I should have expected Yolanda’s “I told you so” look when I related the encounter with Itchy. She thought he was scum and not just because of the Bumpy Johnson lie, but even she was shocked by his denigration of Jill Mason. We speculated back and forth for a few minutes about potential reasons for the old man’s obvious dislike for a woman everyone else, including me, adored. In the end, Yo concluded that it was Itchy who wasn’t playing with a full deck. Then we got busy discussing the meetings with the principals of the schools attended by the rape victims.
“First thing you do, Phil, I’m telling you, is you let those principals know you don’t blame them for what happened, that it’s not their fault.”
“Well of course it’s not, Yo! You think I’m gonna walk in the door and start accusing people of what? Being accomplices to rape? I’m not that dumb.”
“I didn’t say you were, Phil. And I certainly know you’re not gonna walk in laying blame. What I’m saying is, walk in absolving them. Walk in letting them know you know what a tough job they have and how well they do it. ‘Cause believe me, those two women feel guilty. They feel like one of their own children was murdered.”
“OK, OK, I hear you. But my bottom line is I’ve got to find out from them what those little girls had in common. Because they did have some common bond and whatever it was got them raped and murdered.” And I wanted to find those answers from somebody— anybody— but the victims themselves. I’d been putting off talking to the little rape victims and would continue to put it off, forever if possible.
But I didn’t learn anything from the principals. Both had been ordered not to talk to me. When I asked why they hadn’t called to cancel the appointments, two hours and twenty blocks apart, both had shrugged with the same casual weariness, as if it were something I should have expected. And perhaps I should have. We live in a society that loves to place blame, and especially in the face of tragedy. It was the schools system’s job to make sure that it didn’t take the blame. Therefore, the official school system position was that it talked only to the police, and then only under a court order.
OK, so this was proving to be a bust but I couldn’t do nothing. I’d planned to walk to neighborhood later in the week, to walk the routes to and from home and school that all of the little took every day. No time like the present. I took out my notebook, turned a few pages, read a few more, and started to walk. As I walked, I tried to remember what I felt and thought when I was eight years old on those walks to and from school. Not this school and not these blocks, but a similar school and similar blocks not too far away. I also tried to put myself— my eight-year-old self— in the space of having to “be careful” because there was a nutcase around who was hurting little kids. Then I realized that the kids walking back and forth on these blocks, to and from these schools, hadn’t been warned to be careful, at least not publically and not recently, about what had happened to their classmates.
I was standing in front of Bert Calle’s building, trying to rationalize the police department’s failure to issue a blanket warning, when I heard a voice behind me.
“You lookin’ for Bert ‘n Angie, they ain’t around.”
I turned to face Daniel Esposito, looking weary and ragged. Looking like hell, actually. He hadn’t shaved in several days. Or bathed. Or changed clothes. But he had been drinking. His eyes were ugly and red-rimmed, and he stank. I refused to allow myself to back away from the man. His grief smelled as strongly as he did.
“You’re not doing so well, Dan” I said, extending my hand.
He saw me see him struggle to focus his eyes and dropped his head in shame, but he took my hand, briefly, then dropped it, too. “Fuckin’ shitty, Man.” And all the shame in his voice wasn’t due to being seen drunk and dirty in the light of day.
“Where are they, then?” I asked, to have something to say.
“Bert took Angie and the kids up to Connecticut, just to get outta here for a while. Her parents live up there somewhere. He’ll be back tonight, I think.”
“Probably a good idea, a change of scenery,” I said, to have something else to say to this weary shell of a man, a man who, despite his obvious distress, I had difficulty liking and feeling sympathy for.
“Angie’s a real mess. Kinda like me. I oughta be at work but I just can’t seem to get myself together, you know what I’m sayin?”
