The Big Rewind (21 page)

S
id just stared at me with his big swollen bug eyes as I told him the story, the damaged parts of his face now a shade of yellow like hospital walls. “How can you be sure?” he asked. “You could walk outside right now and I guarantee you every other girl you see has something on her person with the word
dream
on it.”

I was frantic when I got home from Astor Place. I was so close to closing KitKat's case that I couldn't think straight. I went out to buy groceries for dinner and had to go back twice because I forgot mozzarella and cat food. And now Sid was cooking dinner while I drank wine and sat on the counter and explained the whole case to him, stumbling over my evidence with excitement and nerves.

Cassie had the bracelet. Her story matched George's in everything but the names given.

“So why did she hide it?” I said, taking a drink. “I could see that it was part of a longer quote, and George told me he sent KitKat a bracelet with the lyric
I will do what I can do to make a dream or two come true
. It's her bracelet. I'm sure of it.”

“That's a hell of a sick trophy to be wearing around,” he said, turning from the stove to shred mozzarella into a bowl. “So what's your big plan now, Commish?”

“If I'm going to be a Michael Chiklis cop, can I at least be Vic Mackey?”

“I think you're more like Lem,” he said. “Sweet, kind of goofy, good-hearted.”

“And dead by grenade with my guts hanging out.” I accepted the bowl of pasta he handed me and took a bite, talking with my mouth full. “Does that make you Shane Vendrell or Ronnie Gardocki?”

He put his hand to the stubble on his chin, pondering the ceiling tiles like he was giving the answer serious thought. “Shane,” he said. “Accent and all.”

I finished chewing, swallowed some wine to wash the taste of garlic out of my mouth, and kissed him, grinning. “Great,” I teased. “This relationship is off to a doomed start.”

“Either way it ends badly,” he said, twirling linguine around his bowl in a gesture that reminded me of the way his tongue had wound pinwheels between my legs the night I'd found out about Catch's engagement. It was all I could do not to drop my pasta all over the floor and devour him instead. “But if you insist on being Mackey, does this mean you're planning to smash her face in with a phone book?”

“No,” I said, my arousal cooled by implied violence. “I'm going to call George and ask him to meet with her. She might confess if he asks the right questions.”

“And if she doesn't admit it?”

“Then I helped two long-lost lovers reunite,” I said sarcastically. “And Bronco gets life in prison. Happy ending for all, right?”

“Now”—he gestured with his fork and a smirk—“you sound like Dutch Wagenbach.”

I
LET
S
ID
play through the A-side of Men at Work's
Business as Usual
while I waited for George to return my call. In the last minutes of “Underground,” the phone rang with his 607 number and I removed myself into the bedroom, closing the door.

“I didn't expect to hear from you again,” he said. “Has there been a break in the case?”

“Maybe,” I said. “And I need your help.”

“Anything.”

“I was talking with Cassie Brennen today,” I began. “I've got this bad feeling that she might have . . .” I swallowed the sick in my throat. “I think she was wearing KitKat's bracelet, the one you gave her. I think she might have killed KitKat.”

The line went dead for a minute and I thought I'd lost him. “George? Are you still there?” I asked into silence.

“I'm here,” he murmured. I heard the creak of a screen door and children shouting in the distance. Passing traffic hovered in the stillness between both our phones. “I should have said something,” he said. “I didn't make the connection, didn't think it meant anything.”

“What connection, what are you talking about?”

“The bracelet,” he said. “When I called the jeweler to have it made, she answered. I could never forget that voice. When I gave her my name, she confirmed that it was her. We talked for half an hour, but she never asked me who the bracelet was for. She even friended me on Facebook, offered to come up and visit until she found out I was married. And when I posted on Facebook that I'd found her tape, she was so excited—until I mentioned that I'd passed it along to a friend. Hell, I even offered to introduce her to KitKat, told her that was who I'd had her engrave the bracelet for. She sent me a whole series of nasty messages—
I wrote that for you, how could you give it to some skank,
all that—before deleting her profile. I thought she was using again and didn't think anything of it, not even when you said KitKat had been killed. I just thought . . .”

It all fell into place for both of us. I rubbed my temples, imagined him doing the same.

“This is my fault,” he murmured. “It's all my fault.”

