The Sweet Goodbye, page 23
They worked their way around the boulder, and when they had collected enough flowers for decent-sized bouquets, they bowed and presented them to each other. After that, they picked up their bags and continued walking.
* * *
—
She had stopped thinking about him. Stopped getting pricks of sadness when she saw his car on the streets of Birmingham, seven years since Boston and she was over it, had started dating a building contractor who was already talking about the house he would build when they got married. Seven years and then one night she got off shift and there he was.
When he saw her, he must have stepped out of his car because he was standing beside it, stumbling and crying when she approached. When he tried to hug her, she pushed him away, but she pushed so hard he fell and so she had to help him back up, which wasn’t easy, he was so drunk. Then she had trouble getting him into his car. He was talking the whole time, what sounded like gibberish at first, but eventually she made it out.
He was asking her a question. Wanted to know if she’d ever wanted to go back in time and make a different decision, go in a different direction, wanted to do that so badly it became just about the only thing she ever thought about night or day. Had she ever felt that way?
Life is full of mysteries, but what are you supposed to do when a man describes to you the only way you’ve felt since you were sixteen? Just what exactly are you supposed to do?
She fell in love.
* * *
—
He spread the blanket on a granite rock covered in fern moss. It was a large, flat rock that ran to the edge of the escarpment, ringed by spruce and maples and a giant white oak that was so tall, boats on the St. John River could see it from five miles away. The tree was often used as a navigation marker in the autumn.
She put down her bag and walked to the edge of the escarpment. The forest beneath her spread as far as she could see, green hills that resembled a furled blanket thrown upon the ground. In the mid-seventies, two teenage boys high on acid jumped off this cliff, thinking they could fly or thinking they could lie down on the green bed beneath them. Who knew exactly what they had been thinking?
Although they were expecting the opposite of what they got, that much seemed certain. When she turned away, she saw that he had started to empty the grocery bags, spread the food on the blanket. “You remember the first time we ever came here, hon?”
“Sure do. I think we did it three times right over there.” And he pointed at the white oak.
“It was two. And I thought we were going to roll off the cliff the second time. Remember that?”
“We laughed the whole way back to Birmingham, imagining how the obituaries would have read. Sure, I remember. When was that? Ten years ago?”
“More like fifteen. Gosh, think of that. I’ve always loved this place. One of the best views of the St. John anywhere in the city. With the sun sinking, the city can look real pretty over there.”
She stared at the skyline of Birmingham on the other side of the river: the aqua green water tower, the turrets of the Alexander Hotel, the roofline of the Davidson-Struthers Footwear factory. A sinking sun did seem to soften it all. Sweeten it somehow.
He made sandwiches with the pumpernickel bread and sliced ham, the Polish pickles and Havarti cheese. Laid out the fruit tarts for after the meal. They ate their sandwiches without talking, and when they finished, he poured coffee from his thermos into a plastic cup. She drank ginger ale from a can.
They drank their coffee and pop, looking out over the Kelly green world beneath them. Then he put away his cup and lay down, resting his head upon her lap. He lay there a minute before saying: “Those cops aren’t going away.”
“I know, hon. That banker was helping them, wasn’t he?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe. I’ve been running it through my mind, and I’m not sure where it went wrong. What do you think?”
“Not sure either, hon. You’re probably wasting good time asking yourself a question like that.”
“You’re right. Stuff we know. That’s what we need right now. Did you know the only good dreams I’ve had since I was twenty-two have had you in them?”
“Is that true?”
“I think so. The dreams that didn’t have me falling or being chased, the good ones with color and horizons in them, you were in those dreams.”
“That’s sweet,” she said, and she kept staring at the skyline of Birmingham. That’s all it was ever going to be, she thought. Something like that. Maybe something less.
The wind had picked up and she shivered, wrapped her arms tighter around him. Although it had been a pleasant early summer, the air had cooled and it would not surprise her to see snow that night. It had snowed every month of the year in Birmingham in one year or another. It seemed like the kind of day they could have snow late at night.
“The toughest days are always ahead,” he said sleepily. “Do you remember saying that to me?”
“Said it more than once.”
“Yeah, you did. It always reminded me of a story. The Lady with the Dog. Could have been about us. Ever read it?”
“No.”
“It’s Chekhov. Story ends with a guy saying the difficult part was just beginning. Toughest days ahead. That’s the same thing, right?”
“I suppose. Why’d the story make you think of us?”
“It’s about a couple. Toughest days ahead. It’s Chekhov.”
“It’s Bustard County too, hon. Lot of people say that.”
He laughed. “I read once that Chekhov was asked, flat out asked, if he believed the most difficult days were always ahead. Good question. Know what he said?”
“Travis Lee, I’m betting you know that I don’t.”
“He said, ‘Yes, the toughest days are always ahead. Until they aren’t.’ ”
Neither of them said anything for a long time. The sun started to slide behind the Davidson-Struthers Footwear factory. The shadows lengthened and reached out to them from across the river. “That’s a funny answer,” she finally said.
