Extracurricular Activities (20 page)

I went home and took a shower, hoping to wash the day's unpleasantness off along with the mud that had pooled in my slippers and on my feet. I threw the slippers into the bathroom garbage can and took my clothes off, marveling at just how horrendous I looked after my little adventure.

Thank God for Jimmy Crawford. I didn't think going back to school and having to confess to Kevin and Sister Mary that I almost had gotten a criminal record was such a good idea. Reckless driving I could handle, but harassment? Resisting arrest? Those two charges were for real criminals, not for nerdy, rule-following college professors.

I didn't know where this newfound bravado came from or what had possessed me to follow the red car. The car was not one of Jackson's or Terri's; she had a minivan—in preparation for their future spawn, I suppose—and he had an old Nissan Sentra, what we around these parts called a “station car.” Everyone who commuted via the railroad had an old junker that they drove the few miles to the station. The red car wasn't theirs. But whose was it?

After my shower, I called Crawford's cell. He picked up after a few rings. “I hope I'm not getting you at a bad time.”

“I'm in a Dumpster behind Maloney's. It's not a great time.”

Curious. “What are you…” Never mind, I thought. “First, thanks for sending your brother. He got me out.”

“He told me. You're welcome.”

“Second, I thought we should run the plate on the red car. I got the license plate number.”

“I'm up to my knees in garbage right now, so maybe we should have this conversation later?” He sounded winded and more than a little perturbed.

I sat down on my bed, drying my hair with a towel. “Do you want to call me when you get back to the precinct?”

“What I want to do is get out of this Dumpster, have lunch, go home, and forget this day ever happened.”

Well, alrighty then. “Give me a call later,” I said, hanging up. Instead of focusing on Crawford's crabby demeanor, I thought about all of the mysteries I was now involved in: who killed Ray? Who shot me? Where did Terri and Jackson go? And did they have anything to do with each other?

I decided that I wouldn't be able to think clearly until I ate something.

I ended up at the diner in town, one of my favorite hangouts. I figured that if I was going to become an amateur sleuth, I needed a greasy spoon to hang out in where everyone knew my name. Although it had been a hundred years since I had read a Nancy Drew book, I was sure she had a hangout. I remembered that she had a sporty coupe and I vowed to buy myself one of those. Maybe having a sporty coupe would mitigate the fact that no matter how many times I went to the diner, nobody ever remembered me, so I always sat at the counter, slightly dejected that I was that unmemorable.

“Help you?” a young waitress asked, approaching me in my usual spot. Her pencil was poised above her pad, awaiting my order.

“Cheeseburger deluxe and a chocolate milk shake,” I said. If the ten thousand calories I was about to consume didn't wipe away the memories of my arrest, I didn't know what would.

“Is that all?” she asked, more out of habit than curiosity.

“I should hope so,” I said, cracking myself up. When I didn't get a reaction, I replied, “Yes, thank you.”

I stared at the refrigerated case in front of me, elaborately frosted cakes stacked on the shelves. I looked at each one, thinking that I would finish the meal off with a big, gooey piece of chocolate mousse cake. After all, I had been shot at and arrested. I needed something to take the edge off, and I had flushed all of my remaining Vicodin down the toilet. I thought chocolate would be the next best thing. A shape appeared behind my reflection in the glass, and judging by its silhouette—that of a bowling ball—I knew immediately who it was.

I didn't turn around. “Hello, Peter.”

He put his hands on my shoulders and squeezed. “Expecting anyone or dining alone?” I didn't answer, so he took the seat to my left. “This is a coincidence, huh?” he said.

I refused to make eye contact with him. “It certainly is.” I pulled a napkin out of the holder in front of me and wiped my upper lip. “Do you often come to Dobbs Ferry for diner food?”

“Nothing like a good Greek diner.” The waitress approached him and he ordered a cup of coffee.

I told the waitress to cancel my order and threw a ten down on the counter for her trouble. I had lost my appetite but, for some reason unknown to me, I wasn't afraid. Annoyed, yes. But afraid? Not anymore. I knew that Peter wasn't going to hurt me. I was convinced that he had killed Ray and that that had been his ultimate goal all along. I didn't know why he had come; perhaps he wanted congratulations on the murder? Were we finally even? I stood.

