by Jean Rabe
“—done nothing to prevent it,” the same officer cut in. “Listen, Otemar, Miss O’Shea, we should—”
“I don’t want to stay here, Mom.” Otter said. “I want to go home, to the condo. I’m perfectly able to take care of myself at home. I want to go home.”
“Fifteen, not fifty,” Bridget said so softly she doubted the boy could hear.
Bridget finally regarded the policemen. They were both in their late twenties and rail thin, one with dark hair and the swarthy complexion of an Italian. That badge read: Bernardini. The other was Irish judging by the badge: McGinty. It was the Irish cop who’d been doing the talking, a sergeant by the insignia.
“How did it happen?” Bridget addressed the sergeant.
“Miss O’Shea, we’re not really at liberty to discuss the case yet. Detectives are at the scene.”
“He was murdered,” Otter said. “They told me someone killed him. They wouldn’t tell me more than that.” He paused. “I want to go home, Mom. I can take care of myself.”
“Miss O’Shea, we’d like to ask you a few questions about your ex-husband.” This from the Irish policeman. “Is there someone here Otemar can stay with while—”
“Of course.” Bridget gestured to Michael, who’d been keeping a courteous distance. “Michael, have Jimmy refresh Otter’s room. I’ll be going with—”
“I should call my grandmother,” Otter said. “She needs to know.”
Michael stepped forward. “In a little while, Otter. We’ll call her together. Why don’t you come into the kitchen with me until some things are sorted out?”
Otter looked to Bridget.
“It’s okay. I won’t be gone long,” she told her son. “And I’ll get us some answers. I promise.”
Michael held out a heavy coat and Bridget took it and closed her eyes. The damnable beast was at the bottom of the staircase, babbling and oozing and adding to a headache that had suddenly sprang up behind her eyes. She prayed that the monster would stay behind, though she knew that wouldn’t be happening.
It found a way to fit into the back seat of the police cruiser, babbling and oozing puss the entire ride to the 7th Precinct, the ugly briefcase on the floorboard, though Bridget had not placed it there.
***
Thirteen
The 7th was one of the smallest of the city’s precincts, serving the lower eastside of Manhattan. Bridget felt queasy, more from being inside the old building on Pitt Street and surrounded by police officers than from having the babbling monster trail her. It was clear that no one saw the beast, but some smelled it, Bernardini making cracks to McGinty about needing to buy some Bean-O.
The precinct covered less than three-quarters of a square mile, with a big transient population, and a thriving business district on Orchard Street. Nearly half the permanent population was foreign-born, and a mix of races made up the clerical staff that moved between the desks in the precinct house.
Bridget was familiar with this area of Manhattan. She knew the blocks by heart around the subway stations on Essex Street at East Broadway and Delaney. But this building? She’d passed it often enough, never bothering to really look at it. Avoided it, actually. Rather squat and ugly, it needed some attention inside and out that the city coffers weren’t likely going to allow.
They escorted her upstairs to the detective squad and put her in a room with a dingy olive green tile floor that smelled of ammonia-based cleansers. Elbows on a table under which the creature squatted and babbled, waiting for a detective to come interview her, Bridget figured she was the suspect. The ex- was always the suspect, right? F. Lee Bailey had written a book with something like that as the title. It had been in Tavio’s collection of mystery and true crime books. CSI, Hawaii Five-0, Castle … the ex- was always the suspect.
A few minutes into the questions, however, Bridget realized that wasn’t the case with Tavio’s murder.
It was two detectives, one Latino, one white, builds and ages like the pair of special agents in the Men in Black series. Though they’d introduced themselves, Bridget was so preoccupied she didn’t catch their names. They just wanted to know Tavio’s habits, and they didn’t want to press Otter about it just yet, the boy being so upset. They’d get to that, though, they assured her. A detective would come to Bridget’s brownstone tonight or tomorrow morning to talk to the boy.
