Murder 101 (6 page)

Peter stood suddenly and grabbed me in a bear hug—he was a few inches shorter than me, but barrel-chested and powerfully built—and squeezed me. The air was pushed out of my lungs as I was pressed against his prodigious belly. After a hug that went on longer than it should have, he finally let go and kissed me on the forehead. He grabbed my face in his fat hands and looked into my eyes. I stared back at him until he broke my gaze and walked out of the kitchen and into my backyard. A few seconds later, I heard the Mercedes start and pull away from the front of my house.

I resisted the urge to vomit and instead went for the always popular dead faint.

Seven

You would think that if I were going to have a somewhat erotic, somewhat sexy dream, I would be wearing something better than black Dansko clogs and a raincoat. In my dream, in my clogs, black pants, white shirt, and Lands’ End raincoat I looked like a cross between a Swedish chef and a Westchester soccer mom. It had been so long since I had had sex, I couldn’t even have a sexy dream without wearing sensible shoes.

In my dream, it was a few days after the funeral and the day that I had talked with the detectives. I left school and began the half-mile trek to the train station at around dusk. With their rubber soles, my clogs didn’t make noise on the wet street. I realized that I was clad all in black—not a good idea for walking along a dark street on a rainy night. I shifted my leather briefcase from one shoulder to the other, cursing myself for deciding to read all of my students’ Shakespeare research papers that night. The bag weighed heavily on my shoulder so I pulled the strap diagonally across my chest, hoping to redistribute the weight.

I heard a car driving slowly behind me, the lights shining on my back. The car pulled up alongside me, and I stopped in my tracks. The passenger-side door opened and two muscular arms pulled me into the front seat. I noticed the glint of a badge as the driver planted a deep, slow kiss on my mouth . . .

The train’s brakes squealed a loud welcome as we pulled into the station. The conductor brushed past me, knocking my briefcase off my lap and waking me up just in time. He screamed out the name of my stop. I sat up with a jolt and tried to grab the front of my briefcase before it hit the wet floor of the train car; a stray paper floated out and I snatched it from the gray puddle of muck in front of me in which it had landed. I read the name on top: Fiona Martin. Fiona would get a good grade just by virtue of the fact that I wouldn’t be able to read half of the drivel she wrote in the paper. The train stopped, and I lurched up from my seat and out the door onto the platform, not sure where I was, what had happened, or why my face was blazing hot.

I sat on a bench to compose myself. I put Fiona’s paper back into my briefcase and rearranged everything else: my umbrella, my wallet, my keys, and my cell phone. I watched the train pull slowly out of the station. The river on the other side of the platform was calm and black, with a few large raindrops forming dimples on the wedge of water that was illuminated by the station’s bright lights. My hair was damp from the rain, so I pulled the hood of my raincoat up over my head and prepared to leave the station, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other and leaving dream analysis to another time.

The only road out of the station went straight up. The first few days of my walk were horrendous as I adjusted to the length and pitch of the road. Now, after two weeks of walking, I was getting used to the steep slope and wasn’t even winded when I reached the top. I guess that was what was called “getting into shape.” I still felt like I needed a cigarette when I reached the top, just as a reward, but I had given up that nasty habit the year I had graduated from St. Thomas. I reached the top of the hill and looked at my watch: ten to seven. The deli at the end of my street would be open for another ten minutes, and I needed dinner. I started running down Broadway and reached the door three minutes later.

Tony, the owner, and probably my future husband with the way things were going, was unplugging the meat slicer as I walked in, the bell on the door jangling and announcing my presence.

“Mi amore!”
Tony cried, so happy to see me that if he wasn’t so kind, I would be scared. “You just made it! I’m closing in two minutes.”

“Hi, Tony,” I said, and took my hood off. I set my briefcase on the counter, opened it, and reached in for my wallet. “Can you make me a sandwich?”

“The usual?” he asked, as he got out two slices of rye bread, chicken salad, and began assembling a sandwich for me.

