Fall Guy (6 page)

I took Maggie O'Fallon's note out of her brother's briefcase.

“I know what happened at Breyer's Landing. I was there.”

If she'd been there, why wouldn't he have known that? Why was she telling him that now, all these years later? And why hadn't the article mentioned her name along with those of her brothers and cousins?

I read the article again to make sure. Then I checked inside each plastic sleeve to see if there was anything else, but there wasn't. I started at the beginning and paged through the album more slowly this time. The boys, three O'Fallons and two Connors, and one little girl, eternally young, nothing recorded after all those charming, goofy, normal kid smiles were wiped off their faces by a tragic accident.

O'Fallon's father had been a New York City detective, too. Grief traveling the marrow of the bones, generation after generation.

I pulled out O'Fallon's driver's license and looked at his face again and then I began to think about Michael Brody, about what cops saw, about how they never told.

I went upstairs to the office and picked up the file from the post-traumatic-stress group where I'd met O'Fallon. I checked my watch. It was nearly ten. I picked up the phone and dialed the first number.

When I woke up, I called O'Fallon's attorney, Melanie Houseman. She said she'd get started on the paperwork, the letter of testamentary that would give me the power to function legally on O'Fallon's behalf, and the death certificate. She asked me to collect and messenger her the bank statements, the lease and any other legal documents I might find.

“I'm sorry to hear this,” she said. “He seemed like an awfully nice man.”

“I didn't really know him,” I told her.

“Is that so?”

“I thought it was odd, his choosing me this way, without even asking. I wonder, did he say anything to you about it, when he gave you my name? Did he happen to say why he'd chosen me to do this for him?”

“He told me his mother had died. She had been the designated executor of the previous will. So naturally he had to make a change. I told him it didn't have to be done in such a hurry and he said that was true, he understood that, but if I didn't
mind, he'd appreciate making the changes and signing the new will all in one visit. I figured he was busy and he wanted to get it done, get it off his mind. A lot of the officers are like that, they want something and they want it done immediately. Like lawyers. Now that everything's computerized, I was able to do that for him.”

“You said a lot of the officers?”

“My father was a lawyer. His brother was a cop. This started way back when. Before we were Houseman and Houseman, we were Houseman, Riley, Friedkin. For anything personal, not Department business, of course, a lot of the men would come to us. They still do, even more than years ago.”

“I guess you give them what they want.”

“Mostly, it's speed. That, and good advice. What Tim asked for, same day service, it's not all that unusual.”

“Were there many changes in the new will?”

“Well, the executor, from his mother, Kathleen, to you. And the beneficiary was changed from Kathleen to his sister Mary Margaret. That's all. Nothing fancy.”

“And he didn't say anything about why he wasn't making Mary Margaret his executor?”

“No. Well, yes, he did. He said that you would know…let me think…he said that you would know what he wanted.”

“Damn. What does that mean?”

“I guess whatever's spelled out in the will.”

“Wouldn't his sister have known what he wanted in that case?”

“I suppose. He must have had his reasons.”

“So I've been told. That's what one of the detectives said.”

“You know, Rachel, had he told me he hardly knew you, I would have strongly advised against this. But he didn't tell me. I didn't have a clue. In fact, that wording was his, the part that says, ‘my dear friend.' I guess it's a cop thing. They're not very talkative, not to civilians, anyway. Not even to their own lawyers.”

Guys, I thought, not just cops. Someone gets the message through to them before they're toilet-trained: stiff upper lip, don't complain, don't explain, the whole John Wayne thing.

“You're not required to accept this burden, Rachel. It's an awful lot of work. Of course, if you do take it on, you'll be paid for your time and effort. You do know that, don't you? I only ask because an awful lot of people don't, and because Detective O'Fallon never discussed this with you.”

“No, I had no idea.”

“The executor receives a percent of the value of the estate.”

“The only other estate I dealt with was my mother's, and my sister and I were the beneficiaries, so that wasn't an issue. I don't feel right about this, that part of Mary Margaret's money will go to me.”

“Oh, don't worry about that. You'll earn it. And it's what Detective O'Fallon wanted. He was clear about that, Rachel, all my clients are. I always explain what's customary. And why.”

I was thinking about what she'd just said, about the amount of time this would take. I was thinking about the bills that showed up in my
mailbox with great regularity, whether or not I was working. I'd worked for dead people before. That wasn't the problem. But this was the first time a client was dead
before
hiring me.

“I'll arrange a bank account with you as the signatory as soon as you get me the account information. We can write the checks here, but we'll need to send them to you for signing. Meanwhile, I'll get to work on the rest of what you need. Please keep in touch.”

“Thanks, Melanie. I'll try not to bother you unnecessarily.”

“I get paid, too, Rachel. Getting bothered, as you put it, is part of what I get paid for. Call whenever you need to.”

Though I believed Melanie, that there'd be a lot of work, more than I could guess, I still wasn't comfortable with the news that I'd be paid. O'Fallon had had something in mind. Unless I was able to discover what that was, I wouldn't feel I'd earned the money.

Still, there was the reality of those bills to pay. In fact, there was something else I had to do that morning to keep myself afloat. O'Fallon's rent, I guessed, was governed by Rent Stabilization Laws. Otherwise he would be living in Queens, not Greenwich Village. My fabulous deal had to do with the fact that the Siegals, the couple who owned both the town house across the garden from me and the back cottage that I rented from them, were hardly ever here. They had several other houses and they loved to travel. The deal was that I got the cottage dirt-cheap for making sure their house and their possessions stayed safe
in their absence. I usually checked the house at least once a week to make sure no one had broken in and that everything was working the way it should. They'd notify me when they were coming back, and at that time I'd hire a cleaning service and see that everything was ready for them when they arrived. I always took Dashiell with me to check the house. If anything was amiss, he'd know it much sooner than I would. I'd often give him his search command without telling him what I wanted him to find. In those cases, he'd alert for anything that didn't belong where it was, a perfect way to let me know if the house had been invaded. And working on command rather than just being nosy, he'd be sure to search every inch of the house, not just the places that interested him personally.

