Fall Guy (4 page)

Sitting in the bar at Pastis, Dash next to the table with a bowlful of water, a bowl that matched the decor of the restaurant, I picked at my bacon sandwich as I began to open O'Fallon's mail. I wasn't sure of the procedure. I tried to remember what my sister and I did with my mother's bills, but that was different. We had been named signatories on Beatrice's checking account not long after she got sick.

I pulled an envelope from the bottom of the stack, turned it over and made a note to call O'Fallon's attorney, hoping that she would take care of paying the bills and dealing with most of the paperwork. I suspected I'd have more than enough to do sorting out O'Fallon's possessions and dealing with family and neighbors—grumbling neighbors, to judge by Jin Mei.

I wondered about Parker—who he was, where he was, and how O'Fallon had been helping him. I made a note to talk to the other neighbors. I'd ask Brody about Parker, too, and about the other men O'Fallon had helped.
Brody. As if he were about to tell me what he knew.

I flipped through O'Fallon's Con Ed bill, a packet of coupons for discounts, the envelope addressed to “Occupant,” his rent bill, due in a little over a week, an L.L. Bean catalog and the letter I'd been making notes on. I turned it over. No return address. A perfect little handwriting, small and neat and ever so careful. There was only one uncharacteristic flourish. The tail on the
y
on Timothy turned back and underlined his name.

Opening his mailbox, it had never occurred to me that I shouldn't be taking his mail. I'd picked up the packet without looking at it, even the coupons and the catalog, and tossed them into the bag where I had the things I needed for Dashiell's pet-therapy visit. Now holding the square blue envelope, I wondered if I should be the one to open it. I put it down on the table and noticed I'd made a greasy thumbprint on the lower left corner. Too late to go back to Horatio Street and return it to the mailbox. Besides, Brody hadn't told me not to take the mail. He'd only told me not to use the keys to enter the apartment.

Curiosity.

I picked up the envelope, used my knife to slit it open and pulled out the folded sheet of blue stationery. I sniffed it first; no perfume. Then I opened the single fold and read the name. Maggie.

“I know what happened at Breyer's Landing,” it said. “I was there. We have to talk.”

I picked up the envelope and checked the postmark, Saturday, thinking how strange the mail was. You could mail something in Piermont and
it would arrive in New York City in a day or two. You could mail something in Greenwich Village to someone three blocks away and it could take a week or longer to arrive.

I read the note again. Mary Margaret had mailed the note on Saturday, the day of their mother's funeral. The day before Tim died. The note seemed ominous, threatening. Or was that just my suspicious mind-set? But Tim had never seen it. So it couldn't have anything to do with anything.

Except my curiosity.

“I was there,” she'd written. What could that mean?

At one, Dashiell and I went for a walk. It was hot but not beastly, and though there was no shade at this hour, there was a bit of a breeze. Whenever we could, we walked under sidewalk bridges to get out of the sun for a minute. Rain or shine, a dog's got to do what a dog's got to do, and before a pet-therapy visit, a long walk is a good idea.

Edna was sitting in her wheelchair near the front door, waiting. “He's here,” she said, turning back to the others in the room, five really sad-looking people. “Our little friend is here.”

“Our little friend” was the equivalent of calling women “hon” and guys “pal” when you couldn't remember their names. It was, I thought, a rather graceful save for an old lady suffering from senile dementia. Knowing what was coming, I made a graceful save of my own. I positioned myself behind Edna's chair before Dashiell got the chance to put his paws up on the seat, one on each side
of her frail, skinny legs, and lean forward to give her a kiss.

“He loves me,” Edna squealed.

“He does,” I said from behind her. “Dashiell loves his friend Edna.”

She nodded. “Comes to see me every day,” she said.

“Once a week,” I said, thinking I shouldn't have corrected her, that, at this time, there was no point in doing so.

