Clean Slate

Chapter 61

The Saturday afternoon sun burned down through a cloudless sky on the sweeping grassy hillside of Grace-Wood Cemetery. Stones of various sizes and colors, set off here and there by granite spires and squatty mausoleums, dotted the blue-green grass at irregular intervals. At the base of the hill gathered a cluster of willows facing a syrupy green pond. Between the pond and the grove stood, in a silent, motionless, and reverent circle, a crowd of perhaps 100 people in various shades of dark and mute.

Thou shalt show me the path of life; in thy presence is the fulness of joy, and at thy right hand there is pleasure forevermore.

Mac, standing alone at the back of the crowd, saw through the motionless plenitude of heads and shoulders some mortuary people working at the grave site. Presently he heard the sound of shovels and earth as the priest went on.

Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our sister Diana departed, and we commit her body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life. . . .

Mac felt uncomfortably hot in his better black suit with pin stripes. The tie felt like a noose. He was conscious of people conscious of his presence. Though he had never met most of them – Mike and Diana Privette ran in circles completely outside his – Mac's face had been on TV yesterday afternoon and today. People knew who he was, had a notion of what had happened.

I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, From henceforth blessed are the dead who die in the Lord: even so saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labours.

He had all but decided not to come into town this morning. He had not been to a funeral for fifteen months, and knew it would be difficult for him. Plus, he knew there were more of these on tap, for people closer to him. Sufficient unto the day, he'd thought. Then he felt ashamed at his feelings of self-pity. He recalled that at the service for Nicholas, he had spotted, at the back of the chapel, a man standing alone, hands folded at his chest, Rosary beads clutched in his fists, a man Mac thought he did not know. Then it dawned on him that he was the man who vacuumed the Fannie Annie offices each morning. Mac did not know his name. They had never been introduced, exchanged cursory greetings only. And yet the man had shown up in support.

Mac remembered how much it had meant. If he could do that, I can do this. And so this morning Mac had suited up, brushed himself off, and made the drive back into town.

Most merciful Father, who hast been pleased to take unto thyself the soul of this thy servant Diana; Grant to us who are still in our pilgrimage, and who walk as yet by faith, that having served thee with constancy on earth, we may be joined hereafter with thy blessed saints in glory everlasting –

A hand gripped Mac's arm. It was Libby Lewis. So lost in thought had he been, focusing on the sonorous phrases of Archbishop Cranmer, that he had not noticed her approach. "Talk to you?" she whispered close.

The final prayer was winding down. Mac nodded, and they turned and walked briskly around the grove of trees to a grouping of marble benches on the other side. Libby's attire was, for her, modest. She wore a white suit – dress hem at her shapely ankles, jacket buttoned almost to her lovely neck, snug enough to show shape but not terribly revealing. The white material contrasted vividly with her flaming red hair, unadorned by a hat: no high Episcopalian she. The jacket had a scalloped front and sleeves, and showed a faint rose applique on its face, with tiny white beads. Not for Libby the grim gray-black of funeral attire, Mac thought. "Didn't see you before," he said when they'd reached a discreet distance from the service.

"Just got here," Libby said. "Running WFO." Her gray eyes were alight, and she seemed almost to burst with news. "They found Bucaro!"

"Really," Mac answered. Something about how she put it did not seem right. "And locked him up tight, I hope."

"Oh, he's not going anywhere. He's dead."

Mac stared at her. From around the trees drifted mourners, singly and in pairs, headed for the asphalt drive along which vehicles parked shiny in the sun for a quarter mile. "What happened?" Mac asked.

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Libby said. "You know the Flatiron Building?" Mac shook his head. "Found him there, shot dead. And the room he was in – turns out, from the way it looks, it was Judge Wildern's private office."

That filled in some blank spaces for Mac. Not so much for Libby, because she had not seen the DVD. Mac was content to keep things that way. "Interesting."

"Yes," she replied, watching him intently, "interesting. So Bucaro confronts Wildern, and gets killed. Then Wildern goes home and confronts his wife, and gets killed. And then along wanders good old Mac. For some damn reason."

"Like I said, and I'll keep saying: all I wanted to do was talk to the Judge about a personnel matter. You know and I know that I was going to warn him about what was about to happen to Bucaro. As a courtesy. Because he was my friend."

"And I'm printing that," she answered. "But I know there's more. Start divulging."