“Look, I’m not sure this is any of your business, though I suppose it doesn’t matter now. My ex- sees people from time to time … men, women, even when we were married. Not that I knew about it at first,” Bridget told them. I was feckin’ oblivious for a few years. “Tavio didn’t like being alone, and he didn’t have much of a preference from what I could tell, race, sex, age … though he liked young ones better. I don’t have any names. I don’t keep track. I don’t want to know who—. I didn’t want to know who—. Lately I’d see Tavio … saw him … only when he’d come to pick up Otter late Sunday nights. Sometimes he’d drop Otter off, but my son usually comes on his own. Tavio and me … we’d really drifted apart since the divorce.” Had drifted apart, she added to herself, well before the marriage was over; started drifting when she realized Tavio slept around—had probably always slept around on her. But she hadn’t always been there to give him an excuse not to. It hadn’t all been his fault. She hoped the detectives didn’t press her on the marriage; she didn’t want to talk about it.
The detectives gave Bridget nothing in return, no cause of Tavio’s death, no hint of suspects, nothing other than that the body was with the Medical Examiner and they would prefer Bridget rather than Otter make the identification, though even that wasn’t necessary. They knew Tavio Madera was the victim; they had dental records. And it felt, to Bridget, like they were holding something back.
“In fact,” said McGinty as he escorted Bridget away from the detectives and outside the building, “I’d take a pass on identifying your ex-husband. Trust me on this.”
McGinty and Bernardini took her to Tavio’s condo so she could gather clothes for Otter. There were two marked police cars out front and two unmarked sedans. A half block down the street a WNYW Fox News van was parked, so there must have been something interesting enough on a scanner to bring reporters here. A simple murder? There were enough of those in the city that they all didn’t warrant a news van; sometimes they only got a few lines of type in the Times. But Tavio had been a restaurant owner, a bit of a socialite. There was no sign of any other media, so maybe the other stations had more interesting things to cover.
The WNYW reporters were in the lobby, getting “no comments” from a plainclothesman. Bridget’s escorts rushed her into the elevator. She shivered, disdaining the close contact with police. When the doors opened on Tavio’s floor, an officer holding a clipboard signed McGinty in. Bridget noticed the form detailed quite a few comings and goings.
It was a two-bedroom condo that took up an entire floor—the eleventh—of the twelve-story building. Tavio had purchased the condo right after the divorce—they’d sold their shared loft—and he grumbled that he couldn’t get the one in this building that had direct access to the roof deck. Still, it was spacious, loft-style that he loved, and had been artfully and expensively decorated by a five-star interior designer that Tavio’d had a fling with. Bridget had been inside the place only once before.
“The ground rules are that you stay with us,” McGinty said. He handed Bridget a pair of white, overlarge booties to slip over her shoes. “You’re limited to only your son’s bedroom and the big hall closet. We saw it has some empty suitcases in it you can use.”
On first glance everything looked perfect to Bridget, like a center spread in one of the magazines Tavio was fond of. Elle Décor and Veranda were fanned out on a coffee table next to stacks of GQ and The Brooklynite. There was a large arrangement of fresh-cut flowers in a vase, but Bridget couldn’t smell them over the odor of the beast that trailed her.
“How … who found him?” Bridget hadn’t thought to ask that earlier. She knew i
t hadn’t been Otter. In the ride to the condo she’d a chance to mentally berate herself. From the moment the police appeared at her brownstone she’d thought only of herself … getting caught because of the cup she’d given Otter, and then worried she’d be a suspect in Tavio’s death. She’d not really thought about Tavio. She’d truly loved him once—to an extent still had, and the sense of loss was only now seeping in. Bridget had been seventeen when they’d met, a random encounter at the restaurant he owned and that she and other Westies favored when they were looking for Italian fare. She married him when she turned eighteen, had Otter not quite a year later, probably should have waited on both counts. She’d been too young for the responsibility of a family. Tavio was two decades older, but so goddamn handsome the years hadn’t mattered at the time. On their first wedding anniversary, Tavio purchased the antique shop for her. She’d been a frequent customer of the place, and he thought owning it would give her a legitimate hobby. Tavio knew she’d been involved with various illegal activities with the Westies, and while he knew she liked antiquities, he was unaware of her “gift” and her mental delving into the past; Bridget felt a need to keep a few secrets.