“Sure,” I said. Man, I have a usual. And a sixty-five-year-old, widowed, Italian boyfriend who knows what the usual is. But the sad fact was that Tony was more considerate of me and clearly more trustworthy than my ex-husband.

I looked around. A big bag of potato chips, probably enough for a party of four, sat on the shelf behind me, just begging to be bought. I put it on the counter. I made my way to the refrigerator and reached in to take out a glass bottle of lemonade when a large can of Foster’s Lager caught my eye. The Foster’s cans looked like minikegs. For your maximum drinking pleasure, I guess. I had never had a can of Foster’s in my life and the only beer that I had had in the last twenty years was the one I gulped down with Max at Maloney’s a few days ago. I figured now was the time to be adventurous. I grabbed not one, but two cans, enjoying the feel of their squat roundness in my hands. They were cold and a little wet. I put one of them to my head and then on the counter, along with the potato chips.

Tony brought my sandwich over and eyed the cans suspiciously. “Having company?” he asked, looking slightly jealous. He punched a few numbers into the register.

“Uh . . . no . . . well, maybe,” I lied, and took a twenty out of my wallet. Just want to get drunk is more like it. Just me and a bunch of boring papers on
Macbeth;
can’t a girl have something to get her through? He loved me so much that I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth.

He put all of my items in a bag and looked at me sadly. “How are you doing, my friend? Really?”

Tony had gotten the full scoop about my divorce from my cleaning lady, Magda. I loved her, but she had a big mouth. The month I bought an ovulation kit, I swore that I saw one of her Hungarian friends in the juice aisle of the supermarket put some kind of spell on my abdominal area. Fortunately, it was the spell that made you barren when you were married to lying, cheating assholes. “I’m fine, Tony,” I said, picking up my bag. “Really.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek.

He pretended to swoon. “Anytime you are ready for me, I’m yours!” he called, as the door swung shut and the jangling bells sounded again. I decided that if I ever found myself considering his offer with any seriousness, I would sell my house and move to Canada.

I had lived alone for six months. Even after Ray and I had decided to call it quits, I let him stay on until he got his life in order—finding an apartment, buying a car, paying off the Visa—which was about six months as well. He had slept in my home office, which had a futon, a computer, and a closet. I kept the master bedroom, my master bath and Jacuzzi, and the king-size bed. Seemed only fair.

Even though Ray had moved out six months ago and I had been living alone since then, I hadn’t been divorced until the week before. In my mind, being legally separated and officially divorced were two different things. As long as I was legally separated, I was still married, and therefore, not alone. Officially divorced meant that I was on my own, and, after nine years with one man, it was a little frightening. In my head, the whole thing made perfect sense.

I turned onto my street and walked the last quarter mile to my house. In the air, there was a smell of steak cooking, and my mouth started to water. The chips in my bag were singing a crunchy siren song as they jostled against my hip. I couldn’t wait to break them open along with my first giant can of Foster’s.

I switched on the kitchen light when I entered, put the bag with my food down on the counter, pulled out a can of beer, and ripped open the bag of chips, shoving a giant handful in my mouth. My briefcase was still crisscross across my chest. I cracked open the beer and took a large swallow, instantly remembering why I never drink beer—it was bitter, sudsy, and made me burp. But a nice, smooth glow was cast over my body, and I sighed, thinking that I could become a beer drinker in my new life as a single thirtysomething. I imagined myself at singles’ parties, hoisting beers, a big grin on my face, telling jokes and meeting lots of other single people. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. As long as I had beer and a few single friends, I could live the life of a Dockers’ khaki commercial: good friends, good times, and a few beers. It was not lost on me that all of the people in those commercials were men. What did that mean? I would deal with that fact later, along with my train dream.

I took out the sandwich and opened the paper in which it was wrapped. I still had my raincoat on, but it didn’t matter. I was single and alone, eating over my Formica counter, standing up. I could do whatever I wanted. Ray wasn’t here to tell me how many calories, triglycerides, nitrates, or general shit was in my food.

