Nocturnes

by John Connolly

  “My father died of cancer,” said Bradley.

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “He smoked a lot. Drank some too. Ate red meat, fried food, didn’t believe he was eating a real dessert unless his arteries began cracking halfway through. If cancer hadn’t taken him, there were about a dozen other candidates lined up for the job.”

  “I had a friend who died of cancer,” said Lopez. “Andy Stone. He was a detective with the state police. He didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, and ran fifty or sixty miles every week. They diagnosed him, and he was dead within a year.”

  “What was it?”

  “Pancreatic cancer.”

  Bradley winced.

  “Bad. It’s all bad, but some are worse than others.”

  “I hear a lot of stories like that. Some of them are people that I knew, or friends of friends: people contracting that shit without any apparent cause, people who ate like they were supposed to, didn’t work in risky jobs, didn’t even seem to have much stress in life. Next thing, they’re just shadows. I don’t think I can go that way. I don’t know how good I am with pain, to tell the truth. I’ve never been shot, never broken a limb, never even been in the hospital since I had my tonsils taken out as a boy. I saw the way Andy went, and I don’t think I could take that kind of suffering.”

  “Folks are strong,” said Bradley. “Like Link, I suppose. Our instinct is to fight, and to survive. It never ceases to amaze me, the reserves of strength that lie inside the most ordinary men and women. Even in the worst of suffering, there’s cause for hope, or admiration, anyway.”

  Lopez pushed his sandwich away. “This is a conversation I didn’t need to have,” he said.

  “Let’s hope it’s the last time. You should feel sorry for Stevie over there. He’s going to think his food sucks.”

  Lopez glanced over his shoulder to where Steve DiVentura stood at the register, a pencil behind his ear as he totaled his customers’ checks.

  “Maybe he’ll give us a discount if we complain.”

  “Steve? If we complain he’ll charge us extra for his time.”

  The subject of food brought Lopez’s mind back to Link Frazier, and the bar that he had once owned and that he still used to frequent, driving the new owner crazy by commenting on what he described as the “fancy” food that it now served.

  “You talk to Eddy Reed yet?” he asked.

  “No, you’re pretty much the first person I’ve told.”

  “I’ll tell Eddy. If I see anyone I think should know, I’ll spare you the trouble of telling them too. I can give you a call later, maybe let you know how things have gone.”

  Bradley looked grateful. “I guess it’s a job we share sometimes, giving people bad news about their friends and relatives.”

  “I guess. The difference is, I usually don’t have to tell people that they’re dying.”

  Bradley smiled blackly. “Yeah, I suppose most of yours already knew they were dead.”

  “Is that what they call ‘laughing in the face of death?’ ”

  “Whistling by the churchyard.”

  “Whatever works.”

  It was Bradley who stood first. “I’d better be getting back. It’s hard enough to get people to come to see a doctor in the first place. If I keep them waiting, they just go home and treat themselves with aspirin.”

  Lopez wished him luck. It was terrible about Link Frazier, just terrible. Lopez sipped at his coffee. He’d read somewhere that too much coffee was carcinogenic. It seemed like so many things these days were. He wondered what had caused Link Frazier’s cancer, or if the connection was even that simple. Maybe Link had done nothing at all, except live his life as best he could. He supposed that there was only so much you could do to protect yourself from things you couldn’t see.

  Lopez abandoned his coffee and instead bought an apple on the way out.

  Greg Bradley walked back to his office, his head down and his mind filled with thoughts of Link Frazier. He wondered what might have happened had Link come to him earlier. The doctor tried to encourage the town’s senior citizens in particular to see him for routine checkups, even if they weren’t feeling ill, but the good folk of Easton weren’t great believers in spending money unnecessarily on doctors, or on much else. It was almost funny: dentists had more or less convinced the population at large that it was important to have their teeth looked at on a regular basis, but it was near impossible to persuade those same people that they should extend that care to the rest of their bodies.

