“Lead on, Tommy.”
Marjorie Carver stands up when we enter the room. She has narrow hips and breasts large and firm enough for me to assume they’ve been enhanced. Devoid of makeup, she appears washed out, her complexion empty and dull. This despite her raven-black hair and brittle blue eyes.
By her side, a protective arm on the back of her chair, Marjorie’s lawyer evaluates me through owl-eye glasses. Lorimer Taub’s been around for decades. He’s the shyster of choice for well-heeled defendants throughout the county.
Tommy introduces me and Vern, a waste of breath. Marjorie’s casual glance is purely evaluating. She knows who we are.
Taub nods to me. “Lieutenant Mariola, how have you been?”
“Fine, and you?”
“Never better.”
As we’ve faced off against each other several times when I had to testify, the exchange is formal. Taub returns his full attention to Tommy. “What’s said here, it’s strictly off the record until we reach an agreement. Right, Tommy?”
“Understood.”
“Now, I’ve heard my client’s story, and I’m telling you that it’s not only big, there’s no way you could have gotten it on your own.” He glances in my direction for just a moment. “You and I, Tommy, we’ve known each other a long time. I wouldn’t be sitting here if I didn’t believe my client. I have better things to do. So I want you to tell me you’ll push for lower bail if I make good on my claim.”
Tommy pretends to think about it for a few seconds, then says, his tone suitably solemn, “You have my word.”
Taub sits back in his chair, and Marjorie Carver leans forward to settle her elbows on the table. Pinched to begin with, her mouth tightens, the corners pushing inward. Defiance is what I’m reading. Fuck you and your self-righteous judgments.
“I’ll come right out with it. I’m Carl Schmidt’s girlfriend. I been his girlfriend for the past two years.”
“Girlfriend?” Vern jumps in. “Not mistress?”
“What’s the difference, Officer?”
“I’m a detective, not an officer. And there’s definitely a difference between independent and kept. So, which were you?”
Marjorie returns Vern’s steady gaze for a few seconds before caving. “Carl paid the rent and helped me out from time to time. So what?”
Vern merely signals for her to continue. His message is plain enough. Whatever you plan to say, say it plain.
“Carl, he don’t usually show up without calling. Like he’s jealous anyway, and he thinks he might find me with another man. But I ain’t no whore. I got a daughter and a son, twins, and I’m raisin’ ’em as best I can. I got a job, too, at Baxter Packin’. Only it don’t pay the bills, not when I got to fork out for childcare. Those children are still babies, and I couldn’t bring myself to leave ’em with the lady up the street. No, I put ’em in professional childcare, licensed childcare, and that costs big time.”
Taub lays a bony hand on his client’s elbow. You can drop a sad story on a judge and hope for mercy, but not on prosecutors or cops.
“All right, Lori. I got it.” Marjorie turns her attention, not to Tommy, but to me. “So that’s how it’s been these last two years. Couple times a week, Carl pays a visit. But he don’t just show up. He always calls ahead, except for last Saturday around midnight, when he knocked on my door without callin’. Well, you could believe me when I say the man was upset. Me too, when I seen that gun tucked into his belt. I said, `What’s that?’ He said, `That’s a Glock.’ Then he took it out and showed it to me, but I wouldn’t lay a finger on it. I said, `That ain’t what I meant, Carl. I mean what’s it doin’ in your belt?’” Carl, he just laughed. “‘You’ll hear about it soon enough, but right now I need to work off a little steam. Why don’t you slip into the nightie I bought you last week?’”
Marjorie finally grinds to a halt, and I have to admit that the woman’s convincing. The nightie detail especially. Now she looks at her lawyer for a moment. Finish or wait for the DA to commit? Taub nods once, then again.
