The Other Widow (31 page)

“Yeah,” she says. “Did I wake you?”

“No. I was up.” She hears a TV in the background, the bland voice of a commentator. The loneliness of his apartment seeps through the phone. “You get my message?”

“Yeah, but I was out. Working,” she says. “This is the first chance I had to call you back.”

“I was at Yoblansky's. Thought you might meet me for a drink.”

“That would have been nice,” she says. “That would have been really . . . Rain check?”

“Sure. Any night. You pick.”

“Tomorrow?” she says.

“Yeah. Great. I'll text you. Miss you,” he says, and he clicks off.

“Miss you, too,” Maggie says into the dead phone. Somewhere a door slams, a pot bangs on a stovetop. She smiles.

XXXVII

MAGGIE

W
hen Maggie catches up with Hank it's after dark. She hops off the train and walks the block or so to where he's pulled over on Boylston. She slides in the passenger-side door.

“Sorry,” Hank says. “Couldn't get away any sooner.”

Maggie shrugs. “Just got here myself. I'm turning this over to you,” she says, and she takes a flash drive out of her purse, hands it to him. “It's all the notes I jotted down on this whole thing—everything I got. Plus photos I took at O'Brien's. If the detectives have any questions on this, they can call me.”

“Same thing?” he says. “That accident on Newbury?”

She nods. “I'd like to settle on the claim. It wasn't a suicide, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't an accident, either. And one of the women where the guy worked—looks like she's in danger, too.”

When Maggie's given him a brief rundown, Hank shifts in his seat, lets out a long whistle. “Yeah. I totally see what you mean. I'll take a look at the flash drive tonight and get this over to Haines's office in the morning, first thing.”

“Good,” she says. “Haines is good. They as backed up as they used to be down there?”

“Yeah,” Hank says. “Always. Worse, maybe. You need to come back, work your way up. You'd make a good detective, Mag.”

She doesn't answer. She turns to look out the car window. She doesn't tell him she's put in to come back. She'll save herself embarrassment in case they never call. “Thanks,” she says.

She gets out of the car and walks the couple blocks to Yoblansky's to meet Lucas. It's several times they've met now, here and other places, shot the breeze, talked about their families, their friends, about his uncle Ian and the shop, or Maggie's job. Afterward, they've gone home to their separate lives, to their separate apartments only two train stops apart—or back to their jobs after a lunch. It's a nice night. Bitter cold, but still. The trees barely move, their naked branches pasted to the sky.

“Hi.” She slips onto a bench across the table from Lucas. “People might start talking, we keep meeting here like this,” Maggie says.

“Our place.” He smiles. “I ordered you a Heineken.

“Thanks,” she says. “I'm impressed you remember.”

“I want to know everything there is to know about you, Margaret Brennan. I'll remember all of it,” he says, and Maggie sees he's already drunk most of his beer. She wonders how long he's been sitting here waiting for her.

“No,” she says. “You really don't. Trust me.”

“Yes,” he says. “I do.”

She shakes her head. “Sometimes I feel like I'll never be who I was.” She isn't sure why she's said this. She isn't even sure it's what she means. She takes a long drink of her beer.

Across the table, Lucas nods, staring toward the window. “I know,” he says. “Me, too.” He glances back at her, fiddles with his glass. “Maybe that's all right, though,” he says after a minute. “Maybe it's like there's something missing. Broken. And after a while it's just a space.” He shrugs. “The V.A. sent me to this group I go to sometimes,” he says. “You could come with me if you want. Check it out. You don't have to talk or anything. Wouldn't have to go back if you didn't like it.”

“Did it help?”

“Yeah,” he says. “It did. It does. Some.”

“I don't know,” she says. “It's really hard to talk about all that, to think about it.”

“But we kind of do anyway, right? I mean, isn't that the problem, that it's always just there at the corner of your eye?”

She takes another sip of her Heineken. “Yeah,” she says. “I guess.” For a minute or two neither of them speaks. Conversation floats from the next table. Behind the counter, someone drops a glass. “I got with my old partner,” Maggie says, “on my way here. Gave him all my notes so he can turn the whole thing over to one of the detectives in the morning.”

