Small Town

A couple passed — college age, the boy Asian, the girl a blonde with almost translucent skin. They were too wrapped up in each other to notice him, but then hardly anyone ever did. Then they were gone, and time passed, although he was barely conscious of its passing.

After a time he moved out of the shadows and walked back to Waverly, staying with it as it crossed Seventh Avenue and walking two more blocks to Bank Street.

This would have been the man’s route home. There was his building, and was that his window, with the light on? Was he at home?

And would he be coming out soon? Maybe yes, maybe no. Time would tell.

He was still clutching the small object in his closed right fist. Like what? A talisman? A charm?

He opened his hand and looked at it lying in his palm, a little turquoise rabbit. There was something sweetly whimsical about it, something endearing.

He returned it to his pocket and drew back into the shadows, waiting.

eight

“John, if you’re home, it’s Roz. Come to think of it, it’s Roz whether you’re home or not, but are you?”

She was in the middle of another sentence by the time he got the phone to his ear. “I’ve always liked that construction,” he said. “ ‘If I don’t see you before you leave, have a nice time.’ And if you do see me before then, should I have a lousy time? Odd use of the conditional, if you think about it.”

“Or even if you don’t.”

“Damn,” he said. “I did it myself, didn’t I? And in the same paragraph.”

“You’re sounding chipper, John.”

“I am? Maybe it’s the music. It’s pledge week on the jazz station, so I switched to classical.”

“What are you listening to?”

“Ravel,” he said. “Pavane for a Dead Infant. What’s so funny?”

“You’re making this up, right?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what the hell I’m listening to, Mozart or Haydn, one of those guys. And if I’m sounding better, it’s probably not the music. Maybe I’m just getting used to being under house arrest.”

“You’re not getting out?”

“Not really. I did have a visitor the other day. Well, two of them. Maury Winters came over, and he brought along a private detective who’s going to track down the real killer.”

“Oh?”

“It sounds like OJ, doesn’t it? Searching the golf courses of America for the real killer of Nicole and Ron. This guy, though, all he’s likely to find is the next drink in the next gin mill, judging from the red nose and the matching breath. The idea is she went out right after I left and dragged somebody else home, which strikes me as not impossible, and maybe somebody saw her. It’d be nice if a witness turned up, but so far nobody has, so this joker’s on the payroll to go look for one. And, since she picked me up in a bar, my guess is that’s where he’ll go looking, and there are enough bars in the neighborhood to keep him busy.”

“Maybe he’ll come up with something.”

“Maybe he will. I’m inclined to belittle him, but maybe that’s just me. The guy’s a retired cop, twenty years on the job, and the fact that he likes his booze doesn’t necessarily mean he’s inept.”

“But you don’t have a lot of faith in the process.”

“I can’t say I do, no. I think he’s just going through the motions.”

“The detective?”

“Well, sure, but that’s what they do. No, what I think is Winters is just going through the motions in hiring him, hoping to stir up something that’ll muddy the waters. But as far as finding the guy, I think he thinks the guy’s already been found.”

“What makes you say that, John?”

“Impression I get. The cops quit looking once they got to me, and I think Winters figures they got it right. I suppose it’s natural. What percentage of his clients are innocent of the crimes they’re charged with? I don’t mean how many get acquitted, I mean how many genuinely didn’t do it?”

“That’s true for any criminal lawyer, isn’t it?”

“That’s my point. And it shouldn’t interfere with his ability to present the best possible defense. Still, you’d think he’d ask me.”

“Ask you?”

“If I did it. That’s the damnedest thing, Roz. Nobody asks.”

“Nobody?”

“Well, aside from the cops, hoping I’d fall on the floor and confess. Nobody else. Not even Karin. She wanted to know if I was planning to skip to Brazil, but other than that she didn’t seem to care if the man she bailed out was guilty or innocent.”

“She knows you couldn’t have done it, John.”

“You figure?”

“Of course. Anybody who knows you knows that much.”

Her words, delivered in such a matter-of-fact manner, moved him profoundly, and for a moment he was unable to speak. Then he said, “That’s very good to hear, Roz.”

“Well.”

“Just for the record, I didn’t do it.”

“I know that.”

“But you’re wrong about one thing. I could have.”

“How’s that?”

“Anyone could have,” he said. “Anyone’s capable of it.”

“Of murder.”

“I think so, yes.”