by Andrew Gross
“I actually haven’t seen her much lately, since the shooting. I’ve been wrapped up in this case. Beth just thought it was better that way for a while.”
Warren nodded and stared out at the sound. “She’s probably right. And what about your gal you swept off her feet? Karen?”
“She’s in Atlanta. Her father took ill. Parkinson’s. She’s down there taking care of him—sort of indefinitely. I’m not exactly sure where that stands right now.”
“Too bad.” Warren tilted his beer. “Nice gal. Not sure what she ever saw in you in the first place.”
Hauck bent his leg on the wooden table. “Yeah, too bad. So…” He shifted gears. “Still flying?”
His brother nodded. “Still flying. That’s what’s keeping me together. Over a thousand hours now. I actually bought a new plane before all this happened. A Cessna 310 turbo. It can get me as far out as Colorado or down to Florida without stopping to refuel. You ought to come out on it some time…”
“With you? Up there?” Hauck chortled. “I’d rather give up that kidney.”
“We could go visit Pop.” Since their mom died, their father had been living in an assisted-living center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the past three years.
“That would be something. The two of us just showing up. Like old times. If his heart’s not bad enough, that would certainly kill it.”
“You know, it’s a beautiful thing,” Warren said, eyes twinkling, “being up there. I wish I could describe it. It’s somewhere between a feeling of power and of being completely at peace. You see the world down there and it’s just this perfect grid and everything makes sense. And you’ve got the throttle. Would that it was all so easy…”
“You’ll figure a way to get it back. You always do. Ginny also.”
“We’ll see.” Warren reached inside a pocket in his pullover and pulled out something.
A hand-rolled joint.
Hauck’s eyes went wide.
“You mind?”
“Why should I mind, Warren? I’m only the head of detectives in town.”
“That’s in Greenwich, dude. Here you’ve got no jurisdiction. I thought all you cops did this sort of thing anyway. To unwind.” He took out a lighter and lit the tip. The smell of marijuana came alive. “Where I come from they all do.”
“Is that how you grease the wheels of the local law enforcement up there? Make all those speeding tickets go away…”
“No, bro.” Warren laughed. “That’s you!” He drew in a drag off the joint, Hauck envisioning the strong smell wafting all over Euclid Avenue, praying no one was out walking the dog. Warren offered it to Hauck.
Hauck declined.
“Always the white knight, huh, Ty? Always living up to your obligations.” Warren let out a plume of smoke. “Anyway, it works for me…”
They sat for a while in silence, Hauck studying the new lines on his brother’s face. The youthful cockiness gone. Warren gazing out at the Long Island lights in the darkness.
“So what’s the deal on that case? That gang killing?”
Hauck shrugged. “I’m not sure it was such a gang killing after all.” He thought a second about how much he should say but gave in, going over the trail of evidence that led to the Pequot Woods, his meeting up there with Raines and his inference that Sanger and Kramer were ripping off the casino, leaving out Josie.
“Lawyers…can’t trust them for shit.” Warren grinned. He inhaled another hit. “You better watch yourself up there. I know those sharks. When they want to protect something, they don’t stop. You say the dude who pulled the trigger is dead…? Maybe you ought to take that as your lucky break. Call it a day. You got a motive, a complicit dead guy…Everybody goes home happy. It’s a win-win…”
“Maybe in my book we have different definitions of what’s a win-win,” Hauck said.
“Maybe.” Warren took a swig of beer and shrugged. “Still, whatever this dude Sanger was doing—and let’s assume you’re right, that it’s far, far deeper than some gambling scam—you really think you’re ever going to get to the bottom of it? You don’t know who you’re dealing with up there. You think the waters are just gonna part, or the wigwam just open, or whatever the fuck it is up there…”
“I don’t know…”
“What you are going to do is get yourself knee-deep in a bucketful of shit, señor. Maybe cost yourself a well-earned opportunity in life. Listen, this is my office up there. I know what you’re facing. Every bloodsucker in the capitol’s got a trail of pork that leads through them. This guy Raines was actually giving you good advice. Not that you would ever see that, stubborn bastard that we know you to be.”
