The day after the shooting, an autopsy was performed on Brendan’s body, and Sarah was told it would be released to the family the following day.
“It’s time to go up to Hannigan’s on Bell,” Peg told Sarah, gripping her by the hands. “You can have the funeral Mass at American Martyrs or St. Pete’s, but everyone goes to Hanni-gan’s for the wake. I’ll go with you for moral support.”
“Do you want me to come, too?” Bernie asked, and behind Peg’s back Sarah nodded like a bobblehead. Bernie knew that Ma could be overwhelming, with her steadfast adherence to tradition, but so far Sarah had negotiated with alacrity. She had insisted on cremation, as Brendan had asked for, but she’d conceded to having the traditional Queens Irish wake: two days in a funeral home, closed casket only. Then a funeral service, a celebration of Brendan’s life, but no graveside service or grave. Brendan’s cremated remains would eventually be scattered on Rockaway Beach, where he had learned to surf.
“I hope this isn’t one of those places that tries to gouge you with extras,” Sarah said as Peg drove the four of them to the funeral home on Bell Boulevard. Bernie sat in the back with Grace, who had wanted to be involved in the planning of the ceremony for her dad. A brave kid, Bernie thought. So mature for her age. When Bernie was nine, she’d been obsessed with Dippin’ Dots and Goosebumps books.
“Hannigan’s has served Bayside for generations,” Peg said. “They’ll do the right thing for our Brendan.”
In its day, Hannigan’s had been designed to look like one of the loveliest colonial homes on the block. The front was landscaped with sculpted bushes that Brendan would approve of. Its modest white pillars and redbrick façade were steam-cleaned regularly, giving it the perfect look of a building on a film set.
Only the stars here are fading, Bernie thought as Ma pulled into the parking lot and threw the car into PARK. Peg led the way inside, found her contact man, and got them all wrangled into a well-polished but dark office that reminded Bernie of something from the Addams Family movies. Bernie didn’t really want to think about her own body turning to dust, but she did know she didn’t want it being processed with chemicals in a place like this. It just seemed so unnecessary. Cremation was sounding better and better.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Richard Huffman said, with just the right balance of sincerity and detachment. He made a point of meeting everyone in their group, pausing over Gracie. “What do you think, Mom? Usually it’s best for children to wait outside while we take care of things. It can be very upsetting for them.”
Upsetting for all of us, Bernie thought, wondering if the process of the funeral would free her mind of the eerie images of her brother falling from gunfire.
“I don’t know.” Sarah’s spine straightened, as if she suddenly realized she might be doing the wrong thing for her daughter. “Honey, do you want to wait outside?”
“I can stay.” Grace crossed her legs, one little cowboy boot bobbing in the air under her skirt. She looked way too together for a nine-year-old.
You don’t see the freight train coming, Bernie thought.
“Why don’t we wait outside?” Bernie suggested.
Curious eyes turned back to the desk and the wall of drab landscape art. “I’m okay,” Grace insisted.
But Bernie was already on her feet. “Come with me. We’ll talk about the service. We’re going to need to pick some readings, right?”
“For the funeral Mass,” Peg said. She turned to Richard Huffman. “That’s how we’re doing it.”
Huffman went to the bookshelf and removed a book bound in black leather. “You can take a look while you’re waiting. This one has a cross-reference in the back, so you can search out favorite words. Some people find it helpful.”
“Thanks.” Bernie tucked the Bible under one arm and escorted her niece out the door.
“We won’t be too long.” Sarah spoke in a parental tone that her daughter couldn’t argue with.
Out in the main lobby, they meandered to a velvet sofa under a painting in an enormous gold frame.
“Wow.” Bernie could barely take in the dark details of the landscape for the distraction of the ornate, shiny frame. “It’s like a museum.”
Grace sighed. “But it’s a boring picture.”
“That’s true.” They sat down and Bernie pushed the downy hair of Grace’s bangs out of her eyes. “Look! You can see again. I’m a miracle worker!”
