Missing Brandy (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 2) (15 page)

“Or off the Brooklyn Bridge?”

We were silent walking toward our cars.

“She knows something,” I said. “Did you see her eyes dart when I asked her about the phone call?”

Cookie was shaking her head. “I was too busy looking at the picture of her little boy, the undeveloped muscles of his arms, the way they posed his hands. Obvious they were propping up his head. And that smile, what a lamb.”

“Phillipa or her boy?”

“Both.”

Cookie was right, and it was killing me because it was obvious Phillipa knew more than she was letting on, but I couldn’t bring myself to confront her. My inability to do the hard stuff with Phillipa kept me awake that night, and as it turned out, for many nights to follow. “I bet the witch pays her nothing.”

“And Phillipa’s glad to get her pittance. Did you see the patch on her skirt?”

I shook my head.

Cookie stopped to fix her face. “I had a piece of pancake on my front tooth the whole time, and the poor woman must have seen it and said nothing. Like you, she said nothing.”

“I didn’t see it.”

“Not what I meant.”

While she fixed her teeth and lipstick, I said, “Can you imagine telling your employee that you don’t want to see her child? ‘I don’t want it here.’ How cruel is that?”

“Don’t look at me, she’s your client.”

“Phillipa’s the inside link,” I said.

“Maybe and maybe not.”

“I think under more questioning, she’ll crack.” I didn’t like the sound of my voice on the word ‘crack.’ I was as bad as Trisha Liam, but we had to find Brandy. “Before we get to that point, let’s follow her.”

“She doesn’t go out of the house.”

I gave Cookie a look. “Tell you what. I’m meeting Lorraine in a few. I want to talk with Brandy’s Granny Liam, and Lorraine met the old lady once, so she’s coming along. Meanwhile—”

“Good idea,” Cookie said. “Meanwhile, I’ll watch Trisha Liam’s house. I’ve got a lot of reading to do before I give my lecture. I can keep one eye on the front stoop and the other one on my book.”

Chapter 27

Phillipa. Her Story

She’s just a kid, doesn’t deserve a mother like that, and she doesn’t deserve to pay for whatever it was the mother did or didn’t do. Although if you take children out of it, Trisha Liam was just doing her job. That’s what she, Phillipa, had told Henry when they met, and she was prepared for his response, prepared for anything. She expected he’d blow up like all the others did when she contradicted them, but long ago she stopped caring what men did or didn’t do. After all, what did she have to lose? She remembered it, the first night. It was late, and she’d never let Henry into her house before. Never let any man into her house, not after Freddy was born.

It wasn’t like she wanted him because she didn’t, even though he was not all that bad looking, come to think of it. Still, she felt there was something not quite right about him. Dispassionate, that was it. Like Trisha, he weighed everything. But something more, he was holding something back.

True, it was nice to get out of the house, even if it was with an engineer who told her the story of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge as if it were the greatest feat of mankind, talking about the Roeblings, the old man and his son and all the other engineers who helped them. As if she cared. He told her about the men who lost their lives, those who lay buried beneath the piles in the East River. That part was mildly interesting.

Their first encounter had been in a market on Eighteenth Avenue in Bensonhurst close to her apartment. It was the day of the blackout ten or so years ago when Freddy was a toddler. Funny how it happened. She was stuck in Tribuzio’s Meat Market when the lights went out. At first they thought it must have been the store’s circuit breaker, and the butcher himself said he’d fix it in a jiffy. So he disappeared someplace, probably into the basement, and they’d waited, but the lights and the sound of the large refrigerators didn’t return.

Henry was in back of her—say, two or three customers behind—when the silence had started. Lights went out. Fans stopped. Beads of sweat formed on her upper lip, a hot day in August. Customers looked at one another. Someone yelled out, “Fuse again,” and asked everyone to be patient—they’d fix it in a jiffy. She heard the door open behind the meat counter, the heavy tread on creaking stairs. Felt the sweat stain her blouse. Smelled sawdust and the faint smell of blood. Pitch dark, and Phillipa was afraid. She wondered if this was a robbery, the end of her life, and what would Freddy do without her.

But suddenly there was the man called Henry. Together they’d paid the cashier, who had to write down the transaction. A jittery time for her, but Henry had helped her. He didn’t have to. Looking back on it, perhaps Henry had always been a part of the Bensonhurst scenery, but she hadn’t noticed him before that day in August. Henry was the only customer with a flashlight, and he’d guided everyone out, including Phillipa.

