The Brooklyn Drop (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 4) Read online

  So Charlotte and I had the whole house to ourselves, which made it kind of less boring for both of us, especially when Ameline showed us the attic. It was full of dust, like sitting in the back of Granny’s car. There were broken toys and books, a train set that Ameline said had belonged to my uncles, dolls that belonged to my mother. After the whiskery woman left, we rummaged in a chest of drawers and found Mom’s wedding album. Granny doesn’t have a copy, so I’d never seen it before. Mom and Dad were like strangers to me, although I felt a twinge of something, not exactly recognition. Anyway, they were all happy, the wedding party whooping it up, eating cake, a few family photos of all of them, Kirsten at one end of the table and Old Liese sitting at the other end, looking like her scowly self.

  Underneath some cloth was an older album with photos of Mom and Garth and Abe when they were kids, standing together like steps. Black-and-whites, mostly, but a few in weird colors. Lots of Mom with her name written underneath in white ink. Mom was beautiful, whisper thin and tall and blonde. When I gazed at her, I felt the bad days coming on.

  “Where’s your head? Turn the page,” Charlotte said, straightening the book, almost grabbing it from me. As she did, a bunch of photos of young girls fell out of the back, loose snaps of just their heads and shoulders, fading, as if their souls had been leeched out, their pictures spilling out onto our laps, hundreds of them. They were about our age, some of them maybe younger.

  “Does your grandmother belong to Save the Children?”

  “Old Liese? Not a chance. All she cares about is making money. One time I heard her talking to Abe. She was yelling at him, ‘How are we supposed to live on what you’re taking in?’”

  You know how people from different countries can sometimes look all sad, especially in the eyes? That’s the way these girls seemed, not a smiler in the bunch. Probably because they were scared. I wondered if they were friends, what they talked about, where they went to school, hung out, if they knew about mindfulness. Probably not. Most had stringy long hair, but some wore it short, raggedy, like it had been cut by a child.

  We sat there for a while, looking at their photos, putting them into piles until Charlotte said she was getting spooked. They gave me the creeps, too, and I shoved the pictures back into the book and shut the cover, but I took four of Mom. We decided not to say anything to anyone about the photos of the young girls we’d seen, not even to Granny.

  The Road Ahead

  Just then the landline rang. Denny was clearing the table, so I answered it.

  “Serafina?”

  A customer?

  “I know this will be a surprise for you, but don’t hang up. I’d like you to listen to what I have to say. I’ve been waiting for this moment for years.”

  I didn’t recognize the voice at first, or maybe it was because I didn’t want to, although it seemed vaguely familiar. A voice from the past.

  Then came the realization. There was only one person who called me by my real name—the rat who called himself my father, the deadbeat who’d left us.

  “Do you know what you did? You’ve made me a mental. Worse, you killed Mom after making her suffer all those years.”

  “I can explain. Serafina, listen to me.”

  I didn’t hang up, I just put the receiver down. At least I think I did, and ran up to my study.

  I was staring at my laptop screen and pretending nothing had happened when Denny walked into the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him standing by the door, guileless, arms at his side, afraid to move, every inch Lorraine’s son. I could feel his confusion in the silence that now enveloped everything in the house.

  If you wanted to know what I was feeling, I couldn’t tell you, not in a million years, but a slow rage was beginning to boil deep inside. My father appeared after all these years and wanted me to welcome him? Not a chance. I hated that man with all my might. I wished Mom were here. Even Gran. I pictured the three of us chasing him out the door, Gran waving a broom, Mom crying, me brandishing a fist—no, tearing at his sleeve, biting him, scratching at his face. But I was all alone with him; everyone else was dead.

  Cookie, I needed Cookie, so I texted her with the news, but she must have silenced her phone. Cookie and I, we’d been through this father thing together. True, we’d fought about it because of the death of her father—she watched him die. But Cookie and I could say terrible things to each other and call the next minute to pass on news. Anyway, I couldn’t go to her father’s wake, don’t ask me why, except that at the time, I was through with all fathers.

