“Christ, Jackie. Quit the theatrics.”
She jumped out of her chair and shoved herself into me, her face crammed up next to mine. It was the second time in recent memory that a good-looking woman did that. Jackie didn’t smell as nice as Amanda. She did, however, yell as loudly.
“You think you’ve had trouble in your life, Sam? You don’t know trouble. This is trouble. Trouble that can get you locked away for the rest of your life, good as dead. I knew you were going to make this difficult. Like it’s all up to you to decide every goddamned thing. You’re such a fucking …”
I put my hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her back from my face. Then I kissed her on the forehead.
“I’m glad you’re my lawyer, Jackie,” I said to her. “I knew I’d need you some day. That’s why I gave you that buck. A big investment for me. I’m completely in your hands, and I’ll do anything you want me to do.”
She continued to fume, more out of suspicion than anger. Now that I had her face far enough away to get in focus, I was even more impressed with her plastic surgery. I’d seen that same face seconds after it had been ripped apart, so I felt entitled to savor the outcome. Even when she was yelling at me.
“Okay,” she said, slowly, “first tell me you didn’t do it.”
I heard myself snort.
“Impeach my moral credibility, but don’t insult my intelligence.”
“Why am I doing that?”
I let her go and dropped back into my reading chair next to the woodstove.
“I could care less about Robbie Milhouser. Of all the people I might want to knock off, he wouldn’t even be on the list. And if for some crazy reason that changed, I wouldn’t smash him over the head with one of my own tools. And even if that happened, through some inexplicable circumstance, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to just heave it out onto the beach. Come on, Jackie, you know that.”
“So, you’re proposing the intellectual arrogance defense. Excellent. Juries love that. Even more than judges.”
“The point isn’t arrogance. It’s ridiculousness.”
“For a smart guy, you don’t know much about criminal law. All that matters is the physical evidence, and the witnesses, and whatever past behavior is admissible. And determined cops and prosecutors, which you have aplenty in this case. It’s way not enough to just say, ‘Hell, if I was going to kill that guy I’d have been a lot smarter about how I did it.’”
“Have some more wine. It’s a sin to cork a bottle that good.”
She huffed her way into the kitchen, giving me a moment to think without distractions.
“Let’s back up,” I said, when she came back with a full glass. “Let’s assume they prove with the bar code that the stapler was sold to me. It probably was, since I bought one that looked like it when I was doing my addition. That’s why it has my fingerprints on it. And why I can’t find the one I bought.”
“You looked?”
“The day I saw Sullivan carrying it around in an evidence bag. He asked me if it looked familiar, which it did. It wasn’t in the toolbox in my trunk, or in my shed, or my shop, the only three places it would normally be.”
“All normally locked up?” she asked.
“Normally, but not always. And I don’t keep close track of a tool like that. Hardly ever use it. Could have lost it anytime between now and last fall.”
“Yours were the only prints on it.”
“Really. Interesting.”
“Especially to the DA. That and the footprints.”
“Of course there were footprints. I was over there. Lots of times.”
She made another sound of exasperation, like the deflating of a big balloon. I interrupted whatever she was about to say.
“That big idiot’s job was right on my jogging route. I watched the whole sorry spectacle. Occasionally I’d run up there after the crews were gone to get a closer look. Never once did I bring along a hammer stapler.”
“We’ll mark that down with ‘I’m too smart to get caught.’”
“Too smart to do it in the first place. Important distinction.”
“What else did you tell Ross?” she asked me, suddenly concerned.
“I didn’t tell him anything. He wasn’t exactly interrogating me. I don’t know what he was doing. Some weird version of cat and mouse.”
“Don’t underestimate Ross Semple. That wackadoodle act is at least fifty percent that. An act.”
“I never underestimate English majors. The allusions alone are enough to bring you to your knees.”
She pointed her finger at me, which she’d been doing a lot lately.
“I said this was serious.”
“No, it’s not. It’s kindergarten. It’s reductio ad absurdum. None of it matters,” I said.
“Don’t get all nihilistic on me.”
“That’s not what I mean. What matters isn’t all this ludicrous evidence. It’s that it exists at all. And that everything points right at me. That’s the staggering significance of the whole thing.”
“Why so staggering?”
“Because I didn’t do it.”
She started to point at me again, then thought better of it. “I was an English major, too,” she said. “But I can’t allude for shit.”
“New rules. No jokes, no poetry.”
After that I avoided the topic at hand so hard I tired her out. The expensive pinot helped. Jackie always was a cheap date. Either way, I got her out of my house without pissing her off or turning her sentimental, always a delicate balance.
She told me it was crucial to get an arraignment in the early afternoon. So I had to be dressed and in a civil mood by six-thirty the next morning so we could go over to Hampton Bays and get me properly entered into the criminal justice system, or in my case, renew an old acquaintance.
So I dressed as promised. In a suit and tie, for good measure. The civility of my mood was the greater question. Especially if you accepted Jackie’s rendition of the subsequent proceedings.
SIX
“I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE that fucking Veckstrom. And you,” said Jackie, swatting my shoulder with the back of her hand. “You do know he’s one of the people officially in charge of ruining your life?”
I didn’t answer right away, which failed to shut her up, more the pity. I was trying to avoid all conversation until I got a cigarette lit and a decent cup of coffee from the diner down on Montauk Highway. I’d been at the Hampton Bays Police HQ on several occasions, but remembered it to be longer on amenities. This gave weight to the theory that murder suspects receive a different standard of hospitality than casual drop-ins.
When we walked into the squad room that morning, composed in our shroud of surrender, Jackie stopped suddenly, grabbed my arm and pulled me back.
“That’s Lionel Veckstrom,” she hissed in my ear. “He’s assigned to your case. You
Veckstrom was a slender, pretty-faced guy deeper into his forties than the dye in his hair would want you to think. He stood at the door of Ross’s office with his shoulders sloped forward, sculpting a shell where his chest should have been. As we approached, I had an urge to grip him by the neck and straighten out his posture, though Ross would have likely shot me before my hand could wrinkle the guy’s suit jacket. A very expensive jacket with a perfectly coordinated handkerchief and tie. His glasses were the thinnest horn-rims I’d ever seen. When he talked to Ross he waved a ballpoint pen made of burled wood that he gripped like a pointer. I noticed his nails were more nicely manicured than Amanda’s.
“We’re here on a voluntary basis,” said Jackie as we closed in. “No interrogation. Just the usual print ’em, shoot ’em, plead ’em and release ’em.”
“I like the shoot ’em part,” said Veckstrom, offering Jackie his hand.
