Rescue

kissed my shoulder. “Sometimes.“

    “More pizza?“
    “I’m stuffed, John. Freeze it so you can nuke it.“
    “Doesn’t make sense.“
    Nancy leaned over my coffee table, the glass of red wine taking spot shadows on her face. “Why not?“
    “Won’t be around to eat it.“
    “Florida?“
    “Eventually.“
    “All that way because this boy reminds you of someone from the service.“
    “Yes.“
    Nancy’s eyes grew sad. “Someone you feel... badly about.“
    “ That’s right.“
    “Can you tell me?“
    Leaning back, I closed my eyes and did.
    When I was finished, Nancy didn’t speak for a while. Then, “John, I understand.“
    “Good.“
    “But I want you at least to call me.“
    “That’ll be hard, Nance.“
    “Why?“
    “I’ll have to use a pay phone, all coins so the call won’t be traceable.“
    She worked on that. “When you can, if you can, I want to hear from you, John Francis Cuddy.“
    “Might be just the first part.“
    “What?“
    “It may be a ‘John Francis’ you’ll be hearing from.“
    A slow smile. “He’d be okay, too. When are you leaving??
    “Tomorrow, early a.m. “
    Nancy set down her glass, taking my left hand carefully into hers. “Well, then. We’d best be sure you get to bed soon enough to actually get some sleep afterward.“
    “I’d like that.“
    “The sleep?“
    “More the ‘beforeward’ part.“
    Nancy ran her lips along my knuckles. “Me, too.“

    Afterward, we lay side by side, sheet and blanket over us, both our faces aimed at the ceiling, talking more to it than each other.
    “John, you know I wanted you to tell me about what happened.“
    “I do.“
    “Even if it... compromises me a little as a prosecutor.“
    I didn’t say anything.
    She clucked her tongue off the roof of her mouth. “But I don’t see how I’m conflicted.“
    “What do you mean?“
    “The police here have a corpse, my jurisdiction if it’s homicide. You have some glasses with ‘Melinda’s’ prints on them, and Melinda may turn out to be the dead woman, but that wouldn’t establish homicide.“
    “No, it wouldn’t.“
    “If it was homicide down here, do you believe the man you had to kill in New Hampshire was the killer?“
    “Yes.“
    “Proof of it?“
    “Just my“—I thought of Chief Kyle Pettengill—“inferences.“
    “Any proof the other way?“
    “You mean that it wasn’t homicide?“
    “No, I mean that it was homicide but not your guy who
    did it.“
    “Oh. No, no proof that anybody else was involved in Melinda’s actual killing.“
    “Well, then, I don’t see how what you’ve told me puts me in any conflict. If the dead woman is Melinda, and it was homicide but the killer himself is now dead, there’d be nobody for my office to prosecute.“
    “And there’s no reason to open a file with no way of really closing it.“
    “Right.“
    “Nice, Nance.“
    “What do you mean, ‘nice’?“
    “The reasoning. Letting both of us off the hook after I told you what I didn’t want to tell you but you wanted to hear.“
    Nancy shifted onto her side so that she would have been looking at me, though in the dark I couldn’t see her face. “I was kind of hoping you did want to tell me.“
    I thought about it.
    She said, “Like you would have told Beth.“
    You’re right. I did want to tell you. Or, more accurately, a Part of me wanted to—what was the word you used on the walk, ‘spare’ you?’
    “Right.
    “Well, I guess a part of me did want to spare you, and another part of me wanted to... I don’t know, ‘confess’ it to you, I suppose.“
    “So somebody could ‘absolve’ you.“
    “The ‘right’ somebody, anyway, as you also once said.“
    “The right somebody prefers ‘share’ to ‘confess.’“
    I saw what she meant. “I’ll try to work on that.“
    “Work on something else, too?“
    “What?“
    “Back when we were walking tonight, you said the family was happy to have Eddie gone.“
    “I think they see him as some kind of... Jesus, burden because of the birthmark.“
    “John, that’s horrible, I know, but think about what that means for you.“
    “For me?“
    “Yes. If the boy is still alive, and you do find him, what are you going to do with him?“
    I hadn’t thought about it.
    Nancy said, “Based on what you’ve said, bringing Eddie back to his parents won’t help him, and taking him to the authorities may mean some of your having to... Some of what happened in New Hampshire having to come