Dead of the Day (2007)

by Karen E. Olson

  Hector?

  ''Miss Seymour, tell your friend I'll meet him at noon at People's Laundromat.'' With that, she disconnected the call.

  I stared at my phone for a few seconds before putting it back in my bag. How the hell was I going to find Rocco to give him the message? I still didn't have his number and didn't know where he lived.

  I was a little leery of Marisol; she was a little too squirrelly, but she did sound stressed about something, and I might as well try to find Rocco to give him her message. Maybe I could even tag along.

  But I was faced with a real dilemma. The only way to find Rocco was through Vinny. Which meant I was going to have to call him to ask him about Rocco. Somehow, I knew that might not go over well. But did I have a choice?

  Vinny had said he was going to his office after breakfast. Maybe he was still there. I didn't want to hang around the paper any longer. It was creepy here alone, long dark shadows in the corners, the rain echoing through the enormous room. Only the bosses had real offices with doors. The rest of us were all out in the open, like goddamn sitting ducks.

  I threw on my yellow rain slicker, grabbed my bag, and took off.

  Vinny's Explorer was parked in the lot behind the brownstone on Trumbull Street. I eased into a spot in front of the building. It would be closer to the entrance, and I wouldn't get as wet. I pulled the hood over my head and made a mad dash toward the door.

  I shook the water off my slicker as I pushed his buzzer.

  A sliver of light dashed into the hallway as he opened the door. He grinned when he recognized me and let me in, leading me back into his office.

  ''Twice in one day?'' he said, closing the door after me. ''To what do I owe this pleasure?''

  He walked around his desk and dropped into his chair. I pulled off my slicker and stuck it on the coat rack next to the door before sitting on the couch across from him. His eyes followed my every move; I was feeling very self-conscious, especially since I was here for his brother and not him.

  Might as well get it over with.

  ''I need to find Rocco,'' I said flatly.

  Vinny's eyebrows moved into a frown. ''Why?''

  I shrugged. ''Just need to.'' I'd already told him Rocco knew Marisol. And Rocco didn't want me to say anything at all.

  He was staring me down. I was usually pretty good at staring contests, but with Vinny it was harder. Because as his eyes locked with mine, I started feeling all warm all over, and he knew it. A smile started to play at the corners of his mouth. ''You don't expect me to just hand over my brother's phone number to my ex-girlfriend now, do you?''

  That was exactly what I expected, but the word ''exgirlfriend'' threw me. If he felt that way, why did he kiss me yesterday?

  It was my turn to frown. ''Ex—'' I started, but he interrupted me.

  ''You should've told me you were back with Tom.''

  Oh, Christ. He must have seen me and Tom together last night. If so, then why did he kiss me this morning after breakfast? Was it some sort of sick test? Why did my life have to be so goddamn complicated?

  I shook my head. ''We're not back together. Really. But I need to talk to Rocco. It's important. He has to meet someone at noon. I got a message.'' I had to get him off the subject of Tom, and this seemed to be the only way.

  ''Who does he have to meet?'' The playfulness was gone; his face was drawn, serious.

  ''Marisol. She called me, wanted me to tell him to meet her at noon at People's Laundromat.''

  Vinny nodded slowly. ''Okay. I'll make sure he gets the message.'' He stood up. ''Is that all?''

  Jesus, he could turn it on and off so fucking fast. I stood up and faced him. ''Yeah, guess so.''

  He didn't move away from his desk, and I put my slicker back on. My hand was on the doorknob and I was about to walk out, but I turned to look at him. ''Listen, Vinny, Tom and I are not back together. It's the story about Rodriguez, really. I'm, well, I'm sorry about what happened with us, the way I acted.'' He still hadn't moved, and I took a deep breath. ''I wish I could take it all back and start over.''

  I didn't even wait for a response. If I stood there one more second I was going to start crying, and he sure as hell didn't need to see that. I didn't want to turn into some sniffling, weak woman trying to get her man back. What the hell was wrong with me, anyway? I stumbled out to my Accord, wondering if I was PMSing. It would explain a lot.

  As I rummaged in my bag for my keys, I knew I wanted to be a fly on the wall for Rocco's meeting with Marisol. I wanted to know what was going on. I also knew that I couldn't just show up at the Laundromat.

  Pondering my next move, I saw Vinny walking toward his Explorer. From past experience, I knew I couldn't follow him without him knowing I was there. I wasn't trained in covert operations. But every part of me itched to know where he was going.

  He waved as he passed me, stopping at the light at Whitney. He was taunting me, daring me to follow him.

  Fuck it. I started the car and pulled up behind him.

  * * *

  I lost him somewhere around the Green. He'd managed to get through a yellow light before it turned red, and I was stuck watching him move down Temple Street, then turn left, out of sight. By the time the light changed, he was gone. No sign of him anywhere.

  I turned onto Chapel, heading for Ninth Square. I was pretty sure that's where Rocco lived, although Vinny could've easily just called him about the meeting with Marisol. And when I got there, I went in circles, not having a clue where to start and not seeing either Rocco's BMW or Vinny's Explorer. This was ridiculous.

