Muscle Memory (9 page)

“Well, there’s the bookies I owe. I guess they’d have a motive to whack me. But Kaye…”

“Besides them,” I said.

He shook his head. “I don’t know anybody…”

“Mick,” I said,
“somebody
killed her. That’s a fact. Whether they did it in a sudden rage, or whether they planned it out, we don’t know.”

“Nobody would want to hurt Kaye,” he mumbled, and when he looked up at me, I saw that his eyes had begun to brim with tears.

“I’m sorry, Mick, but we know that’s not true. Because somebody did kill her. Now listen to me. You can’t afford to lie around here feeling sorry for yourself. I want you to focus on the fact that somebody murdered your wife.”

He nodded.

“I don’t want you to stop thinking about that, okay? Some bastard out there killed Kaye. You should be angry. I want you to feel it. Put that anger to work for you. Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess so.” He shook his head. “I just can’t think straight right now.”

“That’s all right. It’s been a long night. But your job is to help me. Anything you can think of, tell me. Doesn’t matter how unimportant it seems. Anybody she had an argument with, any old grudges, no matter how trivial they seem to you. Anybody and anything. And I also want you to think about every move you made on Sunday evening. The ME is placing her time of death sometime between eight
P.M.
and midnight on Sunday. He’ll probably be able to narrow it down when he finishes…” I waved my hand in the air.

“The autopsy,” said Mick. “Go ahead. Say it.”

I nodded. “Anyway, the point is, if there’s any way we can prove you were not in Lexington when Kaye died, you’re home free.”

“I didn’t go near Lexington. I was here all night.”

“I know. We just need some way to prove it. Maybe something will occur to you.” I stood up and put my jacket on. “I’ve got to get to the office. I suggest you take a shower, pull down the shades, and get some sleep. Shut the ringer off your phone but turn your answering machine on. I’ll check in with you later on. Okay?”

“Yes. Okay.”

I held out my hand to him, and he took it. “I’ll be in touch.” I opened the door leading down the stairway.

“Hey, Brady?”

I turned.

He lifted his hand. “Thanks, bud.”

I
COULD TELL JULIE
was upset by the angle of her neck and the hunch of her shoulders and the way her fingernails clicked on the keyboard of her computer. Of course, the fact that she didn’t look up and say “Good morning” when I walked into the office was also a clue.

I went over to her and kissed the top of her head. “Morning, boss,” I said breezily.

She kept typing—faster, if that was possible.

“Any calls?” I said. I rummaged in the In box, thumbed through the morning’s mail, wandered over to Mr. Coffee, poured myself a mugful. “Want some coffee?”

“Check the time,” she mumbled.

“Huh?” I looked at my watch. It was nearly one o’clock in the afternoon. “Oh, okay. Good afternoon, then.”

She stopped typing, swiveled around, and glared at me. “It’s been a bloody zoo,” she said.

“Sorry. I—”

“The damn phone’s been ringing off the hook. You’re quite the hero. Let’s see.” She picked up a notepad and squinted at it. “Marisa Matson from the
Globe,
Bob DiVari from the
Herald,
Channels Four, Five, Seven, and Sixty-eight—they’re all looking for exclusive interviews. Oprah wants you this afternoon, and—”

“Oprah?”

She looked up at me from under her frown. “No. That was a joke.”

“Well,” I said, “I’m glad you’re in a joking mood. As for me, I—”

“I am
not
in a joking mood,” said Julie. “I am extremely annoyed, in case you couldn’t tell. Mrs. Wadley flounced in at precisely her appointed time, and—”

“Oh, shit.” I slapped my forehead. “Mrs. Wadley. I completely forgot.”

Julie gave me that smile that could mean she loved and admired me, but that sometimes meant she didn’t know how she put up with me and was seriously considering not doing it anymore. “You could’ve at least called, you know.”

“I’m sorry,” I said in my smallest, most sincerely apologetic voice. “No excuse.”

“I covered for you, of course,” she said. “I told her you’d been involved in a hostage situation last night, that it had been very harrowing, that you had left a message for her, and that it was my fault for not calling and rescheduling. She seemed pleased to have a hero for a lawyer.” She let out a long sigh. “Yes, I’ll have some coffee, thank you.”

I poured a mug for Julie and brought it to her desk. “What’d you tell those media people?”

“I told them to go pound sand. In the nicest possible way, of course.”

