Dead by Any Other Name (7 page)

seventeen

I picked up a
chilled bottle of Veuve Clicquot to ensure my welcome and hopefully loosen Collier Denton's lips. I headed down to Stone Ridge through the Rondout Valley, always a fun drive because the landscape is so flat and agricultural with miles of vegetable and corn fields, rambling farmhouses, popular farmstands; this Rondout Creek bottomland is some of the richest soil in the northeast and driving through you can smell the dense crumbly loam and imagine the first Dutch settlers claiming its bounty, building their stone houses, filled with promise and hope and industry. What would they make of the Olive Gardens and crack dens?

I drove past Bumpland and turned at the faded wooden sign reading
Fleur de Moi
. Signs of neglect were everywhere—the pond looked silty, the lawns patchy, the gardens overgrown, the house chipped and a bit sad. The whole place was romantic and evocative in an old-alcoholic-with-dwindling-funds-lives-within kind of way.

As I parked, I saw a curtain pulled back, a face in the shadows. I got out and as I approached the house, the front door flew open to reveal Collier Denton.

“Hello, my dear,” he oozed, his eyes going right to the bottle. Wearing the same silk dressing gown I'd seen him in the other
day, he was tall, thin, stood erect, was still handsome in an
ancient way, with a strong jaw, deep-set eyes, and plenty of wavy silver hair. But there was something ghoulish going on here, a sense of dissolution and depravity in the hollow cheeks, hooded eyes, and ripe mouth.

“I brought you a little present,” I said, holding up the bottle of bubbly.

He snatched it from my hand. “
Do
come in.” He was all
tattered grace-and-charm as he ushered me into the large, low rambling manse. “I'll fetch a flute,” he said, leading me through a series of dusty rooms that looked three-quarters furnished; there were empty spaces on the walls where pictures had once hung, furniture was missing, in one room the floor was covered with a large pad but no rug.

We ended up in a wood-paneled library off a messy kitchen that looked like it hadn't seen a fruit or vegetable in decades—I noticed sardine tins, jars of olives, and an industrial-size package of Pecan Sandies.

The library was dominated by a fireplace with a massive por
trait of one Collier Denton hanging over it—dashing and debonair
and forty years younger. A large armchair sat in one corner, clutter radiated out from it in concentric circles; clearly this was where Denton spent most of his waking hours. He crossed the room and shut the lid on the laptop that sat on a TV tray next to his chair, but not before I got a glimpse of porno. Then he headed over to a liquor cart before turning to me and asking, with mock graciousness, as if the thought had just occurred to him, “Oh, did
you
want any champagne?”

“I'm fine, thanks.”

He didn't even attempt to disguise his relief. He grabbed a flute, sat in his armchair, deftly popped open the Veuve, tipped
his flute and poured himself a glass. Drug of choice safely in hand,
he snuggled into his chair, took a long sip and gave a little shudder of delight. Up close, he looked mottled and rheumy; I pegged him on the far shore of eighty. When the sleeve of his dressing gown rode up, I noticed a long burn scar on the inside of his left forearm that was haphazardly covered in thick pancake make-up.

“So I suspect you were madly in love with me in a father-
figurey sort of way,” he said, setting himself up for a fuselage of flattery.

“I'm not sure
I
was in love with you, but I'm sure a lot of women were.”

“The network had to hire a secretary to handle my fan mail. I received an average of forty marriage proposals a week. One poor
creature threw herself into the Mississippi clutching my photo
graph,”
he said, sounding delighted at the thought. “And the
panties!
Good lord, they came in by the score. Fortunately some of them were my size.” He roared with laughter and poured him
self another glass of champagne. “I suppose you'll want an autographed photo. I'm
awfully
busy weighing offers and reading scripts, but I suppose that could be arranged. They're twenty dollars, two for thirty, they make
marvelous
Christmas gifts and party favors.”

I noticed a pharmacy bag next to his laptop and wondered what mad combination of meds he was on. From the way he was merrily prattling on, I suspected a happy pill (or two) was in the mix.