Lucas nods. “Good,” he says. “That's really— You relieved?”

“I'm relieved it's out of my hands, but I'm worried they'll bury it under a bunch of other stuff.” She fidgets with her napkin. “Since one of the women really is in danger. In my opinion. Of course, I'm just a lowly claims investigator at a company with plastic floors. What do I know?”

“Plenty,” Lucas says. “Whoever she is, she's very lucky to have you in her corner.”

“Speaking of corners . . .” Maggie never invites anyone to her apartment. She likes to be anonymous. She likes to not have people know where, exactly, she lives. “Over near the Hill,” she'll say when people ask, or “Right downtown,” or she'll just roll her eyes, talk about how tiny her place is. “I have to turn sideways to walk across it,” she'll say, laughing. “Speaking of corners.” She looks down at her napkin, fiddles with her glass. “I kind of live in one—this little room on Marlborough. It's not far, though. If you want to come up for a coffee after.”

“Sure.” Lucas smiles. He looks around the table at their empty plates, their half-drunk beers. “Is it ‘after' enough?”

Maggie puts on her coat and together they walk out to the sidewalk. Hand in hand, they slosh up to the crowded train, sit close together on the shifting wobbly ride.

“This is it,” she says after the short walk from the station. For a few seconds they just stand there outside the building. She stares at the black paint, peeling on the metal banister, at the heavy brick, the outside door the landlord painted red last summer. Snow collects on a small twiggy bush, and she brushes at it with her fingertips. She looks at Lucas with his hands inside his jacket pockets, at the flecks of snow in his hair. The sky is gray in the streetlight. She hesitates a moment longer, and then she opens the front door. They walk inside, and he is warm beside her; his step is solid on the creaky wooden stairs. She fumbles for her key. Across the hall, a woman laughs, calls out a name, sets a plate down loudly on a table. Music wanders through the wall.

“Nice,” he says, when they're inside.

“What little there is.” Maggie flicks on a light in the tiny kitchen, starts the coffeemaker. “I have dessert,” she says, peering in the fridge. “Blueberry cobbler.”

“Think I'll pass,” he says. “Next time?”

“I don't know. You might wanna grab it now.”

“No next time?”

“No cobbler.”

“Got whipped cream?” He puts his arms around her from behind, kisses the top of her hair.

“Yes. But go sit down,” she says, sticking the dish inside the oven. “I'm getting sidetracked.”

Lucas treads over to a small table at the edge of the only real room. The light is soft. The space is warm. Pillows with yarn stitching lie along a love seat. One plump chair sits in the corner. A woven round rug, orange and gold and red, pulls the room together in amber light from a lamp Maggie picked up at an art show the summer she moved in. A truck screeches somewhere down the block, and she brings coffee in her favorite cups—another find, another summer—cuts a piece of cobbler for the two of them, two forks, one plate, dabs whipped cream along the top. She sits beside him on the braided rug.

“Great,” he says. “Beautiful.” But he's looking at her. He kisses her.

She dips a blueberry in whipped cream and presses it between his lips.

“Like that old song,” he says. “Suzanne by the river . . .”

“It was oranges,” she says “ ‘She feeds you tea and oranges.' ”

He kisses her again, sets the plate down on a coffee table, a board on bricks.

“I have a skylight,” she says.

“Where?”

“There. Over the bed.”

“Can you see the stars?”

“On a clear night.”

“Like this?”

“Yes.”

XXXVIII

KAREN

K
aren's cell phone beeps in her purse on the dining room table. A new message from Tomas. Since they spent the afternoon together, he's texted her nine times. She'd texted back two short, clipped answers, distancing herself, even though she knows what happened was her doing. He'd hardly had to drag her to his place. She feels her face go red. Flutters her fingers through her hair, folds them together as if to keep them from calling him back.

She'll read his message later. Maybe she'll even— No. She shakes her head, drops the cell back in her bag. She can't. Not now, with her feelings in such a muddle. She'll give it a few weeks and reconsider. Even if she isn't in love with him right now, that could always change. She'll read his text later.

