“He’s the closest thing I have to a lawyer.”
Listening to Rich and Barry giggling in the front room now, Amy wondered, not for the first time, whether Barry’s lifestyle was finally catching up with him. All the dope he had smoked, the acid and mushrooms he had tripped on. Was he finally coming unhinged? Taking a chance like this: was it a sign that his moorings were slipping, easing him out from shore into water whose colour warned of hidden depths?
Amy had fallen hard for Barry the first time she saw him on campus. He was studying fine arts; she was majoring in piano, unaware that her own immune system would one day turn on her so badly she’d barely be able to play Chopsticks, let alone Chopin. Barry had black hair straight down his back like a Native American in those days. He was lean; he could wear those skinny black stovepipe jeans without looking ridiculous, unlike Rich, whose pear- shaped body demanded something more forgiving even in his youth. Barry had enjoyed considerable acclaim as a student, winning a faculty award for works inspired by Frank Stella’s minimalism, discrete blocks of bold colours separated by thin lines Barry scraped across the canvas with his thumbnail. Then he’d gone post-modernist, influenced by Andy Warhol and his celebrity portraits, only Barry didn’t know any real celebrities, so his work lacked the connection between subject and style that Warhol exploited. Then it was on to Robert Rauschenberg’s emerging pop-art sensibility, Barry screening archival images onto canvas in jarring contexts, trying to confront society, as he then explained it, with society’s own face. And that was Barry, Amy eventually realized. Talented enough to soak up influences and talk the talk, but always riffing on someone else’s style rather than developing one of his own. He went only as far as his modest talent and even more modest work ethic could take him, and that had not been very far at all.
Amy, on the other hand, had made the most of her musical gifts, always working as hard as, if not harder than, other musicians she met in schools or competitions. It wasn’t until her last year that she could see other students pulling away from the pack and realized a concert career was not to be.
Neither Barry nor Amy wound up at the forefront of an artistic revolution, as they’d once hoped, Buffalo being several hundred miles northwest of said forefront in New York. But both found work that made good use of their skills, Barry in graphic design, Amy as a piano teacher and rehearsal accompanist for musical theatre, ballet and dance companies. They liked their jobs and lived well. They had great friends, most of whom they’d known since college. But what had it all amounted to, Amy sometimes wondered. What impression had they made on the world? They had never had children: supposedly a mutual decision but it was Barry who had never been ready, Barry who always ended the discussion, Barry who wouldn’t have unprotected sex with her unless the time was safe.
So unlike his father. Amy had adored Norman Aiken; she found in him a warmth and unconditional love she had never felt with her own parents. He loved classical music and was as knowledgeable about it as she was. He had a baby grand in the living room and often asked her to play-something Barry would never do unless it was old Beatles songs or faux-classical crap by pretentious old buggers like Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman. When Norman died and left them the house, Barry had wanted to sell it and bank the profits. Amy insisted otherwise. She was ready for a real life, a real house. Her arthritis was already evident and she wanted out of their semi on Franklin Street, with its thin walls and warped doors that let in the frigid air of winter. If they were going to live the rest of their lives together without children, she wanted a home that felt warm and safe and solid.
She heard more laughter from the den and then a swell of music, the opening chords of “Let It Be” ringing like a church bell.
“Barry?” she called. “All done.”
Footsteps clumped down the hall and Barry and Rich joined her in the kitchen. She handed Rich two plastic shopping bags. “This one is yours,” she said. “And this is for Marty. Twenty-four hundred all together.”
“A steal at twice the price!” Rich’s eyes looked bloodshot and his tongue was sticking to his mouth. Barry had obviously rolled the good stuff, the indoor weed he bought from a thin black guy named Crawford, who lived on Hampshire down by Grant.
Rich pulled a thick wad of bills out of his pocket and began thumbing hundreds and twenties into a pile. When he was done, Amy recounted it, despite the rolling of Barry’s eyes, and put it into a box of Tide she had emptied out.
They were going to need more boxes.
“Before you go, Richard, there’s something I must show you in the den,” Barry said.
Amy sighed. She knew what that meant: Let’s roll another joint. It was always time to roll another one. Goddamn Barry sometimes. Goddamn him and his appetites and impulsiveness. Goddamn the rut he’d gotten himself stuck in sometime between the Summer of Love and Woodstock. Guys his age still running out to smoke behind the garage, acting like eternal adolescents even as their bodies began to crumple and fail. The heroes of 9/11, the ones who brought down the plane in Pennsylvania: “ Let’s roll” had been their rallying cry. It was Barry’s too, the cry of a big gangly kid who once told her he smoked too much dope because he had never been breast- fed.
The doorbell rang. Amy didn’t hear Barry move to open it, even though he was at the front of the house.
“Barr?” she called. He didn’t answer. Of course he didn’t. He wouldn’t want to put off rolling his joint.
“Jesus,” Amy sighed, and left the kitchen. At the front door, she looked out the glass panel. A delivery man stood there holding an insulated vinyl pizza-warmer.
“Barry?” she called. “Did you order a pizza?”
No answer. The music in the den was louder now. Some shrill rock classic: Nazareth or AC/DC.
“Barry?”
Of course he had ordered a pizza. That’s what arrested adolescents do when they get the munchies after a toke behind Mother’s back.
She opened the door to a pleasant-looking young man with Cupid’s-bow lips and a face as round as the moon.
CHAPTER 26
Toronto: Thursday, June 29
No morning that starts off with Percocet and a stool softener bodes well for the rest of the day. But I needed both and in equal measure.
The mood at the office was sombre when I arrived. Clint’s office door was closed; shadows visible through a pebbled glass panel suggested he was meeting with at least two people. Throughout the workspace, colleagues were clustered in groups of three and four, asking one another about the investigation, funeral services, Franny’s family, which of his ex-wives would make the biggest scene, Vicki or Mireille.
Jenn and Andy were in our cube patch drinking coffee. I got a subdued welcome. Andy barely looked up and whatever he said was unintelligible. Jenn smiled weakly and nodded at a third coffee on my desk. “I brought that for you just in case.”
I thanked her and took off the lid. Wisps of steam rose briefly into the air before disappearing. I stared at Franny’s desk, at his dark computer monitor. He hated the thing. I could picture him sitting there, cursing the computer, the keyboard, the mouse, the software and the entire nerd universe that made them possible.
At nine on the dot, Clint emerged from his office. Behind him were Detective Sergeant Katherine Hollinger and the knuckle-dragging redhead, McDonough. He smirked when he saw me. Hollinger smiled. I smiled back, only it came out more like a goofy grin. I reminded myself I was on Percocet and to mind my manners.
Clint called for everyone’s attention and got it fast. “People, I’d like to introduce Detective Sergeant Hollinger and Detective McDonough. They’re leading the investigation into Franny’s death. I’ve asked them to give you an update, then we’ll talk about how you can help. Sergeant?”
Hollinger stepped forward with a black notebook in hand. “I can’t give out certain details, for reasons you people understand better than most, but here’s what we know. The deceased was found in his car on Commissioners Street, behind a warehouse owned by the Erie Storage Company. Based on evidence gathered at the scene, that is where the murder took place. Not a dump site, in other words. The deceased-”
“Franny,” someone called out behind me. “Please.” It was Darrel Mitchell, an older investigator, long divorced and one of Franny’s drinking buddies.
“I’m sorry,” Hollinger said. “Franny had multiple gunshot wounds in the head, face and neck from a smaller-
