“Then why this visit? Surely, warning me about being questioned is even grayer.”
“I’d never warn you about police procedure. That’d be wrong. I’m here because I can’t bear bein’ away from you too long.”
“Am I supposed to know that this Billy person is going to happen?” I asked. “Or that Vincent named me as his alibi?”
“Kind of slipped out, didn’t it. Post-pillow talk. Maybe it would be best not to mention it when Billy calls, which won’t be for a while.”
“He’s actually waiting until daybreak?”
“He has other things to take care of first. A lot of what he’d want to know from you about timin’ depends on forensic results.”
So I was privy to something that wouldn’t be called upon for a while. Why let me know this? Wasn’t this the man who a few hours earlier had advocated recovery from meddling addiction?
He must have seen the questions bopping through my brain, or at least had enough brains of his own to recognize that they needed to be addressed. He leaned over the little table to put his hand on mine. “You may think I’m about to eat a bagel, but it’s more like crow.”
“No metaphors or similes until daybreak,” I said.
“He trusts you, this Devaney. He didn’t call and alert you to his considerable lie, did he?”
I shook my head. It felt heavy with woeful suspicion.
“An’ it is a lie, isn’t it?”
I exhaled with annoyance.
“Had to ask, is all. See why I can’t interrogate you or take a statement?” Point well made.
“Thing is, he trusts you to protect him. Which is to say, with a relationship like that, maybe you’d find things out that we aren’t going to, like why he’s lying and what’s really going down. At least, you might find out more quickly and easily than we could. Save time. He owes you that, doesn’t he? You could be helping him out of big trouble.”
“Officer, are you saying what I think?”
“Who ever knows what you’re thinkin’?”
“Are you not he who forbade me even to speculate?”
“Live and learn.”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“You won’t? But…but you always…”
“Not unless you say it. Out loud.”
“Aw, please…”
“Clearly, comprehensibly.” I folded my arms across my chest.
He swallowed, scowled, took a deep breath, and looked as if the required words might gag him. But Mackenzie is a brave and practical man.
“Okay,” he said. “To speed things up, and since he has already involved you in this, and if you feel you could or should, would you talk to your friend Vincent?”
I considered this a moment. “I’d like a declarative sentence, not a question.”
He tapped his fingers on the table. “I could use—”
“Say my name, would you?”
“Mandy, I would appreciate your help on this.”
“No problem.” The light through the window facing east was pearly. Almost dawn. I went over to his side of the table, sat down on his lap, kissed him, and whispered in his ear. Not sweet nothings. Reality. “You are a most excellent man and right about many things, but you are wrong about one thing. You’re not about to eat either bagels or crow. Your only option is charcoal.”
I stood back up and extracted two cremated bagels from the toaster oven.
Sometimes it takes entirely too long to get a man to admit he needs you.
Four
VINCENT WASN’T ANSWERING HIS PHONE. I’D WAITED A DECENT INTERVAL until households with early-rising toddlers would be up. Then I’d waited longer, until even households with hungover adults would be up. But all I got in return for my patience was a machine that promised to get back to me. It lied.
“It’s me, Vincent. Me, Mandy.” I sounded like I was auditioning for a Tarzan movie. “It is I, Vincent,” I said next go-round. Maybe he only responded to the grammatically correct.
Why did I have to tell him that we had to talk? I wasn’t even supposed to know that he was using—abusing—me as his alibi, but he certainly knew it. We were friends. Why hadn’t he called me?
From outside and below, I heard the whir of snowplows and the occasional scrape of a shovel hitting sidewalk. The part of the sky I could see was soft gray. The sun had risen and presumably was up there somewhere, but in a reclusive mode. Probably waiting until later, when its overdue appearance would slush up the snow in time for it to freeze into a layer of ice by nightfall.
Things are bad when you’re miffed with the sun.
Two hours and four more messages later, with Billy Obenhauser’s interrogation looming, I’d had it with Alexander Graham Bell. I’d communicate the old-fashioned way, in person, braving the not-so-great outdoors.
I couldn’t imagine Vincent committing a cold-blooded murder, or fleeing. I could, however, picture him biding his time at home, in shock at the implied accusation of having committed a crime.
