Laura Lippman - The Last Place

“And so far-”

“So far, we’re doing fine.”

“I did have a girl once.” Something in Carl’s voice made it sound as if the once referred not just to a time long ago but to a literal number. He had a girl. Once.

“And?”

“She said I wasn’t ambitious enough. It made her mad that I was happy where I was, being a Toll Facilities cop, living in the town where I grew up. She said I should want more. So I tried. When I found… Lucy, I thought maybe this was my chance. I’d be a big guy, I’d be more. Then she broke up with me because I worked all the time.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. If I had to do it over again, I’d go back to being me. The me I used to be. Then I’d find a girl who liked me just the way I was.”

“You still might.”

“Except I’m not that person anymore. Whatever happens, I’ll never be that person again.” Carl sighed. “I miss him.”

The conversation was unsettling. It was too delicate, too fraught. Tess felt as if she could make a million mistakes with a single syllable. What should she say? What did he want her to say?

“You should cut your hair,” Carl said.

“What?”

“Or not wear it in a braid. I saw this show, on A amp;E, the Criminal Justice files. A woman with her hair pulled back is too easy to grab. You jog, right?”

“Sometimes.”

“Well, imagine how easy it would be for someone to come up and-” His left hand caught her braid at a spot low on her neck. “You’d be in someone’s trunk.”

She saw the lights of Union Memorial up ahead, the white-pink blossoms of the cherry trees rippling in the wind.

“Al Capone donated those trees,” she said, hoping to change the subject and hoping Carl would let go of her hair. “It was in gratitude for the treatment he received here when he was in the throes of syphilis.”

“I know,” Carl Dewitt said. Of course he did. It was just the kind of thing he would know: gangsters and gangster films. “Al Capone. Now there was a guy who knew how to use a baseball bat. ”We are all members of a team.“ From The Untouchables. And they caught him because of tax evasion, not for murder or racketeering. Tax evasion.”

“You know,” Tess said, “I bet that’s how we’ll catch our killer.”

“For tax evasion?”

“For something small, some trivial detail he overlooked. No one manages to get everything right, all the time. God is in the details.”

“Really? I thought it was the devil.”

He should kill that guy, that Mickey Pechter. That creep, that pervert. He’s trouble. She handled him beautifully-of course-but the man should be taught a lesson. And it would be nice to demonstrate his loyalty to her even as he keeps his distance. The problem is, if Pechter is found dead, the police might focus on her because of her connection to the pervert, and that would be inconvenient. He cannot risk it, satisfying as it would be. And the thing is, it never is satisfying, not quite. The release can come only in the context of true intimacy. He has learned that the hard way.

Besides, Pechter was an unwitting accomplice, he owes him. Her adventure with him, and its legal consequences, provided the entrée he needed. He has never counted on luck, but neither has he spurned its opportunities. The first episode with Pechter had confused her, softened her up, opened her up in a way he never could have anticipated. The sook is ready for her jimmy. The rush is on.

It’s all about redemption, darling, all about redemption: yours and mine.

He always knew this part would be hard, but he also knew that waiting was his own peculiar talent. Now is the time to pull back, and not only because his picture is out there, floating around. Clean-shaven, his hair color altered, he is not that recognizable. But the point is to see if she can do it on her own. She has to negotiate the final part of the maze alone. He is not sure yet how she will do it, which is part of the joy. But he knows she will find her way. He has chosen well. At last.

He pulls his patchwork pillow to his face, inhales deeply, and thinks about Becca. What would she have been without him? Did she ever ask herself the same question? He likes to think she understood in the end, that she recognized her debt to him even as she reneged on it. She was young and, for all her seeming sophistication, not yet ready to accept the gifts he brought her. If only they had had more time. She would have understood how rare his love was, that it was a once-in-a-lifetime gift.

Funny, he always thought the only person capable of understanding his love for Becca was her father: Harry Harrison, mildly alcoholic, bumbling through the island, offending everyone and never knowing it. Becca’s senses were more acute, she was not fooled by the bland smiles of the Notting Islanders. But neither was she cowed. The locals came to respect her, if not accept her. Harrison was the perennial outsider, so outside he didn’t pick up on the mockery beneath the polite faces.

Once, when she was late coming back from her voice lesson, he had been desperate enough to go to her house. Harry Harrison, drink in his hand, met him at the door and insisted he come in for a little chat. He feared the father would demand to know just what he did with his daughter, all those times they went off on the bay. Worse, he feared he would tell him. He loved Becca so much that he yearned to speak of it to someone, someone who would understand.

Of course, you couldn’t tell your girlfriend’s father how it felt to make love to her. But Harry Harrison struck him as someone worldly, someone who had loved and lost. He would know that it wasn’t about the heat, inside and out, that it wasn’t the mere physical sensation. It was Becca. She was extraordinary, otherworldly. Her voice proved that. No earthbound woman could produce those sounds. When he was-with her, joined to her, he sometimes thought he might reach the source of that voice.

He also found himself wishing there was a switch, a way to turn it off, so it belonged only to him. Because he knew, he knew without knowing, that her talent was his enemy. As much as he loved her and worshiped everything that came out of her, the voice would take her away from him one day.

So he had gone to her house, seeking a different kind of kindred spirit.

“You miss her, don’t you?”

“Sir?”

“Call me Harry. You miss Becca, when she’s away for even a day, don’t you? I do too. She’s all the company I have.”

“Well, we had a date, that’s all. Nothing special.” He pretended to a coolness he didn’t feel. If Becca hadn’t missed the boat, they would be heading out now, in his skiff. He would have his hand in hers, and soon she would have him in her. He had never been with anyone before Becca, but he knows this is as good as it’s going to get. He sees the people around him, the grown-ups. The dried-ups, as he thinks of them. Even his parents, as much as he loves them-what’s the point? How could you settle for such day-in, day-out ordinariness if you’ve known the thrill of loving someone like this? He’d rather die than be without Becca. He really would.

But all he said to Mr. Harrison was, “Is that your computer? Is that what you’re writing your book on?”

Almost no one had computers then and this one was huge, a clunky beast that took up much of the dining room table.

“Yes. It’s a pretty good machine, but the power outages on the island seem to have fried something inside. You wouldn’t believe how much work I’ve lost. I have to back up my files practically every five minutes, and it’s still not good enough. I should go back to a typewriter. They were truly portable. I had one typewriter that went with me from Italy to Cuernavaca to Vermont. But I bought the computer when I decided to live here.”