The Water's Edge

by Daniel Judson

  “You look different out of your uniform,” Falcetti observed.

  Barton nodded, said nothing to that.

  “I guess everyone does, though, huh?” Falcetti added.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re . . . Katherine, right?”

  “Kay.”

  He thought for a moment more, still watching her, then: “Barton, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m Bobby.”

  She glanced at him once more, nodded briefly. No reason to be rude. But she said nothing. No reason, either, to say anything. Something about the way he looked, though, the way he looked at her, unnerved her. His stare. So . . . practiced. But there was always the chance that she was being oversensitive. She was like that these days, wary of men, all men. Contemptuous, even. But how could she not be? Her current interactions with men, fortunately, were limited to her customers at the liquor store. Regulars, for the most part, many of whom came in not for the prices or the convenience of the Job’s Lane location but, obviously, for her. The store’s owner had hired her because he liked the idea of an ex-cop behind the counter, hadn’t anticipated a bump in sales, though, looking back, he realized he probably should have. Men are, after all, men. But Barton didn’t care about that, wanted nothing to do with any of it. Love, lust, the whole damned mess—these were simply things she had no interest in anymore. No room for that. Besides, she was tired. So tired. Her pills, mercifully, kept her numb to the parts of herself that had once demanded there be a man beside her, that had driven her to need all that and to risk—and, finally, lose—everything for which she had worked so hard.

  “So what the hell’s at the beach at this time of night?” Falcetti said. “And on a night like this?”

  Barton continued to look out the window to her right, down what she could see of Main Street. “I’m meeting a friend,” she said. Her love affair with Roffman, when it was finally revealed, had been headline news in the local papers, remained so for months. She had stayed on the force for as long as she could, quit finally when it became clear to her—when it was made clear to her, once and for all—that she would not advance. Ever. She doubted that there was anyone in town, this cabbie included, who didn’t know of her years-long affair with her married boss. Hadn’t heard at least something about that. Her saying what she had just said, she hoped, would stop Falcetti from asking any more questions. A late-night meeting in an out-of-the-way place—how could that be anything other than this Barton woman—this home wrecker—up to her old tricks?

  Let him think what he wants to think, as long as he leaves me in peace.

  The light turned green then. Falcetti made another left, onto South Main Street. The ocean was less than a mile away. As they headed south and approached the water, the fog deepened, became quickly a shifting curtain that surrounded them closely on all sides. Barton looked forward, through the windshield, careful to avoid the rearview mirror. There was nothing to see, though, except the glare of the cab’s bright headlights reflecting back, unable to penetrate the harsh, solid white that was now all there was ahead of them.

  A right onto Gin Lane, then onto Dune Road. Barton could hear the ocean now, even over the hiss of the tires cutting across the wet pavement below, even with the cab’s windows closed tight. Rough seas crashing into the beach, heavy waves sounding like the long rumble of approaching thunder. The cab turned into the large parking lot at Cooper’s Beach, a public beach area where Cooper’s Neck Lane met Dune Road. The lot was empty and unlit, which was, of course, why Miller had chosen it as their meeting place. Anyone that may have followed either of them here would easily be seen if they entered the long lot or, if they tried to hide their intention by continuing past it, be clearly visible on Dune Road for the time it would take them to cover the length of the lot. Also, with the noisy ocean to their backs, Barton knew that she and Miller could talk without fear of being eavesdropped upon by some high-tech device. Anyone who desired to get close enough to filter out any covering background noise would be unable to do so without making themselves seen.

  This was the world in which Miller lived—or used to live. The world, Barton thought, he had given up in favor of the life of a landlord, a life of leisure.

  So what, then, were they doing here?

  The cab crossed the lot, pulled to a stop at the foot of a steep dune. Falcetti shifted into park, looked back at Barton once again in the rearview mirror.

  “Is this good?” he said.

  She nodded. “How much do I owe you?”

  “It’s covered.”

  “I should give you something.”

  “No, it’s all taken care of. Orders. Don’t take a dime from her.”

  Barton nodded again. “Tell Eddie thanks.”

  “I will. I should wait, though, till your friend gets here.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “I can’t let you just stand out here all alone.”

  “It’s okay, really. My friend might be a while. Besides, you have a fare waiting.”

  She opened the door, slid across the backseat and got out, then swung the door closed and took a step back. Falcetti was looking at her through the driver’s door window. He nodded once, then drove off. The cab crossed the parking lot, disappearing into the fog less than halfway across. All she could see now were its lights, growing duller as it got farther away. She saw it turn right onto Dune Road, after that fading from sight completely. Barton was alone now. She put her hands in the pockets of her oversized parka, drew it tight around her. When she exhaled, she could see her breath, watched it as it quickly rose upward and dissipated into nothingness. The ocean was louder now that she was out of the cab, now that there was nothing at all to hear but the sound of it. A hundred feet behind her, and angry, brutal even, made so by the recent late-winter rain.

