by Baxter Clare
She looked for the ice cream she’d dripped onto the floor. Frank wadded up the paper towel from around her own carton and called, “Catch.”
Annie grabbed it, mopping up the spill. “Thanks. So here comes EMS runnin’ up the stairs and they ram the door in. My partner and me we charge in behind ‘em. I never seen such a mess. I’m just standin’ there in shock. There’s blood everywhere. On the ceiling, the floor, the walls, the furniture. It’s like someone’s almost finished painting the place red. The boyfriend, he’s red too, just rockin’ on the couch next to the woman. Her throat’s slit to her neckbone. EMS cuffs the guy and my partner gives me a poke. I follow him into the bedrooms. We find the kids back there, all three of ‘em, their throats cut. We go back to the living room just as this itty-bitty old lady charges through the busted door, screamin’ ‘Sweet Jesus Almighty.’ I’m thinkin’ oh shit, it’s the kids’ grandma or somethin’. I’m thinking how the hell am I gonna calm her down, get her outta here, right? Then she turns and looks me square in the eye, this sweet little old lady, and she demands, ‘Who’s gonna pay to clean up this fuckin’ mess?’ I shoulda known right then what I was gettin’ into, huh?”
Frank grinned. “Do you regret it?”
Annie considered her spoon. “I wish’d I’d had more time with the kids. I was selfish, I guess. Back then I wouldna given this up for nothin’. I loved it. Never knowin’ what you were gonna get into that day, who you were gonna meet… but my kids paid the price. I missed a lotta things. Things they still remind me of to this day. My mother, too.”
Frank chewed an almond. “Hypothetical question. What if you’d walked out on your husband and left him with the kids? He was a cop too, right? And let’s say he raised the kids as well as you did. What would your mother say about him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Guess.”
“She’d probably say he was a saint like my cousin Henry. His wife run off with a car salesman—after she stuck him for thirty large for a new Buick—and he’s raisin’ his baby daughter, goin’ to school nights and workin’ in a bank.”
“He’s a saint, right?”
“Yeah. He can walk on watuh.”
“So your husband walks out on you, leaves you with two kids, and you manage to raise them and hold down a good job at the same time. Your cousin does that with one kid and he’s a saint, but you do that with two and you’re selfish? What am I not seeing?”
“What you’re not seein’, cookie, is a long line of Italian mothers who sacrifice for their kids. I shoulda found a nice man, remarried and settled down. Quit all that crazy police business. This may be the twenty-first century but my mother’s still living in the nineteenth. Nah. The way she sees it, I’m selfish.”
“Then if that’s the way you see it, you got a foot in the nineteenth century, too.”
“So? What’s wrong with that?”
“What’s wrong with that is you’re a saint, too. You’re not selfish. You raised two kids all by yourself, doing a man’s work, and you should be givin’ yourself a pat on the back, not a kick in the ass.”
Annie gave Frank a hard stare. “You don’t know the whole story, cookie. It was selfish. Thanks for the ice cream.”
Swinging the door closed, Annie left Frank puzzling what the whole story could be.
CHAPTER 32
Annie had become Frank’s alarm clock. A light sleeper, Frank got up when she heard her puttering around the apartment.
“Hey.”
“Mornin’. Ya sleep good?”
“Like a baby. You?”
“I had better nights. Shouldna eaten all that ice cream. I’m gonna have to spend an extra hour in the pool today.”
Dropping bread in the toaster Frank asked, “You want me to make you a real meal tonight?”
“I want you should stop bringin’ home pints of ice cream for me, that’s what I want.”
“All right. Let me cook a good dinner for you. I’ll make something heal dry.”
“You don’t have to cook for me, Frank.”
“I know, but it gives me pleasure. Keeps me distracted. Makes me feel useful.”
“Well, if you want. I’d never turn down a meal.”
“Any requests?” Frank said, sitting at the table.
“Surprise me. It’s all been good so far. Just no sweetbreads or liver. I don’t like organ meat.”
“Makes two of us.”
Frank took part of the paper and the women ate in silence. Still looking at her paper Annie reached for her coffee and said, “I’m gonna miss you, ya know. Gotten spoiled coming home to food and company.”
