Quick Study

by Maggie Barbieri

  As the day wore on, it became apparent to me that my little bit of sales subterfuge had put me in a much more compromising position than I had at first realized—the Feds would now look at me as a “person of interest.” Maybe I was blowing this out of proportion, or maybe not. The fact remained that Crawford could have given me a heads-up and had chosen not to.

  By mid afternoon I had a bee in my bonnet, which, when I think back on it, was probably related to the lump on the top of my head that had left me with a raging headache. Combined with my being questioned by the police, being caught mimicking my boss, and breaking my favorite Mark Messier picture, it all added up to my being in a very sour mood.

  I don’t get irate very often. I usually hover somewhere between paranoid and mildly hysterical. I reserve irate for about once a year and I usually end up really screwing things up. But from year to year I forget the results of my flights of ire and eventually launch into another fit without thinking.

  Which is exactly what I did at the end of the day.

  I finished teaching my classes at three and left campus, despite the work that I had been planning to do to make sure everything was set for the English Honor Society meeting the following week. The cheese was ordered—really, what else needed to happen?

  Crawford’s precinct is not that far from St. Thomas but the neighborhood is a world away from the rarefied air that the denizens of the university breathe. Things start to get a little more urban as you make your way south of campus. I drove to the precinct—having borrowed Kevin’s car—and found a spot across the street, where I deposited my last quarter in the parking meter. That quarter gave me twenty minutes to find Crawford, lay into him, and get back to the car.

  I didn’t really expect to find him there, but as luck would have it, he was coming out the front door of the precinct with Carmen and Fred, the three of them laughing at something Fred had said. Since Fred usually doesn’t speak, I couldn’t even imagine what he could have said that would have led to the hilarity that had the three of them nearly doubled over. I felt the temperature of my blood go up a few more degrees. There’s nothing that makes me angrier than seeing happy people when I’m in a bad mood.

  “Hey!” I called out as I crossed the street. They stopped in their tracks and saw me jogging across the street toward them, against the light.

  “Alison?” Crawford said, the smile leaving his face. He knew this wasn’t a social call.

  I walked up to them, a little out of breath. I really need to get more exercise. I inhaled a few times to catch my breath. “What are you doing?” I asked.

  Crawford looked at Fred and Carmen as if that would explain it. “We’re working,” he said. He gave me a look that said, “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  Fred scowled. “We’re going out to do a canvass. Wanna help?”

  Carmen melted off back toward the precinct door, mumbling something about having forgotten her wallet.

  “When were you going to tell me about Madeleine Cranston?” I asked once she was inside.

  Crawford slumped a little bit. “I couldn’t tell you. You had to find out just like everyone else,” he said, his tone much like that of a kindergarten teacher.

  “Did it ever occur to you that I might be a little distressed to learn that I was going to be questioned in the death of an undercover FBI agent?”

  “We don’t think you had anything to do with this,” Crawford said.

  “You don’t,” I said, “but the Feds might. Did you ever think of that?”

  “Of course I did,” he said. “That’s why Montoya and Moran came to see you. They wanted to vet you before the Feds come in.” He gave a nod to a trio of uniformed cops going into the precinct.

  Fred decided, ill-advisedly, to push my buttons some more. “Are we done here? We’ve got work to do,” he said as he started off.

  I wished he’d go back to not talking. “And you. What are you doing to find Jose’s killer? Or Hernan? Huh?”

  Fred turned and fixed me with a steely glare. He pointed at me. “That’s enough.” He took a step toward me. “That’s not even our case. He’s a missing person.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, you’re doing nothing. That’s what I thought.”

  “You are totally out of line,” Crawford said, his voice measured.

  Although I hadn’t used up my allotted twenty parking meter minutes, I thought it was best to leave. I had gotten in practically the last word and that was good enough for me. I turned my back and stood at the corner, waiting for the light to change, the two of them still behind me. I waited to feel Crawford’s hand on my shoulder but I never did, so I walked across the street and back to my car, the sobs trapped in my throat.

