by Baxter Clare
“Not so nice, huh?”
“He was an oiler, my old man. Couldn’t hold down a job if you gave him a hammer and a box a nails. Drank away every paycheck he ever had. Never mind he had five kids to feed. My mother”— Annie crossed herself—“she’s a saint. Raised us basically by herself. Throw in my old man and she was taking care of six kids. Sent three of us through college, workin’ fourteen, sixteen hours a day. She’d come home some nights cryin’, her feet hurt so bad. I’d rub ‘em for her. Put liniment on ‘em. I hated seein’ her like that. Then she’d get a couple hours’ sleep and be up before we were, making our breakfast, lunches already in little sacks she saved from work. A saint. A friggin’ saint.”
Annie checked the rearview mirror, the side mirrors. She scanned through the windshield and started the visual circuit all over again.
“She still alive?”
“Yeah. She lives with my brother Anthony over to Queens. His wife’s a doll, God bless her. Took my mother in like she was her own. Yours?”
“Nah. Dead a long time.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Like your dad was to you, my mother was to me.”
“How old were you when your dad died?”
“Ten.”
“Well, that I’m sorry for.”
Frank nodded. “Here we are anyway. Despite the odds. Two old broads carrying guns and badges.”
Annie smiled. “We done all right, huh?”
“Pretty good. I wonder if we’d be here without them. Our pops, I mean.”
Annie dropped another look on Frank. She shrugged, resuming her scan. “Maybe better, huh?”
“Who knows?” Frank used her hands to weigh her words.
“Good guy, bad guy? For a while, it coulda gone either way for me.
“You serious?”
“Yeah. The bad guy was quick, immediate gratification. But I saw who always got to go home at the end of the day and kept my sights on that. There were times, though, I wavered.”
Passing Tomkins Square Park, Annie pointed out the corner of 11th Street. “Back in the Seventies—I think it was ‘seventy-two— BLA ambushed two cops there. Foster and Laurie. Both of ‘em not even twenty-five yet. Foster was black, Laurie was white, but both of ‘em was blue.”
“I know. Word spread around the projects faster than fire in a meth lab. I kited a bus up after school the next day. Kinda morbid, I know, but I wanted to see where it happened. I remember how quiet it was. Too quiet. Only people on the street were junkies lookin’ to score. Everyone else was inside lookin’ out.”
Annie was incredulous. “You’re from around here?”
Frank found her answer out the window. “Spent some time here.”
“Whereabouts?”
“Started off in the East Village, then after my dad died we moved to the Lower East Side. We were in the Towers when Foster and Laurie got killed.”
“The projects, huh? That musta been tough for a white girl.”
Frank shrugged. “I did all right. My dad taught me how to take care of myself.”
After squinting at a couple parked cars, Annie asked, “Any other white kids there with you?”
Frank grinned. “There were a couple of us. We stood out like maggots in a shit pile, but I was the only blonde. They used to call me ‘Yella.’ It wasn’t so bad.”
Frank squirmed. The projects weren’t physically bad. She got knocked around a time or two, frightened sometimes, but nothing terrible happened. The bad part was what had happened to her on the inside. The projects taught her to rely on herself and herself only, to trust or care for no one. But as they passed two kids skipping hand in hand with their mother she remembered that wasn’t completely true. She’d gotten a lot of bloody noses defending kids who couldn’t defend themselves. She hated the way the strong preyed on the weak, the trickle-down economics of the ghetto where the father beat the mother, the mother beat the kids, and the kids took it out on anyone smaller. Frank wasn’t always bigger than her adversaries but she was always angry and her anger found outlet in perceived injustices. Injustices she could control.
A shriveled man hunched on a stoop brought Frank back to the present. “So your case with the little girl. Where’d you catch her father?”
“That’s a helluva note.” Annie rooted in her purse for a pack of coffee beans. “A unit picked him up on the sidewalk. He knew we had the other perp and he was on his way home to blow his brains out. Poor bastard.”
