Murder 101 (5 page)

We got in and looked around. There was nobody in the back parking lot or coming down the path from the gym. When we got in the car, I smacked Max’s arm. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into that!” I muttered through clenched teeth.

“Oh, calm down,” she said, and started the car. “Nobody saw us.” She pulled a wide U-turn in the parking lot and headed off the campus.

“Not that we know of,” I said, looking out the window. I pulled a hand across my sweaty forehead. “Jesus.”

“Yes, Jesus saw us,” she said in a patronizing tone, and made a left.

I started to reply but couldn’t come up with an appropriate response and gave up. I breathed deeply and put my head on the headrest. “Nothing there,” I said, disappointed. “Max, what am I going to do?” I asked, feeling tears well up in my eyes again.

She shrugged. “Don’t know.” She started the car. “Hey, you want to get some wings and a pitcher at Maloney’s?” she asked.

I looked at her, incredulous. With Max, there’s always time for food. When we were in college, Maloney’s was our place of choice—two dozen wings and a pitcher of draft beer for $3.50 on a Friday afternoon. I still visited Maloney’s occasionally with Father Kevin. After fifteen years, the price of a pitcher and a dozen wings had gone up to $6.50.

I
was
kind of hungry. “Sure.”

She pointed the car toward Broadway and found a parking spot a few doors north of the bar. She eased the car into a very tight spot, parallel parking like a pro. The el rumbled above us as a train headed away from this final destination in the Bronx toward Manhattan. We got out and headed south on Broadway to the bar.

It was just after lunchtime, and the bar was empty, except for the ancient bartender, Sully, and one older man at the end. They were discussing the ever-controversial topic of the designated hitter. The bar was dark, dank, and smelly, but comfortably familiar. Sully looked up when he saw me; he had been bartending at Maloney’s since Max and I were in school. “Hey, Doc,” he said, wiping the bar down with a dingy, yellowed rag that was probably dirtier than the bar he was cleaning.

“Hi, Sully,” I said, and went over to the bar. I leaned in and gave him a kiss. “How’s things?” I asked. “Do you remember Max?”

He looked at her. “Sure, I do. Max Barfly?” he asked, breaking into a toothy grin. He had given her that nickname in our freshman year and it stuck.

She snickered. “That’s me.”

“The kids don’t drink kamikazes anymore,” he said, sadly. Max had been the kamikaze shot queen for three years running; a bout with mono in senior year forced her to give up her crown. He balled the rag up and threw it into the sink behind the bar. “What can I get you ladies?”

“Two dozen and a pitcher,” Max said. She turned to me. “What do you want?” She laughed; this was something I had heard a hundred times while we were in school. “Just kidding.”

I led her to one of the wooden booths across from the bar. I sat and stuck my right leg out to the side to examine the damage from my roll on the pavement; my stockings were torn, and I had a nice bloody scrape on my shin. “I didn’t stick my landing like you did,” I explained as I got up to go the bathroom and wash up in the dark, dank, and smelly bathroom (Maloney’s had found a decorating motif and was sticking to it). I pulled off my panty hose, stepping out of one shoe and then the other as I extricated myself from my hose. I didn’t want to put even one bare toe on the bathroom floor; I had been to this bar enough times to know what went on in the bathroom and how infrequently the floor was mopped (never). I tossed my stockings into the garbage can and took some paper towels from the dispenser, wet them, and pressed them against the scrape on my leg, sopping up as much of the blood as possible and trying to get the area relatively clean. I ran the water in the sink and washed my face. When I was done, I emerged, cleaner and a little calmer than when I had entered.

Max was hunched over a big plate of wings when I returned and a pitcher of beer sat in front of her. She had poured each of us some beer into the plastic cups that Sully provided. Her mouth was ringed in orange wing sauce, and she had her sleeves rolled up almost to her shoulders. She took a swig of beer and left an orange imprint around the side of the cup. “So good,” she murmured, as she tossed some bones onto the wing platter.

