Everything to Lose: A Novel

by Andrew Gross

  They’d be trying to find their money.

  I made Brandon sleep next to me. I lay down with him in my bed, my arms around him, maybe squeezing him a bit too tightly, my heart throbbing. The last thing he did before drifting off was to mutter sleepily, “Mommy, don’t call the elephants in.”

  “The who?”

  “The elephants, Mommy. Like at the circus.” The reluctant heroes.

  “No, honey . . .” I put my arms under the sheets and hugged him. “Don’t you worry, we won’t. We won’t call them.”

  As soon as he was asleep, I gathered my nerve, grabbed a light, and went outside to the back deck. I went down the steps and found under the gardening table the key I’d hidden that opened the door to the crawl space.

  Which at least meant that no one had been down here—that the money was still intact.

  No one knew for sure.

  Which also meant if someone wanted me to know they were on to me, they were likely trying to scare me into doing something reckless and showing my hand. Like maybe running with the money or re-hiding it somewhere.

  Which meant they might be watching the house even now.

  I looked around into the woods and felt myself shudder with fear.

  If . . . I forced myself to come back to reason, if this wasn’t all just what it appeared to be on the surface: Part of the string of Westchester home burglaries. Stuff was missing. My iPad. Some antiques. My files were all broken into. Someone was clearly searching for valuables. It just seemed they hadn’t made it upstairs.

  Back in the house I scanned the outside from the kitchen window, pushing back the feeling that I was being watched, that someone out there was just waiting for me to make a move. That I should just put the satchel out on the doorstep and let them take it, and then the whole thing would go away.

  No, it wouldn’t go away.

  I’d already used a healthy chunk of it, $60,000. What about that?

  What I kept coming back to over and over was how anyone could know. I hadn’t given Rollie my real name. And I was sure I’d left no trace of myself back at that crime scene. Even if someone had dusted for prints in Kelty’s car, they might have found mine. But my prints weren’t even in the system. And who was I kidding, this wasn’t any kind of official investigation. The police likely didn’t know a thing about any missing money. If they did, there would be flashing lights in my driveway and cops at the front door. Not upended furniture and an open back door.

  I lay there, my son breathing innocently next to me, going over what options I had.

  The clock read a quarter to two.

  Clearly I’d committed a crime. I’d taken the money. Possibly from a crime scene, because at that point it might well have been a crime scene until foul play was ruled out. I’d tampered with evidence. Who knew where a half million dollars in the front seat might have taken the crash investigation?

  Maybe a prosecutor would forgive me for that. I’d never committed a crime before. And anyone might have been tempted. But then I’d used part of it. I laundered it through the banking system. That was a federal crime. Surely that wouldn’t just be brushed aside.

  And worse, what I did might have led to the death of a completely innocent man.

  My thoughts whirled in a hundred different directions. I felt the urge to run to the toilet and hurl.

  I tried to calm myself, in the face of everything, by the fact that I didn’t know for certain if any of this was even true. What if I went to the police and turned in the money—“What money?” they would want to know. No one had any idea there had even been a crime. I’d have to return whatever I’d spent. Milton Farms might be willing to give it back. But Brandon would be out of there that same day. And I’d be a felon. I’d be risking my son being taken from me. I was all he had.

  And even if I did turn myself in, even if the district attorney overlooked all that I’d done, if someone was truly hunting me, for the money, if my fears about Rollie and tonight’s break-in were true, then the people responsible still wouldn’t have what they wanted.

  Their money.

  The police would have it.

  They’d killed Rollie just on the suspicion that he had it. Knowing I had taken it and lost it, what would they do to me?

  My thoughts caromed wildly. Nothing ever looks very pretty in the middle of the night. I watched the clock turn three.

  I decided I had four choices.

  One was to just wait and see. Do nothing. It might all blow over or never ever come to pass.

  Of course, if I did that, I could also wake up with a gun at my head one morning. And put Brandon at grave risk. At best, I’d never have a calm night’s sleep again in my life.

