by Andrew Lanh
“Four o’clock,” I repeated, shutting off the phone.
***
The lounge of the country club, a spacious room off the main entrance of the rambling Colonial-style building, mimicked aristocratic British décor: burgundy-tinted walls, understated lithographs depicting foxhunts that had never taken place anywhere near Avon. A wall of uncut leather-bound volumes secreted behind locked leaded glass panel doors, volumes so uniform I imagined they were some interior decorator’s faux-laminate addition. Pristine oriental carpeting so deep you felt as if you were walking in your slippers. A brick fireplace with gargoyle andirons. And deep, bulky leather chairs in forest green, three of which now contained men engaged in a spirited conversation about some item in the Hartford Courant. I watched them as I sat across the room, waiting for Judd.
Every so often the men would glance at me, deliberately, in a body, but then turn back to their current-events squabble. A little insecure, I tugged at the lapels of my corduroy sports jacket, pressed my hands across the seam of my ironed khakis, and noticed that my loafers were suitably worn at the heels. A burgundy knit tie and a pale blue shirt. Slightly shabby, but very Ivy League, I looked as if I belonged there.
Judd Snow smiled as he rushed across the room, hand extended. Dressed in a white polo shirt, white linen pants over white deck shoes, a white cardigan sweater across his back and the sleeves tied in front, he looked like a Hollywood wannabe from Leonardo DeCaprio’s vision of The Great Gatsby—or an upscale Good Humor man who couldn’t find his truck.
“Hey, Rick,” he began, affecting a casual familiarity.
“Judd.”
“We have to make this fast, I’m afraid. My father’s probably pulling the car up as we speak.”
He toppled into one of the deep chairs, sat back, an angelic smile on his lips. He waited.
“Frankie Croix,” I said, and watched his face close up.
“Yeah, I know that. Hazel told me you were working to save that scumbag from the electric chair.”
“Well, that’s a real extreme fate for him, no?”
The smile disappeared. “It should be.”
A good-looking young man, I thought, strapping, his long legs stretched out in front of him, one knee rocking back and forth to a rhythm only he heard. An athlete’s grace, cool, confident, a body toned perhaps by that tennis court he just left. A square jaw, like a roaring twenties Leyendecker model, high cheekbones, deep blue eyes set far apart so that he seemed a little dim, though the wariness in his eyes suggested otherwise. A lock of bushy straw-blond hair was allowed to drift haphazardly over his forehead, but the haircut looked expensive and designed for a millennial stockbroker or a baby boomer millionaire. He was a young man who never questioned his own place in the scheme of things.
“You look like you were born to be a member of this club.”
His eyes flashed, surprised. “That goes without saying.”
“That’s exactly the remark I expected you to make.”
He didn’t know how to answer me, a quizzical smile on his lips.
I switched gears quickly. “What do you think about Simon Tran and Frankie Croix attacking Ralph Gervase?”
He watched me closely. “Well, I wasn’t surprised, if that’s what you mean, but I don’t really think about it. I don’t care.”
“Simon is the brother of your girlfriend.”
“Yeah, and a kid I don’t know. One I barely saw.”
“But you don’t want a member of your girlfriend’s family up on charges, right?”
He was getting irritated. “I told you—I don’t care. Hazel tells me he’s a goofy kid, and I don’t know that creep Frankie”—a big smile—”other than as someone whose face met my fist. A criminal who ruined a good part of my day.”
“That’s what I want to find out about.”
“But why?” He squinted his eyes, looked over to the three men who were quiet now. “I mean, that stupid scene had nothing to do with—killing someone.”
