FORTY-FIVE

Empty.

Empty, that’s how I felt.

It was over.

Done with.

And who was better for it? Carmella? Maya? Pam? Natasha? Yes, Natasha. Maybe Natasha and the fourteen other women Esme had blackmailed. Pam and I checked their names against phone numbers, emails, addresses, and videos. Fourteen was the number, not counting Maya Watson, of course. It was hard to watch all the videos, even in fast forward, although there was a horrible, mind-numbing sameness to them. I didn’t hold out any hope that these women who had been drugged and raped and blackmailed would find an ounce of comfort in the fact that they weren’t lone victims. They were alone in every way that mattered, far removed from solace, though not quite as far removed as Maya. At least part of the nightmare was over for the survivors, but how much solace would there be in that? I felt like the doctor outside the triple amputee’s door preparing a speech about looking on the bright side. None of these women, I thought, was apt to see any silver lining.

Empty because I had seen the son that was taken from me nine years ago, but whose loss I was fully feeling only now.

Empty because Pam had gone back to Vermont to wash away the stink of this mess. I thought she’d have to scrub long and hard in very hot water from now until I came up for the wedding to even make a dent.

Empty because I’d failed at the whole point of this. I had even less of an idea about who had killed Alta Conseco than I had before I got involved. This was it, the last good chance, and I’d blown it.

Empty because I’d made deals and compromises that weren’t mine to make.

Empty because the clock was ticking.

Empty because that famous luck of mine had run out.

…

I went to the house on Ashford Street. I didn’t know if Carmella had stuck around or if she’d run back up to Toronto, covering her eyes and her ears so that she could ignore the unpleasant truths. If she wasn’t there, I’d call her. If she didn’t answer the phone, I’d fly up to Toronto. She had gotten me into this and she was going to hear me out.

No need to go to the airport. Carmella answered the door. She read the look on my face and invited me in. She’d said she wanted me to stop working the case and maybe she even meant it when she said it, but Carm had been a cop, was still a cop. You never stop being one, badge or no badge, retired or not. You never stop being one on the inside. Whether or not she had better come to terms with who her sister was since our argument, I couldn’t judge.

She offered me a drink, which I refused. I needed to get this out.

“How did you know to come, Moe?”

“What?”

“I am leaving tomorrow and I won’t be coming back. I have rented this place out since I inherited it. I could not stand to let it go. It means the only happy memories I have of my family. But now … it is time. I have arranged for an agent to sell it and I have someone coming to take the furniture away. I have been hanging on to hopes and ghosts for too long. My life is with Israel in Toronto. It is not here. I am not sure it ever was.”

Only when she finished did I notice the phantom images of picture frames on the bare walls and the stacks of cardboard boxes neatly lined up in rows.

“I always liked this place. Even now I can feel your grandmother’s presence. I’ll be sorry when it’s gone.”

“It is already gone, Moe. So what have you come to say?”

“I don’t know who killed Alta, Carm. I don’t think we’ll ever know. I suppose it might have been a pissed-off fireman. That’s still my best guess. I thought I had someone for it, but that didn’t pan out.”

“It is not a surprise. I have already come to terms with that, I think.”

“But I did find some stuff out that you’ll want to hear, stuff you need to hear.”

She took a deep breath, girding herself. “Go ahead.”

“I know why Alta and her partner didn’t treat Robert Tillman at the High Line Bistro. The short version is that Tillman raped Maya Watson and was also blackmailing her. At Alta’s urging, they went to the restaurant to confront Tillman. It was their bad luck that he happened to pick that moment to stroke out. Alta never got over what happened to you, the thing that blew your family apart, and this was her chance at redemption. It wasn’t only Tillman she went to confront. It was the man who did what he did to you when you were little. It was her own guilt and regret she went to confront. Do you understand? Do you see why she couldn’t help him?”

“I understand,” she said, trying to hold herself together.

“It was all about you, about you and her. What might have been, what should have been between two sisters.”

Carmella cried with her whole body so that I felt it through the floor up from the soles of my shoes. I let her cry. I didn’t try to comfort her. The time for that had long passed. That old bond between us was finally broken.

“It seems like you’ve done a good job of raising Israel,” I said when her jag had quieted.

“Thank you.”

“Does he know—”

“—about you? No, but one of the things I am going to do when I get back home is explain.”

“I’m glad, Carm. He should know and about his biological father too. A kid needs to know where he came from so he can know where he’s going.”

“You are right, Moe.”

There was a moment of awkward silence before I stood to leave. Carmella walked me downstairs. We didn’t speak, not at first, but then I hugged her long and hard. It was a last hug goodbye. Just before I left, I handed her a slip of paper with Lieutenant Kristen Jo Winston’s contact information.

“Who is this?”

“Someone you need to sit down with and speak to before you go home.”

“Why?”

“Because if you don’t, Alta really will be lost to you forever.”

I turned and didn’t look back.