by Brad Smith
“Hey, I want to get on with this,” Miller said.
“You have a strange way of showing it,” Harrison told him.
“Obviously you will be retaining new counsel.”
“I guess so,” Miller said and laughed. “Apparently it’s up to me to keep these slippery bastards in the upper tax brackets. I mean, if you guys insist on pushing this thing.”
Claire glanced at Daniels. He was watching Miller Boddington with amusement. Miller had that effect on people, it seemed. Not Claire, though. She knew what he was, and there was nothing funny about it.
“Matter of fact,” Miller went on, “I was kind of thinking you might have called me here to say you were dropping all the charges, with Mickey dead.”
“Even if that suggestion had the slightest bit of logic to support it, I have a feeling that Mr. Daniels here would oppose the notion,” Harrison said. “And Ms. Marchand too.”
“What do you think, Alex?” Claire asked. “Do we want to push this? Do we really care about some guy who treated a couple dozen thoroughbreds like they were Civil War POWs?”
“I never mistreated a horse in my life,” Miller said.
“Well, that’s where we disagree,” Daniels said. “Why don’t we go to trial and sort it out?”
“Who are you again?” Miller asked. “I thought maybe the judge here brought his kid to work.”
“Take it easy, Mr. Boddington,” Harrison said. “Would you like to be on my bad side?”
Miller knew whom he could insult and whom he could not. He retreated.
“All right,” Harrison said. “This is what will happen. You, Mr. Boddington, will appear next week with counsel. And that counsel will be someone who intends to represent you in this matter going forward. A new trial date will be set at that time. Is that understood?”
“Understood,” Miller said, standing up. He looked at Daniels and then at Claire. “So we’ll all get together next week. I’m looking forward to it.” He smiled and walked out.
Outside, a few moments later, Claire crossed the expanse of lawn with Alex Daniels. Miller Boddington was fishing his cell phone from the fountain. He climbed out, his pants soaked to the knees.
“You intend to reimburse me for this?” he asked Claire.
She laughed and kept walking.
“What was that about?” Daniels asked.
“No idea,” Claire said.
“Such a nice guy,” Daniels said.
“Shit,” Claire said. “Today was nothing. He was on his best behavior, with Harrison there.”
“I don’t want to see him at his worst.”
“I’ve seen him at his worst. And I arrested him for it.”
FOUR
When Jane came downstairs shortly after nine o’clock, Alan was at the kitchen counter, eating poached eggs on toast. The kitchen was a mess, evidence of his morning culinary activities. Half a loaf of bread, part of a pound of bacon, and a package of toaster waffles were scattered about. There was jam and maple syrup, coffee brewed, orange juice in a pitcher.
“Good morning,” Jane said, pouring coffee for herself.
Alan nodded around a mouthful of eggs. Jane looked disdainfully at the carnage inflicted on her magazine-worthy kitchen; then took her coffee and the morning paper out onto the deck. They were calling for another hot day, but for now the air was still cool from the night. Set against the east and north walls of the house, the deck offered both morning sun and shade. Jane chose the sun.
She sat at one of the wrought-iron café tables, sipped her coffee, and looked inside at Alan. He was wearing nylon sweatpants and a Nike hoodie, and a yellow baseball cap with ac records in blue script across the front. She could tell he wasn’t wearing his toupee underneath. He rarely bothered with it around the house anymore, although during the trial he’d worn it every day to the courthouse. The media covering the trial seemed obsessed with commenting on it. As she watched, he finished his eggs and sat back, as if pondering his next move, then slid two of the frozen waffles into the toaster. Ever since the acquittal he’d been on an eating binge that was monumental, even for him. In the weeks preceding the trial he had actually lost about forty pounds. Whether the drop in weight was a nod to vanity, knowing he would be in the public eye every day, or merely the result of the stress of being tried for murder, Jane couldn’t say. There was a time when she would have asked him, but that time was long in the past. Whatever his reasons, he had done an about-face of late. At his heaviest, he had gone about three hundred pounds and was heading that way again. The medicine cabinet in his bathroom was filled with all manner of drugs that allowed him to carry on as he did. Lipitor and Diuril and the thyroid medicine. Dozens of other pills Jane couldn’t identify and hadn’t the inclination to try.
