Cop Job

by Chris Knopf

  I caught myself almost feeling sympathy for their situation. Then I reminded myself that they’d never feel the same sympathy for me.

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks for your help. We’ll get out of your hair.” Literally, I thought to myself.

  Jackie looked a little surprised, and she might have had more questions, but I wanted to get away from Oksana so I could think more clearly on what to do next. Jackie took the cue and got up to leave like it was all her idea. Oksana looked happy enough to let us go.

  “My expectations for you aren’t overwhelming,” she said, “but it would certainly help the cause to be finished with this distraction. It would also be advantageous for both of you to earn a little of Edith’s appreciation.”

  It’s interesting to me how some people can damn, threaten, and coerce in the same sentence without seeming to do any of the three.

  “I ALMOST started feeling sorry for them,” Jackie said when we were back in the car.

  “What did you think about what Joey Wentworth told them?” I asked.

  “Are you asking me a question you already have an answer to?”

  “No. I really want to know what you think.”

  She looked down and pulled the hem of her skirt closer to her knees, more of a nervous gesture than any act of modesty.

  “I think Ross Semple is easily the strangest man I’ve ever met. Opaque, flaky, ruthless, occasionally a colossal asshole. Did I mention a teeny bit creepy? But he’s the ultimate cop’s cop, intellectually fighting well below his weight. Just not possible.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “No. I’m not sure about anything but the love and devotion of my boyfriend, Harry Goodlander, who’s merely colossal.”

  “You still shouldn’t marry him.”

  “Oksana’s right. This whole thing feels like it’s stuck shut.”

  “It is.”

  “So what are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Find a crack.”

  “What if you can’t?”

  “Make one.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I called Joe Sullivan to see if he wanted to have a questionable dinner at the Pequot, but he’d already committed himself to Mad Martha’s unquestionably great local seafood. I told him I’d meet him there, unless he already had a date.

  He said not a chance, though he might get lucky at Martha’s.

  “Like, if an actual female that doesn’t look like Mike Ditka’s grandmother happens to walk into the place.”

  I checked on Allison as I did whenever I left Oak Point for any extended period of time. She was okay, but still not what I hoped for at this point. Amanda was back at work, but Nathan was there, so I asked him how things were going.

  “We’ve been acting a little bummed lately,” he said. “The visiting nurse said depression was common at this stage with trauma victims. She said it’ll pass.”

  “When wasn’t Allison a little bummed?” I asked.

  Nathan just stood there looking pretty gloomy himself. I walked into Allison’s bedroom.

  “Hey, Sunshine,” I said.

  “Don’t believe him,” she said, or more accurately, growled. “I’m fine.”

  “I believe you,” I said.

  She didn’t seem to like that, so I switched subjects.

  “How’s the therapy going?”

  “Painfully. Not that it matters.”

  “Course it matters,” I said. “Get you back on your feet.”

  “My feet are fine. Therapy won’t do anything for my face. I never liked it, and now it’s gone.”

  “Anything’s fixable,” I said.

  “I took off the bandages and looked. Nothing’s going to fix that mess.”

  She picked at the sheet that covered her legs, as if plucking off invading bugs.

  “Jackie got her face blown up by a bomb,” I said. “She looks better now than before.”

  I didn’t add that Jackie was also an angry lump of misery during the months of restoration, though maybe I should have.

  “Jackie’s naturally tough. I’m more like a tub of cream cheese.”

  “Not what I hear.”

  “You never listened very well,” she said.

  She had me on that one, so I didn’t answer and a little dead air started to build up.

  “Okay. I guess that’s that,” I said, giving up. I got up to leave.

  She glared at me.

  “That’s that?” she asked.

  “Let me know when you’ve run out of self-pity.”

  The glare deepened.

  “Tough love?” she said.

  “Love for sure.”

