“When I thought about dinner and about us going out . . . for me, I’d waited for it for so many months, I wanted it to be only about the two of us talking.”
“Is that what you usually wear to talk?”
She blushed a little, but not too much.
I handed her the flowers. “Here, these are for you. This,” I said, waving the wine bottle, “is for us. And if my nose is working okay—veal, right?—it’s the right color.”
“Thank you, Gus. And your nose is still working very well.”
Dinner was pretty great—pounded veal, lightly breaded and sautéed, topped with arugula, shaved red onions, and chopped tomatoes with a balsamic reduction over a bed of spinach. And the salesman at the wine shop hadn’t lied to me after all. The red was great and went perfectly with dinner. It also went well with the chocolate cake. What doesn’t go well with chocolate cake? But the best part of the meal didn’t involve eating or drinking. It was the conversation. For two years I’d been as good as frozen. I’d forgotten the simple joy in getting to know someone. It was an incredible relief to hear about someone else’s life. About their tragedies and small victories.
I was right about Casey’s hands. She worked for a living as an occupational therapist, treating kids at a center for the physically and learning disabled. There’s a lot of teaching by showing and by doing. You’d be amazed at how many times a day I do things we take for granted, like tying sneaker laces or buttoning a shirt. You can’t imagine how much satisfaction there is for the kids in accomplishing those things. I didn’t have to imagine. I could see it in her face. She didn’t have any kids herself. My husband couldn’t have kids, and when you do what I do for a living . . . She never finished that sentence, but she didn’t really have to. She’d loved her husband, a contractor, but, like Annie and me, they’d gotten married young. After fifteen years together, neither one of us could figure out why we should stay married anymore. Eventually we got around to talking about me. About Annie, Krissy, and John Jr. After I’d finished talking about John, she stood up from her seat and came over to me. She placed her right index finger across my lips and took me by the hand. I let her take me.
Now the damp skin of her back was pressed against the warm, damp hair on my chest. We were breathing heavily, my heart pounding against Casey’s skin so that it seemed to reverberate through her flesh and bone and back into my arms. The room was silent of noise but loud with unspoken questions. Was I any good? Did you like it? Was I what you’d dreamed I would be? Was I better than your wife? Your husband? Should I have been gentler? Rougher? Like that. I don’t suppose it ever changes regardless of age or experience. First times are always so fucking weighty, so fraught with judgment and anticipation.
Like I said, it was over twenty years since I’d been with somebody else, and in that there was a kind of anxious joy. In not knowing her body. There was a surprise at every turn. At the mildness of her taste. Her scent. In the soft gasping sounds she made and the rippling muscle contractions of her body in orgasm. But the sex was the easy part, the natural part. What happened in the aftermath between us was the high-wire part of the evening. Finally, when her body settled down, her breathing almost normal, she spun herself around in my arms to face me. She stared at me, hesitated, then kissed me.
“I like the way I taste on you,” she whispered, her voice husky and a bit drowsy.
I curled my hand around a hank of her. She had another small aftershock. “I like the way you taste on me, too.”
We kissed again and fell into a more comfortable silence, Casey closing her eyes and nestling her head in the crook of my upper arm and chest. With no apparent prompting, she was laughing that goofy laugh of hers.
I was confused. “What?”
“I was just so afraid of you for so long.”
“That’s funny?”
“I guess I’m just laughing at myself,” she said. “If I had only had the nerve, we could have—”
It was my turn to put my finger across her lips. “No, Casey. If you had approached me even two weeks ago . . . I’m just happy we met when we did.”
“You believe in fate?”
“Just the opposite. I believe in chance.”
I kissed her again, hard on the mouth, pulling at her hair and rolling on top of her. Neither one of us was laughing or talking.
This time when we were done, we were done. We were like two spent fighters hanging on to each other in the middle of the ring, praying for the final bell. I stroked her hair. She twirled her fingers through my chest hair. Some of the unspoken questions had been answered. Some not. But at least enough to satisfy the both of us and to let us fall easily into sleep.
