Snow Angels (29 page)

“Three o’clock, man. We got one more hour on patrol and then we are done with this rodeo show for endless hours of holiday, so-happy-we’re-getting-married sex.” Mack looks up from his memo book; chews his pen. “Did I just say that? I don’t suppose it applies to old men like you.”

“Yeah.” Joe turns onto Sanford Avenue, liking the blur of color from blinking lights strewn over bushes and houses. “I’ll just head home, pop my teeth out, and have Sheila rub my bunions. I got wicked big bunions.”

“Cody, that is disgusting.”

Joe is biting back a grin when the call comes over the radio.

“One-Oh-Nine-Charlie, respond to a ten fifty-four, Aided Case, possible overdose. Nineteen-year-old male.”

This is the call that’s going to ruin Christmas; Joe can feel it in his gut. He banks the wheel sharply to head toward the apartment house as Mack writes down the address.

“Contact is a Wendy Min, Aided’s girlfriend,” the dispatcher adds. “It’s her apartment.”

Joe accelerates. “Sounds to me like we just stepped in it.”

Mack flicks on the lights and siren. “And I thought we were gonna make it through this shift without getting stuck.”

“We still might,” Joe says, though his instincts tell him otherwise. He mentally calculates different deadlines. There’s the precinct Christmas party going on right now. If they can get off this job by four he can still catch the tail end. Then there’s the Christmas pageant at church. Joe promised his wife he’d make it to six o’clock mass to watch Katie portray Mary in the Nativity scene. Hard to believe his little girl is going to do her first acting role, lines and everything.

He wants to be there for his wife and kids tonight. On the other hand, there’s this nineteen-year-old male…God knows what the job involves, and once Joe is into it, that nineteen-year-old kid will take priority over everything.

As they get close, Mack reads off the address again.

Joe slows and squints through the windshield, trying to find the numbers on the high-rise apartment buildings just off Main Street. “But if we do get stuck, isn’t it your turn to take the overtime?”

“My turn? You’re always fighting me for the overtime.”

“Yeah, well, I got places to be.”

“And I’m supposed to get engaged tonight. What’s that, chopped liver?”

“Actually, this will demonstrate to Nayasia just how unpredictable her life is going to be.” Spotting the ambulance ahead, Joe punches it to the end of the block. “It’s no bargain, being married to a cop.”

“Speak for yourself,” Mack says, nodding at the emergency van with its rear doors gaping open.

A second later Joe throws the cruiser into park and they both bail.

A young Asian girl, a petite thing with red-streaked hair and multiple piercings, sits in the back of the van inhaling oxygen from a mask.

Joe turns to the EMS worker, last name Dolinsky, though she goes by Dolly. “How’s she doing, Dolly?”

“She’ll be okay.” Dolly moves to the side of the van, out of the girl’s hearing range. Her straw blond hair, which is always styled in an imitation of Jennifer Aniston’s latest, is tucked back with a pair of navy earmuffs. “She was a little shocky after seeing the boyfriend. Lost her lunch.” Her gaze shifts up toward the building. “Todd is upstairs with him. He was pretty blue when we got here, but we tried CPR.” She shrugs, her eyes flickering with emotion. “In the end we had to pronounce him.”

Joe feels that small, radiant gem of hope harden to a cold pebble in his chest. So the kid is dead. They’re all too late. He rubs his chin. Now it’s just a question of identifying the body, notifying next of kin. No happy ending here.

Dolly tugs on a wild strand of hair. “We weren’t sure if you guys would want to set up a crime scene.”

He nods toward the girl. “It’s her apartment?”

“Belongs to the girlfriend, but apparently he’s been staying here. She says her parents live in the building, too. First floor.”

Mack rounds the corner of the ambulance, his thumb hitched toward the girl. “You want to check upstairs first, give the girl a chance to calm down?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

They enter the narrow lobby lined with small mailboxes. An old building, no elevators. Joe attacks the stairs, his daily workout.

On the third floor landing he waits for Mack and they take the hallway together. A nice building, fairly new carpeting and wallpaper, little colonial lamps lining the corridor.

The door to 3-H is cracked open, and Joe pushes in. “Todd…?”

“It’s about time you guys got here.” Todd looks up from the computer desk where he’s sitting. Fish swim across the monitor behind him, complete with a bubbling noise.

Joe looks from the paramedic to the body curled into the fetal position on the couch. He can’t see the kid’s face, just a mass of thick dark hair and studs lining his ear, one with a diamond.