I took a huge bite of the sandwich, chicken salad dripping out of the corners of my mouth (note to self: don’t buy chicken salad right before Tony closes) when there was a knock at the back door. I had been so engaged in my sandwich that I hadn’t noticed a car, headlights blazing, parked right in front of my detached garage. I nearly choked. I looked through the panes of glass in the back door to find Detective Crawford standing there. The dream from the train came rushing back, and my face went hot with embarrassment. I hastily put a napkin to my lips and tried to push in the too-big bite of sandwich that filled my normally capable-of-huge-bites mouth.

I opened the back door a crack. “Hi?” I asked. I tried to swallow everything at once, unsuccessfully. I chewed quickly and swallowed a few more times, finally emptying my mouth.

He poked his head in, dripping water from the perimeter of the hood of his raincoat. “I’m sorry to bother you, but . . .”

I opened the back door all of the way. “Come in, come in.” I stepped back and motioned for him to enter. I stared at him, a little nervous. Maybe he was finally there to arrest me. When he came in and took off his hood and I saw that he was smiling slightly, I felt a little bit better. Since I wasn’t in heels this time, he seemed taller than I remembered, towering over me by a good six inches. In spite of being dripping wet (or maybe because of it), he was also quite good-looking. When I was wetting my pants on Broadway after the wing fest, none of this had registered, but judging from my wet dream on the train, my subconscious had been working overtime.

He took his hood off. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I actually have a few more questions. I was just on my way home and thought I would stop by.”

I looked around him to see where his partner was. “Nope,” he said, “just me.” He looked around, taking in the sandwich, the can of Foster’s, and the potato chips, which were half-out of the plastic bag. “Sorry to interrupt your dinner.”

“It’s OK,” I said. With my raincoat and hood on, foraging for food on my counter, I must have looked like a giant raccoon dining on garbage. “I really hadn’t started.”

“Are you feeling all right?” he asked.

“Tonight?”

He glanced around. “No . . . you know, the first time we met . . . I always meant to ask you . . .”

“Oh, you mean that. Yes, I’m fine. I actually hit my head pretty badly, but the concussion symptoms only lasted a few days.” I felt a rush of blood go to my face as I remembered his shoes. “Sorry about your shoes.” I put the sandwich down, my appetite gone.

“I shouldn’t have shown you those pictures.” He thrust his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders apologetically. “Let’s say we’re even.”

The silence was awkward and filled the little space that was left in the kitchen. “Hey, you want a Foster’s Lager?” I asked with a little too much cheer, thinking that my Dockers’ commercial days could start immediately. Big detective, big can of beer . . . wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for my new single life, but it was a start. “I have two cans.” I held them up to examine them more closely. “Or two minikegs. That would be a more accurate description.”

He laughed slightly. “I didn’t think anybody actually drank that stuff.”

“Well, actually they don’t. It just looked good sitting in the deli refrigerator, and I thought I should give it a try.”

“No, thanks.” He continued to stand in silence.

“You wanted to ask me some questions?” I reminded him.

He shifted from one foot to the other. “Were you committed to eating that sandwich and drinking that beer?”

I was puzzled; was that one of the questions? “Not in any serious kind of way.” I figured if the conversation kept going in this direction, we would be at “I know you are but what am I?” in no time.

“Do you want to have dinner?” he asked. “I could ask you my questions while we’re eating.”

I thought for a moment. Getting grilled about a murder could be mitigated by eating a big burger. I accepted, knowing exactly where I would take him.

Eight

It was a Tuesday night and Sadie’s, right in the center of town, wasn’t crowded. The hostess gave us a table near the bar but tucked in a corner of the restaurant. She took our wet raincoats and our drink order at the same time.

Crawford motioned to me. “What would you like?”

I thought a moment. “I’ll have a vodka martini, straight up, with a twist.”

The hostess looked at him. “A glass of cabernet. Thank you.”

Cabernet, I thought. I would have pegged him as a draft beer kind of guy. You never know.

