Hell to Pay

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  That she was just a kindhearted stranger who wanted to hand Carl Soto a lot of money—at Lucy and Jeremy’s expense?

  That she wanted them out?

  But why? It makes no sense. None at all. Unless they have an unknown enemy who’s trying to make their lives difficult . . .

  “Who was she?” she asks Carl Soto. “What was her name?”

  “It was Mary. That’s all I know.”

  Mary . . .

  The name triggers a memory in her brain—something she said to Robyn just last night.

  It worked out pretty well for Mary . . .

  As in, being pregnant and homeless at Christmas.

  As in, no room at the inn.

  Which, of course, has nothing to do with this.

  “She didn’t give you a last name?” she asks, and Carl shakes his head. “What did she look like?”

  “It was dark out. I didn’t get a good look at her face. She did give me a phone number, but I’ve been calling and texting her to let her know she can move in, and I haven’t heard a word.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t even a real number.”

  “No, it is. She did respond from it early on—before I let her know the apartment was ready for her to move into.”

  “I guess she changed her mind.”

  “I guess so.”

  “It happens.” Feeling a tightening in her pelvis, Lucy knows she needs to sit down. But she definitely doesn’t want to ask Carl to sit now that he’s said what he wanted to say. “Listen, Mr. Soto—”

  “Carl.”

  “Carl. It’s okay. You made a mistake. It’s not like we’re out on the street—we’re doing all right here, so . . . no harm done.”

  “I hope not.”

  She frowns. “What do you mean?”

  “There was something off about her . . .” He hesitates. “The more I think about it, the more I feel like she might have been . . . up to something. Something . . . bad.”

  “You mean you think she wanted to hurt you?”

  “Or you.”

  His words send a chill down Lucy’s spine.

  “Do you have her phone number?” she asks Carl.

  “It’s in my cell phone.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the phone. “I can give it to you if you want, but I doubt she’ll call you back, either.”

  Lucy doesn’t bother to tell him she isn’t planning to call the number. She’s planning to see if it can be traced, just in case . . .

  You know that’s crazy, though, don’t you? You know this is probably about Carl, and it has nothing to do with you and Jeremy.

  Yes, she knows. Absolutely.

  She’s just a little uneasy this morning, that’s all—what with Miguel’s death . . .

  Which also has nothing to do with this.

  Still, she writes down the number, and thanks Carl Soto for coming by. Twice. He keeps talking, though—talking about how sorry he is, and how he didn’t mean to cause them any trouble . . .

  At last, he gets the hint and hands over the check for the security deposit.

  Relieved, Lucy walks him to the door.

  “Good luck with the baby,” he says, “and . . . everything.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Cavalon.”

  “You, too, Mr.— Carl.”

  He smiles, shakes her hand, and disappears down the hall.

  Whew—glad that’s over.

  It went better than Carl expected, though. Mrs. Cavalon seemed to be very understanding, and not overly concerned, which put him at ease.

  In the lobby, the security guard at the desk says, “Have a good day.”

  The doorman who opens the door for Carl tells him the same thing, tipping his hat.

  Wow—this is some place. Carl no longer feels so guilty about making the Cavalons move out on such short notice, whatever the reason. Baby on the way or not, they’re much better off here. Who wouldn’t be?

  As he walks back down Broadway toward the subway station, he thinks again about Mary, wondering what her deal was.

  Oh well—he has a feeling he’ll never see her again.

  But five minutes from now—the last five minutes of Carl Soto’s life—he will learn that he couldn’t be more wrong.

  Jeremy sinks into the chair behind his desk and exhales shakily.

  His office mate, Jack, looks up at him from his own desk a few feet away. “That was pretty rough, wasn’t it?”

  “Rough doesn’t begin to describe it.”

  Telling a roomful of kids that one of their friends had been murdered last night may not be the absolute worst thing Jeremy’s ever had to do—not by a long shot—but it was horrible.

  The boys’ reactions ran the gamut of emotions: disbelief, anger, sorrow, and even what appeared to be indifference on some faces.

  Some of these kids are so damaged that they’re numb to loss.

  Others are determined not to reveal a crack in the façade, terrified of what might seep through.

  Trying hard not to bare his own emotions, Jeremy handled the questions, comments, and outbursts the best he could, with support from his supervisor, a couple of caseworkers, and a trained grief counselor brought in for the occasion.

  “Miguel was a good kid,” he tells Jack, whose hands are steepled beneath his clean-shaven chin, eyes somber behind a pair of aviator glasses.

  “He was a good kid.”

  “I just can’t believe that after everything he’d been through in his life, something like this happened to him.”

  Jack nods. “It’s unfair.”

  Unfair—not a word that’s typically part of Jeremy’s own vocabulary these days—mostly because it’s not a part of Lucy’s.

  In this world, some people are made to suffer far more than others, and she believes it’s useless to analyze or try to make sense of it.

  It is what it is, she often says. You just have to deal.

  Yeah. Jeremy’s dealing.

  “What about Miguel’s family?” Jack asks.

  “His aunt raised him after his mother disappeared. He didn’t have a father.”