Grace hung her head, not so easily amused today. “I gave up on the miracle. I talked to Father Tillman when he came to the house, and he said God is a mystery.”
“God works in mysterious ways?”
“He said God makes up his own miracles.” Grace’s frown rumpled the skin under her pug nose. “It’s not fair.”
“I’m sure he said you could keep praying, right?”
“But I wanted a miracle.” Grace folded her arms. “Nobody would help me with it.”
“Ah, Gracie, you’re too wise for your years.” Bernie rubbed Grace’s sleeve. She wished she could spare the girl some of these difficult life lessons. “So ...” She opened the Bible. “What should we read at the service? Something your dad would have liked. That one about faith, hope, and love is good.”
“We need something about heaven,” Grace said. “To show people that’s where Daddy went.”
“Okay. Let’s look up heaven.” Bernie went to the index in the back, then showed Grace how to use it to find references throughout the Bible. “Wow ... almost half a page of heaven references. It’s going to be a lot to choose from.”
“I’ll find something good.” Grace pulled the book away and started checking back through the Bible.
What a good little student. Bernie let her do it on her own, knowing Brendan would be proud of his daughter’s independence. If he was watching from heaven, as Bernie wanted to believe.
“My mom might like this because there’s some jewelry in it.” Grace held her place with her index finger. “It says that the gates of heaven are made of pearls and emeralds.”
“Really? Can I see?” When Grace handed the book over, she found the passage in the Book of Revelation, near the end of the Bible. “So there’s an angel taking this person to show him the gates of heaven. And each gate is made of a giant pearl.” She read on. “And the walls are covered with jasper and sapphire and other unpronounceable gems. Well, there’s emeralds; that I can pronounce. And carnelian. I have no idea what that is, but it’s fun to say. Car-nee-lian.”
Grace giggled. “There’s too many hard words in that part. But this part is good. It’s about heaven. ‘I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.’” She cocked her head to the side. “How can a lamb be a lamp?”
“It’s like Father Tillman said, God works in mysterious ways.”
“Aunt Bernie? My stomach hurts.”
“So. Let’s find the bathroom.”
The main entryway forked around a central staircase, and Bernie guided Grace toward the left, having been here for a handful of wakes for elderly relatives or parents of her friends. They passed an open door to the left, where a sign said it was the Grace Parlor.
“Hey. It’s like me,” Grace said, tiptoeing over to the open door. “Look, Aunt Bernie. The room is filled with flowers.”
Bernie stepped up to peer inside. The smell of carnations hit her as she scanned the arrangements. Gladioli standing tall as flags. Mixed assortments, some with gold banners reading, BELOVED FATHER or BROTHER. A heart of roses and two flower-covered crosses.
And at the center of the floral displays was an open coffin, its lid lined in shiny blue satin, its resident propped on a pillow so that they could see his waxy face from across the room.
“Oh, no! A dead man!” Grace’s face puckered, tinged with scarlet.
“Oh, honey, it’s okay.” Bernie’s arms flew around her niec
e’s shoulders. Quickly she guided her out of the Grace Parlor and into the safety of the hall.
But the damage was done. Grace’s head bobbed with silent sobs.
“He’s dead!” Grace howled. “He’s dead.”
“I know, but it’s okay.” Bernie leaned down, her hands on Grace’s shoulders so that she could look her in the eye. “That man’s in heaven, and we didn’t even know him. But did you see all those flowers? He must have lots of people who loved him.”
“Not that man. My daddy! My daddy is dead!”
Of course. Grace had just moved beyond denial.
Bernie folded her niece into her arms and rocked her back and forth. “I know, honey. I know.”
Grace felt delicate in her arms as she sobbed against Bernie. The girl was just a delicate attachment of downy skin and thin bones engineered with frail attachments. Would Grace search out the details of her father’s death when she was older? Oh, no. Bernie couldn’t bear to think of Grace being saddled with the images of blood and shattered skull in her mind.
