The Nominee

Eighteen

AL OT OF PEOPLE, too many people, regard my quaint hamlet of Boston like it’s some sort of backwater populated by vanilla-flavored Wasps who wear brown shoes with navy blue suits and believe fish and chips represent a gourmet meal. They look at us like a New York annex, not so much a younger brother but a distant, poor cousin, unfashionable, unsophisticated, even uncouth.

To them, I would highly recommend a visit to Café Louis, where the grilled margherita pizza, the linguine in a Tuscan meat sauce, and the Baby Baci cake, served warm with homemade cinnamon ice cream are as good as anything that the waiters might serve at the Union Square Café or the Gotham Bar and Grill.

The restaurant is a rather austere room — the interior designer I’m sure would call it “minimalist” and charge $500 an hour for putting nothing in it — in the back of the renowned Louis clothing store, an establishment where neckties fetch upward of $100 and shirts twice that much. Best as I can tell, you need a mortgage to buy one of their suits. If I’m paying that kind of money for anything, I expect it to come with windshield wipers.

Not that I’m claiming poverty here. Paul did offer me a small stake in the company to keep me around a couple of years back after I broke that White House story. But Paul’s also a Wasp to the core, and he put the stock in trust, meaning I would barely see a dime until I was likely living in a place called Pleasant Manor and preparing for my eternal home at Shady Acres. But hopefully it would be enough that I wouldn’t end up in Marshton.

Back to Café Louis. I arrived a few minutes early, exchanged greetings with Matt, the congenial maitre d’ who sported a slightly disheveled look that probably involved clothes that cost more than my car, and took a seat at a corner table with myNew York Times. I ordered a Sam Adams from a waiter with a goatee and a collarless shirt who called me “dude.” Didn’t matter. I just wanted twelve ounces of icy, golden lager, every one of which I needed right about now to put the day in perspective and ease my angst over what was about to come.

I don’t do blind dates. Why I was doing one now is tribute to the persuasive powers of Harry Putnam, a longtime friend who told me repeatedly and forcefully that I was making a mistake by walking away from my relationship with Elizabeth, and okay, if I insisted on doing it, here’s someone who might relieve the pain. Actually, what he said was that I’d be an obtuse idiot for not taking Lindsey Nutter to dinner, if not to bed. That last part was pure Putnam, not me. I’ve never even seen the woman, thus the descriptiveblind before the objectdate.

Initially I had recommended lunch at the venerable Locke-Ober Café, a Boston institution that was in existence long before salmon was raised on farms and chickens were given free range. Even with a new celebrity chef, they still have liver and onions on the luncheon menu, and a goodly number of silver-haired men swear it enhances their sex drive, though maybe “sex walk” is a more accurate term.

I also suggested lunch because unlike dinner, which can lollygag for hours, the noon meal has a purpose, a beginning, and a reasonably defined end. As important, it can be cut short if need be with the simple line, “I’m sorry, but I have to get back to work,” an excuse not entirely incongruent with my chosen profession.

When I called Putnam to report back on my brilliant plan, his response was as follows: “Being a good reporter doesn’t mean you’re smart. You really are a dumb fuck, aren’t you, Flynn?”

I’m open to suggestions about how I’m supposed to respond to that. With none immediately available, I followed his direct orders to reschedule the meeting from lunch to dinner and to change the venue to a place, in his words, “a little less nineteenth century.”

“Not,” he added, “that there’s anything wrong with that. Next time I’m in town, the chateaubriand at Lockes is on you.”

Lindsey arrived. In the split second that she glided to the table in a flash of bare arms and long legs, I realized she was every bit, every inch, what Putnam said she was, which is inexorably, singularly gorgeous, with silken blond hair that flowed just beyond her shoulders, cheekbones so high and firm they looked as if they required a zoning variance, and a body that was at once lean and elegant yet wonderfully curvaceous, a veritable Disney World adventure ride, something called, say, Nirvana.

She was wearing black pants and a white tube top with a black sweater slung over her shoulders, the arms tied in a delicate way across the bronze skin of her upper chest.

Paul who? John died how? Just kidding. A little gallows humor. I was drunk on aesthetic joy.

“Hello.”

That last one was me. I acknowledge that it scores low in the creativity department, but it was the best I could do for the moment, feeling as I did.

After concluding proper introductions, she sat down with an enormous smile and said, “So you write about politics, right?”

