Skin Deep

by Gary Braver

  “Jeez, I’m sorry, Officer, but I really can’t do that. I mean, no offense, but it’s not something I’m authorized to do.”

  “Okay, then maybe you can tell me where we can find Mr. Vernone.”

  “Who?”

  Steve checked his PDA device. “Nuncio Vernone. He’s the owner, right?”

  “Oh, Nonny. Yeah, but he’s out of town.”

  “Well, maybe you can call him.”

  “I’m not sure where he is.”

  Talking to DeLuca was like addressing a slow child. “Okay, then maybe you can tell us your date of birth, if you remember it.”

  “Why you wanna know that?”

  “Just wondering.”

  DeLuca looked from Steve to Neil then he told him.

  “And you spell your name D-E-L-U-C-A and the first name is Michael, right?”

  Mickey hesitated. “Yeah.”

  Steve punched some keys. “How long have you been the manager here?”

  “Three months, why?”

  “And before that you were bartender at Wolfs in Cranston, Rhode Island.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Steve raised his handheld. “Law Enforcement Agencies Processing Systems, National Crime Information Center Network. Very handy. Does Mr. Vernone know that you have twelve prior charges plus two arrests for possession of a controlled substance? Did he know that when he hired you? No? Then how about the evening of December 17 of last year when you were charged with violation of the Rhode Island liquor laws by serving alcohol to a minor, which resulted in Wolfs being put on probation for a month? Does he know about that?”

  “I don’t know. Yeah, he does. Maybe not. I don’t know.”

  “Uh-huh. Does Mr. Vernone own a cell phone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “May I please have the number?”

  “We’re not supposed to give that out.”

  “Mickey, we are investigating a serious crime and there are laws against withholding vital information in the pursuit of a criminal case, and homicide, let me remind you, is at the top of serious. Unless you want to come down to headquarters and call your boss from there and tell him that we’re investigating the murder of one of his employees and that his manager is not cooperating, and then it gets in the paper that—”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll call him.”

  “We also want a list of all your employees.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “Fish in a barrel,” Steve said as DeLuca scurried. He could see that Neil was fidgety and wanted to leave. Every so often he’d eye the waitresses or glance at the wall photos of the naked dancers. “You okay?”

  “Fucking place makes me want to go home and take a shower is all.”

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  DeLuca returned. “I guess it’s your lucky day, guys. Mr. Vernone was very cooperative.” He handed Steve three sheets of paper with a list of subscribers.

  “MerBabes Revue. Catchy.”

  DeLuca smiled proudly. “Yeah.”

  “We’ll be back to talk to other staffers. In the meantime, if you think of anything else that might help, please give a call.” He handed Mickey his card.

  “Yeah, sure.” Then Mickey pulled out of his wallet his own business cards and snapped one to each of them. “If you guys like exotic dancing, you come back and ask for me, okay? You come as my guests. We got the best buffalo wings anywhere. And lady friends are welcomed.”

  They left and stepped into the bright light of the open beach. Steve looked at the marquee photo of Terry. “What a waste,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Neil said, and headed for the car.

  18

  DERRY, NEW HAMPSHIRE

  FALL 1970

  He continued sleeping with Lila for weeks while his dad was away. But that came to an abrupt end when Kirk returned unexpectedly one night and found them together in his bed.

  Kirk spent the night in the guest room, waiting until the next morning to approach her. They were in the kitchen, Lila still in her bathrobe, his father in a golfing outfit ready for tee time with friends at nine. Even though the TV was on, he heard their exchange from the family room, where he was drawing in his sketch pad.

  “He just turned ten, for Christ sake.”

  “He wasn’t feeling well. And please stop taking the Lord’s name in vain.”

  “And stop deflecting my point. Where the hell are your boundaries?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that he’s too old to be sleeping with you.”

  “He couldn’t sleep because of his headaches. I’m just giving him a little TLC.”

  “We have medication for the headaches.”

  “And sometimes it doesn’t work.”

  “Well, double the dosage. And if that doesn’t work we can call the doctor for something stronger. In the meantime, he sleeps where he belongs, in his own bed in his own room.”

  “Yes, your highness. Whatever you say, your highness.”

  “Lila, I don’t like your sarcasm.”

  “And I don’t like your telling me what to do all the time.”

  “Only because this TLC crap has more to do with you than him.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “You heard what I said. Letting him sleep with you is unhealthy. It could warp him.”

  “Warp him? What, a little tender loving care? Maybe you should try it sometime. Life would be a lot better around here if you did.”

  “Here we go again. Let me put it to you straight. He sleeps in his own bed. Period.”

  He could tell that she was too wounded to respond.

  “He’s also my kid.”

  “Yeah, on paper,” she snapped.

  “Go to hell, Lila.”

  “No, you go to hell. You’re never around, and when you are, you’re too tired or too damn busy to spend any time with him.”

  “Because my schedule is beyond my control.”

  “You have weekends. You have days off, and I don’t see you going out and doing things with him, acting like a normal father.”

  “Who do you think gave him those model airplanes and games, huh?”

