Cover-up

by Michele Martinez

  “Oh. He didn’t mention that.”

  “That’s what he told me. You have a good night now, hear?”

  “Yeah. You, too.”

  She hung up, wondering who was sick and why Dan hadn’t said anything to her about it. Two hours later when she got in bed and turned out the light, he still hadn’t returned her calls. It took her a torturously long time to fall asleep. Whenever she looked at the clock, her eyes burning with fatigue, she assured herself it was Detective Estrada’s coffee keeping her awake, and not that she was in over her head with this guy.

  16

  It had been more than six years since Dan O’Reilly’s wife walked out on him and went to live with a buddy of his from his football days, and he’d done a bang-up job ever since of pretending she didn’t exist. He kept so busy that he didn’t have time to remember her. Worked his ass off on the job. Hit the gym till his muscles ached. Worked construction on the weekends with his cousin Brian and the guys from Brian’s firehouse. So he could avoid any place she might turn up, he’d skipped pretty much every social event he ever got invited to, but what the hell, he wasn’t much for parties anyway. Lately, with Melanie in his life, his efforts had really paid off. He didn’t have to struggle not to think about Diane anymore. She just wasn’t on his mind. He saw a future for himself again, and there was somebody new in it.

  Dan found a parking space at the hospital in West Islip and searched out the oncology floor. Two women were on duty at the nurses’ station, one middle-aged and heavy, the other young and heavy, both wearing brightly colored scrubs and gobs of makeup.

  “What can I do for you, hon?” asked the young one, checking him out.

  “I’m looking for Seamus Fields.”

  “It’s after visiting hours. You a relative?”

  “Son-in-law,” he replied, leaving out the “ex.”

  “I don’t see a ring. You sure you’re married?”

  Annoyed, Dan flashed his shield instead. “You’re sure fast with the questions. Maybe you should join the FBI.”

  She tossed her head. “No thanks, but if you’re single, you can buy me a drink.”

  Her colleague shot her a glance, snickering.

  “What? He’s a hottie,” the young one shot back.

  “I’d like to see my father-in-law while he’s still alive, please. From what I understand, that won’t be too much longer.”

  The nurse’s eyes softened. “Sorry. We get a little crazy here on the night shift.” She checked her roster and gave him the room number. As he walked away, the two of them were giggling behind him.

  Dan trudged down a long, brightly lit hallway, feeling like he was going back in time. Seamus Fields was one of the biggest reasons Dan had fallen for his daughter. That, and her angel face and unbelievable body. Don’t think about Diane. But it was hard not to, since he was about to see her.

  Dan and Diane had known each other their whole lives. Their dads were both on the job, both important men, the main difference being that Seamus handled the stress by becoming humane and wise, whereas Frank O’Reilly had shriveled up inside. Dan had adored the big, bluff Irishman and taken every opportunity to spend time at Seamus’s house. It didn’t hurt that Seamus had a gorgeous daughter, either. Dan and Diane had been born on the same day. When they were eight, Diane told him the shared birthday meant they were destined to get married, and he’d believed her. When they were thirteen, he’d kissed her under the mistletoe at a Christmas party, his first kiss although not hers, as it turned out. When they were sixteen, they did it in a borrowed car on the night of the junior prom, and he was careful not to ask if it was her first time. When they were twenty-one, they got married, and when they were twenty-five, she left without so much as a good-bye while he was dead asleep after a long surveillance.

  Diane’s second marriage had run its course. Had fallen to shit, was a more accurate way to put it. They’d fought and cheated and bad-mouthed each other to the point where Dan couldn’t help hearing about it even though he tried not to. Just recently, Paul had left Diane for some twenty-two-year-old he’d met in a tattoo parlor. Another guy might’ve felt gratified, might’ve said what goes around comes around, but that wasn’t Dan. The past had too strong a hold on him. In fact, if he hadn’t been dating Melanie, he was pretty sure he’d’ve called Diane up to see if she needed a shoulder to cry on.

  Diane’s sister Patty was leaning against the wall outside the hospital room scrolling through text messages on her cell phone. She looked up as Dan approached.