  I pulled over to the side of the road next to a fire hydrant. There were no other spots available, and I figured if I was sitting in the car, no one could give me a ticket.

  As the rain slapped my windshield, I thought about Marisol and Rocco and the body that washed up in the harbor. And the longer I sat there, the more a crazy idea began to germinate. I glanced at my watch. It was only 11:15; I had forty-five minutes before Marisol and Rocco would be at the Laundromat. Maybe I should check out the park and try to find the place across the river where Marisol saw the guy getting dumped in the water.

  I eased back into the road, turned on the wipers, and headed up Chapel Street toward Fair Haven.

  By the time I reached the Chapel Street bridge that runs over the Mill River, indicating I was now in Fair Haven, the rain had let up a little. Fair Haven was an interesting neighborhood in that it's on a peninsula, almost completely surrounded by water, making it sort of a city within a city. The Quinnipiac and Mill rivers flank it to the east and the west, respectively, and it opens up to the harbor to the south. A huge swamp is its northern border.

  You could say that Fair Haven is pretty waterlogged.

  Back in the early days, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Fair Haven had been known for its oysters, until the beds became depleted and oysters were actually imported to boost the stock. Oystermen moved out into the deeper waters of Long Island Sound, but pollution threatened the shellfish. They were still out there, but in much smaller numbers. I wouldn't eat an oyster out of the Sound, but then again, I wasn't very fond of mucus-like food anyway.

  Chapel Street turned into Front Street farther down, where many of the three-story wooden houses still wore their brick facades on the first floors. It was there that the owners had brought in the oysters, shucking them, freezing them, storing them. I'd heard stories about how the river would be saturated with the flatbottomed boats they called sharpies on the first day of the season, everyone vying for the most oysters from the well-stocked riverbed.

  I turned right down James Street and squinted out the window at the Mill River to my right. A swing set sat on a small patch of green that lined the river in Criscuolo Park, but there were no kids out here today. I spotted a pickup truck and a knot of young men straight ahead on James. They were either dealing drugs or fishing. And while this was my destination, I wasn't inclined to find out which by elbowing my way through them just to check o
ut the other side of the river.

  I turned left onto River Street, which was flanked by old, abandoned warehouses. The red brick was faded, the windows boarded up. I wondered if they'd been built with the red sandstone quarried not far from here more than a hundred years ago, like so many buildings around Greater New Haven. It was depressing to see that all these factories had shut down; besides those kids and the pickup, there was no one else around. It felt like a goddamn ghost town.

  To my right, I passed a couple of chain-link fences

  protecting nothing except old pavement with grass growing through its cracks. But spotting one such fence with the gate ajar, I pulled in. Maybe I could check out the other side of the river from here.

  I stopped the car, shoved the keys in my pocket, and pulled the slicker close as I opened the door and stepped out.

  The wind had picked up now, and I shivered under the slicker even though I had a long-sleeved T-shirt and a fleece pullover on underneath it.

  Broken bottles, strewn paper, and cigarette butts crunched under my feet as I made my way along the cracked pavement toward the water. A decrepit warehouse rose a couple of stories high to my right; as I got closer to the water, its appearance deteriorated even further due to graffiti, and the wooden boards covering the windows were falling off in strips.

  I reached a concrete block and climbed up on it to get a better view of the water, but I had to keep my hood up to deflect the wind and rain, so my range of vision was poor.

  Standing up there like that, swathed in bright yellow plastic, I began to feel slightly uncomfortable, like the whole neighborhood was watching me. I took another look around at the water, a freighter in the distance, and jumped off the block just as something whizzed past me.

  I frowned, looking up, wondering if I'd imagined it, but then saw it. A bee.

  Chapter 17

  It didn't stay in my line of sight for long. It disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. I took a few steps to my left, thinking I might try to follow it, and then admonished myself. How fucking stupid was that?

  But still, curiosity was getting the better of me and I took a few more steps toward the back of the warehouse.

  The rain was still pattering against my hood, but I could hear it then. Not another bee, but some sort of machinery. I'd thought all these warehouses were abandoned down here. I spotted a window a little farther up, so I made my way across a couple more concrete blocks.

  I wasn't tall enough. Even standing on my tiptoes, I needed another few inches. I thought maybe the top of my hood was lined up with the window, and when I heard the shout somewhere off to my right, I knew I wasn't off base on that one.

  A Hispanic man built like a tank was coming toward me, his face dark with rage. ''What the fuck you doing here?'' he yelled.

  As he came closer, he looked more familiar to me, until I realized he was the guy who'd picked up Lourdes at my mother's house yesterday. Marisol's brother. Hector. He didn't seem to notice the rain as it soaked through his chamois shirt and jeans, the bandanna on his head dripping into his eyes.

  ''What the fuck you doing here?'' he demanded again, stopping next to me, his hands curled into tight fists. It didn't seem like he'd recognized me, which was a good thing.

  I shrugged, trying to look innocent, and thought quickly. ''My dog—I had to let him out but he got away. I thought he went this way.''

