Magic Hour, Susan Isaacs [life changing books txt] 📗

one fan, then as her boyfriend or fiancé or whatever the hell he was, it was a sign she wasn’t perfect. And she couldn’t take it.”

“I hate to say it, but you have a better case against me.”

“You know, you can read all the stupid mysteries you want, but you’re still a total ignoramus when it comes to homicide.”

“How did she get from the set in East Hampton—without being seen—to Sandy Court?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“How?”

“What are you, her goddamn defense lawyer?”

“And even assuming she knows something about a rifle, beyond holding it right so she looks like she knows how to shoot, where would she have gotten the weapon?”

“In a gun store, you jerk.”

“You have to register in New York State, don’t you?”

“They have to record the sale of rifles. But she’d give a false name.”

“And the gun store owner wouldn’t recognize her and be overjoyed that Lindsay Keefe had bought a .22 from him?

He wouldn’t tell the world? Tell the police?”

“She’s an actress,” I insisted. “Do you think she’d walk in with blond hair and tits, or would she disguise herself—maybe in one of Nick Monteleone’s wigs?”

“Where would she have hidden a rifle? Under the MAGIC HOUR / 333

bed she was sharing with Sy? In Mrs. Robertson’s cookie jar?”

I got up. “Anything else?”

“Don’t get angry just because I don’t agree with you.

Listen: I used to be a pretty good shot. My dad gave me a Marlin for my twelfth birthday, and I went hunting with him and my brothers on and off for the next six years. If I had to shoot someone through the head from what…fifty feet?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, if I decided on the spur of the moment to blast Sy, could I get him in the first round? Maybe. If I’d planned a murder, took target practice, I’d say I’d have had a good chance. But to think someone like Lindsay—who had a couple of hours of instruction with some sex-crazed white hunter she’d been sleeping with—is going to be able to fire two bullets into Sy and score bull’s-eyes both times, then you should hang up that gut you trust and go into another business.”

I didn’t say good night. I didn’t say anything. I just stalked out of the room.

C H A P T E R S E V E N T E E N

This is why I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep: The gallon of coffee I’d drunk during the day.

My fears about Bonnie. Fear one: The case against her was unraveling, but the sideburnless, crew-cut, pink-faced assistant D.A., who looked like a cross between a pig and a Ku Klux Klan grand kleagle, might still be able to get an indictment and then a conviction. Fear two: Bonnie, knowing her own innocence (or her own guilt), would steal out of the house during the night, and none of us would ever see her again.

Fear three: She’d slip into my bedroom, and I’d have to reject her. Fear four: Knowing I’d never be able to reject her, Bonnie would slip into my bedroom, keep me at it the whole night, then use her hold over me, get me to build a case against someone—anyone—else. Fear five: Bonnie Bernstein Spencer was a killer, whose rage was surpassed only by her coolheadedness and coldbloodedness. The girl with the great smile was a criminal genius, who would always be one step ahead of the smartest cop. Fear six: Bonnie was what she seemed to be, a good and smart and thoroughly decent human being. If I did

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manage to prove her innocent, she would spend the rest of her life alone, without ever having had someone to love her.

Also, I couldn’t sleep because of the dry tickle in the back of my throat, and I couldn’t shake the memory of how an icy, malty beer could soothe it.

And I couldn’t sleep because I sensed this case was crucial, a turning point in my life. Was it that the crime had been perpetrated on home ground, the South Fork? Was it the coincidence that the victim and I, two men of the world, had used (or been used by) the same woman? Was it some cockeyed sense of Brady family honor, that this case couldn’t wind up in an Open Investigation file drawer; I had to come through for Sy because he had come through for my brother?

Or was I wide awake simply because this would be my last homicide investigation as a free man, unencumbered by husbandly obligations? Soon I would have to be someplace at five-thirty. To choose among swatches for our upholstery.

To install our energy-efficient room air conditioner-dehumidifier. To set up the barbecue for the swordfish steaks we’d serve when Sister Marie, the principal of Lynne’s school, came to dinner. To umpire our Little Leaguer’s Little League game.

Forget sleep. I couldn’t even rest. The coffee sloshed around in my stomach, and I felt sick, disoriented, frightened, the way a kid feels in a small boat on a rough sea when he loses sight of land. I lay in bed, worrying whether I should leave my bedroom door the way it was, half open, so I could hear if Bonnie made a move to escape, or whether to close it, lock out the possibility of a silhouetted figure whispering

“Are you asleep?”

I kept flipping from my side to my back around to my other side, trying to get my stomach to calm 336 / SUSAN ISAACS

down. But all that happened was I wound up so mummified in the sheet I had to get up and unwrap myself. Then I lay back down and stared at the dark rectangle of ceiling. I couldn’t get my motor to stop racing.

Another reason for insomnia: Somewhere along the way, as I’d been following the Spencer case, had there been a signal I’d missed, a sign I should have read?

In the stillness, I heard my breathing, shallow, rapid. God, did I feel lousy. My neck and