The Daughter She Used To Be

by Rosalind Noonan

  “I got a strong feeling about this guy.” Tony combed his beard with his fingertips. “He refuses to give us his name, pissing me off, but we’re running his prints now. I’d bet you dollars to donuts he’s got a record.”

  “I didn’t know he was a John Doe,” Bernie said. It was a booking nightmare, but sometimes suspects without ID withheld their names to jam up a case. Whether through fingerprinting or some other detective work, the police eventually identified these suspects, but the extra investigation was time-consuming, and the suspect might have to log in excessive hours in the jails under Central Booking.

  “I’m a little concerned about this guy’s profile.” Keesh’s dark eyes were a sea of calm. “He doesn’t really fit our serial rapist, who’s a pretty strong guy. He drags or carries these women into remote locations. Your guy is disabled, right? Walks with a cane and has slight paralysis on the right side?”

  Tony pointed his index finger into the air. “I think he’s faking that.”

  “Well, you’re not in a position to give a diagnosis,” Keesh said evenly.

  “And the thing is, his walking stick does fit the profile.” Tony stretched his arms wide. “It’s this long, with hard lacquer on one end. Soon as I saw that stick, I remembered that the victims reported the serial rapist hitting them with a stick, right?”

  “Good point.” Keesh cradled his jaw in one hand. “So we’ll keep him in the Tombs until we can ID him.”

  “Good.” Tony made a fist. “If you saw this perp malingering down on that subway platform, you’d have busted him, too. I got a feeling about this guy, and my instincts are pretty reliable.”

  “Okay.” Keesh turned back to the computer. “If he came in around three this morning, we have all day to arraign him.”

  As a rule, the district attorney’s office tried to get suspects arraigned within twenty-four hours of arrest, as lengthy waits in the holding cells of the Tombs were deemed inhumane.

  “I’ll change the status, but let me check first ...” Keesh clicked to a few different screens, his face registering surprise. “Oh. Looks like the computer got a hit on him.”

  “So he probably does have a record.” Maybe Tony’s instincts were better than she’d thought. Bernie moved behind Keesh so that she could read over his shoulder.

  “His name is Peyton Curtis, thirty-one years old, and he does have a criminal record.” Keesh’s dark eyes skimmed the monitor. “Five years up in Lakeview Shock for first-degree robbery.”

  “And he was released ...” Bernie did a double take to be sure she was right. “Yesterday. Wow. This guy must have just stepped off the bus.”

  Keesh nodded. “Hasn’t even met his parole officer yet. This could jam things up for him.”

  “But we’ve got nothing on him,” Bernie pointed out. “Prison is an excellent alibi.”

  “Aw, you’re kidding me?” Tony threw up his hands. “I just can’t get a break here.”

  “Yeah, it looks like Mr. Peyton Curtis was just walking in the wrong subway station at the wrong time.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Tony left the chair to join them at the computer screen. “I mean, maybe you got the dates wrong? Transposed the numbers. People do that all the time.”

  “Not this time.” Keesh pointed to the release date. “Mr. Curtis just received an official NYPD welcome back to the city.”

  “Damn.” Tony squinted, rubbing the back of his neck. “Of all the bad luck ...”

  Bernie wasn’t sure if he meant the bad luck belonged to him or to Peyton Curtis. Surely this suspect, fresh from prison, had just been through a harrowing experience, but she didn’t think Tony saw it that way. Tony had trouble seeing beyond Tony.

  “Ach. I’m outta here.” Tony held up a hand. “Thanks for taking another look, Keesh.” He winced. “I gotta go cry in my cornflakes.”

  Bernie smiled. Self-deprecating Tony could be funny. “I think you’ll survive. Remind Mary Kate that Grace and Maisey’s school show is tomorrow night.”

  “Will do.”

  As Tony left, Bernie slumped back into the chair. “Thanks for going the extra step for him,” she said.

  Keesh turned away from the computer, his dark eyes tugging at her resolve to keep things casual and friendly between them. Why did she feel chemistry only with the one guy she couldn’t have?

