I picked a brightly decorated book with a cheerful title that I thought would help soothe Logan, and read the short story to him. When that was done, I closed the light and lay down next to him for ten minutes, stroking his baby soft skin and feeling his warmth against me.
When he dropped off to sleep, I turned on the night-light and went downstairs. I could hear Mike in the kitchen.
“Did you eat?” he asked. It was almost eight thirty.
“Not yet, but there’s some meat loaf,” I said. “This is a really pleasant surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company tonight?”
“Nan called me. She thought the babysitter needed a babysitter. Or maybe a straitjacket. She told me about your reaction and the nine-one-one call this afternoon.”
“I don’t need anything, actually, but I haven’t seen you-I mean, to talk to or anything like that-in far too long.”
Mike was taking things out of the shopping bag and stacking them next to the stove. “Forget the meat loaf. I stopped at Patroon. Ken loaded me up with a feast. Light a fire in the den and we’ll eat in there.”
I was thoroughly taken with Mike’s thoughtfulness and confused, as I had been for a very long time, by my feelings about him. I had wonderfully loyal and devoted girlfriends, but he was the man I had become closer to in the last ten years than any of the guys I had dated. I had fallen madly in love with Luc a year ago, but I loved Mike too-although I thought in a way that was not romantic. Every now and then a sweet moment like this presented itself, while I was too tired and emotionally wrought to figure out what was going on inside my head and heart.
“I’m starving. I could eat a bear.”
“Hate to disappoint but Ken was fresh out of grizzlies. Fix me a drink, will you?”
“Mercer put some nice white on ice.”
“White doesn’t go with bear-or with a porterhouse. I guess you haven’t spent enough time in France to figure that out.”
Ken Aretsky was one of New York’s great restaurateurs and a dear friend of mine. I had introduced Luc to him, because his upscale eatery on East Forty-sixth Street was a model of fine dining-first-class food, a wine list with incredible depth, and an elegant setting for any good meal-the kind of place Luc was planning to reinvent in his father’s style.
“I hope you brought sides. He’s got the best onion rings in the world-and garlic mashed potatoes. And sautéed spinach,” I said. “Can you tell I skipped lunch? You want vodka or red wine?”
Patroon was anything but a take-out place, yet Ken had frequently arranged deliveries to my apartment when he heard I was under the weather or hunkered down in preparation for a trial.
“You get the fire going, find the red wine, and I’ll set out the dinner. I know how much you go for guys who can cook,” Mike said.
I walked into the den. There were logs in the fireplace and matches on the mantel, so I poked around until the sparks seemed to take on the dry wood.
I went into the powder room and freshened up. I hadn’t put on lipstick or blush the entire day, and now I found myself borrowing Vickee’s things to apply a bit of makeup, brush my hair, and dab on perfume. I stared at myself in the mirror, barely recognizing the tense and exhausted face that stared back at me.
Then I checked the fire, which was going full force. The wine rack and bar were across the room, and I selected a nice California red to avoid any more conversation about France. When I picked up the corkscrew bottle opener, my stomach churned at the thought of Salma Zunega’s neck.
“You want to get the silverware and some napkins?” Mike asked. He had come into the room carrying a platter with a black-and-blue porterhouse for two that he had sliced for us. “Give me the wine opener. Bad territory for you to revisit.”
I passed it off to him and went into the kitchen. When I returned with the place settings, Mike had uncorked the bottle and set out the glasses on the table in front of the sofa. We both made another trip back to bring in the little plates with the veggies and potatoes that Ken had included, knowing my favorites.
“Sit down and help yourself,” Mike said.
“Let me just run up and make sure Logan’s out.”
I climbed to the top of the stairs and peeked into his room. He had curled up under his quilt, surrounded by his favorite stuffed animals, and was sound asleep.
I came back down as Mike was pouring the wine. He lifted his glass and clinked it against mine. “Cheers-here’s to everything you want in the New Year.”
“You make a resolution to be nice to me? That’s top of my list.”
“How could I be nicer than this? The best grub in town, a really fine house, a cute kid. You look great with him, Coop. You look like a natural with that little guy snuggled up tight against you.”
“Here we go again.”
“You have a good time in Paris?”
I didn’t answer.
“No, really. I’m being sincere now. Can’t you tell me if you had a good time?”
“I had a very nice time, Mike. Luc’s an easy guy,” I said, putting down my fork and reaching for the wineglass. Luc adored me and seemed to understand my commitment to the erratic lifestyle of a big-city prosecutor. “His life is so different from ours. There’s no urgency to anything he does, people’s lives don’t hang in the balance. A crisis is whether someone in the biz gets two stars or three.”
“I hear the great chefs kill themselves over that, Coop. I wouldn’t make fun.”
“I’m not. It’s just like living in a fairy tale to fly away from home, leave all my cases for a week, and suspend time in a kind of fantasy life in the middle of the most beautiful village in the world.” I stopped for a minute and put my head back on the thick chenille pillow. “I just don’t know where this is all going.”
“Mind if I take this other end piece?” Mike asked without waiting for the answer. He was eating through all the conversation, as he always did. He handed me one of the enormous onion rings and I munched on it while I watched the flames dance in the fireplace.
“What about you?” I said.
“I’m chewing. You know how you always tell me not to talk with my mouth full?”
I leaned forward and cut a few more bites of steak for myself. Mike had been in love with an architect named Valerie who had survived a bout with breast cancer, only to die in a freak skiing accident more than a year ago.
“I know what Val’s death did to you,” I said. I thought I knew its impact as well as anyone, because of my own immeasurable loss. “She wouldn’t want you-”
“Here’s what’s stupid, Coop. Number two on my list of stupid things people say, okay?”
Mike’s number-one peeve was the word closure. He hated that families of murder victims thought the arrest or conviction of a killer would bring closure to their painful journeys. Instead, while it offered some sort of resolution, he knew that nothing could ever provide what people really wanted-to see their loved ones again, to undo the crimes themselves and the irreplaceable loss of a human life.
“Sorry, Mike. I didn’t mean-”
“Number two, Coop. How does anyone know what Val would want? She’s dead. Why are folks always so sure what the dead would want? People use that expression all the time and I happen to think it’s stupid. Maybe she’d want me to go to a monastery and meditate. Maybe she’d want me to try out at first base for the Yankees. I didn’t know she was gonna die so I really never asked her what she’d want.”
I could see that I’d touched a raw nerve.
“Objection sustained,” I said, and Mike smiled at the legalese. “Let me rephrase that, Detective Chapman. Does what I want count for anything?”
“Depends on what it is,” he said, stabbing another piece of steak and holding it out like an exhibit before putting it in his mouth. “If it was this particular piece of meat, I’d have to say it doesn’t matter what you want.”