“Yes, I know that. But if I’m to prove Simon innocent, I’ve got to understand his buddy, Frankie. The fact that he tangled with you suggests, well, a short fuse, a propensity for violence…”
“Listen to you,” he broke in, amused. “‘A propensity for violence.’ CSI: Farmington. Special Idiots Unit. An HBO After School Special.” He laughed at his own humor. “Look, Rick. I caught the creep making goo-goo eyes at my girl, and that’s taboo big-time. A few words and the dirt bag rushed me, surprised me. So, yes, he’s given to hair-trigger anger. I’m not, although I had to defend myself. It happened so fast—bang bang. He hits, I hit. The mall cop frowned on it. The fucking nightmare ended with both of us arrested. Arrested, Rick. Me—minding my own business. Thank God my father got it hushed up, although that also meant that creep got off with a slap on his wrist.”
“That’s it?”
His voice rose. “Do I think he killed that man? It wouldn’t surprise me. But, as I said, I don’t care.” He pointed a finger at me. “Christ, I had to hear Hazel babbling on when her brother was first arrested—sent away. Knocking people over on the street? The Courant had a field day with that. Lucky no names—underage and all that. But Hazel’s dad went ape-shit.”
“You followed the case?”
“Hazel felt the need to bore me.”
“A hearing in juvenile court?”
“Whatever.”
“When you had that fight, he says you stole a video game and some weed.”
A wide grin. “To the victor goes the spoils.”
“Still and all…”
“If you’re here for a character reference for Frankie, you’ve come to the wrong place.” Suddenly his face turned dark, his eyes narrowed. “He’s a piece of white trash from a Hartford project.”
“So your parents were bothered?” I asked.
That gave him pause. Absently he ran his hand down the front of his polo short. “For your information, my mother left my father—and me—a decade ago, moved to one of the plains states where no one with any sense goes, and that’s the end of it.” For a second his face tightened. “My mother ran off with a scumbag car salesman, and she never looked back. I’m there waiting for someone to make my lunch. I’m still fuckin’ waiting.” A confused grin. “My father sits on bags of money and thinks he’s younger than me. An embarrassing second childhood. Maybe I mean—second adolescence. I’ve had a hundred almost-stepmoms, each one with the conversation skills of a vacuum cleaner filled with dust. So…that’s my biography. Happy? My father wasn’t happy heading to a police station with a two-hundred-dollar-an-hour ambulance chaser at his side. One cop even knew my dad. But he couldn’t let the heir apparent languish behind bars.”
“Have you seen Frankie since?”
That perplexed him. “Why should I?” Then, his face even darker, a vein in his neck throbbing. “But I’ll tell you one thing, Rick, my friend. He crosses paths with me and looks at me the wrong way, well, there’s gonna be fireworks. I’ll go George Zimmerman on his sorry-ass head.”
I leaned forward, watched his mobile face shift, the anger growing. “Sounds to me like you also have anger issues.”
His jaw went slack as he contemplated me quietly. “Anger issues? Christ, does everyone your age talk like they’re auditioning for Dr. Phil’s afternoon housewifey TV interrogation?”
“You’re a smart-aleck.”
He grinned. “It took you this long to pick up on that?”
He stood up, smoothed the front of his polo shirt again as though he’d managed to wrinkle the fabric by standing, and nodded at me. “My father is out front. Unlike me, he doesn’t put up with the kind of bullshit you seem to be paid to do.” With that, he strode out of the room, though he glanced back. “I don’t think you can sit there all day if you’re not a member.” A sly grin. “Even Walmart-loving nouveau-riche Avon has its standards.”
I followed him outside, headed to my car that, it turned out, was parked near that red Audi, the top down. Judd sauntered toward it, a cavalier stroll that made the man behind the wheel frown. As I passed by, I looked into the driver’s seat, and the man fingered the sunglasses that covered his eyes.
Judd, beaming, paused by the passenger door, and announced in a loud voice, “My father, Rick. I know he looks like the playboy of the Western world in those Italian sunglasses, but he’s just the simple man who gave me life on this planet.”
The man removed the sunglasses and leaned across the seat. “Judd told me you were meeting him. Rick Van Lam?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Foster Snow.”
