Where It Hurts (18 page)

I’d made it about halfway when I heard Nardo scream, “Blood! Blood!”

I picked up the pace, forcing myself not to look behind me as I ran. My legs, especially my left one, felt like wet rope—thick, heavy, hard to flex. It seemed like minutes passed between the sounds of my footfalls. Each of my breaths was isolated, disconnected from the one coming and the one prior. Yet even as I foundered, I was amazed at the speed with which my mind burned through scenarios. As I negotiated the last twenty yards, through tiny valleys of junked cars and their parts, I looked for where I might escape the dogs if they got too close. I calculated how much speed it would cost me to stop pumping my arms and to grab the Glock out of my jacket pocket. I weighed the speed lost against the advantage of having the gun in hand. I heard their paws thumping behind me. Louder. Louder still. I looked back. Mistake. Big mistake. Because looking back slowed me down and because I saw only one of the dogs. I could feel the panic trying to impose itself on whatever calm and clear thought I was struggling to maintain. I shoved it back down.

I felt a sharp tug on my left pant leg and just about lost it. I jumped into a pile of discarded tires. The impact took some of the wind out of me and I no longer felt that tug on my pant leg. The brindle-coated pit
bull came skidding past me, its nails failing to grab on the concrete. He slammed into rows of more neatly stacked tires, which toppled over on him. He yelped in pain as he struggled to get out from under. I was only about ten yards from the office door and if I had any clue where the gray dog was, I might’ve risked it. But I didn’t know where he was, so I took the Glock out of my pocket, racked a bullet into the chamber, and fired two shots into a car door that was propped up against a wire bin. Those shots were plenty loud and they echoed around the yard. I meant them as a warning to Nardo that I would kill the dogs or him if I had to. He got the message.

“No. No!” he screamed, emerging through one of the narrow paths of parts. “Don’t shoot ’em. They’re only doin’ what they’re supposed to do. Don’t shoot ’em! I’ll get ’em. I’ll get ’em.”

Jabba heard the shots, too, and came hulking out of the office to see what all the commotion was about. He moved as deliberately as a man of his size would, each step seeming to take seconds of motor planning and a lot of energy. I got tired just watching him. I shouted to him to warn him about the dogs, but it was no good. Too late. The gray pit bull came out of nowhere and lunged at him. Jabba was bleating in panic, his forearm in the dog’s jaws. The dog was tearing at him with its full weight, violently yanking its head from side to side.

“Stay on your feet,” I yelled, running to help him. “Stay upright.”

But Nardo was already there, commanding the gray pit bull to release Jabba’s arm. The fat man’s shirt was soaked through with blood, and when he saw it, he fainted. He went down with a sickening thud as his head smacked against the broken concrete. Nardo was beside himself, screaming at the top of his lungs, not at the dog, but at Jabba.

“Stay the fuck in the office, you fat piece of shit! You know you ain’t supposed to come back here.”

I didn’t waste any more time. I ran. I don’t think I breathed again until I was driving down Deer Park Avenue, heading toward the LIE.

(THURSDAY, LATE AFTERNOON)

T
wo things happened after my audition as the mechanical rabbit at the dog track: I went into the hotel manager’s office at the Paragon and asked for my two-week vacation to begin immediately, and I called Al Roussis to ask for a meeting later that afternoon. The symmetry seemed perverse yet perfect, as we’d be getting together at roughly the same time Tommy Delcamino had been murdered the week before. Neither Kurt Bonacker, the hotel manager, nor Al Roussis was very pleased with my request, but both relented. Bonacker agreed but only if I could arrange for my shifts to be covered. That was easy enough. Between Fredo, who had a new baby on the way and was always looking for extra shifts, and our relief driver, it took me all of twenty minutes to make the arrangements. Covering my shifts at the Full Flaps was no sweat at all. There was an endless supply of retired cops looking to pick up two hundred bucks off the books for a night of checking IDs and checking out divorced women. Al Roussis, though unhappy, agreed without preconditions, which made me suspicious as hell. What made me even more suspicious was where he chose to meet.

