Authors: Tim O'Mara
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Amateur Sleuth, #General
Sacrifice Fly
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In memory of my father, Thomas O’Mara,
who always had books around the house, and
in honor of my mother, Patricia O’Mara,
who always threatened to write one
Acknowledgments
ALTHOUGH I DID ALL THE TYPING,
the writing was helped along by many people.
Thanks to all the kids, parents, and dedicated educators I’ve worked with at IS 71,
JHS 126, IS 49, and, of course, The Computer School.
Words beyond thank you to the special folks at Camp Ramapo/Anchorage who put me on
the right trail, especially the Stempels, the Kosbergs, John Kernochan, and Mike Kunin.
I owe the Joes Stark and Capobianco, for advice fiscal and physical, respectively.
The Kerwins and the Carrolls loaned me their living rooms in times of need.
Dallas Murphy’s Writing Group helped beyond measure, especially Matt Fenton, Allison
Field, Brad Carroll, Mark Miano, Liz Maguire, and, of course, Dallas.
My wonderful agents, Maura Teitelbaum and Erin Niumata, wooed me when I needed wooing
and led me to my terrific editor at Minotaur Books, Matt Martz. You all made my book
better. Thank you.
Love and thanks go out to my Missouri in-laws—Les and Cynthia Bushmann, and Maggie
and Elise Williams—for putting up with the kid from New York.
I’d be neglectful if I did not thank the following: Tony and Diane Ianuzzi, Jim and
Josephine Levine, Greg Boyer, Drew Orangeo, Teddy’s, The Center for Fiction, Wayne
Kral, Harold James, Sharon Bowers, Jonathan Rabb, Rob Roznowski, Lisa Herbold, Matt
Bennett, and Gene and Janice Bushmann. You all played your parts well.
A great, big tip of the hat to Mike Herron: a good reader, terrific writer, and above
all, a great friend.
Thanks to my siblings—Jack, Ann, and Erin—and their families. Not to play favorites,
but an extra-big shout-out to my brother, Sgt. Mike O’Mara, of the Nassau County Police
Department. Your respect and reverence for the job rubbed off on both Raymond and
me. We both owe you much.
Finally, this process was made all the more meaningful because of my amazing wife,
Kate Bushmann, and our talented daughter, Eloise. Thanks for getting me home safely.
Contents
Chapter 1
I WAS ABOUT TO GET RUN OVER.
I thought about moving left, maybe right, but my knees were having no part of it.
So I tightened the grip on my umbrella, braced myself, and waited for the impact.
When he was less than ten feet away, he slammed on his brakes and skidded to a stop.
With his back to me, he moved his head up and down, admiring the four-foot-long black
comma left on the pavement. I took off my sunglasses as he spun his bike around and
checked me out.
“Hey,” he said, leaning over the handlebars. “Ain’t you that teacher from school?”
“Yep,” I said, slipping my sunglasses into my front shirt pocket. I rubbed my lower
lip and flipped through my mental yearbook. It took about ten seconds. “Ain’t you
that kid from Miss Levine’s class?”
He didn’t answer, choosing instead to look over his shoulder at his friends, who were
too busy putting the piece of plywood back on top of the cinder blocks to notice him
shooting the shit with
that
teacher from school. He turned back to me, wiped his hand across his forehead, and
blew the sweat off his brown fingertips. Four o’clock on the second-to-last Tuesday
in May, and the temperature was over ninety.
“Whachoo doin’ here?” he finally said. “Afta school and all?”
“Homework patrol,” I said. “You do yours yet?”
“Ahh, that’s wack.” His grin faded. “Ain’t no homework patrol. Is there?”
“Not yet,” I said and shifted my umbrella to my left hand. “I’m here to see someone.”
“He in trouble?”
“I hope not,” I said.
I wasn’t sure the little daredevil heard me as he raced back to his buddies singing
out, “Somebody’s in trouble,” happy in the knowledge it wasn’t him. This time.
I looked up at the towering building in front of me. Twenty-plus stories of aging
air conditioners, Dominican and Puerto Rican flags hanging from balconies that were
used to store old furniture, to park bikes, and to hang wet clothes out to dry. Frankie
Rivas lived up there with his grandmother. Frankie was one of my eighth graders, and
I was doing a home visit on this tropical Tuesday in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, because
I hadn’t seen the kid in almost two weeks and I got tired of listening to a busy signal
every time I called.
The two glass doors that made up the front entrance to the building were propped open,
allowing the outside air—and anyone who wanted—to come in. Above me, in faded gold
script, was a sign informing me that this was, indeed, Building One of Roberto Clemente
Plaza. “Plaza” sounded far better than “the projects,” which always made me think
the people living here were part of an experiment. Or “housing complex,” something
someone did not live in so much as suffer from. No, “plaza” would do just fine; this
one was named after the late, great Pittsburgh Pirate who died a few months after
getting his three thousandth hit.
I stepped into what passed for a lobby and went over to the intercom to the left of
the bulletin board. I punched in Frankie’s apartment number and waited for a response.
After thirty seconds, I tried again. Nothing. The elevator dinged, and as I turned,
the door opened and a Hassidic family stepped out. The father was dressed in black
from hat to shoes, and was followed by his wife and six kids: four girls in matching
plaid skirts and two boys dressed like their father. You’ve got to have some kind
of faith to dress in black in this kind of heat.