“You had no idea,” I said. “How could you know she would track down KitKat and kill her over one lousy song?”

“People have killed for less,” he said. “A lot less.”

I didn't have time to play therapist, not when playing detective was a more important role. “I need you to get her to admit it,” I said. “She still loves you; she'll tell you if she thinks it'll bring you back.”

“How?” he said, his voice taking on that bitterness I'd come to recognize as his trademark. “Am I just supposed to show up at her apartment, pretend she didn't kill
the love of my life,
until she confesses,
Oh, by the way, I killed your girlfriend
?”

“However you have to do it,” I snapped. “But figure it out. I need this favor, George. For an innocent man. For KitKat.”

Another moment of silence. “I'll do it,” he said. “For KitKat.”

For the first time since I'd unlocked KitKat's front door a month ago, I let out a real sigh of relief. “Set it up,” I said. “Just let me know when and where.”

A
ll the notes were falling into place. With George trying to set up a meeting with Cassie, it was my job to make sure we had the right people in place to arrest her. My own bracelet was heavy on my wrist when Philip called me out of the proofreaders' room and into his office. I was about to ask him for the biggest favor he could ever grant me and I gripped his bag of clean lingerie so tightly I was afraid my shaking hands would catapult them right onto the floor in front of him.

“Relax,” his assistant said as she opened the door. “He won't bite.”

That much I knew, but that didn't mean he would rubber-stamp an approval on anything I asked him, even if he did smile when I walked in. I pulled down my shirt cuff and held it in my fist, trying to gather up the confidence to speak. “I need your help,” I blurted. “With my case.”

He sat up straighter and folded his hands on the desk, like a father in a fifties sitcom. “I'm not sure what other help I can provide, but I'll do what I can,” he said. “What's going on?”

“My friend KitKat,” I said. “I think I might have found who killed her.”

I told him about the bracelet Cassie wouldn't let me read, the engraving shop, her angry conversation with George. “I don't
know if I can prove she did it,” I said. “But I have to try. I can't let Bronco go to prison. I know he didn't do this.”

Philip leaned back in his leather chair and I held my breath. “If she really is the killer, you've done some pretty impressive detective work,” he said, cracking a grin like broken glass. “Let me make some calls and see if I can't pull a favor. I've got a few friends in New York's finest, might be able to get one of them to listen in on your setup, make it official.”

“Thank you,” I gushed. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”

“Don't thank me yet,” he said, sitting up. “We've still got a lot of work to do.”

T
HE TRAIN HOME
felt eerily silent; everyone was lost in their music or a game, reading a digital novel or watching tiny porn. For a few stops I was paranoid that Cassie might find me, get on the train in a sea of people, and know what I was up to. I cranked up my music a little louder, as though that could drown out my thoughts. It did nothing but make my ears ring.

Sid was making pork chops when I got home. He waved to me with an oversized red silicone oven mitt. “I picked us up a cast-iron skillet,” he said. “Now that there's two of us, I thought we could share kitchen duties. I got some summer squash in the oven, if you want to set the table.”

It was such a perfect “Our House” moment that I almost hated it. There's a reason they never show domestic scenes in crime shows or novels; when a case gets ahold of you, there's no time for dinner or setting the table or watching television. It's an all-consuming madness, I told myself as I laid out the placemats, the plates, the wineglasses, the knives. I was so close to finishing this that it was almost worse than when I didn't know anything at all. Now it was just waiting, anxiously ticking down hours until something got done, until the awful weight of KitKat's murder and Bronco's innocence could be lifted from my shoulders.

“What did Philip say?” Sid called over the popping sounds of frying pork fat.

“He said he'd make some calls, get us a surveillance team,” I replied. “I just need to find out when they're meeting.”

Sid abandoned dinner for a moment to see me in the dining room. “That's great news,” he said, lacing his fingers with mine. “You must be so relieved.”

“Not yet,” I said. “Not until she confesses. Not until she's arrested. And not until Bronco's free to go.”

He squeezed my hands and kissed my forehead. “You're at the forty-minute mark,” he said. “You've just got a little ways to go before the credits roll. It's all down to the confession now.”

