by Robert Pobi
She had never been tight with Amy, not in all the years they had spent as children at home, not through primary or high school, and by the time they had both shipped off to prep schools on opposite sides of the country the wedge had been so firmly entrenched in the real estate between them that it could never be mended. They saw one another at family gatherings and every couple of years Amy would call, usually when she was in the bag, under the pretense of patching things up. But in all those years they never got to the patching things up portion of the program. Amy usually slipped into some alcohol-fueled diatribe about how their parents had always paid more attention to Allie, and the conversation would usually go into a flat spin punctuated by the sound of a dial tone.
Amy had gone to therapy for a while but eventually, like every other time in her life when forced to take responsibility for her actions, she had simply walked away from the process. The unhappy girl burgeoned into someone whose insides were ugly and broken. And of course it was never her fault.
Their mother had always sided with Amy, maybe because she had recognized some of her own behavior and felt a need to justify it. And Hemingway believed that her father had as well. It all came down to Amy’s being more fragile; she needed them to hold her hand through life. Eventually she had done well on paper—husband, children, nice house in the country and a respectable handicap at the golf club. But even with all the propping up, her life had never really gelled, and everyone shared the unspoken expectation that one day it would all just implode.
No one had thought she’d have her throat cut after being mistaken for her sister.
Hemingway remembered how she had collapsed in the living room and howled like a gored beast when Mank had been murdered. And although there were a lot of emotions at play here—anger, disbelief, pride, vengeance, rage—she would not—could not—let loss factor into it. Not yet. Of course, her parents would translate that into noncaring.
The elevator stopped and the bell pinged. Phelps stepped out and put his hand on the door to keep it from closing. “You coming?”
A man sat on a chair in the corner, facing the elevator doors, the staircase beyond. When Phelps and Hemingway stepped out, he stood up. There was a folded newspaper in his hand that looked like it had weight to it.
He was thin, Japanese, and wore a well-tailored suit and an open-collared shirt. As they walked over to him, he placed the paper down on the seat. There was the grip of an automatic in the folds of the newsprint.
He bowed, then extended his hand. “Alexandra, you have my deepest sympathies. I am terribly sorry about your sister.” His English was perfect.
“Thank you, Mr. Ken. You know my partner, Detective Jon Phelps?”
Mr. Ken bowed a second time, and the ink under his collar flashed against the white fabric—irezumi ink; old time yakuza war paint. He had been a fixture in the family since before she had been born, working first for her grandfather, now for Uncle Dwight.
He gestured toward the door to the suite. “Your parents are expecting you.” He dismissed them with a bow and went back to cradling his newspaper and watching the elevator and stairwell.
Hemingway paused at the door. “You sure you want to do this with me?”
“It’s time you figured out I’ll follow you anywhere.”
She knocked.
Uncle Dwight answered the door. His tie was loose and he had a Scotch in his hand. He smiled when he saw her. “Allie, how are you?” He pulled her into his arms, holding the glass away from her shoulder.
She hugged him back and realized that the last time she had seen him felt like a thousand years ago. She could hear conversation off in the suite, some music, the clink of utensils on porcelain. The smell of flowers was almost overwhelming.
“You remember my partner, Jon Phelps.”
The two men shook hands and Dwight kicked in with his considerable social skills. “Detective Phelps, thank you for coming. This is all informal, just a little get-together for family and close friends and as my niece’s partner, you qualify as both.”
“Mr. Ken is doing a nice job of intimidating people out there.”
Dwight smiled at that. “He has that effect, yes.” Then Dwight grabbed her by the hand and led her off into the suite. “Your parents are in here,” he said softly, “and they’re looking forward to seeing you.”
She knew Dwight, the family mediator, and figured that he was lying to her; he had probably said the same thing to them.
“Where’s Miles?”
“He’s on his way in from the country—I sent the jet. He should be here in an hour.”
“Give him my best,” she said, then spotted her father by the window, a whiskey tumbler in his hand, looking as if he had stepped out of a Ralph Lauren ad. Her mother was sitting in a silk wingback, two of her shopping friends by her side. A barman stood in the corner, a selection of crystal, ice, and booze out on a cart. A few other people stood around, talking, drinking, and looking like they were discussing tax loopholes. Conversation skidded to a stop.
Her father saw her and his face changed from a waxy disinterest to a smile. He came over and gave her a hug. He smelled as good as he looked. “Thank you,” he whispered in her ear. “I was worried that you wouldn’t come.”
“She was my sister, Dad, and regard—”
“Because of your job,” he said, cutting her off. “I know you’re busy, Allie.”
And with that she realized that she had been wrong—that she actually liked it when he called her that.
They unclenched and her father extended a hand to her partner. “Detective Phelps, thank you for escorting my daughter.” They had met a few times over the years.
Phelps shook his hand and said something about it not being a problem.
The three of them went over to her mother. She was elegant and trim and her hand glittered with a fistful of diamonds. Her pupils looked like pinpricks and her eyes could barely focus. “Hello, Allie. How nice of you to make the time.”
There had always been tension between them and Hemingway assumed it had to do with her complete rejection of the country club friends, the shopping, and the men who looked like Brooks Brothers mannequins—all the keystones in her mother’s soulless universe.
