Authors: Katia Lief
“He’s awesome.”
I turned around and there was Rich, sitting one row back: dark-reddish hair, soft blue eyes, freckly complexion, as always wearing jeans and a T-shirt so he’d be ready for anything in his art classes. I knew from Nat that Rich was a favorite teacher, not just of his but almost everyone. I understood why: he was warm and friendly and easy to talk to. He had an unusual openness that made him good to be around. At our second and last meeting – or “date” as Sara would call it though I had not yet had the nerve to think of it that way – we had agreed to get together again this Friday night. I was to meet him at his home studio where I could see the art he did for himself, his “real art” as he called it. We’d also agreed that, when we ran into each other at school, we would keep our personal relationship private.
“Isn’t he?”
“You OK?”
“I always cry. Can’t help it. I cry at everything.”
The next performer cartwheeled onto the stage in a red leotard.
After the show I waited outside school for Nat.
Students
and parents flowed out onto the street, and flowed and flowed, but Nat didn’t appear until almost everyone else was gone. I nearly fell asleep on my feet, I was that tired, until the moment I saw Joe on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifth Street.
Adrenaline pumped into my blood and woke me up faster than any amount of caffeine could have. What was Joe doing here?
But no sooner did I see him than he vanished in a clump of people who moved across the street when the light changed. My eyes stayed with the people but when they dispersed at the next corner – no Joe. I stepped forwards, thinking I would go after him, if only to make sure I’d actually seen him and not someone else my sleepless brain had transformed into him.
Had
he been there? Had I
imagined
him? I got all the way to the corner when I heard Nat’s voice.
“Mom?”
I turned around and waved as he caught up with me.
“Where were you going?”
“I thought I saw someone I knew.”
“It looked like you were leaving.”
“I waited a long time. Where were you?” But I shouldn’t have asked. My darling son ignored the question. So I changed the subject by telling him, “You were great!” We walked to the subway,
discussing
the show and debating restaurants for dinner. As we walked I kept my eyes open for Joe but didn’t see him again. I now questioned whether I had actually seen him in the first place. I was so tired, my eyes were foggy; it could have been any young man who looked even a little bit like him.
It was just this kind of uncertainty that had kept me on guard since Hugo died, this new and unwelcome insecurity in my own perceptions. It
was
possible that I only thought I’d seen Joe because I was so exhausted and aggravated with him for making me exhausted. Was my mind projecting ghosts of my disquiet onto the streets now? If so, it wouldn’t be the first time. A little over a year ago, I was convinced I saw Hugo driving past me in a car. I was sure of it and, in a panic, called the Vineyard medical examiner’s office to confirm that Hugo Mayhew had in fact died five months earlier. That was the moment I thought I might be losing my mind, and it was the beginning of a decision-making process that convinced me I had to leave the island.
I once read a book about widows called
Onto the Pyre
. I had grown up with a widow, my mother, and so the subject had long fascinated me before I became one myself. Psychologists had documented a wide range of feelings and reactions after the loss of a spouse, with wilder fluctuations among women, which is why widows were chosen as the book’s
focus
. More men than women died within a year after the death of a lifelong spouse – they actually called it
dying from a broken heart
. Women overall appeared to be more resilient. Many grieved for a while and then set about rebuilding new, different lives. Others nursed their grief indefinitely, gaining strength from memory. A few refused to react much at all once the initial shock passed and put their energies into remarrying as quickly as possible. Some were broken in ways that never repaired fully but managed to live usefully. Some threw themselves into family, others into work. A few snapped completely and went insane. My mother had devoted herself to family (me) and work. I liked to think I was following in her brave footsteps.
Times like tonight, with Nat, were emotionally anchoring. Ultimately, I liked nothing more than being alone with my son, particularly when we were out of the house and away from all the stuff we needed to do. He reminded me so much of Hugo and yet he wasn’t Hugo, he was himself, and regardless of everything that had happened he was blossoming before my eyes.
We ate Middle Eastern food in a packed restaurant on Smith Street. Then we walked slowly home, browsing in store windows along the way. He indulged me at the window of an upscale shoe store and I indulged him at the window of a comics store.