“Nice,” I said, and picked up her bones with a napkin, creating a new burial ground for her discards. “Don’t you remember anything? You don’t mix old bones with new wings.”

I picked up a wing and nibbled at it, not having as much of an appetite as I originally thought. I put the wing down and pushed my beer away. I’m not a big beer drinker; when Father Kevin and I come for wings, Sully always makes me an Absolut martini from a private vodka stash that he keeps in a locked cabinet under the bar. “So what do you think I should do now?” I asked her.

She picked up a napkin and wiped her hands as much as she could; the paper ripped off and stuck to her fingers. “Keep thinking. I think the fact that your car was involved in this was random. But maybe not. Why would someone steal your car?” she asked.

“Because they could?”

“Probably.” She drank her beer and refilled her glass from the pitcher. “Shitty cars are easy to steal,” she said, looking at me for my reaction, which was to reach over the table and playfully smack her cheek. “I’m kidding!” She returned to the wings, pointing one at me as she spoke. “I hope the police figure this out, because I certainly can’t. And I’m pretty good at this stuff.”

I didn’t know what made her “good at this stuff,” but I didn’t argue. We ate and drank in silence, Max polishing off twenty wings to my four. She drank the rest of the pitcher and proudly belched. “Let me wash up before I go back to work,” she said.

While she was gone, I cleaned up the table, putting the chicken bones and discarded napkins onto the platter. My mind was racing with the thought that I was actually a suspect in a murder case and that I had just broken into someone’s dorm room. But I had to figure out a way to show the police that I didn’t have anything to do with this. Waiting around and hoping that they would come to that conclusion on their own wasn’t enough for me.

Max came out of the bathroom, clean, full, and ready to go. She picked up her purse from the bench of the booth and riffled around in her wallet. She pulled out two twenties and tossed them on the table. “Thanks, Sully,” she said. Sully was deep in conversation with the man at the end of the bar, the two still on opposite sides of the designated hitter debate. He gave us a quick wave as we departed.

Outside in the street, squinting at the glare, it took me a few minutes to make out the shape of Detective Crawford leaning nonchalantly against Max’s car, his arms crossed and his eyes focused on something north up Broadway. I threw an elbow into Max’s side, and, as her eyes adjusted, she stiffened.

Crawford turned and looked at us. “Ladies.”

“It’s Detective Hot Pants,” Max muttered under her breath, and froze on the spot. I knew what she was thinking: we were in big-ass trouble. I struggled to stay calm as I mentally considered myself in handcuffs and leg irons. Crawford eased himself off the car and ambled toward us, stopping just a few feet from where we stood.

We stood like statues for a few more seconds before Max said, “Gotta go,” and went into a full sprint down the street, her legs pumping in her high heels. I was starting to think she could do just about anything in stilettos. She pulled her car keys out of her pocketbook as she was running and got into the driver’s side of the car. She was out of the parking space almost before Crawford realized what she was doing; he turned and watched her maneuver out of the spot and speed down Broadway, through a yellow light, and out of sight.

I stood there, under the el, listening to the trains come and go, weighing my options. Turn around and go the other way? Go back into Maloney’s? Hail a gypsy cab? Die right on the spot? There was too much to choose from and not enough time to make a decision.

Crawford was in front of me before I could do anything. He smiled slightly: “good” cop in a bad mood. “Hello, Dr. Bergeron. Long time, no see.”

“Detective.” I didn’t think a neon sign with the words “I’m guilty” was flashing from my forehead, but it was pretty damn close. I tried to hold his gaze but cast my eyes down.

“What are you doing over here?” he asked.

I held up my fingers, which were still slightly orange from the wings, despite my best efforts with the Handi Wipes. “Eating wings,” I said.

“They don’t have wings up by you?” he asked, “up by you” implying that my school was so far away from Joliet. Twenty city blocks equals a mile.

I shook my head. “Not like Maloney’s.”

“Should I try them?” he asked.