  “Hey, Danny! Long time no see.”

  “How you been, Patty? You’re looking good.”

  Dan kissed her on the cheek. Patty was beautiful like her sister. All three of the Fields girls were beautiful, but none of them had managed to pull off happy. Patty had married a fire fighter who’d died in the World Trade Center, and her youngest kid was autistic. She had a decent job in human resources at a big company, and she was okay enough financially with the insurance settlements and all, but life had taken its toll. You could see it in her eyes. The oldest sister, Denise, was the black sheep—three kids by two different guys, never married, living at home. That’s what happened when you relied on your looks and never developed any other part of yourself. Eventually your looks faded and left you with jack.

  “How’s he doing?” Dan asked.

  “Not good. It won’t be long now. He’s sleeping, but you can go in. Diane’s in there. Mom stepped out to the chapel to light a candle.”

  The thought of being basically alone with his ex-wife made Dan so nervous that his hands and feet went cold.

  “I don’t know,” he said, taken aback.

  “She’ll be glad you came. It’s more than Paul did. He’s in Atlantic City this weekend gambling with his girlfriend, piece a’ shit that he is.” Patty shook her head in sisterly solidarity.

  “I came to see the old man,” he felt compelled to say.

  “Sure. We know that. So go ahead.” She smiled wearily and went back to her phone.

  Dan had to stifle a gasp when he saw Seamus lying lifeless in the bed. The guy’d been the size of a Mack truck and looked like he could’ve stopped a bullet with his massive chest. Now he was shrunk to a pile of bones, his normally pink cheeks sallow and waxy. Ashes to ashes, Dan thought. We’re all dust in the end, even him.

  Dan was so shocked by Seamus’s appearance that it took him a minute to realize Diane was standing right beside him. He hadn’t laid eyes on his ex-wife since all the funerals right after 9/11. Dan’s youngest brother, Sean; Patty’s husband, Eddie O’Dare; a bunch of cousins, scores of their friends. The Irish in the services took a heavy hit. And making it that much worse was Diane, showing up at the funerals hanging all over her new husband, her white skin glowing against a black dress. Here she was now in the flesh, looking beautiful, but older, and harder somehow. The change was noticeable.

  “Danny,” she said, her hand going to her throat. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “What, like I’m not gonna come? You know I love the old man.”

  “I’m just surprised. I’m glad to see you.”

  And she stood on tiptoe and kissed him tenderly on the cheek. She still wore the same perfume, and the smell of it took him back. He’d been wondering if he’d feel anything, and he did. He felt nostalgic and sad, like a lot of years had passed and neither of them had much to show for it. But he did, now. He had Melanie. He’d had a hard time finding his way, all those bleak years without Diane, but once Melanie had come along, he’d finally gotten his bearings.

  “How’s he doing?” Dan asked.

  “They disconnected the life support yesterday. He’s been unconscious since then. They didn’t think he’d last this long. But he has a morphine drip, so he’s not feeling any pain.”

  “I’m so sorry. He’s young, too.”

  “Seventy-one. Is that young?” she asked.

  “In this day and age.”

  Diane was gazing at him intently. Her eyes were brig
ht blue. If they’d ever had kids, the eye color wouldn’t’ve been in doubt. But it had turned out she couldn’t. That had been hard for both of them, and he’d always said it was what drove them apart. She felt guilty about it and acted out. But he knew he was making excuses. Diane had always been fickle, somebody a more careful man wouldn’t have put his faith in.

  “I could use a cup of coffee. The cafeteria’s open twenty-four/seven,” she said.

  He nodded toward the bed. “I’m here to pay my respects.”

  “Sure, of course. But when you’re done? We’re collecting stories for the eulogy. I figure you must have some nice ones about him.”

  She smiled at him sadly, twirling a strand of her golden hair around her finger the way she had when they were kids. He studied her face. It was beginning to look familiar, less hard around the edges, more like the girl he remembered.

  “Okay,” he said after a moment.

  She nodded. “I’ll wait outside. Take your time.”