Hemingway ignored the jab and gave her mother a hug. “Hello, Mother. You remember my partner, Detective Jon Phelps.”
Her mother looked Phelps over with the exaggerated body language of a drunk trying to look sober. “That’s quite the suit, Detective,” she said.
Phelps smiled, took her hand, shook it, and said, “Your daughter picked it out for me.” Then he excused himself, probably to hunt down a club soda.
Hemingway made the rounds, shaking hands, air-kissing, and telling everyone that she wished she was seeing them under better circumstances. When she was finished, her father led her back to the front room and sat her down on one of the sofas.
“Graham’s flying in from L.A. in a few hours, I know he’d love to see you.”
She nodded but didn’t say much.
“And Patrick’s in a suite downstairs. He’s pretty beat up about this.” Patrick was Amy’s husband. He wasn’t a bad guy but there never seemed to be much to him and Hemingway felt that if he turned sideways, he’d disappear altogether. Had Amy said anything to their parents about the breakup? Had it been a real split or just another plea for attention? She was always breaking up with him.
Hemingway felt petty thinking about these things; it was time to move on.
Her father leaned in and put a hand on her shoulder. “How are you?”
“Don’t worry about me. How’s Mom?”
Her father shook his head. “No, Allie, I want to talk about you. How is Daniel? How is being a police officer?” He paused, and looked into her eyes. “Are you happy?”
“Dad, you have your hands full here. And I can’t even begin to think about Amy. I’m tired and I need some sleep and—”
He cut her off. “And you are going to talk to me. Because life i
s short and I won’t let you be a stranger anymore. I thought, and I suppose still think, that there’s a different life waiting for you out there. One where you don’t have to worry about—” He stopped cold and his eyes dropped to his drink for a second. “Having your throat cut when you answer the door.”
She held up her hand. “I do this because it’s what I was built to do. Can you imagine me sitting in Uncle Dwight’s practice? Or in one of your companies? They’d laugh me out of the boardroom.”
He cupped both her hands in his. “No, they wouldn’t. They’d respect you because you are not a woman people can ignore. You are a good detective because that’s what you’ve decided to be. If you decided to be a horse breeder or a rally driver or an astronaut, you’d be the best there is, because that’s who you are.”
She pulled her hands out of his. “I like what I do.” But that wasn’t entirely correct. There were plenty of negatives that went with the job. More than she could count if she bothered to think about it.
“But it’s not good for you.”
“This is why we don’t talk.”
And at that his face changed. “When Claire disappeared, I promised myself that I’d be there for you, take care of all of you. But I can’t do that, I can’t be everywhere all the time. And what happened to Amy . . .” He stopped, and his lip trembled for a second, but he was able to push it back into himself. “What happened to Amy today was supposed to happen to you. Someone was out to hurt you, and I can’t take that. I just want you to consider doing something else.” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “And if you can’t consider doing something else, I want you to sit down with me and explain why you do this. Is that fair?”
She didn’t know how to react to this. “Sure.”
“Look, I know I don’t say much, but if you solve every single murder of your career, it’s not going to bring Claire back. Bad things happen and they’re not your fault.”
What about Amy’s death? she wanted to ask. “Let me put this case to bed and we’ll talk. If you want, we can take a vacation.”
At that her father smiled. “Deal. But I pay. And we go somewhere nice. Maybe France. We can tour Burgundy in the fall, drink some wine, get to know one another.”
Pregnant women don’t drink wine. “France? That sounds great, Dad.”
Someone back in the living room brayed with laughter and her father’s eyes glanced over her shoulder. “I have to go back to those people and you have to get back to work. Or at least get some rest—you look tired. Beautiful, but tired.” He leaned forward and kissed her again. “Please be careful.”
She felt tears start with that one but held them off. “I’m good at what I do.”
“So is this guy you’re hunting.” Her father stood up and pulled her to her feet. “Don’t forget that.”
As the elevator doors slid closed, Mr. Ken waved a goodbye, the newspaper still folded in his hand. As the car dropped into the shaft, Phelps said, “I don’t like that guy.”
At that, Hemingway smiled. “You’re not supposed to.”
||| EIGHTY-SEVEN
THE POLICE tape was gone and the trauma-scene unit had cleaned up. Two uniformed cops sat in a cruiser out front—they’d be there until the case was over. Hemingway walked up to the car and leaned in the open window. She recognized the two officers from the precinct.
“Koombs, Dorsett. You can go home now.”
Koombs, a little guy with big ears, shook his head. “Sorry, Detective. We got orders from Phelps. We are on you until you collar this guy.”
Hemingway didn’t like this—they would not have done this if she had been a man. “I’m lead detective on the case—I outweigh Phelps. Fuck off.”
Koombs shrugged helplessly. “I can’t.”
“I’ll call Dennet and have him pull you.”
At that Koombs smiled, reached into his pocket. “Detective Phelps said you’d say that.” He pulled out a folded sheet of precinct stationery and handed it over.
Hemingway opened it and read the short note. It was an order from Dennet for Koombs and Dorsett to watch over her residence until reassigned.
