All right, don’t panic. That was the problem with everything that led up to this. He’d moved too fast. Clear your mind. What does this cop know?
“For real, man.” Ortiz shook his head in admiration. “The way I see you clean up after yourself, spreading out that plastic and shit, made me think about the way I do my job.”
“I don’t know that I did any more than anyone else would under the circumstances.” Jeffrey shrugged.
“Hey, don’t sell yourself short, bro. You’re a thorough man.”
The Thompson’s can. He shouldn’t have used the Thompson’s to weigh the bag down.
“So now I’m trying to be a little more thorough,” said the detective.
Jeff looked at his watch again and smiled haplessly. “You’re going to make me miss my train.”
“Just bear with me another sec. I-ight?” Ortiz took a small sidestep, blocking the path with his stocky frame. “You rented a car that weekend you were in Boston and Rhode Island, right?”
“Sure. I’ve been over this with you …”
“Okay … no se ocupe. No sweat. I just wanted to make sure of something.” Paco gave him a humble look, as if he expected to be congratulated. “You know, I’d asked a state trooper in Boston to check out the car you’d been driving. And he’d told me everything looked cool. But you know, it’s not the same as being there. So I called Avis myself this morning.”
“You did?” Jeffrey felt his expression start to buckle and crack.
“And I asked them to check the computer for your mileage, instead of just looking at what you wrote down on the bill, the way the trooper did. And guess what?”
“What?” His mouth felt full of used cotton.
“He missed about two hundred miles you drove that weekend. How do you like that?”
An old childhood fantasy flashed through Jeffrey’s head, the one about grabbing a policeman’s gun out of his holster and turning it on him.
“Detective, I really have to go.” He licked his lips. “People are waiting for me.”
“Okay, just hold on another minute.” Ortiz put his hands up, as if he was about to grab Jeffrey by the lapels. “This is your wife we’re talking about, right?”
“Of course.”
“So where’d you go, those two hundred miles?”
“I think I was clear about that.” Jeff touched his brow self-consciously. “I went sailing with some friends in New London.”
“Well, I’m not much of a sailor, but that ain’t no two hundred miles from New London to Providence, my friend. They’re not that far apart.”
“So, what are you suggesting?” Jeff said evenly, a small cool pearl of sweat forming on the top of his head.
“I’m thinking maybe you went somewhere Sunday night that you forgot to mention to me. Did I ever ask you what Moulin Rouge was about?”
“It’s a love story.”
He’d gleaned that much from the reviews and told himself to see the whole movie sometime so he could describe the plot in detail if a question ever came up.
“A love story.” The detective snorted. “Like a love triangle?”
“Something like that.” The pearl of sweat began to roll back toward where Jeff’s hair was thinning, leaving a damp trail across his scalp. “There’s a lot of singing and dancing.”
“I see.”
Without warning, the detective suddenly reached out and picked at Jeff’s breast pocket, as if he’d just noticed a loose thread. It was such an intrusion, such a willful violation, that Jeff actually stiffened. The temerity. The nerve. He might as well have just said, “You are my bitch, and I can lay hands on you anytime I like.”
“You had a piece of lint.” The detective brushed at the fabric with his fingers.
“Thank you.”
“It’s funny, you talk about a love triangle. I guess you know your wife and the lieutenant had a relationship.”
Another sweat pearl formed, following the pioneer across the scalp and down the back of his neck. “That’s still not an easy thing for me to hear.”
“I’m sure it isn’t. But there it is. We’ve had a chance to look at both of their computers, and it’s in the files once you figure out how to get in them. They wrote each other e-mails. Mostly in code, arranging times and places to meet.”
“Are you enjoying this?”
“I’m doing my job, Mr. Lanier.” Again the fingers brushed Jeff’s pocket. “But when I looked at the lieutenant’s computer this morning, I noticed something strange.”
“And what’s that?”
“That his screen name is Topcat one oh five. With a dot between the word and the number. Topcat dot one oh five.”
