Haunted Hearts (12 page)

She stood staring at him, numb.

He threw her a smile, trying to soften his words. Then he hunched his shoulders against the rain again and set off down State Street. The hell with a beer, he told himself, he'd get an Irish coffee or two. There was a bar on Congress, near the market, with a decent jazz piano player from four o'clock on. Hear a little music, warm up with a couple of drinks, then go see what Lorna has for dinner . . .

He stopped at the corner and listened. There were no footsteps behind him.

He looked back.

She was standing beneath the awning, watching him. Even from that distance he could see the tears streaming down her cheeks, and the resignation and defeat in the slope of her shoulders.

McGuire walked back to her. “You got anywhere to go?” Water dripped from the edge of the awning onto his collar and down his back. He stepped further within the awning's shelter, and she backed away from him, hesitant, afraid.

She shook her head.

“I'm going to a place near the market for an Irish coffee. You want to join me?”

“Okay.” She smiled and McGuire caught his breath. He had never seen a woman's beauty shine through so suddenly with a smile, as though a mask had been removed, or another woman had stepped into her soul. “We haven't . . .” she began. “I'm Susan.”

“I know. My name's McGuire.”

“I know.”

“There's a little bar near the Bostonian.”

“Okay.”

They walked in silence through the rain, past Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market to Congress Street and the businessman's bar. Just inside the door the pianist, a slim, gray-haired man, was playing a slow twelve-bar blues, and he nodded at McGuire and Susan as they entered. McGuire paused at the bar long enough to order two Irish coffees, then led Susan towards a booth against an inside wall, away from the chill of the windows. He helped her out of her coat, admiring the lines of her figure in a dark sweater and wool skirt.

“This is nice,” she said, glancing around after settling herself in the booth. “I've seen this place often, just passing by, but I've never come in.”

“You live near here?”

“No.” She angled her head towards Quincy Market. “I work over there. In a candle shop. Just in the mornings. I have afternoons to myself.” She played with her fingers, looked up to see him watching her, smiled briefly, then folded her hands in her lap.

“Why are you so nervous?” McGuire asked.

She shrugged. “I guess because I haven't been with a man on a date since my divorce. This isn't a date, I know, but having a drink and so on . . .”

“When were you divorced?”

“Two . . .” She swallowed and began again. “Two years ago.”

“Isn't it about time you began going out and meeting men?”

“I suppose so.”

The Irish coffees arrived, and he watched as she sipped hers then set it down, wrapping both hands around the heavy glass to absorb its warmth. She looked up and saw him watching her, and she smiled again, still nervous. Her eyes were large in a face that could age from twenty to forty in the time it took for the lines on her brow to erase the brilliance of her smile. “It's good,” she said. “I haven't had an Irish coffee in years. I'd almost forgotten how good they taste.” She looked back at the pianist, who had slipped into a slow ballad, lush with thick chords. “That's pretty, the song he's playing.”

McGuire listened for a moment, trying to hear the words in his mind. “I know it,” he said. “Well, I
should
know it. It's an old song, the kind jazz musicians like. Hardly hear it any more. Hardly hear any old songs like that, except in places like this.”

“It's lovely,” she said, looking down at her drink. “My grandfather would have liked it. He loved old songs.”

Her expression grew solemn and she was lost in her thoughts before looking up at McGuire and smiling with embarrassment. When she emerged from her reverie McGuire said, “What's your relationship with Orin Flanigan?”

“Friends. We're just friends.”

“Some people think you're more than that.”

“I know. But we're not.” She bit her bottom lip. “Orin's doing something that he thinks needs to be done.”

“What is it?”

“I can't tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because it's something he shouldn't be doing. I mean, it's not illegal, it's what Orin does, except he shouldn't be doing it.”

“That doesn't make sense.”

“I know.”

“Did you know his daughter?”

She shook her head. “Funny you should ask that. Orin says I remind him of her. She's ten years younger than me, or she would have been. Do you know about her?”

McGuire nodded. “Have you and your husband really been divorced for two years?”

“Yes. Yes, we have. Honestly.”

“And you haven't been out with anyone since?”

“No.” She looked up at him with a pleading expression. “I'm sorry I can't tell you anything else, but there's more to this than you know.”

