Act of God (11 page)

“Like what?”

“I’d hate to speculate without an MRI.”

“What’s that?”

“Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Kind of an expanded X-ray. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Mr. Cuddy, if you have any questions, I’d be happy to try to answer them?”

“I guess I have only one.”

“What’s that?”

“How soon can I have one of these MRI things?”

From the look she gave me, I could tell neither of us thought that was my only question.

“What’s the occasion?”

Nancy said, “Does there have to be an occasion?”

I took in the restaurant. Il Capriccio is in a suburb named Waltham, just off Main Street. From the outside, you see just a flat storefront with white, vertical blinds. Inside, though, there’s a foyer with twelve-paned windows looking into a cozy dining room done in rust, gold, and pastel green. Wall sconces throw muted light onto the sprigs of fresh wildflowers on the tables, giving the place an exotic, romantic feel. I’d been there only once before. Expensive, but great gourmet Italian food.

I said, “I’m glad it’s your treat.”

A tall, attractive woman in a white blouse and flowing black skirt greeted us warmly in the foyer, introducing herself as “Jeanne” and showing us to a table for four that fit nicely into a corner with a commanding view of the dining room. Nancy sat so she could see the room, I sat so I could see her.

“John, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

She reached her left hand across the table, resting the palm lightly on the back of my right one. “I want to enjoy taking you out for dinner as thanks for wrestling with the bureau, and I won’t enjoy it if you sulk.”

“I’m not … sulking.”

“Then what are you doing?”

Nancy said it quietly, not at all nagging, but it still irritated me. “I just … It’s been kind of a long day, okay?”

She kept the same, quiet tone. “Can you tell me about it?”

I thought of Traci Wickmire and Rush Teagle. “Not without maybe compromising you on an open case.”

“Okay. Consider that buried. Now, what else is bothering you?”

I was saved by Jeanne, bringing three types of bread in an oblong wicker basket and olive oil in a tall, black bottle. Nancy asked for the wine list, and Jeanne lifted it out from under my menu, saying she’d be back in a minute.

Nancy opened the leather holder. “White or red?”

“Red.”

She didn’t try to restart the conversation until Jeanne came back, took her order for a bottle of Gattinara ’seventy-four, and went to get it. “John, please don’t spoil my treat, huh?”

I bit back what I was about to say, took a deep breath, and let it out. “I saw a doctor today.”

Nancy seemed surprised. “Why?”

“About what happened last night with the bureau.”

“I thought you were okay this morning?”

“Well, I’m not.”

Nancy waited a moment before asking, “And?”

“And what?”

“What did the doctor tell you?”

“She said I’d have to wear a brace on the knee for … probably forever.”

Another moment. “What kind of brace?”

“Basically a rubber legging. It’s got a hole for the kneecap and this felt horseshoe inside it to support the joint.”

“You already have it?”

“Picked it up this afternoon after I left the hospital.”

“How does it feel?”

“It felt restricting.”

“Meaning you’re not wearing the brace now.”

“Right.”

“And is that what the doctor suggested?”

“I don’t care.”

Jeanne returned with our wine. Nancy went through the motions of approving the label and sniffing the cork. Jeanne swirled a little in both our glasses before draining what she’d swirled into a third glass. After we tasted the wine, Jeanne poured for us, reciting specials like spinach and herb dumplings in broth, porcini gnocchi, and roast pork with braised fennel.

When we were alone again, Nancy raised her glass and said, “To your once and future knee.”

“Not funny, Nance.”

“It wasn’t meant to be. It was meant to be a recognition.”

“Of what?”

“Of your mortality, John.”

“Terrific.”

“No, face it. You’re being pissy with me, and you’re never like that. At least, you haven’t been with me.”

“I’m not being pissy.”

“And if you are, it isn’t because of your knee.”

“Right.”

“Great reasoning path, but I’m not what you’d call convinced.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, John. I’ve seen you after you’ve been beaten up, chased by cars, even shot.”

“Twice.”

A creeping smile. “Twice. Once with me, if you’ll remember.”