  JOE SULLIVAN had one of the tables near the bar at Mad Martha’s, so we were able to drift in and out of the conversations between Jimmy Watruss and his retinue of regular barflies. They all thought of Sullivan as more or less one of them, though having the big cop within earshot took some of the spice out of the subject matter.

  The salubrious effects of his stay in the city had worn off a little, though his appetite was good enough to tackle a small mountain of local seafood and a pitcher of beer.

  “I heard from Fenton today,” he said.

  “They got anything?”

  “He’s still liking that copywriter, though more on principle than proof. Him and Allison apparently had quite a catfight. You wouldn’t think those artistic types would have anything to fight over.”

  Sullivan was a very smart guy, but a lifetime on the East End among people like Mad Martha’s clientele had left some gaps in sophistication. He was sensitive about it, so I tried to be careful.

  “When there’s money involved, that’s all the reason you need,” I said. “That and envy, jealousy, ambition, self-delusion, and raging insecurity.”

  “What about terminal stupidity?”

  “That, too.”

  Jaybo came out of the kitchen in his chef’s outfit. He saw us and walked over to our table.

  “How’re the ribs?” he asked me.

  “I thought we were eating fish,” said Sullivan.

  “A lot better, Jaybo,” I said. “It wasn’t his fault,” I added to Sullivan.

  “What?”

  “I hit him with the van,” said Jaybo. “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “I thought a dog was about to run out in the street. It distracted me.”

  “Oh.”

  Jimmy saw us talking, slid his bulk off the bar stool and pulled up a chair. Jaybo went back to the kitchen.

  “Anything you can tell me about the Alfie case?” he asked Sullivan, though also looking over at me.

  “Not really,” said Sullivan, “but I have a question for you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Did Alfie ever mention a woman named Lilly Fremouth? Black dad, white mother, lived up in Flanders?”

  Jimmy thought about it, but shook his head.

  “Don’t think so, though like I told Sam, I didn’t spend that much time with the guy. Looniness aside, he was a pretty quiet tenant. Like everybody else, I just saw him rollin’ up and down the sidewalk, or behind the restaurant when he’d cop a free meal. The kitchen guys were on notice to give him whatever he asked for.”

  “Generous,” said Sullivan.

  Jimmy rubbed the stumps where his two fingers used to be.

  “Not really. Alfie was a vet. Unit cost of a meal is a lot less than I charge customers. No skin off my teeth.”

  “He was grateful for what you did for him,” I said. “For what it’s worth.”

  “It’s worth something,” said Jimmy. “But plenty of people around the Village helped him as well.”

  That gave me a thought.

  “Did you get much trouble from Esther Ferguson after she tried to save him from the streets?”

  Jimmy snorted.

  “Not really. Though I’d see her talking to him on the sidewalk, and she tried to get permission from me to check on his apartment. I told her to stick it, politely of course.”

  “How did he e
nd up living there in the first place?” Sullivan asked.

  Jimmy sat back in his chair, which made it harder to hear him, especially since he dropped his voice a notch or two.

  “Alfie was in my national guard platoon in Iraq. I’d heard he’d mustered out on a 464, a psych thing, but I didn’t know how bad it was till I saw him at the VA center. Fucked-up head and mangled spine, he wouldn’t have lasted long cooped up like that. So I moved him into the gallery apartment. I do a lot of stuff for vets, but it’s kind of my personal business, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do,” said Sullivan, “but I appreciate the information.”

  “I just hope you catch the motherfuckers who did this before I do,” he said, and then went back to the gang at the bar.

  THE NEXT day, after putting in enough time in the shop to catch up on some projects, I drove back into the Village to call on Esther Ferguson. A young guy in a short-sleeved white shirt and tie was coming out the door as I walked up the steps. I asked him if Esther was in her office and he said he thought so.

  “You can knock on her door,” he said. “Doesn’t mean she’s gonna answer.”

  “She did the last time.”

  “We all get our share of luck.”

