The Odds (22 page)

It took him what felt like ten minutes to get himself into the bedroom again and positioned at the window so that he could see out without being seen. He watched a heavyset man in a sport coat plod up the street, door to door, stopping to write things down. Detective.

He stayed at the window, trying to figure out what it meant. Why door to door? Were they looking for him in particular? Had someone said he was on this street? And if the policeman came back? There was no place to hide in this small house.

He got himself into bed, trembling.

When he heard the front door open, he went still, not breathing at all. A key put down somewhere, sound of a package being put down. It was someone familiar.

He gasped in air. He knew these footsteps. He almost cried with relief.

The girl Meg surfaced at the top of the stairs, carrying a small plastic bag.

When he told Meg about the policeman making his rounds, she stood stock-still then went to the front window to look.

“All right, all right, let’s think,” she said. “You still don’t want to—you know—explain it all, turn yourself in?”

“No.” He felt wild, thinking she wasn’t getting it yet, the danger he was in.

“I understand you think the police can’t help.”

“No way. I can’t… .” He felt the life drain out of him.

She watched him. “Okay. Stay up here. I’ll close the bedroom door. Without a search warrant, they can’t do anything. The way he’s going door to door, alone, making notes, he doesn’t have a search warrant. I have to go out. I’ll leave a note for the kids and explain to them not to let anybody in until I’m back.”

“I thought you went back to school.”

“I did. But I got to thinking about things I needed to do and I went to the nurse and got out.”

“I used to do that.”

Meg shrugged. “I’ve never done it before. She didn’t give me any trouble.” She lifted the bag toward him. “I bought you a couple of things at the thrift shop. They’re awful, but money is pretty low.” She removed the items from the bag. “The pajamas are so big, we won’t have any trouble getting the pants part on you. When we have money, I’ll get you real clothes. The other thing I got you is a sweatshirt, the kind with a zipper in front. That should be easier for you, getting it off and on.”

“Thank you. How much did this come to?”

“Two-fifty.”

“What a bargain!”

“I guess.”

“What are you going to do for money?”

“Well, I have another cleaning job today. I might be able to pull off getting something else in the same apartment building.”

“Does it pay well?”

“No. But Laurie has babysitting,” she said. “And Joel has to watch Susannah, but otherwise he does car washes.”

“You don’t have anything else? Something you could sell?”

“I have a check from Alison. Forty bucks. The bank wouldn’t cash it. I don’t know if there’s anything left in the account. I could go back and try.”

“Is there a check-cashing place somewhere in the neighborhood? They take half, but still.”

“I don’t know of one.”

She was flushed and, he thought, pretty in a way he hadn’t noticed before. “We got it in our heads to finish out the school year, then see what happens. That’s a couple more weeks.”

“If somebody gets wind of it—”

She hesitated, made a face. His mind raced ahead, but she got there before him. “If they somehow search, I’m going to say you’re our father and we were told not to disturb you because you have … something. I’ll say a leg sprain and you’ve been on pain pills. They aren’t going to take the splint off to look. I won’t even say leg sprain unless I have to. I’ll just say our father is under the weather.”

Hope sprang in him. “I get you.”

“It’ll go way better for us if we have an adult on the premises. Even if he’s a grumpy uncooperative adult.”

Was that how she thought of him?

“It’s going to be okay. I’ve always felt kind of lucky.”

“Lucky?” He actually began laughing to think Meg, with nothing, could call herself lucky.

“I think you better tell me your father’s name.”

“My father’s name was Charles. Charlie Philips. People in this neighborhood didn’t know him or what happened so … we could make him be alive again for a while.” Her long hair fell to her face. She pulled it back with both hands, twisted it, and let it fall again.

“I’ll say that’s who I am.”

She took her leave to go cleaning.

Charlie Philips. He liked his new name. He realized he didn’t know the name of his first wife yet and only just remembered the name of the second.

   AT THE BACK OF THE SCHOOL building, after school, Mac told Joel to walk up Sherman and then into the alley. “Not today,” Joel said. “I have to pick up my little sister and get home.”

