Think Twice

He headed into the other room, leaving Myron and Grace alone.

For a moment they both looked away. Myron felt awkward standing there. He wasn’t sure what to do here, so he stayed quiet.

“He’s a good man,” Grace said. “Jeremy, I mean.”

Myron nodded.

“As soon as I called him about his father, he caught the next flight out. He was here in three hours.”

They sat in uncomfortable, heavy silence.

Then she said, “I know biologically he’s your son.”

Myron didn’t reply.

“I know what you and Emily did,” Grace said with something approaching disgust in her voice. “Greg just told me a few days ago.”

Myron said nothing.

“That crushed him, you know. It took Greg a long time to get over the trust issues.”

Myron kept quiet.

“I’m talking about how you and Emily slept together the night before the wedding.”

“Yeah,” Myron said, “I kinda guessed that.”

“I’m not saying what Greg did in response wasn’t wrong—”

“Hey, Grace?” he said for the second time today.

She stopped.

“I’m not rehashing the past with you, okay?”

Myron stepped away and tried his father’s phone again. This time it was answered on the second ring by his mother.

“Your father is fine,” Mom said. “It’s a broken nose.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s still with the doctor. But he’s fine. And the nose? It’ll have a new bump. Don’t tell him, but I think it’s kind of sexy.”

“I bet it is,” Myron said.

There was a pause.

“Mom?”

“What’s going on, Myron?”

“What do you mean?”

“I tell you it looks sexy, you usually say something like ‘I don’t need to hear this’ or ‘Ew, Mom, stop.’”

Man, Dad was right about how well she could read him.

“He broke his nose,” Myron said. “I’m worried about him. Did he fall? Did he hit his head? Make sure the doctor checks for a concussion. Is someone there to help you guys? Not just Cousin Norman. Call Aunt Tessie too. Also I want you guys to hire a nurse.”

“A what?”

“A nurse. Just to stay the night.”

“Do you know how expensive a nurse is?”

“I’ll pay.”

“Thank you, Daddy Warbucks, but I don’t want a stranger staying in my house.”

“They wouldn’t be a stranger—”

“And I’m supposed to entertain now too?”

“A nurse, Mom. I said a nurse, not a houseguest.”

“Speaking of which, the house is a mess. Your father is a slob. I don’t want a strange nurse just coming over—”

“Okay, fine, no nurse. I’ll call Aunt Tessie and—”

“Already done. We have plenty of help. Too much, in fact. Speaking of which, Tessie just arrived. I’ll call you later.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

After Grace left, Jeremy said that he was hungry, so Myron asked him in as casual a voice as he could muster whether he’d like to go out for a bite. Jeremy answered in the affirmative and they were now ensconced at a corner table at Friedmans on 72nd Street, not far from the Dakota.

“What did you make of what Grace said?” Jeremy asked.

“Not sure,” Myron said. “You?”

“Hard to read her. I was trained in interrogating enemy combatants. When they’ve been captured, there are obviously high levels of stress. They’re nervous, afraid, often young. We factor that in. We don’t get too much practice interrogating a middle-aged woman in a Fifth Avenue luxury apartment.”

“But?”

“I don’t think she’s lying, do you?”

Myron tilted his head back and forth in a yes-no gesture. “Something was off with her story.”

“Like what?”

“That detail about what brand of bourbon they drank.”

“Does that make it more or less true to you?” Jeremy asked.

“It feels like an odd detail. But the part about Bo switching the glasses...”

“So that Jordan Kravat got the spiked drink?”

Myron nodded. “Like out of a movie. Then the stuff about him muttering ‘bye, bye, toe.’”

“So you think she’s lying?”

“Or was lied to,” Myron said.

Jeremy looked off in thought, and when he did, something in his expression echoed Myron’s own. You don’t see yourself too often, but this man in front of him had never felt more like his own flesh and blood.

“What?” Myron asked.

“If we believe what Bo told Grace, then Jordan Kravat was abusing him and forcing him into committing crimes.”

“Right.”

“To the point where Bo was willing to become an informant to get out from under. You still with me?”

Myron tried to keep the tears from his eyes. He got that way when he was emotional. His eyes welled up. Here he was, talking over a case with his son, talking to him in a way he never had, and every part of him felt overwhelmed.

“I’m with you,” he managed.

“So maybe the answer is far simpler,” Jeremy said. “Maybe Bo killed Jordan Kravat. Maybe he planned it or maybe it was spur of the moment or even self-defense.”

Myron nodded. “And then Bo makes up the whole story about switching bourbons and leaving the scene. It would also explain why he’d testify against Joey Turant.”

“One hole,” Jeremy said.

Myron arched an eyebrow. “Only one?”

Jeremy smiled at that. “If Bo was the killer, how did Joe Turant’s DNA end up at the crime scene?”

The waiter came by to take their order. Both opted for the hand-cut pastrami sandwich with cups of tomato soup.

“I just realized something else,” Jeremy said when he left.

“What’s that?”