by Lisa Lutz
When David and Maggie arrived, I pulled my brother aside and said, “I’m going to reveal everything over dinner. Just back me up.”
“How about you just tell me first?” David suggested.
“Nah. It’s more dramatic my way.”
I then grabbed the digital recorder from the office to ensure we had an archive of the evening’s proceedings. I think you’ll agree it was an event worth archiving.
When the meal was served and explained, because it required explaining, the mood of the table darkened. Please note that whenever anyone asked for the “meat” loaf, finger quotes were used.
[Partial transcript reads as follows:]
OLIVIA: Anyone who feels like complaining about the meal should keep it to himself.
DAVID: I have no interest in talking about the food.
RAE: What’s there to say, really? I think in juvie I could get a tastier meal than this.
ISABEL: You spent one night. You’re no expert.
OLIVIA: You haven’t even tasted it yet.
RAE: Most of what we taste is directly connected to our sense of smell. I can smell.
ISABEL: Where’s Fred? I miss him already.
ALBERT: We invited him, didn’t we?
RAE: Yes, but I caught him on the way over and told him to save himself. He’s getting a slice at Village Pizzeria.
MAGGIE: Oh my god. That sounds so good.
[The serving dishes are soberly passed around the table. A long silence ensues.]
ALBERT: Does anyone have news they’d like to share?
ISABEL: I think you do, Dad. And Mom.
[The unit exchanges eye contact.]
ALBERT: Well, I’m sure something of interest happened this week.
OLIVIA: I think Rae and Maggie have news to share about Schmidt.
RAE: In two weeks Schmidt will be a free man. How are things working out between you and Merriweather?
MAGGIE: Rae, it’s not a competition.
DAVID: Tonight, I’d like to shelve the Schmidt-Merriweather rivalry, if that’s all right with everyone.
ISABEL: Fine by me.
OLIVIA: But you have to admit, David, that freeing an innocent man is big news.
DAVID: You know what else I think is big news? Items vanishing from your home and you doing nothing about it.
ISABEL: More like suspicious news.
DAVID: Agreed. Mom, Dad, do you know where your doorknobs are?
[I observe another one of the unit’s telepathic exchanges. Rae stares down at her plate of food and actually tries to eat the “meat” loaf.]
OLIVIA: Oh, they’re around here somewhere.
[Dad, too, focuses his whole attention on his inedible meal and dives in with unnatural speed.]
ISABEL: I know where they are. Mom and Dad, would you like me to tell you? Or maybe it would be better if Rae told you.
[You’ve never seen bad food consumed at such a clip.]
RAE: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
ISABEL: Oh, so you don’t remember burying over half a dozen doorknobs, a couple light fixtures, a sink handle, and one towel rod in David’s backyard? She told David she was planting perennials; David was stupid enough to buy that excuse—
DAVID: Yes, I was stupid enough to believe my sister wanted to do something nice for me.
ALBERT: Olivia, you’ve outdone yourself with this “meat” loaf.
OLIVIA: No need to be rude, Al. You’re the one who can’t keep his cholesterol down.
ALBERT: Like it’s my fault.
OLIVIA: Losing a few pounds might improve matters.
ALBERT: I’m so tired of naturally thin people thinking they have all the answers.
RAE: My cholesterol is fine. Can I make myself some mac ’n’ cheese and go to my room?
ISABEL: You are staying right there, you little convict, and explaining to the table why you were trying to bury this house in David’s backyard.
RAE: Like I said, I have no idea what you’re talking about.
DAVID: Why, Rae? It doesn’t make any sense.
ISABEL: Actually it does. Mom and Dad are planning on selling the house. They used the Lost Wednesday excuse to get us all out of here so they could consult with real estate agents and show it and do some home improvement. They fooled Rae for a while, but she lives here, so she figured it out. She started sabotaging the showings by stealing relevant household items to lower the house’s value and compromise any viewings. Most of the doorknobs and fixtures are antiques. I don’t know where she was hiding them at first, but eventually, she figured out a good place to store the mass of hardware.
