Homicide Related (16 page)

“I'm here about Lorraine McCormack's apartment,” he said in response to the super's raspy, “Yeah?”

The super buzzed him into the lobby even though Dooley could easily have gotten in on his own. He'd tried the security door. The lock was broken. He waited inside on a grayish carpet that he suspected had once upon a time been a different color, although he couldn't begin to imagine which one, until the super, a stout man in work pants and a work shirt, appeared. He looked around, as if he were expecting to see someone else. But there wasn't anyone else. There was just Dooley.

“You're her
brother
?” the super said.

“Her son.”

The super looked even more surprised, but Dooley couldn't tell why.

“She's up on seven,” the super said. Then he caught himself. “That is to say, she was.”

They rode the elevator together, both of them watching the numbers above the door light up one by one. When they got to Lorraine's floor, the super exited first and fumbled for a key on a ring that was so dense with keys that they stuck straight out like spokes on a wheel.

“She was okay, your mother,” the super said as he opened the door to 713. “She mostly paid her rent on time.

Never gave me a hard time about repairs. A lot of the tenants, they have no respect. It's not theirs, so they don't take care of it. They break stuff and then they scream at me to fix it.” He sounded like every other super in every other rat-hole building Dooley had ever lived in.

The super pushed the door open so that Dooley could go in first. He wasn't surprised to see that the place was a mess—the super had said that the cops had been there. They had gone through the place. Dooley could see, too, that they had dusted for prints. But he was surprised at how much stuff she had.

“She didn't travel light, did she?” he said, mostly to himself.

“You know women,” the super said. “They love to shop. Love to buy shit. Am I right?”

Dooley stared at him.

The super looked down at the ground. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Nearly three years she lived here, she never once mentioned a kid. So, what do you want to do?”

Dooley turned around slowly to take in the combination living room and dining room, the galley kitchen, one end opening onto a dinette set, the other end facing the apartment door. Off the living room, a hallway with two doors in it, one on either side, a bedroom and a bathroom, Dooley guessed.

“I'll take a look around, see if there's anything I want to keep, you know, for sentimental reasons.” Like that was going to happen. “Anything that's left after that, it's yours.”

The super scanned the apartment with an assayer's eye. “Yeah?” he said.

“Keep it. Burn it. Sell it. Give it away. I don't care,” Dooley said. “Just give me some time to look around, okay?”

The super's eyes narrowed. “How do I know you're really her son?”

Well, finally, Dooley thought.

“As opposed to what?” Dooley said. “A burglar?” He crossed to a bookshelf that was filled with knickknacks, but that also contained—surprise!—books, and grabbed a framed photograph, which he thrust at the super: Lorraine, approximate age twenty-nine—Dooley remembered her bitching and whining about her next birthday being the big one—and Dooley, approximate age eleven, both of them glassy-eyed.

The super examined it and then examined Dooley. “You can't be too careful,” he said.

Boy, he had that right. He handed the photo back to Dooley.

“The cops,” Dooley said. “Did they take anything?”

“Fingerprints,” the super said. “Some of her stuff—her address book, a few other things. They made a list and gave me a copy. You want it?”

Dooley shook his head.

“Close the door on your way out,” the super said.

The minute Dooley was alone, he dropped the framed photograph into the nearest wastepaper basket. He went over to the bookshelf and examined the contents. Jesus, all those books. What was up with that? They were real books, too, not just chick lit and romances and Stephen King, the crap he remembered her reading sometimes when she was in a new relationship and wasn't completely fucked up. There was a book on psychology, a couple on home décor—home
décor!
—another one on the history of salt, of all things. And what were those? Perfect. Self-help books. Twelve-step books. He pulled one off the shelf and flipped through it. It was well thumbed and highlighted throughout in yellow and gave off a scent that reminded him of Lorraine. He flipped to the front and checked the date. It had been published only last year, so whatever lame-ass attempt she had made to get herself right, it had been recent. Maybe it was really true. Maybe she had been trying. Maybe she'd even been ahead of the game. He didn't want to believe it—he was surprised at how bitter he felt—he didn't want to give her any credit, even though he knew anything was possible because, hey, look where he was now.

He sank down onto her sofa, opened the book again, and held it to his face. Boy, that scent took him back. It made him remember Lorraine, her hair thick and glossy, in tight jeans and a tighter T-shirt. Lorraine, checking her lipstick in the bathroom mirror before she set out to meet someone. Lorraine laughing as she raised a glass to her lips. Lorraine, standing unsteadily to uncork some more wine. Lorraine with her head in the toilet, puking. Lorraine passed out, spit caked on her cheek. Lorraine glassy-eyed. Lorraine enraged as she tore the apartment apart looking for a bottle, some pills, a needle. Lorraine spaced out, immobile. Lorraine shaking and scratching, needing something to make herself right. Lorraine screaming at whichever guy was at the apartment this week, whichever guy was slipping Dooley a ten and telling him to get lost, whichever guy was telling Dooley, stay in there—there being his room—or you'll be sorry. Lorraine telling him, be a good boy, stay away from the apartment for a few days; you got someone you can crash with, right, pressing a couple of twenties into his hand, probably given to her by whatever guy was in the bedroom waiting for her. Lorraine prancing around in her bra and panties and some flimsy thing over top, trying to cook for some guy sitting at the dinette set, grilling a steak for the guy and sending Dooley to his room to watch TV with a couple of boiled hotdogs and a bag of chips.