  “You do that to keep him out of your hair so you can go golfing or fishing with your flyboy buddies.”

  “That’s a fucking lie.”

  “It’s not a lie, and keep your filthy words to yourself. He’s right in the other room.”

  There was more muffled exchange, then he heard Lila say, “Your son doesn’t even know you. You’re like a stranger to him. I’m the one bringing him up. Me.”

  “More bullshit. I do things with him all the time.”

  “Is that right? Then when was the last time you played catch with him, huh? Or read him a story? Or took him to a movie? Or to the beach? Or drove him to camp?”

  “And who’s the one who puts the beans on the table?”

  “I’m trying to land something, and you know it.”

  “If you want to land something you might consider a real job.”

  “Acting is a real job.”

  “Only if you have talent.”

  “I have talent.”

  “Yeah, for taking your clothes off. Just ask your daddy.”

  Lila made a sharp cry of outrage. “You bastard. My daddy was a pig of a man.”

  She made another muffled outburst, then he heard Kirk leave, the door slamming behind him.

  From the large armchair in the family room he had heard the whole exchange. He turned off the television and went into the kitchen. Lila was folded into a chair, crying. He grabbed a handful of napkins and went to her. When she gained control she put her arms around his waist. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

  “That’s okay.” He pulled her head to his chest the way she did when he got his headaches. But he didn’t have soft pillowy breasts she could bury her face in.

  “You came to comfort me.”

  He didn’t know how to respond so he nodded.

  “You’re so considerat
e.” She took his face in her hands and kissed him on the mouth. “Did he scare you?”

  He nodded. He had heard them fight before, but it was through the walls of his room—muted exchanges. He had not witnessed Lila in tears nor had he heard her swear before. She was very religious and had taught him that swearing was a sin.

  “I’m sorry. Your daddy can be so mean at times. But you’re a sweetie.”

  “When’s he coming back?”

  “This afternoon.”

  “I don’t want him to come back.”

  She nodded. “Me neither.” He put his arms around her neck. “Do you have a headache?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Do you still want to go to Donna Corso’s party?” The girl up the street was having a tenth birthday party that day.

  “No. I want to stay with you.”

  She smiled. “Me, too. Give me a big squeeze. Sometimes Mom needs some TLC, too.”

  He did, then showed her the pad. “This is for you.”

  Lila’s mouth dropped open. “That’s me.”

  “Uh-huh.” He had drawn her picture from a photograph.

  “That’s wonderful. Maybe you’ll be an artist when you grow up.”

  The other pages had cartoon characters he had done from television. After a few moments he asked, “Does it mean that I can’t sleep in your bed anymore?”

  “Maybe it’s best you slept in your own bed for now, okay? We don’t want to make him mad again.”

  “Okay.”

  “But maybe you can come in on special occasions.”

  “Okay.”

  At the time he did not exactly know what “special occasions” were. But he didn’t bother to ask, and just watched the flicker of promise dance in her eyes. But there would come a time when she would show him. And it had nothing to do with headaches.

  19

  Steve arrived home at ten that night with his head throbbing, his eyes burning, and a low-grade sense of unease, as it part of him were out of sync.

  His apartment was on the fourth floor of a tenement on St. Botolph Street a few blocks from Copley Square. The place had two bedrooms and a recently renovated kitchen. But it looked monastic because he had moved in very little furniture—a chest of drawers, a hideaway sofa bed, two chairs, and a table. He kept it sparse so it would feel temporary.

  After leaving the Mermaid Lounge, he and Neil had headed back to headquarters, where Steve wrote up his report. Because he was the lead on the case, he was conduit for all the data that came from the other officers on the case, pulling it together, organizing it, looking for threads.

  (He uttered another prayer of thanks that nothing on file connected him to Terry Farina on the night of her death.)

  Every interview had to be written up to ensure continuity and to determine leads and directions to pursue. They had a list of witnesses to interview but so far nothing hard. Nobody had seen anyone enter or leave the victim’s apartment. No useful latent prints. No physical evidence of an intruder. It was as if Terry Farina had been murdered by a ghost.

  Or someone who knew what he was doing.

  Except for the lights.

  And the champagne.

  Major screwup.

  “It was an emotionally charged moment…. He’s scrambling to get away and also forgets stuff.”

  “You can walk, you can talk, but you can’t think.”

  He took a long shower to flush the rabble from his head. And the nightmare images of Terry Farina. They haunted him all day long, lurking in the shadows, popping up at the slightest reminder as if trip-wired. He could barely attain an objective distance on the case without feeling that he was pursuing himself. It was like being stuck in a tale by Edgar Allan Poe.

  He put on a T-shirt and shorts and went into the living room.

  A cold silence filled the space. He thought about making a fire except that fires were for wine and intimacy. He opened a bottle of Sam Adams and sat in the armchair and stared at the dead hearth, listing to the numbing silence. One of their hundred rituals was sitting by the fireplace with a bottle of wine to recap the day. On the mantel sat a photo of Dana and him at a pool bar in Jamaica from their honeymoon. For a long moment he stared at their beaming faces, thinking how the pain of her absence was what amputation must be like—phantom sensations where parts had been lopped off.

