Suspect, p.21
Suspect, page 21
“Fuck,” he says, “it stinks in here.” He’s waving around a handkerchief. “I gotta rent this place again, you know.” He shakes his head but closes the window and then runs his hand along the sill, like he’s cleaning up the dust. The fact that he went ahead and touched something right after she asked him not to is clearly over the limit for Toy.
“Okay,” Tonya says. “Time for our visitors to leave.”
On my way out, I stop to take a closer look at the front windows for one second, then follow Tonya and Cornish out. Across the landing, there is a dark eye peering through a skinny crack beside the door.
Cornish is already on the first stair down.
“Walter, I need your cell,” Tonya says. “Someone’s gonna stop by to visit with you tomorrow. You too, Mr. Johnson,” she says, shooting a finger toward the eyeball across the hall. The door slams immediately.
“No worries,” Cornish answers. He hands up a business card from his back pocket, then makes a loud departure as he hops down the stairs in his boots.
Tonya has grabbed my arm to hold me here.
“Thinking?” she asks.
“Like anything? Even something off the hook?”
“Who’m I talking to?”
“I got a little feeling Frito’s other interest wasn’t girls.”
“Because?”
“Something,” I answer.
“Well, there you go.”
“Impossible?” I ask.
“How would I know? He was pretty buttoned up. That could mean anything.”
“Somebody tied him to a chair. And had him dribbling spunk. Sometimes those Catholic boys want to be punished.” I remember, as soon as I’ve said it, that she’s been going to church, but she doesn’t seem to take it one way or the other.
“Lots of boys deserve to be punished,” Tonya says, but she smiles a little. It’s interesting how different she is, more like her regular self, just one step out the door and away from the body. “We’ll know a lot more after Potter gets a better look at him.”
I hop one stair down, then point at her as I recall what I wanted to tell her.
“Oh,” I add. “And there’s no screen on that window over the fire escape, which is different from the front windows. I noticed that when Cornish pulled it open. I bet you find the screen stored in one of the closets.”
“Meaning what?”
“I don’t know. But why leave off the screens in the summer?”
“Never got around to putting them back on?”
“Make sure the techs take a good look at that area, too.”
I get a very appreciative nod. “Good thinkin, Detective.”
I wave and head down.
“Thanks for letting me pull you away from your boyfriend,” she calls out.
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I say. I haven’t thought of Koob since I got here, which I’m happy to realize, but then a bunch of confused feelings knot up again in the middle of my chest. “I was by myself, looking at Instagram and finding out that everybody else has a much cooler life than me.”
She laughs.
“Peace out,” I say.
“Peace,” she answers. “Please go talk to the Chief.”
“On my way.”
I call Rik from the front seat of the Cadillac before I have even pulled away. It’s another hot night, but I keep the windows up while the AC’s kicking in, so the coppers who have showed up—there’s six cars now—can’t hear me. That many cops means a reporter will know all about this in a couple hours, no matter what Tonya’s orders are. So if the Chief is going to be the person to bring in the Bureau, we’ve got to move.
Rik’s phone rings for a while. It’s past one. He doesn’t sleep a lot, but he must have turned in. His voice is groggy when he finally says, “Pinky.”
“Early night?”
“Asleep in my La-Z-Boy,” he answers. “I was watching the Trappers get pummeled on the West Coast. I hate when I do this. My feet swell up and I can’t get my shoes off.”
“Well, Boss, I’m glad you’re sitting down.” I tell him what there is to tell. About every ten seconds he says, “Aw, fuck.” When I’m done, he just says, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Do you want me to go talk to the Chief myself?”
“I’ll meet you at her house in forty-five minutes. Wait for me in the driveway.”