She finishes her coffee and calls Home Runs, asks for Francine. She'll take her out before the woman leaves for—where was it Edward said she planned to go? Paris, was it?— A farewell lunch, she tells Francine, when the silly temp manages to connect her to the right office. “Twelve thirty, then,” she says. “Can't wait.”

Three hours later, Karen sits at a small table at Chips on Charles. Francine looks a lot older than she did the two or three times Karen saw her in the past. “How long has it been, Francine?” she says, when the waiter has taken their orders and scampered off toward the kitchen, pad in hand.

“Oh Lord.” Francine fiddles with her silverware, sticks her napkin on her lap. “Years. Wasn't it shortly after the company opened? I'm usually out of town during the Christmas holidays, so I always missed the office parties. Haven't been to one for years.”

“I guess it has been ages,” Karen says, and for a moment she's amazed at the passing of time. “It seems like just a few years ago—a
couple
of years ago and now Joe's whole lifetime has finished. It doesn't seem—”

Francine is not a hands-on kind of person. She isn't motherly. She's reserved and Bostonian. She looks away. Uncomfortable. “Yes,” she says. “Such a shame. Are you all right? Financially, I mean. I hate to be crass. None of my business at all, of course. It's just that when my own husband died several years ago, and we hadn't really expected—weren't prepared—and me with a career in finance. ‘Physician heal thyself,' eh? Anyway, Mort's passing left me nearly penniless. Our savings were gone, our bank account—in tatters.”

“Yes. Well, I'm all right for the moment,” Karen says. “But, speaking of finances, I am a little confused about the ones I found on Joe's laptop. They don't seem to match up with what Edward's—”

“Afraid I can't help you there,” Francine says. “On the other hand, Dorrie might be able to shed some light.”

“
Dorrie?
”

“Yes.” Francine butters a biscuit and takes a leisurely bite. “She's got a head for numbers, that one. She remembers everything. Like a flipping savant. Like Dustin Hoffman in that movie. Remember?
Rain Man?
When he rattled off all those— Anyway, Joe had her training for my job. To save hers, I suppose.”

Karen spears an olive with her fork and chews. Great. Fucking great. Lover, protector. What the hell
else?

Francine wipes her mouth, reaches in her purse for a small lipstick and mirror set, silver, with birds etched into the case. “I'm sure this isn't helpful in any way, but there was something a bit odd, I thought.”

“Such a pretty mirror set. So what is that, Francine? What was odd?”

“It
is
pretty, isn't it? A gift from my daughter last year on Mother's Day.” Francine applies her lipstick and presses her lips together to blot them, making a small popping sound in the quiet room. “A man came in—it's been weeks ago now. Months. Shortly before your husband's accident. Same week, as I recall, just before he—Joe—went out of town. Or. No. He was al
ready
out of town. That's right. The man was frantic to speak to him. ‘He isn't here,' I told him. ‘Won't be back until the end of the week, if then. Monday would be better, really.' He said it was pressing—that he was a city inspector and he—Lansing, I believe he said. Edwin Lansing? Earl?—Everett Lansing. It was Everett Lansing. I'm sure of it. Most unpleasant.”

“Did he say why he had to talk to Joe? What was so urgent?”

Francine shakes her head. “No. He just threw up his hands and stomped back out. Frightening man. Public official at that. What has this city come to?”

Francine declines dessert, putting up her hands as if she's stopping an onslaught of angry, buzzing bees—and Karen gives her a small hug on the sidewalk. “Best of luck to you, Francine,” she says. “Joe thought the world of you,” she adds, although, really, he didn't at all.
She's much more Edward's employee than mine
, he used to say.
Acts like I'm intruding when I ask her a simple question
. But the woman has more than paid her dues, put in her time. She certainly deserves this little send-off lunch.

It seems to Karen as if the world is conspiring against her. Even Francine was snooty in a civil sort of way, not at all forthcoming. And here's a new voice mail from Brennan. Karen hits
PLAY
, listens as she walks back to the car park. “I'm at work,” Brennan says, “so I just have a second, but I've turned this whole business over to the Boston Police. I'm a little out of my league with this, way over my head, but you should be getting your check once they finish the investigation and you're cleared. I'll be in touch as soon as I know something. Take care.” Karen hears the click of Brennan's cell phone disconnecting.