Empty Ever After

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  The heavier front door pushed right back, exposing the staircase that led up to the second floor apartment and, on my right, the door to the kid’s apartment. Ignoring the bell, I rapped my knuckles hard on the kid’s door and waited. I could hear the sound of the TV coming through the door, but no footsteps.

  “Hey, kid! Patrick, it’s me. Open up.” I wasn’t shouting exactly. I tried the bell and waited a minute. Still no footsteps. I called the kid’s cell phone. I heard ringing through the door. The ringing stopped when I hung up. I dialed Carmella.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “Maybe trouble.”

  “You want me to come across the—”

  “No, stay put and keep your eyes open. I think the kid may have bolted or is ready to bolt. Call Brian and give him the heads-up.”

  “Okay.”

  I knocked again. Nothing. I tried the doorknob. It turned easily and the door fell back, but stopped after only a few inches. A dim shaft of light filtered through into the dark hallway. I pushed harder without completely shouldering the door and it moved a bit more, but not much. There was definitely something propped against the other side. I peeked through the four inches of space I’d managed to clear and was relieved not to see arms and legs. While I still couldn’t look around the door to see what was blocking it, I saw the kid’s cell phone on a beat-up coffee table. The sound from inside had come from a boombox stereo sitting on the bare wood floor, not from a TV.

  “Kid. Patrick. Come on, it’s me, Moe,” I called, a little more urgency in my voice this time. No response. I hit the door square with my right shoulder and it gave way. I patted the wall for a light switch and found one. An overhead fixture came on and I saw the red plastic milk crate full of dumbbells and weights that had held the door shut.

  I was standing in the living room. The coffee table and the boombox were the only things in there. This apartment had the same layout I remembered from Crazy Charlie’s. There was a dining room ahead and to my right, a galley kitchen off that, a hallway to the left of the dining room with a bathroom on the right, a large bedroom on the left, and a small bedroom at the end of the hall. I slid my arm around my back, under my jacket, and pulled the .38 from its holster. I knelt down and killed the music.

  “Kid. Patrick. I’ve got your five grand in my pocket.”

  I took the slow, measured steps of a tightrope walker, letting my gun hand lead. The dining room and kitchen were clear. There was no furniture in the dining room and no food in the kitchen. The living room closet set beneath the stairs up to the second floor was empty. When I stepped into the hallway a little gust of wind hit me square in the face. There must have been a window open in one of the bedrooms. A thunderstorm had been brewing all day and I smelled its inevitability in the air. There was another scent in the breeze that I couldn’t quite make out.

  The bathroom was the size of a closet and nothing much larger than a water bug could have hidden in there. The small bedroom was even more empty than the other rooms. It was totally barren except for cobwebs and the window was shut tight. No one had set foot in the room for weeks. The uncorrupted layer of dust on the floor told me as much. Stepping back toward the last unexplored room in the house, I caught another rush of air. Now I knew what that other scent was hiding behind the humid musk of the storm: blood.

  “I’m coming in there, motherfucker!” I screamed like a madman and kicked the door above the knob. The door flew away and I ran in blind, fueled by fear and weeks of frustration. Crazy Charlie would have been proud of me. Not five feet through the door I tripped over something and crashed to the floor. Looking back, I saw what had taken my feet out from under me. This time, it wasn’t a fawn.

  When I crawled over to the kid, my hand slid in a pool of what I supposed was his blood. It wasn’t warm, exactly, but it was fresh. I held my bloody palm up near my face. In the dimness, the blood almost looked like chocolate syrup. I put my other hand over the kid’s heart and got nothing. He was still warm, as warm as he would ever again be. I found his neck. There was no pulse to feel. As I stood up, lightning flashed and I caught a glimpse of the kid. I didn’t have to see him clearly to know he was dead. I found the light switch.

  The kid’s shirtless body lay so that his open eyes seemed to be looking straight through the ceiling, through the roof, into infinity. How’s the view, kid? There wasn’t a lot of blood anywhere except around his body, but the only visible wound was a long, diagonal gash across his liver. The blood that had seeped out of it was thick and dark. Yet as grisly as the gash was, I couldn’t believe it could account for all the blood puddled on the floor. My bet was the detectives would find some nasty wounds in his back when they rolled him over. I dialed 911 and listened to myself talk to the operator as if from another room.