“Except that now I have to wait for George to connect with her,” I said to his back as he ducked into the kitchen. “Maybe she's onto me and she skipped town.”

“That could be,” he said. “But you won't know until you know. So do yourself a favor and focus your thoughts elsewhere for a minute—you got a postcard. I put it on the coffee table.”

I set down the forks and got the postcard. My grandmother and Royale were in Prague; it was beautiful; they were nearing the end of their trip and would be home in the next month. I had no way of telling her that Sid had moved in, no way to ask how much longer I could stay. I couldn't tell if the world was unraveling at my feet or coming together like a tight-fitting corset.

We ate dinner. We put on
Go West
. And just before “Call Me,” there came that low static hum that rattles off all electronics just before a text comes in.

Saturday,
George wrote.

I
met George at Grand Central Terminal with a cup of coffee and a stomach that felt like Pop Rocks and Coke. He surprised me with a hug and I stood awkwardly in his embrace, one outstretched arm holding an Au Bon Pain cup that was burning me through the cardboard sleeve. A bum relieved me of the pain, snatching it out of my hand and hobbling down the stairs, spilling most of it on the rolling briefcase of a pissed-looking businessman coming off the train from Port Chester.

“Sorry,” George said, releasing me. “I'll buy you another one.”

“That was yours,” I said sourly.

“That's all right,” he said. “I've had about three cups already; I'm starting to get jittery.”

Not what I needed to hear. “You think you can do this?” He nodded and I continued. “We're meeting up with Philip and his NYPD contact now; he'll wire you up and give you some tips on how to question her.”

We made our way to the street and I flagged down a cab.

“Is it wrong that, despite what she might have done, I'm a little excited to see Cassie?” he said as we got in. “I'm excited, nervous, angry—it was a long drive from Binghamton; I told my wife I was visiting my sister in Beacon and took the train in from there. I mean, Cassie broke my heart. I should be overjoyed that we're
getting back together, even just for lunch, even as I try to get her arrested for killing my girlfriend.” He leaned his head against the window and exhaled, drawing a squiggle in the white circle left by his breath. “Life's so fucking complicated sometimes.”

“You know you'll probably have to testify, right?” I said. “Are you prepared for your wife to know about all this?”

“I'm tired of lying,” he said. “I'll tell her when this is all over, and if she wants to leave, well, that's her call. But I can't carry this any longer. I'm just . . . tired. Worn out. Too old.” He turned back to me and smiled a little. “I quit drinking,” he said. “Not doing meetings or anything, but I haven't had a drink in almost two weeks. I was teaching drunk. Office bottle, like an old detective. But one day, I was standing up in front of my class, trying to hide it all, and I swore I smelled KitKat's perfume—no, not her perfume, her
scent
. I sent my students all home early. I poured the gin and tonic I had stashed in a water bottle down the faculty bathroom sink. I want to be the man that KitKat loved—not the mess I was when she died.”

“That's good,” I said. “I'm happy for you.”

“Thanks,” he said. “For all of this.”

We met Philip outside of Pete's Tavern, where he was standing with a man in a dark green overcoat that would not have looked out of place on Humphrey Bogart. He shook my hand and gestured to his partner. “Jett, George, this is Scott Parker, a friend of mine from the Ninetieth Precinct.”

“Won this case in a poker game.” Scott explained the favor with a pirate kind of grin. “But between us, Jett, I never thought the boyfriend did it. Detective Henley is going to be pissed when I crack his case for him. He and that worm of a DA were already flipping a coin to see who bought celebratory drinks.” To George, he said, “You're our CI?”

George nodded and Scott cracked open the bag with the wire in it. “All you have to do is get her to confess,” he said. “You can't get her drunk and you can't threaten her, but anything else is fair game.”

“What if she doesn't say anything?”

“Then we've wasted an afternoon and you got a free lunch,” said Scott. “C'mon, let me wire you up.”

P
HILIP,
S
COTT, AND
I holed up in Philip's unremarkable black sedan half a block down, watching George pace outside the restaurant. I didn't realize how much I was fidgeting until Scott offered me a piece from a pack of Beemans. Even the Brooklyn cops were hipsters.

“I go through two or three packs of this stuff when I'm on stakeout,” he explained. “Smoking draws too much attention to the car.”

