With the last Amen of the day, the Prager family of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York, broke fully and finally apart. I found myself thinking of what Howard Bland nee Judas Wannsee had said a few days back about the soft tissue of dinosaurs and how it was lost to history. So it was for us, the bonds that had tied us together as one were gone. In the grand scheme of things, the dissolution of my family was no more significant than the death of a may fly. The earth kept turning. There was now only Katy and Sarah, Sarah and me. I pulled Sarah aside.
“Listen, hon, I’m going to get out of here.”
“I think that’s best, Dad. Mom will be okay. This is her shit she’s dealing with. Someday she’ll be okay and we can be—get together, the three of us. What are you smiling at?”
“You really are the best of us, kiddo. So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to stay with Mom until mid-August, then I’ll head back up to school.”
“I don’t suppose the cute deputy sheriff has anything to do with your staying up here.”
She cat-grinned. “Robby? Maybe a little.”
“Stay away from cops. They’re nothing but trouble.”
“Not all of them.” Sarah slipped into my arms and kissed me on the cheek. “Not you, Dad.”
“Me most of all.”
“I love you.”
“Me too. Come down and visit before you go.”
I watched Sarah and Katy get into Katy’s car and drive off. Sarah looked back at me. Katy never did.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I HAD HEARD that it was possible for a man to float on quicksand, but I didn’t know if it was possible for a man to walk across it. I couldn’t have anticipated that I was about to find out.
The page was turning on the first week of August when Sarah came down to Brooklyn on the day after her birthday. We went to dinner at a Thai place in Sheepshead Bay, had Carvel for dessert, then we drove into Coney Island to ride the Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel. The Cyclone was great. I must’ve ridden it a thousand times since I was a kid. On the other hand, I despised the Wonder Wheel. I never met a Ferris wheel I liked and the Wonder Wheel was my least favorite. For one thing, it was gigantic and it had big cars that rocked and slid along rails as the huge wheel turned. My daughter always took perverse pleasure in watching me go pale and squirm.
“You crack me up, Dad. You’ll ride any rickety, crappy, old roller coaster, but this thing scares you.”
“I just always feel like the bottom’s going to drop out.”
Sarah clucked at me like a chicken.
“How’s your mom?”
“Nice segue,” she said.
“Seriously.”
“She was doing well for the first week or so after the burial, now…I don’t know. She’s been really quiet and to herself for the last couple of days. Kinda nervous and jumpy. I guess she’s just got stuff to work through.”
“I suppose. You all set to get back to school?”
“Yeah.” Sarah frowned.
“Robby can come visit, you know?”
“No fooling you, huh, Dad?”
“Nope.”
We had Nathan’s hot dogs for a nightcap and Sarah dropped me back at my condo. She made some noise about wanting to get back up to Janus to see Robby, which was probably true, but I could tell she was worried about Katy. I hugged her tight, then let her go. I was doing a lot of that lately, letting go.
When I got inside, my answering machine was winking at me. I gave serious consideration to not listening. Aaron was pissed at me because I extended the time I’d taken off to work the case into a vacation. When he started ranting, I reminded him about what he had said about the stores thriving without me for twenty years. He didn’t much care for my throwing his own words back at him. It was a big brother vs. little brother thing. Still, I’ve never been good at avoidance or procrastination. Bad news was better than no news. I pressed PLAY.
First message:
“Hello, Moe, it’s me, Connie Geary … Oh, this is terribly awkward, isn’t it? I’ll just say it then. Truthfully, I got tired of waiting for you to call me, so I decided to call you. I hope you weren’t simply humoring me that day when you said we could have dinner together. It was great seeing you and it brought back the happiest times of my life. Let’s say you pick me up on Friday at eight. If I don’t hear from you between now and then, I’ll assume we’re on. Okay then, that’s Friday the eleventh at eight.”
It had been a long time since I had that nervous feeling in my belly. Suddenly, I was back in high school again, staring at the phone, trying to summon up the courage to ask a girl out. Oh, God, the terror of those days. I had the phone in my hand even before listening to the second message. I put it down.
I wasn’t going to live out the rest of my life in monk’s robes and if I was going to be dating again, Constance Geary was a hell of a start. We had shared history, people in common, things to talk about. There wouldn’t be any of those endless, awful silences to be filled in with uncomfortable stares or panicky trips to the rest rooms. And Connie was certainly pleasant enough to look at.
Next message:
“Yo, Five-O, dis Marlon Rhodes, man … You remember me … from Cincinnati? We talked once ’bout dat crazy lady, Jack White’s sista. I got all up in your face and shit. Dat was a bad day when y’all called me. You still interested, I can be put in a better mood, if y’all hear what I’m sayin’.”
End of new messages.
I heard what he was saying, all right, but that ship had sailed. Poor Marlon had missed his big payday. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder why he’d chosen today to call.
