“No, that’s the magic of the place. It stays pretty wonderful. Sure, when I was a teenager, maybe, but that was when I hated everything. Once my brain started working again I saw this place for what it was.”
“A little corner of paradise,” Harry finished then added, “and that’s no lie.”
* * *
Back on shore MK asked Harry if he wanted to get clams at the Hillside but Harry confessed that Trooper Cirba and he had a date. He counter-proposed that if MK provided the charcoal he’d barbeque. MK offered her gas grill and Harry prepared a feast of burgers and potato chips.
MK took a bite of her cheeseburger and had to lean in over the picnic table to stop ketchup from falling down her front. She wiped her chin with a paper towel and said: “I’m not going to sleep with you, you know.”
Harry choked a little bit on his burger and had to swig some beer before he could reply. “Ah, OK.”
“Well, since you wanted to get the interrogation thing out of the way I thought I would just get that clear.”
“Right well, thank you, I think. Once again – was it something I said?”
“Oh, don’t take it personally, I just don’t sleep with renters. One of my rules.”
“It’s just as well, the bed in my room is unbelievably squeaky.”
“I know.”
“And how do you know that?”
“My sister, Vicky, has no problems sleeping with renters.” MK looked sideways at Harry and smiled. “You still have time to get to the Hillside for clam night.”
“Thank you but no. I’m very happy with the company right here.”
They clinked beer bottles.
“So is there a Mrs Cull?”
“Who is interrogating who? Should we get back out on the inflatables?”
“It’s just that now you know you have no chance with me, you can tell the truth.”
“Sounds logical. The answer is no.”
“An ex Mrs Cull?”
“Ah… yes.”
“And any little Cullettes?”
Harry paused and had to look away for a moment before answering, “No.”
“So what happened?”
Harry blew out a long sigh and said: “I didn’t live up to her expectations.”
“You cheated on her?”
“What makes you say that?”
“You’re a man; it’s the law of probability.”
“No, I didn’t cheat on her. I – I don’t do that.”
“A man that doesn’t cheat. That makes you a rare breed.”
“It’s not that I don’t cheat… it’s more basic than that. I don’t lie. Or at least I try not to… at least Monday to Friday.”
“You only lie weekends?”
“Yes, and only to strangers.”
MK put down her burger and leaned in looking straight into Harry’s eyes. “You’re serious?”
“I am. Dealing with lies is my job. I’ve seen how much misery it brings to people so I just don’t do it.”
“So you never lie?”
“That is my goal.”
“So what if I asked you if my butt looked big in this outfit.”
“I’d probably say something like, ‘I think you would look good even if you wore a plastic garbage bag’.”
“But you didn’t answer the question.”
“Hey, just because I tell the truth doesn’t mean I go up to people and say, ‘I see you are forty pounds overweight and you buy your clothes at Kmart’.”
“But if I pressed you on it?”
“If you really want my opinion on the girth of your backside I’d tell you. I wouldn’t be doing you any favours if I said you had a nice ass when the whole world could see you looked like the back of a bus.”
MK stood, turned and then craned to see her posterior. “You think my ass looks like the back of a bus?”
“I was being hypothetical. But if you like I will give you a review of your south-facing view. Since you have pointed out that I am not going to be having any intimate knowledge of any of your body parts, you can be assured the critique will be honest.”
“No. If you’re not going to lie, I don’t want to know.”
“You sure? I can tell you now it’ll probably be quite favourable.”
“But that seems to me to be a tough code to live by. I don’t think I could do it.”
“Yes,” Harry said, “it’s not easy being me.”
“But you lie to strangers on weekends?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“As I told you, truth and lies are my job. If I know I’ll never see a person again and it won’t do any harm, I like to tell whoppers to strangers just to see how far I can push it.”
“Like what?”
“Let me see, I’ve told people that I’m a Puerto Rican Major League baseball player.”
MK laughed. “And they bought it?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“So it’s Friday night and you and Ed are going out. Are we going to be telling some porkies tonight?”
“I suspect so.”
“And where are you two going?”
“Just because I told you I won’t lie doesn’t mean I’m going to answer your questions.”
As if the invocation of his name made him appear, Ed, wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt, hollered a hello from the back deck and bounded down to the picnic table.
“Well, well,” MK purred, “lookie at Trooper Cirba in his civvies. What are you two up to tonight? Ohhh, I get it. It’s a boy’s trip to the strip club.”
“Did you tell her?” Cirba said.
“No,” Harry replied, “but you did just now.”
“It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes,” she said. “Everybody knows Big Bill was a regular. You boys just be careful, I get a bad feeling from that place.”
“You’ve been there?”
“No, but about three months ago, one of the girls that works there ploughed into my mailbox so hard the pole got stuck under her car and lifted one of the front wheels off the ground. She was stuck up there at three in the morning, gunning her engine and going nowhere. When I came out it was obvious she was high on something, and then some guy came round and told me to go back to bed. When I said I should call the police, he got all huffy and said he already did. Then that idiot Oaktree cop Barowski showed up.”
“Ice Lake is out of Barowski’s jurisdiction. What was he doing here?” Cirba said.
“I don’t know but it was late and he said he’d take care of it. Next day when I came home from work there was a lovely new mailbox with a bottle of champagne in it, so no harm no foul. It’s just that the man who showed up was… creepy, and Barowski acted – I don’t