I didn’t want to drive on unplowed streets, so I waited for a holiday-schedule bus an inordinately long time. This sleuthing stuff, even this talking-with-my-friend stuff, was less than convenient. Vincent had better be worth it.
He lived near Ninth Street, in the same neighborhood as his parents did and his grandparents had. His in-laws lived five blocks away and his wife’s brother and family, a few blocks over. In South Philly, a remarkably constant and intact world of its own, there was nothing exceptional about this ongoing proximity. While the rest of the country subscribed to the different-is-better theory, following jobs and whims to all corners of the earth, South Philly remained amazingly cohesive, generations choosing to live close to one another—young men ignoring Horace Greeley and never going west, not even as far as West Philly.
Many of the houses around here were never on the market. They were inherited, passed on to family, sold directly to a known quantity, preferably a relative.
In contrast, my parents had left home, hearth, and offspring for the sunshine of Boca Raton, and Mackenzie had loped out of the Louisiana Bayou for college m Texas and crime-busting up north. He had a brother in San Diego, a sister in Minnesota, and other siblings and siblings-in-law scattered hither and yon. The thing was, neither of our families found it odd that we were fragmented, but the Devaneys would have considered it heretical, close to tragic.
I contemplated these various cultural norms so intently that I missed my stop, and in walking several blocks, I had more chance to wonder why they called our climate temperate, when it was anything but. Maybe it meant the climate had a temper. A bad one.
My favorite part of Ninth Street was the market, where buying food was personalized and close to enjoyable. As opposed to the sterile all-business atmosphere of a supermarket, this marketplace is a blur of noise and movement as people push their way between small shops and stalls set out at the curb. Vendors hawk specials; chickens squawk; cottontail rabbits and piglets and lambs hang limply from butchers’ hooks; fish gleam in woven baskets; and the aromas of oregano and ripe cheeses flavor the air. The Italian Market, we used to call it, but it has become more international, with Puerto Rican specialty shops and a definite Asian edge. Today, the market seemed tired, dazed, recuperating from New Year’s parades official and traditional, both the one up Broad Street and the nonstop hometown revelries afterward on Second—known as Two—Street.
I passed a building with a large and colorful mural on its side. It depicted the market and, looming in front of it, Frank Rizzo, former police chief and mayor. The scale was odd—the stores, small, and Rizzo, enormous, hundreds of times his size. A new Wonder of the World, the Colossus of South Philly.
Vincent lived on a side street of flat-faced shallow homes that rose abruptly from the pavement. No trees, no front lawns, no grass or low bushes softened the meeting of hard surfaces. Each home had three marble steps leading from pavement to front door, a window to the left of the door, and two windows facing the street on the second floor. Some were natural brick, others had been painted or stuccoed over. All were lovingly maintained, except for one whose paint was peeling and crackling, but it was for sale and would undoubtedly be brought up to speed once it found an owner.
Philadelphia’s row houses were the local equivalent of New York’s high-rising railroad flats. Manhattan Island had nowhere to go but up, but here, with all the space in the world, when quarters for workers were required, we expanded horizontally. Two or three bedrooms, one bath upstairs, living room, dining room, kitchen, one behind the other, downstairs. Houses sharing common walls to conserve heat and expense.
Over the years, the people of Vincent’s neighborhood had personalized their addresses in ways apartment dwellers never could, with window boxes, shutters, wrought-iron stair rails, metal awnings, and aluminum or fake stone siding. Each street of homes wore many faces, and for better or for worse, South Philly was an idiosyncratic patchwork. At this time of year, it was particularly exuberant with colored lights outlining doors, windows, and rooflines above which, often as not, sat Santa and all his reindeer and below which were front-window Nativity scenes. That and last night’s snow moved the neighborhood to within shouting distance of a Currier and Ives.
I banged a brass knocker attached to an evergreen front door. The brick facade of the house was the color of aged burgundy, and its shutters matched the door. I could tilt sideways and peek through lace curtains into a living room dominated by a heavily decorated Christmas tree and the spastic sounds of TV cartoons.
I banged more heavily and pressed the doorbell, twice. The noise of cartoons raged on, but I also heard human voices.
