Snow blanketed everything and kept falling in a relentless swirl of fat flakes. They called out for another bottle and sat drinking as if there was nothing better to do.
Stone, with his feet propped up on the bed, proposed a toast to his wife. “She deserved better.”
“You’re not that bad.”
“Not what I meant. Better than ending this way … gunshot … and….”
“Ah, yeah.”
“The early days were best, when we were both struggling. Such high hopes. Now I can’t believe it’s all over, that it ended this way, that I’ll never … Sorry, I’m a bit maudlin.”
“Sorry? Hell, you got every right to be more than a bit maudlin.”
“Yeah, well, it’s in the blood. My people have wakes and share drinks with the deceased. You ever read Finnegan’s Wake? Me either. Tried. Couldn’t, despite my Irish blood.”
“‘The name Stone sounds Jewish, but you’re clearly Catholic through and through.”
“English and Irish and Scots. My ancestors changed it from McSomething or O’Whatsit.”
“I can see you’re fascinated by family genealogy.”
“A chump preoccupation. We all share ninety-nine point nine percent of our DNA and can all be traced back to a common ancestor in Africa two hundred thousand years ago.”
“Soul brother!”
“Best to distinguish oneself not by ancestry but accomplishment. Based largely on opportunity. What we’re all about—land of opportunity. Witness America’s ingenuity and success, the dregs of Europe, refugees, discards, and descendants of slaves end up leading the world in most every goddamn category.”
“Every damn category ’cept education to hear Professor Jonathan Stone tell it.”
“Still … something worth drinking to. And we’re gonna change that, right?”
Gabriel raised his shot glass an inch. “Sure.”
Stone appraised him. “How’d you ever make lieutenant?”
Gabriel frowned. “What do mean how’d I make lieutenant? With talent and hard work, like the rest of your American dregs. What are you insinuating?”
“An obvious solution to all your problems sitting right before you and you don’t recognize it.”
“Finish your lecture, professor.”
“Assuming Ellen was murdered, though not by Angelo Cira or his connections, you could win a gold star by apprehending the actual perpetrator, right?”
“Unlikely assumption.”
“Answer the question.”
“Possibly.”
Stone spread his arms. “Here I am. I’m the one with the motive—betrayed husband—and the opportunity.”
“She was shot in St. Louis, Missouri. You’re in Quincy, Illinois.”
“Only two-and-a-half hours by car. I could have driven down yesterday, met with her, argued, pulled the gun that I knew was in her purse, and shot her sometime before dawn. I’d still have enough time to drive back here and make seven-thirty Mass. You even have evidence of my intent. I wrote that it would be easier and more gratifying to kill her than divorce her.”
“But you’re forgetting one crucial thing, Stone.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re a wuss without the balls to shoot a Muscovy duck, much less your lawfully wedded wife. That is, unless you’re the world’s best actor who’s got a veteran cop completely buffaloed into thinking otherwise.”
“I’m a lousy actor. My high school drama club never allowed me a speaking part. Too sincere. A failing in a society where everyone wears masks.”
“Masks again. Which reminds me … in answer to your prior question.”
“What prior question?”
“Some time back. A minor detail: whether I was St. Christopher or the Angel of Death.”
“Oh, that.”
“Yes.”
“‘Yes’ what?”
“Yes, I was sent to kill you.”
“And I thought your job was to enforce the law. Anyway, I know you’re not serious.”
“Not direct orders. Everyone’d be satisfied if you just went away peaceably and quietly.”
“That’s what we’d prefer.”
“Antecedent?”
“Huh?”
“For the pronoun ‘we’.”
“Me and you. You and I.”
“I already told you ‘not quietly.’”
“Screw you, Stone. Should be easy at this point. You’re making it hard.”
“Then throw the damn flash drives in the river. Throw me in the river. Don’t worry about doing the right thing, do the easy thing, and see how easy it is to live with that.”
Gabriel stood and moved to the window overlooking the street. Dusk. Still snowing—maybe a half-foot or more. All was silent. He remembered as a child how quiet it was on snowy mornings. He could tell, even before he ran to the window to look out at the street, that it had snowed and softened everything.
“Let’s think about this. Let’s say I was to help you—”
“I knew you would.”
“Not saying I am. But if I did, I’d have to come out of this clean and you’d have to come out alive. So the first thing I’d have to know is whether your wife killed herself or had help pulling the trigger.” Gabriel turned. “That might take some time, if I can do it at all. In the meantime I’d have to keep you on ice.”
“Figuratively speaking, I trust.”
“Figuratively speaking.”
“Go on.”
“I’m thinking. Thinking how to get what I want out of this.”
“To hell with altruism. So-called ‘good’ acts always make the actor feel good, but what about everyone else?”
“Saint Thomas Aquinas tells us to seek the common good as more desirable than the individual good.”
“I’m figuring on getting both.”
“And so much for principled action.”
“I’m going rise above principle.”
“This I’ve got to see.”
“No, I mean it, Jonathan. I think I can pull this off and get you more than you bargained for.”
“How so?”
“If I can figure some way to land the big fish, I’d come out smelling like a rose and you’d be right with St. Thomas.”
“Mixed metaphor. And clichéd.”
“But you need to trust me.”
“Trust you how?”
“With your life.”
“Which means?”
“I want to use you as bait.”
Stone stared at him and finally nodded. “That’s better: fishing, bait. Much better grammatically. But I still don’t like the sound of it.”