The Most Dangerous Thing - Laura Lippman [116]
Gwen’s thoughts are derailed by the squeal of brakes, a small but undeniable crash: an MTA bus has managed to stop before hitting the van that is blocking the street, but a Toyota Corolla behind the bus hasn’t been as fortunate, plowing into it. And now people are filing out into the street, but only one or two people are peering at the Toyota’s driver, who appears unhurt if dazed. No, most of the people are trying to get on the bus, prying open the doors, while the bus driver shouts at them to stop. Tess Monaghan laughs so hard that her baby daughter wobbles on her shoulder.
“This is why MTA buses have cameras,” she tells a mystified Gwen. “Whenever there’s an accident, people try to say they were on the bus in order to file a claim. And it’s why,” she says over her shoulder, retreating back into the tiled vestibule, “that I have a thriving business. People are always looking for an angle, another pocket to pick.”
Walking to her car, Gwen is briefly entranced by the insight that Tess has just handed her, wonders if there’s a feature in it for the magazine. But then she thinks about the larger meaning of Tess’s words. Another pocket to pick. If Chicken George’s relatives wanted to file a wrongful death suit against someone, then Gwen’s pockets—actually Karl’s—would be the deepest. Can she be sued under such circumstances? Could any of them? What if she goes ahead and divorces Karl? Does that make her more vulnerable or less?
Yet it would be a relief if money is all that someone wants from them. Money always can be found, some way, somehow. If someone bears a grudge toward them, if someone knows that they left a man to die—money will be the least of their problems.
Chapter Thirty-four
It was never McKey’s intention to continue attending the AA meetings at the old St. Lawrence, and no one was too alarmed when she skipped the first few sessions after Go-Go’s death. She uses the cover of her work schedule, tells her sponsor that she’s attending meetings in Minneapolis, where she has frequent layovers. Luckily, the sponsor knows nothing about a flight attendant’s life and has no idea how little time she has on such trips, the airlines turning them around as fast as the regulations allow. At the same time, the sponsor is worried about her. A death in the group is a dangerous thing, especially when it involves someone falling off the wagon. He keeps checking in, and McKey decides it would be easier to show up than to endure Dan’s achingly sincere phone calls. Guy wants to bang her so bad, it’s pathetic.
She doesn’t share at the meetings. Go-Go didn’t either, at least not after she started showing up. But McKey’s work has made her good at appearing to be an empathetic, interested listener, and those who do speak seek out her gaze, especially the men. She is the best-looking woman here, there’s no use being modest about it. And the ban on relationships gives male-female interactions a kind of buzz that McKey hasn’t experienced since grade school, if even then. Men want her, or think they do because she meets their eyes and nods, encouraging them.
“We were worried about you,” Dan says when the others step outside to smoke, one vice McKey has never known.
“Because I wasn’t here?”
“And because of Gordon.”
She measures her words. “That was shocking.”
“You knew him, right? Outside of AA.”
Never lie until cornered. Counter first. “What makes you think that?”
“You two talked about how this place used to be a Catholic parish, back in the day.”
She remembers now, how Go-Go reacted the first time she came here, his inability to disguise his feelings at seeing her. She let him—them—off the hook with some inane chatter about St. Lawrence, showed him how to play