“Maybe this is all prep for findin’ yourself a nice man in nine months, two weeks and three days.”
“Listen to you with the nice man, already. Some lesbian, always pushin’ men on me. You ain’t earnin’ no toasters, cookie.”
Frank laughed as Annie smoothed the paper on the table and went to dress for work. Frank cleared her dishes and brewed a pot of coffee for the Thermos. She read the rest of the paper and as Annie headed out Frank reminded, “Don’t forget to give me Charlie’s number.”
“Oh, yeah. Lemme get that for you.”
She rummaged through her phone book and wrote the number on a Post-it. Frank stuck the note on the Thermos, watching Annie go through her routine with the Virgin.
Later, as Frank was on her way out the door, she winked at the Madonna. “Wish me luck, Baby Muvuh.”
She ran through her usual morning routine at the cemetery, then settled in the Nova to make a shopping list for dinner. Annie called in the middle of it.
“Hi. I been tellin’ my daughter what a good cook you are and she wants to come over for dinner. Is that all right with the cook?”
“Sure,” Frank answered. “What does she like?”
“Psh. My kids, I tell ya. You’d think they was raised like royalty. Ben won’t eat nothin’ that’s not organic or free-range and Lisa won’t eat nothin’ with a carbohydrate. They’re not my kids. I think the stork brought ‘em.”
“No problem. Ben and Lisa or just Lisa?”
“Just Lisa, thank God.”
“What time?”
“Anytime after seven, Job permittin’.”
“All right. See you then.”
“Sure you don’t mind?”
“It’s an awnuh,” Frank teased.
“You’re a doll. See you later.”
Frank crossed out the menu she’d been playing with and started over. It wasn’t like she had anything better to do.
She ended up making roast beef in a Dijon shell, steamed kale drizzled with Hollandaise sauce and baby lettuces with a mustard vinaigrette. Lisa had her mother’s appetite and vibrant dark looks. She was duly impressed with Frank’s mastery of the kitchen and spent the evening pumping Frank for Hollywood celebrity sightings. Frank had met dozens of rappers and a few actors from the ‘hood, but when she compared South Central to Upper Harlem Lisa was disappointed.
“All the glamorous places you could be working and you’re both in the pits. What’s up with that? Are you masochists or somethin’?”
Annie and Frank exchanged sheepish grins.
“Anyway, I’ve gotta run. I’ve got a mock trial at seven a.m. Dinner was gorgeous, Frank. Thanks for havin’ me.”
While Annie walked Lisa out of the building Frank put the leftovers away. She missed her music. If she were home she’d put something jazzy on the stereo, but Annie never seemed to play music so Frank let it go. Maybe the silence was just as well. Bending old routines was probably good for her. And the music would always be there.
Annie walked into the kitchen, crying, “Whaddaya doin’? Get out! You made dinner. Go sit! Watch TV or somethin’. Shoo!”
“All part of the service, ma’am.”
“I’m serious. Get outta here.” Shoving her sleeves over her elbows Annie ran water in the sink.
Frank sat at the table with last night’s ice cream. “She’s a nice girl.”
“Yeah, despite me, huh?”
“Yeah,” Frank kidded. “Despite how selfish you are.”
Annie grunted, swirling her hands in the soapy water. “Ya miss not havin’ kids?”
“Nope. Never wanted ‘em. I didn’t get a maternal gene. I mean, I like ‘em if they’re somebody else’s, but talk about selfish. I could never give that much time to somebody else, especially when I was drinking. That was a full-time job in itself.”
“I can’t imagine you drunk.”
“Good. It’s not pretty.” Frank scraped the bottom of the pint. “So let me ask you somethin’. What’s the whole story?”
“Whaddaya talkin’ about?”
“Last night. When I said you weren’t selfish you said I didn’t know the whole story.”
For a second Annie was still. She said nothing, but started washing the dishes again. Frank waited and was rewarded.
“I had three kids. Ben, Lisa and Brian. Brian was six when I got a call from the school saying he was in the hospital. You know those playground carousels the kids push and then jump on to? Well, he went to jump on and misjudged his step. He tripped. His chin hit the metal floor and he bounced his skull into the foot of one of the bars. Bruised his brain. Contrecoup injury. They couldn’t get the swelling down. He died next morning. Never regained consciousness.”