32
(WEDNESDAY MORNING)
Casey was gone by the time I opened my eyes. I realized that she hadn’t asked me about the bandage on my left calf. I was thankful for that. Nor had we gotten around to the subject of her real name. I hoped we’d have plenty of opportunities to get to that. The truth was I was glad she was already gone, because I woke thinking of Annie, though not out of some sense of misplaced loyalty or guilt. It was about moving on. My old man wasn’t generally full of wisdom. Mostly he was full of misery and Jameson, but this one thing he said to me about not looking back has always stayed with me.
He’d driven me to his old Brooklyn neighborhood on a Sunday afternoon. I don’t know why. I don’t know why he did half the shit he did. Maybe he thought it would be a bonding experience. More likely he was just lonely and I was the best he could do for an audience on short notice. My old man always liked an audience. Anyway, as he drove around he would tell me stories of things he and his friends had done on this street here and that one there. He drove by his old schoolyard and told me about the stickball games he’d played and the fights he’d had there. After the schoolyard, we drove a few blocks and parked. My old man didn’t say a word, just stared across the street at a beat-up row house for what felt like an hour. When I finally got up the nerve to ask him whose house that was, he turned to me with a look on his face I’d never seen before or since. He was on the verge of tears, I think.
“Once you leave a place, don’t look back. Move on. Once something is gone, John Augustus, it’s gone forever.” He cupped my cheeks in his hands as he said the words. It was the only tender moment we ever shared. “Once you step ahead, keep going, ’cause there’s no going back. Even the people you thought you knew . . . they change, too.”
He never told me who lived in that row house. The next time I asked him, a few weeks later, he smacked me. I didn’t ask again. I’d like to think it was his first love’s house, or better still, the house of the girl that had gotten away. I even gave her a name: Colleen. I liked to think of her as a redheaded beauty because it helped me explain away some of the bitterness and cruelty he showed to my mom. I don’t imagine it really mattered who lived in that house because I’ve never forgotten that moment, nor what he said. It’s not like that sentiment hadn’t been expressed a million times before or since. There was nothing very original about my old man. It was just that look in his eyes that I’ll never get out of my head.
So yeah, I woke up thinking about what last night with Casey meant for Annie and me, for whatever was left of Annie and me. I laughed to myself because I realized that my dad had said those things to me about not looking back when that’s exactly what he was doing. That had never occurred to me before. I wondered if it ever dawned on him. By the time I’d showered and borrowed Casey’s toothbrush and got dressed, I wasn’t thinking of my dad or Annie. I was thinking of Casey. I left her a note, asking if we might try for a real dinner out sooner rather than later and promising to call. I was thinking about something else as well as I closed her front door behind me. I was thinking of my proximity to where TJ Delcamino’s body had been found.
Just like I did the first time I visited the scene, I parked by the wooded lot on Browns Road. As I drove up, I no
ticed that the plug had been pulled on the naughty Santa display on the roof of the house to my left. Oh, Santa and the reindeer were still up there, but unlit and unmoving. Long Islanders can be a fairly tolerant bunch as long as you don’t screw up their food orders or take too long making their lattes. Oh yeah, there’s one other thing that makes us mental: property values. A mother lioness protecting her cubs has nothing on a Long Islander whose property value is threatened. Apparently, the neighbors had had enough of Santa mooning the passersby. At least Alvin and the Chipmunks were still at it, crooning away. You can keep the singing rodents, but Santa’s gotta go! When I looked to my right, the baby Jesus was staring at me from his mat of plaster straw, his blue doll eyes unblinking. I turned away, deciding I’d have a talk with the owner of the rude Santa house.