  Dan approached the bed. He reached out to grasp the old man’s hand, but Seamus had IV’s going into both arms, and Dan worried he’d screw something up. Instead he pulled a chair over and sat down beside him. The acrid chemical odor emanating from Seamus’s emaciated body smelled like death.

  “Seamus, it’s Danny O’Reilly. I came to see you. I don’t know if you can hear me or not.”

  Memories came rushing in, and he choked up so bad that he was forced to stop. Seamus had been more of a father to Dan than his old man had.

  “So I…uh, listen, I know we haven’t seen too much of each other the past few years. It’s a shame, this thing with me and Diane coming between us. But you’ve been like a father to me, Seamus. You know how my old man is. I would never talk against him or nothing, but it meant a lot that you stepped up when he maybe, uh, had too much on his plate. You made me feel like I was worth something, like somebody saw the good in me.”

  He stopped again, fighting for composure. Dan thought he saw Seamus’s lips move. He bent down eagerly, putting his ear to the old man’s mouth.

  “You want to say something?”

  There was nothing, barely even a whisper of breath. Still, Dan felt like Seamus had heard him.

  He straightened up. “Anyways, I came by to say…to thank you for what you did for me over the years. If anybody’s right with God, it’s you, so I know you’re heading upstairs. I’m hoping to wind up there myself someday, and I’ll look for you. We’ll grab a pint, tell a few war stories.” He paused, touching Seamus on his waxen cheek. “Okay, then. I’m not gonna say good-bye.”

  Outside, Diane and Patty were deep in conversation. They broke off the second they saw him.

  “Going to the cafeteria,” Diane said to her sister. “You want something?”

  But Patty’s phone rang, and she waved the question off in her rush to grab the call. Some guy, probably. The Fields girls always had guys dangling on a string. Which reminded him.

  “I heard you and Paul split,” he said to Diane as they stepped into the elevator. All of a sudden, in the space of the few minutes he’d spent with Seamus, he’d started feeling comfortable around Diane again.

  “Yeah. I didn’t even see it coming, that asshole,” she said. “What are you gonna do, right? You probably think I deserve it. I mean, I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

  Dan said nothing.

  “I screwed up big-time, didn’t I?” she said, and gave a nervous little laugh. The elevator reached the basement level and they walked down a short hallway to a cafeteria that reeked of steam tables and cleaning fluid.

  “I heard you’re dating some Puerto Rican girl with a kid,” Diane said, when Dan continued not to reply. “I heard your dad’s not too happy about it, either.”

  She flipped the lever on the coffee urn, filled two Styrofoam cups with light brown coffee, and handed him one.

  “Ah, he’s full of shit. He never even met her. I won’t introduce ’em until he acts more respectful. Besides, I don’t live my life by him. You know that.”

  “Oh, hey, wait a minute. I just remembered something,” she said, and went over to the counter where the desserts were. She came back with a piece of carrot cake. They paid and sat down at the nearest table, the only two people in the place besides the Salvadoran woman working the cash register. Diane put the slice of cake down in front of him, smiling.

  “Happy birthday. Carrot cake’s still your favorite, right?”

  He laughed. “Yeah. I guess you can’t forget the date. Happy birthday to you, too.”

  “It was weird, all those years, celebrating our birthday apart. Did you ever feel that?”

  Their eyes met. He felt strange, light-headed, like he was falling back in time. “It was your idea,” he said finally.

  She held his gaze. “You ever think maybe we just got married too young?”

  “Honestly, Diane, I never think about it,” he lied. Looking away, he took a swig of the coffee and grimaced at its metallic taste.

  “Coffee here sucks, huh?” she asked after a moment.

  “Yup.”

  “So what’s up with the Spanish chick?”

  He took a bite of the cake instead of answering. “Cake’s not bad. Better than the coffee, anyway.”

  “Come on. What’s she like?” Diane persisted.

  “What do you care?”

  “I’m interested. I’m always hearing about you. People love to tell me what you’re up to. You know how that is, right?”

  He smiled, chewing. “Maybe.”

  “Thought I’d get it from the horse’s mouth. Is that such a crime?”

