Page 2 of The Instruments of Darkness

“Does that tone suggest I should have been the last?”

By now Moxie’s plate was more than half empty, while I’d barely touched my toast. I’d ordered it so Moxie wouldn’t feel bad, but then I remembered that it took a lot to make Moxie feel bad.

“I think you’re becoming more sensitive to criticism as you get older,” I said. “Admittedly, you couldn’t become any more insensitive, but it’s still troubling.”

Moxie speared the remaining sausage link. “You know I broke up with Sylvia, right?”

Moxie had been seeing a woman named Sylvia Drake for a couple of months. She was an attractive older brunette, but if she ever met a bottle of booze she didn’t like, she’d buried the evidence deep. She wasn’t an alcoholic, though she tended to cease drinking at least one glass after she should have, and possessed only two voice settings: loud and too loud. I’d spent an evening with both of them a while back. It had been a testing experience.

Moxie had a string of ex-wives and never wanted for female company, even if none of the girlfriends ever remained on his books for long. Sylvia Drake would soon be replaced by another glamorous figure in her middle years, with some easily identifiable flaw that Moxie would later use to justify casting her aside, albeit with murmurs of regret. Interestingly, these women never held grudges against him, and a few even met up regularly for dinner and drinks, like an informal support group. Moxie would sometimes join them for a late cocktail. If I claimed to understand any of this, I’d be lying.

“I’m sorry to hear it,” I said.

“No, you’re not. I saw the look on your face when she fondled your ear at dinner.”

“Well, sorry in general terms. Insincere sorry.”

Moxie nibbled the final sausage, making it last.

“I have to admit, Sylvia ran to extremes,” he said.

This was true. Her idea of redecorating was probably to blow up the house.

“Are you comfort-eating to ease your pain?” I asked.

“I was,” said Moxie, as the sausage gave up the ghost, “but I stopped.”

“Thank God.”

“You were asking about Colleen Clark and lawyers. In answer to your question, no, she didn’t have legal representation before now because she says she’s innocent.”

“And innocent people don’t go to prison.”

“That’s right,” said Moxie. “I explained to her that anyone who thought like her would never be short of company, especially in prison.”

I held up my mug for a refill of coffee.

“Who told you that charges were coming down the track?”

“Doug Isles, through a third party.”

Isles was a retired prosecutor in Androscoggin County. He’d run unsuccessfully for higher office on a number of occasions—including pitches for district attorney and the state senate—before giving up to snipe from the sidelines in a weekly newspaper column. He wrote well, but didn’t admire anyone half as much as himself, and viewed the electorate’s failure to acknowledge his finer qualities as a political offense on par with the murder of Julius Caesar.

“Any particular reason why he felt compelled to do that?” I asked.

“For one thing, he’s a friend of Colleen’s mother. They went to school together.”

“Sweet of him,” I said, “and therefore out of character. I’ve read his columns.”

“Then you know he doesn’t like Becker or Nowak, and the whisper is that Becker will prosecute. So that’s the other thing.”

Erin Becker was the state’s assistant attorney general and a protégée of Paul Nowak, the current attorney general. Nowak was preparing a run for governor and grooming Becker to succeed him as AG. A case like Colleen Clark’s would garner a great deal of publicity for them both, but would benefit them only if she was convicted. If they were to lose, it would damage their reputations and hamper their ambitions, thus making Doug Isles happier on his plinth.

“Who advised Colleen Clark to contact you?”

“Isles provided Colleen and her mother with a list of names. Mine was on it.”

“Did you have to pitch hard?”