CHAPTER 14
I saw David Clegg a few times each year, but never on the anniversary of Brooks Hall’s death. Clegg would disappear on that day, and nobody knew where he went or what he did. He’d just up and vanish, and then return a day later, never telling anybody where he’d gone, his wife and kids included. I never asked Clegg how he marked the somber occasion, though he knew I spent it writing a letter to Hall’s widow, Amanda.
On the first anniversary of the accident, I got a call from Amanda’s attorney, requesting that I write to her. I was asked to provide a general update on my life. Apparently, Amanda wanted to know how I was feeling, coping, and adjusting in the aftermath of that tragic day. I suppose it was her way of staying connected to Brooks. It wasn’t an easy letter to write by any means. Half of it was a rambling apology, while the other half was apologizing for apologizing.
The following year I sent Amanda another letter, unprompted this time, and the attorney didn’t contact me to complain. I was more open about my feelings and better able to express myself, conveying the real bone-gnawing guilt that sabotaged my sleep and clung to me like an angry shadow. It became a tradition after that. I didn’t expect Amanda to respond to my letters, and she never did. Still, I kept those letters coming, thinking that if she didn’t want to hear from me, she’d let me know. Maybe I was helping her—that was my hope, anyway. I later found out, through other sources, that she had remarried and now has two kids, twins, one named Brooks. The Internet gives up a wealth of information if you know how to look. But not everything can be known via a clever Google search. I took precautions to make certain Amanda never found out that I was the guy who set up an online fund-raiser for a children’s charity that both Brooks and Amanda supported. I didn’t want her knowing I was involved, thinking the donations shouldn’t be tainted with the memory of what I’d done.
Clegg and I usually meet up at Chaps Sports Bar in Kenmore Square. Even though Clegg lives in Hingham, he works in Boston, so it makes for a good meeting spot to grab a drink. This time, however, I insisted we meet at O’Brian’s Sports Bar, which was a couple of blocks from our Brookline apartment. I didn’t want to travel very far in case Ruby needed me for something. In truth, I wished Ruby had come along with me, but she insisted I go alone.
“He might not want to talk with me around,” she had said.
I relented, but only after Ruby had made plans of her own, drinks—well, Diet Cokes—with her friend Elisa at the Deco Bar, a short distance away from O’Brian’s on Beacon Street. Ruby needed to get out, it seemed to me, enjoy some fresh air, so I encouraged her.
At six o’clock in the afternoon O’Brian’s would be sparsely occupied or packed to the edges, depending on the Red Sox schedule. The Sox were playing Tampa Bay in Tampa, so there were plenty of open seats at the long oak bar. Clegg used to dress in his police officer blues, which made him easy to spot and usually kept the stools next to him unoccupied, but that was before his promotion to detective. Clegg’s new uniform was a tweed blazer and khaki slacks. Of course, he also carried a holstered firearm, pepper spray, and handcuffs, but those items weren’t on display when I showed up.
Clegg raised a half full glass of Sam Adams, signaling the bartender to bring me the same while getting one on deck for himself to drink. He stood, and we exchanged bro hugs, basically light taps on each other’s backs while we clinched in a weak embrace. It was both difficult and comforting for Clegg and me to hang together. In a way, we were cursed, because neither of us wanted to relive the past, while at the same time we didn’t want to forget it, either.
Reading people was something better left to Ruby, but still, I appraised Clegg carefully, looking for behaviors that were directly antithetical to his usual mannerisms. I could tell something was wrong: clouds in the eyes, an atypically weighty demeanor, but I didn’t get the sense that it had anything to do with me. I wished I could have told him about Uretsky, because that guy, for all his ghoulish antics, still lingered front and center in my mind.
Clegg might have been several years older than me, but his unwrinkled face and full head of dark hair would win him a prize at any carnival’s “guess your age” booth. His nose was slightly crooked, set that way from years of youth hockey, which, when combined with his icy blue eyes brimming with street smarts, tinted his every expression with a hint of menace. Clegg could be smiling, and you’d still think, This guy wants to kick my ass or arrest me. Fit and trim because he continued to climb, Clegg was the closest thing the Boston PD had to a detective who looked like an actor playing a cop.
“You’re late,” Clegg said, not bothering to check his watch for the time. Cops like Clegg just knew.
“Sorry. Unexpected delay.”