  I could see Denny knew about the call. The truth of it was in his face.

  “The landline’s off the hook.” He looked down. “Your father, right?” He took a step toward me.

  “I don’t have a father.”

  “You have a father. Don’t you want to talk to him, find out why he left? Maybe there was a medical reason. Maybe he thought he was dying or—”

  “Well, he didn’t die, did he? He left us. Not a word from him. He let us fend for ourselves.”

  The doorbell rang. “Must be Cookie,” I said, and brushed past him. When it comes down to it, all men stick together.

  I opened the door, Cookie’s name on my lips, and stared up into the face of my father.

  “Get away from here and don’t ever come back.”

  I tried to shut the door, but his foot got in the way. He wedged an elbow across the jamb, then his considerable frame. He was taller than I remembered and wore an expensive-looking leather jacket and scarf. But he had the same curly red hair, eyes the color of the harbor on a cloudy day. Suddenly I remembered holding his hand, walking down Henry Street to the park, both of us laughing and eating ice cream, him swinging me so hard my shoes touched the clouds. Then I remembered that awful day when he stared past me and left us.

  “I’ve come this far, Serafina. Please hear me out. There wasn’t a day I didn’t think of you or your—”

  “Tell him to leave,” I said to Denny, who stood in back of me.

  “He’s your father. I think we should listen to what he has to say.”

  My eyes shuttled between Denny and the stranger who stood shivering in the entry. Without warning I hurtled a fist into my father’s chest. “Get out.”

  Startled, he lost his balance, which was amazing for such a huge man, bigger than I’d remembered, but I gave him a good shove, and he fell backward onto the stoop. I didn’t wait, I slammed the door shut and ran up to my study.

  Denny opened the door without knocking. “You could have listened to what he had to say. He’s your father, after all.”

  I shook my head, choked. “I’ll never ever talk to him again.”

  “Dad agrees with me. He thinks you two ought to meet on some neutral ground, maybe Dad’s parlor—”

  “You’ve talked about this? The two of you? You knew my father was here? Lorraine, too?”

  “Mom knows nothing about this. We thought it best not to tell her since she works with you. Dad saw your father on Court Street the other day. They had lunch.”

  I couldn’t believe it. That’s how he’d gotten my phone numbers. It was a conspiracy of men. Fathers and son.

  I stood and waited a few seconds. I was proud of myself for not screaming while I took off my ring and held it up. “I’ll put this on the nightstand. You should give it to your dad. He could wear it on his pinky. I’m leaving.”

  My head was clear, I remember that. And I remember getting a bag out of the closet and packing some things. I could always come back in a few days when I knew Denny would be at work and get whatever I’d forgotten, maybe rent a van. My stomach did a somersault at the thought of a van: it would carry everything, my clothes, my books. I felt a little dizzy, but for once I was calm although my head was pounding and my ears were ringing and the stone, the stone was in my throat as I walked back into the study. I picked up my laptop, threw it into the suitcase, grabbed my keys, and was about to leave when I felt something.

  Mr. Baggins. He’d b
een trailing me the whole time, slipping in and out between my legs. He sat while I packed, his eyes like yellow saucers and doing that in-and-out thing with his tongue.

  “You’re coming with me,” I told him, and as if he understood, he pawed underneath the bed where I kept his cage.

  “It’s you and me from now on, buddy.” I lifted him in and closed the lid. Usually he goes ballistic when I put him in the carrier, but this time he purred.

  I was so calm I didn’t even slam the front door. Almost as if I’d rehearsed the moment. No goodbyes. No coat—I didn’t seem to need it although the temperature was frigid. My toes were ice, my stomach roiling, but I walked slowly, deliberately to the car, carrying my suitcase, purse, and Mr. B in his carrier.

