She took a breath and lifted her jaw. The moment had passed, and
the
tears were gone. She could look at him and manage a semblance of her old
attitude.
“Look, I need that Tylenol,” she said. “We gonna
sit
here all day?”
He nodded and put the car into gear. The windshield wipers whisked
snow off the glass, opening up a view of sky and white streets. All through a
blistering
summer, she’d been looking forward to winter, to the purity of snow. Now,
staring
at this bleak cityscape, she thought she would never again curse the heat of
August.
On a busy Friday night, you couldn’t swing a cat in the bar
at
J. P. Doyle’s without hitting a cop. Located just down the street from
Boston
PD’s Jamaica Plain substation, and only ten minutes from police
headquarters
at Schroeder Plaza, Doyle’s was where off-duty cops usually gathered for
beer
and conversation. So when Rizzoli walked into Doyle’s that evening for
dinner,
she fully expected to see a crowd of familiar faces. What she didn’t expect
to see was Vince Korsak sitting at the bar, sipping an ale. Korsak was a retired
detective from the Newton PD, and Doyle’s was out of his usual territory.
He spotted her as she came in the door and gave her a wave.
“Hey,
Rizzoli! Long time, no see.” He pointed to the bandage on her forehead.
“What
happened to you?”
“Aw, nothing. Had a little slip in the morgue and needed a
few
stitches. So what’re you doing in the neighborhood?”
“I’m moving in here.”
“What?”
“Just signed a lease on an apartment down the street.”
“What about your house in Newton?”
“Long story. Look, you want some dinner? I’ll tell you
all
about it.” He grabbed his ale. “Let’s get a booth in the other
room.
These asshole smokers are polluting my lungs.”
“Never bothered you before.”
“Yeah, well, that’s when I used to
be
one of those
assholes.”
Nothing like a coronary to turn a chain-smoker into a health
freak,
thought Rizzoli as she followed in the wake left by Korsak’s substantial
frame.
Although he’d lost weight since his heart attack, he was still heavy enough
to double for a linebacker, which was what he reminded her of as he bulldozed
through
the Friday evening crowd.
They stepped through a doorway into the nonsmoking section, where
the
air was marginally clearer. He chose a booth beneath the Irish flag. On the wall
were framed and yellowed clippings from the
Boston Globe
, articles about
mayors
long gone, politicians long dead. The Kennedys and Tip O’Neill and other
fine
sons of Eire, many of whom had served with Boston’s finest.
Korsak slid onto the wooden bench, squeezing his generous girth
behind
the table. Heavy as he was, he still looked thinner than he’d been back in
August,
when they had worked a multiple homicide investigation together. She could not
look
at him now without remembering their summer together. The buzzing of flies among
the trees, the horrors that the woods had yielded up, lying among the leaves.
She
still had flashbacks to that month when two killers had joined to enact their
terrible
fantasies on wealthy couples. Korsak was one of the few people who knew the
impact
that the case had had on her. Together, they had fought monsters and survived,
and
they had a bond between them, forged in the crisis of an investigation.
Yet there was so much about Korsak that repelled her.
She watched him take a gulp of ale, and flick his tongue over the
mustache
of foam. Once again she was struck by his simian appearance. The heavy eyebrows,
the thick nose, the bristly black hair covering his arms. And the way he walked,
with thick arms swinging, shoulders rolled forward, the way an ape walks. She
knew
his marriage was troubled, and that, since his retirement, he had far too much
time
on his hands. Looking at him now, she felt a twinge of guilt, because he had
left
several messages on her phone, suggesting they meet for dinner, but she’d
been
too busy to return his calls.
A waitress came by, recognized Rizzoli, and said, “You want
your
usual Sam Adams, Detective?”
Rizzoli looked at Korsak’s glass of beer. He had spilled it
on
his shirt, leaving a trail of wet spots.
“Uh, no,” she said. “Just a Coke.”
“You ready to order?”
