I put the report down.
“If the victims had been bored to death,” I said to my father, “this report would nail the case for us.”
“Not an exciting guy,” my father said.
“Unless my intuition is right,” I said.
“Unless that,” he said.
“Anyone talk to his parents?” I said.
“Both dead,” my father said.
“Surprising,” I said. “They were so young when he was born.”
“Old man died early,” my father said. “Mother last year.”
A swan boat cruised by with its squadron of escorting ducks.
“Remember when you used to take me on those boats?” I said.
“Yes.”
“I always loved that, especially if it was just me and not me and Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth says the same thing about you,” my father said.
“We’ve always fought over you,” I said. “Mother, too.”
“I’m a prize all right,” he said.
“We still do it,” I said.
“If you say so.”
“You don’t see it?”
“Whether I see it or not,” he said, “what you don’t see is that all three of you have already won me.”
“Daddy,” I said, “you know perfectly well that for any of us to win, the other two have to lose.”
He laughed, and put an arm around my shoulder.
He said, “Not going to happen, Pumpkin. Not going to happen.”
23
Richie and I had dinner in Davio’s next to Park Square. It was a big, handsome room and the food was good. Plus, Richie knew the owner, so we got a nice table. We ordered antipasto for two and a bottle of Sangiovese.
“You look great,” Richie said.
“Thank you,” I said. “You do, too.”
It wasn’t merely polite. We did look great. He was wearing what was almost a uniform for him: white open-collar shirt, dark jacket, lots of white collar and cuff showing. His neck was strong-looking. I was wearing a verdigris silk-and-spandex tank top, and a pleated cotton skirt in tan with verdigris at the hem. I carried the matching jacket, still proud of the shoulders. Richie liked skirts.
“Maybe,” Richie said. “But you look better.”
“Oh, okay,” I said.
He smiled.
“You talk to Dr. Silverman about us?” Richie said.
“Not since these late-breaking developments,” I said.
“But you will,” he said.
“Of course.”
“I’ll be interested,” Richie said.
I nodded.
“I’ll share,” I said. “Would you like to see someone?”
“I didn’t grow up in a family,” Richie said, “that values psychotherapy.”
“But you seem to,” I said.
“I’m different than the rest of my family.”
We drank some wine.
“If you need to talk to someone, I can get a referral from Dr. Silverman,” I said.
He nodded.
“I’m not ready yet,” he said. “Though it doesn’t mean I won’t be.”
I laughed.
“What?” he said.
“I’m imagining Uncle Felix,” I said, “in therapy.”
“There’s a scary thought,” Richie said.
“On the other hand,” I said, “he and your father kept you out of the rackets.”
Richie nodded.
“Mostly,” he said.
“I don’t want to hear about mostly,” I said.
He smiled at me, and shook his head.
“I’m not in the rackets,” he said.
“I know you’re not,” I said.
“My father and Uncle Felix,” Richie said. “They kept me out. Felix was sort of in charge of that. He taught me to fight. He taught me to shoot. He taught me how to run a mob, in case I had to. Then they sent me to college. And I had to account to Felix for my performance.”
“I remember,” I said.
“They’re a little tough on other people,” Richie said. “But they take care of their own.”
“I know,” I said. “What do you suppose Felix would say if you told him you were seeing a shrink?”
Richie twirled his glass of red wine slowly by the stem while he thought about that.
“‘Whatever you need to do, Richard,’” he said in a fair copy of Felix’s cavernous rasp. “‘You got problems the shrink can’t solve, you come see me.’”
We ate a little. We drank a little wine. The sommelier came by and spoke to us, and picked up the bottle, and refreshed our glasses, and strolled on.
“I’ve moved out of the house,” Richie said.
I nodded.
“I’m staying at the Phillips Club on Avery Street,” he said.
“How’s Kathryn?” I said.
“Not good.”
“What does she understand this to mean?” I said.
“I don’t think she knows yet what she understands,” Richie said.
I nodded again.
“What do you understand this to mean?” I said.
Richie twirled his glass some more, watching the dark surface of the wine. Then he raised his eyes and looked directly into mine. It was almost as if I were being penetrated.
“I’m going for it all?” he said.
I was conscious that my breathing had become shallow and quick. My throat felt tight. Around me the restaurant continued in real time. People were dining and drinking and chatting and being pleased and being annoyed. Time had slowed at my table. Everything had receded a little. We were alone in a slightly different time and place. Living at a slightly different speed. I swallowed some wine so that my voice would work.
“What’s all?” I said.
“You,” he said.
“It’s a pretty big gamble,” I said. “I don’t know exactly if I can be the one you think I am, or want me to be.”
“You love me?” he said.
“Yes.”
