Nervous Water (10 page)

I slept fitfully that night. Finally a little before five in the morning, just as the sky outside our bedroom window was beginning to fade from purple to pewter, I said the hell with it and slipped out of bed. Evie was sprawled on her belly, snoring softly. She was half uncovered, as if she'd been thrashing around. I pulled the sheet and blanket up over her, then went down to my office.

Henry, who'd been sleeping on the floor, followed me down. His toenails clicked on the steps.

I lay on my daybed and read a chapter of
Moby-Dick
. I'd been reading Melville's so-called classic for years, dipping into it here and there, it didn't seem to make any difference where, and no matter how wired I might've been, it never failed to put me to sleep.

Herman didn't let me down this time, either.

When I woke up, it was nearly eight o'clock. I showered, shaved, got dressed, poured the day's first mug of coffee, and went looking for Evie.

She was where I expected she'd be, sitting at the picnic table in our backyard garden with Henry lying on the bricks beside her eyeing the grosbeaks.

I didn't expect to see Roger Horowitz sitting there with them.

Evie was dressed for work—pale green knee-length linen skirt, off-white silk blouse, hair up in some kind of complicated bun. She looked terrific, as usual. Horowitz was wearing his standard dark suit. He looked rumpled, also as usual. They both were cradling coffee mugs in their hands.

Evie and I had gone to some Red Sox and Celtics games with Horowitz and Alyse, his wife, and we'd met for drinks and dinner a few times. He was an irascible son of a bitch. Dependable, loyal, honest, candid. Absolutely solid. But irascible.

Evie and Roger had always seemed to hit it off. She was a lot like him, though considerably less irascible. She got along with him a lot better than I did.

I assumed he was sitting at my picnic table having coffee with my girlfriend because he'd brought me information on Richard Hurley from the Madison police.

I started to open the back door to join them, but their body language made me hesitate.

As I watched, Evie said something that made Horowitz put down his mug, fold his arms, and shake his head.

Evie leaned across the table and said something to him.

He pointed his forefinger at her.

She shrugged and looked up at the sky.

I rattled the doorknob so they'd hear me coming, although it wasn't necessary. As soon as the latch clicked, Henry scrambled to his feet and trotted over. His entire hind end was wagging.

I scooched down to scratch his forehead, then went over to the table. I bent and kissed Evie on the cheek she tilted up for me, nodded to Horowitz, and sat down. “Am I interrupting something?”

Horowitz waved the back of his hand at me.

Evie shook her head. “Get any sleep?”

“Sorry if I disturbed you,” I said.

“That's not what I meant.”

“I apologize,” I said. “Didn't mean to be snippy. That's how I am when I don't get much sleep.”

She smiled quickly—acknowledging my effort to make a joke, but unamused, I thought.

“Melville finally did the job,” I said. “It was around sunup. I could've slept till noon, I think.” I looked at Horowitz. “You've got Marie's lobster ravioli on your mind, if I'm not mistaken.”

“Exactly.”

Evie stood up. “I've got to get to the office.” She picked up her coffee mug, went around the table, and gave Horowitz a quick hug. “Say hi to Alyse for me. Tell her to give me a call. We'll plan something.”

I got up, told Horowitz I'd be right back, and followed Evie into the house.

She was rinsing out her mug in the sink. “What's going on, honey?” I said.

She didn't turn around. “What do you mean?”

“Something's been eating at you lately.”

“Nothing's going on, Brady. I'm late is all.”

When Evie called me “Brady,” it meant something was bothering her—most often me. Usually she called me “honey” or “big fella” or “sweetie.”

I stood behind her, put my hands on her hips, and nuzzled the back of her neck. “So what's with you and Horowitz? What were you two talking about? It looked pretty intense out there. Any of my business?”

“Nothing. No.” She twisted her head as if my nuzzling was annoying her and kept rinsing out the mug, even though it didn't need it. “Baseball. The Red Sox. How we should get together for a cookout or something sometime. We sure could use some rain. Like that. Nothing intense at all.”

“Really.”

She turned to face me. “Yes, damn it. Really. What, you think I'm lying to you?”

“I don't think you're telling me everything.”

“You're right,” she said. “There's a million things I don't tell you. What do you want to know?”

“I want to know that you're all right,” I said. “That we're all right. That's all.”

“I'm fine. We're fine. So cut it out, okay?”

“Are we?”

“Don't, Brady,” she said sharply. “Please. Leave me alone, will you?

