A Crack in Everything Read online

  Visitors with voices like hacksaws strolled past the open door.

  Lauren adjusted her bed jacket, pulling it tightly around her. “This is all my fault. If I had ended the affair years ago, Chaz would be alive now.”

  “Lauren, you are not responsible for the crimes of a madman.”

  “But if I hadn’t talked to that reporter…”

  “You? I thought it was Tyre, leaking his version of your story.”

  “I never spoke to him, or Gordon. My courage failed. I wasn’t ready to take a step I couldn’t retreat from. But I wanted to do something for Roddie and the Globe seemed like my best bet.” She shrank into the pillows. “I thought I could at least counter negative publicity. The reporter drew out more than I meant to say, and twisted it.”

  “And then pulled more out of Tyre. The media always get the last word. That’s why the rest of us need blogs and spin-doctors. You should have called Gordon.”

  “I needed to act. Even a decapitated chicken needs to act.” A touch pad hung from the bed frame, and she used it to lower her mattress a notch. “So what did I accomplish? I alerted the world, and especially Glenn, to my close friendship with Chaz.”

  Lauren’s incessant self-blame was demoralizing me. “Glenn could’ve learned about you some other way. Maybe Johanna knew, and told him. Stop whipping yourself.”

  But she couldn’t stop. “If Glenn knew about me before I talked to the press…” Her face collapsed. “What if he’d come the night I left Delia home alone?”

  “He didn’t. And you weren’t gone all that long.”

  “A minute was all he needed.” Her eyes darted to the window. “And I was gone for hours.”

  I had to catch my breath. “Chaz?”

  Her face turned an ugly red. “Yes,” she said. “Yes. Yes. I didn’t have car trouble. That was a lie. Chaz phoned Saturday afternoon. Begged me to meet him that evening, said he had to work out some things with me.” She squeezed her hands together, jerking the drip line. “I couldn’t say no, but I knew I’d have trouble getting a sitter on such short notice. I ended up leaving Delia alone with cartoons and enough junk food to last all night. Though I expected to be back sooner.”

  I’d thought Lauren had nothing more to say that could shock me. “Chaz couldn’t wait? There was no other time he could talk?”

  But I remembered how he had persuaded me to meet him that Monday night, how I’d disrupted my schedule, shortchanged my obligation to Roddie. And I hadn’t been in love with the man.

  “He wanted to talk on Friday, but we barely had time to pick up the voter surveys. Something came up at the last minute, he told me, so we couldn’t even stop for coffee.”

  “Wait. You’re losing me. You were with Chaz on the Friday before he died?”

  “At the printer’s. When I couldn’t fit all the surveys in my car I called him. He’s the friend who helped me. He met me there and took most of the cartons back in his SUV.”

  “They found pieces of Roddie’s rope in the Lexus. Did they come from you?”

  “I’m to blame for that, too. I’d brought a couple of coils to the printer’s so I could use the roof rack. I tied up a few cartons but nothing held. The ropes must have dropped off when Chaz loaded his car.”

  “Glenn or anybody with access to the Lexus could have found the rope,” I said, “and obviously did.”

  “For awhile, in my misery, I even fantasized that Roddie had killed Chaz.” Her tea got cold while she brooded.

  “What time did you and Chaz meet on Saturday?” I said.

  “We didn’t. I got to Spaal’s at six and waited two hours. He never showed up.”

  Because he was already dead, I thought, but couldn’t bring myself to say.

  Lauren smoothed the orange blanket that clashed with her bed jacket. “My necklace saved me. Did Roddie tell you? He had it made for me, years ago. It’s some super hard alloy from a company he’d invested in just before it went belly-up. He lost his shirt on that one.” She started to laugh, then bit her lip. “Think about it, Susan. Years later, Roddie’s worst investment saved my life.” Her laughter came in waves, and then of course, she started crying again.

  I went out and came back with more tea. Lauren pretended to drink it, and I pretended to read a pamphlet about kidney stones. My eye skipped over the pages, and when Lauren gave up on her tea, I asked, “Where did you vanish to after Tyre took Roddie in? No one could reach you until…” Until I found you bleeding to death on your kitchen floor.

