Vertical Burn - Earl Emerson [46]
“I’m sure John has an explanation,” Kub said.
G. A. stared into Finney’s eyes for a long while and then, bored with it, turned and strode away. Chewing gum madly, Kub palmed his skull and gave Finney a worried look. “Jesus, John. What the hell’s going on?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Did you light that fire?”
“No.”
“And you didn’t see that old woman this morning?”
“I didn’t light the fire.”
“It’s beginning to look like you did.”
“What he’s got is circumstantial.”
“Hate to tell you this, John, but most arson cases are based on circumstantial evidence. For your sake, I hope that old woman doesn’t ID you. With the coat, the fact that you were talking about this place, your bad feelings towards the administration . . . Fact is, I could just about guarantee a conviction on that much circumstantial evidence. Unless you have a rock-solid alibi. You want my advice? Get a lawyer. Make sure he’s good. When G. A. decides he’s going to hang somebody, they usually swing.”
22. A HUG FROM THE WIDOW
Finney headed down the dock toward his Pathfinder in the last of the afternoon light and spotted Emily Cordifis bustling along on a perfect collision course. She’d already seen him, so it was too late to hide. On the water there was no place to run from widows.
For eighteen years she’d been like a mother to him. Now when he saw her, all he could think about was her dead husband. Even though he knew the possibility that she would criticize him was almost nil, he flinched every time he saw her.
The woman striding down the center of the wooden dock was thinner than he remembered, grayer, her posture neither as tall nor as straight as it had once been. Her hair was still cut into a youthful bob, though now it was shot through with gray. Her long jaw gave her a thoughtful and distinguished look. Her eyes were as steady as ever and so dark they were almost black. They looked at you and did not blink and looked some more until you thought they were reading your mind. They came across as friendly, sincere, and interested, and they were. At times Bill had jokingly said he’d caught a doe in the headlights and then married her.
When he thought of Cordifis these days, Finney’s mind flooded with Bill’s last moments. Rarely his boisterous spirits or his raucous laugh. Rarely his storytelling or the pleasure he took in a practical joke. Never about the time he caught Balitnikoff napping and tied his shoelaces together, then hit the bell. Never about his knack of turning a bad day into one big joke.
Aside from everything else rotten that had come out of Leary Way, the event had erased the living Bill Cordifis from Finney’s brain and replaced him with a corpse.
Virtually every weekend the clan had done something together—boating, camping, barbecues. The daughters with their boyfriends, and later their husbands and kids, would be there. So would Bill’s cronies from the fire department. Guys who’d been alongside Bill when he coached his daughters’ softball teams. Friends he knew from the Masons. The Cordifis household had been a clubhouse.
Bill was orphaned at an early age and afterward raised by a succession of indifferent relatives. Emily grew up with ten brothers and sisters. Coming from opposite poles, family was the one thing they both treasured above all else.
Sixty years old and as thin as a rail, built with the same wide bony hips, protruding ribs, and flat chest as her three daughters, Emily’s dark eyes entertained a limpid look this afternoon.
“Emily.”
“John, I know I should have called. I can come back if you’re leaving.”
“I was only going to the store. Nothing important. Come in. It’s good to see you.”
“I know. You, too. You don’t come around anymore.”
“No. I told you I wasn’t going to. Things are just . . .”
“Sure. I know. But we miss you.”
“I miss you, too.”
“You’ve hurt yourself.” She was looking at his bandaged hand.
“It’s nothing.” One of the pension doctors had put two stitches in the web of skin between