Mac shrugged. "I just had the bad luck," he said, "to show up at the house in the middle of this. . .fracas."

"‘Fracas' my pink freckled ass," Libby murmured. "This didn't all just happen. We know Bucaro was up to no good. There was always the suspicion that the Judge was implicated with Brody, the hooker babe." She tapped his chest. "You kinda went off the reservation on me, toward the end of the week. I think you got a lot more information you sorta neglected to share with me. For one thing, that CD you got from Jessica Miller, the one Eddie Fant stole – you never told me what was on that, either."

"They're all dead, Libby. All the players. Dead."

"Makes it even juicier."

"Let it be."

"‘Hail of bullets settles lover's triangle.' Shit, man, there's a book in this one for me."

"Have at it."

She sighed, rolled her eyes. "Well, at least consider leveling with me. By doing that you can help me get it right. And protect your own interests." She checked her watch. "Gotta run."

"I'll walk you." They strode up the walk toward the asphalt drive. During the talk Mac had grown acutely conscious of the woman beside him, criminally sexy, whom he had known in so many carnal ways. He'd thought it had run its course for him, but now he realized it had not. He thought about taking her to lunch, driving her home, doing the afternoon doing her. Why not? Life offers few comforts; take them where you find them. "What're you doing later?" he asked.

"Oh gosh, I'm be running hard till late," she said. "Then I have grocery shopping, and dry cleaning to drop off, and I need to pick up an EPT."

"A what?"

"Early pregnancy test." She snorted. "Let's face it, I'm showing all the signs. I had cramps two weeks ago, my chest has been aching, and I've been nauseous on and off for the past few days, peeing every 10 minutes like some little old lady. And I'm constantly hungry, but I can't eat a lot before I get full."

Mac felt dizzy. A sound similar to sea-breakers roared in his head. This can't be happening, he thought. This can't be right.

"Not to mention," she added, "I had no PMS last week – and I'm usually the PMS queen!"

"How late are you?" Mac asked faintly.

"Just a few days." They were almost to her car. She gave him a sardonic look. "What are you worried about? Oh, jeez. For heaven's sake, Mac. Do the math."

They drew up to the silver Spyder convertible. "Um – " Mac began.

"I was seeing a guy," Libby said, extracting keys from her small purse, "this married guy. He had a vasectomy about a month before he met me, and never made it back to the doc to make sure it worked." She tossed her bag onto the passenger seat. "So if I'm tagged, it's him who tagged me. Not you."

"Oh." Mac felt at once ridiculous and relieved, in more ways than one. "Okay. Well, good luck. See you around."

She opened the car door, dropped in, pulled the door to, and looked up at him. "Why'd you ask?"

"Ask what?"

"What I'm doing later."

"Just. . .conversing. Take good care now. And thanks, Libby."

She jingled her keys into the ignition. "Thanks for what?"

"You just did me a huge favor." He stepped back, waved. Looking puzzled, Libby fired up her engine and scooted the little Spyder out into the departing funeral traffic. Mac turned and walked back against the flow of pedestrian and vehicle traffic toward the paved walkway. He'd been thinking, during the funeral, about the layout of Grace-Wood, and though he'd only been to the spot one time, he thought he could find his way there again.

---

The site was lonely, by a single small oak tree, near one of the stony streams that ran through Grace-Wood, not far from the old battlefield and the Confederate section. You could not park near the site, and it was quite a hike to get there. As Mac drew near he was surprised to see someone else. Back to him, on hands and knees, with a big basket alongside. There was something familiar about the shape of the rear end, and something in the movements tweaked his memory. Then he saw the blonde hair, and the woman turned to see who was coming, and Mac realized it was Suzanne.

Quickly she scrambled to her feet. She wore short jean-bibs over a pink shirt, and leather sandals on her otherwise bare feet. Her blonde hair was tousled and streaked with sweat, and her bare white arms were flecked with soil and blades of grass. Her roundnesses were quite a contrast to the leonine Libby. "Mac!" Suzanne said, tone guarded but not unfriendly, as she fussed and smoothed her hair. "What a surprise." She was sizing up his appearance: more McGladrey, Mac thought, than blood. "Off to a funeral?"

"No thanks, just been."

She winced. "Oh. Oh gosh, I'm sorry." She gestured at the ground. "I'm just tidying up," she rushed on.

