I got up from the table and walked over to the window that faced the ocean. A warm damp sea breeze was drifting in through the screens. The ocean looked docile, with only tiny breakers staggering in to shore. A good day to be on the beach. Comatose in a lounge chair, under an umbrella, mind blank, heart at rest.
I asked him what else he had, and we went through some complicated machinations the investigators had used to look for other blips in Jonathan’s behavior patterns, only to come away admiring his skill and honesty.
“Accounting involves a lot more gray area than most people would want to think. There’re conservative and aggressive ways to go about things. Jonathan was very clever, but completely honest.”
“Or would have been if he hadn’t been a complete fraud.”
“Precisely. Completely baffled the investigators.”
I went back to the table and sat down.
“There’s something else I find interesting,” said Burton, “but I’m not sure why.”
“Okay”
“Do you know how an Internet search works?”
“Not exactly.”
“It’s very useful, but somewhat random. Odd items pop up, simply because the word or words you’re searching for appear in an online database.”
“I’m already lost.”
“If you do a search on Arthur Eldridge, the brother, you’ll see he was a witness in an open court proceeding, duly recorded and logged on the court’s website. It was a bail hearing involving an Italian national.”
“Osvaldo.”
Burton looked pleased.
“That’s exactly right. I have the file at the house, but as I remember his full name is Osvaldo Allegre. At issue was a complaint that Mr. Allegre had molested a teenage girl. Arthur and Dione Eldridge were listed as witnesses, though all testimony was sealed, given the girl’s age. But you can surmise it was good enough to charge the Italian, because the judge set a trial date. Which never happened, because about a week before the trial Allegre jumped bail and disappeared. The case was referred to the INS, but that was the end of that.”
I got up again and went back over to the window. The ocean was still there, still calm. The few clouds that had been over the horizon had dissolved away.
“You find that interesting, too,” said Burton. “Or else you’ve been drinking too much coffee.”
“You can’t drink too much coffee, Burt,” I said, still looking out the window. Then I asked him, “Didn’t you once tell me, just because you think it’s true doesn’t mean it isn’t?”
“Yes. Quoted from a former law professor.”
“What if everything you think is true, isn’t? Is that the corollary? What if everything you thought was wrong?”
“At least you’d be consistent.”
I hung out with him until we finished lunch. By then the conversation had moved off Jonathan Eldridge and on to baseball. Neither one of us would watch a game on television, so we agreed on the need to go to Yankee Stadium to see for ourselves the performance capabilities of some recent trades we’d read about in the
“I’ll keep my calendar clear,” I said.
“Splendid.”
We walked out together and I dropped him off at his car, a white, early 1980s Ford Country Squire with fake wood paneling. The rear seats were folded down and the back was filled with garden tools, bags of topsoil and a tray of red and yellow chrysanthemums that Burton was apparently going to plant in some remote corner of the estate reachable only by station wagon.
“I hope I was helpful,” he said as he climbed into the car.
“You always are, Burt,” I said. “At the very least you keep me fed.”
“You seem better, in general, than you’ve been,” he said, squinting against the bright sun, “but specifically out of sorts.”
I leaned on the door panel.
“I’ve been on a program of self-improvement.”
“Has anything improved?”
“Just my appreciation for the stupidity of self-improvement programs.”
“So there you are. Progress.”
—
I waited until he was all the way off the grounds and onto Gin Lane before going back into the clubhouse to call Joe Sullivan. They’d released him from the hospital to convalesce at home, but I knew there was an odds-on chance I’d catch him at his desk at police headquarters.
“So, how’re you feeling?” I asked when he answered the phone.
“I’m breathing.”
“You working regular hours?”
“Ross said I could do half days. Still putting in a whole shift.”
“So you could leave anytime you want? You could say you felt crappy and needed to go home?”
“Is that what I’m going to do?”
“Instead of going home, meet me at my place. It’ll take me about a half-hour to get there.”
“Anything else you want to tell me?”
“Are you allowed to carry?”
“No reason why I shouldn’t,” he said, defensively.
“Bring it,” I said, then hung up on him so he wouldn’t keep asking me questions.
On the way home I drove through the parking lot behind Gabe’s office, but his Jag was gone. I went up the stairs to double-check, but the outside door was secured with a hasp and a beefy combination lock. I couldn’t see through the glazed window pane, so I left.
Probably halfway to Argentina by now.
I stopped at the corner place to get some hazelnut coffee to counteract the two Absoluts I’d had with Burton. The shop was full as it always was that time of year with graceful young women in translucent sarongs and distracted-looking middle-aged couples fresh off the beach, eating a late lunch or scanning the real-estate flyers for hopes and dreams. It took me a while to get to the counter.
The tiny Central American lady who’d been serving me for over five years asked how I was doing. A first. I guess she was feeling a little homesick for the off season. I answered her in Spanish which made her perk up even more. I apologized for my lousy grammar. She said I spoke like they did in Madrid, only not as well.
“It is,” I agreed, “and that’s what I’m going to do.”
—
Joe and Eddie were waiting for me out in the Adirondacks when I got to the cottage. Sullivan was drinking one of my beers in more or less the same position I’d found him in the last time, only less bloody and apparently wide awake.
I stopped in the kitchen to get a beer of my own. Leaning against the screen door was an envelope from an overnight delivery service. I brought it out with me to the Adirondacks.
“I didn’t know they delivered all the way out here,” said Sullivan, nodding at the envelope.
“Yeah. Causes quite a stir in the neighborhood.”
I pulled out a stack of papers with a postcard on top.
Your lawyer is sweet. How did that happen? What’s up with this stuff? You owe me big time. I’m cashing in next week. Tell Eddie to get the hell off my pillow.
Jackie’s search had produced more material than I needed, so I had to shuffle through a lot of extraneous paper until I found what I was looking for.
“What’s all that?” Sullivan finally asked, his patience wearing thin.
“Census data. They collect it in big surveys once every decade. Mandated by the Constitution.”
“So that’s why I’m over here? You gonna survey me?”
“Drink your beer and give me a minute.”