  I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. I was frozen, as incapable of movement as the kid. He did indeed resemble Patrick, but from here, in the stark light, it was clear he was no twin. He even looked a little different from that morning. I suppose getting murdered will do that to you. I knew he wasn’t Patrick, not my Patrick, but his death dredged it all up again and the past twenty-two years—the lies, the secrets, and deceptions—came crashing down around me. Only this time it came down all at once. I tried distracting myself, gazing around the room at anything but the body.

  There was an unfurled sleeping bag, a few pairs of jeans, some rock t-shirts from bands I never heard of, and two pair of those stupid Shinjo Olympians. The window was wide open and I thought I could already hear sirens, an army of sirens, coming my way. The wail of the sirens unfroze me and I stepped into the living room to wait. Living room. The phrase took on new meaning. Outside rain fell in solid sheets.

  I must have been hallucinating about the sirens, because it took ten minutes for the first unit to arrive. The two uniforms were named Kurtz and Fong. Kurtz was nearly as old as me, too old to still be in a uniform without stripes, and Fong was a fresh-faced Asian kid trying hard to act blasé. By the time they came in, I had sufficiently recovered my wits and had since called Carmella and Brian and filled them in. I told them to stay away as the situation was going to get complicated enough without involving them. I did ask Carmella to give one of our lawyer contacts a heads-up.

  I had my old badge out to show the uniforms. Neither Kurtz nor Fong were much impressed. After they patted me down, removing my.38 from its holster, checking out my wallet and credentials, we got to know each other a little. I didn’t bother going into great detail about the reasons for my being at 69 Manhattan Court. I was a licensed PI working a case. Blah, blah, blah … They seemed satisfied I hadn’t killed the kid. Yeah, Prager, whatever … Besides, making the case wasn’t their headache.

  “Hey,” I said, “what took you guys so long to get here? I thought I heard sirens almost immediately after I called.”

  Both uniforms turned to each other and laughed. I must have missed the joke.

  “Aren’t there any fucking chairs in this place for a man to sit down?” Kurtz whined, rubbing his lower back.

  “Nope.”

  “You did hear sirens,” he said, still unhappy about the lack of chairs.

  “We were right around the corner. You notice how wet we are?” Fong asked.

  “Now that you mention it.”

  The bottoms of their trousers were dark with rain and beads of water covered the bills of their caps.

  Kurtz shook his head. “My partner’s not exaggerating. We had a traffic fatality at Avenue Y and Ocean Parkway. A guy ran right out into the traffic and got launched. When he came down he skidded and then got pancaked by like four other vehicles. It was ugly.”

  “Sounds it.”

  “Yeah, ugly,” Fong agreed with his partner’s assessment. “And really too bad. The guy was a cop.”

  That got my attention. “A cop?”

  Kurtz sneered. “Yeah, if you consider them glorified, overpaid motherfuckin’ meter maids in Suffolk County cops.”

  My heart was doi
ng that jumping into my throat thing again. “A Suffolk cop?”

  “A sergeant,” said Fong.

  “Was his name Ray Martello?”

  Both Fong and Kurtz looked at me like Jesus walking on water. Lightning flashed again. If thunder followed the lightning, I didn’t hear it. I thought I heard the rain falling.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I SAT WITH Paul Dukelsky in an interrogation room at the Six-One precinct on Coney Island Avenue. The Duke, as he was known around the city’s courthouses, was one of the best criminal defense attorneys in New York. Dukelsky was a shark with a square jaw, green eyes, and a good heart. For every rich scumbag he defended, there were two or three wrongly convicted men now walking the streets. We had done some work for his firm, but not enough to warrant his driving in from the Hamptons to play my white knight. That was Carmella’s doing. Like most straight men with a pulse and a libido, he had a thing for my partner. Good looks and confidence are magnetic qualities in any woman, but when she carries a gun and can probably kick your ass … well, then, that’s something else.