“Tuesdays,” Edna said, surprising both of us. “I remembered he was coming today. I saved him some of my lunch.” Edna reached into her pocket and took out a stalk of broccoli. That's when I noticed the grease stain on her pocket, like the one I'd made on the envelope of Maggie O'Fallon's letter, wondering if Edna had made grease stains on things when she was younger, too, the way I did. Did I like hanging out with animals because it didn't matter to them—neat or careless, fat or thin, rich or poor, it was all the same? Then I wondered if I'd end up alone, like Edna, someone visiting me on Tuesdays with a friendly dog, making ten minutes in my endless week bearable.

I opened my bag and pulled out Dashiell's boar-bristle brush. A short-coated dog, he didn't tangle if he wasn't brushed. And there was no difference in his appearance before and after. But he loved the feel of the brush scratching along his back, and the brushing was part of the ritual with Edna, who'd had a stroke. She'd fished for the broccoli with her right hand. My job was to make sure she did the brushing with her left. Of course Dashiell wasn't her only therapy, but he was her
favorite one. It's always easier to inspire someone to pet or brush a dog than to do boring, repetitious exercises while someone counted.

Marlene could still draw, and for her I'd brought a pad and colored pencils. Her favorite ritual was touching Dashiell as she drew him, feeling the lines of his muscular body and the way they related to each other and then translating them to paper. I felt the touching helped her as much as her pride in the finished drawings, which we'd always tack up on the bulletin board in the dayroom.

Roger wanted a walk. As usual. I checked with the nurse and was told it was okay. He held Dash's lead and we walked over to Fourteenth Street, where he stopped to say hello to the people eating at a coffee shop with outdoor seating: two men holding hands across the table, a tiny Yorkie on the blond one's lap; a couple talking German who were nonplussed by Roger's greeting; a man with copious tattoos reading the paper, his eggs sitting untouched on the plate before him, one small semicircle missing from a triangle of his buttered toast. On the steps of St. Bernard's Church there was a homeless man talking on a cell phone. He and Roger greeted each other and I thought how odd that was, that someone talking on a cell phone would interrupt his conversation to say hello to a stranger. But when I looked back at him, once again absorbed in his phone call, I noticed that it wasn't a cell phone at all that he was holding to his ear. It was an empty plastic bottle.

Going up the block holding Dashiell's leash,
Roger smiled at everyone. Some people got sweeter when they got old, some angry at the dirty trick life played on us, that we start life in diapers, unable to care for ourselves, and sometimes end up the same way. What kind of a reward was this, I wondered, for a life well-lived, for hard work, devotion to family, a contribution to society? But for all I knew, half the people I visited at the home hadn't lived their lives that way. Half of them may have been self-centered sons of bitches from day one and stayed that way from one set of diapers to the other. Meeting them the way I did, I'd never know. Nor did it matter. Doing pet therapy, what you saw was what you dealt with. Even when snippets of the past were revealed and acknowledged, Dashiell and I worked in the moment, doing whatever was needed at the time we were there.

I wanted more than that when it came to O'Fallon. I wanted to know him. There would be no future, but I wanted to understand the past, wishing he had spoken up just once—would it have killed him?—in the group where I met him. I wished I had something more to go on other than rumor, gossip, slanted opinions and the detritus of his life; what, and whom, he'd left behind.

But how much could I get to know, coming in as I had not late in the game but after it was over—the people all gone, the lights out and the stadium deserted? Without the presence of the living, breathing man, how did I now expect to get to know Timothy O'Fallon, to understand why he did what he did and what may have been going through his mind in the hours before his
death? Had it been just grief, or was there more to it?

As I left the Westside Nursing Home, feeling, as I always did, that I'd gotten far more than I'd given, I wondered if Brody had planned on telling me anything else. He seemed to parcel out the information only when he absolutely had to. I wondered if there was some way I could get him to open up, if not about a fellow officer, then about the man who had lived with him, what his relationship to O'Fallon had been and where, if Brody knew, this Parker person was now. But I'd failed to get O'Fallon to speak when I'd had the chance. Why, then, did I imagine I'd be any more successful with Michael Brody?