“You should make a gum wrapper chain,” Philip joked, slurping his coffee.

I crammed the gum into my mouth and pointed. “Here she comes.”

Cassie was wearing a black dress, a too-long sweater, and her Docs when she ran up to him, embracing him like she'd never let go. When she kissed him, he didn't pull back. My stomach made balloon animals as I watched him lace his fingers with hers, and I wondered if she was wearing the bracelet under her oversized sleeves. George was either a master at this or he was going to blow the whole thing completely to hell. I swore I heard him sniffle back a sob.

We hunched around Philip's laptop. They sat down at a back booth, right where Philip had set up the camera earlier. George ordered a ginger ale; Cassie got a club soda. He was holding her hands across the table, leaning in.

“He's good,” Scott muttered. “He's keeping the mic close. We should hire this guy.”

“Yeah, his Gap sweater will really help him blend in with the drug cartels,” Philip said, snapping his gum.

“I thought I'd never see you again,” George said.

“I'm so sorry,” Cassie said. “Losing you was all my fault. I
haven't stopped thinking about you, not in all these years. I've wanted to call you, I've looked you up before, but you were married, I didn't want to intrude . . . and I was scared you'd hang up.”

“Never,” he said. “But there's nothing keeping us apart anymore. My marriage is all but over and my girlfriend, well, she's dead.”

She buried her face in the menu. “I'm sorry to hear that.”

The waiter appeared momentarily, blocking the shot. Scott swore under his breath and Philip held his earpiece in a little tighter. All I could hear was their order: a sandwich for him, soup for her.

“Do you remember that movie we saw at that little art theater?” he said when the waiter slipped away. “The one that started leaking in the middle of the show?”

“The Nelson Street Art House, yes,” she said, grinning. “I don't even remember what movie it was—some kind of crime film, right? I think we were too busy making out.”

He nodded. “The mistress murders her boyfriend's wife because she's convinced no one can love him like she does,” he said. “And in the end, she's right. They run off together. And when I drove you home that night, when I watched you go inside, I thought,
I love her like that
. I loved you so deeply that watching you walk away from me felt like necrosis. Like dying. And I wanted to know somehow that you loved me with that same violent intensity. But how would I ever know? All I had were three stupid words to repeat to you over and over, but they were never enough.”

I knew that feeling. It was the exact reason I'd never said those three words to Catch even though he said them to me. It was comforting, in a way, to know that other people could feel love to that sort of dangerous depth.

“He'd better be talking about a real fucking movie,” muttered Scott. “I've only got one set of cuffs; this bastard better not have been in on it the whole time.”

“And when you left me,” George said, continuing, “I was con
vinced I was dying. I would dream about finding whatever new guy you were with, because he couldn't love you the way I loved you. I dreamed I would get him alone and . . .” He smiled. “But you really did love me like that, didn't you? And you proved it. With KitKat.” She started to protest, but he brought her hands to his lips. “No secrets. Not now. Not if we're going to be together.”

She paused for a moment, glanced down at the table, then back up at him. But she didn't speak. No one in the car dared to breathe.

“How did you find her?” George asked.

“I looked her up,” she said. “When you gave me her name, you mentioned that she was a party planner in Brooklyn, so it didn't take me too long to find her. I called her up and made an appointment. But I just wanted the tape. I didn't want her to have that song. There are millions of other songs in the world, she didn't need the one I wrote for you. And when I got there, she invited me in for a cup of tea; she was baking pot brownies and the smell reminded me of that night at my drummer Cara's party.”

George actually smiled. “I got way too stoned on edibles that night,” he said, a grin cracking his face like a spring thaw. “I was convinced that all the stars were falling out of the sky and I would be sliced in half if I left Cara's apartment.”

“It was the first night you spent at my place,” she said. “I don't know how I convinced you to leave in that state, but somehow, I got you back to my apartment and I started writing ‘Secret Girlfriend' while you slept.” She glanced down at his hands and then back up into his eyes like she'd been rehearsing this moment for the last decade. “That was the moment I knew I loved you.”

Stars fall flash and slash my heart . . .
My favorite lyric, written about a paranoid, passed-out boyfriend. I thought about Sid asleep next to me the night I'd brought him home from the hospital, his body lax with painkillers and exhaustion, how sweet and sad and perfect he'd looked in that moment.

