Missing Brandy (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 2) (22 page)

The key’s turning, and the door scrapes the floor. I’ll scrunch myself up as far away from the sound as I can get and rub my jaw. I know, I’m playing to the cheap seats, as Granny Liam would say. I’m good at that, right? OMG, here he comes. I can feel him coming into the room. One step, two. Which one is it?

“I brought you some pizza.”

“My jaw hurts too much to eat, but you can leave it. I’ll eat it later. I could go for a Coke right now with lots of ice.”

More footsteps. The mean one’s in the room, too. I can smell him.

“Shut up. Just eat the slice; that’s all you get.”

I hear the runner set the tray on the bed. He tells the mean one to get out and not to come near me again. They both leave.

I wasn’t hungry, I swear it, Dad, but now it smells too good. Want a bite? No? What good are you? You’re not even pretending.

Chapter 42

Fina. Evening Two, Denny’s Mishap

I’d just turned on the computer when Denny came into my study, loaded with ice cream and coffee cups. We kissed and managed to spill some of the brew on the floor. Not the ice cream, he caught the bowls just in time.

“Guess who’s got a date with Cookie tomorrow night? We’re meeting them at Grimaldi’s. That means dinner out two nights in a row, but—”

“Can’t, not tomorrow night. Call Cookie and tell her to change it, any other night this week.”

I knew it was that woman, but I played dumb. “Since when do you work late?” I asked, my mouth trying to smile.

Denny’s face reddened. “I have to meet Zizi Carmalucci at six. Dad’s idea, you know that, don’t you?”

“What idea? I’m confused. And I don’t own your time. No apologies necessary. Matter of fact, this is a good thing, excellent, maybe. Right. Maybe we should start seeing other people.” I took out my phone and swiped through the weather predictions for the next ten days, feeling the color warm my cheeks.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You don’t owe me explanations.” I could feel sweat beading on my upper lip.

“But I’m not seeing Zizi, as you put it. She wants to interview some patrol officers about the crime rate and how we feel about the stop-and-frisk ban—”

“And she just happened to hit on you, and it had to be at night. It couldn’t be at the station during the day while you’re on a break or something.”

“All she needs is an hour or two.”

Tears gathered close to the rim of my lids, but I couldn’t stop my mouth from flapping. I was being pathetic, and I knew it, too, knew it as I spit out my words. I said some unprintable things.

“Who’s the one who’s pushing marriage? Me.” Denny’s fist rammed against his chest. His ears were like beets, his face, bloated. “Who’s the one who’s been rejected four times? By now the ring’s an old-fashioned design.”

He was yelling. I didn’t blame him. I was yelling. I told him to stick his ring someplace indelicate. He took the ice cream bowls and coffee cups and stomped out of the study. Into the silence that followed, I heard pans crashing, glass breaking, and a scream.

I ran downstairs, Mr. Baggins in the lead. The cat stopped at the entrance to the kitchen, blocking my path. Good job, because the tile glittered with shards of glass and blood spurting from Denny.

“Under the faucet with that hand,” I said as if I knew what I was doing. I looked around the living room and donned an old pair of slippers I’d stashed underneath the couch. I blasted his hand with cold water while he took out a piece of glass, and after swallowing my own bile, I tied a kitchen towel around his wrist to stop the bleeding.

“ER. I’ll drive.” I grabbed my keys from the hook.

“No. It’s stopping.” Denny’s deep blue eyes were haunted like they always are after we fight.

I couldn’t help the tears. “My fault, all my fault. Your blood is on my hands.” And it was, too. “I just see red when I think of Zizi. Men are all chumps, including you. They fall for a hefty set so fast they might as well have jumped head first into the nearest sinkhole.”

“I love you, only you. Can’t you see that? Not one molecule of my dick moves when I look at Zizi.”

“Not even one?”

“Well, maybe one or two, but that’s because I’m red-blooded, and she’s a—”

“Don’t say it.

We sat in the dark living room, holding each other until the kitchen towel was soaked in blood.

“Got to get proper treatment, I insist. I’ll drive.” He didn’t answer, just reached into his back pocket with his good hand. “Who are you calling?”

“Willoughby. He’ll stand in for me tomorrow night. He’ll love talking to Zizi.”

I grabbed his phone. “Not on your life. You’ll keep your Zizi appointment.”

