B008KQO31S EBOK (36 page)

Then I walked out of the house with Chief O’Neill.

* * *

It was Jeffrey who was finally ushered in to talk to me. I wasn’t surprised that my father hadn’t come, but I was shocked that neither Matt nor James were prepared to defy his edict, to defend their only sister.

And then I got mad.

Jeffrey smiled apologetically, but looked strained. “I’m supposed to be the voice of reason.”

“Does that mean that I have to grovel before my father, begging his forgiveness for my conception which he seems to forget attending, or that I’m supposed to confess to something I didn’t do?”

“Take it easy, Philippa. This hasn’t been a good evening for anyone.”

“No, but I’m the one who gets to spend the night in jail.” I got up and paced, but it didn’t help. “Will you at least get me a lawyer? No one that you know personally, of course, so my father can’t hold it against you in future.”

“Philippa...”

“Maybe you could call Legal Aid for me. What was in my mind to think that in an entire family of lawyers, one, just
one,
might take my case?”

“Your father is very upset.”

“My father is an asshole.”

Jeffrey chuckled, as though he couldn’t stop himself. “That’s exactly what the party line is on the other side of that door.”

“Why? Who’s here?”

“Nick. He’s frothing that they won’t let him see you.”

Just knowing he was out there, even if he was just trying to set something right that he’d started, made me feel better. Less alone.

“Your mother, who is three sheets to the wind, is insisting that you be released on your own recognizance. She’s had quite a bit to say about seasoned criminals walking free while her innocent daughter is left rotting in jail.”

I sat down, reassured by this show of support. “I don’t think I’ve been here quite long enough to rot.”

“Yeah, well, don’t be too optimistic. This could get a lot worse before it gets better.”

“They don’t actually have a case against me, do they?”

“It’s circumstantial, but it’s enough to get you some frequent guest points in this place.”

“Was that a joke, Jeffrey?”

He grimaced. “Not a good one. What I don’t understand is why you’re sticking with this guy. He’s got a record, Philippa, and everyone knows you’re romantically involved. Why are you even in this mess? Hanging out with people like this can only lead to trouble. Why didn’t you just stay away from him?”

I propped my chin on my hands and looked at him. He was genuinely puzzled. “Where does it say that the easy answer is the right one?”

“What does that mean?”

“That sometimes you have to take a chance, you have to dream, you have to reach out for something that maybe you haven’t got a hope in heck of having. Sometimes you’ve got to go out on that wire without a safety net, just to see if you can do it. Maybe it’s one way to be sure you’re still alive.”

Jeffrey looked at me like I was insane.

Maybe I was.

But I was going to go down swinging. “Sometimes your heart tells you that something is worth fighting for, maybe worth making a sacrifice for. And even if you know logically that it’s unlikely to work out, your heart won’t take no for an answer.”

I took a deep breath. “I’ve been crazy about Nick Sullivan since I was fifteen years old and the only way to find out whether he was really the guy I thought he was, whether I really could love him, whether we had any chance of making something good together, was to
try
.”

He looked skeptical. “Is it working?”

“Probably not. But the journey has definitely worth the price of admission.”

He studied me.

“So you can go on back to my father and dutifully report that you have tried to talk some sense into me but failed.” I patted his hand. “Don’t worry, Jeffrey, he’ll get over it.”

He was far too serious. “Philippa, I’m just trying to keep you from making a mistake.”

I smiled at him, appreciating the thought if nothing else. “It’s never a mistake to listen to your heart.”

He got up then, shaking his head as though he was trying to dump pool water out of his ears. Or something I’d said. He got to the door, then paused. I braced myself for another round of persuasion.

But he surprised me. “I’ll probably regret this, but do you want a lawyer?”

“My father will be furious with you.”

“Maybe he’ll get over it.” Jeffrey smiled.

“I don’t have much money, Jeffrey. You’ll get in trouble over your billings.”

“My charitable contributions are down for this year. Let me worry about the billing.”

“Then why?”

He frowned at his perfectly polished shoes. “Because I think you’re innocent, but I doubt that anyone will have the balls to buck your father on this. Someone told me recently about the merit of trying, even when the odds are long.” He looked up and wonder of wonders, winked at me. “And I seem to remember that justice had something to do with the practice of law.”

