End of Watch (7 page)

“I’d say so. What kind of flowers were they?”

“The ubiquitous white chrysanthemums you can buy in any grocery store. Nothing to work with there.”

Gail declared, “I think it’s a woman.”

“Because of the flowers?”

She nodded. “And the candle. It just doesn’t sound like something a man would do.”

“No, probably not. So I’m thinking maybe the visitor is the perp’s mom or sister. Maybe an aunt. His grandmother’d probably be dead by now. And a girlfriend or a wife would have found somebody else. Moved on, as you’d say.”

“So now you just wait?”

Frank spread her hands. “What else can I do? I was thinking of going back to the station this afternoon and hanging out until Silvester gets back, or someone else who can pull the case for me. Until then, one thing at a time, right? So tell me, doc. You know how to skate?”

“No. And I’m not about to learn.”

“Aw, come on. I went horseback riding with you. And hiking. I even tried golfing.”

Gail giggled.
“Try
is the operative.”

“So you owe me a sporting adventure.”

“I’m too old,” she protested. “The thought of falling on that ice. Ouch. No thanks.”

Frank leaned over the table. “I won’t let you fall.”

Gail frowned. “You’re flirting, Frank.”

“Am I?”

“I thought we were just going to be friends.”

“We are. What’s a little harmless flirting between friends.”

“Quit being so damned charming.”

“Gail,” Frank said seriously, “I’m not gonna lie and pretend I don’t have feelings for you. Because I do. Very deep ones. If all I can be is a friend then I’ll settle for that, but it’s not all I want.”

“You’re pushing.”

“I just want to put it out there. I want you to know exactly where I stand. Cards on the table and all that. And I promise this is as hard as I’ll push. Just don’t ask me to pretend I don’t care. I won’t do that. I’m trying to feel things, for once, and be honest about them instead of shoving them aside and pretending they don’t exist. So I’m not going to pretend I don’t love you.” Frank sat back. “Ball’s in your court. You gonna take a chance and go skating with me? Maybe have some fun.”

“And maybe get hurt,” Gail said, her implication clear.

“I promised you. I won’t let that happen.” Frank cocked her head. “Weren’t you the one who gave me a lecture a couple years ago about how you have to live life to the fullest? That by blocking out the pain you blocked out all the joy too? Wasn’t that you?”

Gail’s dark bob swayed. “I think you’re mixing me up with one of your other girlfriends.”

Frank stopped a laugh. “That’s right. I have so many of them.”

“You promise you won’t let me fall?”

Making an X over her heart, Frank vowed, “Cross my heart, hope to die.”

The Ninth’s squad room echoed when Frank walked in, her cheeks still slightly numb from skating with Gail. The doc had been hopeless but Frank had fun holding her up. She looked at the clock on the wall.

Almost five. Two at home.

She called her captain. There was no answer on his cell, office or home phones and Frank wondered how her crew was supposed to get hold of him.

“Asshole,” she whispered just before his machine picked up. “John, it’s Frank. Something’s come up and I’m going to be longer than I thought. I’ll know more tomorrow. Call you then.”

She hung up and dialed Figueroa. She asked the desk sergeant if he’d seen Foubarelle around and he snorted. “On a Sunday? You gotta be shittin’ me.”

“Anybody upstairs?”

“Hold on. I’ll transfer you.”

The phone rang and Darcy picked up. “Hey. You home?”

“Not yet. Might be a while. How’s everything going?”

“Fine. Quiet.”

“What are you doing there on a Sunday afternoon?”

“Catching up on sixty-days.”

“I wish your work ethic would rub off on your colleagues.”

Darcy grunted. “They have lives. When do you think you’ll be back?”

“Don’t know. Three thousand miles from home, and believe it or not I’m working a homicide. I’ll tell you about it when I get back. How’s Gabby doing?”

Darcy’s pause told her his daughter’s cystic fibrosis was flaring. “Marguerite had to take her to the hospital last night. She’s home now. I might take off tomorrow if nothing’s going on.”

“Do that.”

“Yeah. We’ll see. Don’t be too long out there. I don’t want to catch something and have Fubar all over me.”

“I’ll do my best.” She hung up, missing her crew and her routine. She found a phone book and the number she was looking for. She dialed it on Silvester’s phone.

