Kevin Guilfoile - Cast Of Shadows

Sam paused and drew a breath through his nose until he was certain he’d locked in a vaguely concerned but otherwise unreadable expression. “What’s Moore’s connection to all this?”

“I haven’t gotten much from the defense attorney – he said he might not even call me – but the district attorney’s office has been a little more helpful. From what they can piece together about his defense, this guy, the defendant, Ricky Weiss, he claims Dr. Moore sent Phil Canella to kill him.”

Sam paused, pretending to chew his veal. He wanted to be careful not to let on how much he knew about Moore. She was apt to start asking a lot of questions and he was in no mood to keep track of his lies tonight. “The news accounts haven’t been real clear, but you can sort of piece it together. Some crazy story about a football player murdering the doctor’s daughter, right?”

“Right. Moore says that’s not true, but the D.A. tells me Moore had hired a detective agency in Gurnee, and they had hired Sally to take pictures of my son for him. Lots of them over five years. I only knew Sally as a photographer and I had her take photos of Justin a couple times a year. You know, for family.”

Dr. Davis Moore, pedophile? Sam thought. If this gossip were true it would be more delicious than the meal. “ Jesus. Are you kidding? What did the doctor want the pictures for?”

“I don’t know. Moore apparently says it was for some sort of study he was doing, a fertility study, but the D.A. isn’t really buying it.”

“That’s creepy. Are they looking into it anymore?”

“They say it’s not part of their theory of the case.”

“And what is their theory?”

“Well, Sally was some sort of freelancer. It’s not clear she even knew the pictures of Justin were going to Dr. Moore. But Phil Canella was working a case for Dr. Moore’s wife. She thought he was cheating on her, apparently, and I guess Dr. Moore and Dr. Burton had gone to Brixton to meet with Ricky Weiss, and Canella followed him there to spy on them for Mrs. Moore.”

“And he runs into Ricky Weiss and he’s a paranoid freak and he blows the dude away,” Sam said. “I got that much from the Tribune.”

“Anyway, the D.A. thinks maybe the defense is going to bring in these pictures of Justin as evidence. They’re going to throw all of these bizarre connections at the jury and hope that they buy the conspiracy theory Weiss is floating.”

“It sounds like there are a lot of coincidences,” Sam said.

“It gets worse,” Martha whispered, leaning forward and hunching down below an invisible blind that might shield them from the eyes of other diners. “Terry and I hired a detective agency six years ago. Not North Shore. One based downtown. One of Terry’s buddies from the pit had used them.”

“What did you need a private eye for?”

She dismissed the relevance of the question with a wave of her hand. “It was a – a genealogy project. Just going through birth records back east, looking for one of Terry’s lost ancestors. But guess who they sent for the job?”

“Sally? Now you’re just making the shit up.”

She nodded. “It’s all true. But I didn’t know. I never met her back then.”

“Unbelievable. Have you been deposed yet?”

“No, and the D.A. says I probably won’t be unless they decide to call me, and even then it might be at the last minute. If that happens, I was hoping you’d help prepare me for it. Not as a favor. I mean I’d pay you.”

Sam frowned and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Don’t worry about it. Is there some reason you think you might need a lawyer?”

She closed her eyes, her lashes long enough, it seemed to Sam, to graze her cheeks. “I’m just confused. Feeling a little betrayed. A little embarrassed that I ended up as a tangential player in a weird Nebraska murder. I’m just feeling really cautious right now.”

“I can recommend a criminal lawyer if you’d be more comfortable…”

“No, I don’t think it’ll get that serious,” she said. “I’m just nervous. This isn’t the easiest thing to talk about.”

“It’s so fucked up,” Sam said, wondering if he should have cursed like that, but then again, he decided it was a ridiculous thing to be sensitive about, considering what he had planned for Martha later. He became conscious of the silence in the impolite wake of his comment and filled it with a casual remark. He thought it best to tell a little bit of the truth. “I think I went to high school with Davis Moore’s daughter.”

Unsurprised, Martha said, “The D.A. from Nebraska said he wasn’t certain Dr. Moore had done anything illegal with regard to the photos. He didn’t have jurisdiction, in any case.”

This was getting interesting, Sam thought. He remembered how much Anna Kat had craved her father’s approval. How difficult she said it was for her to get his attention. “Illegal? Maybe. Maybe not. It sounds a lot like stalking to me. Invasion of privacy. Exploitation of a minor. You might think about pressing charges. That could help pave the way for a civil suit.”

“Really?”

“Sure. Whatever he was up to, it was sleazy. He was your doctor. A doctor who betrayed you. Nine juries out of ten would fall all over themselves just to stick it to him.”

She blushed. “I can’t tell you how upset I’ve been over it. I can’t imagine what he would want pictures of Justin for unless it was something-” She shivered.

“Pederast,” Sam spit. “He’s a pervert, I bet.”

“I really liked him,” Martha said. “And Dr. Burton, too. I can’t believe she would have anything to do with something like that. It makes me think there’s a lot more to the story. But then I never dreamed that Sally was spying on us all those years, either. It’s so strange.”

“Well, that kind of case – I guess it would be medical malpractice – isn’t really my bag, but if you decide to pursue it, I’ll give you the name of someone at my firm.”

She smiled. “Gosh, I’d appreciate that.”

Gosh, Sam thought. Just great.

Sam paid for dinner with his Platinum Card and for the waitress he added a generous tip, in case Martha was looking over his shoulder.

At her home, the same one Martha had moved to with Terry eleven years ago (“He still pays the mortgage,” she said with an embarrassed turn of her mouth), Sam insisted on paying the babysitter from the cash-station twenties folded into his money clip and tiptoed upstairs with her to peek in on sleeping Justin, whose body was contorted, facedown on top of the sheets as if he had been dropped there from a great height. His snoring had a delicate, white- noise quality that Sam, a snorer himself, found something close to soothing.

The room was filled with books – more books than toys, even – and in the darkness, although he could not make out any titles or authors, Sam noted from their thickness and from their serious-looking spines that they seemed to be books for older kids, or even adults. Martha had said he was smart, but he figured moms say that about the dumb kids, too.

They closed the door and Sam followed Martha downstairs. If Sam’s intuition was right, Justin’s wouldn’t be the last bedroom in the Finn house he would see from the inside tonight. Who would have imagined, at age thirty, that Sam Coyne would be trying to bed an older woman? Certainly not Sam, although he figured the differences in their ages couldn’t be more than four or five years.

Martha opened a bottle of red wine and Sam, with his twin prejudices about the suburbs and single moms, correctly guessed it would be Merlot. Martha sat on the couch and Sam settled in daringly close to her. He stared at her for a minute, letting a smile develop slowly, and not taking his eyes off her when he leaned the bowl of his glass on his bottom lip for a long drink. Martha became nervous in the silence, and when she couldn’t think of anything to say, broke the stare and looked away, shyly.