Fall Guy

by Carol Lea Benjamin

  I picked up O’Fallon’s phone, then put it down. The place was tight again, safe. The question could wait until later. I was sure there’d be more of them. For now, I wanted to get to work.

  I leaned over the sinkful of dirty dishes to open the window, wondering if whoever had jimmied the window had managed to get in this way, scrunching himself into a ball and then stepping over the sink. You’d have to be a contortionist. I wondered if it was O’Fallon, if he’d forgotten his keys, had a neighbor ring him in, then broke his own window latch to get inside.

  I pushed the knob that closed the drain, squirted in some Dove and ran the hot water. No use trying to deal with the dishes until they’d soaked for a while. Doing the dishes was another task I was happy to postpone, especially since there was no dishwasher.

  When I turned off the water, I heard a voice in the garden. I couldn’t see anyone outside the window. I decided to go out and see who was there.

  He was on his cell phone, talking loud. He seemed to be upset. He was about my height, maybe an inch or two shorter, in his fifties, his gray hair slicked back with so much goo it appeared to be wet but I was sure it wasn’t, that it was just the wet look he’d been after. He was dressed all in black, perhaps to minimize the potbelly that rested tenuously on his black belt. Alligator, probably faux. Even the rims of his retro eyeglasses were black. He used one thick finger to push them back up to the bridge of his smallish nose. His skin was pale but his cheeks were flushed. Perhaps the yelling had accomplished that.

  “Okay,” he shouted into the phone. “I hear you. It’s an emergency.” I was about to tell him about the new technology, that he didn’t have to shout to be heard, but I didn’t get the chance. “Five. Got it,” he said, slamming the phone closed and sighing heavily.

  “You’d think being a waiter would be a low-stress, easy job, wouldn’t you?” he asked me. “Rob’s going to have a cat. We have reservations at Lupa, for God’s sake. What are you doing for dinner?” I opened my mouth, then closed it again. This, like his other questions, was no doubt rhetorical. I wondered if he was related to my locksmith or if it was just the luck of the draw. He took a step in my direction. “Rachel?”

  “Yes. How did you…?”

  He put out his hand, not sideways, as if to shake, but palm down and limp, as if he expected me to kiss it. I didn’t notice a tiara, so I disappointed him.

  “Kevin. Kevin Bell? Jin Mei said she’d met you.” He dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “She said you’re here because of…” He indicated the door I’d just come out of with a nod of his head.

  “Yes. I’m taking care of Detective O’Fallon’s affairs,” I said.

  “I don’t think he had any,” Kevin said. “Not that I wouldn’t have been interested, a man with handcuffs and a nightstick. It’s got a certain je ne sais quois, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose so, if that’s your thing.”

  “Let’s not go there,” he said. “We’ve only just met.”

  He had a nice smile. Smiling, he didn’t look a day over forty-five.

  “So you’re saying he was gay?”

  “O’Fallon? No way. But a boy can dream, can’t he?”

  “What about Parker?”

  “Sweetheart, where are you from, Queens? First of all, this is the Village, not Chelsea. And even there, not everyone is gay.”

  “I didn’t ask if everyone was gay. I’ve only asked you about two people,” thinking I was starting to sound like Brody, that I better lighten up. Kevin wasn’t obliged to tell me anything.

  “Two so far.”

  “Correct.”

  “Curious little thing, aren’t you?”

  “Just trying to understand. I didn’t know Tim well. In fact, I hardly knew him at all. I’m trying to…”

  “That’s très weird. How’d you get stuck with this?”

  “Exactly my point. I don’t actually know.” I shrugged.

  “So, Parker? I’d say whatever you want him to be, that’s what Parker is.”

  “A chameleon.”

  “Honey, if you want this conversation to continue…” He rolled his eyes. “Did anyone before moi ever tell you you’re no fun?”

  I nodded. “Everyone,” I said. “That aside, I haven’t met Parker yet. Hard to trash someone you never met.”

