Caught Dead (13 page)

Chapter Seventeen

I didn't believe Kristen. Neither did Hank. On Saturday morning I called the Torcelli home, looking for Susie, but Jon told me she was at her own home.

“Why her?” Jon asked.

“Loose ends,” I explained, but I could tell Jon wasn't really interested. He hung up without saying good-bye.

Susie's Cape Cod was on a side street off New Britain Avenue in Elmwood, a few houses down from a busy Mobil gas station and a Dunkin' Donuts. I sat nursing an iced coffee, watching the intersection, and eventually I saw Danny's car. Susie had mentioned his ritualistic workout on Saturday mornings, and I didn't want him around when I talked to her. I trailed him down the street to the Power Gym, watched him park, and then circled back to Susie's home. She was in the front yard as I stopped in front of the chain link gate. She'd been working in a flower bed, bent over, weeding zinnias and marigolds, a shock of color against the drab gray clapboard house. She stopped what she was doing, stood up, took off her garden gloves, and waited. I waved, and she motioned me through the gate.

“Mr. Lam,” she yelled, friendly, “is everything all right?”

“Good morning. Spare me a minute?”

She nodded. “You still investigating?”

“That's what I do.” I smiled.

“I don't know what I can tell you, but come on in. It's too hot outside.” She was wearing an old housedress torn at the shoulder, with a sagging hem. Her hair was tucked under a straw hat, the rim tattered. “Excuse my appearance. I wasn't expecting visitors.” She looked toward the street. “You just missed my Danny. The gym, you know.”

“You look like you enjoy your flowers.”

She studied the lush, dense bed of flowers, a riot of crimson and orange and white. “Someday I'd like to have the whole front yard filled with flowers, from the door to the sidewalk. No grass. Just flowers. Years ago I had a window box in the projects, one little plastic box hanging off the window, inside the iron bars they put up to stop thieves, and my flowers always started out good, but then the pollution made them puny. So I stopped doing it. Now,” she pointed to her beds, “now I am the best gardener on the street.”

Inside we sat in an immaculate kitchen, the appliances polished, the cabinets gleaming, the floor glistening. I noticed calendars from local Asian markets, and the obligatory shrine on a wall shelf, with incense, candles, and a statue of the Virgin Mary. On the counter sat a tray of chocolate-chip cookies, cooling. Nearby a loaf of fragrant homemade bread, obviously fresh from the oven. A bowl of fresh fruit rested in the center of the round table, apples and pears surrounding a pineapple, and I noticed that even the fruit looked fake: polished, sparkling, crisp. “Can I get you something?” she asked.

I said no, but she poured some fresh Vietnamese-style lemonade into two glasses, and set one in front of me. In the hot, un-air-conditioned room—she did switch on a small little fan near the stove—the utterly cold drink was invigorating. “Very good,” I complimented her.

“I make my lemonade for Mr. Larry and Miss Molly…” She suddenly lowered her voice. “I'm sorry.”

“It's hard to get used to her death, isn't it?”

She sighed. “Life there ain't never gonna be the same.”

“I bumped into Kristen last night at a bar I go to.” I watched her face.

She frowned. “The day after the funeral she went out, romping around like a whore.” She bit her tongue, regretting her words. “You know,” she continued, “it is only Mr. Larry I worry about, and I shouldn't say that. Sometimes Jon and Kristen act like little children.” She smiled. “I always speak my mind, Mr. Lam.”

“You talk like this to Larry?”

She deliberated. “I've been there so long I can say anything. Well, almost anything.” A thin smile. “I think. Mr. Larry and I—and even Miss Molly—talked about Kristen and Jon like they were somebody else's kids. They ask me what I think.”

“I can see Kristen is bothered by Molly's death, but I don't think she knows how to deal with it.”

In a clipped voice, “Well, she's a woman now. Grief is all around now.
Find
a way.”

“You're hard on her.”

She sipped lemonade. “I no like empty lives.”

“And hers is?”