Peter grabbed my arm. “Sit, Alison.”

“Leave me alone, Peter,” I said through my teeth.

He pulled on my arm. “Sit,” he said, this time more forcefully.

I looked around the restaurant, not knowing what I was hoping to see. A police officer on a break? Someone I knew? Now would be a good time for Detectives Hardin or Madden, or both, to grab a cup of coffee, I thought. But that didn't seem to be a possibility and I finally relented, sitting back down on the stool. I leaned in close to Peter, with courage born of a near-death experience, jail time, and a peripheral involvement with too many murders. “Peter, I'm only going to say this once. Leave me alone.”

I wasn't entirely surprised when he burst out laughing. “You are not a tough broad, Alison. No matter what you think.” His coffee arrived, some of it slopping over onto the saucer. He took the cup and dumped the residue on the saucer into it. He set about adding three sugars and a hefty dollop of cream from the metal pitcher on the counter. After a couple of sips, he turned back to me. “I just wanted to tell you that I have come to the conclusion that Dr. Stark was probably not the father of Kathy's baby.”

“Then you must feel really bad about murdering him,” I spat out.

He looked surprised. “I didn't murder him, Alison.” I started to get up, but he pulled me back onto the stool. He put his hand on my knee, his attempt to keep me seated.

“God, Peter. You must think I'm a moron.”

He shook his head. “Someone got to him before—”

“Before what? Before you could?” I asked.

He shook his head. “God knows, Alison, I had a few reasons to kill him. Of course, for Kathy, and then for the way he treated you. But I didn't have anything to do with it. So, I'm here to pay my respects. For your loss.”

“For the way
he
treated me? Why would you care about that?” I snapped. “And what about the way you've treated me? You've kidnapped me, threatened to kill my best friend and my ex-husband, had him killed for all I know, and broke into my house not once,” I said, my voice getting loud, “not twice, but three times!” I jabbed his chest with my index finger. I took a deep breath and brought my voice back to its normal timbre. “I'd take a philanderer any day of the week over your brand of chivalry, Peter.”

Peter moved back a little bit on his stool and regarded me, only slightly amused. “Well.” He took another sip of his coffee. “I like you, Alison. I always have. Maybe too much. At least that's what my wife says.” He looked down, almost ashamed at the admission. “But I'm afraid that this must be good-bye.”

“God, if only,” I said, turning back around on my stool to face the dessert case again. I put my hands on either side of my face and looked down, my eyes closed. “Please, Peter. Please leave me alone. We have nothing to bind us anymore. Not Kathy, not the case, not Ray. They're gone and the case is over.” I removed his hand from my knee. In the brief instant where our fingers touched, he wrapped his around mine and squeezed. “We may meet again when I testify against you in the trial for Ray's murder, but if they don't get you, then we'll never have to see each other again.”

He looked sad. “You never understood what I was about. I wanted to help you. I wanted to pay you back for all of your help. For solving Kathy's murder. I wanted to put us all out of our misery.”

“I always understood what you were about, even in college. You're about intimidation and hurting people. You're about ‘the family.' You are the most despicable person I've ever met.” When I thought about how he had probably killed Ray, I felt tears pressing at the backs of my eyes, a lump growing in my throat. “You kill people. You killed Ray. And God knows who else. I hope you rot in hell.”

He studied my face for a minute before putting his hand behind my head and pulling me close. He surprised me by tilting his head and putting his lips on mine, holding them there for several long seconds. The kiss was gentle, not grotesque, and nauseating all at the same time. Anybody watching us would have seen two people engaged in a tender yet passionate kiss, a couple who had to show their love for each other.

I pulled back from him and let the tears flow freely. I looked around to see if anyone was watching us, but nobody was. It was as if we didn't exist and nothing had happened. My lips were numb and I hoped they would stay that way. Peter caressed my cheek and looked at me sadly until I finally broke his gaze and looked away. I took a bunch of napkins from the holder and placed them over my eyes, trying to compose myself; I was shaking with anger, but the sobs were from sadness. After a few minutes, I took the napkins off and looked around.

