“Hey, Mike,” Dot Libby said as I came through the door.
She wore a bright orange wig to cover what the chemotherapy had done to her head, but there was a hint of color in her cheeks that hadn’t been there the last time I’d come in. From her energy level, you’d never have known she was battling breast cancer.
“How are you, Dot?” I asked.
“Right as rain.” The tangerine color of her wig made me think of the Barters, but Calvin was still in jail, his son was on the mend, and for the moment I could relax about those worries. “Your handsome gentleman friend is waiting for you.”
I was always surprised to hear a woman call Charley Stevens attractive, but maybe they saw his inner glow-like the candle inside a jack-o’-lantern.
Charley rose to his feet as I approached our regular booth. “Don’t you look an awful mess,” he said by way of a greeting.
“Thanks for coming down, Charley.” There was already a cup of coffee waiting for me. My body still ached every time I had to bend down to a sitting posture.
He sipped from the steaming mug. “I reckoned I’d visit the transportation museum while I’m here and take a look at those old biplanes. Maybe I can bamboozle them into letting me take one for a spin.”
“How’s Ora doing?”
“We’ve got Stacey living with us again. She’s helping us clean out the Flagstaff place, but she and the Boss don’t see eye-to-eye on most things, so it makes for some awkwardness. Stacey’s not quite domesticated in some respects. She’s hoping I can finagle a job for her as an assistant wildlife biologist, but that’s a tall order. At least that Colorado district attorney declined to press charges.”
“I’d like to meet Stacey one of these days.”
“I’m not sure that would be wise,” he said cryptically. “How are things back on the home front?”
“Better,” I said. “At first, Sarah was crying all the time. She didn’t want to move back into the house after everything that happened.” I took a sip of coffee to loosen my stubborn tongue. “But she’s been doing better this past week.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Charley said, but his expression remained concerned. “Do you know if it was a boy or a girl?”
He was the one person I’d told about the miscarriage. “It wasn’t anything yet.”
He stroked his large chin, waiting for me to say more, but I was done with that topic.
I found myself staring at the place mat. “I’ve been thinking about something Jill Westergaard told me. She said, ‘You never really know someone until your relationship with them is over.’ Do you believe that?”
He considered the question a while. “Ora and I are still together, and I think I know her fairly well,” he said. “She certainly knows all my sorrowful imperfections.”
“I never really knew my father,” I said.
He warmed his hands on the coffee cup. “Your old man was more of an enigma than most, but he wasn’t quite as mysterious as you make him out to be. If you search your memories, I bet you’ll find a trail of bread crumbs.”
A revelation landed hard on my head. “You knew he killed Brodeur and Shipman-you knew it the whole time we were searching for him. So why didn’t you just come out and tell me?”
His entire face wrinkled when he smiled. “An old philosopher once remarked, ‘You can’t teach a man anything. You can only help him find it within himself.’ Or something like that.”
“When did you ever read philosophy, Charley?”
“Oh, I never did, but Ora likes to quote that line to me when I’m lurching from one mishap to the next.” He raised his long index finger to catch Dot’s attention. “What’s this I hear about the J-Team suddenly getting cold feet?”
In the days following the shooting, Ozzie Bell and his cohorts had come out with full-throated calls that Jefferts be pardoned. The big newspapers issued editorials arguing that Maine’s most famous inmate should receive a new trial. It all seemed to be building to a scandal that would shake the foundations of power and bring the attorney general’s office crashing down. And then, like a balloon with a slow leak, the air seemed to go out of the story. I’d just heard on the radio that the J-Team had dropped its motion for a new trial. In fact, the group-with the notable exception of Lou Bates-was giving up the ghost.
“It sounds like Menario finally found a certain cell phone among Snow’s possessions,” Charley said.
“Sheriff Baker told me there’s going to be a news conference later today.”
“That was thoughtful of the sheriff to give you the heads-up.”
“Dudley’s a good man,” I said.
After we’d finished lunch, Charley shook my hand so hard, I thought my arm would pop out of its socket. I’d be back on patrol in no time, he said, and summer in the Maine woods was a balm to soothe even the most troubled of spirits. I accepted his well wishes and followed him out to his vehicle.
“One last thing,” he called to me through the window. “The Boss gave me a message for you. She said, ‘Tell him he should call his mother.’”
I promised I would.
In fact, I had already telephoned my mother at her winter home in Naples. My photograph had been all over the news again, and the media inevitably dredged up the bloody events at Rum Pond. If ever there was a chance to talk with my mom about my dad, this seemed to be it. I was hoping that she might share some insight into his misbegotten rage and loneliness. What caused her to forgive his cruelty and self-centeredness? I wondered. Was it her own guilt over their lost child?
But when I tried to broach these questions, she cut me off quickly. “We’ll be back in Scarborough at the end of the month,” she said. “Why don’t you and Sarah come down, and we’ll all have dinner? I’m going to play tennis with Jane Rittmeyer. I can’t wait to see you, Michael.”
Denial has deep talons, I thought.
The front door was ajar when I arrived home. I found Sarah at the kitchen counter, with a pen in hand. She was dressed to go out; she wore boots over leggings, a cashmere top, and the expensive new leather jacket her parents had given her for her birthday. Her complexion was radiant, her hair perfect. I couldn’t remember her looking more beautiful, although I knew her stomach was still bruised.
“I was just leaving you a note,” she said. “Melissa and Nicole invited me out for sushi in Rockland. They thought I needed a girl’s night out.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “I’ll make a sandwich.”
“I won’t be late.” She kissed me on the cheek.
“Sarah, I need to talk with you about something.”
“Mike, I have to go.”
“I know you do.”
She paused in the doorway with the keys in her hand, and then she came back and sat down on the sofa. She patted the cushion, indicating I should join her. I couldn’t look at that couch without thinking of Stanley Snow attacking me there, but I took a seat. She put a hand on my knee.
“What would have happened if we hadn’t lost the baby?” I asked her.
“Probably the same thing,” she said. “It would have just taken us longer to get to this place, and it would have been a whole lot more painful for all of us.”
“I know I should have listened to you,” I said. “You kept trying to talk to me, and I was never there.”
“You were trying to solve a crime. You did solve a crime.”
“I keep thinking I could have done something differently.”
She shook her head and met my eyes, and I realized she would probably never look at me this intimately again. “We’re just not meant for this. I don’t want to be a nagging, resentful person; that’s not who I am. At least I hope I’m not.”
I gave her a playful nudge. “I didn’t make it easy for you, did I?”
“You saved my life.”
“That’s a nice way of saying I nearly got you killed.”
“No, it means you’re a hero. You just don’t believe it, for some reason. I hope someday you will.”