I smiled. “I can’t talk to them. It concerns my client.”

“Well, you know that, and I know that, and I think even they know that. It didn’t faze them. But that’s what I told them. I suspect they will not surrender that easily.”

I patted her shoulder. “Well, hold the fort. It won’t last long. Tomorrow it’ll be yesterday’s news.” I turned for my office. “Hold all calls for a while, okay? I need to take a deep breath.”

“You’ve got the Farnsworths at three, don’t forget,” she said.

“Oh, yeah. Their new will.”

“Everything’s on your desk ready to go.” Julie started to look down at her keyboard, then her head jerked up. “Oh, wait.”

“Yes?”

She hesitated, then smiled. “Nothing. Go ahead. Take your deep breath.”

I pushed open the door into my office and let it shut behind me. I started for my desk, then stopped. Standing directly behind it, looking out the window, was a blond woman. Her back was to me—a slim, sleek, shapely back, wearing a pale green silky blouse and nicely tailored white slacks. I wondered why Julie had failed to tell me someone was waiting for me in my office.

“Hello?” I said.

She turned and smiled, and it felt as if I’d been punched in the solar plexus.

“Jesus,” I whispered. “Sylvie.”

“Hello, Brady.”

I patted my chest. “I gotta sit down, honey. God. You’re the last person I expected…”

I went around behind my desk. She held my chair for me and I slumped into it.

“You don’t have a kiss for Sylvie?” she said softly.

She was standing directly behind me. Her fingers touched the back of my neck, and I could practically feel the heat radiating from that body that I’d known for nearly thirty years. I reached up behind me, steered her face down to mine, turned, and kissed her on the cheek.

Sylvie Szabo had been a freshman when I was a senior in high school. She was an extravagantly beautiful blonde even as a teenager, with a husky voice and a delicious accent and a penchant for hilarious verbal inventions that belied her intelligence and wit.

Sylvie had been a child—no more than a toddler—when her mother smuggled her out of Hungary during the 1956 revolution, but she had vivid memories of it. Explosions disturbed her dreams, even as an adult. I knew from personal experience that she sometimes kicked and thrashed and emitted strangled cries when she slept.

She’d been my first love—and lover—and I hers. She was fifteen, and I was eighteen, and back then I was positive that Sylvie and I would be together forever, although things hardly ever work out that way.

But we’d kept in touch through college, through my marriage, and afterwards. Sylvie had moved around. For a while after my divorce, she’d lived in Boston. We’d spent a lot of time together in those days. We loved each other in that special way that first lovers do, but with me and Sylvie, it was always like high school—fun and carefree and lusty.

Eventually we drifted away from each other. I’d gotten involved with Terri Fiori about the time Sylvie moved to New York to pursue her career as an illustrator of children’s books.

That had been several years ago. Terri dumped me, and then Alex came along, and we eventually split, too. I hadn’t heard from Sylvie in all that time.

Her fingers moved on my neck, touched my ears, began softly massaging my temples. “You’re tense,” she murmured.

“You always make me tense,” I said.

She chuckled.

“I had no sleep last night,” I said. “I’m tired and grouchy. I don’t like surprises.”

“Even me?”

“You’re always a wonderful surprise, Sylvie. But I wish you’d called. I’ve got clients to see this afternoon, and afterwards I’ve got to meet with some people, and—”

She twirled my chair around so that I was facing her. She braced her hands on my shoulders and leaned down to me. “Poor Brady,” she murmured. She bent closer until her lips touched mine. I looked into her smoky green, slightly tilted eyes. Freckles dusted the bridge of her nose. Her tongue flicked out, touched my lips. Then, abruptly, she straightened up. “You do look tired,” she said. “We’re getting old, aren’t we?”

“You haven’t changed,” I said. “You still look like the laughing girl I saw in the corridor tiptoeing up to her locker wearing that little skirt and that tight sweater.” I laid my head back on my chair. “Except your accent. Where’d your accent go?”

“Oh, Brad-ee.” She smiled. “You always like Sylvie’s sexy accent, yes?”

“That’s more like it.”

“I’ve been in New York,” she said. “The accent, I guess it just went away. I didn’t even notice.”

“New York’ll do that.”

She combed the fingers of both hands through her hair. “I’ll be in Boston for a couple of weeks.”

“Great,” I said. “Where are you staying?”

