Quick Study

by Maggie Barbieri

  I raised an eyebrow. “Take a guess.”

  “Kevin?”

  “Try again.”

  “Sister Mary?” He shoved a brownie into his mouth. “That has ‘nun’ written all over it.”

  I shook my head. “She only thinks I’m a ho. She would never come out and say it.”

  “The lovely Mrs. Rayfield-Wyatt?”

  I nodded.

  “She’s quite the gift giver.” He looked over the other desserts. “What else you got?”

  “You should have been here for the pot roast. You missed it.” I smacked him playfully on the shoulder. “Way to clear a room, Crawford.” I tried to balance a couple of plates of dessert on my arm. “To what do I owe this honor?”

  “I thought we’d have dinner when you’re done here.”

  I considered that, and him. See, although he’s the poor man’s Clooney, Jack McManus has nothing on Crawford. Crawford is also classically handsome—tall, dark, and handsome, to be exact—but with just enough of that war-weary cop thing that I’m a sucker for. This is a guy who’s seen some action, and not in some boardroom. That comes across, but not enough to make him as scary or unapproachable as say . . . Fred. I thought about his dinner offer. It seemed innocuous enough and I wondered if we would even dare to tread on the subject of the Rangers game. “OK,” I said slowly, “but I have to drive Mrs. Dwyer home. You can take Frankie home and I’ll meet you back at the house.”

  “Who?”

  “Mrs. Dwyer. The blind lady with the dog.”

  He shook his head. “No. Frankie. Who’s that?”

  “Accordion Boy.”

  “Oh,” he said, “I didn’t know he had a name. Tell him to meet me by the front door.”

  I saw him eyeing the brownies again. “You can have one more brownie. There aren’t that many guests left after you scared them all off.”

  He grinned sheepishly; maybe I was off the hook. “Sorry about that.” He picked up a brownie and took a bite, moaning a little when he tasted it. “You didn’t make these,” he stated. “They’re good.”

  “That’s not really fair, is it, Crawford?” I asked. The tension had kicked up a notch and I suspected that we were going to discuss l’affaire Rangers as soon as we got home.

  He shrugged slightly. “We can talk about what’s fair later.” He took another bite of brownie and smiled. “And make sure you’re wearing that shirt.”

  OK, so maybe he just came for the brownies, I thought, starting for the dining hall, the brownies and pudding on a tray. There were hardly any guests left, and those who were still there seemed anxious to leave. The Escalantes and the other people at their table had gone, which I thought was odd, because I hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye to them. I bagged up some of the brownies and containers of pudding and handed them out as people left the room. I reminded Mrs. Dwyer that I would drive her home as soon as I cleaned up and went back to the kitchen to grab a couple of sponges.

  Frankie was reclining against the counter, chatting with one of Kerry’s daughters, who was elbow deep in hot, soapy water; the pot she was washing was almost as big as she was. She was fully engaged in her conversation with the boy, and, judging from the way she was regarding him, I suspected that eau de laconic teenager was her aphrodisiac, and Frankie had that in spades. I told Frankie that Bobby would drive him home.

  “Who?” he asked.

  A proper introduction was obviously in order but I didn’t have time. “Mr. Bergerson.”

  Recognition dawned slowly on his face, and by the grimace that replaced it, a vision of the previous fall and Crawford wrestling with our former neighbor on the grass behind my house—an event he had witnessed—came to his mind. “Oh, OK,” he stammered.

  No need to fear, I wanted to remind him. He’s one of the good guys. I tousled his blond locks. “I’ll see you during the week. Get going. He’s by the front door.”

  Rebecca was wiping down the stove with a dish rag of questionable cleanliness. “You take off, too, Alison. The girls and I will break down. They need additional service hours for school so it would help if they did the cleanup.”

  “Thanks, Rebecca. I’ll take Mrs. Dwyer and Patty home.” I stripped off my apron and hung it on the back of the kitchen door, grabbing a loaf of bread and some canned peaches from the cupboard before heading out to the dining hall. They were both waiting for me at the table and I helped Mrs. Dwyer up and out the back door to the back parking lot.