He smiled.

I slammed a fist into my thigh, wondering why he’d agreed so fast.

Chapter 43

Henry. Morning Three, The Discovery

Early morning light was playing on the window pane when Henry rang the bell. There was no answer after he’d buzzed three or four times, so he opened the building door with the key Phillipa had given him. He ran up four flights of stairs and knocked on her apartment.

He never should have involved Phillipa. She was like a cracked eggshell, so fragile, but what other way was there? He found he needed her more than he needed Ben. In retrospect, he could have gotten along without him, but not without Phillipa. She gave him something more than mere assistance, something unnamable. Comfort. No, something else. He thought he might be falling in love with her fine sensibility. Yes, he’d learn to love Phillipa. She was an attractive woman. Distant, forever bruised. There was a time when they’d first met that Henry wanted to heal her. That had been a folly he’d soon abandoned. But he knew he could trust her.

He was having trouble focusing. He saw the body of his son in the casket, heard his last words—I love you, Daddy—saw the empty closet in his wife’s room. He needed to concentrate. He’d been right to take the girl. What else could he have done to set the forces right? Lawyer Liam needed to suffer. His plan had worked so far. It had stopped the voices. He would have gone mad, a slow death, had he not acted.

He knocked again. No answer. He felt a tumbling in his stomach. After he had the money, what then? It wouldn’t bring Stuart back, but he could make a comfortable life for Phillipa. And he had purchased a ticket for Ben—he’d chosen Zimbabwe. Good riddance. Where was she now? A cold sweat started on the back of his neck, and he felt a prickle of water underneath his armpits. He rang the bell. Phillipa wouldn’t have gone to the police, would she? She wouldn’t have told the lawyer.

He stood outside her apartment for a few more minutes, reluctant to use the key. What if she had company or was in the shower? He backed away and decided to run back down the stairs. Outside he felt light-headed as he lumbered toward the car. Where was she? Police custody? She’d talk. They all do. Can’t help themselves. Where would they take her? He had to find out, so he retraced his steps, leaning on a lamppost for a minute to stop the spinning in his head.

The street was empty. He buzzed the building again. Nothing. Again, he used the key. Inside, the stairwell was close. He could smell dust ground into the carpet and yesterday’s cabbage in the air. On the top landing he stopped, his ear to the door, listening. Freddy’s sounds. The boy must still be in his room. It wasn’t like Phillipa to oversleep or to leave her son alone. He tried to use the key, but he just couldn’t do it.

Then he remembered the old wooden stairs in the back of the building, leading up to her apartment. He told her many times they weren’t safe and wondered why the landlord hadn’t torn them down. “This is a friendly neighborhood,” she’d said. “We protect our own, and the back stairs are convenient.”

He had to vault over the fence but got into the backyard, where there was a garden of sorts, mostly weeds, some broken toys lying near a sandbox, and a child’s rusted-out wheelchair against one wall. He ran up to Phillipa’s floor. From the back of the apartment, Freddy’s sounds were louder. Henry peered in the kitchen window.

At first he could see only different shades of gray, but soon the shadows resolved. A doll lying on the linoleum? No, it couldn’t be. He wouldn’t believe it. His mind must be playing an ugly trick, but when his eyes refocused, he knew the truth. Phillipa lay on the floor, her eyes seeing nothing.

The stairs seemed to give way, so he hung onto the railing for support. He couldn’t breathe. He hurled himself back down to the street and vomited.

Chapter 44

Fina. Morning Three, A Conversation With Lorraine

“As far as Mitch’s death is concerned, I have serious doubts it was due to natural causes, although from what I understand, he was under a heart specialist’s care. Maybe that’s why the autopsy was routine, no testing other than a determination of coronary activity. According to the report, his heart just stopped working. It wasn’t a heart attack; it was an electrical event, they said.”

“How did you find this out?” I asked Lorraine. She’d called my cell while Denny and I were eating breakfast. I figured she must have been burning the phone lines late last night or early this morning.

“The Brooklyn legal community is a small one, my dear, and I was part of it for twenty-five years until Robbie made me retire. My roots are deep, and my sources are many and reliable.”