  He closed his eyes. Maybe it was the beer or the stress or toxic blood sloshing through his brain, but he felt as if he were in the center of a bottomless vortex sucking him down. All he could think was how he just wanted to let go—an urge that made sense given his family heritage of contention, betrayal, divorce, and defeat. He could still hear the screaming matches, his father’s fireball accusations, his mother’s denial and spells of withering self-pity. He could still feel the tearing in his soul as he tried to defend his mother—a woman of Celtic beauty but an unstable constitution—against his father’s attacks. And while he tried to blot those years from his memory, he knew deep down that he had been imprinted with his temper and her urge to withdraw. No wonder he couldn’t commit to having kids. No wonder the booze and dumb dick-first impulse to violate everything that was important to him. And now Dana was making makeover plans that didn’t include him. Abandoned him as his parents had done. Left him flat when he needed her the most.

  And the more he thought about that, the more resentment bubbled up like acid.

  It was her fault, when you got right down to it. He couldn’t commit, so she decides to shut him off, leaving him even more depressed. “I don’t feel like it.” “I’m tired.” “Not in the mood.”

  For a spell he hated her for that. He had even acted out, smashing a lamp the night she told him she wanted to separate. But unlike other husbands, he had never let loose his demons on his wife. Not at Dana. To some that would seem a lame victory to celebrate.

  And yet, he carried resentment like a low-grade fever. He had read someplace that rejection actually registers in the area of the brain that responds to physical pain. That in the extreme, the reaction is the production of stress hormones that can give rise to blind and dangerous impulses.

  “Did you ever kill anyone?”

  The question shot up out of nowhere.

  “Shit,” he said, and guzzled down the rest of the beer and returned to the kitchen.

  His pistol sat in its holster on the counter. In his seventeen years on the force he had fired it on duty only three times, wounding two felons in critically dangerous incidents. The third he killed in self-defense. The rest of its use was at the range.

  He picked it up.

  The standard Boston P.D. issue, a Glock 23. He snapped it out of the holster and held it by the grip. For a moment he understood how people committed suicide: when nothing holds any appeal, when even onetime simple pleasures go flat. When you look forward to nothing. When you feel guilty for being alive.

  So quick.

  He tested the heft. The gun boasted an ergonomic design with a satisfying weight distribution to ensure a controlled shot even under the most adverse conditions. A grip angle that complemented the instinctive abilities of the shooter and a satisfying twenty-five ounces with full magazine, the gun was constructed out of a high-tech synthetic that was reportedly stronger than steel yet a lot lighter. It was the weapon of choice of law enforcement.

  The grip was cool and comfortable in his hands, as if they’d grown up together.

  So easy.

  He raised the gun so that the end of the barrel rested squarely on the middle of his forehead. His finger curled around the trigger. Just five and a half pounds of finger pressure separated him from oblivion, from joining the grim statistics of police suicides.

  And they’d say he did it because of the high stress of the job; because of the constant danger; because of the Kodak gallery of death scenes in a cop’s head; because a cop is a take-charge figure who’s supposed to fix problems whether in or out of uniform. Because a cop is a different species from the rest of society, an isolated bei
ng who is rendered “other” by the uniform, the badge, and the gun. Because cops are part of a quasi-military institution where emotions are to be kept hidden so as not to let others sense doubt or to burden family members. Because cops are tempered by cynicism and mistrust of outsiders. Because the hopelessness, despair, and disillusionment with the human animal create conditions that destroy. Because the only people outside the uniforms that cops trust are family, and when one of those relationships ends, the cop’s emotional support base is lost. And all that’s left is the abyss.

  So easy.

  The ultimate cleansing ritual.

  He shook open his eyes and returned the weapon to the holster and put it in the closet of his bedroom where he stored it each night, thinking how for one brief moment his death made all the sense in the world.

  20

  A Jamaica Plain woman was found dead Sunday morning in her apartment on Payson Road. The case is being treated as “suspicious.”

  The woman, Terry Farina, thirty-eight, was found in her second-floor apartment bedroom by a concerned friend and the building’s landlady, according to Cheryl Coombs, a Police Department spokeswoman. The friend and landlady called 911 after discovering her body.

  Authorities refused to explain the exact nature of her death. All they revealed is that the woman died within twenty-four hours prior to her discovery. An autopsy is planned to determine the exact cause of death.

  They have released a photo and a description of Terry Farina. She was five seven, and weighed one hundred and thirty pounds. She had red hair and blue eyes.

  If the Farina death turns out to be a homicide, it would be the city’s thirty-ninth murder this year, seven more than last year at this time…

  Dana opened the paper to a photograph of the woman on an inside page. Her age was listed as thirty-eight, but she looked younger in the undated shot. She had shoulder-length dark hair and a heart-shaped face with large eyes, a broad brow, a thin nose, and a short chin. It was eerie: except for the nose and brow, the woman could have passed for a younger version of herself.