We shook hands. He sat back, one arm thrown casually over the back of his seat, his head turned upward. Yes, a playboy, I considered, according to his son, with his longish slicked-back hair glistening from some gel best used on a car engine. The loud Ed Hardy summer shirt picked up the shrill red of the convertible. Here was a man trying to look younger than his son. Oddly Judd, with his oh-you-kid country-club mien, seemed the elder of the two. Foster wore a bemused expression, as though I’d uttered some bon mot he found delightful. I didn’t like him. First impression, an instinct. From the look on his son’s face, I surmised that his handsome progeny didn’t either. I bet they spent their leisure hours at war. There was only room for one Romeo in a flaming red Audi convertible.
Judd jumped into the passenger seat, not opening the door but leaping over it like an action hero on TV, an acrobatic feat that was accompanied by a huge clownish grin.
Foster started the motor, revved the engine. A hot rodder. For some reason he laughed out loud.
Judd’s eyes glowed. “Oh, by the way, tell Liz I said hello.”
That caught me by surprise. “What?”
“Remember me to the woman who dumped you.”
“Judd, no.” His father pointed a finger at him, but was clearly pleased.
“Don’t bother Liz anymore.” My voice was scratchy. Echoes of Liz insisting she’d handle her own life. I didn’t care. I could—well, defend the woman who dumped me.
Judd’s head jerked back as his father shifted into gear and the car began to slide away.
“No one tells me what to do.”
Chapter Thirteen
Hank left me a voicemail. “Michael.” A pause. “Did you find it strange that Frankie mentioned Simon going to his brother’s apartment at Trinity?” Another pause. “What do you think? You’re the investigator here. Maybe you should…investigate. It’s a clue, Sherlock. Call me.”
I’d already wondered about that offhand remark, one that bothered Simon. Why the secret? From Hazel’s remarks I’d concluded that Michael, the oldest child, had little to do with the young boy—or his family. Perhaps that was wrong.
He answered the phone on the second ring, not a pleasant “Hello” but “What?” with a comical inflection, as if he’d been expecting a call from a close friend and this was his way of being funny.
I chuckled. “What indeed?”
A hesitant bit of tsking. “Sorry. Yes?”
Still no hello, replaced now with impatience.
I identified myself, and he startled me by breaking in. “I was expecting your call.”
“You were?” I was tempted to offer a variation of his “What?” But I didn’t.
“My mother phoned to say you were helping the family out. The Simon nonsense and all.”
“Nonsense?”
A strained laugh. “Have you met that little boy? He’s a goofy kid. There’s no way he’d assault—God forbid—kill someone. Impossible.”
“He did accost folks, Michael. It got him four months in juvie.”
“Oh, that. Foolish—but not murder.”
“It happens in the best of families.”
I meant that as a joke but he took me seriously. “If you’re looking for the best of families, you had better pass by the royal house of Tran.”
“I’m calling because I learned that Simon stops in to see you.”
He didn’t wait until I finished, his voice sharp. “Yes, that’s true.”
“Can I talk to you about Simon? I want to…”
He finished for me, making my remarks into a question. “Clear his name by interrogating the members of the family? I imagine princess Hazel had a lot to say about me.”
“Can we…”
He made a resigned clicking noise and then seemed to cover the mouthpiece of the phone. I could hear a mumbled remark to someone in the room with him. Just as he came back on the line, I heard a girl’s giggle.
His tone was serious. “I’m on spring break this week. Can you find your way through derelict Hartford?”
“My GPS knows the way to carry the sleigh.”
“Then you better come now. Maybe an hour. I have things to do.”
Click. The call ended.
His apartment was on the second floor of a beige-brick apartment complex of four floors, probably six apartments on each floor. A worn, dusty building on a small plot of land. Loud salsa music blared from a first-floor apartment, and a ragtag bunch of boys, maybe ten or eleven years old, bounced through the lobby, stopping to stare at me before they scurried out the front door. I pressed the intercom button next to the embossed name behind a glass panel: TRAN MICHAEL 3A. When the elevator door opened, two college students with backpacks stumbled out, a young man and a young woman, arms wrapped around each other.