“Did you know I've donated my archives to Lincoln Center? It was
wrenching
to part with it all, but a tax deduction is a tax deduction so I shipped them off six months ago. I just stuffed everything in an enormous packing crate and called UPS, I didn't bother
organizing
it—I'm sure there are bookish little fairies down there who
live
for that kind of thing, I mean it's a
national treasure
—I did summer stock with Robert Goulet
and
Sandy Duncan! I'm sure Lincoln Center will send an acknowledgment when they're done sorting through it all. Of course, it's just the
tip
of the iceberg, publishers are
clamoring
for my memoirs but I'm far too discreet, I mean I've slept with
everyone
; Sal Mineo
threw
himself at me. I threw him back.”

He roared with more laughter and poured himself another flute full. The bottle was half gone and I didn't want to be around for the crash, plus the lips were definitely loosed. Time to make my move.

“I'm inhaling all this, Collier, but I'm actually here to talk about something else.”

His head jerked and his eyes opened wide, like he'd been slapped. “Something
else
? Besides
me?
”

“You're part of it.”

“Well, I should hope so. You're in
my
house, after all.” He turned away from me and stage whispered to an imaginary friend, “Manners have gone
right
out the window.”

“I wanted to talk about Pavel.”

His head swung back with such alacrity that I was afraid it was going to keep going and spin all the way around, Exorcist-style. He puffed up in his chair, shot me an acid look, and intoned: “
What. About. Pavel
?”

“Did you know his girlfriend died last week?”

“Do I look like I live under a rock?”

I bit my tongue.

“I think she may have been murdered.”

“Really? If you find the killer's address do let me know, I'm a great believer in thank-you notes.”

“Will do.”

“It was probably one of the Remittance Sisters,” he said, gesturing in the direction of the Bump estate.

“You mean Octavia Bump?”

He shuddered. “She of porcine mien and manner, yes.”

“Do you really think she's capable of murder?”

“She was capable of stealing Pavel from me, she's capable of anything. Don't be fooled by her tawdry little quivery ditz act, she has a
steeltrap
mind—not to mention other regions.”

“She stole Pavel from you?”

“Young lady, I
discovered
Pavel. In the slums of Prague … well, it was a hotel bar but never mind, he
came
from the slums. I cleaned him up and brought him to this country, I invested time, money, and … ” he placed a hand on his chest and his voice grew soft and fraught, “…
my heart
.”

Ham
and
cheese.

Then he switched gears, poured the last of the champagne as a veil of cunning descended over his eyes. “I'm afraid Lady Bump shall soon discover she's living in a fool's paradise.”

“Oh?”

He downed the last drop of bubbly. “Now-now, do
I
look like a fool? I don't know who you are, or why you're here, but your audience is over.”

He stood and ushered me out of the library and into the kitchen—there was a young man at the far end of the room, wearing black Levis and tee-shirt—pale and muscular, sexy and furtive. Denton looked annoyed at his presence.

“Oh, this is Graham,” he said. “He's a handyman, doing some work for me.”

“'ello,” Graham mumbled in a thick Irish accent.

“Let me show you out,” Denton said, grabbing my elbow and giving me a firm tug.

eighteen

New Paltz, which sits
in the flats of the Hudson Valley, is one of those college towns that seems to hover under its own personal cloud of pot smoke. We're talking funky here—coffee shops, taco stands, bookstores, bars, used clothing shops, hippies of all ages—it's Woodstock's rowdier kid sister, the one who's still dropping acid and giving head in the stacks.

Feeling very middle-aged (and thankful for it), I parked and headed for the bar where I'd agreed to meet Billie. It was a dark spot on a side street that clearly catered more to townies and bikers than college kids. I didn't see her so I got a ginger ale at the bar, sat at a small table, and waited. The place was pretty crowded
and had a sweaty vibe, rough around the edges, vintage Aerosmith
was playing, there was a pool table, the knot of jumpy lowlifes pow-wowing in one corner screamed
we-love-our-meth
.

Then Billie walked in. It took me a minute to realize it was her—Stevie Nicks was long gone, replaced by Amy Winehouse's favorite aunt. She had on a teased-up black wig that was slightly askew, sunglasses, a too-tight spangly purple top, a black leather miniskirt, and clunky high heels. There isn't a woman in the world who could carry off this look (well, maybe a few truck-stop hookers) and at Billie's age, it was just sad. She rushed over to my table.

“Hi, hon,” she gushed, looking over her shoulder at the entrance to the bar, as if to check if she was being followed.

“Hi, Billie, how are you?”

“Kinda ragged 'round the edges.”

“I'm sorry to hear it.”

“Natasha's death hit me like a fucking runaway truck. I'm gettin' outta here.”