“Who’s creeping around whose house here, Warren?” Hauck looked at him, irritated.
Warren took another hit and shrugged, blowing smoke over the rail. “You think I’m such a big honcho, don’t you? You think I’ve done a pretty good job of fucking things up for myself.”
“I think you’ve got a house that’s worth about three times what I have to my name. I think you’ve got two terrific kids. Ginny and you have fifteen years…I think you have no idea what it is to give that up.”
“The stuff I do, smooth over a little conflict with the state planning boards, reach out to some local commissioner who wants his golf pants lined, you have no idea the crap I’ve done.”
“You don’t have to go through this, Warren.”
“Maybe I do. Maybe I do have to go through it, Ty.” He stared a while and shook his head. “You remember when we went to the Poconos that summer? On that lake?”
“The Nightmare on Kelm Street?” Hauck said, relaxing. That was the place where their folks had rented a cottage. “Yeah.”
It must have been twenty-five years ago. Pop’s two-week vacation from the water department every August. They rented this cabin at a lodge with a bunch of their government-union friends. Warren must have been a junior then, which made Hauck fourteen. “I don’t think Mom ever served fish again.”
Warren laughed with a glaze of remembrance, drew in a drag. “I snuck along this bag of pot. In my sneaks. That’s why I always was sneaking out at night. I’d go down to the lake. There was this girl from Jersey there, Camille or something…”
“You always bagged out at night and left me playing board games with Mom and Pop and listening to the Brothers Four and Joan Baez…”
Warren sang, “‘Farewell, Angelina…The sky is falling…’ Heard that till we were numb. Sorry, champ, you were goddamn fourteen. I was always afraid you’d rat me out.”
“I wouldn’t have ratted you out, Warren.”
“Are you kidding? Look at you.” Warren laughed. “You became a goddamn cop! Maybe I’m responsible! Hey, you remember those Jet Skis we would ride around on on the lake?”
“Coldest goddamn water I ever felt. Like taking a dip in Prudhoe Bay.” Hauck shivered. “Still get a chill thinking about it.”
“I remember you took that spill,” Warren said. He blew out a ring. “All of us were watching you from the deck. Trying to prove you were the big shot trick artist, like you always did. One leg. Grabbing some air…”
“That’s because you always made it so easy on me to feel good about myself,” Hauck said with a humorless smile.
“Sorry, guy…I remember your ass hit the water like a stone. The Jet Ski went one way, up in the air—you the other…” Warren turned. “You probably don’t even know this, but there was a minute there when you didn’t come up and everyone was pretty goddamn afraid. Just this eerie quiet. The Jet Ski circled around and had come to a stop. No Ty…”
“I was under the water holding my breath,” Hauck said. “Milking the moment.”
“Trust me, your little moment was pretty much lost on everyone there. I remember how Mom got all freaked out and grabbed Dad. ‘Frank, get the lifeguard, quick!’ You remember who it was who dove in off the deck and went out to get you? Who swam out there like a fucking maniac, in his clothes, to make sure you were okay?”
>
Hauck looked back at him and nodded. He wondered where this was leading. “Yeah, it was you, Warren.”
“Yeah”—Warren sucked in a drag—“it was me. You fought me off like I went out there to drown you or something. Like I was trying to embarrass you, not to save your pussy ass.”
“I was fourteen, Warren…”
“Yeah, well, you came damn close to not making it to fifteen…”
The conversation had led somewhere Hauck wasn’t completely sure of. Warren sat there with his feet up on the rail in some sort of shifting state—half brooding, half reminiscing.
“You know I’m sorry,” he suddenly said.
Hauck turned. “Sorry for what?”
