„One more time, David.“ The doctor regarded the crate with grave suspicion. „It was dropped off the back of an unmarked truck in the dead of night… but you don’t think Kathy stole it?“
The rabbi shook his head. „No, and neither do you.“
In Edward Slope’s opinion, the rabbi was too gentle to see the worst in others. He also believed that this gentle man regularly beat him at cards by sheer luck and not by the cunning of a born poker player. And, in truth, neither did the doctor believe that Kathy Mallory had stolen the crate, but she might delight in this accusation.
Perverse brat.
And if the truth were fully told, Edward Slope, her principal detractor, loved her unconditionally.
A screen door slammed, and they turned to see a short bulldog of a man walking toward them and grinning widely. „It’s all settled,“ he said. „Charles thinks the game was canceled.“
Edward Slope was still grappling with the concept of a surprise poker game. He faced the open garage, his eyes passing over all the discarded hobbies of Robin Duffy’s experiment in retirement from his legal practice. What a failure. The walls were lined with tools for home improvements, a half-finished canoe from the boat-building class and the potted remains of a dead herb garden.
Kathy Mallory was another one who did not deal well with drastic life changes. She had grown up in this neighborhood and lived across the street with her foster parents. The old house had burned down, leaving a messy hole in her landscape until another house had been raised on the same footprint of land. Every fourth week of the poker-game rotation, Edward had remarked on the progress of the builders, and, now that it was done, he could not claim to be shocked.
In the early stages of construction, he had recognized something familiar in the raw timbers, the bones of the house. The completed structure was exactly the same in every maniacal detail. This week, the shrubbery had been added, evergreens shaped the way Helen Markowitz had always pruned them. The young tree recently planted in the yard was different, of course – or was it? No, that tree was the same size when Kathy was a little girl. He recalled the night when Louis had come home with a birthday present for Helen, a genuine baby felon caught in the act of robbing a car. What a surprise. And the following week Edward had helped Louis to dig a hole and put a sapling into that same ground. This had long been the custom of the Markowitz family, planting a tree when a child was born – or snatched off the street during the commission of a felony.
Robin stood beside him now, admiring Kathy’s handiwork, as if what she had done was a normal thing. „The mailbox is the original. She saved it from the ashes.“
„What about… inside the house?“
„Just a few things,“ said Robin, „but the kid’s still working on it. Took her months to find Helen’s wallpaper pattern. The company went out of business, but she tracked down some rolls to a hardware store in Montana. The furniture’s a problem, too – all family heirlooms. Some of it dated back to the twenties. What a perfectionist, huh? Every piece has to be exactly the same. So she goes to estate sales on her days off.“ He glanced back at the crate in his garage. „That’s how she knew where to find the table.“ Robin entered the garage and selected a crowbar from the tools on the wall. „She says we can uncrate it to fit it through Charles’s door, but we can’t unwrap it yet. I think she’s afraid we’ll ding up the wood.“
Edward Slope had lost all interest in the surprise poker game. He continued to stare at the house across the street. He tried to imagine Kathy in there, restoring the furnishings of the dead to make her ghosts feel more at home. Or was it an act of pure defiance – creating this illusion that death had never come to her house? Either way, it was quite mad, but also tender, and this argued well for a human heart.
„Confidential?“ Mallory was outraged – genuinely this time – as Charles dragged her by the arm, and they moved inexorably down the hall to the elevator. „You don’t have patients!“ she yelled. „No practice!
You can’t claim protected status!“
„Yes, I can.“ Unperturbed, he pushed the button to bring the elevator.
He was so calm, as if forcibly dragging women around were an everyday thing with him. He would not release her arm while he waited for the elevator doors to open. „Nedda’s my patient,“ he said. „Anything she tells me is in confidence.“
„You’re making this up,“ said Mallory. „You don’t treat people. That’s not your line of work.“
„It is today.“ His head lifted to watch the lights of the elevator. „I think it might be my true calling. Who knows?“
„No, it’s just a stunt. You’re holding out on me – obstructing justice.“
„Well, that’s too bad.“
Something had gone very wrong with her day. Charles was turning against her, and Nedda Winter was responsible for this. Yes, it was Nedda’s fault, and he would see that once she had time to explain, to make up some new lie that he could believe in.
Mallory’s anger shut down, as if a switch had been thrown, a circuit closed. Charles’s hand was lightly covering hers, enclosing it in warmth. His grip tightened as he pulled her into the elevator with him, and she did not mind this. Human contact, flesh to flesh, was so rare in her life. She did nothing to encourage it, but when it came her way, her eyes closed to the slits of a purring cat. The elevator hummed with mechanical clicks and whirrs – her own song of the machine.
And the doors opened too soon.
He pulled her along toward the street door, maybe heading for a quiet cafe down the block. They would talk, and he – „Next time you drop by the office,“ he said, „you might give me a call first. I can’t have you running into my patient in the hallway.“ He let go of her hand, opened the door and put her out in the street – like a cat.
The door slammed.
She looked upward at the sky, and her lips parted with nothing to say. A car pulled up behind her and Riker derailed her thoughts of abandonment.
„Hey, Mallory!“
She turned to see a police cruiser with a uniform behind the wheel and her partner at the rear window, grinning, saying, „It’s a raid, kid. You wanna come?“ He opened the door in invitation, then waved a folded sheet of paper. „I got a warrant for the Winter family trust – all the documents we can carry.“
Behind the cruiser were a police van and two more vehicles driven by uniforms. The cherry lights were all spinning, engines revving up to tell her that it was time to take this road show uptown; they had lawyers to menace, files to pillage, a mess to make, real carnage – what a party.
Nedda was standing at the stove, adjusting the gas flame, when Charles walked into the kitchen, lured there by the aroma of Colombian coffee.
„You know,“ he said, „you and I might be the only people in town who know how to brew coffee in a percolator.“
„I’ve never made it any other way.“
And with those words, this woman, thirty years his senior, had won his heart. He had not lied to Mallory. Nedda would be his patient, and every fear of subsequent damage to himself was put aside. She had inspired him to be a braver man – a better one. And so he picked up their cups and led her back to the library. Over the next hour, her eyes brimmed with tears, and he felt the anguish. He also took over her sense of isolation, and her great fear of being alone. And when she told him of her plan to find a place of her own, he could not bear the idea. He was drowning in Nedda’s loneliness.
„Tell me how you got that warrant,“ Mallory demanded. „I went to three judges, and they stopped short of spitting on me.“
„You didn’t pick the right one, kid.“ And, fortunately, Riker was not a graduate of the Kathy Mallory Charm School. He turned to watch the cityscape flying by his window, then looked back to see his own personal caravan cutting through traffic and ignoring red lights. „I’ve been saving this judge for a rainy day. He used to be a civil-rights attorney. Loves the poor, hates the rich. God bless his liberal, left-wing ass.“