“Oh, no, you don’t. Not as much as we need to talk to you,” Mac said. And Zero was along for the ride, saying, “Yeah, we have to talk.” They walked up the street fast. When they turned into the alley, in a sudden move, Mac dragged Joel backwards by his shirt, while Zero, who at first looked surprised, came at him from the front.

“Don’t touch me.” He swung at Zero.

“Shut up and listen.” Zero pressed him against the wall of a building that might have been something industrial once. “Nobody else knows about the house we use, so, fuck you, listen to me. You ever
tell
anybody?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“You been up there on your own?”

“No!” Joel felt how hot his face was. He twisted away. They came at him again, so he swung back at them. Mac grabbed his arm and pushed it to the wall, saying, “Tell Zero.”

He faced Zero. “No. Why are you bugging me with this shit. I never went up there.”

Zero asked, “You know a guy named Carl?”

Joel swallowed hard. “No.”

Then Mac jumped in. “What? You were going to say something. You
know
Carl?”

“No, you told me about him. He sold to you.”

“We told you?” Mac asked.

“Zero did.” Joel pried himself away from Mac’s hold, but in seconds Mac got an arm against his chest, pushed him up against the wall again. Mac was so close, Joel could feel the kid’s breath on his face. He could smell it, too, salami or something.

Joel said, “Why’s it take two of you to ask me a question, huh? Big and brave.”

Mac said calmly, “You’d have to say right now if you know where Carl is. The guy is wan-
ted
. He’s money in our pockets. You ever see the guy, there’s a twenty in it for you just to tell me where you saw him. You
capisce
?”

He felt relief pour through him that it was Carl they wanted. “I don’t even know what he looks like,” Joel said. “I wish I did. I could use the money.”

The two of them thought this was funny for some reason. They laughed for a long time.

“You guys are nuts.”

“Nuts like weasels,” Zero said.

Joel became aware there was blood coming out of his nose, dripping on his shirt, from the way they’d banged him into the wall. “I don’t know anything about the stupid people you mess with,” he spat out.

“Anybody bothers us about the house, asks us if we were ever there or anything, we’re going to know it was you, you hear?” Zero said.

Joel wiped at his face and watched them walk away. It seemed their steps lightened and that they were laughing. They sashayed down the street without looking back at him. There was something in them that he envied every time, a recklessness he couldn’t understand, but wished he could feel.

Slowly, wiping the blood with his hand, he walked home.

   NELLINS FELT LIKE A TIRED census taker. He’d just come from a place occupied by two guys who had a thousand plants and a thousand little vases everywhere. They had talked his ear off and given him a glass of iced tea with a mint leaf in it. Now he called to a little schoolgirl going in her front door, but she was just a little thing, too small to question.

“I was about to knock on your door.”

The little girl froze.

“Are your parents home?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Last name, Philips?”

Then a boy came from the street, right behind the girl. He was a bit older. He was wiping at a bloody nose with a small tissue as he hurried toward them.

“I need to talk to your parents,” Nellins said to the boy.

“They’re just … still working. And then they have to go to some store. Buying food.”

“When’ll they be home?”

“Not for a while.”

“What’s your name, son?”

“Joel.”

“You taking care of her?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened to your nose?”

“Just a fight after school.”

“Hmm. You defended yourself, it looks like.”

“Tried to.”

“Well, people will tell you never to hit. Myself, I always say it depends on the situation.”

The boy nodded.

“Your parents come back in an hour you say?”

The boy calculated. “More like two and a half.”

“I’ll check back then.” Nellins left, wondering how many recalls he could make without losing his mind. He looked at his phone. Call from Detective Greer, gone to voice mail. He didn’t even want to listen.

   IT TOOK A LOT OF THE DAY for Colleen to find Lena Procter at home.

“You calling me about my nephew, did you say?”

“If your nephew is Dermott Roux.”

“He been gone for a while. You found him for me?”

“I’m afraid I have bad news,” Colleen began.