“If you like wings, then yes.” I looked around. “Where’s Detective Wyatt?”

“He went to the cemetery,” he said. He pulled on his tie. In my heels, we were closer in height, but he still had a good four inches on me. I had ice in my veins as it dawned on me that he had probably followed us and seen us break into Vince’s dorm room. I imagined their conversation, Wyatt saying, “I’m going to the cemetery. You stick to the professor like glue.” And Crawford responding, “I’ll see if she does anything hinky.” Or something like that. That’s the way cops talk on TV.

“Anything you want to tell me?” he asked. He stared down at me, his green eyes boring into mine. This guy was good; I was about to wet my pants.

I shook my head; I guess he wanted to know about the “hinky” stuff, but I wasn’t prepared to share. “I don’t think so,” I said.

The el rumbled above us and he looked up. “Can I give you a tip, Dr. Bergeron?”

I looked down at my shoes. “Put a five on Long Legs in the fifth at Yonkers Raceway?”

He didn’t smile at what I thought was a pretty funny joke. “Breaking and entering carries a minimum five- to ten-year jail sentence, and that’s if nothing was taken. And the definition of breaking and entering includes lifting up screens and going into dorm rooms.” His face turned hard. “Don’t ever do anything like that again.”

Tears sprang to my eyes, but I kept silent.

He took me by the elbow. “Now, where is it you’d like to go?” he asked, steering me toward his brown Crown Victoria sedan, which was parked right behind the space where Max’s car had been.

I managed to get out, “Train station.” I waited for him to push my head down into the car like I had seen the cops do to “perps” on TV, but he just opened the door and waited for me to get in. I looked out the window and clutched my purse to my stomach. If there was a cranky cop smell, this car had it. He got into the driver’s side and sighed, saying, “Put your seat belt on,” rather crankily. Now I knew where the smell came from.

He refused to pull away from the curb until I did so, so I obliged. We drove to the train station in silence, me looking out the window and blinking back tears and him breathing heavily in exasperation. When we arrived at the station, he pulled the car over and threw it into
PARK
. He turned to me, his face and tone softer. “Please stop crying,” he said, and pulled a clean, folded handkerchief out of the inside pocket of his blazer.

I took it and blew my nose, then tried to hand it back to him. “I don’t want it back,” he said, giving me a slight smile.

“Thanks,” I said, and put it into my purse.

He leaned down and looked at my leg. “Make sure you put some antiseptic on that when you get home. And keep it covered.”

“Thanks,” I said again.

He put his left arm over the steering wheel and turned his body to face me. “Listen. If you think we should be exploring any other angles, just call me and talk to me about it. Don’t take matters into your own hands.”

I nodded.

“Don’t you think it occurred to us to look at Vince as a suspect? And at his dorm room? We’ve been all over that place,” he said.

“So, why does he still have a bong in there?” I asked, regretting asking that as soon as it was out of my mouth.

He chuckled. “Must be a replacement bong. All the other stuff was bagged as evidence.”

I cried some more.

“Would you please stop crying?” he asked again, running his hand over his face. “Do you want me to drive you home?”

I shook my head. “No, thank you.” I undid the seat belt. “Thanks for the ride.” I got out of the car and tiptoed across the gravel parking lot to the platform, not looking back. I sat on a bench facing the river and cried some more, using his handkerchief to blow my nose again and wipe my eyes. The train arrived five minutes later; I stood and waited for it to stop, turning around to look back at the parking lot.

Crawford was still there, in the car, watching me as I got on the train.

Six

I woke up at six-thirty the next morning to the sound of a car idling in front of my house. I got up and looked out the window, but didn’t see anyone. At that point, I was fully awake, so despite the early hour, I decided to stay up.

After a quick shower, I got dressed and went downstairs to make coffee. I opened the refrigerator to find that not only did I not have any coffee but also that the milk in the container was ten days past its sell-by date and now a solid rather than a liquid. Plan B was put into effect as I left the house and began my walk into the village to Starbucks.

