories where I could find them. But when I viewed these meager gains in a different light, what had really changed? Even with North River stripped of its accreditation, its doors forced closed in the wake of a scandal, the new Coos County Center would open its doors soon enough, grand opening slated by year’s end. More a stay of execution than any permanent solution. Everyone was a winner. Except, of course, the ones who’d lost.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“THAT’S THE LAST of it,” I said, setting the final unopened box of wedding dishes on the hardwood floor.
“What’s wrong with your leg?” my wife asked. “You’re limping.”
“Banged it on something. No big deal.”
“Well, what do you think?”
Jenny’s new apartment in Burlington, like her mom’s, sat on the picturesque shores of Lake Champlain, with plenty of natural light and open, airy space.
“Nice view.”
Out the window, the April rains fell slow through brighter skies, splatting off the water, green grass poking through stubborn white snow. The new place would be nice for Aiden. Driving into the condo complex, I’d seen a small play area with a swing set, twisty slide, and jungle gym. A quaint gated community in a good school district. I wanted the best for my boy. Even if I couldn’t be the one to give it to him.
Aiden ran in the room and tried to jump on my back, missing the mark. I spun around and caught him before he fell, carrying him like a football into the living room and flinging him on the couch, tickling his belly until he was hyperventilating.
“Please, Jay,” Jenny said. “Do not get him all riled up. He’s got to take a nap.”
On cue Lynne stepped in from the other room. “I think you should hang that picture—” She stopped, eyeing me coolly with her silent victory. “Oh, hi, Jay. Didn’t hear you come in.”
“Just bringing up the rest of Jenny’s stuff.”
“That was very nice of you,” my mother-in-law, soon to be ex, said.
I winced a smile. Like I wouldn’t help Jenny get her things. This was the mother of my kid. We’d be together forever, one way or another.
“Mom?” Jenny said. “Would you mind getting Aiden down for his nap?”
My son gave me a tight hug around the knees.
“I’ll be up next weekend,” I told him. “We’ll get pizza and ice cream.”
Aiden toddled after his grandmother, stopping in the doorway to wave goodbye to his father.
Jenny and I walked out to the landing of her new apartment. The rains came down harder now, drumming off parked cars, splatting down stories. I lit a cigarette, leaning over the railing.
“What are you going to do?” she said.
“I’m moving back home.”
“Home? You mean Ashton?”
“I can’t stay in Plasterville. Lease is up on our house, and it’s more space than I can use.” I didn�
��t need to tell her the dull ache of painful memories were more than I could live with. “I called Hank Miller to see if I could rent my old apartment above the garage. Said it’s been empty since I moved out. Couldn’t bring himself to get another tenant. All mine if I want it.”
“What about your job?”
“I’m going to start working for Tom Gable again. He says estate clearing ain’t been the same without me.”
I tried to laugh. Jenny pretended to smile.
“I miss being outdoors. I’m not cut out for the nine-to-five grind.”
“You gave it a year, Jay.”
“About as long as you gave our marriage.” I caught myself. “Sorry. That was a rotten thing to say.”
My wife took my hand, gave it a squeeze, and we both gazed out into the squall.
Over a month had passed since my breakdown. That’s what Dr. Shapiro-Weiss called it. The seasons had started to change. This far north, temps remained cold, but if you thought about it hard enough you could almost smell the new grass, the maple and tree sap, flower buds fighting to come alive.
“Y’know, this move,” my wife said, searching for encouragement. “We’ll just see where this goes.”
I nodded, keeping my stare fixed straight ahead.
“For right now, this is a good place for me to be. For Aiden, too. With my mom here, she can watch him during the day while I work.”
“How’s that going?”
“Turns out I am cut out for nine-to-five.”
She smiled. I didn’t.
“He’s just a friend, Jay.” Jenny was talking about Stephen, who’d helped get her an administrative assistant position with his bank downtown. “No college degree, no experience, I’m hardly qualified. Without his help, I’m tending bar. I can’t keep doing that at my age.”
Jenny was making more money at the investment firm than I’d been at NEI, and for the first time in a long time she seemed happy, like she had a purpose. I tried not to connect good fortunes as the natural result of getting away from me. But I knew the kindest thing I could do was stay the hell out of her way. When someone stands on a chair and tries to pull you up and you try to pull them down, the gutter wins every time.
“When do you move back?” she asked.
“Just about done. Only have a few boxes left.” After we’d separated our possessions, with Aiden’s toys and clothes, the good furniture and bedroom set going to my wife, I was left with a couch, coffeemaker, and photograph book. Which was fine by me. I wanted the transition to be as seamless for my son as possible. And I didn’t need the reminders.
“Are you going to be okay?”
“I’ll be fine. Dr. Shapiro-Weiss referred me to a psychiatrist near Ashton. I’m glad to be back there. It’s where I belong.”
Neither of us said anything for a while.
“I’m sorry we ran out of time, Jay.”
I put my arm around my wife, and she laid her head on my shoulder. We watched the rain fall together.
* * *
I’d been working all week up at the old farmhouse on Old Farms Drive. On the other side of Ashton, an old farmer named Joe had died in his sleep, alone.
I got back from the foothills around seven, rosy eve succumbing to darker purple night. I scrubbed my fingers with gritty soap beneath the spigot, and headed upstairs to catch the Red Sox game starting in a few minutes. I’d popped my leftover Chinese chicken in the microwave when I heard a soft knock.
I opened the door. A woman and small boy stood there. I figured they must be lost. Either that or some religious fruitcake wanted to convert me. Why else would a forty-something woman and little kid be standing on my stoop at this hour?
“Jay?” the woman said. I didn’t know her.
The microwave bell dinged.