The unexpected delay was that I didn’t want him to see me leaving an apartment that I shouldn’t have been leaving. I looked him over again, searching for any reason I should be nervous, or more nervous than usual. Clegg had a way of setting people slightly on edge. Four of his past partners had asked to be transferred within a month of their assignment, and though Clegg has received numerous commendations from the BPD, he’s also been a regular visitor to Internal Affairs. A self-described amalgam of “Dirty” Harry Callahan and the narcotics sergeant Martin Riggs from the Lethal Weapon franchise, Clegg relished life on the edge, which explained his passion for climbing and his penchant for pissing off his superiors.
I loved the guy like a brother.
“So what’s been going on?” Clegg asked.
“Nothing much,” I said.
“Nothing much,” Clegg repeated, acknowledging the ridiculousness of my response while taking a swig of his beer as I did the same with mine. “How ’bout I get more specific? How’s Ruby?”
“She’s hanging in there,” I said. “We won’t know for a few more weeks if her medication is working or not, but we’ve got reason to stay positive.”
“Well, at least you’ve got each other.”
I nodded quickly, because it was true. Then paused because it was odd the way Clegg had phrased it. He emphasized you’ve as if to imply that he didn’t have someone, which I knew not to be true, because he was married to Violet. I got a sinking feeling that another casualty of that day on the Labuche Kang was Clegg’s marriage to his high school sweetheart.
“I swung by your place the other day,” Clegg said, “but you weren’t home.”
Because I don’t live there anymore, I wanted to say.
“Yeah? What day was that?”
“Tuesday.”
“Tuesday?” I said, musing. “Tuesday . . . not sure where I was. Probably a doctor’s appointment with Ruby. What were you doing in Somerville, anyway?”
“Looking for an apartment.”
“Oh, no,” I said, groaning. “What happened, man?”
“She wants a divorce,” Clegg said.
Funny how Clegg’s divorce bombshell felt like a relief compared to what I thought we might be here to discuss.
“Why?” My voice carried a harsh edge, like it was Violet’s fault.
“She says I’m depressed. Hates that I still climb.”
I did, too, but only because I was envious that he could still do it.
“Are you depressed?” I asked.
“My therapist seems to think so,” Clegg said and chuckled.
“I’m really sorry. What are you going to do?”
“What can I do?” Clegg shrugged. “Look, I don’t blame her. I haven’t been a lot of fun to be around. To be honest with you, I can’t believe we lasted as long as we did.”
People carry guilt in different ways. Mine kept me from going up an escalator. From what I gathered, Clegg could tune his out with Johnnie Walker and a few chips of ice.
“What about your kids?” I asked.
Sammy and Tate were four when I spared their father’s life. Now they were going on eight, prime years for parenting.
“It’s going to be hardest on them.”
“Is it really over? Can you salvage it?”
“Resentment is its own form of cancer, Johnny. And that’s the cold, hard truth.”
“So what happens now?”
“What happens is I move out. The kids broke down crying when I told ’em. That’s when Violet begged me to look for an apartment or small house closer to Hingham. Thinking it means she’ll agree to joint custody, but who knows. Look, I’m sorry to drag you away from Ruby to cry on your shoulder, but I needed someone to help me drown my sorrows.”
“Fellow cops don’t do the trick?” I asked.
“Divorce is as common as a cold in my precinct.”
“What are you? A glutton for punishment? I’m a married man. Wouldn’t you rather hang out with divorced guys?”
“Nah, they’d tell me that they’re happier now,” Clegg said. “That would just make me feel worse.”
“Well, it’s good to know you have feelings,” I said.
“Cut me and I still bleed,” Clegg said dramatically. “Of course, I’ll also stomp on your face and then fill your mouth with pepper spray.”
“Have I ever asked if you’re a registered loose cannon?” I said to him, smiling.
“If that registry exits,” Clegg said, “then my name is most certainly on it.”
Clegg ordered us some hot wings as the bar began filling up with more of the after-work crowd. We had been talking for an hour or so when a woman with platinum blond hair, dressed in a business suit, sat down on the stool beside me. She hung her purse on the back of the stool and ordered a drink.
“How goes your game?” Clegg asked me.
“It’s growing and going,” I said.
“It was a real lifesaver,” I wanted to say. Well, before Uretsky called, that is.
From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a guy around my age, thin, hood over his head, sunglasses on indoors. He bumped clumsily up against the blond woman’s stool. He wasn’t that quick or that skilled in his fumbling attempt to snatch her purse. The purse got caught on the back of the stool, but he pulled on the strap hard enough to snap it.
