CHAPTER 7
Since Luke left for Boston College six weeks ago, Harry and I have fallen into a Friday-evening routine. I get to my cottage first and feed Danny Boy, our eleven-year-old Irish setter. Then I fill the old claw-footed tub with bubble bath and water as hot as I can stand it, light a few candles, and soak. Harry stops at the fish market, picks up a couple of lobsters, and puts a pot of water on the stove as soon as he comes in. Then he joins me, bringing a Heineken for himself and a glass of sauvignon blanc for me. He sits beside the tub, on an old cedar chest that holds summer beach towels, and we enjoy our own, private version of happy hour.
Tonight I could barely wait to slide under the thick white blanket of almond-scented bubbles. Steaming-hot baths have always been my substitute for therapy. They’re cheaper, for one thing, and available on demand. Besides, I was married to a shrink once. I can’t bear the thought of being alone in a room with one again.
Harry taps on the door and leans into the bathroom. “You want company?”
This is not a question he normally asks. The candlelight is too dim for me to read his expression, but it’s pretty clear he thinks he’s still in the doghouse for his conference-room comments. “I want wine,” I tell him.
He crosses the room, sets both drinks on the windowsill, out of my reach, and kneels beside the tub. “It’s a package deal,” he says, leaning over and brushing his lips against mine.
I take hold of the knot in his already-loosened tie and pull him closer, so I can kiss him for real. It’s hard to resist Harry.
He smiles at me—that narrow-eyed, tight-lipped smile—then retrieves our drinks and assumes his perch on the cedar chest, a patch of white bubbles dissolving slowly on the front of his open-necked shirt. “So tell me, Attorney Nickerson, what’s your take on the Rawlings matter?”
I lean back against the cool porcelain and sip my wine. “I don’t have a take. Without the body, it’s anyone’s guess.”
“Bingo,” he says. “And as long as it’s anyone’s guess, nobody goes to jail over it.”
He’s right, of course. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but he’s right. It’s the cops and prosecutors who need to figure out what actually happened, not the defense attorney. A seasoned defense lawyer would be overjoyed to have every one of his cases remain a mystery. And Harry’s a seasoned defense lawyer right down to his soul.
He leans over and clinks his green bottle against my wineglass, then swallows a mouthful of beer. “Here’s hoping old Herb never surfaces.”
I shake my head and close my eyes.
“What?” he protests. “What’d I say?”
I open my eyes again, to see if he’s serious. He is. “The man is dead,” I remind him.
“I know that, Marty.” He sets his beer down and leans forward, resting both hands on the rim of the tub. “That’s the point. If I thought the guy could be rescued, I’d want him to turn up. But since he’s dead, he may as well rest in peace in the depths of the Great South Channel. He won’t cause any trouble there.”
“He won’t have a proper burial either.”
“Says who? What’s wrong with the ocean floor? Beats the hell out of a patch of dirt. Tell you what. When the time comes, you can bury me in the Great South Channel too. I’ll keep old Herb company.”
“Swell, Harry. Maybe you and Herb should invite Glen Powers to join you. A reunion of Louisa alumni.”
He laughs and retrieves his beer. “How’d it go today, anyhow? Did you two hit it off?”
I don’t think Harry’s ever asked me if I hit it off with a client before. “It was fine,” I tell him. “But we have a lot more ground to cover before Monday.”
He nods, then tilts his head to one side. “Did Louisa ever have any kids?”
I know Harry’s never asked that about a client before. “No,” I tell him. “But she does have a wicked stepdaughter. Five years her junior.”
“Sweet Jesus,” he says, taking another swallow. “That could get ugly.”
“Louisa refers to herself as the trophy wife,” I tell him. “God only knows what the stepdaughter calls her.”
“Trophy wife?” Harry laughs. “She must have mellowed over the years. The Louisa I knew wouldn’t have settled for being any old trophy. She’d have called herself the Triple Crown.”
Well, of course she would have.
I’ve had about enough of Louisa Rawlings for one day. And my bathwater has grown tepid. I pull the plug and Harry gets my towel from the hook on the door. He wraps it around me as I step out of the tub, then pulls me close for another kiss. Another real one.
“I’ll bet the water’s boiling,” he says. “Ready for lobster?”
Lobster isn’t what I want at the moment, but I don’t say so. “Sounds good,” I tell him instead. “I’ll make a salad.”
He kisses me again—a quick one this time—and then heads for the kitchen.
I wipe the mist from the bathroom mirror, turban a towel around my wet hair, and sit for a moment on the edge of the cedar chest. It’s just as well. I am sort of hungry. And I’m too damned tired to compete for the Triple Crown.
CHAPTER 8
Saturday, October 14
Even on Saturdays, the Kydd is invariably the first one at work. Today is no exception. He’s stationed in the front office when I arrive, his feet propped up on the old pine table. His face is buried in an advance sheet, a paper rendition of the Commonwealth’s most recent judicial opinions, the industry’s heads-up to practitioners. Advance sheets are published within days of appellate decisions being rendered, long before hardbound casebooks can be produced. The Kydd’s focused expression tells me one of the high courts of the Commonwealth has recently waxed eloquent on the topic of life insurance.
Casebooks surround the Kydd in stacks of three and four, pink Post-it notes sticking out from their pages like multiple taunting tongues. My watch says it’s not quite eight o’clock, but it’s obvious the Kydd’s been in here working for a while. He looks up as I enter, dog-ears his spot, and takes his glasses off to clean them on his shirttail. “Marty,” he says, examining his lenses under the brass lamp at the edge of the table, “I have to thank you. What a career-enhancing assignment you’ve given me. I don’t know that I’ve ever been exposed to such intellectually stimulating reading material.”
“Sarcasm suits you, Kydd.” I sink into the chair across from his, awaiting his list of complaints.
“Jesus,” he says. “People spend their lives handling this stuff? Day in, day out?”
It occurs to me that the members of our esteemed insurance defense bar might be at least equally appalled by the daily fare we criminal types handle. I don’t mention it, though.
The Kydd puts his glasses back on, pulls our copy of Herb Rawlings’s life insurance policy out from under an open casebook, and flips to a section highlighted in yellow. The Kydd intends to enlighten me, it seems, whether I like it or not.
“The party of the first part,” he recites, “hereinafter the Company, agrees, subject to the provisions and limitations of this Policy, to immediately pay to the party of the second part, hereinafter the Beneficiary or Beneficiaries…”
The Kydd sounds a lot like those guys who spit out too many words in too little time at the end of car commercials. He pauses for an elaborate, drawn-out yawn.
“…the death benefit, the amount of which is set forth in the Policy Specifications, if and when due proof is furnished to the Company at its Home Office that the Insured, while this Policy is in full force and effect…”
He stops again, this time for a dramatic intake of breath. “These sentences don’t end,” he says, “none of them. Not in this policy…”