sister?” I asked, and she nodded. “How was Brooklyn?”
She shrugged. “Far. I’m looking at some places in TriBeCa tomorrow.”
“No rush,” I said, and Clare nodded again.
Jamie Coyle called after dinner. I recognized the soft voice immediately, though his reason for calling took me by surprise.
“I wanted to say thanks,” he said.
“For what?”
“I been reading the papers, and reading between the lines, and it seems like that asshole would never have got his if not for you.”
“I got lucky,” I said. “The cops would’ve found him eventuallythey just wasted time looking in the wrong place. I did too, for that matter.”
Coyle snorted. “You were the guy working at it, though. So, thanks.”
“And to you too, for the information. Without it-”
“Yeah, whatever,” Coyle grunted.
“What are you doing now?” I asked.
“Nobody’s looking for me for anything, so I’m back working for Kenny- but I’m not sure how long. A guy I know out in Vegas tells me there’s work there, and I can crash on his couch. I’m just waiting for the service…for Holly. She had a cousin down in Virginia that’s arranging it. I spoke to her yesterday.”
I glanced at the table, at the disk I’d made before I’d erased Holly’s backups: her hidden-camera interviews with Coyle. “I have something you might want- a keepsake.” He asked what it was and I told him. He was quiet for a while.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “All I do is think about her. I get angry sometimes, and I get this pain…in my chest. It feels like someone carved me out with a spoon. I don’t know if I can listen to her voice.”
I thought of the hollow in my own chest, still there after five years, and of the gasping, suffocating feeling that still took me by surprise. I wasn’t going to tell him it would pass. “You might want it later,” I said.
“Send it, then,” Coyle said quietly. I mailed the disk that night.
On Friday, there were two more Mermaid stories in the tabloids, both featuring a come-hither headshot of Holly that someone had dug up from somewhere. One piece, relying on a leak from the coroner’s office, revealed that Holly had been beaten before she died, and that she had been pregnant. The other aired rumors that her sex tape costars had included some of the city’s more prominent real estate and financial types. No names were named, but it no doubt made a lot of people nervous.
I’d just finished reading the articles, and Clare had just left for TriBeCa, when my intercom sounded. Stephanie’s face appeared on the screen, with David fidgeting behind her. I buzzed them up.
Stephanie wore a sweater and yoga pants, and she carried a shear-ling coat on her arm. She was expertly made up, and her dark hair was tied loosely with a velvet ribbon. David was pale and freshly barbered, and he paced by the door with the naked, skittish look of a newly shorn sheep. A newly shorn sheep looking for a drink.
“We’re on our way to the airport,” Stephanie said. Her voice was tight. “We’re going away for a while.”
“Ned told me.”
David scowled and stared at me. “Ned told you what?”
“Only that you were taking a leave. It sounded like a good idea.”
“Swell,” David said, and tugged on a patch of skin over his Adam’s apple.
Stephanie colored and shook her head. She extended a nervous hand and squeezed my arm. “We wanted to say goodbye, and we wanted to thank you.” I nodded at her, and we managed a clumsy exchange of smiles.
Stephanie looked at David. He frowned and jammed his hands in his pockets. His eyes were on the floor. “Yeah, thanks,” he said, and a muscle twitched on his jaw. Stephanie pursed her lips.
“Where are you headed?” I asked.
“Vail for a few weeks, and then the islands.”
“Sounds nice.”
David snorted. “We wouldn’t be going anywhere if-”
Stephanie’s hand shot out and wrapped around David’s wrist. Her fingers were white and her nails were sharp, and David jerked his hand away as if from a flame. He glared at her, but when he spoke his voice was low and tired. “I’ll be in the car,” he said, and walked out.
Stephanie shook her head and sighed. “He doesn’t mean anything. He’s still upset over all this- in some sort of shock.”
“He should talk to someone, Stephanie. He needs help.”
She colored again, and her face stiffened. She nodded, too fast. “And he’ll get it. Some time off, a change of scene, a little fresh air and exercise- this trip will really help him.”
I shook my head. “He needs more than a trip.”
“And he’ll get it, John, don’t worry. David will be fine.”
“And what about you?”
Stephanie frowned and looked at her hands. They were perfectly manicured, the nails like pink pearls. “Me? I’m a little on edge still, but some skiing and a seaweed wrap and I’ll be A-okay.” She looked up at me, and her eyes were huge and shining. She squeezed my arm again. “Don’t worry about us, John, we’ll be fine. Even keel again in no time.”
I started to say something and stopped, and Stephanie looked relieved. And then she was gone- a nervous laugh, a brittle smile, and quick steps out the door. I went to the windows and looked down and saw David, standing near a black Town Car. In a moment, Stephanie appeared. She came up beside him, and put a hand on his back. His head inclined toward hers and his arm circled her waist, and they stood together for a moment. Then they got into the car, and the car pulled away. I watched it round the corner and I heard Jamie Coyle’s voice again. “Everybody does their own time.”
Epilogue
In March, Clare found a place to live. It wasn’t in Manhattan, and it wasn’t in Brooklyn. It was a Craftsman bungalow on Rose Street, in North Berkeley. She sat cross-legged on the sofa when she told me, and she put her hand on my cheek.
“If I stayed in New York, I’d end up staying with you,” she said.
“And that would be a bad thing?”
She shook her head. “Not a bad thing, honey, but an easy one. It’s comfortable, and companionable, and we have a lot of fun- and, Christ, you give me all the space in the known universe. Hanging out with you is the simplest thing in the world. It’s like being back in college, the path of least resistance. But I’ve gone down that path already, and it’s not what I’m looking for anymore.”
“What are you looking for? And how do you know-”
“I want kids, John,” she said, and there was humming silence afterward. She let it hum for a while, and then she smiled. “I’m thirty-five years old, and I want to have a baby. And I want it to be with someone who wants to raise children, who’s ready for that.” I started to speak and she put a hand to my mouth. “That’s not you, John- not now.”
I held her hands and sat there until the room was dark around us, but I couldn’t tell her otherwise.
I saw Leo McCue again in April, two weeks after Clare moved, and two days after Gene Werner’s body was found under the Williamsburg Bridge. McCue was fatter than ever, and his mustache was badly overgrown. He pushed a paper coffee cup across the interrogation table to me.
“Hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?” he said. “Him under the bridge, not a hundred yards from where we
