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“I’ve booked a few days at Wymara, ifma chèreis good with that. But I’m also here to tie off a loose end on a case.”
Both parts of Ryan’s answer were unexpected.
“Deniz Been,” he added, seeing my expression.
“He’s the reason I’m in Provo,” I explained to Monck. “Been was shot while watching fireworks from a bridge in Montreal. His body ended up in the St. Lawrence. I fished it out and IDed him.”
“For a while, the thinking was that Been’s death was gang-related,” Ryan said. “That the kid was dealing on someone else’s patch. That was wrong. Turned out Been had inserted himself into a violent three-way.”
“The Québecoise girlfriend, Émilie Gaudreau, was seeing someone else?”
“A loser with a jacket going back to the stone age, who appeared to be safely out of circulation. Long story short, loverboy got paroled, got wind, got a gun, got it done. I’m here to break the news to Been’s grandmother, his apparent next of kin.”
“Henrietta Missick,” Monck said without inflection.
“Do you know where I can find her?”
Monck nodded, glum. I suspected the beers were sending him to a dark place. “But not today. Too many reminders of death today.”
Ryan’s eyes crimped in puzzlement, but he didn’t voice a question.
My gaze drifted past the men to a moth circling a faux Tiffanylamp overhanging the liquor bottles lining the bar. The beat of its wings matched the rhythm of the melancholy drumming in my soul.
Several moments passed.
Ryan took my hand and looked a question at me. Ready?
Thanking Monck for the drinks, we headed for the door. His parting words stopped us.
“You’ll be going to her anyway.”
We turned.
“Henrietta Missick is Tiersa Musgrove’s first cousin. She owns the car you’ve been driving.”
I left wondering if everyone in Provo knew everyone else.
That night Ryan and I dined alfresco at Grace’s Cottage, then strolled the beach barefoot to Villa Renaissance. Once inside, we killed all the lights and opened the balcony doors wide.
We took our time making love. There was no hurry now, the only urgency the need for reassurance and release.
We rested a long time afterward, listening to the waves build and swell, crash and recede. Sex is like the ocean, I thought. Deep and endless and perpetually soothing.
Lying on my back, staring up into the darkness, one phrase kept rolling with the sound of the surf.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free.
Benjamin’s victims would dance no more. Nor would Musgrove or the dead on theCod Bless Us. But Benjamin and Cloke would not stop the music for anyone else.
I’d done my job.
I closed my eyes.
Felt content.
Wished Delroy Monck the same.
