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Authors: William G. Tapply

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“Evie?”

“Yes.”

“Is she all right?”

“Well,” he said, “she said she was fine.”

“But?”

Bluestein blew out a breath. “But she told me she wanted to quit.”

“Quit her job with you?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Where is she?”

“She didn't say. She didn't say much of anything, Brady, and I didn't push her. She was full of apologies, but it was pretty clear she'd made up her mind.” He chuckled. “You know Evie.”

“Nobody really knows Evie,” I said.

“I told her I wouldn't allow her to quit,” he said. “I told her I was giving her an indefinite leave of absence. Her job will be waiting for her whenever she wants it.”

“What did she say to that?”

“She said thank you.”

“Do you think that means â¦ ?”

“That she'll come back?” He paused. “I don't know, Brady. Maybe. She knows I'll have to train temporary help, and it wouldn't be like Evie to let me do that unless she was at least considering coming back.”

“Well,” I said, “that's good news.”

“I assume she hasn't been in touch with you.”

“No” I said. “She called you, not me.”

The next day was Saturday, exactly a week after I'd driven down to Cortland, and two weeks from the day that Evie had found Larry Scott's dead body in the driveway in Brewster.

A lot had happened in those two weeks.

Normally Evie and I would play on a weekend. On a summer Saturday, we might drive to Rockport or Tanglewood, or we'd just stroll through the Common and down Newbury Street and maybe end up in Fenway Park, or if it was raining we'd go to a museum. We'd cook and eat and make love and play Trivial Pursuit and watch a movie on television and make love some more, and we'd shower together and sleep together, and on Sunday we'd do the same things again.

Now Evie was goneâmaybe for goodâand I figured I might have to work out a different definition of a “normal” weekend for myself.

I was tempted to mope around my apartment, pondering my many sins and missing Evie. Instead I drove to the Swift River out near Amherst and went trout fishing.

The Swift is one of the most heavily fished rivers in the world, but I know a stretch downstream from the Route 9 bridge where I can usually find some solitude as well as trout, even on a summer weekend.

I spent a lot of time sitting on the bank, smoking and daydreaming and looking at the water. There was a big aching hole in my chest where Evie used to be, and even trout fishing couldn't fill it up. I didn't want to believe that she was gone. But I knew I better get used to the idea.

I caught a few small, easy trout, and then I spotted a bigger one rising irregularly just off the tip of a fallen tree against the opposite bank. He was a rainbow of sixteen or seventeen inches, and I guessed that he was eating the occasional tiny blue-winged olive mayflies that I saw drifting on the river's surface. I watched that fish feed until I thought I had gauged his rhythm, and the first time I managed to float my little bluish gray dry fly over him, his nose poked out of the water and he ate it.

He pulled hard and jumped once, and after he tired himself out, I steered him in beside me, reached down, and tweaked the hook from his lip without lifting him from the water.

He stayed right there by my feet for a minute, working his gills and slowly waving his tail in the soft current. When I touched him with the toe of my boot, he darted away.

And so for a while, at least, I didn't think about Evie.

The next day I called Mary Scott in Cortland. She told me that stories about Claudia Wells and John Dwyer and Dr. St.
Croix were flying around town, and she made it clear she wanted me to tell her my version.

I told her that as a witness I couldn't say anything about it, and that I'd just called to see how she and Mel were making out.

She said she was doing as well as could be expected, thank you, and if I'd like to talk to Mel, he was out in the yard working on his truck.

I said I would. She said she'd get him for me.

A couple of minutes later, he picked up the phone. “How you doin', Mr. Coyne?”

“I'm fine,” I said. “You?”

“They burned down Larry's cabin, you know. He's gonna be some pissed.”

He was still thinking about his brother in the present tense.

“Mel,” I said, “remember I told you about that hidey-hole under Larry's cot in the cellar of the barn?”

“Yup. I remember.”

“Did you look there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And?”

“There was a box of money.”

“It didn't get burned in the fire?”

“Nope. The box was all soggy, but the money was in a plastic bag.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I put it back like you tole me.”

“Did you count it?”

“Nope. I just seen what it was and put it right back. Looked like a lot.”

“That was Larry's money,” I said. “Now it's yours. Yours and your mother's. You should use it. Maybe repair your barn, get your workshop up and running again.”

“That's Larry's money,” he said.

“No,” I said, “it was Larry's money. Past tense. He can't use it now. He'd want you to have it.”

“You think?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Butâ”

“Mel, goddamn it, get that money. Do what I tell you.”

“Well, okay.”

“Your brother's dead,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” said Mel softly. “I know that.”

TWENTY-ONE

I
n the middle of the morning on the Thursday after Labor Day, Julie came into my office with the day's mail. I was on the phone with Frances Dawkins, who had finally decided to leave her husband after ignoring his infidelities for twenty-seven years. She wanted to talk about what a prick he was. I wanted to talk about her credit-card debts and her husband's 401K and their summer house on Martha's Vineyard.

