The Lonely Witness

by William Boyle

  “Look, I’m glad you’re in a good place.”

  “But.”

  “But. I can’t see how there’d be any future for us.”

  “I understand.” Fred wears his heartbreak on his face.

  Amy wonders what he was expecting. She wonders why she’s turned so fast from softening up to being cruel. Everything she’s been doing these past few years has taught her that she should accept him into her life, forgive him, learn to love him again. That would be the good thing to do. The right thing.

  “Maybe, if you have a few days to reflect on this, you’ll feel differently,” Fred says.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t even want to be in contact?”

  “I’d prefer if we just left things the way they are.”

  “Can I ask, if I’m not being too far out of line here, are you in some kind of trouble? It’s like you’re on the run from something. I’ve been there. A lot of my life, I was looking over my shoulder.”

  Amy has a moment where she feels like she might open up to him, tell Fred about Vincent and what she witnessed last night.

  “You don’t want to tell me,” Fred says, sensing her hesitation, “but it’s something. Is someone threatening to hurt you?”

  “Fred, I told you. I’m okay.” She figures if she lets anything slip, she’s letting him in. And letting him in now means letting him in for good. She’s not prepared for that. She pushes away from the table and gets up, grabbing her coffee. “Thanks for reaching out. Thanks for trying to make things right. But it’s too late, Fred.”

  “Amy? Please.”

  She walks out of the Starbucks and rushes across Eighty-Sixth Street, dodging a little wobbly driver’s ed car. She cuts a quick right onto Twentieth Avenue. She knows Fred will go back to her apartment. She knows he won’t give up so easily. She’s not going home now, though. She has something she needs to do first.

  8

  Amy stands in front of the lions again. Bay Thirty-Fourth is quiet. The same old woman from yesterday passes by with her shopping cart full of bottles. Jesus, was that just yesterday? She heads across to the house where Diane lives, passing through the red fence and looking at the St. Francis statue. St. Francis’s nose is missing. His feet are chipped away.

  Amy rings the buzzer for the upstairs apartment. Her guilt has guided her here. It occurs to her that Diane could be dead inside. Dead for days on the kitchen floor. Amy guesses she might smell something, in that case. How long does it take for a body to start to stink?

  The door opens, and Diane stands there, dark bags under her eyes, her nose as red as the fence, her lips dry. She’s pale. She’s swimming in an XXL St. John’s Redmen sweatshirt that must be thirty years old. They’ve been called the Red Storm since at least ’94. She’s got on flannel pajama pants and purple slipper socks. Her gray hair is plastered down on one side, fluffed up on the other.

  “Amy Falconetti?” Diane says.

  Amy’s at a loss for words. Diane’s not dead.

  “What are you doing here?” Diane asks.

  “You remember me from church, right?” Amy says.

  “Of course.”

  “I brought communion to Mrs. Epifanio yesterday. She was worried about you. We tried to call.”

  Diane gives Amy an understanding look. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve been laid out with this flu. I’m feeling a bit better today. I couldn’t even move the last couple of days. I sent my son, Vincent, over there to take my place. Did he not show up? He told me he did.”

  “He showed up.”

  “Oh.”

  “He just wasn’t very clear with her, I guess. She was worried something bad had happened.”

  “My son’s a real piece of work, let me tell you. You want to come in? I have some masks and plenty of sanitizer.”

  Amy’s thinking about Vincent again. How she looked down at him as he died. She can’t believe she’s standing here with Diane. It’s strange to know what she knows. “I shouldn’t.”

  “Please, come in. I’ve been starved for company.”

  Amy nods and follows Diane in. They walk up a narrow staircase. The railing is warped. Diane wheezes as she walks. When they pass through her front door, Diane points to a box of surgical masks sitting on top of the cast-iron radiator in the hallway and tells her she should put one on. Amy stops and pulls a blue mask on over her nose and mouth.

