Blood Brother

by J. A. Kerley

  “The Doc’s place took a Breaking and Entering a couple weeks back. Nate Allen responded. He said that about halfway through, the Doc got squirrelly, like she was nervous about having things looked at. She said nothing was taken. Nate thinks something unspoken was going on. Like maybe something got taken that Doc Prowse didn’t want anyone to know about.”

  “Strange. Nate figure what that might have been?”

  “No idea. Did you know the Doc had a place in Gulf Shores?”

  “Sure. Her hideaway.”

  “Cute little place. According to a neighbor, the Doc sees the occasional patient there, but it’s been a couple years. Unless the Doc was analyzing ghosts.”

  “How so?”

  “The neighbor says the Doc hung out a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign like she was seeing patients, but the neighbor lady never saw anyone. This was every Saturday afternoon for two months.”

  “Sounds like Vangie’s taking a nap,” I said. “What else?”

  “There’s a posterized photo on the back of the door in Dr Prowse’s home office. When the door’s closed the picture’s directly across from her desk.”

  “And?”

  “It’s a picture of a naked man.”

  Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t stanch a chuckle. “Vangie was a young sixty-three, Harry. She’s allowed.”

  “Uh, Cars, the photo’s of your brother.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The naked guy is Jeremy. He’s sprawled out on a quilt. It’s, uh, real odd.”

  “Uh, listen, Harry …got to …there’s a meeting up.”

  “Sure. Later.”

  I closed the phone, dropped it in my pocket, missed, picked it off the pavement. Vangie had a photograph of a nude Jeremy where she could see it as she worked. Right across from her desk where she could look into his eyes!

  The horror of Vangie and my brother as lovers and co-conspirators made me physically ill. Saliva flooded my mouth and bile spasmed to my throat. I covered my mouth, sprinted toward a trash receptacle, vomited before I got there. A car full of teenagers went past. They whooped, yelled, laughed. I leaned against a lamppost and watched the street tilt and whirl, like a ride at a carnival.

  EIGHTEEN

  “Ryder. You OK?”

  The voice was at my back. I turned, saw Folger approaching. Behind her, in a loading zone, was her ride. She’d obviously seen me at my less-than-best and pulled over to poke a little fun at the puking bubba. I waved her away, not sure I wanted to talk to anyone again, and certainly not her.

  “No problem, Lieutenant. I’m fine.”

  She stopped two yards away, hands on her hips, studying me. “Sure, all the fine, problem-free people I know upchuck in the street. You been drinking? You look wobbly.”

  “Not a drop.” I patted my gut. “A stomach thing, I guess.”

  She stared at me, nodded. “Come on, let’s go to a place not too far from here. I call it home. I’m bone-tired and calling it quits for today. I’ll give you a cup of hot tea to get your delicate tummy right. I’ll even put a couple cups of sugar in it. That’s how Southerners like tea, right? Like syrup?”

  “That’s iced tea. Listen, Lieutenant …I’ll be OK.”

  She looked at the trail I’d deposited on the pavement and jerked her finger over her shoulder at the cruiser. “Drop your butt in the car, Ryder. Or I’ll run you in for littering.”

  She drove to a street on what seemed the south border of Chelsea, a mix of residential dwellings and small shops. I saw a tavern at the far end of the block, across from it a tailor shop. Folger parked in front of a slender brownstone shouldered against a line of others similar in style. Hers stood out, the only one with flowers sprouting from window boxes. It looked like a place with a nice personality, a house that liked walks in the park and tea on Sunday afternoons.

  We stood on the stoop as she dug in her purse for keys.

  She said, “You’re lucky I drove today.”

  “What’s usual?”

  “Running. I’ve made two arrests on my commutes, one a pickpocket, the other a bike thief. The bike booster was so surprised he dropped a boltcutter on his foot and broke two toes. Made my week.”

  “No doubt.”

  “You look like you might work out a bit, Ryder. On your better days.”

  “I live on a beach. I enjoy running the shoreline. I also kayak and swim.”

  “Aha. That explains where the shoulders come from.”

