Guilt

But dang, he couldn't deny they hit something in him.

Wyno

'Doing what?'

She laughed. 'That misty-eye thing to every mushball lyric you hear.'

'It's nothing to do with the lyrics. I happened to look too long at the sun and it made my eyes water. Or else it was the smoke.'

She ignored him. 'So maybe I'll think that, way deep down, you've got a tender and gentle soul.'

'No, that is not me. I'm not trying to impress you. I'm a cynical big-city attorney and nothing touches me. I am a rock. I am, in fact, an island.'

'My understanding is that no man is an island.'

'I tell you, I am a fucking island.'

'Okay, you're an island. Anyway, I am impressed.' She lifted his hand and kissed it, then nudged Bart with her bare toe. 'I think he actually feels things, don't you, Bart?'

Bart raised his head, put it back down on his paws.

'See?' she said. 'The mute beasts concur.'

Wes got up and took the top off the kettle cooker. A couple of T-bone steaks filled the whole grill. He gave them a turn and came back to sit down. 'You know why people cry at happy endings in movies? Or at weddings? Or even, some incredibly weak slobs, at country-music lyrics?'

'They're crybabies?'

'I'm going to hit your broken arm.'

'Crybabies isn't the answer?'

He shook his head. 'They want it that way again. Something in them remembers that they used to think it was that way, that things in life could turn out good, and seeing that hope, being reminded of it, it's too much to take. So they cry.'

'But you still think things turn out good, don't you?'

'No. I still wish they did just as bad, but I don't think so anymore.'

She reached and took his hand. 'Seeing your wife today?'

'Lydia?' He let out a long breath. 'No, Lydia's over. It was more, I think, the kids. Mark's kids.'

'What about them?'

Again, he sighed. 'I don't know. All the effort, the hopes, the lessons, the tears, the fights, the sicknesses – and at the end, what do you get? You get some kids who are total strangers, who don't want anything to do with you.'

'Your kids?'

'Well, some of that, maybe. But mostly Mark's. They really hate him.'

'Maybe he wasn't a good father.'

'That's just it. He was a great father. I was around. I saw him. Baseball, te

'But did they have him?'

He seemed to deflate. 'I guess I don't know that. Did my kids have me? I mean, both of us – Mark and I – we worked like dogs so Lydia and Sheila didn't have to. This was, of course, the Middle Ages. Back then wasn't considered the height of oppression.'

The silence, as well as the difference in their ages, hung between them. 'I better get the steaks,' Wes said, but he didn't get up. He didn't want to let go of Sam's hand. He turned to her. 'His kids really hate him, Sam, and I know them. They're not bad. They're fine with me. They call me Uncle Wes even, sometimes. But their dad… I just don't get it.'

'Maybe he's not the person you think he is. Not with everybody else. He seemed pretty cold to me.'

Now he did let go of her hand. 'Let's not take my best friend apart four days after his wife was killed, okay?'

'I'm not taking him apart, I'm saying he seemed cold. Maybe he was cold to his kids, that's all.'

'And maybe he's trying to keep from breaking down, so he's guarded right about now, how's that?' He had raised his voice and Bart sat up, growling.

Sam took a beat, a breath. 'You're right, I don't know him at all, I'm sorry. The steaks aren't going to be rare.'

Downstairs, in his, kitchen, they sat at the table. Sam stared down at her food. Wes couldn't stop the smile that crept up. She wasn't going to be able to cut her steak. 'Your cast.' Standing up, he came around the table and kissed her. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I don't want to fight.'

Sam lay her head against him. 'Don't be mad at me. I'm not attacking your friend.'

'I know. With your permission.' He pulled another chair out from the table, sat down, picked up a knife and began cutting. 'And the fact is, Mark might have been a terrible father. I don't know. Maybe husband, too. We didn't pride ourselves on that so much in those days. He's just my friend. Some of us white males – even if we're not angry – occasionally feel unfairly attacked here in this modern world. It's tempting to band together. So I suppose I've got a gut reaction to protect him. Especially now.'

'I can see that. But I'm not attacking you either, okay?'

'I know, but I wonder if it's just that I didn't see what he might have really been like with his kids, couldn't let myself see because I was doing the same thing.'

'And what about now?'

That stopped him again. For a moment. 'What about now?'

She only dared meet his eyes.

'No,' he said. 'Flatly, emphatically no.'

'Okay, but since we were talking…'

'I don't understand how you can even say that?'

'I didn't, actually. I looked it. But I was talking to Christina today – her reaction to Mark being under suspicion kind of reminded me of you.'

'You told her about it?'

'A little. It's okay, Wes, she won't alert the media.'

'So how was her reaction like mine?'

'Just very knee-jerk. Not really looking at it. She's in love with him, you know.'

'She told you that?'

'No.'

He rolled his eyes.

'But a girl can tell.'

'So Christina's in love with Mark. And he's my best friend. Now let me get this straight – because of those reasons we both don't believe he killed his wife while he was out driving golf balls. How strange. Do you think he killed her?'

She shook her head. 'No. Your steak's getting cold. It's perfect, by the way.'

Standing up, he kissed her and went back to his seat.

'All I'm saying,' she continued, 'is that I have a hard time believing Sergeant Glitsky goes around planting evidence to convict people for no reason.'

'Well, I hope you're right.' He cut a piece of meat. 'Christina's in love with him?'

'Tis the season,' she said sweetly. 'She may not even know it yet, but you wait. Six months.'

Wes stopped chewing. The words were almost exactly those used by Mark's kids when he hadn't known what they were talking about. He did now, and it made him nervous.

Most nights, Sam stayed with her brother Larry. She was apartment hunting in a haphazard fashion, but it was never easy finding the right place. And tonight she was staying at Wes's.

Now she slept peacefully next to him. Unable to do the same, he carefully lifted the blanket from his side of the bed and got out, threw on his old terrycloth robe, and padded into the living salon, sitting on the futon. The streetlights outside painted their designs on his hardwood. He'd left the kitchen window open over the table where he and Sam had eaten, and the breeze coming through it still felt almost balmy.

Bart climbed up next to him and he petted him absently. His mind wouldn't stop racing. Maybe he ought to write a country song, he thought, 'bout settin' up all night while your girl's asleep, your love is deep but you're feelin' blue, what's a poor country boy to do? It had possibilities.

But that thought didn't hold. He kept returning to Christina Carrera… which brought him to Mark. Of course, as he'd told Sam, Mark had an airtight alibi. Hell, it wasn't even that, he reminded himself, it was the truth.

The past twenty-five years of Wes's professional life had been spent in the mud and trenches of criminal law, taking on the causes and cases of a seemingly endless procession of people who'd been careless, negligent – and who found themselves called to answer for their mistakes and misdeeds.