I OPENED MY eyes on the Irish Wolfhound of dog days. It was nearly a hundred degrees by noon and the humidity was beyond ridiculous. You could have baked French bread on the sidewalk and grown orchids in your car. Even the stop signs were wilting. When I was a kid, this weather never bothered me. Back then, summer weather divided up only two ways: it was either raining or it wasn’t; you could play ball or you couldn’t. It was simple. Life was simple. My biggest concern was how many innings of stickball I could pitch. Nothing was simple now, especially not sleep.
Sleep was heavy on my mind because I woke up in worse shape than when I went to bed. After sending Sarah on her way, I hadn’t been able to get to sleep and then, when sleep finally came, it kicked my ass. I tried blaming it on the weather. That was total bullshit. My condo was as cold as a meat locker. No, something was up besides the heat and humidity. It wasn’t the stress of the final breakup or Sarah’s impending return to school. It wasn’t even those damned phone calls, though they were part of it. Connie’s call made me happy and nervous. Marlon Rhodes’ made me curious. Curious had its dangers.
The truth was that had I never received either call, I still wouldn’t have slept well. I hadn’t slept well since the day John James was murdered. I knew it was ridiculous, but it still bugged me that the kid lied about his name. I made the mistake of sharing that information with Carmella.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“I told you I knew it was dumb.”
“Dumb! This isn’t dumb. This is stupid. I would never have closed a case if I looked for every little thing to make me miserable. The stars don’t ever align the way you think they should.”
“But why would he lie to me? He had nothing to gain from it.”
“C’mon, Moe. You’re looking for logic where there is none. The kid was a piece of shit. He was in the game. You know what hustlers are like. He lied because that’s what skells do. It’s a reflex, they don’t think it out.”
The cop’s blanket answer for everything. I had known all of that before she said it. I’d uttered versions of it several times myself. I even agreed with her, yet …
I WAS WISE enough not to share with Detective Feeney the reason I asked him to lunch. We met at a Chinese restaurant on Avenue U near Ocean Avenue. His choice. He was already seated in a red vinyl booth when I arrived. He was dressed as he wa
s the first time we met: white shirt, same polyester tie. His hair must’ve been made of real bristles the way that brush cut stood up to the humidity. We shook hands and stared at the menus. I don’t understand why people stare at Chinese menus. They always know what they’re going to order.
“Food good here?”
“Who cares? The air conditioning’s great.” Feeney grinned.
Feeney was old school down to what he ordered: egg drop soup, chicken chow mein, and pork fried rice. Christ, it was like eating with my parents. I ordered crispy duck that wasn’t especially crispy and was barely duck.
“So,” he said, shoveling a fork full of fried rice into his mouth, “does this mean we’re goin’ steady?”
“I just wanted to say thanks for not making it as hard on me as you could have.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Prager.” Funny, I had said those same words to the kid. “You got a bug up your ass about something. Wait …” He put down his fork, wiped his mouth with his linen napkin, and then reached under his chair. “You wanna take a look at the file, right?”
“I do.”
“Last person who said those words to me had my children.”
“From me, you’ll have to settle for the chow mein,” I said.
He plopped the file on the table, but kept his forearm across it. “Before I let you take a look-see, I just wanna give you a chance to forget it, to finish your meal and walk away.”
“And why would I do that?”
He tapped the folder with stubby fingers. “Because you ain’t gonna find what you’re lookin’ for in here. The only thing you’re gonna find is unhappiness.”
“How do you know what I’m looking for?”
“I know. Believe me, Prager, I know. You think you’re the first ex-cop I ever dealt with?” Feeney didn’t wait for an answer. “Ask your partner, Melendez, she’ll tell you.”
“She already did.”
“See, this here file contains the answers to questions of what and when, but that ain’t what you want. You don’t wanna know a what or a when. You wanna know a why. Am I right or am I right?”
“Right. But why agree to have lunch?”
“I was hungry.”
“Very funny, but why do this for me?”
“I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me, so I can get some peace. If I didn’t let you see it, you’d be calling me with all sorts a stupid questions. Eventually, you’d show up with a court order and I don’t got time for that shit. I got cases on my desk from the year of the flood. This way, I figured to save me a lot of time and grief.”
I didn’t argue. Why argue with the truth? When I reached for the file, however, his arm didn’t budge.
“Last chance, Prager. Take my advice. There’s only more unhappiness waitin’ for you in here.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“First, I wanna know what’s eatin’ you. Then you can see the file.”
I guess I blushed a little bit.
“That stupid, huh?” he said. “Oh, this is gonna be good.”
I explained about the kid lying to me about his name. Feeney had enough respect to let me finish before he started laughing. When he got done wiping the tears from his eyes, he slid the file across the table.
We didn’t speak again for another quarter hour. During that time, Feeney finished his meal, had a dish of pistachio ice cream and a plate of pineapple chunks. When I was done, I slid the file back across the table to him.
“You satisfied?” he said, patting his full belly. “What’d I tell you? It’s as solid a case as I ever made. We got every kinda evidence against Ray Martello that’s ever been invented and then some.”
“Yeah, it was like he wrapped himself up in a neat little package for you and then by getting himself squished, saved the mess of a trial. No loose ends. Nice and tidy. Pretty convenient all the way around.”
