by Lisa Unger
“Mom?”
“Mateo! So late,” said his mother, her Greek accent still thick even after thirty-five years in New York. “Where are you?”
“Working, Ma. Whaddaya think?”
“I worry,” she said with a dramatic sigh. He knew she watched New York One News all night until she knew he was off duty. She waited to hear if any police officers had been hurt or killed. It had been worse for her when he was on patrol. She thought of detective work as “white shirt” police work, safe and intellectual. She meant “white collar.”
“I keep a plate for you.”
“Thanks, Ma. I’ll be a while still. Don’t wait.”
“We haven’t seen you in two days,” she said. “Remember your ulcer.”
“I know,” he said gently. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
He heard his father’s voice and could picture him lying beside her in bed, the television on. “Tell him not to forget alternate side of the street parking tomorrow.”
“You hear, Mateo?”
“Yeah, Ma. I heard. Good night.”
Every night, his father felt compelled to remind him to move the car from one side of the street to the other lest he should get a parking ticket. Every night since he got his first car.
He lived beside his parents in a two-family house in Brooklyn. So while he wasn’t exactly a thirty-six-year-old man who lived with his parents, he kind of was. They had separate living spaces but his mother still did his laundry, cleaned his place, and cooked most of his meals. This, he perceived, was yet another mark against him in the dating arena. His younger brother, Theo, lived two row houses down on the same block with his pretty wife, Anne, and his two fantastic kids Maura and little Mateo, named after his uncle.
He dialed another number and then rolled out of the lot.
“Ms. Strong,” he said when she answered.
“Detective, good to hear from you,” she said amiably. He heard victory in her voice. He liked her in spite of her smug attitude. He liked her confidence and determination, qualities he knew most men found unattractive.
“I have something for you,” he said. “Can I drop it by? Will you meet me on the street?”
“Sure,” she said. “Are you on your way?”
“I’ll be there in two minutes.”
She was waiting in front of her door on Great Jones Street when he pulled up, shivering in her leather jacket and jeans. He pushed the door open for her and she climbed inside.
“Big car,” she said. He figured her for one of those liberals who thought no one should be driving an SUV.
“I’m a big guy,” he said. She smiled.
He handed her the folder and told her what he’d learned from Thelma Baker that morning. Over the next five minutes, he related the salient features of the case, which wasn’t much.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked when he was finished.
Lydia Strong had burned him earlier. What she’d said about him caring more about his ego and protecting his turf than about Lily. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want her to believe that.
“I’m out of time. And so is Lily. Like you said, you have better resources than I do. I can’t give you my case file; besides, there’s nothing of much use to you there.” He nodded toward the folder. “Those are the first real leads I’ve had in two weeks and I don’t have time to follow up on them. Lily deserves someone to look into who was driving that car.”
Lydia looked at him. “She does. And I will. Do you want me to keep you informed?”
“Please,” he said with a nod. “Please do. I wrote my cell phone number in there. Don’t call me at the station. And I have a copy of that list. I’ll be following up on my own time, as well.”
“Just one question,” she said. “How much time did you spend looking into Mickey’s life?”
He shook his head slightly. “Her brother. Not much, really. Why?”
“Just wondering. There was a girlfriend. She and Lily didn’t get along.”
He shook his head. “I’ve been looking at Lily’s life, retracing her steps, talking to the people that knew her best. I did some cursory looking into Mickey’s life up there but I never met a girlfriend. Never came across anything that led me to believe his suicide and Lily’s disappearance were connected.”
She was quiet for a second but turned her gray eyes on him. She said slowly, “Other than that’s the reason she went up there in the first place.”
He thought about it a second. Then, “Right. But if I got hit by a car on my way to the grocery store, you wouldn’t go to the grocery store looking for the driver of the car that hit me.”
“Unless the driver was trying to stop you from getting what you were looking for at the store,” said Lydia.
He’d never thought about it that way. “Well,” he said, for lack of anything better coming to mind.
After a second: “Well, thanks, Detective. You’re doing the right thing for Lily.”
Something about the way the light from the streetlamp hit her then made her look very young-too young to be who she was. The light glinted off her blue-black hair and made her pale skin luminous. There was a simmering intensity to her that he recognized, a fierce desire to put the pieces together. He saw those things in her and he respected her for it. He didn’t know enough about her to know what put the fire in her. He’d heard rumors about a murdered mother but he didn’t know whether that was the truth or not.
She got out of the car then without another word, tucking the folder under her arm. He watched her cross the street. She was about five-six, five-seven with strong, straight shoulders. She walked with the confidence of a woman who knew how to take care of herself. She was lean but with a fabulous fullness about her hips and breasts. She looked strong, fit but he knew her body would be soft, womanly. So many women seemed emaciated to him lately, as if they were being strangled by this terrible need to be thin. His mother had always said, “A woman who can’t feed herself, can’t love herself. And if she can’t love herself, she can’t love you.” He’d always thought it was kind of this funny mix of old and new world values; but that was his mother. Meanwhile, his cousins with their lusty Mediterranean bodies were forever battling their natural shape and curves, trying to fit into a society that wanted women to be as small and quiet as possible. He loved them for their big personalities, their passions, and their full bodies. They were some of the most beautiful women he knew.
