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“I took the money,” he says, almost sounding as if he’s choking.
Jimmy thinks:Who the hell in this thing hasn’t?
Ninety-Five
I AM STANDING ONAtlantic Avenue Beach with my sister in the early evening.
“How much?” I ask her again.
We’re both in jeans and vests. She’s wearing a baseball cap that has one word written on the front:SIMPLE.
I wish.
“How much what?” Brigid says.
“How much did he pay you to come back to lie for him? After he initially paid you off to get you to leave.”
“How about this? How about you thank me and leave it at that?”
“You’re a liar,” I say. “And under oath.”
“And you’re a bitch.”
I’m breathing very hard all of a sudden.
“The jury may have believed that you were talking and drinking until you both passed out. But I know you never have gotten that drunk in your life.”
We’ve made our way down to the water’s edge. I look out now and think about all the times in my life, at least since I moved out here, when I’ve come here to find peace, if not quiet. The walk from Indian Wells Beach to here has always been happy-making for me.
Just not tonight.
“How much?” I say again.
“He didn’t pay me.”
“Liar.”
“Bitch,” she says again.
I keep feeling as if we should retreat to neutral corners. Except there aren’t any out here.
“It doesn’t even matter whether you came up with that fairy tale,” I say, “or he did. Neither one of you has to cop to being unfaithful. You give him an all-night alibi and, on top of that, he doesn’t watch his prenup get shot out of a cannon. Now I know why he was smiling his ass off while you were up there. I’m surprised he didn’t give you a standingOwhen you were done.”
“You don’t know him the way I do,” she says.
“At this point, I actually might know him better.”
A gust of wind comes off the water and nearly blows the hat off her head.
“How convenient that this new treatment for you didn’t keep you from returning in the nick of time,” I say.
“It doesn’t matter what I say. You’re going to believe what you want to believe anyway.”
“Finally, my sister speaks the truth.”
“He didn’t kill those people.”
“Says him. And says you.”
