AUGUST 1972
At the car, Russell had folded himself into the front seat. He had taken off his T-shirt and was pressing it against his face. Jack got in, slammed the door, and reversed down the drive. He went up the road a good half mile until they were well out of range of the farmhouse, then pulled over. “Let’s see it, then.”
Russell lifted his head. Jack winced. The boy’s nose was bleeding, as was a cut over one eye and his split lip. “God almighty, boy, your mother’s going to think I worked you over with a lead-lined hose.” He shifted into drive and got back onto the road. “C’mon, we’ve got to get you home. If you don’t get some ice on that, your face is going to puff up like a parade balloon.”
Russ grunted, which Jack took for agreement. “You surprise me. He certainly got the better of you in that tangle.”
Russell shook his head. “Nuh-uh.” He moved his injured lip carefully around the words. “Didn’t know how to fight. This”—he spread his fingers above his face—“dun’t stop you.”
“It doesn’t stop you, huh? What does, then?”
Russell pointed. His gut, his balls. His knee, his elbow. Jack thought back to the hold the boy had on Isaac before he’d been hauled away. Russell, he realized, had been an inch away from dislocating Isaac’s shoulder and shattering his elbow. He dwelt on that as he navigated through the rolling fields bright with Indian paintbrush and loosestrife, over Veterans’ Bridge and into town, traffic picking up on this Monday morning, then hooking onto Old Route 100 by the river, rising north and west toward the mountains and the rough, rocky beginnings of the Hudson.
Finally, he said, “It wasn’t a fair fight. I’m glad you didn’t hurt him badly.”
Russell flashed him a look before letting his gaze drop to his hands. “I was afraid,” he mumbled.
Jack nodded. “You thought you might not be able to stop.”
Russell nodded. “If you … hand t’ hand, you’re not supposed to hold back.”
“But you did. You were angry, and surprised, and you still held yourself back.” He glanced over at the boy. “That’s the mark of a man, Russell. Self-control. Control yourself, and you control the situation. Without self-control, a man’s nothing but a bully and a brute.”
Russell nodded, slowly, then closed his eyes and sank into the seat. Even at that, there was still a wire strung tight through him, ready to lash him from rest at a moment’s notice. Are you that afraid they’ve turned you into a killer, boy?
Jack felt about as bad as a man could feel when he knocked on Margy’s door, her battered son leaning against him. He saw her face splinter with fear, and in the next moment, smooth into matter-of-fact concern, seating her boy at the kitchen table, wrapping ice cubes in a dish towel, fetching him aspirin. It was a reenactment of all those times Jack had steered her husband home, sodden with drink, and had stood by helplessly as Margy tended to the man—aspirin and water and first aid if Walter had fallen down or walked into a door.
It had created a bond and a bar between them, all those intimate scenes of bitter duty and stoic humiliation. Walter had been dead these four years, and Jack had begun to hope … but the sight of a lanky Van Alstyne tipped back in the kitchen chair brought it all back, Margy’s tight lips and worried eyes, Jack’s frustration and silence.
Just like always, he waited until after she had settled her walking wounded in bed. Like always, she returned to the kitchen and offered him coffee. This time, he took her up on it. She didn’t ask him anything until they were both seated at the table, white crockery mugs in hand.
“It was my fault,” he said.
Margy raised an eyebrow. “If you’re the one who beat him up, you’re in better shape than I thought.”
He snorted. “No. The actual walloping was done by another youngster. What I meant was, it was my fault Russell was there.” She gestured for him to go on. “He came to talk to me this morning. Did you know that?”
Margy shook her head wearily. “I don’t seem to know much about what he’s doing these days.”
“I thought that might be the case. He’d remembered the name of the girl he tried to pick up at the college bar in Saratoga.”
Margy folded her hands around her mug. “I told him not to go speaking to you without a lawyer present.” Jack nodded. “And you did anyway.”
He spread his hands. “Margy, I’m a cop. That’s my job.”
She ran a hand through her glossy dark curls. He noticed a few threads of silver glinting in the morning sunlight. “I’m not blaming you, Jack. I just…” Abruptly, she stood up. Opened a cupboard and removed an ashtray and a pack of cigarettes. “I’m trying to cut back.” She sat down, leaning away from him as she lit the cigarette and inhaled. She sighed with relief and glanced to where the clock over the sink announced it was eleven. “I was hoping to get to noon today.”
“I’m sorry to bring trouble to your door.”
“The trouble is living with me. Go on, tell me what happened.”
“I had a … hunch about where the dead girl may have come from. There’s this hippie commune over to the old Stevenson place, and—well, never mind the details. I brought Russell along.”
She stared at him. “What? Why?”
He looked down at the milky surface of his coffee. “I wanted to see what stirred up. If being there made Russell uneasy. If anyone recognized him.”
Margy stood, her chair screeching back across the linoleum floor. “Get out of my house.”
“Margy—”
“I mean it, Jack! That was low. Sneaky, scheming, and illegal. You were violating his Fifth Amendment rights. And you got him beaten up!”
“One of the kids started needling him about being in the army—”
“I don’t care what caused it!” She strode to the kitchen door and flung it open.
Jack rose and set his coffee mug in the sink. “I’d like to believe he isn’t responsible for that girl’s death. I’m starting to develop other leads.” He crossed to the doorway, stopping in front of her. “I want—I very much want—to prove him innocent.”
“But if you can’t, you’ll go ahead and arrest him.”
“Is that what you want from me? To ignore anything I find or sweep it under a rug? To throw over everything I’ve held true for the past twenty years?” He lowered his voice. “What if he is guilty, Margy? Do you want him to walk away whistling? Do you want him to learn there are no checks and no consequences to his temper?” They were close now, so close he could see the wetness caught in her eyelashes. “Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it. You want me to queer the investigation? Tell the girl’s parents we had no leads? Pin it on somebody else? Tell me what to do. I’ll do it for you.”
She burst into tears. “God damn you, Jack Liddle!”
He folded his arms around her and held her tight against his heart while she cried. “Shh,” he said. “Shh. Oh, sweetheart, don’t. I’m sorry.”
She pushed a little away from him and wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. He fumbled for his handkerchief and held it out for her. She took it, wiping away the salty streaks on her cheeks, then blowing her nose. She looked at the handkerchief, then at him, dismayed.
“I have another one. A good cop always carries backup.” Her bow-shaped lips quivered in an almost-smile. He put his arm around her waist again and brought his face close, their foreheads almost touching. “Margy. Sweetheart. You know I—”
She set her fingers against his mouth. “Don’t. Don’t say it.”
He ducked a little, so he could look into her eyes. “Am I wrong? Is this all just … me being a fool, and you being kind?”
She shook her head. Whispered, “No.”
He felt all those old routines and roadblocks tremble, on the brink of falling down, and because he wanted so badly to knock them over he stayed silent. Margy was right, trouble lived at her house, and he wasn’t going to add to it. He held her for a moment more—that much he’d allow himself—then stepped back.
“Next time, if I need to talk with him, I’ll come here.”
She nodded.
“I think it’d be good for him to spend time around men who don’t … make war for a living. I know your dad and Mr. Van Alstyne are both passed, but somebody.” The boy had spent the last two years being shown one way to be a man. He needed to see another, and, although Jack would never say it aloud, he was certain Walter hadn’t stepped up to the plate while Russell was growing up.
Margy nodded. Smiled a little. “You’d better come here for that, too, then.”