She had obviously rehearsed her opening line on the way over. Good for Lindsey.

“I do,” I said, “sometimes, but that’s not all.”

That seemed to throw her for a moment. Then the waiter taking her drink order seemed to throw her for a moment as well, but that’s okay.

“Well, I have a question for you,” Lindsey said when the waiter went off to get her something cool, besides me.

She looked at me for a moment and I looked at her, ever so slightly nervous about what was to come.

She asked, “I’ve always wondered, do congressmen live inside the House of Representatives?”

Her words quickly brought to mind Putnam’s previously opaque warning: “Better to engage her optically and physically than any other way.” I was beginning to realize how sage that counsel really was.

“Well, um, no, most of them have apartments where they live. They work out of government offices right near the House of Representatives, in, for example, the Cannon House Office Building, and they go to the floor of the House to debate issues and to cast their votes.”

“Then why do they call it a house?” she asked, proud of herself for catching such a historical incongruity. Then she added, “It doesn’t really even look like a house.”

She had, I’ll point out, something of a little-girl’s voice to her, not that that’s a bad thing or anything like that. I state it in neutral tones, purely for descriptive purposes.

“That’s a good catch,” I replied.

I wasn’t quite sure where to take this. I allowed my eyes to follow the flow of her hair for a moment, just to try to make myself believe that this whole thing might be worthwhile. Even when I got to where her perfect strands fanned out on her bare, bronze shoulders, I wasn’t sure if it was.

Here goes. “Let’s see, a house isn’t just a place where people live. It’s also a place where business is done, or where a legislative body meets, like the House of Commons in London.” I paused, realizing I didn’t want to make her feel bad, and added, “It’s one of those funny little words with multiple meanings. Trips up a lot of people.”

She seemed perfectly pleased with all this. In point of fact, she was looking down at her nails and abruptly announced to me, “My manicurist went back to Vietnam for an entire month. It doesn’t really seem fair.”

I’m not very good at this dating thing in general. I’m specifically not good on a date with an intellectually challenged but stunningly beautiful blonde on the night of my publisher’s burial, just a little over forty-eight hours after I was shot at myself.

“No, it doesn’t.” At this point, I was looking around for the waiter, wondering if we might speed up the meal.

“And I’ve never understood why one of those political parties chose a donkey as its mascot. I mean, a donkey, that’s like a jackass, right?”

I looked back at her just in time to catch her twirling a few strands of blonde hair in her fingers. Okay, so I wasn’t altogether ready to give up quite yet. Intellectual stimulation can sometimes be so overrated.

“Great point.”

She beamed. She was warming up to the conversation, which I can’t say was necessarily good.

“Do you get a free prescription to the paper?” That was Lindsey again.

“Um, well, no, but I tend to read the paper in the newsroom every morning, where it’s free anyway, and on the weekends, I’m out and about, so I just go and buy it from a guy at the corner.”

As I was looking around for our waiter, I started getting agitated that I didn’t get free home delivery. For chrissakes, I’ve worked there umpteen number of years, and I’m still shelling out $2 bucks every Sunday?

I wondered what Elizabeth would think if she happened by this conversation. She’d raise those perfect eyebrows and purse her plump lips into a smile of curious amusement. I could see it now. I mean, I could really see it now, because here’s what happened next:

The busboy came over and refilled our water glasses in a gush of liquid and a cascade of ice.

As he walked away, behind him, in the doorway, at the host’s station, I saw standing there a tall, elegant woman as familiar to me as my own image in the mirror, only much more appealing, hard as that is to believe.

At first, she was looking around the room, then her eyes fell on mine and she squinted as if to make sure she was seeing what she thought she saw. A smile spread slowly across her beautiful features, beginning at her lips and moving along her cheeks and into those eyes. She gave one of those little waves with her hand in front of her that a Miss America contestant might call “washing the window.”

My breath caught. My heart was in my throat. I’m trying to think of some other such clichés, because every one was true, too true.

“That’s so incredible that you’re a writer because I’ve always wanted to write a children’s book about a poodle from outer space.”

I nodded. “Great idea. Does his doghouse fly?”

Elizabeth’s eyes slowly shifted away from me and I followed her line of sight — across the host’s stand, past a waiter who was hustling through the room, until I saw the man standing near her, also a familiar figure, though not as familiar as Elizabeth.

