“Okay. He told me how he would kill me. He knew lots of ways to do it; he said he could make it look like an accident or suicide. If he was drunk enough, I knew he would also kill my son and then himself. You could start with that.”
Marlene is calm. She’s not asking for sympathy, or even understanding.
“Could you tell me why you went into law enforcement?”
“Sure. I became a policewoman for the same reason men become policemen. I wanted to be useful. I wanted to help people, protect the people in my community from criminals. Then there were the not-for-publication reasons. I dug the uniform, the car, the action; I was a jock in high school. I like physical stuff, sweat and bruising. In high school, I rock climbed, ran marathons, played soccer. I was a gym rat; endorphins were my best friends. Conversely, my homemaking skills sucked—I couldn’t boil an egg or use a vacuum cleaner—I learned, of course. To be honest, there was also the money. New York State Police start around fifty thousand dollars a year, and I could get to the low seventies pretty fast. Good health insurance, paid vacations, maternity leave, a secure pension plan; with overtime, promotions, I could end up at one hundred K by the time I retired after twenty years, and I would still be in my forties. Not bad. How about you?”
“Pretty much for the same reasons. And I had something to prove, but I can’t remember what it was.”
I went into police work so I could better find a murderer and kill him. Do we have something in common? Or will we?
“Can you tell me about your husband? Lieutenant Hagen says he’s also a cop.”
“Was. No, is. He’s on suspension. I don’t know if he’ll get his job back, and he’s going to have a hard time finding another in New York. He’s a big guy who swaggers up to you at a bar, gets right in your face. He knows how to make other men fear him. No one on the street questions his authority; no one asks why they are being stopped, pulled over, frisked, or pushed against a wall. He has a hundred ways to hurt you that won’t show; he can inflict pain and not leave a trace. He does it to black teenagers, kids on skateboards at the 7-Eleven, minority drivers passing through the wrong neighborhood, and his wife.”
She glances at the time on her phone and takes a last sip of her coffee. “But there’s another side to him: at the YMCA where he swims and teaches, at church, at Scouts—he’s a role model. Little boys want to grow up to be like him.”
“And the violence?”
“He likes to hit me when he wants to improve my memory about his likes and dislikes. The thing is, he’s discreet. We could be on the couch after dinner watching television, nice and cozy, and he’ll turn to me and punch me on the arm, hard—he knows exactly where, so that it numbs down to my wrist—to remind me that he doesn’t like fucking, fucking, fucking, steak well done. But it usually depends on how much he has had to drink. If it’s a lot, it means I’m on the floor, his hand around my throat, and he’s slapping my face. I don’t scream so I won’t wake up our son. Anyway, I’m learning my lesson. And I can’t breathe because his knees are on my chest and he weighs two-twenty. When he goes to the bathroom to throw up, I call the cops. When they come, he goes outside and talks to them. They try to ‘calm me down.’ I have a reputation for being hysterical. I lose control and hit him. He has to protect himself and the children. He can show them scratches, a bruise. They tell me the ‘blue line’ stuff about ‘keeping it in the family’ and urge me not to ruin his career and mine. ‘Come on, Marlene, you guys can work this out.’
“I filed for divorce, and hired a lawyer to sue him and the department. I was taken off active duty and assigned to the evidence room. A few weeks later, cocaine was found in my locker. It was from the evidence room, of course. I had a choice: withdraw the lawsuits, or lose my job, maybe go to jail, but for sure ending up a single mother with no money. Fight? I remember my lawyer asking me, ‘How much justice can you afford?’ So I’m back. Life is fine. I see my kids, I have my job, and I try to behave. And I read a lot. Mostly about ways to kill him.”
She shrugs and crunches her paper cup in her fist.
“Thanks. You’ve been a big help.”
“Yeah.”
Now, at Artemis, as I sit under the prints of the seasonal cottages, Bobo resting her head on my lap, I make a restrained and tearful confession to Phyllis. “I was a cop.”
“Are you still working?”
“I was. I have this other job.”
“Editor?”
“Yes.”
“But your husband is a cop?”