As I made my way over to the front door, it occurred to me that Christmas was fast approaching and that I hadn’t done any shopping. That first year after John died was the worst. Beginning the week of Thanksgiving—and what the fuck was I supposed to be thankful for, exactly—stretching through New Year’s was pure hell. There were reminders of John everywhere and in everything. And with the reminders came the reminders of our loss. From moment to moment, we relived his death over and over and over. Even the ads for Black Friday did us in. Remember that year Johnny had his heart set on that one Transformer and you got up at four and . . . There wasn’t a sight, a sound, a smell, a taste, anything, that wasn’t an assault on my heart. Nothing that didn’t bring him back to me and rip my guts out anew. Annie and I were well into our descent into oblivion by then, but the three of us were still living together in the house in Commack that year. And I think it was our Christmas there that finally drove us out. I made a mental note to call Krissy again when I was done, maybe take her for dinner.
Close up, under the façade of bad taste, the Chipmunk ranch house was actually not a bad place at all. The cedar shingles that covered it weren’t chipped or split and had turned that lovely shade on the color spectrum between silver and faded brown. The driveway had been recently repaved and the lot was almost completely free of fallen leaves. No mean feat for a house next to a wooded lot and in an area full of big old oaks and maples. The storm door was new and the front entrance featured a shining red door and tasteful stained-glass side panels. It was hard to tell much about the rest of the place given the vast array of lights and decorations that covered the house and yard.
A balding man with a wisp or two of gray hair on his head opened the front door but not the glass storm door. He was in his seventies if a day and seemed about as happy to see me as a sad-faced oncologist. I knew the look. No need for words. I don’t want any. Go away! That’s when I shouted to him, “I used to be a Suffolk County cop.” I threw my thumb at the lot that his property bordered. “I need to talk to you about the body they found there in August.”
Did I think that approach would work? I wasn’t sure. I thought it might, but what else was I going to say? I didn’t want to lie to the guy. I mean, if he gave me the chance, I could prove I’d been on the job. If I got caught in a lie, he’d shut me down.
He smiled and opened the storm door. “A cop? Sure, come on in.”
I guess he hadn’t heard me completely through the storm door, but as he was welcoming me, I wasn’t going to correct his mistake until I was in his house.
When he closed the doors behind me, he said, “So, you’re on the job?”
“Used to be. Twenty years, mostly in the Second Precinct. Now I’m working private.”
“Twenty years, huh? Maybe you know my grandson. My son’s boy. He’s on the job in Suffolk, too.”
“Maybe. What’s his—”
“Pauly Martino. He works in the Marine Bureau.”
“Sorry, Mr. Martino. I’ve been off the SCPD for a few years now and never had much to do with the Marine Bureau.”
He shrugged his old shoulders. “I figured I’d ask.”
“Sure. My name is Gus Murphy.” I offered him my hand.
Shaking it, and holding his other hand up to his ear, he said, “My hearing ain’t so great anymore. Gus, is it?”
I nodded.
“You wanted to talk to me about the lot next door?”
“About the body they found in the lot last August.”
Now he was nodding. “Yeah, sure, sure. C’mon into the kitchen. Sit.”
I was thinking of my old man again, about how he would never have shown a stranger the courtesy that Mr. Martino was showing me. I followed Mr. Martino into the kitchen. We passed through a nice living room with a beautifully decorated tree. The whole house was well kept and clean as could be. But the kitchen really looked lived in, comfortable, a bit dated. Very 1970s. A lot of Harvest Gold appliances. I sat at the breakfast nook by the bay window. Had it been a sunny morning instead of a blustery gray one, it would have been a great spot to greet the day. Mr. Martino stood over by the coffee maker.
“Want some?” He wiggled the pot at me.
“That would be great. Milk and if you got a Sweet’N Low—”
He pointed at the crystal sugar caddy on the table and the little cow-shaped milk dispenser. Over the first cup, we got the small talk out of the way. He showed me photos of his grandson in uniform, of his great-grandkids. Told me that he did all the Christmas decorations because it reminded him of his days growing up in the Bronx and of his own kids.
“They thought that silly Santa thing on the roof was just the best thing ever, and the grandkids, they loved it even better. That’s what all this stuff is for, to make the kids happy. For all the years we lived here, nobody ever said nothing about that Santa, but now people are all so sensitive. You know what I mean, all politically correct?”
