Awaiting her turn, O’Hara scans the other checkout aisles for the gentleman shopper and spots him two aisles to the right. In the penultimate spot in line, he places his blue-and-white box of cereal on the conveyor. As he dips to lift another item from his cart, someone behind him in line touches him on his arm just above the patch, and the old man responds with a smile and then a blush. It’s the woman with the kerchief and her daughter.
In an instant, the therapeutic benefit of forty minutes in Publix is erased by rage. Even if their target is her favorite grocery store in the continental United States, which it is, a couple shoplifters can be ignored. But O’Hara isn’t going to look the other way while some bitch and her ratty-ass daughter prey on a lovely old man in a cardigan who likes Rice Krispies. Fuck that.
The three get through checkout before her, but O’Hara hustles past them as they slowly exit the sliding glass doors. She reaches her car in time to watch in the rearview as the woman and girl follow the old man across the parking lot and linger as he loads two bags into the trunk of a ten-year-old green Cadillac. After the woman touches the man’s arm again, he says something that causes her to erupt with glee and nudge her sullen daughter to do the same. Then, to O’Hara’s dismay, the old man opens the back door for the girl and the front one for the mother and walks around to the driver’s side. When he backs out of his space, so does she.
Even O’Hara, whose mind gravitates toward worst-case scenarios, didn’t see the woman working this fast. She figured the woman would get the old man’s phone number and leave in her own car, then O’Hara would get her plates and maybe even follow them back to where she lived. Then she could phone in the information to Wawrinka and let the locals decide on the appropriate level of harassment.
Instead, O’Hara follows them west toward Sarasota. For the first time since she arrived, a drawbridge is up. For the next several minutes, as the sun dips into the Gulf, O’Hara looks through the rear window of the Cadillac and watches the gruesome mime unfolding in the front seat. The woman nods and laughs, and again and again reaches across the space between the seats to touch the man on his arm or shoulder. Maybe she’ll overdo it so egregiously that even a lonely old man will see through her, but, considering his trip to Publix is the highlight of his week, what are the chances of that?
O’Hara feels herself teetering out of control. What exactly does she intend to do, and what good will come of it? And what if something goes wrong, as it so easily could? She’s already earned a reputation as a loose cannon. Does she think her career would survive a major fuckup a thousand miles outside her jurisdiction?
But watching passively from five feet away is impossible for her. She unclasps her seat belt and reaches for the door. To the extent that she has a plan, this is it: She is going to walk up to the driver’s side of the Cadillac, flash her badge, and come up with some pretext to get the old man out of the car. Then, while the woman sweats it out inside, she’ll explain to the old man exactly what kind of trash he is dealing with. But as O’Hara opens the door of her car and puts one foot down on the road, the drawbridge begins to drop in front of them, and the driver in the car behind blows his horn and waves his arms in frustration.
O’Hara decides the location is too chaotic. With the horns blowing, the old man won’t be able to hear her and is likely to get flustered. Too much can go wrong. O’Hara hops back into the car and follows them into the shopping circle she drove through the evening of her arrival. Partway round the circle, the Cadillac pulls over and parks. The three get out of the car and walk into an old-timey ice cream parlor, where in the front window some poor high school kid dressed in period garb leans over a marble table and kneads fudge.
The place must be empty. In a few minutes the three are on the bench in front—the mother with a pistachio cone and the girl with an elaborate sundae—and O’Hara witnesses another installment of the twisted charade. The woman has never tasted ice cream this good. The old man has to experience it too. She holds out the cone for him to take a taste. And then another. And then she dabs his chin with her napkin. Yet the couples who walk by take no notice. Is it possible that to a passerby, they seem like a father, daughter, and grandchild enjoying a summer night?
