Last to Know: A Novel(2)

Harry’s fiancée had not enjoyed sharing her man with a very large, very present dog. She objected when Squeeze jumped first into the Jag and sat shotgun next to Harry, while she was expected to struggle into the small space in the back that almost could be called a seat. She also had not liked Harry’s hours, especially the nocturnal ones. “You never take me out to dinner anymore,” she’d complained, though she did like it when Harry cooked.

For a man who existed on food eaten on the run Harry happened to be a very good cook, though only old-fashioned things like pasta Alfredo, scampi Livornese, spaghetti Bolognese—all recipes taken directly from his rare and treasured copy of the Vincent Price cookbook with its menus and recipes from some of the great restaurants of the world, circa 1970. Exactly Harry’s era, taste-wise. Forget today’s avant-garde chefs and what Harry called tortured food: he liked it simple and, if he was lucky, good. If not then a burger was just fine.

He was fussy about his wine though. Harry enjoyed a good Claret. He never called good red wine “Cabernet,” nor did he trust “Chardonnay”—he preferred a Graves or white Bordeaux.

Anyhow, Harry thought now, swinging his legs out of bed and gazing out the window at Evening Lake, glimmering blackly on this moonless night; anyhow, the fiancée whom he’d loved dearly, Mallory Malone, the girl of his dreams, had had enough. Paris, she had told him, would be more fun than another night alone in Boston waiting for the phone to ring or sharing more takeout fried chicken and a bottle of his good red. “I can share a bottle of good Bordeaux with anyone I like in Paris,” she’d added.

Harry had seen the tears in Mal’s eyes as she walked out the door for the last time, not slamming it, though he guessed she had every right to. He had not gone after her. It would not have worked; he knew it, and she knew it. Not the way things were, with him dedicated to his work. While she had given up her own successful special investigations TV show, which looked further into unsolved crimes of the past, for him.

He’d called his best buddy and colleague, Carlo Rossetti, broken the news, and for the first time in his police career said that he needed to take time off. He needed a break. He wanted time out from stabbings and shootings and killings on the streets. He needed to rethink his life. He needed to be alone and the old gray wooden fishing shack on the lake that had been his grandfather’s was just the place.

It consisted of two sparsely furnished rooms, a corner kitchen with a hot plate and a microwave, a white-tiled shower that needed regrouting—a job Harry promised himself to do while he was there—a porch with an old three-legged orange Weber barbecue with a lift-up lid and several years’ worth of burned-on grease. There was a narrow wooden jetty and a small rowboat with a little outboard motor. Powerboats were not allowed on the lake, only sails and boats like Harry’s. A copse of birch trees, trunks gleaming silvery in the night, protected him from the sandy road that led around the lake, giving him privacy, though he did have an excellent view of nearby houses, much larger and grander than his own, and also of those on the other side of the lake, the largest of which was owned by a flashy blonde with a daughter who looked about eighteen, though when Harry glimpsed them in the mini-market, he thought that with her pale straight hair and elusive blue gaze, she might be closer to thirteen. It occurred to him looking across the lake now, that it was odd, with such a big house, so little entertaining was done. Unlike with the rest of the summer people there were no cocktail parties, no barbecue nights, no boozy laughter. And apparently no friends for the young daughter. Quite different from the Osborne family who lived a couple of houses away. He’d encountered Rose Osborne on his early morning walks. She too, seemed always to be alone. They’d exchanged morning pleasantries. She’d said please come by, they kept open house, but Harry never had. He found Rose attractive: a sumptuous-looking woman, round and full and … welcoming … was the best word he could use to describe her, with her wildly curling long hair, often pulled in a messy ponytail, her intense brown eyes, her long legs and—of course he had noticed—her slender ankles. She always seemed last-minute thrown-together in a sweatshirt, capris, and sneakers, and sometimes she was on her bike: “Getting my morning exercise in,” she’d call cheerfully in passing, throwing him a smile that, lonely man that he was now, Harry really appreciated. Still, maybe because he was attracted to her he had never taken Rose up on her offer, never gone by for that cup of coffee or that evening drink. He respected marriage and married women were not his style. Besides, he was still a man in love. With Mallory Malone. Or at least he thought he was. Thought maybe she was too, in love with him. Maybe a little bit.

Every now and then, though, he would see other members of the Osborne family dashing in and out, a remote-looking college-age son, who gave off “keep away from me” vibes that spelled a problem to Harry; a couple of fluffy teenage girls; and a boy, elevenish, small, skinny, ginger-haired and, unlike the rest of that busy household, always alone. Harry noticed things like that and it made him wonder why the kid was always alone. He also noticed that the boy would hide up in the fig tree where a branch led, he guessed, to his bedroom window. So the kid sat up there and spied on his family and the rest of the world. He would probably make a good detective.

And then there was the husband, Wally Osborne. The famous writer. Wally wrote scary novels that could make the hair stand up on the back of your neck and which were made into films that made you want to shout out loud, “Look behind you, the killer’s there!”