The Hollow Girl (A Moe Prager Mystery)

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The look on Sarah’s face was priceless, something between abject horror and joy. I took it and ran, abject horror notwithstanding. Maybe I was willing to accept the bad with the good because I was freezing my flat Jewish ass off and would have done just about anything to get inside. I’d dressed for late September in New York City, not late September in Vermont. Act on impulse and that’s what you get.

  “What the fuck, Dad?” Unlike her father, Sarah almost never cursed.

  “They can take my girl out of Brooklyn, but not the Brooklyn out of my girl. Hey, kiddo. You gonna make me stand out here in the cold?”

  “Come in.”

  “You sure you don’t wanna give me a Breathalyzer first?”

  “Dad!”

  I stepped inside and followed Sarah to the kitchen. For a people reputed to be dreadful cooks, Jews always congregated in the kitchen. Maybe we hoped God would make himself known to us there.

  “Where’s my grandson?”

  “Paul’s got the day off. He and Ruben are out running errands and having a little father and son time. I’m going into the office later. What are you doing here, Dad?”

  “It was the name of a horse,” I blurted out.

  Sarah’s eyes got wide and she tilted her head at me in confusion. “What? What was the name of a horse? Dad, are you—”

  “No, kiddo, I’m not drunk. I swear.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Remember last year when you came to Brooklyn to take me to Bobby Friedman’s funeral?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you asked me to tell you how I became a cop.”

  “I remember, Dad.”

  “I promised to tell you how the Onion Street Pub got its name?”

  She was still confused. “What does a horse have to do with it?”

  “The cop who owned the place bet his paycheck on a forty-to-one long shot named Onion Street Blues at Aqueduct, and the horse came in. He used the money he won to buy the bar. So since he won the money on a horse named Onion Street Blues, he decided to call the place—”

  “The Onion Street Pub. Jesus, Dad, you drove all the way up here to tell me that?”

  “No, I drove over from Pam’s house to tell you that,” I said. “I drove up here to take care of the things I haven’t been able to face since she was killed. And one of those things is to apologize to you for the way I treated you that day in August.”

  “You apologized already.”

  “Not in person, I didn’t.” I reached my hand across the table and took her right hand in mine. “I’m sorry, kiddo. I was really lost and you were right, I was wallowing. I was feeling sorry for myself.”

  “But you’re okay now?” Sarah asked, pulling my hand up to her face and resting her cheek against it.

  “If you mean, am I still drinking … I’ve pretty much stopped drinking like I was, yeah. I made a bad drunk. The pain never went away, and all the drinking did was to make it easier not to deal with stuff like selling Pam’s house.”

  “Why sell it at all? Why not move up here? You’ve never liked the wine business anyway. This way you wouldn’t have to feel you were underfoot living with us, but you could spend time with your grandkids—”

  “Grandkids! Are you—”

  “Pregnant? Not yet, Dad, but Paul and I want more kids, lots of them. We’re gonna have more of our own and maybe adopt some.”

  “Because Paul was adopted?”

  “Because Paul was adopted. Because I was an only child. For a hundred reasons.”

  “Okay, I’ll think about moving up here,” I said, disbelieving. “Did I just say that?”

  The smile on my daughter’s face was answer enough.

  We had a cup of coffee, Sarah catching me up on her family’s progress. She discussed her vet practice—growing steadily—and Paul’s cases: mostly boring stuff. She showed me the most recent pictures of Ruben. Then Sarah shifted the conversation around to me.

  “So, how’s the case with Sloane Cantor going?”

  “There is no case,” I said. “When she showed up on the Internet two nights ago … it kinda put an end to my job.”

  “Too bad.”

  “For me, yeah, maybe. I was having fun working a case again. But it’s better that she’s not missing. I’m not so sure her mother’s enjoying it much.”

  “Tell me about it. God, Dad, she crucified her mom yesterday.”

  I must have gotten a sick look on my face because Sarah asked me if I was feeling all right and did I need to lie down.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine.” But I wasn’t fine. I felt the sting for Nancy. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to feel a connection to her like that. I didn’t want to feel a connection like that to anyone. Maybe only to Sarah and Ruben. Then I said another thing I wasn’t sure I could believe I was saying. “Listen, kiddo, do you think I can use your computer to see the post from last night?”