“Hey!” the surprised woman shouted. The commotion turned heads, but shock and surprise kept every patron firmly rooted in place. The thief accelerated as he raced past my bar stool. Clegg, still holding his sticky chicken wing, nonchalantly reached behind with his free hand to grab hold of the fleeing man’s sweatshirt. With startling quickness, Clegg yanked the man to the floor and at the same instant leapt up from his stool. The man fell with a hard thud, and I heard the air rush out of his lungs. Before he could wiggle away, Clegg was kneeling on his back, wrenching his arms behind him to snap his silver bracelets in place.
“Yo, clown town,” Clegg said, his voice calm and his breathing even. “Looks like you picked the wrong bar to snatch from.”
Applause filled the room as I handed the woman back her purse and Clegg hoisted the handcuffed man to his feet. I motioned to Clegg, because I’d obviously played no real part in his apprehension. Still, the victim thanked us both profusely.
“This job would be great if it weren’t for all the criminals,” Clegg said to me as he took out the handcuffed man’s wallet to check his ID. Next, Clegg got out his cell phone, presumably to call for backup. “Here’s your living proof that crime doesn’t pay, Johnny,” Clegg said, turning the thief to face me. The man looked remorseful only because he’d been captured.
Why did Clegg just say that to me? I wondered. Here’s your living proof that crime doesn’t pay. Could he know?
Clegg cupped his cell phone’s receiver and then, turning to me, said, “Brookline dispatch. I’m on hold.” The crowd kept still and hushed, watching the spectacle of a plainclothes police officer pressing a handcuffed man up against their neighborhood bar.
A minute or so ticked by with Clegg holding his phone tight to his ear. His expression revealed a growing frustration. He kept nodding and occasionally would say into the phone, “Yeah . . . all right . . . okay . . . What’s going on?” He listened awhile, then something about Clegg’s expression changed—he got a disgusted look, but not one that conveyed any agitation. “Really? No shit,” he said. “Really? That’s all sorts of messed up. . . . No, don’t worry. . . . Yeah, I’m sure . . . I’ll keep him occupied.” Clegg ended the call, then said to the guy he nabbed, “Hey, buddy, looks like you’re going to have to wait awhile in my car until we get some Brookline PD here to take you to the station for booking. Promise me you’re not going to mess up my backseat?”
The guy said nothing; he just looked away.
“Want to walk with me, John?” Clegg asked.
“Sure,” I said.
The bartender comped our tab, brushing us outside, as though worried we might attempt to fight his goodwill gesture. There were cheers and a rousing round of applause as we vacated the premises. Clegg held up his hand, acknowledging the patrons’ appreciation with a slight wave, the way a baseball player might try to appease the crowd after a game-turning home run. We walked half a block with people on the street staring at the three of us, speculating as to the circumstance.
It didn’t take long for Clegg to get the handcuffed perp settled into the backseat of his unmarked police car. “No messing up my ride,” he instructed again.
The guy didn’t reply.
“What’s the delay getting the police here?” I asked.
“Some big blowup just down the road has almost every cop in Brookline tied up,” Clegg said. “It won’t be too much longer.”
“What kind of blowup?” I asked.
“Oh, some dude came home to find his girlfriend murdered.”
“Yikes,” I said.
“Yikes is right,” Clegg said. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“I’m assuming you do.”
“I’m close with the dispatcher, so I got the skinny. Looks like the guy who did it cut off the girl’s fingers.”
“Shit.”
“He put two fingers on her lips, one in each ear, then two covering her eyes.”
“What the hell?”
“Get it?” Clegg asked.
“No,” I said.
“See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil.”
“Holy shit,” I said.
“Holy shit is right.”
“Where did this happen?”
“Right down the road,” Clegg said, nodding in the direction where I now lived.
“No. What address? I mean.”
It couldn’t be, I was thinking. It couldn’t be.
“Why?” Clegg asked.
“I want to know which way to avoid when I’m heading home.”
“No worries. I’ll drive you.”
“No, I’ve got to meet Ruby.”
“Four-fifty-seven Harvard Avenue,” Clegg said.
I felt the ground give way and had to steady myself using the door handle of Clegg’s car. I found my balance, but the ground below me turned unsteady like the sea. Four-fifty-seven Harvard Avenue was the building where we had rented an apartment as Elliot and Tanya Uretsky. I knew at that moment exactly what Uretsky had meant when he said he was going to kill someone close to us. He didn’t mean close by relationship. He meant close by proximity.
He knew who we were. He knew where we lived. My cell phone rang. I took it out and looked at the caller ID. The number came up as unknown. It rang again.
I answered it.