My first emotion, strangely enough, was relief — relief that she wasn’t still with Luke Travers. Don’t ask me to explain it. It’s just how I felt.

My second emotion was one of embarrassment. I felt silly, superfluous, almost impotent, watching a woman I once — once? — loved standing in this restaurant with yet another man. It seemed to matter not that I was sitting with a drop-dead beautiful woman because I was obviously, increasingly irrelevant in the life of Elizabeth Riggs.

I bore in on him, watching him reach out and touch my ex-girlfriend’s wrist. I saw her give him a half-smile, though whether it was sincere or polite, from this distance I didn’t know.

But who the hell was he?

I remembered seeing him interviewed on the news in some capacity. He was tall and much as it pains me to say, handsome in a rugged kind of way, tanned, which I thought strange for April — with hair so thick he all but needed a John Deere tractor to brush it.

He wasn’t in politics, or I’d more than likely know him. He wasn’t a movie star, or he wouldn’t likely be in Boston with any regularity.

Then it struck me — an athlete. A baseball player. The veteran second baseman that the Red Sox had acquired before the start of the season in a celebrated trade with the Minnesota Twins. His name, his name, his name — yes, Fielder. Jay Fielder. I made a mental note to put him on that list with Josh Lyer. I knew I was right when I realized that the team, beginning a nine-game homestand, had a night off.

The waiter placed our entrees on the table with his standard, “Enjoy.” Lindsey kept talking about a poodle that could communicate with kids through a magical Etch-a-Sketch. The host began walking toward the opposite side of the room. Elizabeth flashed me a quick, emotionless look, then all I saw was her back until they settled at a table that was partly concealed by a wall, which was just as well. From there on, it wasn’t that my food didn’t taste good, it’s just that it had no taste at all.

My ex-girlfriend with a professional athlete, a Major League baseball player. She didn’t even like sports, at least not when I knew her, and I knew her for a long, long time. I did a quick inventory of my memory for any knowledge I had of the guy. He had been, best that I knew, a career infielder for the Twins, an occasional all-star who was well past his prime, picked up by the Sox this year because our regular second baseman had hurt himself surfing in the off-season.

A decent guy, I think I’d read, a workhorse who didn’t get too caught up in all the press.

Prick.

A while later, when the waiter came back around, Lindsey gladly accepted the proffered dessert menu and ordered a double cappuccino, which only extended my awkward agony. Unfortunately for me, I was losing sight of her physical attributes, which drained the meal of any real purpose. By now, I saw diners stopping by Elizabeth’s table and reaching out their hand, I assume to shake Fielder’s, though I couldn’t see him because the wall blocked my view. I saw a pair of busboys go up with what appeared to be a menu for him to sign, looking like they had just won the lottery as they walked away. I heard an attractive woman at a nearby table say to her friend, “Oh my God, he’s even better looking in person. What would you give to get him into bed?”

That just about did it. Lindsey ordered an apple tart and I made my way off to the men’s room to throw some cold water on my newly feverish face. Fortunately the restrooms were on my side of the restaurant, meaning I didn’t have to pass their table, which by now seemed like some sort of Mecca. As I stood, I saw Fielder smiling warmly at another fan who approached with pen and paper in hand.

In the sanctuary of the men’s room, I thought about how I’d pitched a no-hitter in Little League, and how slightly pathetic that seemed now. I wondered why women were so impressed by athletes. Was it about their celebrity, being with someone who others wanted? Was it about their bodies, meaning sex? Was it about the gargantuan amounts of money that they invariably made? I always thought Elizabeth operated at a higher level. Now I was learning things about her I really didn’t need or want to know.

And what’s the flip side? That Fielder was a wonderful and smart guy who perfectly well understood that playing second base for a Major League baseball team was nothing so noble as researching a vaccine for AIDS or teaching English at an inner-city high school? Did I really want them over there debatingThe New Yorker ’s review of Philip Roth’s latest novel?

I dried my face with some of those upscale paper towels that almost feel like they’re made out of cloth, and stared at myself in the mirror as if I was some sort of beautiful starlet, minus the beauty and star power. Even in the flattering light of a well-designed restroom, I had black circles etched under my bloodshot eyes. My face looked gaunt. My hair even looked tired, split at the ends. Mind you, I’m not necessarily prone to self-criticism, but a handsome athlete I was not.

I walked out, craving an exit.

