Caught Dead (8 page)

“Well,” I said, “one big happy family.”

“You know he paid for
all
the kids to go to the Chesterton School. All of them. Paid the hefty tuition not only for Jon and Kristen, his own kids, but for Mary's kids.”

“I didn't know that.” The pizza arrived—white clam—and Hank and I stopped talking for a moment of dutiful worship. Hank snapped a photo and immediately uploaded it to Instagram, though he saw me frowning. We each took a slice and ate quickly. “That's quite a chunk of change,” I said finally.

“He didn't have to do that, but Molly thought that would sort of level out their futures, give each kid a future.”

“But it didn't work.”

“Never does, right?” He nibbled at a slice of pizza. “Part of the problem is that his only daughter Kristen, as you've been told, has only one functioning brain cell, and it's covered with a designer label. She flunked out after a year, dramatically so, and continued her odyssey through Loomis Chafee, Kingswood Oxford, Rosemary Hall, and Miss Porter's. Money money money. Larry wrote her applications on dollar bills. Jon graduated, a bright kid, went on to Yale—he's still there, eternal student, talks about being a lawyer. Most likely not—life is a game to him. Likes to spend daddy's money, but he's hostile, nasty to people. But what really got to Mary and Molly was that Cindy, plain Jane, became antisocial, got in trouble all the time, did manage to graduate, but barely. She dragged herself through. Since then she's drifted, this half-assed job, that one. And her brother Tommy, slacker central, never went to class, violated probation, ignored pleas, held on by the skin of his teeth somehow, and then dropped out near the end of his senior year. That rankled—here are poor kids given the chance and fucking it up. You're not surprised when rich kids rebel at prep school. It's like a rite of passage. But charity demands obedience. Larry never said a word about wasted money. He gave them a shot. Molly couldn't complain.”

“But she did, I bet.”

Hank ate half a slice of pizza before talking, licking his chops. “Molly wanted a perfect world—the four chosen children of the Republic. Ivy League and Junior League. As far away as she could get from the poverty of Saigon.”

“She got part of it—with Jon. Sort of.”

“Did she? Who knows? He seems to make a career out of looking for that same perfection.”

I filled him in on my brief visit to Tommy's apartment. He grinned. “Did the cockroaches get you? I've seen water bugs the size of Detroit carrying pizza crusts to the curb.”

I thought of something. “He had a school friend there, offering condolences.”

“Who? From Chesterton?”

“A rico suave named Danny, a banker who…”

He broke in. “I forgot about Danny. Trinh Xuan Duong.”

“You know him?”

“Oh yeah. Of course. Not well, but he's been around. I'm surprised you don't know him.”

I took a sip of soda. “If he doesn't come to Vietnamese New Year's at some VFW Hall in East Hartford, then I don't know him.”

“True, I guess. He's actually the real success story of the group. Larry paid for
his
tuition at Chesterton, and the dirt-poor Vietnamese kid who was born in the worst housing project on the East Coast, Dutch Point, flowered, a hungry, bright boy, ready to take advantage of his scholarship. He's never looked back, that kid. Christ, he graduated from Harvard as a finance major.”

I thought of the sleek, expensive-looking young banker. “Hank, who the hell is he?”

“I just told you…”

“But why would Larry pay his way through school?”

Hank's eyes got wide. “God, there is so much you don't know. Larry and Molly have known Danny since he was a little boy, since he was born, in fact. A playmate for Jon and Kristen. They watched him grow up.”

I groaned. I must have looked stupefied because Hank grinned. “It's not a big mystery, Rick. Just one more episode of Molly's I'm-proud-to-be-an-American democracy. Danny is the son of their housekeeper. You met her today. Susie. Tran Thi Suong. Affectionately renamed Susie way back when.”

“The cheerleader of Larry's fan club.”

“Now you know why.”

Chapter Ten

I woke up thinking of Molly's eyes—that momentary flicker I'd spotted.