  As I drove past the house, I saw Denny on the stoop. It was dark, but the outdoor light rimmed his hair. I had to admit, he was gorgeous, even though at this moment, too flawed for me to even think about going back. Better to make a clean break, I thought, proud of myself for not yelling or scratching his eyes out. He didn’t mean the stuff about my father, deep down. I knew that. After all, he was Lorraine’s son, too. Except he was so under his dad’s spell. Unredeemable. It was my last sight of him, standing there motionless, watching me leave, his arms at his sides. I think there might have been tears on his cheeks. My heart pounded, but I concentrated on the road ahead.

  The Mausoleum

  Kat’s Monologue

  We usually drive to Green-Wood Cemetery, where my parents are buried in the family mausoleum, a big old stone house with our dead inside and an altar with a bronze cross beneath a stained-glass window and a vase with fake flowers. On the top there are two empty spots, a place for Granny and a new slot for me with my name on it but no dates. None of Old Liese’s side are buried there, except for Mom, of course, but I never think of her that way, as a Goncourt, I mean. Charlotte’s already seen our tomb, that’s what Granny calls it sometimes, but some day I’ll take my other friends, Billy especially, just so I can watch his face crap out when he sees my name carved in marble.

  But this one time, shortly after I’d gotten more pictures of my mom, Granny decided we should take the subway since her car needed a tune-up. So we packed a picnic basket with food and soda, and on the hottest day of the year, practically, I wore my backpack full of photos of my parents, and we lugged ourselves to Atlantic Avenue. Granny bought passes for both of us and we went down lots of stairs and stood on the platform, sweating. Sweating like stuck pigs, that’s what Billy would have said. It smelled like someone was cooking rat ribs, but right before the train came, I could feel the cool air on my skin. I watched paper on the tracks fly up like someone stylin’, light from the approaching car rimming things. We got on the train and listened to the exhalation of the closing doors and our car, a living thing, swayed from side to side, stopping a lot and expelling gas. Pretty soon I got out the box stuffed with pictures of my parents, mostly of Mom, including the ones I’d taken from Old Liese’s attic, and shuffled through them, trying to remember their faces, but the ride wasn’t long enough.

  We got off at Twenty-Fifth Street and walked to the entrance of Green-Wood, its front gates yawning open, a big red stone spire in the middle, looking like it could puncture dreams. After we bought flowers at a nearby stand, we took a winding path to our side of the cemetery.

  Outside the mausoleum, Granny took out the key and unlocked the heavy green copper doors and we went inside. Creepy, I’ll tell you, filled with spider webs and crawly things. Once I saw a garden snake slithering up one side, practically reaching my marble. The first few times I stood there all scared, watching Granny, who went straight for the Terris Oxley words. That’s my grandfather, the only one I know about. Anyway, Granny put her arm and cheek on the marble, like she was hugging him, and muttered something about how much she missed him and wondered how he was and where he was and why did he leave. My parents are buried in the opposite wall, one on top of the other. I touched their marble, tracing the words with my fingers, and afterward, blew them a kiss. Someday I’ll rest above them. Granny had my drawer made after I told her I never wanted her to leave. Last year I couldn’t reach my letters, but this year I can. “So you see,” Granny said, “death happens by degrees.”

  There’s a pool in front of our mausoleum, where we sit sometimes after we pay our respects, that’s what Granny calls it, and I look at the house of our dead reflected in the water, watching the Oxley name moving with the ripples. That afternoon we trudged over there and sat on the bank.

  We were eating our lunch sort of behind a bush, when out of the corner of my eye I saw two people, one leading the other. Tall, like the Goncourt side except for Garth. Kirsten and Old Liese. Arm in arm. No, Kirsten was leading Old Liese, prodding her as if she were a reluctant horse. Old Liese was crying, I could see her handkerchief. The closer they got to the mausoleum, the more Old Liese hung back. I thought I heard her say Henriette. And right before they unlocked the door, Kirsten cradled Old Liese in her arms. As if Old Liese and Kirsten were not enemies, but friends.

  I wasn’t going to tell Granny about them and started talking fast and telling her about school so she wouldn’t see. I covered the news about my friends and how I missed school and the movie we saw at Charlotte’s, but Granny’s too smart. She saw them.