A threadbare carpet in the hallway, peeling flowered wallpaper, but when Michael opened the door and bowed me in, I was surprised by the rooms: glistening glass-and-chrome coffee table covered with neatly stacked art books. A thick tome on top. I read the title. Helen Frankenthaler: The Late Paintings. A hard-polished walnut bookcase stretching across one wall, the lines of books arranged neatly, their bindings evened out. Gleaming black marble end tables, a black leather sofa so stark it seemed something appropriated from a New Age funeral parlor. A neat freak’s domain, I told myself. Everything in its place. The magazines and newspapers on the coffee table were spread out with perhaps three inches of space between each issue, and, sitting down at his invitation, I noticed that they were ordered in the right sequence: December, then January, then February, then March. The precise, calculated life of Michael Tran.
From speakers high on bookshelves the sound of soft music, almost not there. I strained to listen. Maroon 5.
He saw me looking at the anal-compulsive spread of the New Yorker.
He smiled. “Don’t touch anything. I’ll get upset.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“I like an ordered life, but I can see by your look that you consider me…well, compulsive.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
“Would you like something to drink?”
I shook my head. No. He was sipping pink lemonade from a tall glass.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded again.
There was a sudden movement behind me as a kitchen door swung open. A young woman walked softly into the room, her feet bare, a slender, red-headed woman in white painter’s pants that never worried a can of paint. A rose-colored peasant blouse. A pretty girl with pale skin, hazel eyes, and faint rose polish on her long nails. I noticed because she quietly waved a hand in greeting, a fluttery gesture that seemed to exhaust her. She toppled into a red leather side chair, curled her legs beneath her, and then wrapped her hands around her knees. She was smiling at me.
Michael and I watched her languorous trek to the side chair, he with a look that suggested possession and delight. Me, however, baffled. Off-Broadway performance art in an off-campus apartment on a ramshackle side street that edged Trinity College campus.
“Cheryl.” Michael pointed at her and she nodded at me.
“R
ick Van Lam.”
“I know.”
Michael sat down opposite me. “What can I do you for?”
“Simon. Your little brother. Suspected of assault resulting in the death of an old man. And, I now understand, a boy who likes to visit his older brother.”
Michael frowned. “I don’t know whether he likes to come here. Frankly, I was surprised when he first showed up. He took the city bus and somehow found me.”
That puzzled me. “When did the visits start?”
He rolled his tongue into his cheek. “The day after that detective Ardolino dragged him in for questioning. So, yes, recently. After he got back from Long Lane. He never came here before. It scared him, I guess. Ardolino can be a bulldog.”
“So he came here?”
He glanced at Cheryl. “You seem surprised. He’s not scaling Everest to get here.”
“But the emotional climb to these rooms is probably…”
He thrust his hand out, blocking my face. “Oh, Christ. Introduction to Freshman Psychology.”
I grinned. “Fair enough.” I glanced at his girlfriend who was watching me closely. “On the phone you said you didn’t believe he had anything to do with the new assault. Why?”
“Simple. Because he told me he had nothing to do with it. Yes, he did that nonsense that got him sent to Long Lane.”
“You’re excusing that?”
He rushed his words. “I didn’t say that, did I? Let me talk.” Flash fire annoyance, a tinge of red in his cheeks. “Of course not, but it was a boy’s stupidity. Yes, people did get hurt. A broken limb, I believe. But this last incident was a whole different ball game, no? And he told me he got scared at Long Lane—never wants to go back. Certainly not a life of crime that leads to Somers and a cell shared with a prison-muscle freak named Jim Bob.”
Again the glance at his girlfriend, who now sat with her eyes half-shut, a narcotic smile on her lips. His eyes finally stayed on her face, a twist of his head suggesting some communication between them. When he looked back at me, I detected irritation. What had they said to each other in their coded body language?