Catherine (9 page)

“No, of course not.” I edged a little closer. A folding chair leaned against the wall
nearest me. I grabbed it and plopped myself down. “But I’d like to stay a little longer…
just till I figure out where to look for her next.” When he didn’t respond, I kept
going. “We could find her if we worked together. I have some clues, and you have some
clues. Maybe if we helped each other—”

He broke in. “Are you delusional? I told you last night that she can’t possibly be
alive.”

“How can you be so sure?” I asked. “Maybe she wanted to get in touch with me but couldn’t.
Maybe she was afraid….”

“Catherine was never afraid of anything in her life,” he said, with a certainty that
was starting to get on my nerves. He sank down into the chair behind the desk, still
glowering.

A question occurred to me. “You say she got here and you weren’t around. After she
left my dad and me. Where were you?”

Hence winced. “Trying to get out of England. First there was a railroad strike. I
had to hitchhike to Heathrow. Then they kept canceling flights due to bad weather.”

“Well, maybe she got here and was mad to find you gone,” I said. “Maybe that’s why
she didn’t stay.”

“Don’t you think I’ve considered that possibility?” He still sounded scornful, but
he did look interested in what I was saying.

I figured if I sucked up a little, I might get somewhere. “I guess you knew her a
lot better than I did. Which is why I need your help. Something happened to her. She
didn’t just vanish. And if you let me stay here awhile, maybe we can figure it out.”

“I hired a private detective when she went missing,” he said. “He got nowhere. Just
like the cops.”

“So if they couldn’t find her, nobody can? Not even you?”

He rubbed his eyes as if he was thinking I must be something out of a bad dream. But
I’d appealed to his pride, and it worked. “I tried everything,” he said finally. “I
looked for her everywhere she might possibly have gone.”

Something in his voice told me I’d found a little opening, and I knew I’d better squeeze
through it fast. “Everywhere in the world? Maybe there’s someplace you didn’t think
of. Maybe if we work together we can look for clues.”

“Clues?” His tone was scornful. “Like that letter you showed me? It was a whole lot
of nothing.”

“Wrong,” I said. “There’s useful information in there. For one thing, she mentions
going to visit her friend Jackie. We have to track down this Jackie person and find
out if she knows anything about where Mom went after she left town.”

“Jackie Gray. She was Catherine’s friend in high school. I could have told you that.”

“And?” I crossed my arms.

“And what? Don’t you think I’ve already tried to get information out of Jackie? She
said Catherine never came to see her.”

“Because it’s the truth?” I asked. “Or because she didn’t want
you
to know my mom visited her?”

Hence was silent.

“See, that’s why you need me,” I said. “This Jackie Gray person might want to be nice
to her best friend’s poor motherless daughter.”

He slammed his ledger shut.

Behind me, someone cleared his throat. It was Cooper, his cheeks flushed and his hair
disheveled. “The band’s done unloading. They’re going out for dinner. They’ll be back
by six thirty for sound check.”

“Okay, okay.” Hence waved Cooper off, but he stood there a moment, looking questioningly
at me. The vertical line between Hence’s eyebrows deepened again. “Go upstairs and
make dinner,” he ordered. “I’ll be up in a half hour.”

Cooper hurried off. I still hadn’t worked out exactly what his relationship to Hence
was. Cooper had said Hence was his friend, but to me it looked more like they were
boss and lackey, or cranky father and eager-to-please son. I decided I’d better talk
fast, before Hence shooed me off, too. “Of course, I’d be a much better detective
if I knew more about my mother’s life before she had me.” I watched for a reaction,
but didn’t get one. “You could fill me in.”

“Fill you in?”

“It sounds like you knew her better than anyone,” I said, thinking that might flatter
him. And then I really pushed my luck. “You were her boyfriend, right?”

If Hence were like most normal people, he might have enjoyed the opportunity to talk
about someone he’d been in love with. But no. He slammed his fist into his desk and
stomped off, out the door and down the hallway. Just then, Cooper made a reappearance,
still giving me that wary look.

“What’s his problem, anyway?” I gestured to the spot where Hence had been standing.
“All I did was ask him a simple question.”

Cooper said nothing for a long moment. Then, leaning in a bit closer, he whispered,
“Hence will help you. Don’t make him so angry, and he’ll give you what you want.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“He wants to find out what happened to your mother as much as you do. Maybe more.”

This piqued my interest. “How long till he stops sulking?”

“It depends.” Then, after a pause: “I can tell you things.”

“Things?”

“About Hence,” he said. I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t.

“What do you mean by
things
?”

Cooper glanced around the room. “I have to go buy eggs.”

I followed him to the supermarket. He was a fast walker, the kind who crosses the
street when the
DON’T WALK
sign is flashing; I had to struggle not to lose him. He didn’t say much until we
got to the store, and by then I was completely out of breath. He pulled
out a shopping cart and started filling it with raw meat—steaks and pork chops and
ribs.

“I thought all you needed was eggs?”

Cooper swerved the cart into the next aisle and didn’t answer.

“So what do I need to know about Hence? Besides that he likes red meat.”

“You should cut him a little slack. He may not be the easiest person in the world,
but he’s earned the right to be a little moody.”

A
little
moody? For a moment or two, I couldn’t speak. “Why?”

“He’s a genius, for one thing. Riptide was one of the most important bands of the
whole post-post-punk New York music scene. No—one of the most important bands in the
history of rock music.” The passion in his voice startled me.

I struggled for a comeback. “If they were so great, why did they only have one hit?”

“They were visionaries. Commercial radio didn’t appreciate them, but that doesn’t
mean they weren’t groundbreakers. They didn’t fit into a convenient slot. Besides,
Hence left the band right at their peak….”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Who knows what they would have done if they hadn’t split up.”

