I reckoned all it would take was a little number two steel wool to rub the black paint off the edge of the door to be good as new.
I didn’t bother checking in with Frank when I got back on the job. I knew what I had to do, and he didn’t care about anything but me getting done in time for the painters.
I took another week to finish the interior and exterior trim. Then all that was left was some custom woodwork on a pair of built-in cabinets and a fancy mantelpiece designed by the architect and therefore impossible to buy from a manufacturer. I had a month to build it, and Frank was more than willing to let me do the whole thing in the shop in my basement. A joyful thing for a guy who never took vacations, and who liked to stay near home to be available for intermittent police interrogations.
FIVE
IT WAS WELL AFTER NORMAL working hours. I was in my shop about to draw out the mantelpiece on a big piece of birch ply when Jackie Swaitkowski pounded on the basement hatch. The booming sound shot Eddie out of his bed in the corner. He glowered at the hatch with a blended look of annoyance and alarm.
“Oh, you’re here,” said Jackie when I let her in.
When Jackie trotted down the hatch stairwell the ambience of the shop took a sharp turn toward the chaotic. The way she moved around left contrails, billowing clouds of Jackie.
“Sorry. What do you got to drink? Not vodka. I can’t stand vodka. Tastes like rubbing alcohol. You gotta have something else. Wine is fine. Red?”
She squatted down to scratch Eddie’s long nose. He’d already forgiven the intrusion. A task light from the workbench along the wall reflected off her huge mane of strawberry-blonde hair and cast a hard light across her face, which looked great. Like a movie star’s.
“Geez, Jackie, you look great,” I said, involuntarily.
She looked up from Eddie, partly defensive, partly pleased.
“Best face money can buy,” she said.
Jackie had been through a lot of reconstructive surgery since losing half her face in an explosion. I was there when the whole thing happened and didn’t think you could put it back together again. I hadn’t seen her since the last surgery. I was wrong.
“I told Hodges you’d come out looking better than ever.” She stood up from petting Eddie and pointed a finger at me.
“Don’t push it.”
“You’ll have to come upstairs for that wine,” I told her. “The shop’s off limits to booze.”
I escorted her to the stairwell.
“That’s a first for you.”
“Hard to maintain a respectable drinking habit without fingers or thumbs.”
When we got upstairs I helped her out of her bright yellow winter jacket. Underneath was a red and black plaid flannel shirt and baggy jeans that crumpled over the tops of furry off-white snow boots. Appropriate gear for the wild and wooded hills above Bridgehampton where she lived.
I dug an expensive pinot noir out of the liquor cabinet.
“Amanda probably wanted you to save this for a special occasion,” she said, rummaging for a corkscrew in the junk drawer. “Though tonight would qualify.”
“The only special occasion with Amanda would be seeing her again. Though special for whom, I don’t know.”
Jackie looked at me with something akin to neutrality.
“Hodges told me you were on the outs. Sorry.”
“More to the point, what’s so special about tonight?”
“Let’s sit,” she said, waving me toward the screened-in porch. “I know just the place.”
I followed her with my vodka-filled aluminum tumbler and my dog. She waited while I stoked the woodstove and got settled in.
“So?” I asked.
“You’re about to be arrested for homicide,” she said, then sat back in her chair as if that was the beginning and end of the conversation.
I took a long, deep breath, loosening my shoulders and slackening my jaw. An old trick I taught myself when I was in R&D, following similar shocks to the system.
“What a load of crap,” I said.
“Oh, it’s a load, all right. Tons and tons of it about to land on your head.”
“How do you know?”
“Ross called me to offer a volunteer surrender. No flashing lights, no cuffs, no perp walk. I just bring you in. Out of courtesy to Sullivan, not to you.”
“Why now?”
“They have all the forensics back from the labs. It’s not good. I am still your lawyer, aren’t I? Even though you’ve only paid me a buck so far and I haven’t done anything to earn it.”
Jackie held the bowl of her wine glass in two hands as if it was a steaming cup of coffee. I slid the grate on the front of the woodstove further open to stoke the flame.
“That buck was a retainer. Now the real money kicks in.”
“I’ve already talked to Burton,” she said. “He wants me to lead and let him work the back channels. And consult, of course.”
“It’s not going to get that far. I didn’t do anything.”
“Where do you want me to start?” she asked, rhetorically. “It was your stapler, with your fingerprints on it and the bar code still intact. Your footprints out on the beach directly facing where they pulled the stapler out of the dune grass. Your fistfight with Milhouser, witnessed by at least three people. Your physical appearance, as described by the witness who saw the jogger heading toward Robbie’s project the night of the homicide. To say nothing of your history of violence, criminal record and antisocial behavior.”
“You’re wrong there. I can be sociable. Ask Hodges.”
“This isn’t funny, Sam. This one’s serious.”
I brought my tumbler over to a spot in front of the big windows where I could stand to look out at the bay. It was too dark to see much of anything. There might have been a moon, but it was overcast. The lights on the other shore were little smudges, diffused by the mists that blew across the water. It was hard to believe that it would ever be warm again. That I’d be able to look out at this time of the evening and see the sun as it set, and watch the wavelets rushing off toward the northeast under the urging of the prevailing summer winds—warm, humid southwesterlies displacing the nasty bite from the north.
“Not according to Ross. Everything I say is funny to him.”
I heard her sigh, but she pressed on.
“There’s good news. In context, at least. Burton’s already agreed to post bail. Could be a million-dollar bond, maybe less if we get lucky with the judge. The prosecutor’s likely to try for remand, which your voluntary surrender will undermine. Which is why I worked it out with Ross, who doesn’t want a little homicide charge to get in the way of common courtesy. So I think I can keep you out of jail while they prepare the indictment.”
I turned toward her.
“I didn’t want Burton to do that.”
“I know. That’s why I worked it out in advance. It’s a fait accompli. My advice, as your lawyer, is to shut up and take it, and take a moment to thank God that one of the few people in the world you haven’t alienated is Burton Lewis.”
I went back to looking at the bay. Jackie kept talking.
“You still have to go in tomorrow to get processed. Early, so there’s time for them to check for priors and get your prints up to Albany and back, and still have the arraignment later in the day. If everyone stays with the plan you’ll never see any jail time and we’ll be able to hunker down on the case.”
“I’ve got stuff to do for Frank.”
“And you’ve got to help me save your damn life. Whether you think it’s worth saving or not.”
