'You're going to have to,' I said. 'Sooner or later. I know you did it. And I know you and Miller and your old man set up a guy you didn't even know named Ellis Alves to take the fall for it. And you or your father got your cousin Hunt to testify that he did it. What I don't know is why did you kill her?'
Stapleton seemed frozen in his position, looking at the ducks but seeing the abyss. No more big man on campus, no more cold beer, no more women, no more picture in the paper, no more condominium in a nice section. No more leisurely Sunday mornings with oranges and a green cockatoo. The abyss was too wide and too deep and he was in it. He stood suddenly and began to walk away from me. I didn't bother to follow him. He walked faster and then broke into a run. I watched him running away until he passed the corner of the gym and was out of sight.
I looked at the ducks. The one with the green head looked back at me with black eyes that held no expression of any kind.
'Yeah,' I said to the duck, 'I know.'
Chapter 52
SUSAN AND I were making dinner together at my place. The sublet tenant had finally departed. Pearl was demonstrating why she is known as the Wonder Dog by managing to sleep soundly while lying flat on her back on my sofa with all four paws in the air. I had bought a Jenn Air stove a couple ofyears back and it had a rotisserie unit on which I was roasting a boneless leg of lamb, which I had seasoned with olive oil and fresh rosemary. After it's seasoned and put on the spit thereisn't a great deal demanded of the guythat's cooking it, so I stood at thecounter while the roast turned slowly and watched Susan as she made beet risotto.
'I saw a woman on the Today show make this,' she said.
'And you loved it because it was such a pretty red color,' I said.
'Yes. Does this rice look opaque to you?'
I looked and said that it did. Susan ladled some broth into the rice and began to stir it carefully. While she stirred, she looked in the pot and then at the rice.
'Do you think I have to put this broth in a little at a time, the way the recipe says?'
I said that I did. She stirred some more.
'It has to all absorb before I put in more?' she said.
'When you see the bottom of the pan as you stir, add some more broth,' I said.
She nodded. The counter around the stove and the space on the stove not occupied by the risotto fixings and the roast was covered with pans and plates and dishes and cups and measuring spoons and forks and knives and a grater and two wooden spoons and a platter of grated beets and a dish of grated cheese and some onion skins and three pot holders and a crumpled paper towel and a damp sponge and her glass of barely sipped red wine and a lip- liner tube and a copy of the recipe written in Susan's pretty illegible hand on the back of a paperback copy of Civilization and Its Discontents. Susan was not a clean up as you go kind of cook.
'They always lie to you on television,' Susan said.
'I know,' I said.
'This woman never said you had to stand here for an hour and stir the damn stuff.'
'When you tear away the mask of glamour…' I said.
Susan stirred some more, studying the rice, looking for the bottom of the pan.
'Hurry up,' she said into the pan.
I thought about explaining to her how a watched pot never boils, but it might have seemed contentious to her, so I skipped it and went and looked out the front window at Marlborough Street. There was an east wind coming off the water, slowing down as it funneled through the financial district and downtown, picking up speed as it came down across the Common and the Public Garden, driving some leaves and some street litter past my building at a pretty good clip. I watched it for a while, keeping my mind on the wind, trying not to think of anything, sipping red wine.
'Look how pretty,' Susan said behind me.
I turned and left the window. The big white pot of bright red rice was in fact pretty, though had we been eating at Susan's house the pot it was in would have been pretty, too.
'Keep it warm in the oven,' I said, 'while I make the salad and then we'll eat.'
'You didn't say it was pretty.'
'The beet risotto is very pretty,' I said.
'Thank you.'
Susan set the table while I made the salad. Then we ate the lamb and risotto with a green salad and some bread from Iggy's Bakery.
'You feel sort of mad about having to sell Concord?' I said.
Susan shrugged.
'It had to be done,' she said. 'But yes, I probably resent it a little. If you were a stockbroker maybe I wouldn't have had to.'
I nodded.
'How about the baby, any new thoughts on that.'
'Yes.'
