A Fine Line

by William G. Tapply

  THIRTEEN

  Ellen Bramhall lived in a newish eight-room colonial in a neighborhood of newish eight-room colonials in one of those typical 1980’s suburban developments on a pleasant tree-shaded street that wound through what once had been an even more pleasant tree-shaded forest.

  I sorted out the Bramhall colonial from the others—hers was one of the gray ones, distinguished from the others by the name “Bramhall” on the mailbox out front—and pulled into the driveway.

  Henry, who had been snoozing on the backseat, scrambled to his feet and pressed his nose against the window when I stopped the car.

  “You’ve got to stay here,” I told him. “I won’t be long.”

  He sat down and allowed his ears to droop and his eyebrows to furrow. Disappointment was written all over his face.

  “Sorry, pal,” I said. “I’ll make it up to you.”

  That seemed to satisfy him.

  I made sure all the windows were cracked open, grabbed my briefcase, and went to the house. I rang the bell, and a minute later the door opened. A fiftyish man stood on the other side of the screen. He had a thick neck and bulky shoulders and a small, snarly mouth. He wore dark suit pants, a pale blue dress shirt, and a striped necktie snugged at his throat. Behind his rimless glasses his eyes were narrow and suspicious.

  “What do you want?” he said.

  “I’m Brady Coyne,” I said. “Mrs. Bramhall is expecting me.”

  He glanced down at my briefcase. “You Duffy’s lawyer?”

  “I used to be. Walt is dead.”

  “So?”

  “So I want to talk to Ellen. She’s expecting me.”

  He pushed open the screen door and stepped out onto the porch. “Why don’t you just stop bothering us?” he said, in what I think was intended to be a fierce growl. He was half a head shorter than me, and he had to look up in order to glare into my face, which made his fierceness less daunting.

  “I certainly don’t mean to bother you,” I said. “I don’t even want to talk to you. I’m here to see Ellen.”

  “You’re already bothering me,” he said.

  “Is that because I’m a lawyer?” I said. “Or because I’m taller than you?”

  He shook his head. “Jesus,” he mumbled. He stared up at me for a moment, then shrugged and went back inside, letting the screen door slam shut behind him.

  A minute later, a plump woman with curly brown hair and large brown eyes came to the door. She’d put on weight and added a few wrinkles since I’d met her at Walt’s divorce ten years ago. Hadn’t we all.

  “Mr. Coyne,” she said, “please come in.”

  She held the screen door for me, and I stepped into the flagstone foyer.

  She held her hand out to me. “We met once. In court.”

  I took her hand and smiled. “Yes, I remember. It’s nice to see you again.”

  She leaned toward me. “I apologize for my husband,” she said softly.

  “No need.”

  “Anything remotely connected to Walter, and he . . .”

  I smiled. “Sure. I understand.”

  She peered over my shoulder. “Did I see a dog in your car?”

  “Yes. It’s Henry. Ethan’s dog.”

  “Walter’s dog, actually,” she said. “Ethan’s very fond of Henry. He can’t be very happy, cooped up in the car.”

  “He’ll be all right.”

  “I was thinking it might be nice to sit out on the back deck, maybe have some lemonade while we talked. The bats should be out pretty soon. It’s fun watching the bats.” She smiled. “Do you like birds the way Walter did?”

  “I like birds,” I said. “But not the way Walt did. Walt was an expert on birds.” I didn’t mention the fact that bats weren’t birds. I wasn’t sure she’d intended to imply that.

  “Ethan likes birds,” she said, “but he’s no expert, either. Which Walter never let him forget.” She shook her head. “Why don’t you go get Henry and meet me around back.”

  “Sounds good.”

  I went to the car, liberated Henry, let him pee on a couple of shrubs, then told him to heel, and we went around to the rear of the house. The yard backed up on dense woods. It was bordered all around with well-tended flower gardens. I recalled the attention Walt had lavished on his little bird garden. Perhaps gardening was a passion that he and Ellen had shared when they were married.