I was still upset about the events of the previous day—especially the scolding from Crawford. Nothing like a good dorm break-in to make you seem really guilty.

I was also upset that I seemed to be falling apart. I had always thought of myself as a relatively strong person: I had weathered the deaths of both my parents before I was thirty, endured a marriage to a man who humiliated me with his actions at least once a year, put myself through graduate school while working full-time, and gotten a doctorate in the shortest amount of time possible. Now, I was involved in something totally out of my realm of experience, and the thought of it made me sick and more than a little crazed.

The weather was beautiful: bright, sunny, and clear, and in direct contrast to my mood: dark, cloudy, and complicated. I was furious at Max for leaving me on Broadway, and I was mad at myself for allowing her to convince me to do something I knew wasn’t right. Kathy’s death also weighed heavily on my mind. Parents sent their children to our school thinking they would be safe: a Catholic institution, a long tradition of graduating strong, independent women (and a few men), and a peaceful setting all contributed to a feeling of safety and well-being. An occasional stolen car was all we normally had to deal with. Now, we had murder to add to the list of things people thought about when they conjured up St. Thomas.

I made a left and headed up the hill in the village to Starbucks. At a little after seven in the morning on a Saturday, it was open, but not crowded. I went up to the counter and ordered a grande French roast—black, no sugar—and a banana muffin. I paid and took a seat at a small round table near the back of the cafe.

I could feel myself coming dangerously close to sliding under a wave of self-pity as I watched couples come and go in the coffee shop. It also occurred to me as I sat there that probably none of the patrons were murder suspects. So, there I was, a divorced, earless murder suspect, eating alone in Starbucks. It doesn’t get much sadder than that. Unless you’re a nineteen-year-old dead girl in a Volvo casket, I reminded myself.

I shoved the remainder of the muffin in my mouth and washed it down with the dregs from my coffee cup. I crumpled everything into a little ball and shoved it into the metal garbage can by the door. A young man with a skateboard under his arm started in, saw me, and held the door open. “Why don’t you go first, ma’am?” he asked politely.

Ma’am. Thanks. I managed a smile and walked out onto the sidewalk, stopping for a moment to adjust my pocketbook on my shoulder. I started down the street, taking in the river, the boats swaying gently on the small waves right beyond the train station, and the sun’s rays dancing across the river’s surface. I made a conscious decision to remain very angry at Max but to stop feeling sorry for myself. Being angry at Max would at least burn a few calories, but feeling sorry at myself would force me to eat the entire box of Godiva chocolate that I had in the refrigerator.

Max picked me up at ten for our day of shopping at the Westchester, a mall near my house. We got there at ten-thirty, found a spot near the elevator, and were cruising the carpeted floors of the mall in no time.

I was still feeling a little icy toward Max, but she didn’t notice. She was too involved in spending more money than the gross national product of some smaller nations.

We spent an hour or so stocking up on cosmetics and hair accessories at Sephora, the large cosmetics retailer on the bottom floor. Max’s hair was only a few inches long, but she bought some jeweled barrettes and some kind of turban that she said was essential to making home facials successful. I wandered around the bath aisle, finally picking up some kind of shower gel that promised, “serenity, sensuality, and a feeling of well-being.” Whatever. It smelled like coconut. I also picked a lipstick called Jennifer, which was a muted peachy brown and not nearly dramatic enough for Max who stuck her tongue out in disgust when I showed it to her.

I finally let Max know how furious I was when we sat down to lunch at the City Limits Diner, located at the east end of the mall.

“I thought I would give you some ‘alone’ time,” she said, making those stupid finger quotes, and with the misguided conviction that what she had done was justified and, actually, considerate. “I assumed he was there to ask you out.” She slid into the booth and tossed her snakeskin purse and multiple shopping bags onto the seat next to her.

“Then why did you run?” I asked.

She picked up her menu and looked at it for a moment before shutting it, ignoring my question entirely. “He’s very cute.”

