Murchison held up his hand. “Let me stop you, okay? This is the police department. Not the probate division.”
“You still find perjury under the Penal Code.”
“It’s a civil matter.”
“My point is, Detective, this Marchand woman and her son have tried to bleed my client’s brother his whole life. Woman showed up first thing when her marriage fell apart, begging for money. Tried to piggyback her son’s music career onto Mr. Carlisle’s. Since he got sick late last year, they’ve had their eyes on that house up there. It’s not for me, Detective, point the blame—”
“No. It’s not.” Murchison slipped the documents back inside their envelope. “Even if what you’re saying’s true, it’s not you I need to hear it from. I need to talk to your client.”
“Of course. Now is impossible, she’s bereft. Her brother—”
“Everybody’s bereft. They always are. I know, I talk to them. Now, I doubt this next bit comes as a surprise—we got a tip and searched the Victorians to either side of Mr. Carlisle’s property. Owners gave us your client’s name as the person to talk to. One was empty, but inside the other we found signs of a guy who was hanging out there, had an obsession with the victim’s son’s girlfriend.”
“Detective, listen to me. The victim had no son.”
“Doesn’t change where I’m going. I need your client to come down, fill me in on the property, her brother.” He raised the manila envelope to his ear and shook. “And anything else she thinks I need to know.”
“Perhaps in a few days.”
“Try a few hours.” Murchison turned, reaching for the doorknob. “She drags it out, just makes us think. You don’t want that. Right?”
Stluka, back from four hours off, sat at his desk, wrestling with paperwork. He looked miserable but rested.
Murchison pulled up beside his desk. “You heard?”
Stluka glanced up like he smelled abuse on the way. “Yeah, one of the Victorians. Swear to God, Murch. I checked. The place was tight.”
“I know.” Murchison gestured for him to relax. “The door he used, it was padlocked. We needed bolt cutters to get in.”
Stluka sat back, looking vaguely relieved. “I like that.” He scratched his ear with his pen. “Find anything? In the Vic, I mean.”
“No weapon. He’s a firebug. And I say he’s got a thing for this Lazarenko girl.”
Stluka thought about that. “Or didn’t like the company she kept.” He stretched, a yawn that expanded into a groan. “You look like crap, incidentally. Knock off. I’ll drive the bus.”
Murchison told him the rest of what the last few hours had produced. When he’d finished, Stluka said, “What I’m hearing, we haven’t given up on this Mooney character.”
“Too many things lead back to him. The house, I figure, he likes property. That’s motive. We just gotta figure out if he did it on his own or one of these other characters did his bidding.” He shook his head, get the cobwebs out. “The vic’s sister has ties to the guy, and whatever anybody says—she’s got a lawyer already, ain’t that interesting—she’s in this somehow.”
“Lawyer?”
“Grantree Hamilton.”
Stluka smiled. “You’re shitting me.”
“She’s bereft.”
“Oh, I’m sure. So hire Hamilton. Guy missed his calling, shoulda been a funeral director. That smells like Mooney, too.”
“Everything does. Arlie Thigpen has ties to him. Kid who hung out at the Victorian was balling with some of Mooney’s crew, they’re the ones who steered him to the squat. The only ones we haven’t tied to Mooney so far are the son—this Toby kid—and his abscond pal Francis. Which reminds me.”
Murchison left Stluka at his desk and hunted the squad room for Holmes. No sign. He checked Dispatch, learned Holmes had gone off-duty. Voice mail, he thought. If he’d come up with anything, he’d have left word.
Murchison went back to his desk, checked his messages. Sure enough, Holmes had come through. His source in Mooney’s circle knew nothing about a Toby Marchand. But Francis Templeton? He was nothing more than an occasional customer, and then all he wanted was pot—
dank,
Holmes said this guy called it, a new one for Murchison—but the crew knew who he was, and he knew them.
Murchison came around to Stluka’s desk again. “Got news,” he said, not happily.
In contrast, Stluka was beaming. “Me, too, oh yeah,” he said, putting down his phone. “You first.”
“Francis Templeton, Toby’s alibi. He bought his weed from the Mooney crew.”
Stluka’s smile widened. “Oh, that’s sweet.”
Murchison couldn’t share the joy. He wasn’t sure, precisely, why.
“My turn.” Stluka sat back, clasped his hands behind his head. “That dyke who showed up for Mr. Toby, the probate lawyer?”
