There’s a park where we hang out. It’s near the water at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. You can see Fulton Landing and across the East River to the old seaport of Manhattan where the ghost of shipbuilders and pirates slither around—Dad again. But sometimes we go to the Promenade and tell stories and just talk. Or we go to the ballpark across Atlantic Street and watch a game or the guys show off, you know how they do. And that’s about it, except for hanging outside the big bookstore on Court, the one next to the movies, but Pah-tricia doesn’t know about that. Julia has dates, with one boy, too. I’ve seen them—they go to movies and kiss. And once, Johnny Fulcrum asked me to go with him, but, yuck, the thought of it, no thanks. Anyhow, I was polite to him when I said I don’t think so.
So you see, I’ve got a set of friends surrounding me, each one giving me strength because each one has a part or at least is about to have a part in my story. And each one has a past. We all have a past, at least that’s what Dad always said. I liked it best when he talked that way to me, about my friends and all. He knew everything.
Take Polly. She comes from someplace in Ohio—that’s what she told us—St. Norbert’s School in Cleveland or in Cincinnati, one of those. And her whole family—her extended family, Mrs. Coltran calls them—is back in Ohio. But a couple of years ago, her dad lost his job or got transferred or something, which is about like losing your life, Dad told me.
Dad died biting into a sandwich one day at his desk, and his head did a free-fall into the cottage cheese. At least that’s what Mom said. I heard her one day talking on the phone when she didn’t know I was in the room, and wouldn’t you know, just then a ship’s horn sounded, and she jumped and started crying. I think it was Dad pinching her like he used to when he was alive.
I remember the day he died. Mrs. Coltran’s homeroom was interrupted when Serious Witch, that’s the principal, knocked on the door. I kind of knew something was up because Polly, who’d been trying to get my attention about something, all at once blew air out of her mouth and sat straight and slammed her shoes together. Dad once told me she folds her hands on the desk because she’s Catholic, and he said they have a bridge in Cincinnati, where Polly came from, that’s almost like the Brooklyn Bridge, his all-time favorite structure. If you’ve got to have an all-time favorite, he used to say, it should be a bridge and not a house because a bridge connects. Enough bridges and everyone will be connected. But getting back to the day Dad died, just telling you about it makes that knobbly thing start up between my stomach and my throat. I know that day changed me forever. That’s what Mrs. Coltran says.
There’s something about Dad you ought to know. I didn’t know it until after he was dead, but his real name was Colm. Only he always wrote it C. Mitchell Liam, as if the angels taught him, Granny said.
“Himself gave Mitch that wayward spark.” That’s the way Granny talks. She calls my grandfather Himself. “You’d think they were born to charm and break all the rules. And they did, believe me. We had two charmers, Himself and me.” And she makes the sign of the cross. “If you hold your thumb and two fingers together while you’re signing yourself, the devils slink away,” according to Granny Liam, and Dad’s eyes would grin when she’d talk like that.
Sometimes Dad would smile without his mouth getting involved at all. “Genes from Himself,” Granny would say. “That’s how he got to be such a good lawyer. Only he didn’t make the big money,” Granny said. “Too busy defending all the poor unwashed. That’s how he met your mother. In court, downtown Brooklyn. Your mother was prosecuting the poor unwashed, upholding all the Sly Brooklyn Buggers. Yes, your mother was born a prosecutor, my sweet Brandywine.” Her name for me. “She’d prosecute the Blessed Virgin, send her down in a blink, but don’t tell her I told you so.” Then she’d cross herself and say, “Excuse me, Lord, for saying such bad things about the boring.” And I knew who Granny meant. I felt bad for Mom then, and my heart started thumping. My cheeks burned, and my skin puckered at the back of my neck, but I never said a word, just sat on the edge of Granny’s bed and stared out like the gutless wonder I am.