I slammed my menu shut, content with ordering the same item I ordered every time I came to the diner: curried egg salad on seven-grain bread, a chocolate egg cream, and a plate of fries. “He’s not going to ask me out, Max,” I clarified. “But he might put me in jail.” I pulled a napkin out of the holder and wiped it across my upper lip. “
I am a suspect in a murder case.
” I spoke slowly and clearly so that she couldn’t mistake what I was saying for, “I’m in love with Detective Crawford,” or whatever else she might possibly hear in the alternate universe in which she lived.

She raised an eyebrow at me.

“That’s just what I think. They’ve never said anything to that effect.”

“You’re probably right. Cops wouldn’t show up at your office twice unless you were on their most-wanted list.” She looked around. “I wish I was on the other one’s most-wanted list,” she muttered, opening her menu again. “Hey, I’m thinking about a new show,” she said, after making a new lunch decision. “It’s called
Detectives
and in it we follow around two hot New York City detectives as they investigate murders. What do you think?” she asked.

I’ve known Max long enough to know that her ditsy facade is just that—a facade. She is one of the smartest people I know and good at what she does; she hadn’t earned the title of “Queen of Reality TV” for nothing.

“Not funny, Max,” I said. “You could always do
Murder 101
and follow me as I end up on death row.”

The waiter arrived and we placed our order: me, the usual, and Max, a medium cheddar burger with fries and a chocolate shake. She looked at me, and said, “I didn’t have breakfast,” as a way of explaining her large order. She’s one of those people who eats to excess and remains a size four; if I hadn’t witnessed her hedonism over the last twenty years, I wouldn’t have believed it myself. But she ate and drank to excess five out of seven nights, never exercised, and still looked amazing.

“Who does the strip search if you go to jail?” she asked, only half-joking. “The cute one or my new boyfriend?”

I rolled my eyes. “This is serious, Max. What if I am their only suspect?” I looked around to see who was sitting in our general vicinity, but didn’t spot any suspicious-looking private eyes hiding behind menus or large policemen lurking.

The waiter appeared with the drinks, and Max put her straw into the giant thick shake and took a long sip. She licked her upper lip with her tongue. “Look at it this way. If you are a suspect, you’ll get to see Detective Hot Pants on a regular basis.” She let out a laugh, obviously amused with herself.

I wasn’t feeling so lighthearted. I looked around the restaurant, feeling vulnerable, exposed, and a bit sad. Max was like Teflon—everything slid off her. She didn’t seem affected by anything and found humor in almost everything. And right now, she wasn’t even sensitive enough to shut her trap and notice that I was scared. I decided not to make an issue of it and dropped the subject entirely. “What are you doing tonight?” I asked.

“Sleeping over at your house,” she stated, surprising me. When she saw my reaction, she explained herself. “We haven’t had a sleep-over in a while, so I figured we could do that tonight. Let’s go to the video store and get some porn. Maybe something with ‘Detective Hot Pants’ in the title?” She reached across and held my hand for a split second.

I guess she wasn’t as dense as I thought. She had been right there with me, all the time.

We drove home after lunch. Max told me that she had her laptop with her and wanted to check e-mail and do some work. It had been a long week; I was going to curl up in bed with the Harry Potter book that I had bought a few months earlier but hadn’t had time to read. I knew I should look through my briefcase and unearth the term papers that I had to read, but I was tired and drained. An afternoon in my bed, under the covers, was just what I needed.

Max pulled up the full length of the driveway and parked right in front of the garage, a detached, barnlike structure that housed everything but my car, when I actually owned one. She popped the trunk from inside the car and got out to retrieve her packages and her computer. Based on years of experience, I knew that we would be having a fashion show later when she modeled all of her new purchases.

She went across the backyard and turned back to me. “You left the back door open.” She opened the door and went inside, stopping right inside the threshold.

I wasn’t paying much attention to her. My attention was taken up by a brand-new, black Mercedes parked in front of my house, shiny, sleek, and with tinted windows that made it impossible to see inside. I was distracted and didn’t notice Max standing, statuelike, inside the kitchen. I walked straight into her, pushing her ahead a bit until she was up against the counter.