We humans are so fragile, Bernie thought. People were held together by a fine string of sinew, a delicate vein, and it was a miracle that life could exist at all.
Down the hall she saw Sarah step out of the office, assess the situation, then withdraw again.
Bernie stopped rocking and knelt down in front of Grace, whose puffy face and runny nose broke her heart all over again. “Oh, honey, in a minute I’m going to start crying, too.”
“I ... can’t ... help it!” Grace sobbed.
“Well, then you just go ahead and let it out.” Bernie’s eyes stung with tears, and she closed her eyes and let them slide down her face as she held tight to the sobbing girl. “That’s right, honey,” she said in a rough voice. “It’s okay to cry.”
Friday morning Bernie made the trip she had been dreading and longing for, a visit to Sully’s Cup. The shattered glass had been cleaned up and plywood had been fitted into the hole.
Her footsteps slowed as she noticed some of the yellow crime scene tape waving in the wind. So, was it still a crime scene or not?
She ducked into the open door. The lights were on, and evidence markers, dried blood, and overturned furniture littered the place. A young girl sitting on the counter talked a mile a minute. Not just a fast talker, but she had “big hands,” gesturing wildly with each word. Sully stood in his usual spot, leaning against the side counter. Bernie realized the girl was Sully’s barista, Padama.
“Bernadette, darlin’!” He motioned her in. “Come on in.”
Bernie stepped carefully around a plastic card that marked evidence, feeling as if she should tiptoe. “Dad, is this still a crime scene or what?”
“The detectives are done here. They’re on their way over to make it all official.” Her father’s arms wrapped her in a big hug.
She hadn’t seen much of him since that awful day.
“Dad, I feel like we haven’t talked in years. How is it that you’ve been here every day, even though this is a crime scene?”
He shrugged. “You know how it is. I had to be here, and the detectives didn’t mind bending the rules.”
Bernie unzipped her coat as she started taking in details. She wanted him to walk her through the crime scene, but it felt wrong to ask. “It’s dark in here without that glass wall. Are you allowed to replace it? I mean, that’s the one thing that would keep you from reopening.”
“Custom-made. It’ll take a week to get here.”
“Expensive?”
“Insurance will pay for it. I’ve got to do it, but I’m not sure about reopening.”
“Of course you will reopen,” said the girl sitting on the counter. “This neighborhood needs you. The cops need you. And I need my job.”
“You remember Padama?” he asked.
Bernie nodded. “You’ve been working here for two years now, right?”
“Almost two years, and I was working during that terrible day. Such a terrible day. I was so scared, I was shaking like the leaves on a windy day.”
“Wow. You’ve been through a very traumatic time.” Bernie felt a flash of sympathy.
“I will never forget it for as long as I live.” She seemed eager to retell her story, which Bernie had seen before in crime victims. “It was such a normal day. The rush was over and it was quiet. I had just served Officer Hilson her coffee, and suddenly ... bang! Bang! Four times, he shot.”
“And where were you standing?” Bernie asked.
“Right there, behind the counter.” Padama pointed. “I heard the shots and I froze. I should have ducked down, but I couldn’t move. I just froze stiff like a statue.”
Bernie glanced over to the window counter, where she had seen Kevin’s body. That area was taped off, the two toppled stools still on the floor. There were also two bloodstains there, from Kevin and Sean, she suspected.
As Padama continued her story, Bernie imagined a map of the coffee shop; the crime scene map. Maybe it was calloused and cold to reduce it to that, but this was what she needed, the only way she could rid her mind of the images of violent death and three young cops.
Bernie let her eyes comb the shop, trying to take in the details a prosecuting attorney might need to try this case. Not that anyone would let a family member even work on a case in the district attorney’s office; she just needed to know. She needed to sort it out in her mind.
“He shot the two officers by the window first,” Padama said. “The first shot didn’t seem real, but then the glass exploded on the second one and all hell broke loose. The other customers, they went crazy. Ducking and crying. It was like a scene from a Vin Diesel movie.”