“I worry about you,” I said. “Sorry.”

She shook her head, turned away from me, and mumbled, “Jesus Christ.”

I held up my hands. “Fine. Okay. I care, that's all.”

“It's nice that you care,” she said. She gave me a quick smile. “Look. I'm sorry. I got a lot going on, that's all. Okay?” She looked up at the kitchen clock. “Oh, damn. I've gotta run. I can't be late. Not today.” She brushed my cheek with her lips, gave my arm a squeeze, and she was gone.

 

When I went back outside, Horowitz was sitting at the table talking on his cell phone. I took the chair across from him. He held up a finger, mumbled something into the phone, then clicked it off.

He took a sip from his coffee mug and peered up at me from under those bushy black eyebrows of his. “You look like shit,” he said.

“I slept lousy.”

“Had a fight with Evie, huh?”

“Does it show?”

“You hide it pretty well,” he said. “But I'm a trained detective.”

“I suppose you wouldn't give me a hint about what you and she were discussing out here.”

“We weren't discussing anything,” he said. “We were just talking, you know? Waiting for you to get up. I came to talk to you, not her.”

“That's it?”

“Yeah. That's it. You ain't jealous of me, are you?”

“You?” I laughed.

“Yeah. That's a fucking joke. Funny.”

“Sometimes,” I said, “I think that I'm just not cut out for a committed relationship.”

“Nobody is,” he said. “It ain't natural. It's too hard. You gotta work at it all the fuckin' time. Who wants to do that?”

“She's keeping something from me,” I said.

“Everybody keeps things from everybody else,” he said. “It's in our nature.”

I smiled. “She said the same thing.”

“You ever keep anything from her?”

I shrugged. “Sure. I guess so. Nothing important, though.”

“What's unimportant to you might be very important to her. You ever think of that?”

“You're right,” I said. “She's busy. She's under a lot of pressure. She doesn't like to talk about it.”

“Give her space, Coyne,” he said. “Trust her. She's a good kid. She loves you. What more do you want?”

I nodded. “You're right.”

He took a sip from his coffee mug. “I talked to a cop out in Madison for you.”

“What'd you learn?”

“Not much.” He put down his mug, slid a hand-sized notebook from his jacket pocket, flipped it open, and glanced at it. “Nothing whatsoever on Hurley, there, your dentist, unless you're interested in a speeding ticket on Route 93 about six years ago. He's been living in Madison for close to twenty years. They had a few 911 calls from the house. Medical emergencies. That's about it.”

“Any details on the 911s?”

He shook his head. “Not really. It was Mrs. Hurley, the dentist's wife, each time. The last one, she ended up dying. This was a few years ago. I thought you were interested in recent domestic disturbances, that sort of thing.”

“I was. I am.” I hesitated. “So there's nothing on Cassie?”

He shook his head.

“He hasn't reported her missing?”

“If he had,” said Horowitz, “I'd've known it myself.”

“No complaints from the neighbors, nothing like that?”

“Nope,” he said. “That's all I got for you, Coyne. It's pretty quiet out there in Madison, and I'd say this Dr. Hurley is as quiet as any of 'em. Pretty much a model citizen. You want to pursue this yourself, I can give you the officer's name.”

“Let's have it,” I said.

“I told him you were a persistent sonofabitch, he should expect you to harass him. He thanked me for the heads-up. Name's Hazen. Lieutenant Tony Hazen. Old friend of mine. We were cops together back when.”

“Do you know every police officer in the commonwealth?”

“Just about.” He scribbled in his notebook, ripped out the page, pushed it across the table to me, and tapped it with his forefinger. “Name and number.”

I stuck the paper into my shirt pocket. “Thank you.”

“You don't need to thank me,” said Horowitz. “Just buy me a bowl of Marie's lobster ravioli.”

“When?”

“Not today.” He peered up at me. “You all right?”

“Let's see,” I said. “Evie's grouchy with me, my cousin's missing, my uncle's in the hospital, and I need Herman Melville to put me to sleep at night. Otherwise, sure. I'm fine.”

He rubbed his chin. “I lose perspective. All the shit I see.”

“I can understand that.”

“If it ain't a murder, it ain't important, you know?”

I smiled.

“That's pretty fucked up,” he said. “Right?”

“Fucked up,” I said. “Aren't we all.”

“You should go fishing or something,” he said.

“You're right.”

“It'd relax you. Take your mind off things.” He cocked his head and peered at me. “Fishing relaxes you, right?”

