Idyll Hands

by Stephanie Gayle

DETECTIVE MICHAEL FINNEGAN

  FRIDAY, MAY 14, 1999

  1115 HOURS

  Across from me, at his desk, Lewis aligned his stapler, labeled with his name. His office-supply possessiveness was silly. It meant his stuff routinely went missing. When the fellas got bored, they’d make off with his scissors. Lewis would bluster and storm about. A little afternoon diversion for those who enjoyed it.

  He said, “I haven’t eaten. Wanna grab a sub from Papano’s?”

  “My turn?” It was, and I knew it. But giving in too easy took half of his joy away.

  “Definitely your turn.” He handed me two fives. “Ham and cheese.”

  “Lettuce, tomato, mayo, and sweet peppers,” I said. We knew each other’s lunch orders by heart. I tucked his money into my back pocket. I should’ve paid. It was my turn, and Wright had a wife and two kids, but I had three exes and three kids and two jobs that barely paid for all of them, so Wright picked up the tab more often. I didn’t like it, but I appreciated it.

  “Hey, detectives, you want in on the action?” Dix called. He was at the coffee machine, examining the stale baked goods on offer.

  We wandered over, and I picked up a bagel, tapped it against the table. The thing nearly dented the wood. “Jesus. How long has this been here?”

  “Three days,” Lewis said.

  “Hopkins will eat it,” Dix said. He scratched his beard. I’d never known him to wear facial hair. His mustache was redder than his beard. The look screamed porn actor. Not star, mind you, just actor.

  “What action are you promising?” Lewis asked. Surprising. He wasn’t a betting man. His father had been a bookkeeper who’d taught him never to bet. House always wins.

  “We’re taking bets on whether the new dispatcher will ask Donna on a date before the end of the week,” Dix said. Donna Daniels was the well-endowed bartender at Suds, who’d been nicknamed ‘DD’ by the brain trust of Idyll drinkers.

  I filled my coffee mug. “He’s been here two weeks. Maybe call him by his name.”

  “What’s that again?” Dix asked.

  “Hugh Bascomb. He likes fast cars, the Atlanta Braves, and the TV show Friends.” In response to Dix’s raised brows I said, “I’m a detective and he talks, a lot, in case you haven’t noticed. Also, what are the odds that he’ll ask her out?”

  Dix rubbed his mustache. “Two to one on.”

  “Not worth it,” Wright said.

  “True,” I agreed. “Besides, he’ll do it.”

  “Why so confident?” Dix asked.

  “I know people, Dix. It’s one of my many skills. He’ll ask her, before the week is out.”

  “Ah, yes, but will she accept?” he asked.

  “That, Dix, is up to the lady.”

  Lewis said, “And the lady, by all accounts, doesn’t take on fixer-uppers.”

  Dix whistled. “Harsh, Detective.”

  I said, “If you’ll excuse us, Dix, we have important work to do.” Lunch was important. Second most important meal of the day.

  Dix called, “Oh yeah? What? Another house party thrown by sophomores, or did you finally catch whoever has been tossing clamshells along Piper Street?”

  “Who does that?” Lewis asked, not for the first time. “Those things stink, and they’re covered in maggots.” I’d only driven past the carnage. Lewis was head of the investigation. Lucky guy.

  “Someone on that street pissed off somebody. And the pissed-off person has access to a lot of clamshells,” I said, for the sixth time, or was it the seventh?

  “I’ve talked to everyone who lives on that street,” Lewis said. He held up his hand. “Eighty-year-old widower who makes World War II dioramas.” He curled his index finger to his palm. “Young married couple with a set of twins.” He curled down his middle finger. “The couple who run the dry cleaners, the Silvanos.”

  “Maybe they ruined someone’s shirt,” Dix said.

  “I looked into customer complaints,” he said. “None of ’em were that angry. And none of the complainers owned a clam farm or a boat. Next up we have the Jax family.” He curled in his ring finger, which told me he’d discounted them as targets.

  “Hey, the Jax kid is the QB of the Idyll Marauders. Maybe someone doesn’t like his record?” Dix asked.

  “They were 10–1 last year,” Lewis said. “Besides, the clams appeared the last week of April. Not during football season.”