I drove to her estate without calling first. She wasn't home. No one answered the door, but I spotted a gardener mowing the back acres. So I frittered the day away, billing clients, stopping in at the Gaddy Associates office, debating whether to call Liz or Hank but realizing I had nothing to say. When I drove back to the Torcelli estate late in the afternoon, I spotted a new gray Volvo in the driveway with the vanity plate: MOLLY2. The hood was warm to the touch, telling me she'd just arrived home.

Susie answered the door, called Molly, who became agitated. “What's happened?”

“Nothing. I hope you don't mind me stopping in?”

She looked flustered. “I feel like you're gonna tell me something bad.”

“No, Molly, no,” I said quietly. “I just wanted to follow up on a few things.”

“Come in.” She turned to Susie. “I'll go over that list with you later.” She smiled at me. “Susie and I just got back from Springfield. The traffic was horrible.” She looked distracted. “We're doing a luncheon.” Then she paused. “I'm sorry. You're not here to hear about my day.”

She motioned for me to sit down.

“I won't take a lot of your time, Molly, but I was wondering about something. When I was here with Hank, I asked you if you knew why Mary went into that neighborhood. I thought I saw a moment's hesitation—I don't know, a bit of fright in your eyes.”

She parted her lips, and then closed them. “You have to be kidding.”

“That's why I drove back out here.”

“Then, frankly, you wasted your time. Your question took me off guard, I have to tell you, but I guess that's what you're supposed to do. Maybe you did see fright, as you put it. The day after Mary died I made Larry drive me to Goodwin Square, where I'd never been, stop for a minute at the yellow tape. I was trying to see for myself what was there. Trying to
imagine
Mary there, standing outside her car. The
why
of it. I hated it—that sordid neighborhood, boarded-up buildings, street thugs. When I cried, Larry took me home. It was a mistake going there, he told me. Foolish. I shouldn't have gone.”

“It's natural. I went there, too. With Hank.”

“But it's etched on my mind now.” Her eyes watered. “When you shot the question at me, it was like a bullet to the head, Rick. I was suddenly there, right there, with my dead sister. If you saw fright or fear, whatever, you got a good eye because I was looking at the photograph in my head.”

“I'm sorry.”

A thin smile. “You shouldn't shock people like that.”

I got up.

“I know you're trying to make Hank's mother happy. I'm glad. But don't do that to me again.” Leaning forward, she touched my elbow, a quiet reprimand.

I felt like a little schoolboy back in the bleak Saigon orphanage, caught by the scary nuns in some foolish boyish prank. Molly had turned the tables on me. Buddha:
A man has within him the child he must always be
. Before I apologized again and reverted to knee-jerk childhood sputtering, I took my leave. I held out my hand, and she took it. “I know you're grieving.”

She sighed. “I'm learning how to be an orphan.”

The line struck me as strange and obviously wrong, and I almost said, “I know firsthand.” But I'd already overstayed my welcome.

Susie was outside, a plastic bag by her feet, a light sweater over her shoulders despite the heat of the early evening. She was going home. Standing in the shadows, out of the sunlight, she smiled at me.

“I met your son Danny at Tommy's.”

She lit up, eyes bright. The haggard face, wrinkled and pale, metamorphosed into a doting mother. “Ah. My handsome boy.”

“I was very impressed by him.”

“Everyone is.”

“A banker.”

“At Bank of America. Someday he'll be president.”

I grinned. “Of the United States?”

She giggled and punched me gently in the side. Then, on reflection, “Nothing is impossible for him.”

I waved good-bye and headed to my car. In the rearview mirror I saw her checking her watch, looking down the long curving driveway.

