The dance floor was a raised, parquet affair, surrounded by railings made out of steel tubing. The seating for the guests was lower than the dance floor and surrounded it on three sides. The whole place overlooked the Hudson and the view was spectacular, the twinkling lights of Manhattan visible to the north and south out of the windows.
The bandleader called out for the matron of honor and I cringed. “And best man, Bobby Crawford!” he screamed and we made our way up the metal steps and onto the dance floor, still holding hands. After our appearance, I started off to the right, but Crawford pulled me slightly to the left. “This way,” he whispered and we made our way to our table. We stood beside it as Max and Fred entered to thunderous applause.
The band struck up “More Than a Woman,” by the Bee Gees. Leave it to Max to pick a song for her first dance with Fred that would center on how extraordinary she was. We stood to the side of the dance floor and watched them dance—the giant behemoth and his tiny bride.
The bandleader called out again to the matron of honor and the best man, commanding us to dance. Crawford followed me out and held his hand out. I took it as the rest of the wedding goers clapped politely for us. I’m not sure why people clap when the participants called by the bandleader take the floor; they’re just following directions, after all.
“Get your hand off my ass,” I said, as we assumed the dancing position. Right hands together and up, left hands around each other’s waists.
Crawford moved his hand up to my back and looked down at me. “Better?” he asked. “You only allow ass-holding during ‘The Girl from Ipanema,’ right?”
“Yes, thank you.” In my heels, we were almost nose to nose. He held me a little close and I got a whiff of his clean laundry smell, hoping I wouldn’t swoon right there on the dance floor. Pheromonally, we were very well suited to each other. “My priest is here. I don’t want to look like a loose woman.”
Crawford, in normal clothes, was handsome enough. In a tuxedo, he was spectacular—broad shouldered, tall, and sexy. I focused on the table of wedding guests that were in view directly over his shoulder and tried not to think about him, me, or us. One of the guests had a porto-bello mushroom on his lapel and that grounded me.
“Stop leading,” he said. Max and Fred glided by, their eyes locked on each other.
“I’m not leading.”
“Yes, you are,” he protested and steered me to the edge of the floor. The bandleader called the rest of the wedding guests onto the floor and it became flooded with dancers. We were no longer the center of attention and that was good; fighting about who was leading in front of a room full of guests was not the right thing to do at a wedding. “Are we having fun yet?” he whispered in my ear.
“Don’t whisper in my ear.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t get the rule sheet before the wedding.” He spun me toward the middle of the floor, nearly taking out two other couples. I hoped that his lack of rhythm didn’t creep into any other aspects of his life—namely, ones that might include me in a prone position later on in our relationship. “What else is on there?” He leaned in and put his lips to my neck.
“No neck kissing,” I said halfheartedly, almost defeated. “And no hair touching.”
He put his hands into my coif. “Does this count?”
I nodded. “Yes,” I said weakly.
“How about a real kiss?” he murmured in my ear.
My resolve weakening, I reminded him that my priest was in the room.
“So what?” he said, and kissed me.
It had been a long time since I had been kissed like that and I attempted a subject change. “Are you wearing a gun?”
He smiled lasciviously. “No, I’m just happy to see you,” he said, harkening back to one of our old jokes.
“I’m serious.”
He stiffened and we returned to our standard dancing position. “You are obsessed with the gun.”
“I just like to know if you have it or not.”
“Why?”
I shrugged, and stepped on his foot again; this time it was an accident. “Sorry.” I readjusted my feet. “Who knows what could happen at this wedding? Samoans, Irish, a French Canadian…a full-scale rumble over fishing rights could break out.”
“Yes, I’m wearing it. We’re in the New York City limits. I’m required to wear it.”
“Is Fred wearing his?” I asked.
He sighed. “Probably.”
“At his own wedding?” I asked, incredulous.
Crawford didn’t answer.
I looked around the room and picked out several cops. “So, we’ve got about twenty weapons at this wedding?”
He looked at me, a slight smile playing on his lips. “It would seem so.”
I nodded, satisfied. “I’ve never danced with anyone packing heat before.”
He leaned in. “And I’ve never danced with anyone who talks as much as you do.”
I had never realized how long this particular Bee Gees song was, but it seemed to last well into the next day. Finally, the song was over and we were instructed to take our seats at our table. Max and Fred sat at a table at the front of the room, by themselves. Some clever veteran of the wedding circuit began clinking their champagne glass to get Max and Fred to kiss. They obliged, looking like they were about to devour each other. Much applause followed.
I found my seat and stood beside it, looking for the waiter with the drinks. Crawford came over and held my chair out for me. “Thanks,” I said, and sat down.
Crawford took his seat beside me, his hand finding my knee under the table.
My usual steely resolve weakened by the romance of the event and my surroundings, I put my hand on top of his and gave it a squeeze, first gentle, and then hard enough for him to reconsider his decision. I looked out the window at the beautiful river behind the hall and decided that I needed some time outside. I asked Crawford if he would join me.