The Chief is in a housecoat and definitely looking the worse for it without her makeup. It’s like seeing a mollusk that’s crawled out of its shell somehow. Her pretty face is always painted so perfectly. Now she’s pale, with a decided heaviness to her jawline that the cosmetics help obscure, and all the wrinkles around her eyes are out from under cover. We’re seeing the Chief as she is beneath it all, and it’s someone considerably less upbeat. It’s like her smile came off with the makeup. I realize that Lucy seldom sees those dimples when she’s looking in the mirror late at night, alone.
She puts on coffee, while Rik and I sit down in her kitchen, which has one of those corner nooks, with benches on two sides built around a table. You can see it must have been great when there were four of them here.
She brings a pint of cream from the fridge, as she takes a seat across the table with a weary weight.
“Okay,” she says. “Two o’clock in the morning and both of you here, so it isn’t good news.”
I suppose if you’re a big-time bad guy like a murderer you’ve got to be a decent actor, but if this woman had anything to do with Blanco’s death, then Meryl Streep should just pack it in and send Lucy referrals. As I tell the Chief where I was and what I saw, her mouth parts slowly and everything else seems to fall out of her face, both blood and sense, while her black eyes deepen in mystification.
It takes her a couple minutes to process, but the Chief immediately agrees to Tonya’s request to remove herself from the case. Lucy’s less convinced about calling the Bureau, who treat everybody else in law enforcement like they’re the dumb baby brother.
“It’s the way they take over,” she says. “It’s their case and everybody else is the butler.”
“I think Tonya’s got control of the crime scene,” I say. “She’s already sent stuff to the lab—the pathologist is doing the post right now. So the Bureau will have to play nice with her if they want her to share information. They pretty much have to treat her like a partner. There’s joint jurisdiction. You can’t tell the locals to ‘go fish’ on a murder.”
“And another thing,” says Rik. “I’d much rather deal with Moses than the local PA. A lot of strange stuff can go down with an elected prosecutor in a year when people are headed to the polls. I don’t know what kind of ties Steven has to Jonetta Dunphy,” he says, referring to the Greenwood County prosecuting attorney, “but their dads were both in office at the same time. Steven is gonna do everything but straight up accuse you of murder, and God only knows what Jonetta would do to humor him. Moses is completely straight. Pinky even knows him a little.”
I called Moses a couple months back to introduce Rik, right after our first meeting with the Chief, and I was downright thrilled when the mighty US Attorney called me back so quickly. He wanted to ask me about Pops, but he was very nice to me, too. Usually, if you’re not another lawyer, you’re an absolute waste of time.
It’s near three when I get home. Since Koob is often roaming around at this hour, I graze my knuckles on his door. It’s another night where I’d be happy for company. Even with that tiny little knock, the lock gives way and the door swings open. I stand on the threshold, trying to figure what to do next.
“Hey, Koob,” I call. “It’s Clarice.” I take a step inside, and my butt kind of puckers with the feeling of taboo: I’m finally within the inner sanctum, where Koob keeps all his secrets. “Koob,” I say again. The next time, I’m loud, and then I’m really loud, immediately regretting the last shout because of our neighbors. He must be out working again.
Koob’s apartment, which I saw empty when I was scouting out places, has a much more upscale look than mine now, well furnished in contemporary industrial style. Koob said his client is paying the rent, so they must have leased this furniture, too. In the living room, there’s a long angular black leather sofa with round leather bolsters at either end, and a huge TV, but no sign of headphones. I’m still debating whether I should walk in further, since I know he won’t like it, but hey, what kind of superspy leaves the door open? I can say I was worried about him.
His kitchen is big enough for a sort of Danish Modern table, and in his bedroom, the queen-size bed with a square wooden headboard has been made, the geometric spread and matching pillows arranged evenly. It’s no surprise he’s tidy. But what I gather from the made bed is that he hasn’t been to sleep yet. Overall, the air here is weirdly reminiscent of Blanco’s apartment, that empty solemn feel like it’s not really a home.