  A few minutes after the cab drove away, another vehicle appeared. This one was heading straight down Cooper’s Neck Lane, its headlights visible as two blurs in the distance. The lights stopped at the end of Cooper’s Neck, then crossed Dune Road and entered the parking lot. Out of the fog, halfway across the lot, emerged Miller’s pickup. Mid-sized, beat-to-shit. It didn’t approach Barton but instead headed for a spot a good hundred feet from where she was standing at the foot of the dune. Of course, there was no doubt in Barton’s mind that he had seen her. Miller quickly killed the motor and the lights but didn’t get out right away. Barton knew he was watching for any indication that a car had followed him. She looked toward Cooper’s Neck Lane, couldn’t see it at all through the ground fog, couldn’t even see the entrance to the lot. She knew, though, that she would have seen headlights, just as she had seen Miller’s, which was why he had chosen that approach, she was certain, in the first place. She stared but saw nothing except a wall of white, no sense of any world at all beyond it.

  Eventually she heard Miller’s truck door close, turned and spotted him crossing the distance between them. Tall like his father had been, as solidly built as ever, wearing that same old hand-me-down military field jacket he always wore. But there was something different about him now. Dramatically different. He was bearded, hadn’t been when she last saw him. A thick beard, full. His dark hair, too, was longer than she had ever seen it. The change was nothing less than jarring. He reached her finally, stood with his hands in the pockets of his jacket, only a few feet between them now. They faced each other but didn’t make a move to embrace, never really did that in all the time they’d known each other, as close as they were.

  “Thanks for meeting me, Kay,” he said. His tone was serious, solemn. He had to speak up to be heard over the sound of the waves but didn’t dare speak too loudly. A razor’s edge. To her, Miller didn’t only sound grim, he looked it, but maybe that was an effect of the beard and the unruly hair.

  “Long time, no see, Tommy.”

  “How’ve you been?”

  “Good. You look different with a beard.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It makes you look old
er. Less of a boy.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  Barton shrugged, smiled. It was, despite the changes in his appearance, the circumstances of their meeting, good to see him. “How’s the new place?”

  “Falling apart.”

  “You get used to the trains yet?”

  “Can barely hear them. How’s the liquor store?”

  “Busy. All this rain, everyone drinks.”

  “You look good.” He was lying, she could hear it.

  “You look stoned,” she said flatly.

  Miller smiled. He looked away, checking for signs of a car in the fog. He was concerned about them being seen, this much was clear to Barton. She wasn’t ready, though, to know why.

  She glanced down at his leg. “How’s your knee?”

  “Hurts in the rain. All that money and time so it would stop hurting in the cold, and now it hurts in the rain.” He looked back at her.

  “How are you right now?”

  “I feel good.”

  “Yeah, I bet. You shouldn’t be driving like this, Tommy. Especially in weather like this.”

  “I’m okay.”

  Barton waited a moment, watching his face closely, looking for the man she had always known, always trusted. He was sixteen when they had met, she twenty-three. He was the son of the then-chief of police, had once been the worst kind of juvenile delinquent, was trying to straighten himself out. He was already shattered by then. Barton was a recent hire, brought in as the first of the “new blood.” Chief Miller was just starting to clean house, trying to quiet rumors of corruption—corruption that had caught the attention of the FBI, among others. Three months later Chief Miller was dead. In the months that followed, the actual depths of his department’s corruption—“vast,” the newspapers kept calling it—began to be known.

  Still, Chief Miller had invited Barton to his house for dinner when she had first arrived, had, along with his wife, opened his home to her, treated her, so far from her own family, like a daughter. She and Miller had stood together at his funeral, then stood together again, two years later, at Miller’s mother’s graveside. Till recently, she and Tommy had been a significant part of each other’s lives, always there, always checking in on each other. Whenever possible, Barton had done what she could to help Miller out with his investigations, even had gone as far several times as to get him copies of police files—statements, police reports, coroner’s reports—when he had needed them.

  She looked at him now, was at last ready for the one question that mattered to be answered.

  “Why are we back here, Tommy?” she said. “What’s going on?”

  He took one more look around, quick but thorough, then looked at her and said, “I had a little meeting with Roffman.”

  “When?”

  “Just a little while ago. He sent Spadaro to pick me up.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Two bodies were found at the canal tonight.”

  “Yeah, I heard.”

  “How?”

  “The cabbie mentioned it.”

  Miller thought about that, then continued. “The victims were two males in their early twenties. They were hanged from the bridge. Their hands had been hacked off.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you mean by hanged exactly?”

  “Just that. Hanged, by their necks. Like an execution.”

  “Did you see them?”

  “No. I mean, not hanging. The cops had them down by the time I got there.”

  “You went to the canal?”