“Can’t be an easy thing to handle,” I said. And in truth, I couldn’t imagine my daughter a rape victim. I cringed inside when I thought of Arlene’s little granddaughter, whom I’d seen once in the restaurant. And I’d seen the body of Bert and Angie Calle’s daughter. No. I couldn’t imagine how I’d deal if the raped daughter were mine. But something told me I wouldn’t have Daniel Esposito’s shame. Anger, rage: That I could understand. Pain and sorrow and hatred I could understand. But how the hell did he get the nerve to feel ashamed when his little girl was broken and maybe never would be mended? He couldn’t get himself together? Carmine could. Bert could. Why couldn’t he?
“Did your daughter like to go anyplace special after school, Dan? With her friends, maybe?”
He shrugged and struggled to focus his eyes. “I don’t know. My wife, she the one knows those kinds of things.”
“Maybe before, Dan.” I was engaged in my struggle, trying to sound and be gentle. “But haven’t you asked, haven’t you tried to find out what she did every day, where she went?”
“What the hell difference does it make now, Rodriquez?” He slurred his words a bit, and wobbled a bit, the unsteadiness caused as much by his anger as his drunkenness.
“The difference it makes now, Dan, is that whoever hurt your little girl is still out there, maybe hanging out in the same place, watching and waiting.”
I left Daniel Esposito standing where he was and went to find myself a drink. Not as many as Esposito had had, but enough to help take the edge of everything I was feeling.
CHAPTER SIX
I spent the next couple of weeks feeling a lot like Daniel Esposito had looked that day in front of Bert Calle’s place. I felt ragged and out of sorts and nothing made sense. Which really didn’t make sense because in reality, life was good and prosperous. It was me that had the problem. I didn’t feel good that nothing bad had happened to Jill Mason because I knew, somewhere deep inside, that something bad was waiting to happen to her and that it would happen as soon as she no longer was protected, which would be soon because Carmine didn’t have an endless supply of cash, as he’d informed me just yesterday. And I had nothing new to tell the parents of the two dead girls and the five whose bodies were alive but whose spirits were dead. So I felt guilty and incompetent and worthless.
About the only feel-good aspect of my life I could point to was that Yolanda—the real Yo that I know and love—had returned. That snappish, edgy, remote sister had beat a retreat and was, I hoped, long gone and far away. I could tell that there still was something beneath the surface bothering her, and I continued to hope she’d tell me about it, but I knew I wouldn’t ask again. Knew I couldn’t. So in addition to guilty, incompetent and worthless, I also felt a little bit sad and lonely. Yolanda was my best friend and I’d thought I was hers yet there was something inside her capable of altering her personality and I didn’t know what it was and she wouldn’t tell me. Or couldn’t.
“Carmine wants you to call,” she said as we exchanged coffee for juice and the greeting that was our ritual. She gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze, letting me know that whatever had been troubling her had not been me. “And he sounded more tired than irritated, you know?”
I nodded. I knew; that’s how he’d sounded when I talked to him three days ago and it worried me. For Carmine to relinquish, even for a moment, sounding like the baddest bad-ass on the block, was a serious matter. I picked up the phone and dialed his number— I’d called it so often lately that I knew it—and, after two rings, got Theresa’s voice on the answering machine. Since I didn’t have a message to leave, I hung up and opened the cover
of my notebook where I’d written the phone number of the pastry shop the fat man liked, the one I’d come to frequent on my own. I dialed and said my name when the owner answered. No, Carmine hadn’t been in yet, which was unusual. Yes, she’d tell him I called. Maybe he was sick, she offered; so many people had succumbed to an early-season flu that had arrived with the early winter.
“When did Carmine leave the message to call?” I asked Yo.
“The phone was ringing when I walked in the door. He didn’t say where he was, just for you to call. But I told you he sounded weird. Something’s wrong with him.”
“Yeah, something’s wrong with him, and it ain’t the flu,” I muttered, more to myself than to Yolanda, whom I didn’t think could hear me anyway because I thought she was behind the screens working at her computer.
“Something’s wrong with everybody,” she muttered from right behind me, and laughed softly when I jumped.
