Thick as Thieves

Epilogue

It is February, and Stockbridge lies under a blanket of new snow. The storm that spread it moved on before dawn, and the morning sky is blue and painfully bright. Carr wears sunglasses to shovel and salt the drive, the front steps, and the stone walk out to the mended gate, and he keeps them on while he drinks a cup of coffee on the porch and watches a town plow throw pillars of snow into the air. When his coffee is gone, he stacks bales of newspaper into his pickup-yet another load for the recycling center. The bed is nearly full when a black Mercedes pulls into the drive. Carr pushes his sunglasses into his hair and takes off his gloves.

A liveried driver walks carefully around the car and opens the rear door. Mr. Boyce emerges, too large to have ever fit inside. He squints in the glare, turns up the collar of his black overcoat, and smiles.

“I thought I might be too early,” Boyce says. His deep voice is somehow muffled in the snow.

“I’m up with the chickens,” Carr says. “But I wasn’t expecting visitors.”

“I thought I’d tell you in person that the money’s finally settled.”

“About time.”

“Declan doesn’t make anything easy.”

Carr nods and crosses his arms on his chest. “Tell me the final numbers.”

“After expenses, et cetera, the recovery netted seventy-eight five, of which a third stays with me, and two-thirds-that’s fifty-two million and change-goes to you. Per your instructions, ten of that goes to Bessemer’s kid-”

“Simon.”

“To Simon Bessemer, of Boothbay Harbor, Maine; another five to Maureen Shepherd, of Eugene, Oregon-Dennis’s mother; and five more to Elaine Geller, of Bethpage, Long Island-Bobby’s sister.”

“What about Mike?”

“There might be an aunt in San Diego. We’re still looking.”

“And Valerie?”

Boyce shakes his head. “Daniel Finch and Dawn Schaffer-the mother went back to her maiden name-both deceased, no siblings.”

Carr lets out a breath that hangs in the air like a ghost. “Finch,” he says quietly, “that was her name? Valerie Finch?”

“ Anne Finch,” Boyce says. “That was her real name. Anne Elizabeth Finch.”

Carr swallows hard and stares for a while at a snow-covered fir. “Her parents… do you know where they’re buried?”

“In Texas, at a place near Austin.”

“Both of them, in the same place?”

“Same place. Why?”

“I want to get something-a stone or something-near her parents. Could you-”

Boyce nods. “What do you want on it?”

“Just her name,” Carr says.

The plow passes again, going in the other direction, and the chains sound to Carr like sleigh bells. He and Boyce watch as it recedes down the road, and then Boyce takes an envelope from his coat.

“It’s a statement,” he says. “It lays out the recovery, the expenses, the split-everything.”

“What about the tax situation?”

“That too. You’re square there-with the feds and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts-all documented and paid up, as far as they’re concerned.”

“Thanks,” Carr says, and tucks the envelope in his back pocket. “And thanks for the courier service.”

“I figured I’d see for myself how you’re doing.”

Carr shrugs. “I’m still racking up the frequent-flyer miles at the dump and the recycling center, and they throw rose petals at my feet at the hardware store.”

“How’s your dad?”

“Some days he reads to me from the FT, other days I read to him, and then there are the days he craps his pants. It’s up and down, but the general trend is down. He’s dying.”

Boyce nods gravely. “And the help situation?”

“A new one started Monday. She’s a few years out of nursing school, worked in a dementia unit, over in Springfield. Nice kid, very eager. I figure she’ll last two weeks.”

“Say the word, and I’ll have Margie back tomorrow. She did fine with him before, and it would give you a break for a while. A little time to do something else.”

“Something else?”

“I’ve always got something else that needs doing.”

“I have my hands full here,” Carr says.

“Any thoughts about what you might do… afterward?”

Carr tenses at the word. “Not a one.”

“A man’s got to do something.”

“Maybe not. I’ve got a lot of money now.”

“I don’t see you as the idle type.”

“I just need some practice.”

Boyce smiles and shakes his head. “You sure about Margie-about taking a break? This sort of thing… it can be long, and none of it is easy.”

Carr shrugs again. “He’s my father.”

Mr. Boyce nods and grips Carr’s hand. He walks to his car, and the driver comes around to get the door. Boyce pauses and turns back to Carr. “You never ask about them-about Declan and Tina. Not once.”

“There’s nothing I want to know,” Carr says, and Mr. Boyce folds himself into his Mercedes and is driven away.

Carr brings his coffee mug inside. The front hall is warm and smells of soap and floor wax and fresh paint, and the living room smells of apple wood from the fire he built the night before. He raises the shades and white winter light pours in and pools on every polished surface-the floorboards, the andirons, the silver bowl on the mantel, the silver frames atop the gleaming black piano.

The frames are empty still-the photographs of Carr’s parents lost in Prager’s toolshed, or in the storm, or maybe to the sea-and the glass panes are like black windows. Arthur Carr has assured him that there are other photos of them- just as damned blurry -in a box somewhere in the attic, but Carr has yet to look. It’s freezing up there now, and there are dozens of boxes to search, and Carr knows that in these matters his father is not reliable.

Carr straightens the frames on the piano, carries his coffee mug to the kitchen, and raises every window shade along the way.