Free Close to the Bone by William G. Tapply Page B

predictable stages of decline.
    During the past decade or two the city has been revitalized. The old factories have been converted into contemporary office buildings and condominiums. The downtown area features brick-fronted shops that sell books and candles and chocolates and antiques. There are a dozen restaurants and taverns within a few blocks of each other, and all of them seem to be profitable.
    Politically, Newburyport is a city. But it feels like a quaint old New England seaport town, just the way it’s supposed to.
    On this perfect Saturday morning in June, the twisting streets and the wide sidewalks were thronged with shoppers and tourists. Seagulls sailed overhead, and beyond the shops and restaurants the masts of schooners poked into the sky. The air tasted salty and clean.
    “Where was Paul’s house?” I asked Olivia as we crossed a brick-paved plaza.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “Somewhere out on Plum Island.”
    “You’ve never been there?”
    “No. He called it a shack. It’s on some back road overlooking the marsh.”
    “He wouldn’t let anybody borrow his boat?”
    She laughed quickly. “Absolutely not.”
    “But he might’ve invited somebody along with him.”
    “Sure.”
    At the station, Olivia told the female desk cop that Lieutenant Kirschenbaum was expecting her, and a few minutes later a lanky, stoop-shouldered guy wearing a short-sleeved white shirt and baggy chino pants came out. “Mrs. Cizek?” he said.
    “Yes. This is Mr. Coyne.”
    “Oh?” He had a thick mop of curly gray-blond hair. A pair of steel-rimmed glasses perched atop his head.
    “He’s my—our lawyer. Mine and Paul’s.”
    Kirschenbaum looked at me and shrugged. “Sure, okay. You folks want to come on in here?”
    He turned and slouched down a corridor, and we followed him into a small office. He folded himself into the swivel chair behind his desk, and Olivia and I took the straight-backed wooden chairs across from him.
    Olivia put her forearms on the desk. “Do you know anything?”
    “Nothing since we talked this morning,” he said. “Someone radioed the Coast Guard that there was a boat adrift. That was around two in the morning. So they went out and towed it in. Nobody was aboard. They’ve got it at the Lifeboat Station on Water Street. There’s a vehicle registered to Paul Cizek of Lynnfield parked at the public landing. It’s got a boat trailer hooked to it.” He poked at his hair, found his glasses, and placed them on the desk in front of him. “That’s really all I can tell you. I was hoping you could shed some more light on it.”
    “You didn’t find…?”
    He shook his head.
    “I don’t see how I can help you,” she said.
    “You two were, um, living apart.”
    She looked at him sharply. “Yes, we were. We separated at the end of March.”
    “Right,” he said. He picked up his glasses and fitted them onto his ears, then rummaged around on his desk and found a manila folder. He opened it and bent to study the papers it held. Then he looked up at us. “He was renting the house at the end of Meadowridge Road, out on the island?”
    She nodded. “That’s right.”
    “He liked to fish,” he said, still peering at the papers he was holding.
    “He went out whenever he could. That’s why when he moved out, he came up here. So he’d be near the ocean. He liked to go in the river and around Plum Island.”
    “And he fished at night?”
    “Mostly at night, yes. He preferred to fish at night. He felt that’s when the stripers bit the best. Anyway, he worked long hours during the day.”
    Kirschenbaum removed his glasses, folded them, and pointed them at Olivia. “He was pretty well known for defending some unsavory types.”
    “It’s what he did.”
    “Yes. And he was very good at it, I understand. Was your husband suicidal, Mrs. Cizek?”
    “Paul?” She frowned. “He was not happy. In fact, he’s been quite depressed lately. But suicide?” She shook her head. “I