Absolute Certainty

by Rose Connors

It’s obvious that Harry has been here before. He maneuvers his way around the gas pumps and the eighteen-wheelers and heads straight toward the neon EAT sign over the front door. He holds it open for me, and bows as if he is the maitre d’, though I doubt that this particular establishment has one. At least it’s air-conditioned.

  The place is a genuine, old-fashioned diner, complete with a jukebox in every booth. A hand-printed sign at the entrance tells us to seat ourselves. Harry chooses a booth at the far end of the room, a good distance from the other patrons. I slide onto a red vinyl bench across the table from him and wait while he reads the daily specials with an urgency that suggests he hasn’t eaten for a week.

  He’s a good man, Harry Madigan. The depth of his compassion for Eddie Malone is admirable; compassion is a tough trait to hang on to in this business. I’ve grown fond of Harry in a way I never expected. It must be the rumpled suits.

  Two young men seated on the other side of the room have a pile of quarters in the middle of their table. They feed the hungry jukebox at regular intervals, and the woeful lyrics of jilted cowboys fill the diner. I can’t help but think of what Sally Scott said about her son and country lyrics. If Michael Scott were here, I guess he would secretly sing along.

  Harry pushes the paper placemats and silverware to the far end of the table and opens his briefcase in the middle. A large waitress with orange hair tied up in a bun appears at our table with a coffee pot. She turns our mugs over and pours, casting a disapproving frown at the piled silverware and crumpled placemats.

  “He did it,” I tell her, pointing an accusing finger at Harry.

  Harry stares at me in mock dismay, then smiles sheepishly at the orange-haired waitress. “It’s temporary, I promise. I’ll have it all fixed up before the food comes.”

  The waitress all but melts in the warmth of his smile. She takes our orders and wags her finger at Harry before she leaves, as if he were her favorite nephew who’d just been a little bit naughty. Harry is a pro. I can’t help laughing at him.

  As soon as the waitress leaves us, Harry takes three documents from his briefcase, closes it, and slides it under the table. He puts all three documents in front of me and resets his own placemat and silverware. Mine remain piled in the corner.

  I examine the first page of each document. Each one is an affidavit. The first is from Shirley Donaldson, the owner of Shirley’s Diner. The second is from Ricky Sparrow, the fisherman. And the third is from the nicest lady on Cape Cod, Laurie Griffin.

  I skim the affidavits quickly. Each one confirms some portion of Eddie’s account of his whereabouts on Memorial Day and the night before. Eddie was at the Nor’easter until two o’clock the morning of the holiday, the regular closing time. He was at Shirley’s Diner from about five-fifteen until six, when he left with Ricky Sparrow.

  Eddie fished with Sparrow all day on the holiday. It was dark when they got back to the Chatham Fish Pier. Eddie was back at the Nor’easter again that night. Upon his arrival, he bought a round of drinks for everyone at the bar. He stayed until closing at two the next morning.

  It takes a few minutes for me to realize that the last paragraph of Shirley Donaldson’s affidavit is identical to the last paragraph of Laurie Griffin’s. Each woman testifies: “At no time did I observe any blood, dried or otherwise, anywhere on the person of Eddie Malone. Moreover, there were no bloodstains, or stains of any kind, on the floor near Eddie Malone’s seat, in the men’s room, or anywhere else in the establishment, after he left.”

  I flip to the last page of Ricky Sparrow’s affidavit. His final paragraph opens with the same statement as the other two, but then it changes. “…The wind had been running against the tide and seas had been choppy most of the day. Spray from large waves broke regularly over the side of the boat. Eddie Malone didn’t have any oil-skins. He was drenched all day. If there were stains of any kind on his pant cuffs, socks, and sneakers when he boarded, they would have been gone by the time we got back.”

  The orange-haired waitress reappears with our food. She sets Harry’s enormous platter in front of him, but holds my modest plate in the air, resting her free hand on her hip. Harry lifts the affidavits from the table, resets my placemat and silverware, and apologizes for me. “You’ll have to excuse her,” he says, as if I’m not here. “She doesn’t get out much.”

  The waitress shakes her head, but she’s smiling as she leaves. I roll my eyes at Harry, the way Luke so often rolls his at me, and point with my fork at the affidavits in his hand. “So what?” I ask him.

