*
With a little time and distance — ten minutes and fifteen miles — I’m thinking more clearly. Arnold Bleeker seems to have confused my inquiries about Tom with something else, perhaps some kind of conspiracy playing in his head. Given the difficult subject matter — having your sister-in-law sent to prison for murdering her husband, then raising her son, which led to conflict with your now-departed wife — anyone could understand that. Bleeker needs someone to blame.
The other thing that comes to me: Candace does the laundry.
I hadn’t remembered about the Bleekers having a daughter, but that was likely her. Maybe the man was her husband, and he was just being protective. I could see how it looks: It’s dark and rainy, and I’m some stranger running from the house while their frail father stands in the doorway, visibly upset.
Still — the way the man grabbed me . . .
I rub my arm and give it a quick glance. I might even have a bruise there. How am I going to explain that to Paul?
After another minute of sulking, I pick up my phone from the passenger seat and plug it in. The Range Rover has a hands-free system, and in seconds, I’m listening to a phone ring through the speakers.
After the fifth ring: “Hello? Emmy?”
“Hi, Frank,” I say. “Didn’t think you were going to pick up, so I was planning out my message.”
“If you want, you can call back and I won’t answer.”
His humor is dry, reminding me of Arnold Bleeker — Have I won something?
I chuckle; it sounds a little more manic than I’d like. “I think I can improvise,” I say. “How are you doing?”
“Ah, can’t complain. Busy. You?”
“Yeah, busy. We’re on vacation, though. Taking our week up at the lake house.”
“Oh, good for you . . . You sound like you’re driving, though.”
“You are quite the investigator.” It’s an attempt at a joke that winds up sounding sarcastic. “Sorry,” I say quickly. “I’m just . . . I’m not up there, actually. I had to come back down to the office.”
“Uh-oh.”
“I had a patient die from suicide.”
“Ah, man.”
“It’s a terrible thing. And I needed to speak to White Plains Police about it.”
“Yeah, right. Sure.”
“But listen — everything’s good with you? How are the wife and kids?”
This joke lands better; Frank has never been married.
“Just the way I like ’em,” he says.
“Ah, someday, Frank. Someday. You’ll meet the right one.”
He laughs. “I’m almost sixty.”
“Sixty is the new twenty.”
“Jesus,” he says, “isn’t that a sobering thought?”
It’s enough small talk. I’m feeling a little more comfortable. My hands on the wheel, ten and two, I drive the Long Island Expressway, the road shining wet, post-downpour. Traffic is surprisingly light for eight p.m. on a Friday, headed toward the city. Like everyone is somewhere else.
“Hey, so, I’m wondering if you can check on a phone number for me. A weird call I got. Are you . . . Think you can swing that?”
“I’ll give it a shot. What’s the number?”
I give him the digits, and he says, “Okay. I’ll let you know. That it?”
I’ve known Frank Mills for over thirty years, and he’s known me. He knows that’s not it.
We met when he was a rookie New York cop and I was a graduate student in the city. For the last several years, he’s been on his own as a private investigator. He says he does it for the money, but I know how good a New York cop’s pension is and how little money Frank, a perennial bachelor with cheap tastes, needs to live. Frank does it because it’s in his blood. Without the occasional gig for a divorce lawyer, or running down cheating husbands, or the odd job to see if a workman’s comp claimant was waterskiing in the Bahamas instead of hobbling around on crutches, Frank would go stir crazy.
“No,” I say. “That’s not it.”
He listens to my story — it doesn’t take long, maybe just a minute, to tell — and then says, “Yeah. Wow. That’s a pickle.”
Only Frank would say that’s a pickle. He’s born-and-bred New York, with an old-school heart.
“It’s driving me crazy,” I say.
“I mean . . . You could always ask him.”
“Gee, ya think?”
“Well, I’m not saying it would be easy. Maybe he doesn’t remember. Anyway, the real question is, does it matter? Does Joni seem happy?”
“It’s Joni. She’s seemed happy with every guy she’s brought home.”
“Yeah, but she hasn’t been engaged to any of them.”
“Not that I’m aware of.” I suddenly feel like having a cigarette. It’s been over ten years, but I can taste it. Maybe it’s talking to Frank. His gravelly voice. I think I can hear him puffing on his own — it’s in the pauses, the exhalations.
“So you think the phone call is related?”
“It could be. Yeah, for sure.”
“Listen,” he says, “I’ll check into it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Frank, you’re a good friend.”
“I’ll give you my ‘good friend’ rate.” He laughs, because he’s not going to charge me anything.
“It’ll just be quick,” I say, suddenly needing to reassure him. Or maybe myself.
“One thing I’ve learned in this business? Everything takes longer than expected.”
“I hear you. Of course, that’s life in general, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, true.”
The conversation is winding down. Then Frank says, “You know, I remember that whole thing. That was a heck of a case. Mooney worked that one, right? Rebecca Mooney? And maybe Steve Starzyk. They seemed to have it in for the wife. There was all this other stuff — neighbor saw an unfamiliar car, the back gate was broken from the outside, and then the rear entrance jimmied open. Said it took a lot of strength.”
“I guess that was all staged. By her.”
Frank is quiet. “What was her name . . . Lori?”
“Laura.”
“Laura, right. So it was her? She beat him up with a bat?”
“Hammer.”
“Oh, right. And so . . . and so that’s it, huh? Oh, man — the kid saw it?”
“Frank . . .”
He hears it in my voice: I can’t discuss those details. Even now. And naming his mother as the murderer is under judicial seal. Sworn testimony. There was no courtroom moment when he pointed her out; it was all behind the scenes. Deals made in cool offices by men and women in stiff suits.
“Yeah,” Frank says about confidentiality. “Of course. Sorry. I—”
He’s cut off by an incoming call on my end, another number I don’t recognize. I tell Frank I need to take it. But before switching over, I get in one last quick question. “You said a neighbor saw a strange car? Were there any more details than that?”
“Nah, I don’t think so. Just that there was supposedly this guy outside, sitting in his car, right around the time of the murder.”
“Where’d you hear it?”
“You know . . . around. Now we’re talking about confidentiality on my end.”
“Maybe it was a friend of Laura Bishop’s who did the staging part.”
“There ya go.” He pauses, then, “Hey, keep your chin up, kiddo. I’ll be in touch.”
“Thanks, Frank.”
I switch calls, my intuition up: I think I know who this is going to be.