“Next day, Sunday, Carl phones me. He wants to come by. I heard Bradley was dead by then.” Relaxed now, Marjorie clears her throat. “I knew Bradley and Connor from around town, knew they was best buddies. So it didn’t come as no surprise when Carl said the same thing, that Bradley and Connor was so tight, there was no pryin’ ’em apart.” Marjorie stops abruptly, her eyes narrowing. She looks at me like I’m supposed to understand. Like we’re talking woman-to-woman. “Carl told me that Bradley was soft, a junkie with no future and sure to snitch if he got busted, which, bein’ a junkie, he definitely would. Carl wanted to know why his own son couldn’t see what was right in front of his face—”
Vern again interrupts. “Did Carl Schmidt tell you that he killed Bradley Grieg?”
“No, but he complained about Connor. Told me he had to handle the situation by himself. Connor, he wasn’t good for much, according to Carl. But when it came to Bradley, Connor was a complete asshole. `There’s times,’ Carl said, `when a man’s gotta take matters in his own hands.’”
It’s ten o’clock, and I’m chilling out with a second beer when my phone rings. It’s Danny, calling from camp. “I miss you, Mom,” he says right out of the box. “I’m having fun, but I miss you.”
“I miss you, too, but are you supposed to be making this call? Whose phone are you using?”
“One of the other kids.” He quickly changes the subject. “It’s nice here, and I’m learning a lot, but like . . .”
“Like . . .”
“I don’t know. I just miss you, Mom. Did you arrest anyone yet?”
“No, but there’s big things happening.”
“See, that’s just it. I wish . . . Shit, I gotta go.”
I set the phone down on the table next to my chair. Despite my being a complete asshole, my son loves me. I look at the beer in my hand and realize that I’m grinning like an idiot. I’ve spent most of my life avoiding dependency. No long-term relationships. No emotional commitments. Hookups, instead. Hookups and a bad attitude.
I stare down at the phone for a few minutes, willing it to ring again. It doesn’t.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
GIT
An hour after I get home, I put in a call to Madison Klein at Short Hills Medical Center. I tell her, Yes, I’ll come if living arrangements can be made for me, Charlie, and my mother. I don’t really make a decision about Mom. No, what I do is look into her yellow eyes and admit that she can’t survive without help. Nor me, if truth be told, without her. I tell myself that we’re locked into a joint child-raising partnership that can’t be dissolved. Maybe later, when Charlie’s old enough to be a latchkey child. Not now.
“I’m really glad to hear that,” Madison says. “Allison Fromm liked you very much.”
I thank Allison, thank Madison, then collapse onto my bed.
Eight hours later I’m slipping into the pair of no-nonsense walking shoes, about to head for Zack’s, when I receive an email from Madison with a link to an apartment complex in Short Hills. Paramount Village is a basic yellow-brick cube, but its borders are planted with bright red flowers and there are trees between the sidewalk and the street. Better yet, the local schools are rated AAA, at least according to Paramount.
On separate web pages, I explore a pair of model apartments, a two-bedroom and a three. With Mom along, I can surely use the extra space, but the three-bedroom’s renting for twenty-four hundred dollars, the two-bedroom for seventeen hundred. That’s in comparison with the three-bedroom house I’m currently renting for eight hundred per.
Moving on, I tell myself. That’s the whole point. Once the move is made, I’ll find a way to iron out the small wrinkles. I fill out an online application for the smaller unit before I can change my mind. True, I don’t have a formal offer from Short Hills yet, but I’m not worried about that end of the deal. I’m more annoyed than anything else. If you want to rent an apartment in New Jersey, you have to reveal everything about
your life short of when you last trimmed your toenails.
Mom’s standing behind me when I shut down the computer. I tell her we’ll have to share a bedroom for a few months. I need time to get established at the medical center before we can afford a bigger place. More than likely, even if I start immediately, it’ll be a few weeks before I complete orientation and receive my first paycheck.
Mom’s not having it. Now that she’s sure that she’s coming along, her attitude has changed. “You ain’t tole me yet what happened between you and Bradley,” she says.
“Sorry, Mom. I just assumed you were old enough to figure it out for yourself.”
“Cute, Git, but the physical part don’t interest me.”
“Then what does?”
“Connor’s been everywhere, offering a reward for the identity of the girl in the hat. That’s the way he’s puttin’ it. The girl in the hat.”
“Is there something new here, Mom? Because I’m late for work.”
