Justin couldn't help but grin just a little bit. Times had certainly changed. "There was a murder here last night," he said. "The investigation's going to start this morning."
"So what were you doing last night?"
"Thinking. You know that's the tough part for me."
Jonathan Westwood didn't respond. He certainly didn't argue the point.
"Big family reunion coming up?" Justin said. "A Westwood outing to Disney World?"
"Excuse me?"
"I was just wondering why you called, Dad."
There was another pause from the Rhode Island end of the phone. For a moment, Justin thought he was going to receive bad news. Then he realized that couldn't be it. His father would not have hesitated giving bad news. He wouldn't have liked it, but he wouldn't have shrunk from it. Justin wondered what in the world would make his father hesitate. And he realized immediately. The elder Westwood needed his son's help.
"Is something wrong?" Justin asked.
"There might be."
Again the long silence. Then Jonathan broke it with the words "Victoria needs your help."
Justin's head was suddenly clear. But his chest was just as suddenly so full he could barely breathe. "She asked for my help?" he said.
"No. She has no idea I'm calling you."
"What would she say if she knew?"
"What do you think she'd say, Jay?"
Justin decided it was better not to answer that question. He knew what her response would be: She wouldn't say anything. She would just stare at him accusingly. Bitterly. "What is it she needs my help for?" is what he said instead.
"Ronald's missing."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean he's missing. When Victoria woke up this morning, he was gone."
"Maybe he went to the office."
"She woke up at six o'clock."
"Did he come home last night?"
"Yes."
Justin gave a half laugh. "So he left early. Maybe he went to the gym. Why do you think something's actually wrong?"
"Because Victoria says something's wrong."
Now it was Justin's turn to be silent. When he spoke, all he said was "Yeah. Okay." After the next silence he said, "Look, there's nothing I can do yet. You have to give this twenty-four hours. People just don't go missing from six to seven in the morning. You can't send up a flare when he's been gone for an hour."
"He was gone before six."
"Okay, two hours. Or three. It's crazy."
Jonathan Westwood didn't have to say anything for his son to tell the deep level of his disapproval. Justin sighed.
"What would you like me to do, Dad?"
"I don't know. This is what you do for a living."
"No. What I do for a living is get involved when a crime is committed. There's no crime here. There's nothing here."
More silence. Justin was beginning to understand where he got his own poor communication skills from.
"Have you called Billy?" he asked. Billy DiPezio was the chief of the Providence police force. He'd been Justin's rabbi when Justin was a young cop. Billy was, in fact, the reason Justin became a cop. He'd watched Billy in action-a friend of Justin's had been murdered and he saw Billy hunt down the killer, refuse to give up until he'd brought the man to justice. It had been amazing to watch-someone who did exactly what he set out to do, who let nothing interfere with his ultimate goal. As Justin got to know him better over the years, he discovered that Billy DiPezio never let anything interfere with his goals. The complications came because Chief DiPezio's goals were often a tad hazy. "Hazy" being the nicest possible interpretation. Justin always described his mentor as either the most honest crook in the world or the most crooked honest man there was. Billy was a great cop. He just didn't see any reason why, whenever he did a good job, he shouldn't get something out of it, too. Which he almost always did.
"No," Jonathan Westwood said into the phone. "You're the first person I've called."
"Here's what I can do. Billy would laugh if you called him about this. But he won't laugh at me. Well, he wouldn't laugh at you either, come to think of it-you're too rich. But he wouldn't do anything after he hung up on you. I'll get him to do something."
"What?"
"Whatever he can. Talk to Vicky for one thing."
"I don't think Victoria will have anything to say."
"Well, it's going to be very difficult to find out anything if the only person who thinks there's something wrong won't talk about it."
Another moment of silence. Jonathan was not used to being chastised. But Justin's words had their desired effect. "I understand," Jonathan said. "I'll tell her to talk to Billy. Thank you."
"Dad," Justin said. And before his father could say a word, he finished with, "I'm glad you called me. I know it wasn't easy. I know what you think of what I do."
"I hate what you do."
"Yes, I know."
"But you're very good at it, aren't you?"
"Depends who you talk to," Justin said.
Father and son hung up the phone at almost precisely the same moment. Justin held the cordless receiver in his hand. He thought about the relationship he had with his father, the years they hadn't spoken to each other, the pain they'd caused each other, the pleasures they'd each received from their rapprochement. He thought about his mother, how thrilled she'd been when he showed up on their Providence doorstep three years ago, Deena and her young daughter in tow. He thought about how helpful his father had been the year before, when Justin had been in the midst of searching for the solution to the mystery of Midas. He thought about how strange families were, how tenuous their ties, how mutually destructive and supportive. Mostly Justin thought about Victoria LaSalle. His wife's younger sister. He closed his eyes and pictured the expression on Vicky's face at Alicia's funeral. He saw the look of scorn that burned in his direction. A look that, over the course of the service, turned to cold fury and then to deep hatred. It was a look that made it very clear the younger sister blamed Justin for the death of the older sister. Blamed him and would never forgive him.
Justin understood the look very well.
It was the same look he saw on his own face when he looked in the mirror.
He'd spent years running away from that look. He knew he would never truly forgive himself. But he'd learned to live with the guilt and the loneliness. To compartmentalize it so it no longer took up the biggest share of his emotions and his life.
He wanted to help Victoria. After all these years, he wanted to change the expression in her eyes and on her lips.
But Justin knew he couldn't help her. At least not right now.
He had a job to do first.
So he put the phone back in its base and prepared a pot of coffee. Then he went upstairs to wake up the woman in his bed, gently kiss her good morning, and begin to make his plans to find out who had murdered her husband.
8
Larry Silverbush, Mayor Leona Krill, Justin, and Abigail Harmon met in Justin's office at the East End Harbor police station. Silverbush went to the chair behind Justin's desk as if it were his own and waved at the others to sit down. Justin decided to let the slight go unmentioned. He also decided not to bring up the subject of the DA's comb-over. When it came to hairstyles, Justin had not seen too many even remotely in the same league. It looked as if Silverbush had been walking down the street and a dead squirrel had been dropped from a twelfth-floor window onto his head.
As oblivious as he was to Justin's displacement, that's how solicitous the DA was of Abby. He was a politician after all. And dead husband or no dead husband, she was still an important member of a rich political family, so she was going to see law enforcement at its absolute best. Or, at the very least, at its absolute politest. Silverbush began by thanking her for coming in and offering his condolences, which she accepted passively but graciously.