was getting so heated. Was it because Tyler’s a lawyer and has to have a mountain of substantiated, verifiable proof? Or was it simply too unnerving to think about Jimmy’s death, even after all these years?
“His friggin’ throat was cut, Tyler. I know what I saw!”
“He maybe had a wound on his throat,” Tyler said. “But there was never anything about his throat being cut. He went down to the swimming area, fell in, and drowned.”
“Yeah. That’s what my folks kept telling me,” Jeff said, “but I checked it out later. Some Maine newspapers labeled it murder. A murder that’s never been solved.”
“I thought you said you didn’t think about it. When’d you do all of this?”
Jeff realized he had said too much already, but now that it was out there, he knew Tyler wasn’t about to let him off the hook.
“A long time ago,” he said.
“So this has been an issue for you,” Tyler said, his voice fairly dripping with accusation.
Or is he trying to piss me off? Jeff wondered.
“Sure. It’s something I’ve paid attention to some. But I wouldn’t say it’s been an issue for me, exactly.”
“Well …” Tyler sighed deeply. “I can’t say as I’d blame you. Like I said, the rest of us never saw what you saw.”
Someone else did .. The person who killed him, Jeff was about to say, but he kept quiet and took another swallow of rum instead. The glass was already half-empty, and Jeff was definitely a “half-empty,” not a “half-full” kind of guy. He reached for the bottle to top off his drink.
“The way you’re talking, though,” Tyler said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe you shouldn’t come to the reunion. It might dredge up too many of these memories for you.”
“I never said that, but … well … I dunno. I just asked if the whole idea creeped you out, and obviously it doesn’t.”
“But it does creep you out.”
“A little … yeah.”
“Good. At least you admit it.”
Jeff could easily imagine that this was the tone of voice he used when he knew he was winning a case in court
“And I, for one, would be really bummed if you didn’t come.”
“Oh, I probably will.”
Jeff glanced at the clock and saw that it was already past eleven. Six o’clock came early. He had to get to bed, so he said a quick good-bye to Tyler and hung up. He staggered a bit as he made his way slowly up the stairs to the bedroom, turning lights off behind him as he went. His head was spinning, but that didn’t stop the rush of thoughts and memories and images that filled his mind when he lay down to sleep.
Thanks to the rum, though, he drifted off quicker than usual. Still, his sleep was thin and disturbed.
* * *
Over the next several weeks, scores of e-mails and a few telephone calls went back and forth among the friends. Jeff kept going along with the plans, but he was more and more determined to ditch the whole thing once it got a little closer. He was waiting until the last minute so there would be no possibility Evan and his former friends would try to reschedule the reunion so he could make it, too.
July passed into August with another long stretch of scorching, humid weather. Then, toward the end of the month, the days began to get shorter, and the nights cooled off noticeably. “Good sleeping weather,” people called it.
During this time, work at Bayside Realty remained steady if not hectic, and Jeff felt a growing agitation. Maybe it was the upcoming reunion, but he had begun an exchange of hostile e-mails and telephone calls with Susan concerning child support for Matt. She had married someone she had known and dated back in high school, and she had relocated to California. Jeff argued that, if he was going to have full custody of Matt, she was going to have to start paying him child support.
Susan wouldn’t yield.
She insisted their divorce agreement was finalized, and it fully covered her commitment regarding joint custody and child support. There was no provision about any changes based of either one of them remarrying. Jeff countered that it had never crossed his mind either one of them would ever remarry—especially so soon—but Susan insisted that it was his and his lawyer’s fault for not planning for that contingency. No matter how many times he told her he had trusted her to do what was fair and reasonable, if only because the