“Yeah, it was all a little funny. Here’s another one. Did you know I have only one regret in life? Most people would never believe that, but it’s true.”
She ran her fingers through his hair. She wished—with a desire that seemed a physical thing right then, that pushed down upon her until it hurt—that she could say, “Just got in, didn’t I?” one more time.
Instead she looked at him and said, “Are you going to tell me what it is, hon?”
He smiled and closed his eyes. “I never should have murdered Tucker and Beau. Never should have gone up to the Northwoods trailhead and done that.”
Right after he said that she heard a popping sound, a hollow sort of sound that reminded her later of a distant clap of thunder; or an exhale of breath after someone had been holding it a very long time.
39
THE SILENCE THAT followed was the strangest I’ve ever heard. Five men in a surveillance van wanting to say something, wanting to say something about as desperately as a man could ever want to say something, but no one speaking because no one wanted to miss the next sound. An anticipation that became material after a few seconds, that pushed down upon us like a weight. Linton ended it at just under ninety seconds.
“What the fuck did he just say?”
No one answered. I kept staring at the video screen that showed Lee lying on the blanket, his head resting on Lafontaine’s lap, her arms cradled around him. He hadn’t moved since he’d spoken last.
“Have we lost the transmission?” screamed Linton. “We’re not hearing anything. Has he done something to that fuckin’ recorder?”
“Shut up,” said Flanagan, not bothering to look at him. He came to stand beside me. “You’d better go down there and take a look, pal.”
* * *
—
SHE SAW ME as soon as I rounded the bend in the trail. Then she gasped and threw her arms tighter around Lee. I could tell—by the way she was holding him, by the way Lee’s body was bent—what had happened. I waved at the camera in the white oak, letting Flanagan and Linton know they could come down.
“I’m going to need to have a look at Mr. Lee,” I said when I reached the edge of the blanket. “Can you put him down for me, Ms. Lafontaine?”
“You’re a bastard.”
“I need to look at Mr. Lee.”
“You can look at him fine where he is. Walk on over. I don’t bite.”
I walked on over. Lee’s eyes had fallen back into his head, so I didn’t bother with CPR. I placed two fingers atop the carotid artery and watched a minute pass on my watch. I sat close to Lafontaine like you would on a crowded bus. She smelled of lilac and baby powder.
When I was done, I unzipped his coat. The handgun was right there, a snub-nosed .22. I pulled the sleeve of my shirt over my hand, pulled the gun out, stood and took a step back. When Flanagan and Linton arrived, I showed them the gun.
“Jesus fucking Christ. It’s the size of a toy,” Flanagan said.
“Yeah. He had it pushed right up against his heart.”
“Serial numbers are filed down?”
“Yeah.”
Linton had been listening to the conversation and he started screaming, “Are you serious? Did Lee just fuckin’ off himself?”
“Paul,” said Flanagan, but Linton kept yelling.
“And Delta fuckin’ Dawn was here the whole fucking time? Did that fuckin’ bitch—”
“Enough!”
Flanagan’s shout sounded like a blast from a skeet gun. “Enough!” he roared again. “I can’t take any more of you. Not another fuckin’ minute. Go away, Paul. Go sit in a fuckin’ corner somewhere. Go buy a stupid hat and do whatever it is that stupid people do. Just get the fuck away from me!”
Linton stared at Flanagan in such shock and hurt, I almost felt sorry for him. His mouth opened and shut a few times, but no sound came out. He turned to leave, and when I couldn’t see him anymore, I stopped feeling that way.
Flanagan waited a good minute after Linton had left before speaking to Lafontaine. “This is a sad way to meet again,” he said.
“A sad and mournful day.”
“Yes, it is.” And then he hesitated before saying, “Where’s that from?”
“Bunch of songs. Travis sang ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken’ that way. Old country song.”
“Old country song. Course it is. Ms. Lafontaine, the paramedics will be here soon. They’ll need to examine Mr. Lee. You’ll need to put him down on the blanket when they get here. Is that going to be a problem?”
“No, sir,” she said. A second later she realized what she had been offered and then she started nodding her head so fiercely, her hair was flying. “No, sir, there won’t be a problem. Not at all.”
It took nearly ten minutes for them to get there. It wasn’t as awkward as you might have thought. No one tried to speak. No one looked up at the sky and pretended Lee wasn’t there. No one faked it.
I looked over a couple times and thought Lee looked peaceful, knowing it makes no sense saying a dead man looks any way at all, but that’s what I thought and I’ve never thought any different. Travis Lee was at peace with how things ended for him.
Flanagan kept staring out at the St. John River and I could take a guess at what he was thinking. This was the case that was going to retire him. After a formal hearing. Some sort of reprimand or censure added to his file. In two years, Paul Linton might end up exactly where he was hoping to be when this investigation started—working out of the Boston field office with clear sight lines to Flanagan’s former office. Linton was about to get the wonderful career gift of screwing up at the exact same time as another man imploded and made a bigger boom.
