by Matthew Iden
“Okay.”
He handed me the check and we shook hands. Still bemused, I shuffled to the door. My hand was on the knob when I thought of something.
“Mr. Gerson?”
He looked up from his phone. “Yes?”
“What was Wendy doing at the Waterfront station? Neither her offices nor her apartment are anywhere near there.”
He looked at me for a moment, chewing it over, then said, finally, “I have no idea.”
Chapter Seven
“So,” Dods said. “What can I do for Marty Singer, PI?”
I grunted. “Gerson call you?”
“Before you shut the door to his office, probably. Couldn’t wait to tell us that he’d hired ‘one of our own’ and could we please extend every fucking courtesy to you regarding his sister’s case?”
“You didn’t do that when I worked there,” I said. “Why would you start now?”
“Good question. You want to tell me what’s going on?”
Dods and I had been partners in Homicide for more than a decade, up till the day I retired and walked out the door of MPDC headquarters. I could confide anything to him—and would’ve, anyway—but the fact that he was in Homicide made it kind of mandatory. So, I related what Gerson had asked me to do, how he had asked it, and why I was doing it in the first place.
“That’s crazy,” he said when I told him about Amanda’s hospital bill.
“Tell me about it.”
“You know, somebody with a sense of humor could say it cost her—”
“An arm and a leg,” I finished for him. “Minus the leg. Yeah, I know. You might want to avoid using that particular gem around her. She’s not exactly in a joking mood about the situation.”
“Can’t blame her.”
“But now you know why I’m willing to do this for Gerson. I don’t have nine grand under the mattress and this seemed better than putting the squeeze on my retirement account. So, whatever help the illustrious MPDC Homicide squad can send my way would go towards paying a destitute young girl’s hospital bills—”
“Okay, okay,” Dods said, cutting me off. “What kind of courtesy can I extend to you, Mr. Singer?”
“Who’s on the case?”
“Henderson.”
I groaned. “That son of a bitch hates me.”
“Sorry, Marty. He was next on the rotation. When Gerson called, it got around the office. That’s the only reason I heard about it. In fact, I’m surprised he hasn’t called you yet.”
“He doesn’t want me to stick my nose in the case, is all. He got my statement from the cops at the scene, so he’s got what he needs. But if he knows Gerson hired me, he’s going to shut me down.”
I heard Dods move some papers around. “Eh…let me see what I can do. Maybe I can get him to loosen up.”
“Thanks, but I won’t hold my breath.”
“Marty, by ‘loosen up’ I mean I’ll just go into the file and get what you need. Jesus, you make a lousy private eye.”
I smiled. “Thanks, Dods. You’re the best.”
“Yeah, whatever. But I catch you wearing Hawaiian shirts and driving a red Ferrari, we’re through. Hold on.”
There was a rustling sound—Dods pinning the phone to his shoulder—then mumbling as he navigated the antiquated departmental computer system. I went out to the living room and threw myself onto my couch. It could be a long wait.
It wasn’t. “Okay,” Dods said. “There are witness reports, a coroner’s brief, some forensic documentation—oh, there’s a video transcript with the title ‘man with cap,’ the station manager’s testimony…”
“You got nothing.”
“Pretty much. Statements from Gerson and the parents, which don’t look like they got much in them. Victim had no significant others. Her boss gave what looks to be a vanilla statement of regret and sadness.”
“Got anything else?”
“Not really. I’ll look at the tape, take some notes. See if there’s anything worth your time.”
“Thanks. I’ll give you a buzz if I shake anything extra out of her company.”
“That would be nice. Hey, you hear Bob Koblenz is retiring?”
We jawed for a while about old Homicide days and news in the department since I’d left. It was nice to talk about simple, mundane life events. I felt comfortable and congenial. Maybe I could get some advice. I cleared my throat. “Say, you ever keep a diary?”
There was silence on the other end. “A diary? Like, write to myself at night with a flashlight under the blanket? Press flowers in the back and draw unicorns on the cover?”
A mistake. “Ah, never mind. I was just—”
“Actually, yeah,” he interrupted. “A couple years ago, my cardiologist hinted that if I didn’t lose some serious weight, I’d stroke out in five years. Told me I had to write down everything I ate and all the exercise I did and how I felt about myself.”
“Really?” I said stupidly. “Dods, I didn’t know you were doing that.”
“It’s not something you toss around, you know? Telling people I’m such a fat ass that I have to get in touch with my inner child or whatever.”
I sat back. “Did it work?”
“Not for the weight thing. I mean, it started me walking two miles every morning, so I can’t complain. But write down what I ate three times a day? I barely have time to eat lunch, let alone write it down.”
“So you gave up?” I felt strangely let down. I’d expected a sarcastic laugh, then confirmation and permission to think a diary was stupid, but now I wasn’t sure what I’d wanted to hear.
“Kind of. I definitely don’t crack it open every day. But sometimes the book helps when I see a rough one on the job. You know, if it’s a kid or a baby. Stuff I can’t tell Margie, can’t talk to the other guys in Homicide. They got the same problems, you know? They don’t need to hear mine on top of it.”
