Fall Guy (12 page)

Maggie, in a white tunic, white pants and white thick-soled shoes, came out with two towels. She
gave me one to use on Dashiell. She spread the other one on the backseat of Tim's old car, tucking it in carefully to protect the stained, torn upholstery seat. She opened the back windows, too, perhaps to dilute the smell of wet dog, which made me feel rude and foolish.

Crossing the George Washington Bridge, Maggie said I should use my judgment about the things in Tim's apartment. She said she was sure I'd know what to hold on to and what to let go, but if there was a doubt about any particular item, she'd help me when she got there. She asked if ten was too early. I told her it wasn't. Then she asked me what the cross streets were, letting me know that if she had been there at all, it hadn't been for a very long time.

As the cab drove down the Westside Highway, I looked out over the water, the afternoon light making ripples of bright silver where it moved, leaving it a deep blue-gray in places where there was the illusion of stillness. Though I had only been gone for a few hours and hadn't been all that far away, something in me fluttered, someplace there was joy at being back in the city.

That's when I remembered that Parker was due to show up at Tim's apartment in the morning, Parker whose aunt had gone missing during the run of a play. The napkin he'd written his aunt's number on was on Tim's desk. I'd simply make up another story and postpone his visit. I needed more time to look things over by myself before he got the chance to spirit away anything I might find telling. And I needed time to figure
out a way to keep Maggie O'Fallon from seeing what I had seen in the bathroom. The last thing on earth she needed was to upgrade her brother's death to suicide. I told the driver I'd changed my mind, to take me to Horatio Street instead of home.

As soon as I got inside O'Fallon's apartment, I dropped the briefcase on top of the desk and picked up the napkin, holding it under the light so that I could read the numbers Parker had written there. I dialed, still working on my story as I listened to the phone ringing at the other end. A machine picked up saying that Carolyn and Mark were sorry they couldn't come to the phone but that my call was important to them, so would I please leave a message after the beep. I didn't.

The apartment was stuffy, so I opened the kitchen window and one of the front ones, letting a breeze blow through. Parker had given me a wrong number. Had he done it on purpose, so that I couldn't call him to cancel? He'd waited long enough to get his things. Whatever it was he wanted to retrieve, he wanted it badly. Not his clothes, though. I was as sure as I could be that if Parker needed something to wear, he was willing and capable of shoplifting it. And probably had. Was it the shrine? I opened the closet
with his things, going through the clothes this time, my hand in every pocket, collecting whatever I found and dropping it into a plastic food-storage bag. Then I pulled over a kitchen chair and studied the shrine, picking up a tiny skull, a smooth rock, a small feather, and not picking up what appeared to be nail clippings, hair, desiccated feces, hoping I was wrong about the last item but not willing to do anything to find out.

There were boxes on the floor of the closet, comic books in one. Those could be worth money. I wondered if they were Tim's, but I didn't see Tim as someone who'd collect
Batman
and
Spider-Man
. Still, you never know.

There were running shoes in one box, a pair of new boots in another. And in the corner, as if it had been tossed there, perhaps when Parker had heard someone at the door, a beaded purse, small and elegant. I picked it up and put it on Tim's desk, wondering if perhaps the purse had belonged to Tim's mother, thinking I'd ask Maggie when I saw her. I put the plastic bag on the desk, too, figuring I'd dump it and go through the things I found, though none of it looked particularly telling at first glance.

There was a soft rap at the kitchen door. When I opened it, there was Jin Mei with a cup of tea.

“I noticed the window was open. I thought you might like a cup of tea.”

I took the cup, celedon green with a brushstroke drawing of bamboo on it, and asked her in. She shook her head.

“I'm working, too,” she said, “catching the afternoon light for my painting. Saturday, the same time
as now, four o'clock, all the neighbors want to meet in the garden, to remember Tim. We'd like you to come.”

“Of course.”

She nodded. “I knew you would.”

“Is anyone inviting Tim's family?”

“That will be your job.”

“His sister will be here anyway on Saturday. I'll call his brother and ask him to come, too.”

“Good.”

“What about Parker?” I asked. “Will he be here?”

“Irwin said he'd call him. Irwin said it would be bad karma not to invite Parker.”

“Bad karma for whom?”

