I DREAMED THROUGH THE next several days on a pink cloud of Demerol, interspersed with moments of fuzzy, painful consciousness. There were flowers. Faces hovered over me. Julie came with her Edward, and when she left she kissed me sweetly on my swollen lips. There were doctors and nurses shining lights into my eyes, invading me with thermometers, bathing my body, rolling me gently onto clean sheets, jabbing my butt with needles.
Clear liquids dripped through tubes into my veins. I sucked chocolate shakes through straws. They tried vanilla first, but I grunted “Uh-uh,” until they brought chocolate. I had no coffee, no Winstons, no Old Grand-Dad. I thought, in a moment of lucidity, that the drugs weren’t bad. I had no desire for the others.
Then one morning I woke up and cautiously opened my eyes and—mirabile dictu!—my head was clear, the pain only a dull, aching memory. A nurse materialized, a hefty, gray-haired matronly sort, all bluster and gentleness.
“Well, now, Brady, are we feeling better today?”
I tried to answer her. “Mff,” I said.
“You still can’t speak. My kind of patient. No complaining. We’re going to get along just fine. You’ll be happy to know that you’re out of Intensive Care. You’ve had some lovely brain scans, and your jaw is set beautifully. You’ll be as handsome as ever. Of course,” she smiled, “you’re nothing to take home to Mother quite yet. Why don’t we just sit you up a little and see if you won’t try some nice buttermilk.”
“Uh-uh!”
“Don’t care for buttermilk; eh?” Her eyes crinkled. “Between us, Brady, I can’t stand it, either. Vile stuff. Let’s try some hot soup.”
I found I was able to nod my head and smile with my eyes.
Later in the day they brought me books and newspapers. In the afternoon Kevin Shanley returned. He gave me a package of yellow legal pads and a fistful of ballpoint pens.
“I thought you’d like to try telling us what happened, as well as you can,” he said. “I have a strong suspicion that this assault had something to do with the Willard case.”
I nodded.
“Also,” he continued, “I got a call from the headmaster at the school, Elliott, reporting that one of his teachers has been missing for five days. Seems like more than coincidence. Miss Prescott. She the one who was with you that night?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay, then. If you’re up to it, write it all down for me. I’ll come back tomorrow. Meanwhile we’ve got an APB out on Sabrina Prescott. We’ll get her, don’t worry. It would help a lot, you know, if you could identify the other two who were with you that night.”
I closed my eyes and opened them again. Shanley shrugged and turned to leave. I grunted as loudly as I could. He stopped and turned back.
“What is it?”
I reached for the package of pads and tore the cellophane wrapper from it. Then I took a pen and printed on one of the sheets the words: CARLA STEINHOLTZ. I tore it off and handed it to Shanley.
“Who’s this?” He handed the paper back to me.
I wrote: SABRINA PRESCOTT.
Shanley looked at the name, frowned, and then began to nod his head. “They’re the same person, right?”
It was very tiring. I nodded. I wrote: “Call Charlie McDevitt. Justice Department. Boston.” Then I dropped the pen and the pad and sank back onto my pillow.
The next day a squad of green-frocked nurses wheeled me into an operating room so that the orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Connolly, could peer at the damage in my left knee through his arthroscope. Later he told me, “You were lucky, Mr. Coyne. Your legs are strong. You received a hell of a blow on the outside of the joint. Could have ripped you up beyond repair. As it is, a couple of ligaments are torn, and the others are stretched, but the cartilage seems intact. You’ll always have a bum knee, I’m afraid, but if you are faithful to your therapy you should eventually be able to resume all your activities.”
“Jogging?” I wrote.
“No jogging for a while, I’m afraid,” he said.
“Good!” I wrote. “Hate jogging.”
After two weeks they sent me home, my mouth still wired shut, the skin hanging from my bones. I could swing myself along on crutches for short distances, but I found myself exhausted most of the time. Nurses watched over me twenty-four hours a day, bringing me broth and frappes and each noon a vile mixture which they insisted was very good for me. Extract of malt, wheat germ, desiccated liver, cod liver oil, and various vitamins. “It’ll build up your strength,” the nurses said, and they stood watching me so that I wouldn’t dump it out onto the floor.
To my dismay they tidied up the place until I scarcely recognized it. I lay in my bed or on the sofa steeling my mind to resist the impulse to grow accustomed to the new appearance of my living quarters. I vowed never to like it neat.
