Gail Bowen - The Last Good Day

“No problem,” said Leah. “So where are you having dinner?”

“With Zack Shreve.”

Leah shivered theatrically. “Ooooh,” she said. “The man who’s mad, bad, and dangerous to know.”

“That was Lord Byron,” I said. “Someone who knew Zack in law school said he attracts women who want to get up close and personal with a chainsaw.”

Leah grinned. “You can handle a chainsaw.” She glanced over her shoulder. A customer had arrived at the checkout, and he had the air of a man who didn’t like to be kept waiting. “Duty calls,” Leah said.

“I’ll catch you later,” I said. “Is Angus around?”

“He took the truck over to Bonnie Longevin’s to get strawberries. We’re going to set up a stand out front here to lure the cottagers.”

“Marketing 101,” I said.

“Something like that,” Leah said. “Anyway, Angus should be back any minute. Help yourself to a cup of our gross coffee and catch a few rays while you wait.”

“I can expand my knowledge, too,” I said. “I always learn something when I visit Coffee Row.”

The old gents were already at their places when I slid into a spot at the picnic table next to theirs. Endzone was there, too. Morris had put a piece of rug on the ground so that the dog didn’t have to lie on the wet grass. As Willie collapsed beside me, he gave me a reproachful look.

“Your dog’s mad at you,” Morris said. “Hang on. I’ll get you something to put under him.” He shoved the stub of his cigarette between his lips, walked over to his half-ton, pulled out a hunk of carpeting, and handed it to me. “Make him a little bed,” he said, and watched until I did as I’d been told. Willie curled up happily. I picked up my coffee and the gents went back to their conversation. As always, I arrived in medias res.

“I’m betting he swallowed his gun,” Morris said.

“Why the hell would anyone swallow his gun?” Stan Gardiner asked.

“He didn’t actually swallow the gun.” Morris hawked a goober disgustedly. “It’s a figger of speech. Jesus, Stan, if you stopped mooning over the champagne lady on Lawrence Welk and watched a real man’s show once in a while, you might join the rest of us in the twentieth century.”

Stan glared at him. “The twenty-first century,” he said. “That’s where the rest of us live, Morris – in the twenty-first century.”

Aubrey entered the fray. “Where we have VCRS that allow us to watch old TV shows and movies whenever we want.”

Morris fixed his friends with a malevolent eye. “And you’re so busy watching those old shows that you lose touch with how people today talk. Nowadays when people speak of a man swallowing his gun, they mean the man killed himself.”

I was keen to see where this discussion of semantics would take us, but at that moment Angus’s truck appeared, and Willie and Endzone got into a barking match. By the time Morris and I had calmed the dogs, the thread of conversation had been broken. As I left to greet my son, the old gents were talking about what would happen to a dog that had his bark removed, a good topic but not, in my opinion, a great one.

When Angus opened the truck’s tailgate, the scent of fresh-picked strawberries was enticing. “Put a quart of those aside for us, will you?” I said.

“Help me unload the truck and I’ll knock off a couple of bucks.” He grinned, and I felt a rush of love for this handsome stranger with the easy ways and quick smile who seemed to move farther from me every day.

“Can we talk a bit first?” I asked.

My son frowned. “What’s up?”

“Have you heard from Alex lately?” I asked.

“How lately?” Angus said carefully, and in that moment I knew there was something he wasn’t telling me.

“Within the last few days,” I said. “Robert Hallam came out to the lake after lunch. He says Alex booked off work to attend to personal business, and he hasn’t come back.”

Angus looked away. “That doesn’t sound like Alex. He’s Mr. Reliable.”

“He is,” I agreed. “That’s why this unexplained absence is so puzzling.” I stepped closer. “People are predictable,” I said. “Take you, for instance. Whenever you answer a question with a question, I know you’re holding something back.”

The corners of Angus’s mouth twitched. Once again I’d found him out. “Is this important?” he asked.

“I think it may be,” I said. “So shall we start again? When was the last time you talked to Alex?”

He didn’t hesitate. “The Sunday you went to Saskatoon to see Mieka.”

“Did he just call you out of the blue?”

“No,” Angus said. “We’ve kept in touch.” He sighed.

“And you never told me.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“How come?”

Angus was his father’s son, tall and dark, with an unruly forelock and an easy smile. But his eyes, grey-green and unreadable, were mine. His gaze didn’t waver. “Because I didn’t want to have this conversation,” he said. “But if you say it’s important, I guess we should.” He pointed to the tailgate. “Do you want to sit down?”

“I’m okay,” I said. “Let’s hear it.”

“Last year, just before New Year’s, I got into some trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Drinking and driving.”

My stomach turned over. “Oh God, Angus, how many times have we talked about that?”

“A million. I was a mutt. Okay, I know, but that’s not the point. The point is I got pulled over in a spot check. I honestly thought I was all right. I’d eaten and I hadn’t had anything to drink for three hours, but I blew above. 04 – not that bad, but bad enough. The cop took my licence and got Leah to drive home.”

“Leah was with you.”

“And she was furious at herself, said she should have insisted on driving. We also had three people in the back who were really ripped, so the car smelled rank. That didn’t help matters. Anyway, when I got home I called Alex.”

“You didn’t ask him to intervene…?”

“Give me a little credit, Mum. The officer who pulled me over had been very clear about the consequences. I knew I’d lost my licence for a month and I knew I had to take a DUI class. But I was scared. I forgot to ask her if the charge was going to be on my record permanently. That’s why I called Alex. I just needed – I don’t know – reassurance, but Alex insisted on talking to me face to face.”

“Where was I when all this was going on?”

“Upstairs in bed.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“It was late.” Angus’s tone revealed his exasperation. “Really late. Mum, give me a break here. I was scared. I hadn’t had a chance to think through what had happened. I was hoping Alex would give me a piece of information that would sort of soften things when I talked to you.”

“But you never did talk to me.”

“Because Alex said you’d been through enough, and he was right. It hadn’t been that long since you two broke up. Then Aunt Jill was in all that trouble at Christmas. I knew you’d been gritting your teeth through the holidays. I didn’t think you needed me barrelling in to tell you I’d been arrested and your ex-boyfriend had come over to take me to Mr. Bean for coffee.”

“Nice summation,” I said. “And put that way, it sounds as if you were right. So what did you and Alex talk about?”

Angus shrugged. “Mostly about how people have to be careful about the decisions they make, because everything a person does stays with him. Pretty much what you would have said.”

“That is pretty much what I would have said,” I agreed. “I wonder why Alex felt he had to be the one to say it.”

“You’re angry,” Angus said.

“A little,” I said. “I wish Alex practised what he preached. He made a decision; he should have been prepared to accept the consequences.”