She never said so, but Dooley was pretty sure he was an accident. Who
wants
to be pregnant at seventeen? And now he was supposed to believe that a twelve-step book, all marked up, had changed her? She had written comments in the margins, positive thoughts, encouragement—
You can do it. You can get through just one day. You have the courage. You have the strength
—exclamation points next to passages that, as far as Dooley could see, were platitudes written by some guy who had never been there. On one page, in the margin, a list of stuff she needed from the drugstore—that was more like Lorraine. A little further on, in an inside margin, written so small that he almost missed it, a phone number that she had drawn a heart around with a little lace pattern at the edges, like a valentine. He wondered if the cops had seen it and called the number and, if they had, what the voice on the other end of the line had told them about her. Not that he cared. He dropped the book into the same wastepaper basket as the framed photo and scanned the rest of the shelf. She had nothing that he wanted to read.

Someone knocked on the door. Before Dooley could get up to see who it was, the door opened. It was one of the women from the funeral—the rough-looking one. She came in full of purpose, looking like she was ready to open fire with a barrage of words. But she stopped in her tracks when she saw it was Dooley.

“I thought it was the cops,” she offered in a raspy voice.

Well, it wasn't. He wished she would go away. But she didn't, even though it was clear she'd been mistaken.

“Gloria lit a fire under them,” she said, “and they started asking questions. I wanted to see if they turned up anything.”

“What kind of questions?” Dooley said, interested now.

“Whether we'd seen her using lately.”

We? She must have meant some of the other women at the funeral.

“And?”

“And no,” the woman said, glaring at him. He wondered if she used the same attitude with the cops. He wondered, too, how reliable she was and what she really knew. People who tried to kick a habit could be pretty wily. They could hide things, at least for a while, until it got hard-core again.

“What else did they ask?” he said.

“Where she got her money, like that has anything to do with anything.”

“Her money?” Lorraine used to waitress sometimes, but mostly she collected welfare benefits. Sometimes guys gave her money. “What'd you tell them?”

“What do you think I told them? She had a job.”

“She did?” That was a surprise.

The woman looked at him as if he were crazy. “Thirty hours a week in a store. But they were looking for something else. They kept asking if I knew about the money she'd been depositing in the bank every month. They didn't say how much it was, but I got the feeling it was enough to make them wonder.”

Wonder about what?

“Used to make me wonder, too,” the woman said. She eyed Dooley carefully, as if weighing his worth. “As long as I've known her, she always had cash—a lot of it—at the beginning of the month, even after she paid her rent and bought groceries. Even when she wasn't working. She'd party.” Dooley imagined how Lorraine could come up with party money—she wasn't bad-looking and, as far as he knew, she was ready and willing to do whatever it took to come up with party fixings. “Until she decided to straighten up,” the woman said. “I don't know if it's true or not, but about six months ago, she told me she'd opened up a savings account for the first time in her life.” She was looking around the place as she talked. Her eyes came to rest on the small TV and the DVD player next to it.

“You want them?” Dooley said.

The woman looked hungrily at him.

“They were hers. I'm sure you're—”

“They're yours now,” Dooley said. “Go ahead, take them.”

The woman wasted no time. She piled the DVD player on top of the TV, unplugged them both, and picked them up.

“Did they ask about anything else?” Dooley said. The woman was studying Lorraine's tiny collection of DVDs. “The cops,” Dooley prompted.

“Just about family stuff,” the woman said, her eyes still on the DVDs. “Why she left home, what kind of relationship she had with her brother, whether she'd said anything about that or we'd heard any rumors about what went down between them when she was a kid.”

“What kind of rumors?”

“They didn't say. But the way they said it, I got this weird vibe, you know?”

Weird. Jerry Panelli had used that word. He'd said the cops had been asking “weird shit” questions.

“And?” Dooley said.

“She never talked about her family—well, except you. She said she missed you.”

Right. That was a good one.

“Go ahead,” Dooley said. “Take the DVDs. Otherwise, I'll just throw them out.”

The woman was already holding the TV and the DVD player, so Dooley got up and scooped up the DVDs and set them on top of the pile. He walked her across the hall and opened her apartment door for her. Then he went back to Lorraine's to finish up.

He went into the kitchen. Pots, pans, rancid food in the fridge, canned and boxed foods in the cupboards. On the counter, a coffeemaker, canisters of tea and coffee. Dishes, cutlery, kitchen stuff. All ordinary.

He opened her closet—shoes, clothes, handbags. Not a lot of stuff, but enough. The super could burn it, give it to charity, give it to his wife, if he had one, give it to his girlfriend. Dooley didn't care.

He crossed to her dresser, opened the top drawer, and immediately wished he hadn't—Jesus, thongs and skimpy little see-through bras. Second drawer: T-shirts, sweaters, tank tops. Third drawer: jeans, slacks, shorts. A bikini.

Her bedside table. The drawer, where he found condoms, which he had expected, and a vibrator, which he hadn't.

On to the bathroom, which contained toiletries, more condoms, birth control pills.

And that was it.

He paused on his way out and looked into the wastepaper basket where he had dropped the photograph and the twelve-step book. He stared into it, then bent and retrieved the book and the photo. He slid the photo out of the frame and between the pages of the book and then dropped the frame back into the garbage.

Dooley and his uncle, who, Dooley realized for the hundredth time, wasn't really his uncle at all, sat across from each other over pork chops, rice, and green peppers in a tomato sauce, both with a glass of soda water, both, Dooley bet, wishing they had something stronger.

“So,” his uncle said, “you didn't work today?” It was the first non-supper-preparation words he had said to Dooley since he'd come home from checking up on his stores.