I shrugged, then reached for a package of frosted strawberry Pop-Tarts and tucked
it under my arm.

“Besides all that, he’s a good person.” Cooper tossed a couple of boxes of cornflakes
into his cart. “He took me in when I had nowhere else to go. I didn’t have money or
any place to sleep, and
Hence gave me work and a bed.” Speech over, he clammed up. Splotches of red blossomed
on his cheeks from the effort.

Hence, a good person? I knew I should say something polite to show Cooper I’d heard
him and would try to give Hence another chance, but my mind was blank. While I regrouped,
I stood on tiptoe, failing to reach a bottle of chocolate syrup on the top shelf.
With one swift motion Cooper palmed it and slipped it into his cart.

“You should say thank you,” he told me.

So I did.

“Not to me. To Hence. For letting you stay in The Underground.”

“I will,” I said, not sure I really meant it. “If he ever stops barking and glowering
at me.”

Cooper gave the shopping cart a shove, and I hurried down the aisle after him.

“Do you know anything about a Jackie Gray?” I asked his back. “She was a friend of
my mom’s. Hence knows her. He said so.”

Cooper slowed his pace. “Sorry,” he said over his shoulder.

“Meaning you don’t know her? Or you won’t tell me about her?”

“I’ve never even heard her name before.” He paused in the international aisle, watching
me through the lock of light brown hair that had fallen into his eyes.

Emboldened, I tried another approach. “What about Hence’s ex-wife? Nina Bevilaqua.”

A storm cloud crossed Cooper’s face. “I wouldn’t mention her to Hence. Unless you
really want to rub him the wrong way.”

“Well, sure. But
you
could tell me about her.”

“Tell you what?” He started loading up on refried beans and taco shells.

“Where she lives,” I said. “Her phone number.”

“So you can track her down, and she can complain to Hence? I don’t feel like losing
my job, thanks. Not to mention my home.” He grabbed a jar of salsa from the shelf,
scowled absently at it, then replaced it.

“You said you could tell me things,” I mumbled in the direction of Cooper’s back.
Feeling discouraged, I followed him to the checkout aisle and dug in my pockets for
cash.

Coop unloaded the cart in silence and we waited for the cashier to ring up the old
guy in front of us. Finally he sighed. “Please don’t look like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I just kicked your dog.”

“But you
did
just kick my dog.”

“Nina won’t know anything recent about your mother. She and Hence are barely on speaking
terms. The only contact they have is once a month, when he writes her an alimony check,
and every six months or so when she calls to scream at him.
You selfish bastard.
” Cooper spoke that last bit in a whiny falsetto. “
I wasted the best part of my life on you.
She’s so loud I can hear her from across the room.”

“Sounds like they deserve each other.”

Groceries paid for, we trudged toward The Underground. The wheels in my head spun
without getting traction. So Hence’s ex-wife couldn’t tell me anything, and all I
knew about Jackie Gray was her name—a name so common a Google search would
probably give me thousands of hits. Hence wouldn’t help me and Cooper couldn’t tell
me anything without losing his job, and God only knew how long I had before my dad
guessed my whereabouts and showed up on the doorstep of The Underground. Maybe I should
beat him to the punch and just go home and accept whatever punishment was waiting
for me. Dad could only ground me until my eighteenth birthday, I figured.

As if he were reading my mind, Cooper interrupted my thoughts. “Your dad called.”

I froze, thinking I must not have heard him right. I’d only been gone for a little
over a day, and he’d found the missing letter already?

“He sounded really worried about you,” Cooper added.

My mouth had trouble forming words. “What? When?”

Cooper’s reply seemed to come in slow motion. “This morning. You’re lucky I was the
one who answered the phone. He said he was calling every possible place you might
have thought to go, and he knew it was a long shot, but had we seen you?”

“What did you say?”

“I lied for you.” The pink splotches returned to Cooper’s cheeks. “I said I’d let
him know if someone who fit your description showed up. He seemed to believe me….”

Cooper had covered for me? I threw my arms around him, completely forgetting the grocery
bag slung from my wrist and accidentally whacking him with its contents.

“Sorry. I can’t believe you lied for me.”

“I didn’t like doing it,” Coop said. “He sounded really worried.”

I pushed aside the image of my frantic dad making phone
calls to everyone he could think of. “You won’t tell Hence my dad called?”

Coop looked pained. “I probably should, but I won’t.”

“I don’t think he’d mind my dad suffering. He seems to really have it in for my father.
I can’t imagine why.”

“You can’t?” We reached the back door of the club. Cooper set his bags down and fumbled
in his pocket for the keys. Once we were in, he grabbed a notebook and pen from a
countertop, ripped off a square of paper, wrote something on it, folded it in half,
and handed it to me.

“What’s this?”

“You need the WiFi password, right? So you can do your sleuthing?’

I thanked him and slipped the paper into my pocket. We rode the elevator together
and Cooper lugged all his bags off at the second floor. As the elevator made its slow
way up to my mother’s appartment, I unfolded the little square of paper and took a
look.

The password was CATHERINE.

A few days after the Splendid Weather show, I crept up to Hence while he was mopping
the floor of the main room. Though he’d basically saved my life, we hadn’t spoken
of it since that night; in fact, we’d hardly spoken at all, which just seemed wrong.
Hence froze when I walked into the room. Without a word, I slipped something into
his hand.

“What’s this?”

“A guitar pick.”

“Right.” He leaned his mop against the wall. “I mean, why are you giving it to me?”

I took the pick from his hand and turned it over. “You see that?” The white plastic
was embossed with a guitar in shades of black, pink, and purple. “It belonged to Joe
Strummer. Dad took me to see The Clash when I was maybe ten. Joe tossed it to me at
the end of the show.” Was I boasting? I hoped it didn’t come across that way.