"It's gonna rain, Bob," Kurt fretted, casting a baleful eye at the sky.
"Maybe not," the young cop put in, gazing northward himself. "Maybe it'll pass right over."
Bolinger nearly smiled, and held out his hand. "Bob Bolinger," he said.
"Vince Cubbins," the young man said. "But call me Cubby."
"How about a beer, Cubby?"
"I've got wine coolers," Kurt offered, dramatically zipping his Polo windbreaker against a gust.
"Beer sounds good," Cubby said.
Bolinger reached into the green Coleman and pulled out two cans of Foster's from under a stack of cellophane-wrapped bologna sandwiches. He opened them with a satisfying hiss, took a long swig, and began unmooring the boat.
He eased the boat away from the dock and made his way through the chop to a secret spot in the lee side of a cove where he had had some luck before. By the time they got there, everyone was spray-soaked. The sudden calm allowed the sun to warm them, but that only lasted long enough for Bolinger to set up the kids with some battered old fishing rods. The tall clouds blotted out the sun and rain sprayed down from above in warm, heavy sheets. The kids were gleefully drenched, while their dad was tucked in a dry corner of the boat under the roof next to his wife. Kurt had that I-told-you-so look on his face, and Bolinger thought he heard him mutter something about the whole thing being ridiculous. He was relieved when Cubby suggested another beer and Eileen got right in there with them. Whenever the call for alcohol came from a guest, it got Bolinger off the hook for looking like he had a problem.
For nearly an hour, it rained as hard as they drank. The downpour drummed the boat's flat tin roof like a thousand tap dancers, forcing them to raise their voices to be heard above the din. Bolstered by the children's glee, the beer, and his newfound ally, Bolinger ignored his brother's whining pleas to head back to shore. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the clouds stormed south and the sun shone brightly. The fish stopped biting, but the beers tasted better and better, and the laughter of Cubby's wife, Eileen, rang out clear across the cove, echoing off the rocky hillside. Even Kurt joined in by telling a funny story about how he'd tried to return a cordless phone he'd had for over a year.
Soon the whole crew was hungry, and while Kurt and his wife spooned yogurt from plastic cups, the rest of them threw down Bolinger's sandwiches, a simple selection of bologna on white bread sloppily dressed with either brown mustard or ketchup. By mid-afternoon it became unexpectedly warm, warm enough for a dip. Eileen stripped to her underwear and went in. Cubby followed in his shorts, while the kids tittered and pinched each other until the boy, who was ten, threw his older sister in. Bolinger sat in his own sweat smoking and smiling and forgetting about everything until Eileen thrust herself out of the water and onto the bow, where she stood soaking in the sun, a dripping-wet goddess.
"You're livin' right," he said later to Cubby. The two of them were sitting by themselves on Kurt's patio, trying to outlast the night.
Cubby only nodded. Everyone else had gone to bed long ago, and the conversation had finally begun to wane. A shooting star streaked across the vast dark sky, briefly outshining the mosaic of constellations.
"What's the worst you ever saw?" Cubby asked pensively.
"What do you mean?" Bolinger said, drawing on his Winston hard enough to make his face briefly glow in the orange light. His eyes were dark like empty pits.
"I mean, what's the worst thing you ever seen on a job?" Cubby asked, staggering out of his chair and over to the bushes where he could pee. Over his shoulder he said, "I mean you been at it a long time. You must have seen some bad shit."
Bolinger nodded. "Yup."
Cubby shook himself, zipped up, and began to pace back and forth. "I guess I'm wondering if you ever get used to it, or if there's things, some things, that you just never forget."
Bolinger considered. He hated to see the day end like this, but the kid really wanted to know, and Bolinger already had an affection for him. "I guess it depends on you. Some guys just start to laugh about it. They get hard on the inside. Hard and cold, but they seem pretty cheerful 'cause they're always looking for the humor in it, the dark humor. But me? I guess there's a couple things I'll never forget. Yeah, that's how I am. I just carry it around. I'm not saying it's a good way to be, probably not…"
Cubby nodded and was silent for a moment before he blurted out, "I saw a woman who was taped up and strangled and she was cut open like one of those frogs you dissect in high school biology class. Her guts were all over the place."
His voice was on the edge of hysteria and he spoke fast. "It was like a doctor or something operated on her. I can't get it out of my head. We heard the call, and I wanted to go on break, you know, get a coffee, we were due. But my partner, he was into that kind of stuff. He said we should go check it out." Cubby's voice broke off here like an adolescent's. "Everyone was there, but we got to the scene before the lab closed it down, and I go in there and saw it. I… I… Do you have something like that that you just can't let go of? Goddamn, it was almost two years ago, and it's affected everything for me, even my marriage. I used to be… you saw Eileen. You know what I'm saying? I think about it when I see her naked. It just comes into my mind and it… it affects me…"
Cubby was standing now in front of Bolinger, swaying drunkenly, with tears running down his face.
"I'm sorry, man," he said, suddenly coming to himself. He sat back down beside Bolinger and quietly opened another beer. They sat for quite some time. Bolinger began to think Cubby might have fallen asleep. Then he suddenly took a swig from his beer, and Bolinger said in a voice so low it was almost a whisper, "You don't know, do you, if her gall bladder was missing?"
"How'd you know that?" Cubby said, staring suspiciously at him.
"Did she have anything to do with the law, not police work, but lawyering?"
"She was in her third year at Emory Law School," Cubby said, after a shocked pause.
Bolinger felt a shot of energy go through him. Most people thought that law enforcement agencies from around the country had some clearinghouse for information. But unless it was a federal crime with the FBI involved, bizarre crimes even within the same state were never matched up with similar crimes unless by rare chance. Cops searching for similar crimes and desperate for clues would often send out a Teletype to neighboring jurisdictions soliciting information, but typically such requests went unanswered. Then, every once in a great while, things got matched up by sheer luck. Bolinger got up out of his chair.
"Where you going?" Cubby asked.
"To make some coffee," Bolinger told him. "I gotta go to work."
CHAPTER 9
"I need a favor."
Tony looked at Casey across the room with a wry smile and said, "I'm supposed to be the one who asks for favors."
"I know, but I need you to do some digging for me," she said. She had spent the entire weekend with the Lipton files, coming out of her office only for a dinner with her husband and some friends. "I know how I can win, but I need some serious background information."
"On who?" Tony said.
"Donald Sales," she said.
"The dead girl's father? Why?" He was incredulous. He knew one of her favorite strategies was to suggest to the jury a viable alternative to who committed the crime. "You're not going to try to pin it on him, are you?"
"He very well could be the killer," she said. She didn't mention that the idea had originated with Lipton.
"Oh, give me a break!" Tony scoffed. "Come on, Casey, if that's the best you've got, you might as well start asking the DA for a plea."
"Look," she said, "I don't tell you how to get the TV cameras to a press conference. I want you to look into him for me, and I want you to do it now. I know already that he's not mentally stable."
"In what way?" Tony asked, stroking his beard.