“Perfect.”
“Yeah, maybe a little too perfect,” I said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Let’s take a ride.”
Feeney agreed, a look of resignation on his face. My guess was he knew this was coming and he had already cleared a few hours to waste with me.
I PARKED MY car on Avenue Y in approximately the same spot Ray Martello had parked his Yukon on the night he killed the kid. As I slipped into the space, Feeney’s resigned expression reshaped itself into a knowing smile. When I unlocked the doors, he didn’t move.
He said, “Where’re you goin’? We can do this in here in the air conditioning, you know?”
“Do what?”
“Weren’t you gonna ask me to explain why Martello would park his SUV on the west side of Ocean Parkway while he committed the homicide on the east side? That’s six busy lanes of traffic he had to cross at night to make his escape, right? Why would he do that? Then you were gonna point out to me that most of the witnesses, includin’ the drivers that hit him, swear Ray Martello was runnin’ not away from the crime scene but towards it when he got smacked. Am I right?”
“You know you are,” I said.
“See, Prager, it’s all those why questions, they’re gonna make you miserable. I don’t know why he parked his Yukon here. Maybe he couldn’t get a spot on the other side of Ocean Parkway or maybe he didn’t want anyone to notice his car. Why was he running the wrong way? Maybe he thought he forgot something at the crime scene. Maybe he got disoriented because he didn’t know Brooklyn so good. Maybe because really killing someone ain’t as easy as people think and it fucks ’em up a little. Maybe because he had twice the legal limit of alcohol in his bloodstream mixed with Xanax. You see, I don’t have to know why he did those things. I only have to know that he did them.”
“What about the alcohol and Xanax?”
“What about them?” Feeney asked. “You ever kill anybody?”
“No.”
“You think if you were gonna have to kill someone you knew in cold blood, and a kid at that, that you might have to fortify yourself a little? I know I would.”
“But he had enough alcohol and drugs in him to make an elephant loopy.”
“He was a cop, not a pharmacist, Prager. Besides, maybe that’s why he was disoriented and ran in the wrong direction.”
What he said was making sense and it made me realize how silly and desperate I must have sounded, but I guess I’d already passed the point of caring just how silly.
“Did he have a prescription for the Xanax?” I asked.
“You’re shittin’ me, right? We can drive into your old precinct and within twenty minutes I could buy enough Xanax, Valium, methadone, and Oxycontin to put out a herd of fuckin’ elephants. Trust me, Prager, as a brother cop and as a guy who’s seen a lot of good men torture themselves over stupid details, leave it be. The answers you’re lookin’ for, you ain’t gonna find here, not on these streets, not in that file. Ray Martello was a sick bastard who was willin’ to go a long way to get his revenge. He killed the kid, panicked, and ran into traffic. End of story. You’re never gonna know why the kid lied to you about his name. He just did.”
I was almost ready to give in, but not yet. “What about this mysterious guy who drove the kid around, Martello’s friend with the eye patch? You haven’t been able to find him.”
“Frankly, we haven’t been lookin’ real hard. Maybe he exists, maybe he doesn’t. Bottom line, the people who matter in this case are dead,” Feeney said, running out of patience.
“And the bloody shoe print … Why was there only one? Martello had to cross almost the entire length of the room to get out the back window, but he only left one print.”
“’Cause Martello was part kangaroo and hopped to the window. Remember, I don’t have to know why. There was only one print because there was only one print. Drive me back to the Six-One now, okay? You can keep a set of the autopsy photos as a memento of our date, but playtime is officially over.”
When I dropped him back at the precinct, he thanked me again for lunch and w
arned me not to call him about the case. I promised I wouldn’t, but I had my fingers crossed.
DURING MY RIDE into Brooklyn Heights, I went over everything Detective Feeney had said. The thing of it was, he was right. With Ray Martello and the kid dead, I could research the hell out of their histories, interview everyone who ever knew them, put their lives under the world’s most powerful microscope, and I would still be asking why. It dawned on me, that the real question of why didn’t have to do with the kid lying to me about his name, but about why I cared. I thought about what the late Israel Roth would have said vis-a-vis my state of mind.
“Mr. Moe,” he’d say, “you are hanging onto the case because you don’t want to let Katy go. Patrick bound the two of you together as powerfully, more powerfully maybe than wedding vows or gold rings. When in the hospital you told her about the fake Patrick and she got so angry, it was the same. It’s like this number on my forearm, even if you could scrub it away, I would still be bound, for good or bad, to my past. If you said to me, come Izzy, I could get that thing removed, I’m not sure I would go.”
It’s funny, even when I imagined the words Mr. Roth might say, I heard his voice in my head. I put my hand to my mouth. I was smiling. By the time I got into the office, the weight of the whys had lifted. I walked directly into Devo’s command center and released him from wasting any more time on my preoccupation.
“Devo, forget working on any of that stuff related to Katy’s brother and tackle the backlog. We have to make some money around here with paying customers.”
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