"I see that." The basket had odd items of litter in it, and weeds pulled up by the roots. The plot itself looked like pristine grassy carpet. The marker was a white cross. Another small stone, at the foot of the plot, gave Nicholas's name and dates. Mac was surprised to find that he felt no emotion whatever. Too numb, maybe. Or perhaps it was because he knew his son was not there, and had never been there; this place was about Suzanne, not Nicholas. "Just thought I'd look in," he said lightly, "long as I was out here."

"Well, here it is," she replied, with quiet pride. She came over to him, took his hand, leaned her head briefly against the side of his shoulder. "I heard what happened. I was so scared for you. I was going to go ahead and call you today. I'm glad you're all right."

The touch of her hand, the warmth of her nearness, the feel of her head, and the words. . . . Mac felt himself well up with the kinds of words he had been, until now, unable to say.

Reaching up, Suzanne lightly touched the bandages on the back of his head. "Hurting?"

"Plenty sore," he said. "Wood splinters. They got most of them."

"I am so sorry," she murmured.

"I didn't want to shoot her. That's the last thing I wanted. I feel awful."

"It's not your fault."

"I set it all in motion."

"It was self defense," Suzanne countered quietly. "Frankly I'm glad you did it. Because otherwise you'd be dead. And I want no part of a world without you in it."

Mac swallowed hard. The heaviness in his chest seemed to ease up. "That's nice of you to say."

"I love you, Mac. I will always, always, always love you. And when you're ready to make your move, you'll find me right here," she said, squeezing his hand for emphasis, "and ready to be your girl."

"I don't know," Mac murmured. "I'm not sure. It almost seems like we're trying to pour water on flowers that are dead."

"I don't think they're dead," she replied. "Just really thirsty."

There then came a long, long pause. Mac released her hand, edged off a bit. The notion had come at him out of total left field, some unreachable remote place in his mind – a crafty quality about which he was not especially proud. At first he rejected the idea out of hand, because this seemed like neither the time nor the place – and Mac was, at heart, merciful. But then, on the other hand. . .whatever was to happen with them – and Mac had ruled out nothing – the festering had to stop first.

Had to.

"So you ready to get right?" he asked without looking at her.

She went to slip her arm around him. "Please," she murmured.

He stepped away and turned. Suzanne was looking up at him, surprise and, yes, just a hint of annoyance, in her green eyes. "No," he said readily. "Talk to me."

"Not here!" she answered, eyes flashing.

"Why not?" Mac retorted. "To you this place is about him. And the issue is about him, too. Because without what you did, he would not have --"

"Stop it!" she hissed.

"You need to know," Mac went on, "I got the goods."

Her eyebrows shot together. "There's no ‘goods.'"

"Last chance," he said.

She reached for the basket. "I'm going home."

He took her arm, stopped her. "Not yet."

She faced him and dropped the basket, put hands on hips, face wrathful. "What," she spat.

"You didn't think about cameras."

"What cameras."

"Cobo Hall, up there in Detroit. They have surveillance cameras, 24/7 at all the exits. Digital, high res, color, time-stamped. Everything but voice-over by Walter Cronkite."

"So what?" she asked guardedly.

"You swiped yourself into the conference," Mac said, "so the computer would record that you were actually there. Covering your tracks, see. Then you just doubled around and back out the door you went. Because they don't make you swipe out. Thing is, you forgot about the surveillance cameras."

Her eyes widened, her lips pursed.

"I hired a guy," Mac said.

She sighed, shrugged, and actually smiled. "Okay. All right. I'm busted."

Though motionless, Mac had a moment of dizziness, the world around him taking two sharp spins.

"I was naughty," Suzanne said. "And I am so sorry." She was dry-eyed, earnest. "But I'm past all that. And I've paid a price, Mac. You're not the only one to suffer over this. Imagine how I've felt."

Quite readily, Mac regained his equilibrium. This was not, after all, much of a surprise. "I would not want to be you," he agreed.

"So," she said briskly, "we're okay now, right?"

Were we ever okay? "Oh no. No, we are not."

Readily, coolly, as if she'd prepared the question for months, she asked, "What do I need to do?"

Mac raised both palms to her, and as quietly and calmly as he knew how, he said, "Just keep clear. Okay? Keep clear."

He turned and began the long walk back to the parking area. He was afraid Suzanne would follow, but she did not. He was sure she'd say something – she needed always to have the last word – and eventually she did. "I know you still love me," she called.

And those words echoed maliciously in his head, all the way back to his car.