One winter, a year and a half earlier, he'd spent a lot of time checking out a pair of shoes he'd found in the pantry. I might have missed them myself. Norma Siegal often slipped off her shoes when she came into the house. Like me, she preferred to walk around barefoot. I'd even seen her on the back deck that way and had a conversation with her in the garden, neither of us wearing shoes.

After pawing at the shoes and turning them over, Dashiell took off. I could hear him on the stairs, hear him opening doors, then sneezing to clear his nose. Martha was on the top floor in a small spare bedroom, a homeless woman who must have noticed that while lights came on at night, the same lights always came on and went off at the same time. She'd only been there a day,
and other than the fact that I'd had to replace the lock to the cellar door, she hadn't done any harm. She'd only been keeping warm and trying to survive, like everyone else. I hadn't called the cops. Instead, I'd got her into a halfway house in Chelsea and hoped their training program and support might help her get back on her feet. It was sort of a work/study program for the homeless I'd read about in the paper, and Martha and I both felt lucky that when I called, they were able to take her.

I walked Dashiell first, and when we got back we entered the house through the front door, which was on Tenth Street, just east of the gate I used to get to the cottage. When we finished checking the house, we'd leave by the back door that exited into the garden. That way I'd be sure neither door had been jimmied since my last inspection. For my low rent, I also collected the mail, pitching out all the junk mail and forwarding the bills to their attorney, who would pay them in the Siegals' absence. The Siegals were thrilled to have a private investigator living in the cottage. It made them feel really secure. I was thrilled to have rent I could afford in the neighborhood where I felt at home. That made me feel really secure, a good deal all around.

There'd been no call from Brody all morning. Maggie hadn't called again either. I was hoping she would. I hadn't called Dennis. I was sure Maggie would do that. Then I wondered if she would. Family relationships could be so weird. I thought I'd better ask her when I spoke to her next.

I'd gotten three of the people from the group
last night—Mel, Larry and Brian. Mel kept asking about Dashiell. He barely remembered Tim. Larry referred to Tim as “the Mount Rushmore guy.” He said Tim hadn't said a word to him, not in the group, not out. And Brian said he was still having a tough time. He'd gone on Prozac, he said, and he wished he could get off it but when he tried, he was worse than before he started using it. He barely remembered Tim.

I called Scott again and this time he answered. He seemed very upset when I told him that Tim was dead.

“We both got there early once,” he said. “We were in the courtyard, just the two of us, waiting for the group to begin, neither of us saying boo. Then I figured, what the hell, and I told him I thought the group was helping me. I did, too. I'd started going out to dinner with friends again. And I was sleeping better. Not great, but better. I asked Tim if he'd been feeling any better. I said I thought Richard was doing a good job, gently directing us toward certain issues, making us see that everything we thought and felt was normal, given the abnormal circumstances we were now stuck with. But Tim didn't share. He listened,” Scott said. “He really listened. But he just didn't add anything of his own. I thought he was a really nice man. I mean, I thought he
must be
a really nice man, attentive, caring. But he wasn't awfully forthcoming. It's hard for some people. That's what Richard kept saying, remember? I guess it was too hard for Tim to talk. Did you ever find out who he lost?”

“No,” I said, “he didn't talk to me either.”

“But you said you were the executor of his will.”

“Right. It came as a complete surprise to me.”

“You're kidding. I didn't even know you could do that, make someone the executor without asking.”

“Don't get any ideas,” I told him.

He laughed. “I promise I'll ask you first,” he said. Then he asked if I'd called Richard. I said I hadn't, but I would. He asked about Dashiell. And he wished me luck.

I still couldn't reach John and decided to leave a second message. I hadn't called Richard last night. I had both home and office numbers, but I decided to call him at his office and not bother him at home. It wasn't exactly an emergency. He was very effusive when I said my name, then became silent when I told him why I was calling and what little I knew.

“I was just hoping to get a handle on him, to understand this thing. It bothers the hell out of me that I don't know why, that I don't know what he had in mind, making a decision like this. I don't know if you'd feel free to say, but I was wondering if you ever spoke with him privately, if there's anything at all you could tell me about the man that might make these circumstances…”

Richard cleared his throat, and for a moment I thought he was going to say, “He must have had his reasons,” but he didn't. He said, “I hate this. I hate these complete failures. You try your damnedest to reach someone and they won't let you in, so you can't give them the help you know they need.”

“They said it was an accident,” I said into the phone.

“There are no accidents, Rachel. Perhaps he didn't mean to do it consciously, but if he was a cop, he knew how to handle a gun, wouldn't you think?”

“His mother had just died. I guess he was pretty depressed.”

“I knew there'd be something. There always is. Poor man. I wish he'd called me.”

“Had he ever, since the group?”

There was a silence, Richard weighing patient confidentiality when the person in question wasn't his patient. “No. He never called,” he said. “I didn't know him either, Rachel.”

I thanked him and hung up.

When I put the phone down, it rang. It was Brody this time, saying I could have access to O'Fallon's apartment. Since I couldn't be sure who might have keys besides the police and me, I called the closest locksmith and asked him to meet me at Tim's apartment. I grabbed a pair of rubber gloves from under the sink, O'Fallon's briefcase, and the leash, and Dashiell and I headed out. The phone started ringing as I was closing the door. I walked back in and stood at the foot of the stairs, listening to Parker's voice as my answering machine was recording it. He was still talking when I closed the door and locked it behind me.