Fall Guy (8 page)

“Yes,” I said. “Cleaning his gun.”

He put two fingers to his lips.

“Did you hear the shot? I was wondering if anyone…”

He shook his head. “We were all closed in, the AC on, because of all the noise the evening before. We sleep in the front, so…” He shrugged his shoulders. “A waiter,” he said. “Look at me, at my age. Do you believe this? Well, I guess I'll see you again. Knock if there's anything you need. My career is calling. I hope you have a life outside of your job, Rachel. I hear that's a good idea.”

I lifted one hand in lieu of a comment, but he'd already turned and started walking toward that last door. I headed back inside, Dashiell following behind me.

I was sitting at O'Fallon's desk when his phone rang. I checked to see that the answering machine was on and let it ring through, absorbed in what I was doing and not thinking about the consequences of my act. And then there he was, as close to me as if he were whispering in my ear.

“O'Fallon,” the recording said. “State your business, leave your name and number, and I'll get back to you. If this can't wait, call my cell phone.” Figuring, they didn't have the number, it couldn't be all that important.

There was a moment of silence and then the caller hung up. I played the outgoing announcement twice more before opening the bottom drawer of the desk and checking the labels on each file. Like most people's paperwork, O'Fallon's was dead boring—a file for his checking account, his rent statements, one on his car, the insurance policy, tune-up records, title. There was a file with instructions for equipment, booklets on how to use a tape recorder, program a VCR, op
erate the radio I'd seen in the kitchen, change the bags on his vacuum cleaner, use the electric can opener. In another file, he had duplicates of his tax returns for the last three years. I pulled those out and the bank statements and put them in the briefcase to get them to the attorney. I took the last rent statement as well, thinking his rent alone was reason to live forever—the huge main room, a kitchen with a window, and the use of the garden, all for under a thousand dollars a month, a New York miracle. I pulled the folder on the car out and left it on top of the desk. I wondered if he parked it on the street, because if he did, it had probably been towed already. I made a note to ask Brody about the car. If it had been towed, maybe he'd be able to get it back for me without payment of the fine, over a hundred bucks for sure. I didn't know what Mary Margaret was getting—I had no idea, for example, if O'Fallon's death benefits could pass to a sister. But I wasn't anxious to use up any more of her money than I had to.

I picked up an old checkbook and leafed through the register. The car wouldn't have been towed. O'Fallon kept it in an outdoor lot two blocks from here on West and Jane.

Behind the car folder, there was a folder with photographs. I pulled that out and opened it on top of the desk. Same kids, same happy faces, same ages. Then, behind the pictures, a small white envelope with initials on it—RKA. My initials. I opened it and pulled out what was in it, another newspaper article. Dashiell appeared while I was reading and dropped his cement-
block head onto my lap. I was about to read it a second time when the phone started ringing again. This time, though, it wasn't O'Fallon's phone. It was my cell.

“Alexander.”

“Rachel? Is it you?”

“Maggie? Yes. I'm so glad you called.”

“Well, I was thinking. I ought to come into the city, help you with Tim's apartment. You shouldn't have to do all that hard work by yourself. The truth is, I still don't understand why you have to do it at all.”

“That makes two of us, but I sure would love the help, if you don't mind.” I picked up the keys that were on the side of the desk and flipped them into the palm of my hand. “When can you come?”

“Well, I was thinking Saturday. I can come early, spend the day.”

“Are you working every day before that?”

“I am,” she said.

“Night shift?”

“Evening. Four to midnight.”

I opened my hand and looked at the keys. “What about before that? I mean, suppose I came to talk to you tomorrow. I have so many questions.” I looked at the envelope, at my initials, RKA, on it. “Would that be okay? And then you can come in on Saturday and we can go over your brother's things, see what you'd like to have.”

There was silence on the line.

“Maggie?”

“Tomorrow would be fine. Come for lunch.”

“You don't have to bother with lunch. I just…”

“It's no bother at all.”