Peter Miceli was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at both of us, his eyes red and tired-looking. His hands were folded in front of him on the table.

I was stunned, but not too stunned to speak. “How did you get in here?”

He stood when he heard my voice. He was wearing a golf shirt, golf cleats, and yellow pants—perfect for a day on the links—but not the kind of outfit you wear when you break into someone’s house. I couldn’t imagine what kind of man played golf the day after burying his daughter, but I also couldn’t imagine the kind of man who allegedly had access to so much cement that he could bury people at the bottom of rivers. “Alison. I’m sorry. I wanted to talk with you but didn’t think we would be able to arrange a meeting.”

A meeting. With Peter Miceli. Yes, that would be hard to arrange. Especially after I had put myself voluntarily in the witness protection program. I didn’t say anything.

Max broke the silence. “I’m going to go check my e-mail. Peter, I’m sorry for your loss. It is so nice to see you after all these years,” she said, her voice cracking slightly. She tiptoed out of the kitchen and up the stairs to my bedroom.

I stared at Peter. I hadn’t been afraid of Peter in college—he was a chubby business major with a hot car and a hot girlfriend, but no game—but I was afraid of him now. He certainly was always charming and nice to me. Now, it appeared, he was also very successful. I had heard rumors about his businesses—the ones that were legitimate and that didn’t include racehorses and strip clubs—but I wasn’t sure if there was any truth to them; after all, he had married Gianna Capelli, she of the Capelli crime family, and it may have just been a case of “guilt by association.” I wasn’t sure. I didn’t think he was here to hurt me, but breaking into my house could never be considered a good thing. I cleared my throat. “What do you want, Peter?”

He hooked a thumb in the space that Max had just occupied. “Do I know her?”

“That’s Max Rayfield. We went to St. Thomas with Gianna.”

He thought for a moment. “Max Rayfield . . . oh, yeah . . . crazy girl. Liked to drink kamikazes and dance on the bar at Maloney’s.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “She a dancer now?”

I shook my head.

“Too bad.” He looked up at the ceiling, apparently imagining Max working at The Pleasure Cave or a place like that.

“She your girlfriend?”

“Only in the most platonic sense.”

He looked disappointed again.

He motioned to the chair across from him at the kitchen table like he, not I, lived there. I pulled the chair out and sat down. He spread his hands out on the table and let out a choked sob. “I’m sorry, Alison.” He pulled a big square of cotton out of his pocket and blew his nose noisily. “This has been very hard for us.”

“I can imagine,” I said.

Tears poured from his eyes, and he shuddered. “I’m going to find who did this,” he said, his teeth clenched.

I had no doubt that that was the case. Then it occurred to me that perhaps he thought I was the one “who did this.” I felt all the blood in my veins drain and my skin go icy.

He saw my reaction and quickly amended. “I don’t think you had anything to do with this, Alison. You wouldn’t hurt a fly. Kathy always told us how nice you were to her. I’ll always remember that.” He sniffled loudly. He pointed a short, stubby finger at me. “I owe you,” he said, dramatically.

I really wasn’t in the market for possible Mob favors, but if Ray continued to act like an asshole and didn’t get his crap out of my guest room, knowing that I could make him disappear was mildly comforting.

“How’s Gianna?” I asked.

He shook his head sadly. “Not good. She’ll feel better when we find out who did this.”

I repeated my question. “Peter, what do you want?”

He cried some more. He finally shook his head. “I’m not sure.” He stood. “I guess I just wanted to see if you knew anything.”

“I don’t know a thing, Peter.” I stood, too. “Leave it to the police, Peter. They’ll handle this.”

He leaned on the table and let out another heart-wrenching sob. I felt a tremendous amount of pity for him, despite the suspicions I had about him. He was still a father, and he loved his daughter. “She was a good girl . . .”he said, trailing off.