Perish Twice

by Robert B. Parker

  My first decision was about my gun. It wasn’t a big one, an S&W .38 special with a two-inch barrel, and mostly I wore it on a belt, under a coat, so I could get to it quickly. On the other hand I didn’t expect a shoot-out with Hal, and since it was a glamorous October day with the sun gleaming and the temperature around seventy, I didn’t want to wear a coat. But I had been a cop and was now a private detective, and since I had been responsible for discomfiting some mean people, I had promised myself that I would never go without a gun. So I compromised, and plopped the .38 into my handbag, along with face maintenance and a few stray bills.

  Rosie’s leash hung by the front door of my loft. When she saw me put the gun in my purse, she went immediately to the front door and stared bulletlike at her leash. I had no intention of taking her. It was hard enough to tail your own brother-in-law without bringing along a dog who, while beautiful, was, well, unusual-looking, and immediately recognizable. I would simply give her a cookie, pat her head, say bye-bye, and she’d be fine. Probably sleep on my bed much of the day. I slung my purse over my shoulder, firm in my resolve.

  All my reading of Nancy Drew had left me with no real tips on tailing your sister’s husband. Hal would recognize me the minute he saw me. My first step was to try it from a car, where maybe he wouldn’t spot me. Which was why I was idling next to a hydrant across the street from the exit of the parking garage underneath the Cone Oakes offices on State Street. One of Hal’s partner perks was a free parking slot there, and if he was cheating on Elizabeth, he’d probably have to drive somewhere to do it. I wasn’t sure he was cheating on Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s convictions on almost anything were so ill-founded that I had very little confidence in this one. On the other hand if you were married to Elizabeth, why wouldn’t you cheat on her.

  Rosie was in the passenger seat, staring out the side window, alert for the appearance of a strange dog at whom she could gargle ferociously. Sometimes my resolve is a little shaky.

  At five after twelve Hal’s silver-gray Lexus appeared in the exit slot. I had his license number from Elizabeth. He slipped his access card into the slot, the barrier rose, he drove out, and turned left onto State Street.

  It was easier than it had any right to be. With me and Rosie behind him, Hal drove out of the city on the Mass Pike, and in a half hour we were in Weston.

  “Maybe he’s just going home,” I said to Rosie.

  But he wasn’t. He turned off of the Post Road about two miles from where he and Elizabeth lived and pulled into the driveway of a big yellow colonial house. I drove on past and as I did I saw the door of the two-car garage roll up and Hal’s Lexus drive into the empty slot next to what looked in a fast glance like a green Miata. Around a bend, I U-turned and parked as far around the bend as I could and still be able to see the house.

  “If it’s a client,” I said to Rosie, “he wouldn’t have a garage door opener and he wouldn’t park in there and close the door behind him.”

  Rosie showed no sign of disagreeing. On the other hand, she showed no sign of hearing me either. She was intent at the side window. If a dog didn’t pass, maybe there’d be a squirrel and Rosie could throw herself about in the car snarling and barking and snorting.

  “I should catch them in the act,” I said. “Get a picture.”

  Rosie remained on squirrel alert.

  Hal had every reason to be a jerk. He was a rich kid, an only child of indulgent parents. He’d gone to Dartmouth and Harvard, and had become, at an early age, a partner in the city’s biggest law firm. Inexplicably, however, Hal wasn’t a jerk. I kind of liked him and had always wondered why he’d married Elizabeth.

  “No,” I said.

  Rosie looked at me, startled.

  “Not you, my little petunia,” I said. “I’m saying no to myself.”

  If Rosie could have shrugged, she would have.

  I stayed put and at about twenty to four, the garage door rolled up and Hal’s Lexus backed down the driveway and pulled away. I let him go. When he was out of sight I drove down and pulled into the driveway, cracked all the windows so Rosie would have enough air, got out, locked the car, walked to the front door. The sign on the mailbox read Simpson. I rang the bell.

  After maybe two minutes, which is a long time if you’re waiting at a front door, a woman opened the door wearing jeans and a white shirt. The tails of the shirt were hanging out. She was barefoot and without makeup. Her hair looked as if an attempt had been made at it, but not an extended one.

  “Are you Nancy Simpson?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Sunny Randall,” I said, and gave her one of my cards. “I’m a detective. I’m also Hal Reagan’s sister-in-law.”

  The woman took my card and looked at it without reading it.

  “Hal Reagan?” she said.

  “Yes. He just left.”

  “I don’t wish to talk with you anymore,” Nancy said and closed the door.

  I didn’t contest the issue.

  CHAPTER

  3

  I WAS BACK in my loft again, filling in a little of the background on my current painting, when my doorbell rang and Hal Reagan came up.

