The Big Dirt Nap

Fourteen

'Believe me, there's nothing on that computer except old contracts and my iTunes library. If someone broke in here for that, they'd better like Bruce Springsteen.'

That was the mantra I'd repeated five or six times in slightly differing versions until Mike O'Malley shepherded his two young fledglings out of my house and down to Springfield's police headquarters to file their reports.

The task of putting my house back together was daunting, but like most unpleasant jobs, you just had to start and with any luck the process would take over. The entrance was easy—replace the rug and pad, pick up the overturned pots, sweep up the Spanish moss and pebble soil covers that had spilled onto the rough slate tiles. The young cop was right; it was a mess, but there was no permanent damage. It was just an illustration of something O'Malley had told me over a year ago: Springfield has everything the big city has. Including thieves.

Two hours into my cleanup Mike O'Malley returned bearing gifts—a two-liter bottle of Fresca and a pepperoni pizza.

'Looks better already,' he said, checking my progress. 'Take a break.' In my office, he moved stacks of papers to put the pie down on a low wicker chest I normally used as a file cabinet. I went to the kitchen for glasses, plates, and napkins.

There was only one chair in the office and neither of us took it, opting to sit on the floor instead. With some difficulty, O'Malley sat cross-legged on the rug, then popped open the cardboard box and tore off a slice of pizza.

'Good food takes time,' he said, motioning for me to join him. I did, and he launched into his theory. The same one he'd been hammering away at before he left.

'You're like a tick, once you get your teeth into something, you don't let go, do you? I repeat, there's no information on my computer that is of any value to anyone. It was of dubious value when it was current. Now it's just a bunch of old files I've been too busy to delete and the music, which I haven't had time to transfer to my laptop,' I said. I held my slice point down to let the excess oil drip onto the waxed paper in the pizza box.

'Maybe some documentary you worked on?' he pressed.

'Please. I was hardly an investigative reporter.' I'd been vague about my former job. Not that there was anything to hide, but when people hear television, they automatically have you immersed in some political intrigue or hobnobbing with George Clooney when in reality most media jobs are just as mundane as any others. 'Let me think. There was that time I let myself be embedded at a designer knockoff shop. That might be it.'

'Paula, professional thieves don't steal clunky machines. They take small high-ticket items that are easy to fence. That means sell.'

'I know what fence means. I watch television. So he was an amateur. He didn't find anything, so he got pissed off, trashed my place, and took the only thing he thought had value.' I paraphrased what Babe had told me as if it came from my own vast experience. 'Listen, someone broke into my apartment in Brooklyn once and didn't find valuables. Know what he took? Aviator sunglasses and a jar of peanut butter. You think all crooks are smart?'

'Have you discovered anything else that's missing?'

'I haven't checked my canned goods, but to the naked eye, nothing major.' The wisecracking had escalated into snapping. This was another cycle we went through. We start out nice, he brings me food, and we end up fighting. It had happened before and I tried to avoid it this time.

'Tell me again what you think,' I said, stripping the pepperoni off a second slice and trying my best to strip the sarcasm from my voice.

'I think our man—or woman—planned this carefully. He made sure to come when neither you nor Anna was here.'

'Well,' I interrupted, 'that's a neat trick right there, because even I'm not sure when she's going to be here . . . she shows up when she feels like it.'

'Be quiet and let me finish,' O'Malley said. 'They knew when to come and they were looking for something. Information, from the looks of all these papers strewn about. On paper, or a disk, or a flash drive. So the question is, what do you know?'

'I don't know jack. Why do people keep thinking I know something?'

O'Malley put his pizza down and wiped his hands carefully on a wad of paper napkins. He balled them up and tossed them onto his plate. He tented his fingers. 'Who else thinks you know something?'

I told O'Malley what had happened at Titans.

'When were you planning to share this information?'

'There are actually two or three things that have happened to me in the past year that I haven't disclosed to the authorities. It didn't come up,' I said, exasperated. 'Besides, what does that . . . Oh, you're crazy. I talked to that guy for ten, fifteen minutes tops in a hotel bar. What happened to him has nothing to do with me.'

'What happened to him was that he got his brains blown out. Maybe you and your girlfriend should be more careful the next time you decide to cruise bars.' O'Malley unfolded his legs and stood up. He helped himself to a sheet of paper from my now disconnected printer and took a pen from the flowerpot on my desk. 'What did you say his name was?'

'I didn't, but it was Vigoriti. I'm not sure how to spell it. First name, Nick. And we weren't cruising bars, not that it's any business of yours.'

'And the cop's name?' he continued, ignoring my protestations of purity.

'Winters.' I couldn't tell if he was mad because I'd withheld information, or because he imagined me picking up guys at a hotel bar. Either way, he wasn't happy.

'Local or state?'

'How would I know?'

'What was he wearing?'

'She was wearing an ugly blue suit.'

'Sounds local.'

'Why? The state guys get to wear Armani?'

'Do me a favor,' he said, writing down this new info and folding the sheet of paper into quarters. 'Set your security alarm tonight. Chances are, whoever it was won't be back, but do it. Promise me, okay?'

We exchanged stiff, formal good nights for two people who'd just been sitting on the floor eating pizza together like a couple of teenagers in a messy dorm, and I gave the door that little extra push it always needed, to make sure the lock caught. In New York, it would have taken two full minutes to throw all the deadbolts and connect all the chains I needed in my old apartment, and you still couldn't keep the bad guys out if they really wanted in. Here it was different. Or so I thought.

From somewhere, I heard the muffled sound of another text message coming in. I worried that I'd created a monster and Caroline Sturgis would be texting me every time she got another bright idea about how to change her garden, her marriage, or her life. I fished around in my bag but couldn't find the phone, then I remembered I'd left it in my pocket after calling the cops. I ran back to my office to get my jacket, but was too late. I entered my code and retrieved the message. Two brothers. Duct tape. Don't tell anyone.

Fifteen

Two brothers. The last time Lucy hung out with two brothers, she told me about it at great length over outrageously priced vodka at a bar in NYC's meatpacking district. As I recall, they were named Jesse and Frank. No duct tape was involved and a good time was had by all. But this message felt different.

I don't know how long I stood there trying to figure out what to do. Once, when I was a bookstore manager, we received a telephoned bomb threat. For an instant I froze, then I flashed the lights in the store and tried frantically to get the customers to leave. But it was in New York, pre-9/11, so of course they ignored me. Nothing happened, and I always wondered where the bastards were, watching me run around like a lunatic and laughing