“So what?” Jeff looked down, realizing the fingers were lingering on his chest a little longer this time, almost as if they were monitoring his heartbeat.
“The last e-mail message to your wife, asking her to come to the motel is from Topcat one oh five. Get it? The dot is missing.”
“The what?” A third and fourth bead popped on top of his head as he moved back.
“The dot, man. The dot.” Fingertips poked him, three hard points digging in. “It’s a different address. Somebody else sent that e-mail. It didn’t come from the loo.”
“Maybe he changed his address.”
Jeff felt his heart laboring violently and wondered if the cop could feel it as well.
“No, man. I looked at his computer. He didn’t send it. Somebody else did, trying to set your wife up and catch her stepping out at that motel. That’s the thing with computers. It’s not the telephone or a letter, where you could recognize the handwriting. You could be talking to anybody and not know it. They call that shit spoofing.”
“Don’t touch me,” he said, barely resisting the urge to swat the fingers away. “All right?”
“You work a lot with computers in your business. Don’t you?” said the cop, not in the least put off. “You trade that old sports crap on-line all day.”
“I think I’d like you to leave now.”
“Why? Am I upsetting you?”
“No. I just think it would be more appropriate if I spoke to my lawyer before I made any more statements …”
“Yeah, and why is that?”
“I … just don’t feel … comfortable …”
His scalp was starting to feel like a hot skillet, one bead after another popping up and finding its way through the strands and into the clearing.
“Look, man. I understand. Really I do. If I caught another mule kicking in my stall, I can’t say what I’d do. Especially with all her daddy’s money on the line. That’s what I’d call a mitigating factor, bro. Extreme emotional distress. Any man could understand that.”
“This conversation is over.” Jeff started to march past him toward the gauntlet of automatic sprinklers. “If you have any other questions, you can call my attorney, Ronald Deutsch. He’s in the Manhattan business directory.”
Ortiz remained by the front steps, still shaking his head at Lynn’s photo.
“You know, she’s really got something, this lady.”
“To each his own.” Jeff palmed the keys to his Benz. “I never cared for her work myself.”
57
THE DOG WAS BARKING and scratching at the door as if he were hot-wired with piss.
“Clay, let him out, will you?” Barry turned to his son. “I don’t want him going on the rug again.”
Nose still swollen and limbs still sore from his karate match, Clay hoisted himself up from the couch in front of the living room TV and the bowl of popcorn he was systematically Hoovering.
“Brian Bonfiglio from the DA’s office called,” Lynn said, once he was out of earshot. “They let Mike out on twenty-five thousand dollars bail, ten percent down.”
“Seems about right.” Barry grabbed a fistful of kernels and looked over his shoulder. “Given the circumstances. The judge would be wise to keep his calendar clear.”
They were watching the latest news on CNN about
a photo editor in Florida mysteriously contracting anthrax.
“I still can’t believe Jeffrey had anything to do with this.” She hugged a velvet pillow on her lap. “You think he did it himself?”
The picture changed to spores under a microscope.
“I don’t know,” said Barry. “Killing your wife and cutting her head off? That’s a serious job to entrust to somebody else. You’d have to write an awfully big check to cover that.”
“You know I saw him at the train station the other day. We had this real heart-to-heart. And there were tears in his eyes almost the whole time.”
“They were probably legit. He probably feels like the victim here. I’m sure it was everybody else’s fault.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Clay came back in, huffing and red-faced, as if just opening the door had winded him.
“Nothing,” Barry grumbled. “Either go to bed or go study your Torah portion.”
“No, come on. Tell me, please. I really want to know.”
Lynn remembered how it used to touch her, this curiosity he had about the way things worked across the Great Divide of Adulthood. How did you meet Dad? How did you know you wanted to marry him? When did you decide to have kids? What do you think I’ll grow up to be? Lately, though, he’d stopped asking. Instead he’d regressed a little, pulling old board games and toys out of the closet, trying to go back to a less troubled and disturbing time in his life. His older sister, on the other hand, hadn’t asked her anything in months. She just stood back, automatically assuming the worst about her parents.