Annie rinsed the roasting pan, searching for a place to put it. Frank took the pan, drying it as Annie continued.
“I made sergeant after that. Left Ben and Lisa with my mom as much as possible. Or with their aunts. After sergeant I went for my shield. I worked hard for it. Took me three years to make gold. I worked twelve, sixteen, eighteen hours—whatever it took—everyday. Whenever the Job needed me. I didn’t think about Brian when I was workin’. Ben and Lisa either. So it was selfish. Very selfish.”
Annie passed Frank a pot. She toweled it and put it away. “You must have done somethin’ right. It seems like you have pretty good kids.”
Shrugging, Annie replied, “It kinda all came to a head when Ben was in seventh grade. The detective’s son was caught peddlin’ dope in the boys’ room at school. I didn’t know how to deal with that. I was floored. A cop’s son, right? He should know better. My mother, my sisters, they ganged up on me. Said they weren’t gonna help with the kids anymore unless I got into counseling. Oh, let me tell ya, I was steamin’. What did I have to go to counselin’ for? It was Ben with the problem, not me. But I went. Turned out a large part a Ben’s problem was not havin’ a father or a mother. I got better after that. Put in for days whenever I could get ‘em. Brought work home instead of stayin’ at the House. Got involved with their lives. Poor kids. They was bein’ passed around like orphans. Half the time I didn’t know if they were at their grandmother’s or their aunt’s.”
Frank wagged her head.
“What?” Annie asked.
“Nothin’. I was just thinking this morning, the paths our lives took. I was feeling bad about all the running I’ve done, running from my past, but this is where it’s brought me. Here tonight. Sober. Helping with the dishes. Talking to a friend. Full belly. Warm bed. Laying ghosts to rest. Hard as a lot of it’s been, I guess I wouldn’t trade any of it. Even the bad stuff.”
Annie offered a wan smile. She nodded. “I haven’t told that story in years.” Pulling the drain plug, she added, “Thanks for listenin’.”
“Thanks for tellin’ me. I got bad news, though.”
“What’s that?”
“While you were talkin’? I ate all the ice cream.”
“No.” Annie chuckled. “That’s good news.”
CHAPTER 33
Tuesday, 18 Jan 05—Canarsie
Mary Catherine Franco.
Sounds so churchy. So Boston Irish. Neither of which my mother was. She was born Mary Catherine Stenthorst. Good Swedish name. Sounds like stamping your feet in the snow and ordering your horse to stand. Nothing churchy about that.
Mary Catherine Franco.
She loved snow and daisies and sugar cookies with lemon icing. She was young once and pretty. Beautiful even. She turned men’s heads. She was slim and tall, very Nordic. A blonde Julie Newmar, only not so jaded. Or stacked. I got her height and her flat chest. Better than being barrel-shaped like Dad. She had gorgeous cheekbones. She could hang clothes on them. But she hated her eyelashes. Called them stumpy. Td sit on the toilet watching her curl them, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, swearing at them as she layered on coat after coat of mascara, an old-fashioned sweating on the sink. They always drank old-fashioneds before they went out. Dad showed me how to make them. I forget now, but something about muddling sugar and bitters—that’s what he called it, muddling. Critical step—you muddle the sugar and bitters in a teaspoon of water, add ice, bourbon and a maraschino cherry. I loved the cherries after they’d been soaking in the booze. Sure sounds good right about now.
See, that’s how I know Tm an alcoholic—it’s ten in the morning, the middle of winter and my toes are frozen yet an icy, dripping, old-fashioned sounds like heaven. And I don’t even like sweet drinks. Tm a rummy, just like Hemingway’s drunks. Sounds so much more genteel than alcoholic. Alcoholic is so clinical. Has no charm. Rummy sounds quaint, amusing. If a rummy sticks a gun in his mouth and almost pulls the trigger it’s amusing. If an alcoholic does it it’s desperate. There’s a lot in a name.