Bernie noticed that her father was unusually quiet. He stood with his arms folded, staring at the ground. Listening. He had heard the story countless times now, and yet he was still listening. For a new clue?
“Then, quick, quick,” Padama continued, “he shot Indigo, who was right there at the sugar bar. And just then your Brendan was coming out of the restroom, and, I’m so sorry to say, he shot him.”
Sully looked up at her. “You have to speak the truth.”
“I know, but it’s hard for everyone. And then, the man turned to me and I put my hands up, thinking he’s going to shoot. But he just wanted water. ‘That’s thirsty work,’ he said. And he asked if water is free, and I said yes. I gave him a cup, with a lid and a straw, and he picked it up and drank it.”
Sully touched Bernie’s shoulder. “File that part away. We’ll talk about it later.”
Bernie nodded, trying to comprehend a killer who worried about the price of a cup of water.
“That’s when he noticed that the woman cop, Indigo Hilson, was moving. He pointed his gun at her to get another shot, and I think he got a better look. He said something to her about being his sister, and then he couldn’t shoot her. That scared him, and he left. He was limping. And when he was near the door, there was another bang. But that time it was Indigo shooting the bad guy. He still got away, but the shot knocked him to his knees. She definitely hit him. He fell against a stool, trying to get up.”
“She’s a hero, that Indigo.” Sully pushed away from the counter. “Excuse me. Got some detectives to see here.”
While Sully went to meet the man and woman at the door, Bernie ventured to the right of the kidney-shaped service counter to take a look at the hallowed spot she still dreaded, the place where her brother had died. A dark brown stain spread over the tiles, and Bernie felt sure it would never come clean.
Sully could scrub day and night, and it would still be there, an organic reminder of a life. The whisper of a priest on Ash Wednesday filled her head: Remember, man, that you were dust, and unto dust you shall return.
Padama had slid off the counter, having said something about the stockroom. Bernie didn’t hear because she could not tear her eyes away from Brendan’s floor tiles. These ceramic tiles were a portal to another world, the spiritual place where his yin and yang transported to another energy
field.
Get the hell out of here, Brendan yelped. You know I was never into that touchy-feely stuff. Just clean up the mess and move on, Peanut.
Yep, that was what he would say.
And though his advice was sound, she wasn’t sure she could take it.
She felt someone’s presence behind her, and turned to find the female detective, bending down to gather up the plastic markers.
“Do you need help?” Bernie asked.
“No, thanks. I’m on it.” She straightened, tossing them into a Ziploc bag. “Jane Braden.” Despite her brusque demeanor the woman was stunning, with mocha-colored skin that contrasted with her vivid green eyes. Even her clothes, a puffy navy jacket, black pants, and boots, couldn’t mask her startling beauty.
“And this is Lieutenant Keefer.” Sully clapped the middle-aged man with a red face and short buzz cut on the shoulder. They had approached the main coffee bar, as if they were all going to have a cup. “Braden and Keefer are from the Homicide Investigation Unit.”
“I’m Bernadette Sullivan, Sully’s daughter.” Braden and Keefer stiffened a bit, as if an outsider had penetrated their world.
“Bernie’s with the Manhattan DA’s office,” Sully added, and the detectives’ faces were animated once again. Clearly, Bernie was in the club.
“You guys really keep it in the family, don’t you?” Keefer said. “One-stop shopping with the Sully family.”
“Not to make light of a serious situation,” Braden said, reeling the lieutenant in.
“Keefer was just telling me that they got a partial print off the perp’s cup.”
“That’s good,” Bernie said, though she was skeptical. There had been legal precedents with partial prints; they were not reliable evidence.
“That and the blood sample. Just a small amount of blood on a stool that the suspect fell against after he was shot.” Lieutenant Keefer spoke confidently. “Our forensic team is the best, and we’ve got cops looking out for him citywide. There’s a description out there, and we’ve already gotten some leads from concerned citizens. Sometimes it’s the little things adding up that give you your break. Either way, we’re going to get this guy. It’s just a matter of time.”
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