Inherit the Dead (20 page)

Her face was slack, and she stared out through the glass doors that led to the wide terrace spanning the length of the apartment. Outside millions of lights glittered like jewels on a blanket of velvet.

Every light is a life, a story,
his wife used to say.
The Manhattan skyline is a little bit of everything isn’t it? Life, death, joy, misery, love, hate, murder, rescue—it’s all playing out right there.

“Do you know what it is to fail your child?” She asked the question as if she already knew the answer. Maybe one failure could recognize another. It was a mark they wore, visible only to other bad parents.

He didn’t answer her. He didn’t sense that she was interested in whatever tale he had to tell.

“I need to make this one wrong right before I die.” She was staring at him, searching his face, and he felt a creeping discomfort. She wanted something from him that he wasn’t sure he could give. But he
wanted
to give it to her. He
needed
to find Angel, to be the one to bring her home to her mother. He wanted that for a million reasons, none of them pure or right or having anything to do with Angel.

“What will it take?” She reached for him again, got his hand in her cold, hard grip. “There’s nothing that’s wrong in your life that I can’t fix, provided it can be fixed with money.”

What would money solve in his life? He’d already lost everything: his job, his wife, his only child. Sure, he lived in a tiny apartment. But even if he lived in a palace, he’d live there alone, without the only people who meant anything to him. He couldn’t buy his way out of failure like Mrs. Drusilla seemed to think she could. The rich
were
different.

“I don’t want your money,” he said.

“Then what?” she said. She looked flustered, confused, but suddenly rejuvenated. She had the creamy skin of a much younger woman, a pretty blush to her cheeks. And her eyes glittered. Right now he wouldn’t have known she was ill if she hadn’t told him so. Even in her terrible thinness, there was something intense and vital about her. “What do you want?”

He wanted not to be the man he was, a disgraced cop, an ex-husband, a part-time father. Maybe finding Angel wouldn’t change all of that. But maybe it was a start. His dad used to say,
Every morning, you gotta face the guy in the mirror. Make sure you like him.
He couldn’t remember the last time he truly liked himself. What did that even feel like?

He pulled his hand from hers and walked over to the fireplace, his eyes scanning the room. Nothing had changed. There was not a photograph or a personal item in sight, not a book, an open magazine. Everything in here was for show, even the lovely, wasted woman on the couch.

“Your ex-husband—”

“Yes,” she said flatly, as if the conversation about Loki already bored her.

“I just saw him, and he was—”

“Drunk?”

“More than drunk. He was completely out of control, belligerent, barely making sense, and—”

“Were you expecting me to be surprised? When Norman drinks, he becomes a totally different person. I told you that. Alcohol is poison to him. It’s one of the reasons we—” She sighed. “You have to excuse him, Detective. If he was drunk, I’m certain he had no idea what he was doing or saying. He is upset by Angel’s disappearance: that’s why he’s drinking. It’s no excuse, but . . . ”

“And do you know that your ex-husband is . . . ” Perry stopped. Did it really matter?

“That he’s gay?” She offered a mirthless smile. “Of course. Norman and I led quite separate lives.”

“And Angel?”

“I have no idea what Angel knows or doesn’t know about her father.”

Once again Perry found himself wondering what it was like to be Angel with these two people as parents.

“Where would Angel go?” he asked, half thinking aloud. “If she was afraid, in trouble, if she just needed a break, where was her haven?”

Julia shook her head, then sank it again into her hand. “I have no idea. Isn’t that awful? A mother who knows nothing about her daughter.”

She released that strangled sobbing sound. But when she looked up at him, her eyes were still dry as dust.

“A childhood friend, a boyfriend, a godparent?” he asked. He found himself watching her, for what he didn’t know. “Anyplace she felt safe, not judged.”

“I hardly speak to my daughter,” said Julia. “She judges me, thinks everything is my fault. That’s the way it is with young people—everything’s black and white, no shades of gray.”

He found himself agreeing, a way to keep her talking. “They’re so sure of themselves, aren’t they?” he asked. “So harsh in their judgments.”

“Age brings wisdom, at least,” said Julia. “At least we’re smart enough to know that we don’t know anything—especially about each other.”

“You had a visitor tonight,” he said. Just thought he’d toss it out there, see what kind of a reaction he’d get.

She was too cool to startle, but he saw a micro-expression dance across her face. Anger, fear—he couldn’t tell. It wasn’t pretty, but it was gone as quickly as it had come.

“My massage therapist,” she said. She looked away from him, started twisting a ring on her hand. The chunky emerald was as big as a Volkswagen. “He works wonders. I’m carrying so much tension. I’m sure you can imagine.”

She coughed a bit, reached for her water, took a long sip.

Is she using the illness as a prop? he wondered. “He’s been here before?”

“Many times,” she said. Again a little flash of something across her face. “But never so late. It was an emergency; I’m in so much pain.”

A massage emergency—that was a new one. He thought about pressing her. Wouldn’t the doorman have known her masseur? But she’d covered that by saying he’d never come so late. Still, why would the masseur refuse to give his name? Something off about that, but her fragility kept him from pushing her too hard. After all, she’d hired him to find Angel. If she was having a handsome young man up to meet whatever emergency needs she had, what business was it of his?

“So you’ll keep working?” she asked. “No police?”

It wasn’t right. It was a matter for the cops. But he found himself nodding, reaching out a comforting hand, which she took and squeezed.

You never could resist a damsel in distress,
his wife used to tease.