“That’s one gorgeous woman.”

“That’s one extraordinarily handsome guy.”

That was Elizabeth, followed by me. She was standing on the other side of the bathroom door, smiling such that I saw all those familiar crinkles around her huge blue eyes, half of which I’m quite sure I caused from a pretty long run of pretty good jokes.

She was also wearing black pants, the kind that don’t go all the way down — I think they’re called capris. Whatever, her body was as beautiful as ever. Her hair flowed every which way and I had a quick and unpleasant mental image of her carefully blow-drying and styling it for the man she was with now. Her skin was stunning, complete with all the little grooves and marks I knew so well — the aforementioned laugh lines, a little mole on the lower side of her left cheek, a small depression beneath her right eye that she loathed but I loved.

“He’s killing me,” she said, flat, as if she was talking to a girlfriend. We were both standing at the far end of the bar, out of sight of anyone in the dining room. “I’m supposed to be impressed by all this stuff, right?”

My heart immediately lightened some, the knots in my stomach loosening. I think I smiled, but I’m not sure.

“Only if you like that type,” I said.

“I mean, he’s spent the last thirty minutes telling me about the season he won his first batting championship—” ouch—“and he hasn’t asked me a single question about what I do for a living. I’m a writer, a reporter. That’s pretty fucking interesting. And he hasn’t asked me one single thing.”

She was getting more animated as she talked, not to mention louder and, obviously, profane, which is to say, sexy.

I said, “Well, you’re the one who went to dinner with him.”

An older gentleman squeezed by us to get into the bathroom, forcing Elizabeth to crowd into me for a minute, giving me the opportunity to feel her skin against mine, to smell those wonderful smells I once knew so well.

“I don’t know,” she replied. She said it in that resigned kind of way. “Kelly begged me to do it. You remember my friend Kelly? The one with the hair? She does press work for the Red Sox now and told me I’d be doing her a big favor.” Pause. “She owes me huge.”

Silence, but a light silence. My world was coming back together again, even if it wasn’t really my world anymore.

“And who’s the girl?” she asked. “She’s a knockout.”

“She’s some sort of model.” So I lied, but it was well within the realm of the possible. “Harry set us up. I didn’t want to do it, but he really pushed me. She’s over there complaining about her podiatrist or pedicurist or whatever moving back to Hanoi. I don’t think I can take much more of it.”

I peered around the corner into the dining room. Lindsey was staring straight ahead, vacant, perfectly content. Farther away, Fielder was talking to three men in suits who were gathered around his table, all of them laughing and talking at once. I saw one rear back and give him a high five.

Elizabeth said, “Come rescue me?” Her eyes bore into mine. The look on her face was sincere and a little playful. Her tone, though not pleading, was certainly suggestive, more real than flirtatious.

I shook my head slightly, began to walk away and said, “Better that you get me some season tickets.”

Back at the table, Lindsey said, “I almost forgot to tell you something. I wrote for the newspaper at my community college. I used to do a fashion column.”

She beamed.

“Did you really?” I said. A few minutes later, Elizabeth walked by our table on her way back from the bathroom and gave me an exaggerated wink — joking, of course. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this renewed sense of familiarity, but I knew I felt better about it than the alternative, which was her gushing all over some baseball player while I taught my date freshman politics — and that’s high school freshman, not college.

I asked Lindsey, “Do you like baseball?”

“It’s awesome!” she said. “I love putting a hat on and going to the games and eating hot dogs and Cracker Jacks.”

No, I couldn’t. I thought about it, but I couldn’t. She was once my very serious girlfriend, the epicenter of my entire existence for what I assumed would be all of time. But we had given that all away, me and her, willingly, recklessly, defiantly. She was making a play here, yes, but how could I be certain that she was doing it out of any visceral, emotional desire, or only to atone for past sins, to make herself feel better? How was I to know that if we did start a relationship — and I understand I’m getting ahead of myself on this — that every time she said she loved me, every time she nuzzled the back of my neck in that way she used to do, it was only to wash away the past, her time with Travers.

I left her back then because I was furious and because I was betrayed and because I was confused. As important, I left her because of the alternative. Had I stayed, our relationship, and my life, would have become a house of mirrors. I would have forever been asking the question, were things happening for the reasons they should happen, or was everything just a bizarre reflection of the betrayal, and did that betrayal occur because of my own obtuse sense of self, my inability to get over my own tragic past. Well, I knew one thing now: I sure as hell wasn’t going over to her table. Unfortunately, I knew another thing as well: I’d spend another lonely night pining for what I once had, or what I thought I had, what I hoped I’d always have. You can’t win on this carnival ride of life, at least when the other sex is collecting the tickets and pulling the levers.