Tavio was what … fifty-three, fifty-four? Hadn’t he just had a birthday the fourteenth or fifteenth of December? Bridget’d always had trouble remembering the exact day. The fourteenth.
“He was fifty-four,” Bridget said. “Only fifty-four.” She raised her voice, thinking the police hadn’t heard her the first time she’d asked: “Who found him?”
“Housekeeper.” This from Bernardini. “She found your ex-husband. She called 9-1-1.”
An evidence technician noticed Bridget and shut the double doors to Tavio’s bedroom. Bridget had caught only a glimpse, bed covers on the floor, though that might have been of the police’s doing. She’d noticed blood spattered on the white carpet, thought she’d seen some on the wall. If she was really all that curious she could come back here late tonight when no one was around and delve the bed. She knew the security in this building was good—had checked it out for Otter’s sake, but it wasn’t that good that she couldn’t get past it. Maybe she could even use her psychometry on something in the bedroom not so bloody and repulsive to discover the murderer—though she would never tell the police about her arcane ability.
“Only the boy’s room and the hall closet,” McGinty repeated.
“I get it.” Bridget retrieved two large suitcases and filled them with Otter’s clothes, a hanging bag for the lone suit and two sports coats. She took a duffle out of Otter’s closet and stuffed it with odds and ends—books that the boy might need for school, a couple of science fiction paperbacks, and the gem-encrusted cup that had been filled with pens and pencils and that the police didn’t need to take a close look at. Maybe they had taken a look but hadn’t realized what it was. Or maybe Otter’s dog-eared copy of Michael Moorcock’s Tales From the End of Time propped against it had hidden enough details.
Bridget smiled. She’d figured Otter for a Kindle or Nook or something, not real pages. Ah, there was an iPad. She took that, too, and the boy’s laptop, which managed to fit in the duffle, leaving the bulky laser printer. She searched around for other things, finding a small framed picture of a dark-haired girl in a red sundress. She added that. Maybe it was the girlfriend Lacy; Otter had wanted Bridget to meet her. There were no posters on the wall, but there was a large framed print of the 1976 Montreal Olympics by LeRoy Neiman, numbered and signed, and an eight-by-ten photo on the bureau of Tavio and Otter after a swim meet. The photo had to be recent; it looked like it was taken outside the high school, the leaves on the overhanging trees orange and yellow. Otter was holding a trophy. There were a dozen trophies and plaques on a shelf above the desk. Bridget stared at them.
There wasn’t a single picture of Bridget with Otter, though she knew a professional one had been taken of the three of them more than a few years ago. And other than the silver cup, there’d been nothing readily apparent in the room to tie the boy to Bridget.
“Your son is an accomplished athlete, looks like,” McGinty said. Bridget had forgotten the police sergeant had been standing in the doorway.
“And I’ve been a shitbird mother. There was a reason I’d never argued for custody.” Bridget selected two of the smaller trophies, wrapped them in T-shirts, and added them to the duffle, along with three ties. Otter would need the suit and a tie for Tavio’s funeral. The demon squatted on the bed next to the suitcases. It uttered a string of something that niggled at Bridget’s brain, and then belched sulfur. Bridget looked away. “But I guess that’s going to have to change, the shitbird mother part.”
“School records said you shared custody,” McGinty said.
“Yeah. Sort of,” Bridget said. “Otter’s a good kid. He didn’t deserve losing his father. Tavio was a good father.” Softer: “And Otter deserves a far better mother than me.”
“We’ll find who did it.”
Bridget didn’t think McGinty’s words had any real conviction. She might, indeed, have to secretly lend her talents to help.
“I can come back and get the rest later, right? Bring a packing crate or two. It doesn’t look like there’s all that much. Fifteen. How much stuff can a fifteen-year-old have?” Bridget pointed to a flat screen television that hung on the wall opposite the bed, then to the Neiman print. “I can come back, right?”
“Later, sure. When we’re done.”
“And when might that be?”
