Cat On A Hyacinth Hunt

Chapter 25

Relativity

Matt was glad that Bennie was his front man with ConTact. He had five precious days off He didn't care what Bennie told them; he didn't care if he was supposed to have been mugged into a bloody pulp. He needed this time to deal with Effinger's death.

And one thing he couldn't put off much longer. He dialed Chicago.

The phone rang for a long time until his mother, breathless, answered.

"Matt!" She sounded relieved that it was him. "I was out."

"You were out?" He shouldn't have sounded so shocked.

"Well, I'd promised to go. Otherwise I would have been here.

"Did you call earlier?"

"No, Mom. And I'm glad you were out. Can I ask where?"

"Oh. That Krys. She wanted to see a movie for the third time and no one else would go with her. Harrison Ford. I haven't been to a movie theater in years. They're so loud."

"I wouldn't know. I haven't been to a movie theater in years myself."

"Well, no wonder. It's all so ... violent. And the trailers. So ... immoral."

"Probably. Did you have a good time?"

"Well, the audience was very noisy, not like when I was a girl. Then, it was like you were in church."

"So the outing was a bust, huh?"

"Not . . . exactly. It's like a video game, that's what it is. I've seen the boys playing those things. Bang, bang, bang. You've got to pay attention every minute. Harrison Ford. I don't see what the excitement's about. Now that Brad Pitt, maybe. You even, God forbid. But a young girl like that shouldn't fixate on such an old man."

"Mom, Ford's probably a little older than you."

"Oh. What did I say? An old man." But she laughed.

There was no easy segue into the next topic. Matt stepped into it flat-footed.

"I've got news."

"Oh?" The old wariness.

"Cliff is dead."

Silence.

"He was killed."

"By who?"

"I don't know." More silence. "Maybe me. Maybe by tracking him down, I brought him the wrong kind of attention."

"That's crazy, Matt. If he was killed, it was because he drove someone beyond endurance.

Not. . . you?"

"Not me. I'm past that. I don't need that. I'm almost sorry he's gone, because I'll never have a chance to prove how much I'm beyond him now."

"That's what I was trying to tell you when you came home. I got beyond him a long time ago.

Maybe I'm bitter, but I'm not... trapped with him in the past. Okay?"

"Okay. I love you, Mom."

"Oh, Matt. You know . .."

That's as close as she could ever come.

"It was a pretty good movie," she conceded. "Krys isn't so bad. Maybe Harrison Ford isn't either. So don't spend time worrying about. . . him. He's gone. He's been gone a long time."

"Yeah. Thanks. Bye."

Matt hung up, thanking heaven for banal conversations. For starch, for fattening filler that avoided the meat of the matter. Sometimes evasion was the best coping skill.

********************

So when the phone rang twenty minutes later while he was reading Thomas Mann on his new red sofa, under the light of his new floor lamp, he thought maybe his mother was calling back with something more to say.

"Molina," she said, sounding like a mother superior.

"Oh. Isn't it. . . after hours?"

"I don't think cops--and priests-- have hours. So. What do you want to do with the body?"

"Body?"

"We got lucky; no pileup at autopsy central. The medical examiner's ready to release it to the next of kin."

"Carmen--"

"Lieutenant Molina. This is a murder case, Mr. Devine. You are a suspect."

"Oh--"

"Yes?"

"You're saying it's up to me to bury the body. Haven't you people got a potter's field or something?"

"Sure 'we people' do. It's called the county. Wooden crate et cetera. That's okay with you, it's okay with us."

"Wait. Ah. Suppose I think it over ... what does it involve? A funeral home, some kind of casket?"

"Conscience. My best weapon."

"I know. But I just finished telling my mother about it. You got me at a bad time."

"What did you tell her?"

"Not much about how he died, since you didn't tell me. I told her I may have drawn the wrong person's attention by tracking him down."

"What did she say?"

"Not much."

"Well? I'm going out of my way on this."

"Why?"

"Because I figured you wouldn't have thought of it, and then you would have when it was too late. Conscience. A cop's best friend."

"Thanks. Who do I talk to if I decide to claim the body?"

"The ME's office. Don't thank me until this is over."

"Will it ever be?"

"It's my case, Devine. You better bet that it will be."

"That sounds like a threat."

"Only if you're guilty of something."

"You know I think I'm guilty of everything. What does that make me? A very unreliable source."

"No. It makes you more reliable than you know."

She hung up without farewells. He was beginning to realize that was because it wouldn't be over, until it was over.

So he made a call, one he'd been putting off.

He had an appointment so fast it was almost embarrassing: ten the next morning. It was one he both looked forward to, and dreaded. He was beginning to wonder if conflicting emotions could be addictive.

Finally, he called Temple and told her about Molina's amazingly considerate offer to return the dead departed to his custody for the good of his immortal soul.