I had to like his attitude. “You’re on. Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” He opened the door. “Let me see whether I can make a difference or not.”

* * *

Nick followed O’Neill to his office, not nearly satisfied with how things were shaking out. “You can’t think Phil is guilty.”

O’Neill turned to face Nick, his expression inscrutable. He was a tall man, built lanky and lean. The chief of police of Rosemount was dressed casually, in cords and a plain blue flannel shirt. What was left of his hair was still a ginger hue. If anything, his face had more freckles than before. He looked younger than the sixty-some odd years he must be.

He gestured to the empty seat facing his desk. “Why don’t you come in, Mr. Sullivan.” He granted a significant glance to the hovering Beverly Coxwell. “Close the door so we can speak privately.”

His choice of words couldn’t have been a coincidence. The invitation was verbatim with an offer the chief—then a detective—had offered Nick some fifteen years before. Nick hesitated, noting a shrewd gleam in those brown eyes that he had missed as a teenager.

But he wasn’t a teenager anymore. He closed the door with a decisive click and sat down, refusing to be intimidated or impressed by O’Neill’s silence.

The officer picked up a pipe from a bowl on his meticulously organized desk. “Do you mind?”

Nick shook his head and O’Neill took his time lighting his pipe, then ensuring it burned to his satisfaction. The smell of the pipe tobacco was soothing and O’Neill eased into his seat as he puffed. “I can build as good a case against Philippa Coxwell as against anyone right now.”

He spoke easily, as though they were discussing the weather over a coffee. “I’ve got her fingerprints at the scene, on the point of entry and throughout the house. I’ve got eyewitness accounts of her arrivals there this week, both with and without you. She was alone yesterday afternoon, at the time of the crime, by her own admission. And I’ve got a motive, in her own declaration that Lucia had stood her up for a contract. Her business isn’t profitable yet, is it? I’d think that a big contract could make or break her.”

“She didn’t do it.”

O’Neill smiled and leaned back in his chair. “Are you a hunting man, Mr. Sullivan?”

Nick shook his head.

“I am. Bow hunter.” He took a deep drag on his pipe. “It’s nearly a lost art.”

“I’m not sure what that has to do with this situation.”

“It has a lot to do with it. You see, I hunt with a bow because I like a challenge, I like to make the playing field level. It’s me against a buck, my ability to hunt against his ability to survive. You’ve got to get close to take down a buck with a bow, you’ve got to pick your quarry and stalk him.” He drew deeply and exhaled. “You’ve got to understand how he thinks. There’s no other way to surprise him.”

“I’d think the instincts of a deer would be reasonably easy to figure out.”

O’Neill smiled and wagged his pipe at Nick. “That shows you’re not a hunting man. They’re all different. Some are fighters, some are runners, some are tacticians. You’ve got to figure out which kind you’re stalking, you’ve got to put together all the little hints to make the complete picture. Where he eats, where he drops his stools, where he beds down, how he responds the first time you see each other. I like to think of it as a study in character.”

Nick folded his arms across his chest, but before he could object, O’Neill continued.

“And the job of a policeman in a small town is much the same. Successive studies in character. In a place like Rosemount, there are few secrets. There is time to develop an understanding of individual characters. I’ve been here my entire career. Some people think that’s because I’m not ambitious. They’re wrong. It’s because I am intrigued by the unfolding of character.”

He tapped a bit of ash from his pipe into the bowl. “You, for example. I remember the first time you came here, although you probably don’t. You couldn’t have been six months old.”

Nick tried to hide his surprise.

“Oh yes. Your father was quite the proud papa and took you out to show you around.” He mused in recollection. “That was when he and Lucia had their fight. They had it, unfortunately for their privacy, in the bar of the Grand Hotel downtown. Your father was buying rounds for everyone there. He was incoherent by the time Lucia got there, but she wasn’t. She had lots to say to him about the responsibility of raising a family.”

O’Neill smiled. “I’d just joined the force here and was sent down to straighten things out. Not that I had a chance.”

He paused and Nick found himself intrigued by this family tale he’d never heard before.