“Nineteen? Just a kid.” As he moves closer to check the body, Joe realizes that he’s got ten years on this kid. What would have happened if his life had ended back at nineteen?

The things he would have missed…His Sheila’s laugh, that tinkling sound that drains tension away. The softness of her, the gleam of her spirit. The heat of her body in his arms at night. And the kids…The whisper of downy hair against his face, the grooves of their little shell ears after a bath. The way they clamp onto him like little monkeys when he carries them to bed.

Ten years. Yeah, he’s done some living since he was nineteen.

“What a shame.” Mack glances down at the body. They’ve seen plenty of dead bodies, but you never get used to it. “No visible bruises or trauma. Actually, he looks pretty peaceful.”

The modest studio apartment shows no sign of a struggle. In fact, it’s neater than most homes Joe visits, artistic and casual. A tapestry of a Chinese dragon covers one wall, opposite windows that overlook the zigzagging buildings of Flushing. There are bookshelves and a coffee table made of brick and plank, a small computer desk with a wood chair, a table and chairs tucked in a little eating alcove.

“We’ll have to ask the sergeant if he wants a crime scene,” Joe says. “From my take, it doesn’t seem suspicious, but then we need some background on this kid.”

Mack flips open his cell phone and heads toward the door. “I’ll call the sergeant.”

Todd stands. “My guess is the autopsy will show a toxic level of drugs. The girlfriend saw him popping things and we found that baggy of pills on him. Looks like Oxycotin.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “I guess we’re done here.” The EMS crews do not transport bodies; that’s the job of either the coroner’s office or a funeral home. “I’ll have the coroner send a wagon. You want Dolly to bring the girl up here?”

“Thanks, Todd. Merry Christmas.”

Todd tips two fingers to his forehead. “Merry Christmas, Joe.”

Alone in the apartment, Joe thinks about checking for ID. Although the girlfriend knew the kid, they’ll need someone from the family, preferably next of kin, to identify the body.

From the inside pocket of a black North Face jacket Joe takes a brown leather wallet. It’s fat with bills, at least a few hundred in cash. Seems like a lot for a guy this age to be carrying around. The license photo matches the victim, a good-looking kid. His eyes flash on the name: Armand Boghosian.

Why does that ring a bell? Boghosian. He can hear someone belting it out, accent on the second syllable. Right…that was the name of the guy from this morning, the owner of the Shuka.

The man who suspected his son of robbing the store safe.

Joe frowns as he looks from the license to the boy curled on the couch.

What are the chances?

In the Chinese language there are many words for misfortune, and since the day her parents met Armand, Wendy has heard them all:
Buxing. Xie. Daoyun. Huo
. Words that mean disaster, bad luck, and evil. Misfortune sent by the gods. Her mother had even compared her boyfriend to the splendor of a comet, considered to be an omen of bad luck in the old culture.

Mummy always warned that Armand would bring her trouble. Recently, Wendy began to worry that her mother was right, but she never thought it would come to this. Never.

Wendy hugs herself. Will she ever be able to go back to her own apartment upstairs? Will she ever be able to rid her mind of the image of him curled on her sofa, skin so pale? Cold against her fingertips.

Oh, Armand…why? Did you mean to do it or was it just a really stupid mistake?
Bad luck, as Mummy always predicted.

Thank God Mummy arrived in time to usher everyone here to her parents’ apartment, the home she’d grown up in. Wendy cannot return to her own place, the haunted studio upstairs, especially with Armand still there.

She looks past the police officer who is interviewing her to the dining alcove where the bald cop perches on the side of a chair, sitting that way so that his gun belt doesn’t scratch her mother’s furniture, no doubt. This one is a sergeant, so they call him. Upstairs in Wendy’s apartment, a third cop sits with Armand, watching him, guarding him. A dignified gesture, but too late.

Both her parents rushed home from the restaurant, leaving Auntie Fang to mind the shop. Auntie Fang with her good intentions and bossy ways. With any luck the kitchen staff will still be there by dinnertime. Mummy has the kettle on for tea and coffee, and Ba slices a pineapple to share with the officers. Surreal. For now, her parents will be respectful but guarded with the police. Later…later she will hear about misfortune, many times over.

“So what time was it when you saw him last?” Officer Cody brings her back with his gentle voice. Something about his patient dark eyes, the space he gives her to breathe, suggests that he is a father with children of his own.

