Skull Session (43 page)

My guess is that this theory will eventually find general acceptance.
However, the simple structural limitations of human anatomy are important
to consider. Flesh is simply not as strong as wood or metal. I remain
skeptical of many hyperbolic reports, because to believe them would be to
deny the known material limits of our organism, requiring a "supernatural"
explanation.

I hope the above has been of some assistance, and I thank you for indulging
my own infatuation with this esoteric topic. Your letter gave me no specifics
regarding the reasons for your interest; however, if you know of an incident of
HK/HD, I would be gratefulfor information concerning your experience, for

my files.

Sincerely,

Michael Stropes, M.D., Ph.D.

Paul shifted his position on the closed toilet seat in the Corrigans' bathroom, and stood achingly, searching for the energy he'd need to put in another long night of work.

"Submit to the dahk side of The Fawce," he intoned. Stropes didn't sound at all like a crackpot. No such luck. It would be imperative to meet with him.

58

T
UESDAY MORNING, MO AWOKE a little hungover. He'd come home Monday night feeling alternately high on Lia, Lia, Lia, and crazy fucked-up about Heather Mason. He'd found that he couldn't stand his apartment and went out to Paradise, a bar around the corner, where he drank three double screwdrivers before he thought to put on the brakes. He stumbled home, lay down in his clothes, woke up with a headache.

Getting drunk wasn't a habit you wanted to cultivate, but it hadn't been a total loss. Somewhere in there, he'd more or less banished the double guilts that had come over him. It was nuts to think he was responsible for Heather's suicide, even if her mother implied that Mo's questioning of her had dredged up her grief. It just wasn't so. She'd been a deeply troubled kid. If anything had driven her to her death, it was the memory of what she'd seen that night in August. Which Mo was trying to do something about.

And as far as Paul was concerned, Paul didn't own Lia. Lia could and certainly would make up her own mind about things. You had to believe that matters of the heart worked out the way they were supposed to, that if Paul and Lia didn't fully satisfy each other, then in the long run Paul would be better off with someone else. Anyway, what were you supposed to do if you were Mo Ford, thirty-five and single and lonesome as hell? If you wanted to be with someone exceptional like Lia, of course she'd have previous involvements of one kind or another. Of course somebody would have to get left out. Paul was a great guy. He'd find someone else in no time.

It seemed a little thin, but he was determined not to probe his conscience too deeply.

He took a long shower to clear his head and get rid of the cigarette stink left in his hair from the bar. When he came out, still dripping, he saw the red light blinking on the answering machine. It was a message from Lia: She had some things she wanted to talk with him about, very important, she didn't feel good leaving details on the machine, but could he call or stop in? "Actually, it'd be great if you stopped up here—we're always happy to see you." He called Highwood immediately, but no one picked up.

He dressed, called the barracks for his messages, then spent a few hours making calls from his own phone. By one o'clock, no breakfast yet and no lunch, his stomach was a high school chemistry experiment gone awry. He walked downtown to grab some lunch in a place with some fellow human beings in it.

The streets were so busy Mo wondered if some event were taking place, then realized it was just Christmas shopping. His nose had been to the grindstone so hard he hadn't looked up to remember the date: December 13th. He was musing cynically on rampant commercialism when Alice appeared next to him and took his arm.

"Mr. Morgan Ford! I thought that was you!" Alice had a pair of shiny shopping bags over one arm, a red fake-leather purse the size of a gym bag. In the sunshine, her piled-up black hair and makeup looked theatrically cheap. She wore a short red corduroy coat that showed off her killer legs in black tights and small, high-heeled boots. Alice, Mo thought, knew enough to underscore her strong features.

"Hi, Alice," Mo said. "Beautiful day, huh? Looks like you've been shopping. Beating the rush?"

"You don't call this a rush?" She fell into step beside him, still holding his arm. "Let me tell you."

"Haven't seen you at the club recently."

"I been there—it's you who's been someplace else."

"Ahhh," Mo growled. "Work's been eating me up. No time."