Brady Park in Smithtown was across the street from Millers Pond, on the corner of Maple Avenue and Wildwood Lane. I knew it well,
had played basketball there as a kid and softball as part of a few different leagues. John Jr. had played some of his Little League games there, too. It didn’t hold any special significance to me, not like Vets Park, so I figured it must have held a special place in Al’s cosmology. His car was already in the empty L-shaped parking lot when I got there. He was parked nose out by the bench next to the main basketball court. In true cop tradition, I pulled up next to him, nose in, so we could talk through our rolled-down driver’s side windows. But when I rolled down my window, Al said, “Come on. Let’s walk. I feel like stretching my legs.”

I wasn’t going to argue with him. He didn’t say much and he had a kind of sad, wistful look on his face as we strolled through the parking lot, turning left at the corner of the L, heading toward the Little League baseball field that abutted Maple Avenue. It was a day and a place to be wistful and sad, I guess. There’s something particularly sad about empty places, and empty parks were especially sad. For me, anyway. Al, too, from the look of him. The sky was a steel gray, covered in a solid sheet of clouds. The air was moist and raw and smelled of composting, rotting leaves from the woods that surrounded the park on the south and west sides. At the boundary fence we could hear the plaintive honking of the geese and ducks from Millers Pond. The geese and ducks too sick or too old to make the flight south. The geese and ducks abandoned by the kids with their bags of Goldfish crackers and white bread, the kids who had gone back to school or grown beyond their fascination.

I was about to break the silence when Al said, “Do you think they know they’re doomed?”

“They?”

“The geese. Do you think they know this is it for them? You know, that they won’t see another spring?”

“I never thought about it, Al. I knew you were Greek, but I didn’t know you were a philosopher, too.”

He ignored that. “You know, where you’re standing is where they found her.”

“Found who?”

“She was under a pile of leaves, her tights ripped off and wrapped around her throat and stuff had been rammed in her—” He couldn’t finish his sentence.

“Who?”

“Alison St. Jean.”

He didn’t need to say another word. Alison St. Jean was a thirteen-year-old girl who had lived about two blocks away from Brady Park. On Halloween night 1987, she went out trick-or-treating with a group of friends, but she never came back. I couldn’t remember all of the details, but it turned out that a group of sixteen-year-old girls, two of whom lived on her block, had taken her bag of candy. When Alison, a willful girl by all accounts, said she would rat the older girls out, they murdered her and tried to make it look as if a man had sexually assaulted her. It was one of “those” cases, the kind that make the national news because the victim was white and pretty and young. Because there was a sexual element involved. Because the police got it wrong and then got it right. Because, because, because . . .

The thing was, neither Al Roussis nor I was on the job then and neither of us had any connection to the case. And it wasn’t like it was a case that haunted the SCPD. In spite of some early missteps, they got it right in the end. Justice was served as much as justice could be served in such a stupid and violent act. But I guess that when you were a homicide detective these were the types of cases that you couldn’t get out of your head, no matter if they involved you or not.

“Nightmare for the parents,” I said.

“Must have been. They still live there, you know?” He pointed back toward the entrance to the park. “And the girls, the girls who murdered her, their families still live there, too.”

“I didn’t know.”

“It’s crazy. Why do you think they killed her?”

I said, “You’re the homicide detective. I guess they panicked.”

“But the things they did.”

“We’re all still animals, Al. Animals with big brains. Doesn’t make us smart.”

He thought about that for a few seconds. Al was a man you could see think. “Does it still hurt you, Gus, what happened to John? I even find myself thinking about him sometimes.”

“Hurts like a motherfucker all the time, but you learn to live with it. I mean, I’m learning to live with it.”

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

“Is that why you came, because you feel bad about my son? Alvaro Peña as much as told me I was cancer and that word had come down from on high not to touch me with someone else’s ten-foot pole.”

