Midas

4

Justin decided against going back to the station. He’d had it for the day. Besides, he had a computer at home and the work he had to do could be done there.

He pulled into the pebbled driveway of his small 1880s Victorian house. When it was built it was meant to be low-income housing for workers at the local watch factory, about a mile down the road, closer to town. There was a twin house right next door to Justin’s, although the owners had made additions so it was no longer identical. Justin liked his house. It was charming and quirky and it had a nice, private backyard, well protected from his neighbors by a fence and tall trees, cherry and oak. Justin particularly liked his house because it had a lot of its own personality, which meant he didn’t have to bother to put much of his personality into it.

And he hadn’t bothered. His furniture was minimal. A bed and one chest of drawers in each of the two bedrooms. A TV in his bedroom. A comfortable couch in the living room. A PC. He’d put in a good stereo system because music was important to him. He could lose himself in music, mostly rock, sometimes jazz. Lately he’d tried opera and, to his surprise, he found that he liked it. He’d been listening to Maria Callas late at night, sitting in the dark, a drink in his hand, her passion spoke to him. Her urgency. But, at heart, he was a rock and roller. And as he got out of his car and headed inside, onto the screened-in front porch and into the living room, all he wanted to do was have a shot of a good single malt, maybe eventually smoke a joint, and be overwhelmed by some Warren Zevon or Lou Reed or possibly even Fun Lovin’ Criminals, a New York band he’d recently discovered. By the time he got to the CD player, he’d decided on something a little softer, more melancholy. An old Arlo Guthrie. Hobo’s Lullaby. It had been one of Alicia’s favorites. He couldn’t listen to it without thinking of her. As he pressed the play button, he could already hear the words in his head, the words he used to listen to over and over again after she died. It was a song about living too fast and too hard, about taking a look around and seeing what you’d become and feeling that your life was not your own.

That’s the way he’d felt for years after Alicia was gone. That, somehow, he had to be stuck in someone else’s life. It was only fairly recently that he’d felt as if he’d begun to return to his own existence, his own path. Now there was no denying it. Here he was. His house. His furniture. His job. His murder investigation. His missing victim. His life.

The question was: Where the hell did that life go from here and how much control could he have over it?

As the first cut began, he went to his Compaq, turned it on. He was anxious to take a look at the FAA site and see what he could dig up, but before he could even sit down he noticed that the message light on his phone machine was flashing.

Justin sighed. He disapproved of phone machines. He disapproved of anything that made him more accessible to the outside world. But his job required it. Somehow, his life required it, too, which he couldn’t quite figure out, but there you had it. So he went to the machine, pressed play, and heard the voices of two people he didn’t want to talk to.

The first message was from Marjorie Leggett, Jimmy’s wife. No-widow. He immediately made the mental correction. “Jay, it’s Margie,” she began. Then there was a pause, as if maybe she should give her last name. Which she did. “Marge Leggett.” There was another silence, a brief one. Justin could all but see her timidity, her confusion at having to do something for the first time without her husband’s guidance. Then she found her resolve and continued speaking. “I’m just calling to see if you’ve. . done anything. . after our conversation. Please call me. I need to know. Thank you.”

Justin’s face softened at her final instinctive politeness. Then he thought about her message. He had promised her he’d find out what Jimmy was doing in the restaurant. Why he’d died such an ignominious death. But he hadn’t done a thing. He’d been a little busy. He had a murder case on his hands. A murder case that no one knew was actually murder.

And now he had to add something else to the list of things that belonged in his life: his promises.

How much control would he have over them?

The second message was from Leona Krill, the mayor of East End Harbor. She wanted him to call the moment he got her message. It was urgent.

He erased both messages. Decided he’d wait an hour or so to call Margie back. So he could figure out what he could actually say to her. Decided he wouldn’t call the mayor back at all.

Justin went back to sit at his computer, began to go online, then the phone rang. He got back up, answered it.

“Justin, it’s Leona Krill.”

“Hello, Leona.”

“I’m assuming you got my message and didn’t call me back. Everybody I talked to said that’s exactly what you’d do. So I’m calling again.”

“I just walked in the door. Got the message ten seconds ago. And who’d you talk to who said that?”

“Were you going to call me back?”

“Eventually.”

“I need to see you right away. At my office, please.”

“Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”

“No, I’m afraid it can’t.” When he didn’t respond, the mayor said, “Justin, this conversation isn’t about anything bad. It is urgent, but it’s not going to make you unhappy.”

“Leona, almost all conversations make me unhappy.”

“Can you be here in fifteen minutes?”

He told her he could and hung up the phone. Then he reluctantly flicked off Arlo Guthrie and went back outside, wondering what he was going to hear that she thought he wasn’t going to hate hearing-and wondering exactly how much he was going to hate hearing it.

The mayor’s office was in the oldest building on Main Street, a town house built in 1839. It was four stores down from Deena’s yoga studio and five stores away from her apartment above Norm’s Contemporary General Store. Justin parked right in front of the studio, walked by the plate glass window that let passersby look in on classes of people stretching and contorting themselves into odd positions. He automatically sucked in his belly, which wasn’t nearly as large as it had been a year ago, but was a little larger than it had been three months ago. He’d stopped taking his yoga lessons the same time he and Deena had stopped seeing each other. He also realized it had been a couple of weeks since he’d been to the gym. Maybe three weeks. Shit, he thought. A month.

He glanced into the yoga class as he passed by. Deena happened to be looking his way, saw him and smiled. He gave a half wave and thought about stopping in, seeing if he could take Kendall, Deena’s nine-year-old daughter, out to dinner. Maybe a movie. Then he thought better of it-his stomach was suddenly pierced with a familiar ache when he spotted Deena; the uncomfortable pang that comes from dissipated love-and just kept walking.