He clasped his hands together in the center of the table. “I’m sorry I just showed up out of the blue.”

I shrugged, like I was accustomed to homicide detectives in my kitchen every night of the week. “Not a problem. Do you live around here?”

He looked down. “Manhattan.”

Hmmm. Depending on where he lived in Manhattan, he was at least forty-five minutes from home. We sat in silence until the hostess reappeared with our drinks. I was relieved when she returned; I could cease examining the painting next to our table like I was an art curator and focus on my martini instead. The uncomfortable silence would be eliminated by the slurping of alcoholic beverages. I made considerable work of preparing my drink for the first sip—swirling the vodka, taking out the twist, twisting it again. I took a drink and tried not to sigh aloud at how good it tasted. “So, what did you want to ask me?” I inquired.

He reached in the pocket of his jacket and took out his notebook. After flipping a few pages, he looked at me. The close proximity allowed me to study his face. Green eyes, angular features, and short, brown, cop hair. One ear stuck out a little bit more than the other. At this late hour, a slight stubble was beginning to appear on his jawline and under his nose, but not enough to make him swarthy. He cleared his throat. “Did you know Kathy Miceli well?”

Hadn’t we done this already, like, fourteen times? I guess they didn’t take the ginkgo biloba advice. I took a slug of my drink. If I was going to get grilled, I might as well be baked. “Sort of. Her mother was a few years ahead of me in school, but we overlapped at the college for two years. I saw Gianna a few times while Kathy was here, so having that connection made us a little more familiar.”

“Did you know her boyfriend?”

“Vince?” I asked, and winced. “A little.”

He looked at me questioningly. “What’s up with Vince?”

“Vince seems like a jerk.” I stopped there.

“What kind of jerk?”

I thought about how to phrase it. Vince went to Joliet, but spent a lot of time on our campus doing his Stanley Kowalski impression, screaming Kathy’s name outside of her dorm room, either drunk or stoned. That’s what I had heard, anyway. “He’s possessive, crude, and coarse. She was a nice girl who deserved a nice boyfriend. She never seemed incredibly happy when they were together.” And you should be happy if you’re in love, I thought to myself. I was nothing if not gifted in hindsight.

He jotted a few notes in his notebook. I guess a repeat of “professor thinks Vince is a jerk . . . knew Kathy a little bit.” How many times was he going to write that down? The waitress appeared with menus, and we studied them a tad too intently given there were only about six choices for dinner. I settled on the bacon burger, figuring I would need my strength if I had to walk everywhere. Crawford ordered the crab cakes and told the waitress that he wanted to see a wine list.

“This calls for conjecture,” he admitted, taking a sip of his wine, “but do you think that he is capable of violence?”

“Do you?”

He looked back at me. “I asked you.”

I thought for a moment. “I can’t say. Who knows? If someone had asked me a year ago if my husband of seven years had had a secret vasectomy and was capable of having not one but four affairs during the course of our marriage, I would have said no, but I learned the hard way.” I took a deep breath and laughed ruefully. “Did I say that out loud?”

He nodded and smiled. The waitress came back to the table with the wine list. “Do you like red or white, or does it matter?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter. Whatever you like.” I took a sip of my martini. I guess grading papers this evening would be out of the question, between the martini and the wine.

He chose a nice red wine that I would have chosen myself. Either the city of New York was picking up the tab, or cops got paid better than I thought; it was on the high side of the price list. He looked down, seemingly unable to make eye contact. He focused on his place mat. “How do you have a secret vasectomy, by the way?”

I laughed. “Why? You in the market for one?”

“Nobody to keep it a secret from,” he said, and drained his wineglass.

That was good information to have. “You wait until your wife goes on a visiting professorship to Ireland for six weeks, and you schedule it. She comes home, your balls look none the worse for wear, and nobody is the wiser. Particularly the wife.” I put my napkin on the table. We were now into my “loose lips sink ships” portion of the evening. “And with that confession, it seems like a good time to visit the ladies’ room. Excuse me.” I pushed my chair back from the table. He stood as I departed.