“I’ll never forget, or forgive myself for—”

“Not why I brought it up. What I mean is, I’ve seen you when you’ve had every reason to be down or depressed, after you’ve
killed
people, for God’s sake, and you’ve never been petulant before.”

“I thought I was being pissy.”

The smile crept further. “Take your pick. You’re such a good man, but such a little boy, too.”

“And the little boy’s afraid of something.”

“Yes. Afraid that his time as an athlete or whatever is drawing to a close.”

“That’s not it, Nance.”

“That’s part of it.”

“Maybe. But it’s more …”

“More what, John?”

“More that—I don’t know, if I’d stayed with law school, it wouldn’t matter whether my knee’s a little shaky or my arm won’t work right. It—”

“Your arm?” She looked at me. “What do you mean, your arm won’t work?”

“Nance, I could barely pull my jacket on this morning.”

“From last night, too?”

“That’s right. It’s something with the shoulder, but the doctor doesn’t know what’s wrong, and she won’t without some more high-tech X-rays.”

Nancy paused. “So what’s the worst case?”

“Worst case?”

“Yeah. The worst case, you need surgery, and you do end up suing me.”

“Nancy, I’m not going to sue you.”

“I’d rather that then see you be so pissy.”

“I like petulant better.”

The hand that wasn’t holding the wine glass reached across the table again. “John, look at this objectively, okay? You’re a little like a professional ballplayer. To a certain extent, you make your living with your body, and for the first time, after all it’s been through, parts of it are starting to fail. Not in a big way—”

“Ask me after the next time I have to block a punch.”

“Or scramble up a ladder or break down a door. John, at some point, all that has to stop. But chances are that point’s a ways off, because this doctor can probably tell what’s wrong with you and fix it.”

“She certainly spent enough time manipulating me today.”

“Manipulating you.”

My turn to pause. “Well, more a diagnostic massage, I guess.”

“She attractive?”

“Stunning.”

Nancy’s hand left mine. “Did you tell her you’re already spoken for?”

“Kind of.”

“What does that mean?”

“I told her my heart belongs to another—”

“Good.”

“—but that the other organs are up for grabs.”

“Maybe she can do a radical circumcision.” Nancy opened the menu. “I think I’ll order for you.”

“What am I having?”

“The fillet of jerk strikes just the right note.”

“Does it come on a bed of sour grapes and crow?”

Nancy lowered the menu enough to let me see the smile creep all the way across her face. “I’ll speak to the chef.”

T
HE NEXT DAY WAS
the thirtieth of June, one of those clear, bright mornings that make you believe that enduring another New England winter was worth it after all. While Nancy used my bathroom, I slid on the knee brace and then my pants over it. I tried bending and flexing the leg, but the brace was as restricting as the day before, allowing me to walk only on the verge of limping. I’d tried one of the anti-inflammatory pills with our dinner at Il Capriccio, and I had to admit both the knee and the shoulder felt a little better for it.

Nancy and I walked together from my place down Beacon to Charles, then up the slope of the hill to the State House. We kissed good-bye there, Nancy continuing on Beacon toward the courthouse complex, me watching her until the other pedestrians wrecked my line of sight. Then I went past the monument to the 54th Massachusetts, the Civil War regiment memorialized in the movie
Glory.
The monument is a bronzed frieze, the scene depicting the white commander on horseback, the black soldiers marching with rifles at shoulder-arms around him. The commander doesn’t look much like Matthew Broderick, but two of the soldiers are dead ringers for Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington.

I bought a muffin and hot chocolate from probably the same place William Proft had gone for his coffee when he and Pearl Rivkind had come to see me. I popped another pill on the way to my office on Tremont Street.

Upstairs, I opened the two windows to prolong the fresh-air feeling from walking into work. After checking with my answering service and skimming the prior day’s mail, I took out Darbra Proft’s telephone bill and dialed the more frequently called number in Meade. I got a real estate brokerage and asked for Roger Houle.

The woman at the other end said, “I’m sorry, but Roger won’t be in the office for a few more days. Can I take a message?”

“No, thanks. I’m afraid it’s a personal matter.”

