Act of God

the hall, so I followed her to our office here. She stopped at the door, and I—I don’t know exactly what I did. All I know is that I saw the poker thing we never should have had in the first place because the goddamned fireplace doesn’t draw— Despradelle, he was great on the facades there, but not so hot on the heating system. And Beverly and I moved Abe around and we tried to... but he was gone. You could see it.”
    The blubbering sound, more than once, then a steady chorus of it, but still no tears.
    When Bernstein finished, I said, “Then what?”
    “ Beverly called the police, and Finian got here—the office here, I mean, and he said he went out the back door after he heard the alarm but didn’t see anybody.”
    “Does the alarm sound when any of these doors is opened?”
    “You mean the doors to the back stairs?”
    “Yes.”
    “Yeah. Some kind of fire regulation, account of we don’t have fire escapes. Every door to the stairs has to be wired into the alarm.”
    “So you wouldn’t know which door the guy went through?”
    “I don’t know if they can tell that. The cops went through all the floors when they got here. At least, that’s what I was told afterward.”
    “Other than a panicked robber, you think of anybody who’d want to hurt your partner?”
    “Abe? Hurt him? You never knew the man. Listen to people who did, me almost thirty years. He grew up in the camp, in Buchenwald . He grew up knowing violence, knowing what provoked it. Knowing the kind of person who got off on it. He also knew how to avoid it. He was the kind never to give offense. Never a harsh word. And he never lied, either. Never, not once in all the years I knew him. Abe… Abe…”
    The blubbering again. It hurt you to hear it.
    This time I said, “About the business.”
    A shrug. “I’m gonna carry it on, long as the economy’ll let me. It’s what I’ve got. No family, just this.”
    “What kind of shape is it in?”
    A darkening. “You need that for what you’re doing for pearl?”
    “It might help to know.”
    “What’s to know? We’re floundering. A lot of the big furniture places, they’ve already closed their Boston stores, like Paine’s there on Arlington Street ? Never thought I’d see that. Others can’t make it in the suburbs even, they closed down altogether. Beauty of this place, it’s ours. The building, I mean. We own it, still free and clear, so I can last as long as I can cover the rest of the overhead, like payroll, utilities, and all.”
    “And if you had to close?”
    “At least it wouldn’t be bankruptcy court, like a lot of others. We’d hand out the pink slips, lock the doors, and sell the building for what it’d bring.”
    “Did you and Mr. Rivkind ever talk about that?”
    “Abe? Are you kidding or what? This place was Abe Rivkind. He’d never even consider...” Bernstein paused. “Wait a minute. What are you saying?”
    “I’m not saying anything.”
    “No, but you’re implying something, aren’t you? You’re implying that Abe would have kept the store running, even if it meant a lot of debt and bankruptcy if it did have to close. Well, let me tell you something, Mr. Investigator. Abe wanted to do that, he was the boss, as far as I was concerned. I would have let him have his way, because of how went through the camp and because of how he treated me. You’ve been thinking, how come Joel’s not crying over his partner of twenty years, am I right?”
    “Yes.”
    My not trying to dodge that question seemed to throw Bernstein off a little. “You’re a direct son of a bitch, I’D give you that. Well, I’m not crying for Abe because I don’t cry, Mr. Cuddy. I learned not to cry when the other kids in school threw food at me and tripped me and just-for-the-hell-of-it beat the shit out of me. And I didn’t cry for Abe, I don’t see me ever crying again over anything. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t love him, and it doesn’t mean I had reason to kill him. Now get out of here.”
    “Mr. Bern—”
    “Get out! You want to go through the store, do what you gotta do for Pearl , fine. But you get the hell out of my office right now or I’ll put you through one of Despradelle’s windows there.”
    I stood up. Either I’d really struck a nerve with him, or he was very good at sensing a question about any relationship between his partner and Darbra before I could ask it.

13

    I left the office complex through the fire door to the rest room corridor. A