Julie stood in front of my desk with her hands on her hips.

I rolled my eyes at her.

She pointed at the stack of mail and mouthed the words:
Look at it.

I shrugged. Julie always opens the mail and keeps the interesting stuffâthe bills and checks and assorted legal papersâleaving the catalogs and bulk mailings for me to toss.

She pointed again, and I nodded and waved my hand. She gave me a hard look, then left my office.

“Listen, Frances,” I said into the phone. “Whether he's a
prick or not is irrelevant. You want a divorce, you can have a divorce. The only thing the judge will care about is whether the settlement is equitable. We're just trying to get the best deal for you, okay?”

Frances said that as far as she was concerned, the best deal would involve fixing up the philandering bastard with Lorena Bobbitt and letting nature take its course.

I told her the best revenge was taking the bastard to the cleaners.

It was exhausting work, and it didn't much resemble what I'd envisioned for my career when I was in law school. Back then, I aspired to argue important constitutional issues before the Supreme Court.

But as Julie kept reminding me, phone conversations with clients added up in billable hours, even if all they really amounted to was amateur therapy.

After I finally soothed Frances Dawkins and convinced her to switch over to Julie to set up another appointment, I lit a cigarette and picked up the mail.

On top of the pile was a postcard. Julie had left it facedown, so that the picture on the back was showing. It was the Golden Gate Bridge, with its orange towers poking up through a cottony layer of fog.

I flipped the postcard over and recognized the handwriting instantly.

Evie.

It had been two and a half weeks since I'd returned from Cortland. In that time, I had not heard from her. I had not reconciled myself to the fact that she was gone for good. But I had begun to believe it.

She didn't even sign the postcard. It held no message of love or regret or wish-you-were-here. All she had written were a name and a phone number.

The number had a 404 area code.

If I remembered correctly, 404 was in Georgia.

The name Evie had written was Shirley St. Croix Flagg.

St. Croix. Hmm.

I held the postcard in my hand, flipping it over and back, hoping, maybe, that some secret message would rub off on my fingers.

The only message, I concluded, was that Evie wanted me to call Shirley Flagg.

So I dialed the number on the postcard.

After two rings, a woman's voice said, “Yes?”

“Is this Mrs. Flagg?”

“Yes it is. Who's this?”

“My name is Brady Coyne. You don't know me. I'm a lawyer here in Boston.”

“Oh,” she said. “A lawyer.”

“This isn't about any legal matter,” I said. “It concerns Dr. Winston St. Croix.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Then she said, “Why all the sudden interest in him?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You, sir, are the third person in the past couple of months to call me out of the clear blue sky asking about Dr. Winston St. Croix. After all these years, I'd stopped even thinking about that man. I've got my husband and my children and my home and my â¦ my life, and suddenly everybody wants to know about what happened back in Gorham, Minnesota, over twenty years ago.”

“What do you mean, âeverybody wants to know'?”

“Well,” she said, “first there was that young man.”

“What young man was that?”

“His name was Mr. Scott. He was very polite. Working on a newspaper article, he said. He called, oh, back in May or June, I believe.”

“Who else called?”

“A young woman. I don't recall her name, I'm afraid.”

“Was that about two weeks ago?”

“Why, yes. Yes, it was.”

“Was her name Evelyn Banyon?”

“I don't think she actually told me her name.”

“And both of these people were asking you the same questions?”

“Yes, sir.”

“About what happened in Gorham, Minnesota, twenty years ago?”

“That's right.”

“And did you answer their questions?”

“I certainly did. As far as I'm concerned, the more people who know, the better this world will be.”

“Mrs. Flagg,” I said, “would you tell me what you told those others?”

“Of course I would.” She cleared her throat. “I told them that Winston St. Clair was a dirty child molester. He was a pervert and a predator, sir, and if there was any justice in this world he would have spent these past twenty years rotting in prison.”

Shirley Flagg didn't need any encouragement to tell her story. She'd been a young nurse when she married the handsome resident. After his residency, the couple moved to the little town of Gorham, where the doctor established a thriving pediatric practice.

She never had a clue, she said, that his fondness for children went beyond caring about their health and well-being.

But then a young boy said something to his third-grade teacher, and the teacher spoke to the principal, and the principal passed along the boy's story to the local police chiefâwho happened to be one of Dr. St. Croix's golfing partners.

The police chief interviewed the boy and his parents. Then one evening he came knocking at the door of Shirley and Winston
St. Croix. The chief and the doctor spent over two hours holed up in the doctor's study, and when they emerged, they shook hands at the door.

That same night, the doctor told his wife that he'd decided to shut down his practice in Gorham. They were heading east, where there were better opportunities to advance in the profession.

She didn't understand it. He'd never talked about advancing in the profession or moving before.