I frowned, ignoring her humor at my expense. “What do you mean by that, something’s wrong with everybody?”
She frowned, too, and shook her head, running her hands through her massive tangle of black hair. “I’m not sure I can put my finger on any one thing. It’s just that everybody seems out of whack. Carmine. Arlene Edwards. Bert Calle. Those sisters who own that building, they came by yesterday saying Basil Griffin was ready to quit because people blamed him for what happened to the little Cummerbatch girl. Even Dr. Mason.”
“Dr. Mason!” I know I shouted because this time it was Yo who jumped, and because I heard the sound of my own voice. But I couldn’t help it. “You’ve talked to Dr. Mason? When? Why?”
“Yes, I’ve talked to Dr. Mason. When? Every two or three days. Why? Because she’s a client. I make it a habit to talk to our clients, Phil. Surely you know that. I call Arlene Edwards. I call Bert and Angie Calle. I call Carmine and Theresa. It’s my job, Phil, to talk to our clients.”
The words hung between us on the chilly air for a few very long seconds, and I used the time to wonder at my reaction.
“Is there a reason I shouldn’t talk to Dr. Mason?” she asked carefully.
“No, of course not, Yo. It just surprised me to hear you say you’d talked to her. And I guess to hear it in the same breath as you saying that something’s wrong with everybody. I suppose because I feel the same thing and I don’t know what it means. I do know that I’m afraid to pull her protection but I don’t have any choice. I think Carmine, in his way, knows it, too. He’s not a rich man, no matter what he wants people to think, and he can’t afford to have us watch her forever. And I think he’s afraid of what will happen if we stop watching.”
“She is, too. But she almost wants it to happen, so it will be over with, whatever it is.”
Yo had spoken quietly, almost more to herself than to me; and since I was still wary of her mood, I hesitated before responding.
“She said that?”
“Not exactly that, no. But that’s what she meant, Phil. She’s tired of being afraid. Honest people don’t like living in fear. They’d rather face their troubles than keep looking over their shoulders, waiting for the trouble to catch up to them, especially if it’s trouble they don’t deserve.”
I thought about that for a moment; thought about the truth of it and about the fact that this wisdom came from some place in Yolanda that was new. New to me anyway. Whatever was moving through her was changing her and it was interesting to watch and to experience, if not easy. I drained my coffee cup and stood up. I didn’t know where I was going or what, exactly, I was going to do. But I knew that I couldn’t spend another moment sitting and waiting for something to happen. I needed to make something happen. I needed to be out and about in the event that something happened that was not of my making.
Without Yolanda having to prod and prompt, I armed myself with a phone and a weapon, something I realized I’d been doing quite regularly. I pulled a knit cap low enough on my head to cover my ears and wrapped a scarf around my neck before putting on and buttoning my coat. The gloves remained in my pocket. I always put them on last, and only when I was so cold there was no recourse. The opening of the door almost gave me all the recourse I needed. A gust of wind off the East River all but ripped the door off its hinges and I had to struggle to get it closed. When I did, I turned left, hunched down into my coat, hands deep in my pockets, and hoped that Carmine had decided to put in an appearance at the pastry shop, since that’s the direction in which I was headed. Because that’s the direction in which the wind was at my back.
Nobody at the pastry shop had seen Carmine. I had a cafe con leche and a discussion of the history of early winters in New York with the owner’s mother, a short, round woman with sad eyes who missed her native Southern Italy despite having spent enough winters in New York to talk like a climatologist about them. I left a note for Carmine and, keeping the wind at my back, I walked the four blocks to the elementary school Carmine’s daughter attended. Different school, different principal, I could hope for a different result. I got as far as the secretary in the front office.
