Long Bright River(114)

She drove over to find him. She wanted to tell him what was going on. Ask what he knew about Eddie Lafferty.

—I can’t believe you did that, I say, interrupting. Why would you do that?

—I told you, says Kacey. I knew when he found out that Eddie Lafferty might be the one killing those women, he wouldn’t stand for it. I know him.

I shake my head. I notice, suddenly, that Kacey looks unsteady and pale. She has her hands on her stomach. She is six months pregnant, now, and seems to feel it. I don’t know if she’ll make it the whole way. She keeps insisting she’s fine, but she’s bent forward slightly. How long has it been, I wonder, since her last dose of methadone?

—Are you okay? I ask her.

—Fine, Kacey says, tightly.

We walk in silence a little longer. Then she goes on.

—Connor can do bad things, Kacey says, but he’s not all bad. Almost nobody is.

I have nothing to say to this. I picture Mrs. Mahon, her hand tipping back and forth in the air above the chessboard. They’re bad and good both, all the pieces. It is possible to acknowledge, on some level, the truth of this. And yet I hate Connor McClatchie for what he did to my sister. And I know, without a doubt, that I’ll never forgive him.

—Anyway, Kacey says, Connor told me that Lafferty approached him last summer, told him he was a cop. Told him he’d keep him protected in exchange for a cut. That’s why I recognized him, she tells me. And that’s why they went off to the side to do their business. Lafferty was taking kickbacks from Connor.

—That fucker, I say suddenly.

—Which one?

—Both of them, I say. Both fuckers.

A thought occurs to me then: Did Ahearn assign Lafferty to my car so that he could dig up some dirt on me? Six months ago, I would have said that was absurd. Now, I don’t know.

—And Ahearn’s a fucker too, I say. I bet he knew. Maybe got a cut too.

Kacey, I notice, is laughing.

—What? I say. What?

—I don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse before, says Kacey.

—Oh, I say. Well, I do now.

—Well, says Kacey. You’re right. Connor told me Lafferty wasn’t the only one. Taking payment, I mean. Said it happens more regularly than you know.

—I believe it, I say.

—Connor didn’t know about the women, Kacey says. That’s the one thing he didn’t know. He didn’t know that Lafferty had been seen with the four victims. He didn’t know people were talking in Kensington. When I told him, he freaked. Punched a wall.

—Noble, I say.

—He can be, says Kacey pensively.

—Anyway, she says, he had Lafferty’s phone number, and he called him right away. Told him he had a business proposal for him, and he wanted to see him in person at the cathedral. Once Lafferty got there, I texted you from Connor’s phone. And I texted Truman Dawes, too.

—How did you have Truman’s number? I say.

—Oh, says Kacey. He gave it to me years ago. I don’t think you were even there that day. He came across me on the Ave when I was pretty bad off, looking down and out, and he gave me his card. Said if I ever needed anything, if I ever wanted to get clean, to give him a ring. I memorized it.

—Oh, I say. Yes. He does that.

—He’s a good person, she says. Isn’t he.

—He is, I say.

She smiles, unaware.

—Well, she says, I’m glad it all worked out.

And suddenly I can’t believe her: the danger she put us all in. Truman. Me. Thomas. Herself. And the baby she’s carrying, too.

I stop walking and turn toward her. Goddammit, I say. Goddammit, Kacey.

She flinches, slightly. What? she says. Don’t shout.

—How could you do that to me? I say. Put me in the position you put me in today. I have a son to think about.

Kacey goes silent. Both of us turn away from one another and start to walk again. In my peripheral vision, I see Kacey begin to shiver, her teeth chattering.

We reach an intersection and I stop at the crosswalk to let the cars go by. But Kacey continues. She walks out into traffic, blindly. A car screeches to a halt. The one behind it nearly rams into it. Horns go off in all directions.

—Kacey, I call.

She doesn’t turn around. I toe the ground in front of the sidewalk. The cars don’t slow. I wait until, at last, I have the right of way, and then I break into a trot. Kacey is fifty feet ahead of me, walking fast. She turns the corner onto the Avenue, and I lose sight of her momentarily.



* * *



—

When I finally reach the Ave, I turn left, like Kacey did, and I see her twenty yards away, squatting on the ground, elbows on her knees, head in hands. Her belly points down, toward the sidewalk. I can’t tell from here, but it looks like she’s crying.

I slow to a walk. I approach Kacey carefully. We’re at the intersection where she and Paula used to work, right in front of Alonzo’s store, and I have the feeling, now, that if I say or do the wrong thing, I’ll lose her: the Avenue will take her back, away from me. Kacey will sink into the ground and disappear.

I stand over my sister for a minute. She’s shaking with sobs. She’s crying so hard that she’s gasping for breath. She doesn’t look up.

—Kacey, I say.