Billy and Joey surprised me with a visit one afternoon. Julie had called Gloria. I was disappointed that Gloria hadn’t come, and then I was surprised at my disappointment. Billy brought a bottle of Jack Daniels. Joey gave me a first-edition volume of Edmund Ware Smith fishing stories. Typical of both of them. The boys seemed ill at ease. Their conversation was awkward, the more so because I could only write them notes, and they seemed relieved when I wrote, “Real tired. Thanks for gifts. Great to see you. Hi to Mom.”
Julie phoned me each day, assuring me that all was well at Brady L. Coyne, Attorney-at-law. The nurses insisted on answering the phone. They’d say, “Mr. Coyne’s residence. Who is calling, please?” And when the person on the other end replied, they’d say, “Mr. Coyne is tired. You may talk to him, but he will be unable to speak to you. Please be brief.”
It didn’t matter how tired I felt, or who it was calling me, or what their business was. And it felt strange to listen to a familiar voice on the other end of the line without being able to respond.
Three or four times late at night the telephone rang, and when the nurse answered, she’d frown and slowly replace the receiver on the hook. “Hung up on me,” she’d shrug. “Wrong number, I suppose.”
After two weeks at home, I was driven back to the hospital to have the wires removed from my jaw. I found I could barely open my mouth at first, but I worked at it, flexing and straining to move it.
The nurses stayed with me another week. By then my strength had returned. I was able to maneuver my way around my rooms with the aid of a cane. I ate soft foods. I spent a great deal of time out on my balcony, watching the sailboats and thinking.
“I’m going to work tomorrow,” I announced one day, bracing myself for the argument.
“Good!” said Helen, my day nurse.
“What do you mean, ‘good’?” I said.
“I mean,” she said, “that we’ve got plenty of sick people to take care of.”
On the third night after the nurses had been gone, the telephone jarred me from my sleep.
“Yeah?” I muttered.
“Prithee, m’lord.”
“Rina.” I felt no surprise that she had called.
“You must wear your rue with a difference. Pray you, love, remember.”
“Where are you? They’re looking for you.”
“I’m safe.” She paused. “Are you?”
“I’m alive.”
“I tried to call you. Many times. There was no answer for the longest time. I thought you were dead. He never will come home again, I thought. Fennel for you, and columbines. Then a woman answered.”
“A nurse. I had nurses.”
“Ah! Nurses. I thought…”
“No, I had to have nurses. They were nurses.”
“I called to tell you that you were wrong.”
“About what?”
“George and Harvey. You’ve got it all wrong.”
“So tell me.”
“Okay. Listen. I went up there with George. It was his idea. He held my hand as we climbed up there. And then he took off his jacket and folded it for me to sit on. Always the gentleman. And then he started. He knew who I was, he said. He had an obligation—a moral obligation, he called it. He was all bluster and self-righteousness. He wanted to turn me in. For the crimes of Carla Steinholtz. I tried to tell him that it wasn’t me. He didn’t understand. He tried to grab me, to hurt me. So I had to kick him. Just to get away. Not a mortal blow.”
“And then you pushed him.”
“No. No, I didn’t push him. He grabbed himself, and I said, ‘I’m sorry. But I have to go.’ And he looked up at me with this beatific smile on his poor old face and he walked backwards, all bent over, to the edge of the cliff, and then he just straightened up and let himself go. He just disappeared. No scream. He fell. I didn’t push him.”
“He did kill himself, then. You’re telling me that it was suicide.”
“Yes. I didn’t want him to die. I’m no killer.”
I hesitated. “Rina, is that the truth? It really doesn’t matter, now. You can tell me the truth.”
“That is the truth. In faith.”
“And the note?”
“The note,” she repeated. “At the time, I didn’t know about any note. But it was like George to write a note. Not to explain his suicide. The note was for me. George was not a direct man. He had trouble coming to the point. He avoided confrontations—or at least personal confrontations. He welcomed intellectual ones. So I think this was what he was doing. He asked me to take a stroll on the beach that night. That was okay. We were friends and it was a nice spring night. But his intention, I guess, was to tell me what he knew about Carla Steinholtz, to bring me to justice, as he would have put it. But he didn’t trust himself to say it. Whether it was his diffidence, or…” She hesitated.
“Love,” I said.
