One day, right after Thanksgiving, when I've come to town for Christmas shopping, I see Nico Della Guardia walking down Kindle Boulevard. He holds his raincoat drawn closed around the collar and he has a worried brow. He seems to be looking up and down the street. He is coming in my direction, but I am quite certain he has not seen me yet. I think of ducking into a building, not because I am afraid of his response, or mine, but simply because I think it might be easier for both of us to avoid this meeting. By then, however, he has caught sight of me and he is heading deliberately my way. He does not smile, but he offers his hand first, and I take it. For that instant only, I am rifled by a shot of terrible emotion-hot pain and grief-but it quickly passes and I stand there, looking affably at the man who, in any practical sense, tried to take my life from me. One person, a man in a felt hat, apparently aware of the momentousness of the meeting, turns to stare as he continues on his way, but otherwise the pedestrian traffic merely divides about us.
Nico asks me how I am. He has the earnest tone people lately have tended to adopt, so I know that he has heard. I tell him anyway.
"Barbara and I split up," I say.
"I heard that," he says. "I'm sorry. I really am. Divorce is a bitch. Well, you know. You had me crying on your shoulder. And I didn't have the kid. Maybe you guys can work it out."
"I doubt that. Nat's with me for the time being, but only until Barbara gets settled in Detroit."
"Too bad," he says. "Really. Too bad." Old Nico, I think, still repeating everything.
I turn to let him go on his way. I offer my hand first this time. And when he takes it, he steps closer and squeezes up his face so that I know that what he is about to say is something he finds painful.
"I didn't set you up," he says. "I know what people think. But I didn't have anybody screw with the evidence. Not Tommy. Not Kumagai." I almost wince at the thought of Painless. He has resigned now from the police department. He had no refuge. He could only claim collusion or incompetence, and so he chose the lesser-and I believe more apt-of the two evils. He did not botch the semen specimen, of course, but I've come to believe that no one would have been indicted if he'd looked back at his autopsy notes. Nobody could have put it all together. Maybe Tommy's also to blame for pushing too hard to bring a marginal case. I suppose he thought my hide would still his grief-or envy-whatever state it was that Carolyn had left him in, which so riled his passions.
Nico in the, meantime continues, sincere as ever. "I really didn't," he says. "I know what you think. But I have to tell you that. I didn't do that."
"I know you didn't, Delay," I say. And then I tell him what I think is the truth. "You did your job the way you thought you were supposed to. You just relied on the wrong people."
He watches me.
"Well, it's probably not going to be my job much longer. You've heard about this recall thing?" he asks. He is looking up and down the street again. "Of course you have. Everybody has. Well, what's the difference? They all tell me my career is over."
He is not looking for sympathy. He just wants me to know that the waves of calamity have spread and washed over him as well. Carolyn has pulled all of us down in her black wake. I find myself encouraging him.
"You can't tell, Delay. You never know how things'll turn out."
He shakes his head.
"No, no," he says. "No, you're the hero, I'm the goat. It's great." Nico, smiles, in a sudden way, so that you know he finds his own thoughts weird, inappropriate. "A year ago, you could have beat me in the election, and you could do it today. Isn't that great?" Nico Della Guardia laughs out loud, pinched by his own ironies, the peculiar readings from his own terms of reference. He spreads his arms here in the middle of Kindle Boulevard. "Nothing," he says, "has changed."