  “Maybe the QB broke some hearts?” Dix suggested.

  “That’s possible,” I said. “Teen girls can be aggressive in their displays of anger.”

  Dix said, “You still on about those posters? We got them down quick.”

  “Quickly,” I corrected, out of habit. “Stacy MacMoore might have a different view.” Her parents did. They wanted the girls who’d hung the posters branding their daughter a slut arrested.

  “You think it’s a rampaging band of teen girls?” Lewis asked.

  “On the face of it, sure,” I said. “Why not?” I had a daughter, and I remembered her teen years. They were not filed with sugar, spice, and everything nice. They were filled with sulky looks, hormonal exchanges, and heartbreaking episodes of self-doubt inspired by peer pressure.

  My phone rang. I had to shift stacks of reports and empty chip bags to reach it.

  “Michael, I have the box. Come get it.” Her voice was breathy, annoyed.

  I stood and tucked in my shirt. Checked myself for obvious stains. “I’m off to see Lady Du. I’ll pick up lunch after that.”

  Lewis shook his head. “Barking up the wrong tree. She’s known you too long. I still can’t believe she lets you get away with calling her that.”

  “Lady Du? It’s a title of respect.”

  “So you say. If I called her that, she’d ruler my knuckles.”

  Behind her office door, a typewriter was being abused. I opened the door and said, “Hello.” She looked up. Her eyeglasses slid down her nose. Her pinned-up hair had gotten loose. That hair was grayer than when we’d first met, eighteen years ago, but I still saw her in there, the younger Grace Dunsmore. I was the only one who could. Even Hopkins, who’d known her as long, never saw the lighter, funny side of her. His loss.

  “Detective Finnegan.” She continued typing at the same rate an AK-47 discharges bullets.

  “You have the box?” I prompted. It wasn’t in sight.

  She stopped and tilted her head to the side. “What’ve you gotten yourself into now?”

  “Nothing. When the mayor came by earlier, Chief skedaddled into the Evidence room.”

  “And found the Colleen box,” she finished. “What’s in there he shouldn’t see?”

  There was no point lying. She’d ferret out the truth. I’d always said she was the best detective in the station. It annoyed Chief Lynch, but that didn’t make it untrue. “The DNA report I had run, a few years back. It’s in the folder.”

  “Ah,” she said. “I see.”

  “How’d you get it back from him?”

  She pointed to the small closet. “In there.” She wasn’t going to reveal her tricks. Okay. She’d gotten it away from him, and that was all that mattered.

  Her gray raincoat hung above the box. I opened the box and pulled the Jane Doe folder out. There was my typed report from sixteen years ago. My name at the top: Detective Michael Finnegan. The report was short. One page and a half. Too many questions, and very few answers. I leafed to the back and pulled out a sheet. “DNA Test Results.” The form was a tangle of scientific abbreviations and numbers. The top was easy to read, though. Under MOTHER was “Patricia Finnegan.” Under FATHER was “James Finnegan.” Under SAMPLE was “UNKNOWN.” The DNA lab didn’t use the term Jane Doe. They called them “unknowns.” This was the sheet I couldn’t have Chief Lynch getting his hands on. I tucked it inside my breast pocket and put the folder back inside, below the bone and the skirt and the watch. “Back in the closet?”

  “Why not?” she said. “It’ll keep the Chief honest. He can’t investigate if he can’t
find it.”

  “You think he wouldn’t look in here?” We exchanged a look, and then laughed. He’d sooner search the mayor’s office.

  And, like that, he appeared. In the doorway, holding up a paper. I peered. It couldn’t be. I had that paper in my jacket.

  He closed the door behind him and said, “What the hell is this?”

  Grace looked my way and swallowed. She opened her mouth. I shook my head at her. She’d tried, but this wasn’t her secret, wasn’t her story.

  “You had Colleen’s bone tested against your parents’ DNA?” he asked, incredulous.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  I’d managed to keep it a secret from everyone here but Grace for over twenty years. I should’ve known it couldn’t stay secret forever. The house always wins.

  “I thought it belonged to my sister, Susan,” I said.

  “Susan? I thought your sister’s name was Carol.” He glanced at Grace and then me, sure he was being hoodwinked.

