Blood Ties (18 page)

“Let him talk to us, Macpherson,” Sullivan said.

Macpherson fixed Sullivan with a look that would have chilled a colder night than this. “Randy,” he said, “don't say a word. I'm calling Erickson. My lawyer,” he said pointedly to Sullivan.

Macpherson turned from the rest of us, took out a cell phone. Sullivan nodded to the Plaindale cop, who put his gun away, handcuffed Randy, recited his rights as he led him to the patrol car.

“I don't have a warrant for you,” Sullivan said to me, “but I don't need one. Obstruction of justice. Hamlin'll probably go for trespassing if I ask him to. What the hell is your problem, Smith? Am I hard to understand?”

“I was leaving,” I said. “I saw Macpherson coming back. I wanted to talk to Randy and I knew you did, too.”

In Sullivan's long silence the door on the Plaindale car slammed behind Randy. Burke shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Sullivan stared out over the high sodium lights lining the driveway to Hamlin's.

“Plaindale's pissed off already, the overtime they're going to have to pay to process the six kids I'm pulling out of here,” he said to me. “You have a good lawyer, would spring you if I took you in?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “I figured. Macpherson! Back your car up. Now! Smith, get the hell out of here. And Smith: no more warnings.”

“I get it,” I said. “I'm gone. But can I ask you something?”

“Goddammit—” he started, then took a breath. “What?”

“Before you got here, Macpherson said to Randy, ‘They're trying to do to you what they did to me.' Do you know what that means?”

At first he didn't answer, and I thought he might not, just tell me again to get the hell gone. But finally he said, “Twenty-three years ago, the hero linebacker they arrested for the rape? It was him.”

He turned, headed for his car. Macpherson did the same, and I did, too. A little jockeying got me rolling down the driveway, toward the road. The police cars, red and blue lights circling, headed the other way, to collect five more boys from football camp and take them to jail.

ten

From the expressway, driving toward New York, I called Lydia.

“Anything?” I asked.

“No. You? Was I right? Did Mr. Macpherson come back?”

“Of course you were right. When were you ever not right?”

“What happened?”

“He threatened to kill me and sue me and Sullivan threatened to arrest me.”

“He was there too?”

“He got his warrants.”

“Why didn't they? Kill you and sue you and arrest you?”

“He didn't kill me because he's rusty and his timing's off. He probably will sue me. And Sullivan didn't arrest me because he's out of his jurisdiction and he's making enough trouble for the locals as it is.”

I told Lydia about my roadblock, the abbreviated fight, the arrival of the police. “It's going to be a long night in Plaindale,” I said.

“Will Detective Sullivan tell you if any of them knows anything?”

“Right now I don't think he'd tell me if they knew there was a bomb under my bed.”

“I wonder what they do know,” Lydia said. “I wonder if any of them know anything about Gary.” Her voice was soft. I realized that the one piece of good news from this night was something she hadn't heard yet.

“I do,” I said. “It looks like he wasn't there.” I told her what Sullivan had said, and Stacie Phillips.

“Oh, Bill,” she said. “Oh, that's great.”

“Well, it's looking better,” I admitted. “But he's still in trouble, and he's still missing. Listen, have you had dinner?”

“No.”

“Want to meet me at Shorty's? I should be there in half an hour.”

“Sounds good.”

It did sound good. I folded the phone and put it away. Hands light on the wheel, I drove easily and fast, threading through the traffic, timing my moves to the speed of the cars around me, pulling away, cutting around. We wove a pattern, all working toward the same goal, though not known to one another. I listened to the Bach the whole way back to the city.

Almost there, I pulled a card from my pocket, made one more call.

“Stacie Phillips.”

“Stacie, Bill Smith.”

“You found him?”

“No. I want a favor.”

“Ah,” she said. “But what do I get?”

“Who taught you to think like that?”

“It's just something I heard.”

“Okay,” I said, “Point taken. And I don't know. But something interesting's come up. It might not mean anything. But I need it checked out.”