"Must be something exciting, Mr. Detective Ford. Sure it's work, not a lady friend?"

Mo laughed. "Just work, I assure you," he said. Then he regretted saying it: She might hear it as some kind of an invitation.

She looked pleased. "Listen, you had lunch yet? I'm starving. Let's stop and get a sandwich. You wanna take one of these for me?"

Mo accepted a gigantic string-handled shopping bag, let her steer him into a glass-fronted cafe with lots of green plants in the window. They stood for a moment behind a couple of other customers waiting for tables.

Alice was telling him about her mother, who lived in New Jersey with her third husband, who made good money but who needed bypass surgery. Mo was beginning to tune it out and was feeling his hangover return with a faint throbbing in his temples, when the woman in front of them turned around.

It was Lia. Mo's gut lurched.

"Mo!" she said. Her whole face brightened. "God, amazing! I was just in town to get some supplies for up on the hill and thought I'd treat myself to some lunch." Lia's eyes flicked almost imperceptibly, taking in Alice's arm, still through Mo's elbow, the shopping bags they both carried. "Hi," she said to Alice, "I'm Lia." She started to offer a handshake but then laughed at herself. "Guess you've got your hands full."

"Lia, Alice, Alice, Lia," Mo mumbled.

"Hi," Alice said.

A waiter appeared. "Table for three?" he asked.

"Are you up for company?" Lia asked. "Or, I don't at all mean to intrude, if—"

"Three," Mo told the waiter. Alice disengaged her arm.

They sat at a table beneath a fountain of fern hung from the ceiling. Mo made a point of taking the chair farthest from the seat Alice had taken, his back to the window. Lunch with Lia, alone, would be heaven. Looking at the two women, he couldn't believe the contrast: Lia with her heart-shaped face, her fine cheekbones, her mobile lips and brows, her clarity and confidence. Her hair blown crazily and perfectly around her face. Alice with her unfortunate, powdered, plain face, hair piled and sprayed. The worst of it was that Alice was sharp enough to know when she was outclassed. She looked miserable.

"What brings you two downtown?" Lia asked.

"Shopping, lunch, you know," Alice said.

"You got my message?" Lia asked Mo. "There are some . . . developments we've got to talk about."

"Great," he said. He couldn't take his eyes off her. The light from the window fell on her so that she seemed to glow, more animate and clear than her surroundings.

"I'm sorry, Alice. Maybe I shouldn't assume Mo has told you about this, uh, situation at Highwood," Lia said.

"Yes, he's very close-mouthed about his work," Alice said guardedly.

"Lia is a real whiz as an investigator herself," Mo found himself saying. "Makes me feel like an idiot. Put a few like her in the BCI, we'd clean up the whole state in no time."

Lia put her hand on Mo's arm, just an offhand, momentary touch. "I wish it were true," she said to Alice, smiling, "but I don't mind the compliment." Mo couldn't believe himself. He had jerked, literally his whole body had moved, when she touched him. He was going nuts.

His reaction hadn't escaped Alice. She sipped from her water glass, brown eyes watching Mo, then quickly scanning Lia one more time. Then she set down her glass and gave a small nod, as if she'd decided something.

"Actually," Alice said, "you know what? I just remembered I've got an appointment in"—she checked her watch—"oh my God, in five minutes." She gathered her bags and purse, stood up. "It's been just lovely. Enjoyed meeting you, have a great lunch."

She walked out. They watched her pass the window, heading quickly back the way they'd come.

"I assume Alice wasn't keen on company for lunch," Lia said.

"Apparently not."

"I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to—"

"Alice is my neighbor. She's not my girlfriend."

"You don't have to explain anything, Mo," Lia said, still wearing a slight frown of concern for Alice. "Whatever she is or isn't, she obviously has some hopes in your direction."

"Yeah, she's made that pretty clear."

"I commend her good taste. Well. I assume you'll sort it out with her, won't you?" Lia said. Then her frown went away, and she smiled conspiratorially. "It's awful of me, she seems like a sweet person, but my first thought was, 'Oh no, this can't be, she's not right for Mo at all.' Isn't that horrible?" '

"Only a little horrible. I agree."