The phone rang as Alan was pouring syrup on his waffles. He answered and talked as he ate, finishing his plate and the conversation at roughly the same time. He sat stock-still for a moment as if contemplating something, either what he had heard on the phone or all that he had just ingested, then poured coffee in his cup and joined Jane on the deck outside. He sat across from her and looked off into the trees. There was a tiny spot of syrup at the corner of his mouth.
“That was Walter,” he said. “They got the guy that killed Mickey Dupree.”
“Oh?”
“It was the girl’s husband. Cain.”
“Well.” Jane sipped her coffee. “I guess that makes sense, motive-wise. Apparently the husband found fault in the verdict?”
Alan continued to stare off into the trees that lined the curved walkway running through the property. She saw he was suddenly perspiring heavily, sweat running in thin rivulets down his temples.
“Do you think this is funny?” he asked.
“Not at all.”
“Because it’s not,” he said, glaring at her. “If this guy was crazy enough to kill Mickey for getting me off, then don’t you think I’m next on his list?”
“I would have thought you’d be first on his list.”
“I’m glad you’re enjoying this. I’m glad you’re taking this . . . this near tragedy . . . and turning it into a scene from Nora Ephron.”
“Near tragedy?” she repeated. “I doubt the Dupree family would consider it in those terms. Or are we just concerned with you here, as usual?”
He refused to respond to that. He drank his coffee and continued to watch into the woods, as if anticipating something out there. That was nothing new, though. He was always of the mind that something was out to get him, whether it was real or imagined.
“Listen, you said they arrested the guy, right?” she said after letting him dangle for a time.
“Yeah. Yesterday afternoon.”
“Then you have nothing to be afraid of. It was premeditated. He’ll get life.”
“Apparently he’s killed other people. Up in Canada.”
“Really?” Jane picked up the newspaper and glanced at the front page. There was nothing about any arrest. The police probably never released the news in time for the early edition.
“Yeah. I think that’s what Walter said. What happened to the immigration laws in this country, they let a guy like that in?” Alan drained his cup, set it on the table. He sat up straight. “But you’re right. He can’t get me now. I’m safe.”
“Of course you are. What are you doing today?”
“I’m going to the studio.” He looked at his watch. “The driver should be here.”
“What are you doing there?”
“That French kid is driving up from the city. His label wants him to do an album of standards. Porter and Berlin, all that. They think they can break him out here that way.”
“Well, it worked for Michael Bublé. Can the kid speak English?”
“Sort of.”
“An American label is hiring you?” Jane asked.
“No. His French label. The French are more sophisticated than we are when it comes to dealing with these minor scandals. They are smart enough to look past
superficial nonsense and focus on the intrinsic artistic merits.”
Jane got to her feet. “Well, have fun with your new sophisticated friends. At least this one is a boy. Less chance of you getting yourself into another . . . minor scandal. I’m going running.”
She took the wolfhounds and started along the trail that wound through the estate. The path was a good one, bulldozed through the hardwood forest and packed with gravel screening. Alan—who never walked more than a few feet, let alone ran— had wanted it big enough for four-wheeler traffic. He actually wanted to pave it, but Jane had put a halt to that idea. The job would have taken an entire summer, and she didn’t intend to inhale that petroleum odor for months on end. Not only that, but a paved roadway running miles through the property would have detracted from the rustic nature of the grounds.
There were several routes of varying length she could take through the two-hundred-acre property. The longest one, which she had favored lately, ran roughly six miles. She intended to run the New York City Marathon—her first—that fall, and for now her goal was to run this particular route four times a day, a distance that would be close to marathon length.