“How many prep schools did she drop out of years ago? And since then—nothing. Sitting in front of her mirror. Going to the country club. Mr. Larry just wants her married because she's too pretty and also she's not too bright, always wandering around. He's always trying to fix her up with some business guy, son of a business friend, that kind of thing, but she's too flighty, dizzy. No one is good enough for her.” She paused. “One time Jon said she's like ice cream—great when you get it but you don't think about it a hour later.”

“That's a horrible thing to say about a sister.”

She waved her hand in the air, took a sip of lemonade. “I'm just repeating…”

“Did she ever date your Danny?”

The question was met with a stony stare, her face locking up. Her two hands gripped the sweaty glass, and the ice cubes clinked. “What?”

“Well, they're all the same age. Both real good-looking kids.”

“No,” she said, emphatic.

“That seems strange. In prep school they were around each other a lot.”

“It never happened, Mr. Lam. And you know why? Danny's no fool. You think he'd risk
everything
to have a—a fling with her? It would fall apart, they all do, and who suffers? Danny.”

“Would Larry fight it?”

She stood up. “I no like this conversation.” She faced the counter. I could see a ridge of sweat on the back of her neck.

“It's just that Kristen, last night, when Danny's name came up, seemed a little intoxicated with him.”

She turned to face me. “Get out.”

I sat there.

She raised her voice. “You gotta leave now. This ain't proper. Danny and I are good Catholics, churchgoers. You think my son would touch her like that…”

I stood up. “She speaks about him with…”

A harsh, flat voice. “Get out of my house.”

“I mean…”

“Out now.” She gripped the counter, her knuckles white. She was trembling. I mumbled good-bye and left.

***

I sat in the parking lot of the Power Gym on New Britain Avenue, a few cars away from Danny's Mercedes, talking to Hank on my phone, waiting. Eventually I spotted him leaving, the gym shorts and a tank top over a muscular body, pumped up now. He stopped to joke with a very healthy-looking woman who tried to get him to go somewhere, smiling broadly, but he smiled, waved, and headed to his car, tossing his gym bag into the trunk. He looked freshly showered, with the swagger of a young man on the move. For a second he stopped, read a text message on his phone, frowned, then shoved the phone into a pocket.

I got out of my car. “Danny.”

He didn't look surprised. “Hey, Rick, what are you doing here?”

“Your mother told me you were here. I stopped in to see her.”

He smiled. “Every Saturday morning, faithfully. And two nights a week.” He showed me an impressive bicep.

“I thought bankers were scrawny, pasty guys.”

He didn't answer. “What can I do you for?”

“Buy you lunch?”

He seemed ready to say no, but said, “Sure, why not? “But quick. Got a lot to do. Day off.”

I chose a small Vietnamese restaurant up the street, Café Ba Le, a mom-and-pop place with little kids scampering underfoot, wobbly tables, wallpaper peeling, linoleum cracked, and mismatched chairs and tables. And the best Vietnamese pancakes in Connecticut.
Banh xeo
, sizzling egg crepes filled with shrimp, bean sprouts, veggies, and topped with fish sauce. Danny, it turned out, had never been there. “I never think to come here. Mom feeds me enough Old Country food to last a lifetime,” he explained, looking around. He followed my lead and got the pancake, with
nuoc mia
, a sugar cane cold drink. We split some fresh-made summer rolls, dipped in aromatic sauce. He loved the crispy pancakes. “As good as Mom's.” He swallowed a chunk of spiced chicken. “Hearty, too. I put bean sprouts in everything.”

“So,” he said finally, “why were you visiting my mother?”

I detected an edge to his voice. We'd been making small talk until then, though I'd seen wariness in his eyes. But the wide, toothsome smile—had Larry paid for those gleaming, perfect teeth?—never disappeared for more than a second.

“I don't really know.” I shrugged. “I'm talking to everyone. All roads lead nowhere.”

“I find it amazing. Two sisters, dead. Like that. Makes no sense.”

“No, it doesn't. But there has to be some logic behind it.”

He locked eyes with mine. “Good luck.” He tilted his head.. “But what can my mother tell you?” He smiled. “And, I suppose, me, considering this little lunch.”

“I wanted to talk about Molly's relationship with Mary and Benny…”

He broke in. “Molly had too much money. It made her uncomfortable.”