Their treat finished, the happy family traipses back to the car. But instead of heading back to Publix, the Cadillac continues north across the harbor into Sarasota. As the night drops completely, she follows them onto the southbound extension of the Tamiami Trail, with its empty retail spaces and bottom-feeder commerce. They pass tattoo parlors and pawnshops and one macabre shopping plaza where a medical supply store specializing in wheelchairs and walkers sits side by side with a windowless porn emporium offering a 25 percent discount for seniors. Can’t beat that for convenience—a bedpan and a porno in one stop.
Quarter of a mile later, the car moves into the right lane and does a U-turn to the northbound side of the road, then turns into the parking lot of a dilapidated motor lodge advertising efficiency apartments starting at $99 a week. O’Hara turns off her lights and follows the car to the back of the building, where the old man parks in front of a ground-floor unit. After a few minutes, the woman and girl leave the car, and when the old man sees that they’re safely inside, he pulls out of the dark lot and back onto the Tamiami Trail.
O’Hara, however, isn’t going anywhere. She turns off the ignition and reaches into the backseat for an Amstel, stares at the door through which the mother and daughter disappeared, sips her beer. Although the old man hasn’t been harmed physically, what she’s observed over the last forty minutes is as disturbing as violence. Fucking with the very old seems no less heinous than messing with the very young.
O’Hara drinks a second beer, stares at the curtains in the back window, and thinks about the hard business of facing the end alone. She thinks about the old man in Publix, Levin in his condo, and Gus in his basement, and wonders if that will be her fate too. It certainly looks that way. Her grandmother, near the end of her life, told O’Hara that denial was underrated. Maybe dementia is just a stronger version of the same thing. Vicodin instead of Advil. The beers calm O’Hara slightly, till she sees a figure move past the window, and the thought of the woman inside plotting her next move on the old man.
What torments O’Hara is the realization that nothing can be done to make the old man less vulnerable. O’Hara has the old man’s plates; she could get the address, and ask Wawrinka to send someone by his place to warn him, but what can they offer that will enable him to reject the overtures of a younger woman who seems to care about him when his only other option is to sit in his little box, lock the door, and wait to die? O’Hara should do the same thing. She should go back to her little box, turn on the ball game, and drink the rest of her beer. But she can’t do it either.
O’Hara scans the lot for a car that might belong to the woman, but it’s empty. Did the two take a bus out to Longboat Key on spec? The building doesn’t seem to have an office or a front desk. As O’Hara tells herself to do the sane thing and leave, a tiny econobox, dwarfed by the dorsal fin of a pizza sign on the roof, screeches into the back lot. When a pimply teen hops out with a greasy box, O’Hara steps out too.
“I was just out for a smoke. I see you got my pie.”
“Room nineteen? Mushroom and sausage?”
“Congratulations. You actually got it right this time. What do I owe you?”
“Seventeen ninety-five.”
“And still nice and hot. Excellent.” She gives the kid $25 and waits for him to leave, then takes the box to her car. What does she intend to do? Her legs are shaking because the box rattles on her lap. She reaches behind her and pulls the tube of aluminum foil from one of her grocery bags, removes and wraps up every slice except one, and drops them on top of her groceries. Then she rips a piece of paper from her rental agreement and writes the woman a note.
“If you ever talk to the old man again, I will hunt you down like the who
re you are.”
Is that it? No. Not quite. She pulls out the one slice still left in the box, takes three large bites, and drops it back inside, facedown. Then she slips the note into the box, gets out of the car, and walks toward Unit 19.
CHAPTER 31
O’HARA RAPS LOUDLY on the door, “Pizza.”
After a sizable wait, the door opens a crack. The woman, no longer in her kerchief, peers through the opening.
“Pizza,” says O’Hara again. Seeing the box, the woman opens it a bit wider and stares at O’Hara hard. Hard enough for O’Hara to wonder if she recognizes her from Publix.
“What happened to the kid?”
“He had to go to a funeral,” says O’Hara. “His grandfather died.”
“That’s too bad.”
“It is. Apparently he was a real sweetheart.”