He waited until Lydia was inside the door and then he pulled out into traffic.
He took the phone from his pocket and dialed. He listened as the phone on the other end rang, praying he wouldn’t get voicemail.
“Hello,” purred a warm female voice.
“Katrina,” he said, and the taste of her name on his tongue aroused him.
“Is that you, Mateo?” She sounded breathlessly glad to hear from him. But that was all part of the show, wasn’t it?
“Are you busy?” he asked.
“Never too busy for you,” she said softly. “When can I expect you?”
What did he want?” asked Jeffrey as she walked back into her office. He was sitting on her couch, sifting through articles Lily had written in the last year pulled from LexisNexis. He leaned back and rubbed his eyes. They’d been reading for hours. They weren’t sure what they were looking for exactly. They just wanted to know where Lily’s head had been at before her brother had died. Lydia sat back down beside him and he dropped his arm around her shoulder. She rested against his body.
“He wanted to give me this,” she said holding up the manila folder.
“What is it?”
“Apparently, the woman who greeted Lily at the bank the day she closed her accounts noticed a black SUV waiting outside for her. She said that Lily seemed concerned about it, kept looking behind her at the vehicle. The woman got a partial plate. These are the results of the search he did.”
“Anything interesting?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, opening the
folder and settling in. She flipped through the pages, reading the listings of the twenty-eight drivers who owned black SUVs.
“It’s a pretty straight and narrow crew,” said Lydia after a second, her eyes still on the file. “No criminal records, no DUIs, no warrants. A couple of parking tickets-” She stopped talking abruptly and held up one of the driver’s license photos Detective Stenopolis had printed.
“What is it?”
The woman in the photo had short-cropped black hair and a full face. It was a black-and-white photograph so Lydia couldn’t determine the color of her eyes, but they looked dark. Something about the expression on her face jolted Lydia. She got up quickly and went over to her bag and sifted out the photograph she’d taken from Lily’s apartment.
She sat back down and held the photograph up next to the printout and compared the two.
“It’s the same person,” said Jeffrey, staring over her shoulder.
“Are you sure?” she said. The printout was poor quality and the light in the office was low.
“Yeah, look at the cheekbones, the shape of her eyes. She was younger and heavier when the driver’s license photo was taken, but look at the nose. It’s definitely the same woman.”
Lydia examined the features of her face and saw that he was right. The license photo was taken nearly two years earlier. Either she’d altered her appearance since then for some purpose or she was just one of those people who constantly wanted a new look.
“Jasmine said that Lily and Mickey knew her as Mariah.”
“Well, the DMV knows her as Michele LaForge.”
“This address is in Riverdale,” she said, turning her eyes to him.
He looked at her a minute, and she waited for him to say something. She saw a kind of resignation in his eyes and she knew what he was thinking. After a year of relative peace following a period of terrible fear and chaos, their quiet life was about to get a shake-up again. They both knew it was inevitable; it was what they did. It was how they lived. And small, or maybe not so small, parts of each of them wouldn’t have it any other way. He put a hand to her face and kissed her lightly on the mouth.
“We’ll go up there in the morning,” he said.
“Jeffrey, what if-,” she said, letting the sentence trail. There was a parade of what ifs in her mind; their march would keep her up all night. What if Lily’s somewhere against her will, afraid, hurt? What if Mariah knows something? What if there’s crucial information at that address that could lead them to Lily? What if tomorrow morning is too late?
He nodded solemnly. She didn’t have to tell him what she was thinking.
“Call Dax,” he said. “I’ll get our coats. It’s not like we’re going to get any sleep anyway.”
She watched him leave the office and then picked up the phone.
It’s late,” he answered, but she could hear the television in the background. He sounded cranky.
“Sorry to interrupt your late-night television viewing,” she said. “But I think we’re going to come by and get you. There’s something in your neighborhood we want to check out.”
She heard him turn off the set and sit up. “Oh, yeah,” he said, sounding happier, his Australian accent drawing out his syllables.
Dax had had kind of a tough year, recovering from two severed Achilles’ tendons, an injury he sustained while trying to help Lydia and Jeffrey. She knew that since then, he hadn’t been working as much as usual. Although exactly who Dax worked for when he wasn’t working for Mark, Striker and Strong was apparently a confidential matter. Lydia had gone to every possible length to find out, from snooping to begging. But he was like the sphinx, stony and inscrutably silent about his life.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“We’ll be up there in an hour; we’ll explain it all then.”
“Sweet,” he said and hung up.
Six
Benjamin was in bed, safe between his Lord of the Rings sheets. This was her favorite time, when they were both under the same roof. They’d ordered in from the diner across the street and watched Monsters, Inc. for the one hundred and fiftieth time. What was it about kids? Why did they want to watch the same things over and over? It must be a comfort thing.