“I think I’m guessing it. It’s either jail or dead.”

“We found his body in the place where he was living.”

“How’d it happen?” the woman said evenly. “He get beat up?”

“Drugs.”

“Oh. Not really a surprise.” Lena Proctor didn’t sound as if she was going to cry. “Never did have any control of that kid.”

“Can you come down to Pittsburgh, do an ID for us?”

“I could get my boyfriend to drive me down.”

“If you have a funeral home you’d like to use, you might want to alert them. There are a couple of ways to transport the body.”

“Oh, man. I didn’t even think about a funeral.”

“Does he have other family up there?”

“Older brother in jail.”

“That’s it?”

“That is it. And me.”

“Maybe he had a few school friends who would want to pay their respects.”

“I could put out the notice.”

“I think that might be a good idea.”

“I didn’t think he was going to go bad, then he run away. I put in a report, but the police couldn’t find him. You say Picksburgh?”

People often said it that way, so Colleen just said yes. With urging, she got Lena Proctor to say she would get down to
Picksburgh
on the next day, Wednesday. It felt like progress, but it was only a drop in the bucket she needed to fill. Questions, lots of them still.

She spent some time typing notes to clear her head. She hated to type her reports, but she forced herself to do it. Then she took out a separate list of questions she’d typed up for herself:

1. Who was the dead boy BZ? What was his name? That was solved.
2. Who killed him? Not solved.
3. Who was the dead man up at the house—now Hrznak’s case?
4. Who killed
him
?
5. Who was wounded up at the house? Probably the killer, but they didn’t know
who
he was.
6. Lesser, but puzzling, Where was the kid Carl, who was not on the streets anymore?
7. What was Nick to the drug operation Farber was investigating? That wasn’t solved at all. All they had was Nick’s real name.
8. What had happened to Nick Friday night or thereabouts, since he was no longer working the Dona Ana?
9. What kids were up at the house, and were they connected to BZ?
10. Were drugs a part of the killing of the man up at the house—as Colleen was insisting they were to keep on the case—or were they incidental?

So ten questions and only one of them answered.

The second answer came in during the day. That was the result of the statewide AFIS search. The man up at the house now had a name and history. He was Earl Higgins, his ten digits told them. He’d been in and out of jail most of his life, came from Erie. Colleen read his record. Weapons possession, theft, intent to kill—shot a guy who survived. A lousy piece of work if ever there was one. There was nobody in Erie to claim him. Potocki was working on a place of residence in Pittsburgh. Or Picksburgh, depending. This one might take Roux’s spot in potter’s field.

She ate at her desk, calling the morgue to ask about the powder burns on Earl’s fingers and clothes. She thought about the possible scenarios.

Hrznak was not keeping her in the loop, so she called the lab herself and asked about latent fingerprints at the scene of the crime. The person who got on the phone with her was someone new, young, a woman. “I could work on that for you,” the woman said. “Is this for Hrznak’s case?”

Colleen gave her spiel about the narcotics part of the case and her own involvement.

“This’d be more interesting than what they have me doing.”

“What were the prints on?”

“A door that was up there. They’re pretty good, made with blood.”

“Fantastic. You could get someone to run them?”

“Pittsburgh base?”

“Start with Pittsburgh. They don’t find anything, move to AFIS state.”

“If Hrznak asks me about them—”

“Oh, don’t keep any information from him. But call me. Give me a heads up. I think he’s busy on the street today.”

She sensed the young woman was on her side by the way she said, “Either way, I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

“What’s your name?”

“Ann Cello.”

“Like the instrument?”

“Spelled just like that.”

“Did you ever learn to play it?”

“I learned violin, actually.”

“Must have heard a lot of jokes.”

“Yeah. High school was the pits in every way.”

“It gets better.”

“It already has, some.”

“Good.”

By one thirty, Colleen heard news that depressed her as much as talking to Dermott Roux’s aunt had. The prints came up, all right. They came up like three limes on a slot machine. The prints were in the AFIS state system. They belonged to Nick Kissel.