I gave the check a quick once-over as Lindsey relayed the last plotting details of the alien poodle with the flying doghouse and the mystical gameboard. When I looked up to hand my American Express card — all right, already, so it was my corporate card, so what — to the waiter, I saw that the figure standing at our table wasn’t the waiter at all. It was Elizabeth, who said, “Why hello there, Jack. Long time, no see.”

I gave her something of a vacant stare, or as vacant as I can be with her, because good or bad, there’s always something going on inside.

“It doesn’t seem to have been all that long.”

“I want you to meet Jay Fielder. Jay, this is Jack Flynn.”

We shook hands as I said, “Very nice to meet you, Mr. Fielder. You have an interesting dinner companion this evening.”

He didn’t really respond and I quickly realized why. I saw his eyes drifting toward Lindsey’s legs, which were crossed in front of her in full view of virtually the entire room — and it’s safe to bet that virtually the entire room was taking advantage of the view, or at least the male portion of the room.

“What do you do for a living?” That was me, being an asshole, trying to break Fielder’s trance. To say the least, I didn’t like the fact that not only was he dining with my ex-girlfriend, but he thought it perfectly acceptable to leer at my date as well.

He looked at me like he had forgotten I was there, then said quickly and without betraying any hurt, “I play second base for the Red Sox.”

“Yes, of course,” I said. “I thought I’d heard the name.”

From the grandstand, Elizabeth asked Lindsey, “What do you do?”

She smiled and twirled her hair and said, “I do a little lingerie modeling.”

I did a double take. She hadn’t told me this. She told me she was a paralegal for Hale and Dorr. As she made the proclamation, she shot a coy glance at Fielder to see his reaction, though she probably would have been better served to look at his crotch rather than his eyes.

Fielder said, “Wow, I did a little underwear modeling myself.” Of course he did.

Lindsey giggled, though I’m not sure why. The waiter came and took my card. Fielder sat down at an empty chair without an invitation. Elizabeth poked me in the shoulder and when I looked at her, she made an exaggerated eye movement toward the door like she had done at so many cocktail and dinner parties before.

“At first I didn’t like it because it would get cold in the studio,” Lindsey said.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m hearing you say that, because I felt the same way,” Fielder replied.

Elizabeth hit me again. The waiter brought back the check, as well as two orders of the Tuscan linguine that I had requested to go.

I asked, “Lindsey, did you drive?”

“I took a cab, so I’ll just take one home,” she said.

Fielder: “Don’t be silly, I’ll give you a ride home. You don’t mind a convertible, do you?”

I rolled my eyes, but the only one to notice was Elizabeth. She laughed softly, then said, “Well, Jay, thanks for dinner.” She was showing exceptional tolerance for a woman who was being completely, overtly blown off by a big league ballplayer and big-time asshole.

“It was great.” He said this without barely turning around. To Lindsey, he asked, “Did they do mostly front shots, or from behind?”

Much as I wanted to, I didn’t hear the answer because Elizabeth leaned into my ear and said, “Get me the fuck out of here and I’ll never ask you for anything again.” Seemed like a reasonable deal. So I did.

Outside, in the fragrant air of a cool spring night, I said to her, “Well you don’t seem too upset about being ditched by one of the city’s most famous and eligible men.”

She replied, “I’m with another one right now. Life has a funny way of working itself out.”

Does it?

As soon as we stepped out of the restaurant, two hulking men in dark clothes began following us, but I should add here that my security detail had begun, and the two men, Gerry and Kevin, were part of it. I turned to them, handed over the containers and said, “Guys, the best pasta in town. As the waiters inside say, enjoy.”

As soon as we stepped away from them, Elizabeth whispered into my ear, such that I could feel her breath on my skin, “Jack, who the hell are they?”

“Boston’s finest,” I said in a normal voice. “Long story.” When I turned around, the guys tipped the containers of pasta to me in a show of thanks.

Elizabeth was walking close to me. After a few paces, she put her hand around my wrist like she used to do whenever we walked or sat on the couch together. She tried to be absent about it, nonchalant, but too much time had passed, and her very touch came as such a surprise that I’m pretty sure I flinched and I know she fumbled.

