Page 15 of The Lie Maker

“I know I am,” Lana said. “When did you last speak with him?”

“I guess it was a week ago. I call him every few days or he calls me, and we get caught up on each other’s news. Sometimes we’ll take him out for Sunday brunch. He’s been working his way through all of Charles Dickens, something he’s wanted to do all his life but never had the time. He was on A Tale of Two Cities.”

Oliver stirred, uttered a barely audible whine, and stayed asleep. Katie ran her hand softly down the dog’s spine.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s going to be okay.” Teary eyed, she looked at Lana and said, “If only he could talk, tell us what he saw? If... if... And now I feel like, if he hadn’t had to take Oliver for a walk, he wouldn’t have been on the street at that time, and whatever happened to him...”

Lana gave the woman a moment.

“I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt him,” the daughter said. “I haven’t wanted to let my mind go there, but I know... there have been incidents where judges have been targeted, their families attacked, out of revenge. And sometimes there doesn’t even have to be a real motive. People get it into their head to do something crazy and they do it. I remember there was a case where Dad dismissed charges against a man who’d been charged with a sexual assault, because the evidence was seriously tainted and it looked like police had fabricated some of it, and this talk-radio host went to town on Dad, said he wanted to let all the perverts out of jail, and it was scary there for a week or so, all these threats he received. But he’s been retired a long time now. It doesn’t make any sense that anyone would want to do him any harm.” She wiped away a tear. “So he must have gotten confused, or lost, or fallen.”

Lana was inclined to agree with the retired judge’s daughter. The man had not presided over a case in nearly a decade. Why would anyone want to exact any revenge at this late date? Still, he could have had a run-in with some common thug. Maybe someone strung out, looking for drug money. Then again, he was an old man, and even if he hadn’t been exhibiting any serious signs of dementia, he might have become confused. Wandered off, gotten lost.

Sooner or later, Lana guessed, he’d turn up, one way or another.

Eight

Jack

Harry Breedlove lived in Manhattan, but he came to Boston every few weeks to visit an ailing aunt and another author he represented. I’d told him the next time he was in town I wanted a sit-down to talk about where things were with my third book. I’d had a feeling for the last month or so that he was avoiding me. In the past he had almost always responded to emails within the hour. Lately, it took a couple of days or a second email from me to prompt a response. Ditto for texts.

So I was grateful that he had gotten in touch to say he was going to be in the neighborhood the next day. His text was followed up with a phone call.

“All those times I’ve been to Boston, I’ve never been to that aquarium,” he said. “Do you want to meet there?”

I wanted a serious business meeting, but I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to take him for a quick tour of the New England Aquarium. “Sure. It’s like this massive four-story goldfish bowl with a descending walkway around it. A Guggenheim full of fish.”

Harry’s call was only a minor distraction that kept me from thinking about my other problems: my employment situation, my incinerated car, and Earl’s financial woes. I was more worried about the first two. Earl was on his own.

After Earl drove away, I Ubered home and put the TV on for background noise. Found a Law & Order, my go-to. There was always a station, at any hour of the day, running an episode from one of its twenty seasons (and that wasn’t counting all the spin-offs or the reboot) and when I stumbled on one, I often stopped and watched, at least for a few minutes. I got out my laptop and started surfing through job sites, the occasional thunk thunk from the TV interrupting my search.

I started with postings that would make some use of my writing skills—public relations, speechwriting, advertising—but there weren’t many of those to be found. None, actually. I would have to broaden my search parameters. Not so far, I hoped, as to include “Walmart greeter.”

I was having some trouble focusing. In the back of my mind, I could hear Earl saying, Why would somebody send a message after all this time?

He was right. Didn’t make any sense. Didn’t make any sense at all.

I folded down the laptop screen. Maybe I should put off my job hunt for one day. If Harry had good news, that he had sold my book, maybe the advance money would keep me afloat for a while. Why meet up with me in person to deliver bad news? He could do that over the phone. When you had good news to share, you wanted to see the expression on the person’s face.

Or so I was telling myself. God, it was like waiting to get tests back from the doctor.

The next day, I got to the aquarium a few minutes before eleven, which was when we had agreed to meet. I went in first and bought us tickets. Harry had said he was flying up the night before and had booked a room at the Marriott Long Wharf, about a one-minute walk from the aquarium.

I spotted him heading my way from his hotel. If you have an image in your head of what a literary agent might look like, especially one with a name like Harry—unassuming, glasses, tweed jacket, thinning hair—you wouldn’t be picturing Harry Breedlove. Late thirties, black jeans, black jean jacket, longish black hair pulled back into a ponytail. And yes, glasses, but with soft pink lenses. I was never sure whether they were just sunglasses, corrective, or both, but he almost never took them off.

He greeted me with a wide smile and a handshake.

“Jack, Jack, Jack, how are you?” he said. “You’re looking good.”

That was a pleasure to hear, even if it was most likely bullshit. Recent developments had done nothing to raise my spirits. I felt as though someone had painted a sad clown face on me.

“You, too,” I said. We exchanged pleasantries. How was the flight? How’s your room? How’s your aunt?

I handed him one of the two tickets I’d purchased.

“Oh, you should have let me get these,” he said.

I led him into the building. We went to the top floor and began our walk down, and around, the massive tank, a re-creation of a Caribbean coral reef that was home to hundreds of species.

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