The museum piece house was as neat and clean as I remembered it. All of it except for Mary’s bedroom. Understandably, this room hadn’t been part of the original tour. It smelled of camphor, cloves and orange peel; of lilacs and roses; of dried flowers from a dried-up life tied in a sack and tucked away in a corner somewhere amongst her unrealized dreams. Mary had packed in a hurry. Her ancient dresser drawers were all open and askew, the closet door ajar. Empty hangers were strewn about the room: on the bed, on the floor, at the foot of the full-length mirror. Her jewelry box was empty too, dumped upside down on the bed on a pile of hangers.
I searched the dresser drawers, remembering how my dad had grown odd at the end, obsessed with making lists of the inconsequential aspects of his life. He wrote reams and reams of lists on foolscap. When he died, we knew where his hankies and t-shirts, his pens and broken watches, his rings and school yearbooks could be found, but we could never find where his happiness had got to. We wondered if he had ever truly been happy at all. There are some things it’s better for kids not to wonder about their parents.
There wasn’t anything to be found in the dresser drawers or in the closet or beneath the bed, but in the nightstand drawer were old letters from Jack, all with New York postmarks. Behind the family Bible and photo albums on the nightstand shelf were twenty neatly stacked cassette boxes. Each box was labeled with Jack’s name, an event, and or a corresponding date. Jack, Christmas 1976. There were tapes in nineteen of the twenty boxes. It did not take me long to figure out where that missing tape had gone. Questions filled my head. How had Ray Martello gotten to Mary White? What could he have told her? How much could he have paid her? What had Katy or I ever done to her except treat her with respect?
I shook my head, thinking Mary mustn’t have understood what was going on. But in my bones I knew that was wrong. Not only had Mary White known, she was an active participant. Now I understood Mary’s discomfort around me, her strange affect on the phone, the weirdness in the cemetery. There were never any roses on her brother’s grave or, if there had been, Mary White placed them there herself. No one painted on Jack’s headstone. Mary simply scrubbed the stone for my benefit: the missing dirt from where she’d washed it had been enough to convince me of the vandalism.
I slid a few of the cassettes into my pocket and headed toward the back door, but decided to take a second, more careful look around. In the kitchen, I found some flight information, two phone numbers, and an address in Kentucky scribbled onto a pad. Next to the address was the notation, #12. I ripped off the sheet and tucked it into my pocket with the cassettes. There was nothing else to see. I tiptoed out the back, replacing the key in the planter. Unfortunately, Roweena-double e, one lazy eye-had been keeping watch.
“Well?”
“Nice,” I said, “but a bit claustrophobic.”
She didn’t look pleased. I fairly ran to my rental car. Her kid was still crying.
Locating the cemetery proved more challenging than expected. With some help from a trucker, I found my way. Once through the gates, I was confident I’d be able to find Jack’s resting place. Wrong. I thought I retraced the route Mary had taken-around the huge stone crucifix, two lefts, straight ahead twelve rows, a right and a left-but I just couldn’t find the small chunk of stone adorning Jack’s grave. I tried it three more times with some minor variations before admitting defeat and heading into the administrative offices.
The woman at the desk checked the book.
“You weren’t wrong, sir. Mr. White is indeed interred there, but your confusion is understandable.” She made a sour face. “The headstone has been recently replaced.”
Had it ever. No wonder I hadn’t recognized the site. In place of the tasteful block of beveled granite which had stood vigil at the head of Jack White’s grave was a massive black tombstone vaguely reminiscent of the monolith in 2001. I couldn’t quite believe the scale of it: a sequoia among the shrubbery. Carved into the rich black stone were prayerful hands, crosses, scrolls, angels, and a rendering of Jack’s face. There was a bible quotation, lines from a favorite poem. With all that, there was still enough empty space on the stone to have added the entire text of War and Peace or to list the names of America’s war dead. All of them, ever. A mourners’ bench had been added as well. It was constructed of the same black stone, tasteful only by comparison to the monolith. I suppose Mary could have tried to buy Cleopatra’s Needle or Stonehenge, but she’d done okay on her own. Looking past the hideousness of the new monuments, I realized just how much they must have set Mary back. Ray Martello had paid her a pretty penny for her betrayal.
