“Did you tell the police that, Teresa?”
She shook her head.
“I think you should. It’ll give them something to go on.” Something besides Dooley and his uncle. “You want them to find out who killed him, don’t you, Teresa?”
She looked reluctant. She was probably scared. But Dooley thought maybe he could talk her into it.
“You’ve been so nice to me,” she said. “Jeannie, too. I’m sorry Jeffie never paid you back.”
“You told the cops he was looking forward to seeing me.”
“He was,” she said. “He’d been in a bad mood for a couple of days. I could tell something was bothering him. He was on edge, you know? He spent a couple of days sitting there”—she nodded at the couch—“looking at the TV and flipping through the channels. That used to drive me crazy. You never had a chance to figure out what show he was on before he’d flip to the next one. I used to want to kill him.” Her eyes got all watery again. “If he was here now, I’d let him flip through the channels all he wanted.”
“Did he say what was bothering him?” Money problems, Dooley bet. Probably paying-Dooley-back problems if he’d gambled away a bundle.
She shook her head. “He was just sitting there, flipping through the channels. But he couldn’t find anything he wanted to watch, and it was pissing him off. Everything was pissing him off. I went into the kitchen to microwave some popcorn. I thought maybe that would cheer him up. Jeffie liked popcorn, really salty, with extra butter. All of a sudden he came into the kitchen. He had a great big smile on his face and he hugged me and said his problems were over. Then he went out to make a phone call.”
“Went out? You mean, took his cell phone outside?” Maybe to have some privacy.
“No. He went out to use a pay phone.”
“A pay phone?”
“Yeah.”
“But he had a cell phone.”
“He went out to use a pay phone, Dooley. He did that sometimes. I don’t think he wanted me to know about it, though. He always said he was going out for a smoke—he never smoked in the apartment. But I watched him one time. He went across the street to the pay phone on the corner. That’s what he did that night. I could see him out the window. I thought he was calling you.”
Jeffie had called him Monday night, but he’d called from his cell phone. Dooley had seen the caller ID on his own phone’s read-out.
“What makes you think that?”
“Because when he came back, he said everything was going to be okay with you. I asked him what he meant, but he said I shouldn’t worry about it, which I didn’t get because I didn’t know there was anything to worry about. He said the important thing was that you were going to be happy.”
“He didn’t say anything else?”
She shook her head.
“He went out for a while after that. He never ate the popcorn I made him.”
To the video store, Dooley thought. Jeffie had gone out and made a call on the pay phone. Then he must have called Dooley—a bunch of times—before finally coming down to the store to speak to Dooley in person, to ask for more time.
“He never mentioned any guy he’d met recently, some downtown guy that liked to party a lot?”
“Downtown guy?”
“Some guy he knew who worked or lived downtown?”
She shook her head again. Then, “Well, he told me one time maybe a couple of weeks ago that he was in one of those big buildings, you know, the gold one that’s down there, it’s all windows and all the windows are gold? He told me there’s a restaurant at the top of that building, they charge twenty-five dollars for a hamburger. He said he heard two guys talking about it while he was waiting for the elevator. You think that’s true, Dooley? You think someone would actually pay twenty-five dollars for a hamburger?”
Dooley bet someone like, say, Madonna, would pay even more, assuming she ate meat—hell, assuming she ate at all. He bet there were people who would eat twenty-five-dollar hamburgers just because a whole lot more people could never in a million years afford to.
“What was Jeffie doing down there, Teresa?”
“He didn’t tell me. He just said he was there.”
“Did he say who he went to see? Did he mention a name?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
She was sure. “I guess I should clean out his stuff, huh?” she said. “Maybe give his clothes to Goodwill?”
Dooley said he thought it might be a good idea.
“Teresa?”
She had picked up a bunch of CDs and was flipping through them. Tears trickled down her cheeks.
“Did Jeffie ever say anything to you about a cop or an ex-cop?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did he ever mention that he was going to meet a cop or that he was doing business with a cop—or an ex-cop?” Like, say, Dooley’s uncle.
Teresa shook her head. But given how little Jeffie had told her, what did that really mean?
He went to the video store to pull a half-shift for Linelle—and she said he never did her any favors. Then he went home.
The first thing he saw when he came through the door was the photograph album that Gloria Thomas had given him, the one he’d tossed into the wastepaper basket in his room. But it wasn’t in the wastepaper basket anymore. It was sitting on the table in the front hall.
“Dooley, is that you?” Jeannie called. She came out of the kitchen. “I went out to see Gary this afternoon. He asked about you.” She saw what he had been looking at, and she flushed with embarrassment. “I wasn’t snooping,” she said. “Garbage pickup is tomorrow. I was just emptying wastepaper baskets, and I saw that and … I … I understand that you and your mother … it’s just … well, I guess I didn’t want you to be too hasty.”
“Did you look at it?”
“I did. I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have. And after I did, I just couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. I was afraid you would regret it one day.”
