Simple (30 page)

“You won't sleep tonight,” says the wife of the neighbor.

Todd flashes a trademark smile. “Maybe not. It was kind of worth it.”

The woman smiles back, asking, “Won't you have to work tomorrow?”

“Oh, I might screw a few things up.”

One of the party people, the one with the girlfriend, says, “I thought you were going to stop at ‘screw,'” and the girlfriend hits him while the neighbor's wife looks abashed to think she handed him the straight line.

Simon continues to smile easily. He takes a seat on one of the chairs with plump cushioning.

“Drink?” Monica asks.

“Oh, sure. Whatever you have going. Anything is fine.”

“Personally I think beer works best with the ribs and sausages, but I can make you a martini or…”

“Beer is great.”

Monica goes to the bar to fetch him a beer. She looks very strained today. She's doing her best, but she hates all this socializing and she gave most of her best last night.

Connolly keeps turning the ribs. It's four thirty now. He made the invitation for three o'clock and hopes they all leave at six. Elinor brings out the bowls of potato salad and slaw, then the dense good rolls she ordered in.

“Ready to eat,” Connolly says. “Bring your plates to me.”

By five o'clock he's served everyone and put the extra meats on a platter. He's even eaten a little himself, though the food won't go down. It's stuck somewhere high in his esophagus.

At nearly six o'clock—some guests have left—Todd says, “Show you what I mean about the seats. I'm just around the side of the house.”

Connolly follows, fuming. “Why didn't you call me back?”

“I'm thinking. I'm working things out.”

“Look. That Commander Christie was here today. They have a lot of questions.” Todd stops momentarily in his tracks, then continues toward his car. Connolly says, “This thing isn't over by far.”

“What's his problem?”

“He wants to know who she was having drinks with. You told me it was you. Why didn't you tell him?”

“Look. I know what you're asking me. Yes, I took her for a drink. I had orders. I was supposed to talk her down from being in love with you.”

“Orders? That means you were telling people about me?”

“They told
me.
Don't be naive.” Having arrived at his car, Todd opens the door, pops the hood. “There you have the guts of it. Have a look.”

Connolly has wanted to ask why all this pretending and subterfuge if he's not guilty, but that question gets knocked out by the surprise of what Todd has just said. “Who told you? Told you what?”

“See,” Todd says patiently, “when I asked you about women, I was on orders to get you to talk about Cassie Price. Haigh and his men knew. What do you think? They weren't going to get behind you without some detective work. They had a detective follow you for a couple of weeks. They saw the motel stops.”

“My God.” He looks about distractedly, fixing his attention on the guests in the distance, laughing and talking. “Oh, Christ.”

“Now I need to ask you some questions. If it's heated up, I need to know—
how
did you call her? Because they're going to be tracing phone calls. What did you use?”

“A phone. I bought her a phone. I sent her to buy one and I kept it to use.”

“I'm thinking.”

“What?”

“If they trace it—”

“My God. No, it's okay, it's in her name.” Suddenly Connolly realizes that he's being sidetracked. “Look, what do you care about the phone? I asked you—”

“Because if they trace it, you'll have to cop to the affair. You have an alibi, so you didn't kill her. Maybe they'll keep it quiet.”

“Do you have an alibi? I want the truth this time.”

“I have an alibi. And you have the whole party on your side.”

“If the kid didn't kill her—”

Todd's eyes narrow. “They're saying that?”

“They don't have to. I can tell by the questions they ask.”

“I'm thinking. I'm thinking. I will definitely admit to the drink with her. I was supposed to find out what she was made of. That's all. I was supposed to see if she was reasonable. That was my job. That's all I did. I won't tell them that. I'll tell them she was a hottie and I tried for her. We have to beg the police to leave reputations intact—yours I mean. And we have to protect Haigh and the party in case…”

“If you think Haigh…” He couldn't say it. “I can't stick the Hathaway kid with it if something else went on.”