I went into the restroom and locked myself in a stall. I put the seat down and sat for a moment. I didn’t have to go to the bathroom; I just needed a break. I took my cell phone out of my pocket and hit speed dial #1 for Max. She answered after four rings, out of breath.

“It’s me. Did I take you away from someone or something?”

“I was running on my treadmill.”

Liar. She doesn’t run, and she doesn’t have a treadmill. “Hey, you’ll never guess where I am and who I’m with.”

“You’re right. I won’t. Just tell me.”

“Remember Detective Crawford?”

Her sharp intake of breath confirmed that she did.

“He came by my house right after I got home from school and said he wanted to ask me some questions. Then, he asked me to go to dinner. What do you think that means?”

“He was hungry and working overtime?”

I could tell she wasn’t into this conversation. I would remember this the next time she called me from the shoe store looking for advice on two pairs of Jimmy Choo pumps. “Thanks for your help.”

“Maybe he’d be a good Rebound Man,” she said.

“I don’t need a Rebound Man,” I reminded her for the fiftieth time. Hey . . . we’re breaking up,” I lied, slamming my cell phone against the side of the stall. I knew where this conversation was headed. “Gotta go.”

I unlocked the door of the stall and faced the huge wall of mirrors. I guess it would have helped to visit the restroom earlier in the evening, judging from my sad appearance, but what was done was done. I wet a paper towel and wiped the mascara away from under my eyes and ran the towel over my face.

I whispered to my reflection in the mirror, even though there was nobody else in the bathroom. “Did I just say ‘balls’ in front of the detective?” I pushed my hair back from my face, hoping to achieve some kind of tousled coif instead of a rain-soaked rat’s nest.

I had been having such a good time that I realized that I had not told him about my “meeting” with Peter Miceli. I was sure that I would get a lecture for not telling him first thing, but I could deal with that. I took a deep breath and left the bathroom.

When I returned to the table, the wine was there, as was our food. My burger looked bloated and obscene next to his three crab cakes and rice pilaf.

“Wine?” he asked, and held the bottle aloft over my clean glass.

“Sure.” I started cutting my burger into smaller pieces, gave up, and put a big hunk in my mouth.

He flipped through his notebook again. “Was it common knowledge on campus that the Micelis were a Mob family?”

I thought for a moment. “It’s always been rumored but nobody ever knew for sure. There was the thing about Peter being involved in that strip club a few years back, but I guess regular businessmen can own them? Or am I being naive?” I blushed as I flashed back to my Joyce-reading lap-dancer comment. “But it was the same way fifteen years ago when I was in school with Kathy’s mother. We knew, but didn’t discuss it.” I took a sip of my wine. “Is that part of the investigation?” He didn’t answer. “If you tell me, you’ll have to kill me?”

He laughed. “Something like that.”

I shifted in my chair, ready to tell him about Peter. “I have to tell you something.”

He continued eating but looked up at me while he chewed.

“Um, I went shopping with my friend on Saturday, and when we came back, Peter Miceli was in my kitchen.” I tried to make it sound like a common occurrence, but we both knew that it wasn’t. I let out a ridiculous-sounding giggle.

He dropped his fork onto his plate, making a small racket. “What? Why didn’t you tell me this on Saturday, or at the very least, as soon as I got to your house tonight?”

Because I’d had two pounds of chicken salad in my mouth? “Is it important?”

He rubbed his hand over his face. “Uh, yes,” he said, as if I were an idiot. “What did he say?”

I wasn’t sure how to phrase this part, so I just blurted out, “I think he’s going to find out who did this and kill them.” I grimaced. “I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner.”

He was alone with his thoughts for a minute before he asked me to recount exactly what happened, word for word, or as best as I could remember. I told him about everything, including the weird bear hug, forehead kiss, and face holding at the end. He wrote everything down and continued writing even after I had finished.

