by Blake Banner
She shook her head, then shrugged. “Probably. It wouldn’t surprise me.”
I said, “You and Jacob were only about a year apart. You must have been pretty close when you were small.” She didn’t answer, but I could see tears in her eyes. I went on. “Did that change as he got older?”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t talk to you? He didn’t try to convince you to become an atheist…”
“Not an atheist.”
“What, then?”
“I don’t know. We never talked.” Suddenly her face flushed. “I hated him! I hated him!”
I spoke very quietly. “What did he do to you, Mary, to make you hate him so much?”
The tears spilled from her eyes, her lip curled, and she buried her face in her hands. “He was a pig! He was a horrible pig and an animal! I hated him and detested him, and I am glad that he’s dead!”
SEVENTEEN
There was a tap at the door and a uniformed officer put his head in. He spoke quietly.
“Detective Stone…”
He indicated Mary with his eyes. I put my hand on Dehan’s shoulder. “You carry on. I’ll be right back.”
I stood and stepped out of the room into the corridor, closing the door behind me. “What is it?”
“Mrs. Martin is here. She is very upset and demanding to sit in on the interview with her daughter. She seems to believe that because it’s her daughter, she has some legal right.”
“Where is she?”
“I thought you might want to talk to her, so I put her in interview room five.”
I nodded. “Good. Thanks, Chavez.”
I stepped into room five. Sylvie half stood. Her face was taut.
“Detective Stone, I demand to see my daughter. Where is she?”
I moved toward her, talking quietly. “That’s fine. We’ll be done in about five minutes. I’ll tell her you’re here. Actually, I am glad you came in. Please…” I gestured at her chair. “Take a seat.”
She sat back down and I sat, too.
“Mary is a very sensitive, vulnerable child. She was barely a year old when her father died.”
I smiled. “She’s nineteen now, Mrs. Martin. Technically she is an adult.”
She shook her head vigorously. “No, no, she’s not. She has always been very sensitive. She needs a lot of care and support.”
“Sure. I understand, Mrs. Martin. I have a couple of questions I’d like to ask you about the day Jacob was killed.”
She closed her eyes and all the color drained from her face. “Sweet Jesus, give me strength to endure these trials.”
“You do remember that day, don’t you?”
She nodded. “Yes, I do.”
“Would you say your recollection is pretty clear and accurate?”
“Yes.”
“So, here’s the thing.” I looked her straight in the eye. “Who went back for the brownies?”
She stared at me for a long time. “I… I don’t…” She looked away, like she didn’t want to see me anymore. “I don’t know what you’re…”
I spoke loudly and deliberately. “You got to the fête and you realized there were no brownies. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Who went back for them?”
“I don’t…” she shook her head.
“What time did you go over to the church?”
“At about nine o’clock.”
“What time did you realize there were no brownies?”
She frowned, like I was an idiot. “Immediately! As soon as I started setting up the stall.”
I gave a couple of exaggerated nods. “That’s what I figured. So how come you waited till eleven before you went back to get them?”
She shook her head, still frowning. “I don’t know. I was busy. I couldn’t just…”
I smiled and spread my hands. “I understand. Like the day when Detective Dehan and I turned up and Mary had to tend the stall while you came to talk to us.” I waited. She just stared. “It was like that, right? So why didn’t you ask Mary to go get the brownies? She couldd have been there and back in two minutes. How come you waited till eleven?”
“I didn’t. I mean, that’s what I did. I got Mary to go.”
“You sent Mary to go and get the brownies.”
“Yes.” She nodded.
“Or perhaps you were worried about her health. I have seen how much you care for her. So maybe you had her sit and tend the stall while you went back.”
She shook her head in short, little jerks. “No.”
“Because she says it was you who went back.”
“No.”
“But, you know? I keep wondering, why didn’t you ask Jacob to bring them over?”
“He… I don’t remember.”
I leaned across the table and peered into her face, like I could open up her skull and read her mind. “What was happening, Sylvie, when you returned for the brownies? What was going on in your house?”
“Nothing!”
“Why are you lying?”
“I’m not!”
“You are both lying! Why?”
“Stop it!”
“What was happening in the house, Sylvie? What was going on when you went back for the brownies?”
She stood suddenly and the chair fell back with a loud clatter on the floor. “I am leaving, and you can’t stop me. Where is my daughter?”
I straightened up. “We will find out, Sylvie. And you would be wise to level with us before we do.” I moved to the door. “I’ll go and get her.”
I found Dehan outside room three, stretching her arms. As I approached, she said, “She’s clammed up. She wants to go home.”
“That’s fine. Her mother is here to collect her.”
I pushed into the room. Dehan followed. I went and leaned on the table. Mary looked up into my eyes. She looked really frightened. “Your mother says that she sent you back for the brownies, Mary. So one of you is lying. And I have to ask, what would make somebody lie about something as stupid as who went back for the brownies? I am going to give you one last chance. What did you find in the house when you went back for the brownies?”
Her face screwed up and she started crying again. She could barely speak, but between gasps, she said, “I didn’t… It was Mom… She found him.” She shook her head, biting her lip. “I was upstairs…”
Then Sylvie was in through the door, shouting. “Mary? Mary, honey, come to Mama!”