  Ellen was sitting at a glass-topped table on the deck. “Come on up,” she said with a wave.

  Henry and I went up onto the deck. I told him to lie down, and I sat across from Ellen.

  A pitcher of lemonade and two glasses sat on the table. She filled them, handed one to me, and pointed at my briefcase, which I’d put on the floor. “Are you here to transact some sort of business?”

  I shrugged. “I have Walt’s file in there. A copy of his will. I didn’t know whether you . . .”

  “I’m not mentioned in it, am I?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. No reason why I should be.” She waved the back of her hand at my briefcase. “I don’t care about that. Walter doesn’t owe me a thing. Right now, I’m more concerned about Ethan.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Are you serious about finding him?”

  I nodded. “I guess I am.”

  “I was thinking I should file a missing persons thing with the police,” she said. “What do you think?”

  “I’ve already talked to the police,” I said. “I guess it wouldn’t do any harm, but I know they’re on the lookout for him. And so am I.”

  “You’re a lawyer,” she said. “It’s not your job, finding people.”

  “Well,” I said, “there are times when it seems to be.”

  “You think something’s happened to my son, don’t you?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Sometimes weeks go by and I don’t hear from Ethan,” she said. “He’s a good boy and a loving son, but he’s, well, thoughtless, the way boys can be. I try not to make a fuss. I don’t want to be one of those naggy mothers.” She took a sip of her lemonade. “I just thought, given what’s happened, he would’ve at least called.”

  I nodded.

  “I guess it wouldn’t occur to him that I might be worried.” She turned and looked at me. “But I am.”

  “I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation,” I said lamely.

  “Ever since we talked this afternoon,” she said, “I’ve been trying to think of something that might help us find him.”

  “Did you come up with anything?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. I don’t even know his friends anymore.”

  “Did you ever meet Connie?”

  She frowned. “Connie?”

  “One of the neighbors on Mt. Vernon Street told me that Ethan has a friend named Connie. A man named Conrad. Conrad Henshall.”

  She looked up at me. “Never heard of him.”

  “He owns the record store where Ethan works. I’m just trying to come up with people that Ethan might get in touch with, somebody who might let him sleep on their sofa for a few nights.”

  “Well,” she said, “if this Conrad man . . .”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ll talk to him. But if not him, what about relatives or old friends?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to think of. Ethan didn’t have many friends in high school. He’s always been kind of a loner. I have a sister, but she’s in California. Ethan has a couple of cousins, but they’ve never been close. There are no relatives on Walter’s side.”

  I jerked my head toward the inside of the house. “What about your husband?”

  Ellen shook her head. “Ethan and Jonathan barely speak.”

  “That must be hard for you.”

  “It’s not how I hoped it would be. But it is what it is.” She shrugged. “Jonathan is the anti-Walter. A less adventurous man you couldn’t imagine.”

  “What does he do? For work, I mean.”

  Ellen s
miled. “He’s a tax accountant. He never goes anywhere. Works out of his home office here so he can keep his eye on me.”

  I arched my eyebrows.

  She waved a hand. “Oh, I don’t mean that literally. He goes off to meet with clients now and then. Jonathan is very attentive, put it that way. It’s quite a change from Walter. Walter mostly ignored me. And Ethan.”

  “You’re saying that Jonathan is jealous?”

  “I guess possessive would be the word. Lord knows he’s got nothing to be jealous of.” She smiled. “After Walter, it’s a bit of a shock. But I suppose it’s what attracted me to him. A man who actually noticed me.”

  “And Jonathan and Ethan . . . ?”

  “Jonathan is a very precise man,” she said. “He was a bachelor for a long time. He likes things done in particular ways. He calls them ‘the rules of the house.’ Ethan is . . . well, he’s a teenager.”

  “Teenage boys,” I said. “How well I know.”

  We gazed off into the backyard for a minute. Then Ellen said, “Have you thought of checking with the college?”

  “I tried calling some of his classmates,” I said. “No luck. The term is over. The students are off on their own.”