Peter was gone.

Before going home, I stopped in at the local pharmacy and bought the biggest bottle of Listerine that I could carry. The memory of Peter Miceli lingered on my lips and I thought some noxious, alcohol-based mouthwash was precisely what the doctor ordered.

I wended my way home, feeling a little nauseous. If Gianna didn't like that Peter had brought me biscotti, what would she say if she found out that we had kissed? I didn't even want to entertain the thought of how she would react. I flashed back to the destruction she had wrought at Maloney's all those years ago and shuddered.

I walked up the driveway and was just about to enter the house when a voice called out my name.

“Hi, Mrs. Bergerson!”

I turned and looked across the street and saw a strapping young lad, about sixteen or seventeen, calling to me from his front lawn. I had seen him around but didn't know his name. I assumed he was the bellows-challenged Bagpipe Kid. He ran across the street and deposited himself on my front lawn, a six-foot-two bundle of energy.

“Hi!” I said with extra enthusiasm, making up for the fact that I had no name to go with the greeting; I've lived here a long time and I should have known the kid's name. He wasn't offering and I wasn't about to ask at this point in our relationship. He obviously, or sort of, knew my name.

“Can I take Trixie out?” he asked. He was a tall, gangly kid, with a pale face dotted with freckles. His red hair all grew forward and stuck up in places, but judging from the number of teenage girls who came and went from the house, he was either a real Don Juan or had an older brother who was.

“Um, okay?” I said.

He saw the puzzled look on my face and explained. “I used to walk her for the Morrisons.”

“Who?”

He pointed to Jackson and Terri's house. “The Morrisons.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “My mom told me that they left and that it looked like Trixie was living with you.”

His mom was pretty observant; I, on the other hand, wouldn't be able to pick her out of a lineup, so I was impressed. I started toward the house and he followed me. “Actually, if you want to help me out with her, that would be great. I can pay you what the Morrisons were paying you.” I said a silent prayer that the Morrisons weren't paying him fifty bucks a walk or something equally outrageous.

“Oh, they weren't paying me. I was just doing it because I love Trixie.”

Even better! And anyone who loves Trixie is a friend of mine. A responsible and free dog walker. How did I get so lucky? Now if I just had an unmarried boyfriend, I'd be all set. I opened the front door and let Bagpipe Kid in. Trixie, sensing a compadre in her midst, bounded down the hall, her leash in her mouth. “Trixie, you learned a new trick,” I said, amazed.

The kid blushed. “I taught her that.”

“Good work!” I said, and gave him a high five.

“She's been digging a hole in the back of your neighbors' yard,” he said, hooking a thumb toward Terri and Jackson's vacant abode. “It's way in the back behind the shed so I'm letting her do it. She loves to dig.”

I didn't care. Nobody lived there so it wasn't like anybody else would care, either. I sent the kid and Trixie on their way, telling him to just tie her up in the back when he was done playing with her. They took off down the front walk, a boy and…well, a dog he didn't own.

I took my bottle of Listerine into the kitchen and filled a tall glass halfway with the stuff. Damn that Peter Miceli and his roving lips. I took a hearty sip of the mouthwash, looking out onto the backyard and craning my neck to see if Trixie was still working on the hole. She was at the edge of the shed working as hard as she could to dig a giant chasm. I could see her hind legs kicking up earth, great clumps of it flying to and fro. The kid crouched next to her, staring down into the void that she had created, smiling and petting her from time to time, seemingly happy that she was happy.

I gargled a few times, swishing yellow liquid around in my mouth until my tongue had gone numb. When my eyes started to water, I spat out the fluid into the sink, rinsed the glass out, and filled it with water, drinking down the residue that remained in my mouth. I didn't know if I felt any better or if I had completely erased the idea of Peter's lips touching mine, but my mouth felt tingly and clean. I peered out again to check on Trixie's progress, surprised when a flash of red flew past the window over my sink which I recognized as Bagpipe Kid's head. His furious knocking at the back door interrupted my reverie and I opened the door to find him in a tizzy, winded and agitated.