“Alcoholics Anonymous. How can I help you?”

“Yeah, I’m looking for a meeting tonight.” Frank gave the man she was talking to the Ninth’s address and the Crowne Plaza’s.

“You got a couple to choose from. Any particular emphasis?”

“Anything but a men’s stag.”

“All right, get your pencil ready.”

Frank wrote down half a dozen times and places. She hadn’t planned on going to a meeting in New York, but then again there were a lot of things she hadn’t planned on. She pocketed the list, thinking she’d need to find a cheaper hotel.

Seeing as no one was around, Frank took a seat in front of Silvester’s computer. Because her computer skills barely exceeded turning the damned things on, Frank didn’t have any luck searching for information about her father’s case. She got up and rummaged through rows of gray file cabinets, snooping the old-fashioned way. Hearing loud voices she slipped a drawer shut and posed near the coffee machine.

Hooting and hollering in the language of a successful collar, four detectives stomped into the homicide room. Silvester, long past her second wind and running on a third or fourth, was one of them. Calling one of the men “Lieutenant” she told him, “We got the little bastard. He was hiding under his grandmother’s bed. He crapped his pants when we pulled him out.”

“Nice job, Annie. How about the kid? How we doing on that?”

“We’ve got her nailed down to a mom-and-pop shop after she got out of school. There are a couple of mopes hanging around there that Vince and Billy are talkin’ to. After I get this mutt processed I’m going to go home and grab a couple hours sleep, get a fresh start in the morning, huh?”

The LT nodded. “Yeah. Nice work. Vince and Billy gonna grab some shuteye, too?”

“Vince and Billy, too.” Accepting the lieutenant’s amiable pat on the shoulder, Annie turned and saw Frank. “Oh, spare me. Are you still here?”

“Charlie got the evidence booked but he couldn’t tell me who was handling the case. Can you?”

“You’re lookin’ at her.”

“You?”

“The one and only, Anne Marie Silvester.”

Frank seethed, “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“Because I didn’t have time to check you out. You said you weren’t just some mope off the street but how was I supposed to know that? You wouldn’t believe the nut jobs we get in here.”

“Yeah, I would. We get the same fuckin’ nuts in LA. So what do I have to do make you believe me?”

Despite her obvious exhaustion, Silvester’s eyes sparkled. “Nothin’.” She grinned. “Charlie already did it. I told him to call LA and check your shield. He says you’re all right.”

Shaking her head at the floor, Frank muttered, “That’s why it took him twenty minutes to make coffee. Okay. So can I see the file now?”

“Dear, did you happen to notice with your brilliant detective skills that I got a suspect here? Your pop’s been dead what, thirty, thirty-five years?”

“Thirty-six.”

“Thirty-six. So another day’s gonna matter? God willin’, this mutt’ll talk and I can get some sleep tonight. You come back in the mornin’, seven sharp. I’ll get you your father’s book for you. Deal?”

Being in no position to argue, Frank asked, “You like bialys?”

Silvester patted her hips. “Don’t I look like I like bialys?”

“Not really.”

“Psh. Enough with the brown-nosing. With a vegetable shmear, huh?”

“See you in the mornin’.”

Frank zipped her thin windbreaker and walked out into the frigid New York night.

Still Sunday—PM—Manhattan

Going to spend one more night at the Crowne Plaza. What the hell. Called Mary, told her what was going on. She’s worried about me but Tm all right. Confused, maybe, but I told her I’m not going to drink over it. I want a drink, hell yes, but not the consequences. She was happy Td been to a meeting. It was at Grace Church. I walked over. Forgot how much I like walking. Never walk anywhere at home but you could spend your life here without venturing more than ten blocks in any direction. Amazed how much I still remember, too.

Passed St. Mark’s, where A.T. Stewart was buried. They kidnapped his body from there in the late 1800s and demanded a $200,000 ransom. I think the widow bargained them down to $20,000 and got him back but she didn’t bury him in St. Mark’s again. Commodore Perry’s buried at St. Mark’s and Peter Stuyvesant. All that history in one block. I miss that in LA. Everything’s new and modern, ultra this and techno that. It lacks a sense of place, perspective.

