My townhouse has a small deck off the master bedroom, overlooking the backyard. The year I moved in, two robins’ nests appeared right underneath the deck. I thought it was kind of neat, the birds and I sharing the same habitat, so to speak. I kept track of the progress of the eggs by getting down on my hands and knees and peering between the slats of the deck, and when the babies hatched, I felt something akin to the pride of fatherhood, although when I shared that little nugget with Simon, he gave me a wry smile and asked if I’d started the college funds yet. I told him he was just jealous because his kids would never master the miracle of flight. My willingness to provide rent-free accommodations for my feathered friends underwent an abrupt change, though, once the little ones actually took wing for the first time. The closest and safest perch from the nests turned out to be the railing of my deck, which immediately became a major repository of, well, bird poop. I endured this for most of that summer, and determined that I’d put a stop to it in future years. My solution was simple: I filled in any space beneath my deck that was large enough for a nest. I used empty plastic jugs, old sprinkling cans, anything I could wedge into those spaces. Sometimes, the birds would find a new spot and get a nest built before I could stop them, and so I would remove the as-yet-unused nest and then fill in the space. I felt somewhat guilty about this until a friend of mine, a science teacher, told me that the birds would just build another nest within a day. When I expressed surprise at how quickly the new nest would be constructed, Jack said, “Hell, JB, they’re birds. What else do they have to do?”
A quick check showed me that my deck was still nest-free, which was too bad, in a way. If the birds had been nesting, I could have talked to them about Terry Pendleton’s murder. Maybe they could have used some of their free time to think about the case, or perhaps they knew an owl they could consult with. Hey, I’m not proud.
Instead, I headed for the weights. An hour later, sweating heavily, I shaved and showered, threw on an old pair of cutoffs and a T-shirt, then stretched out on the sofa in my living room for a while, alternately reading the paper and checking my eyelids for cracks.
* * *
A little before five, I got up and walked upstairs to my bedroom to dress for the evening. I figured Sandra Richardson would still be wearing her brown suit from that morning, so I didn’t want to go too casual. After splashing on a little cologne, I settled on a pair of tan slacks, a white, pinpoint cotton shirt open at the collar, and a cream-colored silk sports coat. I slipped into a pair of light brown loafers and grabbed my keys. As I slid into the 4Runner and opened the garage door, I thought about the fact that, on one hand, I was no closer to reaching any conclusions about Terry Pendleton than I had been earlier that day. On the other hand, I was about to have dinner with the sexy lawyer babe. Sometimes, things don’t turn out just the way I expect, which isn’t always a bad state of affairs.
Chapter 16
Station Square is a small shopping center directly across the Monongahela River from the downtown area. It’s part of a complex that includes a Sheraton Hotel and the Grand Concourse, an old train station that’s been converted to a restaurant. The trip from my townhouse, even at the tail end of rush hour, took only about twenty minutes. I parked in the multilevel garage across from the hotel and walked over to the entrance to Station Square. The restaurant Sandra Richardson had mentioned, AllSports, was right inside the door. AllSports was actually more of a combination bar and grill than a full-fledged restaurant. I’d eaten there before, and the food was okay, but the real reason most people went there was to let off steam at the end of another work day and, perhaps, to spot one of the several Steeler players who were minority owners in the place. As I entered at 6:25, I didn’t see anybody who looked like a professional athlete except Mac, the bouncer. He’d been an All-American offensive tackle in college, but he blew out a knee his senior year, thus ending his pro career before it even got started. He used his degree in education to become a history teacher, but he worked the door at AllSports several nights a week to pick up extra cash. Mac and I had taught together for a couple of years, and he nodded at me as I came in.
“Hey, JB, how’re you doing?” he asked.
“No complaints, Mac. How about you?”
“Still fighting the good fight. Hey, you know there’s a shortage of teachers. You could always come back, man, even just to sub.”
“Uh-huh, and I could always bang my head against a wall. Achieve the same result, only quicker.”
Mac laughed and said, “Business or pleasure tonight, JB?”
“Little of both, maybe. I’m meeting someone here in a few minutes. Tall, slender redhead, good figure.”
“Oh, she’s already here. Gotta be the lady over there.” He pointed to an area adjacent to the bar, where there were several tall round tables with high-backed stools. Sitting at one of the tables was Sandra Richardson. Seated across from her was a tall, slightly overweight man wearing
