“Yes. Yes, it’s your best self in there, your work. You’re violated. I got it. But, you know, it’s just paper. You are here, getting good care, and the papers can be put away again.”
“No, no, maybe not. Maybe I’m too old, maybe I won’t remember things, and maybe they took something.” His voice faded, and I saw—I thought I saw—something like tears in the corner of his eye.
Then he blinked a few times, and said, “Well, damn it all to hell. I want to know what they were looking for. Nervy sons of bitches. And I want to know who they were.”
Leary was back. I almost cheered.
“Here’s what I’m going to do,” Leary went on. “The cop who was asking me questions left a number, so I’ll give him a call and tell him all this. Tomorrow, maybe. I dunno—maybe he’ll understand why it matters, maybe not. You.” He looked fiercely at me. “When they’re done there, you might as well go take a really good look at those files. Sounds like you messing with them can’t make it any worse than it is. Maybe something will add up for you that doesn’t add up for the cops. What the hell could I have that matters to anyone, anyway? All that old, old junk. Jesus H. Christ.”
He leaned back against the pillows, but now there was a small gleam in his eyes.
It was time to tell him about my encounter with Brenda Petry.
When I was done, he chuckled. It wasn’t the real Leary guffaw, but it was a faint echo. “Time sure hasn’t improved her personality. She’s a real chip off the old block. I know something new about her. I heard something. TV maybe? Ahhh, my mind is not right.” Then he made a large effort to sit up, refused my help, and looked straight at me. “Come on, kiddo. Use your own head, which did not take a beating like mine, and add it up.”
“I have been using my head!” I snapped it out. “I wanted to look at records for my own block, for those years when that body—that poor girl—was hidden there. I hoped to find some little thing that would be a clue about her. Or maybe I was just fantasizing there, but at the same time, the general information could help my own work, both job and school. Petry seems to want to hide the same information but I can’t imagine why. And someone else was looking for whatever you had at home from around then. So there.”
“Good girl.” His voce was fading. “One plus one plus one is always three. Not real good at math, are you?”
“Four. It makes four. My old family friend, the ex-cop who was killed…he worked in the neighborhood at the same time. I keep trying to add it up some other way but it’s about my neighborhood and about that time. Maybe it’s even about my house, and finding the body.”
I had been fighting it now for a long time, as far back as the last time I had seen Rick. It was about my house. It all began with Chris discovering a body.
I had said to Rick, that last night, that I feared random chance more than anything. Or something like that. And he had said that didn’t mean you stopped looking both ways when you crossed the street. Had I been stepping right out in front of a truck barreling down the street at me? Rick tried to tell me that then, and Leary was trying to tell me now. I didn’t know who was driving it, but I had to stop acting as if it wasn’t coming.
Leary’s eyes were closing, but he said clearly enough, “Reporters don’t get to choose facts. Keep doing the math. You got to take the facts you have and make them tell you the story. You should know….” Then he was asleep. He looked almost as difficult as he did when he was awake, but I couldn’t resist giving his hand a little squeeze before I left.
Now I had to finish working out the puzzle on my own. If that grumpy old fox thought I could, maybe he was by god right.
I drove with my mind full of Petry’s anger, Leary’s still precarious state, and the math he had recommended. I ran a stop sign and almost went through a red light. On my block, a tiny piece of my mind noticed that plumbers van was still parked in front of my house, taking up what could have been my space. I circled the block a few times, found a space around the corner, walked home, still thinking.
Tomorrow I would see Steven again, and it would be—what? A business meeting? A breakfast date? Even I knew that usually implied a night before, which was not happening. So maybe it was just a meeting? I pushed it out of my mind, with some effort. That was tomorrow. Tonight, I was working on this puzzle my life had become.
I ate leftovers straight out of the refrigerator, standing up, and contemplated Rick’s life. Not for the first time—maybe the fiftieth—I wished Rick was here to answer my questions. I thought he had the answers, and the only person who came close to Rick, my second father in my own mind, was my real father in my own life.