  “My older sister’s name is Carol. My younger sister’s name is Susan. She went missing in 1972. She’s still missing.”

  OFFICER MICHAEL FINNEGAN

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1972

  CHARLESTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS

  The man held a dishtowel to his head. He sat on the stoop, his feet splayed. The towel was soaked with blood. “Fucking Walter,” he said, only it sounded like “Walt-ah.” You knew a local by how they said, “car,” “bubbler,” and “idea.” Idea had an r at the end of it.

  “Walter?” I asked, pen at the ready.

  “I owed him dough for some broken filly couldn’t race her way out of a paper bag. Name of Flash Lightning. Ha!” His laugh sounded like a rock tumbler in action. “He came ’round to collect. Told him I didn’t get paid ’til Friday, just like everybody else. He broke a Miller bottle and cut me with it!” He pointed to a wet section of brick.

  “Where’s Walter now?” I asked.

  “Upstairs.” He pointed to the door behind him.

  “He lives here? What’s his last name?”

  “McDonough, and no, he’s up in my place.” He pulled the towel from his head. The cut above his eyebrow was long and jagged. The bleeding had slowed, and the cut didn’t look deep. Nothing time and ice and staying away from the racetrack couldn’t heal.

  “Might want to ice it,” I said. “What’s he doing upstairs, in your place?”

  “Fucking my girlfriend, Sheila.” He sighed. “He said that ought to cover half my debt.”

  I stopped writing. “You pimped out your girlfriend for half of your debt to Walter?”

  “Well, I don’t get paid ’til Friday, do I?”

  When I signed up to be a cop, I pictured myself arresting drug dealers and low-level Mob flunkies, the scum that operated on street corners and outside movie theaters. I didn’t see myself talking with idiot gamblers who couldn’t pick a winning nag, and who paid their debts with whatever sad Betty was willing to shack up with them.

  “I’m going up there,” I said.

  “Why?” he asked. “They ain’t done yet.”

  “Because I’d like to hear that Sheila is okay with this arrangement.” I stepped past him and jogged up the creaking stairs to the second floor, hand atop my club, just in case it got messy. From behind the door, Tom Jones sang, “She’s a Lady.” I pounded the cracked, blue door.

  “Hold your horses!” a woman yelled. A half minute later the door swung inward. She wore a thin pink robe cut to mid-thigh, and her hair was half-done in curlers.

  “You must be Sheila,” I said.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m Officer Michael Finnegan, and I wanted to make sure you’re safe.”

  She cackled. “Safe as houses, boyo.”

  “Connor downstairs indicated he might have bartered you for some bad horse-race debt.”

  “Sure did.” She gave me a smile that revealed a missing eyetooth. “Joke’s on him. I’m gonna move in with Walter. He’s got a steady job and a bigger place that isn’t above his mother’s.” She shouted the last two words at the floor. A moment later, a thumping started up from below. Connor’s mother with a broom, no doubt.

  “Terrific. I hope you’ll be very happy.”

  She grinned and slammed the door. I checked my watch. Only twenty more minutes. God willing, no more calls would come in and I could be inside the Dugout, drinking a cold one within the hour.

  Outside, Connor was on his feet, holding a beer can. The dishtowel lay, discarded, on the steps. I wished him a good day and walked toward the police station. I arrived three minutes before end of shift. That cold beer was almost in hand. “Hey!” my super called. “Come here.” He snapped his fingers.

  “What do you need?” My super was an okay guy, but a bear when it came to complaints.

  “Call your mother,” he said. “She’s called here twice. Sounds worried. I asked what the trouble was, but,” he shrugged. “Let me know if you need something.”

  “Thanks.” I’d return my radio, keys, and activity log after I made the call.

  “Ma?” I said when she answered. “What’s going on? Is Dad okay?” My father had a bum ticker. He’d had a heart attack a year ago.

  “He’s fine. It’s Susan. She’s missing.”

  “Missing?”

  “She hasn’t come home since Friday. She said she was sleeping over at Lucy’s house after they went to the movies. Then she called Saturday and asked if she could spend the night again.”

  “And Sunday?”