The waiter returned: "Just two after all?"

"Just two after all," Mo affirmed. It felt good to say. They ordered sandwiches.

"And the fact is," Lia said, "I don't mind the idea of lunch with you. I mean without someone else here."

"I was thinking the same thing." Her words dazed him.
Here's a
million bucks, Mo, you just won the lottery.
He felt himself at the top of something, holding just back of the edge, nearing a sweet fall, something he hadn't felt since the night Dara and he first admitted their love and went to bed together. The wonderful release of the secret of longing. Lia was coming toward him, they were coming toward each other. His every instinct was screaming,
go, go, go to
her.

"What was it you wanted to discuss with me?"

She looked thoughtful, as if wondering where to start. "Several things. First, I don't think Paul remembered to tell you that his aunt is returning here soon—this Saturday. It seems like your investigation is getting going, but it'll be hard to keep up our meetings once she's here. I thought you should know. On the bright side, maybe you can approach her about a consent search again, in person."

"Thanks—I'm glad you told me."

"Another thing is, I'll be heading back to Vermont for a few days—I'm leaving tomorrow and I'll be back Saturday with Paul's son. It's bad timing in terms of the house getting done and Vivien's arrival, but Mark's coming down can't wait and I have end-of-semester obligations at Dartmouth I can't get out of. I thought that before I left, maybe you and I should talk."

"Okay."

She grabbed his forearm across the table, squeezed it hard, then looked away, having difficulty saying what she intended. "It has to do with Paul, actually."

His heart was pounding. There was a time to think and hold back, and there was a time when you mustn't think, when you had to let go. You couldn't think
this
dance through. You let go, found the moves as you went. Your brain was too stupid. You let other parts of you take over.

"Yes. I want to know about you and Paul," Mo said.

"What about us?"

"I mean where do you stand. Married? What's happening? What does
he
think is happening?"

"Not married. Paul and I live together in Vermont."

"So where does that leave you and me, Lia?"

She rocked back in her seat. Then she put a hand to her chin, looked out the window for a moment before she turned back to him. "You're an amazing man, do you know that, Mo? I knew from the moment I first saw you. Sexy as hell. Incredibly observant. Smart. And you and I have a lot in common. We think so much alike it sometimes scares me."

"Me too. I look at you and I say, God, she, she
fits,
she's perfect. So help me, I've never felt like this. Lia, what's going to happen here?"

She continued as if he hadn't said anything. "You like danger, and I do too. You make decisions like I do. And you make me laugh, and I think I make you laugh too."

"Yeah. Yes."

Lia took his hand, working her thumb across the back of it, holding his eyes. "And you need to be absolutely clear that I am in love with Paul Skoglund. He's a lot of things you and I are not, and that's one thing I love about him. That's why I keep learning things from him, why I need to be with him. I like you immensely, Paul does too, I could love you like my brother. You're so . . . so competent, I'd trust you with my life. I mean that. But Paul—I trust him with my
whole
life. Do you see the difference? I'm with him for the duration. I'm not available, Mo. I am terribly, terribly sorry if anything I've done or said gave you the idea it could be otherwise."

Mo sat. Neither of them said anything for a full minute.

"I meant that about sexy," Lia said.

"Don't."

She grinned ruefully.

The waiter returned with their sandwiches, and they each took a bite in silence. Mo breathed in and out, chewing but not tasting the food. He kept his eyes on his plate: Lia was too beautiful to look at. She'd handled it with a lot of class, he'd give her that. Of course she had.

So much for trusting your instincts. How many times do you have to get the same lesson?
Don't shoot yet, asshole.
Don't shoot your mouth off, dickbrain. Show a little restraint, hotshot.

He sighed. "Okay," he said. "I'm clear. I'm clear on that."

"I'm sorry, Mo."

Mo reached into his pocket, feeling vastly weary. He got his notebook out, flipped it open, clicked his pen. "So tell me what's on your mind."