Vincent’s face appeared at the same window I had peered into. Not a subtle lookout system. I waved and pointed at the door.
He looked resigned, not thrilled, to see me.
“I’ve been calling you,” I said as soon as he admitted me. “We have to talk.”
His son, a bowl of pink-and-yellow dry cereal on his lap, sat on green carpeting in the middle of the precise room with its yellow brocade sofa and end chairs. Even TV snacks were color-coordinated here.
The boy turned toward me. “Hi,” I said, remembering my manners. “Chipper, isn’t it?” His name was Vincent, Junior, and they were avoiding the Little Vincent syndrome, although I think they could have found a more appealing substitute than Chipper. “I’m Amanda Pepper, and we met when your dad brought you to see where he worked, remember?”
Chipper squinted and said, “Hi.” Then, since I was not nearly as interesting as a cartoon, he turned away.
“Kids!” Vincent raked his hair with his fingers. “No manners.” I didn’t think his son’s deportment was what troubled him. “We’ve told him a thousand—”
“I have a question, Vincent,” I said. “I need to know why you’re using me as an al—”
“Barbs, this is Mandy Pepper, remember her?” Vincent spoke too loudly and emphatically. His nervousness bounced off the pale green walls. I turned and saw her, plump and apprehensive, in the arched entry to the dining room. “Teacher at Philly Prep? You met at the diner that night?”
“Sure,” Barbs said quickly. “Good to see you again. Excuse the mess. We weren’t expecting anybody. Take off your coat, why don’t you?”
I unbundled myself and looked around. It was not a house where I’d drop outer garments on a nearby chair, even if I were staying for two minutes. Barbs put out her arms and I handed most of my wardrobe over.
“Your house looks beautiful, and that’s a gorgeous tree.” Enough niceties. We had a murder suspect here, the posse was on his trail, and I’d been given oblique and short-lived permission to save both the day and the friend. “I’m sorry to barge in,” I said. “I left messages on your machine, but perhaps it isn’t working?”
Without commenting on the condition of her answering machine, Barbs left, arms full of my coat, hat, and bag. She was back in two or three seconds.
“I called all morning. I was worried.”
Barbs’s eyes flitted from her husband to me, and she rubbed the knuckles of one hand with the other. Perhaps she had a tic. Perhaps arthritic pain. More likely she was suspicious of both her husband and, now, of me. Of having had the vacuumed rug pulled out from under her secure world.
“Why?” Barbs asked after a too-long pause. “Why would you worry?”
Hadn’t Vincent told her he was in trouble? Had he told her he’d been with me? What reason would he have given for seeking me out during the parade, and wouldn’t she know it wasn’t true? No wonder she watched me warily. I tried to ease her palpable fear. “I guess, considering what happened to…to Jimmy Pat,” I said. “Practically in front of me. It leaves a person twitchy.” That should be sufficiently obvious and nonthreatening.
“You
were
there, then?” she blurted out.
So I’d been right. She didn’t believe her husband. She knew his story was suspect.
“I
told
you she was!” Vincent said sharply.
“I meant…” she began lamely, then she gave up looking for a face-saving edit. She blinked a few times and switched to a hostess mode. “Did you enjoy the parade?”
“Did you enjoy the parade?” Vincent echoed. “Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how’d you like the play? Jimmy Pat got killed, Barbs, so how could she enjoy the parade?”
Whereupon he took my elbow, steering me away. Barbs stood with her mouth agape. “Sorry,” he said to her. “Didn’t mean to be short. Kid’s making me nuts. Those shows! Come down—but bring coffee or something?”
“Sure, Vinny,” Barbs said overeagerly.
I wanted to tell her she didn’t have to atone for spousal disbelief. Her spouse was lying. But instead, I said, “Please don’t bother yourself. I don’t want a thing.” Actually, I felt the vague nausea of too little sleep, and the idea of food was not pleasant.
“Any fruitcake left?” Vincent asked.
“No, please, I really don’t feel like eating.”
“Or how about whatever’s left of your Christmas cookies, or the Bûche de Noël? Hey!” he said with special emphasis. “It’s lunchtime, so how about Pepper Pot?” He put a finger up and declaimed:
Here we stand at your front door
Just as we did the year before.
Open the door and let us in,