Without his sister around to scowl at me, I considered placing a rock atop Jack’s new headstone. Unfortunately, Mary hadn’t thought to include an elevator or build steps into the side of the headstone. I placed a pebble at the base of the black giant and walked away. Poor Jack. If anything ever cried out for a sledgehammer, it was that thing in my rearview mirror.
NOT UNEXPECTEDLY, THE address in Kentucky was a cheap motel near the airport. One of the phone numbers Mary had scribbled down was traceable back to room twelve at that same motel. The desk clerk, a Pakistani kid, was happy to help. The fifty bucks I slipped him was more of an incentive than the bullshit story I laid on. I described Mary, gave him the date of her flight, and asked him to check on who had been registered in room twelve that day.
“No, I am very very sorry,” he said in an Urdu-inflected lilt. “We did not have a woman like you describe in the room that day.” He read me a list of three names, all men, none of them familiar. I asked if he remembered what any of the men looked like. “One was a nasty older fellow. Big, with an eye patch.”
The desk clerk might have said something else, but I didn’t hear him. I think I might have thanked him. So, there was a mystery man, but his existence raised some questions not even Feeney could ignore. Suddenly, I didn’t feel quite so stupid or desperate.
Back in my rental, I called the other phone number Mary White had written down. Someone picked up. I could hear breathing on the other end.
“Hello,” I said, feeling cocky, overplaying my hand.
He snickered at me and hung up. I got a chill, but not because I knew who had been on the phone. I didn’t. I didn’t need to know. I could recognize a ghost when I heard one.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Us Air to New York. Aer Lingus to Dublin. Those were Mary White’s flight details. I had checked the numbers out at the airport before getting on my plane back to LaGuardia. Problem was, both of her flights were one passenger short. At least that’s what Feeney told me. Mary White was somewhere, but it wasn’t Dublin, Ireland. Dublin, Ohio, was more likely.
Detective Feeney was a stubborn bastard, not a fool, so when I returned from Cincinnati armed with a little bit more than desperate questions, he was, at least, willing to listen. I had to give the man credit. Most detectives with such a neatly closed case would have told me to go fuck myself. On the other hand, he wasn’t exactly reopening the investigation. He agreed, if grudgingly so, to keep an eye out for Mary White. He’d also alerted both the Dayton PD and the Ohio State Police that Mary White was a “person of interest” for the NYPD-although she was only of interest to me-and that she might be on the run. But that was as far as it went. Feeney had no intention of looking for the mystery man.
“But why would this guy be meeting with Mary White after Martello was dead?”
“Don’t push it, Prager. This mystery man’s not my problem. Maybe he was a real loyal friend to Ray Martello and was fulfilling a promise or somethin’. You know, like makin’ a last payment. Frankly, I don’t know and I don’t give a shit. I’ll do you the one favor and keep tabs on what the Ohio cops come up with about the old broad, but this mystery guy’s your headache.”
So it was official, Cyclops was my headache. Now he was Brian Doyle’s headache as well. I got Brian to take the few personal days we owed him. He was glad to do it seeing as I was matching his per diem-in cash-plus ex
penses. Double time and expenses: nice gig if you can get it. I just couldn’t bring myself to march back into the office and reinvolve the staff, not officially. I’d already used the agency for my private business for too long. It was bad for business and bad for morale. Until I had something more substantial than a missing cassette tape from Mary White’s bedroom and a meeting in an airport motel between an old lady and a one-eyed man, I would play it close to the vest.
The worst part was I hadn’t told Carmella about this little arrangement between Doyle and me. I had no intention of telling her, not yet, anyway. She would murder me, and rightfully so, for going behind her back. But so far I wasn’t getting much return on my investment. Brian was batting zero for two days. He hadn’t found any of Martello’s friends or family or fellow cops who either matched the mystery man’s description or knew of someone who did. I thought it was kind of strange that Doyle had gotten nowhere. The one-eyed man, from everything Mira Mira and the desk clerk in Kentucky had said, was a hard man to forget. Let’s face it, the eye patch alone would be pretty memorable.