“Lucia wanted the bar closed down. I guess she figured that if the bartender stopped pouring, she had a chance of getting your father out of there. Of course, they were all a bit gone by then, and the bartender refused. The owner had seen the lump of cash in your father’s pocket and wasn’t about to cut in on a run of generosity. And the patrons booed her. There was a helluva fight brewing and I was pretty worried about how I alone could stop things from getting ugly.”

He shook his head in admiration. “But Lucia did it alone, without raising a finger. I can still see her, standing in the doorway to that bar, the baby that was you cradled against her chest. Now this was one of those old long dark wooden bars, with the glasses displayed in rows, on shelves behind the bartender. I don’t know much about music, but she squared her shoulders and hit that note—what is it? High c?—and those glasses broke one after another after another.” He snapped his fingers, over and over again, in mimicry of the breaking glasses. “I’ll never forget the look on the bartender’s face.”

O’Neill chuckled. “She told them to go ahead and keep pouring, knowing damn well that they couldn’t. People talked about that for years. The hotel owners made some rumbling about suing her, but that came to nothing. More significantly, your parents left Rosemount that night and were never seen here again.”

“I never knew about that.”

“No, I didn’t think you did.” His voice dropped. “You probably also don’t know, Mr. Sullivan, that your father was drunk the night he died.” He looked up, his gaze deadly serious. “Call it curiosity, call it an extension of my study of character, but I checked when I heard about the accident. It wasn’t his first infraction.”

O’Neill smoked with obvious enjoyment for a few moments, giving Nick time to come to terms with that. Far from being a hero, his father had been the cause of the accident that left four dead. Lucia’s refusal to suffer alcohol in her house suddenly made a lot more sense.

As did her claim that Sean reminded her of his father. For the first time, Nick understood that that might not be a good thing.

“It could be said that recklessness was part of your father’s character,” O’Neill said finally. “And it was clear to me years later that one of that man’s sons had inherited that stunning disregard for others, that love of a good time, that need to be the life of the party regardless of the cost.” He looked Nick square in the eye. “And that one son hadn’t.”

The chief watched the smoke curling toward the ceiling. “I know that you thought you fooled me all those years ago, and to be honest, for a while you did. You were always a smart kid, smarter than average, and disinclined to tell everyone what you’d done.”

O’Neill lifted a finger. “That’s why it made no sense that you kept getting into trouble. I expected trouble from your brother, but oddly enough, he never seemed to find it.” The chief’s gaze met Nick’s steadily.

“But as a student of character, you figured it out.”

O’Neill smiled. “Yes. Not that it mattered. Most of it was minor—tipped outhouses on the farms, flattened tires, boats cut loose and nets damaged, stolen bikes that magically appeared on the other side of town pristine. Annoying, but boyish pranks. Out of character for you, but not worth raising a fuss.” O’Neill nodded almost to himself. “I just enjoy knowing who’s up to what. It’s often a good precursor to the future.”

Nick had a feeling what was coming.

“But driving under the influence is not a harmless prank.” O’Neill leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the desk. “And a hit and run accident is no joke, Mr. Sullivan.”

Nick held the officer’s gaze, his loyalty and his confession under oath not readily sacrificed.

“You gave me lots of evidence, maybe too much evidence. Your blood alcohol was up, maybe not enough to account for your erratic driving, but then, you didn’t drink by your own admission. It’s hard to guess how alcohol will affect individuals, particularly those who haven’t built up a resistance—and you were over the legal limit.”

He lit his pipe again. “But from the beginning, I wondered who had emptied the rest of the bottles in the back seat. It sure hadn’t been you. I had a confession, I had the damaged vehicle, I had your fingerprints all over it and enough goodies from forensics to make the whole thing stick. I had an eyewitness, but you know, that case stunk. In terms of character, it just didn’t add up.”

He shook a finger at Nick. “If you had been drunk, if you had abandoned the good sense I know you have and had still gotten behind the wheel, if you had hit a pedestrian which I believe you would have done anything to avoid, then you,
you
Nicholas Sullivan, would have gotten out of that car to help. I watched you grow up and you didn’t fool me. You would never have driven away.”