  There were already six patients waiting for him when he reached the office, a couple of them flicking listlessly through the stock of out-of-date magazines, others probably indulging in that age-old waiting room pastime of wondering just what was bothering their fellow sufferers and whether or not they should try to keep their distance from them. Lana, his receptionist, gave him a disapproving look as he walked by, discreetly tapping her wristwatch to let him know that he was already running late. He asked her to give him another five minutes, then closed the door to his office behind him and made a telephone call. Lopez, had he been there to witness it, would not have been surprised at the conversation that followed between the doctor and a man named Jason Coll who worked as a tax lawyer in Rochester, although others in the town might have been. The more open-minded among them might even have envied the fondness in Greg Bradley’s voice, and could not have failed to note the obvious consolation he derived from talking with the other man. When he at last hung up the phone, the doctor took a moment to consider, as he often did, if their relationship, and his practice, would survive if Jason moved to Easton. Perhaps it was more realistic to think about moving to Boston, but Greg didn’t want to leave the town. He belonged here, it was as simple as that. For the present, telephone calls and snatched weekends would have to suffice.

  He tapped the intercom on his desk and told Lana to send in the first patient.

  The rest of Lopez’s day was quiet, apart from a phone call from Errol wondering if the plow had to be brand-new or if they could settle for one with a reconditioned engine.

  “False economy,” Lopez told him.

  He wasn’t sure if it was false economy. He just liked the idea of a new snowplow, even if it would be someone else’s job to drive it. But on a practical level, he knew that winter took its toll on the older folks, and the last thing he needed was an ambulance stuck in drifts because a used plow had broken down.

  Lopez touched base with Lloyd when he returned to the station house. Ellie Harrison, one of the part-time cops assigned to each shift, had just arrived and was doing paperwork at the desk in the back office. She gave him a wave. He left her to it.

  Lloyd came around the counter and leaned in quietly to Lopez.

  “You hear about Link Frazier?” he asked.

  “Yeah. How did you know?”

  “I heard it from my mom. She was with Doc Bradley this afternoon.”

  Lloyd looked genuinely upset. He still lived with his mom and dad, occupying two rooms over the garage at the side of the house. He was dating Penny Clay, who worked at the drugstore and, as local gossip had it, was less than the silent type in the sack. Lopez wondered what Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins did when their son took Penny back to his place, assuming that they let him bring girls back. Could be that they were lucky enough to be going deaf, but if they weren’t already, then exposure to Penny Clay in the throes of ecstasy could well be the thing to do it. Penny was an unlikely partner for Lloyd. She was kind of full-on, and sometimes seemed to be missing a filter between her brain and her mouth, but she seemed to adore Lloyd, in her way, and Lopez hoped that she might instill a little more steel into the young man.

  If Lopez had a criticism of Lloyd Hopkins, it was that he sometimes seemed just too sensitive for his own good, but it meant that he had a way about him that Lopez lacked. When Renee Bertucci was attacked by her ex-husband a year or so back, and arrived at the station house all black and blue with her blouse torn and that glazed look in her eyes that
told you something real bad had happened back at her place, it was Lloyd who took care of her. True, Ellie was there for the tests and the swabs, but it was Lloyd upon whom Renee seemed to lean the most. He sat on a chair outside her room at the medical center for the rest of the night, until word came that Aldo Bertucci had been picked up by the Smokeys outside of Nashua, and then drove her to her mother’s the next day. In a situation as delicate as that, there weren’t many male cops who could be relied upon to do the right thing. Lloyd Hopkins didn’t even have to think about it. It just came naturally to him.

  “I think I might drive down to see him if I get a chance,” said Lloyd.

  “You give him my best.”

  “I will. You heading home?”

  “No, I’m meeting Elaine for dinner over at Reed’s. You need me for anything, the cell will be on.”

  “Big night tomorrow,” said Lloyd. “You think it will go ahead once folks hear about Link?”

