Missing Brandy (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 2)

by Susan Russo Anderson

  Sometimes I do this thing where I don’t stop, just keep up the talk like a machine gun—rat-a-tat-tat, that’s what Dad called it—cover one thing and then another like you’re spooning different foods onto your plate without stopping. I do it to see how long she can go without looking at me. I timed it once, and you want to know something, she can go almost ten minutes without lifting her eyes from the page while I’m pumping out the words. That’s how she is.

  Heather wouldn’t want a piercing, I know that. But Heather loves her mom, which has its goods and its bads because the way I figure it, Heather doesn’t know how brain-washed she is.

  Heather says Mom’s afraid. Whatever. I try to be nice and all, but Pah-tricia doesn’t care what I’m thinking. She never tries to talk to me. I start up with this or with that, makes no diff, but I can tell she’s not listening. Like tonight, I tried to tell her how boring gym is and could she write me an excuse because of the cramps, but she doesn’t get it. Know what she said? She told me there’d be lots of things I wouldn’t like doing and lots of cramp days, I’d get them once a month, so I’d better get used to them, and I should just buck up. Her words. Now what the hey? What does ‘buck up’ mean? You’ll be happy you took gym when you’re older, she says. But, Mom … I begin and watch her wince because she wants to be called Trisha, and I can’t do it because there’s a Trisha in my class and I like her. She’s not in our group or anything only because she’s too busy, and anyhow she lives in Flatbush, which is way far away. I’m not quite sure why she lives there or why anybody lives there, to tell you the truth, or how she made it to our school. But she’s nice and all, only she studies all the time and never hangs out with us. Polly said she’s on scholarship. Polly knows everything.

  Getting back to Mom. Pah-tricia, I mean … But mighty woman had spoken, and now she’s disappearing into her tent. I can see it in her eyes beyond those yuck-tinted glasses she wears. Excuse me while I barf. Whatever. So you know what I do? I stand still except for my feet, which rock onto their sides.

  “Don’t do that. You’ll ruin your shoes, and I just spent $89 for them.”

  I’m barely moving, and Pah-tricia’s not looking up, but she knows I’m rocking onto my sides without looking? Like I’m not worth $89? Like, don’t kill my vibe, that’s what she’s doing. Heather’s mom made her a tee shirt that says, Witch, Don’t Kill My Vibe, but I like my poster better. See, when Heather told me about it, I had to have one and went online and bought it. The real thing, Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe. That’s one good thing about Pah-tricia, she lets me use her card if it’s going to be below $25. Anyway, Heather’s tee is black and has a witch’s hat over the words. Heather had it framed.

  Too cute, Polly said. Polly hangs with us. Polly’s rich and likes both her parents but can’t stand her older brother because he smokes in his room, and the smoke travels under his door and down the hall and seeps into her room and chokes her. Polly’s a Catholic, a practicing one. So are we, but we don’t practice. Practicing means Polly has to go to Mass every week or at least sit in a church a lot. Polly showed us how to genuflect and make the sign. It’s a special thing you do with your hands to ward off devils, she told us. Gives me the creeps. But the only devils I have are the ones in my mind—that’s what Granny Liam told me one day when her head was on straight.

  The other person I know who smokes is Aunt Caroline, my dad’s sister, the only one left on his side of the family. Mom hates her. Says she has no discipline. Aunt Caroline’s this author, and every time she writes something, it makes it onto the New York Times Bestseller List because she puts weird stuff in them and has a good agent—that’s what Dad told me once—so now she thinks that whatever she says is cute. Mom’s words. But I like Aunt Caroline. She invited me to see a play once. I forget what it was called. I hated it, but pretended I loved it—some grown-up thing. But Aunt Caroline had this black limo pick me up, and I remember Dad standing in front of the windows in his study looking out at me and waving as the driver helped me into the car. I might not make it without him.

  Wouldn’t you know, Aunt Caroline wailed at Dad’s wake and disgraced the family, Mom said. Granny Liam said it was like an angel was standing at the casket squeezing Caroline’s tits. “How could you die and leave your family?” Aunt Caroline blubbered. Too creeped out if you ask me. In the hearse on the way to the cemetery? That was the worst. I was hemmed in between Caroline and Pah-tricia. Each one sending the other barbed thoughts, Granny told me afterwards.