She hesitated. “Are you calling about … are you a friend of the family?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then perhaps if you called back at the beginning of next week.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

After she hung up, I tried the less frequently used number. If another woman answered, I was prepared to apologize for a wrong number, but there was no answer and no tape machine.

I thought about it. A few more days, a friend of the family. Then I took out the MetroWest telephone directory and matched the number that didn’t answer with a residential address in Meade.

The Houle house was imposing, the kind of suburban manse that was built on four acres in the nineteen-teens, with complementary houses on their respective four acres around it. Mostly red brick, the white Doric columns supported both a main entrance and the roof to a broad porch. The driveway was wide enough for two cars to dance in, curving along the house and disappearing about where a detached garage might be. It looked as though the trim around the bricks had been recently repainted and the mortar between the bricks recently repointed. The only cause for neighborhood concern would be the lawn, which hadn’t been mowed in a week.

I left the Prelude at the curb and went up the flagstoned path to the front door. The knee brace had broken in some on the walk into work and the drive out to Meade, the neoprene not nearly as stiff at the back as it had been. However, I felt a little queasy, probably from the pill, and decided not to take another for a while.

Next to the front door and above a bell button was the name HOULE. When I pushed the button, there was a deep, bong-bong chiming somewhere in the house, but nobody came to the door, and I didn’t hear anything else.

As I started toward the driveway to check the garage in back, a female voice said, “May I help you?”

A chunky blond woman was standing in the driveway for the house next door. She wore a pair of corduroy pants, cotton blouse, and wool sweater, all earth colors and a little too warm for the mild morning. As I got closer to her, she seemed to be about sixty, with a kind, creased face, the hair that brassy color a natural blonde gets as she ages.

“I’m looking for Roger Houle, Ms. … ?”

“Mrs. Mrs. Thorson, that is. And you are?”

Thorson had an almost courtly manner. I took out my identification holder. “John Cuddy. I’m a private investigator.”

She studied the printing, the creases around her mouth growing deeper. “Oh, my. Now what?”

“Now what?”

Thorson handed back the holder. “I hope that after all Roger’s been through, this isn’t more heartache.”

“Excuse me, ma’am, but I don’t know what you mean.”

She reached into the cuff of her sweater for a handkerchief, to tend to eyes that suddenly had filled with tears. “His wife died last week.”

“I’m sorry.”

Thorson didn’t return the hankie to her cuff. “Caroline was such a dear. We’d been neighbors for just ages, and I was so happy when she and Roger met and got married, she just … beamed is the right word, Mr. … ?”

“Cuddy.”

“Cuddy. Yes, of course. I’m so sorry, it’s just that she was very nearly my best friend, even though she was ten years younger than I. As you get older, the years between you don’t seem to matter as much, somehow. She was really like a younger sister to me rather than a neighbor—both of us were natural blondes, you see, so people mistook us for sisters sometimes—and I just wasn’t prepared … but, of course, nobody could be.”

“Her death was sudden, then?”

“People have tried to tell us that, and I do hope it’s true, but it still must have been horrible.”

“What was horrible?”

“Why, the—oh, there’s no way for you to know that, is there? Caroline was on that plane that crashed near Washington.”

Mo’s airline story. “You’re right. I didn’t know.”

Thorson didn’t need much prompting. “It’s just such a tragedy. She was on her way to … It was the twentieth anniversary of her brother’s death, you see.”

“Her brother?”

“Yes. He was killed in Vietnam, and Caroline decided she should go down to see the memorial. I believe it’s called ‘the Wall’?”

“It is.”

“You’ve seen it, then?”

“Not yet.”

Something about the way I said that made Thorson pause.

Then she shook her head. “A tragedy upon a tragedy. Caroline had been planning this trip for months, to coincide exactly with her brother’s death. I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea, and Roger decided to build her the potting shed she’d been wanting, so that she’d have a lift when she got back.”

“He didn’t go with her, then.”

“Oh, no. No, this was something Caroline felt she had to do herself.
For
herself, to … exorcise the demons, I guess. The ones still there after all these years.”