Annie deflected the compliment, asking, 'What did you do today besides make a gourmet dinner?'
'Hardly gourmet. Not much. Figured out which subways to Canarsie. Read. Took a little nap.'
'Nice.' Dabbing the napkin at her mouth, she sat back with her glass of wine. 'You know, my son's car is sittin' in the garage being a home for rats and spiders. Use that instead a the subway.'
'Why isn't your son using it?'
'Kid thinks he's from California. He had to have a car when he turned sixteen so I bought an old beat-up Nova from a dealer owed me a favor. He drove it six months and realized what a pain it is to drive in the city. I keep it as backup. It's a great surveillance car, but for the most part it sits around gettin' rusty. You take it tomorrow.'
Frank was uncomfortable with so much generosity. She fidgeted, asking, 'You sure?'
'I'm sure. Wait'll you see it. You might want to take the subway. But if you're sittin' there doing surveil all day at least it'll be a little warmer. Supposed to keep snowing through Thursday, maybe Friday.'
Frank nodded. 'Okay. But I'm not sure how I can repay all your generosity.'
'Are you kiddin'? Way I look at it, you're workin' for me for free. Repay me by helpin' me close your father's case. That's my payment.'
'Deal.' Checking her watch, Frank told Annie she was going to an AA meeting.
'Oh, yeah? I got a cousin goes to AA. He's a different man since he stopped drinkin'. Got a beautiful wife, an adorable three-year-old and a baby on the way. Couple years ago, I was sure I was gonna have to escort his mother to the morgue. But he's got his act together now.'
Frank nodded. 'You like ice cream?'
'Doesn't everybody?'
'I was gonna get some on my way back. What flavor you like?'
'Aw, get whatever you like. I'll be in bed by the time you get back. I'll see you in the mornin', huh? We'll go down and see if Ben's car starts.'
'Okay. Sleep well.' Frank stopped before she left the kitchen. 'I really appreciate all this, Annie.'
'Psh. It's nothin'. Get outta here.'
Frank walked north, through the snow. Along the way she passed bums clumped together with bottles, huddled under cardboard tents or curled in tattered sleeping bags. Hunched against the sharp wind, she was glad she wasn't among them. And well aware she could be.
CHAPTER 21
No stranger to surveillance, Frank thought it the most physically challenging of all police work. For days, sometimes weeks on end, a surveillance team sat in the front seat of an unmarked sedan. They stayed there hours at a time, unable to stretch protesting muscles. They ate junk food, drank too much coffee and then spent most of the shift wondering when they could take a leak.
If the surveillance went down at night, there were no lights; in winter, no heat; in summer, no air conditioning. The detectives had to stay alert, focusing only on their subject and the street. They couldn't distract themselves with magazines, books or crossword puzzles. Or at least shouldn't. Frank rode with an old robbery cop who read the newspaper while she was on the eye. When he was done reading he'd do the daily puzzles. To his credit, he usually spotted their target before she did.
By comparison, setting up on the Canarsie Cemetery was a cakewalk. Frank's biggest concern was nosy neighbors calling the cops about her daily presence. To avoid a police scene, Annie notified the 69th Precinct of Frank's surveillance. They clamored for part of the action until Annie explained it was a long-shot setup on a homicide almost four decades old.
Frank found a parking spot on Remsen Avenue. It was a couple cars behind where she'd have liked to be, but by sitting on the passenger side she had a good view of her parents' plot and its approach. She locked the car and walked to the plot. There were no fresh flowers. No new footprints in the snow.
She returned to the relative warmth of the car. Annie was right about the Nova—it was perfect for surveillance. Dented and rusted, windows cracked, it looked like a small-time hustler's car. The upholstery was held together with duct tape and the dashboard was split like a busted lip. But it ran and the heater blew hot air. Even the radio worked. Frank turned it on, pouring a mug of coffee from the Thermos Annie had filled for her.
