Extra Credit (5 page)

The exchange was simple and pleasant. For the price of one hundred dollars, student X (a male with a deep voice) gave student Y (a female with a deep voice as well) a midterm for a class that he had taken, which he guaranteed was the same test that a certain professor gave every year, with little to no modification. He identified neither the class nor the professor, which would have made my job much easier. How did he know that the test rarely, if ever, changed? He’d taken the class twice himself, having failed the first time, and had gotten confirmation from his sister, an alumna, who had also taken the class a few years prior. I found that whole scenario a little hard to buy, but I kept listening to see if student Y, the purchaser, would fall for the sales pitch.

She did.

Cheating at St. Thomas carries the hefty punishment of immediate expulsion, if proven. I had all the proof I needed; after all, it was my word against theirs, and I had no reason to concoct a story about two students I probably didn’t know. I was all set to scamper down the stairs and confront them when the door at the bottom of the stairs opened and a new group of students, fresh from some sort of intramural sporting event on the front lawn, burst through and flooded the area. I grabbed my taco off the windowsill and hurried down the stairs, trying to figure out who in this new thatch of young adults might be the cheaters, but there were too many of them, moving too fast.

Like a herd of cattle accompanied by a herd of water buffalo.

But from my perch on the third step, just above the throng, I could see that I knew one student.

And his name was Mr. Super Senior.

Four

Later that day, the remains of my taco still tucked away in my bag and emitting a stench that made me think taco day wouldn’t be quite as enticing in the future, I texted Meaghan to find out how her paper was coming along. As I threw the sad-looking foil-wrapped taco into my garbage, I waited for her to write back, the vision of Mr. Super Senior still in my head. He was a jock, so maybe he was innocent, simply part of the intramural crowd that I had seen streaming through the front door. Or maybe he was student X, selling a midterm that had been used ad infinitum.

I was just about to call it a day when I spied Crawford coming down the stairs behind the building. Crawford’s so used to surprising people, since it’s the best way to get them to tell him what he needs to know, that he sometimes uses the same tactic on me. Instead of sending me an e-mail or a text, or God forbid, actually calling me, he chooses instead to do the surprise drop-in as if I’m a perp with a shaky alibi. I heard Dottie, our spectacularly inept department secretary, giving him some sugar in the form of a giggly greeting when he arrived on our floor.

I stood up behind my desk, waving my hands frantically to dispel the stench of spoiled taco. Remember those floor-to-ceiling windows? They don’t open, so whatever air is in my office has been there since the school welcomed its first students in 1892.

“Taco day?” he asked, leaning across my desk to give me a kiss.

“Yeah,” I said, deciding at that moment not to tell him about Meaghan’s boyfriend/psych tutor and his possible connection to a cheating situation. “I didn’t get to finish before my next class and carried its remains around, unfortunately, for the rest of the day.” I pointed to my garbage can and crinkled my nose. “This may be my last taco day for a while.”

“This may be
my
last taco day for a while,” he said, “and I don’t even eat here.” He picked up the garbage can and put it outside my office door. When he came back in, he sat down, settling in for what, I didn’t know.

“I was getting ready to go home,” I said, pointing to my paper-stuffed messenger bag.

“Change of plans.”

I waited. “Good change of plans or bad change of plans?”

“Before you answer, I want you to take a deep breath. You can have no reaction whatsoever.”

When he told me what it was, I couldn’t help myself. I let out a loud groan and peppered my response with a few four-letter words that brought Sister Perpetua, with whom I shared a wall, barreling into my office.

“Dear!” she said. “We don’t use that kind of language at St. Thomas.”

I dropped my voice to a whisper. “I’m sorry, Sister.” I motioned toward Crawford. “I don’t think you’ve met my husband, Bobby Crawford.”

He stood and took her hand, charming the wizened old nun as only he could. “Pleasure to meet you, Sister. Perpetua is one of my favorite saints. She had a fascinating story.”

I could have sworn I saw her wrinkled cheeks turn slightly pink. If he kept this up, he would give the old gal a heart attack.

“Have you read any of her diaries?” Sister Perpetua asked, her hands going under the folds of her habit.

I knew he was lying, but she didn’t. “A long time ago. I remember reading her prison diaries and being very moved.” Okay, maybe he wasn’t lying after all. Who knew that Saint Perpetua had been in prison, let alone had diaries to prove it?