“You know that.”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m going for it,” he said. “I gave it up too easily last time.”
“God,” I said. “I’m scared to death.”
“Me too,” he said.
24
The first letter came on a Saturday morning while I was thinking about the weekend. I didn’t have a date. And, in truth, I didn’t want one. Sunday, I thought I might sleep as late as Rosie would let me, and make myself a big breakfast and wash my hair, maybe manicure my nails, maybe rearrange my closet. I might paint some, too, when the sunshine through my skylight was right.
The mail came around eleven-thirty. As soon as I saw the block printing on the address, I knew who’d sent it. I opened it carefully. The letter inside was block-printed as well. Plain white paper. Plain black felt-tip pen. All it said was: “Hi, Sunny, welcome aboard.”
I read the message twice, then folded the letter carefully and put it carefully back in its envelope. I went to my desk, which I never sat at, at the far end of the loft, next to the bathroom, and got an 8½-by-11 manila envelope and put the letter in its own envelope in there and fastened the little metal clasp. I put the envelope on the small table in the bay, where I usually ate if there was company.
I went to the door. It was locked. I went to my bedside table and took my gun out and put it on the kitchen counter, where I usually ate when I was alone. There were new issues of Vogue and Vanity Fair, the half-read newspaper, and the rest of the mail. I sat back down, poured some more coffee, shuffled the mail around, got rid of the junk, and put the bills in a neat stack beside the toaster. Then I looked over at the manila envel
ope on the table.
“Bob Johnson,” I said out loud, “you son of a bitch.”
Rosie pricked her ears and looked at me carefully to see if “Bob Johnson, you son of a bitch” had anything to do with me giving her a dog biscuit. I got off the counter stool and walked to the windows and looked down at the street. My loft was on the fourth floor of a converted warehouse in South Boston, near Fort Point. The street looked like it always did. Cars parked on both sides. Some traffic on a Saturday morning. No Bob Johnson. Nothing that didn’t belong.
There had been a father/daughter sidebar piece to the ongoing Spare Change Killer coverage in the paper. The story mentioned my father and me by name. And I’d been mentioned in several instances by people reporting the story on television. The fact that he sent me the note after I’d interviewed him at police headquarters proved nothing. I walked back toward the kitchen.
I looked at my gun on the counter. It was comforting to have it there. On the one hand, there was no special reason to think he’d attack me. He had never done that. He’d written to my father for several years in phase one of the killings, and had never made any attempt to harm him. On the other hand, I was not my father, who was sort of like a pleasant Cape buffalo…. I didn’t look dangerous…. I was a woman, and a young woman at that…attractive in my own humble way…and I had felt his flirtation in the interview room…. He’d been excited in the interview room.
“About what?” I said to Rosie.
She looked hopeful again. I looked down at her and shook my head. Rosie let her ears flatten and turned away. She went to the bed and jumped up and lay with her head on her paws, looking at me disgustedly.
I walked back to the window…. His excitement had been sexual…. There was something sexual in him and in the whole case…but there was nothing sexual about the crimes…no rape…nothing…. I went to the phone and called my father.
25
I was having brunch with my family at my mother’s favorite place, an inn west of Boston, notable for its commitment to chintz curtains. My mother considered the place to be as cute as a bug’s ear. My sister seemed to think the food was good. My father registered no opinion but ate very modestly. At the buffet table, I’d ordered scrambled eggs, and the server, in her mop hat, had sliced them off a loaf.
“Lab got nothing off the letter,” my father said to me.
“I didn’t think they would,” I said.
My father had a lot of fruit on his plate and one sausage.
He and my sister each had a Bloody Mary. I had tomato juice.
My mother had bourbon on the rocks. It probably wasn’t, I thought, because she liked it best. It was what she knew how to order, and she feared change.
“Sunny,” my mother said, “aren’t you going to finish your eggs? There’s a lot of good protein going to waste there.”
“I’m saving the best for last,” I said.
“I don’t much like him writing you,” my father said.
“Who?” my mother said.
“He wrote you,” I said to my father.
“Who wrote who?” my sister said.
“I’m not my daughter,” he said.
“What on earth are you two talking about?” my mother said.
“Just the case, Em. The Spare Change thing.”
“Oh, pooh to the case. We’re having brunch, the least you two could do is talk about something the whole family can talk about.”
“Sure,” my father said. “We’ll revisit this later, Sunny.”
“It’ll be fine,” I said. “What have you been up to lately, Mother?”
“Well,” she said. “You know how frantic everything is around Christmastime, so Millie Harrison and I have found a place where you can buy Christmas stuff anytime. We went over there yesterday and got Christmas cards, enough for everybody on the list, and tree ornaments, and some fabulous new kind of candles for the window. They have batteries so you don’t have to have all those ugly cords showing.”