MAGGIE: Wow. You people really have your own way of doing things.
DAVID: “You people?” We’re back to that again.
MAGGIE: Nobody has a conversation in this family.
DAVID: I think we’re having a conversation right now.
MAGGIE: Now that the cat’s out of the bag . . .
ISABEL: We’re going to have a civilized conversation right now, if for no other reason than to show Maggie that we’re capable of it.
[Long, long silence.]
DAVID: Mom, Dad, is this true?
ALBERT: [to Rae] Young lady, I want every single household item shined, cleaned, and returned to its place.
RAE: If you even think about selling this house, I will handcuff myself to the pipes in the basement.
OLIVIA: I guess you’ve never heard of bolt cutters, then.
RAE: Excellent point. Perhaps more drastic measures will be taken.
ALBERT: Enough with your empty threats.
RAE: Now that Schmidt will be freed, there’s no need for those shirts. I wonder what would happen if I cut them up and flushed them down the toilet.
ALBERT: Go to your room right now. If you do anything erratic, I swear to you, I will have you arrested on vandalism charges, and I will make sure you do some serious time in juvie. Got it?
[Rae glares at my father and doesn’t move.]
OLIVIA: Rae, leave this table right now.
[Rae stomps up the stairs to her bedroom.]
DAVID: Does anyone have Fred’s phone number?
ISABEL: I do.
DAVID: Call him. She needs company right now. I don’t trust her for one second.
ALBERT: Me neither.
The dinner table quieted while I made the call to Fred. He seemed to understand where I was coming from. Maggie excused herself and used the restroom. She looked a bit green when she returned to the table.
My mother circled the table and brushed Maggie’s hair aside and kissed her on the cheek.
“Congratulations,” Mom said. “Do you want me to get you some ginger ale and saltines?”
“Yes,” Maggie replied.
My father also circled the table and offered Maggie a warm embrace.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“I didn’t know,” Dad replied cluelessly. “My wife told me.”
And then there was the silent standoff. Who would speak first? What was there to say? The lull was brief. There were too many opinions for anyone to keep quiet for too long.
“Why do you want to sell the house?” I asked as calmly as I could.
“Isabel, do have any idea what’s going on outside in the real world?” Dad asked.
“I get my news through the Internet. I’ve heard of the economy,” I replied snappishly. “Don’t try to twist this into a discussion about the gaping hole in my current-events knowledge. What’s the bottom line?”
“We’re selling the house as soon as we can get a decent price for it,” Mom said.
“No, you’re not,” David flatly replied, and that is when the lengthy negotiations began.
Here’s what you need to know: A third of my parents’ retirement was demolished in the stock market last year. They had already taken a second mortgage out on the house. They wanted to leave me a business that was free and clear of debt and now they were looking at potentially having to fund an Ivy League ed
ucation for Rae. Business had been slow. Private investigative work, no matter how you spin it, is a luxury. It’s an easy thing to give up in a failing economy. Mom and Dad wanted to keep the secret as long as possible to avoid this exact drama. They had thought of everything, or so they thought, and this was the only answer. But they foolishly believed their children would sit back and agree to their terms. Of course, we didn’t.
The night was long and loaded with negotiations. It also yielded the discovery that David had somehow been psychic about the stock market and liquidated his assets just in time. If I were on the board of the SEC, I would probably have him investigated, but I’m not. Also to be considered was Rae—the first Spellman spawn to actually figure out what was going on. Once she made her discovery, she wrote a letter to all of the Ivy League schools where she’d applied and explained to them that she had done time and they should not accept her under any circumstances. Rae was now determined to go to a state school, preferably in the Bay Area. Fred had gotten an early admission to Berkeley and now this was Rae’s top choice.
