Quick Study

by Maggie Barbieri

  I hit the ground with what I suppose was an indelicate thud.

  Thirty-One

  “Is there somewhere other than your home where you can stay tonight?”

  I looked at the detective and nodded. My shaking hands were wrapped around a cup of very hot tea, which had been presented to me as soon as I had arrived at the Croton police station after my brief stint in the ambulance. I had been there for more than an hour and with that question, it had finally occurred to me that an ex-con was driving around in my car with my pocketbook, house keys, and all my credit cards.

  The detective was a nice guy in his early fifties with a ruddy complexion and giant hands that resembled bear claws. He folded his hands together in front of him. “I think it would be safe to assume that he’ll ditch the car, and, hopefully, its contents, in favor of stealing something new. But if we don’t get him in the next few hours and if by chance, he keeps some of the contents,” I noticed that he avoided using the words “house keys,” “then you’ll need to be very careful. Change the locks. Cancel your credit cards. Don’t travel alone.” He stood. “I don’t mean to scare you but we have to be realistic.”

  I took a sip of my tea. I’d rather be unrealistic but that might end up with me being un-alive. “Thank you, Detective Simcock.” Thank god Max hadn’t arrived yet; she’d never be able to keep a straight face around a guy with that name.

  He went to the door. “Your boyfriend is a cop, right?” he asked.

  I guess “boyfriend” was going to have to do; I didn’t have the energy to go into my thoughts on what an appropriate label would be for Crawford. “Yes. Were you able to get in touch with him?”

  “I was. He should be here in the next half hour or so. You can hang out in here, if you’d like.”

  I didn’t know what my other options were—I guessed the teeny tiny lobby was the other—so I decided to stay put. I was in a wood-paneled room sitting at a Formica table inside a building that seemed to house every municipal organization in the village of Croton; when we had arrived at the station earlier, a group from the Croton Seniors Club was gathering in the parking lot to board a bus to the Westchester Dinner Theater to see an off-off-off-Broadway production of The Bourne Identity.

  Don’t ask—I have no idea how they staged that.

  A commotion in the hallway signaled Max’s arrival. She burst through the door and flew into my arms, even though I was still seated. I grabbed onto the edge of the table to steady myself and to make sure we didn’t go over backward. I couldn’t take another head injury.

  “You’re safe!” she proclaimed. I saw Detective Simcock peek in and then close the door quietly.

  “What the hell happened to you?” I asked after extricating myself from her and putting her in the chair across from me. “Where did you go?”

  She took a deep breath; this was obviously going to take a while. I noticed that the cardigan was ripped in a few places but I wasn’t sure if she had rent the garment with anguish at the thought of my demise or if she had scaled a few fences. Turned out the latter was true. “Well, after I ran up and down Route 9 several hundred times, during which nobody stopped,” she said, indignant, “I finally went up the next street and through someone’s backyard, where I saw that there was a police station. I had to climb a fence.” She poked at a hole in the sweater. “Sorry.”

  No, you’re not, I thought.

  “But by the time we got back, you were gone. They did a dragnet or something or what’s that thing called?” she asked, looking up at the ceiling for inspiration. “An APB?” Max usually knows these things cold so I assumed she was still in shock. Her pale face was a definite sign. She folded her arms on the table and put her head down. After a few seconds, I could see her shoulders going up and down and could hear little hiccupping squeaks coming from inside of her folded arms.

  “Max, are you crying?” I got up and went over to her; I put my hand on her back.

  She sobbed for a few minutes; it was the saddest sound I had ever heard. I realized I had never seen or heard Max cry. “I thought you were dead,” she said, her voice hoarse. “And it was because I couldn’t find the police station.”

  I knelt down and put my arms around her. “I’m not dead.” I rubbed her back. “And if I were, it wouldn’t be your fault.”

  She looked up me, her face a mascara-stained mess. “I hate this freaking sweater,” she said. She ripped it off and threw it on the floor.