“Fab,” I said.
My father had a bite of his sausage. His face remained impassive, but I saw him move the rest of the sausage to the far edge of his plate with his fork. The waitress came by and brought my mother another bourbon. My mother looked pleased.
“We would have gone over on a weekday,” my mother said. “Any smart shopper knows it’s always more crowded on a Saturday. And I like to think I’m a pretty smart shopper.”
“That’s for sure, Em,” my father said.
“But, you know,” my mother said, “we are having a big round-robin bridge tournament, and it was at my house on Thursday, four tables of bridge, so I had to get ready for that. Hors d’oeuvres, a dessert. I got a bunch of those little frozen hors d’oeuvres, little hot dogs in pastry dough, and those little meatballs, and I put out a big bowl of nuts and bolts. Everybody told me it was better than any restaurant.”
“I’ll bet it was,” I said.
With his fork, my father speared a chunk of pineapple and ate it.
“And,” my mother said, “when we played, I was with Gladys Greer, and we won at our table and are going to the next round Thursday at Polly’s house.”
“Congratulations,” I said.
“You know your bridge, Em,” my father said.
“I have something that might be of interest,” Elizabeth said.
She looked like me, except on a slightly larger scale. Elizabeth liked being larger. She was always wearing tight tops and sticking her boobs out. On the other hand, I was a full size smaller. I was never sure whether I envied her or she envied me. Probably both.
“What’s that, honey?” my father said.
“I think I’m getting married.”
“The Jew?” my mother said.
“He’s not Jewish, Mother. It’s a German name.”
“Are you pregnant?” my mother said.
“Mother!”
“I call a spade a spade,” my mother said. “If you’re pregnant, the marriage has to be fast.”
“I’m not pregnant,” Elizabeth said.
“He give you a ring?”
“Not yet.”
“You better make sure he gives you a ring,” my mother said.
“We love each other,” Elizabeth said. “I think that’s quite enough.”
“Love goes right out the window,” my mother said, “if there’s no money.”
My father smiled at Elizabeth.
He said, “Lucky I held on to my job, huh?”
“You can joke all you want, Phil,” my mother said. “But you know I’m right.”
My father reached over and patted her hand.
“Almost always, Em,” he said. “Almost always.”
“Congratulations,” I said to my sister.
She nodded.
“It’ll be a fall wedding,” she said. “I hope you’ll be the matron of honor, Sunny.”
“I’d be thrilled,” I said.
“Maybe we can have the reception here,” my mother said.
They began to discuss the pros and cons of a wedding reception here in Chintz City. I drank my tomato juice and wished it were stronger.
26
We were walking Rosie down near the Design Center.
“I went to Vietnam out of there,” my father said.
“The Design Center?”
“Used to be the South Boston Army base,” my father said. “I took my physical there.”
“It would make you smile now,” I said, “if you went in there.”
Rosie stopped to investigate a beer can in the gutter.
“Let’s talk about the letter from Spare Change,” my father said.
“I don’t think it’s worrisome,” I said. “I think it’s just part of his flirtation. He
wrote you, now he’s writing me. I bet he smirks while he writes it.”
Rosie satisfied herself that the beer can was irrelevant, and we moved on.
“You might want to remember that this guy may have killed a dozen people.”
“But never anyone investigating him.”
“He’s never been investigated by a good-looking woman,” my father said. “If there is a sexual angle to these killings, like you say there is, your presence changes things.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve thought about that.”
Rosie stopped again. There was a seagull standing on the sidewalk ahead of us. Rosie stared at it. Was it danger? Was it edible? Was its edibleness commensurate with its dangerousness? I could almost hear her little brain meshing. My father reached down and picked up some gravel and threw it at the seagull. It flew up and away. Rosie watched it, then turned her head to stare at my father. He shrugged at her.
“Serve and protect,” he said to Rosie.
She wagged her tail and we moved on.
“Would you consider getting off the case?” my father said.
“Daddy,” I said. “This is what I do.”
“I know, that’s why I’m asking, not telling.”
“I’ll stick, Daddy. I have a gun. I can shoot. I used to be a cop. Now I am a private detective. What am I if I go home and hide any time there might be danger.”
My father nodded.
“I love Em,” he said. “And I love Elizabeth. As much as I love you.”
“I know,” I said.
“But you’re the one I can talk to,” he said. “I’d miss that.”
“I’ll be careful,” I said. “And remember, I’m pretty good. You know who taught me.”
He smiled.
“Good point,” he said.
A man coming from the Design Center paused as he passed us and looked at Rosie. He had his cell phone out but hadn’t dialed.
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