“Where are you going?”

“Florida. I got a girlfriend in Jacksonville, she's gonna put me up for a while.” She took off the sunglasses and her eyes were puffy and bloodshot and anxious.

A gnarly oldtimer at the bar was looking at us. Billie noticed him and crossed her legs.

“Can I be honest with you, Billie?”

“I'm always real, no bullshit.”

“The other day, when I asked you if there was anything about Natasha's life that I should know, I got the feeling you were being evasive.”

Her mouth quivered and she said, “I need a drink.”

“Let me get it.”

“Triple tequila straight and a Heineken.”

I walked up to the bar and ordered. The gnarly guy smiled at me—it's nice to know that not
everyone
is obsessed with the condition of their teeth—and I returned a discouraging little nod.

I brought Billie's booze back to the table and she downed the tequila in one long swallow. “I fuckin' love tequila,” she said before chugging her brew. She looked over at the gnarly guy.

“So, about Natasha …”

“Alright, I'm going to lay it out. It's my fucking fault she's dead. How you think that feels?”

I shrugged.

“I feel like a worthless piece of shit, but she needed work, she needed to make some money. I didn't tell her at first, I didn't tell her for months. Then I told her.”

“Told her what?”

“Can you get me another, hon?”

I went to the bar and got her another tequila, ignoring the gnarly guy whose smile was tilting toward a leer.

“So what did you tell her?”

“Where she could find work.”

“And where was that?”

She downed the tequila. Her eyes welled with tears. “I never should have fuckin' told her.”

“Billie, I'm trying to find out who murdered her. I need your help.”

“I sent her to Kelly's Farm.”

“What's Kelly's Farm?”

“What, do I need to spell it out for you—Kelly's Farm is a whorehouse.”

“Okay.”

“For men who like it kinky.”

“Where is it?”

“It's way deep up in the motherfuckin' Catskills.”

“Can you be a little more specific?”

“It's up past Delhi, in some beyond-fuckall valley.”

“So she was working there, why would that lead to her murder?”

“
A lot
of big shots go to Kelly's Farm.”

“Okay.”

“She didn't tell me his name, but she said she had a client who was big time, like serious big time. In politics. Married, kids. Put it together: he wants to be governor or some shit. But he's got a little secret that could slam the brakes on that wet dream pretty fuckin' fast.”

“Thanks for telling me this.”

“Like I said: I'm real.”

She was looped and must have forgotten she was wearing a wig because she ran her fingers through her hair and shook her head, sending the wig even more akimbo. Then she looked over at the gnarly guy and turned sideways so that one butt cheek lifted off her chair and her miniskirt rode up so high that she was dealing crack. The gnarly guy smiled and rearranged his junk. It's always fun to observe native mating rituals, but I had promises to keep.

I stood up, “Listen, Billie, please keep in touch.”

“Yeah sure,” she said vaguely.

By the time I got to the door the lovebirds were making out at the table.

nineteen

It was Saturday. Natasha's
memorial was in the evening, down in Cold Spring, and I was taking Josie out to lunch up in Troy. It all added up to a lot of driving, but no way was I going to miss either one.

The day was windy with high skittering clouds. I like speeding up the Thruway through the lush hills, paradoxically it slows my mind down, lets me get some decent thinking done. I ran through what I knew about Natasha's death. Certainly Octavia Bump and Collier Denton were glad she was out of the way. And I sure as hell didn't trust Pavel. Then there was Kelly's Farm, which opened up a whole new box of worms. I stuck in my earpiece and called Abba.

“Do you know anything about a brothel up in Delaware County that caters to the more esoteric erotic pursuits?” I asked her.

“Rings a vague bell. Why?”

“Natasha Wolfson worked there. Apparently one of her clients was a powerful politician.”

“Interesting. Let me make a few calls.”

I reached Albany and kept going. This was my first visit to see Josie since she'd moved to Troy and I was more than a little nervous. I had to face up to the fact that she'd rekindled something in me that had been long dormant—my maternal instincts. They'd been dormant for a couple of reasons. First of all my nature, I'm just not a particularly maternal type, I never had that overpowering urge or need to have a mini-me around. Then there was my (non-)experience with my own mother, who I hadn't seen since I was seven.

