by Linda Barnes
Instead I went with my mother to help clean out Bubbe’s apartment after her death. My photograph, an ornately framed enlargement of a snapshot Mom had sent her long ago, had pride of place on the living room wall. My grandmother had never acknowledged receiving it.
The musty smell I associated with age and stubbornness, sickness and death, clung to Mooney’s place.
The Herald was on the coffee table, the story about Mooney face-up below the front-page fold. I wanted to hide it.
Peg Mooney saw my eyes take it in, and she stuck her chin out defiantly.
“You read that, I guess,” she said, lowering herself into the chair. It was a slow process. She clutched the walker until she was maybe eight inches above the cushion, then let go and collapsed abruptly with a sigh.
I pretended to be fascinated by my glass of lemonade. It was good, fresh-squeezed and tart. I hoped Mooney had made it because I couldn’t stand the thought of his mother going to all that work for me, squeezing lemons with her weak, clawed hands.
“My son doesn’t know I called you,” she began.
I waited, watching her.
“And I don’t want him to know. There are things I don’t want to know about in his life and things I don’t want him to know about in mine. We live in each other’s pockets but privacy is still important, I think.”
I nodded my agreement, drank lemonade.
“I know you used to work for Joseph,” she said.
It took me a minute to realize that Joseph was Mooney. I knew his name was Joe, but nobody ever used it.
“And since you used to be a policewoman, I assume you know people in the department still.”
“I do,” I said. Over her head on the far wall were framed photographs, like in my grandmother’s flat, some black and white, some in older sepia tones. One must have been Mooney as a little boy. He wore a sailor suit and his face was fuller and softer, but essentially the same.
“All my friends on the force are retired,” she said. “Well, really, they were never my friends. They were Pat’s friends, my husband’s drinking buddies. The wives were tolerated, not like now.… But I know it’s all changed since the old days. The young cops aren’t the same. College cops, my Pat used to call them, and he’d look down his nose at them, though he never made it out of high school. He was a fine policeman, my husband, seven citations for bravery, and shot once before the end. Gave his life to the department, just like my boy.”
I settled in and drank lemonade. I’d been invited to listen to reminiscences. Well, I’d lived through worse. If it helped her forget her pain for a while, I could certainly spare the time. Her voice softened when she talked about “her Pat” and I could catch the faintest hint of a brogue. I searched the wall for a photograph of a younger Mrs. Mooney. She was there in her wedding gown, smiling shyly, with no suffering in her eyes.
“Is there anything I can get you?” I asked her. “I could make you some coffee, or tea.”
“No, thank you,” she said, stiffening immediately when I brought her back to the present. “But there’s something you can do for me. You can explain how a man can give his whole life to the department and then have them all turn on him over nothing.”
“I don’t think I can explain that,” I said.
“The Herald would never have printed garbage like that when my husband was alive. The police would never have broken ranks and talked about one of their own like that, and to be a reporter.”
“Your son must have explained what happened—”
“He doesn’t talk about it. He pretends it didn’t happen and he goes off every day somewhere like he had to go to work. Only now I know he’s not going to work. I thought maybe he came to you.…”
“No,” I said.
“Are you Catholic?” she asked out of the blue.
“No,” I said flatly.
“Ah,” she murmured. “He wouldn’t tell me that.”
“Is it so important?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said without batting an eye. “To me.”
“Mrs. Mooney, what can I do for you?”
“My son thinks you’re trustworthy.”
“I think highly of your son,” I said. “He’s a fine policeman and a fine person.
She gestured to the wall of photos over her shoulder. “There’s a picture of him here with his wife,” she said. “Go take a look. Such a handsome couple they are.”
I wanted to correct her. His ex-wife. But then, she probably didn’t recognize their divorce. I got up and crossed the room.
It was an eight-by-ten studio portrait, and Mooney’s wife was lovely, with a soft, smiling face. Petite. Blonde. High Slavic cheekbones. She clung to Mooney’s arm, and he wore a smile so carefree it was almost painful.
I turned my attention to another picture, one of a sternfaced man. “Is this your husband?” I asked.
“The one in uniform,” she said. “That’s Pat. Always in uniform. He was a beat cop till the day he died and proud of it.”
I went back to the sofa and sat down gently to save the upholstery.
“Well, Miss Carlyle,” she said, “if I still knew people in the department, I wouldn’t need you to …”
“To what?” I said when she faltered.
“Would you like more lemonade?” she asked. “It’s no bother …”
“No, thank you,” I said.
“Listen,” she said, “if you really work as a private cop, I want to hire you to do a task for me. I’d do it myself, but I’m too lame and too slow.”
“What task?”
“I have a little money put by. I can pay you for it.”
“What task?” I repeated.
“In the old days, I wouldn’t have needed to do this. The department used to take care of its own, you know?”
I waited, full of foreboding.
“I want you to talk to the policeman, the one who wrote up the report, and I want you to convince him that he saw a knife, that he made a mistake on the paperwork, you know?”
“Please,” she went on when I said nothing. “It’s not too late, just because of what the papers say. Things get lost at police stations. Maybe the knife was in the man’s pocket and they found it later at the hospital, but one of the orderlies stole it or something. There are ways to manage it with no one getting hurt.”
