Page 5 of Never Flinch

“Doing lunch” became a semi-regular thing, and the two women formed a cautious bond. At first they talked about the Harrises, but less so as time went by. Izzy talked about her job; Holly talked about hers. Because Izzy was police and Holly a private investigator, they had similar, if rarely overlapping, areas of interest.

Nor had Holly entirely given up the idea of luring Izzy over to the dark side, especially since her partner, Pete Huntley, had retired and left Holly to run Finders Keepers singlehanded (with occasionalhelp from Jerome and Barbara Robinson). She was at pains to tell Izzy that Finders didn’t do divorce work. “Keyhole peeping, social media tracking. Text messages and telephoto lenses. Oough.”

When Holly brought up the possibility, Izzy always said she’d keep it in mind. Which meant, Holly thought, that Iz would put in her thirty on the city police force and then retire to a golfside condo in Arizona or Florida. Probably on her own. A two-time loser in the marriage sweepstakes, Izzy said she wasn’t looking for another hookup, especially of the marital variety. How, she said to Holly during one of their lunches, could she come home and tell her husband about the human remains they had found in the Harrises’ refrigerator?

“Please,” Holly had said on that occasion, “not while I’m trying to eat.”

Today they’re doing lunch in Dingley Park. Like Deerfield Park on the other side of the city, Dingley can be a rather sketchy environment after dark (a fucking drug martis how Izzy puts it), but in the daytime it’s perfectly pleasant, especially on a day like this. Now that warm weather is on the come, they can eat at one of the picnic tables not far from the firs that circle the old ice rink.

Holly is vaccinated up the ying-yang, but Covid is still killing someone in America every four minutes, and Holly doesn’t want to take chances. Pete Huntley is even now suffering the aftereffects of his bout with the bug, and Holly’s mother died of it. So she continues to take care, masking up in close indoor situations and carrying a bottle of Purell in her purse. Covid aside, she likes diningal frescowhen the weather is nice, as it is today, and she’s looking forward to her fish tacos. Two, with extra tartar sauce.

“How’s Jerome?” Izzy asks. “I saw that book about his hoodlum great-grandfather landed on the bestseller list.”

“Only for a couple of weeks,” Holly says, “but they’ll be able to putNew York Times Bestselleron the paperback, which will help the sales.” She loves Jerome almost as much as she loves his sister, Barbara. “Now that his book tour is over, he’s been asking to help me around the shop. He says it’s research, that his next book is going to be about a private eye.” She grimaces to show how much she dislikes the term.

“And Barbara?”

“Going to Bell, right here in town. Majoring in English, of course.” Holly says this with what she believes is justifiable pride. Both Robinson sibs are published authors. Barbara’s book of poems—for which she won the Penley Prize, no small hill of beans—has been out for a couple of years.

“So your kids are doing well.”

Holly doesn’t protest this; although Mr. and Mrs. Robinson are alive and perfectly fine, Barb and Jerome sort of are her kids. The three of them have been through the wars together. Brady Hartsfield… Morris Bellamy… Chet Ondowsky… the Harrises. Those were wars, all right.

Holly asks what’s new in Blue World. Izzy looks at her thoughtfully, then asks, “Can I show you something on my phone?”

“Is it porno?” Izzy is one of the few people Holly feels comfortable joking with.

“I guess in a way it is.”

“Now I’m curious.”

Izzy takes out her phone. “Lewis Warwick got this letter. So did Chief Patmore. Check it out.”

She passes the phone to Holly, who reads the note. “Bill Wilson. Huh. You know who that is?”

“The founder of AA. Lew called me into his office and asked for my opinion. I told him I’d err on the side of caution. What do you think, Holly?”

“The Blackstone Rule. Which says—”

“Better ten guilty go free rather than one innocent suffer. Blackstone was a lawyer. I know because I took pre-law at Bucknell. Do you think this guy might be in the legal profession?”

“Probably not a good deduction,” Holly says, rather kindly. “I never took a law course in my life, and I knew. I’d put it in the category of semi-common knowledge.”

“You’re a sponge for info,” Izzy says, “but point taken. Lew Warwick at first thought it came from the Bible.”

Holly reads the letter again. She says, “I think the man who wrote this could be religious. AA puts a lot of emphasis on God—‘let go andlet God’ is one of their sayings—and the alias, plus this thing about atonement… that’s a very Catholic concept.”

“That narrows it down to, I’m going to say, half a million,” Izzy says. “Big help, Gibney.”

“Could this person be angry about, just a wild guess, Alan Duffrey?”

Izzy pats her palms together in quiet applause.

“Although he doesn’t specifically mention—”

“I know, I know, our Mr. Wilson doesn’t mention a name, but it seems the most likely. Kiddie fiddler killed in prison, then it comes out he maybe wasn’t a kiddie fiddler after all. The timing fits, more or less. I’m going to buy your tacos for that.”

“It’s your turn, anyway,” Holly says. “Refresh me on the Duffrey case. Can you do that?”

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