“Things have changed a bit since the last time we talked to you guys.” She glanced at Barry, deciding she’d had enough of secrecy for the moment.
“What?” Clay plopped back between them, taking up his position in front of the popcorn bowl again.
“Remember that old friend of Mom’s we were telling you about?” Barry said, reluctantly lowering the volume with the remote.
“The cop.” Hannah drifted into the room to add a dark footnote. “The one she testified against in court.”
“Yeah, what about him?” Clay looked around, as if he was about to be swarmed.
“Well”—Barry weighed the remote in his hand—“it turns out he did some bad things, but maybe not quite as many as we thought.”
“They mean he didn’t kill Sandi,” said Hannah.
Clay’s ears moved up and down. “That’s what you thought he did?”
“Well, he didn’t,” Barry conceded. “But he did bother somebody else the way he bothered your mother. And that’s enough. He shouldn’t be on the job.”
“He got Mom pregnant when they were in high school.” The last word hissed out of Hannah, steam escaping from a radiator.
Popcorn crumbled between Lynn’s fingers. “Who told you that?”
“Jennifer Olin again. Did you seriously think no one was going to say anything?”
“I just wanted to find the right time to talk to you about it.”
“Yeah, sure. Hypocrite.”
Something keen and piercing in her voice made Barry think of tribeswomen gathering in a dusty town square to throw stones.
“Knock it off.” He turned around. “I won’t have you speak to your mother that way.”
“But it’s true.”
“Get over it.”
He heard the dog’s bark moving around outside, a coarse annoying yawp that made him think of a stolen car being driven away with its alarm blaring.
“So who did do it?” asked Clay. “Who killed her?”
“We think it might’ve been somebody else,” said Lynn.
“Well, like duh,” said Hannah.
“Look, I know you did some baby-sitting for the Laniers over the summer,” said Barry, “but I’d like you to stay away from there.”
“Why?” Hannah’s mouth became a tidy little hyphen. “Do you think it was Jeff?”
“We don’t know,” said Lynn. “No one knows anything.”
“So is he mad?” Clay leaned against his mother for support.
“Who?” Barry and Lynn spoke simultaneously.
“The police officer.”
“He’ll probably get past it,” said Barry. “Most of the time I’d rather deal with somebody who’s mad than somebody who’s scared. When somebody’s scared, you don’t know how they’re going to come out at you. They could do anything. When somebody’s mad, they usually just tell you and that’s the end of it.”
“Unless it’s the Old Testament God,” said Clay.
“Or the Texas Tower Sniper,” added Hannah.
They watched a teaser before the commercial about how the war was probably beginning this weekend.
Barry picked up the popcorn bowl and offered it to Hannah, who’d been standing right behind him, staring holes into the back of his head.
Good work there, Schulman. Helluva world you’re bringing the kids up in.
The mobilized yawping of the dog seemed to goad him.
That’s right, kids. It’s true. Your worst fear doesn’t quite go far enough. Daddy blew the college tuition. Mommy once carried another man’s baby.
The dog barked louder and closer to the house.
The police can pull you over and fuck with you for absolutely no good reason. And by the way, our neighbor whose kids you once took care of decapitated his wife.
Each little bark was a hacksaw lightly scraping his nerves.
But don’t you worry, uh-uh. Because except for the unpredictable and unpreventable acts of terrorism in the future, everything is A-OK.
A part of his mind couldn’t accept that all he could do at this point was put on a suit and try to find another job quickly. Shouldn’t he be doing something more primal? Sharpening his spear. Building high stone walls around the house. Gathering animal skins for the long winter months. Loading up the catapult. Re-doing his résumé seemed so … reasonable.
