“Is everything okay, Rachel?” Ned looked across the car at her, his face the picture of concern.
“Sure. Why?”
“Well, I just . . .” He looked embarrassed as he turned to Trayvon Kessler. “I live next door to Rachel and Brian. Sorry, I should keep my big mouth shut.”
Kessler gave that a loose grin. “Should he keep his mouth shut, Rachel?”
“Not on my account.”
Kessler held out his hand. “Proceed, Mr. Hemple.”
Ned hemmed and hawed and looked at his shoes for a moment. “I heard some, a little, uh, shouting a few minutes ago. I guess you and Brian aren’t getting along. Same thing happens with me and Rosemary. No big deal. I just hope everything’s okay.”
“Shouting?” Kessler’s grin grew broader.
“People fight,” Ned said.
“Oh, I know people fight,” Kessler said. “I’m just surprised Rachel was fighting with Brian. Only a few minutes ago, huh?”
The car stopped at seven and Mr. Cornelius, who owned three nightclubs in the Fenway, got on. He gave them all a polite smile and went back to texting someone on his phone.
Ned had served her up to Kessler on a platter. Even if she managed to get away from both of them when they reached the lobby—and she had no idea how she’d manage that—Kessler would go back to her apartment, this time with a warrant, and find Caleb dead inside. Not passed out. Dead.
She realized they were both looking at her, awaiting a response. “It wasn’t Brian, Ned, thank you.”
“No?”
“It was his partner. You’ve met him a few times. Caleb?”
Ned nodded. “Good-looking fella.”
“That’s him.”
Ned said to Kessler, “Like I’m always telling the wife, though, looks fade.”
Rachel said, “He wanted to drive home and I didn’t want to let him. Too much bourbon.”
Kessler said, “But he took the T.”
“What?”
“Over from Cambridge, he told us he took the subway.”
“But he lives in the Seaport and he didn’t want to take the T back there. He wanted to borrow my car. That’s what the fight was about.”
Jesus, how many fucking details could she keep straight here?
“Ah.”
“Makes sense,” Ned said in a tone suggesting that it didn’t.
“Why wouldn’t he just take a cab?” Kessler said.
“Uber,” Ned ventured.
“What he said.” Kessler jerked his thumb at Ned.
“You’ll have to ask him when he sobers up,” she said.
Now Mr. Cornelius was watching the three of them, not sure what was going on, but recognizing conflict when it was in front of his face.
They reached the lobby.
The moment they exited the building, Kessler would, she presumed, leave her. Even if she stalled, chatted Kessler up on the sidewalk, Ned would just act as if he’d walked away. And the moment Kessler did, in fact, drive off, Ned would reappear. Or just shoot her from across the street.
She placed her hand up to the back of her neck, fingered the clasp of her necklace. If she could twist it a bit and then snap her fingers, she might be able to break the strand. The beads would hit the floor. The men would bend to retrieve them. And she could scoot out through the mail room.
“Got a bite?” Kessler asked.
“What?”
“An itch,” he said. “Is your neck itchy?”
Now Ned was looking at her.
She dropped her hand. “Yeah. A little bit.”
They walked into the lobby. Mr. Cornelius turned right into the hall for the garage elevators. Ned and Kessler kept moving forward.
Dominick, behind the desk, glanced up at them, seemed mildly baffled by the presence of Kessler and Ned, but he gave Rachel a nod and went back to his magazine.
“No garage?” she asked Ned.
“Hmm?” Ned followed her gaze to the garage door. “No.”
“You’re parked on the street?” she said.
Ned looked back over his shoulder at her. “Oh, no, I’m just going out for a walk, dear.”
“Everyone’s going for a walk tonight,” Kessler said. He patted his stomach. “Makes me feel like I gotta hit the gym.”
He opened the front door, inward, and made an “after you” gesture to them both. Ned went through the door, followed by Rachel.
On the sidewalk, Rachel said to Ned, “Enjoy your walk. Tell Rosemary I said hi.”
“Will do.” Ned stretched out his hand to Kessler. “Nice to meet you, Detective.”
“You too, Mr. Temple.”
“Hemple,” Ned said, shaking his hand.
“Of course. My bad.” Kessler dropped his hand. “Take care, sir.”
For an odd few seconds none of them moved. Eventually Ned turned and headed east along the sidewalk, his hands in his pockets. Rachel glanced over at Detective Kessler, who seemed to be waiting on something. When she looked back down the darkened street, Ned was nowhere to be seen.
“So that’s Ned.”
“That’s Ned.”
“He and Rosemary been married a long time?”
“Ages.”
“No wedding ring, though. He didn’t strike me as the bohemian type thinks rings are just symbols of societal oppression from the dominant paradigm.”
“Probably just in for a cleaning.”
“That could be it,” he said. “What’s he do, our friend Ned?”
“You know, I’m not sure.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“Some kind of manufacturing, I think.”
“Manufacturing?” Kessler said. “We don’t make shit in this country anymore.”
She shrugged. “You know how it is with neighbors these days.”
“Oh, do tell.”
“Everyone guards their privacy.” She gave him a tight smile.
He opened the passenger door to a dark four-door Ford. “Let me give you a ride to get your cigarettes.”
She looked back down the street. Every twenty feet was a pool of light cast by the streetlamps. In between those lights lay the dark.
“Sure.” She got in the car.
Kessler got in, put his hat between them on the seat, and pulled away from the curb. “I been on some fucked-up cases, if you’ll excuse my language, but this is one of the more fucked-up ones I been on of late. I got a dead blonde in Rhody, a missing guy leading a double life, his lying wife—”
“I’m not lying.”
“Oh ho!” He wagged a finger at her. “Yes yes yes you are, Mrs. Delacroix. You’re telling so many lies I can’t even count them. And your neighbor there, the married guy in the Members Only jacket and the JCPenney slacks without the wedding ring? Guys like him don’t live in buildings like yours. He didn’t even know where the fucking garage was, and the doorman had clearly never seen him before.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Lucky I’m a cop. They fucking pay us to notice shit like that.”
“You say ‘fuck’ a lot.”
“And why not?” he said. “It’s a great word. Verb, noun, adverb, adjective. ‘Fuck’ is fucking utile.” He turned left. “My problem with your lying is that I don’t know why or what you’re lying about. It’s still too early in the case. But, man, do I know you’re lying.”