Gloria Thomas had said the same thing about Lorraine. Dooley looked at the album. He doubted he would regret tossing it. But he wasn’t mad at Jeannie. She was just trying to do the right thing.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It’s okay,” he said.
“Are you hungry? Did you have any supper?” She seemed eager, as if she wanted to make it up to him.
“Some fries.”
“Sit down,” she said. “I’ll make you something.”
Dooley watched her disappear into the kitchen. He looked at the photograph album sitting there on the front hall table. He picked it up and saw the self-help book under it, the one that he’d pitched out with the album, the one that smelled like Lorraine. He left the book where it was but carried the album into the living room. He put it down on the coffee table and stared at it for a moment. Then he flipped through the first couple of pictures of himself way back when.
Jeannie was back in a couple of minutes with a sandwich—cold cuts with some lettuce in there, a side of potato salad, and a few slices of tomato and cucumber all nicely arranged—and a glass of soda water. She set the food down on the coffee table, glanced at the picture that was staring up from the photograph album, and smiled.
“You were a cute little boy,” she said. “How old were you there?”
“I’m not sure,” Dooley said. “I think I was in kindergarten.” He took a bite of the sandwich. It was terrific, ham and Swiss cheese and spicy mustard. “Jeannie, can I ask you something?”
She sat down on the sofa beside him.
“How long have you known my uncle?”
Jeannie looked up from the photograph album. “Eight or nine months.”
“That’s all?” She must have still been getting to know Dooley’s uncle at about the same time that Dooley was getting ready to move in.
“I took a silk dress into his store to get cleaned,” she said. “It came back without the buttons. When I complai
ned, the girl behind the counter said that happened sometimes, usually with cheap buttons.” She shook her head. “It was an eight-hundred-dollar dress. When you take an eight-hundred-dollar dress to the dry cleaner, you expect it to come back with the buttons on it—at least, I do. And if it doesn’t, the very least you expect is an apology. I got neither. I was pretty steamed, I can tell you.” If you asked Dooley, she was getting steamed all over again just thinking about it. It must have been some dress. “I demanded to see the manager. I got the owner instead.” Dooley’s uncle. “I gave him an earful. I told him if he didn’t make good on my dress, I was prepared to take him to court. I also told him that I would tell everyone I knew what kind of establishment he ran.”
“I bet he liked that,” Dooley said.
Jeannie smiled. “He said he was sorry—right away, as soon as I finished talking. He said, of course I was right to be upset; he’d be upset himself if one of his suits came back without the buttons. He asked me to come back the next day and promised that the dress would be as good as new. He was so nice and polite.” Dooley had trouble imagining that. “It took the wind right out of my sails. I went back the next day and there was my dress, with brand new buttons on it. He’d even managed to match the original ones. I have no idea how he did it, but he did. He also gave me a refund on my bill. He fired the girl who had been rude to me. On top of that, he insisted on taking me out to dinner. Your uncle is quite the charmer, Dooley.”
Those were certainly not the words Dooley would have used to describe him.
“Did he talk about me—before I moved in, I mean?”
Jeannie nodded. “He told me the first night we had dinner together that he had a nephew who was going to come and live with him. He told me that you’d been in some trouble, but that you were a good kid.”
“He said that? Before I started living here?”
“He did.”
“Did he talk about Lorraine?”
Her face got more serious. “He never mentioned her. I got the impression your mother had died, although now that I think about it, I don’t remember him actually saying that. When I saw her picture and heard her name, it never occurred to me that she was Gary’s sister.”
“You saw her picture?”
“On TV. I don’t watch a lot of TV. But your uncle and I were going through a bad patch a couple of weeks ago. Something was bothering him and he refused to tell me what it was. So there I was, spending more time at home than I cared to.” She shook her head. “I think I spent one whole weekend in front of the TV, and I never do that. I was just telling myself that I had to snap out of it. I decided that I would go down to Gary’s store first thing the next morning and force the issue—either he told me what was eating him or we were through. I was just about to turn off the TV when the news came on. They mentioned the name Lorraine McCormack and showed her picture, and I remember thinking, what a coincidence. Here I am thinking about strangling a certain Gary McCormack if he doesn’t open up to me and tell me what the hell is going on—and another McCormack shows up dead on the TV.” She flushed again. “I don’t mean any disrespect, Dooley.”
“It’s okay,” Dooley said.
He was thinking about what Detective Randall had said. Why hadn’t his uncle shown any interest in Dooley all those years? Why had he let Dooley think that he didn’t even know about him? Why did he only come around after Dooley had got himself into serious trouble? He had a few questions of his own, like: Why had he been paying Lorraine regularly, in cash? Did she have something on him? At first when Dooley had found out that his uncle wasn’t really his uncle, he couldn’t figure out why, in that case, he had taken responsibility for him, especially knowing what he knew now about how his uncle felt about Lorraine. Now he wondered if Lorraine had forced him into it: Your turn, Gary. He sure hoped that Randall was wrong.
“Your mother was very pretty,” she said.
“Yeah, I guess.” She had never had any trouble attracting men, that was for sure.