Stopping for gas at a Mobil station a mile away on Main Street, I spotted a sleek Mercedes stopped at a light, and noticed, by chance, Danny in the driver's seat, the young man still in his summer suit, the sunglasses now over his eyes. The dutiful son, picking up his mother? Fascinated, I followed, circled the small road that led up the winding hill to the Farmington estate, and waited, idling in a cove of boxwood hedges and Hawthorne trees, concealed from the street. I didn't have to wait long. The ice-blue Mercedes floated by, quiet as snow on a lawn, and I trailed at a careful distance.

Danny drove with a kind of sensual nonchalance, his body slumped into the exquisite leather, his head slightly cocked at an angle. Even from the distance I could see that he and his mother were having a lively conversation, and the body language suggested laughter and ease. At one point, at a light, Susie threw back her head, and I imagined her laughter.

Danny was in no hurry to get home, and cars passed him, making it more and more difficult for me to trail him.

He turned onto a side street off New Britain Avenue in Elmwood, not too far from Tommy's ramshackle apartment. South of the avenue, small Cape Cods and 1950s ranches, neat as pins, with postage-stamp yards filled with flowers, plastic statuary, and the occasional Virgin Mary in half a claw-foot bathtub. Sloping garages and dated carports. The old post-World War II neighborhood for returning veterans who found available housing—electricians, plumbers, carpenters, firemen, police. A decent neighborhood. Now it was heavily Hispanic with a smattering of blacks, and a few scattered homes occupied by Vietnamese or Chinese families. Some old-time whites who still mowed their lawns with manual push mowers while wearing their VFW caps.

I got close enough to write down the license plate number, and when the Mercedes slid into the one-car garage behind a modest home, I jotted down the house number. I drove past but circled back to see Danny walking into the side entrance with his mother. He was carrying some bags of groceries as well as a briefcase. They were still laughing at some personal joke. Bizarrely, I thought of my mother and the slim book of life's wisdom in my little breast pocket:
A mother bears a child and the child becomes her shadow
. Buddha still talks to me—as does my mother. I had a mother who still lingers at my side. She watches me from the shadows. It's just that I can't remember what she looked like, no matter how hard I try.

I called Hank on his cell phone.

“What?” Impatient. In the background a rumble of loud voices, pans banging.

“You went in to work?” I was surprised.

“What do you want?”

“Did you know that Danny drives a Mercedes?”

“You called to tell me that?”

“But did you know?”

“No, but I'm not surprised. He's a goddamned banker, for Christ's sake.”

“And he lives in Elmwood with his mother in a small nondescript Cape Cod, a little run-down.”

Hank grunted. “What a detective you are. Living with his mother while working at a bank is how he can afford the Mercedes.”

“I never thought of that.”

“Some detective.”

“What are you doing?'

“I'm busy dicing bok choi for the uninformed masses. If I'm lucky, I get to chop off my finger. I'm happy that you're spinning around town trailing folks as they wend their way home from work.”

“I stopped at Molly's to ask about that look in her eye.”

He roared, “You're kidding. Did she boot you out?”

“No, but I almost brought her to tears again.”

“You have that effect on people, you know. There are times you drive me to slobber like a farmer who's lost his last cow.”

“What?” Static on the line. The shrill cacophony of a frantic Chinese restaurant kitchen, the swish of a fired-up wok, the slamming of cleaver against helpless chicken parts, the babble of fast-paced Chinese dialect. “What does that mean?”

“I was trying to be clever.”

“You didn't tell me that Danny lived in Elmwood.”

Hank yelled, “I didn't know. I hate to tell you this but I don't really know Danny. I've met him over the years, but that's it. Other than by glorious reputation.” I could hear more yelling behind him. “They're telling me I'm being paid to work. I gotta hang up. Why don't you go follow someone else?”

“Why?”

Static, sputtering, and the cell phone went dead.

Chapter Eleven

Liz reported back the next morning with information. Yes, Danny Trinh owned the Mercedes he was tooling around town in, but she added smugly, “The alleged vehicle is not new but actually four years old.”

“I've never been good with cars.”