“Maybe. Maybe his love. I never suspected love, but maybe that was it. Maybe that’s why he suggested we go to Charity’s Point. Anyway, George thought he might fail to raise the subject with me. We’d take our stroll and exchange pleasantries, and he’d take me home, and he never would say what was on his mind. So he wrote a note. Maybe to slip into my hand as we said good night, or maybe to slide under my door later. So he had it with him. A hedge against his own cowardice.”
“And Win?”
I heard her draw in a quick breath. “What about Win?”
“George’s brother.”
“How do you know about him?”
“It’s a long story, Rina. Shall I call you Carla?”
“I’m Rina, now.”
“Okay. There were several things. I’ve been putting them together. When your jaw is wired shut and you can’t move around very well, you have lots of time to put things together. When you and I went to Charity’s Point—that was Win up there, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And he was your lover?”
“Was. Yes.”
“And George knew, didn’t he? And he approved, I think. Until he found out who you were. And then…”
I heard her short laugh. “Yes. George knew. He introduced us. Of course, he didn’t tell me Win’s real name, or that they were brothers. I didn’t learn that until later. After we became lovers.”
“Why did Win go to Ruggles? To visit George?”
“Partly. He and George had been in contact with each other for a long time. They really did care about each other. George sent Win money sometimes. I know he didn’t approve of what Win was doing. He was violently opposed to it philosophically. But he protected Win. Win was in hiding. A fugitive. Like me.” She laughed again.
“I don’t understand,” I mused, “why George wouldn’t have at least told Florence that Win was alive.”
“Their mother? Win wouldn’t let him. Said his mother was better off thinking he was dead than knowing what he had done and how he was living. They argued about it. But George would never have told her without Win’s permission.”
“So you and Win…”
I heard her sigh. “Win is a very attractive man. Smart, worldly, exciting. We—we became close before I knew anything about him except that he was George’s friend. He was just George’s mysterious friend, that’s all. And then he found out about me. I don’t know how. He promised he’d never tell George. And he told me about himself. So we realized we had a lot in common. We had to trust each other, two people hiding from their pasts, so to speak.”
“But George found out anyway.”
“Yes. Harvey’s paper tipped him off. Then he did his research. He was so meticulous about his research. He put it all together. And then when George died—when he stepped off the edge of Charity’s Point—it ended between Win and me. Win blamed me, of course. We stopped being lovers. But we still needed each other, depended on each other, had to trust each other with our secrets. So he stayed around.”
“And then Harvey found out.”
“Ah, poor Harvey. Not such a dumb beast. He figured it out from that paper of his. The same way George did.”
“Because I encouraged him to work on it some more,” I said.
“Blame yourself, then,” said Rina.
“Not likely,” I said. “So then Win took care of that little problem for you.”
“Yes. Win took care of it. For me.”
“And when I became a problem…”
“Yes.” She paused. “But you didn’t answer my question. How did you know about Win?”
It was my turn to laugh. “George had an address book. In the back of it was a list of numbers. Nonsense numbers, they looked like. I didn’t know what to make of them. Actually, I didn’t know if I should try to make anything of them. Then Florence—George’s mother—showed me a couple of postcards. She said they were from Win. She insisted he was still alive. I didn’t believe it, but while I was recovering from my injuries these past weeks I had a flash. I checked. Do you know the zip code of Ketchikan, Alaska, or Pittsburg, New Hampshire? That’s what George’s list of numbers was—post office boxes and zip codes. Where he could reach Win. They matched the places Win sent postcards from. George even kept a zip code directory in his room. He and Win were communicating all that time.”
“That book. He couldn’t find it.”
“Who? What do you mean?”
“Win. He went to your apartment. He couldn’t find it. You hid it well.”
I laughed. “No, I didn’t hide it. I left it in my jacket when I took it to the cleaners.” I stopped. “He locked my doors.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” I thought for a moment. “That was the night—the first night—on the beach…”
I heard her sigh. “I’m sorry.”
“Calculated. To keep me away from my apartment. So he could search it.”
“Yes.”
“How did he know I had it?”
“Me. I saw you take it. The day you were in George’s room.”
“Right,” I said. “Of course.” I paused, thinking. “For a while I thought it was just you who killed George and Harvey. Until we were up there. You saved my life. He would have thrown me over.”
“Yes, he would have.”
I tried to sort out the half-formed thoughts that swirled around in my head.
“Tell me where Alexander Binh fits into it.”
“Binh? Nowhere. Matter of fact, I always thought he was the one I had to worry about, that he’d be the one to find out about me, the way he would look at you as though he could see right into your mind. He always made me feel exposed. I really think he knew that I—that I had a secret.”