It
was eight thirty before we got home. Nat started on homework and I called my office voicemail to check messages.
The call from the Buildings Department had come in at four fifteen, soon after I left for the show. A man named Ian Wright had left a message for me to call him back regarding the cleanup of the factory site. I would return the call first thing in the morning. Then presumably I would call Russet Cleanup. If what Wright and Russet told me corresponded with what Abe Starkman had said they would tell me, I would be back in Elliot’s office seeking permission to look for the bones.
CHAPTER 3
IT RAINED ON
Wednesday and I arrived at the office waterlogged in my raincoat, rain boots and with a soggy umbrella too wet to put anywhere without soaking everything it touched. Minus an umbrella stand, the women of the office took to using the bathroom on such days as this, devoting one sink to umbrella drainage. I dropped mine into the pile, fixed my hood-squashed hair, shook out my coat and went to my desk.
Where I found a bagel and coffee waiting, just like yesterday. And now Courtney’s observation about the punctiliousness of the presentation really hit me. The bagel’s slice was angled at a perfect diagonal and one of the cup’s I LOVE NEW YORKs was positioned front and center. It was exactly the same except today’s note was different:
Good morning! Don’t let the rain dampen your spirits! Oh well, I guess today won’t work for another picnic. Joe
I glanced at Courtney, who rolled her eyes but kept typing at lightning speed. I knew she was on deadline so didn’t bother her. Dumping my bag on the floor and my raincoat over the back of my chair, I lifted the plastic-lined garbage can and with one sweep of my arm donated the breakfast to the janitor. Then I searched Joe Coffin in the company’s online directory and dialed the mailroom’s extension. His supervisor summoned him to the phone.
“Good morning!” he said when he heard my voice. “You don’t have to thank me; it was my pleasure.”
“I’m not calling to thank you, Joe. I want you to stop.”
“You’re cranky. Didn’t you sleep? I didn’t want to call last night because—”
“Don’t call me at home again, please. And there’s no need to get me breakfast, OK? It’s nice of you but …” And here I caved. I couldn’t bring myself to say what I really wanted to which was
it’s worse than annoying, it’s creepy
. “It’s unnecessary. I’ve been trying to eat at home. It’s a waste of food.”
“OK.” He said it simply, like a fence collapsing in a slight breeze.
“OK. Well.”
“I’m sorry, Darcy. I guess I’m coming on too strong. I just don’t have any other friends in New York.”
“You will. Give it time. You just got here.” All the platitudes I could think of to get this guy to leave me alone without outright hurting his feelings.
“I was hoping you could show me around the neighborhood. I’m moving to Brooklyn soon.”
My insides thumped. It had only been two days since he’d mentioned he might look into it.
Had
I spotted him yesterday in Park Slope?
“Where?”
“Red Hook. Everywhere else was way too expensive.”
“Did I by any chance see you in Park Slope yesterday evening?”
“No, I was in Red Hook, seeing my new apartment.” But his answer came too quickly and sounded rehearsed. And yet why would he lie? He had already told me he’d been in Brooklyn and was going to move. “It isn’t fancy but I think you’ll like it. I thought maybe after I settled in, you and your son could come over for dinner.”
“Joe … please listen to me. I’m a lot older than you and my life is in a different place. I’m a mother. I’m a widow. I’ve even got a boyfriend.” I blurted out the part about the boyfriend, an exaggeration
because
Rich was
not
my boyfriend, but my defenses were up and I knew from lifetimes past that the claim of having someone else usually worked to dampen a man’s unwanted interest. “And work keeps me so busy I just don’t have time for anyone else.”
There was a pause before he answered. “It’s OK. I understand. We’ll be friends.”
It was exasperating talking to him. I didn’t want to be his friend; I was trying to tell him I couldn’t be his friend, so how had we come back to that?
“No, I don’t think so. Sorry.” I hung up before he had a chance to respond.
Courtney stopped typing long enough to look over at me. “Broke another heart, did you?”
