“I didn’t mean to hurt you. Buck just happened. Buck and I dated several months before I’d met you, stopped. Then he came by last month, just to float the notion about my becoming an anchor. It started out as dinner.”
“But you fell into…old ways.”
She looked away. “Yes.”
“I was always working, Dani,” I said. “I wasn’t there for two months.”
I admit distraction. I admit stupidity. I had taken our relationship for granted for weeks. But I also knew she only had to grab my hair and tell me her feelings, and I would have changed the situation.
Or so I wanted to believe.
I said, “Are you serious about him? Kincannon? Is this relationship everything you want?”
Something changed. Her eyes turned to a dimension far away. She looked like she was stepping through a door with one chance to retreat before the door closed.
“Yes…,” she said, the word hissing away.
“Then everything will be for the best.”
She put her hands on my chest. Agitation shivered through her face.
“He’s very caring, Carson. He calls every hour at least. Look at all the flowers. He’s going to teach me to sail. I’ve never-”
I felt a rush of anger. “You don’t have to sell him to me, Dani. I don’t like Buck Kincannon. And I’m not going to change.”
She dropped her hands loose to her sides, stared at the scarlet carpet.
“Of course.”
She walked across the room. A realization came to her eyes.
“This is the last time you’ll ever be here, in this room. In my house.”
“Yep.”
She turned away, dropped her face into her hands. “What have I done, what have I done…”
I went to her, held her shoulders. She remained hunched over, tucked into herself.
“What have I done…”
“Dani? Are you sure you’re all right?”
She spun, took my face in her hands. “Oh God, Carson, I’m so sorry. For my stupidity. For everything. If there’s anything I can do…”
I pulled her close.
Be careful around Buck Kincannon, I could have said. Watch yourself. Clair Peltier thinks they’re dangerous, unstable, unhappy people capable of…
Instead, I put on a sad face and a bewildered voice and said, “I dunno, Dani, maybe there’s something on this you could help me with, just a name. It’d save me a week’s work…”
I left Dani sprawled on her couch, sobbing. Inconsolable. In the last few minutes she had fallen into a world where her grief was within some private internal domain. I took one last look at Dani’s home, knew my hours there were over. I stepped outside and pulled the door shut.
“Excuse me, who are you?” a voice said.
I turned to face Buck Kincannon striding up the steps. In the drive was an automobile that looked fresh from a wind tunnel. His cologne moved in advance of his body, something light, almost feminine. Kincannon wore a gray linen suit, blue shirt, lavender tie with a small hard knot. Not a wrinkle anywhere. I wore a coffee-stained thrift-store jacket over faded jeans, and was too many miles from my morning shower.
“I’m Carson Ryder.”
Neither of us made a move toward shaking hands. He nodded, made a show of waggling his forefinger at me, a remembrance.
“Right, I recognize you from the party. I liked the cowboy getup, something different, funny. You’re just leaving, right?”
The last line he delivered double entendre, the slight smirk at the corner of his lips saying, You’re history, loser. The bright teeth sparkled with innocence. I made no answer as we moved past one another in the disengagement dance. I was walking away, he was moving toward the door.
He paused, snapped his fingers.
“You’re a detective, aren’t you? I’ve heard a few things about you.”
He hit the word few, like I was a guy who stopped by every couple of weeks to mow the lawn.
“Really?” I said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
He canted his head, grinned, raised an imperious eyebrow. It looked like a pose for a menswear catalogue.
“From the news?” he presumed.
“From Harry Nautilus.”
Kincannon pursed his lips. Shook his head. “Sorry. The name doesn’t ring a bell.”
He dismissed me with his back. Started to knock on the door. I said, “You worked with Harry Nautilus on a project a few years back, a sports venture.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Bringing Tiger Woods to town for the Magnolia Open?”
“Putting together the little ball field up in Pritchard. The one for the poor-as-dirt kids.”
He froze before his knuckles knocked the door. Turned to face me. The glittering eyes had gone flat. I looked into frosted black marbles.
“I’m afraid your friend must be mistaken. I don’t recall it.”
I gave it a two-beat pause.
“That’s strange, Buckie. Folks up there remember the incident. Which probably doesn’t bother you a lot because they’re poor. But I also hear the blue bloods of Mobile wouldn’t wipe their asses on a Kincannon. Enjoy your evening.”
I winked and walked to my truck without looking back, feeling Kincannon’s mute, blind hatred every step of the way.
It felt good.
Twenty minutes after leaving Dani I sat on Harry’s gallery. Harry sat in the glider sipping a beer. He’d traded work garb for a tie-dyed tee heavy on the red, lavender shorts, size-14 leather sandals. He’d moved the red-frame sunglasses to the crown of his head.
I reached in my pocket, pulled out a slip of paper.
“Guy’s name is Ted Margolin,” I explained, passing the slip to Harry. “He’s local, with the Mobile Register. But he handles state politics, and that means Montgomery. Good and fast and connected, according to what I could get from Dani.”
Sobbing as she wrote Margolin’s name and number. Apologizing again and again. Our yearlong relationship exploding around us and I’m lying to wrangle information.
“Connected to the cops?” Harry asked. “The administration side, people with access to records?”
“As much as any reporter could be, I guess. Dani says the guy’s almost sixty, worked the beat a long time.”
“Who’s opening the lines of communication?”
“Ms. D. said she’d call the guy tonight, pave the way.”
If she could pull herself together. If she hadn’t told Kincannon my request, him saying, screw the cop, let him get his own information. Or maybe she’d already forgotten about it, busy romping with the Buckster in a house stinking of flowers.
Harry said, “You tell her anything about what we’re-”
“Just the fake story, Harry. She wasn’t really listening. I got the feeling her life’s a bit complicated.”
“Complicated how, Carson? She’s keeping her toesies warm with…”
I raised my hand like a stop sign and said, “Enough.” Buck Kincannon was history.
For the moment.
I declined Harry’s offer of supper and started for home. The moments with Dani ached in my belly, a physical pain, like being punched. Then I remembered a kind and generous offer that had been made to me, and cut across town, heading west. It was nearing seven p.m., the shadows long, the air hazy and golden.
Before her divorce two years back, Clair Peltier and her husband had lived in a piece of high-money real estate on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay. It seemed more museum than home, centuries-old furniture, art on marble pedestals, glittering chandeliers. A gilded harp, for crying out loud.
The lust for ownership had belonged to her husband, Zane Peltier. Clair preferred experiences to objects. Reading, cinema, the symphony, travel…all stirred her pot harder than a fancy car or an armoire by Louis the something or other. When divorce loomed, Clair found herself in the enviable position of having a husband with both money and a need to avoid news coverage. Today she lived in a small but elegant house on a woodsy acre in Spring Hill, the champagne section of town.
Driving down her street, I saw Clair in her front yard. She was painting her mailbox, brush in hand, a small paint can at her feet. The methodology was pure Clair: dip brush, remove excess, carefully paint one square inch of mailbox, repeat.