  “Let’s leave,” I said.

  “Don’t worry, we’re not going to invade their space. You haven’t finished your lunch.”

  “How come they’re hugging? I thought they hated each other.”

  Then Granny said one of her weird ones. “‘As west and east in all flat maps (and I am one) are one, so death doth touch the resurrection.’” She said it was a quote. She gives me a lot of poetry, Granny does, and sometimes I get it, but this time, I totally didn’t.

  Coding

  When I arrived in my old neighborhood, I got lucky and found a spot on Henry Street right across from Lucy’s. Mom must have been with me. Without thinking of what I was doing, I sat on the stoop in the cold, staring into the dark punctuated only by a streetlamp illuminating gray snow fringed in charcoal. Pictures of Denny and me flashed through my head like a worn-out melodrama—the day we met, the sheer joy of him, the evening he proposed and I finally accepted. Both of us crying. What broke? It was me, I knew it, a fatal flaw buried deep. My rear was numb from the frozen cement. I don’t know how long I lingered, long enough for Mr. Baggins to start pawing at the latch to his cage. “Sorry, Mr. B. I’m usually not like this. Let’s go inside.”

  I’d kept my old room, a garret at the top of the building. I hadn’t used it in a long time, never thought I’d have to. I was so sure of Denny and me; I thought we’d get married soon and be as happy as Lorraine seemed even with Robert. How the world can change in an instant. Why couldn’t I get Denny off of my mind? I’d been happy, up until this evening. What had gone wrong? Male attitudes, that’s what. My head was killing me, my stomach hollow and stuffed at the same time, and my eyes felt like cinders rubbing against skin. I took my time up the stairs, stepping quietly so as not to disturb the tenants on the third floor.

  Mr. B seemed happy to be back. After all, this was his first home, his domain. After hanging up my clothes and turning back the bedcovers, I put out his water, food, and litter. True to form, he disappeared, doubtless rubbing against every stick of furniture on all floors, every once in a while reappearing to rub against my legs.

  It felt strange to be back. My real home, I insisted. Except for the headache, which now blurred my vision, producing white blotches every so often and an indescribable feeling in the pit of me, it felt good to be back. At least I thought it did. Didn’t it? I turned on the lights in the parlor and kitchen, the whole place dusted and cleaned twice a week by a team of professionals, a showcase for potential Lucy’s customers.

  I went downstairs to see what was happening with my cleaning business. Minnie had left long ago, but maybe she’d kept some notes on her desk, and I could always riffle through the appointments since I h
ad access to that file as well as the calendar and the list of assignments. Then I remembered the new cleaning job at the hospital. This was my chance to talk to the officer guarding Phyllida’s room and look in on our crews, who should have begun their work a while ago, so I turned on the computer and searched the list of assignments and leads, looked in Minnie’s desk and fished up a radio and supervisor’s badge. I pinned it on and said goodbye to Mr. B, who stood by the door, staring at me.

  “Giving me grief for leaving?” I asked him. A pain shot through me as I realized what had happened a few hours earlier. I’d left Denny. So much for love. I’d better learn to stuff it, especially thoughts of him. After all, he deserved better. I pressed the pedal and sped away.

  When I arrived at the hospital, I was told that all the cleaning carts were already on the floors, so I called the lead, who met me at the freight elevator. Things were progressing nicely, she told me. I asked her about Phyllida’s floor.

  “The special one? We have two carts on that floor, one stationed outside her room.” She glanced at her watch. “In about thirty minutes, I need to talk to the policeman before he goes off duty.”

  We got off at the floor below Phyllida’s, and the lead and I joined the crew. After inspecting the rooms already done, I began the job of straightening and cleaning according to the specs the hospital had given us. “You are not to talk to the patients except to smile,” the hospital administrator had said. “If a patient asks for something, notify a nurse on duty.”

  Satisfied we were working according to expectations, I decided to sneak away and check on Phyllida, but before I could, a patient asked for water, delaying my departure. After notifying the nurse, I made my way to Phyllida’s room in the ICU.