A Welcome Grave

17

You can stand on a riverbank and study the water and think it looks languid and warm, inviting even, well worth a try. Then you dive in, and things surprise you—the cold, the current, the snags underfoot.

That’s how I felt now. Karen’s request that I track down her dead husband’s son had been a safe enough thing to accept. All that money for such a routine task. Sure, there was a clear note of warning—I was on the police suspect list, no matter how far down. But I’d ignored that over a simple tenet I’d explained to people constantly when I was a cop: If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.

I’d done nothing wrong, but with each passing hour it felt like I should have more to fear. The latest, this discovery by Brewer, changed everything. Before, I’d been dealing with nothing more than coincidences. While they were a pain in the ass, they could be dismissed, at least in my mind. Now that was gone. Someone had impersonated me, invested ten thousand dollars into the effort.

“It started when you went to Indiana,” Joe said. We were sitting on the trunk of his car in my parking lot. Targent had gone.

“Seems to.”

“Cops came to see you when Jefferson died, then they went away and nothing pointed back to you. But when you went down to find that kid, something changed. You attracted someone’s attention there.”

“Yeah—the cops’.”

“Somebody else, LP.” He was rubbing his shoulder, and I saw for the first time how tired he looked. It had been a long day for him, two hours of driving on top of a therapy session.

“Go home, Joe,” I said. “Get some dinner, take a painkiller, relax.”

He stopped massaging his shoulder and shook his head. “Nah, I’m good. We ought to spend some time on the computers, look into this Doran guy, try to set up an interview. It’s clear someone is on the offensive with you. Be a good idea if you started preparing a defense.”

“Doran’s not going anywhere. He’ll be in the same cell tomorrow as he is today. It’ll hold till morning.”

Proof of his fatigue showed when he nodded and gave in. “Okay. We’ll get back at it early, though.”

“Yeah. And thanks again.”

He waved me off and opened his car door. “Want a ride?”

“I’ll walk it and see you in the morning. We’ll make progress tomorrow. Already did today.”

“What do you know, the day you start making progress just happens to be the same day I get involved.”

“Too bad you didn’t get involved a little earlier,” I said. “Then maybe my face wouldn’t look like it was run over by a truck.”

He got in the car, started to pull the door shut, and then stopped. “Remember when I told you I didn’t like your decision to burn that photograph?”

“Yes.”

“I think I’ll retract that statement,” he said, and then he closed the door.

I went home, scrambled some eggs for dinner, and ate quickly with the intention of going down to the gym to work out when I was done. I gave up on that idea while I washed the dishes. I didn’t have the energy for a workout, and I didn’t want to be alone tonight. My thoughts had been on Alex Jefferson and Karen and Targent, but Amy was invading them regularly. I dried my hands on a dish towel, grabbed the phone, and called her.

“You around tonight?”

“Maybe,” she said. “If by ‘around’ you mean am I willing to sit on the couch and drink a beer, yes. If by ‘around’ you mean am I willing to go out somewhere, then, no.”

“Homebody mood, I take it?”

“Already changed into comfortable clothes. No way you lure me out into the world after that point in the evening unless it’s for something damn relaxed.”

“I was thinking of a toga party.”

“That’s what I like most about you, Lincoln. The high level of sophistication.”

She came in wearing old jeans and a sweatshirt—not the designer jeans and the sweatshirt made of pima cotton or whatever the hell it was Karen had worn, but the kind you dig out of your closet and throw on when a night turns cold.

“I’ve got Beck’s and Budweiser,” I said. “Take your pick.”

“You ever going to make it farther into the alphabet with your beer selection?”

“Don’t see the need.”

“Beck’s.”

I handed her a beer and opened another for myself. When I turned from the refrigerator she did a double take, and I remembered for the first time in a few hours how my face looked.

“Oh, yeah. I haven’t told you about my evening, have I?”

She reached out and touched the skin under my eye, then winced and pulled her hand back.

“That looks really bad, Lincoln.”

“Didn’t feel much better.”

“Tell me what happened.”

We went into the living room and sat down on the couch, and I drank some of the beer and told her about the past twenty-four hours. When I got to the part about Thor, her already concerned face took on a whole new gravity.