Anyway. St. Marks was cool but Grace Church blew me away. Beautiful little church, built in the 1800s. It’s got some scaffolding up around the spire now, like they’re working on it. When I got there, before I went in, I was standing outside admiring it and I almost started crying.

I felt small. The trees were taller than me and the church was taller and the buildings around it were taller still and above us all was the sky. I felt like I was such an infinitesimal part of things, but that somehow all the infinitesimal parts
—
including me
—
came together to make the whole picture. I felt like a dot in a Seurat painting. A pixel. Barely a speck on its own but together they make a picture. It just felt like at that instant in time everything was as it should be. A baby being born across town, and an old man dying in the apartment across the street. Someone getting married while someone else was getting knifed in an alley. Someone shooting junk while someone else is out on their first date. I don’t know. It just all seemed to fit. Life going around and around, doing its thing.

I told Mary about it. How I just got filled up with the majesty of it and she laughed. Said that was gratitude and that when I was drinking I was too busy getting loaded or figuring out how to get loaded to feel it. Definitely a nice result of sobriety. Told her what a roller coaster day it had been. All the mixed feelings
—
surprise, anger, joy at being with Gail. Sadness. Seems everywhere I turn there’s a memory, not always a good one.

Nice people at the AA meeting. Amazing how you can just walk into a room full of complete strangers and have this instant rapport with them. Mary said that’s because we all have one thing in common that bonds us instantly, and that’s the fact that alcohol’s almost killed us and will likely kill us if we pick it up again. So right away you got a bond with everybody in an AA room. We’ve all come through the fire together. Lets you strip away the bullshit and cut to the chase.

Wish I had answers. Wish I had a match on the prints. Hate waiting. Hate the uncertainty. Gail asked how it felt to have this door open again after all this time and I got to admit it’s damned uncomfortable. I gave up on ever having an answer and now the question’s shoved back into my face. Who is the motherfucker? Where is he? Who’s leaving this shit on my father’s grave? Spent all this time trying to forget and now it’s all pouring back in. Not liking this. But I gotta see it through. Woman at a meeting said when God wants something for you he rolls the red carpet out. I feel like this is my chance, that the carpet’s rolling out and no matter how uncomfortable it is I have to walk it to the end.

One day at a time, right? Mary says this is all unfolding according to God’s schedule, not mine. That my job isn’t to force the unfolding but to follow along in the direction of the movement. She told me not to push it. Damn
—
been getting a lot of that lately. Said drunks are like five-year-olds. We don’t have a lot of discipline. Want what we want and want it now. And the bottom line is, sometimes you just can’t have it. Like Gail. At least not now. So you move on and take what you can have. Which in the World According to Mary is a good night’s sleep, a decent meal and faith that tomorrow will bring what I need. Maybe not what I want, but what I need.

It’s ironic. At work I know exactly when to force things and exactly when to sit back and let them develop. I can wait weeks on a stakeout or take a perp down in an instant. Flexibility makes me a good cop, so you’d think I could apply that logic to my personal life.

Whatever. Progress not perfection. And Tm Audi. My extra ten minutes is up. And you know what? Right this second, it’s all good. New York is shining outside my window, Tm warm, Tm healthy, I don’t have a hangover or the shakes, and I have a soft bed to sleep in. There’s a hell of a lot of people out there who can’t say that. So this drunk’s going to turn the lights out and admire the view. Tm paying enough for it.

By quarter to seven Annie Silvester was already in the squad room, chatting with a man shaped like a fireplug. She raised an eyebrow in Frank’s direction, her glance taking in the bag Frank held out. Reaching for it, Annie plunked the bag next to a fresh pot of coffee and introduced her to a detective from the Fourth Precinct. Extracting a bialy, she told the cop, “Detective Franco here’s from Los Angeles. She visits her father’s grave to pay her respects and finds something that may or may not be of interest to us. An old case of ours, thirty-six years old, to be exact. Her pops was shot by a junkie on East Ninth and Second. The lieutenant here was the only witness. She and her pops were walking home from the deli. Junkie popped out from a doorway. Shook her pops down. Pops resisted, junkie capped him. Pops was dead before he got off the sidewalk. Not even a hint of a suspect.” Biting into her bialy Annie asked Frank out of the side of her mouth, “How’m I doin’?”