  “She begged to stay over one more night. When I said it was a school night, she complained we didn’t trust her, and I asked to speak to Millie. I wanted to be sure it wasn’t a bother, but she said dinner was ready and hung up. This afternoon, the school called to say she’d been marked absent, and this was her third offense this term without a note.”

  “You haven’t seen her since Friday dinnertime?” I asked. “What did Lucy say?”

  “She hasn’t seen her since school on Friday. Susan never stayed at her house.”

  “Where do you think she is?” I asked.

  “I want to file a Missing Person report.”

  “But, Ma, what about last time?”

  When Susan was fourteen, she’d run away. She was gone four days. An older woman who’d seen her hitchhiking in New Hampshire brought her home. My parents had grounded her for five months. She couldn’t go to a friend’s house or attend after-school games. When I’d stop by for dinner, Susan would glare at me from behind her too-long bangs. As if I’d done anything to land her in that jam.

  “It’s not like last time,” she said.

  “Are you sure?”

  She hesitated. “Come over, when you get off shift, will you?”

  “On my way.”

  I turned in my items and clocked out. On the way out the door, I ran into my super. “Everything okay?” he asked.

  He and I had first met when Susan ran away two years ago. I’d come to the station to deliver a AAA map we’d found in her room. The destination was Atlanta. He’d taken the map, patted my shoulder, and promised to contact the police in Atlanta. So, when my super asked if everything was okay, I could’ve said, “She’s missing again, my sister, Susan.” And labeled myself as the guy with the runaway sister who wasted police time and resources. I looked at my newly polished shoes and said, “Nothing that won’t solve itself. Thanks.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “Have a good night.”

  “You too.” I hurried outside, where the wind tossed cellophane cigarette wrappers in the air. The Bunker Hill Monument loomed ahead, a reminder of Susan. She’d asked a million questions about it as a kid. Who built it? Who cleaned it? Why were there only windows at the top? Dave told her the monument was built by elves and was a secret portal to another world. That made her ask, What kind of elves? What was the other world like? Could anyone go there? Had he been to the other world? Bobby laughed himself breathless and said, “I can’t believe you fell
for that.” I’d punched Bobby in the bicep, but I’d pulled the punch because he was younger.

  Past the monument, I cut over and walked past the Sullivans’ and O’Reillys’ and McDonalds’ houses. Too soon, I stood in front of 12 Wood Street, staring at the tan, aluminum siding. “Mikey!” my mother yelled from the second-story parlor window. “Come in!”

  I wiped my feet. Ma hurried down the stairs. “Thank God.” She clutched me like I was a life preserver. “Dave’s out. Seeing if anyone saw her. Bobby is calling her girlfriends.” My brothers were on the case. I’d been informed last. I tried not to let it bother me, and failed.

  “What about Carol?” Carol, our oldest sibling, was a second mother to most of us.

  “She had to go to the doctor’s again.” Carol was pregnant, and this second child had given her trouble from day one.

  “I’ll find Dave and help him.”

  Last time she’d gone, Susan had taken a suitcase she’d stashed behind the bushes in the Murphys’ backyard. Maybe this time a neighbor had seen her with the suitcase. Damn. I should’ve asked Ma if it was missing.

  Dave was talking to Charlie Houghman. Charlie had coached our Little League teams. “Hiya, Charlie.” It felt odd to call him that. He’d been “Mr. Houghman” until recently, when he told me if I could vote, I could call him Charlie. It was meant to be a gift, but it felt like a burden.

  He stood, pruning shears in hand. Charlie’s wife had been a great gardener, until she got breast cancer. She was getting chemo now, and we rarely saw her.

  “I haven’t seen your sister since Wednesday. I was just telling Dave, she was playing on a skateboard one of the Ryan boys has. A skinny yellow board. She was with Lucy. Your parents must be out of their skulls, huh?” He shook his head. “I’ll call you if I spot her.”

  “Thanks,” we said. He nodded and picked up his shears.

  Dave told me some neighbors he’d talked to had seen Susan on Friday, but none had seen her since. After dinner, she’d walked up Wood Street, toward High Street, dressed in jeans and a fringed top, her hair down, carrying a knapsack.

  “A knapsack?” I asked.

  “Not a suitcase.”

  “But not a regular purse.”