  “Sunny,” he said. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “You’ve spoken with Nancy,” I said.

  “Did you follow me out there?”

  “Yes.”

  Rosie rushed down from her place on my bed and capered about. Hal reached down to pat her, but there was no resolve in it. He was obviously thinking of other things.

  “You got a drink?” he said.

  “Of course.”

  “Bourbon—rocks.”

  I made it for him and poured myself a glass of wine. We sat at the kitchen counter.

  “She’s a client, Sunny.”

  “No, Hal, she’s not. You know it and I know it.”

  “You can’t prove she’s anything more.”

  “I can,” I said. “It is only a matter of time and persistence.”

  He drank some of his bourbon.

  “Did Elizabeth put you up to this?”

  “Yes.”

  Hal had played lacrosse at Dartmouth and still looked athletic. His hair was beginning to recede, and his short haircut made no effort to hide the fact. I liked that about him. His suit was expensive. His cologne was good. He wore a Rolex watch.

  “Why’d you speak to Nancy?” Hal said.

  “I had to establish there was a woman there. I knew when I told her who I was she’d call you and you’d come by.”

  “And she did, and I did,” Hal said. “You told Elizabeth.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?’

  “I wanted to hear what you had to say.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “If it didn’t, I wouldn’t wait to hear it,” I said.

  “You know Elizabeth,” Hal said.

  “All my life.”

  “Would you want to be married to her?”

  “No. It’s one of several reasons I didn’t marry her.”

  “And I did.”

  “And you did.”

  Hal took in some air, and let it out slowly.

  “And I was wrong,” he said.

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “And what about Nancy?”

  “Ahh,” Hal said.

  “Ahh what?”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Well, is she someone you care about?”

  “Yes.”

  “You could ask Elizabeth for a divorce.”

  “Oh God.”

  “You could move out and let your attorney serve the papers.”

  “I couldn’t do that, Sunny. We’ve been married seventeen years.”


  “Or you could follow your present course, cheat on her in her hometown, two miles from her house, until she catches you.”

  “Which I guess she has.”

  “She thinks you’re having an affair, but I’m the one who’s caught you.”

  “But you’ll tell her.”

  “I’m trying to decide that now,” I said. “What would you like me to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you like the status quo?”

  “Christ, no,” Hal said. “Why would I?”

  “It allows you to punish your wife without leaving her.”

  “You think that’s all Nancy is? A way to punish Elizabeth.”

  I shrugged.

  “I care about Nancy,” he said.

  “Not enough to leave your wife.”

  “Well I can’t just…”

  “Why not.”

  He shook his head. I waited. He shook it again.

  “It’s just such a mountain to climb,” he said.

  “Swell,” I said.

  “I guess…you should do whatever it is you would do…if Elizabeth weren’t your sister.”

  “This is what I would be doing,” I said. “One of the charms of being self-employed is you can try to do the right thing whenever you want to.”

  Hal shook his head.

  “Elizabeth couldn’t say that,” he said. “And if you said it, she wouldn’t understand you.”

  I didn’t comment. Rosie sat on the floor transfixed by the small but nevertheless real possibility that we might move from booze to food.

  “She has probably never thought about doing the right thing in her life,” Hal said. “Almost forty and still judges people by where they went to college.”

  “And quite harshly,” I said.

  “She is the queen of doesn’t-get-it.”

  “I know.”

  “She can’t like a painting unless some museum guide has told her it’s good.”

  “Hal, I know Elizabeth’s faults as well as you do. And I am ready to agree with you that they are numerous. But I don’t want to sit here while you enumerate them, okay?”

  “You don’t even like her,” Hal said.

  “That’s got nothing to do with it,” I said. “Family is family.”

  He nodded slowly, less to me than to himself.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he said.

  “Are you prepared to go back home to Elizabeth and be monogamous?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want some kind of counseling? I could ask Julie for a referral.”

  “No.”

  “Will you tell her you are leaving her?”

  “I can’t.”

  “We could tell her together,” I said.

  “How would we do that?”

  “I could call her,” I said, “ask her to come over.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Hal said.

  “Or I can simply report to Elizabeth what I have observed, and leave it to the two of you to work it out.”

  “We can’t work it out. You know what she’s like. For crissake, I don’t even love her.”

  “I have laid out all your options, Hal. Either choose one, or I’ll choose one for you.”

  “God, you’re cold,” Hal said, “like your old man.”

  “You wanted to get caught,” I said. “You got caught. Now you have to do something.”

  Rosie stood up suddenly, and moved around my chair. The tension in our voices made her nervous. I reached down and she put her front paws on the stool rung and raised up on her back legs so I could pat her reassuringly. Hal breathed in and out audibly. I waited. He breathed some more. I waited some more. He took in a lot of air and breathed it out with a kind of a snort.

