Locust Lane(55)
“I just do.”
“Michel, I’m your son’s lawyer. Everything you say to me is confidential.”
“You just have to trust me.”
Cantor didn’t look happy, but he also understood it was as much as he was going to get.
“Okay, I’ll look into it.”
“Will you tell the police?”
“Michel, I guarantee you the cops will not be interested in this unless I can give them something more concrete. Right now it’s just hearsay.”
“Can’t we just go to the press with it?”
“Sorry, I don’t play those games.”
“We could look at Jack’s phone. Maybe there’s something on there.”
The lawyer winced.
“What?” Michel asked. “Is that not possible?”
“Technically, yeah, we could request the cops get a court order. But I don’t see them asking a judge to do that right now.”
“Why not?”
“First of all, they like your son for this. Plus, they’ve already dragged Oliver Parrish’s kid down to the station twice. I think they’ve probably exhausted their goodwill in that department.”
“Does that matter?”
“He’s managing partner in one of the city’s biggest law firms. He’s the town attorney, or at least his firm is. He golfs with the chief of police.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Like I said, I’ll look into this Liriano thing. Could it be the basis of a defense down the road? Yeah, if we can get some confirmation. But I have to tell you, I really don’t want to get to the point where this is all we got.”
“But it’s true.”
“I hate to say this, but as of right now, the truth ain’t what it used to be.”
PATRICK
He was awakened by a call from his ex-wife. The sound of his buzzing phone sent adrenaline coursing through his sluggish bloodstream. He didn’t like getting phone calls. The news was never good. It hadn’t been since the disease took hold of his child.
“Were you asleep?” Lily asked.
It was 11:13 in the morning.
“No.”
“Are you at work?”
“Yes.”
There was a brief, censorious pause. It had been a while since he’d lied to his ex-wife. He must be getting rusty.
“So I was reading about this murder,” she said, cutting to the chase, as was her habit these days.
“Yeah, crazy.”
“What are you hearing?”
Patrick hesitated. For the first time in quite a while, he actually had something consequential to say to Lily. But she would not respond kindly to reports of middle-of-the-night roaming and ghostly visions. She’d done her time.
“Only that they’re questioning Michel Mahoun’s son.”
“Yes, I saw that. So you don’t know who the other kids in the house were.”
This was not a question, but a statement that indicated she did know. It didn’t surprise him that she was ahead of him. He hadn’t checked the news in twelve hours. He’d started drinking seriously the moment he left Danielle Perry outside the Bondurants’. The last thing he remembered was watching a documentary about Stalingrad. And then a Russian winter had descended inside his head.
“Sounds like you do.”
“Jack Parrish, for one,” she said.
“No shit. Is he, I mean, involved?”
“Only as a witness, it seems.”
“Wait, he was there when it happened?”
“That’s not clear.”
“Man, his parents must be thrilled.”
“So how are you doing, Patrick?” she asked after a pause.
Talk of murder and mayhem was over. It was time to move on to the real horror show. Him.
“No, I’m good.”
“Are you seeing someone?”
For a brief moment, he thought she meant dating. Which, weirdly, caused an image of Danielle Perry to flash in his mind. Had people seen them outside the Bondurants’? But that was not what she meant at all.
“Oh, now and then. Meetings mostly. Got my chair-folding technique down cold.”
“That’s good,” she said. “Are they helping?”
Patrick didn’t necessarily want to get into specifics about something that wasn’t happening.
“Definitely. So how are you, Lily? How’s Sam?”
She was only too happy to change the topic to their remaining child.
“He’s fine. We’re starting to think about colleges.”
They talked about that for a while, SAT tutors and campus visits. He offered to split the latter duty with her and she said that she would have to get back to him, which was code for the fact that there wasn’t a chance in hell that she was going to allow her fifteen-year-old son to occupy a motor vehicle operated by his father. With that, the conversation ended.
He closed his eyes after hanging up and experienced a particularly intense desire for a drink. Conversation with his ex-wife had lost none of its sting. Sometimes, he preferred their turbulently doomed last days, as the artillery fire of his misery and misdeeds drew closer and closer to their suburban bunker. But that sort of drama wouldn’t be forthcoming, ever again. After finally bringing down the curtain on the calamity that was their post-Gabi marriage, Lily had become coolly solicitous and mostly indifferent. He wasn’t her problem anymore.