Long Bright River(75)

—Robert Mulvey, Jr., says DiPaolo. I think you’re acquainted, actually.





As soon as DiPaolo leaves, I get on my phone. I can’t look at Truman. He says nothing either. He is embarrassed, no doubt, by my behavior.

I navigate to the website of one local news station after another. Over and over again, I refresh them.

Within minutes, the story pops up.

Suspect Arrested in Connection with Kensington Homicides, reads the headline.

Robert Mulvey, Jr., looks out at me from my phone, his mug shot nearly as menacing as his expression the last time I saw him, in court.

Mulvey, the article says, was arrested today in connection with the murders after an anonymous tip placed him at the scene of the first crime. Video footage from a nearby business confirmed his presence there. And a state police DNA database linked him to the second and third victim, as well.

I look up quickly.

—That’s how, I say.

—How what, says Truman.

The first words he’s spoken in a long time.

—I recognized him, I say. I knew I recognized him. I saw him on the Gurney Street tracks when we discovered the first victim’s body. I said to him, You’re not supposed to be down here. He ignored me.

I remember him. Ghostly and defiant, a strange expression on his face, receding into the brush.

I look at Truman, finally. His expression is serious.

—What’s wrong with me? I say. What have I done?

At last, Truman exhales. Aw, Mick, he says. I get it. Believe me, I do. You’re missing your sister. You’re worried. It’s hard to think straight.

—She’s probably laughing at me, I say. Kacey. She’s probably off with some new boyfriend. She’s probably laughing at me right now. Thinking about me searching for her and laughing.

I’m shaking my head. I am perhaps more disappointed in myself than I’ve ever been. For not making the connection to Mulvey myself. For not recognizing him when he recognized me, when he was practically taunting me to my face. For letting my emotions get in the way of hard evidence.

I’ve always thought I’d make a good detective. I think the last several weeks have proved to me, definitively, that on this point I’ve been deluded.



* * *



—

I order another Corona. And then, remembering DiPaolo’s, I order a shot of Jameson, and then another, and then a third.

—Want one? I say to Truman, but he declines.

—Slow down, Mickey, says Truman, but I don’t want to slow down. I want to speed up, to speed past this moment in my life and out to the other side.

—All right, I say, chastened. I can feel my tongue growing heavy in my mouth. I drove here, but I know I shouldn’t drive myself home. I want to put my head on the table and go to sleep.

He hesitates for a while.

—It’s my fault, he says at last. I’m the one who put that idea in your head. I’ve never liked the guy. And there are enough rumors about him that I just thought . . .

He trails off.

—It’s easy to get carried away, you know? says Truman. After what he did to you. I never liked him, he says again.

Both of us are silent for a while.

—It still doesn’t explain what he was doing there, I say, finally.

He shrugs. Maybe he was undercover, he says. This thing has become a high-profile case. It’s all hands on deck. Maybe they’re sending in guys they think will be new faces in the neighborhood.

I shake my head. He’s a detective, I say. He’s not on Vice.

—Who knows, says Truman. Neither you nor I is exactly in the loop right now.

I look at him in the stark light of the lamp hanging on a chain above our booth. It’s a Tiffany lamp. Louis Comfort Tiffany, interestingly, spent some time here in Pennsylvania when he attended the military academy in West Chester. The lamp above us, though, does not look well made. It looks like an interrogation light in an old detective movie. And it occurs to me then that my job has taken over my life completely, that everything I do and think and see is filtered through the lens of my work. My work, which I might not have anymore, when DiPaolo sends word back to IA about what I’ve been doing. I start laughing.

—We can’t escape, I say. We really can’t escape.

Truman doesn’t seem to know what I’m talking about. He’s looking at me, concerned. In fact, he looks almost tender. Like he might reach out and put a hand on the side of my face.

—Are you gonna be okay, Mickey? he says. I’m worried about you.

—I’m gonna be great, I say.

I keep laughing, a little frantically now.

Truman says, Come on. I’m giving you a ride home.





I stumble just a little on my way out the door. Truman catches me around the waist and keeps his arm there as we walk down the sidewalk toward the car. I am aware of his strength, of his hand on my side. I tense the muscles there. I am aware of the very faint scent of what I imagine to be his laundry detergent. This is the closest I’ve ever been to Truman, and it’s not unpleasant. In fact, it’s nice. Very nice to have another person holding me up. I put my arm around him, too, and I lean my head against his.

He’s parked on the street, a block away from Duke’s. He brings me around to the passenger’s side and I stand in front of the passenger-side door, facing him as he double-clicks a button on his key. The car beeps twice. The noise echoes through the quiet street.