  “So, Moe, let’s go over this again,” the Duke instructed, looking down at his wrist. I wasn’t sure if he was checking the time or his tan. I did know he hadn’t gotten his watch from Charlie Rolex.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. Between you and the cops, I’ve been over this twenty times. The details aren’t going to change. Ray Martello killed the kid, not me. Call Sheriff Vandervoort in Janus. Call my wife’s doctors, for chrissakes! They’ll tell you what’s been going on. I’ve had it. It’s what, like seven in the morn—”

  “Eight-ten,” Dukelsky corrected me.

  “I’m exhausted and hungry and I’m not doing this anymore.”

  “As your attorney, I must insist you—”

  “Go take Carmella out for breakfast or something and leave me the fuck alone.”

  He flushed red. I’d hit a nerve. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything, Moe. I’m not here to discuss Carmella and me.”

  “I didn’t know there was a Carmella and you.”

  He bowed his head, clearly trying to regroup. It never failed. Beauty and desire cut through the bullshit. For all the trappings of success, the Duke was, on the inside, like every other man I knew: an insecure fifteen-year-old boy who wanted to sleep with the prettiest girl in school.

  “Listen, Moe…I wanted to talk to you about—”

  There was a knock on the door. Whoever was on the other side didn’t bother waiting for permission before stepping into the room. It was Detective Feeney with Carmella Melendez in tow. Feeney was old school right down to his brush-cut gray hair, white shirt, and squeaky black shoes. He smelled of cigarettes and coffee and wore an expression that bespoke a perpetual sour stomach. The detective had his face in a file even as he walked. Carmella’s expression was hard to read.

  “Looks like you were right about Martello,” Feeney said, pitching the file on the desk. “We’ve tentatively matched a hunting knife we found on his body with the weapon used to kill the kid. And there’s a bloody sole print by the bedroom window that’s a match for the shoes he was wearing. And I just got off the phone with that Vandervoort guy upstate. He confirmed your story.”

  “Do you have an identity on the kid?”

  “The vic? John James, born August 18, 1981, San Pedro, California. He’s got a sheet. Arrested several times by the LAPD for everything from shoplifting to sword swallowing, if you catch my meaning.”

  “That was his name, John James? Did he have an alias?” I asked.

  “If he did,” Feeney said, scanning the file, “it’s not on his sheet. Why?”

  “Nothing. Forget it.” It was stupid, I know, but I was pissed off that the kid had lied to me about his name. I think maybe I was madder at myself for believing him. No one likes being played for a fool.

  “We found Martello’s Yukon parked on Ave Y. The sick bastard had human remains in the vehicle, a bag of bones complete with skull.”

  “My brother-in-law?”

  “Probably. That’ll take a few days to confirm. We’ll be a week going over the stuff he had inside that SUV. All I know is, this guy musta hated you something wicked to go through this rigmarole. It was me and I wanted revenge, I’da just shot you.”

  Dukelsky’s eyes got big. “I’m certain my client takes great comfort in that knowledge, Detective Feeney.”

  “Hey, I knew Martello’s old man, the captain. He was an asshole too, but this is some crazy shit the son was doing. He made a cottage industry outta revenge.”

  “Is Mr. Prager free to go now, Detective Feeney?”

  Feeney winked at me. “Sure, but don’t go to the South Seas until this is all buttoned down, okay?”

  He shook my hand and Carmella’s, wished us both luck. Dukelsky was smart enough not to offer up his hand. Feeney was the type of cop who had no use for lawyers and would have told Dukelsky to shove his hand up his ass.

  Outside, the wind in the wake of the thunderstorms was crisp, almost autumnal, but the strength of the sun, even this early in the morning, put the lie to that. The three of us stood there in front of the precinct. I just wanted to get home, take a shower, and get some sleep. I didn’t care who drove me back to my car. Dukelsky kept looking at his watch, but didn’t seem that anxious to leave. Carmella still had that funky, unreadable expression on her face.

  “Would you guys like to go to breakfast? My treat,” said the lawyer.

  “No, thanks. I just need somebody to drive me back to my car before I collapse.”

  Carmella sighed with relief. “I’ll take you. Come on.”