  Second, I could take off with the money and move out to Montana or something. Take Brandon out of his school. Leave Judy and Neil. No, that was just the hour talking. Crazy. My life had been ripped apart at Brandon’s age when my folks died. How could I possibly do it to him?

  My third option was to turn myself in. Hire a lawyer; work out some kind of deal. As a first offender they might forgive much of what I’d done.

  The problem was the very real possibility that the only actual crime that had been committed so far was mine. That the break-in tonight was exactly what it was—the work of the same people who had done the other three. That Rollie hadn’t been murdered, he’d killed himself.

  That I’d be turning myself in for nothing.

  I could end up in jail. Then who would take care of my son? That would destroy him. His world would fall apart in an instant. He counted on me. I’d be bringing on him the same terror and abandonment I’d felt as a child. Exactly what I always tried to protect him from. Not to mention that if the money was illicitly gained, whoever wanted it back, whoever had killed Rollie, wasn’t about to let me get off with just a few months in jail. They’d come after me.

  It was going on four when a last option entered my mind. One that just kept nudging itself forward.

  I had to find out where that money had come from. And who might be looking for it. Was it dirty? Were they bad guys? Did I have to be afraid? Where had Joe Kelty gone that night?

  Before I completely tore our lives apart.

  Not to mention, it occurred to me, that there might be someone else out there I had put at risk. Who, like Rollie, had no idea there had even been a crime.

  Which all explained why at a quarter to four in the morning my thoughts drifted to Joe Kelty’s funeral.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  That damn dog never stopped barking.

  His name was Jerry. The neighbors’ white-and-black Jack Russell. Mr. Halverston always left him in the yard late into the night, and you could hear him, yip-yipping at the occasional car that drove by, people taking a stroll. Maybe the moon. And first thing the next morning he was out again. His mother always said you could set your clock by it. That barking.

  He grew up with that yip-yip-yipping from across the chain-link fence.

  He was a good dog mostly. Once you shut him up. He was happy and liked to fetch, and he’d come back with anything, a Frisbee, a Spalding ball, wagging his tail. His brother Todd always went over and walked him when he came home from school. He would toss him treats across the fence from their bedroom window.

  “Why are you doing that?” he would always ask Todd.

  “He’s my friend,” his little brother would say. “Why else? You shouldn’t worry about him so much. The dog’s just lonely.”

  They’d moved here and switched schools that year. Mom had a new job, working in some office of a garment manufacturer’s in Manhattan. She had to take the ferry early in the morning and then a train. She always came home after dark. For a while it seemed they had to grow up by themselves. Every once in a while, their uncle Clifford would watch them. But he was a weirdo. Once, while they were watching TV in the basement, Clifford touched him in a way he knew wasn’t right. It made him hard and he was ashamed of it, being just twelve. “Don’t tell your mom,” Clifford s
aid. “She’s damn well got enough to worry about without this. You don’t need to upset her more. It’ll be our little secret . . .”

  He nodded, thinking to himself that one day he would take one of those screwy things his mom used to open a wine bottle and drive it into Clifford’s eye.

  But his mom did have a lot to do. Then, as soon as she put the dishes away and finally relaxed at night, there was always the barking.

  “Someone should do something about it,” she would say.

  “Maybe you should talk to Mr. Halverston.”

  “God knows, I’ve tried. Lucky it’s a cute little thing,” she would say, holding back a smile, “or else I might well just put it out of its misery.”

  Then one night he was home alone doing homework. Mom and Todd were at Todd’s elementary school for a parent-teacher night.

  The yip-yip-yipping began. He waited for it to stop. It never did. He opened the bedroom window and looked down at the dog.

  “Shut up.”

  Jerry just looked up at him, barking even louder.

  “Shut the fuck up,” he said.

  Maybe thinking he was Todd up there, the dog continued to yelp, standing on his hind legs, looking up at their window. Probably hoping for a biscuit to come down.