  “All right, let’s see. She’s smart. Beautiful. She’s a prosecutor. We have some cases together. Satisfied?”

  “Oh. A lawyer.” Diane nodded slowly, like everything made sense now. “Nobody told me that part.”

  “What did you think, she was a welfare mother or something? She went to Harvard, for Chrissakes.”

  “Okay, whatever. No need to get defensive.” She frowned. There was a vertical crease between her brows that hadn’t been there the last time he’d seen her. “I don’t see you with somebody from Harvard. That seems wrong for you.”

  “I’m out of my league, but she puts up with me.”

  “It’s serious?”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  He saw the news hit Diane, saw how she’d been hoping for a different answer.

  “What, like headed-for-the-altar serious?” she asked, her tone joking, brittle.

  “Maybe,” Dan said. Time was weird. He’d been wrapped up with this woman his whole life, then she was gone, and now she was back again, so familiar that he could hardly believe the years between had happened.

  “Oh.” She swallowed and looked away.

  “But who knows? It’s too early to say. It’s not like we’re engaged or anything.” Diane had enough going on, between her marriage falling apart and Seamus dying. She didn’t need to worry about Dan getting married to someone else.

  “Okay.” Diane’s smile reached her eyes. The lines around them were new also, and they made him feel protective of her.

  “Now, about that eulogy,” he said, taking another bite of the carrot cake. “Let’s talk about the old man.”

  17

  Friday morning, on her way to an appointment with the head of security for Target News, Melanie made what she thought would be a brief detour to the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home to pay her respects to Suzanne Shepard. She did it because she thought it was the right thing to do, but her little trip turned out to have some unanticipated benefits.

  Frank E. Campbell was Manhattan’s prestige funeral parlor, the place where the wealthy and socially prominent took their final bows. It sat, austere and imposing, on a fine Madison Avenue block, within striking distance of the palatial apartment buildings of Fifth and Park Avenues and convenient to the best shopping. The rich and famous didn’t even need to call a limo to take them there, although of course they preferred to. Two uniformed offi
cers and a sober-suited funeral director took shelter from the sun under the red awning, checking IDs to make sure that no unauthorized mourners crashed Suzanne Shepard’s last personal appearance.

  Melanie flashed her credentials and got waved inside, where she stepped into a small elevator with a blonde wearing a tight black dress, four-inch sling-back heels, and a black picture hat. Though her perfect smile and generous cleavage weren’t on display at the moment, Melanie instantly recognized Kim Savitt from the photo Detective Estrada had shown her yesterday. Kim’s overpowering gardenia perfume made Melanie sneeze, which in turn caused Kim to shoot Melanie an annoyed glance. She was talking on a cell phone and apparently finding it difficult to hear.

  “What? Say that again…Oh, come on, Miles. I told you, I can’t,” Kim said, studying her manicure with a frown, as if it were, to her expert eye, less perfect than it appeared. On her left index finger, she wore a square-cut diamond that reached to her knuckle. Kim seemed utterly oblivious to Melanie’s presence in the elevator.

  “Because. I’m going to Suzanne’s viewing, then I have to find something good to wear to Danielle’s party at Buddakan tomorrow night. They’re expecting photographers from Avenue…No, just the viewing. The funeral’s tomorrow…Do whatever you want, but don’t expect me to talk to you if you show up. All of New York’s gonna be there, and I need to be careful. Drew’s lawyer is having me watched. He’s got some pond-scum PI after me.”

  The elevator doors opened.

  “Gotta run,” Kim said. “I’ll see you Sunday. Don’t call before then; they’re watching my phone bills, too. Kiss, kiss.”

  She snapped her phone shut and met Melanie’s eyes briefly, as if by accident, without seeming to actually see her. They both stepped out of the elevator. Trouble in paradise? Could Kim and Miles Ortiz be on the outs, leaving her willing to snitch on him? Melanie had to bite her tongue to stop herself from demanding an interview on the spot. She’d find her opportunity later, but for now it felt like dirty pool to corner the woman at a viewing—although she had to admit Kim Savitt didn’t exactly look brokenhearted.