  When Dad died, it killed Granny’s mind. Like a wounded bird wing, a puff of smoke, it was gone in a month. Then it came back, some of it, but now it flits around. You never can tell what’s going to come out of her mouth, that’s why I like being with her.

  Granny across the street from us with a maid and a cook, and sometimes she calls me up and says, “Don’t tell your mother, but Cook’s made pea soup. Come on over for supper, and we’ll tell ghost stories starring your mother and Aunt Caroline.” That’s how she talks. What Granny doesn’t know, if I told Pah-tricia, she wouldn’t hear it anyways. She doesn’t listen to me. So if I wasn’t doing something with my friends, I’d take my books and run over to Granny’s because Granny would make sure that I’d done my homework before she started telling her stories. And the food is better at her house, too.

  Don’t get me wrong, Pah-tricia isn’t all bad. Not totally. And she does try hard to cook. It just doesn’t turn out good. Better just to swallow it and get dinner over with.

  Dad used to say I can pretend with the best of them. But I couldn’t with him. He always knew what was on my mind.

  And another thing, when I told Pah-tricia about the Earth Day celebration last month, making sure to set my fork down quietly and keep my hands in my lap, sitting up straight like she wants me to and sipping at my water glass, she said it sounded like a Communist plot. Her words. She said the school is wonderful and has a rich tradition of academia—barf on whatever that is—and I should study as hard as I can and learn everything. “Drink it in.” That’s one of her favorites, but when it comes to philosophy and who to vote for and stuff, the teachers should stay out of it, and she didn’t care if I didn’t listen to them. That’s when I zinged her good. “Like, I s’pose, you don’t listen to me.” That got her. She stopped and did that thing with her lips I hate where she presses them close together like you’re supposed to do when you blot them. She said a lot of teachers were close to being Socialists, and when I looked it up, being a Socialist didn’t sound like such a bad thing, except about the private property part.

  After Dad died and Granny sort of went away, there was only Aunt Caroline, and at best she was a long subway ride away. Upper East Side facing the park where she lived with a rich guy named Rick. He invested in TV stations, whatever that means. Aunt Caroline took me to Central Park, and we’d walk, and she’d tell me stories about being in college and being with men and which men to watch out for. Most of it was boring. Aunt Caroline was not as good as Dad or Granny, but she was a whole lot better than Pah-tricia. But Caroline’s left me, too. London. Across the pond, that’s what she calls it. Tells me I should visit, but I don’t know. Granny shakes her head, and Pah-tricia says I have to be older.

  Aunt Caroline sleeps around. That’s what Granny told me once, and that’s why I love Granny, at least when she’s being herself. But sometimes she lies in bed and hugs her purse and stares at me, and I know she’s far away. “That’s what old people do,” Caroline told me once. But when she’s here, I mean really here, Granny Liam tells me stuff she isn’t supposed to. I can see her eyes getting papery and can hear her throat getting all whispery. “Now don’t tell your mother I said this.” That’s how she starts up, and a chill goes up my arms, and I know I’m going to hear juicy stuff.

  Chapter 5

  Henry. Early That Morning, Before The Take

  Henry leaned against his van. He’d parked it on the other side of Joralemon so he could watch the kids walking to school in a few hours. With l
uck, the girl would grab a juice from the deli. She’d done that every day for the past two weeks. Sometimes, though, she skipped her little trip to the store. If she didn’t go, they’d have to postpone it. No matter. Either way, he was prepared. He rehearsed the moves in his head, felt his legs twitch in time to the movie in his mind, just like a dancer. Six o’clock, barely light, but he had to be early. As it was, he’d gone around the block twice and hovered in the van, waiting twenty minutes for the right space. Twenty minutes, what was twenty minutes? He’d waited over fourteen years for this moment. In his mind, Stuart lay in his hospital bed. “I love you, Daddy. See you tomorrow.” Henry canted a foot to the side so he could examine the sole of his running shoe. Pretty worn, he’d have to get a new pair soon.