  “I was with Chaz’s mother, at Idlebrook. It was a way to be near him. After I talked to the reporter, everything drained out of me. Guilt, love. I wanted to hide. I stayed with Cordy for twenty-four hours. I felt safe there.”

  Nothing made sense, but I understood.

  Outside, the day looked like it would go on forever, but traffic was picking up. This morning at police headquarters, when Roddie came to take Delia to Maine himself, he’d been so worried about Lauren that I’d committed to spend the afternoon with her. There were many uncomfortable hours left on my promise.

  A knock, and Odette waltzed in carrying scarlet roses in a vase. “How’s the patient?” No mushy demonstrations from this retired judge, just a sage-blue shift that softened the brass in her hair. Like some extravagant goddess of summer she breezed across the room and bestowed her gift. “From my garden. I snipped off the thorns.”

  Lauren buried her face in the petals and came up with pollen on her chin. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.”

  Next, the goddess turned her force on me. “Susan! I left a message with your service. That Deirdre, what a hoot! I told her I was inviting you to my house tomorrow for a working lunch, and she suggested going vegan to compensate for the horrors of eating and working at the same time. Vegan! For heaven’s sake, I’m French!”

  Before I could comment, she’d relieved Lauren of the flowers and was dragging a bench to the bedside, settling in. “So, did Roddie get Delia to Maine?”

  Guilty Lauren bit her lip, to keep from crying, again. “They made it in three hours. No speeding ticket!”

  “Three hours I can believe. But no ticket? Bunk. Roddie always gets caught.” Odette chuckled, and Lauren’s cheeks pinked up under her needy brown eyes.

  “He told me you’ve agreed to manage his campaign,” Lauren said. “I’m so glad.”

  “Well, well.” Odette fingered her pearls. “I’m glad too.”

  If there was ice between them, it was fast melting. In their different ways, both women loved my candidate, I thought. Now more than ever.

  “Let me tell you what Roddie was like when he worked for my husband.” Odette gathered us around her and for half an hour made Roddie’s early struggles sound like glorious escapades. “Even thirty years ago, he loved to ‘push the envelope’ as you young people say. Always ready for battle. If he’d been a medieval knight, his coat of arms would’ve read…what’s Latin for try-and-stop-me?” Her noisy laughter made even Lauren smile, which was surely the point of the performance. “And he hasn’t changed. That’s why he’s going to win his election.”

  She touched a finger to her lips. “Shh. Susan, I think you’re being paged.”

  Garbled words filtered in from the hall: Calypso, Susan Calypso.

  At the nurse’s station a man in whites handed me a phone. I heard a double click, then someone breathing asthmatically in my ear. “Nino Biondi’s gonna wake up in jail if he doesn’t quit jerking me around. So’s your nosy cop friend.”

  Peter Lombard. I recognized the rasp.

  “My lawyer sent you a demand letter this morning, Susie. I’m going to sue you for fraud, slander, and harassment.”

  “Peter, what’s this all about?”

  “I want you disbarred.”

  “I’ll bet you do. You have five seconds to tell me what’
s on your mind, or I hang up.”

  “If Nino Biondi tries to enforce the Cambridge agreements, I will hold you personally liable. Call off your dogs and I’ll call off the lawsuit.”

  “What dogs?”

  “That’s the deal, Susie.” Then the creep hung up on me.

  Whether to leave immediately, or keep my promise to Roddie was the tricky dilemma I tried to resolve on my way back to Lauren’s room. Lauren no longer required my company, and if Nino had turned tables on Lombard, I needed to prepare him for Lombard’s fist. From the doorway, I watched the remorseful wife and the perceptive judge sitting together in a comfortable silence I hated to interrupt. “That phone call. I really ought to take care of it.”

  “Go on, go.” Odette shooed me away like a farmer dismissing a chicken. “Lauren and I have so much to talk about. We’ll plan Roddie’s victory party. And Susan, you will have lunch at my house tomorrow, won’t you? Or tea if you can’t make lunch? Or supper. Midnight snack. Whatever it takes to reel you in. I’m wearing two hats now and the paperwork is killing me.”

