"I mean, I've been, we've…"
You're sleeping together. Mrs. Leigh, is it?" 'How in hell did you know?"
"Body language."
"Christ, is it that obvious?"
"My line of work. It can be kind of hard to hide that sort of thing.
Does Marge know?"
"Of course not! God."
"Somebody knows or you wouldn't be telling me. You're in trouble, right?
You're not confessing just to cleanse your soul,I take it."
"McNeil knows. The fucking prick. I think he made it his business to know, I think he's been following me."
"Why would he do that?"
"To have something on me-maybe in case I got something on him."
"Like?"
"Like this." Tee waved his hand at the crime scene.
"You think this is his work, whatever it is? That's kind of a leap, isn't it? If it's his work, why wouldn't he clean it up? He knows how to fuck up a crime scene."
"Maybe he didn't know we'd be here so soon. Maybe it happened last night and he didn't know what kind of mess he left behind. I don't think he even knew we were coming here this morning, Metzger didn't say what it was on the radio. But he tries to obstruct me every step I take. I have the strongest sense he wants to keep me out of it. And you.
He particularly wants to keep you out of it."
"And just what do you think it is? Are you still after him for the Johnny Appleseed business?"
"Well… yes."
"All I see so far is a stolen car and some blood. Maybe somebody cut himself, maybe he had a bloody nose."
"Maybe. Maybe it's all my imagination because I dislike the guy so much. But I'm not imagining that he knows about Mrs. Leigh. He's even singing it."
Becker chuckled.:'That's not funny either." 'Sorry. I guess it depends how far removed you are from it whether or not you see the humor. It does look kind of silly, at your age."
"Don't preach to me. Not you, of all people. Just because you're happy now."
"Are you that unhappy, Tee?" Becker asked softly.
"No." Tee shook his head. "No, that's the crazy thing.
I'm not unhappy."
"So, quit it. You wanted something different, you wanted to get laid and now you have. Enough already. Stop seeing her and how can McNeil hurt you?" Tee leaned his back against a tree trunk, arched his neck so that his face pointed toward the sky.
"I can't," he said mournfully.
"Why can't you?"
"I don't think I can stop seeing her. I need her."
"Is she that dependent on you?"
"No, no, you don't understand. I don't think she has any particular use for me. I'm just a diversion from a shitty marriage to an irresponsible jerk. I don't think she'd care if I never showed up again. Maybe not even notice."
Becker was silent for a moment, watching his friend's torture. When he spoke it was with compassion.
"Then why, Tee?" Tee stared a moment longer at the patchy blue showing through the leaf canopy. At first Becker thought he would not answer.
"I want to be in love with somebody," he said, his voice thick. "I need to be in love with somebody. I need to feel all that again."
"Yeah," Becker said, inaudibly.
"I don't expect you to understand," Tee said, still not looking at his friend. "Most men would think I'm crazy."
"I understand, Tee. I am in love."
"I know. Now. But what happens when you're not?" he asked, with a finality that suggested that the death of love was inevitable.
Becker could think only of platitudes and rejected them all, not wanting to insult his friend's pain with the easy thoughtlessness of a clichd.
After an uneasy silence, Metzger arrived with the dog.
"Well, shit," said Tee, coming to himself as he heard the car pull up the incline and stop by the treeline. "Let's be cops. With Metzger struggling to restrain the dog on a short leash, the men tracked Kiwasee's bloody trek to the water. McNeil, released from the car without explanation by Tee, followed them sullenly. Some signs of the struggle in the water remained in the prints and gouges on the bank, but it was the dog that led them to the island. And the grave.
When they uncovered Kiwasee's face, Tee gasped in recognition.
"You know him?" Becker asked.
"I think so. It's kind of hard to tell with the shape he's in. Looks like someone worked him over with an ax handle. That's Kiwasee, isn't it, McNeil?"
"Why you asking me?"
"For a fucking second opinion. Isn't that Tyrone Kiwasee? You brought him from Bridgeport."
"You're the one sat with him face-to-face for an hour. I _just had him in the back of the cruiser. I wasn't studying him. It could be Kiwasee. Or not."
"What would Kiwasee be doing here? Is he stupid enough to come back to Clamden and burgle some more?" Becker asked.
"Old Skids is pretty stupid. If that's him," McNeil said.
"Pretty unlucky, too," Becker said.
"How so? Other than being dead."
"He ran into somebody in these woods in the middle of the night who decided to kill him. That's pretty unlucky."
"How do you figure?" McNeil asked. "He was probably killed in Bridgeport and driven here by one of his buddies."
"If he was killed in Bridgeport, why did he start bleeding fifty yards away from here? Not only did he run into this guy, but one of them had a shovel with him."
"Why a shovel, why not a tree limb, an ax handle? A tire iron? You could beat a man like this with just about anything."
"Because it's hard to dig a hole this big with a tree limb or a tire iron. "
Becker and the others gently extricated Kiwasee's body from the grave and Becker felt through the dead man's pockets with one finger. When he found the car keys, he fished them out with his own keys. Behind the stolen car, Becker turned his pocket inside out and used the cloth to grasp the key as he tried it in the trunk. When the trunk opened, the dog went crazy. Metzger had to pull it away forcibly from the plastic trash bag that lay next to a flashlight and a muddy shovel flecked with blood.
Metzger locked the dog in his car while they opened the trash bag, and they could hear it going wild, trying to claw through the window.
15
Becker resorted to chicken breasts for dinner, a quick and handy solution when pressed for time. He pounded them thin, coated them in flour, dipped them in egg white-he had dispensed with whole eggs several years ago-and then in bread crumbs. With the addition of lemon juice or olives or tomatoes or capers he could create a number of different dishes, all of them acceptable to Jack, the true test of Becker's culinary efforts.
He had worked later than usual, helping with the minute examination of the car and woods where the bodies were found, and Karen had taken Jack shopping for new sneakers as soon as she arrived from New York. They came in as Becker was wilting greens on which to place the saut6ed chicken breasts. With the addition of rice, which Jack could eat by the bowlful, it made a decent meal, quick, attractive, and most important, devoured.
"We avoided the ones with flashing lights," Karen said, brandishing a sneaker box. "But just barely. We got the ones you can inject with helium, instead."
"so now you're able to leap tall buildings, Jack?"
"I don't know until she lets me try them on," Jack said, making an unsuccessful grab for the box. Karen lifted it out of his reach.
"ItIsjust that they're so expensive," Karen said. "I don't think they're actually intended to be worn."
"Drinks," Becker said, and pointed Jack to his chore of filling his own glass with milk, putting wineglasses at the places of the adults. "When I was a boy, we couldn't afford fancy sneakers. We just tied old rocks to our feet. And happy to have them too."
"He was a boy before my time," Karen said. "When I was a boy we had advanced to wooden shoes. We saved the rocks for socks."