The Probable Future

“My ex-husband. We were legally separated in the summer, and our divorce should come through anytime. No contest.”

“Were you afraid for your safety when you split up?”

“No. Of course not.” For her sanity, perhaps; her self-respect, certainly.

“How about after the breakup? Did you have a restraining order filed?”

So that was where this line of questioning was headed.

“Will Avery is constitutionally incapable of violence. I know him better than anyone, and I can tell you right now he practically faints at the sight of blood. Especially his own. If he cuts himself shaving, he has to breathe into a brown paper bag.”

Which was exactly what he was doing when Jenny got down to the jail on the far side of Charles Street. Will was in a holding cell, huffing and puffing into a bag that had previously held the detectives’ coffees and pastries. They had taken pity on him when he couldn’t catch his breath, and pity was what Will Avery deserved. He’d been picked up the night before, and the effects of his drinking showed after a single sleepless night. His complexion appeared yellow rather than golden under the glare of the fluorescent lights; he was unshaven, his hands shook. Will, who had always cared so much about his appearance, looked like a common criminal. Had Jenny passed him on the street she might have taken him for one of those sorrowful, lost men who dozed on the benches in the Common, the ones who dreamed of hot showers, and apple pie, and a world in which every man received what he truly deserved.

When Will wandered into the police station the previous week, cheerfully whistling, ready to tell his outrageous story to anyone willing to listen, they had laughed at him. Having smelled the alcohol on his breath, they made certain he wouldn’t be driving home. No car, he assured them; he would be walking—stumbling, actually. He’d been huffy about that, insulted they had thought he’d do anything so foolish as drive. To appease him, the sergeant on duty had taken down Will’s complaint about the murder that was to be. Everyone at the station house had a hoot afterward, agreeing that they’d truly heard everything now.

But following the killing in Brighton, one of the officers who’d been on duty that night remembered the report, and he had dug up Will’s file. There he found a description of the victim and the exact cause of death, six days before it had occurred.

“You idiot,” Jenny said when she was let in to see him. She sat facing Will, their knees grazing.

“That’s not in dispute.” Will looked at his ex and managed a grin. There was a flicker of what there had once been between them. But it was just that, a flicker, nothing more. They had become more like people who’d been through a war together, comrades with little in common but the battle itself.

“I called my brother. He’s getting me a lawyer. Remember Henry Elliot who we went to school with? He practices in Boston now. Apparently, he’s one of the best.”

“You called Matt?”

It was ridiculous for her to feel wounded that he might not have called her first. But Matt? They hadn’t seen much of Will’s brother over the years. He’d come to visit when they first moved to Cambridge, and of course they’d seen him at Catherine Avery’s funeral. But Will and Jenny had an aversion to their hometown, and once Catherine had passed on, the brothers drifted even farther apart. Matt Avery, after all, had stayed put; he had barely taken a step out of Unity. He had cared for his mother in her last years and worked odd jobs, plowing snow, landscaping, working for the Department of Parks. The brothers had so little in common, and then, of course, there’d been that awful fight. It was the year after Stella was born, when Matt had come to stay for New Year’s. There had been some altercation at the party Jenny and Will were throwing, and the two men had wound up on the street, going at each other as though their lives depended on the outcome. By the time the fight had been broken up and Jenny had soothed their outraged landlady and the neighbors who were already fed up with Will’s antics, Matt had gone. Now, he’d agreed to pay for an expensive criminal lawyer.

“Blood is thicker than water,” Will said hopefully. He was dying for a cigarette, but of course they’d taken everything away from him, including the silver lighter Stella had given him last Father’s Day. TO THE BEST DAD IN THE WORLD, she’d inscribed. Poor thing, Will had thought, even then. Bound to be disappointed. “Maybe good old Matt feels guilty that my mother left him the house. Do you think he was the favorite?” There was that grin again, but only for an instant.

“Of course he was. You barely went to visit her. I’m just glad Matt can afford a top lawyer, because I can’t.”