“Yes.” Bobby B will portray my abusive and dangerous husband. If Phyllis finds out that I am lying, I have a backup story, better bullshit. My life is lies layered on lies, one is exposed, there is another to cover it. I slip into Marlene’s story; it is now my own. I tell her about Bobby’s (Robert’s) threats to me, my parents, his talk about suicide. Phyllis listens. She doesn’t interrupt; she absorbs my information and processes it as it arrives.
“He’s on temporary suspension. He stalks me. The last time he found me, he beat me so hard (Thank you very much, Linda Fuentes) that I went to the emergency room and a nurse suggested I come here.”
“Do you think you’re in mortal danger?”
Mortal danger? It’s a quaint way to question my situation; it is a question that would never be asked in the thatched cottage on her wall.
“He’s out there,” I say. “He’s convinced I’m responsible for his suspension, and he has friends on the force who think so, too. I have a job. I had a place to stay—a friend’s spare room—but he found me. So far, he hasn’t found where I work, or that I’m here. My boss lets me sleep on the couch when I work late, but I’m safer here. He’s out there, looking for me. One of these days, Robert will find me and kill me. Sometimes I think it would be better to kill him first, go to jail.”
Phyllis nods slowly, deliberately. “I don’t want to frighten you, but the really crazy ones, they kill their children, too.” She pauses, gazes up at the winter cottage print on the wall, snug, cozy, inviting. “Then they kill themselves. Why can’t the bastards go straight to suicide?”
She says this last sentence so calmly, so coldly, so much as a logical conclusion that it strikes me as coming from her own experience.
“I don’t want to see my women in danger. You, my dear, are in danger. I think you understand.”
I nod. Yes, I am in mortal danger. Are you going to kill him for me?
“What should I do?”
“For now, you are safe here. I’ll think about it. It would be best to get you out of the East Coast, far away. We don’t do witness protection, and it’s a bad solution, anyway. You have to really change your life, start over again, and what’s harder, teach your children to do the same. He’s a cop, so he knows how to find you. He has at his disposal software you don’t even know about. He can source bank accounts, credit cards, licenses, IRS, Social Security. He can tap your parents’ phone, access their computers—it’s not legal without a warrant, but he’ll do it anyway. So it’s not just about disappearing; you have to re-create yourself. About your family? You don’t get to see them again. Ever. So it’s possible, but it’s difficult. Then you also get to live your life looking over your shoulder. What if you meet someone, you remarry, you have children together? It will just make your ex-husband crazier. Do you tell your new husband the truth? If your ex is out there looking for you, insane and jealous, you are putting your new family at risk. Welcome to a life of paranoia.”
I think about Marlene sitting with her back to the wall, staring at the McDonald’s door.
“I want to go home,” I say.
“I’ll tell you when you can go home. When I do, you will be safe.”
Amanda bursts into Phyllis’s office. She takes my hand and pulls me off of the couch.
“You have to talk to Haneen. Now!”
Phyllis is right behind me as we go into the living room. Haneen is descending the stairs. She’s wearing her padded parka.
“Haneen, what’s going on?” I s
ay.
“She’s leaving,” Amanda says.
“Haneen?”
“My mother had a heart attack. She’s in the hospital.”
“Where?”
“Mount Sinai. Astoria.”
Phyllis reflexively steps in front of the door, blocking her path. “Don’t go, Haneen. Not yet. We can check this out. It may not be true.”
“My sister called. I believe her.”
“Call the hospital. Make sure. It could be a trick to get you out of the shelter. Where’s your father?”
“He’s at work.”
Phyllis has no real authority over Haneen, and everybody knows it. Phyllis only has the voice. “It’s not safe, Haneen. Until then, you stay here. Upstairs.”
I heard the unsaid young lady, as in, Upstairs, young lady.
Haneen is fighting tears. Phyllis is still blocking the door.
“Let us check it out, Haneen,” I say.
Haneen takes out her cell, calls, speaks in Pashto. I hear Mama.
“That was my sister,” Haneen says. “She’s at the hospital with Mom. Okay? I’m going.”
