Brooklyn Bones (31 page)

This was all too much for me to process.

“Hey! Come back to earth. I’m starving. Aren’t you? You have a hungry child to feed.”

“What do you want? Our kitchen isn’t quite ready to use.”

“I’ve been at a healthy camp
forever
. I need grease!”

I had to laugh. “Fortunately the neighborhood still has a few greasy spoons. Bacon and eggs? Or a burger and a mountain of fries?”

“Oh, heaven. Both, please!”

She asked me about our lost girl as we walked to the coffee shop, and I told her about my meetings with Leary, omitting the recent events. “I haven’t gotten any further than that. And please don’t fuss at me about it. I have had a few other things to deal with. Way too many other things. And finding anything on our own was always a long shot.”

“I know, but I haven’t forgotten her. Maybe I’ll call those detectives while I’m home?”

“And you can look at the files Leary gave me, if you want to. They’re in your room.”

We had a meal with no redeeming nutritional value whatsoever, and a slow meander home. Chris ran into a gaggle of her friends and they greeted each other with screams and hugs and several minutes of breathless catching up. I tried to drift off, and not seem to be listening, but I caught an involved anecdote that either described the complicated love life of their most advanced friend, or the current storyline on a favorite vampire soap opera.

After they moved on, we made a quick stop at the corner grocery to stock milk, juice, and soda. The refrigerator was working, so we could get some basics.

We ran into Mary in the dairy section. She was muttering to herself and making heavy work out of selecting a single container of yogurt. She saw us and looked confused for moment. Then her mind seemed to clear, and she said, “Ah you have your sweet girl home with you.”

“Visiting from camp.”

She put her hand on my arm. “They grow up when we’re not looking, don’t they? That’s what happens with little girls, right behind our backs. My little girl learned water safety at camp. That’s what they called it.”

She turned back to Chris and stepped closer, peering at her. “You have my girl’s same pretty hair. Ah, nice necklace.” She reached her hand out and tapped it and Chris moved back, alarmed. “She had one like that, that Egyptian thing you have.”

Chris mumbled something but Mary, absorbed again in her yogurt selection, did not notice. We left that aisle, made our purchases and turned toward home.

“Where did that interesting necklace come from? Did you make it too?” I was making friendly conversation.

“A friend. It came from a friend.” She snapped it out, and then didn’t say another word all the way home. In the house, she said, “Mom, do you have to know absolutely everything?” and stomped straight up to her room.

I didn’t understand what had just happened. We were fine a few minutes ago, just like old times. Maybe the necklace involved a boy, and she wasn’t ready to tell me about it. I repressed my desire to snap back. I reminded myself teens are all moods all the time. I reminded myself of Darcy’s mantra for parents of teenagers. “Whatever it is, it will pass. Probably in the next sixty seconds.”

And her sulking at least allowed me to listen to my phone messages in privacy. Steven had left two. I hardened my heart and erased them both.

When I went up later, she was sitting on her bed, surrounded by Leary’s files and so absorbed by the stories she could barely look up at me. Or maybe she didn’t want to. She responded to my presence with a grunt and went back to reading.

Oh, well, I thought. It’s late; this day has been a lot for both of us.

“I’m turning in soon, and I suggest you do the same. Joe’s crew will be here at 8:00.”

Another grunt, then, as I was leaving, she said, “What if she was one of these kids? What if?”

“She could certainly have been someone like them, a lost runaway. I suppose that’s why Leary gave me the files. It would explain a lot, but I don’t know how we’ll ever know for sure, unless those cold case detectives turn out both to be geniuses and to have second sight.”

She moved the files to the foot of her bed, and got up to comb her hair. “Guess I have to give it up for now. Maybe she’ll tell me herself, if I fall asleep thinking about her tonight?”

“You mean like in a dream?”

“I don’t know. For now, I’m going to meet my girls, the ones who are home. See you later. Might even stay over with Stacy.”

“Call me to say. You have your keys?”

“Mo-om! I’ve only been at camp, I haven’t had brain damage.”

Whatever. Sunny Chris had visited a few hours. It was nice while it lasted. Now she was back to teen brat. I could go back to work and not even miss her. I told myself that.

I opened up the file from Rosemarie at the Dock Storage, opened up a spreadsheet on my computer and went to work. Dry as each document was in itself, they added up to something, a portrait of my own changing block in real time.

It was an unstable era, at least for rental buildings. People moved in and out constantly. The ethnicity of the names shifted from mostly Irish to almost anything. Low-end businesses also went in and out: corner grocers, candy and news shops, cheap lingerie. Buildings deteriorated but I didn’t see bills for thorough renovations, just stopgap repairs. The documents were arranged by year, and then by property, so I had to do some digging to find my own house. It was not the only address that interested me. My job was to look at everything and add it all up but my desire was to find my own house’s history and show it to Chris tomorrow.

I spread the house papers out, year by year. There were multiple leases for some years, as people moved in and out. There were group leases with multiple names. I made a list and then I could see more clearly how often the tenants seemed to come and go. Was anyone there for any extended time, and could I find such a person? I tried a few of the names with the phone directory, but no luck. I hadn’t expected to but one can always hope for a miracle.

As the hour got late, and my eyes got tired, I began to feel it didn’t, after all, add up to a damn thing. And then it did. I looked at one name again. And again. And then I went scrambling through my piles of papers. That glossy, gossipy magazine article about James? Where was it?

It confirmed what I thought I remembered and could not believe. One of the names on the lease was James’ first wife, the mother of his only child. I read it again, compared the spelling, and read the article again while my stomach twisted into knots.

