Long Bright River: A Novel (20 page)

I have to go to court the next morning to testify. The trial is for the domestic assault case from last week. Robert Mulvey, Jr., is the accused; it seems his wife has decided, despite her earlier reluctance, to press charges. Both Gloria Peters and I will be called to the witness stand.

It would be a routine case, and a routine day, except for the deep discomfort I experience each time I look at Mulvey. His gaze is unwavering and trained on me, and every time our eyes meet—always against my will—I know I recognize him. Again and again, I try to place him, but I can’t.

I don’t stay to see whether he’s convicted.

Back in my vehicle, I compulsively check the clock on my dashboard.

There are not many things I know about Connor McClatchie, but one of them is that at approximately 2:30 p.m. each day, he is at Mr. Wright’s store, shooting up and getting warm. Which means, of course, that he is out of the house at that time.

Don’t do anything stupid,
Truman said to me yesterday. But it isn’t stupid, I believe, to follow through on leads. In fact, it only seems reasonable.

It’s eleven a.m. now, which means I have several hours to go until I can safely conduct my own reconnaissance of the place. I do my best not to focus on the time. But I can’t help driving, twice, down the little street called Madison—not too many times, not enough to alert or
alarm anyone—and craning my neck to see down the alley that Truman described.

If the layout of Center City—all right angles and symmetry—is evidence of the staid and rational minds that planned Philadelphia, Kensington is evidence of what happens when intention is distorted by necessity. Here and there, the landscape is dotted with small parks, many of which are oddly shaped. Aside from the firm and upright line of Front Street, and the diagonal one of Kensington Ave, the rest of Kensington’s streets are all vaguely askew, tilted just slightly off the firm equator of Center City streets like Vine and Market and South. Kensington’s streets start and stop without warning; they go from one to two lanes with equal abruptness. Madison is different than East Madison; West Susquehanna runs unapologetically below East Cumberland. Most of the small streets in Kensington are residential; on them, brick and stucco-fronted rowhomes stand shoulder to shoulder, except where they have been demolished, leaving behind empty lots that look to me like missing teeth. Some blocks are relatively well kept, and harbor only one or two abandoned, shuttered homes. Other blocks have been ravaged by the misfortunes of their residents; on these blocks, nearly every house looks empty.

Many of Kensington’s side streets are intersected by even smaller alleys, which themselves are lined by the rears of houses that look as if they’re angry with the passerby, have turned their backs in a huff. These alleys are generally not passable by cars.

It is down one such alley that I now peer, searching for the house with three Bs on it that Truman described.

But if there is such a house, it’s not visible from where I am.

When the time draws near, I park my assigned vehicle and enter Alonzo’s shop. He looks up and, judging correctly that I’m not there to purchase a coffee, points wordlessly to the closet where he’s keeping my change of clothes.

—Thank you, Alonzo, I say to him, and go into the bathroom, and
then, with as much dignity as I can muster, reemerge clad in my black, overlarge sweatpants and T-shirt.

I say nothing. Only nod, and place my uniform and its bag back on the shelf, and then disappear out the door. This time, I leave my radio and my weapon with it. I have no way to invisibly holster it under my civilian clothes.

I jog to Madison. It helps to keep me warm. I check my watch: 2:30 exactly.

I slow my pace to a walk as I turn onto the street, and then down the alley that runs perpendicular to it. I try, and most likely fail, to look casual.

There it is, all the way at the end: the back of the house in question. White siding. Three Bs spray-painted onto a board over one of the two back windows. One large, rotting piece of plywood over the place where a back door would formerly have been. It looks like it would be easy to push it to the side, and I imagine that this is how its temporary residents make their way in and out.

I put my face up next to the board that covers the window, try in vain to peer inside through a crack, but the interior is too dark for me to see much. I hesitate for a moment, and then I knock rapidly on the board that covers the door. If Dock answers, I’m not sure what I’ll do.

I wait for a while. And then a while longer. I knock again. Nobody answers.

Eventually, I push the plywood covering aside, and, tentatively, I step inside.

Upon entry, I am met with the familiar smell of all such houses, and the deep chill of a shadowy structure in winter. Interior cold, I think, is even bitterer than the cold of the outdoors. No sunlight penetrates the inside of these abandoned homes, not boarded up as they are. The air is still and brutal, like the inside of a freezer.

I take two steps and wait while my eyes adjust. The floorboards creak precariously. I am afraid, in fact, of stepping on the wrong one—or an absent one—and being summarily deposited into the basement.

I wish I had my duty belt, if only so that I had access to my flashlight. Instead, I palm my cell phone and turn on its flashlight application.