  “Oh, sweetie, you’re not giving yourself nearly enough credit. It’s not as hard as you think. Especially when we’re talking about Parker. I’ll start. First of all, he’s a total bitch. Cold as ice, as if we were the interlopers. You know what I mean?” Kevin had stepped closer now, as if there were people around and he didn’t want them to overhear him. “And with Tim? Don’t ask. He was like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth in front of him and just did whatever he pleased behind his back.”

  “Like, for instance.”

  “For instance bringing all his street cronies into Tim’s apartment after he was told not to. Repeatedly.”

  “He did that?” I thought of all those dishes in the sink. Tim hadn’t even been there the day before. He’d been at his mother’s funeral.

  “Oh, please. We’d hear them all the way over to our place.” He pointed. “On the other side of Jin Mei. Now she’s a hoot, you know what I mean. But that’s neither here nor there, is it? Parker’s the one we’re disgusting—oh, I mean discussing—and I can tell you, that boy showed up with his trashy friends, we’d have to close the windows and put on the AC.”

  “Loud parties?”

  “Whenever possible. But would he invite us?”

  “Never.”

  I was a quick study. Kevin beamed.

  “Rob said it would be a cold day in hell before he’d take in someone like Parker.”

  “And what did Tim do, about those parties?”

  “Tim? He was furious. He threw Parker out more than once. But Parker would come back, promise never to do it again, and Tim would take him back. He can be very convincing, that Parker fellow. That’s how he survives. You might say that being convincing is his profession.”

  “Did that happen a lot, the back-and-forth thing?”

  “Three times that I know of. Last time was the night before Tim’s accident. I think that time he meant it, too. We were out here, having salmon au beurre noir. I was a chef, before 9/11. Now I’m a waiter. But that’s another sad story. Everyone has one. If I had the time, I’d ask you yours. But I don’t.” Standing too close, his voice way too loud. “Instead of being served tonight, I have to smile and say, ‘And how would you like that prepared, madam?’ As if I give a shit. How annoying is that?”

  “So Tim got mad at Parker often?”

  “Especially this last time. You couldn’t miss the shouting. Tim told Parker to pack up and go. He said he was sick of broken promises, of lies, of all the stealing. He said he didn’t think Parker was even trying. And that was the point of all this, he said, that Parker put in some effort on his own behalf. Something like that. It’s not that we were trying to listen. You couldn’t help overhearing. And I said to Rob, ‘Like hello. I could have told him that months ago. This one’s a loser, period.’ The funny thing is, Tim had no idea how bad it was, how many men were actually at his place, poor lamb. Half of them had come out this way”—pointing to the door I’d just used—“and gone that way”—pointing to the door on the west end of the long narrow garden, the one he and Rob and Jin Mei used. “Rob and I were so upset, we couldn’t finish eating. I said, ‘We should talk to him.’ And Rob said, ‘No, we shouldn’t. We should butt out.’ He’s very…He’s got more dignity than I do. I would have told. But then the next day it was all too late. Tim had that terrible accident. It was an accident, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Cleaning his gun.”

  He put two fingers to his lips.

  “Did you hear the shot? I was wondering if anyone…”

  He shook his head. “We were all closed in, the AC on, because of all the noise the evening before. We sleep in the front, so…” He shrugged his shoul
ders. “A waiter,” he said. “Look at me, at my age. Do you believe this? Well, I guess I’ll see you again. Knock if there’s anything you need. My career is calling. I hope you have a life outside of your job, Rachel. I hear that’s a good idea.”

  I lifted one hand in lieu of a comment, but he’d already turned and started walking toward that last door. I headed back inside, Dashiell following behind me.

  CHAPTER 9

  I was sitting at O’Fallon’s desk when his phone rang. I checked to see that the answering machine was on and let it ring through, absorbed in what I was doing and not thinking about the consequences of my act. And then there he was, as close to me as if he were whispering in my ear.

  “O’Fallon,” the recording said. “State your business, leave your name and number, and I’ll get back to you. If this can’t wait, call my cell phone.” Figuring, they didn’t have the number, it couldn’t be all that important.