  The girl was young with long curls—fiery when the sun hit them just right. Her name was Brandy. He’d watched her. He’d scoped her out, all right, knew all her outfits. Today she wore the black tights with the lime green hooded affair and the clunky braid she sometimes had with those kinky curls sticking out like wayward tendrils. Kids today didn’t need to get all dressed up.

  He wondered what his boy would be wearing. He’d been a boy, all boy. Never cared for clothes. His mom had to lay out his outfits for him. Too young, didn’t have a chance, not like this girl. She had everything. But face it, his boy wouldn’t be a boy now, would he? He’d be close to twenty-one. The thought made his forehead sweat. This girl had lived almost twice as long as his son had.

  Stuart’s death was his fault. He should have stayed with him. Instead, he let the hospital kill him. It was all his doing—his and the lawyer’s. She had to bear some of the blame. She was so smug in court. He couldn’t believe the jury fell for her argument. He didn’t care about the money, didn’t need the money. With it, he was going to set up a scholarship in Stuart’s name. He remembered watching the lawyer as they waited for the foreman to finish reading the verdict, the moment when Henry’s dreams vanished. Just like the hospital murdered his son, so the lawyer murdered what Stuart’s memory could have meant for others. He’d get her through her daughter. He’d get her, all right.

  He’d seen the girl often enough bounding down her stoop, running to Remsen and picking up her friend. He’d timed her walk. Never varied. Her friend might be a problem, though. Then again, probably not—it would all happen so fast.

  Heather was the friend’s name. By the time Heather would look around, the space the girl had occupied would be filled by ten other kids. Nature abhors a vacuum. So it had to happen fast and in the right spot. It had to be rehearsed. The timing was key. Hence the importance of the van’s position. And the color. He’d worked on that, too. At first he thought a bronze color would melt into the scenery, but there was something about bronze that made it stand out. So he switched the color in his mind to maroon. No, wouldn’t do, and finally had his friend mix him two car colors. Paid extra for that. Came out almost like army green only a little lighter, a light olive green. Blended in nicely with the color of leaves in spring.

  His jaw began to ache, and he realized he’d been clenching his teeth again. Must stay relaxed. Couldn’t afford the mistakes brought about by tension. He stretched his neck, moving his head from side to side. Events today must be free-flowing, timed to perfection.

  In the beginning, he thought he’d work alone. Safer that way. He’d heard about deals going sour, one partner grassing on the other, and he didn’t want that to happen. He thought long and hard about involving Ben. He wasn’t worried about giving him the money he’d asked for. Henry had that and more to spare.

  Except for that one time, there’d never been cross words between him and Ben. They’d met on one of Henry’s many commutes from Central New Jersey to Manhattan. How many years ago was it? He remembered the first time he’d seen him on the station platform over fourteen years ago. Tall with blond hair sticking up on his crown like straw. It was six months after Stuart’s death, a couple of years before 9/11, when the Hamilton Station first opened and a few hardy souls began trading seven or eight extra driving minutes for a pleasanter ride to Manhattan. Ben, whom he’d glimpsed on an irregular basis at first, soon became a familiar face, offering him a nod, a sympathetic smile, and after a while, they exchanged a few words of greeting.

  It must have been on one of those slow summer commutes back from the city—the stop and start kind with the air conditioning on the fritz and the hot green forest staring back at them and the shafts of light illuminating summer dust. That was it, that’s when they’d introduced themselves, and they began talking about this and that. Yes, it was on one of those days when there was even more confusion than usual and the misery of Stuart’s death hurt like an open wound. Their train had just pulled out of New Brunswick when it ground to a halt. Another switch problem, Henry thought. They were in the middle of nowhere when the conductor made the announcement of a train derailment. In the charged air, that’s when he’d told Ben about losing his boy. The words just tumbled from his lips. He didn’t know why, but a weight lifted from him for a while after he talked to Ben that first time.