She took another drink of the coffee, and McGuire watched the way she avoided his eyes until she smiled again. She rested her chin on her hand and stared in the direction of the piano. What was it Flanigan had called her? Innocent. No,
an
innocent. She appeared almost forty years old, an age when no one can claim innocence any more, but McGuire recognized that quality within her, along with something he couldn't immediately identify. Fear, perhaps. Vulnerability, certainly. And something he shouldn't detect in a woman like her.

“Want another?” he asked when she drained the glass.

“I'd love one but . . .” She looked up at the clock over the bar. “I have to be going . . .”

“It's barely five o'clock.”

“I know, but I have to be home . . .”

“We'll go back to my car, I'll drive you . . .”

“No, please, it's all right.” She was close to panic. “I'll take the subway . . .”

He reached to touch her hand. “Hey, it's not a problem.” Beneath his fingers he felt the tension in her hand. “Just let me get to the men's room, then we'll go. It's the coffee. Can't hold as much as I used to.” He rose from the booth. “Back in two minutes and we'll be off. Maybe buy an umbrella on the way. I can use one in this weather.”

“Thank you.” Her hands were trembling.

In the washroom, he remembered the title of the song the pianist had been playing. “Haunted Heart.” Good. The brain cells weren't dying off as fast as he feared. He even recalled some of the words. Dreams are dust, something like that.

It was no more than three minutes later when he returned, rounding the corner from the washroom and seeing the empty booth with its two drained glasses. McGuire was standing looking down at them when the waiter approached and asked if there would be anything else. McGuire said Yeah, one more, and sat down, staring out at the rain and listening to the piano player.

Lorna had prepared chicken Kiev, and rice pilaf with stir-fried snap peas. She served it with a French Chablis in cut-crystal stemware beneath the dimmed light of her chandelier. She wore a turquoise-coloured silk blouse and fitted black skirt under a pink apron decorated with flowers and frills. She was playing a Barry Manilow CD on her portable stereo.

McGuire sat staring at his plate.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

McGuire shook his head.

“It's the music, isn't it?” She rose from the table and switched off the stereo.

“Thank you,” McGuire said.

“If we're not gonna listen to music, will you talk to me?”

“Sure.” McGuire cut into the chicken breast, releasing a small torrent of butter and parsley.

While McGuire ate, Lorna told him her daughter was arriving on the weekend, excited to meet this mysterious man who was making her mother so happy. She described an island she had read about in a travel magazine, just off the coast of Puerto Rico, and speculated about visiting it for a week-long winter holiday with McGuire.

“Where are you?” she asked when McGuire only grunted in response.

“Right here.” McGuire placed a piece of chicken in his mouth. It was good. So was the wine. Lorna was a good cook, a good lover, humorous, attractive. What the hell was wrong with this picture?

“No, you're not. Were you thinking about something at the office?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe Orin?”

“Yes.”

She leaned towards him and lowered her voice as though there were someone else in the room, listening. “He's dead, isn't he?”

“How would I know?”

“Your instincts. Admit it. Mine are telling me that. He's lying dead someplace, maybe murdered.”

“You don't know . . .”

“They found his car at the airport. They're checking the airlines, trying to find out where he went.”

McGuire sat back in his chair. “Who told you?”

“The police officers who were in today. I'm not supposed to say anything. Dick Pinnington told me not to tell anybody, so for God's sake . . .”

“What else did they say?”

She shrugged. “Not much. They took away a few files, his travel records, a list of his clients. Maybe one of them did it, one of his clients, or somebody on the other side. That's what they think, I can tell. Orin's work can get people upset, you know. Child custody and all. I've taken calls from parents who've lost custody cases to Orin's clients, blaming Orin because their children were taken from them. They get so angry, so full of rage.”

“Anybody make a threat lately?”

“Nobody.” She stared at her plate for a moment. Then: “You know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think that woman, Susan Schaeffer, I think she has something to do with it. With Orin going away.”

“Why?”

“Because the last time Orin saw her, he was upset. I don't know, there may be nothing to it. But Dick Pinnington, apparently he left word that she's not to come in anymore.”

“What the hell's Pinnington know about this?”

“I don't know.” She breathed deeply, as though working up the courage to speak. “You haven't seen her lately, have you?”

“Seen who?”

“That woman. Susan Schaeffer.”

Without thinking, McGuire said “No.” He began to correct himself, thought better of it, and speared the last piece of chicken Kiev with his fork. When he looked up, Lorna was glaring at him. “Something wrong?” he asked.

“Joe, you can do almost anything you want, but don't do one thing. Ever.”

He chewed the morsel of chicken, staring at her, then swallowed. “What's that?”