She remembered the pit in her stomach that day, people storming out of two-flats and apartment buildings and studios, and the street filling with neighbors congregating and pointing in different directions. Cell phones no longer worked. She wondered if it was another attack like 9/11, and her heart almost stopped, what about Freddy, until someone with a bullfrog voice yelled out, “No, it’s just the fuckin’ ConEd.” They’d laughed, and she’d relaxed into a kind of giddy elation.

Phillipa’s reticence evaporated. “You look familiar.”

He smiled, a slow, warm smile. Said he came to Bensonhurst often to buy food. “I work in Brooklyn Heights, but the meat and vegetables are cheaper in this neighborhood. I think I’ve seen you walking on Joralemon or maybe on the platform at Borough Hall. I live nearby.”

That’s the way it started, one hot day almost ten years ago. Their friendship was slow to take off. Take off was the wrong phrase; it never really blossomed. He was, what to call it, convenient. I guess you might say they used each other, a chance for adult conversation, a few stolen moments after Freddy had gone to sleep. It went on like that for close to five years.

He introduced her to his friend, Ben. She didn’t like Ben, not at all, and she wondered how the two of them, Ben and Henry, could ever be friends. They seemed such polar opposites. Ben was better looking. She liked his thatch of blond hair standing on end in places, but there was something about his eyes she didn’t care for, and as soon as he opened his mouth, she understood what it was. He was always contradicting Henry, talking down to him. In Ben’s eyes, Henry knew nothing. No one did, except for Ben. No, Phillipa didn’t like Ben one bit, didn’t trust him.

It was Ben who told her about Henry’s son and what had happened to him one evening when the three of them sat in her living room eating a quick supper.

“Henry never told you about Stuart?”

She watched Henry hang his head. It was in the winter, she remembered, because the tinny light from the fake fireplace rimmed Henry’s head, and a wayward curl flopped onto his forehead. She wanted him then for a minute or two. It was the only time, but of course, Ben was in the room, Ben who proceeded to monopolize the whole evening talking about the trial, and how Henry hadn’t been prepared, and about that bitch of a lawyer on the other side.

“She wasn’t that bad,” Henry said, glaring at Ben.

“Not bad?”

“How would you know? You didn’t see her in the courtroom. It’s what she did to Stuart’s memory.”

“She was a bitch.”

With a start, Phillipa realized they were talking about Trisha. So Henry looked at her, and words rushed out of his mouth, something about Trisha defending Stuart’s hospital against his wrongful death, and how she’d won, and he’d lost whatever dignity he had left, and how she’d degraded Stuart’s memory and destroyed his plans to create a fund in his son’s honor. It was like Stuart had died all over again, he told her.

Ben went on and on about Trisha’s haughty behavior in court. All the while Ben talked, Phillipa’s hatred for him grew. And something else, Ben talked about—how they had a plan. Yes, they had a plan, and with that word, plan, it all thundered into place.

Phillipa told them to get out. Henry stood, grabbed Ben by the collar, and dragged him toward the door, saying they’d made a mistake, it was all a mistake, no, he wouldn’t, couldn’t get Phillipa involved. He looked at her in that way of his, with his eyes like puddles of shame, his face filled with a sorrow so unfathomable she could only guess at the depth of it. She couldn’t throw Henry out. Henry, she understood. She didn’t blame him, but she wanted to vomit on Ben.

A month passed. Then two or three more until Henry invited her to dinner. Ben was there. This time, it was a cleaned-up version of Ben, not the sleazy, ubiquitous, obnoxious Ben. Henry must have talked to him. The plan came up again. No, definitely, she told them, she didn’t like their plan, wouldn’t have any part of it. Something might happen to Brandy, and she liked the girl, even though she was spoiled. Had everything handed to her, never knew what it was like to be hungry or have a child like Freddy or live in a place like Bensonhurst or have to leave home, so maybe the experience would be good for her. For that’s what it would be, not a proper kidnapping Henry assured her. Don’t think of it that way, but think of it as an experience for the girl, a life-enhancing experience. And with the money, Phillipa could build a proper life for Freddy. They promised Brandy wouldn’t be harmed, not an all. But she watched Ben’s face curdle when they talked about experience. No, she didn’t trust Ben.