Detective Michael Brody cut the first of two seals on the door closest to the entrance, then turned to face me.

“There was a man living here with Tim off and on for the past few months. He's been given your name and number, in connection with getting his possessions out of the apartment.”

“Living here?” I asked. “With Tim?”

“Tim had taken him in, to give him a chance at cleaning up, getting his life going again.”

“Cleaning up? You mean drugs and alcohol?”

Brody nodded, his face telling me he didn't exactly approve of Tim's decision in this case; no way would he, Brody, take a junkie into his home, be on the job twenty-four seven, no break ever.

“Seems an odd thing to do.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said, his knife in his hand, one seal still going from the door to the frame, the air in the hallway still and warm. “But that was Tim's way.”

“You mean he'd done that before?”

“Yes, ma'am. He had.”

“Did it work?” I asked.

Brody slit the second seal. “There's not a terrific track record as far as that goes.”

“You mean in rehabilitating drug addicts or in O'Fallon's attempt to rehabilitate addicts, one at a time?”

He took off his sunglasses and looked at me as if we were just meeting for the first time, as if he'd never laid eyes on me before. Perhaps, in fact, he hadn't.

Perhaps I hadn't looked at him either, concentrating on the information rather than the man, both then and now. But I didn't know that this was the time for a look-see, standing this close, tensed for what I would see when he opened the door, Brody looking right at me.

“I'm just telling you to be careful,” he said. I could smell his last cigarette, the coffee he'd had at his desk or on the way here. And something else, something that triggered a memory I couldn't quite retrieve. A door opened on the floor above us but it didn't close and there were no footsteps either. Brody leaned closer. “Don't let him rush you,” whispering now. “He's going to try. When you're ready to let him get his things, it might be a good idea to have your husband here with you, not be here alone.”

“He's dangerous, this—what did you say his name was?”

“He's used a variety of street names. When he called it in, he told the responding officers his name was Parker Bowling. But he's also been known as Dick Parker, Richard Lee Bowling and Parker Lee.”

“Is he a suspect?”

“There's been no crime.”

The door upstairs closed. We heard the cylinder turn over, the security chain go on.

“I'm just letting you know that he's not a trustworthy individual, Mrs. Alexander. That's all I'm saying.”

“It's Ms.,” I told him, regretting it immediately. He'd been fishing and I'd taken the bait.

“Alexander's not your married name?” Glancing at the hand holding the leash.

“You said ‘he called it in,' Detective. You mean the accident? Does that mean he was here when it happened?”

“Actually, no. He claims he went out early to meet a friend. When he came home a few hours later, he found Tim and called 911.”

“He must have been pretty upset.”

Brody nodded. “Yes, ma'am. Who wouldn't be?”

“Was he…?”

Brody didn't seem to be listening. He reached into his pocket and took out a card, pulling out a pen and writing something on the back of it.

He was bigger than me, somewhat taller, lots more muscular, his jacket a little tight in the shoulders. I could see where his holster was, pushing at the fabric from underneath. Jacket and tie, I thought, even in the heat of summer. His neck was wide, but not like a football player's. His hair was a mousy shade of brown, cut short, standing up straight like newly mowed grass. When he looked up, I saw that his eyes were brown, but not that deep, dark brown that looks almost black. His were a more washed-out shade, like the freckles some
dogs have on their chests and paws, but with flecks of green in it. Old eyes, older than the man. And there was gray at his temples, too, though he looked to be in his mid-forties, and gray in his whisk-broom mustache, trimmed neatly above the line of his mouth.

“I can be here with you when you decide to let Mr. Bowling come to collect his things.” Very businesslike now. “If you'd rather not be here alone.”

“I wouldn't be,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows.

“I'll have Dashiell.”

I looked down. Dashiell looked up and wagged his tail. Then he looked at the door to O'Fallon's apartment. I felt the same way. The hallway was starting to feel too small for two people and a large dog. There was no air circulating and the round fluorescent ceiling light made everything appear slightly green. Even Dashiell looked sickly in O'Fallon's hallway. Besides, if I was going to do this, I wanted to get started. I bent and began to unhook Dashiell's leash.

