Bad Blood (17 page)

Her second message asked whether I had room at my house for one extra guest, a friend of Jim’s who had, at the last minute, decided to make the trip from Europe.

There were the voices of the caterers and the florist, well-meaning mutual friends who didn’t want to miss any of the events that Joan had planned for the weekend, the photographer who was going to shoot the ceremony, and the captain whom Jim had hired to take his friends shark-fishing in the afternoon. An update from Max, at the office, was sandwiched in the middle.

The final call had come in moments before I arrived. My beloved college roommate and best friend, Nina Baum, had phoned as she boarded the 8 a.m. flight from Los Angeles to Boston. I hadn’t seen her in months, and as with Joan, I could confide in her about everything that was going on — or not going on — in my life. Nina confirmed that she’d make the connection to Cape Air and be with us by the time dinner ended. Her husband had a screenplay in production and couldn’t accompany her after all.

The phone rang as I walked into the kitchen to check the decorations and floral arrangements that had been set around all the rooms of the house.

“Why haven’t you called me?” Joan asked.

“I’ve only been here five minutes.”

“Do you believe this is happening?”

“I’m beginning to. Do you?”

“If I don’t drive Jim out of town first. I’ve got to come over. The poor guy is trying to write an article about an Iraqi insurgent who beheaded four hostages today, and between the spectacular view from our room and my constant chatter, he may just put himself on the next ferry off-island. Can you make him marry me in absentia?”

Jim Hageville — the groom — was an expert on foreign affairs whose syndicated column was the first opinion piece with which most intelligent readers started their day. Joan was an accomplished playwright and novelist who split her time between their homes in Washington and New York. She was known as well in both places for her salonlike dinner parties — mixing intellectuals, politicians, writers, and old friends like Nina and me — and for staying impossibly au courant on the social crimes of the rich and famous with whom she had been raised, while I covered the street-crime beat.

“Are you at the Outermost?” I asked, referring to the inn at which she and Jim were staying. “Come right now. I’ll put some coffee on.”

“Did you get my message about Luc?”

“Who’s Luc?”

“Jim’s friend. Maybe I forgot to tell you his name. Anyway, there are three weddings on the island this weekend — not a hotel room to be had. I’m desperate to find him a place.”

“Of course he can stay here, if he doesn’t mind being surrounded by women. Nina’s in the big guest room, Lynn and Cathy have the suite at the top of the stairs, so Luc can have the little bedroom overlooking the garden.” It was the room I’d been saving in case I had convinced Mike and Mercer to change their minds.

“I think he’d rather fancy those odds. What a relief, Alex. He won’t get in until tomorrow, I don’t think. Be there in ten minutes, okay?”

I called Laura and she reassured me that the office was quiet. I filled the coffeepot and took the portable phone out on the deck.

I dialed Mike’s cell. He picked up on the second ring, so I knew he was neither in the water tunnel nor attending an autopsy. “What’s new from the chapel of love?” he asked.

“Joan’s wired. Very excited, as she should be. She’s on her way over and I’m going to try to distract her for the rest of the day. Tell me about last night?”

“Pretty scary scenario to see how close people can get to those reservoirs. These two guys they picked up are tough. Couldn’t get squat out of them.”

“You think they’re connected to the blast in the city, too?”

“I’m fresh out of crystal balls, sweetheart. Westchester’s holding them on a trespassing charge for now, while we try to sort it all out. And your trial slows down another step.”

“Why?”

“Duke Quillian’s funeral is set for Monday. Canonical law — can’t be done on Sunday and there just wasn’t any way for the family to get it together for tomorrow.”

“So I lose another day? How do you know? The judge’s secretary hasn’t even called Laura yet.”

“Lieutenant Peterson got the notification from the Corrections Department. Gave me the detail for two take-out orders. He’s letting your perp go for a visit to the wake on Saturday afternoon. Just the family — no outsiders. Back to the Tombs. Then we’ve got to take him to the funeral on Monday morning. Church and cemetery.”

“In shackles, I hope.”

“Temper, temper, Coop. That’s a photo op you don’t want your jurors to have — the graveside shot of the grieving brother in cuffs and leg-irons.”