  There was a moment of silence and then the caller hung up. I played the outgoing announcement twice more before opening the bottom drawer of the desk and checking the labels on each file. Like most people’s paperwork, O’Fallon’s was dead boring—a file for his checking account, his rent statements, one on his car, the insurance policy, tune-up records, title. There was a file with instructions for equipment, booklets on how to use a tape recorder, program a VCR, operate the radio I’d seen in the kitchen, change the bags on his vacuum cleaner, use the electric can opener. In another file, he had duplicates of his tax returns for the last three years. I pulled those out and the bank statements and put them in the briefcase to get them to the attorney. I took the last rent statement as well, thinking his rent alone was reason to live forever—the huge main room, a kitchen with a window, and the use of the garden, all for under a thousand dollars a month, a New York miracle. I pulled the folder on the car out and left it on top of the desk. I wondered if he parked it on the street, because if he did, it had probably been towed already. I made a note to ask Brody about the car. If it had been towed, maybe he’d be able to get it back for me without payment of the fine, over a hundred bucks for sure. I didn’t know what Mary Margaret was getting—I had no idea, for example, if O’Fallon’s death benefits could pass to a sister. But I wasn’t anxious to use up any more of her money than I had to.

  I picked up an old checkbook and leafed through the register. The car wouldn’t have been towed. O’Fallon kept it in an outdoor lot two blocks from here on West and Jane.

  Behind the car folder, there was a folder with photographs. I pulled that out and opened it on top of the desk. Same kids, same happy faces, same ages. Then, behind the pictures, a small white envelope with initials on it—RKA. My initials. I opened it and pulled out what was in it, another newspaper article. Dashiell appeared while I was reading and dropped his cement-block head onto my lap. I was about to read it a second time when the phone started ringing again. This time, though, it wasn’t O’Fallon’s phone. It was my cell.

  “Alexander.”

  “Rachel? Is it you?”

  “Maggie? Yes. I’m so glad you called.”

  “Well, I was thinking. I ought to come into the city, help you with Tim’s apartment. You shouldn’t have to do all that hard work by yourself. The truth is, I still don’t understand why you have to do it at all.”

  “That makes two of us, but I sure would love the help, if you don’t mind.” I picked up the keys that were on the side of the desk and flipped them into the palm of my hand. “When can you come?”

  “Well, I was thinking Saturday. I can come early, spend the day.”

  “Are you working every day before that?”

  “I am,” she said.

  “Night shift?”

  “Evening. Four to midnight.”

  I opened my hand and looked at the keys. “What about before that? I mean, suppose I came to talk to you tomorrow. I have so many questions.” I looked at the envelope, at my initials, RKA, on it. “Would that be okay? And then you can come in on Saturday and we can go over your brother’s things, see what you’d like to have.”

  There was silence on the line.

  “Maggie?”

  “Tomorrow would be fine. Come for lunch.”

  “You don’t have to bother with lunch. I just…”

  “It’s no bother at all.”

  “Okay. And, Maggie? Just so it won’t come as a shock when I arrive, I’m going to be driving your brother’s car.”

  “You have the address?”

  “Yes. I have Tim’s address book. I’ll see you about twelve. Is that okay?”

  “At twelve, then.”

  “Oh, I nearly forgot to ask. Did you speak to Dennis? I assumed you would and I didn’t call him back. And now I’m—”

  “Yes. I told Dennis.”

  “Will he want to come in as well?”

  Maggie didn’t answer but the line was still open.

  “It doesn’t matter. We can talk about that later.”

  “He’s a very busy man, Rachel. He runs a business that’s open seven days a week. I’ll pick some things for him myself, some remembrances. I’m sure he’d appreciate that.”

  How odd, I thought afterward, that Dennis hadn’t called about his brother, that he had no questions, no concerns. I looked down at the article again, well, the obituary. Maybe not so odd after all. Maybe Dennis O’Fallon had closed up shop years ago.

  COLM O’FALLON, NEW YORK CITY DETECTIVE, DEAD AT 44

  Detective Colm O’Fallon, 44, died of an accidentally self-inflicted gunshot wound two nights ago in his home in Piermont. Local police reported that Detective O’Fallon was found dead at 7:05 P.M. when his wife Kathleen came home from her rosary group. His cleaning kit was on the kitchen table in front of where he had been sitting. He had apparently been cleaning his service revolver when it discharged, a source at the local precinct reported.