  “I know.” I reached across her to the credenza behind us and pulled out a few tissues from an almost empty tissue box. “Here.”

  She blew her nose loudly.

  Before we tackled any other emotions, I needed to know one thing. “Max, where’s Frankie?”

  “He’s at the police station by the Lord’s Bounty. He was calling his mom to pick him up. He got there around the same time I did.”

  That was a relief. I couldn’t bear to think that anything had happened to him. That kid had seen a lot of things, thanks to me. I made a mental note to drop by Jane’s house as soon as I got back to Dobbs Ferry. I handed Max another tissue. “So, did Detective Simcock,” I said, accentuating the more perverse portion of his name for her benefit, “tell you about my latest, greatest adventure?”

  “No, but that other hottie cop out there did. You could bounce a quarter off his ass. Did you see it?” she asked, wiping her nose. She was back.

  I nodded. “I did.”

  “He stuck you in the trunk?” she asked, grimacing a bit.

  I gave her the rundown of my kidnapping. “The worst part is that he’s got my pocketbook. . . .”

  “Not the Marc Jacobs I gave you for Christmas?” she said, grabbing her chest in horror.

  “No, it’s the black tote from Target.”

  “Oh, thank god,” she said, breathing a genuine sigh of relief. She thought about the implications of the missing pleather Target bag for a moment. “That’s still not good,” she said gravely when she realized that an ex-con with a bag full of money, credit cards, and my house keys was a fate much worse than a missing Marc Jacobs bag.

  “Want a roommate?” I asked brightly.

  “You’re staying with me,” a male voice said from behind me. I turned around and saw Crawford; a lovelier sight I had never beheld.

  I jumped into his arms and planted kisses all over his face.

  “Down, Trixie,” he said. He looked at Max, who was slowly decompensating right before our eyes. “She may be in shock,” he whispered.

  “I think you’re right,” I said. And I found myself in the unusual position of being the one holding it together. Wow, this is a new one, I thought.

  Crawford grabbed my tea and held it out to Max. “Here, Max. Take a few sips of this,” he said. She obediently drank from the cup.

  Crawford and I took seats on the opposite side of the table and I gave him a quick rundown of the evening’s events. I had told the story so many times that the retelling felt rote. “Simcock told me that they picked up Tiny.”

  Max let out a little giggle at the mention of his name. “Sorry,” she said, and covered her mouth.

  “He’s at the hospital getting stitched up. Then, he’s going back to lockup.” Crawford looked at me, concerned. “He said you hit him over the head with a flashlight?”

  “I did,” I said, a little ashamed, but not too much. At that point in the game, it had been either him or me. “I had no choice.”

  Crawford shook his head. “No, I’m not judging you. I just. . .”

  “. . . didn’t think I had it in me?” I finished the sentence for him. “Me either. But it was my only chance to get away, so I took it.

  “Where’s Fred?” I mouthed.

  Crawford shrugged, a gesture that spoke volumes. But as concerned as I was about the whereabouts of Max’s relatively new husband and Max’s emotional state, I had a more pressing concern on my mind. I had to get home to my dog.

  Thirty-Two

  I woke up the next morning sandwiched between the
two beings I loved the most: Crawford and Trixie.

  I stretched and realized I was pressed up against one hundred pounds of furry dog flesh. I opened my eyes and found myself face-to-face with Trixie, awake, looking hungry and full of energy for a morning walk.

  Crawford had been up late, having made several phone calls to make sure the overnight detectives were up on what had happened and my theory that Jose and Joey had been involved in a green card–forging scam. We didn’t have any proof that Joey had killed Jose, but based on his reaction to the conversation between me and Max that he had overheard, it was likely he had been involved in some way. Crawford said he was going to take Sunday off and go back in early on Monday to follow up on all the loose ends in the case.

  I propped myself up on my elbow and looked over at the other sleeping creature. Crawford, as opposed to my canine friend, didn’t look hungry—or capable of taking Trixie for a walk. He had tossed and turned for the better portion of the night. A restless sleeper under the best circumstances, after the events of the previous evening, there was no way that he would sleep straight through.