  “Call her,” he said. “Have her come over.”

  CHAPTER

  4

  WHEN ELIZABETH CAME into my loft and saw Hal there, her face tightened. Rosie had, of course, gone to the door with me, and when it turned out to be Elizabeth, had, out of habit, given a desultory tail wag. Elizabeth ignored her. Rosie seemed to expect no less, and went back down to the other end of the loft and got up on my bed.

  “What’s he doing here?” Elizabeth said.

  “Visiting my sister-in-law,” Hal said. “Something wrong with that?”

  “Do you want any coffee?” I said.

  “No. What’s he doing here?”

  “I have my report to make and I thought both of you should hear it.”

  “Report?”

  “Yes. You asked me to investigate your husband. I did. I’m reporting the results.”

  “Well for God’s sake did you catch him or not?”

  I said, “Do you want to speak to that, Hal?”

  Hal’s hands were clasped on the countertop in front of him. He stared at them for a moment. Then he looked up and looked straight at Elizabeth and said, “She caught me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She caught me. She found me with another woman.”

  Elizabeth took a step backwards.

  “Who?” she said.

  “No one you know.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Elizabeth, please.”

  Elizabeth sat down suddenly on a straight chair by the kitchen table. She began to cry.

  “How could you do that to me,” she said.

  “For God’s sake, Elizabeth, it’s not just about you.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “I…”

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Elizabeth’s hands were both clenched and resting in her lap. She began to pound them slowly against her thighs.

  “Goddamn you,” she said. “Goddamn you, goddamn you, goddamn you.”

  “Elizabeth, we have to talk.”

  She was crying hard now with her head down and her eyes squeezed almost shut. She pounded the tops of her thighs steadily.

  “We have to talk,” Hal said again.

  Elizabeth shook her head.

  “Elizabeth.”

  “Get away,” she said. “Get away from me.”

  Hal was standing. He stared at her for a moment, then he shook his head.

  “Fuck this,” he said, and walked out of my loft.

  Elizabeth looked up as he walked out and closed the door, and her sobbing escalated to a wail. At the far end of the room, on my bed, Rosie licked her nose nervously. I got off the counter stool and went and sat across the table from Elizabeth. I didn’t know what to say. Elizabeth wailed some more. I wished I could feel sorrier for her. Maybe sibling rivalry runs deep. Or maybe there was something self-absorbed and annoying about her grief. I was sure that Richie and I had ended our marriage more gracefully. I waited quietly. After a while she stopped wailing and looked straight at me.

  “Well,” she said, “I suppose you love seeing your big sister humiliated.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t.”

  “What’s going to happen to me?” she said.

  “You can probably control what happens to you,” I said.

  “Control? How can I control him? How can I control what other people do.”

  “You can control how you react,” I said.

  “Don’t you goddamned lecture me, you couldn’t hang on to your husband either.”

  “I’m not sure it’s about hanging on,” I said.

  “Don’t give me that crap. You and I both know where the bucks are, you want money, you find a man.”

  I looked down the room at Rosie. Now that the wailing had stopped, Rosie was stretched out on her side with her eyes closed and her legs sticking out and the tip of her
tongue showing. I envied her.

  “Would you like to stay with me for a while?” I said.

  “With you? Here? Where would I sleep?”

  “The couch folds out,” I said.

  “The couch? Please.”

  “Just thought you might not want to be alone.”

  “That sonofabitch will not drive me out of my house,” Elizabeth said.

  I nodded.

  “Elizabeth, when Richie and I broke up I found talking to a psychiatrist very helpful.”

  Elizabeth stood up suddenly and headed for the door.

  “Well,” she said, “I’m not you, thank God.”

  It was one of the few things we agreed on.

  CHAPTER

  5

  IT WAS 11:05 in the morning, near Quincy Market. I was at the very back table in Spike’s restaurant with Spike and a woman named Mary Lou Goddard, to whom Spike had just introduced me. There was no one else in the restaurant. A lone waitress sat at a table against the far wall, drinking coffee, smoking, and reading Vogue. On the wall above her was one of the several signs that read THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING.

  “What about the waitress?” I said to Spike.

  “Only need one until noon.”

  “She’s smoking.”

  “Oh, you mean THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING? That’s just when there’re customers.”

  “What are we?”

  “Guests of the management,” Spike said. “Tell her your situation, Mary Lou.”

  Mary Lou was maybe fifty. She had short graying hair and a square face. She wore a black beret pulled down to her ears, and a black turtleneck sweater. She looked as if she had spent her life smoking Gauloises and reading Proust. And enjoying neither. She eyed me as if she wasn’t enjoying me too much.