E is for Evidence

I pulled into the lot and parked. I got out of my car. Sea gulls swirled and settled in an oddly choreographed dance of their own. Geese honked along the shore in search of crumbs while the ducks paddled through the still waters, sending out ripples around them. The sky was a deepening gray, the ruffled silver surface of the lagoon reflecting the rising wind.

I was glad when Lieutenant Dolan's car pulled in be-side mine. We chatted idly until Terry appeared, and then the three of us waited. Lyda Case never showed. At 8:15, we finally gave it up. Terry took Dolan's number and said he'd be in touch if he heard from her. It was a bit of a letdown, as all three of us had hoped for a break in the case. Terry seemed grateful for the activity and I had to guess that it was going to be hard for him to spend his first night alone. He'd been in the hospital Friday night and with his mother-in-law on Saturday while the bomb squad finished their crime-scene investigation and a work crew came in to board up the front wall of the house.

My own sense of melancholy had returned in full force. Funerals and the new year are a bad mix. The pain-killers I'd been taking dulled my mental processes and left me feeling somewhat disconnected from reality. I needed companionship. I wanted lights and noise and a good din-ner somewhere with a decent glass of wine and talk of anything except death. I fancied myself an independent soul, but I could see how easily my attachments could form.

I drove home hoping Daniel would appear again. With him, you never knew. The day he walked out of the marriage eight years before, he hadn't even left a note. He didn't like to deal with anger or recrimination. He said it bummed him out to be around people who were sad, de-pressed, or upset. His strategy was to let other people cope with unpleasantness. I'd seen him do it with his family, with old friends, with gigs that no longer interested him. One day he wasn't there, and you might not see him for two years. By then, you couldn't even remember why you'd been so pissed off.

Sometimes, as in my case, there'd be some residual rage, which Daniel usually found puzzling. Strong emo-tion is hard to sustain in the face of bafflement. You run out of things to say. Most of the time, in the old days, he was stoned anyway, so confronting him was about as produc-tive as trying to discipline a cat for spraying on the drapes. He didn't "get it." Fury didn't make any sense to him. He couldn't see the connection between his behavior and the wrath that was generated as a consequence. What the man did really well was play. He was a free spirit, whimsical, inventive, tireless, sweet. Jazz piano, sex, travel, parties, he was wonderful at those… until he got bored, of course, or until reality surfaced, and then he was gone. I had never been taught how to play, so I learned a lot from him. I'm just not sure it was anything I really needed to know.

I found a parking spot six doors away. Daniel's car was parked in front of my place. He was leaning against the fender. There was a paper bag with twine handles near his feet, a baguette of French bread sticking out of it like a baseball bat.

"I thought you might be gone by today," I said.

"I talked to my friend. It looks like I'll be here a couple days more."

"You find a place to stay?"

"I hope so. There's a little motel here in the neighbor-hood that will have a room free later. Some folks are check-ing out."

"That's nice. You can reclaim your stuff."

"I'll do that as soon as I know for sure."

"What's that?" I said, pointing at the baguette.

He looked down at the sack, his gaze following mine. "Picnic," he said. "I thought I'd play the piano some, too."

"How long have you been here?"

"Since six," he said. "You feel all right? You look beat."

"I am. Come on in. I hope you have wine. I could use some."

He pushed away from the car, toting the bag as he followed me through the gate. We ended up at Henry's, sitting on the floor in his living room. Daniel had bought twenty-five votive candles and he arranged those around the room until I felt like I was sitting in the middle of a birthday cake. We had wine, pate, cheeses, French bread, cold salads, fresh raspberries, and sugar cookies the size of Frisbees. I stretched out afterward in a food-induced rev-erie while Daniel played the piano. Daniel didn't play music so much as he discovered it, calling up melodies, pursuing them across the keys, embroidering, embel-lishing. His background was in classical piano, so he warmed up with Chopin, Liszt, the intricacies of Bach, drifting over into improvisation without effort.

Daniel stopped abruptly.

I opened my eyes and looked at him.