McGinty shrugged and looked over his shoulder. “Shoes. You’re forgetting to take some shoes.”
Bridget grabbed a smaller duffle at the bottom of Otter’s closet, from the chlorine scent it had probably been used for swim gear. Underneath it were half a dozen Playboys. She fit four pairs of shoes in the bag and tossed it on the bed, trying to hit the foul creature, but it had sidled up to the pillows. Bridget gave another look around the room, surprised to spy a gray plastic model of the Millennium Falcon poised on a high shelf. She and Otter had put that together when the boy was six, and she’d never gotten around to helping him paint it.
“When are you going to tell me something about Tavio’s death? Am I going to have to hear it on the news?” Bridget kept her eyes on the model, debating whether she should take it. She could use her psychometry to relive the experience with a six-year-old Otter; everything had been good then. She hadn’t yet realized Tavio was running around on her. “Can’t you tell me something? Anything?”
There were a few boxes on shelves in the closet, and she wondered if she should look through them. But the police would let her in later. She could sort through the rest of the things then, see what Otter wanted to take out of the other rooms. She’d let Tavio’s mother deal with the rest. There were a couple of empty rooms in the brownstone to put the stuff in.
McGinty hadn’t answered.
“Look, it was alright for detectives at the station to ask me plenty of questions. I cooperated. And I’m tired of not getting any answers to my own. Help me out here. Give me something. Tavio and I aren’t … weren’t … hadn’t been close for a long time. But I certainly didn’t hate him. I want to know something. Give me something.”
McGinty let out a whistling breath. “Look, Miss O’Shea, I’m not the case detective. I’m not the primary or—”
“Something.”
“Your ex-husband was killed late last night or early this morning. It was bloody, ritualistic maybe, and I don’t really know much more than that myself. There was no sign of a break-in, so he probably let the guy—or gal—in. Like your son said, a guest, company. The case detectives think it must have been quick, the killing part, or your son would have heard something. And be very thankful he didn’t hear anything, Miss O’Shea. Be thankful you still have your son.”
Be thankful Otter hadn’t heard Tavio scream, Bridget thought.
“So it was it quick? Did Tavio feel—”
“I don’t know.”
“You have a suspect.”
“Mis
s O’Shea—”
Bridget fixed the Irish cop with a hard stare.
“We have … and we haven’t … a suspect, Miss O’Shea. We don’t know who killed your ex-husband, but it’s similar to some other murders in the city and—. We don’t need a panic. There’s a pattern, they all might be related. I’m leaving it at that. Maybe the investigative leads will release more later and—”
All? They all might be related. “A pattern? A serial killer? Tavio was murdered by—”
“I’m shutting up about it now, Miss O’Shea. Let’s get you back home,” McGinty said. “I’ll help with the bags.”
The monster didn’t babble on the ride back to the brownstone. Again Bridget thought how much like a grotesque bullfrog the thing looked. The muscles in its mottled green-brown legs quivered as ooze continued to pump in rivulets down its sides and protruding stomach, disappearing before reaching the vinyl of the car’s upholstery.
Bridget’s gut clenched when the thing belched sulfur. It felt like canned heat had settled in her chest. She barely registered the colors of the city that bled by the window, and the pounding in her head drowned out the sounds of traffic and the crackle of the police radio.
It had started to snow by the time they eased up to the brownstone. Otter’s face was pressed to the glass of a second-story window. The boy pulled back from the pane when Bridget got out of the car.
***
Fourteen
Bridget tried to leave the ugly briefcase in the backseat of the police sedan, and waved goodbye to McGinty as the car pulled away from the curb. But the briefcase appeared among Otter’s suitcases and duffels on the front stoop when she opened the door and called for Michael.
“I swore I’d gotten rid of that thing,” Michael said, looking at the case.
“I’m rather attached to it,” Bridget replied as she set it inside and started carrying in Otter’s things.
“Otter is in his room, Miss O’Shea. Jimmy is up there keeping him company, looking after him. Your son is taking this very hard. I’ve called your physician. He’s going to prescribe something to help Otter rest and—”