“Mrs…. Trixie…the hole,” he said, finally putting his hands to his knees and taking deep breaths. It dawned on me that he wasn't as winded as he was terrified. When he stood up straight again, I noticed that his face was ghastly white, his freckles standing out against a pallid background.

“Slow down,” I said, putting a hand on his back.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the kitchen, the force so hard that it lifted me off my feet. “Come with me.”

I could see Trixie standing by the hole, whimpering, her tail between her legs, and her head hanging dejectedly.

The kid reached the hole before I did and he pointed, his arm stiff. He looked away, focusing on the side of my garage, the structure directly opposite from where we stood. A couple of strangled sobs escaped from his throat.

I walked over to the hole and peered in, the bile rising in my throat. I turned away quickly and closed my eyes but the sight of the body, missing its hands and feet, remained imprinted on the insides of my eyelids.

I backed away from the grave, dragging the kid along with me. Trixie started walking in circles, issuing a low, sad moan. I turned and put my hands on the kid's shoulders.

“What's your name?” I asked. I figured now was as good a time as any for introductions.

“Br…Br…”

“Brian?”

He shook his head, unable to form a complete word or thought.

“Bruce?”

He shook his head again.

“Brady?”

“Br…Br…Brendan,” he finally managed to get out.

I put my face close to his, steadying both of us with the pressure I put on his shoulders. “Brendan, do you want to go call 911 or stay here with the body?”

He pointed at my house.

“Good. Go over to my house and call 911. I'll stay here.”

He started to walk away but when he reached the hedgerow, he turned back. “What should I tell them?”

Poor kid. “Tell them that you found a dead body. They'll know what to do,” I said. “Then call your mom and tell her to come over here. You should stay with me because the police are going to want to question you.”

The look on his face almost broke my heart; it was a mixture of sadness, shock, and terror. In this one instance, his world had changed forever. I watched his shoulders sag as he walked toward my house.

I sat on the grass, a dozen feet or so from the grave, and waited for the chaos to begin.

 

Before Crawford left work, he spoke to the desk sergeant and told him to alert all sector cars to Alex's disappearance. Most of the cops in the precinct knew Alex, and those who didn't got a copy of a photograph that Crawford kept in his desk. “Put the word out, Sarge. Anybody who sees him should call me on my cell.”

He left work tired and dejected. He got in his car and headed toward Connecticut to pick up his daughters.

The slapping of the wipers on the windshield lulled him into an almost hypnotic state and he drove as if on autopilot, letting instinct and memory steer him in the right direction. He hadn't talked to Alison since earlier that day, when he had been knee-deep in Maloney's garbage in a Dumpster behind the bar. He and Carmen had found Alex's stash—a blanket, a stack of books, and an empty bottle of Wild Turkey—right by the Dumpster and stayed around the area, looking for anything that would give them an idea of where he might be or might have gone. Crawford spied a bloody shirt hanging out of the Dumpster, but Tommy Maloney confirmed that a fight the night before in the bar had produced the rent and soiled garment. A call to the desk sergeant confirmed that there had been a fight the night before and a sector car had responded. He bagged the shirt anyway and asked the sergeant to hold the paperwork on the fight so that he could see it on Monday; he'd want to question everybody involved to see if they had seen Alex.

He arrived on Donald Street about forty minutes after he had left the precinct. He walked up the curving front walk of Christine's small Tudor and rang the doorbell. She answered the door, looking beautiful in a black dress and the pearls he had given her for their first anniversary.

“You look nice,” he said, making her blush. She opened the door wide and let him in.

“Girls!” she called from the bottom of the stair.

Meaghan bounded down the stairs with her knapsack and ever-present iPod attached to her jeans. Erin followed close behind, in pajama pants and a tank top. Crawford raised an eyebrow. “Are you sick?”

Erin threw him a snotty look. “No.”

“Then why are you in your pajamas? I'm taking you to dinner.”

Meaghan laughed. “We always dress like that. Everyone does.”

Crawford pointed up the stairs. “Put on some clothes,” he said. “Please.” She stomped up the stairs, muttering at the injustice of it all. He looked at Meaghan. “You always dress like that? When? Where?”

