the whole pot of coffee.
Jackie was in full mourning regalia: black leather jacket over a black cashmere sweater, black pleated miniskirt over black woolen tights, black motorcycle boots out of which poured thick-knit black socks.
“Do you think this is formal enough?” she asked.
“Not for the Hells Angels. They’ll probably be there.”
“I don’t have a lot of black.”
My daughter could’ve helped her there. That’s all she had. Claimed it saved on laundry bills, but I knew it meant fewer decisions to make in the morning.
The day was fresh and clean. The sunlight hard and clear. We were in Amanda’s red pickup with the windows down so we could smoke without smelling up the upholstery. The soft air, blessedly dry, swirled around and created a pleasant side benefit: the resulting noise gave me an excuse to avoid anything so complicated as an explanation.
“But you’re going to tell me when we get on the ferry,” she said.
“Definitely.”
As it turned out a swarm of motorcycles was unloading from the ferry when we got there. I told Jackie to slide down in her seat.
“You can’t have her,” I said, as they roared by. “She’s mine.”
The sun reflecting off Long Island Sound as we crossed was nearly blinding, but we stayed topside, leeward of the hard breeze and secure in a pair of white plastic chairs.
“So,” said Jackie.
“So it’s quite a day.”
“Come on.”
“When I was a troubleshooter in the oil refineries I liked it when things didn’t make sense.”
“Typically perverse.”
“That meant I didn’t need to waste my time with the obvious. That I could focus everything on the unlikely, the unanticipated.”
“So what doesn’t make sense about Iku Kinjo’s murder?”
“It’s obvious.”
She swatted my shoulder.
“Come on.”
“Sometimes Occam’s razor needs to stay in the drawer.”
The look she gave me complimented her outfit.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” she said. “I knew you wouldn’t tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell you that you don’t already know. Only a few figments of my imagination.”
“Criminy,” she said, and let it drop.
I celebrated by getting us both coffee and spending the rest of the trip describing the potent currents of Long Island Sound, how they flowed like a bastard to the east for a while, then switched and flowed like a bastard to the west, making sailing a complex triangulation between wind, tide and expectations. And fishing an adventure in riding the chop above the shoals. She acted like she didn’t care, but I knew she was paying attention. Among Jackie’s more reliable afflictions was an uncontrollable interest in arcana. A sucker for a good fish story.
I hadn’t seen Bridgeport in almost ten years, and it looked a lot better than I remembered, especially around the harbor where the ferry pulled in. At the time, I was fresh out of Con Globe and fully invested in Jack Daniels, so the details were a little fuzzy, though I remember the lifestyle offered a marked contrast to the one immediately prior. I wondered how my associates in the inner city had fared after that thing with the dead guy and the shotgun.
To get to Stamford from Bridgeport you had to go down the coast and up a few socioeconomic strata. It was a short trip, with one stop to let Jackie pee and me refill my mug.
“Does the heart attack tell you when you’ve had enough coffee?” she asked me.
St. John’s Episcopal Church sat on a small hill, exaggerating the impression of a towering fortress. It was built out of Connecticut brownstone and establishment presumptions. You had to park in a lot to the side and walk up the hill to the front doors. There were only three vehicles in the lot, including a panel truck pulling a lawn tractor on a trailer. One of the cars was a nondescript General Motors station wagon, the other a familiar Volvo.
I let Jackie hold on to my arm as we slogged our way up to salvation.
The priest came out the door before we were halfway there and walked down to meet us. He was startlingly young, with round frameless glasses and a smile that looked beatific, though that was probably influenced by the setting.
He held Jackie’s elbow when he shook her hand, as if to maximize the strength of the greeting, then did the same with me.
“Here for Ozzie, I hope,” he said.
“We are, Father,” said Jackie.
He nodded, obviously pleased. Then he took us each gently by the arm and guided us up the hill.
“I didn’t know him myself, but Priscilla is a regular here at St. John’s. She said she was doing this for herself and didn’t care if anyone came, but one always cares, right? Are you family?”
“Ex-coworker,” I said.
“His lawyer,” said Jackie, jerking her thumb toward me. “Here for moral support.”
“Lovely to have you,” said the priest. “Moral support is one of our specialties. By the way, I’m Hank Ortega,” he added, turning to walk backwards so he could get our names.
He looked at his watch.
“We’re actually about to start,” he said. “I was just checking for stragglers. Come meet your fellow mourners.”
The inside of the church was predictably dark, with vaulted oaken arches absorbing the meager light from the tall stained glass windows and incandescent lanterns. We walked down the center aisle past the empty pews to the last row before the altar and sat down. At the far end was a beefy, grey-haired white guy in a flannel shirt. Next to him was a woman Ozzie’s age, squat, with a fleshy face and thin blonde hair.
Sitting next to her was Bobby Dobson.
TWENTY-ONE
I WAS GETTING USED TO his look of alarm, so I just reached across Priscilla and patted his knee. This was a little alarming to Priscilla, though her attention was quickly regained by Father Ortega.
He told us he was going to read a few prayers. We were welcome to follow along in the prayer book and could either kneel or sit, depending on our preferences. I sat, Jackie kneeled, with her back straight and hands clasped in front of her like a school kid.
The prayers were nice picks. Father Ortega had them memorized and spoke the words like he really loved what they said. They made me think of Ozzie a little differently for the first time, more positively, which I guess was the idea.
Then Father Ortega sang a hymn, joined only by Jackie, who turned out to have a beautiful singing voice. It was deep in the alto range, with a hint of rasp and spot-on intonation. I was even more impressed that she read the music out of the hymnal.
After the hymn the priest closed his book and walked out from behind the little portable pulpit he’d been working from. He stood with his hands clasped in front and resting comfortably among the folds of his vestments.
“I didn’t know Ozzie,” he said, “but I heard a lot about him from Priscilla. For many years she and Ozzie enjoyed a very happy marriage, bolstered by the affection of friends and a close and loving family. And then Ozzie entered a period of grave difficulty. Like many natural achievers, success only drove Ozzie to work harder and harder. And then harder again, driving himself unmercifully, until he became untethered from those priceless human connections that give us perspective, that help us understand the true priorities in life: love of God and family, the companionship of friends and the blessings of a composed and peaceful heart. This left Ozzie vulnerable to a