“Ten, maybe ten-thirty this morning. We spent the night together, though we were out all night. Two clubs, then this after-hours place. He was looking for this guy Razz, wouldn’t stop until he found him.”

“A friend?”

“His drug dealer,” she says softly, hoping her parents do not hear. “He started playing around with some stuff a few months ago. Now he can’t live without it.” She presses a hand to her mouth, punched by her own words.

“Was he using this morning?”

She nods. “He was totally wired. Cocaine, I think. I told him to slow down…”

“So you left him here alone around ten this morning?”

“I had to be at work by ten-thirty to help with the lunch rush. My family owns Happy Luck Chinese. I wait tables there part-time. I’m a student at NYU.”

His brows rise. “That’s a very good school. Did Armand go there, too?”

“No, he was taking a break from school, but he wanted to attend Juilliard in the fall. He was applying there, trying to get an audition. He’s a brilliant musician, but it’s very competitive.”

“Another great school. My sister-in-law works there.” He turns a page in his memo book. “You said Armand was living with you. Did he have any family in the area?”

“His mother is dead. I think his father is the only family he had. I never met him, but he owns a little Armenian grocery near here…”

“The Shuka,” Officer Cody offers without looking up.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“I’ve met his old man. He’s going to be heartbroken.”

For the first time this afternoon tears sting her eyes. It seems so intrinsically sad, a father mourning his son, especially when the son was so convinced that his father didn’t care. She bites her lower lip, trying to compose herself to finish the interview.

“The last thing I said to him was that I wanted him gone when I got back from work,” she confesses. “I didn’t mean it. I still loved him, but I couldn’t take the addiction anymore. Such a roller-coaster ride. It should have been no surprise with Armand born in the Year of the Dragon. He was irresistible and charismatic. A tremendous talent. Everything had to be on a grand scale. For him it was Juilliard or nothing.”

And his destiny turned out to be nothing.

How had she fallen for him, a romantic born under the sign of the dragon? Dragons do everything on a grand scale. A grand scale performance. A grand scale passion. A grand scale addiction.

A tiny whimper ripples through her. She presses a fist to her mouth as Officer Cody stands.

“Thanks for your help, Wendy. My partner will stay upstairs with the body while I try to locate his father. I’d like Mr. Boghosian to ID his son up in your place, if that’s okay. The morgue is not a good scene for anyone.”

She nods, rocking forward, hugging herself as she thinks of Armand upstairs.

Take your time, she wants to say. The apartment is all yours; I’m never going back.

She cannot return. His ghost will always be there, clinging, refusing to leave because he loved her so fiercely. He didn’t want to leave, and the last thing she said to him was that he had to get the hell out. But he won’t go. Armand will stay.

And she will never have the courage to return to her home and face the fiery dragon.

Joe steps out of the patrol car and pushes through the thick, wintry air toward the Shuka. He’s swimming through molasses. The snow has tapered off, giving way to an ashen sky bleeding into night. Dark sky, dark mood. Bring it on.

This is one of the worst parts of his job, the bad news. NYPD has a “Knock on door” policy. They know news this grim can’t be trusted over the phone. But every cop sweats over notifications. They train you to serve the public, shoot a weapon, track suspects, and arrest perps. But there’s no training for this.

In his entire career he has made three notifications, and he recalls each in vivid detail. The guy with the Yankee cap who fell to his knees in shock. The middle-aged couple who flatly denied that their daughters could be dead. The mother who ran to his police cruiser in her bathrobe and bare feet, as if she could reverse time and bring her son back to life by rushing to his side. These are moments Joe does not want to witness and yet he is forced to be a part of them, an actor in the drama.

Still, he does not prolong the agony or drama. Inside the store, the clerks direct him to the back office where Garo Boghosian is seated at his desk, working on a ledger in the pool of light from a reading lamp.

Joe is relieved that he’s seated.

“Officer?” Mr. B. looks up. “Did you find my money?”

“Mr. Boghosian, I’m sorry, but I have some very bad news for you. There’s a young man down the street. He died from an apparent drug overdose. We think it’s your son Armand.”

For a moment the older man just stares, as if he cannot comprehend this. Then a cry escapes him, the desolate gasp of a wounded man.

Joe looks down, gives the man a moment.

“My son. Oh, my boy.” Mr. B. removes his reading glasses, slips them in his shirt pocket. “How can you be sure?”

“His girlfriend found him at her apartment, but we would like you to identify him. If you can come now, I’ll take you there myself.”