  “You’re welcome.” His eyes were dark as bittersweet chocolate. “But don’t get too comfortable there. You’ve probably got a dozen complaint reports sitting in your in-box over there,” he said, nodding at the desk across the aisle.

  She clapped her palms on the surface of the desk. “You’re right.”

  He was already lost in his work, jabbing at the computer keyboard as if nothing had changed.

  But it had.

  The planet had shifted in its orbit. Keesh wouldn’t be hammering away at complaints here for much longer. And Bernie was going to be left to deal with a hole in her life.

  Chapter 8

  When the train screeched to a halt at Main Street Flushing, Peyton palmed the open doorway and stepped out warily, unsure that his right leg would support him.

  Tucked in the deep pocket of his jacket was the stub of his walking stick, the smooth rat-horse carved from faux. The snapped stick was the only possession the property clerk had returned to him from the downtown jail, and Peyton knew who to thank for its destruction.

  Marino.

  Peyton’s teeth ground as he imagined his hand closing over the carved rat, holding tight with his left hand, real tight with his good hand as he plunged the spike of the broken stick into the cop’s chest. He could pop it right into one of those big veins, the aorta or something. That’d show him, the cop who broke his stick. What was the sense in that? Destroying a man’s belongings for no reason at all.

  Peyton’s bad arm was tucked into his pocket. His good hand was filthy, palm black with soot from holding on to every handrail and skimming every wall between here and downtown Manhattan, just to keep his balance. Without his stick, he couldn’t be sure of anything. Climbing stairs was like climbing a mountain with one hand, and even simple stuff like walking on pavement held hazards. One slip, one hitch in his bad leg, and he’d be down, eating the cement, his head smacking the street.

  And he knew who to thank. Yeah, he had to do something real nice for the cop that had him hobbling into the projects like an old man. That Marino would be hearing from him. Sooner or later, it all floated to the top for the world to see. People would learn who Marino really was.

  The grounds of the Blair Housing Project were smaller than he remembered. It was a lot like the prison yard; no plants and only a handful of bare trees, their gray bark sad and dry as an old man’s tough skin. And here, instead of guards in the watchtower, was the elevated platform for the Long Island Rail Road. Every so often a train glided into the station and all the people looked out over the projects like they were some kind of miniature train set rich people set up at Christmastime.

  The playground had been stripped down, the jungle gym gone with only a bare spot of dirt to mark the ancient crime scene. The carousel and the seesaw, he couldn’t see any signs of where they used to be. They’d been ripped out so long ago, the earth already rose up and healed over the terrible wound.

  He looked down at his withered arm, his leg scraping the pavement. Not all scars healed over.

  The elevator in his mother’s building was broken, and the climb tore at his tired muscles. His shuffling feet whispered in the hollow corridor until he paused in front of her door.

  Did his mother still live here?

  He squeezed his eyes shut, so tired. But someone at Lakeview Shock had checked. Said his mama was here.

  He made a fist with his grimy hand and knocked.

  No one answered, but he’d counted on that. He banged again, this time calling for her.

  “Mama? Mama, you in there? It’s Peyton. It’s your son Peyton come back to you.” He waited for a time, then called again. “Mama? Open t
he door. I’m so tired, I’m gon’ fall flat on the floor right here in the hallway.”

  There was the rattle of metal, then the steel door opened, just a few inches. The dark face that peered through the crack was too young to be his mama. Her hair was scraped back from a big forehead that creased when she looked at him.

  “Who you?” The smoke of suspicion billowed through the crack.

  “Hey, girl. I’m looking for my mama, Yvonne. She there?”

  She shook her head, staring. “You Darnell?”

  “Nah, I’m Peyton. You gon’ let me in or make me stand out here all day? ’Cuz I’m tired, and I know my mama’d let me in.” He didn’t really know that for sure, but he needed a place to rest, and he figured his mama’d have pity on him after he wore her down. But this girl ... he couldn’t tell about her.

  “What your name again?” she asked through the sliver of light.

  “Peyton.”

  “Hold on.” She closed the door and he was left alone in the long shadowy hallway smelling of humanity and cooking odors. It brought him back to the dark bus, a rocket to nowhere, and he fell into the wall, planting his palm against the painted concrete to get a grip.