But it was more than that, wasn’t it? He wanted to be the one to find Angel. It was his case. He’d started it, and he wanted to finish it. And there was a tangle of other feelings knotting up in his gut, too many, too complicated, too messy to contemplate.

Outside, he pulled
his too-thin coat tight around him and wound Nicky’s scarf even tighter. The cold air snaked up his cuffs and down his collar, chilling him to the core. Fatigue, which he’d been holding at bay with caffeine and junk food, was now a weight on his back, pulling down his shoulders, making every step feel as if he was slogging through mud. Trekking down the street, he pulled out his phone and dialed his daughter’s cell. He didn’t want to talk to his ex-wife, endure her snipes, all delivered in the happy lilt of her voice. She
was
happy—rich new boyfriend (whom Perry’s daughter
just loved
by the way), living in the boyfriend’s nice big apartment in Brooklyn Heights, working in a preschool (she’d always wanted more kids; now she had ’em). He wanted to be happy for her. But he wasn’t, because he was a prick—as she was fond of reminding him.

“Hey, Dad,” Nicky answered. “Where are you?”

“Heading home,” he said. “Sorry to call so late. What are you doing?”

“Ugh,” she said, “calculus.” He heard the television going in the background, some sitcom with laugh tracks. It sounded tinny and strange on the line, almost mocking.

“With the television on?”

“Its helps me concentrate,” she said. “A little noise helps you focus, you know. It’s proven.”

The kid was a brainiac, a 4.0 average, star of her track team, frighteningly gorgeous—as pretty as her mom and then some. Every time he saw her, he just wanted to wrap her up in blankets and hide her away somewhere. Did they still send girls to the nunnery? Was that an option?

“You sound tired,” she said.

Kid, you have no idea. I’m tired to the bone. I could sleep for a thousand years.
“No,” he said, forcing himself to sound bright. “I’m good. I’m great.”

“Are we getting together tomorrow?”

Shit. Was that tomorrow?

“I’ve got a case,” he said. The words stuck in his mouth, tasted bitter, like a piece of gum he’d chewed way too long.

“No problem,” she said, light, resigned, as if she was used to being disappointed by him. She expected very little.
Do you know what it is to fail your child?
Julia had asked him. Of course he knew. Of course, he did. He hadn’t abandoned her, no. He wasn’t a deadbeat. He’d always paid his alimony and child support on time. He was saving for her education. He’d never missed a birthday. But he’d failed her in a million little ways. It added up. She’d learned she couldn’t count on him, and now she didn’t. Not at all.

“You didn’t let me finish,” he said. “I just need to do it a little earlier.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, really. Tomorrow is Saturday, so how about brunch? I have an eight o’clock appointment and—”

“Oh my God. Not at eight.”

“No. After. It will be closer to nine thirty or ten. You can handle that, right?”

They chatted a while longer about how her best friend was going out with a jerk, how Mom and Cornelius wanted to take her to the Bahamas for spring break, how calculus was so hard—who ever needed calculus in the real world, anyway? And then they hung up. And even though the talk had been good, that hollow place he’d felt open in the lobby of Julia’s building grew wider and wider until he thought he might disappear in there, never to be heard from again.

Finally at home,
he tossed and turned before falling into an uneasy sleep. He dreamed that he stood on the balcony of Julia’s apartment, looking down those long twenty-four floors to the river of traffic below.

“We all go there sooner or later, Detective,” Julia said.

She was beside him, her gnarled hand on his shoulder. When he turned to look at her, the silk pajamas were gone, replaced with a black cloak and hood. In her hand, she held a sickle. She pulled back her hood to reveal the gray, twisted face of an old crone.

He backed away from her, a scream of horror caught in his throat. In the enormous living room was Angel’s car, dark and abandoned. He looked inside and saw only empty leather seats and a Gucci bag opened on the floor.

He heard a strange knocking and realized quickly that it was coming from the trunk. But he didn’t have the key. The knocking grew ever more panicked and insistent, and his fear ratcheted to a crescendo. He started banging on the trunk.

“Angel,”
he yelled.
“I’m coming, baby.”

But then Angel was standing there, golden and willowy, smiling. She issued a little chuckle, as if the whole thing was terribly funny. He reached for her, but she shimmered like a mirage.

“Don’t worry,” she said.

She clicked the small black remote in her hand, and the trunk
opened with a
pop
. He raced to it, and inside he found his own daughter curled tight into a fetal position. She was purple pale and so, so still. He called her name over and over and took her into his arms, rocking her the way he’d done when she was a child.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.” But they both knew it was far too late.

Perry continue to rock her, but then she was gone and everything was black and it was raining hard and he was trying to get across the street, to get somewhere, anywhere.

I
n the morning Perry was still trying to shake off the dream.

Half an hour later he circled to the sidewalk, down the four flights of creaking, slanted stairs. He’d showered, he’d dressed, but his caffeine was still to come. Last week, his Mr. Coffee had busted spectacularly, frying the ancient fuse, plunging half the tiny apartment into darkness. He’d fixed the fuse, but before he’d gotten around to a new machine, he’d realized he’d rather drink his coffee at the counter at the diner than at his cheerless kitchen table—though the diner’s coffee always tasted burned. He turned up his collar against the dispirited drizzle and walked the half block to the diner. He didn’t take his customary counter stool today, though. He ordered his coffee to go. It was some kind of commentary on his life, one he was careful not to shine too bright a light on, that even sipping burned take-out coffee from a cardboard cup on the street on a gray and spitting morning like this was preferable to starting the day at home.