Brooklyn Bones (15 page)

Was the genteel mask cracking? I saw my chance to get back to the hard questions. “The tenants? Or is that the reporters again? Or the courts? Forgive me, but there is evidence that it was not all lies.”

“To call him such names! A man who worked so hard all his life! There was no reason, no reason at all.” She was turning pink. “Aren’t you listening to what I have been telling you? He was a good man, and those momzers, you should excuse the language, in Yiddish it means someone whose parents weren’t married, the lawyers and the reporters, even worse—they tormented him.”

I was very quiet. I nibbled a bit of cake, took a sip from my cup, and waited.

She looked away, not meeting my eyes, and finally said, “Ah, well, I suppose you know all about it already.” She sighed. “All right, Harry was, I must admit, a stubborn man. So maybe there were a few violations. Heat that didn’t always come on. Cranky old plumbing. So maybe he should have cleaned them up. But his tenants, those low lifes, demanding changes? Demanding? Taking him to court?” She shook her head. “He couldn’t stand it, and then he couldn’t give in. It was so long ago now, but I remember the day they took him off to jail. Contempt of court, they said it was. It was such a public humiliation, and of course there was plenty of talk.” Her eyes filled with tears. “My poor Harry. And it was hard here too, to hold my head up high at PTA and the club.”

“Mother?” A thin blonde in a black pants suit stood in the doorway. I had a quick impression of diamond pin, lacquered hair, red mouth, spike heels. “What is going on here? Is this a reporter?”

Mrs. Rogow said with a tight smile, “Please allow me to introduce my daughter, Brenda Rogow Petry. Brenda, this is Erika Donato, a historian.” She emphasized the last word.

“Your mother is kindly sharing stories with me about Brooklyn in the 1970s for a museum project. Would you like to join us?”

“Oh, Brooklyn. All those old nickel-and-dime holdings.” She waved a dismissive hand, her bright red nails glistening. “There’s nothing to tell.” She gave me a bright, confiding smile and sat down. “Now the real story is the way we have grown from my dad’s day to being true players in real estate development. We have even had a cover story in
New York
magazine. Why don’t you write about that?”

“I’m a historian, so it was your dad’s day that is relevant to my work. Maybe you could fill in some details?”

“Dad’s day? I never paid any attention to his older business, barely even knew where it was. I had a bigger vision and I unloaded those low-end properties as soon as I went into the company.”

By then she was looking over my shoulder at the notes on my laptop screen. Some of the color seemed to leave her brightly made-up face as she looked at her mother.

“Mother, may I speak to you in the kitchen?”

“Of course, dear.” Mrs. Rogow turned to me, said, “Please give us a moment for family business,” and walked away.

I heard a door close, but perhaps not all the way. As their voices rose, I could hear them clearly. And I admit it, I was listening.

“What are you doing? You promised not to talk about dad’s convictions. Not now of all times, now, when I am about to make our name mean something completely different.”

“But, dear, it was all such a long time ago. Who cares?”

“I have to make sure nobody does. I cannot have negative publicity fouling thing up. Do you think I’ve been playing around all these years, making sure his reputation is buried?”

“I remember.” Mrs. Rogow ground out the words. “You wanted to take his name right off the company he built. A second death, that’s what it would have been. He was a wonderful man, your father—hard-working, devoted to us, ambitious. Look how well he provided for us.”

“Yes, mother, he was a very successful slumlord. Have you forgotten the police at our door, where everyone could see them?”

“I know, dear. At the club…”

“The club! Spare me. I had to go to school every single day and listen to them whisper, ‘Jailbird.’ You don’t get it. You never did.”

“Don’t I get it? That slumlord provided you with a very nice life. And whose money got you into your first Manhattan project, the one that put you on that map? And I might remind you, whose money still controls a large chunk of that company you refer to so carelessly as yours? Mine, last time I checked. Let’s have a little respect, please.”

There was silence, and then the sound of high heels clicking away in the opposite direction.