She asked him what the police chief had wanted. He said it was nothing, just man talk.

The next day, she went to the police chief's office and demanded to know what he and her husband had been talking about, that he would all of a sudden decide to close down his practice and head east.

The chief didn't want to talk about it, but she told him she wouldn't leave until he did.

Finally he told her to go talk to the parents of the young boy who had spoken to his teacher.

The parents were more than eager to tell her what their boy had told them.

That very day, while Dr. Winston St. Croix was still at his office, Shirley St. Croix went home, packed up a few clothes, took the Greyhound to St. Paul, and made an appointment with a lawyer.

“Mrs. Flagg,” I said, “do you remember the name of that boy?”

“I certainly do,” she said. “It was Edgar Ransom. He was a sweet little boy. He had a younger brother. Owen was his name. I guess those boys would be in their twenties or early thirties now.”

“And nothing happened to the doctor? He just left town?”

“That's right,” she said. “He gave Mr. and Mrs. Ransom a lot of money so they wouldn't press charges against him, and
he left. That was the deal the police chief arranged. Nobody in that town wanted any scandal.”

“Have you been in touch with any of your friends in Gorham since then?” I said.

“Lord, no. I was too embarrassed.”

“So you don't know what happened to the Ransom family.”

“No, sir, I don't. But I have thought about them. I imagine those parents have been struggling with their guilt ever since, knowing that Winston St. Croix has probably been preying on young boys all this time because they allowed themselves to be bought off.”

“The doctor died a few weeks ago,” I told her.

“Well, thank the Lord,” she said. “I hope it was slow and painful, and I hope the faces of those innocent children flashed before his eyes as he contemplated eternal damnation.”

“He knew he had a terminal disease,” I said. “I expect he had plenty of time to think about everything he did.”

“Thank the Lord,” she said again.

“Did you ever talk to the doctor after you left him?” I said.

“No,” she said. “He tried to call several times, but I refused to talk to him.” She hesitated. “He did send me a letter a couple of years later. He apologized to me, told me that he'd made just that one mistake with the Ransom boy, that he'd learned his lesson, and that he'd vowed to devote his life to taking care of children.” She paused. “I didn't quite believe him, but I've often wondered if he was telling me the truth. What do you think?”

“Perhaps he was,” I said.

I did not tell her that soon after Dr. St. Croix left Gorham, the Ransoms moved to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, or that the distance wasn't great enough to allow Edgar to forget what had happened to him, or that he'd finally hanged himself.

Nor did I tell her that a few years later Edgar Ransom's parents had died in a boating accidentâwhich, now that I
thought about it, might have also been suicide. They had, after all, accepted money in exchange for their silence. I couldn't imagine the guilt they would have felt for allowing themselves to be bought off, especially after their son took his own life. What was it that the newspaper editor in Carlisle had told me? Ransom's father said his wealth had cost him his soul's blood.

That was a heavy price to pay.

I didn't tell Shirley St. Croix Flagg about the recent events in Cortland, Massachusetts, where all of Winston St. Croix's sins finally came home to roost, either.

I saw no point in upsetting her further.

After I hung up with Mrs. Flagg, I lit a cigarette, swiveled my chair around, and gazed out my office window. It was one of those crystal-clear late-summer lunch hours in Boston. Autumn was in the air, and the secretaries and coeds who were striding across the plaza in Copley Square were wearing jackets or light sweaters over their blouses and short skirts.

After a few minutes, I turned back to my desk and called state police Detective Neil Vanderweigh.

When I told him what Shirley Flagg had told me, he said, “So there's our motive. That's what Scott and Ransom had on him. I figured it had to be something like that.”

“I didn't,” I said. “He seemed like an okay guy to me.”

“You don't see the evil that I see every day.”

“Thank God for that,” I said.

A little while later, Julie came into my office. “Did you look at the mail?” she said.

I nodded.

“Well?”

“I called that number. It cleared up a lot of things.”

She frowned. “That's not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

“The postcard,” she said. “It was from Evie, right?”

“Yes.”

“So what do you think?”

“I think she had information she wanted to share with me.”

“God, Brady!” Julie shook her head. “Did you look at the postmark?”

I picked up the postcard. It was postmarked San Francisco. “Okay,” I said, “so it's got a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge and it's postmarked San Francisco. So Evie's out there somewhere. About as far from me as she can get. What about it?”

“Did it ever occur to you that she could've conveyed this information to you in some other way that would not reveal where she was?”

I shrugged.

“Or,” she continued, “that maybe she was using this information as an excuse to get in touch with you?”

“If Evie wanted to get in touch with meâ”

“You can be so dense sometimes,” said Julie. “She doesn't want to make it easy for you.”

“Why not?”

“Because she doesn't know how much you love her.”

“I've told her a million times.”

“She's a woman,” said Julie. “She needs reassurance.”