also gave the impression of a kind of weary sorrow. Even at a distance the smile revealed dentures, and the hair revealed an unnatural henna tint, and the belly and hips revealed an iron girdle. She might have been somebody's slightly boozy maiden aunt except for a certain coarseness around the mouth, a coarseness put there (or so Brolan imagined in his somewhat moralistic way) by too much loveless sex. It was a mouth that had told and laughed at too many feeble dirty jokes for the pleasure of too many feeble johns.
'Not familiar?' the detective asked as Brolan handed the photo back.
'Afraid not.'
The detective put the photo away. 'Are you married, Mr. Brolan?'
'Divorced.'
'Lady friends?'
'I wish I could say yes. I'm afraid my lady friend and I are splitting up.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Thanks.'
'So, you don't have any idea how your cuff link could have gotten there?'
'No.'
'And you keep your cuff links where?'
'In a small leather box with some other stuff-tie bars and things like that-in a bureau drawer in my home.'
'You live alone?'
'Yes.'
'Does anybody else have access to your place?'
'By access, you mean, do they have a key?'
'Right.'
'No. I'm the only one with a key.'
'Have you had any suspicion lately that somebody might have broken in and taken things?'
'No.'
'So, you can't account for this cuff link being where we found it?'
Brolan tried a smile. 'Obviously I wish I could.' He hesitated. 'I take it, this cuff link makes me a suspect.'
'Not necessarily, Mr. Brolan. It could be a freak coincidence. Maybe somebody did break into your home recently, and you just weren't aware of it.'
'That happens?'
'Certainly. Some thieves don't call any attention to themselves. They come in and take very specific things. Jewellery, for instance. The owner may not notice that anything is missing for several days. This gives the thieves a real advantage. They're way down the road before we even know that they took anything.'
'So, this thief could have taken my cuff links and-what? Dropped them at the scene of the crime on purpose?'
'Perhaps. At this point we can't be sure. All we know is that, for some reason, one of your cuff links was found at a murder scene.'
'And somebody could have dropped it there on purpose or by accident?'
'Right.'
'And that could have been a thief. Or-me.'
'Right.'
'I wasn't there,' Brolan said. 'I wasn't there, and I don't know the woman. Never saw her before. I want to be emphatic about that.'
'I can see that, Mr. Brolan.'
'And I certainly don't want to be a suspect in a murder case.'
'Nobody does, Mr. Brolan,' the detective said. He sat up on the edge of the chair, obviously getting ready to leave. 'But if you should remember anything, I'd appreciate it if you'd contact me. I'll leave you my card.'
'Remember anything?'
The detective stood up-as did Brolan-and extended his hand. As they shook, the detective said, 'Remember anything you might have forgotten to tell me.' He stared directly into Brolan's eyes. 'Maybe later on you'll recall that you actually met the woman somewhere previously. Maybe you just didn't recognize this particular picture. That happens sometimes.'
'But I don't know her, and I'm sure of that.'
'Well,' the detective said, 'just in case anything like that does come up, please feel free to give me a call.'
He handed Brolan a small white card with very unfancy typeset information on it.
Brolan nodded and took the card and right then realized that somebody had very crudely-but very effectively- framed him for murder for a second time.
'Talk to you again, Mr. Brolan,' the detective said as he was leaving.
27
He was fourteen years old the first time he ever hurt a girl. The funny thing was, he hadn't planned on it happening at all.
Next door there was a twelve-year-old named Jessica. He'd known for a long time that she had a crush on him. She followed him everywhere and wrote him letters and was always asking him to join various neighbourhood clubs she invented. She also frequently asked him to come over when American Bandstand was on and dance the twist with him. This was in the summer of 1961. Later he would try to figure out why he did what he did, if there were some certain inspiration for doing it. But he could find none. It was a typical summer, a humid and furious green in the wealthy neighbourhood where he lived, and a pastel blue where his family had a cabin and sailed-blue water, blue skies.
There were woods two miles from his house, and sometimes he'd ride his bike over there and go hiking. He liked the woods, the secret hiding places, especially, where he could sit and watch people walk by on the trails below that ran along the edge of the river. The secret hiding places made him feel powerful, and he needed that sense particularly this summer. His parents were getting a divorce.
They'd always fought, but now there was violence. His mother had a lover. His father could not get over this fact. Several times he'd seen his father very savagely slap his mother.
Curiously, though, it was his father who always cried after such violence, never his mother. She went downstairs and had a drink of bourbon and smoked several cigarettes and stared out at the vast rolling lawn kept in shape by a coloured man none of them quite trusted. His father always disintegrated, going into the den and sobbing, the way a boy would sob. He always wanted to go in and put his arm around his father, but he couldn't because his mother would get angry and accuse him of taking his father's side and not hers.
Sometimes he would go downstairs and talk to his mother before she got drunk. 'You don't have to go away with that other man, Mother. You can stay here. Things can be like they were. We can be happy again, just the three of us.'
'Oh, baby,' she'd say, touching his face gently, 'baby, you're just too young to understand. But Dad loves you,' she'd say. 'Dad loves you. That's the only reason he hits you.' Then she'd smile and say, 'You've got to give Gil a chance. You'll like him once you get to know him. He played for the Vikings one year; did I ever tell you that?'
'You tell me that all the time, and I don't give a shit. I don't want to live with him!'
'Baby, you hurt me when you talk like that; you really do.'
Then he'd go upstairs and stand outside the den and listen to his father stretch out on the leather couch. Usually his father would fall asleep. It was as if he could no longer face consciousness, and he'd just tune out.
By nightfall, she'd be dressed up and gone, moving through the summer dusk in the aqua Thunderbird with the white hardtop.