  Harry is stunned. “What do you mean, so what?”

  “So Eddie was smart enough not to wear bloody clothes in public. So what? He’s not charged with being a moron.”

  “Marty, don’t you see? Eddie wasn’t arrested until the following morning.”

  My fork freezes in midair. Harry is right. I see it now, but Harry explains anyway. “Marty, if Eddie had ditched his bloody clothes after murdering Skippy Eldridge, he sure as hell wouldn’t have put them back on later. And if he had worn his bloody clothes into town, surely somebody would have noticed. But if you want to believe that Shirley Donaldson somehow missed a guy walking around her diner with blood on his pants and sneakers, then the salt water would have washed it away. There wouldn’t have been any blood on his pants and sneakers the next morning.”

  I lower my fork and sink back against the vinyl bench as the full weight of these facts bears down on me. Harry continues. “And if there really was blood on Eddie’s pants and sneakers when he was arrested at three o’clock, why the hell didn’t Laurie Griffin see any trace of it when Eddie left the bar at two o’clock?”

  Harry puts his elbows on the table, leans forward until his face is almost touching mine, and lowers his voice to a whisper. “Marty,” he says, “somebody is tampering with evidence.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Sunday, June 13

  For the first time ever, Luke is looking forward to his visit with Ralph. For the first time ever, Luke is ready to leave the house as soon as Ralph arrives. For the first time ever, I haven’t had to explain why these visits with his father are necessary. I realize, of course, that Ralph is incidental. The Boston Red Sox get the credit. Still, I think, it’s progress.

  And I am grateful for the time I will have alone today. I plan to review every page of both the Scott file and the Eldridge file. Then I will prepare an outline of the facts that have surfaced during the past five days. Tomorrow I will present all of it to Rob. The Rodriguez confession; the Buckley identification; the affidavits from Laurie Griffin, Ricky Sparrow, and Shirley Donaldson. Rob doesn’t have to believe in numbered corpses to see that something is wrong here.

  Ralph pulls into the driveway at one o’clock. It will take a couple of hours to get to Fenway Park on a Sunday afternoon and, at Luke’s urging, they are planning to get there two hours before game time to watch batting practice. Luke is hoping to snag a couple of autographs as well. He picked up a new baseball and a black felt-tipped pen just for that purpose.

  Ralph knocks on the kitchen door and lets himself in when he sees me working at the old pine table. Danny Boy gets to his feet and gives Ralph his usual greeting. Ralph growls back at him. Luke is in the kitchen in a flash, and Ralph is obviously surprised.

  “All set, Luke?” Ralph seems unusually upbeat. Maybe he’s a closet baseball fan.

  “You bet I am.” Luke rubs Danny Boy’s head, then gives me a kiss. The phrase “first things first” comes to mind.

  “Bye, Mom. See you tonight.”

  “When tonight?” I direct the question to Ralph.

  “I don’t know,” Ralph says absently. “Does it matter?”

  Ah, the blissful nonchalance of the once-a-week parent.

  “Well, there is school tomorrow,” I remind him.

  Ralph turns to Luke. “Aren’t you guys out yet?”

  “Not till Friday.” Luke shakes his head sadly, as if the injustice of this fact is apparent to all.

  Ralph
looks back at me and shrugs. He’s always had a hard time answering questions that call for concrete facts. “I don’t know,” he says. “How about midnight?”

  “Midnight? On a school night? How about ten?”

  “Marty, be reasonable”

  I hate it when he says that.

  “…The game will run a few hours. It will take a couple of hours to drive back here. And I thought we’d stop some place for dinner. How about eleven?”

  Luke chimes in. “Come on, Mom.”

  This is a new feeling. Ralph and Luke on one side; me on the other.

  “All right. Eleven. But no later.”

  I follow them out the kitchen door. Never one to be left behind, Danny Boy is on my heels. I wave at the back of the BMW, and Luke waves out the passenger-side window until they are out of sight.

  Danny Boy stretches out on the deck and rests his chin on his front paws. I sit down in the warm sunshine on the step beside him and rub his ears, but he whimpers anyway. Maybe he knows something I don’t.