“You don’t take after her, though, do you?”
Dooley shrugged. He’d never seen any resemblance between himself and Lorraine—any physical resemblance, that is. But then, he’d never looked.
“I have a brother,” Jeannie said, smiling. “He takes after my mother and her side of the family. But you’re like me, I guess.”
“What do you mean?”
“You look like your father.”
He stared at her. What was she talking about? She had never met his father—unless …
Her smile wavered. “I’m sorry,” she said, unsure of herself again. “I thought those pictures …”
“What pictures?”
“There are some pictures in here of a man who reminded me of you. I assumed he was your father.”
Dooley put down his sandwich and picked up the photograph album. He handed it to Jeannie.
“Which man?” he said.
Jeannie leafed through the pages until she came to a strip of four black-and-white pictures that had been taken in a photo booth some place, Dooley had no idea where—Lorraine and Dooley, just a tiny baby—no hair, no teeth; Dooley couldn’t even believe it was really him—and a guy who looked like he might be in his early twenties with shaggy dark hair and piercing eyes.
“You look just like him,” Jeannie said.
Dooley stared at the picture, but he didn’t see the resemblance.
“In the eyes,” Jeannie said. “And the mouth. And the cheekbones. Isn’t that your father?”
Which put Dooley in the position of having to admit: “I don’t know. My father”—the word stuck in his throat like a piece of bone—“she said he took off when I was just a baby. Who knows, maybe right after that picture was taken.”
“Your mother never told you who he was or showed you what he looked like?” Jeannie said, sounding like she couldn’t believe it.
“She’d cry about him sometimes,” Dooley said. Usually when she was between men and had been drinking. Drinking made her weepy, right before it made her mean. “The way she talked about him, I thought maybe he was dead.”
“Didn’t you ask her?” Jeannie said.
Dooley looked at her. He bet she had never met anyone like Lorraine.
“What for?” he said. “It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
Upstairs in the bathroom, Dooley stared into the mirror. Jeannie was right. He didn’t look anything like Lorraine. But he didn’t look anything like his uncle, either. Not even remotely.
The guy in the photo album, though, that was another story. At least, according to Jeannie it was. Dooley held the picture up to his face and looked at it—at the eyes, the wide mouth with the full lips, the sharp, high cheekbones. Then he looked at himself. Boy, Jeannie was better at this than he was. He stared at the man in the picture until he was sure he could recognize him in a crowded room, but he didn’t see himself in that face.
If Jeannie was right, then Randall was wrong—maybe about a lot of things. Okay, so his uncle had been giving Lorraine money, but maybe it wasn’t for the reason Randall had insinuated. Maybe Lorraine was supposed to have used it to look after Dooley. But all her friends said she’d spent it. She’d partied with it, up until about six months ago, which, according to Gloria Thomas, was when she had decided to clean up her act.
Because of a man.
He picked up the self-help book that was sitting on the back of the toilet where he’d set it when he came into the bathroom. He opened it and inhaled Lorraine’s now much fainter scent. He thumbed through it page by page until he found what he was looking for. He flipped open his cell phone and started to punch in the number she had written in pencil in a margin. He flipped the phone shut again after the first four digits. What was the point? What would it change?
Still, before he went to bed, he ripped a piece of paper out of one of his notebooks, scrawled the number down, and tucked it into his wallet.
Nineteen
There was a folded piece of paper sitting next to
Dooley’s coffee mug when Dooley came down to breakfast the next morning.
“A note for Mr. Rectal about your absence,” Jeannie said. He couldn’t tell if she was making an honest mistake or poking fun. Either way, he didn’t correct her.
“I’m working tonight, six to closing,” Dooley told her. “And I have some things I have to do after school, so I don’t think I’ll be home for supper.”
Jeannie just nodded. She didn’t give him the third degree the way his uncle would have.
School was torture, as usual. Well, except for the look on Mr. Rektor’s face when Dooley marched into the office and handed him the note Jeannie had given him. He stood there while Mr. Rektor opened it and read it. Dooley was pretty sure he wanted to say something about it, guessed he probably couldn’t think of anything because, after he’d scanned it, he put it back into the envelope. Dooley turned for the door.
“Terrible thing about your mother,” Mr. Rektor said. “And about your uncle.”
Dooley didn’t turn around to look at him. He could imagine any one of half a dozen expressions on Rektor’s face, and every one of them would only make him want to punch him. He left the office without a word.
Dooley sat at a table alone in the back of the cafeteria, a bottle of juice and a slice of pizza in front of him. So far he hadn’t touched either. He was thinking about Jeffie.
Jeffie had been watching TV and all of a sudden he’d perked up and told Teresa that his problems were over. He’d gone out right after that and had made a phone call at a pay phone. Then he’d come to the store and told Dooley that things hadn’t gone according to plan—meaning, maybe, that he’d gambled and lost—but that he was coming into some big money.
From what? More gambling? A big bet? Maybe someone tipped him to something?
Homicide Related Page 23
