‘That’s a terrifying thought.’
I stole a glance around the room in which we stood. A stack of magazines threatened to slide off the coffee table — The New Yorker, Cosmo, People. Beside them were three copies of The New York Times, still in their blue plastic bags — where they would stay until the Danziger case was resolved, no doubt. An open can of Diet Coke. A Nintendo game. A Miro poster above the nonworking fireplace. In the corner were Charlie’s hockey bag and two sticks. A comfortable, familial clutter.
‘I don’t usually talk about work here,’ Caroline informed me. ‘This is Charlie’s time and his place.’
‘Sorry. I had a thought. I didn’t know who else to ask.’
She eyed the folder in my hand. ‘Have you had supper, Ben?’ When I hesitated, she said, ‘Come on,’ and led me to the kitchen. As I followed, her hand sought out the tail of her shirt and selfconsciously adjusted it over her rump.
There was a small round table in the kitchen with places set for two. Caroline called to Charlie to set another place.
‘Are you sure there’s enough, Caroline? I didn’t mean to impose.’
She showed me a baking dish lined with eight chicken breasts.
‘All for you two?’
Charlie shuffled into the room in stocking feet to explain. ‘She makes too much so we can keep eating it all week.’
Caroline waved the spatula at him in a menacing way and turned back to her cooking.
The kid shared a little smirk with me. He liked Caroline’s cooking even if it meant a week’s worth of chicken. I smirked back to let him know I understood that.
‘Sit down, boys,’ Caroline ordered.
I sat opposite Charlie while Caroline filled the plates over the stove. ‘Rice?’ she asked, ‘salad?’ There was something oddly moving about the whole exercise. A suggestion of intimacy, of caregiving. ‘What will you drink? I have milk, apple juice, Cran-apple, orange juice, water, beer — no, sorry, I don’t have beer. I have some wine. Do you drink wine?’ I told her I did, and Caroline searched around for the bottle. She gave it to me to open.
‘I’ll have wine,’ Charlie said.
‘You’ll have milk.’
Dinner passed quickly. I complimented Caroline on the chicken, which gave her an opportunity to needle Charlie. ‘See? Some people like my chicken.’ For the most part, though, Charlie and I spoke while Caroline listened. An amused smile — a sort of half Elvis — played at the corners of her mouth as her son held forth on a variety of topics. She spoke only to correct his manners. (’The Bruins suck!’ ‘Don’t say suck, Charlie.’) Hockey and movies seemed to be the twin passions of Charlie’s life. Without much prodding he would recite the latest comedy film verbatim from start to finish, mimicking all the voices. He was going to spend Thanksgiving with his father, and Christmas and New Year’s with his mother. He hated everything about school, and the sum of his knowledge about the Great State of Maine was that it was located somewhere between Greenland and the polar ice cap. Or so he told me, with an Elvis smile of his own. Throughout the conversation, my eyes sneaked over to Caroline. The simple fact of Charlie’s presence seemed to soften her. Not her manner so much; she could still be stern with Charlie and prickly with me. No, the change was more physical. It was a relaxation around the eyes and mouth — the slightest, barely perceptible gentling of her features — which transformed a merely attractive woman into one who was very nearly beautiful. No doubt it is a sign of advancing age when a man finds that motherhood flatters a woman, but there it was.
After supper, Charlie dutifully cleared his plate and put it by the sink, then he disappeared to watch TV — tactfully, I thought. Caroline moved to the sink to do the dishes, which I placed in the dishwasher or dried.
‘So,’ she said as she washed, ‘what was it that was so important?’
‘I think Danziger was reopening the Trudell case.’
To my disappointment, Caroline did not seem impressed. She did not even look up from the dishes. ‘Why? Because he had the file? I have files that are older than Charlie. It doesn’t mean anything, except maybe that it’s a case you don’t want to let go.’
‘Exactly Maybe Danziger couldn’t let it go.’
‘Too late. That case was dismissed — what, ten years ago?’
‘About. But jeopardy never attached. The judge threw the case out before it got to trial. So there was no legal reason why Danziger couldn’t reopen it.’
‘My, my, “jeopardy never attached.”’
‘Isn’t that how you say it?’
‘That’s how you say it. Have you been moonlighting as a lawyer?’
‘No, but we can read up in Maine, you know.’
‘Whole books?’
‘Shoor, if they ain’t too long.’
She smiled carefully and handed me the baking dish to dry.
‘I’m right, aren’t I? Jeopardy never attached.’
‘Yes. But even if you’re right, even if Danziger did want to reopen the Trudell case, there’s still no evidence. There’s no proof that Braxton shot Trudell. None. All the evidence got thrown out along with the warrant. Some cop made up an informant, wasn’t that it? What was his name, Ragu?’
‘Raul.’
‘Raul. So why would Danziger reopen the case?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he’d found some new evidence.’
‘Doubtful. Look, Ben, cases go wrong all the time. Guilty guys walk. It happens, it’s part of the system. Bob Danziger knew that.’
‘Yeah, but this was different. Trudell was his friend. You can see it in that photo. Artie Trudell wasn’t just another victim to Danziger.’
‘There’s still no evidence. It’s an unprovable case.’
‘What if Danziger didn’t think so? What if he thought the case could be saved?’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know. What if Danziger thought Raul was real? If he could prove that Raul really did exist — that Vega hadn’t lied on the search warrant — then the warrant would be good and all the evidence would come back in. Braxton would finally get nailed for killing Trudell.’
‘Ben, if there really was a Raul, the cops would have produced him in the first place. They wouldn’t have let a cop killer walk just to protect an informant.’
‘Julio Vega said he looked for Raul but he couldn’t find him because Raul took off.’
‘Yeah, well, Julio Vega is a liar.’
‘Maybe Danziger didn’t think so.’
‘Maybe, but with these cases the simplest explanation is usually the right one.’
I grunted. ‘Ockham’s razor.’
She looked at me as if I’d belched.
‘It’s the rule in logic that the simplest explanation is the right one.’
She turned off the water and stared.
‘What? Hey, this isn’t a golden retriever you’re talking to. I told you, we read books in Versailles. I was even going to be a professor once.’
‘Yeah? In what?’
‘History.’
‘So what happened?’
‘My mother got sick.’
‘Sorry. Is she okay?’
‘No. She passed away. It’s a long story.’
‘I’m sorry’
‘No, really, it’s okay. She died the right way, if that’s possible.’
‘Alright. If you say so.’ She laid a wet, sympathetic hand on my arm. ‘Well, in any event, you’re not a history professor now; there’s no sense in digging up a ten-year-old case.’