The woman studies O’Hara’s face, and O’Hara stares right back. Say one fucking word, thinks O’Hara, and I’ll pull you into the parking lot and beat the living crap out of you.
“Do I know you?” asks the woman.
“I don’t know. Do you?”
“Aren’t you kind of old for this kind of work?”
“I’m the manager. We’re all filling in.”
Harsh TV sounds come from the far corner of the room. O’Hara turns in its direction and sees the girl parked directly in front of the set, watching the show on MTV where three skanky girls sit in the back of a bus and take turns trying to win a date with a moron. Seeing the girl makes O’Hara feel bad about the pizza.
The room, which has a foreign funky odor, is a shambles. The small kitchen table is covered with fast-food trash, empty cans of soda and beer, and liquor bottles. Sweat-stained T-shirts and shorts hang over the backs of the chairs and couch. In front of the couch is a coffee table, bearing two overflowing ashtrays, a notepad, and an old-fashioned steel Rolodex, and beneath it are a boat-size pair of lime green Crocs that turn O’Hara’s stomach.
The woman twists her head in the opposite direction of the girl and the TV and yells, “Pizza’s here.”
“I’m on the crapper,” replies a deep male voice. “Just pay the kid, Gab. The money’s on the dresser.”
“TMI,” says the girl under her breath, “gross.”
After a wary glance at O’Hara, the woman disappears into a back bedroom. With the girl glued to her show and the woman gone, O’Hara takes two steps into the room. As she reaches for the Rolodex, the girl turns from the TV and stares into her eyes. “Hi. I remember you from the grocery store.”
O’Hara smiles at her and puts her finger over her lips. “I remember you too. Our little secret.” O’Hara is still standing beside the girl when her mother returns with the money.
“My cousin was a contestant on the show,” says O’Hara. “Beautiful girl, but she didn’t get the date.”
“Am I supposed to give a fuck?” The woman hands O’Hara a sweaty rolled-up twenty.
“Not much of a tip,” says O’Hara.
“I thought you were the manager.”
“I still drove out here. I still delivered your pizza.”
“I don’t care. That’s all you’re getting.”
“Suit yourself.”
O’Hara retreats to her car, turns on the ignition, and glances at her watch. She doesn’t have to wait long. In less than a minute, there’s a flash of light and a bang as the door swings open and crashes into the brick wall. A dark shape fills the doorway and bellows an unintelligible curse.
CHAPTER 32
THE VOICE IS elderly but firm, and even in desperation, polite.
“We need an ambulance at 5265 Gulf of Mexico Drive immediately, Unit 306. The owner’s name is Benjamin Levin.” Now the high-pitched wail of a lawn mower straining to power through Florida crabgrass intrudes on the tape, and when the woman raises her voice to be heard, O’Hara and Wawrinka lean forward in their chairs.
“Please hurry,” says the woman. “I heard . . . gunsho . . .” before the mechanical din drowns her out.
“I think she said she heard gunshots, plural,” says O’Hara.
“I have no idea,” says Wawrinka. “It’s those damn two-cycle Briggs and Stratton engines. They should make them put mufflers on them.”
While O’Hara devoted her evening to delivering justice of the greasiest variety, a detour she has chosen not to share, her new partner kept her Hawaiian eyes on the ball and her Polish nose to the grindstone. After an hour and a half at the gym, she returned to her desk to review the original paperwork filed on Levin’s suicide, then tracked down the tape of the 911 call placed by Levin’s neighbor, Sharon Di Nunzio. O’Hara and Wawrinka, sitting in a closet-size space in the basement of the Sarasota PD, have just replayed the tape for the third time and are still not sure what’s on it, although O’Hara’s faculties might be more acute if she hadn’t ended her night with two six-packs in her motel room.
“Is Di Nunzio still alive?” asks O’Hara.
“Alive and in town. I spoke to her last night. Like a lot of people down here, she can’t afford two places anymore and couldn’t sell this one. So she lives here year-round.”