I swing it around, shining it toward all four corners of the room I’m standing in. I realize, as I do, that I’m expecting to see human bodies: lifeless ones or living ones, I can’t be sure. But I see neither. Only a few mattresses on the floor, heaped with cardboard and trash bags and blankets, and some piles of fabric—clothing, most likely—and other objects I can’t identify. This abando appears to be, at least for the moment, actually abandoned.

I think of Truman’s description of his encounter with Dock, and recall his saying that, at one point, it sounded like Dock disappeared upstairs. But I don’t see a staircase. Not immediately, anyway.

I inch forward and shine my phone toward the front of the house, across from where I entered. I see a front door and a small threshold cut into a wall that ends before a foyer. The staircase, I realize, must be on the other side of that wall.

My eyes have finally adjusted enough for me to walk more confidently, and suddenly I am propelled forward by a new sense of urgency. Get in, I think, and get out.

I mount the staircase quickly, stepping over a few rotten steps as I go, holding the rough banister in my left hand.

When I reach the top, I see a human face staring back at me, wide-eyed.

I drop my phone with a clatter and realize, at the same time, that the face is my own, reflected back to me in a mirror mounted to the wall.

Shakily, I retrieve the phone and begin the old familiar routine of peering into doorways in search of my sister.

I realize that I’m sniffing the air for signs of decaying bodies. It’s not a smell one readily forgets. But although the house smells awful, I am grateful to observe that it lacks the distinct and nauseating scent of human death.

A bathroom is missing both its toilet and its tub: there are gaping holes in the floor where both used to be.

A bedroom contains an old sofa, a bunch of magazines, and some used condoms on the floor.

In another, there’s a bare mattress on the floor and a chalkboard on the wall, bold markings on it in a childish hand. The windows on the upstairs rooms aren’t boarded, and in the daylight they let in I can make out what the artist has depicted: a sort of skyline, a city of tall buildings with innumerable windows represented by tiny dots. I gaze at it, wondering whether the drawing was created before the house’s abandonment, or whether a child might more recently have drawn it. There are three stubby pieces of chalk on the wooden rail beneath it, and I can’t resist: I reach for one and make a tiny, inconspicuous mark in the right-hand corner. It’s been years since I drew on slate.

I’m just returning the chalk to its groove when I hear someone enter the house below.

I flinch. And the chalk makes a slow arc from the rail to the floor, landing with an unmistakable clack.

Who’s up there, the person says. A man.

Wildly, I eye the nearest window. How badly injured would I be, I wonder, if I opened it and dropped down to the ground from the second floor?

Before I can decide, I hear loud footsteps pounding up the staircase, and I freeze.

I wish I had my weapon now.

I keep my hands visible. I clear my throat, prepared to speak.

The person pauses on the landing at the top of the stairs. When I entered this bedroom, I closed the door behind me, but didn’t latch it. I can almost taste my heart as it hammers in my chest. It feels abnormally high inside me, as if it’s trying to escape up through my throat.

The bedroom door opens with a bang. Someone has kicked it open.

At first I don’t recognize him.

He’s been very badly beaten. His right eye is swollen completely shut. It’s black and green. His nose looks out of joint. His ear, too, is swollen, as is his upper lip.

But his haircut is familiar, as is his orange jacket.

—Dock? I say.

I’m shivering now. My knees are knocking. Perversely, I’m embarrassed. It’s cold in here, I want to say. I’m shaking because I’m cold.

—What the fuck are you doing here, he says.

—Looking for you, I say.

I’m improvising.

He takes one step forward, slowly.

—How did you find me, he says.

—I asked around, I say. You know. I know people out here.

He gives out a sound that’s like a laugh, but painful. He puts a hand to his side. I wonder if his ribs are broken.

—What are you carrying? he says.

I hesitate, just for a minute. There’s a very, very small chance that I might convince him I’m armed. And that this might let me make my escape. But I don’t know if he is, and therefore it might be foolish to bluff.

—Nothing, I say.

—Raise your hands, he says.

When I’ve done so, he comes toward me and lifts up my shirt. Then looks down the waistband of my pants. He places his hands all over me. I stand there, feeling helpless.

—I should kill you, he says softly.

—I’m sorry? I say.

—I should kill you, he says, for what your family did to me.

I go very still.

—I don’t understand, I say.

—
I don’t understand,
says Dock, mockingly. Imitating me.

—One thing Kacey always talked about, he says, is how smart you were. She might have been mad at you. But the way she talked about you, you would have thought you were Alfred Einstein.

I look down at the floor. I stay silent. But it takes all of my strength not to say,
Albert.

—So I’m not sure I believe you, Dock continues, when you say you don’t understand.

I keep my eyes on the floor. I am trying to be as unchallenging as possible. One thing they taught us in the police academy that I have found useful, actually, is how to use your body to convey what you cannot say with your words alone.

Dock points to his face. Look up, he says. Look at me. This wasn’t a fair fight, he says. Does this look like a fair fight to you? If you see Bobby O’Brien, you should tell him to watch his back.