“And yes, he bought that home in Elmwood for his mother just last year. No big deal here, Rick. Homes in that neighborhood are below current market value. Sounds to me like the dutiful son giving his mother a bit of the old pie.”

“Anything else?”

“Susie's worked for the Torcellis for over two decades.”

“Interesting.”

“It really isn't, right? I mean, where are you going with this?”

I laughed. “My use of the word ‘interesting' was purely transitional.”

“Well,” she dragged out the word, “that's it from police central, Rick.”

“What? I hear something in your voice, Liz.”

She took a deep breath. “I don't know—this whole investigation you're doing…”

“What about it?”

“You're doing this for Hank's family, I know, I know, but I don't sense any strong belief on
your
part.”

I took a long time answering, bothered, I suppose, by Liz's skill at reading me. I finally said, “You're right. I want to find one answer—why Mary drove to Goodwin Square. That little piece of information. But I'm not on a case. As I talk to people, I feel like it's just one long, protracted condolence call.”

“Maybe that's all you can do.”

***

I was having lunch with Jimmy and Gracie at Zeke's Olde Tavern when Hank strolled in. “I took a chance you'd be here.”

“I have a cell phone, you know.”

“Who doesn't?”

“Well, you found me, Hank.”

“I'm thinking of quitting my job at the Chinese slave mines. Last night the owner—keep in mind he's a friend of Dad's—called me a fool and a simpleton.”

“Ain't they one and the same thing?” Jimmy asked.

Hank grinned. “There are subtle distinctions, I suppose. But I must embrace them both.”

“Your father won't be happy.” From Gracie.

“My father's never happy with me.”

I spoke up. “That's not true.”

“I don't want to talk about it.” He thumbed through the menu all of us knew by heart, and ordered his usual cheeseburger. He always ordered a cheeseburger. Medium rare with provolone. He knew, as well as we all did, the sandwich would arrive well done, crispy in fact, almost burnt, though pretty good, and the cheese would always be American.

“Danny's car is four years old,” I told him.

“And this is a problem in what way, Mr. PI?”

“Just a factoid I'm providing my helper in this case.”

Hank mocked me. “It's not really a
case
. It's a…”

I groaned. “Exercise in Asian futility. I've already had that lecture from Liz.”

Gracie piped up. “I've never understood Orientals.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Jimmy moaned, throwing back his head.

“I mean, what's wrong with potatoes? Why does everyone have to eat rice?”

“It's hard to grow potatoes under water.” Hank was grinning.

She looked perplexed. “They don't have dirt in your country?”

“Enough,” I begged, laughing. “Maybe we should all go back to school. Right, Gracie?”

“I had to skip school. It was Korea. I was barely sixteen. I had to entertain the troops.”

Jimmy shook his head. “In Korea, no less, where they grow potatoes.”

I drank some coffee, nibbled at the edge of a grilled cheese-and-bacon sandwich. “You don't like Danny,” I said to Hank.

He was surprised. “I told you on the phone I don't know him. He's someone I've seen around now and then. He's never said a word to me.”

“How'd his mother come to work for Molly?”

“Well, she came out of one of the poor Vietnamese families in Hartford, living in a project after her husband took off. Real poor. Molly hired her through a temp agency, felt sorry for her, liked her—Susie was born in Saigon too—and made her an all-around housekeeper. Still there years later.”

“But you don't like Danny. I can tell.”

A heartbeat. “You're baiting me. He's a loan officer, junior grade at Bank of America.”

“And that's why you don't like him?”

“Once—just once—he nixed a loan application for a young couple I know from our street. Good, hard-working Vietnamese people.”

Jimmy perked up. “What's this about Bank of America?” I filled him in. “Which branch?”

“Main Street, downtown Hartford.”

“I can make a call.” He looked for a wall phone.

“You wanna use my cell?” Hank asked.

“No, I can't talk into anything that small and pathetic.”

