Mercy (31 page)

, Mr. MacPhee?"

"Crystal," Graham muttered, stuffing his folders into his briefcase and leav ing the courtroom before Audra had a chance to gloat.

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He got into his car and headed toward Wheelock. It was dark; in mid-Novemb er, nights came much earlier. He didn't know whether to drive to Angus's a nd meet with Jamie right away, or spare him a sleepless night and just wai t till the morning.

Graham took the left-hand pass into Wheelock, the one that skirted the ce nter of town and continued straight toward Angus's place. The road happen ed to pass the graveyard, too, which Graham never really noticed as he wa s driving by--except in the winter, when it was covered in snow, and Grah am would wonder if that made death any colder or more claustrophobic, a t rain of thought that fairly convinced him he wanted to be cremated. As Gr aham drove by now, he noticed a thin green beam bobbing up and down somew here in the rear of the cemetery.

It was past Halloween, so he didn't think any kids were playing pranks, but you never did know; and after all, Graham's own grandparents were buried s omewhere in the northwest corner. He parked the car and cut the ignition. T

hen, following the single slice of light, he made his way between the worn headstones.

Pulling the lapels of his coat up to his ears, Graham wondered briefly what t he hell the police force of Wheelock did to earn a living, iihe was prowling a graveyard looking for trouble.

He turned at a huge Japanese maple, naked and bent like an old woman agains t the silver profile of the moon. Sitting on a folding deck chair in front of a grave was Jamie MacDonald.

His hurricane lamp was balanced precariously on Maggie's headstone, which was so new that Graham could see from this far away the deep crevices on the granite which spelled out her name.

Jamie was nodding to a voice Graham did not hear. "I know it. Angus tries to get me out; I just don't have much of a desire to go." Jamie stood up and p aced the edge of the grave, careful not to step on the long run of matted ea rth where the coffin had been interred. "I've been thinking of you," he said softly. "I try to get one picture of you in my head and keep it all day lon g. Today I kept seeing you at the surprise party for my thirtieth birthday. I ruined it, remember?--I came home from work early because I wanted to call you and take you out to dinner, and there you were letting in my old colleg e roommate at the front door. Christ, that was amazing. You actually convinc ed people to come from California, and Florida--guys I hadn't seen in years. But what got me the most about that party was sometime in th e middle of it, when I came into the kitchen for another beer. You were sti rring this big log of chop meat into a huge pot--I think you were making ch ili--and smiling up at me with the steam curling your hair all around your face. You were a vegetarian, but here you were grinning over this block of raw meat like it was the greatest thing in the world. And that's when I und erstood how much you loved me."

Jamie sank down into the deck chair again, which was just close enough to th e stone for him to be able to touch it with his fingertips. Graham took a st ep backward, watching his client's hands caress the cold, smooth marker as i f it were as vivid and resilient as a woman's skin.

Ohe wouldn't see him. Cam had sent notes to the Wheelock Inn, LJ had left messages at the front desk when Mia would not pick up the phone, had onc e even banged on her door when he was on the midnight to eight a.m. shift and he knew she was there, but she hadn't answered. He began to wonder w hy he had ever asked her to come back. Having her in the same town and no ticeably distant was twice as hard as having her far away. He began to drop into Allie's shop twice a day, just in the hopes of seeing M

ia.

Most of the time, she was in the back arranging something. Cam watched her while trying to carry on a conversation with Allie. He noticed that she fav ored strange shapes and textures, using these for patterns instead of color

. He also noticed that she had either a sixth sense or a canny knack of hea ring--she always looked up when Allie took a step toward him, no matter how silent; twice he had seen her answer the phone before he or Allie heard it ring.

One day when he walked in Allie was pulling on her coat. "Bad timing," she said. "I'm on my way to Graham's office." She threw Mia a glance. "Think about it. You can bring your aunt."

"Bring her where?"

"Thanksgiving." Allie reached up on her toes to kiss Cam's cheek as he held the door open for her and followed her to the parking lot. "I want Mia to co me, but she says she's got plans with her aunt."

"The sick one?"