“Connor’s lettin’ something else slip, too. He’s not just out to revenge his buddy. That’s ’cause most likely he’s the one killed Bradley. No, Connor’s sayin’ the woman took somethin’ from Bradley, somethin’ that belongs to Connor, and Connor wants it back.” Mom stops long enough to put her hand on her hips. She hits me with her most aggressive stare. “You steal from Bradley, Git?”
I can see those twenties again, Bradley’s twenties. They start for my face, then stop midway, suspended for an instant before making their way to the carpet. Bradley’s words follow as they begin their descent: “Fuck off.”
“No, Mom, I didn’t.”
Mom grasps the implications immediately. “Then you can’t give it back.”
“No, I can’t. And don’t ask me who took the money. Bradley was passed out, and it was raining like hell when I left. Zack, by the way, thinks maybe the cops took the money. But it could have been anyone.”
“Okay, Git, but Connor ain’t lookin’ for anyone. He’s lookin’ for you. And if he can’t find you himself, the cops’ll do it for him.”
Miranda has prepared dinner, and it’s already on the table when I walk in forty minutes late. Chicken enchiladas in salsa verde, accompanied by a watercress salad. There’s also a bottle of wine on the table, but no glass in front of Zack’s place setting. Miranda’s a rule-bound caregiver. If the doctor says no alcohol for Zack, there’s no alcohol for Zack. Later on, I’ll pour him a small glass. For right now, I’m trying to understand exactly why we’re celebrating.
We’re not, as it turns out. We’re conducting a wake. Baxter Packing will shut down a month from now. The announcement came this afternoon, and I’m hearing it for the first time. It’s like standing in a courtroom and having a judge announce the city’s execution date.
“Mayor went on the air an hour ago,” Zack explains. “Told us not to panic. Told us we’d have to reinvent ourselves. We can do it because we’re Baxterites and we don’t give up.” He pauses long enough to laugh. “But maybe it ain’t that far-fetched. See, Baxter’s been an urban enterprise zone, state and federal, for the past five years. Nothin’ come of it so far, but folks I know are tellin me there’s money from the state capital takin’ a look at property in the Yards. So maybe . . .”
Not even remotely hungry, I barely pick at my food. I want to talk about Connor Schmidt. Now that I’ve decided to leave Baxter, I realize that my family’s escape is about a lot more than money. I want to put miles between Charlie and the Yards. I want her to breathe air that doesn’t smell of the killing floor. I want her to grow up in an environment that encourages success, but I’m thinking that Mom’s right. We’ll never be free as long as Connor and the cops are after the girl in the hat. I can’t just wait for the hammer to fall.
Zack mutes the TV. He’s watching a Cardinals game, and the Cards are on the wrong end of a six-to-one score. “Heard somethin’ interestin’ this afternoon,” he says. “The cops ain’t lookin’ at that woman, the one in the hat, for killing Connor and the others. They got their eye on somebody else. You might be off the hook far as the cops are concerned.”
“And who would that be? The one they’re looking at?”
“Don’t know, Git. I’m thinking Connor Schmidt, but it could be anyone.”
“Anyone except the woman in the hat.”
“Yeah, you could say that, but it don’t help her all that much. See, Bradley Grieg was an idiot. He might have said anything to the woman, including who he was gonna meet up with later on.”
“But he didn’t, Zack. I swear.”
“I believe you, Git, but the cops don’t know that, and they’ll be lookin’ for you, innocent or not. You’re a loose end, which is not something the cops and prosecutors are prepared to tolerate. The Schmidts, either.”
I look over at a glass-fronted cabinet holding a collection of exotic geodes whose names I can’t remember. A rainbow of colors, the collection was put together by Zack’s wife, Elisabeth. A wedding photo sits on the cabinet’s top shelf. Zack looks a bit on the mean side, but Elisabeth’s actually stunning. A dark-haired beauty with exotic features that might have been drawn from a runway model.
“Zack, I have to go.”
“Now?”