Rizzoli opened the menu. She had no stomach for beer tonight, but
she
was starved. “I’ll have a chef’s salad with extra Thousand Island
dressing. Fish and chips. And a side of onion rings. Can you bring it all at the
same time? Oh, and could you bring some extra butter with the dinner
rolls?”
Korsak laughed. “Don’t hold back, Rizzoli.”
“I’m hungry.”
“You know what that fried stuff does to your arteries?”
“Okay, then. You don’t get any of my onion rings.”
The waitress looked at Korsak. “What about you, sir?”
“Broiled salmon, hold the butter. And a salad with
vinaigrette
dressing.”
As the waitress walked away, Rizzoli gave Korsak an incredulous
look.
“Since when did you start eating broiled fish?” she asked.
“Since the big guy upstairs whacked me over the head with
that
warning.”
“Are you really eating that way? This isn’t something
just
for show?”
“Lost ten pounds already. And that’s even off
cigarettes,
so you know it’s, like,
real
weight off. Not just water weight.”
He leaned back, looking just a little too satisfied with himself. “I’m
even using the treadmill now.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Joined a health club. Doing cardio workouts. You know, check
the pulse, keep tabs on the ticker. I feel ten years younger.”
You look ten years younger
was what he was probably fishing
for
her to say, but she didn’t say it, because it would not have been true.
“Ten pounds. Good for you,” she said.
“Just gotta stick with it.”
“So what’re you doing, drinking beer?”
“Alcohol’s okay, haven’t you heard? Latest word in
the
New
England Journal of Medicine
. Glass of red wine’s good for the
ticker.”
He nodded at the Coke that the waitress set in front of Rizzoli.
“What’s
with that? You always used to order Adams Ale.”
She shrugged. “Not tonight.”
“Feeling okay?”
No, I’m not. I’m knocked up and I can’t even
drink
a beer without wanting to puke.
“I’ve been busy,” was all she
said.
“Yeah, I hear. What’s with the nuns?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“I heard one of the nuns was a mommy.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“You know. Around.”
“What else did you hear?”
“That you dragged a baby out of a pond.”
It was inevitable that the news would get out. Cops talked to each
other. They talked to their wives. She thought of all the searchers standing
around
the pond, the morgue attendants, the crime scene technicians. A few loose lips
and
pretty soon, even a retired cop out in Newton knows the details. She dreaded
what
the morning papers would bring. Murder was fascinating enough to the public; now
there was forbidden sex, a potent additive that would keep this case front and
center.
The waitress set down their food. Rizzoli’s order took up
most
of the table, the dishes spread out like a family feast. Attacking her food, she
bit into a french fry so hot it burned her mouth, and had to gulp her Coke to
cool
things down.
Korsak, for all his self-righteous comments about fried foods, was
staring wistfully at her onion rings. Then he looked down at his broiled fish,
sighed,
and picked up his fork.
“You want some of these rings?” she asked.
“No, I’m fine. I tell you, I’m turning my life
around.
That coronary might be the best thing ever happened to me.”
“You serious?”
“Yeah. I’m losing weight. Kicked the cigarettes. Hey, I
think
I even got some hair growing back.” He dipped his head to show her his bald
spot.
If any hair was growing back, she thought, it was in his head, not
on it.
“Yeah, I’m making a lot of changes,” he said.
He fell silent and concentrated on his salmon, but did not seem to
enjoy it. She almost shoved her plate of onion rings toward him out of pity.
But when he raised his head again, he looked at her, not at her
food.
“I’ve got things changing at home too.”
Something about the way he said it made her uneasy. The way he
looked
at her, as though about to bare his soul. She dreaded hearing the messy details,
but she could see how much he needed to talk.
“What’s happening at home?” she asked. Already
guessing
what was about to come.
“Diane and me—you know what’s been going on.
You’ve
seen her.”
She had first met Diane at the hospital, when Korsak was
recuperating
from his heart attack. At their first encounter, she had noticed Diane’s
slurred
speech and glassy eyes. The woman was a walking medicine cabinet, high on
Valium,
codeine—whatever she could beg off her doctors. It had been a problem for
years,
Korsak told her, yet he had stood by his wife because that’s what husbands
were
supposed to do.