  “Just as well,” Dukelsky said, “I’ve got to get back to Sag Harbor.” He was lying and rather unskillfully at that.

  “Thanks, Paul,” I said, shaking his hand. “I can’t thank you enough for helping me out. Send me the bill. I’m sorry about getting cranky in there. It’s been a rough couple of weeks for me.”

  “Tell me about it. Don’t worry about the bill.”

  “Okay then.”

  “So long, Carmella,” he said.

  “Bye, Paul.”

  Carmella drove me toward my house and not to my car. She said she would just arrange to have my car driven to my house and that she didn’t trust me to drive in my present state. I didn’t argue. I fell asleep before we made it to Sheepshead Bay Road.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE SUN WASN’T particularly bright nor the sky severely blue. The clouds that drifted overhead weren’t shaped like angels’ wings nor were they ominous and gray. The wind blew, but only enough to disappoint. It was a plain summer’s day that no one would ever sing about or write a poem about or paint a picture of. In this way, it was like most days of most lives: a nearly blank page in a forgotten diary. I think if we could remember our individual days, life wouldn’t seem so fleeting. But we aren’t built to work that way, are we? We are built to forget.

  The Maloney family plot was, as Father Blaney had pointed out on that dreary Sunday in the rain, a pretty place to be laid to rest. And the priest, in spite of himself, presided over the third burial of Patrick Michael Maloney. It was a small gathering: Katy, Sarah, Pete Vandervoort, and me. I had thought to invite Aaron and Miriam and their families, but Sarah confided in me that she had had to lobby her mother just to let me come. Katy was still pretty delicate, her feelings raw, nerves close to the surface. We all had new things to work through.

  Wisely, Katy had waited for the press to lose interest before putting her little brother into the ground for a last time. It was a hot story, but only briefly. Most of the reporting focused on the sensational aspects of the kid’s homicide and the Martellos’—senior and junior—history of misdeeds. There were only a few oblique references to my involvement and nothing about Katy. I’m sure the press would have made more of it if they could have, but no one was talking. A story is like a fire, rob it of oxygen and it dies. Y.W. Fenn taught me that.

  No one claimed t
he kid’s body and John James was buried out in a field somewhere with the rest of the unclaimed, unwanted, and anonymous human refuse New York City seemed so proficient at collecting. I think in my younger days I might have made some gesture, maybe to pay for a decent burial or to find the kid’s people. Not this time, not anymore. My time for the useless grand gesture had come and gone. I just couldn’t muster much sympathy for the kid, even if he had gotten in too deep and hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. It was petty, I know, but I was still pissed at his lying to me about his name. I also couldn’t ignore the fact that his antics had helped shatter whatever fragile bonds that remained between Katy and me after the divorce. Sure, things might someday have collapsed under their own weight, but I would never know that now. Ray Martello had his revenge.

  The day after the murder, I put in a call to Mary White to let her know how things had turned out. The awkwardness between us that began during my visit to Dayton had a long shelf life. I heard the strain in her voice during our conversation. I guess she just wanted to move on after all these years. Who could blame her? I wanted the same thing. There was genuine surprise in her voice when I told her about Martello’s revenge.

  “Really?” she said. “The police are certain it was him?”

  “One hundred percent. His car was full of evidence linking him not only to the murdered boy, but to the plot itself. There were cash receipts, fake IDs, just a ton of stuff.”

  “If you’re sure then …”

  “Well, yeah. Jack’s grave will be left alone from now on. I’m sorry for your troubles. Be well, Mary.”

  Blaney kept it short and managed not to scowl during the graveside service. Maybe the priest did have a heart. Still, he used it sparingly. Fallon hung back, waiting for us to clear out before filling in the earth atop Patrick’s newest coffin. The caretaker had already done a masterful job of repairing the damage to the plot. The grass bore none of the scars of the desecrations, the hedges were trim and perfect, but Fallon was no miracle worker. It would be another month before my father-in-law’s new headstone arrived, so Fallon had fashioned a serviceable wooden cross to mark the grave. The simple cross suited him well. In the end, Mr. Roth was right; Kaddish and ashes was the way to go.