  Inside, I saw spare and sleek furnishings designed in Sweden or Denmark, much like in my own home. There were enough plants to stock a small jungle, including a wide-fronded palm that owned an entire corner of the room. Light through the living-room window drew a golden parallelogram on the polished wood floor. I was taken by the sense of harmony.

  “This is a nice place, Lieutenant.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised. It’s a small place, but it’s in Manhattan. I rent out the top floor, live here.”

  Looking down a small hall, I saw two doors beyond what was obviously the bathroom. “Two bedrooms? That’s nice.”

  “One’s like an office. Or maybe a hobby room.”

  I glanced out the window. A pretty view of trees and the brick rowhouses across the way. Most cars on the street were upscale: Saabs and Audis and Beamers.

  “I thought Manhattan was an expensive place to –” I caught myself, winced.

  Folger kicked off her shoes, pushing them to the edge of a long blue couch. She tossed her purse on a counter separating the living room and kitchen nook. “To live? Too expensive for an NYPD dick, right? That’s what you were thinking? Level with me, Ryder.”

  “You nailed me. It’s exactly what I was thinking.”

  She walked to the window, stood beside me, hands on the sill, looking out. A wistful look crossed her face. “It’s freaking insanely expensive to live in Manhattan, anywhere halfway decent. I have an angel.”

  “Pardon?”

  She turned from the window, went and sat on the couch, crossing bare feet beneath her. I sat in a matching chair. A table of some blonde wood rested between us, on it a stack of National Geographics and a couple of magazines called Weather.

  “Six years back a lawyer comes to the door of my thousand-buck-a-month rathole in Brooklyn. Shows up out of nowhere. He’s an ancient Jewish guy, stooped over, carrying a briefcase that folds like an accordion. He offered me half a million dollars. Free money.”

  “Get to the punchline, Lieutenant.”

  “The working day’s over, you can call me Alice. And it’s no joke. There was just one catch. Mr Ancient Lawyer said it was a conditional grant. I had to use the dinero to improve my living conditions. Not buy a car, not invest in alpacas. No Dior gowns. I had to buy a home, and it would be purchased under his supervision to make sure I got it right.”

  My skepticism was blatant. “How much is it you want for the Brooklyn Bridge?”

  She smiled gently. It was so pretty as to be disarming. “I still don’t believe it myself sometimes. But that’s exactly how it went down. After taxes, I ended up with enough to make a heavy down-payment here. Plus I get rental income from my tenant upstairs, Julie Chase, an accountant who’s even quieter than me. The upshot is I own a home for less than the rent on my old apartment, where steam pipes knocked and greasers smoked dope on the fire escapes.”

  “Any idea who made the grant?”

  She pursed the full lips, thinking, like the question was something she puzzled with a lot. “I’d just made detective after four years in uniform, doing my damndest to nail ’em and jail ’em. I figure somehow I impressed or helped someone rich. He, she or they wanted to move me out of my former shithole, pardon my Iroquois.”

  I’d heard of such munificence. Though, in general, folks helped by cops made donations to the department or a specific unit, like a kidnapping squad who’d returned a family member. It was rarer for a gift to be made to an individual. Rarer still for it to be anonymous.

  “You told the depart
ment about the grant, I hope?”

  “From nowhere a brand-new detective gets a half-million bucks dropped in her lap? God, yes. I’d have been suspected of being on a pad for either the Mafia or Donald Trump. Turns out the lawyer, Mr Solomon Epperman, esquire, was a heavy hitter in his day, still is when he wants to be. Mr Epperman had a talk with the brass, convinced them the giver would remain anonymous, no strings.”

  “Not someone who could pop up one day and pressure you.”

  “Yep. Like, ‘Look, hon, I laid a half mill on you, now fix my parking ticket.’” Folger slapped her forehead. “Duh, I was going to make you some hot syrup with tea in it. Fix up your tum-tum.”

  “Beer is remedy of choice for the Southern male.”

  “I can do that.”

  She bounced from the couch, went to the kitchen area, yelling at me over her shoulder. “Bathroom’s first door down the hall if you want to wash up and gargle. I’d advise both.”