  “He had one,” Jack points out. “They all had one, somewhere along the line.”

  Yeah, and some of these kids probably wouldn’t be here if their fathers hadn’t bailed out on them somewhere along the line—if they even were aware of their sons’ existence in the first place.

  Jeremy thinks of Miguel, wanting so badly to do the right thing for his own child.

  Last night, they talked about what would happen if he succeeded in talking Carmen out of an abortion. It didn’t look likely. Miguel was even thinking of going to her father and telling him she was pregnant, knowing he’d forbid her to terminate the pregnancy.

  “I’d already have done it,” he told Jeremy, “if I didn’t think he might kill me.”

  Those words have been ringing in Jeremy’s ears ever since he found out about Miguel’s death. As far as Miguel knew, Carmen’s father didn’t know she was pregnant—but he could have been wrong.

  And last night, after they left the restaurant, Miguel seemed a little jumpy. He kept looking over his shoulder, as though he thought they were being followed.

  Probably just an old habit, Jeremy thought. A lot of kids who emerge from a world where violence is prevalent—a world of drugs and street gangs—are hypervigilant.

  Jack breaks into Jeremy’s grim thoughts. “So did someone get ahold of the aunt and tell her?”

  Jeremy nods and tells Jack that Miguel’s aunt had reacted, predictably, with hysteria and self-recrimination. She was a single mother with three kids of her own, and she couldn’t handle her nephew once he reached adolescence and got himself into trouble—but that didn’t mean she didn’t love him.

  “I wonder who the hell d
id this to that kid. I thought he was through with gangs and drugs,” Jack comments, “but maybe not. Maybe it wasn’t a random mugging.”

  Jeremy shrugs. Time is running out. Even now, he knows, the police are investigating the murder, looking for witnesses. They’re going to come across someone who saw something, because someone always does.

  And when that happens, they’re going to come to Jeremy wanting to know why he didn’t tell anyone that he was with Miguel last night.

  They’ll think he might be guilty—of something other than bad judgment.

  They’re going to start probing his own façade, and God only knows what might seep through.

  “Jack,” he says, before he can change his mind, “I need to run something by you.”

  “What’s up?”

  “It’s about last night.”

  Lucy hadn’t planned on doing anything at all today, but after Carl Soto left, she realized she’d better take the check to the bank. It might take a few extra days to clear with the Christmas holiday this week, and the sooner they have access to the money in their checking account, the better.

  She pulls on her coat, grabs her purse, and heads out the door.

  On a Saturday morning, there’s a little more evidence of life in the corridors of the Ansonia. On the way to the elevator, she exchanges greetings with a pair of men juggling grocery bags as they unlock their apartment door, and when the elevator stops on the way down, a family of four are already on board: mother, father, and toddler wearing a Santa hat and pink-swaddled infant in a double stroller.

  “Hi!” the toddler says. “Hi!”

  Lucy smiles. “Hi.”

  “Hi! Hi!” He squirms and strains against the seat buckle. “Out! Out!”

  “No, Cameron, you have to sit, like Emory is. See?”

  “Out! Out!”

  “Sorry,” the mom tells Lucy, as her husband ignores the kids and taps away on his BlackBerry. “Terrible twos.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “When are you due?”

  “Oh . . . um, February.”

  “Not too far to go then.”

  “No . . . not too far.”

  “The last few months are the hardest. I’m Laurie, by the way.”

  “Lucy.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too.”

  The elevator reaches the lobby and Lucy trails the family out, out, past the security desk. She can’t help but think that if she didn’t have a belly sticking out in her coat, Laurie might not have been as sociable.

  This isn’t the first time lately—well, since she started showing—that Lucy’s been engaged in friendly conversation by fellow pregnant women or moms of young children. It’s almost as if she’s been welcomed into a special club—one that she’s been longing to join.

  As she heads out into the overcast Saturday morning—almost afternoon—she notices that Broadway is positively teeming with women and children. Again, she allows herself to imagine her future—pushing a jogging stroller, or holding a small hand in the crosswalk.

  The nearest branch of their bank is only about ten blocks south of here. Good thing, because there’s a tremendous commotion at the subway station at Seventy-second Street. Police cars and ambulances surround it with lights flashing, and a pair of uniformed officers are stationed at the entrance, turning people away.

  Lucy will just have to walk down.

  She shoulders her way past the scene on a sidewalk crowded with bystanders who are speculating about the situation. The mass consensus seems to be that someone committed suicide on the tracks. She overhears the word “jumper” a few times, and one person says, “It’s that time of year.”

  Her thoughts turn to Miguel, and to Jeremy.

  Poor Jeremy. Poor Miguel.

  Suddenly, the world seems like a precarious place.

  As if to punctuate the thought, the baby kicks.

  It’s all right, little one, Lucy tells her child. I’ll take care of you. I promise.

  “So now at least we know that she’s nuttier than a fruitcake,” Brandewyne comments, and takes a deep drag on her cigarette as she and Meade head back to the car. “Talking to people who don’t exist. Classic.”

  “Hallucination is an indicator for all kinds of conditions.” Meade ticks them off on his hand. “Schizophrenia, psychosis, psychotic depression . . .”