  OK, so that wasn’t the best idea I had ever had. But emotion had won out and I had gotten my point across. Though that didn’t make me feel any better about what I had done.

  I got into the car and stared straight ahead. One thing that I hadn’t considered while my anger got the best of me: Why did the Feds have an agent at Riviera Pointe? What was Madeleine investigating? Was it related to the green cards and Richie’s half-assed construction practices? Did that sort of thing really bring out the FBI? I started the car and maneuvered out of the space, confused as to where this would all lead.

  When I got home about an hour later after sitting in the worst traffic I had ever encountered on the Saw Mill Parkway, I was in an even fouler mood; had it not been for that fact, I surely would have seen the government-issue sedan parked in front of my house, which I noticed only after I pulled in and was confronted by two men standing on my front steps.

  They introduced themselves as federal agents.

  Unlike my friends from the Fiftieth Precinct, the Feds don’t stand on ceremony, nor are they all that polite. Agent Goldenberg, a balding gentleman of about fifty in a neat blue suit, was civil, but not overly friendly. Agent Abreu, his younger, buffer, and much more handsome partner, was silent, not even cracking a smile when Trixie commenced her ass-sniffing routine when we entered the house.

  “Trixie! Down!” I called and pulled her by the collar toward the kitchen. “I’m sorry . . .” I hesitated, unsure of what to call them, “. . . agents?” I questioned. Gentlemen? G-men? Men who are here to throw me in federal prison? My voice trailed off as we stood in uneasy silence in the hallway.

  Agent Goldenberg broke the silence. “Is there somewhere where we could talk?”

  I thought the hallway was as good a place as any, but Agent Goldenberg was staring into the living room, apparently thinking that would be a better place for interrogation. We went in, me taking the chair in the corner and the two of them settling into the sofa.

  We went through my visit to Madeleine Cranston, but this time I left out the part where I was only pretending to buy a condo. That seemed to throw everyone off and leave them with a negative impression of me, so I decided to lie just a little bit to save face.

  “As you can see, this place is a little small for my needs, so I thought a condo at Riviera Pointe would be the next logical step for me.” I looked at Agent Abreu, who looked back at me blankly. “And I hate to mow!” I added for good measure. “And snow! I hate shoveling,” I said. “Boy, do I hate shoveling. Not as much as mowing. Well, maybe as much.” I finally shut my mouth and clasped my hands together between my knees. “I don’t really like going outside at all.”

  Agent Goldenberg nodded slowly. “Got it.”

  It occurred to me that offering my sympathies might be in order. “I’m very sorry about Agent Cranston,” I said. “She was very nice.”

  They both nodded, and Agent Goldenberg thanked me for my concern. “Now back to your visit to Riviera Pointe.” He looked at me through small round glasses. “To buy an apartment,” he added, for good measure. “Did you observe anything . . .” he paused, looking for the right word, “. . . I don’t know, unusual? Interesting?”

  I didn’t think he wanted my thoughts on Richie’s funky teeth, so I shook my head and to
ld him that everything seemed perfectly appropriate and normal for a sales office.

  I was surprised when Agent Abreu stood and Goldenberg followed suit. “OK, then,” he said. “That’s all we need for now. We may be back.”

  “We may be back,” Abreu echoed in a very husky, throaty, and mucho sexy voice. I got to thinking about Agent Abreu in a totally inappropriate way, given the circumstances of our meeting, and felt my face flush.

  “Thank you for coming,” I said, unnecessarily. Only if I had added, “And don’t forget your favor on the way out!” would I have sounded more ridiculous.

  Agent Goldenberg gave me another look, decided that yep, I was an idiot, and bid me farewell.

  As soon as I shut the front door, I burst into tears.

  Twenty-Four

  The Feds were looking at me, and Crawford was most certainly pissed. As Max would say, I looked to be in “big-ass trouble.”