Murchison winced. “Why dyke?”
Stluka shot him a puzzled look. “Don’t tell me she rocked your world.”
“Jerry, I’m just …” He dragged the word out, not sure what came next.
Stluka studied him. “I mean, hey, could be wrong. Maybe she’s just confused. Lot of that going around these days.”
“Can we get back to—?”
“She comes from a real interesting family. Father was a low-level Mob mutt, tied to gambling in North Beach like decades ago. Disappeared. Nobody knows where. Some folks think he’s dead. And her brother.” He glanced down at notes he’d written. “I’m not even gonna try to pronounce his name, but he was some kind of big-time dope smuggler, did ten years in federal stir, Safford.”
Murchison glanced down at the notepad, read the name upside down. Dan Abatangelo. “They’ve got different last names. Him and his sister.” He didn’t remember a wedding ring. “She’s divorced?”
“Nope. Not even. Changed her name.” Stluka grinned, loving it. “Felt ashamed of the men in her family. Disappearing dad. Doper bro. She had an innocent heart and a bar card to protect. Took her mother’s maiden name.”
“How’d you learn all this?”
Stluka nodded toward the phone. “Lawyer buddy here in town. A dyke herself, if I may say. No cracks—I’m more broad-minded than people think. Anyway, local bar, it’s very, how shall we say …” He snapped his fingers once, twice.
“Cliquish?”
Stluka fluttered his eyelashes. The coquette. “
Incestuous
was the word I was after, actually.”
Toby rode in front, Nadya in back, as Tina’s brother, Dan, drove them up the hill to Baymont to stay with Francis’s great-aunt. Darkness tinged the edges of the afternoon sky. The huge trees lining the narrow streets swayed with a strong westerly wind, which carried with it a prickly scent of salty mud from the marshes. It felt strangely warm for February, almost balmy, like spring.
Toby had wanted to drive up alone, but Tina wouldn’t have it. “Think about what they’ve found out. This character next door, hiding. He may think Nadya, or you, saw him come and go. Maybe saw the shooting. I’d feel better if Dan was with you. He’s been through some trouble in his time. He can handle things.”
Toby wondered what “trouble” meant, but he had to admit, there was an almost hypnotic gravity to her brother. Not just because of his imposing height, his build. He had wise eyes. Like he’d figured out and put behind him every single thing you were still too scared to face.
As they reached the top of Baymont, turning onto Miss Carvela’s street in Home in the Sky, Toby glanced around at the drama. Tatted-up muscle—gripping bottles, blowing smoke—slouched on porch stoops. Hood rats perched on cars. Illogic’s “Hate in a Puddle” thundered from a tape deck as a throng playing roundball hustled around a portable hoop planted in a tire. They stopped playing as the car approached, parting lazily as it passed, a few of them leaning down to get a good look, flash some hooride cheese through the glass.
“We’re making an impression,” Toby said, reading in their eyes the same message he’d heard most of his life: Only fools, cowards, and children bother to befriend white people. Sonny, his stepfather, breathed fire on the subject. Toby’d recoiled from the rant. Not that he didn’t see the truth to it—he wasn’t stupid—but it was a small, mean truth.
Besides, he wasn’t immune. He played his own games. Jazz crowds were overwhelmingly white; you didn’t play long and not figure out how to angle that. Most white people wanted so badly to be liked you could get them to agree to almost anything, while the others either kept their distance or wanted to be congratulated for hating you. And, of course, there was Nadya. He felt ashamed sometimes, how easy it was. I’m not just different, he thought. I’m exotic. If I can’t figure out what to say, I’m not just sitting there stupid—I’m mysterious. Even a nitwit stammer comes across somehow quaint. He wondered sometimes who he hated more, her or himself, for getting away with all that. Just as he wondered what had possessed his father to bare the uglier family secrets to his white woman lawyer.
Stop doing this to yourself, he thought as he pointed out Miss Carvela’s house. Dan pulled the car to the curb in front. As he did, one of the ballplayers cakewalked behind, to laughter from his friends. He was shirtless, lean but muscular, boxers hiked up, painter pants tugged down, his hair in a fade. As the car stopped, he stopped. Leaning down, he feigned stupefaction at what he saw. Snapping back straight, he called out over his shoulder, “Yo, money, check this shit out. Coulda sworn Zip Coon come on up, pay his props, blackface and all. Him and his Babylonians.”
