“So,” Tamara began, a few bites into her lunch, “what happened that Tuesday night?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” Linda said, then paused for a moment. “I feel really bad that I didn’t do more, I mean when it happened. But then, I know it sounds bad to say I didn’t want to get involved, but at the time it just seemed like a fight, and all I wanted to do was get away from it. And then at the store, they were talking about how they found the body right near where I’d been. And then at first I wasn’t even sure it was Tuesday. I mean, I really didn’t think about it at all as maybe connected to Mr. Como’s murder until I heard about the reward-I know that sounds a little crass…”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“Still. I just thought about what if it might have actually been important. You know?”
“It’s fine, Linda. That’s why they put out a reward. Get people thinking about things that otherwise they might not really have registered. But now you’re pretty sure it was Tuesday?”
“No. I’m completely sure.” She dabbed a napkin at her mouth. “I have this little calendar book-I know this is pretty Type-A, but welcome to Linda Land, as my brothers say. Anyway, I kind of use it as a shorthand diary for everything I do every day-how much I ran, hours I worked, where I ate, who I went out with, movies, books. It’s probably a disease, and I’ve definitely got it.” She shrugged. “In any event, I checked back and realized it had been payday and Cheryl-she’s my friend from work-and I decided to go wait at the A16 bar and have dinner there. Which, of course, took about three hours.”
“For dinner?”
“Well, one and a half for the wait-totally worth it, by the way-then about the same for dinner. But the point is that I probably got out around ten, ten- fifteen, said good- bye to Cheryl, and then-remember, it was that warm week?-I was stuffed so I decided it was so nice out I’d walk some of the food off, so I headed down to the Palace of Fine Arts, which I love at night.”
“Go on.”
“So then I’m down by the lagoon, just really strolling, enjoying the night, and I get down to the parking lot by the Exploratorium and I hear these voices, a man and a woman, so I stop. It’s not like I was trying to eavesdrop. Just ahead of me the trail turned and they must have been around the bend.”
“You didn’t see them?’
“No. Even if I had, it would probably have been too dark to recognize them. But anyway, it was obviously a fight, I mean just from the sound, but then I’m standing there and the woman goes, ‘God damn you!’ and I hear this, like, slap. And then she’s all ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean that.’ ”
Clearly getting caught up in the emotion of her retelling, Linda Colores blew at a few of her hairs that had fallen in front of her face, then brushed them from her forehead. “So now I’m thinking,” she continued, “I’ve got to get out of here, but it’s like my feet are stuck to the ground. I’m just rooted there, afraid I’m going to make some noise if I move. I mean, I really don’t want to be there, but…” Another shrug, followed by another sigh.
“So she hit him?”
Now Linda nodded. “And then there’s this silence, and finally I hear him plain as day. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘I’m sorry, but it’s over. I can’t do anything about it.’
“And she goes, ‘You can. You can if you still love me.’
“And he goes, ‘Aren’t you listening to me? That’s the problem. I don’t love you anymore.’
“And then I hear her say, ‘No, no, no, that can’t be,’ and then there’s this kind of sickening sound, like a… I don’t really know what it was like exactly. I mean, she kind of groaned with exertion or something and then there was this, this kind of dull sound-I even thought at the time it could have been somebody getting hit with something. I know I should have maybe gone and looked then. I mean, it sounded bad enough, but by then I was scared. I mean really scared. And then suddenly I start to actually feel sick and light-headed myself and I turn back and start walking away as fast and as quietly as I can. I really should have done something about it then, I think. I mean, called the police or told somebody. But when there was nothing about it on the news, not until Friday when they found the body, and even then I didn’t immediately put it together. Although I guess I should have, shouldn’t I?”
“You’re here now,” Tamara told her, “when a lot of other people wouldn’t be. So I wouldn’t beat myself up over it too much.”
“I don’t like to think I’m such a coward,” Linda said, “or that I only came forward now because of the reward.”
“I don’t think that,” Tamara said, “and I’m the only one listening.”
20
Being thorough, Mickey stayed on at the Sanctuary House offices and spoke for a time with each one of the five other women who worked there to see if any of them had seen or heard anything from Nancy Neshek on the Monday afternoon of the reward announcement that might bear on the question she had meant to put to the Hunt Club. None of them was particularly helpful; all were shaken and tearful.
It was after noon when Mickey finally finished and left the admin office. From the hospital lobby, he called Hunt on his cell phone and left a message, thinking, What’s the goddamn point of having a cell phone if you don’t take it with you or keep it turned on? Hunt was supposed to be at the Como memorial. So was nearly the entire cast of characters from which he needed to find alibis for the past Monday night. So it was doubly frustrating that Mickey had just learned that the Communities of Opportunity people had held a meeting on that night. Presumably-in fact, almost certainly-Nancy Neshek had been there along with many others of the nonprofit executive directors, associates, and certainly even Len Turner.
And Hunt, at this very moment, was in all probability with these people and didn’t have that one rather critical bit of information. But then, getting to his car, Mickey realized that if Hunt spoke to even one of these people, he’d find out about the Monday-night meeting right away anyway.
Still, Mickey liked being the bearer of good news, especially when he thought it was good stuff and he’d discovered it himself. So he placed another call to the office to brag a bit to Tamara, but she didn’t pick up there either. And what was that about? he wondered.
For just a brief moment, he found that his stomach had gone a little hollow. Where was his sister? Had he and Hunt been too cavalier about bringing her back to work, in assuming that’s what she wanted, in giving her more responsibility? Or might Mickey hope against hope that she had actually, of her own volition, gone out for something to eat? It was, after all, lunchtime.
His phone still in his hand, without much forethought, he went to his favorites list and hit Jim’s number, heard it ring four times, got his answering machine. “Give me a fucking break,” he said aloud, and leaving no message, he threw his phone onto the seat next to him.
He knew who he wanted to call next. But really, what was he going to say to Alicia except that he had just loved her company the night before and wanted to see her again? Wanted to see her all the time, in fact. What she had called her nerd moment from the night before had struck Mickey as incredibly poignant, echoing as it did his own feelings. It had humanized her to an extent that had taken him by surprise. He really didn’t need anything to help make her more compelling, but there it had been, unpracticed and sincere, a glimpse of the person under the package.
Beautiful there as well.
Still, he would have to wait. She was mourning Dominic Como. In fact, now that he thought of it, she was almost certainly at the memorial herself.
This was just swell, he was thinking. Here he was, all dressed up and no place to go. In the future, he would really have to try to remember to get more and/or clearer assignments from Hunt before he left the office for the day, which now stretched long and empty before him.