“Anything?” I asked, squeezing the cell phone between my neck and ear.
“Nada, boss. No one knows this guy and believe me, Moe, I talked to a lotta people. I mean, I was going to hell anyways before you had me do this little job for you, but I’ve lied so much to so many people in the last coupla days…I couldn’t say enough Our Fathers or Hail Marys or light enough candles to atone for the bullshit I’ve been spreading. I’m telling the cops I’m Martello’s brother. I’m telling his family I’m a Suffolk cop. I’m telling some of his friends that I’m a cop and some that I’m family. I’m lying so much, I can’t even keep track. I wouldn’t mind so much if it was getting me somewheres.”
“Okay, listen, get into Brooklyn and canvass Manhattan Court.”
“Where Martello killed the kid?”
“Right. Describe both Martello and our mystery man to the neighbors. Ask if they remember either man being around that day or ever.”
“What’s the point, boss? I mean, we know Martello murdered the kid.”
“Maybe it’s time to pretend we don’t know anything for sure. Just do it, Doyle. For what I’m paying your lazy ass, you shouldn’t be asking why.”
“I’ll leave in a few minutes. I’ll be happy to get outta here. Long Island is creepy. Too quiet for me.”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
“Where you headed, boss?”
“Long Island.” I hung up before he could ask any other questions. The last thing I needed was to try and explain my dating Connie Geary to him. I’d have to explain it to myself first.
At eight in late June or July, the sun would have still been pretty well up. That’s how I had seen the Geary manse the first time I came calling. Back then, I’d also gotten to meet Senator Steven Brightman. He was full of promise and full of shit: the perfect con man and consummate politician. I should’ve known I was being played by how hard everyone was working me. Thomas Geary threatened and bribed. Brightman charmed. In my own defense, I had been bullied into taking the case in the wake of Katy’s miscarriage. I was still reeling from the turmoil that followed in its wake. On the heels of losing a baby of my own, how could I not take the case of a missing daughter of an ex-NYPD cop? How could I not save the politician who was going to save us all?
Brightman was the serpent to my Eve and I bit the apple hard. Not unlike Judas Wannsee, Brightman had that magical ability to make you feel like you were the most important person in the room, the only person in the room. He could talk to a crowd, but you felt-no, you knew-he was talking directly to you. And when we met that evening in 1983, he worked his stuff. The myth is that great politicians know when to lie. The opposite is the reality. It’s how they parse the truth. The night we met, Brightman answered my questions directly, even admitting that he and Moira Heaton had slept together. He had inoculated himself by telling me a negative truth. It was brilliant, just not brilliant enough.
I’m not necessarily a big believer in the truth. Katy will tell you that about me, but that’s not how I mean it. What I mean is that the truth doesn’t conform to the rules of Sunday school or sermons, to cliches or adages. The truth doesn’t always come out in the wash or in the end and it’s frequently not for the best. The truth often makes things worse, much worse. The truth can be as much poison as elixir, cancer as cure. And I knew some ugly truths about Steven Brightman that had put an end to his political career, but that gave no comfort to the dead and grieving.
I put Steven Brightman out of my head. It was an August sun falling down over the brim of the earth. The sky was a heavy shade of dusk, the stars more than vague hints of light. The darkening air was rich with the sweet scent of nicotina and lavender from the gardens-their sweetness playing nicely against the predominant smell of fresh-cut grass drifting over from the golf course next door. I pulled up to the house, my shirt slightly damp from nervous sweat. But I was enjoying the delicate buzz of excitement and anticipation I had going. It had been a very long time.
Connie met me at the door, her blond hair swept back, her white smile and clear blue eyes sparkling. We sort of stared awkwardly across the threshold at each other, not knowing quite what to do. She reached out, taking my hand, and pulled me into the house. When I was inside, she kissed me shyly on the lips. I kissed her back as shyly. No one ran screaming. We had gotten by the first hurdle. Both of us took deep breaths.