Mrs. Rogow emerged again with only a slight flush to give away there had been an emotional conversation.

“Well! Well.” She smiled, shakily. “I suppose you and your daughter have the occasional heated words?”

Shaking her head, Mrs. Rogow passed the cookies again and said, “So you’ve found the skeleton my dear daughter wishes to put back in the closet, but really, it’s never been a secret. You found it yourself in the old papers.” She sighed. “No one cares any more, no matter what my daughter says. Only she cares.”

She looked directly into my eyes, unsmiling and intense. “So, young lady, when you write your report, I hope you will be kind to my Harry.” She had tears in her eyes when she added, “A man’s whole life doesn’t boil down to one bad period, or one bad decision either.”

Then she smiled suddenly. “And don’t forget to say that his loving widow puts out one fabulous lunch! In fact,” she added, “why don’t I wrap some of this for you to take home? I’ll whisk a few of these platters to the kitchen and be right back.”

She rode right over my protests with a firm, “It’s a shame for it to go to waste. You’ll take some of the cookies, of course, and the cake. I certainly don’t need it. And some fish too?”

Mrs. Rogow returned with her eye liner repaired and cheeks all rosy, carrying two large shopping bags. She walked me to the door. “So you’ll have what to eat when you come home from work or school. My pleasure! Now, young lady.” She patted my shoulder. “You keep in touch. I’d like to know what you do with all this.”

I walked to my car thinking about my house in those days. My take was a little different from Mrs. Rogow’s. In my imagination I was seeing a house full of life, full of young people, trying on new selves and new ideas. They wore hippie clothes, big striped bell-bottoms and those wild flowery shirts. And long print dresses. And music playing all the time. Jefferson Airplane and the Rolling Stones? Smoke and incense.

Just as I reached the car I was accosted by Ms. Petry, walking the only unfriendly Labrador I’ve ever seen. It snarled, she pulled it to a hard stop and said, “Don’t come back. Don’t call. And don’t write about my father.”

I slammed the car door and peeled out of the driveway, not stopping or slowing down until I was almost at the expressway entrance. Then I pulled over and sat in the car until I could stop shaking. When I did, I started laughing. Ms. Petry might be scary, but she also reminded me of a soap opera villainess. Any soap opera villainess. I couldn’t tell them apart but Chris sometimes watched. I wondered if Ms. Petry did too, and then I started laughing.

I needed to tell this story to someone who would both appreciate the absurdity and help me sort out the drama from the facts. I was on my way to Rick’s house to look for a photo, having done my duty to both my professional research and my personal mystery.

Now I was back to thinking about my lost friend. I so wanted him to be there at his house. We could have laughed about the absurdity and who better than a retired detective to sort things out?

Chapter Twelve

There were no cops in sight. The yellow police tape was gone. It had never really been a crime scene anyway. They had told me it—that event, Rick’s death—did not happen here. I could pull right into his driveway. Nothing was stopping me except my own second thoughts. Rick’s house without Rick.

I sat in the car wishing I had a partner in this, but I had insisted to my dad I could handle things, so now it was time to prove it. I gathered my purse, slammed the car door, squared my shoulders and marched right up to the house. I had a perfect right to be here.

I let myself into the kitchen and hit all the light switches at once. It didn’t add any cheer, it only made it easier to see how old-fashioned, shabby, and sad it was. I suspected Rick never used it for anything but a place to mix drinks.

I went on to the small dining room, crowded with a massive, darkly varnished dining room set, including a sideboard filled with rose-patterned china. The drawers below held ecru lace doilies and tablecloths. Surely none of this was Rick’s? Perhaps his mother’s?

Across the hall, a small living room was furnished with what looked like Sears Early American, 1955. Plaid upholstery and lamps with ducks on the shades. Bookcase shelves were packed with the distinctive jackets of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. Had Rick never changed a thing?

Rick had lived in a few places of his own, over the years, but at some point, as his mother aged and he was divorced, he moved back into his childhood home. He never invited us here. He always came to us, or we went out. Now I knew why.