I dialed Phoenix, hoping he was down from his pharmaceutical high by now.
“Hi, Dad. It’s Erica.”
“Hey, toots, how are you doing?”
“So-so. More important, how are you doing?”
“Better. Up and about a little. Can’t wait to get out. You know I’ll be back there as soon as the docs spring me.”
He sounded like himself.
“I hear you and Aunt Sophie are talking again.”
I was wandering. I didn’t know how to get into my real reason for calling.
“Oh? Where’d you hear that?”
“I had lunch with Tammy.”
“Yeah, well, Sophie called, and we got to talking. It wasn’t so bad. You know, she’s not as nutty as she used to be. She’s kind of mellowed, believe it or not. How’s Tammy? Still the fashion queen?”
“You would say so, yes. We were talking a little about Rick, she actually remembers him, and so I got to thinking.” There I was, easing in.
“Yeah?”
“Last time we talked, I asked if you know about him working here, right here in my neighborhood, way back when.”
“You did? I don’t remember a thing.”
“No surprise. You were high as a kite on pain killers, I think.”
“Oh, yeah.” I could feel him smiling through the phone. “Let me try again. Rick? Park Slope? I’d forgotten all about that. It is way, way back.”
“How come he never said anything to me when I moved there? I think that’s weird.”
“Ah. That, I do not know but I’d say ’cause they weren’t good memories. Something about it…I always felt like something bad happened to him, but we were guys. Ya know? We didn’t really talk. He might’ve met a girl and got stomped on. That sounds sort of right to me. Anyways, he was glad to get out and then he was rising up the ranks pretty fast.”
I hadn’t learned much new from my father, but it did confirm what little I already had. I would keep digging but now it was too late at night to call anyone else.
Sometimes though, the gods smile down on us.
I turned on the New York news before bed, and there she was, Brenda Petry, Mrs. Rogow’s demon-seed daughter, looking perfect as always, and a lot happier than when I had last seen her. It was a replay of an earlier broadcast.
She was with the mayor and someone from one of the big investment banks and they were all beaming at a press conference, announcing an agreement to develop a big chunk of derelict waterfront property.
She was thrilled to have completed the deal. It was thrilling to take on a project of this significance. The mayor was thrilled with the vision of magnificent, much-needed housing in our crowded city, and thrilled that his administration was making it all possible. He used the word “legacy.” The banker was thrilled to be the lead financier of such a significant project. And the site was right here in Brooklyn.
That’s why she was so touchy. With the backing of the city, and buy-in from a prestige lender, her reputation as a reliable business woman was more crucial than ever. But what in the world was she hiding? The old scandal about her father? That was public record, there for any antagonistic journalist or business rival to bring to light. And there would certainly be antagonism. Her plans were not good news for everyone, no matter what the mayor said. Or was she hiding a wild hippy youth, as Leary claimed? She wasn’t the only one. Why would anyone care after all these years?
Did I care about Brenda Petry and her life? No, not one bit, but I found her intense animosity puzzling. More important, she was around here when Rick was around here and I had a photo to prove it, the hippies on the steps of my house. Leary had told me the girl with the flowing hair and the flowing dress was Brenda. What if she also knew Rick? Or knew about him? Or knew Leary? Maybe she thought I had found another, bigger secret about her? Whatever that big, scary secret was?
I knew the NYPD was never going to let me near the puzzle of Rick’s recent life until they were done with their own investigation, but the Petry puzzle was mine to solve and it all connected in some way I hadn’t yet uncovered.
The truth is, I was not ignorant, I would not be bullied, and I had the skills to find out what I needed to know about my house and then about Rick if I needed to. Who wanted to keep me from knowing? Why? I felt safer now, due to James Hoyt’s kindness, and I wasn’t going to roll over.
