Open and Shut - By David Rosenfelt Page 0,7

Philip Gant, soon to be ex-father-in-law Philip Gant, walks toward me.

Philip was my father's oldest friend, and though that friendship always struck me as rather unlikely, it was remarkably strong and enduring. Their relationship is what originally brought their offspring together. Philip was upset when Nicole left me; I always thought that she must have had a harder time breaking the news to him than to me.

Philip dominates every room he is ever in, even rooms with no walls, thousands of people, and rolling hills dotted with headstones. As he comes toward me, everyone else seems to melt away. He taps me on the shoulder with authority. Philip does everything with authority.

“Magnificent eulogy, Andrew. I knew Nelson longer than anyone here, and let me tell you, every word you said was true.”

It is typical of Philip that even when he is trying to be nice, he secures the upper hand, this time by assuming I need his confirmation that I really knew my father.

This time he's gone too far. “Thank you, Philip. I appreciate that,” I lash back.

“I spoke to Nicole,” he says. “She was very upset.”

I nod, since I know this must be true; Nicole was quite fond of her father-in-law. I am actually surprised that she wasn't here.

“Terrible,” he says, shaking his head. “Just terrible. You just let me know if there's anything I can do.”

I nod again, Philip heads off to a limousine the size of North Dakota, and his chauffeur holds the door open for him as he enters. I turn and see Laurie, who has been great throughout this. She takes my arm and squeezes it gently.

“You okay?” she asks.

“I'm okay,” I lie.

I don't feel like going home, so we go to a sports bar named Charlie's. It is my favorite restaurant in the entire world; in fact, it is the best restaurant in the entire world. In fact, every single item on the menu is better than every item on any other menu at any other restaurant in the entire world. Some people think I overrate Charlie's. I think those people are stupid.

Anyway, Charlie's feels more like home than home, so this is where I want to be. We go to our favorite booth in the corner, the one next to the video trivia game. We order burgers and beer and I start planning my life as an orphan.

The first thing I'm going to have to do is go back to my father's house. I'll need to go through his papers and his personal possessions, and make sure that everything is in order. That's not going to be easy. Laurie promises to help, but I feel like I want to do everything by myself, like it's some rite of passage I have to go through.

Within a short time we're laughing and joking, punctuated every few minutes by my feeling guilty that I'm laughing and joking. But we're enjoying each other's company, and it feels good.

Laurie and I have only been sleeping together for two weeks, a total of four times. Each time has been better than the time before it, and the first time wasn't too shabby. She has blue eyes which she claims are green, and when you stare into them you feel like you're on a gorgeous beach on a gorgeous day drinking a gorgeous drink with an umbrella in it.

She's also the best investigator I've ever known, smart, tough, and relentless, at least when she doesn't let her integrity get in the way. She's an ex-cop and I'm a lawyer, which probably explains why I think all my clients are innocent, and she thinks they're guilty. It's the difference between law school and the police academy. We bridge this gap by agreeing that the clients are all entitled to the best defense possible.

I hesitated a long while before letting things turn sexual, to say nothing of emotional, with Laurie. I've been married to Nicole since I was twenty-three, and I wasn't exactly a sexual dynamo before that, so even when I got separated I felt like I was cheating by being with another woman.

I also was leery of mixing business with pleasure, cognizant as I was of the difficulties that can result. But the main reason I hesitated to sleep with Laurie is because whenever I brought it up she said no. Two weeks ago she changed her mind, which coincidentally was the exact moment I stopped hesitating.

But tonight Laurie is not my lover, nor is she my investigator. She is