As some of the others laughed again, one called back, “Stop choppin’, fool. Come on, Spoonie. Play ball!”
“No, no, serious now. This nigger’s black as Clarence Thomas. Come look.”
Inside the car, Toby said, “I’ll go up alone first. Miss Carvela, she’s older. I want to make sure she’s ready for us to come in.”
Dan, eyeing the young man just outside the car, said, “You’re sure—”
“You think I’m scared?”
Dan’s face went blank. “I didn’t—”
Toby opened the passenger door. “I’m fine.”
As he got out, the one named Spoonie circled behind the car to meet him. Toby eased up to him, not shunning eye contact and even offering a sly little smile, the jokester, his usual defense. His voice, though, was cold and low. “You looking for Swanson,” he said, “you need a new nigger. We straight?” The young man’s face snarled up in puzzlement as Toby slipped on past. He was halfway to the top of the steps before, from behind, Spoonie recovered.
“Hey, Clarence! Left your flossy little boo behind! What’s up with that?”
Nadya watched Toby climb the cracked cement steps that led uphill from the street to the old saltbox house. Dan, watching as well, said, “I could have handled that better.”
“We’re both a little on edge. Don’t take it personally.”
He turned around in his seat, cast a glance at the young men outside in the street, then said, “Actually, I’m glad we’ve got a minute alone. I wanted to speak with you.” He fixed her with his eyes, a stare somehow intimidating but not frightening. “My sister, Christina, filled me in on what happened, what you did. It’s difficult to describe for people what it’s like. See someone die like that. Not like TV.”
Nadya’s heartbeat quickened. At the sound of a shout from the street, she turned around, watching as the young men resumed their game. Here and there, one or another of them stole a glance toward the car. As her eyes met theirs, she could feel them daring her to be just who they knew she was.
Dan continued, “If you need to talk to someone, Shel or I might be good. We’ve been through some things, too. Not the same as you, but not much different, actually. The after part, it’s hard. And people who haven’t been through it, they mean well, but … Can’t blame them. Not their fault.”
She turned back around to face him. “Talking doesn’t seem to help much, actually.”
He smiled. “Give it time. Don’t brood. Dive inside your own head, you just get lost.”
Nadya lowered her head, nodded. “It’s crazy-making.”
Her worst fear was that Toby would feel for her, but only to a point. Only for a time. His patience would wear thin, and it would be gone long before she was even halfway close to getting a handle on what was happening to her. He’ll keep on saying he understands, she thought, but it gets old, if you’re not the one going through it. She could forget about sleep. She wasn’t going to make it through the night for a long, long while. The nightmares, she knew, would be fierce, and she already suspected that the deeper she slept, the more vivid they’d become.
She turned, glanced up at the old house into which Toby’d disappeared. Her longing for him, it grew by the minute. The neediness made her feel repulsive.
“Some advice?” He followed her glance. “The best thing you can do—guaranteed, one hundred percent best. You can try, ask for kindness, comfort—but maybe it’s a male thing, I always found that hard to do.”
“It’s not just a male thing,” she assured him. “But what else is there?”
“Reach out.” He nodded up the hill, Toby’s direction. “Take care of him. Same way it’s obvious he means to look after you.”
He meant well, and it was kind advice. “I wish,” she said, brushing the hair out of her face, “that didn’t just seem like a pretty picture.”
“I’m not talking denial. It can cure a lot of ills, taking care of someone. And you’re in this together.”
You have no idea how much I hope that’s true, she thought, glancing once again over her shoulder at the fierce and jubiliant young men in the street.
“The worst part is feeling helpless.” He smiled, a brotherly glint in his eye. “Reminds me of a story. There was this priest, chaplain at the prison I was in, perfectly decent guy. Hokey, but nice. ‘Good listener.’”
She looked at him quizzically.
“It’s what we used to say about ugly girls in high school.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, this chaplain, he had a sign over his desk:
THE ROAD TO DESPAIR BEGINS IN HELPLESS.
”
She chuckled. “The geography of gloom.” Her hands felt cold; she buried them in her armpits. “Your wife, she’s not well.”
The brotherly light dimmed. “No.”
Nadya had noticed the glassiness in Shel’s eyes, the dark patches beneath them, the slack smile. The cane she used to walk. Cancer, she’d guessed, afraid to ask. “I was really moved by how you treated each other, the way you talked and touched each other. Can I tell you a secret?”