“That's what I wondered.” Jin Mei smiled and nodded.

“Is Irwin calling Parker? Does he have his number?” Thinking I could run upstairs, get it from him, cancel tomorrow's visit, tell him Saturday, after the memorial, would be a more sensible time. Or Sunday, after Maggie had taken the things she wanted, after I had packed up the rest for Housing Works.

Jin Mei shrugged. “If he doesn't call him, it's fine by me.”

“Thank you for the tea, Jin Mei.”

“Don't work too late. You need to sit still and be quiet tonight. You have too much on your mind. I can see that.”

“True.”

“You need to empty your mind, sit in the garden, look up at the stars, feel your”—she circled one hand—“to the universe.”

“Connection?”

“Yes. You need to do this.”

“I promise,” I told her. “I will.”

When I'd closed and locked the door, I remembered that there was a cell phone number for Parker in Tim's address book that was with the papers I'd dumped out of the briefcase. I went to the desk, sat in Tim's chair, put the teacup down on the napkin from the White Horse with the wrong phone number on it and opened the address book. I picked up the phone and dialed, hoping Parker had it turned off and that I could leave a message and not have to talk to him. But when the phone rang, I heard it in Tim's living room, the sound somewhat muffled but clearly coming from someplace in the room. I put the handset of Tim's phone down on the desk and looked around, but I couldn't see a cell phone anywhere and I wasn't sure exactly where the sound was coming from.

“Find it,” I told Dash, expecting to see him rush around the way I would have, looking everywhere for the phone. Instead, he ambled over to the couch and pushed his nose under one of the side cushions, flipping it up onto the arm of the couch. When he turned around to face me, the phone was in his mouth. Not only that, there were other things stuffed in the corner of the couch, as if Dashiell had uncovered a magpie's nest.

I hung up Tim's phone to stop the ringing, taking the cell phone from Dashiell, telling him he was a good and handsome dog, indispensable and efficient as well. I glanced at the stash in the corner, but wanted to know Parker wasn't coming before doing anything else. His cell phone
here, right in my hand, I wondered how I'd get in touch with him now. Without thinking, I opened the phone, thinking I'd call Irwin, ask if he had a number for Parker. I reached for Tim's address book, but it occurred to me that Parker might have Irwin's number on his cell, which was already in my hand. But before I got the chance to see if he did, I saw something else. Parker had two messages.

I knew I had no right to listen to Parker's messages, but that had never stopped me in the past and it surely wasn't going to stop me now. What I found might not be admissible in court, but I wasn't trying to make an airtight case. I was only trying to find out what the hell was going on. And when I saw that the first message was from Elizabeth Bowles, there was no way on earth I would have closed the phone and put it back where I found it, where Parker would expect to find it the next day if I couldn't reach him before to tell him not to come.

“Parker, it's Elizabeth again and the answer is still no. Under no circumstances will I have you living in my home again. If my brother were alive, he'd be telling you the same thing. And don't come asking for money either. Been there. Done that. It's over.”

The message had been left after Tim had kicked Parker out of the house. He hadn't heard it. No matter. This was obviously not the first time Elizabeth had told him that he couldn't move back in with her. He'd made another plea anyway. Just in case. But he was more than likely expecting exactly what he got, another rejection.

Was that why he hadn't retrieved his phone when the cops were here? Was this the reason he was in such a rush to get his things back? Because if anyone heard what I'd just heard, there'd be no doubt that Parker hadn't been given permission to stay at his aunt's apartment.

I played back the second message.

“P, it's me, Andy. See you in hell” was all it said. Caller unknown. At least to the phone and to me.

There was a wallet stuffed in the corner, too, with about eighty dollars in it. Two watches, both expensive. A man's silver ID bracelet with the name “Christopher” on it. Magpie indeed. I wondered if Parker had been sitting on his stash when the cops were looking around. I wondered, too, how much they'd looked around once they'd determined the death to be a suicide.