  “Alison, this is so nice of you,” Mrs. Dwyer said as I settled her into the front seat of my car and strapped her in. Patty jumped into the backseat as if it was something she did every day. I opened the trunk, stowed the bag of food that I had assembled, and slammed it shut.

  I turned and was startled to see Hernan standing behind me. My hand flew to my throat. “Oh, you scared me.”

  He held his hand out in a conciliatory gesture. “I’m so sorry,” he said, shuffling from one foot to the other.

  We stood in the dark, silent, each clearly waiting for the other to speak. Finally, I asked him if he needed a ride.

  He shook his head. Still at a loss for words, he hemmed and hawed until he blurted out, “I need your help.”

  Four

  By the time I arrived home, I was no closer to figuring out how to get Crawford’s help with Hernan’s situation than I had been when I left the Trinity Church parking lot.

  Hernan’s silence at dinner had been a function of his intense worry about Jose. The last time anyone had seen him was when Jose had left my house. He and Hernan had had another painting job that they were going to bid on that afternoon; Hernan had gone to the house to meet the potential client, but Jose had never shown up. Calls to his cell phone had gone unanswered, something that Hernan swore was the most telling indication that something was wrong: Jose had two cell phones on him at all times and could always be reached.

  Two cell phones sounded suspicious to me, but I kept it to myself. The only reason you would carry two cell phones is if one was for personal use and one for business use. But Jose didn’t seem to have a business.

  Hernan was sick with worry by the time Jose didn’t show up for the dinner. But the appearance of Crawford, whom Amalia had told Hernan was a cop, had convinced him that I could help him. I wasn’t sure about that, but I figured I would give it a try. I was still chewing on the whole situation as I drove home.

  It turned out not to matter how I was going to figure it out. When I got home, although I had been prepared to zig, Crawford had already zagged. He and Trixie were nowhere to be found, so I assumed they were off for a walk. Crawford had left the kitchen table set with forks, knives, plates, and wineglasses and had arranged several takeout containers of my favorite Chinese food in the center, right between two unlit candles. A chilled chardonnay, my favorite, stood in a ceramic holder next to a bouquet of flowers that he had put in a vase.

  I had two theories: either he had seen the game and I wasn’t in trouble, or he hadn’t seen the game.

  I went upstairs to wash the stench of thirty served and discarded meals off me and to change into something a little less comfortable, like my best push-up bra. Nothing’s sexier than my almost Bs shoved into an underwire bra under a tight T-shirt. I discarded the Idaho shirt with a kick to the laundry basket in front of my closet. Although I had been at a loss for finding suitable community service wear prior to leaving the house, I did find a nice shirt (without any witty bon mots) that did my newly compressed breasts justice, revealing just enough décolletage to make me seem alluring. Or so I told myself. Let’s face it—I wear contrite well, and I hoped that would help. I looked out the window of my bedroom to see if Crawford and Trixie were walking along the street, but it was dead out there. They had taken off for parts unknown and that was fine by me. I took a birdbath in the bathroom sink and tried to spruce up, knowing that I had some explaining to do.

  I came downstairs a half hour later in the aforementioned push-up bra just as Crawford was returning with Trixie, w
ho looked liked the most contented dog ever, having gone on a long walk.

  “We met some new squirrels,” Crawford said, hanging her leash on the hook by the back door. “That always makes her happy.”

  I bent down and paid proper homage to Trixie, who wouldn’t allow me to eat my dinner in peace unless I had done so. When I was done, I paid proper homage to Crawford by planting a long, lingering kiss on his mouth. “I missed you.”

  He kissed me back. “I missed you, too.” He took off his coat and his blazer and loosened his tie. He left on his shoulder holster, his gun attaining its usual third-wheel status.

  “Going back to work?” I asked as I opened one after another container of Chinese food.

  He shook his head. “Not if I can help it.”

  “Bad night?”