Bobby.

I close my eyes. Remember the strange look that passed over his face, upon learning Dock’s name at Thanksgiving.

—I apologize sincerely if my cousin did that, I say. You should know that I rarely talk to him. We aren’t close.

He scoffs. Right, he says.

—We’re not, I say. If he did that to you, he did it on his own. I had nothing to do with it.

Dock pauses, assessing me.

He shifts a little. Scratches his head.

—Why do I believe you? he says at last. It’s weird, but I believe you.

—That’s good, I say, lifting my head just a little. Glancing up. Then lowering it again.

—Huh, he says, as if surprised.

—Still, he says, you tell him that if you see him. Tell him not to come around the Ave. There are a lot of people here on my side of things.

—I’ll convey the message, I say.

He laughs again. Then grimaces. Put your hands down, he says. Your arms must be getting tired.

—What
are
you doing here, he says.

—Looking for Kacey, I say.

I’ve run out of reasons to lie.

He nods. You love her? he says.

I stiffen.

—She’s my sister, I say, carefully. And she’s also a citizen of the district I patrol.

Dock laughs again, a little. You’re weird, he says.

Then he says, Listen. Get out of here. I don’t know where she is. I’m telling you the truth.

—All right, I say. Thank you.

I don’t know if he is. I do know I want to leave unharmed. I can still feel his hands on my body. It gives me a crawling feeling, the need to get into a shower.

Before he can change his mind, I walk toward the door and into the hallway. But as I’m about to descend the stairs, he calls out again.

—Mickey, he says.

Slowly, I turn around. Dock is backlit now, framed by the window, a shadow. I can’t see his expression.

—You should be more careful, he says. You’ve got a son to think about.

My muscles tense, as if preparing for a fight.

—What did you say? I say, slowly.

—I said you’ve got a son, he says. Thomas, right?

Then he sits down on the mattress in the corner and lowers himself painfully until he is prone.

—That’s all, he says.

He closes his eyes.

I leave.

Dock’s voice as he said my son’s name, Thomas, echoes in my ears. If it was meant to be a threat, it worked.

I sit in my car, contemplating my next move. It’s obvious, I think, that if my cousin Bobby is the perpetrator of the attack on Dock, then he knows more than he was letting on at Thanksgiving. And yet it’s also obvious that he’s not prepared to tell me any of it.

My only chance, I think, is to surprise him in some way, or get information about him secondhand.

Without much optimism, I text my cousin Ashley.

Do you know where Bobby’s living these days?

While I wait for her to respond, I call Truman. He answers right away.

—Mickey, he says, when I’ve finished talking. I can’t believe you. What were you thinking.

I feel myself growing stubborn.

—Truman, I say, I was simply relying on the evidence I was given to make an informed decision. I knew he’d be out of that house at two-thirty. I knew the house needed to be searched for clues to Kacey’s whereabouts. So I made the decision to do it.

Over the phone, I can almost hear Truman shaking his head. Putting his hands to his temples.

—No, Mick, he says. That’s not how things work. You could have gotten killed. You understand?

Hearing Truman say it this way, so bluntly, I falter.

—Listen, he says. You’re in over your head. Both of us are. Did you even report her missing yet?

I hesitate. I tried, I say. I tried to tell Ahearn. He was busy.

—Then tell a detective, says Truman. A real one. Not us. Tell DiPaolo.

My resistance to the idea increases with every appeal Truman makes to me. I can’t put my finger on why, but distantly a bell is sounding in my brain, and if I could just get Truman to stop talking, perhaps I could hear it.

—Mickey, Truman says, you’ve got to get serious, now. This guy knows about Thomas. He used Thomas’s name. No more messing around.

Finally, the reason for my reluctance presents itself to me. I picture Paula Mulroney’s incredulous face as she said to me the words that have haunted me since I heard them.
That’s one of your guys,
she said. Your guys. Your guys. Then I picture Ahearn as he received this information. How quickly he shoved it aside.

There it is, at last. The reason I haven’t told my colleagues about my sister’s disappearance: I am not certain, anymore, that I can trust them.

Truman has gone silent. I’ve gone silent. The only sound between us is our breath.

—Hey, he says finally. You might not give a shit about your own life. But Thomas does. And I do.

Reflexively, my face reddens. I am unused to such direct statements from Truman.

—Are you hearing me? says Truman.

I nod. Then, remembering that I’m on the telephone, I clear my throat, and say, I am.

After I’ve hung up, my phone dings once.

A text from Ashley.

Nope.

At home tonight, I spend an extra half hour reading to Thomas on the sofa. I listen to him tell me the small tribulations and successes of his day. I count with him as we name the days until his birthday celebration, happy to know there is something in his life he is looking forward to.