  Diane’s apartment is small. The hallway they’re in leads to four rooms: going clockwise, a bedroom, a bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen. All spare. There’s a Swiss clock on the wall in the hallway and a TV on in the living room playing some game show. Church bulletins rest on top of a bookcase filled with romance paperbacks. Vincent doesn’t live here with Diane; that much Amy can sense. She wonders where he lives. Lived. She can only imagine a cluttered apartment full of video games, clothes strewn on the couch, and a kitchen counter overflowing with pizza boxes.

  Diane guides Amy into the kitchen. “I’ll make tea,” she says.

  Amy sits at the two-person kitchen table in front of a window with its shade drawn. A Pellegrino bottle with fake flowers stands on a lace doily in the center of the table. Amy breathes into her mask. She fingers the edges of the doily, not sure what to do with her hands, and looks around the room. There’s paint peeling from the ancient cabinets. A humming refrigerator covered in Mass cards and shopping lists, kept in place on the freezer door by silly, fruit-shaped magnets, sits to one side.

  Diane puts water on to boil in a ceramic kettle on the stove and then slips on a pair of surgical gloves she yanks out of her pants pocket. “I’m wearing gloves,” she says. “I don’t want you to get this flu. It’s the absolute pits.”

  “I’m not too worried,” Amy says, her voice stifled and deepened by the mask. “I got my flu shot.”

  “I don’t buy into flu shots. Immacula’s daughter, she got the flu shot last year, it turned her into a wild person. She was hitting the walls. You sure you’re not sick already? You look pretty run-down.”

  “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

  “Insomnia’s a real bitch. Most nights, I can’t sleep. I pace around. I watch TV. There’s nothing ever on. Getting sick was a blessing in that way. Forced me off my feet, knocked me out for a few days. I had strange dreams, but I slept.” Diane sits across from Amy, waiting for the water to boil. “You know Rosie Parascandolo?”

  Amy nods.

  “She was having trouble sleeping, she went to this Chinese acupuncture place up the block. You’ve seen this place? Little hole-in-the-wall. She’s sleeping like a baby now. You should look into it.”

  Amy’s on the verge of crying, wanting to say, Your son’s dead. I thought he might’ve killed you, and now he’s dead. I’m sorry. I saw it happen. Instead, she says, “Acupuncture, huh?”

  Diane shrugs. “Worth a shot. I don’t like needles, but these Chinese know what they’re doing. They’re very healthy. I see the old ladies doing their stretches in the Cavallaro school yard every morning.”

  The kettle whistles. Diane gets up and shuts off the gas.

  “Can I help?” Amy says. “You should sit.”

  “I’m good,” Diane says. “I only have Lipton. That okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “You take milk or sugar?”

  “Plain’s good.”

  Diane pours two mugs of tea. She hands Amy one and then fixes her own with milk and sugar. She sits back down at the table and waves her hand through the steam.

  Amy lowers her mask around her neck and blows on the tea.

  “It’s so nice to have company,” Diane says.

  “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Speaking of Rosie Parascandolo, you know her son? Georgie. He lives in Westchester County. Chiropractor. He just got arrested for embezzling a million dollars from the group he works for. Got into a real hole financially, I guess. Had a mistress, too, this whole double life that was bleeding him dry. His wife was in shock. I heard thi
s from Antoinette Parisi. She’s in the know. And Mary Magliozzo confirmed it.”

  “Huh,” Amy says.

  “I’m sorry I’m talking a mile a minute. Like I said, I’m starved for company. My son comes and goes these days. It’s too much to spend five minutes with your mother?”

  “Where’d—?” Amy catches the slip and corrects herself: “Where’s your son live?”

  “He’s got a little apartment over on West Eighth between Highlawn and Avenue S, right near where you get the N train. He’s only been there about a year. He stayed here with me before that. Too small for the both of us. We used to have a bigger apartment, just up the block, but the Salernos sold the house for condos. Vincent’s friends made fun of him for still living with his mother, so he got his own place. You think he invites me over? Never. I’ve been there only to clean up. He gives me a key, tells me his landlord’s pulling an inspection and he needs the place spick-and-span. You believe that?”

  Amy realizes that Vincent was only a couple of blocks from home when he was stabbed. Maybe they were headed back to his apartment before things suddenly turned rotten between them.

