“That’s why. To cool him off.”
“You claim to have done this to save Robbie from getting hurt. Smashing a man’s head into the front of a parked truck doesn’t sound exactly benevolent.”
“Even at my age, you wouldn’t want me to hit you hard enough to drop you to the pavement.”
“Then why did you lie to the police?”
“I didn’t lie. Robbie told her he fell.”
“And you didn’t correct a false statement. You lied by omission.”
“I guess we all did.”
“Including Tommy,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“He didn’t tell Judy Rensler anything at the scene. But he told me Robbie fell trying to land a punch. That you just stepped out of his way.”
“He might’ve thought that. He was down the sidewalk. A tree and Robbie’s meatballs were between us.”
“And he said you decked one of Robbie’s friends.”
“Didn’t deck him. Just settled him down before things got out of hand. He backed off when Judy arrived.”
“Doesn’t matter. If anyone testifies to what really happened it’ll prove you lie to cops, and that there was some version of a fight between you and Milhouser. That’s all the ADA needs.”
“To do what?”
“To prove there was bad blood between you and the deceased.”
“Just a dumb thing that happened one night. There was nothing else there.”
“What kind of dumb thing?” she asked.
“I told you already.”
“Let’s try it again. This time with every detail perfectly recalled.”
I took a deep breath and a big gulp of coffee.
“What are the smoking rules in here?” I asked.
“No dope before sundown.”
I offered and she accepted one of my Camels. I worked on my recall while I lit both cigarettes and watched her write some notes on the legal pad.
“I admit I was mostly distracted by my date, the best looking woman in the restaurant,” I began.
“Sounds more like ego than id.”
“Plenty of both,” I said.
From there I told her almost everything about that night, except for a few things I didn’t feel like throwing into the story. A couple of innocent omissions.
“So Amanda wasn’t that upset about Robbie and his friend trying to elbow into your dinner.”
“She didn’t like it, but she handled it.”
“So you’re the one who told them to get lost?” she asked.
“Using all my diplomatic skills, which are legion. Ask anyone.”
“What did you tell them?”
“To go fuck themselves.”
“Excellent. Save that for the jury. It’ll spice up the testimony. Did it have the desired effect?” she asked.
“Not right away, but they left. And we went back to our dinners, and I thought that would be the end of it.”
“So Amanda had no interest in Robbie’s business proposition?”
“No reason to. With everything she’s sitting on, she could buy and sell Robbie and every other builder in town a few times over. He’d be the last one she’d want to deal with.”
“What are you, next to last?”
“I’m just a carpenter, not a builder. And I didn’t want to work on her stuff, anyway. Bad for the relationship.”
“You didn’t, or she didn’t want you to?”
“Okay, neither one of us wanted me to,” I said.
“So Milhouser wasn’t just a rude intruder on your night out. He was a rival of sorts. A potential business partner for your girlfriend, filling a role you either wouldn’t, or couldn’t, fill yourself.”
“She had zero interest in working with Robbie Milhouser.”
“But you were the one who told him to get lost.”
“That’s right.”
“Then why did Tommy lie about that, too?”
“He did?”
She lifted up the pad and looked inside a stapled document.
“I have his whole statement. He said Amanda told Robbie and Patrick Getty to get lost.”
“Might’ve been that way. Middle-aged memory and all that. Didn’t know Getty was Patrick’s last name. Or else I forgot it.”
“He also said it was Amanda.”
“He’s also younger than me. Hit on the head less often.”
“Much less. Which is a real worry for you,” she said.
“That’s what everyone seems to think.”
“Which made Robbie a real threat.”
“Not Robbie. Patrick Getty and his buds. And they’re all still alive, at least as of last night.”
I told her about what happened at the Pequot. I kept to the same story I told Will Ervin, for consistency’s sake. I didn’t want another scolding about sins of omission, or get her any more worked up than she already was.
“When were you planning to tell me?” she asked, leaning half out of her chair.
“As soon as you stopped grilling me.”
“You think this is grilling. Just wait,” she said. “If you live that long.”
“Ervin will tell Sullivan, Sullivan will spread the word around the force. There’ll be too many eyes on them to try anything now.”
“I thought you said he was a threat?”
“Less now,” I told her.
“To you or Amanda?”
“He was never a threat to her.”
“Really? Tommy seemed to think so.”
“I like Tommy, but that guy oughta stop the speculation.”
“He said Patrick never took his eyes off her.”
“You could say that about half the guys at the bar. Like I said, she wasn’t threatened and she didn’t want a business partner.”
“Maybe she will now,” said Jackie, as she sunk back into the leather club chair and put her feet on the cushion.
“Why’s that?”
“She might. Given the circumstances.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You don’t know?”
“What?”
“The State had the inspector put a stay on her whole development project. Don’t know why. I heard about it yesterday when I was over at the Town building. It just came in. I called you, but you weren’t home and you don’t have an answering machine, which is unbelievable.”
“I don’t get it.”
“The inspector, Glen McDaniel, wouldn’t give me any more than that. ‘None of your damn business, cutie,’ was the elegant way he put it.”