No, I was told in no uncertain terms, I could not see the principal without an appointment; and no, I could not make an appointment to see the principal without permission from the deputy superintendent’s office. And given what I wanted to discuss, that permission, we both knew, would not be forthcoming. I hadn’t been in the building long enough to get warm and so didn’t see any harm in continuing to allow the wind to direct my path. I began walking north on First Avenue, head down and shoulders hunched up to meet my ears.
“Hey, Buddy! Watch yourself!”
The jab to my shoulder snatched me out of my reverie and drop kicked me immediately on to the defensive. I was prepared either to apologize, if necessary, or to punch back, if required. A glance around me brought a quick apology to my lips and my hands raised, palms up and out, to the guy whose foot I’d just trampled. He grumbled something and brushed past me on the crowded sidewalk, jostling a couple of other people in his haste. As I was wondering why there were so many people around, I realized that I was outside the Beth Israel Medical Center and that it was lunch time. I was a civilian island in a sea of hospital personnel: stethoscope were visible around necks even beneath coats and scarves, and hospital greens, blues and pinks peeked from beneath overcoats.
Beth Israel. All of the rape victims had been treated here. I knew that. I also knew that no doctor in his or her right mind would discuss such a case with me but I went inside anyway, partly to get out of the cold. And partly to follow a hunch. I’d been too long around Yolanda. Here I was being moved and motivated by forces I didn’t understand and I didn’t see anything wrong with that!
I entered the lobby through the revolving door and swam against the sea of humanity trying to exit the building. I made my way to the information desk where three women worked three sides of a square kiosk. A surly-looking male guard perched like Jabba the Hut on a stool at the fourth side. I waited in line long enough to get hot, and had removed my hat and was working on the coat when my turn came I and asked who I could talk to about the hospital’s rape counseling program. The woman’s face remained immobile but her eyes changed behind the half glasses she wore low on her nose. They narrowed, then widened, then softened. She told me to wait just a moment and she picked up the phone and punched in five numbers.
“Connie? This is Ellen. There’s a gentleman here in the lobby. He wants to talk to somebody in your office. Can you see him?”
Connie must have agreed because Ellen the Information Lady hung up the phone and smiled at me. “Take those elevators over there,” she said pointing behind me, “and go to the third floor. Turn right and go to the end of the hall. Social Services is on the left. Connie can help you.”
I thanked her and wished I had a longer ride than just to the third floor because I needed more time to think of something to say to Connie. The Information Lady obviously thought that I, personally, was in need of assistance...thought that somebody close to me had b
een raped....and somebody had. Dammit! Arlene Edwards was my friend and her granddaughter had been raped. Carmine Aiello was my client and his daughter had been raped. Bert Calle was my client and his daughter had been raped. Damn right I personally was in need of assistance! And by the time I walked down the third floor hallway to Social Services I knew exactly what I would say to Connie.
“How do you do? I’m Consuela de Leon. Please come in.”
She met me at the office door and robbed me of whatever it was I’d planned to say. She was, next to Yolanda, the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. And though I wouldn’t want Yo to hear me say so, Consuela de Leon might even have a point or two on Yolanda Maria. I followed her through a maze of cubicles to the rear of the huge room and into an office of grace and warmth that reminded me of Jill Mason’s office. It was smaller, certainly, and less elegant, but it was a caring place. I could feel that; and Consuela de Leon was not somebody I could—or would want to—bullshit. I could feel that, too.
I took the seat that she indicated and waited for her to decide where to sit: behind her desk or in the chair adjacent to me. She chose the latter, which made my decision about how to approach her a lot easier.
“My name is Phillip Rodriquez, Miss de Leon, and I’m a private investigator. I represent more than a dozen families in this community, about half of them parents of little girls who have been raped, and two of them parents of murdered girls. They hired me to help them because they’re not satisfied with what the police are doing. But I’m not doing anything, either, and it’s making me crazy, Miss de Leon. Those people are in pain. Their little girls are in pain. And I don’t know how to help them. I honestly don’t know why I came here or what I think you can do but I was tired of doing nothing, and coming here is at least better than that.”
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