“The Ritz.” She grinned. “I’m on expenses.”

“Something good, sounds like.”

She shrugged. “Maybe.” She moved over to the sofa, kicked off her shoes, wedged herself into the corner, folded her legs under her, and smiled at me. “I couldn’t be in Boston and not see my best old friend, could I?”

“You definitely couldn’t do that,” I said. I went over and sat beside her. “We’ll have dinner sometime.”

Sylvie cocked her head. “Sometime?”

“One day very soon. I promise.”

She peered at me for a moment, then abruptly unfolded her legs, bent over, and slipped her shoes on. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m keeping you from your work.” She stood up, smoothed her slacks against her thighs, then turned and frowned at me. “Did you get married when I wasn’t looking?”

I shook my head. “No, honey. Close, though.”

“Are you in love with somebody?”

I shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

She smiled. “A bad one, huh?”

“I blew it, Sylvie. It could have worked. But I sabotaged it.”

“Do you want to tell Sylvie all about it?”

I looked up at her. “Yes.” I nodded. “I’d really like to.”

“Well,” she said, “I’m at the Ritz.”

She bent down, took my face in her hands, stared into my eyes for a moment, then kissed both of my cheeks and my mouth. Then she straightened up, turned, smiled quickly over her shoulder, and walked out of my office.

The Conleys lived in a big white hip-roofed colonial house on a winding, wooded country road near Nine Acre Corner in Concord. I never would’ve found it without the map Lyn Conley had drawn for me.

A gunmetal gray Lexus, a black Jeep Grand Cherokee, and a red Honda Accord, all new-looking and shiny, were parked side-by-side in the wide driveway in front of the attached three-car garage. A sprinkler rotated on the front lawn, going
tick-tick-tick
in the hush of the late suburban afternoon.

I parked on the road, got out, stomped on my cigarette butt, and went to the front porch. The inside door was open, and through the screen came the muffled
thump-thud
of rock music from some distant room inside.

I rang the bell, waited, and a minute later a face materialized on the other side of the screen. “Hello?”

She was short, on the pudgy side, fourteen or fifteen, I guessed. Her sand-colored hair was damp, and she was wearing a Michael Jordan basketball jersey and running shorts.

“I’m Brady Coyne,” I told her. “I’m here to see Mrs. Conley.”

“You that lawyer?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Linda. Mom’s upstairs. She might be asleep.”

“I believe she’s expecting me.”

She shrugged, then turned and yelled into the house, “Hey, Daddy. That lawyer’s here to see Mom.” Then she disappeared.

A minute or two later Lyn Conley came to the door. “Brady,” he said. “Come in, come in. Gretchen’ll be down in a minute.”

He pushed open the screen door and held it for me, and when I stepped inside he clapped my shoulder as if we were great old pals and steered me through the hallway and out onto the deck that hung off the back of the house. “Thought you could talk with Gretch out here, catch a little breeze. Mosquitoes won’t be too bad for another hour or so. Beer or something?”

“Coke, if you’ve got it.”

He nodded. “Have a seat. She’ll be right with you.”

The deck was furnished with a gas grill, a round table with a folded-up umbrella poking out of it, and half a dozen sturdy wooden outdoor chairs lined up along the railing. I sat in one of the chairs.

The Conleys’ back lawn sloped down to a broad expanse of meadow, which gradually merged into marshland. The silvery ribbon of the Sudbury River glimmered in the distance. A pair of cardinals pecked at sunflower seeds in a feeder that hung from a big maple tree.

“Sir?”

I turned. A teenage boy—he looked sixteen or seventeen—was standing behind me holding a can of Coke and a tall plastic glass filled with ice cubes. He was about my height, but skinnier, of course. A silly blond mustache shadowed his upper lip. Oth­erwise he would’ve been a handsome kid.

I held out my hand. “Hi,” I said. “I’m Brady Coyne.”

He nodded and shook my hand. “I’m Ned. Here. Dad said you wanted a Coke.” He handed it to me.

“This is great. Thanks.”

He flopped into the chair beside me. “Boy, that’s something, isn’t it? What happened to Auntie Kaye?”

I nodded. “How’s your mom doing?”

Ned rested his forearms on his knees and leaned toward me. “I don’t know. She’s been in the bedroom all day. I peeked in on her a couple times, but she was asleep. They gave her some sleeping pills or something.”

“You know the Fallons pretty well?”