“I thought detectives checked things out themselves.”

“Actually, we call people. Sources.”

“It may be a conflict of interest for a reporter to be a source.”

“It'll broaden your base of experience to see how the other half lives.”

“Yeah, right. So if I said yes, what would I be saying yes to?”

“You have access to the
Tri-Town Gazette
morgue?”

“Of course I do. What's in there you want?”

“Warrenstown's big scandal. The rape and suicide? I want to know who, what, where, when, why.”

“That was before I was born,” she pointed out.

“I know. And though nothing important could possibly have happened that long ago, still, humor me?”

“You better call me when you find Gary.”

“You're on my speed-dial. Look, I'm heading into the tunnel. Fax me whatever you find.”

I cruised into Manhattan, stashed the car in the lot I use and got to Shorty's before Lydia did.

I pushed through the etched glass doors, glad for the warmth, the quiet sounds, the welcoming smells of food and liquor. The bar was in the back and Shorty O'Donnell, as usual, was behind it; also as usual, he was watching the door, watching the whole place, everyone's moves, though you'd never see him do it. I made my way back there, exchanging nods, hellos, wisecracks with the other regulars. I'd lived two floors above this bar for sixteen years. Shorty had owned the building and the bar twice as long as that, and almost nothing had changed over those years: the green glass shades on the lamps, the faded prints of New York and of Ireland in equal numbers on the walls, the smell of burgers and beer. The conversations were the same, too, the quiet talk of men who knew each other, maybe not well, but long, who came here as much for the talk as the beer, to discuss the Yankees' chances this season, or the Giants' or the Knicks', and agree the mayor was a bum, every season, every year.

I looked around for Lydia, didn't see her, slipped onto a bar stool. Shorty pulled the Maker's Mark from the shelf, dropped ice in a glass, poured me a shot. He asked, “What's wrong?”

I sipped at the bourbon, looked up, was about to say something noncommittal, Just tired I guess, nothing's wrong, what's new with you? But I saw his face, creased now but smooth when I'd met him; his bristling eyebrows, gray where they used to be black; his dark eyes waiting. Shorty and his buddies: These men had known me since I was fifteen. Friends of my uncle Dave's, they'd been on my side, and had stayed there, though I hadn't been an easy kid to like. One or two of them, cops like Dave, had even arrested me in those years, but because Dave had never given up on me, they hadn't, either, cutting me every break they could, trying to help Dave, trying, in their ways, to help me. I'd never said thanks and I probably never would, but I couldn't look Shorty in the eye tonight and lie to him.

“Trouble,” I said, lighting a cigarette. “I'm meeting Lydia, but I'll tell you about it later, if you have time.”

He nodded. “Anything I can do?”

“I'm not sure.”

He nodded again, went down the bar to pour someone else's drink. The etched-glass doors opened once more, and this time it was Lydia.

She got some looks as she walked through the bar, and some greetings from some of the regulars. She'd been meeting me here on and off over the last couple years, enough that she was part of the crowd now, someone the regulars would look out for, ask about if she hadn't been seen in a while. I got looks, too, every time she walked in, knowing ones from people who didn't know what they thought they did.

I stepped down from the bar stool, went to meet her, kissed her. Her skin was cold from the night air, but though our kiss was brief her lips warmed to it.

We separated; she waved to Shorty and slid into a booth. I put my drink on the scarred tabletop, sat down across from her.

“Still nothing?” I asked.

“I'm sorry.”

I shook my head. “Not your fault.”

“We'll find him.”

I drank some bourbon, tried to believe what she'd said. I wondered, suddenly, when she'd lose that, the optimism with which she approached everything, the cheerfulness, the hope. It would be a shame, when she did.