He seemed to have lost his appetite; he took his napkin off his lap and placed it next to his plate. “You have to . . . Listen, you . . .” he stammered before getting his point across, “you have to tell me everything that happens relative to this case. Peter Miceli dropping by is major. That is not something you should handle on your own.”

I think I understood that now. I nodded, contrite. “I’m sorry,” I said again.

“It’s OK. You just have to keep me in the loop on everything.” He put his napkin back on his lap. “Everything.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, eating. I was waiting for the part where he would tell me why he asked me out to dinner and why he and Wyatt just didn’t come to my office to ask me the questions, but that never happened. We finished, declined dessert, and he asked for the check.

The waitress came back and dropped it on the table. I made a move to pick it up, but he was faster. “I asked you.” He put a credit card on top of the check and left it on the corner of the table. The credit card was upside down so I couldn’t tell if I was guest of the police department or Detective Crawford. The waitress came back and swooped it up.

“Now I get to ask you a few questions,” I said, emboldened by a martini and half a bottle of wine and trying to lighten the mood.

He clasped his hands again, and said, “Shoot.”

“Mets or Yankees?”

“Mets.”

“Rangers or Islanders?”

“Rangers.”

“Paper or plastic?”

“Paper.”

“Married?”

He hesitated for just a split second. “No.”

“Kids?” In this day and age, the two were not mutually exclusive.

“Two. Twin girls. Not identical. Sixteen.”

“Do you live uptown or downtown?”

“Uptown. Upper West Side. Ninety-seventh and Riverside. That’s where I grew up.”

So, he wasn’t that far out of his way. As the crow flies, or if you swam down the river, we only lived about twenty miles apart. The waitress returned with the credit-card receipt. He signed it and stood up. Unlike me, he didn’t have to consult a tip card and a global-positioning system to figure out the gratuity.

He stood and touched the back of my chair. “Ready?” He put his hand lightly on my back and steered me to the coatroom. We got our raincoats and left the restaurant. I went out to the sidewalk and turned my face up to the mist that was falling. He stood directly under the streetlight and put his hand up to smooth his hair. I caught a glimpse of a very big gun on his right hip under the same tweed blazer that he was wearing the day he first came to my office. I thought about asking if that was his gun or was he just happy to see me, but I thought better of it and kept my mouth shut.

“I think I’ll walk home,” I said.

“It’s raining and”—he lifted his sleeve to look at his watch—“nine-thirty at night. I’m not letting you walk.”

“It’s kind of like my new hobby,” I said. “You know, no car and all.” I started down the hill in front of the restaurant, more than a little drunk and hoping to walk it off.

He caught up with me and grabbed my arm gently. “You’re not walking.”

“Hey, this is Dobbs Ferry, not . . .” I searched my brain for the name of a bad neighborhood, but couldn’t come up with one, “. . . somewhere else. I’ll be fine,” I insisted.

He looked at me for a long time and finally relented. “All right. Thanks for dinner and answering my questions.” In a move that surprised me, he pulled my hood up over my head and pulled the zipper up to my neck. He held on to the collar of my raincoat for a split second longer than I would have expected. If I hadn’t been almost drunk, I would have been able to discern what the look on his face meant. In my addled state, it looked like he was going to give me a noogie.

“No,
thank you
” I said. “This was much better than what I had planned to do to myself tonight.” I mentally smacked myself in the head. Stupid. Sounded like I was going to eat and masturbate or something equally idiotic.

His car, a brown, police-issue Crown Victoria, was parked perpendicular to the curb a storefront down from the restaurant. He opened the door and put one leg in. “Thanks, again.”

“Sexy car,” I remarked to myself as I waved and continued down the hill. I heard the car start and go into reverse. I turned around to wave again and saw that he had put the removable flashing light on top of the car. The ground in front me turned yellow, then red, as the flasher on top of the car started revolving. He put the car in drive and followed me slowly down the hill. We continued like this for about two-tenths of a mile before he rolled down the passenger-side window. “Do you want to get in now?”