  Mine held. She didn’t answer at first, but on the second try I heard the muffled sound of her saying to come in, if I wanted to that badly.

  “Shoulda known,” she said from where she sat at her desk. “Nobody round here would knock twice.”

  I gestured at a chair and she wearily waved for me to sit.

  “I still don’t know anything about what happened to Mr. Aldergreen, if that’s why you’re here,” she said.

  “It’s why I’m here, but I have another question.”

  Esther’s desk backed up to a giant window air conditioner, which was under full throttle, chilling the room to about sixty-five degrees. She wore a wool blanket with fringe around her shoulders, in a color that matched her blouse. The fan in the AC was strong enough to ruffle the fringe. I’m sure there was a reason for all this, but I didn’t like Esther enough to ask.

  “Doesn’t mean you’re entitled to an answer,” she said.

  “Did you know a woman named Lilly Fremouth? She was murdered about a week before Alfie.”

  I’d say that made her scowl if scowling wasn’t already a natural part of her face.

  “Ben Fremouth is one of my oldest and dearest friends,” she said. “I won’t hear a word said against him.”

  “You won’t hear any from me. I just saw him the other day. Elegant guy.”

  She shook her head and looked down as if her thoughts were on display in her lap.

  “He told me Lilly was the best and worst thing that ever happened to him. I’d contend the former,” she said. “Ben did everything he could. I didn’t have the heart to tell him some people are bent on a path of self-destruction.”

  “I guess you’d know. Did you ever work with her, in your official capacity?”

  “You know I can’t talk about that.”

  “Come on, Esther. I’m not asking for her confidential file. I just want to know if she ever came here or got involved with any of your other clients.”

  The intensity of her suspicion almost heated up her meat-locker office. She leaned in toward the desk, gripping her blanket with both hands.

  “If you got something specific on your mind, Mr. Acquillo, just spit it out.”

  “I want to know if she knew Alfie Aldergreen,” I said.

  She sat back in her chair with a look of satisfaction.

  “Those two would make a pretty strange pair, now wouldn’t they?” she said.

  “I’m not asking if they dated. Just if they knew each other.”

  She drummed a syncopated beat on the desk with her long, painted nails.

  “You ever heard of an encounter group?” she asked, putting the emphasis on the first syllable of “encounter.”

  I told her I had.

  “Lilly was coming in for hers just when she ran into Alfie on the sidewalk. He started warning her about all the elves that can fool you with their beautiful faces, but then turn on you, seeing how they’ve been seduced by the dark side. Lilly said she wished she’d known that before dating her husband. Next thing you know he’s sitting in the group, all attentive and polite. I didn’t have the heart to tell Lilly that group therapy’s a waste of time for a brain as disorganized as Alfie’s, but then again, I thought, it might do her some good to try.”

  “So they were friends,” I said.

  She tilted her head and made a face.

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it a friendship. But they knew each other, yeah.”

  “How often did they meet in the group?”

  “Half a dozen times, I guess, before Alfie forgot which day we held it on. Lilly asked about him, but it wasn’t up to me to get him into the building. ’Cept to ask army boy to bring him around, but as usual, that didn’t do a lot of good.”

  She frowned at me, easily conflating me with her other adversary, Jimmy Watruss.

  “Did they ever spend time together, just the two of them, outside the group?”

  “How the hell would I know? She left with him a couple times, but I never saw them out on the sidewalk. Lilly lived up in Flanders. She only came down here when she had to.”

  I tried to pull out more information, but I’d already gone well beyond where Esther wanted to go, so I got up to leave before she had a chance to shoo me away. I was on the way out the door when she coughed at me, which I correctly took as a command to listen to one more thing.

  “Even a junkie can have a heart,” she said. “Girl like Lilly, scraping along at the bottom of the heap, probably thought she could do some good for somebody even lower down. I’ve seen it a lot in my line of work.”