“
Don't lie to me!
” Lorna tossed her dinner napkin on the table, fury in her eyes. “Sheila was at the reception desk today. She told me she saw both of you get on the elevator, you and Susan Schaeffer. You were talking . . .”

“That's right, we were . . .”

“What did you talk about?”

“Nothing special.”

“Why did you say you'd never seen her?'

“I didn't think it meant that much to you, didn't think it was that big a deal . . .”

“Did you leave with her? Leave the building with her?”

“Yes.” McGuire rested his elbows on the table, his hands clasped together. “We had a drink together and she . . .”

“
Why did you lie to me?
”

“Why are you so threatened by her?”

“I'm not . . .”

“Yes, you are . . .”

“Okay, maybe because I saw the way you looked at her. You didn't think I noticed, did you? She's younger than me and . . . The last two relationships I've had ended with me being hurt, goddamn it, and I . . . and because I know things about her.”

“Like what?”

She stood up. “I need a drink.”

McGuire rose from the table. “Maybe you'd better get me one too.”

“Go to hell.” She walked to the sideboard and withdrew a bottle of bourbon and a small glass tumbler.

McGuire watched her pour bourbon into the glass, her hand shaking. It's as good a time as ever, he told himself, and he turned and walked towards the front door.

“Where're you going?” Lorna called to him.

“Home.”

“Why?” She walked towards him as he was sliding into his topcoat. “Hey, listen, I overreacted, okay? I mean, I can't stand being lied to. Please don't go.”

“I'm sorry,” McGuire said.

“I told my daughter about you, my daughter Tracy.” Her eyes were brimming, her face about to crumble. “She's coming home this weekend just to meet you . . .”

McGuire was at the door.

“Come on, come on,” Lorna was pleading behind him. “Damn it, damn it, damn it . . .”

After he closed the door he heard the glass tumbler shatter against it on the inside.

“You know,” Ollie Schantz had told McGuire several years ago, when they were partners, and Ollie's body was as strong and mobile as his mind, “any fool can start an affair.” They were talking about a cop involved in a messy divorce from a shattered wife. “Any fool can start an affair,” Ollie repeated, “but it takes a goddamn genius to end one.”

“That woman called you again.”

Ronnie was slumped in a living-room chair, the newspaper open on her lap. From Ollie's room he could hear the sound of a televised basketball game. McGuire removed his topcoat. “What woman?”

“The one who called you this morning. This time she was crying.”

“Yeah.” McGuire stood in the hall, watching her. “Well . . .”

She avoided his eyes.

“How're you doing?” he asked.

“I'm falling apart, is how I'm doing.” Her voice was flat and dull, and McGuire visualized a desert scene in winter, gray and empty. “Like that woman on the telephone. Laura or something like that. You plan to call her?”

“No.”

“Don't be a shit. At least call her. She sounds like she's a mess right now.”

McGuire stepped into the room, closer to her, and lowered his voice. “How's your friend taking it? What you did last night. How's he handling it?”

Like a sluice that opens to relieve pent-up pressure, the tears began to flow and she turned her head away. “He doesn't understand,” she said. “He just can't understand it. God, we're such adolescents when it comes to this, aren't we?”

“When it comes to what?”

She grasped his hand, squeezed it. “I used to call it either love or lust, and maybe that's all it is. But Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, at my age, I should be able to deal with it better.”

He remained until she released his hand and blinked her tears away. “I'm all right,” she said, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Go say hi to Ollie. Then call your woman friend. Some day soon, we can talk about all our wounds, you and me. All us casualties.”

McGuire looked in on Ollie, who was snoring, his head to one side, his paralyzed body stretched unnaturally straight. McGuire closed the door, climbed the stairs to his room, and dialed Lorna's number.

She answered after one ring, and McGuire said, “It's me.”

“I didn't think you had the guts.” Her voice was hoarse and weak.

“To do what?”

“Call me.”

“Look . . .”

“I welcome you into my house, into my life, into my family, into my
body
, and you lie to me, you walk out on me . . .”

“It wasn't working out.”

“I thought you wanted something permanent, you told me you were looking for something permanent . . .”

“I don't know what the hell I'm looking for . . .”

“Well, whatever it is, you won't find it with that Schaeffer woman.”

“What do you know about her?”

“A lot. A lot more than you know, believe me.” Her voice dropped in tone and volume. “You two deserve each other,” she said, and the line went dead.