“And how’s the senility quotient? Sharon still playing with a full deck?
“Sounded pretty sharp on the phone.”
“That can be misleading,” says O’Hara, glancing at the police report. “After all, she’s eighty-nine.”
“The tape is six months old. She’s ninety now.”
“In that case,” says O’Hara as they get up and head to the garage, “better use the siren.”
DI NUNZIO HAS the Banyan Bay unit directly above Levin’s, with the identical layout, and when she guides O’Hara and Wawrinka to the dining room table, the tidy condition of both the place and owner are encouraging. Despite her frailty, Di Nunzio is still lovely and painstakingly put together, and wears the kind of chic little antique dress they feature in the windows of East Village boutiques. Di Nunzio has set out cookies and a pitcher of iced tea. Once refreshments have been graciously served and introductions made, O’Hara asks her to recount what she remembers about the morning Levin died.
“I had just come back from the Ringling Museum,” says Di Nunzio, “where I’m a docent, two mornings a week. The cheap bastards don’t pay, but it gives me a reason to get up and get dressed. I was putting away my groceries when I heard what sounded like a gunshot coming from Benjamin’s place.”
“What did you do?”
“I called his phone number, but there was no answer. So I called again, and while the phone was ringing I heard a second shot.”
“You sure about that second shot?” asks O’Hara.
“Yes,” says Di Nunzio with a piercing look.
“Then what?”
“I ran down to Ben’s place and rapped on his door.”
“You’re a brave woman, Sharon,” says O’Hara. “You hear gunshots and run toward them. I know cops who wouldn’t do that.”
“This old-age bullshit isn’t for cowards.”
“So I gather,” says O’Hara.
“Not that I think Ben’s suicide was cowardly,” says Di Nunzio forcefully. “Ben was the opposite of a coward. You know I saw him punch a man at Sweet Tomatoes?”
“No way,” says O’Hara. “You were there?”
“As close as you and me. It was thrilling. Some asshole tried to cut the line, and Ben leveled him. He’d never admit it, but I think he did it to impress me. In any case, it certainly had that effect. In fact, it made me wet.”
O’Hara glances at Wawrinka, who barely gets the napkin to her lips in time to catch the iced tea flying from her mouth. O’Hara gives her partner a moment to compose herself, then turns her attention back to the spry Di Nunzio.
“So you knocked on his door,” says O’Hara. “Then what?”
“As fast as I could, which I’
m afraid wasn’t fast enough, I ran up those awful stairs and called nine-one-one. Of course, I should have called immediately.”
“When you first got back from the museum,” asks O’Hara, “did you see anyone going in or out of Ben’s place?”
Di Nunzio shakes her head. “No.”
“And when you came down the stairs to Ben’s place, did you see a car leaving?”
“No.”
“I realize it was six months ago, but did you notice if a car was parked in front of his place?”
Di Nunzio concentrates. “Yes. There was a dark green van in visitor parking, which is right in front of his place. I remember because it was from the Sarasota Water Authority, and it scared me. It made me think there was something wrong with the water, and I shouldn’t be drinking it.”
“And your memory is clear on the color, even after six months?”
“Yes. Dark green with black letters.”
“When the police and EMS arrived,” asks Wawrinka, “was the van still there?”
Di Nunzio squints, as if spooling back the tape behind her eyes. “It couldn’t have been, because the police cars and EMS parked where the van had been.”
“You mentioned having dinner with Ben at Sweet Tomatoes. Were you two close?”
“I’m a cheap date. That evening must have cost him all of nine bucks, but I didn’t care. I’ve known Ben for thirty years, and I adored him. I thought his wife was perfectly lovely too, but I can’t deny that after she died I had my hopes. I was crazy about him. I’d roast him a chicken, and then I’d give him every man’s favorite dessert.”
Buried on Avenue B Page 12