He shrugged. “We’re friends and you were a good cop.”

I wasn’t going to argue the point. He was here. I changed subjects. “Any progress on Delcamino?”

“None. We got plenty of evidence, ballistics, but it doesn’t point anywhere at anyone. By the way, you can go collect your weapon. It’s been checked out and cleared.”

“Thanks.”

“So, Gus, now you wanna tell me why you wanted to meet?” He sounded more like his old self, more like a detective.

“Speaking of ballistics . . .”

That got his attention. “Yeah.”

“You said the gun that killed Delcamino was a .357 Magnum, correct?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, I was having a little powwow with Frankie Tacaspina Jr. this morning and—”

“And what were you doing talking to Frankie Tacos? Are you nuts?”

“Am I nuts? I think maybe I am. And you don’t wanna know what I was doing talking to him.”

“Okay, I’ll take your word for it. So what happened during this meeting that you want to tell me about?”

“Frankie Tacos knew TJ Delcamino. The kid was a car thief and used to do business with Frankie.”

Roussis shook his head at me. “Not my case, Gus. The father’s murder is my worry. Besides, I’m sure that even those two clowns, Carey and Paxson, know about the connection between Tacos and the kid.”

“But do you think they know that Frankie Tacos keeps a .357 Magnum in his desk drawer at Rusty’s Salvage Yard?”

Al squinted his eyes in interest. “How do you know he does?”

“He showed it to me this morning,” I said, smiling.

“Showed it to you?”

“In a manner of speaking, yeah. He showed it to me.”

Al flexed his fingers against the cold as he thought about it, huge puffs of steam coming out of his nostrils and mouth.

“You want to press charges, Gus?”

I shook my head. “I’m nuts, not suicidal. At least not anymore. I survived one run-in with the guy and I don’t wanna press my luck. Anyway, it would only be my word against his, and you know how that would go.”

“Then it’s going to be tough to get a warrant to look at the piece.”

“You were always a pretty creative guy, Al. Put that noodle of yours to work.”

He extended his right hand to me. “I appreciate the tip, Gus. How’s the leg wound?”

“Healing,” I said, shaking his hand.

I told him that I had to get going, that I was meeting Krissy for dinner. He said he was staying put and that he needed time alone to think.

“Why’d you pick to meet here?” I asked before he got into his car.

He answered only with a smile. I knew there was a message in his smile for me somewhere. What it was, I hadn’t a clue. And my cell phone didn’t give me much time to think about it.

“Yeah,” I said, picking up. “Gus Murphy.”

“Man, why you got to be botherin’ my girl for?”

It was Kareem Shivers. Although the question seemed almost whiny, there was nothing whiny about the tone of his voice. It was easy for me to picture his face, his dead-eyed stare.

“All I did was return your license, like I said I would.”

“Nah, man, you could have just put it in my mailbox. No need for you to bring up murder and shit. That wasn’t right.”

“Hey, K-Shivs, I don’t need to be lectured about right and wrong from you.”

But if I thought that was going to get a rise out of him, I was mistaken.

“There’s right and then there’s street right, Gus Murphy. Now we enemies, you and me.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open for Jamal and Antwone.”

“Only stupid fighters keep coming at you with the same approach, specially after they lost the first bout that way. That’s not my style.”

“I heard you were good.”

“Undefeated,” he said, the pride in his voice unmistakable.

“Short career, though. Heard about the cracked skull. Do me a favor, don’t dump my body by a Russian Orthodox church. I was born Catholic.”

He laughed like a shark would laugh if sharks laughed. “Like I say before, you got some balls on you, Gus. But I ain’t gonna come at you like that. You look out for Jamal and Antwone all you want. That jus’ make it easy for me.”

I pretended to ignore that. “Any luck finding what you were looking for?”

But he didn’t answer. He was already gone.