Her briefcase was on the floor of the passenger seat. She hadn't looked at it since reading her father's autopsy protocol. She knew she should plow through it, scrutinize it as closely as she would any other file, but she couldn't psych herself into thinking this was an ordinary homicide. Maybe it would be best to avoid reading it altogether. As Annie made clear, Frank didn't have any objectivity on the case. What was there to gain by poring through it?
But she had to try. It was only fear stopping her and she was tired of letting fear have its way with her. Yanking the briefcase up into the passenger seat she snapped the latch and pulled out the folder. Her statement topped the thin pile of supporting documents. Slipping it from the folder, she approved of the detective's neat typing. Homicide reports were always so coolly removed from the gore of their subject, all black ink and white paper, straight lines and precise edges. Clean, tidy and nicely sanitized.
She remembered Detective Heller. He was thin and young, maybe early thirties. He'd been patient with her but not overly kind. Having done it herself so many times, Frank surmised it had probably been hard for him to interview her. He had just kept his distance, trying not to get involved in her grief and pain.
The amount of detail in the report surprised her. She'd forgotten the suspect wore a black sweater with holes in it; the hand holding the gun was scraped; a long cut under his right cheekbone looked infected; he was missing an upper tooth; he was using a piece of yellow rope for a belt and he wore frayed black high tops—all useful at the time, but none of it relevant today.
She'd said the junkie had a little bit of an accent. Heller noted he had repeated the suspect's demands, as stated by the witness, in various accents but that said witness hadn't recognized any of them. Frank remembered how confused she'd been. Heller hadn't sounded anything like the junkie, but he kept trying and she kept shaking her head, looking to Uncle Al for help.
After Heller cut her loose she and her uncle drove through the pre-dawn streets. She was the one person who could identify the junkie. They searched alleys and corners, stoops and shooting galleries. They searched but failed to find. Long after the sun had struggled up, with her mother sedated and snoring, Frank took that failure to bed with her. And had every night since.
'Christ,' Frank whispered, fighting back an avalanche of tears.
She remembered a burly, tattooed marine at one of her first AA meetings. His mother had been killed in a car crash when he was only eight years old. Tears cascaded down his face as he told the group his story. When he'd started crying at the funeral his father had taken him aside and told him to stop. That men didn't cry. So he never had. Started drinking when he was nine. Quit almost thirty years later after his second heart attack. The marine had wiped his tears away, smiling as he said, 'Now I cry whenever I want to and I don't give a fuck who sees me.'
Frank figured if a marine could cry she could too. She let them come. They were embarrassing but no one could see. She cried for her crazy mother, her lost father and the kid who'd tried to make sense of it all when there was no sense to be had.
She let the tears run dry then looked for something to blow her nose on. There wasn't anything. Opening the door, Frank did the Okie blow onto the street. It was gross and messy but she pulled the door shut with a smile. If anyone was watching it looked perfect. What better cover than an aggrieved woman crying outside the cemetery?
Oddly serene, Frank dried her cheeks with her palms. She got out of the car and stretched. Keeping her father's grave in view she walked the graveled roads within the cemetery. She read the headstones, their names heavy and familiar—Gosline, Voorhis, Schenk, Van Houten, McCrodden and Knutsen. Dozens of graves held veterans, from the Civil War all the way through Vietnam.
The cemetery's history was compelling. From old history lessons she knew the city of Canarsie went back to the Canarsie Indians. The natives were routed by the Dutch, who were displaced by English, and then George Washington kicked everyone out so that anyone could come in.
Frank's tour woke a nostalgia she didn't know she had. She thought she'd cut her ties to the past but its roots seemed to be thriving beneath her consciousness. Even her body betrayed her, reacting instinctively to familiar sights and smells and sounds. Despite decades in southern California, even the New York winter was welcome. She wanted to make snowballs and pitch them at unsuspecting pedestrians, like she and her cousins used to do. Or fall backward into a drift pile and make snow angels.