Like Mary Catherine Franco. Lace Irish, Catholicism, white dresses. But not my mom. She was Cat. Always Cat. Never Mary Catherine, and Catherine only when my dad was frustrated with her. He called her everything starting with “cat”—catawampus, cataclysm, catamaran, Katmandu—he’d come home from work and sweep her into his arms, singing, “How do you do, Katmandu?”—catapult, katabatic. When she was in a down cycle, all depressed and lethargic on the couch, he’d hold her head in his lap and stroke her hair, calling her “my catatonia.”
He loved her. He loved her so fucking much. Through the ups, the downs, the in-betweens. There couldn’t have been another woman. Yeah, okay, so maybe he knocked off a piece here and there. My mom wasn’t exactly available when she was depressed but as far as loving another woman, I can’t see it. Not enough for her to still be prowling around his grave after all this time.
And the lows just weren’t that bad while he was alive. They were more spread out. Seemed like she was more manic while he was alive and then afterward more depressed. Lucky me. But sometimes the highs were as bad as the lows. Like the night she decided we needed new dishes. She took every plate and bowl we owned and smashed them against the wall. My father tried to stop her but she was just laughing and hurling china. Neighbors called the cops. Thought someone was getting killed.
Crazy cat. Katzenjammer. Cat Ballou. Catamount.
Mom.
CHAPTER 34
Frank snapped out of a doze to see an elderly white woman walking from the direction of her father’s grave.
“Oh, shit.” Rocketing from the car, Frank trotted up to the departing woman. “Excuse me. Are you here for the Deluca funeral?”
The woman stared with wide, rheumy eyes. “The Deluca funeral? Oh, no.”
“Oh. Which one then?” Frank pressed.
“I’m not here for any funeral. I was visiting my brother.”
“Oh. Your brother.” Frank made a show of looking beyond the woman. “Is there a funeral goin’ on here?”
“Not that I know of.” The woman turned, searching too.
“Shoot. I hope I got the right day. Maybe I got the time wrong. I coulda sworn it was this mornin’. Well, thanks anyways.” Frank pretended to move away but stopped to ask, “Say, who’s ya brother? You’re a dead ringer for Frankie Ford.”
“Oh, no.” The woman smiled. “My brother’s Samuel Abrams. He died of cancer two days past Thanksgiving.”
“Aw, geez. That’s terrible. I’m sorry for your troubles.”
“Yes, well, thank you. Maybe you could ask about your funeral at the office.”
“Hey, that’s a great id
ea. I’ll do that. Thanks. Sorry to bother you.”
“Oh, it’s no bother.”
The woman waved and Frank headed to the office. From a corner of the building she watched the old lady leave, relieved she caught her and disappointed she was nobody.
Inside the office, Frank said, “Mornin’. Can you tell me where Samuel Abrams is buried?”
“One minute,” the receptionist told her. “I check for you.”
Frank followed his directions to Abrams’ plot, satisfied with the fresh prints and flowers at Abrams’ stone. She checked her father’s grave. No prints that weren’t her own.
Returning to the Nova she poured coffee and fidgeted. She remembered to call Charlie Mercer and arranged for him to take over surveillance. After talking to him she dialed the squad.
“Homicide, Detective Lewis.”
“Sister Shaft. S’appenin’?”
“IT, that you?”
“S’me. S’up?”
“Da-amn, girl. Where you at?”
“Sittin’ in a rusty Nova, freezin’ my ass off outside a cemetery in Brooklyn.”
“Yeah, whassup up with that? When you comin’ home?”
“I’ll be back Monday. That’s the plan. How’s things goin’?”
“Let’s see. Bobby’s in court. Diego’s at the morgue. The new guy’s weird.”
“How so?”
“Kept callin’ me Queen Latifah.”
Frank laughed.
“Yeah, funny, right? I got in that home’s face and told him if he called me Queen Latifah one more time I was going to fuck him up so hard make Queen Latifah look like Pee Wee Herman.”
“Great.” Frank cringed. “How’d that go over?”
“Let’s just say Larry be givin’ me some space now.”
“Try not to kill him before I get back, okay?”
“Yeah, maybe. We’ll see ‘bout that.”
