Rebecca stuck her head out of the kitchen door, lit up in a smile. ‘Oh, there you are. I’m so glad you’re still here.’ She crossed over and gave him a kiss on the cheek, snuggled up against him.
He kissed her back. ‘I’m glad I’m still here too. Where’s Cassandra?’
She remained plastered against him. ‘She forgot to bring clothes, you know, but I told her she could borrow some of mine. She wanted to make sure that was OK.’
‘I’m sure that would be fine.’
‘Is she going to school? ’Cause she’s missed the last few days, you know.‘ Rebecca lowered her voice. ’She’s a little nervous, I think.‘
‘About what? Missing school?’
She shook her head. ‘She’s worried she’s going to have to move. She said you were helping them, but she’s still worried.’
‘She told you about that?’
‘Dad,’ Rebecca said seriously. ‘We tell each other everything. She is like my best friend.’ She checked to see that they were still alone. ‘She’s all worried about something else, too. Do you know Marie?’
Hardy nodded. ‘I met her yesterday. She seems like a nice lady.’
‘Well, why’s her dad with her when her mom only died like a month ago?’
‘Maybe they’re just friends.’
Rebecca’s expression was startlingly adult. ‘Dad. I’m sure. Cass thinks maybe her dad was already having an affair, before her mom died. She thinks that would be awful.’
‘Well…’
She whispered urgently. ‘You and Mom aren’t with other people, too, are you?’
Hardy pulled her close to him. ‘No, hon. We’re only with each other. Promise. And we’re going to stay that way.’
‘Cross your heart?’
He made an X on his chest. ‘Hope to die.’ He gave her a pat. ‘OK, now you’d better go tell her she can wear your clothes or you’re all going to be late for school.’
‘Oh!’ She all but ran to deliver the news.
Hardy’s eyes followed her out of the room. Then he glanced down at the pages on the table in front of him. Casually, he flipped through Canetta’s autopsy. All the technical minutiae of violent death, as it had been with Griffin – state of rigor, body temperature, contents of stomach, angle of bullet entry. It was all too familiar and too ugly.
He picked up the pages and tossed them back into his briefcase, and closed it over them. He stood, took a deep breath, and went into the kitchen to face the chill.
They all got to Merryvale a few minutes early, and Hardy went in, out of Cassandra’s presence, to explain the situation to Theresa Wilson. Lying, he told her that he expected and had been instructed to tell her that both Beaumont children would be back in school tomorrow. Since she and Hardy had last talked, he’d been retained by Mr Beaumont and they’d been watching Cassandra while a few last-minute legal maneuvers were carried out.
Max was staying with some other friends out of town and should be back in school by the next day. Hardy was sorry for any inconvenience, grateful for her forebearance, but Ron had been afraid of the police jumping to the wrong conclusions – as they had with Hardy’s own wife – and he hadn’t wanted to subject his children to that trauma and upheaval.
‘I understand,’ Mrs Wilson told him from behind the doors of her office. ‘I might have done the same thing myself. How is Frannie holding up, by the way? I read that she might be getting out of… her situation today.’
Hardy, going for the Academy Award for Best Actor, conveyed that he wasn’t happy about what had taken place with his wife, but he was no longer worried. Everything was under control. ‘I’m going down to pick her up right now,’ he said.
‘Well, then, you mustn’t let me keep you. God speed.’
Hardy walked across the parking lot and stopped by the door to his car. Back toward the school, cars were still pulling up and letting out other children. The fog, he realized, had only made a token effort this morning, and now there was even a hint of sunshine in the sky. He made out a small knot of kids standing by a bicycle rack, his daughter was among them. And Cassandra Beaumont.
Hidden in plain sight.
38
An objective observer would have concluded that the two men standing on the curb of Church Street were business associates working out some tedious details in their latest deal. Both were close to the same age, in good physical shape, and conservatively dressed in business suits – one of them an Italian double-breasted with a deep olive tone, the other a Brooks Brothers charcoal with a microscopic maroon pinstripe.
A closer look would uncover a different truth. Both of the strong, perhaps even handsome faces were landscapes of strain and fatigue. And the deal was not going well.
Listen:
‘I want to see her.’
‘Not until after you’ve testified.’
‘How’s this? I won’t testify until I do.’
Pin-stripe smiled coldly. ‘Maybe you’re forgetting that I’ve still got her. It’s pretty straightforward. You want to get your daughter back, I want my wife. We trade. That’s the deal. That’s the only deal.’
‘You son of a bitch.’
‘Maybe. But at least an honest son of a bitch.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means I haven’t lied to you.’
‘As though I have?’
‘Do you think I’m an idiot? Are you telling me you wouldn’t have packed them both up and been gone when I got here this morning?’ A pause. ‘That’s what I thought, so don’t shit me. I did what I had to do. Your daughter’s safe.’
‘Except for the trauma you’ve-’
‘Not even that. She’s not even going to know any of this happened. Not unless you force me.’
The Italian suit walked off a few steps and the other followed.
‘I’m the only friend you’ve got. Don’t you understand that by now? Nobody’s going to touch you until you tell your story.’
He whirled around. ‘And after that?’
‘After that, if you’re telling the truth, you’ve got nothing to worry about.’
‘If I’m telling the truth? I am telling the truth.’
A long silence. Finally the man in pin-stripes stepped off the curb, around to the driver’s side door of a late model Honda. ‘Get in the car.’
With over an hour to kill before Marian Braun’s courtroom was called into session, Hardy didn’t want to push his luck by entering the Hall of Justice. If he and his prisoner should run across Scott Randall or Peter Struler, he considered it a dead certainty that somehow they would get Ron into custody. Hardy would be powerless to stop them if they initiated the booking process under whatever guise.
Lou the Greek’s was dark and private enough. Few if any of the morning drinkers were going to look up and recognize anybody. Most of them had personal, more desperate agendas of their own for being there at that hour and one of them – David Freeman – was working. He was on the first stool at the end of the bar, just as he and Hardy had decided the night before.
A couple of steaming mugs of coffee rested untouched on the table between Ron and Hardy.
‘Rita Browning? Where did you get that?’ Ron was shaking his head, apparently mystified. He faced the back wall in the farthest booth from the front door. ‘No,’ he said.
Hardy was across from him, where he could see anyone who entered. ‘You’re asking me to believe she wasn’t one of your credit card names?’
‘I don’t care what you believe, but that’s right. Rita Browning?’ There wasn’t any humor in the moment, but Ron almost chuckled. ‘Look, I might not be the most masculine guy in the world, but do you really think I could pass as a Rita Browning?’
This, Hardy had to say, was a reasonable point.
Ron amplified it. ‘And what was I supposed to use it for?’
‘To pay the mortgage on another apartment in your building.’
An expression of apparently real perplexity. ‘Which one?’
‘Nine oh two.’
Ron thought about it for second, and finally reached for one of the coffee mugs and took a sip. ‘And why would I want to do that – have another apartment in my own building?’