“I had a case like that. Couple years ago. Perp raped an eight-year-old so hard he killed her. Internal bleeding. The girl’s father found him before we did. Tied him up in the machine shop where he worked and sliced the bastard’s dick off. Choked him with it. Felt kinda bad cuffin’ him.”
“Yeah, I know, huh?”
The women continued swapping stories, making the drive to Canarsie cheerful despite traffic and brooding clouds. They found a parking spot on Remsen and headed for the cemetery office.
“Good morning,” Annie greeted the man inside, flashing her badge. “NYPD Homicide. I’m Detective Silvester, and this is Detective Franco.”
The man bowed his head nervously. “Good morning,” he answered in a rich Indian accent. “What can I do for you?”
“We need to talk to your groundskeepers. It won’t take long,” Annie assured.
“Yes, yes.” He nodded. “I get them for you.”
He darted from the office and the women looked around.
Annie asked, “You thought about this yet?”
“About what?”
“You know.” Her hand circled the room. “What you’re gonna do.”
“Not really.” Frank frowned. “I think I got a little time left.”
“Ain’t you the cocky one? How do you know some mope ain’t gonna whack you tomorrow? Or God forbid”—she crossed herself—“we get in a car wreck on the parkway? You of all people,” she chided.
“Why me of all people?”
“Bein’ a homicide cop, for Pete’s sake. Seein’ what you seen. Of all people you should know there ain’t no guarantees.”
Frank had shaken hands with her mortality half a dozen times but had never considered what would happen next. “What are you gonna do?”
“Buried,” Annie proclaimed, jabbing a finger at the ground. “Mahogany coffin, the works. I’m goin’ out like a Viking, you know. In the most comfortable ship I can find, only not on fire.”
Frank smiled. “You’re somethin’, Detective.”
“Ya got that right, cookie.”
The man returned, apologizing that the groundskeepers would be just a minute.
“No problem,” Annie soothed. “Thank you.”
“May I ask what you’re investigating?”
“An old case. Thirty-six years old. See, the NYPD nevuh quits.” She winked.
“Manny and Robert.” He bobbed his head. “They will help you, yes? Please sit. They’ll be soon here.”
“Thank you.” Annie was effusive in her praise, her charm wooing wits and perps alike.
They sat on the couch and Frank gave her an elbow. “You’re good.”
“You noticed.” Annie sniffed.
Two men, one Hispanic, one Asian, both in work clothes, entered the office. Annie made the introductions, then they followed Frank to her father’s plot.
Weaving around headstones Annie asked, “How often do you clean up the flowers left on graves?”
Manny, the Hispanic male, shrugged. “Depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“On how bad they look,” Robert answered. “When they start gettin’ brown we throw ‘em away.”
Annie looked around. “I can see the place is very clean, very professional. I should be so lucky to be buried here.”
From her comment about “the works” and Viking funerals it sounded more like Annie had Forest Lawn in mind. Frank murmured, “On a cop’s salary you should be so lucky.”
“Amen. So tell me, Robert.” She inter
rupted herself. “May I call you, Robert?”
“Sure.”
They were standing at Frank’s father’s grave. There were no flowers, no candles. Just two headstones maintained by indifferent strangers. Frank concentrated on Annie and the groundskeepers.
“All right, Robert. So tell me, how often do you throw away flowers from this grave?”
He hefted his shoulder. “Not that much. Someone comes and changes them. There’s usually fresh flowers. I don’t know, about every two weeks?” He appealed to his colleague.
Manny dragged on his cigarette with self-importance. The detectives indulged him. He nodded. “Something like that.”
“You say someone. Who’s the someone? Male? Female? White? Black?”
“I don’t know.” Robert shrugged again. “They must come durin’ the weekend. We don’t work weekends.”
“When was the last time you saw someone at this grave?”
“Oh, man, I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you. There’s a lotta people come and go from here. I don’t notice ‘em, you know? I’m workin’.”
“There’s a lot people come and go,” Annie repeated. “But you never noticed anyone here?”
