Muscle Memory (25 page)

“The priest.”

“Sonofabitch,” he mumbled.

“I convinced him that your life was in danger.”

“Yeah, so what else is new?” He shook his head. “I had to come today, Brady. I had to say good-bye to Kaye.”

“Sure,” I said, “and now that you have, it’s time to do the right thing.”

“The cops?” He smiled. “No way, man. Not yet.”

“Look,” I said, “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I for one would like to avoid having Danny and Erin end up orphans.” There was a telephone on the priest’s desk. I reached for it, but Mick grabbed my wrist.

“Don’t do it, Brady,” he said.

“I’m calling Horowitz,” I said.

Mick kept his powerful grip on my wrist.

“Come on, Mick,” I said. “Let go.”

He smiled and shook his head. “I’m sorry, man,” he said softly, just before his fist smashed against my cheekbone and everything went utterly black.

When you’ve been knocked unconscious, it’s impossible to tell whether it’s for a second or an hour. So when I opened my eyes and saw Patsy kneeling beside me, my first thought was that Mick had slugged me just an instant earlier and that Patsy had nailed him.

Then Patsy said, “Where the fuck is he?” and I knew Mick had made it.

“Huh? Who?” I mumbled, feigning more confusion than I felt.

“Fallon, God damn it. What’d you do with him?”

“Dunno what you’re talkin’ ’bout.”

“He was here, right?” said Patsy. He grabbed my shirt and shook me. “Did you see him?”

So he didn’t know. He was guessing.

“I was waiting for the priest,” I said. “I wanted to talk to the priest.”

“Why?”

“I’m looking for Mick,” I said. “We’re both looking for Mick, right?”

Patsy narrowed his eyes. “Then who slugged you?”

“Huh?” I touched my cheek. “Tripped on the rug. Must’ve banged my face on the desk. Hurts like hell.” I shook my head slowly. “Kinda dizzy. I think I’m gonna puke. Get me a glass of water, will you?”

Patsy frowned, then let go of my shirt and pulled away from me. I figured he didn’t believe me. On the other hand, Mick wasn’t here. And Patsy wouldn’t want anybody to vomit on his pretty suit. He stood up and brushed his hands over the front of his jacket. He looked down at me, frowning uncertainly. Then he said, “We’ll take care of you later, pal.” He turned for the door.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “How about that glass of water?”

“Fuck you,” said Patsy. Then he was gone.

Mick’s fist had caught me flush on my left cheekbone, but in the bathroom mirror it was just a little red lump. Barely noticeable. I touched it gingerly with my fingertip. It hurt right through the bone and into the middle of my brain.

But my head was clear and the dizziness had passed.

I splashed cold water on my face, combed my wet fingers through my hair, straightened my necktie, and declared myself presentable.

I thought of calling Horowitz. But I saw no purpose to it. Mick was gone.

I walked out of the rectory, stood on the front steps, and looked over toward the church. The funeral cars had left, and so had most of those that had been parked along the street.

I glanced at my watch. Eleven-thirty. I knew the ceremony at the cemetery would be brief. After that, the mourners would gather at the Conleys’ house in Concord. I didn’t intend to miss that.

To be on the safe side, I’d wait a couple of hours before I showed up at Lyn and Gretchen’s. I figured I’d find a takeout somewhere in Lexington center, buy myself a sandwich and a Coke, and then head for Walden Pond in Lincoln. I’d have myself a picnic with Thoreau’s ghost, see if any trout were rising, think Transcendental thoughts, ponder life and death and Nature’s ways—my version of a religious observation in a sacred place.

I lit a cigarette, crossed the rectory lawn, and started up the sidewalk to where my car was parked.

Then I stopped.

A young man wearing a checked sports jacket and blue jeans was leaning against my front bumper. I didn’t recognize him until he turned and lifted his chin to me.

It was Will Powers. And parked directly in front of my BMW was an old black Volkswagen Beetle.

A black bug.

Darren Watts had called it a “backbug.”

I
WALKED UP TO
Will Powers and held out my hand. “I didn’t see you in there,” I said, nodding toward the church.

He shook my hand. “I was sitting in the back row. I saw you.” He grinned and touched his cheek. “What happened?”

“Bumped into something,” I said. “Nice you could make it here today.”

He shrugged. “She was a good lady. Those were her kids, huh?”

I nodded.