“When we go to school. Or out.”

He shook his head. He didn't have the energy to argue with them about something as trivial as wearing pajamas in public, and fortunately, Meaghan let it go. Erin came down the stairs a few minutes later in baggy jeans with a hole in one knee. He gave her another disapproving look; they weren't a vast improvement over her original pants.

“What?” she said. “You said no pajama pants. These aren't pajama pants.”

He looked at Christine and gave her a tense smile. “Okay! We'll be on our way then.”

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “They're all yours.” She opened the front door. “I'll see you tomorrow?”

He nodded. “Around five.”

She ushered the girls outside and put her arm through his. “Can you stay for dinner? There are a couple of things I need to talk to you about.”

He smiled. “Does one of them have to do with why you look so gorgeous on a Saturday night?”

She blushed deep red again. “It does.”

He leaned down and gave her a long hug. “I'll be here.” He started for the door. “Have a good time.”

The girls wanted to go to a restaurant in the city, and after much discussion, they decided on Chinese. Crawford dropped his car off close to his house and locked their bags in his trunk. They went to their favorite Chinese place—Hunan Garden—and ordered enough food for six, after which they filled him in on the details of the swim meet.

Crawford took a swig of his beer. “So, how was the rest of your week?”

“Mom's dating a stockbroker,” Erin blurted out.

Meaghan punched her sister in the arm. “You are an asshole.”

Crawford gave Meaghan a steely look. “Hey!”

She looked down at the table, shamefaced.

“And he's got four kids!” Erin said, obviously distressed. “All under ten!”

“So, if they get married, you'll be the Brady bunch,” Crawford said, laughing. “You'll have to hire an Alice, though.”

“It's not funny, Dad.” Erin pouted, ripping her napkin into little pieces. She looked at him, her face sad. “Does Alison have kids?”

He took another sip of his beer. “No.” He set his beer down on the glass-topped table. “She has a dog.”

“Does she want kids?”

“I don't know. We've never talked about it.” And that was the truth. “From what I know, she didn't even know she wanted a dog.” He took in their confused expressions. “Long story.”

Erin continued ripping her napkin. “What if she does want children? What if she wants to marry you and have children with you? Where does that leave us?”

Crawford held up a hand to stop her. “You're getting way ahead of yourself. Alison and I haven't actually begun dating. Not in the traditional sense of the word.”

Meaghan gave him a sly look. “Dad's a player!”

“No, no, no…” he said, shaking his head and closing his eyes. He didn't know when these two had gotten so sophisticated but he didn't like it. He knew what Meaghan was implying and he wanted to set the record straight. “It's not like that. It's complicated. Our lives are complicated.”

“Don't flatter yourself, Dad. You're a pretty simple guy,” Meaghan said, dipping a crunchy noodle into the duck sauce on the table. “How complicated could it be? As long as she's got beer in the refrigerator, a bag of chips, and knows how to make guacamole, you should get along just fine.”

She had a point. “Well, it just is,” he said, for lack of a better retort. He drank the rest of his beer and motioned to the waiter to bring another one. It seemed like it was going to be a long night. A muffled phone rang and all three of them checked their pockets for their cell phones. Crawford held his up and saw that it was ringing. “Hello?”

It was Carmen. “Hey, handsome. I miss you, baby. What are you doing?”

“I'm out to dinner with Meaghan and Erin. What's up?”

She let out a long sigh. “Bad news, honey. Sector car just found Alex in the park.”

Crawford rubbed his hand over his eyes. If she was calling, it couldn't be good. “Time of death?” he asked.

“Right after he called you.” She spoke to someone in the background and then returned to the call. “I think he got in the middle of that drug thing that Casey and Mariano are working on. One of the Brotherhood left his calling card.”

The Brotherhood were a Bronx gang and responsible for most of the pot-dealing that went on. Although most people thought of pot as the gentle person's choice of drug, it produced some of the most vicious and deadly turf and gang violence in the city. The Brotherhood were territorial, brutal, and killed without a second thought; their signature was a black bandana left at their executions.