Chapter LXVI

The restaurant area of the Grill Room was busy when I arrived, but the bar was quiet. I'd received a text message from Macy to say she was running late, but I had the New York Times, and the bartender served me an unpronounceable Italian red that made me feel sophisticated before leaving me to my reading. I was halfway through a review of a contemporary art exhibition—trying to learn a new and difficult language was supposed to stave off dementia—when a man in a dark suit, a dark tie, and a very white shirt entered and stood at a respectful distance. He smelled of new car.

"Mr. Parker?"

"That's me."

"Attorney General Nowak would like to speak with you."

I didn't want to talk to Paul Nowak, not with Macy on her way and the promise of some quality time with her after, assuming she didn't pour my wine over my head for discussing Sabine Drew on a date night. Even without the Macy factor, I was aware that Nowak wasn't one of my cheerleaders, and my role in the Clark case wasn't going to alter that. Objectively, Nowak wasn't a bad guy, but he was a politician, which made him intrinsically untrustworthy. All politicians are ambitious, and ambition is a hunger that's never sated. It's a cousin to desire, even addiction. We're all prey to the former, whatever the variant, and whether it becomes a vice or virtue depends on one's principles. But politics, by its nature, requires compromise, and compromise and principles are like matter and anti-matter. In the end, every politician fails someone, but the last person he wants to fail is himself.

"Are you his driver?"

"Yes, sir."

"Is he in the car?"

"He's dining in the restaurant."

"So let me get this straight," I said. "He called you to tell you to come in and inform me that he wanted a word, even though he's already inside?"

"That's correct."

The driver kept a straight face, although whether through strength of character or because he'd swallowed too much of Nowak's Kool-Aid was open to conjecture. Moxie, I decided, would want to hear whatever Nowak had to say, if only out of inquisitiveness. Unfortunately, Moxie wasn't available.

"Tell him I'll be over in a minute," I said.

"I'll wait to escort you."

"I can find my own way. I've been here before, and I know what he looks like."

"I'd still prefer to escort you."

He might have been worried that I'd spring at Nowak's throat, or try to interest him in a hooker and cocaine before running to the newspapers with the story.

"I guess it's a job," I said, "but I'll still need that minute."

I texted Macy to tell her to hold off on joining me and find somewhere else to cool her heels. Nowak is here, I added, by way of explanation. If she wanted to watch her career go up in flames, cozying up to me at the bar while Nowak choked on his meal would just about do it.

I put away my phone, picked up my wine, and followed the driver to Nowak's table. I wondered if it was just an unhappy coincidence that had led Nowak to dine at the Grill Room on the same night that a reservation had been made there under my name.

Nowak was eating his main course alone at a table near the open kitchen. He had dark receding hair and a body built for short bursts of power. Nobody would have mistaken him for a male model, but women of my acquaintance, Macy among them, were prepared to grant him a certain appeal. He had the politician's gift of making you feel as though you were the only person in the room, while simultaneously looking over your shoulder for someone more interesting or important. I agreed with most of his politics but would still have struggled to vote for him, even before he decided to use Colleen Clark as a vote-grabber, because I wasn't convinced his views wouldn't change next week, depending on how the wind was blowing. I'd prefer to have taken my chances with the holistic veterinary woman, who was terminally politically disadvantaged by actually believing what she said.

The place setting opposite Nowak had been removed, but I saw stains on the table. The Grill Room didn't hold with stains. At some stage in the evening, Nowak had enjoyed, or tolerated, company.

"I always figured you for a grilled scallop guy," I said, indicating what remained of the dish on his plate. "They don't scream fancy."

"What about the beurre blanc sauce they come with?"

"You probably hide that side of your character from the rubes. It's hard to present yourself as a man of the people with beurre blanc on your clothing."

"That's why I always ask for it on the side." He wiped his mouth with a napkin and gestured to the seat across from him. "Sit, please—unless I'm intruding on a romantic evening?"

He cocked an eyebrow, and I wondered again what he knew or suspected.

"No, it's just me," I said, taking a chair. "All part of my ongoing love affair with myself. The gossip is that you'd like to see it broken up by depriving me of my license, followed closely by my liberty."

Nowak set his knife and fork side by side on his plate, leaving half a scallop uneaten.