“They’re like my age.” He shook his head. “Their mother got murdered. God, that really sucks.”

“It sure does.” I cleared my throat. “Were you waiting for me, Will?”

“Yeah,” he said. He patted the fender of my BMW. “Remembered your car,” he added with a quick smile. Then the smile disappeared. “I need to talk to you.”

“Yes,” I said. “I know you do. I was just going to get a sandwich and a Coke and take it over to Walden Pond. Why don’t you join me?”

He nodded. “Okay. Sure. Sounds good. Walden Pond. I never been there. Heard about it.” He smiled. “Believe it or not, Mrs. Fallon used to talk about that book. She knew I like nature and stuff, told me she thought I’d like it. Never tried it, though. I’m not much of a reader.”

“Well,” I said, “Walden is a good book and a pretty place. Maybe it’ll inspire you.” I got into my car. “Follow me.”

I found a parking slot in front of a deli in the center of town. Will pulled his black VW alongside of me. I got out and went to his window. “Why don’t you just double-park here. I’ll pick up something for you. What would you like?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. A sandwich, I guess.”

“Corned beef? Pastrami? Ham-and-cheese?”

“That sounds good. Ham-and-cheese. And a root beer, if they have it.”

I bought a Reuben sandwich for me, a ham-and-cheese for Will, two little bags of potato chips, a Coke, and a root beer. Fat kosher dills came with the sandwiches, wrapped separately in their own waxed paper.

I kept my eye on Will in my rearview mirror as he followed me out of Lexington, through the Minuteman National Park on what they were now calling Battle Road, which was actually Route 2A, and onto Route 2. We turned left on Walden Street and pulled into the parking area across from the pond. Will parked beside me.

I got out, threw my jacket and tie in the backseat, and retrieved the bag that held our lunches. Then Will and I headed down to the pond.

Walden is a kettle pond, formed by the giant hunks of ice that broke off and stayed behind when the glaciers retreated northward from this part of the world more than ten thousand years ago. Icemelt from the glacier flowed south, carrying with it millions of tons of sediment, which built up around the left-behind hunks of ice, and when the ice melted, a kettle-shaped pond was formed, roundish and deep, with no islands, inlet, or outlet, and surrounded by high banks.

Thoreau dropped a codline through the ice to map Walden’s bottom and found that it was over 100 feet deep in places. He speculated that its name derived from the phrase
walled-in,
a reference to the steep wooded banks that surrounded it, although “Walden” might’ve been the corruption of an Indian word. Most likely, Thoreau had concluded, it had just been named after some Englishman named Walden.

On this June noontime, crowds had gathered on blankets on the sand beach near the road, and more folks plodded along the mulched path that encircled the pond. There were clusters of young mothers with toddlers in bathing suits splashing in the water and digging in the sand, male and female executive types in business attire—like me—with their bag lunches, and hippies and pilgrims of all ages who’d come to pay homage to Thoreau’s shrine.

Will and I followed the path almost halfway around the pond, and down near the cove where Thoreau had built his cabin, we found a couple of private boulders to sit on.

We unwrapped our sandwiches and pickles, ripped open our potato chip bags, popped the tops of our sodas, and looked out at the rippled water.

Walden was a pretty good trout pond. If it had been calm, I might’ve been able to spot a rising fish or two.

But a freshening easterly breeze had blown up. It felt ten degrees cooler than it had in the morning, and dark clouds had begun to skid across the sky.

I munched my sandwich and didn’t say anything. Will knew he had to talk to me. I figured I’d give him the chance do it in his own way.

He waited until we’d finished eating and had lit cigarettes. “I told you a lot of lies,” he said softly.

I nodded. “I know you did.”

His face jerked up. “How’d you know?”

“When I saw your car. Darren saw it, too.”

He frowned. “Who’s Darren?”

I shook my head. “Why don’t you just tell me what you want to tell me.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said. He looked out at the water. “I lied to you about Mrs. Fallon. I didn’t really feel bad about it until—until I had a chance to think about it.” He laughed quickly. “I lied about me, too. I was scared. The fact is, Mr. Coyne, I, um, I did kinda follow her. They said I was stalking her. I didn’t think of it that way. I just thought she was so damn pretty and nice and—and sexy, you know? Anyway—well, I guess I did try to kiss her. But see, it wasn’t anything she did. I told you she flirted with me? Well, it wasn’t like that. She never came on to me. Or anybody, as far as I could see. It was me. She was just being nice, and I…” He shook his head. “Anyway, Moyle kicked me out of her class, and that made me mad. I never meant to hurt or scare her or nothing. But I know he was right. I never should’ve tried to kiss her.”