I told him that I did.
“I got a registered letter in my mailbox the other day from the town telling me that the neighbors were complaining and that the seasonal display on my roof was in violation of some town ordinance or something like that. They told me to shut it off or take it down or I was gonna get fined or something. I was gonna fight it, but what for? No one got a sense a humor no more. And since the wife died last year . . .”
No need for him to finish that sentence, certainly not for me.
“I bet it was that jerk next door that started the trouble,” he said, unwilling to let it go. “That strunz on the other side of the lot. Family’s lived there since October and the prick won’t even wave to me.”
That gave me the opening I was looking for. “So they didn’t live there when the kid’s body was found in August?”
“Nah, the Cohens, great neighbors, they moved to Florida soon as they sold the place. Nice Jewish family, never bitched once about the decorations the whole time they lived there. The wife, Leah, she used to bring us over latkes at Hanukkah. Nice people, but everyone’s moving away. Who can afford to live on the island anymore? The property taxes could choke a horse.”
Mr. Martino didn’t know it, but his rant had just saved me a visit. No need to talk to the neighbors with the doll-eyed baby Jesus if they hadn’t lived there when TJ’s body was discovered. I brought the subject of the body back up again. Unfortunately, Mr. Martino was more eloquent on the subject of property taxes.
“There wasn’t anything to see,” he said, pouring me more coffee. “By the time I got out there, the police had everything all blocked off. If there was something to see, I didn’t see it. I musta been back in the house and asleep by the time they removed the body.”
To be polite, I stayed a few more minutes, sipping at the unwanted second cup of coffee. I thanked him for his time and hospitality and asked him again if he was sure there weren’t any details he might’ve forgotten about that August night. He shook his head no, but as I was leaving, he told me to hold on a second.
“You know, Gus, there was one thing that didn’t make no sense to me. The next day I read in the paper that the guy they found d
ead in the woods was a nobody. I don’t mean to speak bad of the dead or nothing, but—”
I put my hands up as a gesture of understanding. “I get it, Mr. Martino. Go ahead.”
“He was a small-time car thief, right? So it made me scratch my head.”
“What did?”
“That night, the night they found the kid, I figured whoever he was had to be pretty big or connected, because why else would the chief show up?”
That got my attention. “The chief? The chief of detectives?”
“Nah.” Martino made a face. “The chief! The big chief. The big Irishman. What the hell is his name? My grandson is always talking about him.”
“Jimmy Regan?”
Martino smiled. “That’s the one. The big Irishman,” he repeated.
“The chief of the department showed up?” I said as much to myself as to Martino. “How did you know it was him?”
“Are you kidding me? All the guys in uniform looked like they were gonna kneel and kiss his ring. And that red hair . . . you can’t miss it. My grandson tells me the guy’s a legend.”
“He is.”
“Besides, I overheard the blond girl who’s now our local COPE officer whispering to her buddy. They were as surprised as I was to see the guy.”
I tried not to react. I’m not sure I hid it very well. I thanked Martino again and got out of there. I knew Jimmy Regan well enough, though not so well to call him a friend. Mr. Martino had spoken the truth, though. Jimmy Regan was a cop’s cop: fearless, loyal, dogged, street smart, and just plain smart. I never had much use for the brass. They were usually the ambitious men and women who tended to pick their spots and polish their own apples. Not Regan. His rep was well-earned. I knew guys who had come up with him. To a man they said Regan was the best cop they ever saw. Always the first guy through the door. Never asked anyone to do anything he wouldn’t do himself. I had a sergeant who used to tell Regan stories like he was talking about Babe Ruth. Yet, odd as it was for the chief of the department to show up at some petty thief’s murder scene, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. He might have just dropped in unexpectedly to observe his troops handle the situation. But what Jimmy Regan was or was not doing at the murder scene was beside the point. What mattered was who killed TJ Delcamino, and that’s what I was thinking when I turned the corner to talk to the folks whose back fence bordered the wooded lot.
Where It Hurts Page 16