The door to the elevator stayed open, and I moved toward it. I stopped when a voice
behind me said, “Somebody in trouble?” An older black man in a maintenance uniform
and pushing a mop bucket was coming through the front door.
“I’m here to see Frankie Rivas,” I said. “Or Matilda Santos? They’re in 1705.”
He motioned with his head and said, “You buzz up?”
“I tried. No answer.”
He went over to the buttons and pressed the apartment number as the elevator door
shut. “She expecting ya?”
“No. I tried calling but the phone’s been busy. For two days.”
He gave me a look, not unlike the one I got from the kid on the bike outside, readjusted
his belt, and said, “You a cop?”
“I’m Frankie’s teacher.”
He took a moment to get a better look at me. “You look familiar.”
“I work over at the middle school.”
“Which one?”
I told him.
“All my kids’re grown and gone,” he said. He walked over to the desk on the other
side of the elevator, reached over the top, and pulled out a clipboard. “Don’t know
no one over at the school no more.” He handed me the clipboard. “Go ahead and sign
in. Make it official.”
I took the pen that was hanging by a string from the clipboard and noticed as I put
down the date of my visit that no one had signed in for two days. Official. I handed
the clipboard back. He checked out my name and whispered it out loud.
“Raymond Dawn,” he said, mispronouncing my last name. “Raymond Dawn.”
“Donne,” I said. “Like finished.”
He said it a third time, this time correctly, checking out my face. I looked over
his shoulder at the yellow-and-brown tiled mosaic of Roberto Clemente embedded into
the wall. The legendary ballplayer’s flawless swing, frozen in tile forever.
“You know Frankie?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Everybody knows Lefty. Don’t know why the grandmother ain’t
picking up. Saw her go on up with Elsa and some bags of groceries not more than an
hour ago.”
“Seen him lately?”
He thought about that. “Not in over a week, I guess. Maybe more’n that.” He looked
back at the clipboard and mouthed my name one more time. “Whyn’t you go on up, Mr.
Donne. I’ll try her again. Maybe by the time you get up to the seventeenth, she’ll
be answering.”
“Thanks.”
I turned and pushed the Up button to the elevator when I heard his fingers snap behind
me. “I remember you now,” he said.
I took a deep breath and wished for a cold bottle of water.
“You used to work around here.” He touched his finger to the clipboard, tapped it
a few times until it came to him. “You
was
a cop, right?”
“A long time ago. Yeah.”
“And now you a teacher?”
“Yes.”
“What’sa matter, mister? You don’t wanna be popular?”
I shrugged and gave him a polite smile. How slow was this damn elevator? As if on
cue, it appeared and I walked in.
“I’ll see ya on the way out, Mr. Donne,” he said, as if I’d be interested in carrying
on the conversation. I raised my umbrella to him as the doors closed.
The elevator smelled of ammonia and artificial lemon. In less than a minute, the doors
opened up onto the seventeenth floor, and I followed the arrows to number 1705. Two
dark-skinned girls in shorts and T-shirts but no shoes were blocking the hallway,
lying on their stomachs, moving crayons across a large sheet of poster paper. I cleared
my throat. They stopped and looked up at me. The one to my right slid over a centimeter,
and I took the opportunity to squeeze by. I got to 1705 and pushed the black rectangle
just below the peephole. It made a hollow thud, and I waited a full thirty seconds
before trying again. The girls looked over at me. I gave them my best teacher smile.
They went back to their artwork.
“¿Quien es?”
a voice from the other side of the door asked.
I leaned in, my ear about an inch from the peephole, and said, “Mrs. Santos?”
“Sí. ¿Quien es?”
“It’s Mr. Donne, ma’am. Frankie’s teacher?”
A few seconds later, she said, “Frankie no here.”
I raised my voice a notch. “Mrs. Santos, this is Raymond Donne. Frankie’s teacher.
I need to speak with you or your grandson.” One of the girls gave me a mean look as
the other placed a finger to her lips, shushing me.
“Ay Dios.”
The sound of a lock turning was followed closely by the door being opened just enough
for me to see the chain on the other side. A pair of bright blue eyes appeared, just
over the chain. “Frankie’s teacher?” she said. “Senor Donne?”
“Yes.” My voice was lower now. “I need to speak with you. Would you mind if I—”
“Frankie,” she said. “He is in trouble?”
“You can say that, yeah.” The hint of cooler air and the smell of meat cooking wafted
into the hallway. I remembered how thirsty I was. “He hasn’t been coming to school.”
“Frankie no here,” she repeated. “He stay at his father’s.”
“Mrs. Santos, it’s been seven days, and if he—”
“¿Siete días?”
“Yes, ma’am. Seven school days.” I unfolded the printout of Frankie’s attendance and
held it up for her to see. “Since Friday of last week.” She didn’t quite get that,
and I wasn’t sure how to say it in Spanish. I tried anyway.
“¿El Viernes de … semana pasado?”
Part of it got through because she said,
“Ay Dios,”
again and then, “That is when he start to stay with the father.”
“
¿Donde…?
Where does the father live?”
“El Sud,”
she answered. The Southside.
“Do you have a phone number for him?”
“No. No have a phone. He have the,
¿cómo se dice?
the cell.”