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"Well," Allie said, swinging into her car, "now she's better." Cam bent down and smiled at her. "Put on your seat belt." He waited until she had fastened it, then he adjusted the strap so it lay flat over her shoulder and between her breasts, disappearing in the folds of her coat. "Have a good time."

He crossed to his black-and-white and sat down, fiddling with the radio for a minute until he knew that Allie had driven out of sight. Then he got out o f the car and walked back into the flower shop.

Mia was waiting for him, perched on the overstuffed arm of one of the cou ches. "You're working on Thanksgiving."

"I always do," Cam answered. "You don't have an aunt." Mia stood up and walked to the cooler, plucking out sprigs of Saint-John's-w ort and tickseed. "I have an aunt," she said belligerently. "She lives in Se attle." She glanced up. "The Wheelock police must have remarkably little to do."

Cam hooked his thumbs in his pockets. "Why are you avoiding me?" Mia turned away. "I'm not avoiding you."

Cam came up behind her, his hand gently clasping her shoulder. "I'm glad to hear that." He turned her around and pulled her to the front of the shop, wh ere he locked the door.

"What are you doing?" Mia said, reaching past him toward the dead bolt. Wh en Cam blocked it with his body, she crossed her arms over her chest. Cam's eyes widened. "Mia." He grinned. "What kind of man do you think I am

?" He reached for her hand again, and rubbed it until he could feel the re sistance rush out of her body. "I want you to take a walk with me." Mia narrowed her eyes. "A walk?"

"Just walking. One foot, then the other. I'll bet you're an expert by now."

"Ten minutes," she said, and she followed Cam out the back door. He led her up the incline behind the shop that ran right into the Berkshire Mountains. As they climbed, Mia's feet tangled on roots and brush and her sh oes slipped on fallen, wet leaves. Her breath came in faster spurts, and she was not sure if this was because of the exertion or because of Cam's steady motions ahead of her.

Finally he stopped and pulled her up onto a level plateau that overlooked the parking lot of the shop and the rest of Main Street from behin d a wall of narrow brush pines. The flat of the area was covered with fallen needles. "Pretty," Mia said, peeking out from the thin trunk of one tree. "I didn't know it was here."

"There's a lot of things you can't see if you aren't looking." Cam droppe d down to the ground and leaned back on his elbows. "What made you come b ack?"

Mia sat down beside him, her legs crossed Indian style. "The pay was better.

"

Cam chuckled. "Not to mention the uniform. Jolly Chicken ought to be brou ght up on sexual harassment charges."

She waited for him to say something more, something like: Was there anythin g else? or, What about me? When he didn't, she took a deep breath. "I didn'

t have nearly as much talent when it came to flipping chicken patties, eith er."

"No," Cam agreed. "Although you probably met a more interesting class of customer."

Mia laughed, thinking of the pimply teenagers who would dig money out of t heir jeans, the coins sticky and covered with lint. "Not nearly as interes ting as the people you meet," she said. She lay down on the ground, closin g her eyes, unaware of the way Cam's breath stopped at her movement. "What are some of the strangest cases you've ever had?"

It felt so lovely, lying beside him again like it was the quiet after and th ey were letting their words get as close as their bodies had been. She imagi ned her sentence as a physical thing, a spider's thread that roped about Cam and drew him closer. And she pictured his response, wrapping her tight and binding her to him. This was what she had missed the most, not the sex or th e forbidden excitement.

Cam forced himself to lie down without touching her. "The first year I worke d as an officer--before I went over to Europe--I was the first on site at a motor vehicle accident over on Route 8. The guy who cracked up his car again st a telephone pole was forty-six, sober as a judge, and just fell asleep at the wheel. When I pulled him out, he started speaking French, and then cryi ng like a baby, and then he'd speak French again. Turned out he'd never left the Berkshires his entire life and had never studied any other languages. I guess it went away after a couple of weeks, but he was written up in the me dical journals.

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"And there was the time a swatm of bees got into the hardware store and att acked every single customer. It turned out that a neighbor had started up h is lawn mower near their hive and they went crazy, flying in the back windo ws and loading doors. Thirty people all stung, some having allergic reactio ns."

Mia propped herself up on an elbow. "They called the police for that?" Cam groaned. "They call the police for everything."

"What you wouldn't give for a high-speed car chase," she laughed.