“Okay. And, Maggie? Just so it won't come as a shock when I arrive, I'm going to be driving your brother's car.”

“You have the address?”

“Yes. I have Tim's address book. I'll see you about twelve. Is that okay?”

“At twelve, then.”

“Oh, I nearly forgot to ask. Did you speak to Dennis? I assumed you would and I didn't call him back. And now I'm—”

“Yes. I told Dennis.”

“Will he want to come in as well?”

Maggie didn't answer but the line was still open.

“It doesn't matter. We can talk about that later.”

“He's a very busy man, Rachel. He runs a business that's open seven days a week. I'll pick some things for him myself, some remembrances. I'm sure he'd appreciate that.”

How odd, I thought afterward, that Dennis hadn't called about his brother, that he had no questions, no concerns. I looked down at the article again, well, the obituary. Maybe not so odd after all. Maybe Dennis O'Fallon had closed up shop years ago.

I got up and walked over to the bathroom, standing outside the closed door for a moment before reaching for the knob. Dashiell pushed his way in front of me. No way was he not getting in there first. I turned the knob, pushed the door open, reached in and turned on the light. Dashiell lifted his head and pulled in the scents.

In yet another surprise, the bathroom where Timothy O'Fallon had accidentally discharged his service revolver while cleaning it, fatally wounding himself, was immaculate. Was it because this was a fellow officer that the police had hired a cleaning service? Because that was not the usual procedure. Still, whatever the reason, I was grateful.

The toilet was across from the door, on the west
wall of the bathroom. The sink and small vanity were to the left of the toilet. And across the south wall was the tub, the shower curtain, a translucent blue, pulled closed, everything just so. The white tile floor was spotless, including the grout. Had there been a bath mat, there was none now. Nor were there any towels.

I bent and touched the floor. No telltale grit, traces of soap, grease, no anything but cool, clean tile. I wondered if they'd bleached the grout to get it so white. I stood, took a breath and pulled the curtain aside, exposing the bathtub and the tiled wall. There was a small, high window overlooking the garden to the left, and on the right side, where there should have been several shattered tiles, there was another surprise. Not only had the service done an astonishing job of cleaning the wall, someone had apparently replaced the damaged tiles as well. But as meticulous and skilled as they had been, I could easily see where the grout was new. Had I not seen the repair, I might have thought Detective O'Fallon had been cleaning a small-caliber gun and that therefore the bullet that did the fatal damage had never exited his body. I might have been convinced that, despite the odds, and despite his experience with firearms, Detective O'Fallon had had an unfortunate accident. Perhaps that had been the point of the careful cleanup. But, in fact, that's not what I thought, because the tiles that had been replaced were nowhere near where they would have been had the detective been sitting on the edge of the bathtub, as reported, cleaning his gun. In fact, the damaged area was exactly where it would have
been had a man of six feet one inch tall, the height recorded on O'Fallon's driver's license, held the barrel of a revolver to his right temple and squeezed the trigger.

Jin Mei had said she'd heard him crying. Had he been in the bathroom then, cradling his gun in his hands? Had he been crying in the shower to muffle the sound, afraid, even at the last minute, of seeming weak? Standing at the edge of the tub, looking at the tile wall, the sound of Dashiell's sniffing echoing in the small space, I felt the scenario changing before my eyes. He'd bought grief on the job for twenty-one years, then, for who knew how long, he took it into his private life, taking users off the street and trying to get them to turn their lives around. And he'd failed this time. He'd failed with Parker. How many other times had he failed? What made him keep trying?

His mother had been buried the day before, but grief was already running deep in the O'Fallon family—brother, cousin, father. All when he was not yet a man.

Had the burden gotten to be more than he could bear?

I thought of O'Fallon in the group where we met, stoic and silent. He had come, but he couldn't put his burden down. Now this. Had he killed himself in the shower to minimize the cleanup, to make it easier for whoever would find him, a stand-up guy right down the line?