And then I dug out the Pastores’ old photo of the house with the crowd of young people hanging out on the steps. I used the powerful reading glass I had borrowed from Leary, and looked closely at all of them. I saw the girl in flowing prairie dress and long African earrings, who Leary told me was the very young Brenda Rogow. And the boy with the silky hair over his shoulders and the sly grin, holding up a pipe. He had James’ face, and Steven’s.

I put my hand out to call Steven. When I jerked it back I saw that it was shaking. What was I doing? I no longer knew who Steven was, if I ever had. Smart and fun and attractive, yes. A thoughtful date, yes. It had been—what, exactly? A beginning, that’s all. Why on earth was I calling him right now?

Because I wanted to have him tell me there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything. And because I also wanted to yell at him, to ask if he had been lying about everything, was there a deep game here I was unable to comprehend? No, I should definitely not be calling him right now.

I took a few deep breaths and reminded myself that I was not, in fact, stupid, even if I had been—only temporarily, I assured myself—swept away by whatever the hell it had been. No, I was a smart, tough woman. I was certainly capable of setting everything aside—yes, I was—everything except my ability to think, and make connections and pull pieces of evidence together. Making connections and analyzing facts was what I’d spent a lot of tuition money and study time learning how to do. I needed to keep doing it right now, for my own life. Facts now, and nothing but.

James’ son JJ must have lived in my house. Was that possible? I was pretty sure James’ first wife, the society princess, could never have been a tenant here, but she might have signed the lease for her son. It was around the same time a girl’s body had been buried, or hidden, in my fireplace. A chill ran down my back.

I had a photo that put Brenda Petry right on my steps. She was involved. And Rick must have been involved, somehow.

I knew. I knew I was on the point of understanding it all but I could not think out how to explain it to Detective Russo. Was it enough? Would I have to include my personal connections? I didn’t want to talk about that at all. Ever. As I was thinking it through, my personal life came to find me.

Steven stood at my front door and rang the bell, looking determined, handsome, and grim.

“You’re not answering my calls or messages, and we have to talk. I know Chris went out so I’m here. Let’s go in.”

‘You know about Chris? How?” The light dawned. “Have you been watching me?”

He lost his poise for the first time since I’d met him. “I, no. No, it’s not important.” Inside, he cupped my face in his hands, gently and said, “I’m so sorry. I never meant to quarrel with you.”

“That doesn’t matter now.” I moved away from him. “It’s time for you to tell me the truth.”

He went from staring into my face to not looking at me at all. He fixed his gaze on the wall behind me. When he finally met my eyes again, the warmth was gone.

I met his eyes, arms across my body, head steady, mouth set, hoping the pose would stop the tears I felt forming. “Your cousin lived in this house, didn’t he? Dammit, how could you not have told me that?”

“What are you talking about?”

I pulled out a copy of the lease, and slapped it into his hand.

“Explain that away. I’m pretty damn sure it wasn’t the first Mrs. Hoyt who was living here. Try telling me the truth this time.”

He didn’t look at it. He was looking at me. He knew.

I sat down, trembling, and he sat too, a cautious distance on the sofa. He had turned pale under his tennis tan but his expression was furious and calculating at the same time.

“I was afraid you would find this eventually. I tried to keep you from it….”

“You underestimated me.”

“No, I didn’t. Not for a minute.” He smiled, so briefly I almost missed it. “That’s why I was worried. I desperately hoped I would succeed in sidetracking you.”

“Have you been watching me? And listening? Was the oh-so-caring security system an excuse to keep an eye and ear on me? That scary call that pushed me into it right after you and McLeod made the offer?”

He looked embarrassed.

“We had to know how much you knew. You don’t understand! It’s a story that absolutely has to be kept secret, and it was never even my story to tell you.”

“It was all a game.” My voice sounded as wobbly as my hands felt. “I told you all about what was happening in my life and you knew what it was all about, and you pretended to be worried….”

“We were trying to stop you. That’s all.”

That momentary desire to throw myself into his arms and have him tell me it was all a misunderstanding—that was gone.

“You have to understand—”

“Have to?”

“Damn it, Erica, just let me get it out.” He looked as angry as he sounded and I felt scared for the first time, but not of him, not exactly. I was sure he was not a man to physically threaten me himself, then and there, but I felt like I was caught in a whirlpool.

“I looked up to my cousin. He was a dozen years older than me. I adored him when he was that tall guy who threw me in the air when I was little and I wanted to become him when he was a man of the world to my doofus teenager. He knew how to order a drink and roll a joint too. I was the first guy in my class to have a fake ID for bars—he got it for me. He told me what to say to girls—it worked. He didn’t have a boring job like all the other men I knew. He didn’t seem to have any job, he did crazy, amazing things, like an Amazon River trip because someone bet him he couldn’t take the climate or drive to Maine for a lobster dinner. He surfed in Australia.”

“So he was some kind of idol?” I wanted to scream at him to get to the point, but I didn’t want him to get mad again and stop talking.

“He was the golden boy—you’ve got to understand that!—and then he wasn’t. Something happened. In college, after college, I never knew. I was too young then to know about it, and I had to be pretty grown up before I got it that the trips were only sometimes rafting on the Amazon. The rest of time, they were to hospitals and rehab centers.”

I was all ears.

“James was busy with his career as a billionaire and his mother, well, she was making the Best Dressed list her career.” He stopped. “By the time I was old enough to know what was going on, he was in and out of the best treatment facilities money could buy. Drugs, alcohol, maybe some bi-polar, for all I know. The works. When he was thirty-seven, he OD’d in a flophouse in Harlem.”

He could hardly get the words out.

“And you are telling me this because…?”

“Because I need to give you the background. When I’m done, you’ll be convinced that you should burn all your information. Forget you ever cared. For your own good and everyone else’s.”