  “Sure, the computer’s on in my office.”

  Sarah was not prone to exaggeration and she hadn’t exaggerated about the Hollow Girl’s treatment of Nancy. It was more than nasty, crossing way over the double yellow line to cruelty. Somehow, Siobhan had gotten hold of Nancy’s medical records, of her pre- and post-surgery photos. They were hard to look at. Siobhan was so cold, her assessment of her mother so callous that it was difficult to listen to. I squirmed in my seat. The tirade was about how Siobhan viewed her mother as a coward for not being willing to deal with life as it had been gifted to her. Didn’t ugly people just have to deal with their ugliness? And how could someone who had made herself pretty through artificial means be so cruel as to have children?

  That was the crux of it, I realized. Siobhan’s rant wasn’t really about Nancy at all, but about herself. It was about how the plain-looking girl would never land the leading role regardless of her being the most talented actor in the room. About how there would always be more big roles available to half-talented sluts like her late friend and lover Millie McCumber than there would ever be for her. Surely Nancy would understand that this wasn’t really about her. She was so smart and perceptive, but she was human, and I supposed they didn’t make armor thick enough to protect a mother from a daughter attacking her this way. What I knew was that when Sarah shut me out for years after Katy had been killed, I lived in perpetual ache. Sometimes the ache was a dull one and whole weeks, sometimes months, would pass without a sharp pain. Then again, Sarah wasn’t torturing me by the day on the Internet.

  Immediately after the Hollow Girl signed off for the night, a different video came up. It was another disclaimer, this one featuring Siobhan. She was smiling, though she held a pretty scary-looking bayonet in her hand. As she spoke, she brushed the tip of the blade along her palm.

  Hey, guys, just a reminder. The stuff you see here is performance art. It’s make-believe. Please, please remember that. Don’t go calling 911 when you see stuff like this happen. [Drives bayonet into her shirt above heart. Holds bayonet in place. Blood soaks shirt. She laughs.] It’s special effects. [Removes blade from chest. Slowly shoves bayonet into palm.] The blade is a prop. It recedes into the handle. Listen to the spring. [Lifts shirt to reveal plastic blood pack taped to chest and tucked partially under bra cup.] Remember, it’s art.

  With that last line, Siobhan Bracken faded to black. I didn’t quite get the need for all the disclaimers, especially since the only person getting cut up in all this was Nancy Lustig and then only by her daughter’s wicked tongue. I felt awful for Nancy, but she’d manage. I would have enough on my own plate over the next few days without trying to salve someone else’s wounds.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I stayed the weekend. It had been a good few days. The best days I’d had since late June. I’d spent a lot of catch-up time with Ruben and let Sarah and Paul get out for dinner on Saturday night. What can I tell you, besides being incredibly handsome, my grandson displayed genius tendencies and laughed at practically everything I did. He was a p
articular fan of me tickling his belly and playing peek-a-boo. On Sunday, Sarah came over to Pam’s house and helped me organize the paperwork that needed taking care of. We looked through some of Pam’s stuff, her old stuff that predated me. Mostly Sarah and I laughed as we filled in invisible thought balloons and made up dialogue for the people in Pam’s high school yearbook and in her photo albums. It was good to be happy again at the sight of Pam and to see her so young, pretty, and smiling. That’s how I wanted to remember her, not as a body sticking out from under the front end of a Jeep.

  We made a deal, my daughter and me. If I promised not to sell Pam’s house immediately, Sarah would come over once or twice a week and sort through Pam’s clothing and papers. She would send me the paperwork that needed seeing to, would bundle up and donate the clothing, the books, all that kind of stuff. She would go through the attic, garage, and basement, and put aside things for me she thought I might want to keep or sell. I was good with that on many levels. I loved my daughter, but she did have a bit of her Uncle Aaron in her. She had a head for organization that had always escaped me.