  The door squeaked, cracking open and the girl peeked out. “Yeah, he alone,” she said.

  Talking on a phone, he realized.

  A second later the door slammed, opened wide, and the girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, stood there in a tight white T-shirt and jeans. “Your mama said you can come in, but said you behave and don’t make a mess. You hear?”

  He nodded, stepping into the apartment. Watery sunlight warmed the living room, where a TV was on, some show about girls who wanted to be models. A baby boy in tiny overalls dragged himself across the rug, all the while chewing on a plastic cup. Plastic containers and lids were scattered around him, but otherwise the place was neat.

  “There’s peanut butter and bread in there.” The girl pointed to the refrigerator, but Peyton wasn’t hungry. He looked down at his dirty hand, then looked toward the kitchen sink.

  “Don’t be thinking about washing in the kitchen sink. Bathroom’s down the hall.” She bent over to pick up the plastic tubs. “Come on and help me, William. We goin’ out.” She tidied up fast, picking up and stacking.

  “Isn’t it too cold out there for your baby?” he asked.

  “Nah, and he’s not my baby. He’s my brother.”

  He squinted. “Who are you? You know my mama?”

  She laughed, a trickling sound like rain dancing on the roof. “She’s my grandma.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Kiki. Gwen’s daughter. Gwen’s your sister, right?”

  He scratched his head, remembering two girls who pulled each other’s hair and loved to help Mama cook. “That’s right.” He went into the bathroom and washed his hands, lathering up real good with sweet-smelling soap. When he came out, Kiki and the baby had their coats on. She showed Peyton a room he could use to rest, then carried the boy out of the apartment on her hip.

  The sound of the locks clicking behind her gave him peace. He went into the bedroom and sat down on the bed with his coat still on. He didn’t know who might come in, but it was hot in here, the heat billowing in the air. Peyton slipped off his jacket and shoes, dropped down on the bed, and fell into a deep sleep.

  “Peyton!”

  It was hard to pull himself from sleep, but the voice was persistent, repeating his name over and over.

  “Peyton, wake up.”

  He rolled onto his back, the old mattress folding under his weight. His body was still sore and it felt like he’d barely slept at all, but he could see from the window that the sun was gone.

  “Peyton, come on or I’m gon’ smack you upside the head.”

  The sting of a slap on his face made him snap back and curl into a fetal position. What the—

  “Yeah, that got your attention. Now sit up and tell me what the hell you doin’ back here to suck our mother dry.”

  He knew that voice now.

  The voice of evil.

  “Darnell.” Still wincing in pain, Peyton rubbed his cheek, then used his good hand to push back, away from Darnell. He didn’t stop till he was at the top of the bed, propped against the wall. “What the hell you got to do that for? What’s the sense in waking a person when he’s in a deep sleep?”

  “No sense at all.” Darnell laughed, that rich, dark sound that made people smile unless he was laughing at them. Some people liked to laugh with Darnell, and some laughed because they didn’t want to get on the bad side of a big, bad mo-fo like Darnell.

  Peyton didn’t think there’d been peace around here since the day Darnell was born. His younger brother seemed to enjoy hurting people, and because of his size—he was a foot taller than Peyton by seventh grade—it was easy for Darnell to inflict pain.

  “What you want, Darnell?” Peyton kept his body curled back, suspicious. He didn’t have any money for Darnell to steal. The only thing he had left was the carved faux head of his walking stick, but Darnell wouldn’t see the value in that with the shaft broken.

  Or would he? Peyton let his eyes move to his jacket at the foot of the bed. Had Darnell searched through it already? From the lump at the pocket, Peyton knew the carved rat’s stump was still there, and he wished he had it in his hand now. He could use it to defend himself, or else it would just be a calming thing to hold on to.

  “You know what this is about.” Darnell’s smile faded. “We been over it a hundred times. The way you pull Mama down. Keep mooching off her like a leech.”

  “I been away for five years,” Peyton said.