I don’t believe in ghosts, not for a moment, but if I did, this place had a few, and they weren’t Rick.

Upstairs, I expected to find a rusty claw-footed tub in the one bathroom, but no, it was slickly tiled in black, with a big glass-doored shower and shiny chrome fittings. Ah, someone had gone for something like luxury here. Two of the small bedrooms were barely furnished and dusty, but a third had a desk, a computer, and a shredder. All the file drawers were open and empty. Oh, yes, the cops must have taken everything.

The biggest bedroom had a black and chrome, king-size bed with a down comforter and a lot of matching pillows. Track lighting. There was not a single photo on the dresser, or anywhere else, but there was a massive TV/VCR, and a sound system, with discs stacked in a special cabinet. It was very comfortable, in a bachelor pad sort of way. It was a little creepy to think of Rick like this, and yet comforting too, to see that he did take care of himself in the ways that mattered to him, in this dreary house. But there was no sense of him here, only a less chilly emptiness.

I opened some dresser drawers, by then not knowing what I was looking for anymore or even if I was only snooping. They held clothes, of course, in considerable disarray. Rick was a rather dapper dresser; I couldn’t see him treating his clothes so carelessly. The drawers had been searched too. Of course they had.

Rick, dammit, I thought. Why isn’t there anything of your life here? I thought of my own cheerfully cluttered house, and my parents. Darcy’s home, higher-style, but filled with art purchased on trips and vacation photos. My advisor’s, stacked with books and journals. This place was as personal as a hotel room.

Did the cops take it all? And why? Dammit again, Rick, what did you get into, and what have you gotten me into?

I was so lost in my thoughts I almost forgot that I was there to try to find a photo. Perhaps in the living room bookcases? It seemed he did not keep photos, but perhaps his mother did?

I finally found it way in the back of the empty hall closet, a dusty carton filled with pictures. There were tiny Kodaks of the New York World’s Fair of 1939; wedding portraits from the 1940s, with grooms in military uniform and brides in satin dresses; this very house looking brand new on a bare lot, and here, from perhaps 1970, was Rick in a blue uniform, handsome and spiffy. It looked like a graduation portrait and was exactly what I needed. And here were framed newspaper clippings, too, stories about Rick getting awards. No doubt about who collected them. Some had notes in perfect, Catholic-schoolgirl penmanship: “Ricky” and a date.

I left the house after making sure all the doors were locked. Outside I saw two teenaged boys across the street, hanging around with no apparent purpose, but looking furtive. They wore shorts hanging off their hips. One had no shirt at all, and blond dreadlocks. The other wore a sleeveless undershirt and a bright red Mohawk. Even from across the street I could see a dramatic tattoo crawling up his neck. Their whole style was meant to be intimidating, and it certainly worked on me. I knew they were up to mayhem when one shouted up the street, “Wait! Someone’s coming!’

Then, when I turned to prudently go back in the house he yelled, “Come on!” and a third boy came speeding around the corner on a skateboard.

I gasped in surprise but then I had an idea. I walked across the street, and said to the lookouts, “Nice moves! My daughter has tried it but she’s not as good as that. Is this a good street to practice? Maybe I should tell her.”

“Yeah, we’d show her moves,” the red Mohawk said. He actually sounded quite normal. “It’s not much of a challenge but there’s hardly any traffic so we practice here. You live around here?”

“No, I was only visiting.” By then his friend had come back up the street. “Do you?”

“Yeah,” blond dreads said, “Up there, last house. They just hang here.”

“Hmm. I wonder, did you ever know my friend, the man who lived in the house?”

“Rick?” They all laughed. “Sure we did. Great guy, drove a way cool car. Very cool friends too.” They laughed again and exchanged knowing glances.

I smiled at them. “He was like a member of my family.”

“Cool family, then.” They stopped grinning and one said, “We heard something real bad? Like he’s dead? The cops came to ask questions all up and down the block.”