“Meaning?”

“As the wife of Larry, you know, she had to be on boards, clubs, garden projects, charity functions, dinners, balls. And I don't think she ever
really
felt comfortable in those roles. She put on a show. She liked the money, yes, she did, but not the social butterfly stuff that came with a marriage to a guy like Larry.”

“She started out poor.”

Danny's eyes kept moving. They followed a girl walking by. She smiled back at him. He looked back at me. “She brought a lot of baggage with her, let me tell you.”

“Like what?”

“She saw what poverty did to Mary and Benny, struggling, missing mortgage payments, the tough neighborhood.”

“How'd you get on with her?”

He shook his head. “I wasn't Molly's favorite person. Tommy and I got caught smoking pot in prep school. But I'm guessing that you already heard that story from everyone.
Everyone
talks of it.” He smiled. “The family still talks about it. It was nothing. We got—careless. Stupid school kids. But, my God, World War Three broke out, especially for Molly and Mary. And, of course for my own mother. Drugs to them was—opium. A head filled with nightmares. Back to Saigon streets. Some dead relative. Messy. Larry threatened to take me out of Chesterton, send me to public school. Mom cried and cried.”

“You were born in Hartford?”

“Right in Dutch Point, down by the river. Ramshackle project housing, broken windows, rats, wild dogs, broken doors, empty kids hanging out all day. Lucky we got out when I was a little boy, so I don't remember much. One of two Vietnamese families placed there by Catholic Charities. My dad quit when I was a baby, headed to California. I never knew him, though his brother's still around. Mom worked temp jobs until Molly took over. Larry saved our lives. He found Mom an apartment in Elmwood, on a bus line to Farmington because Mom won't drive a car, and I grew up there.” He smirked. “My life in a nutshell.”

“You know, there's rumors you're Larry's kid.”

A wide grin covered his face. “You know, that old story drove Mom and Molly to distraction. Larry found it funny. So did I.”

“Not true.”

“Do I look like I got white blood?”

“It's possible.”

“No, it isn't. I don't look like my mother, true, but I don't look like Larry. I look like my father's brother, who's in Hartford.”

“What about Kristen?”

He didn't miss a beat. “Kristen? Kristen's a sweet girl, pretty.”

“She's not a go-getter. Like you.”

“Well, Kristen has other things going for her…”

“Drop-dead looks?”

“Yeah, well, a stunner. But I mean, well, a kind heart, too. She's
sweet
.”

I downed the last of my drink. “You close to her?”

“I don't see any of the kids much any more.”

“Jon?”

Sarcastic: “Yeah, sure.”

“Last night, talking to Kirsten who was out with some girlfriends, she had nice things to say about you.”

“We always got along.” Hesitation in his voice.

“In fact, the only time she lit up was at the mention of your name.”

He said nothing. I called for the check. Henry, the owner, walked over. We knew each other to nod to, so I greeted him.
Chao ong
. We shook hands. I thanked him for the delicious lunch, and he walked away. Danny hadn't taken his eyes off my face.

I looked into his face. “She said Larry would kill her if she went out with you.”

He frowned. “This is a nonsubject with me. I can't answer that.”

“Why not?”

“Larry's not like that. He's like a father…”

“But Kristen seems to have a warm spot for you.”

“I can't help that.” Then, slyly, “What are you getting at?'

“I'm wondering if you ever had a relationship with her?”

“You think that we screwed?”

“Why not? Two good-looking kids. Not related. Always in each other's company.”

His words were clipped now, humorless. “What did she say?” I didn't answer. “God, I wish she had a brain cell sometimes.” He laughed. “All right, then, we
did
fool around a while back.”

“A while back?” I waited. “Kristen is a little too intoxicated with you…”

“Man to man, I tell you, okay. We see each other now and then, a quickie. I suppose she hinted
that
to you. No one knows. She hinted about it on her Facebook page one time—I stopped that quick. Larry would kill her. And
me
. He thinks I'm a player, so he has to protect her. Nobody has to know, right?”

“Did Molly know?”

“God, no. Kristen knew better.”