I pulled the shower curtain closed and took a step back, nearly tripping over Dashiell. Suicide. That surely explained why Brody seemed anxious for me to relinquish my obligation; let the
cops take care of this, let it be recorded as an accident. But unless Detective O'Fallon was cleaning a water gun, no way would he have been standing in the shower when his gun accidentally discharged. And suicide would explain the brand-new will and the envelope with my initials on it. But it didn't explain what it was he wanted me to do. As far as that went, I still didn't know any more now than I did at first.

Suddenly I needed to be busy, to be soothed by work. I decided to do what I could before Maggie came—clean the kitchen, empty the closets, check the cabinets under the bookshelves. I was sure Maggie wouldn't want Tim's clothes, and the kitchen things looked ordinary and inexpensive. I could make things easier if I could figure out what belonged to Parker and pack those things for him, maybe avoid his coming here altogether.

There were two big closets that opened into the living room, dividing it from the back of the apartment. I thought I could start there, do something mindless while I let the new information gel. I opened the one on the right first. It was a deep closet, one rack in back of the other, everything in the back in garment bags. I figured that would be the winter clothes, the things in front for summer. Except for the coat that had been on the arm of the couch. That was now hanging among the lightweight clothing. I wondered if whoever had hung it up had paid any attention to which closet was Tim's and which was Parker's. I wondered if I would know whose things were whose, until I looked under the clothes, at the shoes. I took the clothes off their hangers and
carefully laid them on the couch. When the front was empty, except for the hangers swaying there like dancers at the end of a long marathon, I unzipped the garment bags and took out the woolen sport jackets, a navy-blue suit, sweaters in bags from the dry cleaner, folded over hangers waiting for their season to arrive again.

I pulled the shoes out, cop shoes, all of them, except for one pair of loafers. In the very back, there was some luggage. I thought I could pack up the clothes and put the suitcases back in the closet, see if Maggie wanted any of it for any reason. If not, they'd be ready to go to Housing Works. I wondered whether, if I waited until the end, they'd send a truck, take everything at once—the furniture, the pots and pans, even the books. It was the sort of recycling I thought Tim might have approved of: his things sold, the money used to help people with AIDS, people with nowhere else to turn. Not exactly what he'd been doing with men like Parker, but not entirely unrelated either.

I saved a cashmere sweater and a particularly beautiful scarf and set those aside for Maggie. I left the shelf—I'd need a ladder or a chair to reach the things up there—and started the second closet. As soon as I opened this one, I knew I was no longer in Kansas. There weren't as many clothes, but the ones there were seemed new. I thought about all those notations in Tim's checkbook. “For Parker.” Expensive sweaters and slacks, sandals, boots, the inside of the closet door plastered with pictures cut from magazines: horses running at full tilt, a skull and crossbones, pictures of rocks. But then I spot
ted the shelf. And now I didn't want to wait. I took one of the kitchen chairs, carried it over to the closet and climbed up. There were no clothes on this shelf. There was, instead, a sort of shrine, maybe one hundred tiny objects spread out in what seemed like, but I was sure wasn't, random order: the skulls of tiny creatures and the claws of others, bits of marble, like steles, standing between them; a tiny American flag; feathers, rocks and tiny figures, some human, some not, grouped together or standing singly, as if in prayer. There was hair there, too. I didn't know the nature of the creature it had come from. There were coins, some foreign, one gold. There were beads and thread and string that had unevenly placed knots in it, a woman's antique pearl ring. I ran my finger on the shelf between the objects. No dust. Someone took good care of his shrine.

I closed the closet door, trying to figure out if there was a way I could get Parker's things to him without having him come here. Things were starting to add up in a way that made me want to avoid him.

Of course, I could simply empty the second closet and pack it up. Even if everything in it wasn't his, I was sure he wouldn't refuse anything. Did I have an obligation to let him come and pick and choose what he wanted to take, even if some of what he picked and chose wasn't his in the first place? I thought of calling Brody, not to ask him to be here, but to ask him what he thought. Getting Brody to talk? That might be as easy as threading a rabbit through the eye of a needle. So I didn't call. I went back to work.