Jimmy despised the new technology. Cell phones sent him into a rage whenever they'd ring as he rode a city bus or walked downtown—especially if a yahoo near him yammered loudly about what his therapist said about his childhood bed-wetting. If Jimmy is ever arrested for murder, it will be because he's slaughtered a slob on a cell phone.

“Who are you calling?” asked Gracie, as she watched him struggle to get out of the tight booth.

“I know people.”

But he was back in seconds. “My friend gotta call back from the street. On her cell phone.” We all laughed at that. We waited, Hank noisily chomping on his burger, the ketchup oozing onto his palms. Within a couple of minutes the phone on the wall jangled, and Jimmy answered it, a little out of breath. The three of us sat quietly, watching the disheveled pantomime that was Jimmy taking a phone call: his huge weight shifting from hip to hip, belly scratching, his smoker's hacking cough making him double over. Only his face remained impassive. Talk about your inscrutable. He returned to the table, a triumphant look on his face as he slid into the booth and drummed the table with his knuckles in a kind of
ta-dah
punctuation. He was not looking at Hank or me but at Gracie, as though he expected congratulations.

“My friend,
she
said…” he began, stressing the
she
and still looking at Gracie. “My friend tells me he's bright, all over the place, an up-and-comer, the pet of one of the vice-presidents, who's like his mentor. The two get drinks sometimes. The vice-president treats everyone else like shit, but he likes Danny. She said nobody else likes him, but that could be jealousy. He's that good at his job, and I quote, ‘efficient, unemotional, and occasionally heartless, like all good bankers.' Unquote.”

“Ah, that Harvard education.” From Hank.

“That's not to say he's all peaches and cream at the soda fountain,” Jimmy went on. “Last year he wrote two real bad loans that lost the bank a ton of money. He wasn't the only one. The economy didn't follow predictions, and a couple of banks got themselves burned. But this was very public—some Vietnamese investment group out of Park Street. He took a chance—loyal to his people, maybe. Or so they thought. So all was forgiven. He was warned not to screw up like that. Since then, he's playing it real close to the bone, conservative as hell. Trying to make the bank happy and avoiding the risk-taking mortgage seekers.”

“Portrait of a banker as a young man.” Again from Hank.

“Money,” Jimmy stressed, “is at the bottom of everything. But maybe it's different money you should be looking at. Rick, Danny the Banker doesn't seem to want anybody to have any of his.”

“Why are you interested in Danny?” Gracie wondered.

I shrugged. “I don't have a reason.” I grinned foolishly. “There's no one else to follow, really. I saw him at Molly's picking up his mother. He's just someone who knows all the players.”

Hank frowned. “Pretty lame, Rick.”

“Keep in mind that this is not a case…I'm exploring.”

“Like I said,” Hank prodded me. “Pretty lame.”

***

Back at the apartment I scribbled on note cards, jotting down bits and pieces of information on all the family members, my usual method of organizing an investigation. I was a little tardy in doing this, largely because I didn't see this as
my
case. But I tacked the cards to a pegboard behind my computer, searching for patterns as I shuffled information before me. I didn't know why I was doing this, but my familiar method usually cleared my head, got me to see things a little differently, and started the juices flowing. My scribbling today was perfunctory, idle. My heart wasn't in this. All the family members seemed—well, far removed from that sad Hartford neighborhood.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, why did you go to Goodwin Square?

Later that afternoon Hank's call was a welcome disturbance. “I'm not going to work today. Sick out.”

“That'll make your dad happy.”

“Mom wants you to come for
bun
. You can't say no.”

I didn't feel like driving to East Hartford and begged off. I stared at my pegboard. “No, thanks.”

“You can't say no to Mom, Rick. She's deep-frying spring roll and marinating pork right now. Smell it?”