I shrugged. “Sort of. It's intense. Engrossing. Helps me forget things. When I'm fishing, that's what I'm thinking about. Fishing.”

“Like this friend of mine,” he said, “trooper out on the Mass Pike, the Lee barracks, name of Lynch. He's like that. One of those fanatical bass fishermen, right? Got a big boat shaped like a penis, goes a hundred miles an hour, and enough gear to stock an L.L. Bean store?”

I smiled.

“Anyway,” said Horowitz, “Lynch, there, he was telling me how he went out a month or so ago. Remember that damn monsoon we got back the middle of June? It was then. So anyway, Lynchie gets up at like four in the morning, kisses his wife goodbye, off to some bass tournament in the Finger Lakes or something. His boat's all hitched up in the driveway, his gear stowed away, and when he goes outside, it's fucking pouring. I mean, coming down in buckets. Lynchie gets in his truck anyway, of course, heads for the Mass Pike, windshield wipers on high speed, turns on the radio, and they're promising a whole day of it. Driving rain, howling winds. Some kind of freak tropical storm, like a hurricane, the middle of June?” Horowitz looked up at me.

I nodded.

“Well,” he said, “he keeps going for maybe half an hour, and the rain, it's just getting heavier, he can hardly see where he's going, and finally he says to himself, ‘What the hell am I doing? This is stupid.' So he turns around and heads back home. Pulls in the driveway just about the time the sky would be turning light if the clouds weren't so thick. He sneaks into the house, quiet so as not to wake up anybody, undresses in the bathroom, and crawls back in bed with his wife. She's sleeping on her side, facing away from him, and he snuggles up to her from behind, kinda wiggles himself against her, puts his arm around her and sticks his face in her hair, and he whispers, ‘You awake, baby?' And she mumbles and sighs and reaches around behind her, puts her hand on his hip, sort of pulls him up tight against her. He says to her, ‘It's like a fucking hurricane out there. Never saw so much rain.' And she says, ‘Yeah, and can you believe it? My dumbass husband, he's out there fishing in it.' ”

I looked at Horowitz. “You never tell jokes.”

“Joke?” he said. “What joke? I am absolutely humorless. I'm an officer of the law. I deal only in facts. Lynchie told me that himself. True story.”

After Horowitz left, I went into the kitchen to refill my mug. Henry followed along, ever hopeful. I gave him a Milk-Bone. Hope, I believe, should be rewarded now and then. Life without hope isn't worth living.

I went into my room. It was a little after nine. Julie would be at the office. Julie was never late.

I called her. When she answered, I said, “I'm home. It looks like I'm going to be working from here today. Anything I need to know?”

“Define working,” she said.

“Oh, cleaning up our paperwork, catching up on our phone calls. What we lawyers do when we're not wowing juries.”

“You haven't found your cousin, huh?”

I smiled. Julie knew me too well. “Well, true,” I said. “I'm kind of concerned.”

“Do what you've got to do, Brady,” she said. “I'll take care of things at this end.”

Even when she was being supportive and agreeable, Julie had a way of making me feel guilty. Actually, every woman I've ever had any kind of serious relationship with could make me feel guilty just by arching an eyebrow or putting emphasis on an unexpected syllable.

Evie was a master at it. She said this guilt thing was
my
problem,
my
insecurity,
my
paranoia. Stemmed from my relationship with my mother, she theorized. She said it revealed a deeply rooted mistrust of women in general, not to mention the fact that I probably did have things to feel guilty about.

I told her I could manage to feel guilty even when I was innocent, which, in fact, I almost always was, and I didn't really trust anybody, regardless of gender, race, religion, political orientation, sexual preference, or national origin. It had nothing to do with my feelings for women or whether my mother breast-fed me.

Evie pointed out that I was also a master of denial.

I did agree with her that it was my problem, even though I firmly believed that women—or the women that I seemed to be attracted to, anyway—or maybe it was the women who were attracted to me—were genetically endowed with an uncanny instinct for, and took sadistic pleasure in, sticking sharp objects into the vulnerable places in my psyche.

Julie was masterful at it.

During our divorce, Gloria, my ex-wife, told me that I needed guilt, thrived on it, sought out women who fed it to me. It drove Gloria nuts when she realized that she'd been trying to please me—and to keep our marriage together—by subconsciously laying guilt trips on me. When she finally figured out how this unhealthy dynamic between us actually worked, she couldn't divorce me fast enough.