“No. I might have seen someone but I wasn’t payin’ attention, you know? I never seen anyone cryin’ or sittin’ for a long time like some people do, you know? You, Manny?”
Manny shook his close-cropped head. “Nah.”
Frank came back to the frequency. “So there are fresh flowers about every two weeks, is that right?”
“About that,” Robert agreed. “Sometimes I’ve had to throw ‘em away but mostly whoever brings the new ones throws away the old ones.”
“The candle, too?”
“Yeah, I guess. Some a them you gotta toss ‘cause they look old, you know? They’re all peelin’ or faded. They look messy. I’ve tossed a candle from here a couple times. Once or twice.”
“What type of candle?”
Robert held his hands about ten inches apart. “The glass ones, you know? Religious candles?”
Frank nodded. “Can you remember what picture was on the candle?”
“No. There’s too many. I can’t remember ‘em all.”
“Manny?”
He flicked ash on the grave. “I don’t know. There was one time, though.” He stared at the horizon like a Clint Eastwood character about to divulge the secret tragedy that turned him into a brooding vigilante. “I saw a priest here. Had the white collar and black coat, whole nine yards.”
“When was this?”
Manny pursed his lips. “A long time ago.”
“Ten years? Five years? Six months?” Annie prompted.
“Maybe like a year, year an’ a half ago.”
“What was he doing?”
“Changing flowers, I think. Something like that. I wasn’t paying much attention. But a priest, the collar and all, it catches your eye.”
“And you’re sure he was at this grave?”
Manny shook his head, “Nah. Maybe. Coulda been, but I ain’t sure. It was somewhere around here.”
Frank asked, “You ever seen anything else here, besides flowers and candles?”
The men answered with head shakes and Annie told them, “All right, fellas, we appreciate your help, huh?”
The groundskeepers walked off, leaving Annie and Frank staring at the grave.
“So you got no family that coulda left the flowers?”
Frank wagged her head.
“No old friends? No war buddies?”
“Doubt it. My father and his brother both served in Korea but neither one of ‘em ever talked about it. I asked my father once and he told me it was nothing I needed to know about. After they were discharged they moved here from Chicago. All their friends were back there.”
“They didn’t make friends here?”
“Yeah, they had bar buddies but they were each other’s best friend. I’m tellin’ you, it’s someone linked to the perp. Gotta be.”
“Frank, I hate to be indelicate here, but what if, let’s say, your pops, he had someone else in his life that you didn’t know about? Someone special, huh? I mean, it’s a possibility. Anything’s possible and how would a ten-year-old know such a thing, right?”
“You mean another woman?”
“It’s possible.” Annie hefted her shoulders.
“Nah,” Frank denied. “Not my dad. He was crazy about my mom. Yeah, sure, it’s possible, anything is. But probable? Nah. I can’t see it.”
“Can’t or won’t, my friend?”
Frank stared hard at Annie before starting for the car. “We’re done here.”
CHAPTER 19
Annie unlocked the car and as they slid in, she pressed, “I know it’s not a pretty idea but you have to consider all the angles. Come on, you know that. And look what we got here—flowers, candles— it screams female. You gotta admit that.”
Frank couldn’t speak around the rage in her chest. As a cop she saw the potential of what Annie was saying. As a daughter, she was furious. Betrayal and logic silently warred as they crossed the East River. Coming into the city Frank allowed, “Well, whoever it is visits on a regular basis.”
“Yeah, but I hate to tell you, we haven’t got the resources to leave a man at the cemetery all day until whoever it is shows up.”
“Don’t have to. Em gonna do it.”
“Whaddaya mean you’re gonna do it? You gotta get back to LA. You got a job, don’t ya?”
“Yeah. With years’ worth of accrued vacation time. People take two-, three-week vacations all the time. Why can’t I? It’s winter, it’s slow. I got a good crew that knows what to do without me. And if our mystery visitor shows up as regularly as it sounds like, then it shouldn’t take more than a week or two. Maybe three, tops.”
