Close to the Bone (24 page)

“I agree. You tell me where.”

“How about the Colonial Inn in Concord? Meet me on the front porch.”

“I’m on my way,” I said.

Brenda was sitting in one of the rockers on the front porch of the Colonial Inn, gazing out over the village green. She was wearing tight-fitting jeans and a sweatshirt with a picture of Wile E. Coyote on the front of it, and she was smoking a cigarette.

I’d never seen her in jeans, and I’d never seen her smoking, and I’d never have pegged her as a Wile E. fan.

I realized I barely knew her.

I took the rocker beside her. “I wanted to talk to you before the police did.”

“I haven’t committed any crime,” she said quietly.

“No,” I said, “but several crimes have been committed, and I suspect you can shed some light on them.”

“I don’t see how.” She flipped her cigarette away, then turned to me. “Sure, I was sleeping with Paul. Frankly, I don’t much care who knows it. Roger might be upset, but Glen’s beyond understanding or caring. Actually, Glen’s been beyond understanding or caring for years.”

“I’m certainly not judging you,” I said.

She angled her head and stared at me for a moment. Then she nodded. “Okay. Good. Then I don’t know what you want. It’s a simple story, see? Glen’s a drunk, and drunks don’t seem to have much interest in other people. They love their booze, not their wives, and you can forget sex, because drunks don’t, um, function. Paul Cizek was a sexy guy, and he wasn’t a drunk. He was separated from his wife. We hit it off. We were attracted to each other. Very attracted.” She spread her hands. “Then he disappeared, and that was that.”

“You never heard from him after that?”

“I assumed he fell off his boat and drowned.”

“He didn’t. He faked it. He was living in New Hampshire.”

Both of her hands went to her mouth. “That bastard,” she whispered.

“Did you ever talk to him about Glen?”

She nodded. “Sure. He talked about Olivia and I talked about Glen. I guess that’s what adulterers mainly talk about. Their spouses.”

“Did you tell him how Glen had given up driving cars and was riding bicycles around the back roads at night?”

“Sure. We laughed about it.”

“Did Paul seem unusually interested in it? Did he ask questions about it?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Oh, Jesus,” she said. “I know what you’re thinking.”

I waited, and a moment later she said, “Paul asked me a lot of questions about Glen. He wanted to know when he went out on his bike, the roads he took, the places he went to. It seemed like—you know, pillow talk.” She fumbled in her bag and came out with a cigarette. I took out my Zippo and lit it for her. She took a long drag and exhaled it out there on the porch of the Colonial Inn. The pale glow of streetlights illuminated the trees growing on Concord’s village green. From behind us, inside the inn, came muffled laughter. “He was using me,” she said softly. “Using me to get Glen.”

“I guess he could’ve done it without you,” I said.

“But I helped.”

“For Paul,” I said, “I think his relationship with you probably started as a way to get back at Glen. Paul hated the people he defended, hated what they did, hated the fact that they went tree, hated himself for every not-guilty verdict he got. Having an affair with you gave him a measure of revenge against Glen.”

She was nodding as I spoke. “I guess I was getting some revenge against Glen, too,” she said. She laughed quickly. “It’s pretty ironic. I was attracted to Glen because he was so weak and dependent and needy. It took me a long time to figure that out, but I did. I thought about leaving him. But I couldn’t make myself do it. Because—well, because he was so weak, dependent, and needy. Then Paul Cizek came along, and at first he seemed to be Glen’s opposite. He seemed strong and independent and self-sufficient, living out there by himself on Plum Island. But when I got to know him, you know what?”

I nodded.

“Paul turned out to be weak, dependent, and needy, too,” she said. “And part of me felt liberated when I heard he drowned. Just the way I feel liberated now that Glen’s probably going to die, God help me.”

Horowitz called me at my office the next afternoon. “You got some explaining to do, Coyne,” he said.

“It’s not Paul, is it?”

“No.”

“Who is it, then?”

“They haven’t figured that out yet. But whoever it is—”

“I know,” I said. “Whoever it is, it’s Paul Cizek who murdered him.”

“Not only that—”

“Right,” I said. “His wife was part of it.”

“We tried to find her,” said Horowitz. “Her Saab is in her garage, but she’s not home and she’s not at her office.”

“She’s gone,” I said. “And so is Paul.”

“We’re looking for them,” he said. “Now. Explain.”

“Here’s how I figure it,” I said. “After Paul got Glen Falconer off, he separated from his wife and moved to Plum Island, where he began an affair with Glen’s wife, and—”

“Whoa,” said Horowitz. “What’d you say?”

“Paul was having an affair with Brenda Falconer,” I said. “And that gave him the idea of killing Glen. Or maybe he had the idea first, and that’s why he began the affair. Either way, he faked his own death and disappeared. He was presumed dead. So no one would suspect him when Glen was run down. When I tracked down Paul, I told him that Eddie Vaccaro was looking for him. That gave him another idea.”

“You think Cizek’s the one who did Falconer, then?”

“Yes. And Vaccaro, too.”