  “In for his normal appointment. They’d found a murmur, that’s all. Next thing I knew, he was dead. Six years old. I left him alone the night before he died. I shouldn’t have. He’d be alive if I hadn’t left him. The casket was so small, a mourner had remarked, it looked like a shoebox.”

  “How long ago?” Ben had asked.

  “Six months.”

  “Sue the bastards.”

  Henry remembered the woman sitting behind them. She tapped him on the shoulder. “Excuse me, but do you know how disgusting you two are? Where’s your regard for others? You both have been yapping the whole time, full pitch. So shut up, already.”

  The train started up, juddered to a halt.

  “Bitch,” Ben muttered.

  “Backing up,” the conductor said, grim as he strode through the aisle, both hands hitting the tops of each seat row.

  Henry remembered his clothes smelling like burnt oil. He put his nose near his underarms and sniffed. Slightly sour and they hadn’t even gotten to New Brunswick. “He died six months ago. Ground frozen. It had snowed, and I still see Susan’s shoe prints in the snow. Didn’t feel the cold, she told me. Three months later she was gone. Hasn’t written.” He blinked, remembering.

  Ben muttered his condolences. Henry knew the man hadn’t known what to say. A decent sort.

  But the memory of Ben and their first conversation faded, and Henry was in a different place. “Playing with the truck I brought you, Stuart? I’ll say good night, then.” He bent and kissed his son’s forehead. He smelled disinfectant.

  “Bye, Dad. I love you.”

  Chapter 6

  Fina. Evening One, Trisha Liam’s Study Revisited

  After I said good night to Trisha Liam—for the first time, as it happened—I turned on the ignition and sat in my car while it idled. The driver waiting to take my space went ballistic. But something was gnawing at the fringes of my mind. For one thing, Trisha Liam didn’t want to talk about her husband’s death. For another, I just didn’t have a fix on the Liam family, Brandy included. So to the roar of Mr. Impatient, I got out of my car and rang Trisha Liam’s bell again. She looked like she’d been crying for real.

  “I need to ask more questions. I don’t feel like I know your daughter.”

  “How could you? I don’t know her.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I just need a little more time with the books and the pictures in your study. It’s the way I work.”

  “I told you—I don’t have a study, I have a conservatory.” She gestured toward the back of the house.

  In her conservatory or study or whatever the hell it was, I headed for the bookshelf. “Tell me about these people.” I held up the black-and-white photo I’d seen earlier in the evening when Trisha was fetching my water. “I recognize you, and that’s Brandy when she was maybe ten. Is that your husband?”

  She nodded. “He’s dead.”

&nb
sp; “Can you tell me about his death?” I thought she was going to faint any minute, so I suggested we sit.

  When we got comfortable, Trisha asked, “What does Mitch’s death have to do with finding Brandy?”

  “A lot. You’re a smart lawyer. How do you begin preparing a case?”

  “Sometimes maybe you dance around and around the main point.”

  We were seated in front of the bay window, and through the haze, I saw lights moving on the East River. I watched them as she talked.

  “It happened before I knew it. Sometimes sudden things keep on happening. They happen over and over until you think you’re going mad. But you’re doing it to yourself, of course.”

  I nodded, knowing too well what she was talking about. Grief.

  Trisha rubbed her forehead. “The change of seasons, for one thing. A year’s turning. Another spring without him, and I wonder how much is left of him sealed underneath the cold ground. I think of him young and grinning and in court, the first time we met. He was defending a member of the Brooklyn mafia, and I was prosecuting. ‘How can you defend a man like that, obviously guilty,’ I asked him over coffee. Mitch stepped right up to the plate. He was like that.”

  I nodded, not wanting to interrupt her moment of peace.

  “He smiled, and it was such an engaging smile that I forgot to listen to his words about reasonable doubt and the rights of man. I just stared at his bow tie bobbing up and down. And that’s how our friendship started. A cataclysmic meeting of opposites. That was close to twenty years ago.”

  Her makeup had worn off by a fresh load of tears making paths down her cheeks. She closed her eyes, and I could see the blue circles of flesh beneath them. The woman was filled with fear and needed a diversion, so I let her speak of another time.