“Me, Charlie, and Mom. We’re leaving Baxter, permanently.” My tone, I realize with a start, is almost angry. Somehow, love, betrayal, and resentment are whirling around each other, emotions I can neither sort out nor banish. It was Zack’s money, after Franky Belleau took off with my bank account, that kept me and Charlie from becoming homeless. “I’m going to work in a hospital. In New Jersey.”
Zack looks at me for a minute. “I’ll miss you, girl.”
“Well, it’s your own fault. If you hadn’t given me a recommendation, they wouldn’t have called me.”
“Fault? The last thing I want is for you to stick around and decay with this city. You take your little girl and start over while you’re still young enough to pull it off. I’ll get along.”
“With what? Those assholes from the agency?” I tend Zack three nights a week. The rest of the time his nurses come from an agency. He sees new faces all the time, and most are just out of nursing school.
“Honey, I been takin’ care of myself for a long time. So, like I said, I’ll get along. And I’ll feel better about it knowin’ you’re movin’ up in the world. Lord knows, you deserve a break.” Zack reaches out to put a business card in my hand: HAROLD MORTON, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW. “The cops grab you, don’t tell them anything. Hear me? Call the lawyer on that card, mention my name, tell him you’ve been pulled in by the cops. Morton’s based in Chicago, but he has connections all through the region, and I throw him a lot of business. He’ll have someone down there in a big hurry.”
“You think he’ll get me out?”
“From what I hear, the cops’re lookin’ at you as a witness. They might threaten to arrest you, but they won’t do it, because that would undercut the case they’re building against someone else. But—”
“But there’s Connor, too.”
“Connor and his old man. As to what I’m gonna do about that?” Zack looks down at his hand for a moment. “Once upon a time I had the right connections to handle problems like this. Now, I don’t know.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
DELIA
We ride up to Carl Schmidt’s house—all workers, no bosses. Chief Black stays home. Likewise, District Attorney Atkinson. They don’t want to be around unless the warrant produces something of value. That’s not the outcome they expect.
Marjorie Carver gave us enough information to secure a search warrant for Carl Schmidt’s property and vehicles. Good only because Schmidt has no residences or offices anywhere else. But the odds against the man hanging on to the weapon after killing three people are long indeed. That’s the reasoning, anyway. Me, I know better. We’re playing a game Connor Schmidt expects to win.
It’s ten o’clock and already hot. A sneak preview of the dog days to come. By noon, with the sun almost st
raight overhead, the temperature will be above ninety. If our search was limited to an air-conditioned house, that wouldn’t be a big deal. But our warrant includes the two-acre property and its multiple outbuildings.
There are ten of us crammed into a pair of SUVs and a patrol car. The SUVs are G-man black, purchased from the feds with money supplied by the feds. The chief ordered this show of force. We’re going to confront a gangster, he pointed out, who won’t know our business until we ring his bell. And neither will any subordinates who’ve stopped in for a cup of coffee.
The precautions turn out to be unnecessary. We ride up a curving driveway and approach Schmidt’s two-story colonial without incident. Carl Schmidt answers the door himself. His first reaction at finding ten armored and helmeted cops staring at him is shock. Replaced almost instantly by righteous outrage.
“What the fuck do you want?”
The man’s all torso, with broad, tapering shoulders and slightly bowed legs. His eyes are small and bright, and I assume his life is about intimidation. My initial impulse is to smack the outrage off his face. Instead, I respond matter-of-factly. The game’s playing out as expected. I can say that because the one thing I’m not finding in Carl’s reaction is fear. He’s a man with nothing to hide.
“I’m Detective Lieutenant Mariola, and I have a search warrant for the property.”
“You have what?”
“A search warrant for the property and your vehicles, sir.” I pass him a copy of the warrant, which he reluctantly accepts. “Please step aside.”
“What the fuck you think you’re gonna find?”
“Sir, if you don’t step aside, I’m going to take you into custody for interfering with a police investigation.”
I motion with my hand, a gentle wave. Vern moves forward, along with several uniformed officers holding batons. For just an instant Carl seems about to resist, but then he backs into the house. Dashing my hopes.
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