“Shit,” she said.
“Sorry, Detective. Nothing personal.”
She stood up and took in a deep breath, filling her chest and expanding her ribs. She looked up the street, then down, toward the water. It was empty. The guy wouldn’t come after her again.
When she looked back at Koombs he was staring at her chest, grinning, those too-big ears lifted with his smile.
“Jesus,” she said, and turned to leave. “Just don’t get killed. I have that effect on the people around me.”
“Phelps told us that, too,” Koombs said.
The staircase was dark and she stood there on the threshold for a moment, trying to get her bearings. For the first time, the realization that her sister had been murdered came at her in a blast of air-conditioning that carried the smell of disinfectant.
As a precaution she went through all of the rooms in the apartment. Daniel was asleep in their bed, or at least pretending to be, his back to her.
She stood in front of the fridge for a few minutes, trying to decide if she was hungry. She settled on a glass of milk and a banana.
A new camera bag lay on the table, the tags clipped off, lenses and camera bodies halfheartedly jammed inside. She found Daniel’s old bag in the garbage, the strap stained with a dark swatch of her sister’s blood.
How had an evening at the opera mushroomed into a plague of visits by the Angel of Death? First the girls. Then the brown-eyed handsome boys started washing through Little Hell Gate. The Grant boy’s driver. Deacon. Dr. Selmer. Mrs. Atchison. Amy.
But that’s how things went: one minute all was well in the kingdom, the next fire rained down from the sky. That last night she took that walk with Mank through the East Side had been good, maybe the best night they ever had. A few short hours later it was blown away when Shea and Nicky had stepped from the shadows. The world didn’t care about your plans because it was too busy turning. And the machinery seemed to be greased with blood.
She walked over to the window and took a sip of the ice-cold milk. She stared out at the street, at the cop car parked in front of her door, at the weird light on the asphalt. She could handle that it was not safe out there. It was, in fact, one of the few basic beliefs she held—it had taken hold the moment Claire had disappeared. But she couldn’t handle that with a child. No how. No way.
So why did she even fantasize that she could have a baby? Maybe she’d get lucky, do something right, and her child would think of life as a gift, not a burden. But would that lessen her load? Would that help to quell the anxiety every time her child was out of her sight? What would happen if the kid was late coming home? Or at a sleepover? At school? She wasn’t sure she could handle that. Day in, day out, year after year after year. You never stopped worrying about your kids, her father’s talk was proof positive of that. Here she was, thirty-seven, and he still worried about her. And her particular background and pathology pretty much guaranteed that she’d never be at ease as a parent. Was the whole exercise worth it? She took a bite of the banana and turned away from the window.
Tomorrow promised to be worse than today; the final athletic day for sixty-two of the city’s private boys’ schools, a year-end showdown to weed out the trophy takers from the participation ribbon receivers. The buses would carry the boys from their various institutions to Randall’s Island, the isolated chunk of real estate that did duty as recreational space for many of the city’s schools. Dennet’s bid to shut the event down had been quashed by the powers that be and Hemingway had resolved herself to a day of fruitless paranoia.
Sixty-two schools translated to a staggering eighty-nine hundred students; nine hundred and four who fell into the right age group; forty-one who shared a father. Forget ulcers, this kind of stress could cause cancer.
There was a lot that could go wrong, a lot that would be out of her hands, and again she wonde
red if she was being set up to take the fall. And with the paranoia came the realization that she needed some sleep. After a little food, she told herself.
She put the milk and banana down on the coffee table, sat down on the sofa, and fell asleep.
||| EIGHTY-EIGHT
PHELPS PICKED her up at 5 a.m., honking loudly and frightening the two patrolmen still out front. He brought coffee and bagels and drove slowly while she went through the process of waking up, bolstering her progress with slurps of caffeine.
Daylight was slowly seeping into the sky and the city was still magically silent except for early-morning delivery trucks. Phelps cut through the quiet streets toward Central Park. After crossing on 79th, he continued west until they found an on-ramp for the FDR.
“Sleep okay?” Phelps asked after she had absorbed a little of the coffee.
She thought about it. “Sat down on the sofa, and that’s all I remember. You?”
“Me and Maggie are sleeping in the basement—much cooler than the rest of that place.”
“Why don’t you get an air conditioner, Jon?”
“Wife says it’s cold enough all winter.” He shrugged. “She’s right.”
She raised the coffee to her lips to take another sip and it hit her. “Jon, pull over!”
“There’s no shoulder.”
“Pull over. Now!”
Phelps flashed the lights and swung over to the rightmost lane. He glanced in the mirror and stopped the car. “What the fu—?”
Before the car came to a stop, Hemingway shoved the door open, stuck her head out, and threw up. Her stomach clenched a few times, forcing the coffee and bagel out between gasps for breath.
Then, as quickly as it came, it was over.
She pulled her head back inside, closed the door, and wiped her mouth with a napkin from the bagel bag. “This girly stuff sucks, Jon.”
He looked at her, then down at the hand held protectively across her stomach. “I’m sure it does,” he said, and checked his mirrors before he pulled back into traffic.
