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He didn’t call the cops, but he did phone us, getting the answering machine.
I took a tentative sip. It was very expensive bourbon. “But he called us from Grace’s phone.”
Russo nodded. “In the fight, he was trying to get Grace. Part of her purse spilled on the street. He ended up with her cell, which looked exactly like his.”
Peralta said, “Why wouldn’t he know it wasn’t his phone when he didn’t find you on the favorite calls?”
“My number had to be memorized,” Russo said. “Security. Felix didn’t realize he had the wrong phone until he had called me and was in the middle of calling you.”
But he never made a second call to us. I asked why not.
“He passed out. You’ve got to understand, he wasn’t as physically capable as he once was. He wore a prosthetic leg and was in constant pain. The next thing he knew, he was in the hospital. And Grace was dead. It was two weeks before he could come to Phoenix and see you. He still had her phone.” Russo paused and suddenly slammed his fist into his leg.“And now he’s dead, too.”
I went through the names: Larry and Andrew Zisman, Bob Hunter, and Edward Dowd. They drew no reaction from Russo.
Peralta said, “And Felix?”
Russo set his glass down carefully into the brass cup holder on the teak table. “I helped arrange for his mother to bring his body home for a funeral in Indiana. I promise you, she’ll never want for anything. She’s lost both her children. It’s a hell of a thing.”
He seemed like as decent a master of the universe as there probably was, and he was at loose ends. Still, I couldn’t finish his premium booze. I kept thinking how far ahead we would have been if Peralta’s old war buddy had called us sooner. Tim might still be alive. The baby would be safe. It was all I could do to keep from exploding.
He ran a hand down his face and stared at Peralta. “Shit, Mike. How could this happen? I’ve lost them both. Who would do this? Why?”
I had a pretty good idea who had done it. I didn’t know why.
33
As we drove back and I reported on my lunch meeting, Lindsey texted me that she and Sharon were going shopping—she needed to load up on moisturizers now that she was back in the desert—and she would be home by six. I wanted to go back to Sunnyslope but Peralta vetoed that. So I let him drop me off at home.
With the house to myself, I lay down on the bed and actually started reading the biography of George Frost Kennan that had languished on the table for months. But it did not transport me away from this age of “business casual,” tattoos on pretty women, and dunces saying, “No worries!” The perspective it gave me on geopolitics then and now was quickly forgotten. It was not the author’s fault.
Too many anxieties hammered on my brain. Edward Kevin Dowd, killing machine, was foremost among them. In these insidious little moments, I noticed Lindsey’s suitcases remained in the guest room, only partly unpacked. Was that because of the investigation she had been thrust into, or was her stay here only temporary?
I couldn’t stop myself from inconspicuously rifling her bags. I fancied myself a good burglar. I persuaded myself that I was guarding my heart by trying to figure if she was going again. But my breathing was also the fast pant of the voyeur. What did I think I would find? Photos and videos of my wife being impaled by another man? Billets-doux?
I found it inside one zippered compartment: an envelope, addressed to me. It had a stamp, too, but had never been mailed. In fact, it had never been sealed and inside were pages of Crane stationery. Now every electron of good judgment in my body was telling me: Stop, put this away, go no further!
Of course I ignored them. Out came the personalized stationery I had bought for her two Christmases ago. I carefully unfolded it. Hers was not a generation that had been forced to learn and stick with cursive handwriting. “Keyboard proficiency” on a computer mattered more. Instead, Lindsey’s block printing was instantly recognizable.
The letter addressed to me was dated May first.
Dear History Shamus,
This is not a “Dear John” letter but it’s going to hurt. But please read all the way through. I’m trying to express things I don’t know how to say when we’re together. You’re so good with words and thinking on your feet. I freeze up. So I’m going to try this way.
I said terrible things to you. I don’t blame you for what happened to Emma. You know this, right?
As Robin probably told you, I had a baby when I was seventeen. It was probably a cry for help, as they say, from the one who always had to be grown up, always had to be the good girl. Linda called me a slut and put the baby up for adoption and I only got to hold him once. I didn’t tell you this when we started dating because I still felt ashamed. And as the years went by, I always wanted to find the way to tell you, but couldn’t. Like I said, I don’t have your gift of words.
After that, I thought I didn’t want to try again. I wouldn’t make a good mother. There’s madness in my bloodline. But when we conceived Emma, I realized I had been lying to myself. I wanted a child so much, a child with you. A child we could raise with the love and sanity I never had growing up, and the mother and father you never had. And everything inside both of us, good and bad, could go into the future. And maybe that child would remember us kindly and carry that memory with her, too, and pass it on to her children.
When the miscarriage happened, I went crazy. They say people have a “fight or flight” instinct. Mine was flight. So when the governor offered me the job at Homeland Security, I grabbed it and flew. There’s no excuse for leaving you. My hope was that Robin would be there as a friend for you and more. I knew she couldn’t help herself and neither could you. Did I make you polyamorous, my professor? I didn’t realize she would fall in love with you. I didn’t know if you would fall in love with her, too. But I figured I deserved it if it happened.
The first time I cheated on you, Emma had been dead exactly one month. I was sitting in a coffee shop near DuPont Circle and saw a man watching me. I smiled at him. He wasn’t especially good looking. But he invited me to walk with him and I did. We went two blocks and he pushed me back against a streetlight and kissed me really hard. Then he asked me a question: he wanted to know if I was a slut. The question insulted and stunned me and I didn’t answer. “I didn’t t
hink so,” he said, and pushed me away. He walked off into the evening crowd. I felt so many things. Angry. Guilty. Hurt. Aroused. I liked that kiss. I had missed a man’s touch, a man inside me. I wanted to kill this numbness in me. And I thought: yes, I was a slut.
I know this makes no sense to you. We had not had sex in a long time and after the miscarriage, even though you were so gentle and patient, I couldn’t be with you. I can’t tell you why. I couldn’t explain anything, couldn’t feel anything but the intensity of my grief. I didn’t want five stages or closure or your love. I wanted my baby. And I knew that I could never have another one. That was it. Somehow that anonymous kiss on the street took me away from the pain.