“Hi, Moe. God, I’ve been so nervous all week. I was worried you’d cancel. A scotch?”
“Sure.”
“Come on into the den.”
I followed. She was dressed in a clingy floral print and open-toed shoes with a low heel. Her muscular calves flexed as she walked to the bar. I noticed not only what she was wearing and how she looked, but the pleasant effect it was having on me.
“I’ve been looking forward to this as well, I think even more than I knew,” I said.
“Really?” She handed me my scotch and we clinked glasses. “What’s been going on in your life?”
I thought about not answering or deflecting the question with the usual nonsense, but thought it would be a bad precedent. I told her.
“My lord,” she said, refilling my glass. “What madness. Can revenge really be such an obsession?”
“Apparently. It was so important to my father-in-to my late father-in-law, that he wanted it from his grave. Good scotch.”
“You sold it to me. Your store did, at least.”
“Listen, Connie, can we stay off the subject of graves and revenge for now? I’ve spent a little too much time in cemeteries lately.”
“Absolutely.”
Connie put her drink down, pressed herself against me, and kissed me in a way I would not describe as shyly. I returned her kiss and then some. Connie had other talents besides playing the piano. Kissing Connie didn’t come with the baggage of kissing Katy nor with the depth of feeling and darkness of kissing Carmella. It was, in any case, an amazing sensation. Other than those two weak moments I shared with Carmella and the spontaneous moment with Tina Martell, Connie was the only woman beside Katy I had kissed in the last twenty years.
“How’s your dad doing?” I changed subjects.
“I’m afraid he’s taken a bit of a bad turn. He’s in the hospital, but should be home next week some time.”
“Sorry to hear it.”
“What can one do? It’s the nature of the disease. Mom will be back by then. At least my son doesn’t have to deal with it. He’s up at football camp for the next two weeks. Come, let’s get out of here and leave these depressing things behind us. In fact,” she said, reaching into her clutch and pulling out her cell phone, “can we make a deal? How about we shut out the rest of the world for the evening and focus only on the two of us?”
“Deal,” I said, making a show of shutting off my cell phone.
She put hers down on the bar.
“I’ll drive,” I said.
“Oh, no you wo
n’t. The car will be here in a few minutes. We’re focusing on each other, no distractions.”
My first impulse was to argue. I didn’t. It felt good to give in, to turn control of things over to someone else for a change.
“Would you like me to play for you until the driver gets here?”
“Maybe later,” I said, pulling her close. “Maybe later.”
I hadn’t been on a date in about a quarter century, so nearly every inch of the night was a revelation. Around our second bottle of old vine Zinfandel, when it became clear that bed had gone from our possible to our inevitable destination, the rate of revelation picked up speed. The odd thing about marriage is that it lulls you into a comfortable forgetfulness. You forget that the dance you do can be nearly the same and yet be almost completely different. You forget what it’s like to discover excitement instead of relying on it. You forget that even awkwardness has its potent charms and that first times do still exist in the universe. You can know in your head that every woman has a different taste, a different scent, a different feel, but to be reawakened to the sense of it was an indescribable and unexpected shock.
Connie Geary was everything I would have wanted for my debut in the world of the recently single. She was good company, familiar enough, but not too familiar. She was comfortable with herself, at ease with me, smart, skeptical, not cynical. She was unembarrassed by her family’s wealth, but not blind or unsympathetic to the plight of the rest of the world. In bed, Connie was eager, sharing, unafraid. She was all of those things and yet I knew I would never visit her bed again.
The night had been both wonderful and hollow somehow. For all the laughs and kisses, wanting looks, flirtatious touches, and orgasms, there didn’t seem to have been an ounce of spontaneity in the entire evening. I don’t want to say it all felt staged-no man wants to think the moans and clenches, the screams and spasms, are the result of careful rehearsal and not passion-but I couldn’t escape the sense of things having been storyboarded, that each step had been premeditated. Even when I got up at five to shower, I knew Connie Geary would follow me in a few minutes later and take me in her mouth. Knowing didn’t stop me from enjoying.
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