“I don’t know,” Annie worried.
“You gonna stop me?”
“No-o. But if and when this person materializes, are you gonna handle him—or her—like a cop or a daughter?”
“A cop,” Frank snapped. “Just a cop.”
Lifting a placating hand, Annie calmed, “All right, all right. I had to ask. I’m sorry I brought this up but it’s a possibility you gotta look at.”
“Yeah, all right, I know.”
“I can’t have you goin’ off on whoever’s leavin’ this stuff.”
“I’m not going off on anybody. Whoever I find I’ll treat ‘em like I’d treat any other wit.”
“And of course you’ll let me know the minute you find someone.”
Frank nodded.
“And you don’t confront this person. You can tail her, or him, or whatever, but leave the questions to me. You don’t talk to her. You got it?”
“Got it.”
Pulling into the station lot, Annie asked, “You got friends here?”
“What?”
“You got friends here in town? Anybody to hang out with?”
“No.”
“You got no friends, no family. You’re dealin’ with your pop’s murder and if I may ask, how much are you spendin’ a night at the hotel?”
“About eighty bucks.”
“Eighty bucks a night for one, two, maybe even three weeks.” Nosing into a spot Annie put the car in park, declaring, “That’s stupid. I live fifteen minutes away in Tribeca. I got two bedrooms sittin’ there empty since my kids left. You’re gonna come stay with me. End of discussion.”
“Nah, I can’t.”
“Why ya can’t?”
Frank got out of the unmarked.
Annie asked over the top of the car, “You mad about what I said back there?”
Frank sighed, tracing a line through the grime on the hood. “The cop in me wants to slap myself silly for not thinking of that, but the daughter in me wants to slap you silly. I just… it’s hard to take in, is all.”
“I can see how that would be.” Coming around to Frank’s side of the car Annie told her, “You just go and keep an eye on the cemetery, huh? Let me worry about
the case. You shouldn’t have to do that. It’s your pops, not some stranger. It’s hard to be objective with your pops, huh? Let me do that. That’s what the great city of New York pays me for. That’s what I got commendations on my wall for, huh?”
“Yeah.” Frank stared at the ground. “I’ll go be your eyes and try not to think too much.”
“That’s a girl. And meanwhile, you’re comin’ to stay with me.”
“I can’t do that, Annie.”
“Why? Why do you keep sayin’ that?”
“You don’t even know me. How do you know I don’t snore and steal loose change?”
Annie grinned. ” ‘Cause I’m a detective, cookie, remembuh? Besides, I got ear plugs and can spare some loose change.”
“I don’t want to put you out.”
“How are you puttin’ me out? I’m never there. You’re gonna be squattin’ on a headstone in Canarsie all day. You should have a nice place to come to at the end of the day, not some hotel room.”
“It’s a nice room.”
“Yeah, a nice eighty-dollar room. You come stay with me for nothin’.”
Entering the station house, Frank insisted, “I couldn’t impose on you like that.”
“What impose? You’re not listenin’ to me. I just said I’m never there. I may as well be payin’ a mortgage for a reason. And to tell you the truth, I miss the kids. I don’t like comin’ home to an empty apartment.”
Knowing the feeling too well, Frank asked, “What happened to Mr. Silvester?”
“Psh. He left when Ben was six and Lisa was eight. I never met a man yet that could live with the Job being first, so I stopped lookin’. I was busy enough with the kids anyway, who needed another one? The one good thing, and I gotta say this for him, is what he did to that apartment. It was a loft in an old manufacturing building when he bought it. Let me tell ya, it was fallin’ down. Don’t think I didn’t give him a few choice words about it, either. But, God love him, he fixed that place up nice. You’ll see. And never said a peep about giving it to me and the kids, after all that hard work he done … So it’s just me rattlin’ around the place all by myself. Come on, do me a favor. Come stay. If you don’t like it I’m sure they’ll be glad to give ya your room back at the Seventeen. Whaddaya say?”