He woke the next morning trying to piece together elements of dreams that lingered in his memory like commuters who had missed their train. After showering and dressing, he came downstairs just as Ronnie walked out of Ollie's room, carrying his empty breakfast tray, her head down. They passed in silence.

“You're finally awake,” McGuire said, entering Ollie's room.

“Got tired a sleepin'.” Ollie was looking out the window at his view of Massachusetts Bay. “How you doin'?”

“I'm okay . . .”

Ollie's eyes flicked towards McGuire. “C'mere,” he whispered.

McGuire sat on the edge of the bed.

“Something's bothering Ronnie,” Ollie said. “I don't know what. Maybe one of those woman things. Maybe something more.” He lowered his voice even further. “She's even quit her paintin' class. And she's damn good at it too. Whattaya think? Why'd she do that?” Ollie turned his head in his slow, painful way to face McGuire. “You wanta talk to her? I think maybe she's lonely, what with you bouncin' on mattresses from here to Rhode Island every night.”

“Ronnie's strong.” McGuire stood up. “If she's got a problem, she'll figure out how to deal with it.”

Ollie's good arm flopped towards McGuire, the fingers of his hand outstretched. “No, no, Joseph. Not this time. I've lived with that woman thirty years. I know when she's feeling pain, and that's what she's feeling right now. A lot of it. So help her, Joseph. Get her to talk, get her to laugh again, okay? Okay?”

McGuire nodded, reached for Ollie's hand, and let the other man squeeze his in return, Ollie holding McGuire in the grip of his hand and his eyes. “Talk to you later,” McGuire said, and Ollie nodded.

He found Ronnie in the kitchen reading a newspaper, a cup of black coffee growing cold in front of her. McGuire sat and stared at her until she lowered the newspaper and looked back at him. “What?” she said.

“Ollie wants me to talk to you, see if I can cheer you up a little.”

“So try.” She raised the coffee to her lips, sipped it, made a face, and lowered it again.

“The guy loves you.”

“You think I stopped loving him? You think I ever stopped?”

McGuire looked away, remembering. “When I was a kid, back in Worcester,” he said, “there was a strange man who lived alone in a house across the street. I don't know what he did for a living, don't know if he was a pervert like some of the neighbours said, but he was definitely different. He would talk to me and the other kids like we were adults, and he would talk to our parents like they were kids. He'd see the parents dressed up in the evening, going out for a movie or something, and he'd call across the street to them. He'd say things like, ‘Going out to play are we? Going to the playground maybe? Swing from the monkey bars?' He'd drive the parents nuts.”

“Fascinating.” Ronnie folded her arms.

“One day he grabbed my shoulder as I walked past him on the sidewalk. I was maybe twelve years old, and he just stared at me at first, not saying anything. I wasn't afraid of him. None of us kids were. He wasn't threatening, just different. I asked him what he wanted. You know what he said to me? He said, ‘You are allowed any thought. Every thought you have is a worthwhile thought. You are not responsible for what you think. You are only responsible for what you do.' Then he walked away.”

Ronnie avoided his eyes.

“If he saw one of us kids not looking happy, if we were upset about something, he'd say ‘Having your daily sadness, are you? Having a daily dose of sadness?' Our parents would tell us to stop moping around, but he'd treat it differently. He made it sound as though it were all right to be sad sometimes.”

McGuire smiled at the memory.

“Once, when we were talking, he told me I should love not being what I really wanted to be, because then I would find out what I needed. It took me a long time to get my head around that one.” McGuire became more animated, the memories of his strange neighbour fueling his thoughts. “Another time, I talked to him about space travel, because I was reading a lot of science fiction, Buck Rogers stuff. He listened for a time and then he said, ‘Always travel to your inner nature. That's the only journey worth taking. Forget the space station.' I've remembered that. All those years. Sometimes, when I start thinking about some crazy idea that might make me happier than I am, I tell myself to forget the space station. When I start dreaming about things I should've done or somebody I should've been, I tell myself that I'm just trying to live on the space station. Helps me forget about it and start dealing with reality again.”

“Oh, for Christ's sake, Joe.” Ronnie glared up at him. “Dump your philosophy on somebody who wants it.”

McGuire inhaled deeply and released it. “What he said is the kind of thing that stays with you over the years. When you're twelve, you don't know what the hell somebody like that is talking about, but you can't forget it, either. Then, thirty years later, it starts to make sense. Forget the space station.”