  She sighed. “What are we going to do?”

  I gave her a big smile. I was sure it looked phony. “Oh, he’ll turn up. I don’t want you to worry.”

  “Well, I’m afraid I can’t help it.”

  I reached over and patted her hand. “I’ll find him.”

  “Will you?”

  “Yes.”

  Darkness had come seeping out of the woods and into the backyard, and pretty soon the bats came out. They flapped around over our heads snagging mosquitoes. We watched them in silence and sipped our lemonade.

  After a few minutes, Ellen said, “When Ethan was growing up, it was as if Walter was this—this superhero. Bigger than life, as far as Ethan was concerned. He worshipped that man. Of course, Walter was always off on one of his great expeditions to some remote and dangerous corner of the globe, to hear him tell it. It’s easy to worship somebody if you don’t know them. Ethan had a big map of the world on his bedroom wall, and he put thumbtacks on the places where Walter went. When Walter was home, which was rarely, he was distant and preoccupied. I don’t think he was ever a real person to Ethan.” She paused and sipped her lemonade. “Until his accident.” She laughed softly. “Suddenly there was this—this giant of a man, hobbling around on crutches, brought crashing down to earth, quite helpless. What happens to a boy when his hero turns out to be just a man? A crippled, broken man at that.”

  I shrugged. “I guess the boy sees his chance to win his hero’s love by taking care of him.”

  “Yes,” said Ellen. “That’s what I think.” She shook her head. “I never thought it was a good idea, Ethan moving in with him like that. But Ethan insisted. As far as I know, Walter never once in his whole miserable life told his son he loved him. He was just a grouchy, mean, self-centered, ungrateful . . .”

  I realized that Ellen was crying. I reached across the table and touched her hand.

  She looked at me and tried to smile. “I never stopped loving that man,” she said softly. “I didn’t like him very much, but I loved him. What is the matter with me?”

  I gave her hand a squeeze and said nothing. I had no wisdom for her.

  FOURTEEN

  I pulled into the parking garage under my apartment building a little before eleven. I grabbed my briefcase off the front seat, then got out, opened the back door, and snapped Henry’s leash onto his collar. “Okay,” I told him. “Let’s go. No peeing on the automobiles.”

  Normally Henry waited for me to leash him up and then bounded out, happy to be liberated and eager to explore. But this time he stood there stiff-legged on the backseat.

  “Come on,” I said. When I gave his leash a gentle tug, he dug in his heels and growled.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you?” I said. I bent into the backseat to give him a nudge. “Come on. Let’s get—”

  At that moment, the car door smashed against my back. It knocked me off balance and threw me forward, and my head crashed against the door frame.

  A sudden white light flashed behind my eyes, and I ended up sprawled facedown on the cement floor of the garage beside my car. I was distantly aware of somebody close behind me. Then I felt a sudden sharp weight between my shoulder blades. He was kneeling on me. It knocked the wind out of me, and I felt him groping in my hip pocket.

  Henry let out a fearsome growl and leaped over my prostrate body. The man on my back grunted, “Ow. Shit!” and Henry yelped, and then the man was gone.

  Henry’s leash, which was looped around my wrist, yanked my arm backward. I instinctively held onto it, and Henry barked and growled and raced back and forth and leaped against the leash so that it ended up tangled around one of my ankles.

  I blinked away the pain in my head and got to my hands and knees in time to spot a running figure dodge around one of the cement pillars and disappear behind a row of parked cars. In the dim orange light I saw that he was dressed in dark pants and a dark shirt. He was carrying something in his hand.

  His running footsteps echoed, then faded away.

  I told Henry to sit, which he did, reluctantly, and I managed to get us untangled. Then I sat back against the side of my car and let out a long breath.

  Henry sat beside me, growling in the back of his throat.

  “Shh,” I told him. “Sit down and be quiet. He’s gone, and I’m not going to let you chase him.”

  I reached up to feel where I’d banged my forehead. My hand came away wet. I fished out my handkerchief and pressed it against my wound.