  Reed’s was hosting its annual pre-Christmas fundraiser the following night. Each year, Eddy Reed handed over one night’s takings from Reed’s Bar and Grill to local charities. It was a tradition that he had inherited without complaint from Link Frazier. Pretty much everyone in town tried to make it along for part of the evening at least, and most added a couple of bucks extra to the cost of their meals and drinks to boost the pot.

  “I don’t know, but suppose we assume it will unless we hear otherwise,” said Lopez. “Everyone is on duty. We don’t want anyone taking it into his head that this might be a good night to rip off the bar.”

  Lloyd’s comment reminded Lopez that he had not yet spoken to Eddy Reed about Link. He also wondered how Link stood regarding medical insurance. He didn’t know how well off the old man was, and if the cost of proper care was going to be a problem, then maybe some, or all, of the proceeds from the charity night at Reed’s could be used for Link’s benefit. He made a mental note to ask Greg Bradley about it when next they spoke.

  Lopez showered and changed, then left Lloyd and Ellie and drove the five blocks to Reed’s in his own Bronco. There were other bars in town, but Reed’s was the only one with food that went beyond burgers and fries. The bar was about a quarter full when Lopez arrived, most folks clearly electing to wait for the following night’s festivities before spending their money. Lopez ordered a beer and took a seat at the bar. Somebody had left a newspaper, so he flicked idly through it, exchanging small talk with the patrons and Eddy himself until Elaine appeared.

  Elaine Olssen was the kind of magazine-quality Scandinavian blonde over whom Lopez used to weep tears of frustration when he was a teenager. She was easily the most beautiful woman he had ever dated: five eleven; her face always a little sallow, even in winter; her hair hanging just below shoulder length. Her eyes were a very pale blue, and her lips parted slightly in repose, creating a tiny diamond at the center of her mouth. He could see other men glance at her as she approached him, following her progress. Men always did. Most of the ones in Reed’s stopped as soon as they saw Lopez clocking them in the mirror above the bar.

  Only one man did not seem troubled by the policeman’s presence. He continued to stare at Elaine as she took her seat, then turned casually away. He was drinking soda, the remains of a piece of apple pie on the table before him. His hair was slicked back on his skull, and he wore snakeskin cowboy boots and blue denims. A straw hat lay on the table beside the plate of apple pie. There was something written on the front, but Lopez couldn’t read what it said. He considered rousting the stranger, partly out of annoyance at the way his gaze had lingered on Elaine, but also because of the feeling of unease he got when the man briefly caught his eye.

  “What’s wrong?” said Elaine, after they had kissed.

  In the mirror, she followed the direction of Lopez’s gaze.

  “Yeah, I saw him checking me out,” she said. “Creep.”

  “He does it again, I may have words with him.”

  Elaine touched her fingers to his lips. He kissed them lightly.

  “Isn’t that abusing your position?”

  “Only if I beat him up after.”

  “Oh. I never realized the law was so subtle.”

  She sat down beside him and shrugged off her coat. She was wearing a red polo neck that followed her curves in a way that made Lopez catch his breath. Almost instinctively, he shot a look at the man in the window booth. He seemed to be staring through the glass at the street beyond, but Lopez was pretty certain that Elaine was reflected in that same glass.

  She ordered a white wine while they browsed the menus.

  “How was your day?” he asked her.

  Elaine was an assistant D.A. with responsibility for communications over at the New Hampshire A.G.’s office, which made her the first point of contact between the media and the attorney general. It meant that she appeared on TV whenever the A.G.’s office was handling a big case, or when something controversial occurred that needed to be defused. Elaine Olssen was an expert at dealing with potentially explosive situations. Even the tougher male reporters tended to go a little weak when she turned the full wattage of her smile upon them, while female reporters simply tried to stay out of her way in case she made them look bad.

  “Pretty quiet for me. The rest of the office is looking to clear up as much stuff as possible before the holidays kick in. Nothing focuses the mind better than the prospect of putting someone in jail for Christmas. Gets you right in the spirit of the season. And you?”

  He finished his beer and called for another.