Todd looks at him with the eyes of contempt. “The kid will get off on mental issues. I've been asking around.”

“So Haigh did…”

The side door to the veranda opens, and three kids, Connolly's two boys and one of Dexter's girls, come out, running to the front of the house, around the veranda, and past them at the side of the house. The screams are a relief—kids having fun.

Connolly closes his eyes, wishing Todd away. When he opens them, Todd is still there and he is saying, “Don't get into that. Don't let yourself think it. If he did anything, and I doubt it, it's in the past. You have a bigger responsibility to the … people, the state.”

“She was young. She was naive.”

“Not very.”

“She was beautiful.”

“She was a bitch.”

*   *   *

MONICA—HER FACE TIGHT
from smiling—had gotten a little relief from watching the children cavorting about the grounds, running through the house and then back out again. At one point, when she was inside and they were running through, she followed them out the veranda door, about to yell, “Be careful,” but something caught her attention and she never yelled. It was her husband's voice only a few feet away, around the side of the veranda. She heard a few words. Only a few words. She went back in.

She poured herself a tall glass of water and drank it down.

“Are you all right?” Elinor asked.

She nodded. “The sausage.”

Walking unsteadily she climbed the stairs to her bedroom. There were a few guests lingering, but she didn't go back downstairs.
She was beautiful. She was a bitch.
Is that what they said? It was, wasn't it? Her husband, then Todd.
She was beautiful. She was a bitch.

*   *   *

COLLEEN CALLED
Christie
on her way back from her parents' house. “Boss? I'm all at odds today. Should I be doing something?”

“You can relax. Where are you?”

“Went to see my folks.”

“Good, good.”

“Not so good.” Did he think all interactions with parents were positive? “I'm on my way back.”

“Are your folks all right?”

“You know that conversation you told me I needed to have with them?”

“To tell them about your uncle? Yes.”

“I had it. I mean I knew I'd tell them one day and I did.”

“Okay.”

“It wasn't easy. I got angry and I said some things about how they were always drinking and into each other and not noticing me or my brother. It was ugly. They denied it and got all hurt. I think they hate me.”

“No. Probably they hate themselves.”

“Yeah. Drinkers do. So. Put me to work.”

“I've been thinking. I want you to be the one to talk to Simon.”

“I thought you'd want to. Or Dolan.”

“We think we'd scare him. He'll probably think he's getting around you—and you can trick him better.”

“Maybe.”

“After the squad meeting tomorrow when we can have somebody shadow you. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Take the evening off. It's all right. Where are you headed?”

“Just home.”

They hung up. He sounded … relieved when she said home. He didn't want her going to Potocki's house. But when she got to the Squirrel Hill exit, her car seemed to make the decision for her. It just kept going past the exit to her house. Potocki might boot her out or fight with her while his son watched; Scott might be either pleased or alarmed, or maybe, being a kid, simply curious. Oh, her life was very messy today.

*   *   *

WHEN THE CALL CAME
for “trays up” at suppertime, Levon told Cal, “Something going to happen tonight. He ain't going to let you go.”

Cal swallowed hard. He had made it through breakfast and lunch wearing his watch on his leg though he didn't let anyone see that's where he had it. Sidney sat one table over and kept laughing at him, calling him all kinds of names under his breath. He felt again and always like a little kid in school, with that dumb rhyme about sticks and stones going through his head. He understood, though, that he could not back down, not this time, if it came to a fight and even if he was being beaten again. He tried to think what little he knew about fighting. Eyes. Side of the head. A hit to the nose stuns. Duck low. Go for the knees. He didn't much like to think about it.

He and Levon pulled out chairs at another table, and one more guy took a seat with them. Cal didn't know his name. Kipper, Kippler, something like that, small guy.

“Hey, Chessman, I think you should sit at my table.”

After too long a long pause, Cal said, “I think you should sit at mine.” He's aware of a couple of the inmates laughing. Talk faster, faster, he tells himself.

