“Rich enough to hire you.”
He shrugged. “I come for a lot less than a hundred g’s.”
“So this Goemann character approaches your client, asks for a hundred grand to get this thing back, and then what happens?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“My client doesn’t hear from him again. He didn’t even know who it was who called him. He hires me, I get the number off his phone, find out it belongs to Goemann, then trace him through DMV to that house where he once lived with the other students, but he hasn’t lived there in a year or so. Sounds like he was bouncing around, sleeping on couches, working odd jobs the last twelve months or so, no fixed address. When he never called back with a counteroffer, to try and set something up, started to wonder whether he ever had anything to sell.”
“You still working it?”
Another shrug. “Client’s only got so much to spend. And I said to him, Look, this may have been a bluff. Maybe there’s nothing to this.”
Wedmore took a sip of her coffee. “Woody,” she said, and he smiled, “this is me you’re talking to. Off the record. What the hell was Goemann selling? What was your client trying to get back?”
“Basically, he was trying to get back what you were to me.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“He was trying to get back the love of his life.”
Twenty-six
Cynthia had sent Vince a sympathy card when she’d seen the item in the paper’s death notices that his wife had died.
She didn’t mention it to Terry. After those two disastrous visits to Milford Hospital to see Vince during his recovery, Terry had been adamant that they were done. We’ve made an effort, he’d said. We tried to show our appreciation, and he doesn’t want any of it. There’s nothing else for us to do.
Cynthia agreed, to a point, but she still felt she owed Vince something for helping them seven years before. If Vince hadn’t helped Terry put together some of the pieces in the puzzle of what had happened to her parents and her brother, Todd, Terry would never have found her and Grace in time.
They nearly died.
The way Cynthia saw it, she owed Vince. For her life, and the life of her daughter. The least she could do was send a card. So she picked one up at the mall, as unsentimental a one as she could find, but wrote inside:
I was very sorry to learn about the passing of your wife, Audrey. You, and Jane, are in my thoughts at this time. But I also wanted to tell you that I’ve been thinking of you. You made a tremendous sacrifice on our behalf, and I remain immensely grateful. I understand you may not have been in the mood to hear that message when we last saw you, but it remains as true today as it was then. With every good wish in this difficult time, Cynthia.
She could have signed it from herself and Terry, but decided not to. The note, really, was from her. Even though she hadn’t told Terry about it, if it ever came up, she wouldn’t deny it.
Cynthia hadn’t heared anything back from him. And that was fine.
But a few days after she’d settled herself into the apartment, she noticed an old Dodge Ram pickup roll up to the curb as she pulled into the driveway. She’d gotten out of her car and saw Vince Fleming open the door and slide off the seat.
“Hey,” he’d said.
He was thinner and grayer — not just his hair, but even his pallor — and when he walked toward her, she noticed a deliberateness in his gait that suggested low-level pain.
“Vince,” she said.
“I was at a cross street back there, saw you drive by, was pretty sure it was you. Thought I’d say, you know, hello. But this — this isn’t your house.”
“No,” Cynthia said. “When I finish work, I like to sit on the porch with a beer. Join me?”
He hesitated. “No reason not to, I guess.”
She went up to her room, dropped her purse, kicked off her heels, grabbed two Sam Adams, and came back down in her bare feet. Vince was in one of the porch chairs staring out at the street.
She handed him a bottle, beads of sweat already forming on it in the humid air.
“Thanks,” he said.
Cynthia sat down, tucked her legs up under her butt, and put the bottle to her lips. “You doing some work around here?” she asked, like he was a friendly neighborhood contractor or something. If Vince was doing work around here, it was probably best to alert Neighborhood Watch.
“No,” he said, not looking at her. “Listen, thanks for the card.”
“You’re welcome,” Cynthia said. “I’d seen the notice in the paper.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Had she been sick for a while?” Cynthia asked.
“About a year.” He swallowed some beer. “Hot today.”
Cynthia fanned herself with her left hand. “Yeah.”
“So, you guys downsize? Renting a room? Doesn’t seem big enough for you two and the kid.”
“Just me.”
“Oh. So you guys split up.”
“No. I just needed some time.”
“Time to what?”
“Just some time.”
He grunted. “I get that. Sometimes it’s nice living alone. Lot less drama.”
“Jane still with you?”
He shook his head. “Nope. She’s living with some half-wit.”
“A what?”
Vince shrugged. “Half-wit, dipshit, fucktwat, whatever. A musician. Plays in a band. I don’t like it, her living with him. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but that doesn’t sit right with me.”
Cynthia asked, “Were you and Audrey married when you first started living together?”
“That’s different,” he said. “We’d been around. She’d been married before. Nobody’s business what we do at that age.”
“Maybe that’s what Jane thinks. That it’s nobody’s business what she does.”
He gave her a look. “Did I come here for you to bust my balls?”
“I don’t know. Did you?”
Vince glowered at her. “No.” Long pause. “I came by to apologize.”
“For what?”
“When you came to the hospital to see me. I was a horse’s ass. This might seem kinda late coming, but I take my time when it comes to admitting I was wrong.”
“Forget it,” Cynthia said. “All is forgiven.”
“Well, shit, that was easier than I thought it’d be.” He drew on the bottle. “So, I opened up to you. Now tell me what happened between you and Terry.”
“You call that opening up?”
“I said I was sorry. So what are you doing here?”
She settled back in the chair, watched a car go by. “I lost it. With Grace. I was... out of control. So I’m on a self-imposed time-out.”
“You smack her around some?”
She shot him a look. “I did not smack her around. Jesus. But I’ve been trying to control her every move. We’re fighting all the time.”
Vince looked unimpressed. “That’s what parents do. How else kids going to learn?”
“It’s beyond that. I’m fucked-up, Vince. You find that surprising?”
“What, you mean about that shit with your family?” Vince shook his head. “That was years ago.”
She eyed him incredulously. “Really? So I should, what, just walk it off?”
He looked at her. “Things got sorted out. Move on.”
Cynthia studied him with a small sense of wonder. “You should have your own show. Dr. Phil’s got nothing on you.”
“There you go.” Vince stretched out his legs. He seemed to be struggling to get comfortable in the chair. “I’m not trying to be an insensitive asshole.”
“It just comes natural.”
“But you have to move forward. No sense looking back.”