  “I babied him too much growing up,” Diane says. “He can’t hold a job. He always wants to borrow money. What’re you gonna do?”

  “He’s your only child?”

  “My one and only. His old man ran off when he was one. Moved to Philly with some woman from work he was seeing on the side. I never took up with anyone else. It was always just me and Vincent.”

  “That must’ve been hard.”

  Diane nods. “Especially when Vincent started having trouble in school. He had this one teacher in seventh grade, she was just real nasty. Fat pig, if I can be mean for a second, but that’s no crime. She was a grade A bitch, first and foremost. Heavy drinker, too. And she just homed in on him, like he was the only one getting in fights. These kids would start with him and Vincent would fight back, and he’d be the one to get in trouble. That’s always been Vincent’s luck.”

  She drinks a little tea. “Enough about Vincent. Tell me about yourself. I see you at church all the time, but I hardly know anything about you.”

  “Not much to tell,” Amy says.

  “Nonsense. Pretty girl like you, you must have the guys lining up.”

  Amy, uncomfortable, doesn’t say anything. It feels so wrong to be proceeding with, even encouraging, this small talk. And now she’s painted into this familiar corner by Diane, who has all the typical qualities of a lonely, nosy parishioner.

  Diane reads her discomfort. “You don’t like to talk about yourself. I get it.”

  The front-door buzzer sounds.

  “Who the hell is this?” Diane says, standing up. “Hold on a sec, sweetie.” She abandons her tea and trudges downstairs to answer the door.

  Amy hears Diane open the door. “Yes?” Diane says, and it sounds like she’s right there in the room with Amy, the hallway amplifying her voice.

  “Ms. Diane Marchetti?” a man responds. Official. A cop.

  “That’s me.”

  “I’m Detective Barrile, this is Detective Vlamis. Is this photograph of your son, Vincent?”

  “Yes, that’s Vincent.”

  “We’re sorry to have to bring you this terrible news, Ms. Marchetti.” Detective Barrile pauses, takes a labored breath. “Your son was stabbed and killed. The investigation is ongoing, but we’re actively working to follow any and all leads.”

  “What do you mean?” Diane asks.

  “I’m very sorry, Ms. Marchetti,” a woman says. The other cop. She has the voice of a heavy smoker. “Very, very sorry.”

  “Vincent and his personal effects are at the Kings County morgue on Winthrop Street,” Detective Barrile says.

  “What do you mean?” Diane asks again.

  “This is never easy, Ms. Marchetti,” Detective Vlamis says. “We can walk you through the procedures you’ll need to follow from here on out. Vincent lived with you, is that correct? His license lists this as his place of residence.”

  Diane doesn’t answer.

  Amy peeks out from behind the shade drawn over the window. An unmarked Crown Victoria is double-parked in the street. The two detectives, Barrile and Vlamis, are standing down at the front door, both in suits. Amy can see only the tops of their heads.

  “Vincent is dead?” Diane says.

  Detective Vlamis again: “Yes, ma’am. We’re very sorry.”

  Diane slams the door. A terrible silence lingers in the hallway. Amy watches the detectives go back to their car and get in. They’re somber. She can’t imagine how hard it is to do a job like that. She’s learned a lot these last few years, spending so much time with old people. Widows. People who have lost children. She wonders why it took the detectives so long to get the news to Diane. She wonders if Vincent wasn’t discovered until the morning. Can that be? Did he just lie on the sidewalk all night?

  Diane comes back upstairs. She’s drained of whatever color she had left. “Is this real?” she says to Amy.

  “Diane, I heard them,” Amy says. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know the exact protocol.”

  “I didn’t even ask any fucking questions. Was he robbed? Was it a fight? What was I thinking? I didn’t tell them about his apartment. Why did I slam the door? Oh Jesus.” She collapses into her seat at the table across from Amy.

  “Is there anyone I can call?”

  “I’ve got no one. Vincent was it. I’m all alone now.”

  “Cousins?”

  “There’s no one.”

  “Who lives downstairs?”