I turned to look at him. His head was bowed, and it looked as if he might start crying.

“Did you kill her, Will?”

His head jerked up. “What? Oh, Jesus, no. Honest to God. Kill her? No way, man.” He blew out a breath. “I was there, though. That night, I mean.”

“The night she was murdered?”

“Yeah. I was there.”

“Did you see her? Was she alive when you—”

He was shaking his head. “I never saw her. Look, lemme try to just tell you what happened, okay?”

“Please,” I said.

He took a sip from his can of root beer, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I used to think about her all the time. How she looked, how she smelled, the sound of her voice…” He shook his head. “Mrs. Fallon was the only reason I went to school.” He laughed quickly. “Dumb, I know. I used to make up stories in my head about her. About her and me, you know? Even after they kicked me out, I still couldn’t get her out of my head. It got worse, actually.” He turned and frowned at me. “You know what I mean?”

I nodded. I understood the power of fantasy.

“Anyway,” he said, “I used to drive out to her house all the time. After dark. I didn’t want anyone to see me. And that’s what I did that night. The night she got killed. I left Frank’s, got into my car, and drove out to Lexington. I drove real slow past her house and saw that she had company, so—”

“Company?” I said.

“There was a car in her driveway. That wasn’t the first time. It drove me nuts, thinking she—she had somebody, some guy who—”

“What kind of car was it?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Like I said, I saw the car so I kept going. I didn’t really look at it, you know?”

“This is important,” I said. “Come on. You work on cars all day long. You must’ve noticed something.”

“Yeah, well it was nighttime and the car was pulled into the driveway, parked behind a lot of bushes and stuff, and there was only one little outside light on. I mean, I saw there was a car, and I knew it wasn’t Mrs. Fallon’s, so I kept driving.”

“Was it light colored or dark?”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Light.”

“White?”

“Light blue, maybe, or green. One of those off colors.”

“Big or small?”

“Medium-sized.” He opened his eyes and looked at me. “I mean, it wasn’t a little sports car, and it wasn’t a truck. Some kind of sedan.”

“What else, Will? Come on, son.”

He shook his head. “That’s about it. I think I’d seen that car in her driveway other times, but I never really studied it. I’m sorry. Like I said, it was dark, and when I saw she had company, I kept driving.”

“Okay,” I said. “So what else happened?”

“Well, I drove around for a while, found a McDonald’s, had a cup of coffee, and then I went back.”

“To her house?”

He nodded. “That car was gone. I pulled up in front and I shut off the ignition and… and I just sat there.”

He showed no inclination to continue, so I said, “You didn’t go up to the house.”

“No.”

“Did you see anybody?”

He shrugged. “No. I just sat there.”

“You didn’t see Darren?”

“I told you,” he said. “I don’t know any Darren.”

“Okay. Then what?”

He shrugged. “Then nothing. I did what I did every damn time I drove out to her house at night. I sat there in the dark maybe ten or fifteen minutes, trying to get my courage up to go knock on the door. But I didn’t. I never did. I kept trying to figure out what I was gonna say to her, and everything I thought of sounded stupid. I mean, first I thought, Okay, I’ll just give her my big old smile and say, ‘Hi, Mrs. Fallon. Remember me?’ Dumb, dumb. So then I said to myself, Grow up, Will. Apologize to the lady. That’s what you should do. Just say, ‘Mrs. Fallon, I’m sorry I tried to kiss you.’ But, see, I knew I didn’t have the guts to do that. Hell, I didn’t have the guts to do anything. So I didn’t. I just sat there smoking cigarettes the way I always did, feeling stupider and stupider, and after a while I drove home.”

“You sure you didn’t see anyone else?”

He shook his head. “That’s a quiet street. Maybe a couple cars drove by.” He shrugged.

“And you never saw who belonged to that car in her driveway?

“No.”

“Or a young man on foot who might’ve seen you?”

He shook his head.

“What about Mick Fallon?”

“Her husband?” He shook his head. “I told you. I didn’t see anybody.”

I let out a long breath. “Will, how come you didn’t tell me this the first time I talked to you?”