Bob thought about this. Then he said, “Listen, I want you to call me every morning and every night until this case goes away. If you don’t call me, I’m going to call you. And please don’t hurt yourself, Matt. There is not enough evidence to go charging you with murder. Do you understand me?”
Matt just nodded from where he stood by the wall. Bob sat down again in the dining room chair. “Is there anything you want to tell me about this case that you haven’t already told me? Anything at all?” Bob asked this slowly.
Matt looked over at him. He looked dazed, and he did not answer for a few moments. “No,” he said quietly. And again Bob thought: He is lying.
As Bob left the house, it was the first time he felt certain that Matt had had something to do with his mother’s death. Nothing had especially changed. It was something in the manner of Matt.
*
As Bob drove home, Carol Hall called him. “I’m getting ready, Bob. I bet I could bring him in right now and make it stick. I’m offering you a chance to avoid the press and have him surrender himself to the police.”
“Carol, stop it. You don’t have probable cause. When you do, you let me know. I’m sure you’re aware by now that he does not have a cellphone, just like I told you? Did they bother to tell you that?”
“They did. But I also know that he wrote on his computer that his mother made him crazy. We have three years’ worth of notes to himself on that computer, Bob.”
“You’re going to embarrass yourself if you think that’s enough for probable cause. And I’m going to make sure it’s not even going to be allowed into evidence,” Bob said.
She hesitated just long enough that Bob knew she was not yet certain, and then she said, “All right, but I have the police watching him. Just so you know.”
“They can watch him all they want. He’s not going anywhere.”
But after he hung up, he was deeply worried. If they should discover that Matt was now the beneficiary of his father’s one-hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy, then Carol Hall might have enough to bring him in. If the bank where that money was should somehow notify someone—he knew it was illegal for a bank to do so, but that did not mean that some idiot who worked there wouldn’t do it—he should prepare for a Harnish bail proceeding, which was Maine’s way of getting bail for a client in homicide cases.
Would Matt show up for his court date?
Probably, where else was he going to go?
Would Matt pose a substantial risk to anyone in the community?
No.
Was there substantial risk that Matt would commit another crime?
No.
—
But it all had to be prepared, and it made Bob very tired.
*
Johnny Tibbetts arrived in Bob’s office looking defensive. It took Bob a while to get the guy to relax enough to tell him what he remembered about Matt Beach. Johnny Tibbetts was a tall man, very thin, with thinning hair, and his teeth—Bob noticed—were bad. “I don’t remember him much at all,” Johnny Tibbetts said. “But he was okay. A good enough guy. Strange.”
“In what way strange?” Bob asked.
Johnny shifted on his chair, his hands stuffed down deep into his old coat pockets, and he said, “Dunno.”
Bob sat back and sighed.
And then Johnny Tibbetts said, “Something about naked pregnant women. He liked them. Was always wanting to paint their picture.” Johnny Tibbetts opened his mouth and laughed, showing those bad teeth. “Fuckin’ whack job, Jesus Christ. Pregnant women?”
In another ten minutes Bob let the fellow go.
And Fred LaRue, when he showed up, had not one extra thing to offer.
4
Lucy waved to Bob from where she stood waiting by the wooden fence in the parking lot, and he thought there was an innocence to her that she probably did not understand about herself. As he got out of his car and walked toward her, the sight of her standing there made something gold-colored flicker inside him; it was joy.
—
And then he had to stop walking, because—at that precise moment—he understood exactly how much he loved her.
—
“Oh Bob,” she said, as she walked to him. “Oh Bob, Bob, Bob. The sin-eater.”
He did not look at her, and she said, “Never mind. Sorry. Tell me what’s wrong. You looked so happy to see me, and then your face fell.”
Bob said, as they began to walk, “Margaret and I had a doozy of a fight.” As he spoke those words, he was aware that he was betraying his wife. But Lucy just listened as he told her of their argument, and then she said, “You don’t think William has those tendencies? Come on, Bob. How long do you speak to William before he starts in on his parasites? I’m serious. Sometimes I think if I hear the word parasite one more time I will die. Just die.”
“Do you think she can change?”
“She can change.” And after a moment Lucy said thoughtfully, “And so can William. There’s a difference between being self-absorbed and being a narcissist.”
He felt the joy of Lucy’s presence return to him. “Well, we’re stuck with them,” he said, and why did he say that? Was he hoping she would say No, we’re not—let’s run away together?
But Lucy said, “Yes, we are, and it could be a whole lot worse.”
