Empty Ever After (25 page)

“What about the alcohol and Xanax?”

“What about them?” Feeney asked. “You ever kill anybody?”

“No.”

“You think if you were gonna have to kill someone you knew in cold blood, and a kid at that, that you might have to fortify yourself a little? I know I would.”

“But he had enough alcohol and drugs in him to make an elephant loopy.”

“He was a cop, not a pharmacist, Prager. Besides, maybe that’s why he was disoriented and ran in the wrong direction.”

What he said was making sense and it made me realize how silly and desperate I must have sounded, but I guess I’d already passed the point of caring just how silly.

“Did he have a prescription for the Xanax?” I asked.

“You’re shittin’ me, right? We can drive into your old precinct and within twenty minutes I could buy enough Xanax, Valium, methadone, and Oxycontin to put out a herd of fuckin’ elephants. Trust me, Prager, as a brother cop and as a guy who’s seen a lot of good men torture themselves over stupid details, leave it be. The answers you’re lookin’ for, you ain’t gonna find here, not on these streets, not in that file. Ray Martello was a sick bastard who was willin’ to go a long way to get his revenge. He killed the kid, panicked, and ran into traffic. End of story. You’re never gonna know why the kid lied to you about his name. He just did.”

I was almost ready to give in, but not yet. “What about this mysterious guy who drove the kid around, Martello’s friend with the eye patch? You haven’t been able to find him.”

“Frankly, we haven’t been lookin’ real hard. Maybe he exists, maybe he doesn’t. Bottom line, the people who matter in this case are dead,” Feeney said, running out of patience.

“And the bloody shoe print … Why was there only one? Martello had to cross almost the entire length of the room to get out the back window, but he only left one print.”

“’Cause Martello was part kangaroo and hopped to the window. Remember, I don’t have to know why. There was only one print because there was only one print. Drive me back to the Six-One now, okay? You can keep a set of the autopsy photos as a memento of our date, but playtime is officially over.”

When I dropped him back at the precinct, he thanked me again for lunch and warned me not to call him about the case. I promised I wouldn’t, but I had my fingers crossed.

 

DURING MY RIDE into Brooklyn Heights, I went over everything Detective Feeney had said. The thing of it was, he was right. With Ray Martello and the kid dead, I could research the hell out of their histories, interview everyone who ever knew them, put their lives under the world’s most powerful microscope, and I would still be asking why. It dawned on me, that the real question of why didn’t have to do with the kid lying to me about his name, but about why I cared. I thought about what the late Israel Roth would have said vis-a-vis my state of mind.

“Mr. Moe,” he’d say, “you are hanging onto the case because you don’t want to let Katy go. Patrick bound the two of you together as powerfully, more powerfully maybe than wedding vows or gold rings. When in the hospital you told her about the fake Patrick and she got so angry, it was the same. It’s like this number on my forearm, even if you could scrub it away, I would still be bound, for good or bad, to my past. If you said to me, come Izzy, I could get that thing removed, I’m not sure I would go.”

It’s funny, even when I imagined the words Mr. Roth might say, I heard his voice in my head. I put my hand to my mouth. I was smiling. By the time I got into the office, the weight of the whys had lifted. I walked directly into Devo’s command center and released him from wasting any more time on my preoccupation.

“Devo, forget working on any of that stuff related to Katy’s brother and tackle the backlog. We have to make some money around here with paying customers.”

“Are you quite sure, Moe? I have sharpened some of the—”

“Forget it, I’m moving on. Just bag the stuff up and I’ll return it.”

“Okay.”

Carmella was in her office and was standing by a file cabinet when she told me to come in. I couldn’t help but stare. She followed my eyes.

“You’re showing a little,” I said.

“You’re grinning like an idiot, Moe.”

I didn’t say anything, but walked up to her and reached out my hand to feel her little belly. I stopped myself. People often don’t realize what an incredibly intimate and loaded gesture it is to place your hand on a pregnant woman’s abdomen. It’s reaffirming, connective, even sexual. I remembered complete strangers touching Katy without a thought of asking permission when she was pregnant with Sarah. It’s almost instinctive, tribal, at least.

“It’s okay for you to touch me.”