  I gave Henry’s muzzle a scratch. “You tried to warn me,” I said.

  He licked my face.

  I patted my hip. My wallet, of course, was gone.

  “Goddamnit,” I muttered. I carried maybe a hundred dollars in cash, a couple of credit cards, an ATM card, my phone card, my driver’s license, my fishing license, my membership card for Trout Unlimited, my gun permit—the usual stuff. Everything except the cash could be replaced, but at the exorbitant cost of a dozen calls to telephones that answered with automated menus where you ended up on hold for a half hour listening to violins play Beatles tunes and a recorded voice periodically broke in to thank you for your patience and to tell you how important your call was to them.

  Well, it could’ve been worse. Henry and I were alive.

  I stood up, closed my eyes against the quick, stabbing pain in my head, and leaned against the side of the car—and that’s when I realized that my assailant had made off with my briefcase, too.

  I felt bad about losing that briefcase. It wasn’t that there was anything valuable, top-secret, or in any way irreplaceable in it. The papers Julie stuffed into my briefcase were photocopies of documents that were safely filed in our office. I did a quick inventory from memory. Walt Duffy’s will. That was public record. A couple of legal journals. Boring junk. Copies of the drafts of some letters I was supposed to look over before we mailed them—technical stuff, legal posturing that only another attorney could appreciate. That was all. Nothing that contained any information worth stealing. Nothing I needed. Nothing of any value whatsoever to anybody else.

  I remembered the Meriwether Lewis letters, and how nervous I’d felt carrying them around the evening Walt Duffy asked me to deliver them to Ben Frye. Thankfully, they were tucked securely away in my office safe.

  But the briefcase itself—that was a different story. My father had given it to me when I graduated from Yale Law School, and I’d carried it with me ever since. It was one of those big clunky dark-leather briefcases, scraped and stained from use and abuse. It had a wide flat bottom and opened like an accordion. The flap closed with a big brass locking clasp, the key to which had been lost long before the briefcase came to me. It was about eighty years old. The initials “HFS” were engraved in gold on its side. It once belonged to Harlan Fiske
Stone, who was the twelfth Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. My father had clerked for him. When Stone died in 1946, he bequeathed the briefcase to Dad.

  Without documents testifying to its provenance, that briefcase would be worth nothing to an antique dealer or a pawn broker, never mind to some low-life mugger. But it was priceless to me. Dad had always hoped I’d carry it with me the first time I argued a ground-breaking civil liberties case before the Supreme Court.

  Well, I’d never gone before the Court, and as my career had evolved, there was good reason to believe I never would. But if somehow that occasion should come to pass, it looked like I’d have to do it without my Harlan Fiske Stone briefcase.

  Dad would be rolling his eyes and groaning in his grave. “Heedless, Brady,” he’d be saying with a wag of his finger. “You can be so heedless, my boy.”

  I’d disappointed the old man again.

  I pushed myself to my feet. I staggered for a moment. I felt a little dizzy, and my head hurt. I took a deep breath, told Henry everything was all right, and we followed my mugger’s escape route out of the parking garage. I vaguely hoped I’d spot my wallet and my briefcase where he’d decided to drop them along the way. But no such luck.

  When he felt safe, of course, he’d take the cash and the credit cards from the wallet, and he’d empty out the briefcase and discover that it held no packets of cocaine, no rolls of thousand-dollar bills, no diamond necklaces. Then he’d heave it into a Dumpster somewhere, and that would be the end of my Harlan Fiske Stone briefcase.

  Damn. I loved that briefcase.

  When we got up to my apartment, I headed straight for the bathroom and looked in the mirror. There was a gash at my hairline and quite a bit of blood on my face and the front of my shirt. I took off my shirt, washed my face, and sprayed some Bactine on the gash. It wasn’t much of a wound, considering how much it had bled.

  I covered it with a Band-Aid, then went into the kitchen, poured some Rebel Yell into a glass, and added a few ice cubes. I took my drink into the bedroom and flopped down on the bed. I still felt a little woozy.