Petry would certainly not talk honestly to me, though I had a happy moment imagining her face if I showed up without warning at her office. However, I knew someone who might talk to me. True, I could not ask Mrs. Rogow why her daughter was a lunatic, but I could tell her I had seen the news conference and I could say congratulations. And see where that could lead.
She was happy to hear from me, accepted my congratulations and was delighted by the idea of another conversation. In fact, she said, she would be in the city tomorrow for an appointment at the Time Warner building. Did I know it?
Well, yes, it was hard to miss, a shiny monster of a new office tower plus extremely upscale mall, right across from the western edge of Central Park. We could meet for coffee at a lovely café on the second gallery.
I was far too wired to go to bed. It was too late to make more calls but on a lovely summer night, there were still plenty of people out and about. I needed an ice cream, I thought, and milk for breakfast. And a little walk. It was comfortably cool outside. On my block the night was dark and quiet and mysterious. In the moonlight, if I could delete the cars, it could almost be a hundred years ago.
One young couple came into the circle of a streetlight, arms wrapped around each other, stopping to embrace every few feet. And up the block, a cab sat double-parked in front of a house, letting someone out. Down the block, someone opened a car door, reached in, loudly closed it. In the late night quiet, the slamming of the door sounded like a cannon. That plumber’s truck was across the street now.
That truck struck me now as very odd. Not threatening, but odd, to be here all the time. Or had so much happened I was becoming paranoid? I made a mental note to really notice it later, tomorrow and see if it was really such a constant.
Aside from that, it was a peaceful scene, familiar and lovelier in the dark than in daylight, but it felt strange and off to me. I looked up and down, but there was no one who looked out of place or threatening. No drunk teens, ready to do something stupid. No dogs out alone as a city dog should never be. No one loitering with intent. Yet a shiver ran down my spine.
I shook myself, and headed at a very brisk walk up to the avenue where I would find lights, friendly social noise and fancy ice cream. As I turned the corner, Mary stopped me. There was no escaping and I was ashamed of my desire to. I knew she was lonely. I was too.
“How are you, my dear, on this lovely summer night? My, you are up and out late.”
“I felt like a walk.” We were in front of the news stand/snack bar/tobacco shop. “Uh, would you like a coffee?”
“Oh that’s lovely. I’ll take a doughnut, too, if they have any left,” she said, pointing to the stale remains of the day. “That’s very kind. Where is your lovely daughter? I haven’t seen her in ages and ages.”
“She’s away at camp. But where have you been yourself? You’re the one who hasn’t been around for ages.”
She smiled shrewdly. “Here and there. I get around, here and there. But now your daughter, I’m glad she’s there and not here. They take good care of the children there, don’t they, at her camp?”
“Oh, sure,” I said absently. “She’s having a wonderful time.” Then what she actually said sank in. “Mary, is there some reason you say that? About Chris being safe? You’ve said it before.”
“Yes, there is.” She looked alarmingly alert for about a second and I thought I might learn something real. Then her face faded back into its usual blur. “It’s this. This is what I want to say—those precious girls, such sparkly eyes, so pretty with their silvery necklaces and silvery earrings and silvery hair.” She smiled encouragingly and patted my hand.
For once, I was really listening to her. “Mary, do you have children? I mean, I wonder because you always ask so nicely about Chris.”
She nodded. “I did have children. Daughters and sons both. Back then, a long time ago.” Her eyes clouded. “Sometimes people lose them, you know.” She turned away, still holding her doughnut, and then said, over her shoulder, “Say hello to her for me.”
Nothing else happened on my walk there and back, absolutely nothing, yet I spent the time on high alert, watching the dark patches on the street between the street lamps, looking over my shoulder, resetting the house alarms and locking my door behind me with a sense of relief. I told myself I could not be rattled by Mary’s words. Of course, she was a mentally damaged old lady with a shaky grasp of reality. Of course, her words were completely meaningless. So—of course—I wished I could go straight to the phone and call Chris’ camp.