“That’s funny,” I said. “He made me feel the same way. Except I didn’t have any secret.”
“Everybody has a secret,” she said softly.
“Yeah,” I said. I paused. “Okay, then, what about Cap Spender? I know he fits into this somewhere. One of Win’s recruits?”
“I said Win came to Ruggles to visit George. That was only part of the reason. Win is a true believer. He’s always trying to find converts—disciples to help him spread the word. One day he got a look at Cap in that weird costume he wears and I guess he figured he’d found another soul brother.”
“Even though Cap antagonized George every chance he got?”
“Yes. As I said, George didn’t even try to change Win’s ideas. And he couldn’t change what he did. Win took Cap under his wing, and Cap started trying to convert the other kids. He was good at it, too.”
“And the night Harvey died?”
“When we learned that Harvey had found out about me, Win said he had to die. That was how he said it. ‘The boy must die.’ It wasn’t my idea.”
“But you didn’t try to talk him out of it.”
I heard her sigh. “He told me there was no other way. I couldn’t think of another way. Anyway, Cap and Harvey had had that fight. So it was easy. Cap lured Harvey off the campus, on the pretext of having it out. They were supposed to meet at this place off the highway.”
“Except,” I inserted, “Win was there instead of Spender.”
“Yes.”
“And in the same fashion, you lured me to Charity’s Point because you suspected I knew too much.”
“It was your idea to go there,” she said quickly.
“But it was your idea that we go to the beach.”
She paused. “Yes.”
“And Win was waiting for us there.”
“Yes.”
“Rina,” I said, “why didn’t you let Win kill me?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe I should have.” I waited, sensing she had more to say. “Why did you take me to the top of Charity’s Point?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were giving me a chance, weren’t you? You thought I’d—you thought I had killed George and you thought I had killed Harvey, and you went up there with me anyway. Why?”
“Same reason you didn’t let Win kill me, I guess.”
“Good,” she said. “That’s good.”
“Now what are you going to do?”
“Do? I’m going to live. Go on living. What else is there?”
“All those crimes. Those bombs. The Sewing Circle. My God, Rina. You can’t just go on living as if there were none of that.”
“That was Carla,” she said in a small voice. “Not Rina. Those were my salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood. I’m Rina now. Not Carla. That was ten years ago. A different person.”
“Are you?”
I heard her sigh. “Yes. Yes, I am a different person. People change. When that bomb went off, when my friends were killed, it killed all that anger in me. I was supposed to be with them. But I went out for bananas and beer for us. I was in the store a few blocks away when I heard the explosion, and I just walked out and that was the end of the Sewing Circle. I saw all at once the absurdity, the futility of it. We used to pretend we had a philosophy, and that the establishment—that’s what we called everybody who was working in some constructive, functional way, you know—the establishment was the enemy. School, parents, not just the government. And that violence was the only way. Dumb little college girls reading their Marx. But when that bomb went off, when I heard that horrible explosion, and I knew that Melissa and Evelyn and Barbara and Monica were in there, not some nameless establishment types—that’s when it suddenly became clear to me. So I became Rina.”
“Just like that.”
“Yes. Just like that. Everyone figured I’d been killed along with my friends. Well, in a way I was. I stayed in New York. Best place in the world to disappear in. I modeled my feet for a while. Then I came to Ruggles. I just wanted to teach and be Rina Prescott. That’s all I wanted.”
I didn’t speak. I had nothing more to say.
“Adieu, then,” she said after a long moment. “You’ll not hear from me again. Dry sorrow drinks our blood.”
I touched the button on the telephone with my forefinger and disconnected myself from her.
A week or so after Rina’s phone call, I was at my desk trying to catch up on my correspondence when my phone buzzed.
“Yes, Julie?”
“Two gentlemen to see you, Brady.”
“They have an appointment?”
“They’re FBI.”
“Aha! Well, send them in, then.”
Mr. Sousa and Mr. Olanoff shook hands formally with me and sat side by side on my sofa. Each carried a thin, dark-leathered briefcase which he balanced on his knees. Mr. Olanoff seemed to be the spokesman. He was a tall, balding man with elusive, smoky eyes and an angular beak of a nose. Mr. Sousa sat tensely, burning me with his dark eyes, his mouth hidden beneath an enormous black mustache.