Speaking of Fred, he arrived an hour after we phoned him. He brought Rae contraband (pizza and a soda). After all her antics, my mother almost confiscated the meal, but Rae’s screams from above—“I’m hungry and I have a scissors and shirts up here”—convinced her otherwise. Mom sent Fred to Rae’s room with a short list of his responsibilities. Later in the evening, after David explained the various ways he could help the family,1 Fred came downstairs to negotiate for Rae. He simply handed a piece of paper to my father, who then passed the piece of paper to my mother, who shook her head with sad disappointment.
“Anything you’d like to share?” I asked.
“Rae insists that if she goes to college—the ‘if’ is capitalized—she will only attend a state school and live at home,” my father said.
After Fred delivered his message, he returned to Rae’s room. More practical discussion ensued. I won’t bore you with the details.
After fifteen minutes Fred returned to the conference area and said, “Rae would like to know how the negotiations are going.”
“We’ve only just begun, Fred. Nothing will be decided tonight,” said Dad.
“Is that what I should tell her?” Fred asked.
“Yes,” my mother replied.
Upstairs, a toilet flushed. My parents turned to one another with a look of panic. As if on cue, Rae shouted downstairs.
“I was just peeing. That’s all!”
We killed a few more hours casting out ideas but came to no hard conclusions that night. Still, having the secret revealed certainly erased some mysteries and other tensions.
I returned home, exhausted. I drank a glass of that special bourbon my brother gave me last Christmas2 and then tried to erase all memories of the day as I went to sleep.
SLEEP, INTERRUPTED
I was woken from a deep yet troubled sleep at two thirty in the morning. A knock at the door, followed by rhythmic doorbell ringing, jarred me out of a dream in which I was digging up doorknobs from some community garden under the watchful eye of a city official. The dream had this Sisyphean1 element. I’d dig up a doorknob, put it on a stack, and then dig up another doorknob.
I tripped out of bed, checked the time on the alarm clock just to be sure, and stumbled to the door. After looking through the peephole, I opened the door and glared with sleepy eyes at my visitor.
“Do you know what time it is?” I asked, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
“Yes,” Henry replied as he entered my apartment and closed the door behind him.
“Is there an emergency?”
“No.”
“Then what are you doing here so late?”
“I needed you groggy for this,” Henry replied.
“Huh?”
It was then I felt an arm slip around my waist and another arm behind my head. And the next thing you know, Henry was kissing me. I can’t tell you how much time passed between the beginning and the end of the kiss. I was still half-asleep, remember? Well, I remember. My point is it took me a while to push Henry away and start saying stuff.
“Hey,” was the first thing I said.
“What’s going on here?” was the second.
“Are you drunk?” was the third.
Henry only answered the third question.
“No,” he said.
Then he kissed me again. I got to the “hey” part faster the second time around.
“You said you wanted to be friends,” I said.
“I lied,” Henry replied.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“But all those drinks and dinner and forced friendliness. What was that about?”
“All part of my evil plan,” Henry said.
“You’re confusing me,” I said, punching Henry in the arm, although it was a weak punch with me being half-asleep and all.
“I was confused myself.”
“You said I wasn’t a grown-up!”
“You’re better now.”
“Not that much better.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said.
There I stood in my pajamas in the middle of the night, sleepy, confused, trying to muster up enough anger to pretend I wasn’t weak in the knees.
“You can’t come around here and change your mind. I’ve moved on.”
“I made a mistake back then. You make mistakes all the time. Why can’t this one be forgiven?”
“I have to think first,” I said.
“Take your time,” Henry replied.
Then he sat down on my couch.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m going to wait here,” Henry replied. Then he took off his jacket, his shoes, and his socks, and then he asked for a blanket.
“You’re going to sleep on the couch?”
“I’m too tired to drive home.”
I grabbed a blanket from the closet and threw it at Henry.
“Thank you,” he politely replied to the assault.