But then Hannah plunged her hand into the communal bowl and slipped him a sideways half-smile. And for a fleeting instant, he felt restored to his place in the family. Okay, we’re broke and shit-scared and at one another’s throats, but at least we’re not apart.
From the yard, he heard Stieglitz give a sharp little seagull yelp and then a low-down mangy growl.
“Think he’s ready to come back in?” Barry asked.
“Second time he’s been out since dinner.” Clay got up again. “He better be.”
“Take a flashlight,” Lynn called after him. “Don’t let him track mud back in the house again.”
They all heard the revving of an engine and gravel spewing in the driveway at the same time.
“What the hell was that?” Barry got up and brushed past Clay.
“Is that Dennis’s car?” asked Lynn.
Hannah looked mildly offended. “His engine’s much noisier.”
Forgetting his shoes, Barry yanked open the door and peered out into the darkness. A pair of red taillights flared through the light fog and veinery of branches at the end of the driveway. Closer to the house, where the garage was attached, small pieces of orange light glowed and drifted away, turning blue at the edges before they extinguished in midair.
A strong chemical odor seeped through the familiar smells of autumn and started a faint burning at the back of his throat.
“Oh, shit, the garage is on fire!” He started running. “Lynn, get the fire extinguisher!”
The fire was just starting to graze on a corner of the garage, but he could already hear its hunger panting. The dog was at his heels, chasing and yapping, catching his eye once in the dark, as if to ask, Are you sure this is what’s supposed to happen? The two of them stopped short in the driveway, watching the flames organize their game plan, gnawing on the trim of the open garage doorway, right next to the stacks of bundled newspapers.
“Hose!” he shouted, racing back to the front lawn. “Where’s the fucking hose?”
He tripped over it in the dark and wasted precious seconds trying to find the
spray gun at its head, while the dog kept trying to stick its nose in his crotch.
“HANNAH, TURN THE SPIGOT ON!” he yelled as he ran back toward the driveway, praying the snagged coil would stretch that far.
The fire had matured while he was away. He felt everything on him—clothes, hair, and skin—reversing as he approached it. The flames had turned into an agile tiger, feasting along the inner wall, taking great greedy gulps of breath and searching for flammables. He heard the crackle of boiling paint and saw orange pieces dripping from the trim like food spilling out of a mouth.
He aimed the spray gun at the stack of burning newspapers, but when he pulled the trigger, only a dainty spring mist came out, falling well short of the target.
“ALL THE WAY ON, HANNAH,” he shouted, envisioning the whole garage flashing over and setting the main house ablaze.
He heard the dog at his side give a discouraged whimper as a loud pop came from deep within the garage. And in the half-second before he registered it as a small explosion, three things came into his mind. Dog. Aerosol can. Newark. An expanding basketball of flame came shooting out at him—the bug spray must’ve ignited. I’m going to die. He turned and pitched himself out of the way, feeling the hot cloud pass, threatening to scorch his face and liquefy his eyeball. He hit the ground and skittered down the gravel driveway, dimly aware of the rest of the family screaming his name from the yard.
The abrasion of gravel on his chest and upper arms told him he was all right, though. Slowly he got up, brushing his hands, sensing someone else was hurt instead. He felt it tangibly as a wrenching, a thing being pulled away from him. Then he turned toward a sound like an old wheel spinning on a rusted axle. By the fire’s light, he saw Stieglitz on the ground, writhing and twisting his head, trying to get at the shred of burning newspaper that had wrapped itself around his tail.
“Oh my God!” he heard Hannah shriek from the yard.
“Hannah, don’t get near him!” Barry started to back away, realizing he’d lost the spray gun in the fall. “Somebody help me find the hose again!”
Hearing the sound of his master’s voice, the dog jumped up, revivified, chasing Barry up the steps and across the lawn, a soft blue-orange glow spreading along his hindquarters. The animal stopped for a second to roll on the dry grass, giving himself momentary surcease but leaving a tiny fire in his wake.
The Last Good Day Page 41