“That's 'cause you aren't too swift. We've been giving you charity here. So far, that is. Most of these guys aren't pussy, didn't take it out on some young girl who didn't want them.” Sidney gestured: dumb, hopeless. “So she didn't want you. And that's how you took care of it.”

“We had a good time when we were together,” he blurted. “I played my guitar for her. Then we were playing Scrabble.”

“Fuck that. Scrabble? Then you killed her?”

“Nope. Somebody else stabbed her. I was home in my bed.”

Sidney laughed. “She let you visit her? Scrabble? Dumb pussy like you?” Sidney's eyes are bright.

“Yeah. She won, though. That time.”

Levon's eyes were round, trying to figure out where this was coming from.

“In the middle of the night, huh?”

“No, it wasn't middle of the night. That's just what the news said. It was like ten, eleven o'clock. We had the TV going. It was a Steelers night.” He took a quick breath. “How come you want to know? I don't like talking about it.”

“I don't want to know. You're just running off at the mouth.”

“Seems you give me a lot of thought. Supercurious.”

“No. Not true. I don't give you two seconds.”

“You're welcome to come over here and sit. If you have questions.”

A small pause and Sidney said, “You're really asking for it. You want to give up that watch?”

“What watch?”

“What you took from me.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

Sidney looked at him pityingly. “You make it worse and worse.”

The food was a tough couple of pieces of chicken and a bunch of vegetables. Cal thought his mother would know how to doctor it up to make it better—butter and oils and flavors. Chopping it and putting it in something else. How she'd hate this food he was eating, how she would worry about him. He loved his mother. He needed to make her understand that he knew his own mind sometimes. She protected him too much.

“You going to play chess with me tonight?”

He looked up at Sidney. “Not in the mood.”

“You going to watch the tube?”

“No. Not tonight.”

The calm that he felt was something strange—as if talking faster, answering without thinking, making up lies, eased things inside him instead of the other way around.

What Cal really wanted to do tonight was go to the basketball court, but it was too dangerous a place to be caught alone with Sidney. Sidney running the roost was a puzzle to him. What was his power? Levon was even more nervous than he was, eating rapidly. And Sidney was looking at Levon like a snake ready to strike.

Suddenly and without any warning whatsoever, there was a quick flicker of lights and then the whole place went black. Even under the first shouts, Cal had heard the whirring-down sound of power dying, appliances shutting off. All lights were out.

Bells started ringing, and now more voices joined:
What is it, hey, power's out, do something, what's going down?

Cal slipped off his left shoe, reached down and pulled off his watch, put it on his wrist. He felt his legs go out from under him and his head hit the floor. Somebody socked him in the stomach and started feeling around his left leg. There were shouts from the command desk of “Everybody stand. Hold your places. Name and cell number
in order
.”

Before he heard the whole of “Mike Pitsger, 201,” the lights came back on.

Most men were standing. He was on the floor with Sidney, who was grappling at his leg.

Somebody laughed.

“Stand. I said stand.”

Cal got up, trying to catch his breath. Sidney was staring him down, his eyes drifting only to the watch, which was in plain view on Cal's arm.

The other inmates were busy looking around trying to figure out the reason for the outage.

“To your cells.”

“What about dinner?”

“To your cells. Immediately.”

The sally port guide came in, weapon drawn, and everybody moved.

Soon Cal and Levon were back in their cell and the door clicked into lock position.

“You are one lucky son of a bitch. How you do that?”

There was something to be said for luck.

TEN

MONDAY, AUGUST 24

CHRISTIE DIDN'T WANT
to tell the whole squad yet about the Connolly connection. A blunder there would cost. So he was relieved to see that two cases—a homicide and an attempted homicide—required a good number of his detectives. He decided to narrow the pool of people he confided in to a few. There was going to be a need to let everybody in on some aspects of what he was calling the Price case—or they would wonder why the case was faltering. Christie weighed his bits of information and moved his few chess pieces around.