  Someone should do something, he heard his mother say.

  He went into the jar on Todd’s desk and took out a couple of treats. Then he went downstairs and out the back into their tiny yard. Jerry barked at him across the wire fence. He looked at the Halverston house. He didn’t see any lights on inside. He knew they liked to play bingo at the church some nights.

  Yip. Yip. Jerry was barking.

  He went over to the fence and tossed a treat into the Halverstons’ yard. Jerry went for it. He climbed over the fence.

  “Here, Jerry. Here, boy . . .” He held the second biscuit out for him to see. “Come here.”

  The dog ran up, tail wagging. He looked around and went into the open garage. Mr. Halverston didn’t really use it for his car. He parked his car out on the street. He used it as a kind of workroom. He had lots of tools and a large freezer in there. He liked to fish. Everyone knew he would go out sometimes at midnight on the bay and always catch something. He’d clean them and cut them up and give some out around the neighborhood. Thick fillets covered in ice shavings. His mother always looked forward to them.

  “Come on in here, Jerry. Come on, boy,” he said affably, showing him the second biscuit. He led him into the garage.

  He’d had a dream once. Of what he might do to shut him up for good. His mom would be happy. The entire neighborhood would be. He’d be doing everyone some good.

  “Come on, boy . . . ,” he said. He opened the freezer door.

  There were a couple of frozen fillets stacked on the top shelf, but the bottom was completely free. “Here, boy. Here, Jerry . . .” he said, waving the biscuit in front of the dog’s nose. He tossed it into the bottom freezer bin and the stupid pooch climbed right in.

  He stayed just long enough to enjoy the sound of him whimpering and scratching at the door.

  It was two days later when they finally found him. He was frozen like a big dead fish. With a skinny tail.

  For two days everyone figured Jerry had gotten out somehow and run away. Instead of barking, all you heard was old man Halverston and his brother going up and down the neighborhood. “Here, Jerry! Here, boy!” calling for the dog.

  “Don’t worry,” he said to his mom while she was doing the dishes. “I fixed it, Mommy.”

  When they finally found Jerry, there was wailing and shouting across the street. His brother ran into their room and punched him in the face. “I know it was you. It was you!” The police even came and talked with him.

  His mom never said a thing.

  It was nice, not hearing that stupid barking anymore.

  But it wasn’t too long after that that his mom came and made them pack up their things and they had to move away again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Driving across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge the following morning, I thought this still seemed like the most viable option.

  I had dropped Brandon at school. Later, Elena would pick him up and take him to her house. He stayed with her for a day or two from time to time if my folks were in Florida and I was out of town.

  I was way too nervous for either of us to go back to my own house right now.

  I turned off the bridge and wrapped onto Hylan Boulevard, as I’d done to go to the funeral two weeks ago.

  This time I turned onto Midland Avenue in the direction of the bay. Patrick Kelty had said this was where anyone could find him if they wanted to come and help. The money rightfully belonged to him more than it did to me. I had to know where it might have come from, if someone was after me or not. Whether Rollie had been killed for it. Before I completely brought my life down for it.

  And Brandon’s too.

  Every house I passed was still in some state of disrepair. The street was passable; what debris was left had been cleared to the side. Several houses still had boarded-up first-floor windows and blankets or insulation covering them where they were exposed. What were once pleasant and colorful Victorians and beachy bungalows now looked like gutted and abandoned slum houses.

  Baden Avenue was a middle-class street that back-ended into the drive that went along the shoreline, Father Capodonna Boulevard. Several homes had work crews in front, volunteers pitching in, dump trucks and Dumpsters.