  CHAPTER 34

  Monday, June 14

  Classes at Chatham High School begin promptly at seven-thirty. The schedule works out well for Luke and me. I drop him at school at seven-fifteen or so, then head straight to work. Most days, I am at my desk before eight.

  We’re behind schedule this morning. I’m driving faster than usual, and that always brings a smile to Luke’s lips. He holds an imaginary microphone up to his mouth and assumes the expression of a self-impressed news anchor. “Assistant District Attorney arrested,” he intones, “for tearing up Morris Island Road.”

  Just before Chatham Light, Morris Island Road intersects with Bridge Street on the left. The Beach and Tennis Club, with its octet of oceanside courts, is on the right, the pounding surf of the Atlantic just beyond. I normally go straight here, past Chatham Light and down Main Street toward the high school. But this morning my attention is drawn to four Chatham squad cars, lights flashing, halfway down Bridge Street. The Town of Chatham owns only eight squad cars, and four of them are on Bridge Street. I automatically hit my left-turn signal.

  “Mom, I’m going to be late.”

  “I’ll give you a note, Luke. Something’s going on here.”

  Sergeant Kathy Carmine steps into the road, ordering me to stop. I lean out the window and wave to her.

  “Oh, sorry, Marty. I should have recognized the Thunderbird. You can go ahead, but” She hesitates, and nods toward Luke. “It isn’t pretty.”

  That’s all I need to hear. “Luke, hop out.”

  “What?”

  “Hop out. You wait here with Sergeant Carmine. I’ll be right back.”

  Luke rolls his eyes at me as he opens the car door. “Mom, it’s probably a car accident. I think I can handle it.”

  “You’re probably right, Luke. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  The Mitchell River Bridge gives Bridge Street its name. It’s an old wooden drawbridge that spans the waters of Stage Harbor, and it’s a favorite fishing spot for locals and tourists alike. The drawbridge still operates the old-fashioned way. When a vessel too large to clear it approaches, Chatham’s Chief of Police is summoned to open it.

  The Chief’s car is here, lights flashing, and for one irrational moment I hope that he is simply here to open the drawbridge. But that, of course, wouldn’t explain the fact that three other squad cars are here as well. And so is the county van from the Medical Examiner’s office. Jeff Skinner is standing behind the van’s open rear doors, talking with the Chief and removing his surgical gloves. Whatever it is he’s been doing here—he’s finished.

  I leave the Thunderbird behind the Chief’s car and join them on the bridge. “What’s going on, Chief?”

  Chief Tommy Fitzpatrick looks like a cop. The lines etched in his face announce that he has lived every minute of his fifty-five years. He has a full head of strawberry blond hair and a broad, freckled face. Normally, his handshake is firm and his Irish eyes, like those in the song, are smiling. Not today, though.

  He points to the side of the bridge. “Again,” is all he says.

  The feeling drains from my legs, but somehow they carry me to the bridge’s wooden railing. On the marsh below, a fly rod is dropped haphazardly in the mud, its thin line broken and blowing in the salty breeze. A plastic fly box is tipped on its side, brightly colored flies glistening in the early morning sunlight. Striped bass are running now, and someone came here this morning intending to catch a few.

  But that’s not all. Three of Jeff’s technicians are on the marsh too, combing everything in sight, using gloved hands to bag each glistening fly, and each section of the rod, individually. One of them even bags selected portions of pebbles and sand. And there is a body bag at the water’s edge, all zipped up. It’s not empty.

  I turn back to the Chief and Jeff. “Why wasn’t I called?”

  The Chief looks surprised. “You were called,” he says. “Or your office was called, anyhow.”

  Jeff speaks up. “Geraldine Schilling was here, Marty. She left about twenty minutes ago.”

  “Geraldine?” I stare at Jeff, open-mouthed. “Geraldine hasn’t been to a crime scene in years.”

  “I know,” he says. “But she was at this one.”

  Two of the technicians strain to lift the body bag from the marsh and drop it on a steel gurney. All three of them maneuver through the mud with some difficulty and lift the gurney over the lip of the wooden bridge. They roll it across the weathered planks toward the county van until I signal for them to stop. I brace myself, reach for the zipper at the top of the bag, and take a deep breath.