“You don’t think there was a knife, do you?” I said gently.
“I don’t care,” she replied.
“You think your son beat that guy up and lied about it?”
“Listen to me, girl,” she said angrily. “It doesn’t matter to me whether there was a knife or a gun or a machete or a machine gun. My boy is a good cop, like his father was.”
“Times have changed,” I said.
“And not for the better.”
“Did his father beat people up?” I shouldn’t have challenged her, but I couldn’t help it. There was a gleam in her eye, and she answered me like she’d been waiting for a fight and I was the selected opponent.
“People that needed beating, yes, and he wasn’t ashamed of it. None of this modern ‘be kind to the scum of the earth’ garbage, and let them come back and shoot you tomorrow. My husband knew which side he was on.”
“That must have been a comfort to him.”
“It was,” she said. “Oh, it was.”
“So you want me to bribe a police officer,” I said quietly. I finished the last drop of lemonade and put the glass back on the table, in the exact center of the crocheted doily. “You know your son would hate it.”
“He wouldn’t know,” she said. “That’s part of your job. I want it handled tactfully. I can pay you a hundred dollars, and for the officer another hundred.”
“No,” I said. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“Then maybe you’ll do it because you care what happens to Joseph. This is eating him up, killing him.”
“Mrs. Mooney, believe me, there’s no way to handle this tactfully, no way to handle it at all. I’m not going
to take the job, and I won’t say anything about it to your son. And, please—promise me—don’t try it yourself. You’ll just make things worse for him.”
“Worse for him,” she said. “Worse for him? And how do you think things could get worse for him?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Go on,” she said. “Get out.”
I thanked her for the lemonade, but she pretended not to hear me, sitting in stony silence like a carved figure of herself. I said good-bye, and almost ran down the steps to the front door. I needed to get the taste of that lemonade out of my mouth, the sick smell of the apartment out of my nostrils.
I drove out to the Emerson School much too fast. The speedometer keep creeping up—ten, twenty, twenty-five miles over the Route 2 limit. I was lucky I didn’t get stopped by a cop.
CHAPTER 7
Jerry had vowed money was no problem, but I don’t think I believed him until I strolled onto the freshly mown lawn of Emerson. That’s what the place is called. They just drop the “School” part, because anybody who is anybody knows that the Emerson is a prep school, a toney private high school.
If this was a high school, what I went to in Detroit was cruel and unusual punishment.
It wasn’t just the putting-green grass. Well-pruned bushes, stately firs, and classy red brick buildings contributed to the mini-Harvard effect. But instead of the surrounding bustle of Harvard Square, the Emerson was ringed by acres of landscaped countryside. The admissions committee probably interviewed the squirrels, and only took the ones that would eat out of your hand.
No bell rang, but the quadrangle suddenly flooded with students. The girls all seemed to be wearing skirts—not uniform kilts or anything—but skirts of differing colors and lengths. They giggled, a reassuringly teenaged noise. The boys wore sports jackets with open-collared white shirts.
Must be a dress code, I said so myself. I couldn’t believe these kids had deliberately chosen to look like junior execs at IBM. A few signaled their individuality with semi-punk hairdos. Mild by Roz’s standards, undoubtedly revolutionary at the Emerson.
They carried books. We did that in Detroit. It gave me a basis for comparison. This probably was a school.
I should have reported directly to the office. That’s what the exquisitely lettered notice on the stone front gate said: VISITORS REPORT DIRECTLY TO OFFICE. I fully intended to until I saw that sign. Once inside a high school, hospital, jail—anyplace they keep you prisoner—I turn ornery. I do whatever they tell you not to do. I’m a truant at heart.
I sought camouflage. No way was I going to meld with the student body. I could maybe pull off a high school student imitation at a normal high school, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, but here, in the midst of all this teenage formality, my interviewing-the-client slacks and sweater looked wrong. I assumed a mask of authority. Maybe I could play teacher.
There are things I could teach these kids, believe me. Starting with city smarts. Also self-defense, blues guitar, and volleyball.
I scouted around, entering a couple of the red brick buildings unchallenged. One of them had a framed diagram of the campus on a pale gray wall. Imagine, a campus. My high school was a city square block—eight floors, no elevators—and so overcrowded that classes were held on the roof as well as in the park across the street. Which was worse, no one was sure. Park classes meant the possibility of getting mugged; students on the roof were fair game for stray bullets from the ROTC rifle range.
The Emerson seemed to have plenty of space. Space for a foreign language lab, a student lounge, a cafeteria, a computer center, a school store, a little theater, and stables. Yes, riding stables.
The only horses I saw in Detroit were mounted patrol, brought in to quell riots.
I decided to wander, to soak up the privileged atmosphere Valerie had abandoned. Outside, the grounds were deserted. Everybody was in class, pulled by an invisible magnet. The air smelled like fresh-mown grass. The sun glistened. A thin stoop-shouldered man repaired a goal net on the soccer field.