Yesterday Johnny Fulcrum asked me once again to go with him and his parents to a Yankee game, and I had to think fast and not look at his eyes because they were jumpy, but I told him I couldn’t. “Sorry,” was all I had the guts to say. I wondered why he chose baseball, but then I remembered telling the kids about the Yankees and how they were Dad’s favorite team. That was right after Dad died when Mrs. Coltran asked me to talk about him in class. Johnny must have remembered. It killed me to look at Johnny’s face after I said no, and I almost changed my mind, but then I thought, I should let myself be seen with Johnny Fulcrum? Heather would have said yes just to be nice, but I’m not that good. I didn’t tell Heather about Johnny asking me to the Yankee game. I didn’t tell anyone.
Mrs. Coltran had a baby girl last Tuesday, so now we have a substitute teacher. Old. Has to be at least forty-five with gray hair. She thinks I should be in advanced reading, but she dresses like Granny used to when Granny dressed, so what does she know.
Heather has three brothers and five sisters, and she said I shouldn’t complain because I have the whole house to myself, and all I have to do is close the door to my room. When her oldest sister leaves, Heather can have her room, but that won’t be for a long time because her sister’s only sixteen. The only private place Heather has is in the bathroom, but she has to share, and then there’s school—if she eats her lunch fast and goes back into the classroom, she can be alone. She likes to come over, and we sit and talk in my room. Sometimes Julia and Ginger come over, too, and we can really talk. We cover everything, boys mostly, especially Zac Efron. Julia and Ginger both have this humongous thing for him. I’m not sure about him. He’s cute and all, and I like looking at him, but really, he doesn’t turn me all gushy like he does Ginger. Still, he’s cuter than any boy at Packer Collegiate. Well, maybe that’s not true, but not anyone who’d talk to me.
My friends and I talk mostly about boys. Julia says Johnny Fulcrum is sweet on me, and Ginger starts to laugh and says, “He IS!” in that squeaky voice of hers and holds a hand to her mouth. “No,” I say, “I know he doesn’t like me, not at all, please say he doesn’t like me.” Heather says he’s kind of cute, and Ginger squeals, “How COULD you! Got zits like pineapples!” “Well, he told my brother he likes you,” Julia says. Julia has a brother who’s real good looking. He’s a sophomore, which is why Julia knows a lot. Anyway, her brother’s grin is cool even though he still wears braces. His smile’s going to be total cool when he’s finished with the metal. Sometimes I see him on Joralemon or in the hall waiting outside Julia’s homeroom. Now if Julia’s brother asked me to a Yankee game, I’d say sure, but he never would.
That’s the good thing about Packer Collegiate. They have this program after senior year where you can study at Oxford for a summer, but from the time you’re in kindergarten, you know you’re going to college. That’s what it’s all about, the teachers say. I don’t buy that totally, but maybe it’s true, I guess.
There’s a lot of waiting when you’re thirteen. Right now I’m thinking Arizona State, someplace as far away from here as I can get, as long as my friends go, too. But getting back to Packer, you get to spend your whole life in one school, from kindergarten through high school, which means the teachers get to know us, and we see a lot of Desirables. That’s what Agnes calls older boys. Agnes is going to be a writer. She spends time reading the dictionary and stuff, especially the Urban Dictionary. She says you’ve got to put the right word in its proper slot. Call a spade a spade, Dad would say. He used to grade me on knowing what I really feel inside. Right before he died, I’d gotten up to a fifty percent, but I know I’ve slipped some since then. Still, my Johnny Fulcrum decision was a good one, even though his eyes kind of haunt me.
When we don’t talk about boys or clothes or music, we squeeze in teachers and parents. Heather says her mom’s busy all the time, but she knows she loves her by the way s
he looks at her, like she’s the only person in the whole world, and whenever she has something big to tell her, Heather says her mom stops what she’s doing, no matter what, and listens to her with both ears. They go into the front room, and Heather’s mom sits next to her, and there’s no one else, Heather says, you can see it in her eyes. I wish that would happen to me. But Julia says I don’t know how lucky I am. Her mother wants her to tell her everything, I mean, like, everything. Julia has a point.