We strolled along the walkway that ran adjacent to the room where Max and Fred’s wedding was in full swing. We stopped and gazed downtown at the lights of lower Manhattan and the beautiful Statue of Liberty in the distance, her torch ablaze. I knew that Max had compromised when choosing the location for her wedding, but at that moment, there wasn’t a more beautiful or perfect place to be.
We stared out at the river for a few long moments, enjoying our time together, away from the throngs inside the banquet hall. I decided, after a few seconds of contemplation, that it would be the perfect time to ask about Ray’s murder investigation. I thought wrong.
Crawford sighed. “Do we have to talk about that here?”
“I just…we haven’t talked…” I sputtered. “I just want to know what you know.”
“And you know I can’t tell you what I know,” he said slowly, in case I didn’t understand. The way he figured it, we’d been over that point a thousand times. I didn’t think it hurt to try.
“Did you talk to Terri and Jackson again?”
He stared down at me but didn’t say anything.
“Well?”
He chewed on the inside of his lip. “If I tell you a little bit, will you back off?”
Maybe. “Yes.”
“I don’t think it’s them. I’m more interested in the Micelis right now.”
That’s what I thought.
He put his hand on the back of my neck. “But you,” he said, kissing me, “are to do nothing on that front.” He kissed me again, a knee-weakening lip-lock that I was powerless against; I decided to go with the flow because I didn’t know how long it would be until I got to kiss him like that again. “Understand?”
I nodded. I understood. Completely. But I couldn’t promise that I wouldn’t do anything with that information.
Crawford awoke to knocking. Confused at first, he couldn’t tell if it was the banging in his head or someone actually at his front door. He stumbled out of bed and took stock—he had on boxer shorts and nothing else, his tuxedo was in a heap at the foot of his bed, and his
head was pounding. He pulled on the tuxedo pants and buttoned the top button, half walking, half staggering toward the door of his apartment.
The knocking was unrelenting and matched the brass band playing John Philip Sousa in his head. “Hold on!” he called, making contact with the edge of the coffee table on his way to the door. “Shit!” he said under his breath and grabbed his knee. He narrowly missed falling over his dress shoes before crashing into a chair at the dining table. Finally, he made it to the door without further incident and opened it. His wife, Christine, stood on the landing, half turned toward the stairs like she was about to leave. In her hands were the set of keys that she had kept after moving out of the apartment with the girls a few years earlier. “Wait,” he said. “I’m here.”
She turned and took a look at him, an eyebrow raised. “Rough night?” she asked, looking over his shoulder to see if there was anyone else in the apartment. She had a bemused smile on her face as she took in his unzipped tuxedo pants, bare chest, and bloodshot eyes.
He pushed his fingers through his hair and stepped aside to let her in. “The wedding.” That was enough of an explanation. She had been to enough cop weddings to know what went on and how most of them felt the day after a night of celebrating. He left out the part about the four hundred beers and celebratory tequila shots; the odor emanating from his pores probably gave some indication of that.
“Right,” she said. She hooked a finger toward the door. “Is Bea going to church in a limousine these days?”
“What?”
“There’s a limo parked outside your front door. Did Bea hook up with a millionaire?”
He shrugged. “This neighborhood’s gotten fancy in the past couple of years.” He asked her to wait while he grabbed a shirt. He came back out a few seconds later, his pants zipped, wearing a plain white undershirt. He had taken a few seconds to brush his teeth and hair as well.
Christine was still standing close to the doorway, a paper bag in her hands. Sometimes, he forgot how small she was, a full foot shorter than his six and half feet, to be exact. And after all of the years since they had first met, he still found her beautiful, her short black hair, blue eyes, and pale skin exactly the same as when she had been a teenager. “I brought breakfast.” She walked to the round table that resided between the galley kitchen and the living room and spread out some bagels, coffee, and a couple of cheese Danish. “Plates still in the same place?”
“I’ll get them,” he said, and went into the kitchen. Sleep finally released its hold on him and he realized that he had no idea why she was in his apartment. “Were we…” he asked, pointing between the two of them.
“Supposed to have breakfast?” She finished his sentence. “No. I needed to talk with you so I figured I would come down and drop off the girls. They’re having breakfast in the coffee shop on Ninety-sixth. I told them that we’d meet them in about an hour.”
He put the plates on the table and held a chair out for her. He took a seat across from her and opened one of the bagels, wrapped in paper and slathered with cream cheese. “I need this. Thanks.”
She handed him a cup of coffee. “Here. Looks like you need this, too.” She opened the wrapper that held her bagel and took the lid off the other cup of coffee. “How was the wedding?”
He took a huge bite of bagel. “Great,” he mumbled.
“The girls said that Fred married your friend’s…” She hesitated, blushing slightly. “Alison’s friend. Max?”
He looked down and studied his bagel. “Right.”
“Do you like her?”
He thought for a moment. “Max? She’s an acquired taste.”
She laughed. “That doesn’t really tell me anything.”
“How do I describe her?” He looked up at the ceiling, thinking. “She’s smart, gorgeous, and adores Fred. That alone makes her suspect.”