"I like to think I hold a more nuanced position on your activities, but I have to admit to an ongoing sense of puzzlement as to why no one has successfully managed to jail or sue you. For example, you discharged a firearm on the streets of New York, which typically attracts a great deal of legal attention, as well as being a negligent thing to do."

"I was young and foolish in those days."

Which was entirely true, though only the first part was untrue now.

"Since then you've left more bodies and wreckage in your wake than the average hurricane, yet here you are."

"Here I am," I agreed.

This was the second time in twenty-four hours that someone had mentioned bodies and wakes to me, the other being Antoine Pinette. Maybe I needed to facilitate a meeting between him and Nowak. I had a feeling they might have more in common than an aversion to my existence.

"Someone—no, almost certainly more than one person—has been applying a finger to the scales on your behalf," said Nowak. "At the last meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General, your name even came up at the bar. For a man with very few friends at the state level across our great nation, you're remarkably resistant to prosecution. Even to raise the subject is to invite pressure: federal pressure. It's subtle but definite. I find that intriguing. It's led me to revise my opinion of you, if only slightly."

"Why would that be?"

"Join the dots. You're no neophyte. I wouldn't be talking to you if I believed you were."

"A man who wants to be governor of Maine almost certainly has larger political ambitions," I said. "He's not going to rock any boats until he knows who might fall overboard as a consequence, especially if it might be him."

"That's very good. I may steal that for a stump speech."

He spotted a passing server and tapped his wineglass for a refill.

"Can I get you something?" he asked.

"I'm still working on this one."

"I was about to order dessert. I was thinking of tonight's special, which is their take on a Bête Noire, perhaps as a gesture toward your sometime employer, Mr. Castin. I've always found him to be characterful from a distance, if less amusing at closer quarters. Erin Becker would concur on the latter, if not the former. He's giving her migraines over Colleen Clark."

"You don't waste time, do you?"

"That's because I don't have time to waste."

"Impatient both of delays and rivals, as someone once said."

"Of me?" he said, with the eagerness of a man whose own name was his main Google alert.

"Of ambition in general. I was thinking about it earlier, even before I was summoned to your presence."

"If it's not insensitive of me to say, given the tragedy in your past, you really need to find yourself a woman. If you already have one, you should consider spending more time with her, because sitting alone at bars is conducive to melancholy. So, Colleen Clark."

"Moxie is her lawyer," I said. "If you want to drop the charges, he's the one to talk to. I can take a message, but you might have to spell some of the longer words. I'm not good with legalese."

"We're not dropping any charges," said Nowak. "Clark is going to prison. It's just a question of sentencing."

"That kind of confidence may play well on the fund-raising circuit over a fried chicken dinner, but here it's only us. Colleen Clark's guilt hasn't been established, and is unlikely to be. Your evidence is thin, and Moxie is ready to shred what little of it there is."

"I appreciate you're being paid to help prove her innocence, but when that bloodied blanket is shown to the jury, all bets will be off. This is theater, Mr. Parker, and the prosecution gets to set the stage. Your client's role is already written, and we both know the ending."

But the fact that we were having this conversation indicated Nowak had his doubts. What we had here was the prelude to a negotiation, one of which Erin Becker was either unaware or with which she was reluctant to be associated, even in a quiet corner of the Grill Room. Nowak was testing the waters, knowing that whatever was said here would be shared with Moxie.

"You'll need a unanimous verdict," I said. "If Moxie can't turn at least one juror in his sleep, he'll retire to grow lemons in Florida. And he doesn't even like lemons."

The server arrived with a fresh glass of wine. As threatened, Nowak ordered death by chocolate, with some macerated berries to add spice to the autopsy.

"A conviction doesn't have to mean a long sentence," he said.

"Erin Becker has been making noises about upgrading to a murder charge. Twenty-five to life strikes me as plenty long."

"The important word being ‘murder.'?"

"In this state ‘manslaughter' doesn't sound much better. That's still up to thirty years." Maine didn't draw a distinction between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. It was manslaughter, impure and rarely simple, with only the absence of malice to distinguish it. "By the way, and for the second time, shouldn't you be having this conversation with Moxie?"

"What conversation?"

This was why I avoided lawyers, Moxie excepted, and only because he was also my lawyer.

"How does Becker feel about whatever it is that's currently not being discussed?" I asked.

"Erin wants to prove a point, but she'd also like the headaches to go away."