My head got stuck around the words “made me retire.” I raised an eyebrow but kept my mouth shut, glancing at Denny as he buttered his toast. What would happen if his parents suddenly split after forty-eight years of marital bliss? Anyway, my mind was racing in the wrong direction, and I wanted to hear what Lorraine had discovered about Trisha Liam’s late husband.

“When he died, Mitch was about to defend Joe Catania against racketeering charges.”

“The actor?”

“No, and not related either. This Joe Catania is a small-time Brooklyn thug with connections to the Gambino family.”

“He’s still around?”

“In witness protection, serving the tail-end of a small sentence, or maybe he’s free by now, I’m not sure. Anyway, way back when, a consortium of business owners in Carroll Gardens had been lobbying the federal prosecutor’s office, pestering them about Catania and his strong-arm tactics.”

“Sick of paying protection?”

Lorraine replied in the affirmative. “And Mitch was a colorful defense attorney with a clean reputation, which is why Catania hired him. No one will know for sure why, but at the last minute Mitch decided not to defend him. Maybe he uncovered some rather unsavory information about his client, or was worried about his good name. Defense attorneys, all trial attorneys, really, keep track of their wins and losses. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, and who knows, perhaps he didn’t like his current batting average. But less than twenty-four hours after he’d recused himself, Mitch died suddenly.”

“This was when, two years ago? It could have some connection with Brandy’s abduction, but it’s a stretch. Whoever kidnapped her is a Swiss national. It doesn’t exactly sound like the Brooklyn mafia to me.”

“We don’t know that. The mafia is everywhere. They have sinister ties, convoluted methods of laundering money.”

Lorraine knew how to get my attention. I felt a chill ride up and down my spine. “At any rate, I want to meet with Joe Catania.”

“You’d have to cozy up to someone in the U.S. Marshals’ office.” Lorraine’s voice was muffled. She must have cupped the receiver before talking to whoever was in the room with her, doubtless Denny’s father. I listened as her voice grew slower, more insistent, as if she were talking to a child. The stifled conversation went on at the other end, and I felt almost like a voyeur.

“Sorry, Fina. Robbie needed some coaching.”

I smothered a laugh. “I’ll ask my FBI contact where I might find Catania. On another note, are you going to Lucy’s this morning?”

“I was on my way. I still have a lot of reading to do, and I haven’t even touched Trisha Liam’s files.”

“But you’ve told me about the briefs.”

“The briefs, not the actual cases. That’s where we’ll hit pay dirt. Involves lots of reading, slogging through a lot of—”

“Don’t say it.”

Chapter 45

Brandy. In Chains

I never told you about the field day we had last year in Mrs. Olive’s class. She was my sixth grade teacher, remember? I forgot—you weren’t around then either, were you? Anyway, Mrs. Olive was okay, but she had a lisp and a long neck and white hair with a black fringe in the front. Weird. Some of the kids called her The Egret. Not me or my friends, of course. Anyway, on this field trip we went to a school for the blind in Manhattan. You heard about it, I’m sure. Mom wasn’t so keen on it. She kept talking about all the accidents and the legal ramifications, whatever those are—boring and barf on them—but you would have liked the idea.

It turned out okay, not that the blind kids wanted any part of us or anything. But you’d be surprised—they’re just kids like us. The boys clumped together in the hallway not talking. They had that look on their faces just like we do—well, some of us. Poor suckers, Granny called them. We all sat in the cafeteria, and some of them talked to us about their typical day, and Heather was appointed to tell them about our typical day. Canned, you’d have called it. They gave us chocolate milk, and this blind girl joined us at our table. She told us we could never know what it’s like to be blind.

See, before we went, Mrs. Egret gave us an exercise. That’s what she called it. It was Johnny Fulcrum’s idea to get those eye thingys that grown-ups wear when they try to sleep on planes. We had to wear them for one whole class. Only they don’t work, not really. One of the kids made the mistake of telling the blind girl about the eye patches. She sat up straight like someone stuck a needle up her rear, as Granny would say, and the girl said, “You always know that it’s pretend. You always know you can take the blindfold off.” So that’s why we can never know what being blind is like.

Except now I think I know what it’s like to be blind because I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to rip off this tape. I know, you’re saying I did it before, I can do it again. But it hurt too much, and anyway, what difference would it make? Ever since you died, I’m like this make-believe kid, always trying to fool myself that everything will be all right. But you know what? It’s getting worse, not better.