  Now the weekend was over and Monday morning was at hand. Time to head back home to deal with the world again. It would be both the same world I’d left behind and a different world. Although there was no longer a case to work, I would still have to deal with Nancy. I couldn’t dismiss as simple human empathy the sting I’d felt for her as I watched Siobhan rip her to pieces. There were feelings there, and I would have to make sense of them. And I would have to face the world without drinking. I suspected that would be far less complicated than dealing with Nancy Lustig. With a few days’ worth of perspective I’d come to realize that heavy drinking was like most self-destructive activities—far more romantic from the outside looking in. Most importantly, there was something else that needed doing when I got back into the city, something, I realized, that had needed doing for many years.

  I locked the front door behind me, but stopped in my tracks as I noticed Sarah’s Subaru—almost everyone in Vermont, it seemed, drove a Subaru—kicking up clouds of dirt as it flew up the driveway towards me. My heart jumped into my throat because Sarah, Paul, Ruben, and I had said our goodbyes after dinner the night before. I couldn’t imagine what reason she could have for rushing to see me like this. I couldn’t imagine it was for anything good. I heard my mom’s ghost whispering to me, When things are good, watch out. And when I saw the look on Sarah’s face as she got out of her car, I heard my mother’s ghost clap her hands together and laugh with joy at being right.

  “What is it, kiddo? What’s wrong?”

  Sarah handed me her cell phone. “Some guy named Vincent Brock called and left a message with my service. He says it’s urgent that you call him. Something about a guy named Rizzo.”

  “Anthony Rizzo,” I mumbled to myself, screwing up my face.

  “What is it, Dad?”

  “Anthony Rizzo,” I repeated, louder this time. “He used to be the doorman at Siob—at Sloane Cantor’s building.”

  “Well, I thought you ought to know. Here, call him.” She handed me the phone. “I wrote down his number if you need it.”

  “That’s okay, I’ve got it.”

  I took his card out of my wallet and tapped in the number. Vincent picked up after one ring.

  “Yeah, Prager, Jesus, where have you been? I’ve had to turn over your family tree to find you.”

  “You know where I am. I’m in Vermont. What’s so—”

  “The Nassau County cops found Anthony Rizzo’s car yesterday.”

  “This is why you tracked me down and frightened my daughter, to tell me that the Nassau—”

  “They also found him.”

  “And ….”

  “They found him in his car in the trunk.”

  “Dead?”

  “Very dead. His head was smashed in like a grapefruit dropped off the Empire State Building.”

  “Nice image.”

  “What do you think it means?” Vincent wanted to know.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”

  “You say that a lot.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t like it. You say that a lot.”

  “I’ll remember that. I don’t know what Rizzo getting his head bashed in means. You met him. He was the type of guy who was good at pissing people off. Maybe he pissed someone off past the breaking point.”

  “Well, duh.”

  “Vincent, do me a favor, don’t bust my balls. I’m not the schmuck who drives around in a neon car with vanity plates that scream ‘Hey, look at me’ or can’t find his own dick in the dark. I’m sure you’re good at what you do, but you’re not good at what I do. I’ll check in with you when I get back into New York.”

  “That’s big of you, asshole.” His voice cracked with anger.

  “Who knows? I mean, about the doorman?”

  “I had to tell Cantor.”

  “His ex, does she know?”

  “No clue.”

  “Shit!”

  I clicked off and handed the phone back to Sarah.

  “Do you always talk to people like that?” she asked, smiling, yet a little bit horrified.

  “Only when they deserve it, and even then, not always.”

  “Is it trouble?”

  “Murder is always trouble for somebody, kiddo. I just don’t know if it’s my trouble. I gotta get going.”

  I hugged Sarah tight and kissed her forehead. Then I turned and looked at Pam’s house and wondered if I could really ever call it home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Nancy had left a few messages, but none were about Rizzo. She was mostly just curious about when I was getting back and if I had seen Sloane’s recent posts. There was an odd kind of glee in her voice that seemed disconnected from the question, but I didn’t turn myself inside out trying to make sense of it. I would be seeing her soon enough. Most of the messages were from Julian Cantor and his tone of voice was pretty far removed from gleeful. Mostly he was gruff, alternating between rude and frantic. He wondered if I’d seen what his daughter had been up to. Wondered what I thought about Rizzo’s murder. Wondered why the hell I wasn’t calling him back. Urged me to call him back. Demanded that I call him back. Threatened me that I’d better call him back.