“Is this okay?” I asked.

“As long as he doesn't disturb anything.”

“He won't,” I told him, wondering what there was that Dashiell might disturb.

“How much time do I have today?”

“Whatever you need,” he said, unlocking the door, both locks with the same key, and pushing it open. That was a New York trick—two locks to deter a would-be thief, only one key to carry. Brody stepped out of the way to let me go in first, but of course it was Dashiell who rushed ahead,
walking onto the faded Oriental rug and stopping cold a moment later, his mouth open, swallowing the air.

I tasted the air, too. Something like Lysol. Whatever it was, it was overwhelming, used, I was sure, to mask another odor. Still, that was underneath the chemical smell, something metallic and gamy, a smell that brought the food I'd eaten a couple of hours earlier back up to my throat. I thought I could smell smoke, too, the stale odor you get in a place where someone has a long-term habit, or after a politically incorrect party, everything monitored nowadays, even your bad habits. I could see a few ashtrays from where I stood, emptied but not washed. But the odor was faint and I wasn't sure that was the source of the smell. It might have come from Brody, who was standing right behind me.

I stepped into O'Fallon's living room, a book-lined room with an old, worn, oversized, cloth couch with loose back-and side pillows, a plaid blanket lying over the back of it; an oak desk piled with folders and papers; framed photos on every inch of the walls. There were plants everywhere, too, some thriving, others having seen better days, like the couch. I noticed a plastic dinosaur in the dirt of one of the larger ones, an old corn plant that stood in a corner near the windows. There were books piled on the floor, stacks near the desk, and more near the old couch. There was a winter coat over the arm of the couch. What was that about in all this heat? Smack in the middle of the room, there was a gym bag, its contents bulging, the zipper half open. The Oriental rug
had a few worn spots, and in front of the couch a flat patterned kilim lay on top of it, another small rug in front of the daybed, which was against the front wall, under the windows. There were a small TV, a radio, an ancient teddy bear with black buttons for eyes, all on one of the wider bookshelves. A cool north light came in through the shutters that covered the front windows, the bottoms closed and latched, the tops partly open, the light spilling through the slats making lines on the carpet and up the wall of closets that divided this part of the apartment from the back.

Someone had done an amazing job, I thought. Where was the blood spatter, the amoebalike stain on the rug? Where was the shattered wall? I looked at Brody. He was leaning against the wall near the doorway, staring straight ahead. I decided not to ask him anything just yet. Perhaps that was why the blanket was over the couch, I thought. Or perhaps that was the reason for that second rug in front of the couch, taken from the entranceway and put there to cover the place where O'Fallon's life had leaked from his body.

But that couldn't be. Dashiell had gone nowhere near that rug, nor had he paid any attention to the couch. In fact, he was nowhere in sight. Perhaps he was in the kitchen, at the south end of the apartment, looking for water. And then I heard him sneezing, clearing his nose for an odor that interested him, the sound coming from the west end of the kitchen, the part I couldn't see. Perhaps the accident had occurred there, O'Fallon sitting at the kitchen table with his cleaning kit and his gun, distracted by grief, careless in
the most unforgiving way. Or maybe not. Maybe he'd left a roast in the oven, I thought, chiding myself silently for being irreverent.

Brody stayed where he was, near the doorway, while I walked around, getting a feel for the place. I sat at the desk for a while, looking through the folders, all the paperwork I'd have to deal with as soon as the apartment was unsealed. I picked out a recent bank statement, his checkbook, a pile of bills that needed to be paid, and found an envelope to put them in. Then I noticed a briefcase leaning against the desk. I put the envelope in that and put the briefcase near the front door.