  His face closed, a common occurrence when he doesn’t want to think about work. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  I continued serving the food, sitting down across from him when I was done. He had poured me a healthy glass of wine, of which I took a giant sip. “This is delicious.”

  He held his glass up and tipped it gently against mine. “Happy birthday,” he said quietly. “I love you.”

  This was certainly a change of pace. My last birthday had been spent with Max, who, on the way to dinner, had had a very loud argument with a cab driver from Sierra Leone about the implications of reality television; the one before that had ended with my finding a pair of women’s thong underpants attached to my foot when I turned over in bed. Suffice it to say, they weren’t mine. And that little discovery had been the catalyst for my throwing my ex-husband—God rest his soul—out on his ass. Happy birthday to me! I looked at Crawford to see if I could detect any hostility below the surface but he looked calm, even happy. I decided to leave well enough alone.

  He was using chopsticks to stab at a fried dumpling, staring at it for a while before popping it into his mouth. “How was the game?”

  The jig was up. I looked down at my General Tso’s chicken and considered what I would lead with. My engagement to Bruno Spaghetti? The bench-clearing fight in the second period? Max’s inappropriate cocktail dress and spectacular boobs? I decided to throw the whole story at him; Father Kevin doesn’t call me the Great Confessor for nothing. “I saw Jack McManus and he moved us down to the seats on center ice and the whole Garden sang “Happy Birthday” and I got a signed Mark Messier jersey.” It was out of my mouth before I had a chance to really think the whole thing through. I stuck a piece of chicken in my mouth to avoid talking anymore.

  Crawford studied another dumpling. “Really?” Before putting the dumpling in his mouth, he asked, “Did you have fun?”

  If you call being besieged by stomach cramps and a cold sweat for most of the second and third periods, accompanied by the drunkest woman this side of the Hudson “fun,” then yes, it was a laugh riot. “It was OK,” I said weakly.

  “Did you meet Mark Messier?”

  I shook my head. “No. He only signed my shirt.”

  He sat back in his chair, tipping it back on its legs. He looked at me for a few moments. “What are you going to do with my shirt?”

  “Wear it! Every chance I get! I may even wear it to school!” I said with an overabundance of gratitude and enthusiasm. I thought about what I might wear with an oversize hockey jersey but couldn’t come up with anything.

  He let his chair drop to the floor again and resumed his dumpling eating. “I’m sorry I couldn’t go with you. Once Meaghan’s basketball playoffs are over, things will get back to normal.”

  Normal for us wasn’t like normal for other people but I let it drop. If we were returning to one night a week to be together he could take normal and shove it. I was getting depressed by how little we saw each other but since we were moving past the Ranger game, I figured now was not a good time to bring it up.

  “You do know that everyone in the tristate area saw the game, right?” he said, laughing.

  I let out a sigh of relief. “If one more person mentions it to me, I think I’ll scream.” I ate a dumpling. “And by the way, Frankie thinks I’m fifty.”

  “You didn’t look a day over twelve on television.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment?” I said, not sure whether or not he was sincere.

  “I had a flashback to you in braces and a Catholic school uniform. That’s how terrified you looked,” he said.

  “I never had braces,” I protested. But he had me on the uniform. I had worn one of those for twelve straight years, with no time off for good behavior.

  We finished all of the Chinese food and I set about throwing out all the empty containers. I started on the dishes.

  “Leave that stuff,” he said, coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around me. His shoulder holster jabbed me in the hip.

  “Can you get rid of that thing?” I asked, turning off the water in the sink.

  We disengaged and he removed it, putting it on the counter. I pointed at his ankle. “And that one.” He took off his small ankle revolver and put it next to the big gun in the holster. I told him to turn around. “And the handcuffs.”

  “I need those,” he said, a smile starting on his lips.

  “Trust me. You don’t,” I said, unclipping them myself and adding them to the weaponry on the counter. He put his arms around me and gave me a long kiss. “Let’s go upstairs,” I whispered.

  He kissed me again. “You smell like pot roast.”