  “The Russos.”

  “Can they help with anything?”

  “They’re worthless.” The tears finally start to come. She’s blubbering into her hands. “My poor Vincent. My poor, poor Vincent.”

  Amy pulls her mask back on out of instinct. She considers that this is the last opportunity she’ll have to tell Diane the truth. I was there. I followed Vincent. I was thinking of something from high school. I was scared and fascinated. I saw the other man stab Vincent. I didn’t see the man’s face, I swear. I was with Vincent when he died. He wasn’t alone. I’m sorry.

  What she says instead is, “I should leave. You need time to process this.”

  “Don’t,” Diane says, gulping back her tears. “Please, stay.”

  And so, Amy stays. She agrees to go to the morgue with Diane. She puts on surgical gloves and cleans the teacups while Diane goes into the bedroom to change clothes.

  Diane is in panic mode. Amy can hear her talking to herself, asking what to wear for an occasion like this. There’s terror in her voice. She comes out in an outfit Amy’s seen her wearing at church: black slacks, a floral-print black blouse, and a red cardigan.

  “How will we get there?” Amy says.

  “Car service, I guess,” Diane says. “I’ve got a couple of numbers in the drawer there.”

  Amy riffles through the junk drawer next to the stove. The first number she finds is for the same car service she got at the diner. She doesn’t want to call them, on the off chance they’ll send the same driver. The other car service is called My Way. She takes out her phone and types in the number, taking off the mask and telling the dispatcher the address and where they’re going. She’s surprised by the fact that she knows Diane’s address. She must’ve absorbed the house number when she was watching from across the street by the lions.

  “I’m so fucking angry,” Diane says.

  “You have every right.”

  “I’m angry at Vincent. Like I said, he was always the one to take the fall. He always put himself in bad positions. He had his whole life ahead of him, and now he’s just dead.”

  The car arrives ten minutes later. They go downstairs, Amy holding Diane’s arm as they take the steps one by one. Diane seems more fragile by the moment. The car is almost identical to the one Amy caught at the diner, except i did it “my way” is st
enciled on the door in yellow letters. Amy helps Diane in.

  The driver is cheerful. He has an innocent face and pretty eyelashes and wears a battered Knicks cap. “My name’s Vincenzo,” he says.

  Diane starts bawling again.

  “We just got some bad news,” Amy says. “Some devastating news.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says. They drive away in silence.

  Amy’s never been to a morgue. Her grandparents dealt with everything when her mother died, and both her grandparents died in hospice within a year of each other. Her father’s parents died before she was born. She’s been to plenty of funerals and wakes, some for friends who had died well before their time. Rudy from Seven Bar had been hit by a taxi while riding his bike. Merrill’s junkie friend, Addie, had OD’d in Amy’s bathroom and the ambulance was too slow getting there. And then there was Ruth from college, who had just started working at Cantor Fitzgerald on the one-hundred-and-first floor of the North Tower at One World Trade Center in September 2001 and was one of the 658 employees of that firm to die in the attack. But Amy has never been to a morgue, and she doesn’t particularly want to go now. She certainly won’t go in, if she can avoid it. She doesn’t want to stare down at Vincent’s body. She doesn’t want Diane to collapse into her arms.

  “Can I borrow your phone?” Diane says. “I forgot mine, and I need to call Andy Capelli at the funeral home.”

  Amy hands her the flip phone.

  Diane stares at it in her palm like it’s an artifact from a different era.

  “I’m sorry,” Amy says. “I haven’t caught up with the times.”

  Diane manages a little laugh. “You’re like the senior citizens.” She opens the phone and enters a number from memory. Amy can make out Andy Capelli’s voice on the other end of the line. He’s a regular at church, and he took over running Capelli’s, the funeral home on New Utrecht Avenue, when his dad passed away. Andy’s a nice enough guy, always wears a wooden cross hanging outside his shirt. Fond of turtlenecks, too. Hard of hearing. Diane has to say almost everything twice. It’s difficult enough to say once that your son has died, his body is at the morgue, and you need to set up funeral arrangements.