  Paperwork? Again? But who could resist Odette? “No problem. See you tomorrow at noon.” I gave Lauren a careful hug, and drove directly to Tavola Rustica, mulling over Lombard’s threat.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The Price of Betrayal

  Benny’s sneakered feet danced on the burners and the ledge. Lost in the music inside his head, he jumped from side to side, flicking his rag at the firewall, buffing the quilted steel, making it shine. Tavola was empty and locked, and Benny danced with the abandon of shy people who know they’re alone. When I knocked on the glass door, his head music stopped. Rag in hand, he climbed down and let me in. “Hi, Susie. You hungry?” He sounded like his boss, even dressing like Nino in plaid shirt and baggy pants.

  “No time, Benny. Where’s Nino?”

  “In bed. Only gets up for lunch anymore.”

  Not good, but there was nothing I could do about it. With time on his hands, Nino was probably drinking himself into a coma every afternoon.

  I followed Benny across the main dining room, tables set for tomorrow.

  “I got soup left over.”

  “I could use a little something.” I sat down at the scrubbed worktable behind the counter. Benny moved his bucket off the stove, heated the minestra di funghi, and served it in a bowl the size of Rhode Island. The flavor was as dusky and deep as a fairy tale forest, and the mushrooms dissolved on my tongue. “This is fantastic,” I said. “Did you make it?”

  He nodded and placed a crusty roll next to my bowl. “Nino showed me. I made the bread, too. Someday, I’m going to own this restaurant.”

  “Maybe you will.” Why not? As Nino had told me, Benny was coming along. If he could cook like this, he could find a business partner, though the trick would be finding one who wouldn’t take advantage of his fragile intelligence. “Do me a favor, Benny? Pop into Nino’s apartment and see if he’s really asleep.”

  He backed against a chair and fell into it. “Do I have to? If he’s awake he’ll yell at me. Nino’s not nice anymore. I like it when he sleeps.” The dread in Benny’s voice was new to me. I had never seen him afraid.

  “All right. Let’s not wake him. Maybe you can help me.”

  The old eagerness returned and he put his hands on his knees, cocking out his elbows exactly as Nino did. “Sure I can.”

  “Do you know who Peter Lombard is?”

  “Nino’s boss.”

  “Close enough,” I said. “Has Nino been yelling at Mr. Lombard, too?”

  He nodded. “Lombard’s got to give him thirty pieces of silver. I heard him say it.”

  Thirty pieces of silver. The price of betrayal. Nino wanted blood money, because Lombard’s thugs had bloodied him. And ironically, the hated Cambridge deal was Nino’s lever, the threat of its enforcement. No wonder Lombard had tracked me down in the hospital. “Will Nino be awake this evening, do you think?” I said.

  He shrugged. “Nino sleeps all the time since that man hurt him.”

  That man hurt him. “Benny?” I tried to keep the excitement out of my voice. “Can you see the alley from your apartment?”

  “Uh, huh.”

  “You just told me a man hurt Nino. Tell me what you saw.”

  He froze. I could hear him not breathing.

  “I didn’t see nothing.”

  “Benny? Please?”

  He shut his eyes, his face at war with his heart. “I heard something. A big noise.”

  “Did you look out your window? Please tell me, Benny. Nino needs your help.”

  The bucket sat at his foot, dirty water with a float of suds. He wrapped his fingers around the handle. “I saw Nino on the ground. Somebody walking away. That’s all I saw.” He stood up and edged toward the stove.

  I left my chair and crowded after him. “Did you see the man’s face?”

  “No!” His ears flamed. He stared at the floor. Not a good liar, Benny. “I don’t know.” Without warning, he leaped onto a front burner, bucket and all, sloshing water on my shoulder. “I don’t want to tell you. You’ll yell at me.”

  “I promise I won’t yell. Whatever you say, I’ll still like you.” My hip bumped the stove, a black iron affair with enough burners for two Tavolas. I stared at him, willing him to tell me what he knew. “You’ll be helping the police catch that bad man.”