Warren shrugged. “I think you know what I’m talking about.” He went quiet for a while, his voice softer. “I’m sorry for pushing you away, Ty. For what happened after that…You know, Peter Morrison.” He looked at Hauck. “You may have put it away, but I haven’t. It stays with me. I just wanted to remind you there was a time when I was there for you…”
There was something both fixed and very far-off in his brother’s gaze.
“What the hell are we talking about here, Warren?”
“It’s nothing. Nothing I should’ve brought up. Not anymore…”
Hauck went over and sat against the railing next to him. Warren seemed to be holding something back. Hauck wrapped his hand around his brother’s neck and pulled him close.
“It’s okay, Warren, whatever it is, it’s okay.” For a second, he thought Warren might be crying. Hauck leaned his brother’s head against him.
What was going on?
After a few moments he pulled back. Warren’s eyes were shiny. “Must be the weed talking…Not exactly how I thought I’d say hello.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Hauck said. “Anyway, you win. You got the kidney, bro!”
His brother laughed, wiping his eyes, blowing out a breath as if relieved. “‘The sky is falling,’” he sang, “‘and I must be gone…’ Course, we did have a few memorable times, like when the brothers Hauck almost single-handedly took down Stamford West in the states…”
“Yeah.” Hauck grinned. “Two hundred and forty-one yards, three TDs. I remember I carved it into the trunk of that elm in back of the old house. Course you had to add your own personal touch to it…”
“Two fumbles. Just for historical accuracy.” Warren winked back with an impish smile.
“Probably still there.” Hauck grinned.
“Probably still is.” Warren held out the joint to Hauck.
Hauck smiled, fixing on his brother’s eyes. “Just this once. You tell anyone, and what I did down there will seem like a love tap next time.”
“Just to remind you, bro—you did have the slight advantage of having snuck up on me from behind.”
Hauck took the joint. “Just so you know.”
“Not to worry, little brother.” Warren put his feet up on the railing. “Your secret will be safe with me.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
It was later—after Warren had passed out and was snoring on the couch, after Hauck had cleaned up the beer cans and the cigarette butts and flicked off Forrest Gump on the TV.
When he was in bed, sleep slowly washing over his brain—then it came to him.
What Warren had been trying to say.
Hauck’s eyes shot open. A name flashed into his head.
Peter Morrison.
It was the summer after the one at the lake. Warren was on his way to BC. He had this girlfriend—Dot. Dottie Sinclair. They lived in a big colonial with this huge lawn out on Lake Street. Her father was a bigwig at a financial company in town.
Hauck had a job at a yacht club in Darien that summer.
He crossed a leg over his knee in bed and remembered.
That was when everything changed.
Peter Morrison.
Peter was this tall, gangly kid with long blond hair. He wasn’t into sports and had red, blotchy acne on his face. Warren always bullied him. Punched him in the back in the halls between classes as he was going by. Tax, he always called it, holding out his hand, and Peter would fork over a hard-earned buck or something. Hauck always told his brother to lay off. Warren always smirked back that the weirdo liked it and one day he’d give him back his cash. It was their game.
Twenty-five years later, it was like a punch caught Hauck in the stomach as he brought it all back.
He had gotten off early from the yacht club that day. Caught a ride home. When he barged in, the house seemed empty. Their father always came home from the department at 5:30, like clockwork, every day. Mom must have been out at the market. Hauck remembered he grabbed something out of the fridge—a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese, a Fanta—and went down to the basement, which his dad had redone, to shoot a little pool or throw himself in front of the TV. It was the only one worth watching in their row house in Byron.
He heard something as he lumbered down the stairs.
Coming from the guest room.
Pop had converted a back space into a room for his brother, Mike, who had died from cancer a few years before. No one ever used it unless there was family in town.
For a second, Hauck thought it was something running through the walls—a rodent or a squirrel. Then it occurred to him maybe it could be a burglar. The little room had a small window that led out onto an alley.
He listened.
He heard voices, muffled. He went over and put his ear against the door, about to shout “Who’s in there?” when his footsteps creaked on the tile.
Everything went quiet.