(THURSDAY, EARLY EVENING)

K
rissy had picked a new Chinese restaurant in Stony Brook. She looked healthier than she had only last week on the morning Pete McCann kicked her out of the Fourth Precinct lockup. She looked better than she had in months. Her face had some color in it and her eyes lacked the bloodshot red that had become so much a part of them since John’s death. She even looked as if she had taken off a pound or two. She seemed more like my daughter again. I laughed to myself, recalling how many times during our kids’ childhoods that Annie and I joked about how the alien pod people had come and replaced our sweet, beautiful, well-behaved girl and boy with evil duplicates. I suppose all parents go through some version of that. But the explanation of Krissy’s transformation had nothing to do with pod people. Her reasons were grounded in the most human of experiences.

We sat on opposite sides of the table, looking everywhere except at each other. We listened and watched as the nearby diners struggled to comprehend the waitress’s broken English. That distracted us for only so long. Then we finally had to speak.

“Where’d you find this place?” I asked, hoping to avoid the
minefield that had been our common ground over the last two years. I didn’t doubt that we’d end up there sooner or later. We always did.

“The newspaper.”

“You ever eat here before?”

“Once.”

“With Mom?”

She nodded, keeping her eyes on the menu. Great. It had taken all of thirty seconds for our conversation to degenerate from a two-word answer to one word to a nod of her head. She’d skipped right past grunts and sign language.

“C’mon, kiddo, give me a break here.”

She understood without me having to explain, but chose to avoid the minefield for now. “Their hot and sour soup is great. You wanna just let me order?”

“Sure.”

Well, that was progress. When the waitress came over, Krissy rattled off an order that I only half caught. I ordered a beer and waited to be surprised. Krissy ordered a Diet Coke.

“You don’t have to pretend around me,” I said. “You want a beer, have a beer.”

“I’m not drinking anymore, Dad, not for the time being. I don’t like how I get when I drink.” She smiled a beaming smile at me. “I’m back at the gym.”

I was glad and told her so, but I knew better than to strike up the band. She’d had too many shifts in behavior in the last few years for me to celebrate. She’d made similar pronouncements several times only to make immediate U-turns and stumble into her uncle’s house completely stoned or blotto. Then I’d get the call from Annie or, like the other night, Annie would just show up at work.

When the waitress brought our drinks, Krissy raised her glass and said, “To John.”

“To John,” I repeated, his name sticking in my throat.

We clinked bottle to glass and drank in silence.

“I’m trying to reregister for the spring term at Stony Brook,” she said, an anxious half-smile on her mouth.

My smile was a full one.

Was this, I wondered, what it was like coming out of a coma? Is that what Krissy, Annie, and I were doing? Were we coming around at last? Had enough time elapsed? Had we all finished acting out? Had we finally proved to ourselves and one another that no amount of pain or grief or self-flagellation or magical thinking or deals with God or guilt or fury would restore to us who we had lost? Was it okay to live again? Or was this another false start? A new rug to be pulled out from under us? I hoped not. I hoped it was real, but I knew hope was the meanest feeling humans were capable of. Nothing tortured you the way hope could. Nothing.

Krissy was right. The food was great. And though I didn’t dare say it aloud, I thought about bringing Casey here. The soup alone would have been worth it. I watched my daughter watching me enjoy the meal. She was so pleased to have been right. To have seen pride in my eyes for her again. She got a kick out of teaching me how to properly eat soup dumplings—dumplings with hot soup in them, not them in the hot soup. It seemed like a lifetime ago we laughed together over anything at all. I didn’t care that it was over my lack of skill with soup dumplings.

Then, when there was no food left, Krissy did the inevitable: she opened the gate to the minefield.

“Dad?”

I looked up and saw Krissy was no longer smiling.

“What’s up, kiddo? What’s wrong?”

“What’s going on with you and Mom?”

“Why?”

“Dad, we can’t keep answering each other with questions.”

“Why not?” I said, keeping a poker face.

She looked exasperated, but when I laughed at her, she laughed with me.