Leona Krill greeted him warmly. Justin thought that she was probably looking for a friend. She needed one. Leona was gay and had just gotten married, quite publicly, to her longtime girlfriend. The weekenders who inhabited East End Harbor were fairly liberal by nature. But the full-time residents-the voters-tended to be blue-collar and more conservative. The mayor’s wedding had caused quite a stir. A lot of people thought it would cost her when the next election rolled around. Personally, Justin didn’t care who she slept with or who she married. His idea of a good mayor was anyone who was reasonably honest, didn’t screw up too much, and left him alone. Leona had scored well on all three points up to now. Now the third part of the equation was up in the air.

They spent thirty seconds asking how they each were, then she said, “Let me get right to the point, Jay. People do call you Jay, don’t they?” He admitted that some did, and was impressed that she’d done some homework in the few minutes it had taken him to arrive at her office. “I’m sure this has occurred to you, and I know it might seem a bit indelicate to bring it up so soon after Jimmy’s death, but we need another chief of police.”

It actually hadn’t occurred to Justin. Things had been moving too quickly. And everything at the station was proceeding smoothly. But he nodded, as if he’d done nothing but think about such a need.

“Well, I’d like you to take the job,” Leona Krill said.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m appointing you the new chief of police. On a temporary basis. I’m hoping you’ll agree on six months. That seems fair. And at that point, we can review the situation and, I hope, mutually agree on whether you should continue or not. It makes perfect sense. You have the background, the experience, people seem to respect you-in a strange sort of way. There’ll be a nice pay raise, of course.”

Justin realized he was standing there, probably looking dumbfounded. It shouldn’t have been such a shock, it was the logical move for her to make. If he accepted, it made her life easy. No outside search, no unknown quantity. But every voice inside him was screeching for him not to do it. He didn’t want the responsibility. Or the pay raise. He didn’t want the bureaucratic dealings. Didn’t want people working for him. He didn’t want the extra ties to the community. Didn’t want to attend the social events or the town meetings or see any public-spirited liaison who would want to talk to him about whatever public-spirited people talked about. He didn’t want anything about this job. Nothing at all.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

She thanked him profusely, told him how glad she was, thanked him again. She set up a meeting with him for two days hence, on Friday, so they could discuss various details. She even kissed him on the cheek before he left.

Walking back down Main Street toward his car, Justin wondered what the hell he’d just done.

He thought, My life. My choices.

Shaking his head, he got in the car, drove home, called Marjorie Leggett, told her he was working on keeping his promise. Then he made a second call, this one to Billy DiPezio, the Providence, Rhode Island, police chief. Billy was the reason Justin had become a cop. And he’d been Justin’s boss for several years. Billy was also the most crooked honest man Justin had ever met. Or maybe he was the most honest crook. Billy was a cop who walked a fine line between right and wrong, sometimes crossing over, not always knowing when he did. And rarely caring.

“I’m calling to get your permission for something,” Justin said when he got Billy on the phone. Billy was, as usual, not at the station or at home with his wife. He was in a bar somewhere, probably sharing a booth with someone he shouldn’t be sharing it with.

“Well, that’s a first,” Billy said.

“I’m trying to do a favor for a friend and I need to do a little research.”

“There’s a new thing,” Billy said. “It’s called the Internet. It’s amazing, I’m told. You can look stuff up, just like it’s a real library. In fact, they probably have a whole library building in that weird little beach town you live in. The Billy Joel Library or something, isn’t it?”

“It’s not that kind of research. I need the human kind.”

“And you’re calling me, Jay? I’m flattered.”

“Don’t be too flattered. I want to talk to Chuck Billings.”

Justin could sense Billy’s demeanor-jaunty, unconcerned-shift slightly. Nothing major, Billy was too good an actor to be obvious. But his tone changed a bit, and there was a split second more thought before he began to banter.

“Local cop decides to get involved in terrorist bombing, Jay?”

“I’m not getting involved,” Justin said. And he quickly told Billy the truth about Jimmy and Marjorie Leggett. “If Chuck’s still your bomb guy, all I want is to pick his brain a bit. I just want to understand what really happened so I can tell Margie. Maybe it’ll help.”

“Of course he’s still my bomb guy. Probably the best bomb squad captain in the country.”

“So can I talk to him?”

“It’ll be easier than you think,” Billy told him. “The Feds called him in as a consultant, to take a look at the restaurant.”

“Harper’s?”

“I told you he’s good.”

“Is he here already?”

“Right in your neighborhood,” Billy said. “Staying at some motel, Chuck said not the classiest place in town. Something about fish. . the Fish Bowl. . the Fish Net. .?”

“The Fisherman?”

“Sounds right. He got in this morning.”

“Thanks, Billy.”

“Buy him a good dinner, that’s all I ask. You can afford it and he can’t, not on what I pay him.”

“Done.”

“You coming up anytime soon?”

“I’ll be up,” Justin said.

“You can also take me out to dinner.”

“Billy, you haven’t paid for a meal in twenty years. What the hell do you need me for?”

“I’m hanging up on you now. Make sure you send my regards to your very rich parents.”

“I’ll quote you exactly.”

Justin hung up, immediately dialed the Fisherman Motel. Billings wasn’t in his room so Justin left a message on voice mail. He took a deep breath, looked around his house, happy to be alone and isolated from the world for at least one more night, then he rolled a big fat illegal joint, got as stoned as he’d been in several months, and fell asleep listening to R.E.M. blaring from his speakers.

It seemed as good a way as any to spend his first night as police chief.