I stared at the boy, who possessed a vague familiarity, a fleeting thought flying in my head and then out just as quick. All boys that age look the same. I didn’t grasp anything tenable because tenable wasn’t possible.
She waited for an invitation. I couldn’t shake the sense I’d met them both before. Even though I was certain I hadn’t.
“Do I know you?” I asked the woman.
“It’s been a while,” she said, trying to keep a smile. “Katherine. Kitty? I knew your brother. We spoke on the phone last winter when he went missing?”
“I thought you lived in California now?”
“We do.”
I looked at the boy again and understood now why I thought I’d seen him before. Because I had. My whole life. They had the same eyes, the same scraggled bedhead. Even when he squinted up at me, eye half-cocked suspicious, the same stubbornness lingered.
Kitty didn’t need to confirm what I suspected. It was obvious as the rising sun.
“Can we come in?” she asked.
“Yes. Of course.” I scrambled to collect the tees and flannels hung to dry on the backs of chairs. Unwashed dishes and empty beer bottles cluttered my bachelor pad. I swept last week’s dinner plates and cups into the sink, ran some water, tried to scrape the spackle with a spoon. “Sorry for the mess. Wasn’t expecting company.” I left the dishes to soak.
Kitty and I spoke last winter when Chris went missing but I hadn’t seen her in years. The last time I had, she’d been fifty pounds lighter, with bright orange sores lining her lips and black circles ringing her eyes. Not that I spent much time in her company. I avoided my brother’s druggie pals like they all had Hep C.
“You’re not easy to get ahold of,” Kitty said, the boy sticking close by.
“My number changed. New phone.”
Kitty stroked the boy’s mop-top, working up the courage. “I finally told myself, ‘Kat, hop on a plane. You have to do this. Face to face.’ I wish I hadn’t taken so long.”
“You’re lucky you waited. I just got back.”
“Vacation?”
I shook my head. I didn’t need to explain my failed experiment in day jobs or marriage. She wasn’t here for that. Most of life relies on timing anyway, which is just another form of luck.
Kitty glanced around my apartment. I studied her movements, her new appearance. She retained that ex-junkie look. Not that she was unattractive or haggard. She was pretty. Mom pretty. But pretty. She’d filled out since I’d seen her last, and was dressed like an adult instead of an angry teenager all in black, her dark hair blown dry. It was her eyes, which held onto some of the horror. Kitty had survived a life most will never see.
I stared down at the boy. “What’s his name?”
“That’s Jackson,” she said, hugging him near.
I recalled our brief conversation from last year. Not the best time, my attention wandering. But I distinctly remembered her saying she had a girl, whose birth coincided with her clean date.
“I thought you had a daughter?”
Kitty dabbed at her eyes, fighting the tears. I said I was sorry. Jackson glowered at me. He had the same fiery indignation, too.
“No,” she said. “I’m the one who should apologize. I don’t even know where to start.”
I crouched down, meeting Jackson on his own level. “Y’know, I have a son as well. About your age. He’s not here right now, he’s with his mom in Vermont, but he left some toys. Would you like to play with them?”
Jackson checked with his mother, who nodded it was okay. I brought him into the living room and showed him Aiden’s collection of Transformers and superheroes, Batman coloring books and cars, crayons, assorted building blocks to construct better worlds, his own corner for when he’d come visit.
My fat cat wandered in the room, curious about the new visitor.
“Don’t worry,” I said over my shoulder. “She’s declawed. Big puffball.”
When I walked back in the kitchen, I asked Kitty if I could get her anything, coffee, beer? Then I remembered the whole sobriety thing.
“I’m good,” she said.
“You want to sit down?”
We both sat at the kitchen table, lost for words,
while Jackson buzzed spaceships and cowboys in the next room.
“When you called looking for your brother . . .” Kitty stopped herself. I could see her recalibrating direction, stumbling for footing, adjusting on the fly. The pained expression on her face betrayed the guilt eating away at her.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Chris wasn’t the easiest guy to deal with.”
“I loved your brother, Jay. I did. And I wanted him to be a part of Jackson’s life. Someday. When he got his shit together. I wrestled with whether to tell him. Maybe knowing he had a responsibility to something other than himself would’ve spurred him on to make some changes. Truth is, I didn’t know for sure if it even was his until I was out in California. That time was so crazy. I’d been on the streets for years, chemicals messing my brain up, all out of whack, and here was my chance—probably my last chance—to clean up, get my life back. I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired. My sister . . . What I’d put her and my mom through . . .” Kitty stopped again, holding off the waterworks.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I had no right keeping that information from him. I knew who Jackson’s father was. I mean, look at him. After you and I spoke, I talked to my sponsor. I was grappling with what to do. I prayed on it, asked my Higher Power for help. I finally decided to do it. I was secure enough in my sobriety—your brother deserved to know. Then I read on the Internet he’d died. Suicide by cop. Felt like a part of me died, too. You have to understand, your brother had a real hero complex. I couldn’t have him showing up in Joshua Tree on the heels of a three-day Greyhound ride, strung out, jonseing, saying he was ready to be a dad and asking for fifty bucks and a ride downtown. And that is what would’ve happened. I couldn’t risk it. I had to be there for Jackson.”
“So you don’t have a daughter?”
“When you called, I was scared. I don’t know why I thought saying I had a daughter would make any difference. I guess I wanted a cover story as far from the truth as I could get, so you couldn’t put two and two together. Maybe the lie made the fantasy easier for me to believe. Ridiculous, I know. Daughter, son, what would it matter? I’d been dreading that call from your brother. When I left here, I was showing. Chris had to suspect the truth. At least the possibility. When I called you back last year, I’d been at work and I panicked. I wanted to help you find him but I had a thousand thoughts racing through my brain, wrestling with what to tell you, editing out information in real time. I didn’t know if it was already too late, and I—” Kitty started crying again.