She took a sip of coffee. “Give Fred my best.”
He nodded. “I will.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes. He started to come back to life after half a cup of coffee and the bagel. He looked at her and smiled sadly, sensing a little distress beneath her calm exterior. Her eyes filled with tears.
“I have to let you go,” she said quietly. She put her hands around her coffee cup and looked down at the table. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do this to you anymore.”
He reached across the table and took her hand. He felt tears pressing at the corners of his eyes. “What do you mean?”
She swallowed and choked back a sob. “I’m sorry, Bobby. I’m not going to stand in your way anymore. I’ve talked with Father Kevin and told him to forget about the annulment.”
He was stunned. “What? You don’t want an annulment?”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Only if you want it. It doesn’t matter to me.”
He didn’t understand her change of heart and didn’t want to pry. He didn’t know if she had met someone else and that precipitated her decision, and he didn’t want to know. “Do the girls know?”
“I told them,” she said. “They’ll be fine.” She took a sip of her coffee, more of a time killer than anything else. She wiped her eyes with a napkin and blew her nose.
“Christine, I don’t know what to say,” he said.
She gave a sad laugh. “Just say that you’ll help me put them through college and everything will be fine,” she said, smiling. “Meaghan’s decided she wants to go to Stanford, so unless she gets a basketball scholarship, you and I will be living on peanut butter and canned soup for the next four years.” She turned the empty bagel wrapper into a ball and held it in her hand. “Just help me with that.”
“Of course,” he said, nodding. “That goes without saying.”
She nodded. “I know it does. You always do the right thing, Bobby.”
He let go of her hand and got up from the table. He went over to her and knelt beside her, putting his arms around her small body. She started crying, seemingly unable to stop. “I tried so hard to keep you, and you tried so hard to love me, but it just wasn’t meant to be,” she said, her voice barely audible.
He put his head on her shoulder and began to cry. “I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath, a shudder. “You were always my best friend.”
They held each other for a long time. He had tried to love her and, in a way, he did love her, but he had never been in love with her. And now that he was in love with somebody, he knew what that felt like and was sure that he never felt it with her.
She stopped crying long enough to get up and clean off the table. After years of attending to her father’s needs, both at home and in the bar, she was always in constant motion, always picking up, wiping tables, washing dishes. He told her to leave everything. She turned and laughed. “Old habits.” Christine had been a virtual scullery maid in her father’s Upper West Side bar before marrying Bobby and escaping. Her nervous habits ran from obsessively wiping countertops until they gleamed, to washing the same stemware over and over. She came out of his kitchen. “You should take a shower. That will give me a chance to get myself together before we go get the girls.”
He stood for another minute, stuck in place. Now that he had a chance to move forward, he didn’t know what to do.
Chapter 13
I spent the night at Max’s because it was closer to Chelsea Piers and I didn’t want to face a drive home after a few martinis. I got out of bed and took a shower, using some kind of exotic shower gel and shampoo that came out of a dispenser shaped like a flower. When I was done, I got out and dried off, running into Max’s bedroom naked and rooting through my overnight bag to find an outfit to wear home; I was determined to catch the 10:20 local to Dobbs Ferry and I had to rush to make it. I stood up suddenly and got a major headache—payback for last night’s festivities. I went back into the bathroom and found some Excedrin, taking three and washing them down with good old New York City tap water.
Crawford and I had parted ways after the wedding with his vague promi
se to call me later in the week. A call was fine, but I knew that I couldn’t see him again until his life was straightened out. I didn’t think that bore repeating, so I gave him a kiss on the cheek and a little wave as I took off in a cab to downtown Manhattan.
I blew-dry my hair and put on a little makeup. I had dark circles under my eyes and my skin looked a little like parchment; I could practically feel the olives floating around in my stomach, vodka having replaced any stomach acid. I needed a strong cup of coffee and some food; a nap at home later would help round out the antihangover trifecta.
I put on a sweater, jeans, and a pair of boots. I packed up all of my things and left Max’s apartment. Down on the street, the limousine idling in front of the building barely caught my attention as I wrestled with my bags and scoured the street for a cab to Grand Central.
When the back passenger door to the limo opened and I saw who was inside, I nearly collapsed on the street.
“Alison! Hi!” Peter called from the car. “Going somewhere? I’ll give you a lift!” He waved me into the car with his little stubby fingers.
I stood on the street, a garment bag weighing me down. I thought about dropping it and running, but all thoughts of escape were thwarted when the driver of the limo got out, came around to the curb, and motioned me into the car. He took the garment bag and my small tote from my hands and waited while I got inside. I recognized him as the same guy who waited outside my house while Peter disconnected my phone line and force-fed me biscotti. Resigned, I got into the car.
I sat across from Peter in a stretch limo, my back to the driver’s back. Peter took up a good deal of the bench seat, what with his wide ass and tree-trunk thighs, but I was compressed into as small a space as possible, afraid to move.
Peter guffawed. “You always look so scared when I see you, Alison.” He apparently found this very funny.
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