Yeah, one dank day in February Mom told me to pack up a few things because we were going on a “big adventure.” I filled a small suitcase with some clothes and then Mom told me to take my favorite books, toys and stuffed animals, too; we put those in a Macy's shopping bag. We took a cab up to Penn Station—I knew something was up because we
never
took cabs—and rode out to Hempstead where she deposited me with my father's older sister, who smelled like beer and cigarettes and showed me to a bedroom off the finished basement that had one high window and smelled like heating oil. Mom kissed me a thousand times and then left.

I haven't seen her since. The first year there were postcards from Ibiza and Goa telling me how much she missed me. I guess she stopped missing me—or maybe she was killed, that happens to loose girls in foreign countries, they get swallowed up, never to be heard from again. I hope she isn't dead. If she is alive, sometimes I wonder if she ever thinks of me. Ever wonders what happened to me, how I'm doing.

The bottom line here is that I don't know
how
to be a parent—Aunt Connie and the other beaten-down relatives who took turns raising me were hardly an example—and the idea of on-the-job training scared the hell out of me. I'd seen too many clients who'd been deeply scarred by even well-meaning moms to want to put my ambivalence to the test. Finally there was that little trauma from my past, the thing I hadn't told Zack or Abba or George or pretty much anyone else, the great sadness, guilt, regret that I'd pushed to the far side of my consciousness for twenty-seven years, where it remained, out of sight, out of mind, out of heart. Yeah right.

I knew it was pretty damn ironic that I preach making peace with our psychological traumas and moving forward with them, rather than denying them or pretending we can resolve them completely, and here I was carrying around this emotional lockbox. The difference was I
knew
and acknowledged that I hadn't faced down the demons. I planned to, in my own time and on my own terms. Really, I did.

But Josie had upended the equation, goddamn it, she'd touched me in some way I just couldn't ignore. She'd had a childhood of neglect and abuse—and had the bum leg to prove it—yet there was no self-pity there, just a feisty kid trying to make some sense of the world and find her place in it. I wanted to help her in any way I could.

I drove across the Hudson and into Troy. It's one of those cool old upstate cities, once-prosperous, now struggling, but filled with amazing character—brownstone townhouses, granite commercial buildings, brick factories, leafy squares, odd old stables and Masonic halls, tight-knit little 'hoods (including a really
little
Little Italy)—all overlain with a patina of history, loss, quietude, moxie, and a hint of menace. Troy looked like it was holding its own, maybe because Rensselaer Polytech, one of the country's best engineering colleges, sits on a hill above downtown and pumps enough dough into the city to keep despair at bay.

Josie's foster parents, Roberta and Doug Malden, lived just outside downtown. Their street was lined with small nondescript houses fronted by small yards, some well-kept, others in various states of decrepitude. I found neighborhoods like this depressing, you could almost smell the struggle and, unlike the downtown, there was no romance, no faded glory, just a sense of weary resignation, of a place where nobody was dreaming the American Dream anymore.

I found the Maldens' house. It was tidy in a blank sort of way, with polyester curtains in the front windows and two flowerboxes filled with straggly red and white impatiens. I knocked on the front door. A woman who looked about my age answered. She was plain, bespectacled, and slightly overweight, wearing a white blouse and navy slacks.

“Hi, Roberta, I'm Janet.”

“Yes, I know that,” she said flatly. What a charmer.

“Is Josie around?”

“She's inside.”

“We're going out to lunch.”

“Don't keep her long. She has chores and homework.”

I looked over Roberta's shoulder and saw Josie sitting on a plaid couch with her hands in her lap. I smiled at her and she smiled back—a hint of mischief in her eyes. God, that was good to see.

I wanted to say something snarky and sarcastic to the gatekeeper, but held my tongue.

Roberta just stood there and so finally I said, “Well, are you going to let me in, or let Josie out?”

She pursed her lips and turned, I followed her into the house; it was neat and orderly and smelled like air freshener, there was a crucifix on the wall above the TV. Josie stood up.

“Hey, kiddo,” I said.

“Hi, Janet.”

She looked pretty good, her face had filled out a little, her clothes were clean, her eyes were bright. I was grateful to the Maldens. What they couldn't contain was Josie's restless curiosity and will—it radiated off her in waves.

“Hungry?”

“Famished.”

“You had a good breakfast,” Roberta said.

“She's a growing girl,” I said, taking Josie's hand and leading her out.