My mom’s not a total witch, I guess. She calls me sometimes and tells me she’ll be late and that she loves me and misses me and let’s do something fun on the weekend, as if she knows what fun is, but I know it’ll be different when she gets home. “I’d better talk to Brandy,” her eyes say when she walks in the door. For real. Like I don’t know it’s a game with her. She can hardly wait for dinner to be over because then she can disappear. She goes into her conservatory. That’s what she calls it, where she works at her boring cases and briefs. I barely understand what she does, something to do with lawyers, and I don’t want to know. But it can’t be cool, like writing kids’ stories or, even better, TV sitcoms, because cool she doesn’t get. That’s it, she just doesn’t get it.
Heather says she’s that way because Dad died. But that’s wrong, I know, because she was like that when Dad was alive, only she had him to straighten her out. Yes, but Heather’s mom says it’s hard when there’s just one parent. I have to think about that. Doesn’t have to be true just because Heather’s mom says it is, Mrs. Coltran says, then suggests I read stories about girls with single moms. I wish Mrs. Coltran would come back. School’s not as fun with the substitute. You should have my homeroom teacher, Heather says. No thanks, I say. Once Mrs. Coltran gave me a book, supposed to be a diary about a teen who killed herself, like I was going to do myself in. I looked at the cover, and that was that. So even the good teachers don’t understand us.
Heather’s the one who told me about Harry Potter, and I like his books, but I like the Scout Finch book better, the one about the mockingbird. I wish she’d write more, except Mom told me she wasn’t six when she wrote it. Mom’s the one who gave that book to me. None of my friends liked it, but I did. She tries, Pah-tricia does, and I guess I’ve come to the conclusion that you can’t blame her. Take the clothes she wears. And those glasses. She was old the day she was born, that’s what Heather thinks. Whatever.
Chapter 9
Henry. His Backstory, Part Two
Early on before his plan was fully formed, Henry discovered that Liam had a daughter. The daughter enjoyed a perfect childhood. Younger than his son would have been had he lived.
He stalked the girl. No, that was wrong. He wasn’t stalking her, he told himself; he wasn’t that stupid, not at all. No, he was planning. He watched her leave most weekday mornings at seven twenty when she’d run down the stairs, walk down to Remsen and knock on a door. A girl, taller than the Liam child with straight black hair, would emerge, and they’d walk on Joralemon across Court Street to a door with a banner hanging over it. Their school, Packer Collegiate. The time she left her home was always seven twenty. A few times she’d be late, seven twenty-two or -three, and she’d be in a rush, struggling with her coat and backpack, hurrying down the same path. Then the girl with the black hair would be waiting outside, and the two of them would walk to school. On rare occasions, the tall girl would knock on the Liam door, and a few minutes later, they’d both walk to school.
Henry watched. He waited all day several times, running back and forth, but the Liam girl never left school until three thirty-five at the earliest, oftentimes later. After-school activities, he figured. So her afternoon routine was less predictable than her morning regimen. Sometimes she’d be with only one girl—the one with straight black hair—sometimes the two would be in a group. They’d walk down Hicks or Henry, traveling in a pack, sometimes back to the Liam house. No, the afternoon wouldn’t do.
Ben told him he needed a key to the plan. He needed a way in.
Before the girl went to school, the lawyer left the house at six ten or six fifteen. And before that, a woman would arrive, usually by five fifty. She was tall, a willowy brunette, and she wore a brown coat. She wore the same coat rain or shine, hot or cold. Nothing fancy, but not shabby either. A few minutes after the lawyer got home in the early evening, sometimes later, the door would open, and the willowy woman would leave. A servant, probably a housekeeper, he guessed. She was important, Ben told him, the key. So he began watching the house, too, waiting for the willowy woman while he ran by with whoever else happened to be running by, too, on their way to the Promenade. His cover. He didn’t stop at the house, but circled around the block. He’d see the housekeeper arrive with the morning sun while the limo waited for the lawyer. They’d wave to each other, the housekeeper and the driver, and the woman would take out her key and enter the lawyer’s house. Then Liam would get into the black car and disappear.
Sometimes in the evening, the housekeeper would stand on the stoop and talk to the lawyer, then flap a hand in the air, her back bent in a self-deprecatory farewell, and walk swiftly toward the subway entrance and the setting sun. There was something about the housekeeper that made Henry feel sad.
