Injustice (22 page)

“Have you had any word about the evidence in the Kyle Devaney case yet?” Henry asked Tina. He was definitely interested in the Devaney case. He had gone to hear the oral argument at the state Superior Court. He'd asked me for updates several times.

“Nothing yet,” Tina said. “You should come over to my office when things are back to normal. I'll set you up with a case of your own to work on. We need pro bono lawyers.”

“Yes,” Henry said, “maybe I will.”

Henry was coming back to life. I'd grown to admire him. He had handled his fiancée's murder and his status as a prime suspect with amazing dignity. I thought of how poorly I'd behaved on the phone with Tina the other day, exploding because I hadn't been notified about the prowler. As far as I knew, Henry had never acted out like that during his whole ordeal. I felt embarrassed.

Henry liked to fish. He trailed a line behind his canoe, and by dinnertime he'd caught two big trout. I didn't know whether the fishing season was open, and Henry probably didn't have a license, but we were refugees who had fled from a killer and landed here on the edge of civilization. We didn't worry about a fishing license.

Back onshore in the evening, Henry filleted the trout. He knew his business with a fillet knife, handling it with practiced confidence, producing four clean and bloodless fillets in just a few quick motions. We pan-fried the fish, made a salad, and opened some beers.

Agnew left on Sunday. I drove back to the city on Monday.

I
moved back into my house. Inside, I found the lingering vapors of my previous exile, and of Tina and Barnaby and ZZ's absence. The house felt like a discarded shell; the life I had lived there was dried and gone. I actually considered returning to the Executive Suites, where I'd at least achieved the bunker mentality of digging in, holding on, and making do until the siege ended.

There was plenty to keep me busy, though, so I got busy. If I could have everything running like a well-tuned machine when Tina and Barn returned, Tina couldn't help but revel in our return to normalcy. I called a contractor to come over and give me an estimate for removing that wall she'd talked about. If I'd known for sure when she was coming home, and if the contractor could have promised to have it done by then, I'd have gone ahead. But I didn't want her returning home to a construction zone.

At work, I tried to focus on Subsurface, but I was distracted. Days passed slowly.

On Friday afternoon I drove over to Turner to have dinner with Flora and Chip and Lizzy. It was nice. I always liked being there because the house is homey and Flora has the knack for making everyone feel like a valued member of the family. Her marriage to Chip has been great for her. She had been well on her way to becoming the stereotypic old lady in purple: half a bubble out of plumb, as they say. Now with Chip, she seems well shored up, though not completely righted. As for Chip himself, he's my buddy, though I admit I get miffed with his newfound smugness. He acts like he invented the whole idea of contentment. (As if, following the collapse of his
previous marriage, I'd never heard him wailing to me over the phone about the agony and futility of life.)

Dinner was curried stir-fry over rice stick noodles. I asked Chip if he'd heard anything about the physical evidence in the Kyle Runion/Daryl Devaney case.

“Actually, the evidence went back to the state,” he said. “They're testing it. But no, nothing yet.”

Lizzy said, “Devaney? Is that the one with the little boy they found near the reservoir?”

Immediately, I regretted mentioning it. Lizzy might be almost nineteen with an occasional live-in boyfriend, but I still didn't need to be making dinner conversation about the most vile human depravity.

“Chip, what do the profilers say about a perp like that?” Ethan asked.

Chip cleared his throat and sat up straighter. “The fact that the victim was clothed and wrapped in a sheet tells us the perpetrator felt remorse. The nature of the crime suggests a shy perp, probably not real confident among peers, and especially shy with women. They say he was probably abused as a child, both sexually and generally, and that owing to the traumas of his upbringing, he has no self-esteem. He is meek. He may or may not be intelligent. The remorse he feels would cause him to—”

“Does Daryl Devaney fit this profile?” I asked.

“I don't know,” Chip said.

“Dessert,” Flora said. She clapped her hands and started clearing. Everyone jumped up to help. Lizzy playfully hip-checked Chip out of her way. Chip bumped her back. They tussled.

After dessert, Flora said, “Nickie, let's walk.”

We took Bill-the-Dog on a leash, and the two of us walked the road. She linked her arm through mine. “How come you're not with Tina and Barnaby?” she said.

“I figured I'd be more valuable here, keeping tabs on the hunt for this Smeltzer guy.”

“I see.”

“What?”

“That's your pattern, Nickie. It's what you do.”

“What pattern?”

“It's how you deal. You rush out and take charge.”

“What's wrong with that?”

“Who's with Tina?”

“Henry.”

“Exactly. And who was with her after Lydia was killed?”

“I was.”

“That's not how I heard it. I heard you were everyplace but. Running, shooting, meeting with Captain Dorsey.”

