“It was awful. It sounded like a couple of drunks going at it in the dark.”
“So, you got rid of it?”
“I told her to, but she kept it. It became a little gag between us. I’d be working late at the office till maybe ten or eleven o’clock. Instead of getting a nagging call to come home, I’d pick up the phone and on the other end of the line would be this tape of Jessie outdoing Meg Ryan in the
“Beats all heck out of clanging the dinner bell.”
“It was good for a couple of laughs, and then she dropped it.”
“But she kept the tape?”
“Evidently.”
“For how many years?”
“Seven, closer to eight. I don’t read much into that. She could have just stuffed it in a shoebox somewhere and forgotten about it.”
“And the homicide investigators found it.”
“Yeah. Or, more likely, Jessie’s estate handed it over to them as evidence.”
“As evidence of what? That you and Jessie had sex before you and Cindy even met?”
“I guess it never occurred to anyone that the tape might be from another decade.”
“How could they not see it?” said Mike. “You ever gone back to one of your old cassettes? They look
“But a copy doesn’t look old. Cindy’s looked brand-new. Unless you have the original, it wouldn’t be so obvious that the tape is eight years old.”
“So, where’s the original?”
“I don’t know. The police might have it, but that would be really scummy of them to copy an old cassette onto a new reel and pass it off to my wife as a recent affair.”
“So, presumably Jessie’s estate kept the original, and for some reason they gave the police a copy that makes it look new.”
“Or, I suppose, the original could be gone, and the only thing Jessie left behind was a copy that looks brand- new.”
“Why would she do that?”
Jack paused, as if afraid to come across as paranoid. “Because she wanted someone to think that she and I were having a recent affair.”
“Ah, I see,” he said, smiling. “And which conspiracy theory do you subscribe to on the Kennedy assassination? Would it be the Mafia, the Cubans, or perhaps the cluster of icebergs that got the
“Okay, it’s a little out there. But whatever went on here, it sure convinced my wife.”
Mike leaned forward in his captain’s chair, looked at Jack with concern. “How is Cindy doing?”
“So-so. This doesn’t help.”
“I thought about you two when I saw this on the news. I called you.”
“I know. I got the message. So many people called, I just didn’t have a chance to return them all.”
“I thought about calling Cindy, but I didn’t know what kind of shape she’d be in. Bad enough finding a body in your house. But it has to be especially hard on her, after the nightmare she went through with that psycho former client of yours.”
Jack looked down at his empty beer bottle. “First him, now Jessie. Guess I need to work on my choice of clients.”
“Water through the pipes, as I always say.”
“Polybutylene pipes.”
Their bottles clicked in toast. “God love ’em,” said Mike.
They shared a weak smile, then turned serious. “Tell me the truth,” said Jack. “After all these years, why do you think Jessie had that tape?”
“Could be as you said. She packed it away in her closet and forgot it even existed.”
“Or?”
“I don’t know. You are the son of a former governor. Maybe she thought you’d run for office some day and she could embarrass you.”
Jack peeled the label from his beer. “Possible, I suppose.”
“Or it could be that she’s been listening to that tape over and over again for the last decade, turning away the likes of George Clooney and Brad Pitt, crying her eyes out night after night for Jack Swyteck, world’s greatest lover.”
“You think?”
“Oh, absolutely.”
“Wow. I never would have figured that out on my own. You’re a genius.”
“I know.”
“Seriously,” said Jack. “You’re a plaintiffs’ lawyer.”
Mike glanced around his gorgeous boat. “Last time I checked.”
“Go back in time eight months. On the face of it, Jessie Merrill had an attractive case. Sympathetic facts, a young and beautiful client.”
“I’ll give you that.”
“She could have gone to a zillion different lawyers. Most of them would have taken the case. Hell, some would have signed on even if she’d told them flat-out in advance that the whole thing was a scam.”
“Not me, but some of them, yeah.”
“Yet, she picks me. A guy whose practice is ninety-percent criminal. Why?”
Mike didn’t answer right away, seeming to measure his words. “Maybe she wanted a really smart lawyer who she knew she could fool.”
“Thanks.”
“Or, for some bizarre reason, she wanted you back in her life.”
“But why? After all these years, why?”
He shrugged and said, “Can’t help you there, my friend. You’ll have to answer that one yourself.”
Jack leaned back in the deck chair, watched the moonlight glistening on the little ripples in the brackish water alongside Mike’s boat. “I wish I knew,” was all he could say.
Mike tossed his empty into the open cooler. “You need a place to stay tonight?”
He considered it, then said, “No. I can’t let this fester.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Tell Cindy the truth.”
“That won’t be easy.”
“Cake,” Jack said. “The hard part is getting her to believe it.”
He grabbed an end of the cooler, and Mike grabbed the other. They climbed from the boat, the empties rattling against the cold ones as they walked toward the patio.
20
•
The chain lock was on the door when Jack got to his mother-in-law’s house. It opened about six inches and then caught.
“Cindy?” he called out through the narrow opening.
“Go away, Jack.” It was her mother’s voice, coming from the other room.
“I just want to talk.”
“She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
Part of him wanted to plead directly with Cindy to let him in, but he knew there was no getting through to her