Horowitz paused for a moment. “Pretty good,” he said. “He kills a few people. One of ’em he dresses up in his own clothes, and he arranges for his wife to ID the body—”

“He had to,” I said. “Because the first time he tried to fake his own death, I tracked him down. This time he made sure I was there to see firsthand that he was dead.”

“And you bought it,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “I did. But I never really looked at him. All I could think of was that whoever blasted Paul could still be lurking around, and we should get the hell out of there and call the police. And Olivia…”

“Sure,” he said. “She reacted like it was him. And then she ID’d him for the cops. Who’d think to doubt the bereaved wife?”

“Exactly,” I said. “Especially if the family lawyer is there to more or less corroborate it. Hell, he was there at the cottage, where we expected to find him. According to Olivia, he’d called saying he was scared, needed help, come fast. In the dark it looked enough like Paul. Dressed like him, same size, lying there on his belly in all that blood…”

“Don’t beat up on yourself,” said Horowitz. “They fooled the cops, too.”

“Paul put his ring and watch on the guy,” I said. “That was to make Olivia’s ID work. And he dressed him in his clothes before he shot him. That was for my benefit. Those New Hampshire police probably never laid eyes on the real Paul Cizek. It wouldn’t matter if they eventually realized they’d made a mistake. The Cizeks would be long gone by then.”

“As it appears they are,” said Horowitz with a sigh. “How’d you figure this out?”

“I didn’t exactly figure it out,” I said. “Not really. But there were things that didn’t fit. Like Thomas Gall, the obvious suspect. I bumped into him once. He was upset, all right. He hit me. But I ended up feeling sorry for the guy. He just didn’t seem like a vicious killer. And it turns out that Gall and Cizek had gotten together a couple of times on Plum Island, had a beer. A neighbor of Paul’s overheard them talking. It sounded like the two of them were scheming something. I figure Paul told Gall that he was going to take care of Glen Falconer. Glen would be the one Gall hated the most, so that’d satisfy him. He wouldn’t need to kill Paul to get the vengeance he wanted.”

“So if it wasn’t Gall…”

“I thought of Eddie Vaccaro, of course,” I said. “Turns out he died before Cizek. And that raised the question of who killed Vaccaro. Russo, logically. Except I know for a fact that Russo was still looking for Vaccaro around the time the ME says he was already dead. So not only did Vaccaro not kill Paul Cizek, but…”

“I getcha,” said Horowitz.

“I was thinking of Olivia, too,” I continued. “You always suspect the spouse, and people fool you, but Olivia loved Paul. I’m sure of that. Even if she knew he was shacking up with Brenda Falconer, I couldn’t see her as a killer. Anyway, I thought, if it wasn’t any of them, who could it be? Which led me to conclude that it wasn’t anybody. Paul’s not dead. He’s not a murder victim at all. On the contrary.”

“In which case,” said Horowitz, “that body belongs to somebody else. Which is where this conversation started. And the question is, who?”

“Like I told you,” I said, “I don’t know. But I’d check the whereabouts of some of Paul Cizek’s old clients.”

“Victor Benton,” Horowitz told me on the phone the next morning. “Turns out he’s been missing since Monday. The fingerprints matched.”

“Victor Benton,” I repeated. “The day-care guy who Paul Cizek defended.”

“Child molester, kiddie porn. A vile son of a bitch. Nobody thought Cizek could get him off. But he did.”

“And then he killed him,” I said. “He killed Eddie Vaccaro, too. Paul was doing justice. Killing the bad guys, making up for the fact that he’d defended them successfully.” I took a breath. “I forgot to mention before. There’s an old pickup truck parked beside that cottage in New Hampshire. You should have your forensics guys check it.”

“The vehicle that ran down Falconer, you think?”

“I’d be surprised if it’s not.”

I heard Horowitz chuckle.

“This is funny?” I said.

“Not hardly.” I heard him blow a quick breath into the phone. “We found a Chevy station wagon parked in the outdoor lot by the international terminal at Logan. It was registered to Victor Benton.”

“That’s the car Paul and Olivia used, you think?”

“Sure. He must’ve convinced Benton to go visit him in New Hampshire, where he murdered him. Then he scooted in Benton’s car. You and her went up there and found Benton’s body dressed in Cizek’s clothes, wearing Cizek’s jewelry, established that it was Cizek, and you drove her home, the grieving widow. Then after you left, he came by in Benton’s car, picked her up, and they drove to the airport. Thing is, none of the airlines have any record of either of them taking a flight.”

“Fake passports, huh?”

“Probably. Or maybe they didn’t go overseas at all.”

After I got home and out of my office clothes that evening, I called Alex. When she answered the phone, I said, “I’ve got a story for you.”

“Don’t, Brady,” she said. “Please.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t say what you don’t mean.”

“Okay,” I said. “What I mean is, I miss you terribly and I want to fix things. But I do have a story for you.”

I heard her sigh. “I had to leave the other night. I just felt… I don’t know. Like it was never going to work. I’m sorry.”