"And redecorate the AG's office that you're working so hard to vacate? I hear she's big on chintz."

"She's old-fashioned that way," said Nowak. "You tell Moxie from me that we require a conviction, but we don't need Clark to do hard time. I've read the literature on postpartum depression. I sympathize."

He maneuvered his features into the required expression, barely avoiding having to use his hands to manipulate the muscles directly.

"We're not monsters in Augusta," he continued, "but there are two constituencies that need to be satisfied. The first wants to see Clark punished, while the second doesn't want to watch a woman being pilloried for a crime that may have resulted from psychological illness."

"And both of them vote, right?"

His dessert arrived. Like most things to do with Paul Nowak, it was too rich for my blood.

"I've always believed," said Nowak, "that Janus should be acclaimed as the god of politics." He ate a spoonful of chocolate. His eyes closed briefly in bliss. "Do you want to try this? It's really very good."

"We're not dating," I said, "and I think it may sit better on your stomach than mine."

"You're not accustomed to the finer things in life."

"Often by choice."

"Your loss. Moxie Castin can line up enough expert testimony on the subject of childbirth, depression, and female psychosis to cause the spirit of Susan B. Anthony to descend on the courthouse and shed tears like rain, and we won't contest a word of it as long as we can work out a plea deal. Clark will have to do some time, but if she cops to manslaughter, we won't object to an EPRD of a year and a day from conviction, as long as it's done quietly." An EPRD was an Earliest Possible Release Date. "A year and a day: she won't even feel it passing."

"I think she might, and it's not much consolation if she's innocent."

"It may be all the consolation she's going to receive."

"Plus you're forgetting something."

"I am? I must be growing old."

"Her child. If she were to take the plea deal, wouldn't she have to tell you what she did with her son's body?"

"Perhaps she blotted it out. With the proper care and treatment, it may come back to her. It doesn't have to be a condition of the plea."

"So the boy's fate remains unknown?"

Nowak swirled the fruit into the chocolate and took another massive spoonful, revealing his tongue and teeth. He ate with the unselfconsciousness of the fundamentally arrogant.

"The boy's fate is known," he said. "Henry Clark is dead. The bloodstains say so. But, on reflection, you're right: we'll need her to tell us how she disposed of the child, if only to oil the wheels. If she does, we'll even let her attend the burial, as long as it's conducted in private, and her husband doesn't object.

"By the way, did you attend the burials of your wife and child?"

Sometimes, when you take a punch, you have to make it seem as though it doesn't hurt. It can be hard, almost as hard as not throwing one in return.

"What do you think?" I replied.

"My wife and I don't have children. We're considering adopting. I asked because I can't conceive of what you went through."

"That's not why you asked."

"You're right."

Any semblance of bonhomie departed as Nowak steepled his fingers against his lips, like a man in prayer.

"In my experience," he said, "which is wide, any crime against a cop's family causes the ranks to close tight. Police look after their own. It's a rule, but even rules need exceptions to prove them, and it turns out that you're one. Oh, they stepped up for you, your colleagues, because they couldn't do otherwise, but there was a marked slowness. You were not liked, even if none of them could have said why. It was as though you bore a mark only they could see, however faintly, or carried a contagion only they could detect, and they communicated the fact of it chemically to one another, like ants in a nest. What is that mark, Mr. Parker? What is the contagion? I doubt you even know yourself."

I set aside my wine and prepared to leave. I didn't want to drink any more, not in this company.

"I'll relay your message to Moxie," I said.

"Be sure you do. It's the best deal he'll be offered in his career—the best that you'll be offered too, because if we don't come up with a satisfactory conclusion to all this, there'll be fallout, and I'll be forced to examine why I don't like you. That conversation at the AG bar I mentioned earlier? Some of those present felt that it was time to fight the squeeze where you're concerned. Soon you'll overstep the mark again, and your rabbis, whoever they are, won't be able to save you. When that boat finally rocks, I won't be on board. I'll be watching from a deck chair on the shore, sipping a mint julep while you drown."

It was obvious we were done. I stood. Nowak had soiled his side of the table with cherry juice and chocolate. The mess was making me nauseated.

"And there I was, thinking you were going to offer me a job on your security detail when you become governor."

"If I'm ever in that much danger," said Nowak, "I'll kill myself."

"I doubt that will be necessary," I said. "I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding someone to do it for you."