“Bob, for God’s sake,” the judge was saying, “if you want me to say that my nephew, Kenny, was a shit, of course he was a shit.
You don’t really expect me to sit here and deny that, do you? But beyond admitting it, what else can I do about it? I’m sorry; I’m very, very sorry it happened.”
“Excuse me,” Pamela said before Frazier could respond. “I brought some more coffee. Fresh.”
“Thank you, dear,” the judge said. “So pour us some fresh and get the hell out of here.”
“Yes, Judge.”
To me, she said, “You’re late.”
I didn’t have time to say anything. I just sat down in the leather chair next to Frazier’s. He briefly scowled in my direction. I’d never liked him but now that his daughter was dead, I felt vaguely guilty about not liking him. While Pamela poured everybody coffee, I sat there and tried hard to work up some good feelings for him.
I didn’t have much luck.
“Now, you have some brandy in this one, Bob,” the judge said. Pamela had handed her a cup and saucer. The judge picked up the brandy bottle and poured in a good shot and handed the cup to Bob.
The judge dispensed brandy-and-coffee the way priests dispensed communion.
“It’s too early,” Frazier said.
“The hell if it is,” the judge said.
“Now hold your cup out and quit being a baby.”
“Damn it, Esme, there’s never any arguing with you, is there?” Frazier said, but he held his cup out. The judge gave him a bracing shot. No matter how strong your resolve, was, the judge would triumph.
“What you need to do,” the judge said, “as soon as the funeral is over is get the hell out of here. And I mean far away. Have you ever been to Bermuda?”
“Once. They were having some kind of political trouble there. And some kind of big bug bit my girlfriend on the ass. Pardon my French.”
“Which girlfriend?”
“Darla.”
“Did the bug get poisoned?” the judge asked sweetly.
“She never liked you any better than you liked her,” Frazier said. Then he made a fist. And his eyes shone with tears. “My daughter was a good, sweet girl and that son of a bitch completely corrupted her. Completely.”
On the words “good, sweet girl,” the judge looked at me and rolled her eyes. His daughter, Susan, whom I’d liked, probably hadn’t been an ideal girl. She slept around a lot and had a few minor fracases with Sykes’ hillbilly gestapo.
But she was a sweet and tender and honest girl, giving a lot of free hours to the hospital and to one of the local vets. She was like a lot of local people, she saw helping out as part of the price you paid for the privilege of living here.
Frazier suddenly set his cup down and half-leaped to his feet. He walked over to the regal red drapes keeping out the afternoon sun. He parted the drapes and looked out. The sun exposed the rough acne of his face. Mid-fifties, and his complexion had never cleared up. But somehow, with the white hair and the sharply pointed nose, the affliction only enhanced his predatory air.
Still staring out the window, he said, “She was my life. She was all I cared about.”
The judge gave me another one of her skeptical looks but let him go on.
He turned back to look at her. “I don’t have to tell you that I was opposed to this marriage.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Bob. I remember how much you were against it.”
“Kenny was a jackass.”
“That he was.”
“And the idea that he’d run around on a young woman as beautiful and gentle as my daughter-”
He shook his white-maned head and for the first time I felt sorry for him. I wondered now if he was reliving everything his mother had put his father through. Her affairs were the stuff of local legend. She’d been the artsy-type, involved in theater productions and arts festivals and outdoor musicales, as they are called. She’d spent a good deal of her time at a downtown store called Leopold Bloom’s, after the James Joyce character. She was his first wife and no one could blame him for finally divorcing her. But then he pretty much married the same woman three times over.
Frazier came back to his chair. He looked old and weak now. The sunlight had apparently put him in a better mood. He said, “You’re right, Esme. I want to punish somebody. It’s just like Kenny to kill himself. The bastard couldn’t face what he’d done, so he took the easy way out.”
“I don’t think he killed her,” I said.
They both looked at me.
“What the hell’re you talking about?” Frazier said.
I glanced at the judge. “I don’t think he killed her. I don’t know why I say that-it’s just an instinct, I guess. He was so drunk, he thought he might have killed her. But I think somebody else was there with them right before I came.”
“And of course you don’t have any idea who?” he said.
“Not yet, I don’t.”
“I can’t think straight,” he said to the judge.
“I don’t even know what the hell he’s talking about.”
“Neither do I, Bob,” she said, sounding peeved as only the judge can sound peeved. “But believe me, I’m going to find out.”
He gathered up his camel hair coat from the coatrack. “There’s a lot of things I need to do this afternoon.”
“I’ll be here or at home if you need me,” the judge said.
“You’re a true friend, Esme. And I appreciate it.”
He slipped into his coat. I still didn’t like him and I probably never would. It was pretty obvious the feeling was mutual. “As for you, McCain, I’d keep your mouth shut unless you have some evidence in hand.”
The hell of it was, he was right. I shouldn’t have said anything about my theory unless I had something to support it.
He walked to the door. He looked lost again suddenly. “Thanks, Esme.”
“You’re most welcome, Bob.”
When he was gone, she lit up a Gauloise and said, “So tell me, McCain, how’re you going to save that prick’s reputation?”
“What?”
“Kenny,” she said impatiently. “I don’t mind that he killed himself. Given the way that he’d screwed up his life, that was almost a noble act.
But to kill poor Susan-tell me why you don’t think he did it.”
I shook my head. “Frazier was right. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Frazier’s a windbag,” she said. “He’s just worried that by the time Sykes gets done rummaging through Susan’s life, the whole Frazier family will have another scandal on their hands. You know, the way he did with his first wife.
Susan was definitely a tramp.”
“She was actually a decent kid,” I said.
“Here we go,” she said, blew smoke aimed at me. “McCain riding to the defense of the poor damsel.”
“She ran around,” I said. “But she had good reason to. Kenny lost interest in her a long time ago.”
“Don’t put me in a position of having to defend Kenny,” she said, “because that’s impossible. But she could have always left him, broken it off clean.”
“She loved him.”
“So she slept around on him?”
“People do strange things when they’re hurt,” I said. “I think we have to keep that in mind. I knew her for a long time. She was sweet and very decent.”
The judge smiled coldly. “Does that mean you slept with her?”
“We went out a few times before she married Kenny.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I know. I don’t intend to answer your question.”
She laughed. “Ah. Stand up to me. I like that.
Sometimes.”
“I just don’t want to hear her rundown. She doesn’t deserve it.”
“Spare me, McCain,” she said, pouring more coffee into her brandy. After taking a sip, she said, “Fifteen minutes ago I thought I’d have to call my father in New York and tell him that someone in our family had committed murder.
Believe me, I wasn’t looking forward to it.
That would look very bad on the family r@esum@e, as it were. But you, you McCain, have given me new hope. Maybe Kenny didn’t kill her at all.”