  But like most restless sleepers, he usually fell into a deep slumber an hour or two before he had to wake up. Seeing his peaceful mien and his chest rising and falling in a gentle rhythm, I got out of bed and pointed to the floor, instructing Trixie to quietly get out of bed. We left the bedroom, me tiptoeing across the hardwood floor, Trixie click-clacking along as her too-long nails made contact with the wood.

  I pulled the bedroom door closed behind me and stood in the living room, waking up slowly. Max was in a little ball on the couch, her body unmoving under a down comforter that Crawford had stowed in a closet that held so much detritus I feared ever having to open it again. His neat apartment had always concerned me; for a guy who lived alone, it looked like a team of designers and cleaning people made their way through the rooms on a regular basis. But opening the closet the night before and being hit in the head with a tennis racket, snowboard, and telephone book in rapid succession convinced me that he, too, had his housekeeping secrets.

  Trixie went over and lovingly licked Max’s face, rousing her only slightly. “Not now, honey; I had a very long evening.” Trixie was single-minded in her quest to get Max to wake up, though, and licked her from chin to hairline repeatedly. Max woke up suddenly and bolted from the couch. “You have got to keep that mutt away from my face with her tongue,” she said thickly, her voice still not operational after sleeping.

  I called Trixie and she came over to my side. “She’s not a mutt. And she loves you,” I said. I sat on the couch next to Max. “Do you want to go to breakfast?” I asked.

  “What about Detective Hot Pants?” she asked, hooking her thumb toward the bedroom and the sound of Crawford’s snores coming from inside.

  “Let’s let him sleep,” I said. “I’ll walk Trixie and when I come back, we’ll go. OK?” I left her entering the bathroom to get cleaned up. I wrote Crawford a hasty note and left it propped up on his counter. Neither Max nor I had clean clothes so we were particularly ripe; I had been in my house only long enough to get Trixie and to get out. Max had called Fred and told him that she was staying at Crawford’s for the night. I didn’t know where he was and I didn’t ask.

  We were seated at a diner in Crawford’s neighborhood a half hour later, me with a giant plate of pancakes in front of me, and she with her customary Sunday morning cheeseburger. I knew that Max and Fred, like me and Crawford, had their rituals, given the guys’ propensity for being gone for long stretches doing overtime; Sunday morning at their neighborhood diner was one of theirs. This diner was only half full and we were tucked into a large booth near the back of the restaurant and had the undivided attention of our waitress, who only had two tables to service. I waited until she had refilled our coffee cups for the third time since we had sat down before asking Max if there was something she wanted to tell me.

  She shrugged nonchalantly. “No. Why?”

  I put down my fork, my plate almost empty. “Max. We’ve just been through the wringer yet you decide it’s better to stay with me and Crawford than go home to your husband?” I gave her a look. “Even you have to admit that’s pretty suspicious.”

  She looked down at her fries, moving a few around to form a cross on her plate. “We had a fight.”

  “I’ll say,” I said, forking another mouthful of pancake into my mouth so I wouldn’t say anything else.

  She looked up at me, her blue eyes filled with tears. I couldn’t take this; I hadn’t seen Max cry in over fifteen years of friendship and now I had seen her cry twice in two days. “Things haven’t been going very well,” she said.

  I left the sarcasm out of my reply. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “He’s got issues,” she said, pausing, “with my . . . history?” she said, trying to find the right word.

  And what an illustrious history it was. I had spent most of our adult life married, but Max had cut quite a swath through Manhattan’s single male population, leaving behind a trail of consenting adults or broken hearts—take your pick. I spent every weekend at home trying to get in the good graces of a philandering husband who had never been attracted to or in love with me, whereas she was out every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night with either the same or a different man; it depended on the week. So, when she announced that she was marrying Fred after the shortest courtship that I had ever witnessed, I was justifiably dubious. The only things I knew about Fred I had heard from Crawford and, although Crawford thought the world of him, he had no experience with Fred as a spouse. He did protest that being a partner with the guy for five years lent him some insight but I wasn’t so sure. Marriage is complicated; Crawford and I both knew that better than anyone.