It took him a while to figure out that she had a day off once a week. But that day would change. Sometimes her off day was a string of Wednesdays. Abruptly it would move to Thursday or Tuesday. But always one and only one day off a week. Never on the weekends and never on Monday or Friday. On special occasions, either an important holiday or for no discernible reason, there were others who came to the house about midday. Servants like the housekeeper, he guessed, maybe to help with a party or to do a spring cleaning. The rich often had their houses scrubbed top to bottom. Invariably the days of multiple servants would be on a Monday, Friday, or Saturday, but each time, the housekeeper would let them in.
“She’s your wedge,” he heard Ben say. Ben was right. He needed the housekeeper.
When he’d had enough of watching the house, he followed the willowy woman to the Clark Street Station and took the Downtown N with her, hopping onto a different car, but all the while watching her through the window. When she transferred to the D train, so did he. He got off with her at Seventy-Ninth Street in Bensonhurst. Like a thin herd of cattle, the riders pounded up the steps. It was February, and the roads were slick, the few pedestrians burrowed into themselves. He followed her to the shops on Eighteenth Avenue. When she walked into an old-fashioned mom-and-pop grocery store and butcher shop, so did he. It was like that for months. Maybe close to a year. Once she nodded to him, and he froze, then smiled back. But he made sure he kept out of sight for months after that. He followed her home each night, stood behind a tree across the street, waiting like some pervert as she entered her building, his fingers frozen or his ears filled with sweat or ooze from the sky. And all the while, Henry planned.
Chapter 10
Fina. Evening One, Trisha Liam’s Study, Continued
I let Trisha Liam have her moment. If I had a daughter and she was missing, I’d be screaming. I’d break several bones of whoever else was in the room. “Then your housekeeper will have to let me in,” I said, scratching a note to myself.
“You have carte blanche,” she said, “and don’t forget to take Mitch’s satchel.” She reached underneath the desk and pulled out a large briefcase, whacking it onto the desk. “Haven’t touched whatever’s inside.” She put her nose to the leather, breathed in, and that started a fresh load of tears.
Her husband’s death was but a faint scratch at the edge of my mind. Maybe, just maybe it might have some connection to Brandy’s disappearance, but I needed to get back on track and find out more about this missing thirteen-year-old by way of talking to her extended family and friends.
“So who snapped the three of you waving in that picture?”
She looked in the direction of the black-and-white photo on the shelf. “Must have been Mitch’s mother. I swear things were perfect between Mit
ch and me for the first ten minutes of our relationship. Then I met his parents.”
“Tell me about them.” The faces of Denny’s parents galloped through my brain, but I shoved them away.
“His mother, especially. By the time we met, his father was retired and drunk most of the time. He always had a wobbly peck on the cheek for me, and that’s about all his mind could take. She was a pistol, and he was her foil. But you don’t choose your in-laws, do you?”
Trisha Liam was quiet for a time before she plowed on. “In a moment of honesty, I’ll admit it—I think the mutual dislike of his mother and me was mostly on my side. When you’re young, it’s hard to love your mother-in-law. But she was easier to take when the old man was alive.
“Now him I loved. A judge with lots of friends. Retired from the circuit court. Mitch’s father and Granny Liam entertained a lot, right up to the day he died. He smoked those foul cigars and drank only the best whisky. Drank a bottle of champagne before lunch, Granny Liam told me not long ago. Pickled good when he died.”
She stared into the blackness beyond. “I’m afraid to tell Madeleine about Brandy.”
“That’s Granny Liam?”
She nodded. “She doesn’t have to know about it, not yet. She and Brandy are like this.” The lawyer intertwined two fingers. “Not that she spoils Brandy. Far from it. But she knows how to talk to her. They have a thing going on, those two, more so after her husband died.” She paused to take a breath. “After Mitch went, well, Madeleine’s mind started to drift; you know how some of the elderly are. Brandy still trots over there on Tuesday evenings and whenever else her grandmother calls for her.”
Missing Brandy (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 2) Page 5