I turned. Mary rose and ran to her mother and they stood hugging in the doorway. She kissed her daughter’s head, stroked her hair, and glared at us. “You have no call to be doing this. You found your killer. Now for God’s sake, leave us alone!”
And they left.
I heard Dehan sigh and turned and saw her running her fingers through her hair. “Is she right? Are we obsessing? Are we going crazy?”
“None of those is the question, Dehan. The question is, what is making them lie about who went back for the damn brownies?”
“How do you know they are lying?”
“Because they both went pale when I asked them about it. The blood drained right out of their faces. That’s a fear reflex, a reaction of the autonomic system, Dehan. It’s something you can’t control. Mary says Sylvie went back. Sylvie says Mary went back. One of them is lying.”
She dropped onto a chair. “Okay, so they left the house about nine. According to the report, they stayed at the fête all day and returned home around four, and that was when Sylvie found Jacob’s body. But now, it seems one of them returned home around eleven to get the brownies they’d left behind; and neither of them wants to admit it was them.”
“That pretty much sums it up.”
“Doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“I know, especially as Mary wasn’t even at the fête at that time.”
“What?”
“Mary didn’t go to the fête that morning.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
As I drew a breath to continue, Dehan’s phone rang. She looked at the screen, looked at me, and sighed. She put the phone to her ear. “Yeah.” She was silent a moment. “I’m at work. I can’t take personal calls at work.” She listened for a moment, then glanced at her watch. “Yeah, okay. Half an hour.” She hung up. “I’m sorry.”
“No problem.”
I rose and went down the stairs to my desk. There I dropped into my chair, pulled out the Jacob file, and started to read it. A couple of minutes later, Dehan came down. She stood looking down at me. “What are you going to do?”
I looked up at her and shook my head. “I won’t do much more tonight. I’ll throw a steak on the barbeque and study the Jacob file.”
She looked down at her boots, like she was embarrassed. I hesitated a moment, then sighed loudly.
“Look, Dehan, why not take a week or two off? The Martin case is almost wrapped up. Spend some time together, get to know each other properly, not snatching evenings while working a case. Give yourselves a chance.” I shrugged. “Then, when you come back, if you still want to work the cold cases, great. Just explain to him that we have unsocial hours and he can’t keep phoning you at work. If you don’t, if you want to move on and do something else, well, you know I’ll give you a great recommendation.”
She didn’t answer. She just kept staring at her boots. After a bit, I took the file and my jacket and stood. I hesitated a moment.
“You want me to pick you up in the morning?”
She shook her head. “No, thanks.”
EIGHTEEN
The rain had settled in and didn’t look like it was going anywhere anytime soon. The sidewalks were spilling people expanded to twice their size by coats, hunched shoulders, and umbrellas, all busily, blindly jostling each other in the dying, wet light of early evening. Shop fronts, traffic lights, streetlamps, and headlamps were all creeping out like nocturnal predators, to sniff the rain and ease into the night.
The windshield wipers squeaked and thudded, washed away a fractured, soaked image of an autumn evening in the Bronx, only for another to build up, speckle by speckle, in its place.
I got home, threw the Jacob file on the table, and poured myself a generous measure of Bushmills. I drained the glass and poured myself another, then rummaged for steak in the fridge. I found two. I’d bought them a couple of days back, assuming Dehan would be coming over. She usually stayed at least two or three times in the week, to discuss a case, sometimes to watch a fight or a game.
She loved steak.
I smiled. One of the first things she ever told me was that she could get intense about steak.
I put the griddle on to heat and took another slug of whiskey. In my mind’s eye, I could see the church garden, the sun shining, the stall, the crowds milling, and Sylvie and Mary, both pretty and demure, with their cakes and cookies all laid out. Always together, always supporting each other, Sylvie et Mary, contra mundum.
But two years ago, she had not been there. What had Mary said? “…she came and got them herself.” Mary had stayed home. I was prepared to lay money on it. Because she was sick and her mother, who cared for her so much, would not have gotten her up and out of a sickbed to help on the stall. Not unless she had a damn good reason.
My eyes slowly focused on the griddle. There was a thick column of smoke rising from it. I sprinkled coarse salt on the meat and threw it on. There was a loud hiss and the griddle caught fire. I leaned my ass on the side and watched it, feeling sour. I took another swig, reached through the flames with a large fork, and flipped the steak. Once I had scorched it on both sides, I dropped it on a plate and carried it, with the bottle of whiskey and my glass, to the table.
I cut into it, and in my mind, I followed Sylvie as she ran across the garden, dodging through the crowds, slipped through the hedge and ran across her lawn, in through the kitchen door…
What did she find there? What was happening that made her get Mary out of bed and take her to the fête? Because surely that was what had happened. There was no other explanation. Was it Jacob? Jacob’s new friends? Were his pals there, giving Mary a hard time?
I stared hard at the image in my mind. There were hints, suspicions, vague ideas, but nothing concrete. Nothing solid. I stabbed the chunk of steak, stuck it in my mouth and chewed, and drained my glass and refilled it.
