2 Grand Delusion (21 page)

24

"You had to do it, sweetheart," Andrea said as we sat on the swing underneath our grape arbor, a week later. "She was trying to kill you."

"I know." I shook my head in bewilderment. "Jeez, I had so much respect for Lia. When she gave that speech about the Grand Hotel, it renewed my faith in the whole human race."

"Hey, if you want your faith renewed, just look in your backyard."

I did. Tony was out there blowing soap bubbles to Leonardo and Raphael, who were popping them with fierce karate kicks and punches.

My sons were so beautiful, so perfect, so strong. By God, they'd be able to handle whatever knuckleballs and knuckleheads life threw their way. And Tony . . .

Good old Tony.

Ever since he saved my life, he somehow didn't look half as runty as he used to. He must be standing straighter now or something.

And even more amazing: For the first time since I'd known him, his nose wasn't pouring forth snot.

He'd been having a great week, recounting his heroism to newspaper and television reporters, radio talk show hosts, and even someone from the
National Enquirer
. (Though on a special request from me, he'd refused to give any quotes to Max Muldoon.)

As Tony explained to them all, on the night when Lia hijacked me, he was sleeping in the Gideon Putnam burial plot, hiding out from all the crazy grownups. Then, when Lia woke him up shouting about how she was going to kill me, he waited for just the right moment to sneak to the top of the wall and jump down at her.
he leapt from the heavens
, was how one adoring headline put it.

For now, Tony was back living at Dennis's house. The two of them had had a reconciliation, and were growing more attached to each other with every passing day. Which was a darn good thing, because Tony's mom continued to be basically missing in action. Andrea and I went over there several times to talk to her about rehabs, but she was too drugged up for conversation. We'd keep trying. In the meantime, Malcolm was helping Dennis jump through all the necessary hoops to get temporary custody. To impress the judge, Dennis was even making Tony go to school now. I wondered if the responsibility of having a child of his own, even temporarily, would turn Dennis into yuppie scum.

After all, it happens to the best of us.

And speaking of yuppie scum, I was a free man at last. After shooting Lia, I did have to spend two nights in the county jail, but the cops eventually figured out that Tony and I were telling the truth, so they let me go. They had no choice, really. Malcolm's P.I. and Judy Demarest were doing some tree-shaking, and they found strong corroborating evidence for Tony's and my story.

For instance, Pop's neighbor across the street heard Pop and Lia arguing heatedly outside his house the night he was murdered. And the gun that killed Lia—and Zapper too—had been tentatively traced back to a "West Side Turn In Your Guns Night" that Lia and S.O.S. had sponsored the previous year. Evidently Lia had kept one of the guns for herself.

Now why couldn't the police have found that out on their own?

Also, Hal Starette admitted that Lia was telling the truth about the twenty grand, though he claimed he thought the payoff was legal, a "consulting fee." I can imagine how he must have sweated while he tried to explain that one.

Chief Walsh might have kept me in jail longer just for fun, but I guess he was hoping to buy my goodwill—and my silence—by letting me out quickly. Didn't work, though. I told Judy about the corruption I'd uncovered and the shoddy investigation the chief had run, and she did a big story on it just three days ago. Now the dung was hitting the fan. The same media that was lionizing Tony was dogging the chief, and the D.A. was getting involved, too. Even if Walsh managed not to get fired or arrested, his credibility and any chance of career advancement were down the toilet, where they belonged. I saw him being interviewed by Muldoon yesterday, and his distinguished silver hair actually looked messy.

As for Muldoon, I was amazed to see that he'd shaved his 'stache. Maybe my words of advice had gotten through to him.

Meanwhile, Manny Cole had already lost his job, and was probably about to lose his freedom. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. I saw him on the street yesterday and gave a big friendly wave. For some reason, he didn't wave back.

My friend Dave, I had decided, wasn't really guilty of anything. He had bought into the Grand Hotel building along with the other cops, in a vain attempt to be "one of the guys" instead of feeling like an outcast. But he hadn't been a party to the $20,000 bribe offer, or any of Pop's other illegal schemes.

At least I didn't think so.

There were a couple of other things I wasn't quite sure about, either. For instance I still didn't know what would become of the house next door. Right now it was empty, because Dale had disappeared—probably gone to Schenectady, the land of his dreams. Would the house be going up for sale soon? And would the new owner fill the place with a new motley crew of despicable tenants?

Not if the new owner was me. I mean, hey, I'd just gotten back my three hundred grand from the state of New York. The stock market was acting funky these days and I needed to diversify. I was seriously considering buying 107 Elm myself.

Although the very idea made me laugh. If you'd told me fifteen or twenty years ago, when I scorned all things material and believed only in art, that I would one day become a yuppie landlord . . .

Well, to quote Shakespeare or Yogi Berra or somebody like that, life is funny. Would I go back to writing? Would I sell
"West Side Gory"
for a couple of million bucks?

My musings were interrupted by the whir of an electric hedge trimmer; Dave was making good on his promise to trim my hedges for a year if I turned out to be innocent. There's nothing more fun than having someone else do your work for you. I smiled contentedly, and lazily reached up for a bunch of grapes.

"What are you thinking about, Jacob?" Andrea asked.

Like any well-trained modern husband, I knew the correct answer. "How beautiful you are, and how lucky I am to be with you."

"No, really. What are you thinking?"

I looked at her. Then finally I said quietly, "Andrea, you kind of figured I did it, didn't you? For a while there, you really thought I killed Pop."

She gave me earnest, wide-open eyes. "No, I didn't think that. Of course not. Not really."

I raised a skeptical eyebrow.

Her mouth tightened. She looked away for a moment, then turned back. "Well, maybe I did—just a little," she whispered nervously. Her lips were quivering with fear that I'd get really upset. "Jacob, will you ever forgive me?"

I thought about it. "Sure," I said, "but only if you peel me some grapes."

So I sat there rocking gently on the swing, with my neighbor trimming my hedges, my wife peeling my grapes, and my kids popping bubbles in the backyard.

Hey, talk about heaven.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my literary agent, Jimmy Vines; my editor, Joe Pittman; and the folks who helped me along the way: Carmen Beumer, Betsy Blaustein, Nancy Butcher, Gary Goldman, Navorn Johnson, Bonnie Resta-Flarer, Larry Shuman, Justin Wilcox, Celia Witten, and everybody at Malice Domestic, Madeline's Espresso Bar, and the Creative Bloc.

Since this book is set in the West Side of Saratoga Springs, I also wish to express my appreciation to all the people at the West Side Neighborhood Association and Spaha who volunteer long hours to make the West Side a better place. Thanks to Rose Zacek and company, the West Side is coming back.

Finally, many thanks to Nancy Seid, who is not only my wife and girlfriend, but also a darn fierce editor.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matt Witten has written four Jacob Burns novels:
Breakfast at Madeline’s, Grand Delusion, Strange Bedfellows,
and
The Killing Bee. 
He’s written for several television shows including
Law & Order, House,
and
Pretty Little Liars. 
His published stage plays include
The Deal, Washington Square Moves,
and
The Ties That Bind. 
His first movie,
Drones,
will be released in 2013.  Matt lived in Saratoga Springs, New York, for ten years with his wife Nancy, who was an English professor, and their two young sons.  (Not that
Grand Delusion
is autobiographical or anything.)