An hour later, four of us sat at the supper table: Hank, his mother, Grandma, and me. Everyone else was off somewhere, so I could relax and not have to fight the Vietnamese—or as they term it—the American War all over again. I could savor my marinated pork and vermicelli noodles and diced mint and basil, all topped with
nuoc mam
, that special fish sauce, giving the food the attention it deserved.

“
Toi doi
,” I said to Grandma. I'm hungry.

“You better be.” She'd made her special lemonade.
Tra da chanh
. Pale as water, as sweet as ripe melon, icy to the tongue.

But the two women watched me out of the corners of their eyes, warily, expectant. I avoided looking at them, digging into my food with the feral attention I remember from my days as a scavenger in the Saigon streets.

After an all-American mile-high chocolate and coconut cake, the likes of which they'd never seen in Saigon, we relaxed in the living room, windows open and a creaky floor fan whirling the hot, sticky air from one corner to another. We talked about the heat wave that refused to break, and Grandma admitted she loved the humid nights that reminded her of home. But she was alone in that sentiment. Dripping with sweat, Hank wore a tank top and running shorts. I had no sweat left in any pore of my body. My T-shirt was plastered to my bony chest, and my shorts didn't move when I did. It was going to be a long, hot night.

Despite all the pleasantries, I could sense the two doting women waiting for me to say something. “Great cake.” I thanked Hank's mother. Without saying a word, she headed to the kitchen to slice another piece for me, despite my raised hand and the fact that Hank flippantly pointed to the beginning of a paunch on my thirty-eight-year-old body.

Finally his mother spoke softly, “I am starting to feel that the police are right.” She glanced at Hank, the future cop. “I think and think about it, and now the feeling comes over me that Mary…”

“No,” said Grandma with vehemence I'd never heard before. She tapped me on the wrist. “You have no choice but to continue, Rick Van Lam.” She used my whole name, which I like. “What you are doing for us is the talk of the Vietnamese community, you know. I've spread the word. There are people who will
not
talk to the police. There are people who remember the cruelty of Vietnam, the hated authorities, but they'll talk to one of their own.”

“I'm an outsider.”

“You got the blood of Saigon in you.” She tapped my hand again. “You're one of us.”

“Well, the police have their own questions. Mine have to do with only one thing—
why
was Mary
there
?” I looked into her eyes. “That's why I keep talking to the family.
That
angle.”

Grandma went on. “If there is anything to be heard, the stories will find you
. I've put the word out on the street
.” The last phrase was spoken in English, heavily accented, but it had its effect. We all chuckled.

“Grandma's favorite show,” Hank confided, “are reruns of
Law and Order
.”

“God help us,” his mother said. “But no one has said anything.”

Grandma stared into my eyes. “But maybe it's the Americans and not the Vietnamese who hold the answer.” She kept drumming my wrist. “Sooner or later, if there's something, it will come to you. You have a face people talk to…they trust you.”

I caught Hank's eye. He nodded. “The four cousins. Maybe one of them…” He shrugged.

His mother smiled. “Four kids—so different.”

“Tell me a little of Danny Trinh.” I looked at his mother.

She looked confused but spoke softly. “Well, he's close to all the kids, Mary's and Molly's.” She sat there thinking at bit. “Well, maybe not. Not for years, really. Not since prep school.”

“He's no longer friends with them?”

“He's friendly and all. Drops in now and then to say hello to everybody. After prep school Tommy used to bad-mouth Danny all the time. They had a fight.”

“Danny was at Tommy's apartment the other day.”

That intrigued her, but she waved her hand in the air. “Well, he had to go, for old time's sake. He missed the funeral. Susie must have pushed him. I know he stops in at Benny's store now and then. Mary told me that. He's not a bad boy, that Danny. He just tries a little too hard to please everyone. I haven't seen him in—well, years. Before he went to Harvard.”

Hank was shaking his head, “You can't make too much of that visit to Tommy's, Rick.”

I talked to his mother. “Talk about the falling out with Tommy.”