“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
Glen nodded. “Sorry. Just a phrase we had, back in Munich. That gold had the best taste of all. And then we talked some more, had a barbecue, and then changed the subject. Marcus said he had to do what was right for him and his family. I said I could see his point. And that was that.”
“Uh-huh.” The pen made a few motions across the small notebook. “Then what?”
He shrugged. “Up at dawn. Quick breakfast of coffee and toast. Drove him into town, to Frye’s. It opens up at six. Got there about fifteen minutes early. He was going to get into the store at six, buy a ticket for the six-fifteen bus. Last I saw him, he was standing by the front door of the store.”
“And was anybody else around?”
“Chief, you know what it’s like in town. Some days at noon the place is empty. Nope, nobody was there.”
Colter said, “Which is strange, because nobody at the store saw him, Mr. Jackson. The owner opened up at six a.m. on the dot, and nobody was waiting for him. Which means that something happened to him in those fifteen minutes.”
“Sure sounds like that, doesn’t it?”
“Did he say he was going to see anybody else? Or stay another night in town? Or anything?”
“No, not at all. He was just going to get on the bus, head to Boston and then back to Queens.”
“Is there anything else you can think of that can help us in our investigation?”
He shook his head. “No, I wish I could help. Jesus. I mean, what do you think? Somebody picked him up? He wandered off?”
The chief closed his notebook. “We’re not sure, but we’ll be looking into everything.” Colter stood up and so did Glen, and the chief said, “Thanks for the cooperation. And the lemonade. I guess I’ll be going.”
They went into the living room and the chief sniffed the air, said, “Smells like you’ve had a fire in the fireplace.”
“Yeah, last couple of nights, it’s been chilly here. Nothing like a fire to keep the damp out of a room.”
By the doorway, as they were walking out, the chief pointed to a collection of sports gear in the corner. “It doesn’t look like everybody plays basketball who comes up here, does it?”
Glen stood quite still, looking at the mess in the corner. The hockey sticks for street hockey on the asphalt, the soccer balls, Frisbees, baseball gloves, baseballs, and footballs. “That’s right,” he said. “My grandkids come up here, they sure like to play with other stuff. They get tired of Grandpa beating them on the basketball court.”
Colter laughed and just as he was getting ready to leave, just as he was getting ready to step out of the room, he said, “Oh, one more thing.”
Oh, how fake, Glen thought. How fake can you get? “Sure, what is it?”
Colter’s smile disappeared. “I’d like to take a look around. If you don’t mind.”
“Here? The house?”
A crisp nod. “Yes. Your house. If you don’t mind.”
He certainly did mind but he shrugged and said, “Go ahead. Knock yourself out.”
So they spent the next fifteen minutes as the chief went through the closets, checked out the attached utility room that held the water heater and oil furnace, went back into the living room and kitchen and then upstairs. The cottage had no basement. More poking through the closets and in the bathroom and the master bedroom and the two spare rooms-“Marcus spent the night in this one,” Glen said, pointing out the spare room that had a view of the lake-and then they came to the last room in the small house, at the end of the hallway.
Colter said, “What’s in here?”
“My office, that’s all.”
“I’d like to take a look at it, if you don’t mind.”
Glen said, “It’s just an office. Nothing in there at all.”
Colter said, “Please. Open the door, Mr. Jackson. Or I’ll come back here with-”
“Oh, for God’s sake, here,” Glen said, opening up the door. “Look as much as you want.”
The office was small, another spare room that had been converted. There was a desk and office chair and filing cabinets, and a closet that the chief looked into. Glen stood perfectly still. Near his desk was his ego wall, a twin of the one back home, in his larger office. Framed certificates, photos and plaques, and one large framed uniform from his last season with the Celtics. Colter closed the closet door and then looked up at the ego wall. Glen did not move, tried not to show a thing. Colter said, “Lots of photos up there.”
“Yeah, well, you tend to get those over time.”
Colter stepped forward and Glen closed his eyes, imagined the questions that would come his way once Colter looked at the photos and the inscriptions and what was there, but Colter said, “Hey, I recognize this guy. Red Auerbach, am I right?”
Glen opened his eyes. “Yes. You’re absolutely right.”
Colter turned away from the wall and said, “Well, I guess it’s time to go.”
Another handshake outside and then Colter headed to his cruiser. “Thanks again for your cooperation, Mr. Jackson, and for the history lesson. You’re not offended that I’m not a basketball fan, are you?”
Glen tried to keep the relief out of his voice. “Not at all. Tell me-I’m heading home to Boston tomorrow-can you keep me informed on how the investigation is going?”
“Sure,” he said, “but… well, I don’t know. It just seems so damn strange, like the earth just opened up and swallowed him. Quite strange.”
“Yeah,” Glen said. “Strange.”
Twelve hours after the police chief had left him, Glen was out on his powerboat, alone, just past midnight, in the middle reaches of Walker ’s Lake. He had slowly motored out here and then waited, and switched off the engine and the running lights, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. He sat on the seat and leaned back and looked up at the stars. It was a quiet night and the water was still, and he had no worries of drifting or being swamped.
Out in the distance a loon called out to its mate, the trilling sound making the back of his hands tingle, and he thought of Marcus’s wife, back there in Queens, alone and wondering what had happened to her husband.
He sighed, shifted some in the seat, and then stood up, the boat weaving back and forth. He said in the darkness, “I bet she misses you, though I don’t know why, you rotten son of a bitch.”
But there was no reply, no sound coming back from the plastic-wrapped object in the stern of the boat, secured on both ends with concrete blocks. He went to the back of the boat and waited, still looking at the dark stretches of the shoreline. Aloud he said, “Just my luck he wasn’t a basketball fan, ol’ boy. He stood in my office and looked at my plaques and trophies, and it was staring right at him. My old nickname on the court. The Enforcer. That was me, Marcus the Enforcer, and that’s why you shouldn’t have come to see me. ’Cause I was going to enforce our agreement. Man, even somebody as young as that chief should have seen that.”
Part of the story was true, about the discussion and the beer and the barbecue, but he had left out the part when ol’ Marcus, hair gone gray and stomach gone thick, had got into a screaming match, saying screw you, screw the team, I’m on my own, it’s been thirty years, the hell with you all, and when he started storming out of the cottage, saying he was going to walk to town and catch a cab or do something to get him back home and get that silver medal in his hands, well, Glen was not going to allow it. Not for a moment. And when Marcus got to the door, he had reached into the sports gear and picked up a baseball bat and creamed the back of Marcus’s skull.
The baseball bat that he had burned in the fireplace later that night.
And dammit, if it hadn’t been for all those fishermen, hanging out all those hours, Marcus would have been gone before the chief showed up. Shit, that had been a close-run thing.