  Jeff Skinner stops writing in his chart and hurries toward me, using his pen as a pointer, directing me away from the black vinyl bag. “Marty, don’t do that,” he says. “You need to trust me here, Marty. Don’t open it.”

  The Chief backs him up. “Don’t, Marty. Spare yourself, kid. Your office has it covered.”

  I have no interest in sparing myself. And I am not at all confident that my office has it covered. I unzip the bag and pull the stiff vinyl top back to expose the victim’s head. My stomach turns over and my legs give out completely. I drop to my knees and vomit.

  His skull is fractured. His throat is slit. His eyes are open.

  Charlie Cahoon’s precious grandson. Luke’s friend. Jake Junior is dead.

  CHAPTER 35

  “For Christ’s sake, you went to grade school with the victim’s father. Your son played basketball with the victim himself. You don’t belong on this case, Martha. It’s too close.”

  Once again, Geraldine is on her feet, calling the shots. And Rob agrees with her. I can see it in his eyes.

  “Marty,” he pleads, “Geraldine is right. You loved Jake Junior. We all did. But you and Charlie are especially close. You can’t handle this one. It wouldn’t be right.”

  I feel an eerie sense of detachment, as if I am somewhere else, watching this scene play out from a distance. I will do what needs to be done, I tell myself, regardless of any decision Rob or Geraldine might make. And I won’t argue with either one of them for long.

  I don’t recognize the person thinking those thoughts.

  “Then who should handle it, Rob?”

  My voice sounds unnaturally calm, even to me. Rob looks at me oddly before he answers. “Geraldine will first chair, and the Kydd will help her. It’s time for him to cut his teeth on a real one anyhow.”

  “Geraldine is busy with the campaign, and I”

  “There won’t be any campaign if this case is mishandled, Martha. The best thing I can do for the campaign is put Jacob Cahoon’s murderer behind bars. And that’s exactly what I intend to do.”

  Geraldine takes the cigarette out of her mouth and leans over my chair. The smoke curls from her left hand into my right eye as she bends down. “I will try this case. The Kydd will do the grunt work.”

  She leans closer to me. “And you, Martha,” she says, “you will stay out of it.”

  I stan
d abruptly. Geraldine jumps back, but not quickly enough, and her cigarette falls on Rob’s Oriental rug. I head for the door without apology. Geraldine is still talking, but I don’t know—or care—what she is saying.

  I stop in my office just long enough to retrieve my briefcase. The Kydd is coming through the office door as I head out.

  “You leaving, Marty?”

  “I have to, Kydd.”

  “That’s okay. I can handle the docket.”

  “I know you can.”

  I weave through the crowd in the large lobby of the District Courthouse, out the front doors and into the glare of the morning sun. A dozen different attorneys approach me in the parking lot as I hurry toward the Thunderbird. A few want to offer condolences. Most want to work something out for whatever two-bit hoods they represent at the moment. I wave them all away.

  I turn right out of the Barnstable County Complex. Five minutes later, I park between two vans in the Medical Examiner’s lot. I open my glove compartment and retrieve an old point-and-shoot camera I keep there. The camera has a twenty-four-exposure roll of film in it, but twenty shots are used. Luke takes pictures of deer, coyote, and an occasional owl, whenever we happen upon them on Chatham’s roads. That’s okay. Four shots should do it.

  I hold up my county I.D. card and stride past the guard at the front desk. He makes no attempt to stop me. I walk quickly down a long, sterile corridor, and let myself into the last room on the right, the room where I witnessed Skippy Eldridge’s autopsy.

  Two of the technicians are busy making preparations, one sterilizing the surgical instruments, the other filling out state-mandated paperwork. Jeff is not here yet. But the corpse is. In the corner of the room farthest from the door, the draped remains of Jake Junior rest on a padded gurney with stainless steel legs. My eyes fill and my vision blurs with the realization that the motionless heap on that table is all that is left of Jake Junior.

  I cross the room quickly and retrieve a small, folded stepladder from its spot next to some hard-to-reach supply cabinets. The technician doing the paperwork is standing nearby, leaning on a stainless steel countertop. She is the young, innocent-looking woman who worked on Skippy Eldridge’s autopsy. She smiles at me. “Nice to see you again, Attorney Nickerson. We were expecting Attorney Schilling on this one.”