Cassie continued, drawing me out of my memory. “I asked
KitKat about you,” she said. “And her face just lit up. She wouldn't stop talking about how much she loved you, how much of a relief it was to finally be able to tell someone about her
soul mate
.” Her voice began to rise to a frustrated, panicked pitch; she pulled one hand out of his to gesture with tense, calculated moves. “And I just wanted her to
shut up
. I asked her about the tape, but she tried to tell me she didn't have it, but I knew she was lying. I grabbed the rolling pin and . . . and I just lost it.”

“We got it,” said Philip. “We can go in.”

“Wait,” I pleaded, holding up my hand. “I want to hear the rest of what she has to say.”

“This isn't a bedtime story,” Scott said. “Let me spoil the ending—fifteen to twenty-five on murder two, up for parole after seventeen.”

“I just want to hear if she gives up any more.”

“She's right,” Philip said. “‘Lost it' isn't exactly a detailed confession.”

We turned back to the feed. “She wasn't lying,” George said. “The tape went to the wrong mailbox. Her neighbor got it instead.”

Cassie's eyes went wide and she sank back against the leather bench. “She never heard my song?” she said. “But this girl at my show, she requested it, where else would she have gotten it . . . ?”

“Go now!” Philip cried. “She's putting it all together; get her before she makes a run for it!”

It was almost too late—Cassie sprang up from the booth and made a dash for the door. Scott kicked open the passenger-side door and met her under the awning with Philip flanking her on the other side. George followed her out of the restaurant. She looked to her right, to her left, and then back at George with eyes like a cornered dog. She took two quick strides back toward George and pulled his face to hers, kissing him hard.

He didn't resist.

“I love you,” she murmured, holding him tight. “I've always loved you.”

Scott pulled her away, twisting her arms behind her back with his handcuffs ready. George just stood there dumbly, her lipstick still dark on his mouth. She struggled in Scott's hold.

“George, please,” she said. “Please don't let them do this. I love you. I love you!”

Scott pushed up her sleeves to get the cuffs on, revealing KitKat's bracelet. “Bag it,” said Philip. To George, he added, “This look familiar?”

George swallowed so hard his eyes bugged out. “Yes,” he muttered, staring at the scuffs on his shoes. “It's the one I bought KitKat—Katie. For her birthday last January.”

Scott pulled out a plastic evidence bag and dropped it in.

Cassie looked at me, standing next to the car where I'd frozen in place, watching this all go down. She smiled sadly. “I thought you, of all people, would understand,” she said.

“You killed someone over a song,” I replied, my throat dry.

“I killed someone for love,” she said as Scott ducked her head into the backseat of his unmarked car. “Isn't that how all great stories go?”

For a moment, it made sense. For a moment, she was beautiful, a tragic lover, a wronged woman. If this was a movie, she would still be the heroine even as they led her to the hangman. But this wasn't a movie, and when that moment was up, she was just a bat-shit lunatic who'd beaten my friend to death over a song she'd never gotten to hear.

I thought about the music I had hoarded, my fear that if I heard the songs in the wrong place and time it might mean they no longer belonged to the moments I clung to. If Catch had grown up to mirror George's suburban malady, was I then fated to follow Cassie's, grow bitter and mean because I could not let go of all my junkyard yesterdays?

No,
I decided. It had to end. Now Jeremy and I could have something new. Gabe and I could have happy memories. But William and Catch had to stay firmly in my past. Because I was not like Cassie. Not anymore.

George stood in the doorway with that same empty gaze he'd had when I'd told him that KitKat was dead. We watched the car pull away. Cassie never once looked back, never made one last plea, seemed to simply accept the fate she must have always known was coming. And then it was just George and I, standing on the sidewalk, watching her go. He was as blank as a Munny figure. I couldn't stand the silence.

“What now?”

“I'm going to go home,” he said. “And tell my wife everything.”

“Probably a good idea,” I said. “You want me to go back to Grand Central with you?”

He shook his head. “No offense, but I'd rather be alone.”

“Then take this,” I said, reaching into my coat pocket and pulling out the tape. “It's your secret. KitKat died believing you still loved her.”