“It’s complicated with me and your mom. Maybe it always was
and I was too happy to realize it. I think we will always love each other in a way, but John’s dying . . . it took the soul out of us.”

“That’s not what I meant, Dad.”

“Tell me what you meant and I will give you as honest an answer as I can.”

Krissy didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she asked the waitress for the bill and when it came, she insisted on paying it. I didn’t fight her, but I left the tip.

“Okay, kiddo, stalling time is over.”

“Mom is seeing someone.”

The residual flavor of the food turned bitter in my mouth. I forced myself to smile, but it was no good. Krissy picked up on it. What Annie had done with Pete McCann was one thing. I hated it, but I understood it. Sleeping with him was like stepping on the third rail, a move guaranteed to be fatal to our marriage. But even after what had gone on between us this past weekend, the bitterness and the goodbyes, this was different somehow. This hurt because I guess I didn’t really believe Annie’s goodbyes or believe that she would want to be with someone else. It was idiotic to think that, I know. The crazy aspect of my reaction was that it felt like disloyalty. Disloyalty not to me. Disloyalty to John. How nuts is that? And since I’d just slept with Casey, the height of hypocrisy. Still, I was tired of beating myself up for the way I felt, so I let myself feel it.

“We’re divorced. Your mom has a right to be happy. Does he make her happy?”

“But you guys . . . I know that you two . . . you know what I mean.”

I knew.

“It’s complicated, Krissy. After John died, it was a way to grieve and to let go,” I said, reaching across the table and taking her hand. “It was all about pushing and pulling. We all went a little crazy there for a while. But your mom and me . . . it’s over, kiddo.”

Intellectually, she accepted it, but kids, no matter how old, never want their parents to split apart and stay apart. I told myself that no
matter how tempted I was to let her know about Casey, I didn’t want to add to her burden. And the truth was, I wanted Casey to be only mine for a little while, to see if there was anything really there. If Casey and I developed into a couple, then I would risk exposing her to my family. As far as I was concerned, those fireworks could wait.

“So who is he?”

“His name is Rob something. He and Mom used to date in high school and he found her on Facebook.”

I’d heard about Rob. Seen pictures of him in old photo albums. When they were younger, Rob had been on the wrong side of the love equation. He was the one who’d fallen more deeply. Never fun to be the one who’s more in love when things go south. I tried remembering his face, tried picturing how he might look now. But it didn’t matter what he looked like or even who he was. He wasn’t me and that was going to take some getting used to.

“Your mother is on Facebook?” I said to camouflage my feelings.

“Aren’t you even a little bit jealous?”

“Sure I am, but that doesn’t change anything.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you moving on?”

I let go of her hand and tousled her hair. “I sure hope so. Yeah, kiddo, I think so. I’d like to think that John would be happy for all of us.”

I could see her wheels churning, wondering if she should ask me to be more specific. Thankfully, she left it there.

“Come on, Dad, walk me out. I’ve got to get to the gym.”

Outside, a light mist was falling and it lent a softening blur to all the lights.

“Are you coming to Grandma’s for Christmas Eve?” she asked after I kissed her on the forehead.

“I haven’t thought about it. I haven’t shopped—”

“Please, Dad, for me.”

“But your mom will bring Rob and—”

“Just bring whoever you’re seeing,” she said, a smile flashing across her face. “And don’t even lie to me.”

“We’ll see.”

“Dad!”

“‘We’ll see’ is the best I can do.”

I watched her get into her car and drive away into the blur of headlights on Stony Brook Road. I was feeling a lot of things as I turned for my car, but mostly relief that Krissy seemed to be reclaiming her life. I wasn’t ready to proclaim it a done deal. I’d have to see where we all stood after the holidays. All in all, I was feeling okay. And one added benefit to where Krissy had taken me to dinner was the restaurant’s proximity to the Smith Haven Mall. If I was ever going to do Christmas shopping, this was it.