And I did. She placed her hand on top of mine. “You’re keeping it,” I said.

“I am. It’s a pretty amazing thing to have someone growing inside you.”

“Now
you’re
grinning like an idiot.”

“Am I?” She blushed.

“We are going to have to rearrange things around here, if this little girl’s go—”

“—boy. Little boy. I know it.”

“If this little boy’s going to get a healthy start.”

She removed her hand from mine. “We’ll talk about it when the time comes.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

Her grin faded as suddenly as it had appeared and her mood darkened. “Moe, I guess I should tell you that the baby is—”

“—Dukelsky’s. I know. I knew the minute he showed up at the Six-One. It was a guilty favor he was doing. It all fit together. I think he tried to talk to me about you two, but I stopped him.”

“Some of the things I said about him, they were … not fair. He just doesn’t want a baby now or to get married. He’s been married and divorced and has two kids. I don’t want to marry him anyway. This was my fault. I chased him, Moe. I have for years.”

“Why?” There was that question again. “You could have any man you want.”

She brushed the back of her hand against my cheek. “No, I can’t.”

“Come on, Carmella, let’s not do this again.”

“That’s right.” Her eyes burned. “We can’t be together because it makes too much sense. We can’t be together because of your rules. Because some man raped me as a little girl, because it was you who saved my life, because my parents changed my name, because I lied to you about who
I was, because I got my shield and you didn’t, because your wife tossed you to the curb, be—”

“Stop it!”

“Get out of my office!” she hissed. “Get out of here. At least Paul was honest with himself and me. Get out!”

Down on Court Street, the air was thick enough to swim through. Truck fumes coagulated around bits of dust, falling to the asphalt like volcanic ash. People on the sidewalk were defeated. A city bus stopped in front of me. A pair of brown eyes much like Carmella’s stared out at me from an ad on the side of the bus. The eyes were set in the face of a watch. The copy read:
Timing isn’t everything. It’s the only thing. Harmony Watches.

“Kiss my ass,” I heard myself mutter. So too, apparently, did the woman standing next to me. She just shook her head no.

THE HEAT BROKE
while I slept, massive thunderstorms washing away the haze and defeat. I bought a cup of coffee, walked across the street, and watched the fishing boats set out for blues or porgies or whatever else was foolish enough to bite at the thousands of tangled lines dropped into the Atlantic off the coast of New Jersey or Montauk. The decks were packed with beer-for-breakfast buddies full of good cheer and anticipation. A little chop on the water would wipe away those smiles in an instant, but for now the world was perfect. The boats’ throaty motors revved up and one by one they headed directly into the rising sun. One hour down, the rest of my life to go.

As tired of the wine business as I was, I didn’t do well with spare time. I’d made sure to never really have a lot of it. Between the wine stores and the agency and Katy and Sarah, I managed to keep myself pretty much occupied. But now with Sarah staying in Ann Arbor most of the year and with my more recent exile from Katy-ville, spare time seemed like it was going to be a bigger part of my life. I had at least the next two weeks off and I was bored silly an hour into my day. In the short term, my date with Connie couldn’t get here soon enough. In the long term, Carmella getting fat with child would mean more work for me at the agency.
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

I bought every newspaper I could find, another cup of coffee, and headed back upstairs to read myself blind. The phone machine came to my rescue. I was halfway hoping it was Aaron or Klaus needing me to fill in at one of the stores, but it was a confused and impatient Marlon Rhodes wondering why I hadn’t taken him up on his offer. This time I called him back. I got his machine.

“Mr. Rhodes, this is Moe Prager returning your—”

“Yo, yo, yo! Marlon here, man.” He referred to himself in the third person.

“Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner.”

“So, y’all still interested in Mr. White’s crazy-ass sista?”

“Depends.”

“Man, don’t play me like dat.”

“How should I play you?”

“I play for pay, man.”

“Yeah, I figured that out already. I got no problem with paying if I get a taste of what it is I’m paying for. But I have to warn you, Marlon, I’m not nearly as interested as I was that first time we spoke.”

He thought about that a second. “Fair ’nough.”

“I’m listening.”