“Love is never having to say—”

She laughed. “I think I’m gonna puke.”

“We’ve got to try to make it work,” I said.

“I know.” She hesitated. “So do you want me to come over?”

“More than anything.”

“Shall I bring some lentil soup?”

“I love lentil soup.”

“Brady—”

“Okay. I’ll say what I mean. I don’t particularly like lentil soup. But I love you.”

“Do you really have a story for me?”

“I’ve got a story, all right.”

B
RENDA FALCONER CALLED ME
on the last Wednesday in July to tell me that Glen had finally died. “His organs were shutting down, one by one,” she told me. “Roger and I had already pretty much agreed that he should be taken off life-support. Yesterday his heart stopped and they couldn’t get it started again.”

“I’m sorry” was all I could think of to say.

Alex and I attended the memorial service at Ste. Anne’s Episcopal church in Lincoln on the following Saturday. It was a small, private gathering. I saw none of Roger’s old political or business cronies. We sang “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and “Onward Christian Soldiers,” and the priest read some Scripture and gave a short homily on the subject of dying young and unexpectedly.

There were no eulogies for Glen.

Roger and Brenda sat alone in the front pew, and when the service ended, Roger leaned heavily on her as she helped him up the aisle. In the month or so since I’d last seen him, Roger appeared to have aged twenty years.

Alex and I met them outside. Brenda caught my eye. She lifted her eyebrows, a question and a request, and I nodded. I saw no purpose in mentioning Paul Cizek’s name.

Roger’s eyes were red and watery, and from the way he mumbled I suspected that he was taking tranquilizers. I didn’t mention the fact that the police had examined the pickup truck beside Paul Cizek’s cottage in New Hampshire and found traces of paint that matched the bicycle Glen had been riding when he was hit. I didn’t know if the police had talked with him about it. If they hadn’t, it certainly wasn’t up to me.

Brenda said she was going to stay on in the big house in Lincoln to look after Roger, at least for awhile. If she saw that as penance for what she might’ve perceived as her sins, it was understandable. She’d told me she was attracted to weak, needy, and dependent men. Roger now appeared to qualify admirably.

I reminded her that Glen’s estate would need settling. I told her to call the office within the next couple of weeks and we’d get going on it.

While Brenda and I talked, Roger leaned on her arm and stared at the ground. Once in awhile he looked up at her and nodded vacantly. She called him “Roger” with what appeared to be genuine affection, and he called her “dear,” and it occurred to me that at least one good thing had resulted from Glen’s death.

There was no return address on the envelope, but it was postmarked from Key West. I sat at my kitchen table and tore it open. At the top of the first page of the letter, Olivia Cizek had written, “Somewhere in Florida, sometime in August.” Her handwriting was small and precise.

Dear Brady,

An explanation is overdue, I know. Or an apology. I lied to a lot of people. But lying to you was the worst. You were very kind to me.

I’m feeling guilty enough. But I want you to know that I had nothing to do with what Paul did, right up to that night when we went to his place in New Hampshire. He did not tell me he was going to fake his death on his boat. He certainly didn’t tell me he planned to murder three men.

When he called that night, I thought he was a ghost. I guess I was so stunned I would have agreed to do anything. He made it sound simple. There would be a dead man at his cottage. You, dear Brady, knew how to get there. All I had to do was get you to take me up there. I’d say the body was Paul. After that we’d be together again.

It didn’t seem wrong when he explained it. I didn’t ask any questions. Like I said, I was so surprised and dazed I couldn’t really think. I just called you, and you know what happened after that.

You must think I’m quite a liar, or a great actress. I’m not. Not really. All the emotions I felt that night were real. The whole thing was crazy. I guess I was a little crazy—first hearing Paul’s voice, then hearing his plan, and then, dear God, seeing that body. I was in a daze the whole night. The lies just came out the way Paul had given them to me.

I knew he’d gone over the edge, of course. But I denied it to myself. And even after it was over, I kept trying to deny it. He killed evil men. That’s what he said. They deserved to die, to pay for their crimes, and I tried to convince myself that it was okay, that he had made justice happen.

But it didn’t work. I know what he did—and what I helped him to do—is wrong. I’m glad I know that. It means I’m not crazy.

I knew he was having an affair with somebody, although I tried to deny it. He told me it was with the wife of that drunken driver he defended. He saw it as a kind of revenge, or retribution, as if that made it okay. I can forgive the affair. But I can’t forgive him for doing it out of malice instead of love.

Anyway, Brady, now I’ve left him. I don’t know where he is. Wandering around the Caribbean in his sailboat, I guess. He’s a man without a country and without a family and without a career, and even though I know he’s done horrible things, I feel sorry for him. But I can’t be with him.

I’m staying with friends for now. They know everything. I’m afraid they’ll get in trouble if I’m found here, so I guess I’ll have to move on pretty soon. Some day I know I’ll have to face up to my part of it. I won’t be able to live this way much longer. I’ll need a lawyer, so you can expect to hear from me again.

But I’m not quite ready. Not yet.

I hope you can forgive me.