I made one more call, this time using O'Fallon's phone, and then got back to work. I dumped the plastic bag with the contents of Parker's pockets in it onto the kitchen table, not wanting to get his things mixed up with the things on Tim's desk. I picked through the pile: pens and pencils, tissues and handkerchiefs, a folded-up scarf, a pair of leather gloves with the price tag still on them, a comb, a man's gold bracelet, matches, opened packs of cigarettes and change. I couldn't make much of anything new out of what I'd found but thought the stuff should go to the same person I was going to give the cell phone to, Michael Brody. Parker was his problem, not mine, unless of course he was somehow the cause of Tim's death. But the cops
didn't seem to think so. As far as I knew, he wasn't even questioned at the precinct, only at the apartment. While they did suspect him in connection with the disappearance of Elizabeth Bowles, no one seemed to think him culpable in Tim's death. No one except me. I was pretty sure that Parker had helped Tim down the long path to suicide, that he beat him down, that he'd made it more and more difficult for Tim to feel there was any point to his life, any saving grace to cling to, any reason to live. But if that was prosecutable, the jails would be far more crowded than they already are, souls pressed as tightly together as subway riders during rush hour.

I began to put everything back in the bag when I read one of the matchbook covers. Hell. The message hadn't said, “See you in hell.” It had said, “See you in Hell,” a bar on Gansevoort Street.

I went back to the couch, the one with the nest of goodies, the couch, I was sure, where Parker had slept. Only this time, I tore it apart. I took off all the cushions, finding more treasures hidden in corners. Why not? The couch had been both his bed and his nightstand. Where else could he put his things? And things of Tim's he meant to remove from the apartment, seeing first if they'd be missed before taking them to a local hockshop or selling them in the street.

When I'd finished poking into every corner, I unzipped the worn pillow covers and reached inside. In one, wrapped in a dishtowel, there was cash. I sat down and counted it. Parker had hidden $3,235 there, Parker who, as far as I knew, did
not have a job. Another reason why he was so anxious to retrieve his possessions.

I spent another three hours at the apartment, packing things up. I had personal effects, photos, some books and valuables for Maggie. I put those things on Tim's bed after pulling that apart to make sure there wasn't a bird's nest in that one, too. I had a huge pile of things, packed in shopping bags, suitcases, and just loose, for Housing Works. I'd call in a day or two, ask if they'd come and pick up everything at once. Ironically, the charities were nearly as fussy as the heirs. There were always things no one would want, things you'd eventually have to pay someone to come and haul away. I had a third pile, neatly folded and packed in plastic bags: Parker's clothes, everything from his closet except the shrine and the small purse. When I finished, I left everything as it was and went upstairs to Irwin's apartment.

“You're early, doll.” His hair was gelled flat and the gel made it appear darker. “The game doesn't start for another hour. I'm glad you're here. You can help me make dip.”

“I don't make dip,” I told him, “and I didn't come to play.”

“Alas,” he said. “I thought that might be so when you showed up without the obligatory six-pack, but
c'est la vie
. What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if you called Parker yet, to invite him to the memorial on Saturday.”

“Not yet, doll. It's on my list.” He tapped his temple and I thought of Tim holding the gun to that very spot on his own head, then squeezing the trigger. Jin Mei was right. I needed some quiet time.

“Will you give him a message from me? I told him he could come and collect his things tomorrow afternoon, but it turns out, he can't. I have a dentist appointment I'd forgotten about.”

“Nothing serious, I hope.” He was squinting up at me, his face a study of cynical disbelief. Irwin had good radar. I decided I'd better stop bullshitting and stick to the business at hand.

“I packed up his clothes. He said he needed them. If I can leave them with you, he can…”

“Sure, doll, sure. No problem.”

I went back downstairs and brought up the shopping bags and one suitcase full of clothes. It took me three trips to get everything upstairs. Irwin never touched a bag. He just pointed at where he wanted me to put everything. Fair enough, I thought. It wasn't his job in the first place.

“There are a few other things I'll give him after the memorial. Will you tell him that, too?”

“You can tell him yourself. He'll be here for the game.”

“Sorry,” I told him, “no can do. I have an appointment tonight, too, and I don't like to keep a gentleman waiting.” I checked my watch as if I had to rush, but the truth was, I wasn't meeting Brody for several hours. I thanked Irwin again and told him I'd see him on Saturday.

He motioned for me to bend closer. I did. “It's going to be a sad one,” he whispered. “But you can always cry on my shoulder. Don't forget, doll, I'm here for you, whatever it is you need.”