  “Yeah, and now you back with nowhere to go, right? No job and nowhere to sleep, and sooner or later you’re gon’ be one more lazy-ass empty belly to feed around here.”

  Peyton felt himself heating up at Darnell’s lies. “I’ll get a job, Darnell. You’ll see. I’ll get a job with pay, and then Mama won’t have to work so hard.”

  Darnell just laughed. “We know that’s not gon’ happen. Nobody’s gonna hire a cripple like you, Peyton. And you can’t blame them, with that lame leg and half your face all shriveled up.” He hunkered to the side and let his jaw drop in a mean imitation of Peyton.

  From that spark a fire roared to life inside Peyton. “Let me ask you this, Darnell,” he said, his voice strong and clear. “Did you ever tell Mama the story of how I got this way? That the fall on the playground wasn’t a fall after all?”

  Darnell rolled his eyes. “Not that again. Nobody wants to hear it, Peyton.”

  “Did you tell her how you and your friends held me down and dropped a stone on my head to see what would happen? Because you thought it be funny?” Anger raced ahead of his thoughts, but Peyton tried to hold it all back, wanting this moment with his brother. After all this time, he deserved the truth.

  And Darnell needed to hear it.

  “All this time and you’re still on that?” Darnell’s smile was cold, his teeth bright white against the sheen of his dark skin. “You didn’t learn then and you didn’t learn now.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Peyton wished he had that walking stick spear in his hand now. One quick jab at his boy Darnell and he wouldn’t be taunting anyone anymore.

  “I’m talking about this cop, Marino. The one that threw you in jail, then showed everyone what a fool you are.”

  Peyton reached for his right hand and twisted his fingers open. “How’d you know about that?”

  “I heard. Everybody heard. So what you gon’ do about it?” He nodded at the bed. “Gon’ to sleep on it?”

  “I’m taking care of the cop,” Peyton said slowly. That had been his plan all along, right? You couldn’t let evil like that walk away. Cruelty had to be punished, like it said in the Good Book. “ ‘If you do wrong, be afraid,’ ” he said aloud, quoting a passage from the Bible. Somewhere in the Bible. How did it end? Something about an angel of wrath, that would be him. “An angel of wrath will punish the wrongd
oer.” He looked Darnell in the eyes and felt his back straighten with his mission. “I’m the dark angel.”

  “You gon’ foul this up, like you screwed up everything else.”

  “Not this time.” The thought of punishing Marino cleared his mind. That was his purpose. An angel of wrath.

  He knew what he needed to do.

  Chapter 9

  Yvonne Curtis tried not to limp like an old lady as she crossed the common space in front of the Blair Houses, but the bottom of her feet throbbed and the pain in the knots on top of her big toes stabbed through her feet like someone had hammered nails in there.

  Arthritis, he’d told her. An hour and a half waiting for that specialist doctor to bring her into the office and tell her she had arthritis in the toes. That was a big waste of time. No, thank you.

  She wanted to tell him it was from working long shifts on her feet. She wanted to say, “Doctor, you try standing on your feet all night in a laundry and tell me how your toes feel.” Hotel laundry, giant vats of sheets and towels, a million germs and stains and sins all burned away with bleach. Yes, doctor, your dirty sheets, too!

  It would have been worth the look on his face, but she minded her manners and listened as he wrote down the things she should do. Doctor told her to watch her weight, too, and she told him one more comment like that and she’d have to start charging him.

  Yvonne snorted as she reached the elevator and pressed the button. Hopefully, they’d fixed it. She couldn’t wait to get home and put her feet up. Got her dinner in this bag, enough to share with whoever was around, Gwen and Kiki, and lil’ William, if he was still awake.

  She thought of the call from Kiki, and remembered that her son Peyton was up there, fresh out of prison. Five long years she’d been worrying over him, praying for him at night. It was wrong that he got sent away for a robbery that she knew was Darnell’s doing. Everyone knew it was Darnell who put the gun in Peyton’s hand and pushed him into the lead, but when the two of them got hauled in by the police, Darnell claimed he was innocent and Peyton admitted to everything. Sentenced to five years. Her oldest son turned thirty in jail.