  “Concannon threw him off the case,” Max said, referring to Crawford and Fred’s lieutenant. They loved working for him, but they knew that “propriety” was his middle name and he didn’t tolerate any hint of indiscretion in his squad. That, coupled with the fact that Fred was one of the lead detectives on the case, had led to his decision to reassign Fred until Jose’s and Madeleine’s cases had been closed. “And he’s blaming it on me.”

  “Why? He knew about you and Richie,” I said with the utmost confidence.

  A tear rolled down her cheek.

  “He didn’t?”

  She shook her head.

  I put my face in my hands. “Oh, Max.”

  “And someone found the picture.”

  “The Bungalow 8 picture?” I asked, referring to the infamous leather dress picture.

  She nodded solemnly.

  “You never told him about Richie?” I asked. When she reconfirmed that was the case, I exhaled loudly. “What were you thinking, Max?”

  “I wasn’t!” she wailed.

  “Is this part of the ‘no secrets’ kick that Fred’s been on?”

  “Guess so.”

  I took a few deep breaths and tried to think of the kind of advice to give her. It was a sticky situation, but not irreparable. I told her as much.

  She pushed her plate away, not hungry anymore. The attentive waitress stopped by again and refilled our coffee. I watched her move on to another table and I glanced casually at its occupants. “Oh, shit,” I said, and not as under my breath as I had planned.

  Max’s head swiveled around, happy for the distraction.

  “Turn back around, Max,” I hissed.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, wiping her eyes with a coarse napkin.

  I dropped my voice even though they knew I was there and there was no need to whisper. “It’s those annoying federal agents. Goldenberg and Abreu.”

  Abreu lifted his coffee cup and nodded at me, smiling. Goldenberg’s back was turned and he continued to work on his omelet. I was staring at Abreu and wondering what he looked like with his shirt off when Crawford slid into the booth beside me, pushing me toward the wall separating us from the booth on the other side.

  “Push over,” he said, taking t
he opportunity to grab my butt and give it a little squeeze. Too bad it was the side that Louise had hit with her Chevy Cavalier.

  “Ow!” I yelled out, getting Goldenberg’s attention. He turned and saluted me with a piece of toast.

  Crawford rested his arms on the table and looked at me. “They’re still following you?”

  “Not that you care,” I said.

  “They don’t call you Detective Hot Pants for nothing,” Max said, giving me a look that indicated that she didn’t want to pursue the conversation about her husband.

  “Hey, that’s what she says,” Crawford said, leaning into me and giving me a kiss on the cheek. He pulled a menu out of the holder on the table. “What’s good?” He craned his neck and examined Max’s cheeseburger. “A cheeseburger?” he asked, wrinkling his nose.

  “That’s what I get,” she said, the sniffling and hysterical crying recommencing, “every Sunday!” she cried, and exited the booth, running out of the restaurant and down the street.

  Crawford picked one of her French fries from her plate and ate it. “What’s that about?”

  I smacked him and pushed his large frame out of the booth. “Get out. I have to go after her,” I said, sliding across the Naugahyde and out of the booth. I passed by Abreu and Goldenberg’s table and stopped briefly. “I’ll be right back if we need to talk.” I ran to the front door and pushed it open in time to see Max climbing into a silver Mercedes. I couldn’t see who was driving but I could see the license plate.

  BYE-ATHLEET.

  Thirty-Three

  Despite how stunned and upset I was by the bad spelling on the vanity license plate, I took off down the street after the car, screaming Max’s name above the din of honking cabs and exhaust-spewing buses and weaving around the Sunday morning pedestrian traffic. I dodged a Pomeranian-walking matron in a full-length mink heading toward the river.

  “Excuse me,” I said, jumping over the yipping dog.