She reaches behind Phyllis for the doorknob. Haneen’s get out of my way trumps Phyllis’s I can’t let you do this. Phyllis steps aside, looks at me, cocks her head. Can’t you do something?
“I’ll come with you,” I say. Haneen shrugs, steps outside, walks and texts. I catch up.
“My car is around the corner.”
“I already Ubered.”
The Uber driver consults his dashboard GPS, takes the Grand Central Parkway west, toward the Triborough Bridge. In the distance is the skyline of the Manhattan island, flat against the pale yellowish sky. I want to be there. But we are on the opposite side, traveling parallel to the East River. Manhattan is a backdrop. We will soon be heading away from the glass towers packed against one another with their permutations of bars, restaurants, museums, galleries, theaters—all out of reach for me. I have to find a way to prevent Haneen from walking into someone else’s lethal trap. Our journey is replicated on the driver’s GPS. The thick red line says to exit at Hoyt Avenue. We travel under the elevated train tracks.
Haneen stares ahead. “She has heart disease. It’s not the first time. When she gets chest pains, she goes to the ER. The doctors tell her she is having small heart attacks. They tell her she needs bypass surgery; she refuses and goes home. The next attack may not be small, it might be big, it could be her last.”
At Thirtieth Avenue, the hospital comes into view. I tell the driver to stop at the emergency entrance. Leaning against a parked ambulance, a driver furtively smokes a cigarette. Aside from him, there are no adult males in the vicinity.
We get out. I let Haneen walk ahead of me for a few steps so I can discreetly reach into my purse, where I am carrying my second gun, the little .38. We enter the ER receiving room. Normal. A bored security guard on duty, a nurse’s station, a couple of doctors filling out paperwork, indifferent to the three rows of people sitting in interlocking plastic chairs. Mothers with feverish children, a leathered motorcyclist cradling what might be a broken wrist, an old woman sitting next to her husband, who’s leaning forward, his folded hands a pillow for his chin resting on his cane. They are citizens in various stages of pain waiting to see a doctor.
“I’m here to see Lakhani Ramesha. She was admitted into the cardiac unit today.”
“There’s my brother,” Haneen says, as if he is the proof their mother is in the hospital.
Haneen goes to a teenage boy, sits in the empty seat beside him. I watch them embrace. I see tears on the cheeks of the boy as he puts one arm around his sister, and with the other he takes out a small revolver and shoots Haneen in the head. She falls backward off the chair. People scream, run for exits. The boy drops the gun to the floor. He puts his hands on his head.
I kick the pistol away and handcuff the boy. He is sobbing now, his chest heaving, gulping for air. A security guard appears, followed by two ER paramedics pushing a gurney. They look at Haneen. They know there is nothing to be done.
A man walks up to the teenage boy. He kneels and puts his arm around him. I recognize him—Haneen’s father. Mr. Lakhani looks up at me.
“It was necessary,” he says.
There will be wailing tonight.
Chapter 28
I find Bobby at Ducky’s, a hipster diner that serves as his office. He can’t really like the food, but Ducky’s is convenient and discreet for his business meetings when his clients come to borrow money or pay back their loans. Bobby has a deal with the owner; when he accumulates too much cash, the manager on duty will put it in the restaurant safe. The food is ’50s nostalgia—it tastes just as bad now as it did then. The cashier points me to the rear. Bobby is sitting in a booth; his tabletop jukebox is playing the Shirelles.
“You don’t look well,” he says.
I tell him about Haneen.
“I made a big mistake, Bobby. I left her alone. It’s my fault.”
Bobby takes my hands in his and squeezes gently.
“Don’t let go, Bobby. I feel so bad.”
“I got you.”
“I’m so fucking stupid. I was looking for her father. I never imagined it would be her brother . . . Ah, fuck, I can’t even say the words.”
“Her brother?”
“He’s a teenager; he gets a lesser sentence than the father would. The family survives.”
A young waiter with a carpet of tattoos up his arm tries to decide where to place Bobby’s order, a gooey tuna melt with chili fries. I slip out of Bobby’s hand embrace. The waiter offers me a menu. I shake my head. Bobby picks up a fry, considers it, then drops it back into the chili mush.
