night.
“Some people are trouble magnets.”
“I don’t know. Maybe Roni was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Twice.”
“Not her, moron. You. That’s what you get for trying to fix the world one messed-up kid at a time.”
“I thought I did okay with you, but keep giving me grief and I may have to rethink that.”
“Wait until I tell you who called me yesterday.”
“Who?”
“It’s a beautiful morning. Go outside and play with the dogs, and I’ll pick you up in thirty minutes.”
Fall in Kansas City is a season of gentle regret, evoking good times past and trials yet to come as summer surrenders to September and October’s fiery leaves drape the city in a fragile rainbow canopy back-lit by the sun, low and sharp, nature’s high-definition broadcast. November’s cold, cleansing rain readies us for December’s frozen, pale shroud, the promise of spring faint, distant but certain.
I waited for Lucy in the front yard, the dogs swirling around me, chasing squirrels because that was their job. They were unburdened by the past, oblivious to the future, living in the moment while I straddled all three dimensions.
Lucy was wrong about one thing. I wasn’t trying to fix the world one messed-up kid at a time. I was trying to fix me, put the pieces back together that were shattered when Kevin and Wendy died. There was nothing gentle about my regrets, nothing soothing about my dreams. Memories of my children were a saw-toothed reminder of broken promises. If I could help Roni Chase and if I could find Evan and Cara Martin, I might save myself.
My cell phone rang. It was Roni.
“Detective Carter wants to meet me at my house at three o’clock. Can you make it?”
“Sure. Don’t start without me.”
Lucy pulled up just as I finished talking with Roni.
“Had breakfast?” Lucy asked when I got in her car.
“Coffee.”
“Good. We’re going to the Classic Cup.”
“Because?”
“Because we’re having breakfast with Ethan Bonner.”
“Jimmy Martin’s lawyer?”
“One and the same.”
“Who’s buying?”
“He is. Jimmy told Bonner we came out to the Farm to see him on Sunday. Bonner called me yesterday afternoon. I thought he was going to chew me out, tell us to stay the hell away from his client. But he didn’t. Instead, he asked us to meet him for breakfast.”
“How’s a blue-collar guy like Jimmy Martin afford a lawyer like Ethan Bonner?”
“Beats me.”
The Classic Cup is on the Country Club Plaza, Kansas City’s Spanish-inspired signature shopping district, located in midtown. There’s enough power at its breakfast tables to light the shops at Christmas.
Bonner was waiting for us, his scuffed shoes propped on an empty chair, glasses halfway down his nose, long hair pushed behind his ears, reading the New York Times . He was wearing jeans and a corduroy blazer over a Grateful Dead T-shirt and a three-day growth of beard. He was a solo practitioner, mixing criminal defense with plaintiff’s personal injury work; winning more cases than most with strategy and tactics few had the balls to use when someone’s life was on the line.
He had the perfect Kansas City pedigree. He grew up in Mission Hills, home to old money and older mansions. He graduated from Pembroke Hill, the city’s premier private school, before going to Yale and then Harvard for law school. He worked for the law firm his grandfather had founded and his father ran for an entire week before he quit and opened his own shop, his father saying that his son didn’t just march to the beat of a different drummer; he was playing an instrument no one had ever heard before.
Bonner dropped his feet to the floor, shoving the chair away from the table, folded his newspaper in half, and waved us to our seats.
“Jack,” he said, extending his hand, “I haven’t seen you since the Janice Graham case. You remember her?”
“Sure. She and her husband were in the residential mortgage business. She was charged
“Some people are trouble magnets.”
“I don’t know. Maybe Roni was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Twice.”
“Not her, moron. You. That’s what you get for trying to fix the world one messed-up kid at a time.”
“I thought I did okay with you, but keep giving me grief and I may have to rethink that.”
“Wait until I tell you who called me yesterday.”
“Who?”
“It’s a beautiful morning. Go outside and play with the dogs, and I’ll pick you up in thirty minutes.”
Fall in Kansas City is a season of gentle regret, evoking good times past and trials yet to come as summer surrenders to September and October’s fiery leaves drape the city in a fragile rainbow canopy back-lit by the sun, low and sharp, nature’s high-definition broadcast. November’s cold, cleansing rain readies us for December’s frozen, pale shroud, the promise of spring faint, distant but certain.
I waited for Lucy in the front yard, the dogs swirling around me, chasing squirrels because that was their job. They were unburdened by the past, oblivious to the future, living in the moment while I straddled all three dimensions.
Lucy was wrong about one thing. I wasn’t trying to fix the world one messed-up kid at a time. I was trying to fix me, put the pieces back together that were shattered when Kevin and Wendy died. There was nothing gentle about my regrets, nothing soothing about my dreams. Memories of my children were a saw-toothed reminder of broken promises. If I could help Roni Chase and if I could find Evan and Cara Martin, I might save myself.
My cell phone rang. It was Roni.
“Detective Carter wants to meet me at my house at three o’clock. Can you make it?”
“Sure. Don’t start without me.”
Lucy pulled up just as I finished talking with Roni.
“Had breakfast?” Lucy asked when I got in her car.
“Coffee.”
“Good. We’re going to the Classic Cup.”
“Because?”
“Because we’re having breakfast with Ethan Bonner.”
“Jimmy Martin’s lawyer?”
“One and the same.”
“Who’s buying?”
“He is. Jimmy told Bonner we came out to the Farm to see him on Sunday. Bonner called me yesterday afternoon. I thought he was going to chew me out, tell us to stay the hell away from his client. But he didn’t. Instead, he asked us to meet him for breakfast.”
“How’s a blue-collar guy like Jimmy Martin afford a lawyer like Ethan Bonner?”
“Beats me.”
The Classic Cup is on the Country Club Plaza, Kansas City’s Spanish-inspired signature shopping district, located in midtown. There’s enough power at its breakfast tables to light the shops at Christmas.
Bonner was waiting for us, his scuffed shoes propped on an empty chair, glasses halfway down his nose, long hair pushed behind his ears, reading the New York Times . He was wearing jeans and a corduroy blazer over a Grateful Dead T-shirt and a three-day growth of beard. He was a solo practitioner, mixing criminal defense with plaintiff’s personal injury work; winning more cases than most with strategy and tactics few had the balls to use when someone’s life was on the line.
He had the perfect Kansas City pedigree. He grew up in Mission Hills, home to old money and older mansions. He graduated from Pembroke Hill, the city’s premier private school, before going to Yale and then Harvard for law school. He worked for the law firm his grandfather had founded and his father ran for an entire week before he quit and opened his own shop, his father saying that his son didn’t just march to the beat of a different drummer; he was playing an instrument no one had ever heard before.
Bonner dropped his feet to the floor, shoving the chair away from the table, folded his newspaper in half, and waved us to our seats.
“Jack,” he said, extending his hand, “I haven’t seen you since the Janice Graham case. You remember her?”
“Sure. She and her husband were in the residential mortgage business. She was charged
Similar Books