Perpetua was rapt, staring up at his handsome Irish face. “You’re very well read, Mr. Crawford.”

“Please. Call me Bobby,” he said, bending slightly so that the little nun didn’t get a crick in her neck from the angle at which she was holding her head.

I could have sworn I heard a giggle emanate from deep in her throat. First Dottie, now her. “Bobby it is.” She turned to me, still irked by my outburst. “You, dear, need to keep it down. Some of us are trying to work. Oh, and by the way, you also need to open a window. It smells like rotten tacos in here.” She scuttled off, but not before giving Crawford a winning, denture-filled smile. When she got back to her office, she slammed her door, I guess to show me who was in charge.

“What do you know about Saint Perpetua’s prison diaries?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I took a chance. Nine out of ten Catholic saints went to prison, so I figured the odds were in my favor.”

“You’re a smart one, Crawford.” I kicked my door shut. “Sorry for my initial reaction, but before Perpetua interrupted, I could have sworn I heard you say that you wanted me to take a drive with you to Mount Vernon to return the money to Chick.” I glared at him. “Didn’t you say that you were going to do that first chance you got?”

“You just answered your own question,” he said. “This is the first chance I’ve had.”

Sometimes, he can be painfully literal. A little stiff even. I let out a huge breath, and he waved the air in front of his face. I blew into my hand. “Taco breath?”

“Taco breath,” he confirmed.

I crossed my arms over my chest and considered his request. It would be an hour of out my life, but he promised me dinner at my favorite riverside restaurant afterward. What was an hour when it had that reward tacked on at the end? I sweetened the deal. “You’re driving. I’m leaving my car here, so you have to drive me to work tomorrow.” I went over to the filing cabinet where I kept my purse and dressier shoes and grabbed both, taking off my pumps and putting on the high heels. “Plus, you have to walk Trixie tonight and tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll see you the ride to and from school but will not do the morning walk.”

Crawford hates to get up in the morning, and who could blame him? Once he was awake and at work, chances are he would be looking into the cold, dead eyes of the latest murder victim the Bronx had to call its own. I thought about that for a minute. “Okay, I’ll take the morning walk, but you have to do the two nighttime walks. Tonight and tomorrow.”

He held out his hand. “Deal.”

I lowered my voice. “So, you’ve got ten thousand clams in your pocket?”

“In the glove box.”

“Even safer,” I said. “You really feel safe with that kind of money in your glove compartment?”

“Not really,” he said, holding the door to my office open for me. “I should have put a rancid taco in there to scare everyone off.”

I was amazed at just how close Chick Stepkowski lived to St. Thomas; after just a quick car ride, we were in front of his run-down apartment building, even more nervous about seeing him now that we were toting a large sum of money. It was times like this I was glad that Crawford looked exactly like a cop should look: tall, irritable, and Irish. There was no mistaking him for anything else. He carried himself in a way that suggested that he was in charge and nothing would get in the way of him getting to his destination or achieving whatever goal he had set for himself. The street was pretty empty, and I wondered if that was because we looked so out of place we might as well have had “law enforcement” stamped across our foreheads, or if it was just one of those neighborhoods where nobody came out until after dark.

Either way, it was disconcerting.

Crawford gave me a look that suggested he was a little uncomfortable; he took hold of my arm to keep me close. He didn’t say anything, but his body language told me he might have regretted his decision to ask me along on this little caper. Leaving me in the car wasn’t an option; the neighborhood wasn’t the kind where you would want to sit, alone, and wait for your companion to return. Me accompanying him was the only solution.

The front door to the building was broken, so we didn’t need to ring Chick to let us in. Come to think of it, we didn’t even know if he was home, so we were taking a chance. Crawford, in an uncharacteristic show of forgetfulness, had failed to get Chick’s cell phone number from Christine, but he had his address, so our showing up would be a complete surprise to his ex-brother-in-law, which really was the way Crawford wanted it, I thought. I looked at the row of mailboxes in the lobby and saw that Chick lived on the fifth floor. I didn’t see an elevator.

“Looks like we’re hoofing it,” I said, immediately regretting my choice of footwear. I saw Crawford look at my shoes. “Not. One. Word.” Crawford has determined that my footwear is always wrong for the occasion, the weather, or the circumstances, and based on this situation alone, he would be correct.