I threw a paperclip at her, she laughed and went back to her story, and I checked my watch to see if it was nine thirty yet. I had decided to give it a little time before making my call to the Buildings Department so as not to seem overeager, as if I already knew too much. Which I did, or thought I did. Tucking away assumptions, I waited another ten minutes and dialed Ian Wright’s number.
He answered his own phone which told me that he was not a senior employee, which either meant his higher-ups didn’t know about this or they were overconfident. I introduced myself and Ian Wright launched right in, telling me everything Abe Starkman had said he would. Almost to the word.
Next I phoned Russet Cleanup and as instructed asked for Lenny, who confirmed everything Ian Wright had told me.
And so my job was done. Or it would have been if I lived in the land of Mickey Mouse. Did Buildings really think so little of
Times
reporters that they thought they could feed us information and we wouldn’t question it?
Would
I have questioned it if not for Abe Starkman? The truth was, I didn’t know.
Someone had already brought Elliot his morning coffee so I had to wait twenty minutes for an audience. This time he asked me to shut the door before I could suggest it myself, indicating that he had been thinking about this and took it seriously. And also, possibly, that he was nervous about where it might lead.
“They called?”
“They called. And I made the follow-up call to Russet. It was exactly like my source said it would be. It was like they were reading from a script.”
Elliot leaned back and twirled a freshly sharpened pencil between thumb and forefinger. Then he laid it on his desk, picked up the phone and buzzed an in-house extension. Through the glass wall of his office I saw Courtney answer his call and react to his directive: “I’m teaming you on a story with Darcy. A
possible
story. She’ll fill you in on the details. This is confidential for now so zip it up.” As he said that,
I
watched Courtney pull an invisible zipper across her smile.
So that was that. I was on the story. With Courtney. It was unnecessary to question Elliot’s decision to pair us; Courtney had experience reporting on criminal cases and would be an excellent guide into that world. Her smile told me that she felt as I did: pleased that we’d be working together for the first time. And apparently she’d said nothing about her deadline, which only confirmed what I already knew about her: that she was a true and hungry reporter.
She filed her story at eleven thirty, half an hour before her deadline, and we went outside together to catch a cab to the Queens Property Office in Long Island City. The morning rain had stopped, leaving behind a humid and overcast afternoon, so we shed our raincoats and carried them with our drip-dried umbrellas under our arms.
On the Queensboro Bridge, high above the East River, Courtney told me a bit about where we were going. It was known as the Pearson Place warehouse and it was the New York Police Department’s most notoriously unreliable evidence storage facility. She told me it was better and more organized than in the past but even so I should “prepare myself” and I “wouldn’t believe it”. When I had told her what we were looking for and why (again, without
mentioning
Abe Starkman’s name), an expression of understanding dawned across her face.
“Pearson would be the perfect place to lose something you didn’t want anyone to find until you were ready to help them find it,” she said.
We drove off the bridge and along Jackson Avenue for a bit before turning onto Thompson and then Skillman, a long avenue banked on one side by a rail yard. After a few dilapidated blocks we turned onto Austell Place where our taxi pulled to a stop in front of a huge four-story warehouse. We paid and got out. Courtney had been here before, she knew the place and the people, so I held back and let her take the lead.
Which she did, in style. She had on tight jeans, cowboy boots and a tailored purple blouse through which you could see her black lace camisole. Her face was free of makeup but with the hair luminescent down her back and her long, confident stride she came on like a movie star. I followed her through the door into a low-ceilinged anteroom that smelled badly of mildew.
Courtney greeted the receptionist with familiarity, leaning her big white smile right up to the round hole cut into the foggy Plexiglas barrier. “Hey, Tanisha, how’s it going?”
“Hi, Courtney.” Tanisha looked up from a mound of papers she appeared to be collating very slowly.
“Anand here?”
Without answering, Tanisha buzzed an intercom and summoned Anand. While we waited, Courtney dug into her purse for a lipstick and applied some to her mouth: bubblegum pink. After a minute Anand appeared through an inner door. He was a portly East Indian with swollen lips and tiny eyes that glinted with humor, offsetting the authority of his police uniform.