  Knowing Alfie the way I did, I wondered which of the two was the more generous and compassionate, the more eager to rescue a soul so thoroughly damaged by forces of evil incomprehensible even to the dark side.

  I STOPPED off at Mad Martha’s hoping to catch up with Jimmy Watruss again, but he wasn’t there. I went back in the kitchen to ask Jaybo if he might be coming around, and he told me Jimmy was at a vets’ meeting up in Riverhead. The guy who was in the truck with Jaybo the day he ran into me was at a chopping block dicing up onions. He kept his head down, as if expecting I’d take a poke at him just for being there. Instead I went back to the bar and ordered a stack of fried flounder, so the visit wasn’t a complete waste.

  After a slow meal, it was getting late by the time I was on Noyac Road heading back to my cottage on the Little Peconic. I was about to turn into my neighborhood when I heard a siren and saw a Southampton Town patrol car bearing down on me, lights ablaze. I pulled out of the way and the car swooshed by and made the hard left onto Oak Point. I stuck the gearbox in low and roared after him.

  Against faint hope, I followed the cop to the end of the peninsula where he turned into the driveway I shared with Amanda. I stopped breathing.

  Eddie was in the yard barking his head off, something he rarely did. The patrol car raced down the drive to Amanda’s, and I saw Danny Izard leap out of the car, drawing his side-arm in a single, fluid motion.

  In the time-compressed moments an experience like this creates, I sent prayers to a god I didn’t believe in to spare every life inside that house, noting that those were the lives I loved more than any others in this world.

  When I reached the door I almost collided with Danny as he ran back out, now with a flashlight in his other hand.

  “In the living room,” he yelled as I shoved by.

  Amanda was sitting on the floor with her back braced against one of her white, over-stuffed couches. Paul Hodges had his head in her lap, his legs stretched out and feet at cockeyed angles. She had her hands pressed against his temples, as if she were squeezing a cantaloupe. Nathan stood over them, blood running from a gash in his own head, which he ignored. His hands shook like frightened birds. In one of those hands wa
s the old Colt automatic I’d given him.

  Amanda looked up, her handsome Italian face a symphony of shock and worry.

  “I didn’t see them,” she said. “Nathan carried him in here.”

  “I shot over their heads,” said Nathan. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Hodges opened his eyes and said, “Next time, shoot ’em in the head.”

  “What happened?” I asked him.

  He took a while to answer, and I almost felt bad making him talk. His words were closer to a whisper than full speech.

  “Eddie was barking like I’d never heard before. I went out the front door and these two jamokes were coming up the path. One of them whacked me with a hammer before I had a chance to ask what the hell they were doing here.”

  “What’d they look like?”

  “Hoodies and scarves. That’s all I saw.”

  Nathan looked over at me.

  “They whacked me, too, before I could get the gun out,” he said. “I had to shoot while I was flat on my back. I didn’t want to hit Hodges.”

  There was a tremor in his voice, but his words were firm. No apologies.

  “Where’s that fucking ambulance?” said Amanda.

  I looked around at all the big open windows, the bay breeze blasting in around Amanda’s pretty tied-back curtains.

  “You’re too big a target standing there,” I said to Nathan. “Sit next to Amanda and keep both hands on the gun.”

  I snapped off all but one lamp and went outside. I could see Danny’s flashlight whipping across the trees that lined the backside of our properties. Eddie was in the driveway, still barking like a mad dog. I whistled and he shut up and ran over to me. I scrunched around his neck and told him everything was okay, even though I knew it wasn’t.

  I got my own flashlight out of the Grand Prix’s glove compartment and walked with Eddie out toward the bay. It was a heavy Maglite, which I carried more for its double-duty as an effective club than to light my way. I saw no sense in giving anyone a nice bright target to shoot at.

  When I got to the edge of the breakwater, the only thing moving was the restless Little Peconic Bay. The moon was highlighting the tips of the miniature bay waves with white paint, and off in the distance a motorboat slid silently across the water. I went back to the house.