I looked at O'Fallon's books—lots of technical manuals on crime-scene investigation, fingerprints, a book on interrogation, one on forensic pathology. There was a shelf of true-crime books as well—Ann Rule, Jack Olsen, James Ellroy, Philip Gourevitch, and three about the O.J. Simpson case. There were books on learning Spanish, a bartender's guide, some old photo albums. I pulled one of the albums from the shelf and slipped it into the briefcase, looking at the pictures on his walls as I walked around, all those same kids whose photos were in his wallet. A family man. A serious cop.

Then I went to the kitchen to empty the refrigerator of all the perishables. No need to wait and make the cleanup any more difficult than it was going to be. Dashiell was in the kitchen, standing and staring at me, his brow lined. I felt the same way. What the hell were we doing here in this stranger's house?

Brody had moved to the kitchen with me, perhaps as a silent way to remind me he was waiting, to hurry me along. There was no sign of violence in the kitchen either. I wondered if O'Fallon had used a small-caliber gun, if the bullet that did the damage had never exited his body and gone into a cabinet or the wall. You could easily clean the floor in here. Maybe that was it. Maybe that's why Dashiell had come into the kitchen as soon as the door of the apartment was opened.

I took a bowl from the cabinet and filled it from a Brita pitcher standing on the sink, putting it down for Dashiell, but he never touched it. I opened the cabinet under the sink and pulled out a couple of D'Agostino bags for the garbage. Then I took everything that would spoil, if it hadn't already, out of the refrigerator and put it all in the bags, tying the handles on top twice to make sure things stayed put. Last, I took the watering can off the sill so that I could take care of the plants. There were beer bottles on the sill, too, and empties all over the counter and on the table—beer cans, liquor bottles, wine bottles. The sink had dishes in it and not just one night's dinner dishes. Pots and pans and plates and glasses were piled almost to the tap. I imagined that washing those would fall to me now. Unless I merely pitched them out, too. I remembered that when Lili and I were doing my mother's apartment, the longer we worked, the more readily we threw things away, anxious to be done with it, to breathe the air outside, eat pizza, make love, anxious not to be thinking about death.

I headed for the bathroom to fill the can in the bathtub. That's when Brody moved. Fast.

“Rachel, wait!” His hand on my arm. I turned to face him. “Don't go in there.” Grim, he was. I turned again, to look at the closed bathroom door, then back to look into Michael Brody's brooding eyes.

“He was cleaning his gun in the bathroom?”

Brody took the watering can from my hand. “We can get water in the garden,” he said. “There's a hose.”

I was going to tell him we could use the Brita pitcher to water the plants. What difference did it make now? Instead, I said, “Why don't we just take the plants out.”

I put the can back where it had been. Brody picked up an angel-wing begonia from the kitchen sill, its cheerful pink flowers at odds with the reason we were here. He put it on the round table near the second door and went back for another plant. Without speaking, we gathered the rest of the small plants. Then Brody opened the door, unlocked the garden door, propping each open with a plant. I began taking the small plants out while Brody went back to the living room for the big ones.

As I stood holding a coleus and a wandering Jew that for some reason were sitting on the counter instead of hanging from the two hooks in the ceiling over the sink, looking for a good place to put them down, I thought I might suggest the neighbors adopt them sometime before the cool weather settled in. That's when the garden door to the west opened and Jin Mei came out, Yin Yin in her arms.

“Oh, Rachel. You're back so soon.”

And before I had the chance to tell her to shut up, wishing I could say it in Cantonese or Mandarin or whatever the hell she spoke so that I could get the message across surreptitiously, I could smell him behind me. Right behind me. There was Dashiell, too, going right up to Jin Mei, lifting his front paws off the ground so that he could stick his big nose in the little Abyssinian's butt.

“We're bringing Tim's plants out,” I said. Not knowing what else to say. Not wanting to turn around and look at old stone face. “I thought perhaps the people who share the garden might take a few each at the end of the summer.”

Jin Mei nodded. Her straw hat bobbed. Her mouth trembled and for a moment I thought she was going to cry. “Tim promised that when the time came for me to meet my ancestors, he would find a good home for Yin Yin. Now I have to find someone else to do that. It's good Tim's plants have you to make sure
they
get a good home.”