“We understand you have some knowledge of Carla Steinholtz and Winchester Gresham, Mr. Coyne,” said Olanoff.
I nodded. “I’ve told the police everything I know.”
“Everything?” I felt Sousa’s eyes.
I hesitated. “Yes. Everything.”
“We want those two, Mr. Coyne.” Olanoff’s lips, I noticed, barely moved when he spoke. “We think you know where they are.”
I looked from one to the other. They were both staring steadily at me. “I have no idea where they are,” I said, looking from one to the other as I spoke. “They nearly killed me, as you must know. She called me the other night. I told the police that, too. I don’t know any more than I’ve told. Don’t you think I want you to find them?”
“No, Mr. Coyne. We don’t think you do. Your relationship with Steinholtz is hardly a professional one.”
“Was,” I said. “Before I knew about her, we were friends.” Olanoff’s eyebrows twitched when I said that. “I’m a lawyer,” I continued. “I know what has to be done. It’s as I said. I don’t know anything else.”
Sousa leaned forward, his black eyes glowing. His teeth appeared beneath that mustache. He reminded me of a Northern Pike I reeled right up to the boat once on Lake Champlain before it grinned at me and bit through the twenty-pound leader. “Why didn’t they kill you?” said Sousa.
I laughed. “They came goddamn close, don’t you think? I spent nearly a week in Intensive Care, another two sucking milkshakes through a straw. I still don’t walk very well.”
“They killed the other two,” persisted Sousa. “They could have killed you. Right?”
“Sure. I guess so. They didn’t need to,” I said. “They got away.”
“Exactly,” said Olanoff. “That’s the point. They got away. Because they knew you’d cover for them. Gresham’s mother is your client. Steinholtz was your playmate.”
I stared from one to the other. “Look,” I said. “I don’t think I like what you’re implying here. You think I helped them? You think this was some kind of setup?”
Olanoff shrugged. Sousa showed his teeth. I stood up and limped over to my desk. “End of interview,” I said. “Good day, gentlemen.”
Olanoff leaned back into the sofa. “Look at it from our point of view, Mr. Coyne,” he said, his voice soothing. “You had plenty of reason to suspect that your girlfriend was actually Carla Steinholtz. Who you also knew was a fugitive. McDevitt tipped you off to that. But did you call us, or Shanley, like anybody—especially an attorney, for God’s sake—would do? No. What you did, Mr. Coyne, is you let her take you up to the top of that big rock so that Gresham could beat the shit out of you.” Olanoff spread his hands, as if in apology. “What are we supposed to think?”
“Think whatever you want. I told you what I know.”
“Some of what you know,” said Sousa.
“I’ve told you everything. Now I think you better leave.”
Olanoff smiled bleakly under that great nose. “We think you’re lying.”
I moved back so that I was standing in front of them. They both looked up at me from their seats on my sofa. “Gentlemen,” I said, my voice tense, “get the fuck out of my office. Just get out.”
Olanoff and Sousa nodded and stood up slowly. “Okay. Have it your way. But you better understand one thing.” Olanoff’s grin was harsh and completely mirthless. “You’ll be watched. We’re very patient. You’ll slip.”
They left without shaking my hand.
I returned to my chair behind my desk and lit a Winston. I noticed that my hands were steady. I picked up the pile of papers that lay before me. I had work to do.
By the end of July most of the stiffness had left my knee. I affected a cane now and then. Julie said it made me seem decadent—her word—like an effete English lord or a tragic war hero.
My poor, emaciated corpse of a body made me feel decadent, although I was able to chew real food. I felt about ready to tackle a steak, but hadn’t hit upon the proper occasion for such a celebration.
I called Gloria.
“I’ll cook it for you,” she said. “Here. In our home.”
“Your home,” I corrected her.
“Shall I invite the boys?”
“No. Don’t.”
We made a date for early August. Gloria had a very busy social calendar. I was to bring the wine.
I rediscovered the blissful elegance of coffee and Old Grand-Dad sipped from a mug or tumbler rather than sucked through a glass straw. I had never appreciated fully the sensual exhilaration of ice cubes clicking against teeth, or the powerful sense of control in being able to take one into your mouth and roll it from cheek to cheek with your tongue, then purse your lips and slide it back into the glass.
You learn a lot from having your mouth wired shut for a month. It would have been a challenge to argue a case, grunting “Uh-uh” and “Uh-huh” and scribbling terse notes to His—or Her—Honor.