I went into my bedroom, shut the door, and spent the next six hours in an unsatisfying and fitful sleep.
In the morning I woke up to coffee. Henry silently handed me a cup and then made me breakfast. And since he used the ingredients from my refrigerator, there was no tofu in sight. I ate the breakfast because I was hungry and normally no one is cooking me anything, except Mom, and frankly I wish she wouldn’t.
“This doesn’t change anything,” I reminded Henry.
“I know,” he replied.
I showered and changed for work. When I was ready to leave, Henry was still in the kitchen tidying up.
“Let me ask you a question,” I said. “When did you change your mind?”
“About ten minutes after I told you I wasn’t interested.”
“Huh.”
“I made a mistake,” he said.
“I’m leaving now,” I said, standing in the doorway to the kitchen, not-so-subtly hinting that it was time for Henry to leave as well.
Henry threw the dishtowel over his shoulder, approached me, and said, “Have a nice day.”
“Whatever,” I replied.
Then he kissed me again. I was super-fast pushing him away this time. I even followed it up with a solid punch in the arm.
“Ow,” he said.
“Knock it off,” I said.
Henry reached into his pocket and handed me a piece of paper with a phone number on it.
“This is Andrew Fishman’s cell phone number. He’ll talk to you and he has something to say.”
“You should have led with that,” I said, snatching the number out of his hand. “Thank you,” I reluctantly added.
“You’re welcome,” Henry replied.
I left Henry in my apartment. I had thinking and work to do. And frankly, I thought there was a good chance that if I left him alone, I’d come home to a clean apartment.
FREE MERRIWEATHER—
CHAPTER 6
Lieutenant Fishman met me
at a coffee shop south of Market. It was neutral territory where both of us would go unnoticed. We agreed that everything was off the record, so that I couldn’t go around quoting him, and if I happened to mention something that might incriminate me, he couldn’t follow up with an arrest.
Once we’d agreed upon the terms, I told him everything. I told him what I knew about Harkey’s methods as a PI. I told him I had evidence that Harkey was illegally recording conversations. I also had to admit how I acquired that evidence.
Then I told him about Demetrius. About how the evidence in the case didn’t match up. How Harkey ignored a solid witness, who may have also been a drunk. If a guy in prison can be a rat for the prosecution, why can’t an alcoholic on the street be a witness for the defense? Harkey buried that witness so the defense wouldn’t get their hands on him. The witness was in the police file but not the defense counsel’s papers. I mentioned the jacket Demetrius wore all the time and the photos from the crime scene. I mentioned that all of the physical evidence had conveniently disappeared around the time DNA testing became widely available. I told him point-blank that Merriweather was innocent and that Harkey probably knew it.
Then I told him about the other cases I’d looked into.
Harkey would choose his prime suspect and never waver. These prime suspects usually had a couple of things in common—they were African-American or Hispanic and had a criminal record.
Then I asked Fishman about the last case he worked with Harkey. After reviewing the file, I knew I was missing something. It was a murder investigation that looked like it was going somewhere and then it went nowhere. They had a suspect, he was indicted, charges were dropped, and then Harkey retired. Five years later, Fishman revisited the old case and found a new suspect and the charges stuck.
This was when Fishman talked.
“I was young. I had only been in homicide for two years and Harkey was my first partner. I noticed things and let them slide, but as they continued I couldn’t let them slide anymore. Witnesses pushed to identify suspects, improper search-and-seizures . . . but the last case, Harkey took it too far. Both victim and suspect were dealers. Harkey had been after this guy Rollins for a while. The victim, Marcus Turner, also had a rap sheet. Not a nice guy. Shot with one of his own unregistered guns. Word on the street was that Rollins had threatened Turner. But that happens all the time. There was no evidence beyond that. Nothing that tied Rollins to the murder. Not until Harkey removed Turner’s Rolex from the crime scene and conveniently found it after getting a court order to search Rollins’s home.