We found an almost-charming faux-bistro called Chez Fred downtown, I gave Josie the cellphone I'd bought for her, and she ordered practically everything on the menu. Watching her devour her salad filled me with some kind of bone-deep happiness I couldn't quite figure out; I could have sat there forever. Between bites, she filled me in on school—not very challenging; and the Maldens—ditto.

“They make me sad,” she said. “They're so afraid.”

“There's a lot of that going around.”

“They only let me watch certain TV shows, they don't trust books and they put all sorts of filters on my computer.”

“It's only for another three years, then you can go away to college.”

She nodded, then looked down.

“You didn't get the shoes to even out your leg,” I said.

“Their insurance won't cover it.”

“
I'll
cover it, Josie. I want you to call an orthopedist on Monday. I mean it.”

“Thank you. Now tell me
everything
that's happening down in Sawyerville.”

I filled her in on the gang and also on Natasha Wolfson. She leaned across the table, hanging on every word, eyes sparkling, her
face alive—she looked like a different girl from the one who'd sat on the couch with her hands in her lap.

When I was done, she was silent for a minute, then said, “How sure are you that it was murder?”

“I can't be 100 percent sure, of course, but my gut—and the fact that Natasha was mixed up with so many dubious characters—has me leaning strongly in that direction.”

“You have to find out who the politician is, of course. And where Pavel was the night she died.” I could see her mind racing over all the possibilities. “Let's assume it was murder. It's hard to imagine either Collier or Octavia would be up on a mountain.”

“Then again, when passion is high people find strength they didn't know they had.” She attacked her roast chicken, took a big bite, and said, “Take me back with you.”

I froze and then managed: “Today?”

“Yeah. Let's just walk out of here, head to your car, and drive straight down to Sawyerville.”

Whoa. I felt sweat break out under my arms and along my hairline. The idea was thrilling. Just get in the car, floor it, and bring Josie home. I looked her in the eyes—she was throwing me a serious challenge.

I had an impulsive streak a mile wide and over the years it had gotten me into a lot of trouble. It took time and therapy, but I'd learned how to rein it in. I took a deep breath. I didn't know the intricacies or legalities of the foster-parent system. Would it be breaking the law to just spirit this kid away with me? Was it fair to the Maldens? They were well-meaning in their own constricted way. Plus, did I really want Josie back 24/7? Yeah, she was no trouble and helpful as hell and good company, but I didn't want to be her goddamn mom, did I?

“Wouldn't that be breaking the law?”

“No. Foster children have the right to find their own living situation. I would inform my case worker and petition family court. They would pay you a visit. Done deal.”

So she'd looked into the legalities. I just sat there for a moment taking it all in before asking, “How about dessert?”

Josie laughed, hard and deep, and I had to join her. Sitting in the slanted afternoon sun in Chez Fred we shared a laugh that lifted my spirits right out through the roof and tossed them up into the cloud-splattered Hudson Valley sky.

“Janet, you
need
me. You don't really care about that shop and you know it.
Things
don't really interest and excite you,
people
do. And, yes, I'll take the carrot cake. And a bowl of vanilla ice cream with hot fudge sauce.”

“Anything else?”

She leaned across the table, put her hand on mine and said, “Sawyerville.”

I felt a huge wave starting somewhere deep inside me, something so strong it scared me.

“Josie, I have to take a quick walk around the block, I'll be right back.”

I gulped air as I strode around the side of the building into an alley. Then the tears just exploded, came and came and came, pouring out of me and over me, swamping me, drowning me, I loved that kid, goddamn it, and she loved
me
and I loved my baby, my baby …

Oh fuck, oh fuck …

I started walking again, the tears drying almost as quickly as they'd come. I was not going down
that
alley, no-way no-how, not now. I was a big girl, I'd gotten this far, built a decent life for myself, and I was going to protect it. That's just the way it had to be. I had a lot to give, but I couldn't give it all. Then what would be left for me?

I took my time getting around the block, used it to compose myself. When I arrived back at the table, Josie's desserts were untouched. I sat down and looked at her.

“Not today,” I said. “But we'll keep the dialogue open. Now that you've got a cell it will be a lot simpler.”

Josie looked down, her jaw tightened, then she looked up at me and nodded, “Fair enough.”

She was making it easy for me. I should have known she would.

“Hey, your ice cream is melting.”

She picked up the dish and began to slowly swirl the hot fudge into the vanilla ice cream.

I watched her for a minute, then turned and signaled for the check.