NINETEEN

Okay, so now I was preoccupied with something else, but I wasn’t clicking up my heels. Why the hell hadn’t Carmella told me she had been to Alta’s apartment and that she’d taken her sister’s things? Was it important? It was hard to know. I mean, on the one hand I somehow doubted that Alta had the identity of her killer-to-be written in code in an envelope hidden in a photo album. On the other hand, a decorated ex-NYPD detective like Carmella knew that personal belongings could be very revealing and that if she had Alta’s, I would want to see them. Having a sense of the victim can point you in the right direction or it can stop you from wasting time pursuing dead-end leads. Who knew what I might find: a love letter or hate mail, a name scrawled on a piece of scrap paper, a photograph, a phone number in a day planner? A detailed investigation into all of Alta Conseco’s things might have come to nothing, but it was impossible to know that.

I pulled across the block from Carmella’s house on Ashford Street, but before I could get out of the car, my cell buzzed in my pocket.

“Yeah?”

“Nice greeting.” It was Brian Doyle.

“I’m not in a nice greeting kind of a mood.”

“I didn’t know cancer made you cranky too.”

Shit, I’d forgotten telling Brian. I didn’t regret telling him, not yet, anyway. I’d had to tell someone before I melted down or exploded, but I wasn’t thrilled by his being so fucking casual about it. Nor was his timing very good. I’d finally put it out of my mind for the first time in hours.

“I’m old, Brian. Everything makes me cranky.”

“I just wanted to let you know that Devo did his magic and we traced down a lot of the names on those hate emails. We also did background checks on the senders.”

“A lot of firemen I bet.”

“Cancer make you cranky and clairvoyant or is that an age thing too, Boss?”

“Just logic,” I said. “And since when do you know words like clairvoyant?

“Since I started reading Webster’s on the crapper.”

“Lovely image, Doyle. Lovely. About the firemen …”

“Lots of firemen and lots of them assholes. They break down into three basic categories: guys with less than five years on, union hard-ons, and headcases.”

“It would break down the same way if the NYPD were involved. It was always the same bunch that got worked up over stuff in the papers.”

“Yeah, I guess. Listen, I had the stuff messengered over to your condo. There’s an invoice attached and—”

“Don’t worry, Brian. I’ll pay it before I drop dead.”

“Phew! That’s a relief.” He was laughing.

I was laughing too. “Fuck you very much, Doyle. Thank Devo for me, okay?”

“No problem, Boss. Take care of yourself.”

“I intend to.”

That was that.

I got out of the car and strolled right up to the front door. I don’t know how I knew it, but I knew things had changed since my drunken visit the night before. No one answered the bells or my insistent knocking. I stepped back away from the house and stared up at it as if by staring intensely enough I would somehow divine what had changed and why no one was home. That strategy was about as effective as foam darts against armor plating. The house wasn’t giving up any secrets. Houses seldom do. I headed across the street to my car and tried Carmella’s number on my cell. Nothing doing. It went right to voice mail. I turned back to the house one last time.

“No home,” a voice came from behind me.

Turning, I spotted the old Puerto Rican gentleman sitting on a discount store beach chair in the midst of his postage stamp-sized garden. Under his bleached-out Mets cap, he had a wizened, age-spotted face and a tobacco-stained smile. He had lived on the block for forever and was old when I first came here twenty years ago.

“Carmella isn’t home?” I asked.

“No home,” he repeated, but didn’t leave it there. “The boy …”

“Carmella and her son aren’t home?”

He shook his head yes and added again, “No home.”

“Did they say when they were coming back?”

He turned his palms up and shrugged his shoulders. “No English.” But I could tell he had something else to say. He said it in Spanish, finishing with a hopeful smile.

I hated to disappoint him. “Lo siento, I’m sorry,” I said.

He was undaunted. Standing, he put his arms down by his side, but not completely straight down, and made his hands into fists. He pantomimed carrying something.

“Luggage. They had luggage.”

“Que?” he asked. What?

“Suitcases. They had suitcases,” I said, imitating his posture.

“Si, suitcases.” His smile was very broad now.

“Gracias,” I said, having almost exhausted my entire Spanish vocabulary. That was the odd thing about Carmella, when we were together she avoided speaking Spanish if at all possible, so I hadn’t picked much up. It had never hit me before, the extreme lengths to which Carm went to cut herself off from her family. Not only had she physically removed herself and changed her name, but she had made all sorts of symbolic breaks from them. I was conscious of them before, but it was more glaring now that we had been apart for so many years. When you’re close to someone and entangled in their mishegas, their craziness, it’s hard to see the full extent of the damage.

The old man sat back down, lit up a cigarette, and let the sun take him in its arms. Sitting on your stoop or on your lawn or in your front garden, watching the world go by was a very New York thing. We didn’t understand backyards very well. You can’t see much from your backyard. There’s not much action in your backyard unless you consider charcoals turning white with heat action. All the action’s out front. Even when Katy, Sarah, and I had the house in Sheepshead Bay, we grilled out front on the porch. I lingered a bit, admiring the old man, enjoying him enjoying the moment. I wondered if there would be any moments like this for me to enjoy, or would I spend the rest of my life in and out of the hospital?

I put that thought right out of my head because I was pissed at Carmella. What the hell was she up to, dragging me into this and then splitting? Why hadn’t she told me she had Alta’s personal things and why didn’t she let me see them? I was working myself up into quite a nasty mood as I retreated to the front seat of my car, but it didn’t last. I’d slapped the rearview mirror with the back of my hand in anger and when I went to readjust it, I recognized the hypocrite looking back at me. Who was I to rage at Carm for keeping secrets and hiding from the truth? For fuck’s sake, I was the king of kept secrets and adept at slicing the truth into sheets so thin they were nearly two-dimensional. Carmella had her reasons. I would know them eventually, whether she wanted them known or not. That’s why I wasn’t about to give up on this case. That and what was waiting for me if I did.

I pulled away from the curb, waving to the old man as I went. He nodded goodbye, the sun’s embrace too strong for him to wave.