I was debating a belated trip to the office when I remembered that all high school kids have to take gym. Including Elsie McLintock. In my guise as a freelance volleyball instructor, keeping the diagram of the school in my head, I found the right building and entered inconspicuously through huge double doors.
The gym was enormous, but I expected no less from the Emerson. To my delight, a ragged volleyball game was in progress. I sat in the stands, exhausted by all the elegance, welcoming the familiar smell of sneakers and sweat socks.
I knew Elsie McLintock’s name. I didn’t know what she looked like or even what class she was in. I assumed she was a freshman because Valerie was a freshman, and years mean so much when you’ve experienced so few.
A cheer came from the court. One game decided and handslapping all around. Two girls on the winning team—one short, one tall—could play. They roamed the court, poaching at will. Their teammates played like they were scared to sweat.
I play killer volleyball three mornings a week at my local Cambridge YWCA. It’s terrific exercise and lacks the pointlessness of, say, stationary bicycling. Somebody gets to win; somebody gets to lose. I love it. I’m an outside hitter—a spiker—but I can play middle blocker if I have to.
One of the girls who didn’t mind sweat came out winded, and a replacement ran in for her. She sat two rows in front of me.
“Good game,” I said, moving down beside her.
“Thanks.” She was breathing hard.
“Tired?”
“I had mono, and now I can’t move. It’s like taking forever to get back.”
Forever at her age was probably two weeks.
I said, “Do you know Elsie McLintock?” I figured I might as well try. It was a small school—in enrollment, not area.
“Elsie?”
“Yeah. McLintock. She’s a freshman.”
“I think I’ve heard the name.”
“You know when she has gym?”
“Nah.” She was watching the game. She had one of those classic WASP profiles with the slightly turned-up nose that makes you look snotty even if you aren’t. She brushed her thick blonde hair back off her forehead. I took advantage of the fact that well-bred girls with glossy manes rarely tell an adult to butt out.
“You know where I could find her?”
“Ms. Sutton has the schedule cards,” she said, watching the game intently.
“Ms. Sutton?”
“Laura, the one with the French braids.”
One of the girls who played hard and well was really the teacher.
“Thanks,” I said.
A small office opened off the right-hand side of a basketball court. I figured Ms. Sutton was not going to make a sudden appearance because the game was tight and her team needed her. She was a well-organized teacher, with four index card files on her desk, neatly marked by class. I snitched Elsie’s card from the freshman file, and I’m sorry for any inconvenience that may have caused Ms. Sutton. I wish she played on my team at the Y. She was short, even for a setter, but spunky. She made a couple of fairly impossible digs, and even spiked a few, which is tough for a shorty.
I checked my wristwatch. In half an hour Elsie McLintock would pass from English block to Social Studies block. That gave me thirty minutes to find out whether a block was a building or a unit of time, and what Elsie looked like.
The block business was easy. I went back to the building with the diagram and found English block listed in the legend at the bottom of the map. Identifying Elsie was trickier. They didn’t have student photos posted. It looked pretty futile until I realized every classroom had a phone.
I located Elsie’s English class, room 121, with little trouble. All English classes were in the English block, all language classes were in the Language block, all math classes were in another red brick house, and so on. I found an empty room across the hall, took the receiver off the hook, and punched 121, wondering who I’d reach. Sometimes internal phone syste
ms have a code. You know, you have to dial nine first or something. The buzz in Elsie’s classroom was so loud it startled me.
Elsie’s teacher, a chubby, balding man, crossed the room and I ducked behind the door.
“Sorry to interrupt,” I said quickly. “Elsie McLintock to the office, please.”
“Sarah?” the deep voice said.
I made a monosyllabic neutral response. It’s so easy to lie on the phone.
“I really can’t have these interruptions.”
“I’m sorry,” I said very sincerely. “Please send her right away. It’s urgent.”
As the girl left the room I followed her.
She was small. Tidy. Light brown hair fell in a well-cut curve to her shoulders. She wore a gray denim knee-length skirt and a pastel flower-patterned shirt. Two gold bracelets clinked on her wrist.
“Elsie,” I called.
She turned. At least I’d gotten the right one.
“You don’t need to go to the office.”
“But Mr. Chesney said—Who are you?”
“Jerry Toland hired me to find Valerie.”
“Humph,” she said, or something like it.
“Can we go someplace and talk?” I asked.
“I’ll be late for American Studies.”
“Do you know where Valerie is?”
“No.”
“Do you care?”
She gave me a look. “Well, of course. She’s my friend.”
“Then we need to talk.”
“There’s the lounge,” she said reluctantly.
“Fine,” I said.
She led the way to this immense multileveled cushioned room, done in soothing blues. I didn’t see why any of the kids went to class when they could snooze on deep blue velvet couches. We sat on one of them. I ran my hand over the smooth plush.
“What did you say your name was?” Elsie’s folks must have told her not to talk to strangers. I passed over one of my business cards. They seem to have a calming effect, although for eighteen bucks you can get three hundred printed to say you’re the President.
The girl gave me the once over and I felt like she was estimating the cost of my clothes. “Why did Jerry go to you? I mean, did he look in the Yellow Pages?”
