Chapter 17
Kendricks shouted Conley’s name from the dock the next morning. Conley lifted the boat cover and peered out. The day was coming hard, the top part of the sun already sitting on the Atlantic horizon like a half-eaten peach. Ice caked the pier and packed the spaces between the deck boards. Spring was only weeks away—hard to believe when Ocean Park was still frozen as the Arctic.
Kendricks whistled. “Your boat?”
Conley grabbed his coat and they headed for Lisa’s condo. “Like it? My wife and I bought it on our anniversary.”
“Not bad. I got a boat too.”
“Stinkpot?”
Kendricks stepped back. “It ain’t no fucking albino martini boat like this ark, and I don’t wear alligator golf shirts when I drive it.”
“Don’t take it personal. Stinkpot means power boat. Sailboats are called rag merchants.”
“Oh. Yeah. Well, I got a power boat. My wife and kids say it smells awful bad, so maybe it is a stinkpot after all.”
The steel beams and angled glass of the condo building gleamed in the new sun, which had climbed and cleared the water line by the time they reached the lobby. The walls were decorated with nautical artifacts—brass diving helmet, paintings of sea battles, conch shells in glass cases. They crossed the lobby and stepped into the empty elevator. Floor numbers flashed overhead.
“Martini boat,” Conley said, smiling.
“Seemed to fit the situation.”
The elevator stopped and they stepped into the hallway. Flowers decorated accent tables and fake portholes hung on every door.
Conley fit his key into the lock of his condo, twisted the key, and turned the knob.
Lisa sat at the breakfast table in the silk robe he’d bought her for Christmas, the one she’d been wearing the last time heʼd seen her—the last time theyʼd made love. The French doors behind her framed the harbor.
“Matt, what are you doing here?” She set her coffee cup in its saucer.
“Any coffee left, honey? This is Lloyd Kendricks. We’re working the Rodriguez murder.”
A drawer closed in the bathroom. The toilet flushed.
Conley paused. “Who’s here?”
Before she could answer, Bill McNulty strolled into the living room. He wore Conley’s bathrobe, the white one with the red anchor over the heart.
“Lisa?”
Why?
Didn’t they have a great life together? Why flush all that down a noisy toilet? Why turn your back on someone who loves you so very, very much? The dull ache he felt when he thought about losing her grew into white-hot pain.
Why?
“You’d better go,” McNulty said. He set his skinny shoulders back and spread his hands on the granite kitchen counter.
Kendricks stepped closer. “Talking might be a bad idea right now, Romeo.”
McNulty frowned. “Don’t leave without giving me name and badge number, Officer. I golf with the District Attorney. He likes to know which of his guys have smart mouths.” He poured coffee into Conley’s BOSTON cup.
“Matt, please leave,” Lisa said. “We’ll talk later.”
Her words created a deafening roar in his head. She was all heʼd ever wanted—that and to have kids with her same cocoa eyes. Raise them in Ocean Park, watch them play baseball at Frey Field, maybe cheer in the old stadium. Watch them play and grow and laugh. Watch them run on long tanned legs—like Lisa’s.
He lifted his head and turned to McNulty. “I want my bathrobe.”
McNulty took a sip of coffee. One eyebrow rose and fell. “Sure. Nice material, by the way.”
He took a step toward the bedroom. Conley blocked his way.
“Now.”
“Matt,” Lisa said, loud and clear, like a mother scolding her child.
“Don’t make this worse for everybody, Conley.”
“I just want the robe. Then I’ll leave.”
McNulty stepped away from him, as if moving toward Lisa, but instead angled toward the front door. Kendricks caught his intent and leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed.
“Massachusetts State Police Detective Lloyd Kendricks, badge number 63925.”
McNulty paused, then drifted back to the center of the room and looked to Lisa. He scratched the back of his neck.
“Lisa?”
She looked away.
Conley stepped to him, snagged his comfortable robe by the fluffy collar—nice material—and shucked it down, peeled it right off. McNulty’s arms shot straight back and came together briefly at the wrists as if he were being cuffed.
McNulty stood naked. His body was pale, pubic hair trimmed and flecked with gray. Man boobs and a paunch hung from his skinny frame.
“Really, Lisa?ˮ
Conley held the robe at arm’s length—as if it still contained a vile politician—walked toward the balcony past his cheating, coffee-drinking wife, and opened the French doors. Brisk air poured in, but it had a hint of warmth, a harbinger of spring.
He flung the robe toward the harbor, and it flattened in the air and cartwheeled slowly. The sleeves fluttered as if searching for balance. The bathrobe landed in the water and spread out, heart print down, in a dead man’s float.
McNulty crossed his hands in front of his crotch. Conley approached and spoke.
“Get your own damn bathrobe.”
He turned toward the front door. Kendricks stepped aside and opened the door wide. Conley strode through it, disappointed there wasnʼt a nosey neighbor passing by in that moment, to witness McNulty in all his naked glory.
“I guess we’re done here?” Kendricks asked quietly once they’d reached the elevator.
“Yes, Lloyd. We’re done.”
Conley punched the button to the elevator. A second later he punched it again, harder. They got in and the quiet elevator passed floors slowly, blinking white buttons counting down.
“‘Get your own damn bathrobe’,” Kendricks said. “I liked that.”
Eye number one brightened as the door opened to the well-appointed lobby.
Conley smiled. “So did I.”