So now Julie, by a subtle inflection in her tone, had made me feel guilty about taking the day off from my law practice to help my ailing uncle get in touch with his wayward daughter. This was, I believed, an eminently worthwhile thing to do. Noble, even. Certainly nothing to feel guilty about.

I felt guilty anyway.

When I hung up with Julie, I realized I was feeling guilty about picking a fight with Evie, too.

I thought about calling her, apologizing, telling her I loved her. But when I played it out in my head, I saw how it would most likely just rekindle the conflict.

So instead I dialed the number Horowitz had given me for Lieutenant Tony Hazen, the Madison cop.

The officer who answered said that Hazen didn't come on duty until four that afternoon and asked if there was something he could help me with.

I said no, it was Hazen I needed to talk with. I mentioned that I was a lawyer, left my name and number, and asked to have him call me.

The cop said he'd be happy to deliver my message, but if I really needed to talk to Lieutenant Hazen, my best bet would be to drop by the station. “Truthfully,” he said, “he's not much for returning calls. He talks to who he wants to talk to.”

“Sort of like the phone company,” I said. “When they're trying to sell you something…”

He chuckled. “Electricians, plumbers, doctors. Anybody you really need to talk to. Hazen figures, if you need to talk to him bad enough, you'll keep trying, and if he's lucky you'll end up either talking with somebody else or giving up. He's got an inbox overflowing with messages. Every now and then he throws them all away and starts over.”

“Is that true?” I said.

“Nah,” he said. “I exaggerate. He looks 'em over, answers the ones that interest him. But he takes his time about it. Not good at returning phone calls.”

“What if I said it was about a missing woman?”

“Then you should tell me,” he said, “not Hazen.”

“Is that your department?” I said. “Missing women?”

He laughed. “We don't have departments here in Madison. There aren't enough of us. We're all just cops. No, you should tell me because I'm here and Hazen's not, and it doesn't matter what you say on any message to him, because he most likely won't even read it. You got a missing woman?”

“I don't know,” I said. “So if I drop by the station at four, he'll be there?”

“He's on the desk 'til midnight. He'll be here.”

Next I tried Dr. Richard Hurley's home phone and, as expected, got his answering machine. I didn't want him to think he could make me go away by ignoring me, so I left a message. “It's Brady Coyne, Cassie's cousin, again,” I said. “I'm still trying to contact your wife. It's imperative that I talk with her, and I've got a couple questions for you. Please get back to me.” I recited my home, office, and cell phone numbers for him, even though he had my business card.

Then I called his office. A young-sounding woman answered. “Dr. Hurley's office,” she said. “May I help you?”

“I'd like to speak to him,” I said.

“I'm sorry, sir. He's with a patient right now. Did you want to make an appointment?”

“I need to speak with him directly.”

“I'll be happy to give him a message,” she said, “ask him to return your call, if you want.”

“Does he have any openings today?”

She laughed. “Our first opening is…hang on, I'm looking…how's October third?”

“No,” I said. “That doesn't work.”

“Is this an emergency, sir?”

“Yes.”

“I mean, a dental emergency?”

“Would he see me if it was?”

“If it were an emergency,” she said, “I would refer you to one of Dr. Hurley's associates.”

“Just ask him to call me,” I said. I gave her my name and numbers. “Use the word ‘emergency,' ” I added. “Tell him it concerns Cassandra, his wife.”

She promised to deliver my message. I detected no reaction when I mentioned Cassie.

I hung up.

I was getting nowhere.

Evie was still on my mind.

The hell with it. I called her office.

Evie's secretary answered. “Evelyn Banyon's office,” she said. “May I help you?”

“Hey, Gina,” I said. “It's Brady. Is Evie—?”

“Oh, shit,” she said. “She's gonna kill me. She asked me to give you a call. I was just about to like a half hour ago when the goddamn phone rang, and then I sorta forgot. Good thing you called.”

“She's not there, then?”

“Nope. She had to run off to a meeting. Wanted me to tell you she's gonna be late tonight. That's why I was supposed to call you.”

“Late again,” I said. “How late?”

“She didn't say. Just late.”

“Another meeting?”

“I guess so.” Gina hesitated. “She also wanted me to tell you she was sorry she snapped at you.”

“Snapped,” I said.

“That's a quote.” She giggled. “She said you had a sort of argument, and she was feeling bad about it. She
was
feeling bad. I could tell.”

“Well,” I said, “that's why I called. Because I was feeling bad about it, too. Will you tell her that?”

