Okay, I appreciated her logic. Spend a few years as a defense attorney exploiting cop screwups, or as a prosecutor trying to wallpaper over them, and you’ll be damned sure to lock your doors and sleep with a gun under your pillow. Truth and sincerity, however, are different things.
But Dom Jimmy Jones arrived with our pizza pie and the awful Italian accent he had lifted from The Godfather or something, and I said, “Grazie,” and he looked back with a dumbfounded look until I clarified, “Thank you.” Mamma mia-welcome to the suburbs.
Janet laughed and commented, “Maybe it’s your pronunciation.”
“No wonder I had such a lousy time in Italy. I was there with your sister, in fact.”
“I don’t think she ever mentioned it.”
“A few years ago. We were taking statements from some soldiers who were being kept in a jail there.”
“Oh, the Kosovo thing. She did tell me about that. She called right after you returned, in fact. She was smitten with you.”
“Smitten?”
“It’s how we say it in polite Boston society. It means-”
“I know what it means. What else did she tell you about me?”
“All of it? The good, the bad, and the ugly?”
I smiled. “I have a strong ego.”
“Funny, that’s the first thing she mentioned-no, she mentioned a big ego.”
“The good, the bad, and the ugly. You start with the good.”
“I did.” She laughed, her first genuine laugh since we’d met. I don’t mean she’d been dour or bitchy or anything-the woman could frown and look pleasant. But she’d been concealing her feelings, smothering her grief, trying to accomplish the task she’d set for herself; but you had to know things were a little brittle underneath. I was glad I’d brought her here. I was glad I was diverting her mind for the time being. I liked her laugh. I was pretty sure I liked her.
She said, “Actually, Lisa described you as this big manly hunk who snorts testosterone at breakfast… bullheaded… trouble with authority figures… Should I go on?”
“I thought you said she was… what was that word again?”
“Smitten. She was. She also said you were smart, clever, sexy, and very funny without meaning to be funny.”
“What’s that mean?”
“That’s hard to explain.” She added, “But I think I see what she means.” Then she looked at me pointedly and asked, “Why didn’t you ask her out?”
“A lot of reasons.”
“All right. Give me one good one.”
“After Bosnia, a long case in Korea, three cases in Europe, a long case that kept me in Russia, and so on. I know this is difficult to understand, but Army life’s not conducive to starting relationships.”
“Of course.” After a moment, she said, “Have you thought of a good one yet?”
Right. I allowed a few seconds to pass, then said, “Your sister scared the hell out of me.”
She put down her wineglass and studied me. “Why?”
“You know why.”
“I want to hear it.” But she already knew, and she chuckled. “Maybe you’re not as brave as she claimed.”
“I don’t see any engagement rings on your finger, sister.”
“I have an excuse.”
“What’s your excuse?”
“I’m much younger than you.” She laughed. Again. She then said, “You should have asked her out. She got involved with another man. We weren’t all that happy about it.”
“What was his problem?”
“ Problems. Older, married twice before… a charming, successful guy, just definitely not right for her. My father lost a lot of sleep over it.”
Well, for some reason, perhaps guilt or perhaps a need to change the topic from the dead to the living, I asked her, “Well, what’s your life story?”
She appeared amused by this question. “The same as Lisa’s.”
“I know you were sisters, but-”
“No, Sean. Literally almost identical. We were eleven months apart, Irish twins. Still, you’d swear we sprang from the same egg. Same height, clothing size, tastes, grades in the same courses… perhaps you’ve noticed we even sound alike? We did everything together. She was a track star, I was a track star. She went to a girls’ prep, I went with her, then to UVA, then to Harvard Law.”
“No kidding.”
“Because I’m darker, and she was a year ahead of me, they called me her shadow. I know this sounds strange. We were sisters, but more than sisters.”
“You miss her.”
“He cut out my heart. It’s like he killed me. ”
I didn’t respond to that, but it brought some clarity to why she was here, and the scale of her emotional stake in this case.
But recalling that the purpose of this dinner was to take our mind off more serious matters, I asked, “And did you like the same men?”
“No. Poor Lisa was always attracted to creeps and jerks.” She laughed.
Interesting.
“So you never fought over boys?”
“Actually, I was seriously involved until recently.”
“What happened?”
“Old story. Business mixed with pleasure, and it didn’t work out.”
“Another lawyer?”
“He has a law degree, but wasn’t practicing. He was in the FBI. I met him on a case a few years ago, we moved in together, got engaged, and…” She brushed some hair off her forehead and said, “You don’t want to hear about this.”
“Am I getting too personal?”
“No. It’s just such a common tale.”
“These things are never common. What happened?”
“George was a real hotshot in the Boston Field Office. Early promotions, a drawerful of citations, a real up-and-comer. We worked a case together, some mob murders actually, that he had broken and developed. I had just moved into the felonies section, it was my first big case, I needed help, and he got me through it.”
“Go on.”
“I was madly in love with him. We lived together three years.” She looked away and said, “I broke it off.”
“Why?”
“We worked another case, and it didn’t work out.”
“His problem, or yours?”
She paused a moment, then said, “George was very ambitious. The more successful he became, the more ambitious he got. You know how that happens?”
“It happens to some people.”
“George had been working this case for a year. He was under unbearable pressure from the mayor’s office and his bosses to break it. Car theft is a major problem in Boston, everybody pays for it in high insurance rates, and the case involved a massive interstate auto theft ring. Whoever brought it down and got the convictions was going to be a hero. George somehow got to some people on the inside, treated it like a conspiracy, used one source to roll up another, and a number of the indictments landed on my desk to take to the grand jury.”
I nodded but wasn’t expected to comment, so I didn’t.
“The ring was large, several hundred people, from street kids who collected the cars, to chop shops, to the millionaires who controlled it. A few of the defense attorneys approached me. They said George had broken the rules, and complained that the discovery elements that had been turned over to them were partial, that certain critical pieces of evidence were withheld. They were talking about witness coercion, some strongarming, and perhaps unauthorized wiretaps. There was enough there that I went to George and asked him. He insisted they were lying. But I knew George. He was lying. The next day his office approached the DA and asked to have me removed from the case on the pretext that I hadn’t shown sufficient enthusiasm and dedication.”
“And your boss bought that?”
“The part he bought was that no DA is successful without the full and friendly support of your local FBI office. Also, this was your basic checkbook case. He also wanted credit for bringing down insurance rates.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, George got his grand jury indictments, his promotion, and his reassignment to FBI headquarters.”
“When was this?”
“About six months ago.”
“What did you say to him afterward?”
“I didn’t. Oddly enough, I was still in love with him, and I wasn’t sure how I’d do in a confrontation. I left him a note, moved out, and took a thirty-day vacation. When he tried calling, I hung up.”