  The O’Fallon family had been particularly hard hit during the last year. Detective O’Fallon’s youngest son, Joseph, was killed in a diving accident nine months earlier. Seven months after that, his nephew, Liam Connor, 16, who had witnessed the accident, committed suicide.

  Detective O’Fallon is survived by his wife, two sons, Timothy and Dennis, and a daughter, Mary Margaret. The family plans a private service and has requested that, in lieu of flowers, donations be sent to Our Mother of Redemption Church in Sparkill.

  I got up and walked over to the bathroom, standing outside the closed door for a moment before reaching for the knob. Dashiell pushed his way in front of me. No way was he not getting in there first. I turned the knob, pushed the door open, reached in and turned on the light. Dashiell lifted his head and pulled in the scents.

  In yet another surprise, the bathroom where Timothy O’Fallon had accidentally discharged his service revolver while cleaning it, fatally wounding himself, was immaculate. Was it because this was a fellow officer that the police had hired a cleaning service? Because that was not the usual procedure. Still, whatever the reason, I was grateful.

  The toilet was across from the door, on the west wall of the bathroom. The sink and small vanity were to the left of the toilet. And across the south wall was the tub, the shower curtain, a translucent blue, pulled closed, everything just so. The white tile floor was spotless, including the grout. Had there been a bath mat, there was none now. Nor were there any towels.

  I bent and touched the floor. No telltale grit, traces of soap, grease, no anything but cool, clean tile. I wondered if they’d bleached the grout to get it so white. I stood, took a breath and pulled the curtain aside, exposing the bathtub and the tiled wall. There was a small, high window overlooking the garden to the left, and on the right side, where there should have been several shattered tiles, there was another surprise. Not only had the service done an astonishing job of cleaning the wall, someone had apparently replaced the damaged tiles as well. But as meticulous and skilled as they had been, I could easily see where the grout was new. Had I not seen the repair, I might have thought
Detective O’Fallon had been cleaning a small-caliber gun and that therefore the bullet that did the fatal damage had never exited his body. I might have been convinced that, despite the odds, and despite his experience with firearms, Detective O’Fallon had had an unfortunate accident. Perhaps that had been the point of the careful cleanup. But, in fact, that’s not what I thought, because the tiles that had been replaced were nowhere near where they would have been had the detective been sitting on the edge of the bathtub, as reported, cleaning his gun. In fact, the damaged area was exactly where it would have been had a man of six feet one inch tall, the height recorded on O’Fallon’s driver’s license, held the barrel of a revolver to his right temple and squeezed the trigger.

  Jin Mei had said she’d heard him crying. Had he been in the bathroom then, cradling his gun in his hands? Had he been crying in the shower to muffle the sound, afraid, even at the last minute, of seeming weak? Standing at the edge of the tub, looking at the tile wall, the sound of Dashiell’s sniffing echoing in the small space, I felt the scenario changing before my eyes. He’d bought grief on the job for twenty-one years, then, for who knew how long, he took it into his private life, taking users off the street and trying to get them to turn their lives around. And he’d failed this time. He’d failed with Parker. How many other times had he failed? What made him keep trying?

  His mother had been buried the day before, but grief was already running deep in the O’Fallon family—brother, cousin, father. All when he was not yet a man.

  Had the burden gotten to be more than he could bear?

  I thought of O’Fallon in the group where we met, stoic and silent. He had come, but he couldn’t put his burden down. Now this. Had he killed himself in the shower to minimize the cleanup, to make it easier for whoever would find him, a stand-up guy right down the line?

  I pulled the shower curtain closed and took a step back, nearly tripping over Dashiell. Suicide. That surely explained why Brody seemed anxious for me to relinquish my obligation; let the cops take care of this, let it be recorded as an accident. But unless Detective O’Fallon was cleaning a water gun, no way would he have been standing in the shower when his gun accidentally discharged. And suicide would explain the brand-new will and the envelope with my initials on it. But it didn’t explain what it was he wanted me to do. As far as that went, I still didn’t know any more now than I did at first.