I don’t begin to worry until I look back at the living room. There’s a desk there that matches the kitchen table, but nothing on it, not even a computer. Koob has to have a tricked-out machine to monitor the kind of surveillance equipment I saw him install behind Vojczek’s, which means he took his powerhouse laptop with him for tonight’s spying. But I see no sign of the Stingray that I’ve always assumed was here to pick up the signal from the NoDirt.
I retrace my path through every room, opening each drawer, in which I find nothing but a little paper dust. I’m beginning to get a very weird feeling. In Koob’s bedroom, the closet is empty except for bare hangers, one or two of which have ended up on the floor. On my knees, I find a single black sock underneath the dresser. In the bathroom, there’s a bluish squiggle of toothpaste in the sink and a used bar of soap in the shower, but nothing else. Walking into the kitchen, I recognize a scent I’ve been smelling since I walked in here, a disinfectant spray, meaning he was cleaning recently. Then I finally notice two keys on the breakfast bar.
I sit down at Koob’s table. In my chest, a lot of different feelings are banging into each other, and my thoughts aren’t any clearer, circling one way then the other. But one conclusion is solid.
Every fucking time, I think. It happens every time.
He’s gone.
24. For Advice
Since junior high, there has only been one place I go for serious advice. My dad, much as I love him, comes out with shit that makes even me wonder if he is a member of another species, and my mom has never gotten beyond ‘What did you do now?’ I’m not sure I believe in the afterlife or mediums, but somewhere in my inner fibers I’m sure Pops will still be showing up long after he’s gone, when I really need him.
So on Saturday morning, I go—as I have been going for an hour every Saturday since we all got our second shots—to Aventura Center for Advanced Living. If the owners had their way, you’d move into Aventura when you turned fifty-five and never walk out again. It is meant to be just like the Ritz—the real Ritz—but with walkers. The attendants all wear sport coats and they treat even me in my combat-style boots and nail like they think I’m actually Rihanna in a thin disguise.
Pops is in what they call the middle phase, which means Assisted Living. He has a nice little suite with all the plugs and outlets so that they can give him oxygen, for example, or run an IV drip, neither of which he currently needs, thank God. He has a cheerful attendant named Florence, who makes sure he takes all his meds twice a day. Pops moved in here at the start of 2020. In January, about two weeks after they closed the law firm, he took a terrible spill at home. He fainted, I guess—a problem with his heart meds, it turned out—and hit his head on one of the kitchen counters and ended up with a serious concussion. I came back from grocery shopping and freaked. He was lying on the tile, bloody to the shoulders from the head wound and frighteningly out of it. It was his second serious medical incident within a couple months, and he decided on his own that he needed nurses nearby 24/7.
I wait for him in the so-called Day Room, where there are big windows and fancy drapes and furniture in muted tones. I am in one of the few easy chairs provided for those of us who can still get out of them. Not long after Reception has called up to announce me, I see Pops stumble in on his cane, tossing up a hand in greeting. He looks older every time I come, sagging a little more and getting noticeably yellow. His cancer remains at bay, and his heart condition is under control, but now his liver and kidneys are in decline. Plus he has a harder time than ever getting around.
But he is so goddamned happy! He has had a great time here. He started his own YouTube channel, where once a week he sits down to give his summary of the latest legal news. He has somehow figured out how to integrate all kinds of visuals into his videos, like charts and photographs. Trump, who produced a legal confrontation every week, boosted his viewership, he claims, and he now has about 2,000 followers, which is mind-blowing. I couldn’t get that many people to follow me if I was dropping money on the street.
Most of his mood, we all know, is due to Sondra, his cute little girlfriend, who is right beside him with a hand on his elbow. Sondra moved in here with her former husband after his second stroke. He was almost twenty years older than Sondra—there’s a story there that Pops either doesn’t know or won’t tell—but lasted five more years. By the time he passed, Sondra was happy to stay, since these days you need a golden ticket to get in. She’s seventy-eight anyway, but in great shape. She’s still pretty sporty and leaves at least once a week in the summer to play golf at her country club, with Pops as her chauffeur in the cart.