Suddenly he knew. He knew who was in there. And why. He also knew he should’ve just turned around.
But he felt this sudden power—this giddy, adolescent urge to barge in and embarrass his brother. And maybe catch a glimpse of Dottie Sinclair in her bra or even better.
He yanked open the door.
Hauck’s hand froze to the knob.
There was Warren, this look of horror and shame, his pants down at his knees, standing over Uncle Mike’s bed.
But it wasn’t Dot beneath him. And even now, years later, the recollection of it sent him reeling up in bed in a cold sweat, his stomach clenched as if gripped in a tightening vise, then crashing to the floor.
It was Peter Morrison.
Those bright blue eyes. Blond hair falling over his pimply face.
Years went by before his brother really talked to him again.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
The next morning, Warren was just waking up as Hauck was getting ready to leave.
“There’s coffee,” Hauck said. “Milk’s in the fridge.”
“Jesus, what time is it?” Warren asked groggily. He picked up his Ebel watch. “Christ, I’ve got places to be.” He sat up on the couch in his shorts, a bit disheveled, patting around for his cigarettes.
Hauck said, “You can grab a shower if you like. You can use the one in Jessie’s room. I have to take off myself.”
“Does this place come with an ashtray? Maybe a newspaper?” Warren said, pawing a hand through his unkempt hair.
Hauck went to the counter and tossed him The Stamford Advocate. Facing up, on the front page, there was an article about Richard Scayne, the local businessman who was embroiled in an Iraq corruption scandal.
“Christ,” Warren said, “don’t you get the Journal or the Times?”
“Next time, spring for the bigger room,” Hauck said. “Listen…” He lowered himself on the arm of the couch. “Things’ll work out here for you, bro. With Ginny. That financial thing. You always have a way of landing on your feet.”
Warren nodded.
“I’ll check in with you later. I realize that’s a bit of a risk. Twice in two days…”
Warren smiled.
Hauck tapped his brother on the shoulder. “It was nice to see you, bro. It was good to go over some things…”
“Next time, maybe we can dispense with the cross-check onto the pav
ement.”
“Next time, maybe you can call.”
Hauck scooped up his wallet and his gun on the counter. He turned at the door. His brother was still massaging his face in his hands, elbows on knees.
“I always knew why you came in after me,” Hauck said. “You know I would’ve done the same for you.”
Warren looked up. His drawn face had a glimmer of understanding on it. He edged into a smile. “You stay outta trouble, Ty.”
Outside, Hauck paused for a moment on the landing. He felt good, but through all the worry and joking last night, and the newly formed lines, there was something on his brother’s face that gave him pause. The shadow of something else.
Hauck had seen it before.
It was the same look as when he had found him with Peter Morrison twenty years before.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Thanksgiving finally came. Without providing the answer Hauck was looking for. The afternoon before, he shut down the office around two, the first break any of them had had in weeks.
Freddy Munoz knocked on Hauck’s door.
“You have a good one, Freddy.” Hauck stood up and shook his detective’s hand.
His eyes flashed to Munoz’s watch. “New one?”
“Happy Days, Lieutenant. Just found it on eBay. Collector’s item.” Freddy beamed. “You watch, one day it’ll double.”
Hauck shook his head. “Make sure you give my best to everyone at home. Everyone coming?”
“The whole crew. We got my brother and sister driving down from New Haven and my in-laws up from Maryland. Went out and got the turkey last night, nineteen pounds…Giants and Cowboys on high-def. Nothing better, Lieutenant. You gonna be with Jessie?”
“No. Jessie’s with her mom this year…”
“That’s too bad, LT. So what about your gal? I haven’t heard you bring her up so much recently.”
“Karen’s away,” Hauck said. He hadn’t really told anybody. “She’s with her family down south. Her dad’s sick. She’s been down there about a month.”
Munoz chirped a sympathetic whistle. “Jeez, that’s too bad.” As he made his way to the door he turned back. “So, listen, you got plans?”