  Tears flooded his eyes, and he swiped at them. “Your friend did it.”

  “Which friend?” I reached for his ankle, but the stove was immense, and the recess was deep, and he darted away. “Benny! Which friend?”

  He clattered backward over the burners until his feet bumped the firewall. Both hands plunged into his bucket for the rag. When he found it, he wrung it out and wrung it out. “Your friend who gave me ten dollars for my tip. I gave him the good grappa, and Nino got mad.”

  My heart continued to beat. My eyes may have blinked. “The man I brought here two weeks ago?”

  Benny nodded. “He kicked Nino. I saw him.”

  Chaz. Not Lombard’s thugs. With nightmare clearness, I saw Nino lying in the alley, Chaz’s foot slamming into his head. For a moment rage overwhelmed me and, for a moment, I rejoiced that Chaz was dead. “I’m leaving, Benny. When Nino wakes up, tell him to call me.”

  Fear returned to Benny’s face. “It’s a secret, what I saw. Don’t tell, or your friend will come back and hurt me, too. Then Nino will never give me the restaurant.”

  “He’s not my friend, Benny. And he can’t hurt you. He’s dead.”

  At the door, I turned for a last goodbye, but Benny didn’t notice. His feet weren’t dancing now. He was standing motionless, all but his right arm which was soaping the firewall. Back and forth it went. Back and forth, like a metronome.

  ***

  Feeling vulnerable, I fastened my seat belt. The Beemer lurched ahead, gears vibrating like dentist drills. It was immensely worse than I’d realized. Chaz hadn’t merely used my own inclinations against me. He had written the script.

  Militantly innocent, Michael had once called me. Oh, please. Giddily naive was more like it. Chaz hadn’t heard about me from Political Notes, or from Lauren. Lombard had told him that I, with my power of attorney, was the key to the treasure. Chaz’s plan to hurt Nino must have been locked in from the start, while Lombard looked the other way.

  Empty and cold, I drove home. There was no solid core at the center of the onion. Everything was a lie. That was the only truth. I sat in my driveway under the purple sky. Still as ice, I waited for the evening star, Jupiter tonight. Then I put truth out of my mind and went into the house.

  From my kitchen, I chased after Lombard, but his voice mail held me at bay. Deirdre was my own barrier, an all too human, leaky one. I checked in to see if Michael had called, and he hadn’
t, anymore than he’d tried to reach me on my cell. My miserable mood got ugly then. I began by complaining about Lombard. “How could you tell that man where to reach me? He threatened me. In a hospital!” As I carped, I paced, trying to walk off my anger.

  “Mr. Lombard is a wounded spirit,” Deirdre said. “He lashes out because it helps him feel balanced. The sound of his own voice relieves his fear.”

  “You are driving me nuts with that bogus talk!”

  At once she fell silent, letting me barge full steam ahead.

  “Balance! Healing! Get a life, Deirdre.” I hung up without saying goodbye, then regretted my surliness. Though not enough to call Deirdre back.

  I carried a cup of tea to the table and stared out the window. In the shadowy garden, the foxgloves waved their delicate paws. When absolute darkness fell, I abandoned my tea and lingered with Graham Greene in my clawfoot tub. There are times when a bath and a book console more than the arms of a lover.

  When I woke, it was Thursday, and I had slept for six hours, the unbroken sleep of the innocent, or the psychopath. Sleep had miraculously washed away the power of Chaz’s treachery to wound me. Lauren and Delia and Nino were safe. As was I. The gods had been kind, yet again.

  In the kitchen, the toast popped up and the wall phone rang and I managed both deftly. That the call was from Michael added roses to my day.

  “Did you sleep well with your butt in the bushes?” I said.

  “Like a baby in my clean, dry tent. I just heard about Glenn Renfrow. You all right?”

  “Still in shock, but not about Glenn.” I shoved the barely beige bread back into the toaster and told him all I’d learned from Benny. “Chaz put Nino in the hospital, with me and my power of attorney as backup.”