Whiskey Beach(145)

“Because he knows he’s headed for a divorce. The man’s a worm,” Abra stated. “On the karma wheel, he’ll come back as a slug next.”

“I’m open to that possibility,” Eli decided. “In his current slot on the karma wheel, he’s going to have legal fees—and he’ll go high-end there—child support, marital settlement. I’m thinking he paid Duncan in cash, to keep it off the books. No record of the outlay when he has to show his finances to the lawyers.”

“He still had to break in, search, because an investigator’s going to keep records of clients, even cash transactions.”

“Files, electronic or paper, copies of cash receipts, a logbook, client list,” Eli agreed. “He wouldn’t want to be connected as a client of an investigator hired to shadow me, who’d ended up dead. Very sticky.”

“Very.” She considered. “He probably never came here, did he, to the office?”

“Probably not. He’d want to meet somewhere like a coffee shop or bar. Not in his area or Duncan’s.” Eli pulled up at another building—steel and block.

“This is where he lived?”

“Second floor. Dicey area.”

“What does that tell you?”

“That Duncan felt he could handle himself, wasn’t worried about his car getting stripped, his neighbors screwing with him. Tough guy maybe, or just one who figured he knew the score and how to play the game. Someone like that wouldn’t think twice about meeting a client alone.”

“Do you want to go in, talk to some of the neighbors?”

“No point. The cops would have already. Suskind wouldn’t have come here other than to go through the apartment. Not only because he wouldn’t have a reason to meet Duncan here, but because this area would scare him. South Boston’s not his turf.”

“It’s not yours either, whiskey baron.”

“That’s my father, or my sister the baroness. Anyway, I’ve done some pro bono work out of Southie. Not my turf, no, but not uncharted territory. Well, I guess we hit the highlights, or more like the lowlights.”

“He was just doing his job,” Abra said. “I didn’t like him, or didn’t like the way he was doing his job the time he talked to me, but he didn’t deserve to die for doing his job.”

“No, he didn’t. But you could consider he’s getting another spin on the karma wheel.”

“I know pandering when I hear it, but well done. And I’ll do just that.”

“There you go. Let’s go see how Gran’s doing before we head back.”

“Would you drive me by the house where you lived with Lindsay?”

“Why?”

“So I can get a sense of who you were.”

He hesitated, then thought, Why not? Why not do the full circle? “Okay.”

It felt odd to travel those roads, to head in that direction. He hadn’t been by the house in the Back Bay since he’d been allowed to clear out what he wanted. Once he had, he’d hired a company to sell the rest, then he’d put the house on the market.

He’d thought cutting those ties would help, but he couldn’t say it had. He passed shops and restaurants that had once been part of his routine. The bar where he’d often had drinks with friends, the day spa Lindsay had favored, the Chinese place with its incredible kung pao chicken and grinning delivery boy. The pretty trees and trim yards of what had once been his neighborhood.

When he pulled up in front of the house, he said nothing.

The new owners had added an ornamental tree to the front, something with weeping branches just starting to bloom in delicate pink. He saw a tricycle on the front walk, bright red and cheerful.

The rest looked the same, didn’t it? The same peaks and angles, the same glinting windows and wide front door.

So why did it seem so foreign?

“It doesn’t look like you,” Abra said beside him.

“It doesn’t?”

“No, it doesn’t. It’s too ordinary. It’s big, and beautiful in its way. Beautiful like a stylish coat, but the coat doesn’t fit you, at least it doesn’t fit you now. Maybe it fit the you with the Hermès tie and Italian suit and lawyerly briefcase who stopped in the local coffee shop for an overpriced specialty coffee while he answered texts on his phone. But that’s not you.”

She turned to him. “Was it?”

“I guess it was. Or that was the road I was on, whether or not the coat fit.”

“How about now?”

“I don’t want the coat back.” He studied her. “When the house finally sold a few months ago, it was a relief. Like shedding a layer of skin that had gotten too tight. Is that why you wanted to come by here? So I’d admit that, or see that?”