“Thor’s involved? The same Thor who makes men disappear like it’s his day job?”

“Technically, I think it is his day job.”

“Not funny.”

“No.”

“If the police connect you to him, Lincoln . . .”

“Yeah. It won’t go well. But right now Thor’s not as unsettling to me as this PI in Indiana. Somebody sent him ten grand in cash while pretending to be me, Amy. That’s a sizable investment. I’m wondering what sort of a return they’re looking for.”

“You in jail,” she said.

“Blunt.”

“But true?”

“I don’t know. If it involved Alex Jefferson it would make more sense. Whoever did kill him would want to point the cops elsewhere. But his son committed suicide.”

“The two are so connected, though. If you can be made to look guilty for the son’s death . . .”

“The father’s takes care of itself,” I said, and I felt that blade of grass in my throat again.

She stood up and went into the kitchen and came back with two fresh beers. We stayed there on the couch and talked and drank, maybe an hour of it, talked about Thor and Jefferson and Targent. I loved talking to her. Needed to do it. She’d become that person in my life now, the one I knew would be there to discuss the difficult things, providing better answers than the walls of the empty apartment—my usual sounding board—ever did. I’d gone a while without someone like that, and although I could do it again, I didn’t want to. I was aware of her beside me on the couch in a way that sometimes made it hard to focus on what was being said, my mind led away by the curve of her hip against the couch and the trace of perfume she wore.

She was asking something about Targent when I interrupted.

“I was about three seconds from kissing you the other night when you told me a friendship is the only thing that can work for us.”

Her eyes widened. “Wow. That was an abrupt conversation shift.”

“Sorry.”

It was quiet for a moment, and then she said, “Three seconds away, huh?”

“Maybe less.”

“Damn. If I just talked a little slower.” She laughed, but it was awkward, tense.

“I probably shouldn’t have said that. You seemed pretty set on the conclusion you’d reached while I was down in Indiana. And maybe you’re right.”

“Maybe I’m right? I thought that decision was your baby, Lincoln.”

“I know. But since when do you give me any credit for intelligent decision-making? You know better than that.”

She started to say something, then stopped and shook her head.

“What?” I said.

“It’s just interesting timing. I get upset with you for this bizarre relationship we’ve developed, and then you decide you’re going to make a move for the first time? Damn, if I’d known that would’ve worked all along . . .”

“It wasn’t because you got upset.”

“I won’t debate that with you, but I could.”

“I know.”

Her gaze was intense. “So you were ready to make a courageous first move, and then you chose to abort the attempt.”

“Yeah, the news you had kind of killed that.”

“I’ll be kicking myself over that, of course.”

“Listen to her lie.”

“Truer words were never spoken, Lincoln.”

There was a comfortable silence for a few seconds, and then I leaned over and slid my hand behind her neck and pulled her in and kissed her. She returned it, gently but passionately, and then broke away. Her eyes could have been happy or sad. Probably somewhere in between.

“Now who’s not being fair?” she said.

I nodded. “It’s not fair. I understand that, Amy.”

Her face was inches from mine, her hair soft against my hand. “So stop it.”

“Okay,” I said, and then I kissed her again. She separated from me once, said, “Damn you, Lincoln,” and then we were back at it, twisting on the couch so that she was above me, her body resting lightly against mine, her hair hanging down against my face.

Her fingers slid over my shoulders and up to my neck, and when her hand moved on me a quick line of electricity seemed to dance along my spine. She pushed her hands through my hair, and when her fingers crossed over the lumps on the back of my skull, a surge of pain passed through, a momentary reminder of Alex Jefferson and Karen and Targent and a nameless man with a grudge and a gun. Then I was sliding that old sweatshirt off of her, my hands gliding over her small, smooth back, and the pain and the problems and all of the rest of it faded away.

Later, in my bedroom, she lay warm beside me, her leg hooked over my knee and her head nestled against my neck. Her breathing was slow and easy, moving toward sleep, but I was awake and alert, watching shadows slide across the ceiling as cars passed along the avenue.

“Remind me why we never did that before,” I said.

“I used to have standards,” she said, her breath hot on my neck, and then she bit my shoulder gently.