  “You’re a little fragrant yourself,” I said, taking his hand. “Where you been, Crawford? In a dank cellar?”

  “Close,” he said as we started up the stairs. “Down by the river.” I started to ask him about it, but he put my hand over my mouth. “Don’t.” He started peeling off his clothes and leaving them behind as we got closer to my bedroom. By the time we got there, his shirt and undershirt were off and his pants were open.

  I sat on the bed and took off my socks. “Well, I don’t know what you were expecting, but I’m a little tired,” I joked, waving my hand in the direction of his open pants.

  “My ass, you’re a little tired. I love a woman who smells like pot roast and I won’t be denied,” he said, coming over and pushing me back on the bed. He covered me with his long body and kissed me deeply. “And mashed potatoes.” He stuck his nose into my hair. “And garlic.” He pulled off my shirt. “Oh, and the push-up bra. My favorite. You’re bringing out the heavy artillery.”

  I had to, I thought. I never thought that we would move past the Rangers game so quickly. The bra was agony and I was relieved when it finally came off. He reached around and put his hands under my ass.

  “Are you wearing a thong, too?” he said, coming up for air and regarding me suspiciously.

  “No. Just experiencing your garden-variety wedgie,” I said, and discarded the offending underpants.

  “You really pulled out all the stops,” he said.

  I flipped him over and lay on top of him. “Take your pants off and shut up.”

  A half hour later, he was close to sleep beside me and I was in control of the remote. I flipped around, deciding the right time to broach the subject of Hernan Escalante’s missing nephew.

  A snore escaped from his lips and I kissed him until he woke up. “I can’t,” he protested, half asleep. “Not enough time. I’m too old.”

  I bit my lip. “It’s not that, Crawford. I have to talk to you about something. Something serious.”

  That got his attention. He bolted upright. “What?” He looked at me, wide awake.

  I rarely talk about anything serious if I can help it, so the fact that I did now, coupled with my serious mien, had him a little worked up. It occurred to me that he might think it had something to do with me so I started talking.

  I told him what Hernan had told me: Jose, who had been in my dining room that very morning, was a day laborer who had been going to the Bronx every day to work construction at the riverside site of a new luxury condominium complex. Although he ha
d been due back home by one to go to the other painting job and then by five to go to the Lord’s Bounty with the rest of the family, he had not returned, nor was he returning the messages that Hernan had left on his two cell phones. Given the Escalantes’ illegal status, they were hesitant to go to the police. Amalia knew about Crawford and knew that he was a cop; it was her idea to have her father ask me to get Crawford’s help on the case, even though he was reluctant to involve the police in any way. “I told her that the chances were slim that you would be able to do anything because . . .”

  He cut me off. “I’m pretty sure I know what happened to him.”

  If you’ve been missing, and Crawford knows what happened to you, it can’t be good.

  Five

  “My vagina is not a filing cabinet!”

  That got my attention. I was loading my dishwasher while talking to Max on the phone and had only been half listening until the subject had turned to the female genitalia and office supplies. My mind was on the wet, dead body of Jose Tomasso, who had been found the afternoon before by a fisherman who had been casting his line into the Hudson. He had been beaten, murdered, and left on the banks of the river, his body half in and half out of the water. Although he had had no identification on him when he had been found, Crawford knew almost immediately from my description that my missing Jose and his John Doe were one and the same.

  It was Sunday morning and Crawford had just left, beating a hasty getaway so that he could get to Connecticut in time to see Meaghan’s quarter-final game. He had called into the squad, told them what I had told him about Jose Tomasso, and made arrangements for the detectives on duty to go to the Escalantes’ home in Ossining to find someone who could identify the body. When I thought about Hernan and his concern for his nephew, a lump grew in my throat.

  “And my uterus does not function as a honing device!”

  “It’s homing device, Max. H-o-m-i-n-g,” I spelled.

  “Whatever!” she said, continuing with her train of thought. She was really on a tear and I had to stop and think about what we were talking about. Fred. Right. And how he doesn’t know where anything is. Got it.