  For a moment, he was flustered, glancing around him, then, ''No fucking dog here. Get out. Private property.''

  I nodded. ''Okay, okay, but if you see him, he's a small dog''—I couldn't for the life of me remember the breed of any dog at the moment except—''a German shepherd, I mean, a big dog . . .'' My voice trailed off and I could see he knew I was bullshitting him. ''Sorry,'' I said, backing up, but I tripped over the concrete and spun down toward the ground. As my back scraped against a block, knocking the wind out of me, my hand plunged down to break my fall and landed on a piece of broken glass. ''Fuck!'' I exclaimed.

  I yanked a hunk of glass out of my hand and grimaced as blood poured out just beneath my thumb. I glanced up, but Hector was gone, and I looked back at my wound.

  I needed something to stop the bleeding.

  Slowly, I got up and went to my Honda. During the winter, I kept some old towels in the trunk to wipe snow off my car and, since spring cleaning isn't exactly on my ''to do'' list, they were still there. Dirty, but they'd have to do. I pulled one out and wound it tightly around my hand.

  How was I supposed to drive myself out of here with my hand all wrapped up like this? While I could still shift gears with my perfectly fine right hand, I wasn't sure the towel would allow me to steer too well, especially since I hadn't splurged on power steering. I had a hunch that I might need stitches. I didn't exactly feel like knocking on the warehouse door; I wasn't supposed to be here anyway. I doubted Hector would be inclined to help me.

  My hand was starting to throb when I saw an SUV coming down the street toward the T in the road, and I was on the other side, my yellow slicker practically shouting, ''Here I am, I'm a white girl in the wrong neighborhood with a bleeding hand. Come and mug me.''

  My hood had fallen off, and my hair, a mess on a good day, was even worse now that it was wet, flat around my head as the rain rolled off it into the back of my fleece pullover.

  I was a fucking crime statistic.

  And when the SUV screeched through the gate, my heart quickened. I held my breath and prepared for the worst.

  But instead of some gang members, it was Vinny who climbed out of his Explorer.

  ''Jesus, Annie, what the hell are you doing here?'' he asked.

  I held up my hand, which was now covered with a very bloodstained towel. ''I think I need a doctor.''

  Fear flooded his eyes, but it didn't distract him. ''Is your car locked?''

  I nodded as he glanced back at my hand. He shook his head. ''I don't want to leave it here; it might not last half an hour. But we don't have a choice.''

  I looked at my car, hoping I'd see it again. But then I had another thought. I fished around in my pocket for my keys. ''My bag,'' I said. ''I need my bag.''

  Vinny took the keys and got my bag out of the car, locking it again. He held onto the bag as he opened the Explorer's passenger door, and I climbed in. He walked around the back, then got into the driver's seat next to me, dropping my bag on the floor next to me.

  As he started the engine, he said. ''Tell me what happened. You shouldn't be down here.''

  ''I know that,'' I snapped, but immediately regretted it when he looked at me like he might be sorry he was helping me. ''Sorry,'' I said, realizing this was the second time today I was apologizing to him.

  ''You tried to follow me,'' he said, although not in an accusatory way. He was just making a statement.

  ''Yeah, but I lost you. I was going to try to meet up with Rocco and Marisol at the Laundromat, but I thought I had time to come down here and see, well, where Marisol saw that body getting tossed in the water.''

  Vinny frowned. ''Why? There was no reason for you to do that. Jesus, Annie, this isn't a great neighborhood.''

  ''Don't you think I know that? Hell, Vinny, I've only been covering crime in this city for five years. I've been pretty much everywhere by now.''

  ''Okay, okay, fine. Tell me what happened.''

  So I told him about hearing the machinery and trying to look in the window and the creepy guy and the imaginary dog and then falling onto the broken bottle.

  ''If nothing else, you probably need a tetanus shot,'' he said when I finished.

  I pulled the towel tighter around my hand. ''Is that all you have to say? What do you think's going on over here?''

  He stopped at a stop sign and turned to look at me, a small smile teasing me. ''Same thing that's been going on here for a while now, Annie. You say you know the city, but you don't know what's going on here?''

  Okay, so he didn't have to draw a fucking map for me. The warehouse was probably some sort of illegal swea
tshop; Hector was their lookout. But who was the dead guy in the water? Was he one of the workers? And what about those bees?

  ''What are you doing here?'' I asked. It seemed pretty convenient that he showed up when he did.

  ''I couldn't find Rocco,'' he said. ''So I came over to meet that girl myself. She never showed.''

  ''How do you know what she looks like?'' I asked, but he didn't answer as the Explorer started to move again.

  ''Yale or Saint Raphael?'' Vinny asked, ignoring my question.

  Mentioning the hospitals brought me back to my hand, which was really throbbing, but I thought it had stopped bleeding.

  ''Yale,'' I said without really thinking about it, and Vinny headed there. We missed most of the lights and pulled up in front of the emergency room in record time. Vinny hopped out of the SUV and by the time I opened my door, he was standing next to me, offering a hand to help me out. I could see the worry in his eyes as he looked at all the blood on the towel.