“Well, doesn’t the lieutenant think somebody from the squad ought to be interviewing these siblings we didn’t even know Brendan Quillian had?”

“Nothing your buddy Lem Howell didn’t think of first. Not one of the Quillians has any interest in answering our questions. The only thing they claim is that little brother Brendan has been estranged from all of them for years.”

“Did they give a reason for that?”

“Suppose you take care of what you’re supposed to do this weekend and I’ll try to have all these answers by Monday.”

“I don’t get to nudge you about one more thing?” I asked.

“Shoot.”

“Lawrence Pritchard. The engineer who was fired from the water project for taking kickbacks. I know you were peeved at George Golden yesterday, but you’ve got to talk to someone about exactly what that involved.”

“Relax, blondie. Reset your coffeepot with decaf for a change. Get off the high-octane juice, okay? Teddy O’Malley has the skinny on that. It all happened when Duke Quillian was the union rep three years back. A bribery scheme that Pritchard tried to engineer with one of the bureaucrats. Not good for the union, so he and Duke went head-to-head on it.”

“But Max checked with the rackets bureau this afternoon,” I said. “There was never an indictment — not even any record of an investigation.”

“Bronx County, Coop. Battaglia never got his hands on this one.”

A large portion of the tunnel construction was completed in the Bronx before work had even gotten under way in Manhattan. I should have thought of that myself. “And Duke never cooperated?”

“Cat got his tongue. Might have had something to do with the fact that Lawrence Pritchard threatened to put big Duke’s lights out if he ever squealed. Maybe that’s why Brendan Quillian wants to find him.”

“You really ought to get some sleep,” Nina said. “It’s almost midnight.”

“How often do I have the chance to sit up all night and talk to you?”

Joan and Jim had organized a sunset clambake for the thirty guests who had arrived for the wedding. The glorious stretch of Black Point Beach was on the Atlantic Ocean, and with bonfires ablaze, we had feasted on local shellfish taken right out of Tisbury Great Pond, hot clam chowder from the Bite, burgers from the Galley, and dozens of lobsters from Larsen’s Fish Market.

When I returned to the house after the festive evening, Nina — who had randomly been assigned as my roommate from our first day at Wellesley — was settling in after her long trip from California. We had taken different paths in both our personal and professional lives — Nina marrying a college boyfriend and mothering her young son, Gabe, while also making partner at a powerhouse L.A. law firm, with an expertise in packaging large entertainment projects for screen and television movies.

Nina had opened a bottle of Sancerre and nestled into the oversize armchair in a corner of the living room, and I filled my glass and settled in on the floor in my sweatshirt and leggings, resting my head on a pillow at her feet.

We caught each other up on family, I listened to Nina talk about the contract negotiations of her latest deal, and she indulged me while I tried out my response to Lem Howell’s motion to dismiss Brendan Quillian’s murder indictment for failure to make the People’s case.

“So, cut to the chase, Alex,” she said, yawning and pulling a cashmere throw over her robe. “Didn’t you tell me that you were bringing a guy to the wedding? For almost a month his name was in every e-mail you sent me. Then he dropped off a cliff.”

“Easy come, easy go. I got in a bit over my head, and our pal the bride didn’t exactly help.”

“This was your airplane pickup?”

“Yup. Dan Bolin. Met him in April, when Joanie was up here with me for the weekend. Came on way too strong but even she thought he was charming.” I reminded Nina of the story of our meeting.

“Did you…?” Nina said, lifting her eyebrows as she tried to tease an admission out of me.

“No. Never got that far.”

Her leg straightened out and she poked her toe against my knee. “It’s me you’re talking to. Tell the truth.”

I smiled and sipped my wine. “Turns out he wasn’t quite as separated as he told me he was when we started dating. Couldn’t ever see me on Thursday evenings. I bought the story that it was his standing racquetball game and dinner with the guys.”

“What was it?”

“Marriage counseling. They were still trying to find a way to put things back together. Dan’s one of those guys who just can’t stand being alone for a minute.”

“Thank goodness he told you before you got in any deeper.”

“He didn’t tell me. The florist did.”

“What?”

