Page 7 of The Lie Maker

It occurred to Willard at that moment that he had left the house without his cell phone. If someone was hurt, and if that person did not have a phone, Willard would have to start knocking on doors to summon assistance.

“Hello?” he said, standing at the mouth of the alley. Shadows, snatches of light. The old man squinted, trying to see into the darkness more clearly. He thought he could make out a shape, someone struggling to stand.

“Judge, is that you?”

A man’s voice. And clearly, someone who recognized him. Maybe one of his neighbors.

“Yes, yes,” Willard said. “Who is it?”

“I’m hurt,” the man said weakly. The retired judge could see someone raising an arm to the wall, supporting himself.

Willard entered the alley, pulling Oliver along with him.

“What’s wrong? Who is it? Are you injured?”

Willard took several more steps into the alley, until he was close enough to make out the face of the person who had called out to him.

“Do I—do I know you?” Willard asked as the man took his hand off the wall, and Willard saw that it had been holding something. Something that looked like a club, like a short baseball bat.

“Someone would like to have a word with you,” the man said before bringing the club down.

Moments later, Oliver came wandering out of the alley, not quite sure what to do or where to go, dragging his leash behind him, feeling, as much as a dog is able to, that it was the worst of times.

Four

Jack

“Looks like I won’t be doing any road tests of the new John Deere for Lawnmower Life,” I said.

“That’s a joke, right?” Lana Wilshire said. “There’s not really a Lawnmower Life.”

“Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

We were in her tenth-floor condo in the Harbor Towers. Her place faced the harbor, with a view of the New England Aquarium to the north, and across the water, we could see the planes coming in and taking off at Logan. Her digs were only about five thousand times better than my small second-floor apartment in what was once a large, two-story Everett home. Lana’s place was a short walk to a dozen five-star Boston restaurants. Mine was a stone’s throw from a strip mall whose main attractions were a bagel place and a Dunkin’ Donuts.

Lana was probably as well paid as anyone in the Boston Star newsroom, but that still wouldn’t be enough to afford a place like this. Lana could make it on her own, without question, but she hadn’t said no when her parents, both retired lawyers living in Beacon Hill splendor, offered to help her buy this place. I wouldn’t have said no, either, but what family I had would have been hard pressed to come up with a Christmas bonus for Lana’s doorman.

While her parents had helped her buy it, she had definitely made it her own, with big, puffy couches and chairs that managed to be stylish as well as comfortable. The walls were adorned with several enlarged black-and-white journalistic photographs with a common theme: famous and not-so-famous people raising their hands to the camera, desperately trying not to have their picture taken. The photos had a blurry, urgent immediacy to them, and they sent a message that was central to Lana’s approach to her craft:

You can run but you can’t hide, you son of a bitch.

I wasn’t so sure. The first time I was here, as I went from picture to picture, studying them, Lana had asked, “See anyone you know?”

“Don’t think so,” I’d said.

On another wall, hung more subtly between some pictures of friends and family, was another black-and-white shot, this one of the late writer Joan Didion leaning up against her Corvette Stingray. It had been taken back in the late sixties, shot by Julian Wasser for a Vogue profile. Didion’s novels and journalism were an inspiration to Lana. And these two women had something in common beyond a dedication to exposing people to truths they might prefer to avoid. They were diminutive in stature, which meant their subjects often underestimated how formidable they could be until they read what they’d written.

Lana, just over five feet tall in her stocking feet but partial to four-inch heels so she wouldn’t be overlooked when she waved her hand in the air at news conferences, was as fearless as anyone I knew. She’d walk into a mob of people chanting “Fake news!” with her notepad in hand and shout back, “Then set me straight.” She’d grab that orange vest and hard hat she kept in the trunk of her aging BMW and walk right under that yellow caution tape to get up close to an accident scene.

I loved her.

Instead of going out to celebrate—I’d texted Lana earlier to suggest more modest plans, and intended to wait until I actually saw her to explain that morning’s disappointing developments—we brought back to her place a couple of tuna tacos and a sausage and cherry-pepper pizza from Fin Point. Just as well, because as it turned out Lana had been handed a last-minute evening assignment and we hadn’t connected until almost ten.

We had forgone plates and fine cutlery for standing at the counter and eating out of the box.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “How could he do that?”

I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter. Hell with it. I wasn’t very excited about the job anyway. Sometimes I think I should never have left Worcester, but if I’d stayed, I’d probably have been laid off by now.”

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