“I love tomatoes,” Cicero said, his face slightly tipped to look down into the bag, “and these still have that great smell. Of the leaves, I mean.”
It was one of my favorite things, too, the sharp spice of tomato leaves, so different from the sweetness of the fruit. “I know,” I said.
Cicero went to put the bag on his kitchen counter. I used the time to dig into my shoulder bag. “This is the other thing,” I said, pulling the.25 from the bag; its cheap silver plating gleamed in the lamplight. Earlier, I’d cleaned and oiled and test-fired it, ensuring that it was in working condition.
“Sarah, is that real?” Cicero had turned to look.
“It’s real,” I said. “It comes from- a kind of an in-law,” I said. Genevieve was, after all, practically family to me.
“Is your husband’s whole family involved in crime?” Cicero asked me, only half kidding.
I didn’t answer him directly. “This gun isn’t registered to anyone that I know of, and if any crimes were committed with it, they were long ago and over state lines,” I said. “I was going to get rid of it, but you need it more.”
“You think I need it?” Cicero said. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him surprised before. There really was a first time for everything. “What would I need a gun for?”
“You operate a cash business,” I told him, “in a public housing building.”
“Thanks for the thought, but no,” Cicero said. “I don’t like guns.”
“You don’t have to like it,” I said. “But in a place like this-”
“In case you weren’t aware,” Cicero interrupted, “many people who live in public housing are working parents. Or senior citizens. The rate of church attendance-”
“I get your point,” I said, setting the gun down on the table, into a kind of psychological escrow between us. “It doesn’t really matter where you live. You keep cash in your home, and people know that. That’s a risk in any neighborhood.”
“No,” Cicero said. “People here look out for each other, and they respect what I do. I’ve helped many of them.” He saw that I was about to speak again and raised his hands. “I understand the point you’re making. I do. But I won’t arm myself against my own patients.”
“You open your door to strangers, no questions asked,” I said.
“I open my door to people in need,” he said. “The elderly, the indigent.”
“Can you honestly tell me you’ve never treated someone who was injured in the commission of a crime, or couldn’t seek treatment in an ER because they were wanted by the authorities?”
“I don’t ask those kind of questions,” he said.
“That’s my point,” I said.
“I’m not worried about that,” Cicero said. “I’m a very good judge of people.”
“Really?” I said. “Did you know I’m a cop?”
The words seemed to hang in the air between us for a long time.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” he said.
I nodded.
He believed me. Behind his dark eyes, all the evidence was aligning. “When you first came here,” he said slowly, “were you gathering information for an arrest?”
“Yes,” I said.
“The cold was a pretext.”
“Yes.”
“I see,” Cicero said. “Get out of here.”
“What?” I said. There had been no change in his expression.
“You lied to me,” Cicero said. “You came to me asking for help. I took you on faith, and you lied to me.”
The literal excuse was on the tip of my tongue, that he’d never asked outright what I did for a living, but it sounded small and weak to my own ears.
“I lied for you, too,” I said. “I’ve sheltered you from arrest and prosecution.”
“Why?” Cicero said. “Because you pity me?”
“No, of course not,” I said quickly. “I just didn’t think you deserved to be in prison.”
“In case you’ve been missing the subtle nuances, I’m already in a prison,” Cicero said. “But catching subtle nuances isn’t your strong point.”
This was something different, a shift in tone.
“You think you weren’t lying to me because you never said outright that you weren’t a cop,” he said. “You tell yourself you’re not having an affair because you don’t sleep with me anymore.”
I felt as though I’d swallowed too much ice water. “ Cicero,” I began, but already I saw it was hopeless. “Will you at least keep the gun?”
“No,” Cicero said.
I picked it up off the table, feeling heat crawling on my skin, under my face, on the back of my neck. He watched me.
At the door, I said, “ Cicero, is this about what happened to your brother?”
“Goodbye, Sarah,” he said.
26
Marlinchen surprised me when I came home that night by suggesting a glass of wine out under the magnolia tree. I was about to tell her that I didn’t think it wise that she made a habit of wine at the end of the day, but she must have seen it coming, because she corrected me. “I meant wine for you, and I’d have a ginger ale or something,” she said.
As we emerged from the French doors, I nearly collided with Aidan, who was out on the deck without the light on.
“What are you doing out here?” Marlinchen asked him.
“Just getting some air,” Aidan said.
“Oh,” Marlinchen said, accepting it. But I saw the narrow outline of his lighter in the front of his jeans, and I knew he’d been just about to sneak a cigarette. To cover his tracks, I spoke up. “You know what I was noticing yesterday?” I said, looking up at the roofline. “Your house.”
“Oh, God,” Marlinchen said, following my gaze. “Does it need some kind of expensive repairs?”
“No,” I said. “I was just thinking that whoever did the repairs, after the lightning strike, did a really good job. I’ve seen it from all angles, and I can’t even identify the spot where it was repaired. Where exactly was it hit?”
It was Aidan who spoke. “Lightning struck the house?” he asked. “When was this?”
“You must remember,” Marlinchen said, surprised. “Back when we were kids. It was really loud.”
But there was no recognition on Aidan’s face. “It was that long ago?” he said. “I mean, are you sure I was living here then?”
Marlinchen nodded. “Oh, yes. This was before Colm was born. It was that night when Mother got so upset. She was crying, remember?” When it was clear that he didn’t, she shook her head. “Boys. You can sleep through anything.”
Just then, Colm’s voice interrupted. “Marlinchen!” His disembodied voice floated through the window.
Marlinchen made a little face, as if to apologize for the interruption. “What?” she said loudly, leaning slightly toward the open window and her out-of-sight brother.
“We can’t find Donal’s, you know, his sign-up form!”
Whatever it was that Donal was registering for- a sports league or summer school- Marlinchen seemed to be familiar with it. “Duty calls,” she said to us. “I’ll be right back.”
I stopped her. “Wait,” I said. “You didn’t answer my question, about what part of the house was struck.”
Marlinchen paused, with her hand on the door. “Sorry,” she said. “After all this time, I can’t remember.”
She went in. I turned back to Aidan.
“You know,” I said, “if lightning really did strike your house, you shouldn’t have been able to sleep through it.”
“I believe you,” Aidan said. “When I was living in Georgia, lightning hit a tree about a hundred yards from where I was working. That was loud enough to put the fear of God into me, and a hundred yards was a pretty safe distance.”
“Maybe you weren’t at home that night,” I suggested. “Could it have happened during the time that you were in the hospital?”
“The hospital?” Aidan echoed.