  “Same. Pretty dull. Errol whined about paying up for a new plow, Lloyd needs new trousers—”

  “What are you, his father?”

  “That boy just keeps growing and growing.”

  His beer came. He picked at the label.

  “And Link Frazier is real sick. Cancer. I’m sorry.”

  Elaine closed her eyes. Her house was only a mile up the road from Link’s, and he’d been kind to her when she first moved to Easton three years before.

  “Are you sure?” asked Elaine, once she had recovered herself. “I saw him just a few days ago. He didn’t look sick, and he wasn’t complaining about any pain.”

  “I met Greg Bradley this afternoon. He said it was bad. He doesn’t think Link’s going to last too long.”

  Lopez reached out for her and stroked her back. This was what Lloyd Hopkins was good at. Lopez knew that he just wasn’t in his league.

  The news cast a shadow over the rest of the evening, but still they ate, and drank, and talked. Eddy now knew about Link, and he offered to approach the family about the state of Link’s insurance and the possibility of the townsfolk making a contribution to his care if it was needed. Lopez thanked him, then walked with Elaine out to the parking lot.

  “You want to come back with me?” asked Elaine. “I’d like you to.”

  “I’d like it too.”

  She smiled and hugged him to her. Over her shoulder, he saw the man at the window watching them. He was licking his lips.

  Lopez pulled back from her.

  “Can you give me a minute?” he asked.

  “Sure. Is there something wrong?”

  He took his badge from his back pocket, his hand brushing the gun on his belt.

  “If there isn’t, there soon will be,” he said.

  Buddy Carson watched the big cop approach. He’d seen him in town, cruising around, giving the nod to just about everyone he encountered. Buddy had found out his name and his position. Lopez was a danger, and Buddy knew it. Over the years, Buddy had developed a predator’s instinct for spotting those equal to or above him on the food chain who might prove dangerous to him. Where possible, he avoided them. When there was no other option, he got rid of them. He’d never taken a cop, though. Cops were different. You killed one, and others came after you. There was a pecking order in the amount of heat a killing drew: young men, particularly ethnics, drew the least; women and children brought down much more; but killing a cop was like putting
yourself in front of a flamethrower. Still, if Buddy was to achieve what he hoped to accomplish in Easton, then something would have to be done about this one.

  The cop was heavily bundled up: only his hands and face were bare, and Buddy wasn’t sure that he would be able to find an excuse to touch him for long enough. If he pushed the cop too far he might end up in a cell, and Buddy didn’t like to think of what would happen if he were incarcerated. There was an additional risk factor involved in trying to corrupt him in the bar, when he wouldn’t have long enough to really get to work on him. Buddy had learned from experience that some people were more aware than others when they were touched by him. It was as though they actually felt themselves changing, as if they sensed the sudden distortion of themselves at the most basic of levels. They were the most dangerous, and Buddy’s practice was to destroy them utterly, to remain in contact with them until they were completely subdued. He was like a spider poisoning a wasp, pumping it with venom even as it tried to sting, because to back away before it was completely subdued would leave it vulnerable to a lethal counterattack.

  Buddy had become adept at spotting the alert ones. The nature of their work meant that cops were particularly sensitive, and for that additional reason he tried to avoid even casual encounters with them whenever possible. Something about the way Lopez carried himself told Buddy that he was good at his job, which meant that Buddy had to be especially careful.

  Other customers were watching as Lopez approached the end table. He flashed Buddy his badge.

  “You got some ID?” he asked.

  “Why, did I do something wrong, Officer?” said Buddy.

  “Sir, just show me some ID, please.”

  Buddy reached for his jacket. The cop’s hand was resting on the butt of his gun. The gun withdrew an inch from its holster, exposing the Glock’s dull frame.

  “Slowly,” said Lopez.

  “This is a tough town,” said Buddy, as he felt in his jacket pocket. “Got laws against minding your own business, laws against looking at a pretty woman. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? I looked at your woman, and you don’t like it. I’m sorry, but she’s a good-looking lady. I didn’t mean nothing by it.”