  I pulled up across the street from number 337. It was a blue Victorian with a tower on the third floor. Most of the houses seemed in decent shape, though closer to the bay, a couple of others looked like they’d been gutted. I’d read that a few people from this neighborhood had died, and many of the homes were no more than tiny wooden bungalows, below sea level. I waited for a while in the car, not sure what I would say. Only that the wrong reaction on Patrick’s part could land me in jail. Finally I just blew out my cheeks and thought, Hil, let’s just go. The one thing I couldn’t live with was the thought that I had possibly contributed to an innocent man’s death, and that if my fears were right, Patrick could be in danger too. I spotted him on the front porch, directing a couple of workers who were hauling lumber. I heard the sound of a chain saw from inside.

  I got out of the car.

  The cold wind coming off the bay lashed into me, and I was probably a second away from turning around and calling this a bad idea when he came down the front steps, lugging what appeared to be a rotted window frame. He was handsome, in a rugged way, wearing a blue New York Rangers sweatshirt and jeans and worn work boots, with auburn-colored hair cut short and flecked with red. He almost bumped into me. I’m sure I had one of those dumbstruck, I’m-not-sure-what-the-next-word-out-of-my-mouth-will-be looks on my face, but I knew I definitely didn’t look like I belonged here.

  “I hope you’re with FEMA,” he said, heading past me to a pickup truck on the street.

  “Sorry?”

  “FEMA.” He balanced the frame on his thigh and pulled down the latch for the cargo bay. “But I don’t see any briefcase, so I think not. And you’re probably not with Penn Mutual either.”

  “Penn Mutual?’

  “Our insurance carrier. Who we haven’t seen here since we first filed. Three months ago.”

  I shook my head and shrugged kind of apologetically. “No, I’m not.”

  “And you certainly don’t look like you’ve come around to pitch in. So I guess that probably leaves you as some kind of local press down here to see how we’re all holding up, which is barely.

  “Which would actually be fine,” he said, looking at me, “because we need whatever attention we can get. We’re not quite the story line the Jersey shore is, God knows why. As you can see, there’s a bunch of us still living like the storm was yesterday.” He threw the rotted window frame into the truck’s cargo bay.

  “Sorry.” I shook my head again. The icy wind whipped in from the bay.

  “Wel
l, that’s three.” He shut the cargo door. “Three sorries. Publishers Clearing House lottery maybe? I won the grand prize? We could certainly use it.”

  “None of the above, I’m afraid. I was actually just looking for a word with you. You’re Patrick Kelty, right? Joe Kelty’s son.”

  “That would be me.” He headed back up toward the house.

  “My name’s Hilary Cantor. I just need to talk with you for a few minutes,” I said, keeping up with him. “I know you’re busy. Do you have a couple of minutes?”

  “I do have a couple of minutes.” He stopped. “I just don’t have a couple of minutes anywhere that’s warm. We could go inside, but it’s drafty enough you might as well be in a boat out on the bay.” The chain saw whirred with its earsplitting whine. “Then there’s that. We’re finally demolding the first floor.”

  “Out here will be fine.”

  “Not out here. I can see you’re freezing. Down here we call it ‘the Father Cap breeze.’ Balmy, right? C’mon, I can give you a cup of coffee at least? Courtesy of Dunkin’ Donuts up on Hylan. They keep us pretty filled day to day.”

  “Sure.” I smiled appreciatively. “Coffee would be great.”

  “Come on up then.”

  I followed him up onto the front porch. The drone of industrial-size drying fans and the hammering of drywall being stripped hit me from inside. “Milk, okay? Sugar?”

  “Just milk,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Be right back.” He went inside and I looked around at the neighborhood up close. A once happy family street, a block from New York Bay, in the shadow of the Verrazano. Now it looked as if a missile had hit it dead-on. A few of the homes had work crews at them and construction vans; others hadn’t yet begun. A couple of the homes looked as they must have the day after the storm.

  Patrick came back out with two Styrofoam cups. “If it’s not right, don’t complain to me . . .”

  “I won’t. Thanks.” I wrapped my hands around it and instantly it warmed me. I took a sip. “So how did you know I wasn’t here to volunteer?”