With him sound asleep, she opened a bottle of chardonnay and curled up on the couch, listening to her child breathe on the baby monitor, which she still kept in his room though he was way too old for it. It relaxed her, the sound of him and the glass of wine. The television was on but the sound was down, and she zoned out on the images from the ten o’clock news. She pushed away any thoughts about Lily Samuels and Rosario Mendez; she’d done all she could for them today and thinking about them all night wasn’t going to help anyone. She’d almost succeeded when something on the screen caught her attention.
The words “Bizarre Halloween ‘Shooting’ ” popped red in the corner of the screen and Jesamyn reached quickly for the remote, turned the volume up.
“-when a young woman was shot three times in the back during the parade,” said a plastic-looking male newscaster. “Onlookers thought it was part of the show or a prank of some kind when a white van came to a stop on a side street off the parade route, pursuing a young woman running toward Main Street. When two men emerged from the van chasing her and shots were fired, the crowd dispersed in a panic. Spectators saw the two men lift the lifeless body, place it back in the van, and drive away. In the melee, no one was able to identify a license-plate number.
“Was it a Halloween prank? Police still don’t know. There was no blood found at the scene, leading police to believe that the shooting could have been staged. They are asking if anyone has any photographs or videotape of the evening, to please call the crime stoppers tip line.” He gave the number and the newscast went on to another story.
Jesamyn was about to pick up the phone to call Mount to tell him about the story, even though it probably didn’t mean anything. It could have easily been a prank, although a very sick prank. They could call the Riverdale precinct tomorrow and see what they had and get a description of the girl, at the very least.
But before she could dial, she heard a key in her front door. She got to her feet quickly and moved toward the front hall, cursing herself for not putting the dead bolt on yet. She had to get that key back from him. The chain kept the door from opening all the way.
“We both know that chain is useless. I could easily ram my way in there if I wanted to,” he said with a smile. She leaned against the wall and looked at him. He pressed his face up against the opening between the door and the jamb. Those ice blue eyes had caused her to betray herself too many times. He’d shaved his black hair down to the skull as he sometimes did when he wanted to look tough, and he had about two days of stubble on his face.
“But then I’d be within my legal rights to kill you,” she said pleasantly. He reached his hand through the door and playfully grabbed for her tee-shirt. She moved just out of his reach.
“The father of your child. I don’t think so.”
“He’s young. He’ll get over it.”
He gave her the smile. The smile that said, “I’m so sexy, so lovable, and you can’t resist me no matter what I’ve done.”
“Come on, Jez. I haven’t seen the kid in three days. I know he’s sleeping; I just want to poke my head in.”
She stared at him. Over the years, the effect that his smile once had on her had greatly diminished. But she’d just be lying to herself if she said it didn’t still ignite something within her. She considered her visceral sexual attraction to him a mutinous physical impulse to be quashed at all costs.
“I’ll let you in,” she said. “But I want that key before you leave. Otherwise, I’m changing the locks. I also want your word that you won’t come again without calling.”
“What about when I pick up Ben and bring him home from school?” he said.
“I’ll give the key to Ben. He’s old enough now.”
His smile faded a little bit and she thought she
saw genuine sadness in his eyes. But with Dylan it was impossible to tell the difference between sincere feeling and calculated manipulation.
“Okay,” he said, softly. “Okay.”
She unlatched the door and he gave her a quick, hard embrace and a kiss on the cheek. “You’re the best,” he told her. “You really are.”
She followed him through the apartment and stood in the doorway and watched him watch Ben. She didn’t trust him not to wake Ben up. And once he was awake and knew that his dad was here, forget it. They’d all be up all night. But Dylan was good; he was quiet as he sat in the small wooden chair beside Ben’s bed. A night-light that looked like an aquarium rotated, casting the shadows of fish in a dim blue light on the walls. For a second she remembered what it was like when they all lived here together, when they were a family. There had been plenty of quiet, happy times that looked just like this moment.
Dylan turned to her and pointed at the baby monitor beside Ben’s bed, gave her a disapproving shake of his head. She crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows in a dare: What are you going to do about it? She didn’t stalk out of the room, which was her impulse. He was antagonizing her to get her to leave so that he could “accidentally” wake up Ben. She knew most of his techniques and had developed countertechniques to block them.
After another moment, he rose and walked past her and out of the room. She closed the door behind her. In the kitchen, she noticed that he looked tired. He’d taken off his leather jacket and hung it over one of the chairs. He reached into the refrigerator and grabbed a Corona.
“Make yourself at home,” she said, sitting down at the table.
“It used to be my home,” he said without heat.
It was an invitation to rumble. But she didn’t have it in her tonight. Besides arguing was a kind of intimacy for them, like if they could make each other mad it meant they still cared. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. In the light the refrigerator cast on him, she could see that he looked tense and strained. She hadn’t noticed at the door.