  “Nuttier than a fruitcake,” Brandewyne repeats, exhaling a film of smoke into the foggy New England air. “That’s my diagnosis. Perfect for this time of year, don’t you think?”

  Ignoring the smoke and her question, Meade goes on, “That doesn’t mean this guy, this Chaplain Gideon, doesn’t really exist. Maybe he wasn’t there talking to her in her jail cell—”

  “He wasn’t there.”

  “No, I get that! But he might be real.”

  Brandewyne raises a bushy eyebrow. “Why do you think that?”

  “Gut feeling.”

  She doesn’t question that. As a fellow detective, she gets it—that sometimes, you operate purely on instinct.

  “Okay.” She stubs out her cigarette in the dirt with the toe of her scuffed black shoe. “Then let’s get back to New York and check it out.”

  Jeremy finds his supervisor’s office door open. From the threshold, he can see Cliff sitting at his desk in front of the computer, staring into space.

  He immediately jerks to attention at Jeremy’s knock. “Come on in.”

  “Can I close this?” Jeremy rests a shaky hand on the doorknob.

  “Go ahead. Have a seat.”

  Jeremy closes the door, sits, and takes a deep breath. Telling Jack about last night was daunting enough.

  Telling Cliff—which was, of course, Jack’s immediate and predictable advice—is downright scary.

  Jeremy’s supervisor is an intimidating guy—not just physically, though at six-foot-four and close to three hundred pounds, Cliff certainly cuts an imposing figure. But his no-nonsense demeanor gives him an air of authority that has been known to thwart even the toughest kids around here. Of course, he has a soft spot for them, or he wouldn’t be in this job.

  But Jeremy isn’t one of the kids. He’s an employee, one who might be in trouble.

  “Is this about Miguel?” Cliff asks, before he can say a word.

  “How do you know?”

  “What else would it be about?” Cliff shakes his head. “It’s a damned shame. I can’t stop thinking about that poor kid.”

  “I can’t, either. Listen, Cliff . . . I was with him late last night.”

  Cliff levels a look at him but doesn’t say anything, obviously waiting for him to go on.

  “He’s—he was—going through some personal problems and he asked me to meet him. I bought him dinner at the coffee shop near my house.”

  “What time was that?”

  “I met him there at about ten. We stayed until almost midnight. I said good night to him on the street, went home, and . . .” Jeremy swallows hard.

  “Did you tell the police?”

  “Not yet. I thought I should tell you first.”

  “What kind of personal problems was Miguel having?”

  Jeremy tells him about pregnant Carmen. Of course Cliff immediately grasps the statutory rape issue.

  “But if that’s what you’re worried about—that you didn’t report it—you know it’s not—”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about,” Jeremy cuts in. “I’m worried that I’m going to become a suspect because I was with him.”

  “But you’re innocent.”

  That’s not a statement, Jeremy knows—it’s a question. He answers it with a vigorous nod.

  “You know the cops are going to want to interview you.”

  Yeah. Jeremy knows.

  “They would have anyway
, since you work closely with Miguel. They’re going to talk to me, too. All of us. It’s routine.”

  “I know.”

  “But if you’re worried about being a suspect . . .”

  He gives Jeremy another questioning look, and Jeremy nods.

  “Then you might want to have a lawyer present when they talk to you.”

  Lawyer.

  Just hearing the word brings Andrew Stafford to mind, and that makes him sick.

  But Cliff is right.

  First, Jeremy has to go home and tell Lucy, and then he has to call a lawyer.

  Not Stafford, though.

  Anyone but Stafford.

  Back in the apartment, her heart racing, Lucy forces herself to sit as she dials her doctor’s office. Really, all she wants to do is pace—but moving around too much is probably why this is happening.

  This . . . crampy ache, low down, in her pelvis.

  She noticed it again as she was leaving the bank.

  It’s probably just Braxton Hicks, but . . .

  “Dr. Courmier’s office.”

  “Hi, this is Lucy Cavalon.” She recognizes the receptionist’s voice. It’s Andrea, who’s new, and young. “I’m a patient, and I’m having . . . an issue. Is she there, please?”

  “She’s at the hospital right now . . . is this urgent?”

  “Not urgent.” I don’t think. God, I hope not. But . . . “Do you know when Dr. Courmier will be back?”

  “She’s with a patient—doing an emergency C-section—so I’m really not sure. But I’ll transfer you to the nurse-practitioner if you want?”

  “Thank you.”

  Lucy waits, nervously tapping her foot. A more seasoned medical receptionist would undoubtedly have known better than to mention a fellow high-risk patient’s emergency.

  She thinks about the poor woman enduring an emergency C-section, and she says a quick, silent prayer for her and her baby.

  Then the nurse-practitioner, Gloria Rivera, is on the line. “Hi, Lucy. What’s the matter?”

  “I’m not sure it’s anything at all, but it’s a new symptom, so I thought I’d better call.”

  She describes what she’s been feeling—and then, in response to Gloria’s questions, what she’s been doing, and eating. She also answers a series of questions about other possible symptoms of preterm labor—lower back pain, spotting—none of which she has, thank God.