Winstons tasted best of all, now that I could chew on the filter again.
In due course, Dr. Clapp, the Medical Examiner called me to confirm what I expected: The inquest into George Gresham’s death was going to be reopened. My testimony would be crucial. When I explained to him what Rina had told me—that George seemed to have stepped off the tip of Charity’s Point purposefully—Dr. Clapp said that testimony of that sort would not be admissible, even at an informal legal proceeding like an inquest. “You know what hearsay is,” he said to me in that patient tone of his that made me feel like a college freshman. I admitted that what Rina told me over the phone was definitely hearsay. “The significant fact here is that Miss Prescott—Miss Steinholtz, I should say—was present at Charity’s Point with Mr. Gresham, and that she apparently did strike him with what appears to be malicious intent, and that he did fall to his death. And the note, from what you’ve reported, was not a suicide note at all. It doesn’t add up to suicide. Murder, maybe. Accident, at least. In either case, a double-indemnity situation.”
“Have you been in touch with Jefferson Mutual?” I asked.
“Mr. Gresham’s life insurance company? No.” Dr. Clapp chuckled. “I thought I’d leave that pleasure up to you.”
So I called Parker Barrett and summarized for him all that had happened. He interjected a “Hmm” and an “I see” periodically as I talked.
“Anyway, the death was not a suicide,” I concluded. “No matter how you look at it.”
Barrett was a good sport. “We’ll wait for the verdict, of course,” he said. “We’ll honor the decision of the inquest, naturally. But from what you’ve told me, I think Mrs. Gresham can begin to think about what she’ll do with another million dollars.”
Less ten percent, I thought. My cut. “I’ll share the news with her,” I said.
It’s more than a six-hour drive from Boston to Florence’s “cottage” in Bar Harbor, Maine, most of it along the unbearably monotonous Maine turnpike, which cuts straight and flat northward across the sandy summer landscape. Scrub pine, pin oak, occasional glimpses of rural poverty, and that endless flatness.
Heat mirages shimmered on the highway and evaporated as I neared them. The miles burned away, too, and for once I found myself in no hurry to get there. I stopped at a Howard Johnson’s outside of Portland for coffee, and lingered there longer than I needed to, trying to sort out my thoughts. I had been putting Florence off since I had what she and I had tacitly agreed to call my “little accident” atop Charity’s Point. By the time I had limped out of the hospital, she had moved to her summer digs, and when I talked to her on the phone long distance, as I had several times, I simply reassured her that I’d fill her in when I could get up there.
I contemplated withholding my knowledge of Win from her, at least for a while. But I knew I couldn’t do that. I had no right. My attorney’s ethics wouldn’t permit it. And, anyway, Florence couldn’t be fooled.
I found her tending the big pots of geraniums that she had lined up along the low brick wall that surrounded the big terrace attached to the back of her house. Her hair was bound up in a big orange kerchief, and she wore baggy jeans and a white sleeveless blouse bearing several smudges on the front. When I greeted her she blew a wisp of hair up off her forehead and said, “Well, you don’t look any the worse for wear.”
“You’re looking pretty good yourself,” I said.
“For a decrepit old hag,” she said. She turned to John, who was standing deferentially to the side. “Build one of your mint juleps for Mr. Coyne, please,” she said. She cocked her head to measure the angle of the sun. “Seems to have passed over the yardarm. You might as well bring me one, too.”
John nodded and disappeared. I sat in a white wicker chair and studied the ocean. Florence returned her attention to her flowers. “You have to pinch out the old blossoms,” she said without turning to me. “Remove the dead heads so the new ones will come in. Otherwise the plant will make seeds, not flowers. Take out the old blooms and it’ll keep making new ones. All it wants to do is to reproduce itself.”
“You ought to wear gloves when you work,” I said.
“You ought to mind your business, Brady Coyne,” she retorted. “Besides, I like the geranium smell on my fingers. It’s not a delicate, perfumy fragrance. Not subtle at all. But it’s strong and alive, and I like it.”
When John brought out the drinks Florence took a seat beside me. She lifted her glass and held it to me.
“Your health, Brady.”
“And yours, Florence.”
We sipped. Florence placed her glass on the table between us and turned to look at me.
“I’m prepared to hear what it is you have been trying to avoid telling me,” she said.
“Now, Florence. I haven’t…”
“I can take it. Just tell me.”
So I told her. I told her that George may have jumped, but that the official verdict would probably not be suicide. I told her that the one-million-dollar insurance settlement would be forthcoming.