Anxious to get this little chore crossed off the to-do list, I started up the stairs ahead of him, taking in the smells and sounds emanating from each apartment. Someone was making curry on the second floor; someone else seemed to have a septic problem on the third. By the fourth floor, sweat breaking out on my forehead, I determined that there may have been close to a thousand children living in the building, the sound of crying a growing cacophony the higher we got. We finally reached the fifth floor and looked for Chick’s apartment, which turned out to be at the far end of the hallway.

The floor, once a beautiful old mosaic tile pattern, was now cracked and dingy. The sound of my heels echoed off the walls, which were so close together that if I stretched out my arms, I could touch both sides. I heard Crawford huffing and puffing behind me. “We’re starting an exercise program,” I said, “but not until I have the crème brûlée after dinner tonight.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he said.

If the second floor was a culinary trip to India, the fifth floor was barbecue heaven. Someone was cooking ribs, and the aroma was making my mouth water. We reached Chick’s apartment; the door was nondescript and had nothing to identify him as its occupant. I looked at Crawford. “Want me to knock?” I asked.

“Either that or we can just stand here staring at the peephole together.”

“You’re a regular Jackie Mason tonight,” I said, tapping lightly on the door.

“That’s how you knock?” he asked. He lifted his hand and banged on the door.

No answer.

“Chick!” he called, banging again.

“He’s obviously not home,” I said, anxious to get out of Mount Vernon and this septic-scented, barbecue-flavored apartment building. My stomach was now protesting with a vengeance. Not finishing that taco had been a huge miscalculation on my part.

I started to walk away, but Crawford leaned in and put his ear to the door. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“Shhh,” he said, holding up a hand to silence me. “Chick?” He banged again. “Chick!”

I started back toward the apartment. “What’s the matter?” I asked, taking in his worried demeanor.

“He’s in there.” He turned to me and looked around frantically. “Go get the super,” he said.

So here’s the thing about me: I was raised the only child of very doting parents who grew up in a lovely one-family home in a quaint little town set up on a hill high above the Hudson River. I knew what a super was in theory—I had watched my fair share of
One Day at a Time,
after all—but I didn’t know the first thing about finding one. I stared blankly back at Crawford. “Super?”

He spied a fire extinguisher half hanging off the wall about two feet behind me and grabbed it. “Yes, the super,” he said. “First floor. Knock on doors until you find someone who knows how to find him.”

I watched as he hoisted the fire extinguisher above his head and brought it down on the doorknob, hoping to disengage the lock. His first attempt at gaining entry was unsuccessful. He looked at me still standing there and said, “Go!”

I started down the stairs, listening as Crawford bashed the door again and again. When I got to the third floor, though, I heard him break through, so I started back up the stairs. By this time, the hall was flooded with the people who lived behind the other doors, and I pushed my way through until I reached the last apartment on the left.

There was a lot of blood; I remember that. I don’t remember much else because as soon as I saw Chick Stepkowski, still sitting at his desk, blood pouring from a wound in his head, the room spun out of control in front of me and I ended up on the floor, wondering how I got there and if the screaming in my head would ever stop.

Five

Crawford had the unenviable task of breaking the news to Christine; she, in turn, would let the girls know. While I wanted to be with him to lend some moral support, I had to beg off, letting him know that after the experience of finding Chick like that, I was just about done for the day, if not the week. I had a full-fledged migraine, the likes of which I had never experienced, from my fainting/falling incident in the apartment.

I lay in bed with the curtains drawn and a cold rag on my head, the image of an almost-dead Chick seared in my brain. There was a suicide note, but according to Crawford it was practically unreadable. Not that I spent a lot of time trying to decipher why this eccentric man had taken his own life; that was for his sister and their brothers to try to come to terms with. The story itself was so strange that nothing about it surprised me anymore—his disappearance, his reappearance, the money. It was all outside the realm of what I considered normal behavior, but then again, I was an only child, and the majority of my extended family was hundreds of miles away in Canada making cheese and dealing with their own share of familial eccentricities, the likes of which I would never know beyond Aunt Isabelle’s propensity for wearing men’s overalls with high heels. We shared the annual Christmas card and the occasional e-mail and that was about it, so what did I know? Any day now, I could be getting a visit from a long-lost cousin who had decided to reconnect with family, only to find out that said cousin was a complete nut job along the lines of Chick Stepkowski.