So I pounce. I stop it. I have no illusions. I choose to break the law, and if I’m caught, I’ll pay the penalty.
I admit this isn’t a great justification, but I don’t really care.
I start driving west toward the Pennsylvania border. There is, of course, a great chance Simon Fraser will not be in his office. If so, I will visit his house or wherever he may be. I may miss him. He may refuse to see me. This is how detecting works. You keep going even if what you’re doing seems like a momentous waste of time and energy.
I think about you as I drive. Here is my problem: For the first eighteen years of my life, I have zero memories that aren’t entangled in you. We shared a womb; then we shared a room. There was, in fact, nothing we did not share. I told you everything. Everything. There is nothing I kept from you. There is nothing I was embarrassed or ashamed to tell you because I knew you’d still love me. For everyone else, there is a bit of a facade. There has to be. But with you and me, there was none.
I held nothing—nothing—back. But sometimes I wonder: Did you?
Were you keeping secrets from me, Leo?
An hour later, still driving, I call Dr. Beth Fletcher née Lashley’s office. I give my name to the receptionist and ask to speak to Dr. Fletcher. The receptionist tells me the doctor isn’t in right now. In that weary, put-out voice only a doctor’s receptionist can pull off, she asks what this is regarding.
“I’m an old friend from high school.” I give her my name and mobile phone number. Then I add with as much urgency as I can muster: “It’s really important I talk to her.”
The receptionist is unfazed. “I’ll leave a message.”
“I’m also a cop.”
Nothing.
“Please page Dr. Fletcher and tell her it’s important.”
The receptionist hangs up without promising that she will.
I place another call to Augie. He answers on the first ring and says, “Yeah.”
“I know you want to stay out of this,” I say.
No reply.
“But could you tell your patrol guys to keep an eye out for Hank?”
“Won’t be hard,” Augie says. “He takes the same walk every day.”
“Not this morning.”
I fill Augie in on my earlier failed stakeout by the Path. I also tell him about my visit to the pickup basketball game last night. Augie is silent for a bit. Then he says, “You know that Hank is not, uh, well, right?”
“Right.”
“So what exactly do you think he’s going to tell you?”
“Damned if I know,” I say.
More silence. I’m tempted to fill it with an apology for abruptly unearthing something he tried hard to keep buried, but I’m not really much in the mood to offer platitudes, and I doubt Augie would want to hear them.
“I’ll tell the guys to radio me if they see him.”
“Thanks,” I say, but he’s already hung up.
—
The law offices of Elbe, Baroche and Fraser are located in a nondescript glass high-rise among a series of nondescript glass high-rises in a development I assume is being satirically labeled “Country Club Campus.” I park in a lot slightly larger than a European principality and find Reynolds waiting for me by the door. She’s wearing a blazer over a green turtleneck.
“Simon Fraser is here,” she says.
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been staking the place out since I called you. I saw him come in, I haven’t seen him leave, his car is still here. From those observations, I deduced that Simon Fraser is here.”
“You’re good,” I say.
“Don’t be intimidated by my law enforcement prowess.”
The lobby is colorless and cold, like Mr. Freeze’s lair. Several law firms and investment entities, and even one of those for-too-much-profit pseudo colleges, are housed in here. We take the elevator up to the sixth floor. The thin kid at reception sports two-day-old stubble, fashionable glasses, and a headset with a microphone. He lifts a finger to indicate we should give him a second.
Then: “May I help you?”
Reynolds takes out her badge. “We’re here to see Simon Fraser.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
For a moment I think Reynolds is going to spit out, “This badge is my appointment,” which would, I confess, disappoint me. Instead she says no but that we would very much appreciate a moment of Mr. Fraser’s time. The thin kid hits a button and whispers. Then he asks us to have a seat. We do. There are no magazines, just glossy law firm brochures. I page through one and find a photograph and bio for Simon Fraser. He is a Pennsylvania boy through and through. He attended the local high school, then traveled to the western part of the state to get his BA at the University of Pittsburgh before heading to the far eastern part of the state for his law degree at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He is a “nationally recognized family law practitioner.” My eyes blur with boredom as I read about how he chaired this and that, authored this and that, served on this and that board, received this and that award for excellence in his chosen field.
A tall woman in a gray pencil skirt saunters toward us. “This way, please.”
We follow her down the corridor to a conference room with one glass wall and what I guess is supposed to be a breathtaking view of the parking lot and, if you look farther in the distance, a Wendy’s and an Olive Garden. There is a long conference table with one of those speakerphones that looks like a gray tarantula in the center.
Reynolds and I cool our heels for fifteen minutes before the tall woman returns.
“Lieutenant Reynolds?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a call for you on line three.”
The tall woman leaves. Reynolds frowns at me. She puts a finger to her lips indicating that I should keep quiet and hits the speakerphone.
“Reynolds,” she says.
A male voice replies, “Stacy?”
“Yes.”
“What the hell are you doing at Simon Fraser’s office, Stacy?”
“I’m working on a case, Captain.”
“What case might that be?”
“The murder of Officer Rex Canton.”
“Which our office is not handling because it’s been passed on to county.”
I had not known that.
“Just following up a lead,” Reynolds tells him.
“No, Stacy, you’re not following up a lead. You’re bothering a prominent citizen who is friends with at least two local judges. Both of the judges called to inform me that one of my lieutenants is harassing a practicing attorney who has already invoked attorney-client privilege.”
Reynolds gives me “See what I’m dealing with?” eyes. I nod that I do.
“Do I need to continue, Stacy?”
“No, Captain, I get the message. I’m out of here.”
“Oh, and they said you were with someone. Who would—?”
“Bye now.”
Reynolds disconnects the call. As though cued, the tall woman opens the conference room door to escort us out. We rise and follow her to the end of the corridor. As we get in the elevator, Reynolds says, “Sorry to make you drive all the way up.”
“Yeah,” I say to her. “Shame.”
When we head outside Reynolds says, “I better get back to the station. Make it okay with my captain.”
“Good idea.”
We shake hands. She turns and starts to walk away.
“You going to head straight back to Westbridge?” she asks me.
I shrug. “Might have lunch first. How’s the Olive Garden?”
“How do you think?”
—
I don’t go to the Olive Garden.
There is an area of the parking lot for reserved parking. I find the sign that reads RESERVED FOR SIMON FRASER, ESQ, which is currently occupied by a shiny red Tesla. I frown but try not to judge. The spot to his left, which is normally reserved for BENJAMIN BAROCHE, ESQ, is open.
Good.
I head back to my car. As I do, I pass a guy in his midforties smoking a cigarette. He’s wearing a business suit and a wedding ring, and for some reason, the wedding ring matters to me.
“Please don’t smoke,” I say to him.
The guy gives me the same look—a hybrid of befuddled and annoyed—I always get when I do this. “Huh?”
“You have people who care about you,” I say. “I just don’t want you to get sick or die.”