Free Compass Rose by John Casey Page A

Dana. First edition, good condition.’ ”
    Then she started crying. It was a sudden burst, her body bent forward, her face jerking in her hands, the appointment book at her feet.
    When she half recovered and was wiping her cheeks with her fingertips, she heard herself say, “I’ve never cried. I mean, I’ve never cried in uniform.” That was a bit of babble that normally would have made her laugh. At least she stopped crying. She said, “Oh, God. You must think I’m …”
    “No, no. I can guess it’s been …” He bent down to pick up the appointment book from the floor. His hair was cut short or the half-curls would have been ringlets. He pulled a small packet of Kleenex from his briefcase. He puzzled over how to open the cellophane. He had thick fingers, a heavy, broad face. A general width—when he finally broke the wrapping and pinched out an edge of Kleenex, she felt as if she was being tended to by a bear.
    He said, “I guess you’ve felt a lot of strain. Jack said you’re like a daughter to Miss Perry. So look. I can take the appointment books and the Everett Hazard folder, xerox them. We don’t have to wrap everything up right now.”
    Elsie didn’t want him to go. She wanted him to sit by the fire and pay attention to her. She said, “Let me just look in upstairs. You’re going … where? Woonsocket? And that reminds me. Phoebe Fitzgerald wants to talk to you.”
    “Oh, yeah. The tenant.”
    “I could make you a cup of coffee. For your drive. You can smoke your pipe if you’d like.” He looked surprised but said, “I’m only going to Providence. But sure. A cup of coffee’d be nice. Black.”
    When she came back he was looking at the books in the boys’bookcases. She put his coffee on the table between the two armchairs facing the fireplace. She sat down in one of them, tucking her legs under her, a kittenish pose she hadn’t struck for a long time. He sat in the other armchair, planted his feet. “So tell me something about Miss Perry,” he said. “But first tell me how you know I smoke a pipe. Some sort of Sherlock Holmes thing? Or was it something Jack told you? Probably not Jack. He doesn’t notice details. At least not about men.”
    “Oh?” Elsie was surprised by this bit of spin on his serve but was pleased to bat it back. “Of course, that’s true of men in general.”
    “I don’t think so. But let’s not get into one of those men-in-general talks. The pipe …”
    “I’ll tell you a little bit about Miss Perry. We’ll get back to the pipe.” He stretched out his legs. So this wasn’t going to be one of her old daredevil encounters, nothing like her fantasy of wading across the Queens River, having him at her mercy.
    She told him school stories, about being Miss Perry’s prize student in Latin and natural history. A glimpse of herself as a tomboy. “My sister was the great beauty, so I took to the woods.” He raised his eyebrows but didn’t make a courtly objection. “I would have been just sullenly thrashing around, but Miss Perry took an interest. Just asked a question or two at first. Then asked me to take her to where I’d seen something extraordinary. The first thing was a lady’s slipper. On the way she pointed out other things. One time she slit open a little swelling on a twig and inside there was a nymph.”
    “Oh, sure, nymph. Like a maggot or a grub. Good bait for trout.”
    “So you’re a trout fisherman.”
    “When I was a kid, Grandpère used to take me. Now it’s rare.” The
r
s in
grandpère
were trilled French-Canadian rather than lightly gargled French-French.
    “Did you grow up speaking French?”
    “Some. My father’s family’s from Trois Rivières. They speak Quebecois. You hear it about half the time in Woonsocket—
au coin
. When the governor gives a speech up there in our corner, I do the introduction in French and English.”
    She said, “So what are you doing here? This little job …”
    “I’m a lawyer. And I