She had started running in earnest just a year earlier, upon turning sixty. Up until then she had been a casual jogger— mostly on the treadmill so she could watch TV—but at a fund-raiser in Woodstock a couple of years ago she met Edie Bryant, who jarred her into looking at her own languid lifestyle and to start considering her age.
“The ideal time to look sixty,” Edie would tell Jane as the landmark approached, “is the day you turn seventy. Actually, eighty would be even better.”
Edie was the US congresswoman for the area and had been so for nearly thirty years. She was seventy-three and, from across a room, looked fifty. She’d had the usual surgeries but hadn’t gone overboard, settling in recent years on a combination of Botox and collagen, and diet and exercise to maintain her weight. Jane had been instrumental in raising money in Ulster County for Edie’s last reelection campaign and, in turn, Edie had counseled Jane on a number of things, some health-related and some not so. She had advised her to leave Alan, for instance. Jane couldn’t decide whether that particular piece of counsel fell under the guise of health-related or not.
Jane thought about Alan now as she ran up a slope at the rear of the property. The dogs had long since gone their own ways, sniffing through the underbrush, yelping when picking up the scent of one thing or another. From time to time they would come find her as she ran, as if making sure she was still with the program. Then they’d be off again.
It was probably a good thing Alan had a project to work on, although the plan to break the French kid in the American market seemed a little iffy. And Alan was an odd choice to helm any plan, especially in light of his recent notoriety. But aside from that, he hadn’t had any real success—on an artistic or financial level—in nearly twenty years, a long time in popular music circles. During the trial, the newspapers often suggested that the business had passed him by, and the papers had been right. Lack of success, or even recognition, merely fed the insecurity of a man already so paranoid he had trouble trusting the mailman most days.
Jane had no idea what had happened in the studio the night Kirstie Stempler had been killed. She wasn’t entirely sure that Alan knew himself. And even though it was true that Jane had abundant reasons to walk away from the marriage, she had no intention of doing so. She had put her time in. She loved her life, and she loved her home here in Ulster County. The only way she would ever end the marriage would be if Alan gave up this property to her. That would never happen. He would have no idea where to go.
FIVE
The ride into Kingston was quiet. The two men in the front didn’t appear to have much in common. The younger one attempted, several times, to initiate conversation—mentioning the local softball league where he played, an upcoming fishing trip, a book he’d read about James Earl Ray—but the older cop, the thick one named Joe Brady, apparently had little interest in any of the topics.
Virgil knew who Joe Brady was. He was one of the detectives who’d testified at Alan Comstock’s murder trial, and Virgil had watched as Mickey Dupree had chewed Brady into little pieces before spitting him out on the courtroom floor in front of the jury. Now Joe Brady had arrived at the farm to inform Virgil that he was under arrest for killing Dupree. Virgil wasn’t sure if that was irony, but he was pretty sure it was something.
Neither man said anything to Virgil, which suited him perfectly. Generally speaking, he had nothing against cops but couldn’t recall ever meeting one he liked. That was hardly surprising, since most of his previous encounters with police had ended with Virgil wearing handcuffs. Like now.
He sat in the backseat and watched the farmland pass by. The hay he’d cut earlier that afternoon would be ready to bale in a couple of days. He hated asking anyone for favors but if he couldn’t persuade the cops to release him he would have to get someone to bale it up and put it in the mow for him. The youngest Tisdale kid had recently come back from the coal-fields in Wyoming to take over his family farm down the road from Virgil’s place, near Saugerties. He could probably use the extra money, if Virgil was to hire him. The Tisdale kid was a hard worker, Virgil had noticed, even if he did appear to be a bit of a dimwit. Of course, Virgil was hardly in a position to pass judgment on that front; he was the one locked in the back-seat of a police cruiser.
Other than the hay, he was pretty much caught up. His wheat had come off two weeks earlier, and the cattle would be okay in the back pasture. There was a spring-fed pond there that never went dry. Mary would see to the horses. Most of them were as much hers as they were his anyway. He wasn’t sure what to think of Mary, the way she looked at him when he was being handcuffed. And he was pretty sure Mary didn’t know what to think of him, given the circumstances.