  And just to confirm that was the case, Max called at eight the next morning to give me what for.

  Her speech was slow and deliberate, which was very un-Max-like, so I knew I was in deep trouble. “Did you ask my husband what he was doing to find Jose Tomasso’s killer? And did you ask him in front of his precinct? And two other detectives?”

  “Just one other detective. Carmen had already gone inside.” Details, details. Maybe it would throw her off the scent. I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep the night before, and I was standing at the kitchen counter drinking coffee. I let her rant for a few seconds before I interrupted her. “I feel bad enough as it is, Max, so let’s just let it go, OK?”

  “Oh, we are not going to let it go,” she said and proceeded to rant some more. I didn’t know where she was but she was really screaming, so I hoped she was in the confines of her office and not out in public. She ran out of breath about three minutes into her evisceration of me and paused to get some more oxygen.

  “Are you done?” I asked.

  “For now,” she said.

  “I screwed up, Max. I’m sorry. I’m going to call Fred today to tell him I’m sorry.”

  “Fine,” she said.

  “Good.”

  She waited a moment and I could tell she was getting agitated again. “One thing I don’t get,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Why do you even care?”

  I was confused. “About what?”

  “About them. The Escalantes. Are you really that close to these people that you would risk your relationship with Crawford, not to mention your life, to find out who killed this guy? Why are you so invested?”

  I thought for a moment. “Because I like them. And there haven’t been any breaks in the case.”

  “Well, there probably would be if you kept your nose out of it,” she said.

  I ignored that remark. “I like these people, Max. I never thought community service would be like this. I figured I would just go, log my hours, and go home. But once Jose’s body was found and Hernan went missing, I realized that I was more invested than I thought.” I took a sip of coffee and looked at Trixie, who was looking up at me with her usual mix of ardor and admiration. “I don’t know how it happened but it did.”

  “It happened because you are you.”

  “You are very wise, young grasshopper.” I leaned down and ruffled the clump of fur under Trixie’s neck.

  “I wish I could be more like you.”

  “Well, here’s a start. Help me out at the Lord’s Bounty tomorrow night.”

  She chewed on that for a minute. “Are there cute guys there?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Is the food good?”

  “Depends on who’s cooking.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  That was good enough for me. “Are we still friends?” I asked, hoping that I already knew the answer.

  “Of course!” she exclaimed, surprised that not being friends was a possibility. “I’m not sure how you’re going to make up with Mr. Wyatt, but that’s your problem.”

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  “Oh, guess what!” she said suddenly, off topic. “I’m having dinner with Morag tonight.”

  “You are?” I said.

  “Yeah. She called me and asked me to dinner. I must have mentioned to her at the cocktail party that I might be interested in an apartment,” she paused dramatically, “for real, not like some people I know. Fred’s still been ragging on me about the apartment’s history,” she said more dramatically. “I’m sure he has some kind of history, but I don’t care about it. That’s why they call it history,” she said.

  I waved my hands in front of the phone as if to say, “And? Hurry up.”

  “Anyway, she said she told Richie and he asked her to meet with me to get the process started. She’s bringing brochures on the different apartments so I can look at them and bring them home to Fred.”

  “Really?” I asked. The whole thing sounded very unorthodox but I wondered if Richie had deputized her, so to speak, in the wake of Madeleine’s untimely demise.

  “Yeah. Fred’s still on this total honesty kick, which, frankly, is a giant bore, but I’m humoring him. And he doesn’t like living downtown. So we may get a place at Riviera Pointe and keep the Tribeca place in case I ever need to get away from him for a couple of hours.”

  A two-thousand-square-foot apartment was a bit more than she needed for a little time to herself, but I didn’t remind her of that. She had more money than I would see in two lifetimes on my professor’s salary. Fred couldn’t afford either place on his salary but god bless her, she was trying to keep him happy.

  She hung up, her work done for the day, before I could comment on the multitude of strange turns of events.

