I took a deep, shaky breath. “We have a lot to do, Ines- a lot to do for Billy. And the first thing is to have you talk to a friend of mine. He’s a lawyer- the best one I know- and he can help us with this.” I was too far away. I took a half step forward and tried not to look at the gun.
Ines smiled grimly. “A lawyer cannot help me, detective. A lawyer cannot make this right with Guillermo or let me look at him again. A lawyer cannot make this… stop.” She ran a forefinger along the top of the gun barrel. My skin prickled, and sweat rolled down my back. My throat was closing and I had to fight to get words out.
“He can help you to survive it, Ines, and that’s what Billy needs. He needs for you to survive this.”
She shook her head. “I cannot. I have destroyed his life, detective, and I am too much of a coward to see the aftermath.” She stared at the gun some more and I took another half step. I was still too far.
“Billy will need a lot of help- it’s true- but he’ll need even more without you.”
“Nina is there,” she said, but there was more hope than certainty in her soft voice.
“We both know that Nina’s not so good at help, Ines. Billy needs you.”
She closed her eyes. “He is the closest I will have to a child, detective,” she said softly. She slid her thumbs along the trigger guard and put her right thumb on the trigger. I edged closer. My heart was hammering at my ribs and blood was roaring in my head. I flexed my fingers. My joints felt welded shut. I was too far.
“And you’re the closest he has to a parent, Ines. You’re all he has of home. Don’t take that from him.”
Ines brought the gun up and stared into the barrel. Her chest was heaving and her eyes were black and shattered and fixed on something far from the empty room. She squeezed them shut and grimaced, and my body clenched for impact.
“Please, Ines,” I whispered. “He’s lost too much already.”
Her knuckles were white over the pistol grips and her arms were shaking. And then she opened her eyes, and they were filled with tears. Color came back into her fingers, and she lowered the gun and put it on the desk. I put my hand over it and let out an ancient breath.
38
My head rested on the seat back and I watched the traffic crawl southbound on Park Avenue. The taxi hadn’t moved in ten minutes and I thought about getting out and walking and instead I closed my eyes. It was Thursday afternoon, and I was on my way home. Ines Icasa was on her way to Lee, Massachusetts, to give a statement regarding the death of Gregory Danes and to be taken into custody. She was accompanied on her journey by Michael Metz, the best lawyer I knew, and by the best lawyer that he knew who was a member of the Massachusetts bar. They had negotiated Ines’s surrender over the course of several long and tense conference calls in which I had participated, along with Louis Barrento, a man named Graham from the attorney general’s office, and a few dozen other people whose names I never got. The first of those calls had taken place on Wednesday evening, and the last one had ended an hour ago. No one knew how it would turn out for Ines, but her lawyers were cautiously optimistic. Ines herself had moved for the moment beyond hope or worry into realms of deep exhaustion.
I’d seen her last in a well-appointed conference room in midtown. The drapes had been pulled and she had been asleep on the sofa when I’d come in. She was disoriented when she woke, and scared, and she sat up quickly. Her dark eyes were darting and huge in her face.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” I said.
Her eyes settled on me. She ran her hands over her face and through her hair. “No, I must get up. Nina is coming. She is bringing my clothes.” Her voice was hoarse and low and she cleared her throat. “She wanted to bring Guillermo, but I told her no, not now. The lawyers say that in a few days I will probably be able to return home, and when I do, then we will talk.” She yawned deeply. “I am told there is a shower here. I need a shower.” She looked at me. “You have come to say good-bye?”
“Only for a day. I’ll be in Lee tomorrow, for statements.”
“I will be glad to see you,” she said. She perched at the edge of the sofa and stretched her arms in front of her and rubbed her hands on her thighs. She was pale and drained and unprepared for what would come, and I suddenly wished I had a blanket to put around her. But I didn’t.
“I’ll be glad to see you too,” I said.
Ines smiled absently and rubbed her eyes. She pointed to the drapes on the big windows. “Could I trouble you to open those, detective?” I did, and a brilliant spring day rushed in at us. The sky and the river were impossible shades of blue, and the office towers were shining and sharper than etchings. The thin clouds were like spun-sugar ribbons in the sky. Ines drew a breath and blinked against the light. After a minute she came to the window and stood near me and looked out. When she spoke, her voice was very soft.
“This is a beautiful city, detective,” she said, and I had agreed.
I’d run into Nina Sachs downstairs. She wore black and carried an overnight bag, and her auburn hair was bound in a tight queue. The skin on her cheeks was veined and blotchy, and her arms and legs were rigid with anger. She moved quickly across the lobby and stopped in her tracks when she saw me coming.
“You proud of yourself?” she said when I came up to her. Her voice was a hiss. “You happy with what you’ve done to me?”
“I don’t think anyone is happy with this,” I said. “Ines and Billy and Gregory least of all.”
“Don’t!” she shouted, and people looked at us. “Don’t you fucking talk to me about them- don’t even say their names. Jesus Christ, if I had a time machine, I’d take it back to the day I met you and throw your ass out the door.”
“How about using it to stop Ines from going to Lenox?”
“You think this is a joke, you prick?”
My shoulder was sore and my head ached, and it had been a day since I’d slept or changed my clothes. My eyes were full of grit and my stomach was full of too much coffee, and I was full to bursting with Nina Sachs. I almost told her so, but I didn’t. “I think this is the least funny thing I’ve ever heard of,” I said quietly.
“You got that right, asshole,” she said.
“How is Billy?”
The red patches on Nina’s face grew darker. “How the fuck do you think he is? He’s a disaster, thanks to you.”
I took a deep breath. “Tell him if he’d like to talk-”
“To you? Why, you want to make sure his head is completely screwed up? Well, rest easy. That one’s covered.”
“He’s going to need help to get through this, Nina. He-”
“My God, you’ve got nerve!” Heads again turned in the lobby, and the security guards eyed us anxiously. “You ignore my orders, betray my confidences, open up my life to the police and the fucking press, and then- while I’m standing in the wreckage- you have the gall to lecture me about how to handle my kid.
“Well, how I handle him is none of your goddamn business, March. You’ve done enough to me and my family- more than enough. Just stay the hell away from him. Stay away from all of us.” Her heels had been like gunshots as she walked away. Another satisfied customer.
*
It was nearly four when I got home. There were no news crews, but there was a shiny black Porsche Carrera parked in front of my building. Valentin Gromyko climbed out to meet me. He was immaculate in gray.
“You looked better on television,” he said. There was some irony in his voice but no trace of it in his frosty eyes.
“I get that all the time,” I said. I yawned and massaged my shoulder.
Gromyko looked at the cuts on my face. “A miscalculation?” he asked.
“That and distraction.”
“A dangerous mix, especially for someone who minds so much of other people’s business. I hope it is not a habit, or I may never receive my payment.”
“Thanks for the concern. But if you’re here to collect, I should tell you that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has my dance card booked for the next few days.”