"We have those, too. Wheelock's not as sleepy as it looks." He frowned. "T

wo years ago on Halloween someone dug up a body at the cemetery and took t he head and the right arm of a corpse that had been buried thirty years ba ck."

"Ugh."

"Tell me about it. There are some things you never get used to when you wor k in law enforcement." He rolled to his side, so that he was facing Mia dir ectly. "Like telling a parent that his only kid's been killed in a motorcyc le crash. Or throwing open a door and knowing someone on the other side is going to try to shoot you. There are some weapons you can't protect yoursel f against."

Mia thought of Cam vulnerable and under attack. "But that doesn't happen o ften," she whispered.

Cam stared at Mia, who knew nothing of Berettas or calibers or bullet gauge s, but who could drive him to his knees with a smile. "You'd be surprised," he said.

Dear Mr. MacPhee, I read about you in the Boston Globe, and] feel that I hav e to write.

Three years ago my brother was in a motorcycle accident that forced an ampu tation of his legs. He fractured his back in several places too and was in pain for over a year, at which point he shot himself in the head. I heard t he shot and went running to his room. He was moaning, moving around, half h is face blown off. Without even thinking twice about it I picked up the gun and shot him a second time.

I went through the same sort of procedure I imagine your client is going th rough now. After six months of investigations and an

awful media circus, a medical examiner decided that the first shot would ha ve killed Jeff anyway.

Please show this letter to your client. I hope the jury has heart. Angus woke up from the nap he'd been taking on Allie's living room sofa. H

e'd fallen asleep sometime during the second quarter and now it was alread y past halftime. Squinting, he peered at the television, trying to remembe r which college teams were playing.

Ellen MacDonald walked out of the kitchen bearing a casserole of yams. "Fa ncy that," she said, glancing at Angus. "We'd taken you for dead."

"Aye, well. Dinna give up on me yet."

He rubbed his hand over his face and got to his feet, wandering toward the ki tchen. Allie backed out carrying a turkey that looked nearly half her size. " Watch out," she called, the steam waving in front of her face like a billowin g curtain.

Angus sat down at his seat--which was actually Cam's seat, but Cam was wor king this Thanksgiving as he had every Thanksgiving for the past eight yea rs. It was a fair trade; this way he was sure to get Christmas off. For re asons Angus had never understood, Allie always insisted on making Thanksgi ving dinner, and then proceeded to invite Cam's entire family. It seemed t o Angus that since she was the one left alone, she should have been the on e picked up by someone else.

He supposed he'd just keep his mouth shut and enjoy the meal. Allie leaned over Angus's shoulder and adjusted a bright orange flower in t he centerpiece she'd made. It was a hollowed-out pumpkin, jammed with Oasis and a combination of strawflowers, spindle, snowberries, and Chinese lante rns. In another minute the Brussels sprouts would be done; the salad and th e stuffing were already on the table. "Jamie," she called, "dinner." He walked listlessly to the table and slid into the chair beside Angus. "So what do you think? Do they give you turkey on Thanksgiving when you're in jail?"

"Ye ken, I believe that they do. Seems I remember--"

"Stop," Allie said. "This is not polite dinner conversation."

"Then again, "Jamie added, "I'm not polite company." Ellen reached across the table and plopped a spoonful of yams onto Jamie's p late. "Eat."

Allie walked around the perimeter of the table, pouring white wine into ev eryone's glass. When she passed Angus, he grabbed at her sweater. "And wha t about me?"

"You have grape juice. You can't have any alcohol with your heart medicati on."

"I would ha' rather skipped the pills," he muttered. She set the decanter down next to the turkey and raised her glass. "Well," she said, smiling around the table. "On behalf of Cam, we're very glad you all could come here this year for another Thanksgiving. And for those of us who--who could not be with us this year, our thoughts are with you." She t urned to Jamie. "I thought you might like to carve." Jamie took the sterling utensils Allie offered. He could hear the gravy bubbl ing on the stove in the kitchen, the chatter at the table, and the drone of t he sports announcers on the television. He glanced down at the turkey, alread y skinned by Allie for nutritional purposes, its pale white breast beneath hi s outstretched hand. He dropped the fork and touched his fingers to the curve