“How is Diane these days?” she asked.
“The same. Still stoned out of her head.”
“You said things were changing.”
“They are. I’ve left her.”
She knew he was waiting for her reaction. She stared back, not
sure
whether to be happy or distressed for him. Not sure which he wanted to see from
her.
“Jesus, Korsak,” she finally said. “Are you sure
about
this?”
“Never been more sure of anything in my whole frigging life.
I’m
moving out next week. Found myself a bachelor pad, here in Jamaica Plain. Gonna
set
it up just the way I want it. You know, wide-screen TV, big fucking speakers
that’ll
blow out your eardrums.”
He’s fifty-four, he’s had a heart attack, and he’s
going
off the deep end, she thought. Acting like a teenager who can’t wait to
move
into his first apartment.
“She won’t even notice I’m gone. Long as I keep
paying
her pharmacy bills, she’ll be happy. Man, I don’t know why it took me
so
long to do this. Wasted half my life, but I tell you, that’s it. From now
on,
I make every minute count.”
“What about your daughter? What does she say?”
He snorted. “Like she gives a shit? All she ever does is ask
for
money.
Daddy, I need a new car. Daddy, I wanna go to Cancun.
You think I
ever
been to Cancun?”
She sat back, staring at him over her cooling onion rings.
“Do
you know what you’re doing?”
“Yeah. I’m taking control of my life.” He paused.
Said,
with a note of resentment, “I thought you’d be happy for me.”
“I am. I guess.”
“So what’s with the look?”
“What look?”
“Like I’ve sprouted wings.”
“I’ve just got to get used to the new Korsak. It’s
like
I don’t know you anymore.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No. At least you’re not blowing smoke in my face
anymore.”
They both laughed at that. The new Korsak, unlike the old,
wouldn’t
stink up her car with his cigarettes.
He stabbed a lettuce leaf and ate silently, frowning, as though it
took all his concentration just to chew. Or to build up to what came next.
“So how’s it going between you and Dean? Still seeing
each
other?”
His question, asked so casually, caught her off guard. It was the
last
subject she wanted to discuss, the last thing she expected him to ask about.
He’d
made no secret of the fact he disliked Gabriel Dean. She had disliked him too,
when
Dean had first walked into their investigation back in August, flashed his FBI
badge,
and proceeded to take control.
A few weeks later, everything had changed between her and Dean.
She looked down at her half-eaten meal, her appetite suddenly
gone.
She could feel Korsak watching her. The longer she waited, the less believable
her
answer would be.
“Things are okay,” she said. “You want another
beer?
I could use a refill on my Coke.”
“He come up to see you lately?”
“Where’s that waitress?”
“What’s it been? Few weeks? A month?”
“I don’t know. . . .” She waved to the waitress,
who
didn’t see her signal and instead headed back to the kitchen.
“What, you haven’t been keeping track?”
“I’ve got other things going on, you know,” she
snapped.
It was her tone of voice that gave it away. Korsak sat back, looking at her with
a cop’s eye. An eye that saw too much.
He said, “Good-looking guy like him, probably thinks
he’s
a hot ticket with all the ladies.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not as stupid as I look. I can see something’s
wrong. I can hear it in your voice. And that bothers me, ’cause you deserve
better. A lot better.”
“I really don’t want to talk about this.”
“I never trusted him. I told you that, way back in August.
Seems
to me, you didn’t trust him back then, either.”
Again, she waved at the waitress. Again, she was ignored.
“Something sneaky about those fibbie guys. Every single one I
ever met. Real smooth, but they’re never straight with you. They play head
games.
Think they’re better than cops. All that federal bigshot crap.”
“Gabriel’s not like that.”
“No?”
“He’s not.”
“You’re only saying that ’cause you got the hots
for
him.”
“Why are we having this conversation?”
“Because I’m worried about you. It’s like
you’re
falling over a cliff, and you won’t even reach out for help. I don’t
think
you got anyone to talk to about this.”
“I’m talking to you.”
“Yeah, but you’re not
telling
me anything.”