  “Spadaro took me there. Walked me right in. That’s where the chief was.”

  Confused, Barton shook her head. “Wait. Roffman had you meet him at the scene?”

  Miller nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Jesus,” she muttered.

  “I know.”

  She waited a moment. “Who were they? The victims?”

  “One is named Michaels. He has one arrest for auto theft. The other is Romano. No record. Both are from up around Albany.”

  “I don’t understand what any of this has to do with you.”

  “Roffman found one of my business cards in the wallet belonging to the car thief.”

  “Michaels.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “No.”

  “So how’d your card get there?”

  “That’s what the chief wanted to know. It’s an old card. Four years old, actually. I didn’t give out a lot of them back then. Basically only to clients—people I had worked for already—and a few friends. Any one of them could have given it to Michaels, I suppose.”

  “And you saw the card?”

  “Yeah. Roffman had it in a Baggie.”

  “He showed it to you?”

  “Yeah. According to him, it was the only business card Michaels had in his wallet. He found it significant that the only business card some kid would have in his wallet is one of mine.”

  “But that’s the thing, though, you know.”

  “What?”

  “ ‘According to Roffman.’ I mean, I don’t have to tell you how unusual it is for him to come out to a crime scene. And to have you brought there. This is just so strange.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Who was the detective in charge?”

  “Mancini was there, but it looked to me like Roffman had taken charge.”

  “I’m not sure I like this, Tommy.”

  “You think Roffman could have planted my business card in Michaels’s wallet?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Why, though?”

  Barton shrugged. “Pick a reason.”

  “But how would he get one of my old cards?”

  “From one of your clients. Or one of your friends, even. The same way, supposedly, this Michaels guy was supposed to have gotten it.”

  “But I don’t do this anymore, Roffman knows that. What would he gain by trying to trick me into getting involved in this?”

  “Maybe it’s more than trying to get you involved. Maybe he’s trying to set you up.”

  “Why now, though? Why this?”

  “I don’t know, Tommy. One thing is for sure, though. Roffman wouldn’t be doing whatever the hell it is he’s doing if he didn’t stand to gain something from it. It’s not like you were going to read in the paper that some dead guy had your business card in his wallet and then put yourself in the middle of this. He wanted you to know, went out of his way to tell you.”

  Miller thought about that, said nothing.

  “What else did he say, Tommy?”

  “He offered me amnesty. In case I needed to, as he put it, cross the line. For the next day I more or less have free rein.”

  Barton had suddenly heard enough, felt a rush of powerful emotions: fear and deep concern for Miller, but also anger and resentment toward Roffman, for what he was doing now, for what he had done in the past, had done to her. She hadn’t experienced feelings like this in a long, long time, not since the day her doctor had taken one look at her and handed her a prescription for her blessed Lexapro.

  She took in a breath, calmed herself, then let the breath out.

  “Roffman’s desperate,” she warned. “Something has him scared.”

  “It’s a little hard to imagine someone like Roffman scared.”

  “I don’t know, Tommy, if you ask me, I think men in power are the ones out of all of us who are the most afraid. It’s an awful big thing to lose, you know. Power. Everybody wants it, and when you have it, everyone around you is looking for ways to take it away from you, to grab it for themselves.”

  Miller looked at her for a moment, saying nothing. She wondered if he was thinking of his father. Roffman had been brought in all those years ago to turn things around, put an end to all the corruption, make things right again. How long, Barton wondered, till he had made his first back-room deal? How long had he held out? What was it that had finally turned him a
round? She gave Miller credit, always had, for not becoming like his father, but more than that, for standing up against the man who had been appointed to replace his father, only to become exactly what Miller’s father had been. Most men didn’t have the sense to avoid the traps fate put in front of them, didn’t have what it took to beat the odds. Miller had done that, at a terrible cost to him, yes, but really what in this life came cheap?

  Miller glanced once more in the direction of the road. He couldn’t see it, could barely see halfway across the lot. Barton sensed that the nervousness he had come with had increased. More than before, more than ever, the last thing he wanted, for her sake, was for someone to see them together.

  Always concerned about the right thing. Noble to a fault. But she could hardly blame him. It wasn’t like she didn’t run to extremes as well, so she could live with herself and the things she had done. Once she had been a cop, sworn to keep order. Now she sold booze, the cause—the legal cause, at least—of most disorderly conduct. Once she had been a woman in love with a man. Now she couldn’t remember the last time she had touched or been touched, couldn’t for the life of her imagine the next time she would.

  “Listen, I know I haven’t been . . . available that much lately,” Miller said. “And then suddenly I show up out of nowhere, asking for help.”

  “My phone works both ways, Tommy. I haven’t called you either.”

  “I think of it, all the time. You know? I just don’t ever seem to get around to it. Something holds me back, the next thing I know it’s too late to call, that kind of thing.”