At the station they put him in an interrogation room and left him there for almost an hour, sitting at a wooden table. The room was windowless and hot. When the door finally opened, it was just the older cop, Brady. He walked in and plopped himself down in the chair opposite Virgil and didn’t say anything. Instead he attempted to stare Virgil down, as if setting the tone for what would follow. Virgil looked at him for a bit but got bored and quit it. After a while he realized they were waiting for someone else to arrive.
That someone was a woman. At first glance, Virgil wondered what she was doing there. It was only after she removed her jacket and he saw the semiautomatic on her hip that he realized she was a cop. Virgil had seen cops before who happened to be beautiful women, but they had all been TV cops. Since it seemed unlikely they would call in a TV cop to interrogate him, Virgil had to assume this one was genuine. She was about forty, he guessed, and she had dark brown hair that was somewhat unruly, as if she’d just come in out of the wind. She removed her sunglasses, pushing them up into her hair, taming it just a little. Her eyes were also brown and she wore very little makeup. Beneath the jacket she was wearing a white cotton blouse and a navy-blue skirt that stopped a couple of inches above her knees. She had good legs.
She seemed slightly preoccupied when she entered, giving Virgil and Brady a quick nod each before removing her jacket. Then she seemed to gather herself, pushing from her mind whatever she’d been thinking about in order to focus on the task at hand.
She told Virgil her name was Claire Marchand and when she asked him if he wanted a coffee, he said yes. Brady, after a moment, took this as a cue and went somewhere to get it. Marchand told Virgil he could smoke if he wanted so he lit up. Before locking him in the room, they had taken his wallet and his belt and the laces from his work boots but allowed him to keep his cigarettes and lighter. They were being nice, at least for now, but that was usually how it worked. Marchand gave him a dirty paper cup for an ashtray and sat down in a chair against the wall. As she removed a notebook from her pocket she crossed her legs, and Virgil raised their grade from good to terrific. He knew there were far more pressing matters at hand, but—s
hort of plucking out his eyes—it was impossible not to take notice of certain things.
“You want a lawyer?” she asked.
His eyes went from her legs to her face, a fair trade-off. In fact, there was nothing about her that wasn’t extremely pleasant to look at. He reminded himself that he’d never met a cop he’d had any use for. This one would be no different. “Not right now,” he told her.
“The guys read you your rights, though.”
“Yeah.”
“We have a few questions,” she said. “You’re going to appear before the judge in the morning. Just to read the charges, in and out.”
Virgil smoked and they waited for Brady to come back. When he did, he put the coffee in front of Virgil and then sat down again. He had his laptop with him now; he must have forgotten it before. Marchand got to her feet. Virgil took a sip from the paper cup. It wasn’t the worst coffee in the world, but it was pretty bad.
“You live on a farm located at 724 Windecker Road?” Marchand asked. It seemed she was in charge, although he would have guessed she was younger than Brady. He could only assume that she had been a detective longer.
“Yeah.”
“How long you been there?”
Virgil had to think. “Six years. Maybe seven.”
“We know you’re Canadian. How did you end up in the Woodstock area?”
Virgil balked for a moment, wondering what interest his history would hold for her, what relevance it had for the matter at hand. He decided to play along, at least for the time being. “I stopped to visit an old friend, Tom Stempler. It was his farm. I used to play a little ball, minor league, and Tom was my manager for a while. I was hoping I might get back into it, thinking Tom might give me a recommendation. I knew he still did a little scouting.”
“Did he give you a recommendation?” Marchand asked.
“No. What I didn’t know was that Tom had Lou Gehrig’s, just diagnosed. And it was just him there, trying to run the farm on his own. I ended up sticking around, helping out. It was fall, lots to do on a farm. You know. Well, maybe you don’t. Anyway, by the time we had things squared away for winter, ball season was over for the year. So I stayed on.”