Phillipa tried to place herself in Brandy’s shoes, but she couldn’t. Maybe the plan would be good for Brandy, an experience like Henry said, a gift to last a lifetime. But she shook her head. She gripped the arm of her chair. Henry paid the bill, and the two men left.

In the days and months that followed, she thought a lot about Henry’s plan—on the subway to and from work, walking to the store, bathing Freddy. It would be her ticket. Hers and Freddy’s. She remembered Henry’s words about building a proper life for him. It would be her son’s inheritance.

When she made her decision, she was on the subway. Her stomach was churning again, and she had to sit down, but they were packed in like sardines, two women wearing babushkas and taking up three seats, speaking fast, sprouting rivers of sweat, smelling like cabbage farts. Phillipa imagined her life as an endless subway ride.

The money was so tempting. The salary Trisha Liam paid her wasn’t enough, not for everything she did for Brandy. Phillipa knew she should have taken more time with her skills, gone on after high school and not gotten involved with Freddy’s father. She couldn’t even remember his face. But being a housekeeper for Trisha was easy, except her days were full and she didn’t have time to learn the computer. And anyway, she didn’t like the computer, forgot half the things her instructor tried to teach her, and she couldn’t afford the lessons—she needed all her take-home for expenses. Freddy’s bills were high. He was such a lamb, the nurses said when he was born. They loved him. He’ll always be gentle, a child, never stray. Think of it, they’d said. One nurse crossed her arms and winced. Phillipa couldn’t forget that look.

Evenings, after dinner and tucking Freddy into bed, she felt the dream coming on after just half a glass of wine. If she got Henry the information and made the call from the house, she’d be paid three hundred thousand, enough to set Freddy up in a home in Queens. And she could visit him every evening, and he’d have the best care, she knew. She’d asked if the girl would be harmed. She liked Brandy, and they had an eye thing going on, especially when Trisha was home, a delicious eye roll that said oh my god when’s she gonna get off it. And she’d told Brandy how much she liked her new poster, and how much Trisha would detest it. Brandy had showed it to her on the screen, showed her how she paid for it with two clicks. Phillipa helped her hang it in her room in between all the Zac Efron pictures. What kids saw in him she couldn’t figure out, but that’s why they were kids. Freddy would never be that kind of a teenager.

And Trisha wasn’t bad, her head stuck into her work most of the time on the weekends. Didn’t give her orders or complain about the cleaning or the washing. Phillipa wondered what it must be like for Brandy to have a mother like that. She liked Brandy, but didn’t have that much time to spend with her, and Brandy didn’t mess with her. Weekdays when Trisha came home, Phillipa left.

Phillipa had a dream from time to time. The dream started when Freddy was born. Nothing much. She’d be swinging him, and eagles would be flying overhead. They’d swoop down, grab Freddy in their talons, and fly away with him. Disappear into the ether. In the dream, Phillipa would walk back to the swing, and it’d be empty, the red of the swing starting to drip into the grass. Then she’d wake up, and Freddy would be crying in the next room, and his sheets would be wet, and she’d have to change him and sing him to sleep. She’d have the eagle dream every now and then, sometimes even on the train.

When Brandy started going to school, Phillipa would walk with her and pick her up. After all, the child was only five, and Phillipa didn’t mind the sounds that the house made in the quiet with just her. But when the child grew up and stayed in school all day, the house creaked, and there was just so much Phillipa could stand of the noise, so she’d clean and buff again and again. She asked Trisha if she could get a part-time job since there wasn’t that much to do, perhaps at one of the stores on Montague Street—just during school hours, of course—but Trisha hadn’t liked the idea. “We need someone who’s home all the time,” she’d said. “I don’t mind paying for security.” Phillipa’s heart started pounding. She realized she was Trisha’s prisoner.

When she’d finished her work, Phillipa sat in Liam’s conservatory and tried to read some of the books she saw on the shelf, but she and books never got on. Times like that, she sat and thought about what Henry had asked of her.

One thing, Henry wasn’t pushy. He told her to take all the time she needed. Could she do it? She worried about Brandy, even though Henry had assured her nothing would happen to the girl, nothing except for putting a little bone in her nose. Henry was big on that. Don’t be so easy on yourself, he’d say. Put a little bone in your nose. The experience would be good for Brandy, teach her how some of us live. She’d learn how to fend for herself. And as soon as Liam paid up, Brandy would be set free, given directions on how to return home. All right, if it made her feel better, he’d send her home in a limousine. Dime a dozen.