And I downed my drink, took a deep breath, and I told her about Win. I told her everything I knew about Win.
When I had finished I watched her face. She gazed out over the ocean for several minutes. Then she turned to look at me. Tears glistened in her eyes.
“I knew all that,” she said. “I just knew it.”
“Yes, I guess you did.”
“Those postcards.”
“Yes. And do you remember the address book you found in George’s room? That mysterious list of numbers? Those numbers were post office boxes and zip codes. Places where Win could be reached. He and George were in touch with each other the whole time. One of those zip codes matched the one of your postcard from Ketchikan, Alaska. Another was for Pittsburg, New Hampshire. When I studied those numbers I was able to see a zip code in them. And I remembered that George had a zip code directory in his room. The rest was easy.”
“And you didn’t think you could do detective work,” she said, smiling.
Florence was silent for a long time. When she spoke, her voice was soft, and her eyes still lingered on the ocean’s horizon.
“What will you do with your windfall, Brady?”
“The insurance money? Oh, the boys will be off to college soon. That’ll take a big chunk of it. And they say the trout fishing in New Zealand is out of this world. I think I’ll try to sneak away in September.”
She turned to face me, and I saw some of the old snap in her blue eyes. “Before you go, you have some work to do.”
“I do?”
“Yes. There’s the matter of my will. I seem to have a dilemma. My only heir is now dead. But a previously dead heir turns out to be alive. On the other hand, he is a fugitive from justice, as they say. Now. Should he ever be captured, he’ll need the very best legal defense available.” She squinted at me. “That must be provided for. However, he doesn’t seem to be the most logical candidate to manage the Gresham estate. Or, I guess, to inherit it. That leaves us with a problem.”
She touched a little button under the table and John appeared. “Another drink, madam?”
“Yes.”
“How will you want to handle it?” I asked her after John left.
“I don’t know. I want to give it some thought. I want you to give it some thought, too. Give me some options. Not today, and not tomorrow. Later in the summer, after I’ve had a chance to digest all of this. You plan to come up and spend four or five days. Bring lots of pencils and those big pads of yellow paper. While you’re at it, you might as well bring a friend with you.”
“A friend?”
“We certainly won’t want to work all the time,” said Florence coyly. “Thank you,” she said, as John appeared.
I took my fresh drink from John and sipped deeply. “I’ll bring the pencils and paper, and I’ll do the research,” I said. “I don’t know about the friend.”
And I stood up and carried my mint julep out onto the lawn so that Florence wouldn’t argue with me.
Frank Paradise had a new scheme, something which he said would “revolutionize the word-processing industry.” I was booked on a flight to Washington for the second week in August.
Jenny DeVincent’s husband settled for generous visitation rights to the litter of labs, with a special provision for the duck-hunting season. His lawyer and I finalized that agreement over fresh bluefish fillets at Legal Seafood’s in Chestnut Hill. Mine was delicious. But it still wasn’t steak.
Julie requested a two-week leave in September for her honeymoon trip to London. I gave her four weeks—the same four weeks I would be in New Zealand. “We’ll just close down the damn office.” I said when she began to protest. “If we’re lucky, we’ll lose a few of the more boring clients while we’re gone.”
At The Ruggles School, Bartley Elliott took the month of July to vacation in Canada. Alexander Binh stayed on to supervise the summer maintenance crew. Warren Baker was coaching an American Legion team. I took Billy to one of the games. Warren greeted me warmly and clapped Billy on the shoulder. “We’re winning more than we’re losing,” he said. “Nice bunch of kids here.”
Jenny Wolcott resigned from the school. She was taking a fellowship to study for her doctorate in Athens. I was sorry I hadn’t had the chance to wish her well.
The police decided not to prosecute Cap Spender. His parents came for him at the end of the term. They loaded all of his stuff into their big station wagon and drove him home to Pennsylvania. They already had him enrolled in a Main Line prep school, a little closer to home.
I treated Charlie McDevitt to dinner, to repay him for all he’d done for me. We hit the spaghetti special at the Howard Johnson’s on the Fresh Pond rotary in Cambridge. All you could eat for a buck ninety-nine. Charlie swore he’d get me for that.
I picked a cloudless night to drive to North Cove Beach. I wanted to watch the moon rise from a place high above the world. I had to climb Charity’s Point one last time. To vent my folly, as Rina might have said.