your ex-husband, Colin. We actually grew up close to each other in South Philly,” I said, a dose of familiarity.
“If Colin has debts, Mr. Freeman, I have no idea where he is. I haven’t seen him in years,” she said.
I could hear kids in the background. I thought I was going to lose her.
“No, ma’am. I know where he is. I just saw him two days ago,” I said quickly, taking a chance, a gamble, that she would care.
She lowered her voice.
“He’s not dead, is he?”
“No, Mrs. Mott. He’s all right. He kind of got jammed up down in Florida and I’m, uh, trying to find out more about his, uh, domestic background.”
Once again, I knew I’d used the wrong wording.
“He never hit me, Mr. Freeman,” she said, the words now almost a whisper.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Mott, he…”
“Colin never physically abused me when we were married,” she said.
The statement held both a sense of strength and apology.
“I know they called it domestic abuse, but it wasn’t physical.” She hesitated. “It was a way out.”
A way out, I thought. She’d already left him by the time O’Shea got caught up in the disappearance of Faith Hamlin.
“I, uh, really don’t know anything about the details of your past relationship, Mrs. Mott,” I said. “But honestly, that is the area I’m trying to explore,” I said.
“To help him or hurt him, Mr. Freeman?”
She was smart and blunt. And she would see right through any bullshit answer I might toss her.
“Honestly, I don’t know, Mrs. Mott,” I said, and waited.
“Colin does have that effect, doesn’t he?” she said.
“Confusion,” she answered her own question. “It’s his stock-in-trade.”
She agreed to meet with me, in a public place. Her son had an ice hockey game at three the next day. Meet her there, with identification, and we could talk. No promises.
I pulled around to the back of McLaughlin’s at eight. It was already dark and I had missed the transition from daylight. There was no fade of color, no blue to disappear, no rose-tinged cloud of sunset. The gray had simply turned a deeper gray and then been overtaken by the dusty glow of city light. The sleet had turned to light snow and up in the high streetlights it drifted down and swirled in whatever wind current caught it off the buildings. It turned to slush on contact with the concrete and car tires slashed through it on the street. I was hatless and shivered and then heard the music in McLaughlin’s buzz against the window and went inside.
The place was full and conversation was battling with an Irish melody on the speakers, neither winning. For someone used to the natural humidity of the subtropics, the hot, dry air was enough to make you want to drink just to dehydrate. It was a cop bar, dominated by clean-shaven faces, working men’s clothing, the pre-game show to the 76ers game, an appropriate locker room level of loud voices and the guffaws of a joke badly told. The few women present were older wives and the young ones’ impressionable girlfriends.
I spotted my uncle at a table in the back. He was flanked by a couple of cronies his own age. As I worked my way back I saw his eyes pick me up halfway and make a decision before the smile started. He was out of his chair, rattling the pitcher and glasses on the table with his girth before I reached him.
“Christ in heaven, Maxey boy,” he said, embracing me with his stovepipe arms and wrapping me in the smell of cigar smoke and Old Spice aftershave.
“You are as skinny as a fuckin’ sapling, boy,” he said, standing back at arm’s length. “And dark as a goddamn field hand.” A few heads turned, but not for more than a look. My uncle was an old- timer. Gray-haired and thirty years with the department, his language and his political incorrectness was grandfathered in. He introduced me to his friends, both with over twenty years themselves, and we sat. There was a pitcher of beer on the table with a frozen bag of ice floating in it. An open flask of what I knew was Uncle Keith’s special blend of Scotch stood as its companion. He poured shots all around and raised his own for a toast.
“To the wayward son, what took the money and run,” he announced with a wink.
“Aye,” said the others, and we drank.
For the next three hours we drank and they told old stories. Carefully