They left and I turned to Zack. “So what’s Charlie going to be in touch about?”
Zack’s green eyes were thoughtful. “Things you don’t want to know about. Can we leave it at that?”
“Do I have an option?”
His cell rang, and Zack flashed me a mischievous smile. “Saved by the bell,” he said. As he talked, I put some eggs on to boil for lunch. After Zack ended the call, he came over and grabbed me from behind. “My lucky day,” he said. “Garth Severight is replacing Linda.”
“Garth Severight isn’t formidable?”
“He has his strengths,” Zack said. “He’s quite the orator, and he looks like Mr. Big, from
“However …?”
“However … he’s got this monster ego. He doesn’t listen, and he always knows best. Linda’s ten times the lawyer he’ll ever be, but he’ll torch her case and go in with his guns blazing.”
“He sounds like an idiot.”
“Pretty close,” Zack said equitably. “And best of all, I know how to push Garth’s buttons. Nothing I do ever fazes Linda, but Garth reacts to me. I had a professor who said that if the only tool you use is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail.”
“And Garth Severight’s only tool is a hammer?”
“Yep, and he uses it indiscriminately. No finesse, no reflection, just bang, bang, bang, bang. It makes juries edgy and it drives judges nuts. A couple of years ago, we were in front of a judge with a notoriously short fuse. I honestly thought she was going to spontaneously combust. Garth saw it too, but every time I hove into view, Garth would start in. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. He couldn’t seem to stop himself.” Zack shook his head, remembering. “Even I felt sorry for the poor fuck.”
“So you stayed out of his way?”
Zack was incredulous. “Are you kidding? I made sure I was in his face every single second.”
“You’re licking your chops,” I said.
“Sorry,” he said. “But with this case, it’s been a while. Anyway, I gotta go. Tell Pete I’ll drop the ball by. Hey, maybe you and I could go over later on today and check out his new digs.”
“And you and Charlie could get together and talk about the things I don’t want to know about.”
Zack nodded his head approvingly. “No flies on you, Ms. Kilbourn. No flies on you.”
On Monday morning, when Howard Dowhanuik took his place in the witness box, it was clear there were no flies on my beloved either. All weekend, I had fought the urge to get in touch with Howard. I had hoped that, left to his own devices, he might pick up the phone and call AA. On Sunday night, he had phoned me. He sounded sober, but he was good at that.
“Meet me for breakfast tomorrow?” he said. “I’ll buy.”
“Sure,” I said. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. I need to be distracted.”
“Hard to turn down such a gracious invitation,” I said. “Where do you want to go?”
“Humpty’s. They make a great Meatlovers Pan-Scrambler: eggs, hash browns, ground beef, bacon, and ham. The whole thing is covered in cheese sauce.”
“Does it come with a fibrillator?”
“Yes or no?”
“Yes. I’ll meet you there.”
I continued packing for the trip to Saskatoon. Zack and I were flying there as soon as court was over that day. As I zipped my best dress into a garment bag and added strappy pumps, an evening bag, and the long black slip appliqued in lilies that Zack liked, I tried to focus on the romance of staying in the lieutenant-governor’s suite with the man I loved. But all I could think of was Howard and the ordeal ahead.
Taylor was sleeping over at the Wainbergs Monday night, so I dropped her bag off at their place on the way to the restaurant. Delia Wainberg, already dressed for the office, met me at the door. She was full of questions about how I thought the trial was going, so I was late getting to Humpty’s.
Howard was sitting at a booth in the corner. He had done what he could about shaving, but the railroad track of stitches on his cheekbone had clearly defeated him. His bruise had mutated to a purplish green and it bristled with a three-day growth of hair. He looked like hell, and as he picked up his mug, it was clear he was suffering from a killer hangover. His hands were shaking so badly that the coffee slopped onto the Formica tabletop.
I pulled some napkins from the dispenser and mopped up. “You’ve got a tough morning ahead,” I said. “Herbal tea might be a better choice.”
“Strychnine would be a better choice,” he said. “But this is what I ordered. You’re not my mother.”
“And I thank God for that every day of my life,” I said. “But you’ve been a good friend, Howard. You stayed with me the night Ian died, and you were there all those months when I crawled into a hole and didn’t want to crawl back out. You drove me to the hospital the time Pete got that concussion playing football –”
Howard raised his hand in a halt gesture. “I don’t need the Life and Times crap, Jo.”
The server came to take my order and to deliver Howard’s Meatlovers’ Pan-Scrambler. After she left, Howard rested his jaw in his palm and stared at his plate.
“Come on,” I said briskly. “You’re hungover. You need to eat. Shovel in some of that health-food special in front