  I headed to the bathroom, shoulder-tight, with all the usual fixtures. I turned the hotwater faucet, let it run. A mirrored medicine cabinet was over the sink. My eyes were veined from upchucking, my hair in disarray. There were several disturbing flecks sticking to my chin.

  I filled the sink with hot water, palming soap into it, slapping the froth on my face. I emptied the sink, did the same bit with cold water, sans the soap, my rinse cycle. I fought the impulse for a ten-count, then, under cover of running water, opened her medicine cabinet, scanning. All typical stuff, over-the-counter analgesics and nostrums, a couple of prescriptions I recognized as a stomach-acid reducer and an allergy relief med.

  Two hard knocks hit the door a foot from my ear. “Ryder!”

  I whipped the cabinet closed. The magnetic latch clicked, sounding as loud as a pistol shot. I saw my grimace in the mirror.

  “Uh, what …Alice?”

  “There’s nothing interesting in the medicine cabinet. But there’s a new toothbrush in the closet. You can have it if you promise to buy me a replacement.”

  My heart pounding with childish guilt, I turned off the water and started to respond, but her footsteps were moving away. I gratefully accepted the brush, using toothpaste and mouthwash in deluge quantities.

  When I emerged, much refreshed, she was in the kitchen area. The last few feet of the hall was bookshelves, books of all sorts. I looked closer and noted the two bottom shelves, ten running feet altogether, were devoted to meteorology. I slid one out: The Physics of Climate Change. It seemed the sort of text one studied in college, maybe even post-grad. I slipped it back, pulled another. A biography of someone named Carl-Gustav Rosby.

  “Who’s Rosby?” I asked.

  She turned and saw me with the book. Her neck colored. “He, uh, was a pioneer of high-atmosphere meteorology.” She walked over, hiding embarrassment behind a sip of wine. “I really like reading about weather. I know it seems weird.”

  I took a bottle of Sam Adams from her hand and nodded toward the shelves. “Makes perfect sense to me. I fish and kayak in the Gulf. The last surprise I want is high surf or lightning. I’m a Doppler devotee. Did you know that Mobile is the rainiest city in the country?”

  “Followed by Pensacola, New Orleans, and West Palm Beach.” She looked at me as if trying to make a decision. “Would you like to see my station? My weather station?”

  “Lead on.”

  I followed her down the hall to the back room. There was a desk and a Mac Pro computer connected to a large flat-panel display. More books on shelves. Two big snake plants on the floor and ivy leaves tumbling from a wall sconce cum planter.

  She pointed to the Mac. “I’ve got a sensor station on the roof. The physical readings happen up there, wireless info bursted to the computer every two seconds. Air temp, wind speed and direction, solar radiation, relative humidity, barometric pressure, precipitation. Plus I’ve got my weather program and input networked to eighty-two remote stations across the country, sites run by amateur meteorologists through related software. I helped create the net. I could tell you what it’s doing in Paducah, Dubuque, Ypsilanti …”

  I crossed my arms and posed a challenge. “How about Fort Wayne, Indiana?”

  “Why Fort Wayne?”

  “An old friend lives there. Can you do it?”

  She sat and commenced a furious ticking of keystrokes, conjuring charts, graphs, numbers, a maelstrom of American weatherness. Her interest was infectious, and I leaned over her shoulder and watched the screen, unable to ignore the scent of perfume from her hair, something warm and sunny.

  “Here we go. The station in Fort Wayne is operated by a Duanine Eby, I don’t know if that’s a him or her, but it’s raining – a tenth of an inch so far – baro pressure is 1016.36 millibars and rising over the past two hours. Wind is northwest at present, shifted from north-northwest this morning, holding steady. Let’s check a bit south, Indianapolis. Wind is west, baro’s higher, so Fort Wayne’s about to catch the edge of a southerly high pushing up from the Gulf, now centered around Memphis. In two hours the rain will disappear, the wind will pick up for a couple hours, then presto, your friend in Fort Wayne will be in a new system. Blue sky, nothing but blue sky …”

  “Alice?”

  “What?”

  “This is great.”

  She looked over her shoulder, skeptical. “You really think so? You enjoy meteorology that much?”

  “I enjoy your enjoyment.”