My phone vibrates on the table. It’s an 808 area code: Maui.
“Hi, Ernie.”
“Hi, doll. Can you talk?”
“I’m with Bobby.”
“Put it on speaker.”
I tap the phone, place it on the table.
“We’re here.”
“Hey, Bobby,” Ernie says, like they are old friends.
“Hey, Ernie,” Bobby says.
“They found him.”
Bobby and I know who him is. The cowardly bastard who killed my father. The air is out of me. I sit up straight, close my eyes. Find my breath. Catch it, ride it until I can open my eyes. “What’s his name?”
“Clyde Fairbrother.”
My heart beats with the prospect of revenge. I have to lose Haneen for now. Revenge trumps tragedy.
“Tell me about Fairbrother.”
“I’m sending you a picture—it’ll be on your phone. I overnighted a file on him, long as your arm. I don’t know who’s going to jump on an old connection to a beer can from a dying con looking for a deal—the FBI, the local police? It’s also ten years old.”
“Where is he?”
“Malone. It’s upstate New York. Near the Canadian border.”
“I know Malone. It’s where those two guys escaped from the state prison. Dannemora, correct?”
“Correct.”
“What’s he doing in Malone?”
“He’s a prison guard.”
I wanted to hear that Clyde is a minister in a queasy storefront church (horribly shot in front of his congregation), a truck driver (his bloody head slumped against the steering wheel), a short-order cook (crumpled on the floorboards under the coffee urns), or unemployed and homeless (half-frozen corpse under a blue tarp). I want him exposed, reachable, mine for the taking, mine for the killing. I don’t want him to be a civil servant working for the New York State Department of Corrections.
“What I told you is what I got from a buddy still in the Bureau.”
“Was it the DNA?”
“And his prints. Big-time. He left traces all over the place: Marine Corps, state corrections agency, a DUI arrest in Albany. He got off with a warning.”
“What are the chances of charging him with the murder?” Bobby asks.
Ernie has the information ready.
“Encouraging. Three reasons. One: the US Attorney has an affidavit from George saying he sold Clyde a sniper rifle; the DNA and the prints on the beer can in George’s car puts them together. Two: there was a theft of weapons from the army base before the shooting; it may be one of them. Three: if they find the rifle, or his little homemade bullet workshop, it would be enough to hold him and take it to the local DA. I can be on a plane tomorrow, Nina.”
“Not yet.”
“I want to see the bastard hanged. Or whatever they do today,” Ernie says.
“They don’t do anything. New York doesn’t have the death penalty. Best hope is he dies in jail,” Bobby says.
“Let me know,” Ernie says.
“I will. I will.”
“By the way, I got George into the hospice. He doesn’t have long.”
The call ends. My cell phone face reverts to the picture of Sammy, my brother, smiling in his soccer uniform. I linger on the picture. I found him, Sammy. I found him. It won’t be long now. A beep. A message with a photo file appears in my mailbox from Ernie. I download the picture; it’s a military portrait of a marine recruit, his head shaved. A trace of a smile. The man is proud to be photographed in his marine dress blues.
It all comes back to me. Not his name, but his face, his eyes. There are pictures of Clyde Fairbrother in my files of anti-abortion activists. He appears in my collection of taped newsreels of demonstrations in front of women’s clinics, hospitals, Planned Parenthood, and doctors’ offices. I have videos, newspaper clippings of Clyde’s interviews. In them, he is a voice of moderation, talks about his concern for the health of the women who are about to have abortions, the threat of cancer, depression, heart attacks, and always, his love of the unborn child. He is, as he says over and over again, in every interview, against violence. His message is that protests must always be prayerful, peaceful, and law-abiding. Clyde argues for counseling women before they go into the clinic. He will argue that the life of the woman is not as important as the life of the child who has not yet lived. He never gives his name. “I am an unnamed servant of the Lord. I am doing his work with modesty.” The man in my files who had no name now has one. I reach for my purse.
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