“So it’s helped.”
He thought about it. “It doesn’t solve everything. But, yeah. I think so. Why the questions? Interested in pressing flowers?”
“Fears and demons, Dods,” I said. “Just my own fears and demons.”
Chapter Eight
I was back downtown visiting Amanda at FirstStep, although this time I drove. No matter what your reasons for taking public transit—saving money, living green, avoiding parking tickets—all of them evaporate in the time it takes to watch someone get launched into the front of an oncoming subway train. It would be a while before I took public transportation anywhere.
My visit wasn’t necessarily a social call. Amanda had returned to work just a day after her arm had been set and one of the first things she’d done was talk to Diane, FirstStep’s director, about how I might be able to help them with their anti-crazy-person strategies. It was a distraction from the Gerson case, but Amanda’s injury is what got me into accepting the work in the first place…and I would give a rat’s ass about Wendy Gerson and her killer if Amanda got attacked again.
“Thanks for doing this, Marty,” Amanda said as soon as I was buzzed in. The big blue cast was now held tight to her chest by a black sling. I gave her a hug, then we walked through the halls of the shelter, which looked one part high school, one part medical center, and one part struggling corporate office. Chairs and tables in what passed as the lobby were chipped and the tile floor had a large, kidney-shaped stain on it. Amanda guided me down the hall to a small conference room with a Formica table and ten chairs scattered around the room. The smell of bananas and canned noodle soup hung in the air. Amanda saw me wrinkle my nose and said, “Sorry, everything does double duty here. This is the break room most of the time.”
We chatted for a few minutes, trying to ignore the smell of hastily packed lunches, until Diane joined us. She was a plump woman in her late fifties, with silver hair trimmed short and wearing a lime-green business suit with a white turtleneck. Chunky turquoise-blue rocks hung from a gold cord around her nec
k. She shook my hand through Amanda’s introduction.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Singer,” she said. Her demeanor was deliberate and calm. “And thank you, of course, for looking after Amanda. We wouldn’t know what to do without her.”
I grunted. As director of FirstStep, she had to have known the kind of financial state Amanda was in, thanks to her work at the shelter. Courtesies were nice, but it was hard to forget that this organization was indirectly responsible for Amanda’s injury and the hardships coming down the pike.
“Is there something wrong, Mr. Singer?” Diane asked.
I guess my feelings of irritation weren’t as internal as I thought. “You could say that. I don’t appreciate how Amanda’s been left to hang out to dry. This girl is working her butt off for starvation wages—and I know that’s not your fault if that’s how little the world values what FirstStep does. But she shouldn’t have to act as security, too. And if she ever does, she shouldn’t have to face personal bankruptcy for doing it. Is it too much to ask that you step in and help bail her out?”
“Marty!” Amanda said, her face mortified.
“It’s all right, Amanda,” Diane said, holding up a hand. “Mr. Singer, I can’t tell you how sorry I am that Amanda had to get involved and, as I understand it, you as well. If I could do something to help her, I would, but our worker’s compensation and insurance policies are as clear and as strict as you can imagine. If it was in my power to fudge a police report and say the assault occurred on the grounds of FirstStep, I would, but I can’t. And I can’t simply write a check for thousands of dollars to help her with her medical bills. Even if we could afford it, it wouldn’t get past auditors, the board, and the other staff. What else is there to do?”
I shook my head. I didn’t have an answer. “Nothing. I can’t say my anger is constructive. I just don’t like what’s going on.”
“Believe me, none of us do. Truth be told, I actually put in a request last year to hire security personnel. But we were told that, if we wanted them, we’d have to furlough the staff we had one day a week,” Diane said. “So we would’ve had guards patrolling an empty building twenty percent of the time. I’m afraid there just aren’t many margins in this line of work. But I’m sorry about what happened to Amanda and all I can say is that I’m amazed that she even wants to stay and continue to work at FirstStep. We’re lucky to have her.”
It was masterfully done. Ten minutes before, I’d been ready to chew steel and spit nails. Now I felt like a boor and Amanda was blushing at the praise. I squirmed in my chair. “I guess I needed to vent.”
“That’s perfectly understandable,” she said. “Do you still want to help us with our security needs, however? I’ll understand if you don’t.”
“No, I’ll help,” I said. What kind of jerk do you think I am?
Diane smiled warmly. “Thank you.”
I coughed. “Why don’t we start with you telling me what you had in mind. I’ve got my own ideas, but I’d rather hear what you’re thinking.”
Diane folded her hands and placed them on the table. “I know the attack on Amanda might seem like an isolated incident, but it’s not the first time a woman we’ve been sheltering has been threatened. And we’ve got to face the fact that an attack like this will happen again. We have almost no physical security and we need to spend our money wisely—we can’t afford to try one solution and find out it’s useless. We need to get it right the first time.”
“Okay.”
“Amanda suggested that, with your background, you might be able to guide us. Keep us from making those poor decisions.”
I leaned back, but a bolt in the back of the chair popped with an alarming snap and I quickly leaned forward again. “I can try. The real test will be your willingness to adapt to the situation and your ability to follow through on my recommendations.”