“Mr. White, he was a good man. He really gave a shit ’bout his students and all. Helped me out with money sometimes too. Got me into treatment and everything, f’all the good dat did. When he died, his sista tried to make us into like some fucked up little family, havin’ us over for dinners and shit, but she wasn’t like Mr. White. She was all spooky Jesus and shit. She be playin’ us like old cassette tapes of Mr. White wishing her Happy Birthday or Merry Christmas. It was weird, man, hearin’ his voice and all. Then she get judgmental and shit, tryin’ to tell us all how to act. Mr. White, he wasn’t never dat way.”

“These cassette tapes, were they only Jack’s voice?”

“Mostly, but sometimes there was this other man on there.”

“Patrick?”

“If you say so. He was young. I
can
say dat. Been a long time, man.”

My heart was racing and my mind was a blur.

“Yo, Five-O, y’all still there?”

“Sorry, Marlon. I got distracted there a second. What happened with these dinners?”

“Without Mr. White, most of us, we went our own ways. Some of us went farther then others, if y’all hear what I’m sayin’.”

I read between the lines. “How long a stretch did you do?”

“Ten year bid in Kentucky for movin’ a little rock.”

“That’s a long time inside.”

“Man, when y’all doin’ nigga time in Kentucky, ten minutes a long time inside.”

“I can imagine.”

“No, you can’t.”

Touché
. “So what happened?

“I don’t hear from his sista again until like eight weeks ago. I guess she heard I sometimes still went out to the cemetery. Dat’s how she got my number, from one of the others.”

“What did she say?”

“She all nice and shit now, sayin’ how she appreciates me still visitin’ her brother and all.”

“But …”

“But dat she askin’ everybody not to go out to the cemetery for a few weeks. She say some shit about them doin’ some ground work.”

“That’s weird.”

“I told you, man. She crazy.”

“Marlon, I gotta ask. Why didn’t you talk to me when I first called you and why’d you wait until now to call back?”

He didn’t answer. It was price-setting time, but I didn’t feel like haggling.

“How much?” I said.

“Five hundred.”

“Sold. Now let’s hear it.”

“Y’ail think I’m some kinda fool nigga? Dat was way too easy. My price goin’ up.”

“Don’t mistake my impatience with stupidity, Marlon. I’ll throw you another hundred, but then the bank’s closing forever. There’s a limit to how much I’m willing to spend to satisfy my curiosity.”

“Okay, cool. Six hundred.”

“Six hundred,” I repeated. “So what took you so long to call me back?”

“She call me last Friday, all apologetic and religious and shit. Kept sayin’ she was sorry and dat the Lord will be with me. Hell, man, the next time the Lord is with me, dat’ll be the first time. But I didn’t disrespect her or nothin’. I guess she jus’ a crazy old lady after all.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe. Did she say what she was sorry for?”

“I didn’t ask. Jus’ wanted to get off the phone.”

“Hey, Marlon, how’d you like me to hand deliver that money tomorrow?”

“Tonight would be better, but I s’pose I can wait.”

“I suppose you’ll have to.”

I KNEW SOMETHING
wasn’t right the minute I turned the corner onto Mary White’s street. There was a local agent’s For Sale sign up at the edge of the meticulous little yard in front of her house. Hung beneath the larger sign was a smaller one. “Priced to Sell,” it read. Both signs swung gently in the early afternoon breeze. A blue jay perched on the mailbox, cocked its head at the signs and flew away. He wasn’t buying.

Marlon Rhodes had wanted to tag along and though I could’ve used the company, I decided to part ways with him and my money back in Cincinnati. Showing up on Mary White’s doorstep with Marlon in tow would have been tough to explain away. Never mind Marlon, I couldn’t think of what the hell I was going to tell her about
my
being there. I guess I needn’t have worried.

There was no answer when I knocked or pressed the front doorbell. I called her number on my cell. The phone rang and rang and … That was funny. I knew she had an answering machine. I’d left messages on it. I could hear her old fashioned phone ringing out in the street. My belly tied itself in knots. I remembered what happened the last time I listened to an unanswered telephone. I walked around the house, cupping my hands against side and back windows. I knocked on the rear door. Mary White was gone. Coming back around the front of the house, a young, chubby-faced woman with dull brown hair and a lazy eye called to me from the adjoining yard.