“Sure.”

“Have her call me if she gets the chance, okay?”

“Well,” she said, “I'm looking at her schedule. She's pretty much tied up all day. But I'll give her the message.”

“Tell her I'll have my cell phone with me. Tell her I love her.”

“Absolutely.” She hesitated. “Uh, Brady?”

“What, Gina?”

“Would you do me a favor?”

“You want me to tell her you called me,” I said. “Right?”

“Smart you,” she said. “I probably would've remembered anyway, eventually. But I'd just as soon she didn't know I screwed up, you know? So will you?”

“Sure,” I said. “You tell her the same thing. I'd rather she didn't know I called. She might think I was checking up on her. We should keep our stories straight, you and I.”

“You got it,” she said.

After I hung up with Gina, I felt a little better, knowing that Evie felt apologetic, even if she'd commissioned her secretary to communicate her feelings to me instead of finding a minute to do it herself.

I took out the paper on which Julie had typed the list of numbers from Cassie's cell phone. Two full columns, single-spaced. Names, nicknames, initials. It was daunting. No way I could call all of them.

I moved my finger down the list. They were alphabetical, the way, I assumed, she'd found them in the cell phone.

I stopped at “Grannie.” Moze had mentioned that Cassie's boyfriend, the one before she married Hurley, was called Grannie. There were two numbers. “Grannie-cell” and “Grannie-work.”

At Grannie-work, the recorded message said, “This is Professor Grantham Webster, English Department, Cabot College.” Webster had a deep, rumbling voice with the hint of the Smoky Mountains in it. “Please leave a detailed message and a number where I can reach you. If you want to see me in person, my summer office hours are Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, two to four. I don't schedule appointments. You're welcome to just drop in.”

Okay. Thank you. Today was Wednesday. Maybe I would.

I didn't bother leaving a message.

I tried Grannie-cell, got his voice mail, and left no message there, either.

I went back to the list. Mostly first names, a few last names, nicknames, and initials that meant nothing to me. A diligent investigator would start at the beginning, and he'd call them all, and he'd interrogate everybody intensely, on the assumption that any one of them might have the answers he was looking for, and he'd make a note of those he didn't reach so he could call them again.

Not me. I couldn't do that. There had to be a better way.

I went back to the list. There were numbers for “Becca” and “James” and “Richard.” The Hurleys, I supposed, although there were also numbers for “Becky” and “Jimmy” and “Dick.” And there were numbers for people named Carla, Liz, Donna, and Sue. Numbers for Digger and Tipper and Flip. Numbers for Smith and Osborne, Grapelli and Bratonio, Shwartz and Grabowski. Numbers for Pizza and Chinese, Auto and Bank, Oil and Electric. There were initials. More names and nicknames and commercial places. More initials.

There was that number for “Faith” in Rhode Island. My aunt, I assumed. According to Uncle Jake, Thurlow was Aunt Faith's current married name.

I called her number. It rang five times. Then a woman's voice said, “You have reached the Thurlows. Please leave a message.” Aunt Faith's voice, I guessed, a soft, breathy, elderly voice. She sounded nervous and sad. It made me want to see her, see what my aunt looked like after all these years, see if she really was nervous and sad, and if so, why.

I didn't leave a message. Uncle Jake had said she lived in Tiverton, which was just over the Massachusetts border. About an hour's drive from Boston. I could find her. I decided I didn't want to talk to her on the telephone. I wanted to sit across from her, watch her face, pat her hand, give her a hug.

I leaned back in my chair, blew out a breath, and stretched my arms over my head. I'd been sitting there for about an hour, had made five or six calls, and I was exhausted. How the hell did the private investigators do it, hour after boring hour, day after excruciating day, year after interminable year?

Gordon Cahill, the best PI I knew, once told me that investigating was like selling encyclopedias door-to-door. You could knock on a hundred doors and get every one of them slammed in your face, and then the next ten, bingo. Ten sales. You never knew. All you knew was, if you just kept staking out people, making phone calls, calling them again, following up leads, just keeping at it, sooner or later you'd get a hit.

You'd sell a set of World Books.

You'd find what you were looking for.

If you didn't do it, guaranteed you'd never get anywhere. So you just kept doing it.

You had to have that kind of mentality, Gordie said. You had to thrive on drudgery. That's why PIs, contrary to the movies and the novels, were notoriously boring people.

Boring or not, I knew I didn't have that kind of mentality.