Fleetingly, I wondered if Dehan had put on make up. She hadn’t brought any with her. So perhaps he had taken her home to change.
I cut into the steak again and forced my mind back to Jacob. The word was there, begging for me to articulate it. Sureños. So why didn’t I want to? The Sureños were not that active in that neighborhood. They were there, just like they were everywhere in the Bronx. And for sure, he would have made Latino friends at school. Did he get into a gang? Was that what was at the root of all of this? Jacob had got into a gang? That was not exactly a ‘different faith’.
I chewed and stared at the black window with its amber speckles of rain. It looked cold and desolate. I got up to close the drapes. The traffic was gone. So were the people. There was only the cold splash of water falling from the gutter, and the liquid sheen on the blacktop; and far off the lonely tap of feet, somebody hurrying home through the rain.
I pulled the drapes closed and stood looking across the room at my plate and the bottle in the bright glare from the kitchen light.
Jacob hooking up with young Sureños made sense. It explained some things. It might explain his death. But how did it tie in with Simon? The two deaths tied in somehow. They had to. But how?
I returned to the table, sat, and cut again at my steak. I stuffed another slice in my mouth and the doorbell rang. I swallowed, took a slug of whiskey and walked without enthusiasm to the door.
She was drenched. Her black hair was hanging in shiny rat’s tails over her face. She was wearing what might have been a grin, or might equally have been a wet wince, but she was not wearing makeup. She was holding a bottle of wine in one hand and a carrier bag in the other. I stood staring at her for a moment.
“You going to let me in, or do I have to do penance out here on the stoop?”
I stood back. “No, of course not. Come in. Go up and get dry.”
I looked in the bag and took the bottle to the kitchen. There were two steaks, a bottle of tequila, and a couple of lemons. I heard the shower start upstairs. I had a long glass of water, threw my burnt steak in the trash, and washed the griddle. Upstairs, I heard the shower stop, footsteps, and drawers being opened and closed in the spare bedroom. I opened the wine.
I heard her shout down the stairs, “Let me cook. I need to. It is therapeutic.” There was a pause and I heard her feet trotting down the stairs. She was toweling her hair and she had changed her clothes. “Besides, I saw you burnt the one you were eating.”
“You brought a change of clothes with you?”
She shook her head. “Uh-uh. I left some here when we went to Frisco last time, looking for Tamara Gunthersen. Remember?”
“Oh.”
“Did you open the wine? It’s a good one. The guy said it was good. It needs to breathe.”
“Dehan?”
“What?”
“Why aren’t you having dinner with Saul?”
“Give me a drink, will you?”
I poured her a glass of whiskey and poured myself another. She threw the steaks on the griddle and they did not catch fire.
She sipped. “My uncle. My father’s brother. He hooked me—he wanted to hook me up—up with his business partner’s son. He is a good Jewish boy, got a great future, he’s a surgeon, comes from a great family. I could do a lot worse.”
I sat. “Did you like him?”
She turned her eyebrow on me. “You know, you don’t have to talk. You don’t have to ask questions. I’m coming to that.”
“Okay.”
“Good. So dinner one is at Uncle Ben’s apartment in Manhattan. He introduces us. Polite chat. Saul’s family is there. We are discreetly forced together, left alone. ‘You young people must have a lot to talk about.’ You know the kind of thing.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I told Ben, ‘I am not looking for a relationship. I’m not looking to get married.’ Set the table, will you? It was painful, but I got through it. But Uncle Ben won’t take no for an answer and he arranges another meal.”
I got up and started setting the table. She continued talking.
“So dinner number two is also at his apartment. He says it’s just informal, just me, him and a few friends. A little get together. The little get together is just Ben, me and Saul. And Ben retires early. So Saul is coming on to me. He likes me a lot, maybe we could go out some time, get to know each other, and I am telling him I have no time, my work rules my life, yadda yadda.”
“If you don’t like him, couldn’t you just be straight?”
“He is my uncle’s partner’s son. Also, I didn’t dislike him. I just didn’t want to marry him or go out with him. But I didn’t want to offend him either. He’s a friend of the family. So I escape and I go home. And I call Uncle Ben and I tell him to lay off. And he lays on me this whole, fucking trip about family, and my dad, and don’t make the same mistakes he made, I have a duty to my elders, I should marry a good Jewish boy, and when am I gonna have kids and do I wanna grow old alone and man!”
She dumped the steaks on a couple of plates and came out of the kitchen with them. She put them on the table. “So when he called again, Saul that is, did I want to go out with him, I had this huge guilt complex thing that I should say yes. And suddenly, I was on this fucking road that led straight to marriage, kids, grandchildren! I was going to have dinner with him tonight and marry him in six months! And I had never even kissed the guy!”
“So what did you do?”
“He picked me up, asked me if I wanted to go and change. I told him no. He looked a bit put out. By the time we got to the restaurant I had worked through it in my head. I told him he was wasting his time. I was a fucked up cop with a bad attitude, and he would be much better off with somebody else.”