I was over here every day when Pops first moved in, and by the second week I noticed her lingering around him.
‘I think she likes you,’ I said.
‘I think so, too,’ he said. ‘And I like her as well. But I am uncertain how to approach this.’
‘Are you talking about getting married?’
‘Lord no,’ he said. ‘But this is a small community, Pinky. I enjoy it here. If things do not go well with Sondra, it might become very uncomfortable for both of us. And I am hardly certain that I need this kind of thing as I creep up to ninety.’
I’m not the person people usually come to for relationship advice. But if there is any human being I truly get, it’s my grandfather.
‘Look, Pops,’ I said. ‘I always thought you had an awesome thing with Helen.’
‘As did I.’
‘So that means you’re good at relationships. You can manage the give and take, you get a lot out of it. And you absolutely want to do it, because from what I can tell, it takes a fuck-ton of determination that I, frankly, have never had.’
He laughed. Pops always finds me amusing and endearing. ‘All true.’
‘Then go for it. It’s your nature to pair up.’
I know he would have reached the same conclusion on his own, but given how happy he has been, I’m proud that I gave him that little nudge.
Now the three of us sit down around a table and have a brief chat. Sondra has fourteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, so there are always photos to look at and funny stories. Eventually I kind of cough and say I have some confidential legal business I need Pops’s advice on.
“Of course, of course,” she sings, and hugs me and then flies off, right after kissing Pops on the top of his bald head and reminding him that they have a bridge game at eleven. He turns to watch her go, like he can barely stand to have her out of sight.
Everybody in the family, me included, is grateful for Sondra, but we all roll our eyes when Pops describes her as just like Helen. Helen, Rik’s mom, had this incredible thing: If you mattered to her, it felt like she could take an MRI of your heart and lovingly absorb you on your own terms. Sondra is cute as a button—her hairdresser maintains her curly blonde bob, and she’s still fit looking—plus she’s one of those smaller women who always get called perky, meaning bubbly and positive and warm. On the other hand, she’s about half as smart or interesting as Helen and, leaving aside her looks, doesn’t seem to have much else going for her. She grew up in the suburbs and never left, raising her family within a mile of her parents’ house. She is very sweet but doesn’t know much except the best places on the West Bank to eat and shop. Then again, being fair, she is really good at taking care of other people, which I guess is a superpower of its own.
Anyway, Pops is totally smitten. They were already talking about spending nights together when the pandemic closed in on this place and forced everybody into life behind locked doors. After the two families consented, they became a pod of two. Pops says it was just like another honeymoon. I will never get it when it comes to couples, which I suppose is the lesson of the week. I keep thinking that at some point, I will ask for the spicy details of what exactly happens in that bed they share, given that Pops is looking straight down the barrel of ninety, but I never quite have the nerve. It works for them, whatever it is.
“And what exactly is this legal problem?” Pops asks warily as soon as Sondra is out of sight. I can tell he’s afraid that I’m back to my old ways and have gotten busted or am about to. His face lifts noticeably when I start out by telling him I’m not in trouble.
“I just don’t know what to do,” I say. I have always shared pretty much everything with him, even though he has sometimes sat through the details of my personal life like I’m a doctor putting one of those Popsicle sticks right down his throat. He knows about the Chief’s case—I have been keeping him posted weekly—and he heard about Blanco’s death on the news. But what I haven’t told even him, until now, is that Koob and I got a little involved, since before that I’d been rattling on to him like everybody else about my weird neighbor, the spy.
“Even so, I still have no real idea why he was in Highland Isle,” I say. “He would never talk about work. And here’s the hard part, okay? The night that Blanco was killed, Koob was supposed to come by and he didn’t, and instead I heard him get back next door at about three. And then at some point the next day, probably while I was at work, he vanished, emptied the apartment and is just gone.”