“Then we must go.” He turns off the reading lamp, slips on a brown wool coat.

All eyes are on them as Boghosian stops to ask the cashier with the gemmed shirt to mind the store while he goes to his son. Sensing their hope, Joe turns toward the door and leads the way. The cashiers will know soon enough.

As he opens the cruiser door for Mr. B., Joe wonders if Sergeant Minovich has stopped by the girl’s apartment yet. Chances are Minovich is going to be pissed at Joe for going out on a limb to bring in the kid’s father. The standard procedure would be to let the coroner haul off the body and let next of kin ID at the morgue. Free up Joe and Mack to move on to another job.

But it’s Christmas Eve and Joe can’t do that to Mr. Boghosian. Bad enough he’s got to identify his son; to schlep into the city morgue for them to roll your kid out of a giant file drawer…Naw. Joe wants to do this with as much dignity as possible, even if it means putting out extra time and effort.

“It’s not far,” Joe says. In the rearview mirror he sees the old man huddled in the backseat, his face pinched with pain and shock.

“Let me ask you something, officer. This boy you found, there is a chance he’s not my son. He may be some other boy, and my son is somewhere else, still alive and vital.”

Joe bites his bottom lip. He’s seen denial before. “Anything’s possible. But, Mr. Boghosian, his girlfriend says it’s him. Right now I’d say we’re officially 99 percent sure.”

“I see.” Boghosian clears his voice. “Well, if you don’t mind, I will cling to that 1 percent for now.”

“Fair enough.”

“You know, he is my only son. Such a source of pride and joy for his mother. But since she passed, there has been only sorrow. He used to be a good boy. I don’t know where it all went wrong. Like the yarn in a favorite sweater. You get a pull here, a little hole there, and suddenly your sweater is unraveling, falling apart on you.”

He rubs his eyes, sighs.

“I still hope you are wrong about my son. He has a business to take over, you know. All my life I am a hard-working man. I work to build my business so that I will have something to pass on to my son. A solid family business. My shop paid for music lessons. Clarinet and saxophone lessons. And yet, despite my blood, sweat, and toil, my son did not want it. No head for business, he tells me. He wants to be a saxophone player. I have to ask you, what is the use of that? Even if you are loaded with talent, will a saxophone put bread in your mouth? A roof over your head? Will it feed your children when they are hungry?”

“Yeah, but it’s not easy to play a musical instrument.” Joe is glad the man is talking. Talking helps.

“Music is all well and good, but a man must provide for his family. Do you know when I started my business, I was a very young man, then, back in Armenia…” Mr. Boghosian launches into a story of how he made his first business deal, selling the stuffed grape leaves his mother used to make.

Listening, Joe thinks of his father, who always loves to spout stories, tales of ancient ethics from the old country—Ireland, in his case. About all the scrimping and saving, making do with a single pair of shoes and a dream.

Joe has always tried to tune his old man out, but now that he hears Mr. B. philosophize he realizes this is exactly what he’s been telling Sheila these last few months. The stuff she used to come home with: a dozen empty baskets “for gifts,” she said; dream-catchers from a craft show because Katie was having nightmares; a giant hobby horse with Appaloosa hide and creepy glass eyes. Every day a new bike or scooter or a special puzzle that’s supposed to turn the kids into Einsteins. And the stuff she ordered online? Forget about it. Rain boots for the kids with polka dots and dinosaurs. And that plastic desk she ordered for PJ? He’ll outgrow it before he can even use it, not to mention the shipping cost for that hunk of plastic.

For some reason that stupid desk pushed him to the limit, and he snapped. Yelled at her that she had to stop throwing their money away on crap; had to focus on the basics like food on the table and a roof over their heads.

That didn’t go over so well. Big fight. But in the end, Sheila heard him. She agreed to stop using the charge cards, and he agreed to start taking his lunch. A little embarrassing for a grown man to be lugging Tupperware into the precinct every day, but okay, he’s willing to do his part.

Since that blowup, Sheila has been better with the shopaholic thing. Yeah, sometimes she still worries that the kids will be deprived, but deprived isn’t always about money. Look at Mr. B.’s son. You can do all the right things, pay for music lessons, and work like a dog to pay the bills and still, somehow, it can all go wrong.

Whatever it is that makes kids grow up right, it’s not about money. He’s glad he can see that now. He clenches his jaw as he checks the man in the backseat, the man clinging to that 1 percent of hope.

Rotten odds. What a shame.