“Way too many flowers. The Dan Bolin signature. All flowers all the time. About six weeks into our dating frenzy, there must have been a particularly heartwarming session with the counselor. The estranged wife got a magnificent bouquet, and mine must have been pretty nice as well.”

“You never saw it?”

“Nope. The florist mixed up the delivery. I got hers with a note promising reconciliation as soon as his head cleared, and whatever enticing words he penned to lure me into bed landed in her hands. She called him while I was still up in court. The whole thing was over before it began.”

“Sometimes, when I’m dealing with the PTA and playdates and car pools, I’m so envious of your lifestyle I want to scream. And then I think of how miserable it would be to be back on the market and wouldn’t swap with you for all the money in the world. Didn’t Joan have a fix-up for you months ago?”

I rolled on my side and stared out the window at the nearly full moon that lit the lawn and the surface of the water at the bottom of the hill. “She’s always got a prospect for me. I just can’t stand blind dates. I’ve got nothing to talk about but my work.”

“That’s ridiculous. You’ve got great friends, you do interesting things, you’re a voracious reader, and you happen to have a job that gives you enormous emotional satisfaction. Talk about those things.”

“Yeah, but most guys really think the job is strange. That I must stay in the office because I hate men or something.”

“Don’t they understand how rewarding it is to take victims into court and help them regain their dignity?” Nina said. “Guys like Mike get it. Why couldn’t you convince him to come up here this weekend?”

I got up from the floor, kissed Nina on the crown of her head, and embraced her.

“It’s only been six months since Val was killed. It’s still way too raw for him. I keep trying to find ways to — you know — ways to get him out of his morose mood, bring him
back.
It’s like I’ve lost my right arm.”

I started toward my bedroom as Nina corked the bottle.

“I know what you can do to bring him back, Alex. You know it, too, don’t you?”

I waved her off.

“You fly up here with Mike one weekend, to this incredibly romantic setting. A few logs in the fireplace, more of this great wine. You’ll both be better for it. You haven’t forgotten
how,
have you?”

“I’m cutting you off, Nina,” I said, wagging a finger at her and laughing. “I work with the man. We’re partners on some of the most serious cases in the city, and you know as well as I do that our professional relationship would have to end if — if—”

“If you got smart and took a chance? Worst that happens is that somebody else will work the big trials.”

“I need the judge and jury to speculate about my sexual escapades, too? You’ve met Lem Howell — Mr. Triplicate. That would be a really sweet cross-examination, wouldn’t it?” I paced the floor, doing my best imitation of Howell’s manner and delivery. “‘Isn’t it true, Detective Chapman, that Ms. Cooper asked you — no, ordered you —
demanded
that you come up with some kind of confession from my client? Isn’t it true that you fabricated this statement in order to get yourself into her arms — into her pants — into her bed?’”

I stopped and shook my head. “I can’t believe I actually worry about how complicated my friendship is with Mike.”

“Bad news and good news.”

“What? That with my track record the romance won’t work, and I’ll also be out of a job for going after it?”

“The bad news is that you’re dead-on about the line of questioning from a good defense attorney,” Nina said. “The good news is that you even think about it.”

“Isn’t rain supposed to mean good luck on your wedding day?”

Nina and I were helping Joan dress, in my bedroom, at six o’clock on Saturday. Our friends were gathering on the wide lawn, and there wasn’t a cloud in sight anywhere in the brilliant blue sky.

“There were a few sprinkles just after midnight,” Nina said. “Make do with that. My hair would be a nightmare if there was even a hint of precipitation.”

“Here you go, Joan. Borrowed and blue in one fell swoop.” I unhooked the sapphire bracelet that Nina’s husband had given her on her tenth anniversary and clasped it on the bride’s wrist. “You look absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.”

“I can barely breathe in this thing,” Joan said, adjusting the strapless ivory dress and looking out the window at the couples ambling toward the tent where the ceremony would be performed. “I should never have had that lobster roll for lunch yesterday. Where’s my Jimmy?”

“He’s right out there, talking to your mother,” Nina said.

“Is he wearing socks?” Joan asked.

“Why…?”

“No cold feet, right?” Joan walked into the bathroom to finish touching up.