I stopped and stared at her.

“I know you, Nickie. Better than anybody. I bet I know you better than Tina does. You're always charging into battle.”

“Don't shrink me, Flora,” I snapped. Flora is a couples counselor. Flora and I had been a great couple once, but our marriage collapsed along with everything else in the wake of our son Toby's death. She likes to get me under her microscope, but everything she comes up with is hogwash.

I drove home alone. I envied Chip and Henry. Chip was living in the rural suburb of Turner, being a family man in the cinnamony home of my ex-wife, and standing in as dad to my daughter, Lizzy. Henry was with my current wife, Tina, and with my son, Barn. None of this meant anything, of course, it was only owing to the exigencies of the moment, wasn't it? But still . . .

Y
es, still. That conversation with Flora was well over a month ago, and I'm still not back with Tina. I'm up here in my own cabin on my own lake, preparing for the trial by writing this account of everything that has happened—especially what happened in the days after I left Tina and Barn in the supposed safety of that wilderness retreat.

In my solitude here at the lake, my mind sometimes drifts away from all that criminal unpleasantness, landing instead on the unpleasantness of my personal life.

Naturally, I've asked Tina for more information about her unhappiness: What went amiss? She talks about my not being there for her in the right way at the right time. I ask what I can do to fix it. She shakes her head and sighs. When I try fixing it on my own, being more attentive, she says I'm hovering and that she needs more space.

During the times in our marriage when everything else in life is smooth sailing—when we both have energy and time to absorb each other's more irksome traits—we do great. Love blossoms. But in tough times, the incompatibilities come to the surface. And most of our marriage has taken place during tough times.

I stayed in the city, leaving Tina and Barn with Henry in their wilderness hideout. Days passed without news. Sometimes I'd run in the evening and sometimes I'd shoot in the morning and between times I'd work long days on Subsurface and other cases. Tina had a satellite phone with her, and she'd call at night and tell me in a few
clipped sentences about their day—how great it was to have Henry with them in “hiding,” how Barnaby loved the lake and canoeing and being “home” with his mother all day instead of having to go to preschool and day care.

Sabin called me about a week after I got back. “Let's swap notes,” she said.

“What's to swap? Tony Smeltzer killed Lydia.”

“Still and all,” she said, “let's make sure there're no dangling threads.”

We arranged to meet after work at the Rain Tree.

Late in the afternoon Dorsey called. “Nick, I just got off the phone with someone from the state crime lab. I have news you may want to pass along to your wife: They've recovered a few hairs from the Kyle Runion remains. Not his hairs, someone else's. And get this—they also found a stain.”

“A stain?”

“Semen.”

“On what?”

“Not sure. Underpants or the sheet he was wrapped in or something.”

“Are they good samples? Testable?”

“Yes, they're very good. The stain especially. Not too much degradation.”

“I'm amazed,” I said. “After all this time.”

“I know. Apparently, he was wrapped up. Protected from the elements. Tough stuff, DNA, if it's out of the weather.”

“What all was in that box of evidence?”

“I never saw it. Detective Philbin saw it. He transported it from the Bureau over to the state lab. He said it was just the boy's clothes and that sheet.”

“When will you have results?”

“Soon. I'll let you know.”

Sabin got to the Rain Tree before I did. I found her at the bar with a glass of red. I ordered the same. We clinked. She said, “The real reason I called you was to apologize.”

“For what?”

“Trying to hustle you with that good cop/bad cop thing. Philly and I really thought Henry was the one. We thought you had a blind spot.”

I shrugged. “Just doing your job, I guess.”

“And Philly, he thought you might be susceptible to some female compassion.”

“Oh, and you played no part?”

“Guilty,” she said.

“Why did Philbin think I'd be so susceptible to your charms?”

“Just rumors, Nick. Word is that you and the Mrs. are in a rough patch. But no hard feelings?” She held her glass up again. We clinked again. She sipped her wine, wiped her mouth on a napkin, stretched, and sipped again. “I did a year of law school,” she said.

“Dropped out?”

“Got pregnant. I thought I could go back later, but you know how it is. Everything gets complicated.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

She laughed. “I mean, I love police work, but sometimes I have regrets.”

“Careful of your scarf,” I said. It was silk; earth tones with fringed ends. Some of the fringe was dangling above the wine. She looked nice. The scarf was elegant, and she wore earrings of tourmaline. She was attractive. She must have changed her clothes and tidied up before coming to meet me, because she always looked more gritty and detective-like when she was on the job. “You'd be a good lawyer,” I said, though I had no idea if that was true. “And you're young enough. You could go back and finish.”

“Don't be silly.” But a second later, she said, “You really think so?”