I wondered if Linton was smart enough to see it. Flanagan would be leaving Birmingham with three unsolved murders and two dead informants. You don’t recover from something like that. Maybe it’s right that you don’t. Flanagan must have lost a step or two somewhere along the line. He probably didn’t think he had, but maybe losing a step or two is the sort of thing that needs to be pointed out to a person.
A Birmingham patrol car arrived at the same time as the ambulance and Lafontaine did as she’d promised. She laid Lee down on the blanket, then backed up a few feet and watched the paramedics work on him. There was a purple foam around his mouth now and his eyes had rolled back farther in his head. It wasn’t more than five minutes before the paramedics were rolling him onto a gurney.
Five minutes more and they were making a three-point turn to get back to the parking lot. I watched the ambulance until I lost sight of it on the switchback road. Flanagan, who had also been watching the ambulance drive away, turned when we lost sight of the vehicle and said, “We’ll need to hold you for a few hours, Ms. Lafontaine, to confirm it was Mr. Lee’s fingerprints on that gun. The patrol officer will take you to the station.”
“All right.”
“That’s what we’ll find, right? His fingerprints?”
“Yes.”
“It won’t take long, then.”
He walked away after saying that but stopped after taking just a few steps. He stood there awhile, his back turned to us, considering something or trying to remember something it looked like. Eventually he turned and said, “I’m sorry for your loss, Ms. Lafontaine. I know how much Mr. Lee meant to you.”
When I heard that, I knew I would never be seeing Jim Flanagan again.
40
PEARL LAFONTAINE WAS released later that night. My next assignment came three weeks later and I spent the time in Birmingham, after checking out of the Three Pines and moving into the Alexander. I thought it was time for a better room.
My time between cases, it’s always different: how long it is, what I do with it. I’ve headed south. Gone back to Detroit to see family. Although that happened last year for the first time and I’m not sure it will happen again anytime soon. I have problems back in Detroit. Another reason I like to move around.
When I checked into the Alexander, I told myself you don’t always get to go trout fishing in country as beautiful as Northern Maine. But even then I knew I was fooling myself. I didn’t do any fishing in those three weeks, didn’t do much more than sit in my hotel room and go for long walks through Birmingham.
One night I walked all the way downtown to the Starlight and sat on a barstool drinking Pabst beer, not talking to anyone. It was Motown Night and I knew every song. Before leaving, I ordered a McCallum’s neat and left it sitting on the bar.
When I wasn’t walking around, I was remembering what had happened at Champlain Lookout. I kept asking myself how I could have missed the gun. Every once in a while, I asked myself if I was still missing something. Had she known he was going to do that? If she had, when had she known?
I tried to remember how long they’d been out of sight behind that boulder when they were picking flowers. Long enough for Linton to ask, “What the fuck is he doing?” and a few seconds more before they reappeared. Thirty seconds? That seemed too long. When you’re living every second, as we were in that surveillance van, thirty seconds is a long time. Twenty maybe?
Enough time to have told her what he was doing. Enough time for her to get ready and play along. Maybe not for most people, but for those two, quick on their feet the way they were, creative the way they were, it was enough time.
What would you do for love? That was the question I was left with after all that walking and wondering.
And then my next assignment arrived. I was to report to the FBI office in Seattle, Washington, in three days. I looked at the mug shots I had been sent, suspects in a bank heist that went way south, leaving two security guards dead on the pavement. I had never been to Seattle.
I reread the e-mail, shut down the computer and got a beer from the minibar. I sat on the bed, looking out my hotel window at the roofline of the Davidson-Struthers Footwear factory. I finished the beer and had another, and then I left the hotel and began walking to the Red Bird Diner.
41
I SAW HER as soon as I entered the diner. She was holding a pot of coffee, counting out change, doing two things at once. Most waitresses would have put the coffeepot down, but she didn’t need to do that. She was talking to two men, an animated conversation that had them laughing. She would have been one of the older waitresses in the Red Bird, but she was still attractive. More than that. She had the height and stature of a model, ringlets of red hair falling over the collar of her yellow uniform. There were no empty tables in her section.
I was seated two sections over and had already ordered my dinner before she noticed me. A good waitress keeps eyes on her section, doesn’t notice the other ones so much. When she saw me, her head gave a little snap. You wouldn’t have noticed it unless you were looking for it, and even then it could have been mistaken for tossing her hair back. But I saw it. She stared at me a second, then turned and went to the kitchen.
I ate my club sandwich and made no effort to make eye contact with her. I read the Birmingham Sun, a weekly newspaper you could pick up at the cash register. Twelve pages. Sad. I was starting to read the newspaper a third time when I heard, “Is there a reason why you’re here?”
She was standing beside my table with three dirty plates stacked in the crook of her arm.
“I was hoping we could talk.”
“Why would I want to do something like that?”