“Do you have your car?” she asked.

We were walking by a Porsche Boxter with the top down. I took a wild stab that it was the ballboy’s car. The license plate — FIELDR — kind of aided my guess.

“You don’t mind a convertible, do you?”

“Does it have dog fur all over the seats and remnants of Baker vomit on the floor?”

“Yes.”

“Good. It’s my favorite car in the world.”

She kept her hand wrapped around my wrist and walked in step with me, close. I didn’t know where this was going and my brain was too tired from the day to try to figure out if it might be someplace good. I was surrendering to emotion, which wasn’t necessarily a smart thing, but maybe not foolish either.

As we reached my car and I employed some of my good breeding to open the passenger-side door, a lone figure, a man, came walking out of a little grove of bushes. He was only about ten feet away and I immediately shot a look back at the cops, who were watching us, but they did nothing. I quickly helped Elizabeth into the car — maybe a bit too quickly. Assuming danger, I damn near shoved her inside.

I slammed the door shut and turned to face the figure, who continued walking directly toward me. I was bracing myself for gunfire, the piercing sound and the resultant pain. I had no idea why the officers weren’t stepping in. Were they already eating their linguine with the Tuscan meat sauce? Were they traitors, my cops?

He was walking around the front of my car now, looking at me through the dark, this oversized, almost bear-like man, black and full of flesh. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and I flinched, but rather than shoot me dead in the parking lot of Café Louis where I had a heart full of desire and a stomach full of grilled pizza and chocolate cake, he let his fingers fall absently on the metal hood and said, “Damned nice car. Wouldn’t I love one of these.”

The voice was so familiar, so soothing, and as he emerged from the shadows and into the streetlight, I saw the face of Hank Sweeney.

I smiled and asked, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“What, just because I’m sent out to pasture in Florida, that means I can’t come play in the city anymore?” He said this with a whimsical tone and a smile, like he was thrilled to be in his hometown.

I shook his hand. “Welcome back,” I said.

“Good to be here.”

He leaned on the car and reached into his shirt pocket for his cigarettes. I looked over at the bodyguards, who still hadn’t moved. Obviously they knew Sweeney had been waiting. They were probably the ones to tip him off on my whereabouts.

I opened the car door and gave Elizabeth a head nod to step out. As she did, I said, “Hank, Elizabeth, my, well, former friend. Elizabeth, Hank, a retired Boston Police detective.”

He looked at her, amused, and shook her hand.

“Exes, step-kids, half-kids, foster kids, rescue dogs. Things aren’t so simple these days, are they? I don’t know how everybody does it. Christ, I’ve been married to Mother for fifty years come July. She’s all I know, and at this age, she’s all I’ll ever know.”

“Nice to meet you,” Elizabeth said, flashing her disarming smile.

Sweeney looked at her, then at me. He seemed to grow aggravated, but I think it was fake. “Why the hell aren’t you still, ahem, friends with this young woman anymore? You lose your mind?”

Maybe, but also her fidelity.

Elizabeth said, smiling, “Life’s complicated.”

“Don’t I know it,” Sweeney replied, leaning back on the hood and nonchalantly lighting his cigarette.

Interesting as this philosophical exchange appeared to be, I’ll confess to being a little more than a little curious as to why he journeyed a thousand miles aboard a jet plane, tracked me down on a date at one of the nicest restaurants in town, and showed up at my car door unannounced. So I asked him, “Lieutenant, I hope you don’t mind me asking you this, but what the hell are you doing here?”

He stretched his arms over his head, blew out his first mouthful of smoke, then he yawned.

“Because I like the weather better up here,” he replied. “Because I like the Red Sox more than the Marlins. Because it doesn’t smell like age and disease. Because people drive at normal speeds. Because there are young people along with the old people.”

Elizabeth smiled at him — not one of her fake, polite smiles, but a full-on, crinkle-eyed smile. I didn’t.

Instead, I repeated myself. “Lieutenant, what are you doing here?”

He looked me flat in the face with his brown eyes that could have been that of a Boy Scout rather than a seventy-year-old man. Then he looked briefly at Elizabeth, and finally, down at the ground.

“Because there’s something I didn’t tell you,” he said, letting his eyes float back up to mine. “I think we need to talk.”