  Listening to cell messages after being out of the loop for a few days was like reading through your mail after returning from vacation. Neither was much fun, and both reminded you that all respites were temporary. But before I dealt with Cantor, I had to check in with Frovarp and Shulze to make sure they knew that I hadn’t been screwing them around. I got Shulze on the line. He didn’t even bother giving me a hard time. He assured me they knew all about Rizzo being dead, and Shulze actually sounded as if he believed me when I explained that I’d been out of town. When I asked him if he thought Rizzo’s homicide had any larger implications, Shulze laughed that goofy, malevolent laugh of his and said he would have to look up the word implications in the dictionary. Of course he couldn’t let me go without a little bit of unpleasantness, making sure to threaten me if I didn’t alert him to anything new that I might hear in connection with Rizzo’s murder. Everyone seemed intent on threatening me.

  I put in a call to a Nassau County detective I’d met about six years back when the art prodigy Sashi Bluntstone had been kidnapped from near her home in Sea Cliff, Long Island. Detective Jordan McKenna and I weren’t exactly close, but we’d found Sashi alive and mostly intact. That had made him look pretty good in the eyes of the brass and, like with Fuqua, had earned him a promotion and a medal. So I was more than a little disappointed to hear that McKenna had chosen to take a week’s vacation.

  “Prager, P-r-a-g-e-r,” the guy repeated as he took down the message. “Hey, wait, I know that name. Aren’t you the old guy who dived in the fucking canal in Babylon to save that Bluntstone girl? Man, it took some pair of balls to jump in that water in the middle of winter.”

  It’s not quite how I would have described
myself. “Yeah, that was me—Old Frozen Nuts Prager.”

  He liked that. “Sure. We met at McKenna’s promotion party. I’m McKenna’s partner, Mike … Mike Bursaw.”

  “Right. Right. Mystery Mike.”

  “That’s me. Shit, you remember that, huh? I’m impressed. I couldn’t remember which way was up the next day, I was so hammered.”

  “Listen, Detective Bursaw—”

  “Call me Mike, okay?”

  “Okay. Listen, Mike, I heard that your uniforms found a guy from the city stuffed in his car trunk yesterday.”

  “We did indeed. Hold on a second.” I could hear him tapping on a keyboard. “Yeah, here it is. The vic’s name was Anthony—”

  “Rizzo.”

  “You knew him?”

  “Sort of. Listen, Mike, could I buy you a drink tonight after your shift? I think we might be able to do each other some good.”

  “How about maybe breakfast tomorrow? These days coffee suits my habits better, if you hear what I’m saying.”

  “Loud and clear. You know Barb and Rob’s Pantry in Roslyn?” I asked.

  “Sure. Tomorrow at 6:30.”

  “See you there.”

  I picked up the phone to call Cantor back, but decided to watch the last few posts from the Hollow Girl before dealing with him. Before you step into a minefield, it’s good to know what kinds of mines were buried there. The last post I’d seen was the one I’d watched the day I showed up on Sarah’s doorstep. After that, I hadn’t been willing to let the Hollow Girl inject her particular brand of mishegas into my life. I was too busy enjoying my time with my own daughter’s family to allow Siobhan’s anger and pain to rob me of my pleasure.

  The posts I missed were more of the same, but with a different flavor. During Sunday’s post, the Hollow Girl turned her focus away from Nancy and aimed it directly at Julian Cantor. Although Cantor’s sins were more diffuse than Nancy’s, he was portrayed by his daughter as a little man—weak, insecure, consumed by petty jealousies and vanities. She claimed that her father had married her mother only as a means to gain access to his father-in-law’s money and influence. That he was a serial cheater both in his marriage and in his law practice. This post, like the ones about Nancy’s surgeries, came with a photo display. This time, however, the photos were of Cantor’s alleged mistresses. A few, apparently, were the wives of friends and business associates. One of the photos was of Alexandra Cantor. Neither the gleeful tone in Nancy’s voice nor Julian Cantor’s frantic one were mysteries to me any longer.