She tilted her head. “What do you mean, adapt?”
“Protecting a person is not easy by any stretch, but at least they can be moved, disguised, hidden. Decoys can be used and, if all else fails, the person can be relocated.”
“All right.”
“But stopping people that want to do harm to a static location like FirstStep is totally different. Safeguards—like alarm systems, video cameras, upgraded locks, security personnel, employee training—have to be institutionalized. All of those represent a disruption to your daily routine. It may also give some of your staff and the women you help the sense that you’re turning FirstStep into a fortress.”
“It does seem antithetical to our mission,” she said. “What about the second thing? The follow-through?”
“It’s going to cost money. A lot of it.”
Amanda jumped in. “We wouldn’t have to do all the options, would we, Marty? Or all of them at once?”
“No. But few of them are cheap and most can’t be done incrementally. If you need ten cameras to cover the building, you can’t install one per year for ten years. They all have to go in at the same time to be effective. You can’t train some of the employees, but not others. And some of the options are useless without their complement.”
“Such as?”
“Installing cameras doesn’t help if no one is watching them. Who’s going to do that?”
Diane pursed her lips and Amanda looked down at the faux wood grain of the table top, glum. I wasn’t trying to be the bearer of bad tidings, but I wouldn’t be doing them any favors by sugar-coating the situation, either.
“This isn’t fantastic news,” Diane said after a deep breath, “but not totally unexpected. Can we work with you to get some ballpark costs on each of the options, maybe prioritize each one? Then I can go to our board and make the case for more funding.”
“Sure,” I said. “Is it that easy?”
She smiled wryly. “Not even close. But it’s more compelling going to donors with the idea that our staff might be physically assaulted than, say, asking for a new printer or replacing beds with broken box springs.”
“You’ve talked about what we can do about preventing attacks in the future,” Amanda said. “Is there anything we can do about this particular guy, the one that attacked me?”
“The cops didn’t give you anything on him?”
Diane shook her head. “They did the best they could, but he was masked and disappeared before they arrived. And I know they’ll come back in a heartbeat, but that’s not going to help if he hurts someone again.”
I thought it over. “The girlfriend…Karla, right? Did the cops talk to her?”
Diane and Amanda both nodded, and Diane said, “She wasn’t much help, unfortunately.”
“Did she want to help?” I asked.
“Of course she did,” Amanda replied.
But Diane tilted her head. “I know what he means. It’s not Stockholm syndrome, exactly, but many of the women blame themselves—falsely—for the failure of their relationship and the fact that it ended in violence.”
“The woman may not want to go back to him, but she doesn’t want to see him go to jail, either,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“And where does Karla stand?”
“I’d like to think that she wants her boyfriend to stop coming around, but I don’t know how far she’s willing to go to make that happen,” Diane said.
“We’re at an impasse, then,” I said. “If you have any information on this guy Fincher, though, I could pay him a visit, try to make him see reason.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Mr. Singer,” Diane said, worried. “It might seem tempting to intimidate him in order to stop him from coming here, but one lawsuit or one bad newspaper article could sink us.”
“I understand. I won’t cross any lines. But I might be able to convince this guy that his girlfriend doesn’t want to see him anymore. And neither do we.”
With the way the room was arranged, my back was half turned to the door. I heard it open and, out of habit, turned in my seat
so there wouldn’t be any surprises. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Amanda’s eyes widen just as a familiar voice said, “Diane, I’m sorry to interrupt—”
It was too late, I’d turned all the way around. Standing in the doorway, leaning into the room with one hand on the knob of the door, was a good-looking woman in her late thirties or early forties. She had shoulder-length black hair with a few strands of gray showing, a ski-slope nose, and large, dark brown eyes. Her face was…healthier? more animated?…than the last time I’d seen her, though her stance and the set of her body spoke of an impatience and need to be busy that I remembered, too.
At first, her eyes passed over me without recognition on her way to talk to Diane, then her head snapped back and we locked gazes. Her mouth dropped open, like I’m sure mine already had, as she stared at me. There was a long moment as we simply looked at each other. I stood, knocking my chair over, but by then she’d turned on her heel without a word and fled down the hall, leaving the door to shut behind her.
The blood in my face and head zinged around, doing funny things. I couldn’t tell if I was blushing or was about to pass out. I turned to Amanda. “What the hell is she doing here?”
Diane glanced between us, confused. “Is there a problem?”
Amanda turned to me with a determined look on her face. “She got in touch a few months ago and asked what she could do for the shelter. We needed the help and I didn’t see anything wrong with having her do some pro bono work for us.”
“Did you ever think about telling me?”
She shook her head. “You didn’t need to know, Marty. You two have a history, yes, but it’s not as if she dropped off the face of the Earth after…afterwards. You moved on and so did she. And if someone wants to help, I’m not going to deny them the chance.”
“What is going on here?” Diane demanded, after following our conversation back and forth like a Ping-Pong match.
I ignored her, instead asking Amanda, “Does she have an office here?”
She considered, then nodded tightly. “Mine. On the right. At the end of the hall.”