  The embarrassment again, manifesting in a pause and a cleared throat. “I’ve loved the weather since sixth grade. My father took me to the Jersey shore, Cape May. I watched storms forming, clouds merge, darken. Curtains of rain connected the clouds and the ocean. It took my breath away. I got books on weather from the library and built a hygrometer made from three of my dad’s hairs, a dime, and a plastic milk carton. I kept daily accounts in a notebook called Alice’s Weather Observations. Every night at dinner I’d solemnly forecast the next day’s weather.”

  I laughed at the sight of a young Alice Folger holding forth at the table.

  “What did your parents think about all this?”

  “I was an only child. I could do no wrong.”

  I saw a photo at the far side of the desk, a big, lantern-jawed officer in dress blues, his arm around a solid woman in a white gown, sweet eyes in a plain face. They were in their middle-to-late thirties, I judged, and resembled a pair of happy potatoes.

  “These are your parents?”

  A pause, as though she had to switch gears. “On their wedding day in 1963. Myrtle and Johnny at Niagara Falls.”

  “Your dad was a cop.”

  She looked at the photo. “It seems like everyone I grew up with was or became a cop. Every male, at least. A lot of women, too. Mainly support work.”

  “You have siblings? Oh, you said you were an only child. I guess you were expected to carry the blue banner forward, right?”

  Two long beats passed. “My choice. Mine alone.”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s all I ever wanted to do as far back as I remember.”

  In the span of a minute something had changed. It was small, a shadow in the corner of the room, weightless, but detracting from the overall light. She turned from the wall, pushed a smile to her face.

  “Hey, you look like you’re feeling better.”

  I held up the beer. “What the doctor ordered. Listen, I’ll be heading on back to the hotel. I’m studying the Ridgecliff files. I might be able to close in on what part of town he’s operating from.”

  “It’s good to have you out of your shell, thinking. You need a ride to the hotel? I can run you in the –”

  I waved my hands and shook my head. “I think a little air is necessary. I’m going to take a walk, see what’s happening in the neighborhood. Thanks for taking pity on a guy leaning against a lamppost, Lieutenant.”

  I was half a block away before I realized I’d left everything to do with the cases at the door when entering Alice Folger’s house, and she’d done the s
ame, at least for thirty minutes.

  My nicest half hour in New York since I’d arrived.

  NINETEEN

  I went back to the hotel that night reflecting on my brief time with a living, breathing, happy Folger. I had felt an attraction to her, I realized, a roiling in my guts that I didn’t in any way need.

  For a year or so, I’d kept close company with Clair Peltier, the head of pathology for the Alabama Bureau of Forensics. Our early fires had banked into warm coals these days, as we discovered we were closer as friends than as lovers. Still, the physical relationship was something we’d had to experience in order to discover we were destined to be friends. New Age-y sorts would call us soul mates I suppose, beings who have crossed several lifetimes together, and who can now communicate about everything through a glance and a gesture.

  I’d called her earlier to see if she’d speak to Waltz’s NYPD forensics guy. Our conversation made me recall how comfortable we were, and that the relationship was what I enjoyed at the moment.

  Still, thinking of Folger made my heart race. So I pulled on my running shoes and shorts. Time to switch my head off, wear my body down. I did a few minutes of cleansing breathing, trying to regain the calm I’d felt at Alice Folger’s house, then beat feet from the hotel aiming south, picking up speed, feeling the night slide by like cool water.

  My calves gave out about the time my breath did and I pulled up short on a slender street somewhere in the East Village or Lower East Side. My hands were on my knees and I was sucking hard breaths when my phone rang.

  “Yeh-he?” I wheezed instead of spoke, sounding like Cluff.

  “Ryder? Is that you? I didn’t hear what you said.”

  “Folger?” I gasped.

  “You OK? You sound –”

  “Running. Winded. Gimme sec.”

  “Where are you?”

  “South of …hotel somewhere. Zig-zagged all over. Probably lost.”

  “Check a street sign. Hurry.”

  I half-jogged, half-limped to a pair of street signs. “I’m at Prince and Elizabeth. I see a church spire a block down.”