  I had a lot of penance to do, but figured I would start with Sister Mary. I would go to school early, teach my classes, make specific as opposed to general recommendations regarding cheese, and try to get back in her good graces.

  Before I left for work, I got the unexpected and welcome news from the service station that my car was ready. I walked into town to get it, begrudgingly paying for damage that for once I had not inflicted myself. After that I drove to school, careful not to exceed the speed limit, as I often did, on the Henry Hudson Parkway. Crawford was mad at me, as was half his squad, so trying to talk my way out of a ticket was out of the question. I pulled into St. Thomas thinking that the thirty-five minutes it took me to get there clearly didn’t represent my best time, but content that I had arrived without incurring further points on my license. It was an eminently good start to the day.

  I wouldn’t exactly say that I had a spring in my step, but I was feeling better than I had when I left the house. One look at the gorgeous riverfront campus starting to exhibit the first signs of spring and I was almost able to forget that my life was going down the toilet. I parked the car in my usual spot at the men’s dorm and got out of the car, careful to make sure there were no yellow Chevy Cavaliers in my path, and started down the back stairs to my office.

  I have one of the most unusual offices on campus. It’s only about one hundred square feet in size, and its floor-to-ceiling windows look out on the back side of the building. Which means that I can see everybody coming in and out of the building during the day—and if I’m coming into the building, I can see if someone is sitting in there. I started down the stairs and, when the sunlight reflecting off the windows refracted, I could see two figures in my office standing at the windows and looking out at the back steps. Agent Goldenberg was one.

  And Agent Abreu was the other. At that moment, a dream from the night before came back to me and I stumbled a little bit on the stairs, my heart pumping a little faster than it should have, given the amount of exercise in which I was engaged. I regained my footing, thinking that Agent Abreu looked way better in the tighty-whities and gun belt of my dream than in the black suit he was currently wearing.

  Agent Goldenberg winced when he saw me stumble and then gave me a thumbs-up at my recovery. I gave him
a little wave and the international sign for “I’ll be there in a minute,” an index finger in the air. He looked very excited to see me.

  Dottie was waiting for me, a bit agitated. “OK, so there are two guys in your office and one of them looks like a Latino Omar Sharif,” she said, breathlessly.

  “I know,” I said in a stage whisper. “How long have they been here?”

  “What time is it?” she asked, holding up her wrists to show me that she wasn’t wearing a watch.

  Well, if she wasn’t wearing a watch, what difference would it make what time they came in? I looked at my watch anyway. “Eight forty-eight.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have a watch. Maybe fifteen minutes?” she said.

  Great at finding cars, sucky at doing anything that required using her brain. “Thanks,” I said and did the walk of shame toward my office. This had to be some kind of record. I had been teaching here for close to ten years and I seemed to be the only professor who had ever been visited by one member of law enforcement, never mind six. And now we were crossing jurisdictional boundaries. Four of the six had been from our local precinct at least. Now, we were into federal government territory.

  I opened the door to my office and Agent Goldenberg turned from the window. “Great view,” he said.

  “Sure. If you like cemeteries,” I said, throwing my bag into the little space between my desk and the filing cabinet.

  Agent Abreu looked at me with his usual blank expression.

  “So, you weren’t looking for a new apartment,” Agent Goldenberg said, a little chagrined. He chuckled slightly even as he grimaced. He was like a federal agent from central casting in a Woody Allen movie.

  I sat in my desk chair, rolling slightly and hearing glass from the frame I had broken the day before crunch under its wheels. “You got me,” I said, and held up my hands.

  Agent Goldenberg looked a little stunned. “We’ve ‘got you’?”

  “Yep. You got me. I didn’t want to buy an apartment. But being as Madeleine Cranston wasn’t a saleswoman, I don’t feel so bad anymore,” I said, rolling closer to my desk and over some more glass. “Well, I do still feel bad about her death, but not about lying about an apartment.” I folded my hands on top of a load of midterm exams. “How did you know?”