I put down my bourbon, said, “I learned something interesting.” I was about to tell her what when we were interrupted by Caitlin, Shorty's new waitress. She brought Lydia a seltzer with three limes Shorty had sent over from the bar, setting it down carefully, on its Guinness coaster, along with two sets of cutlery wrapped in napkins, one by Lydia's left hand, one by mine. Young and still learning the job, Caitlin was, wanting to make a success of it. We ordered dinner—a bacon burger for me, a Caesar salad for Lydia—and when Caitlin left, I went on.

“I told you about the rape and suicide in Warrenstown, years ago?”

She nodded.

“Well, Randy Macpherson's father was the football hero they accused, arrested, then let go after the other kid shot himself.”

“This would be the Macpherson who's going to kill you and sue you?”

“That Macpherson, yes.”

“He sounds dangerous.”

“Well, except it seems he didn't do it. It might be why he's been in such a lousy mood all these years, though. It could explain why he exploded at the idea of someone thinking his son had been involved in a crime.”

“Does that need an explanation?”

I took out a cigarette, looked at her as I put a match to it. “No,” I said. “No, I guess not.” I drank more bourbon, felt it start to work, felt that distance begin, that slight separation between you and everything else that drink can give you.

“Anyway,” I said, “I asked Stacie Phillips—that kid from the paper—to fax me whatever she could dig up on it.”

“What are you looking for?”

“I don't know. Maybe nothing. Maybe I just don't like Macpherson and I'd like to have something on him.”

“But if he didn't do it, then there's nothing to have.”

“Maybe I just want to see what it was about. Or maybe,” I said, “maybe I'm just mad and I want to hit something.”

Her black eyes met mine, and held them. Sounds in the room faded. I had my drink in one hand and my cigarette in the other and I didn't want either of them.

Then Lydia smiled. Shorty put a Sinatra CD on, someone left the bar and someone came in, and everything was as it always was.

For a while we didn't speak, just sat together in this place I knew as well as the place where I lived, this place Lydia was coming to know, too. Caitlin brought our dinner, and either Shorty's food, always good, was better than usual, or the cheese Danish on the road in front of Hamlin's hadn't done much for me.

“You never ran into my brother-in-law,” I said to Lydia, finally finished, rescuing a last fry as Caitlin came to take away our plates.

“We crossed paths. I told you. Some of the places I went, they already had pictures. I—” We were interrupted by the ringing of her cell phone.

She answered in both languages, listened, asked where and when, took out a pen and wrote on a napkin. She thanked the caller, flipped the phone shut.

“It's someone who thinks she saw Gary,” she said.

Her phone's ring had silenced all other sounds in the room, for me. “When? Where?”

“Queens, this afternoon. A volunteer for One to One. One of those charities that have outreach vans for street kids? She was parked with her van near the Queens Plaza subway stop, but she didn't see Gary's picture until she got back to One to One's headquarters just now. He was okay,” she said, heading off my question. “He was hungry, she gave him a couple of sandwiches, but he wouldn't stay around. He acted nervous, she said, kept looking around as though he was looking for someone. But he seemed okay.”

“This afternoon? Goddammit—” I stopped myself, tried to take control as the heat flooded my face and my shoulders tightened. “I'm sorry,” I said to Lydia. “I just—let's go.”

She sat for a moment longer than I did, searched my face with her dark eyes. Then she nodded and stood. I waved to Shorty, pointed to our table so he'd know to put dinner on my tab. He sent a question in his look; I shrugged, shook my head. I dropped some bills for Caitlin, hurried through the room to the chill of the night.

The drive to Queens was short, not a lot of traffic at this hour. I took the bridge and Lydia didn't say anything until we were on it, rolling a little too fast out of Manhattan, across the river.

“Bill?”

I glanced over, saw her looking at me, the skyline and the dark water behind her.

“You have to get a better grip,” she said. “I know it's important. I know there's more to it than I know about. But if you lose it, you're going to make it worse.”

I looked at her again, then back at the road. I nodded, said nothing. Downshifting, I pulled out to pass, pulled back in right after I'd done it. I lit a cigarette. Lydia rolled her window down and didn't speak again.