End of Watch

Al and her father were their only children. Al died not long after she'd moved to California and his wife had returned to Illinois.

Her cousin John had died of hepatitis, contracted from dirty needles. Her other cousin went to Illinois with his mother. Last Frank had heard, in a long-ago letter from her mother, he'd found God and joined a fringe Klu Klux Klan. Frank wouldn't have been surprised to see his name pop up on an FBI bulletin.

She tried to remember her father's co-workers, his friends at the bars. Her mother had known hundreds of people but Frank couldn't say she'd been close to any of them. She scanned nearby headstones, looking for similar offerings. There weren't any. Whoever put the flowers and votive here had done so deliberately.

Frank squatted in front of the candle. It had a paper picture on it, a kid dressed like a pilgrim. Santo Nino de Atocha. She reached for the glass, then pulled her hand back.

Someone would have left prints on it.

Frank studied the flowers. White chrysanthemums wilting at the edges. In an old mayonnaise jar stained with evaporation lines. The jar had been used before. She stood, peering down into the candle. There was water, about an inch collected at the bottom. Her heart was speeding. She wished she had a camera. She checked the headstones again, making sure she had the right ones. She calculated the odds of having identical headstones in the same cemetery, deciding they were slim to nonexistent in a place the size of Canarsie. She found two fallen branches and stuck them into the jars, inverting the glass onto the sticks so she could carry them without marring the prints.

Carrying the jars like flags, she walked to the corner deli she'd noticed on the way in. She asked a three- hundred-pound man for a phone book and he grudgingly slid it over the counter. Frank found the number for the Ninth Precinct and called on her cell phone.

'Sergeant-Jones-NYPD-how-can-I-help-you.'

'Sergeant Jones, who would I talk to about a lead on a very old homicide?'

'Depends. How old we talkin'?'

'It's about'—Frank calculated—'thirty-six years cold.'

'That's pretty icy. Where did this alleged homicide occur?'

'Ninth Precinct and last I heard, about twelve years ago, a detective from the Ninth was working it.'

'What was his name?'

'Can't remember. He called out of the blue, surprised me that anyone was still working on it.'

'Yeah, you think we're just sitting around drinkin' coffee and eatin' doughnuts, right?'

'Well, actually I'm a homicide lieutenant with the LAPD, so no, I don't think that.'

'No shit?'

'Absolute constipation, Sergeant. So who would I talk to?'

'Seein' as how it's Sunday, that'd be Meyer or Silvester. Hold on a sec.'

Frank waited until another voice came on the line.

'Homicide. Silvester.

The name came out 'Silvestuh,' in classic New York-ese. The voice was husky, but definitely a woman's.

'Detective Silvester, my name's Lieutenant Franco. I'm with LAPD homicide, and I got something that might help with an old unsolved of yours.'

'Of mine?'

'Not yours specifically. Of the department's.'

Silvester echoed the desk sergeant, 'How old we talkin' here?'

'Nineteen sixty-nine.'

Silvester whistled. 'That's a mystery, all right. What sorta lead we talkin' about?'

'It's a long story, but I have some prints that should get checked out.'

'Prints? What kinda prints?'

'Like I said, it's a long story and rather than tell it to every dick in the NYPD I'd rather just tell it to whoever's gonna look at this case.'

The detective bristled. 'Well, you know, we just don't go opening up old mysteries every time Jane Q. Public calls and says, 'Oh, I got a clue here's gonna blow this thing wide open.''

Frank's temper surged like a dark tide, an unpleasant side effect of sobriety. Mary had assured her it was a phase and that it would pass, but until it did, Frank just had to ride it out, breathe through it. Mary said to pray through it but Frank couldn't do that. Instead she thought of song lyrics. Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking.

'You there?'

And when she passes, each one she passes, goes, 'Ahh.'

'Hello?'

'Detective Silvester. We're both in the same business so I'd appreciate a little respect here. I'm not some mope off the god-damn street. I have a viable lead in an open case. You can deal with me here and now or you can deal with your supervisor after I get through with him. I'll leave it up to you.'

After a long pause in which Frank wondered if Silvester was mouthing lyrics too, the detective demanded, 'What's the case numbuh?'

'I don't have it with me. The victim's name was Franco. Francis Matthew Franco. The case would have been opened on twelve February, nineteen sixty-nine.'

'Franco. So how are you related to the vie?'

'I'm his daughter.'

'You're his daughter and you think you got a lead?'

'That's right.'

'And you say you're with the LAPD?'

'Correct again.'

'You got credentials to verify this?'

Oh, but he watches so sadly.

'Yes.' Frank bit the hiss off the s.

The detective sighed. 'Spell Franco for me.'

Frank did.

'You got a number I can call you back?'

'Not right now, no,' Frank lied. 'How 'bout I call you in twenty?'

'Yeah, all right.'

The detective hung up and Frank sneered at her phone. She snagged a cabbie and held up a finger. Back in the deli she asked the clerk for a box.

'A box?' He was mystified, as if Frank had asked him to pull a stealth bomber out from under the counter.

'Yeah, you know. Groceries come in 'em. They're square? Tan? Made of cardboard?'

'Yeah, smart-ass, I know what a freakin' box is. You gonna buy somethin' today or just see how much you can get for free?'

'Look, I'll buy the goddamn thing. Do you have one or not?'

The man gestured with pursed lips. 'Over there,' he said, indicating a door to the rear.

Frank found an empty candy carton, showing it to him as she passed the counter, slapping down a buck.

'Lower East Side,' she told the cabbie. 'Ninth Precinct.'

'You know what street?'

Do I know what street, Frank thought.

The Ninth's arched entrance was branded into her memory. She still had dreams where she passed under the rounded alcove and stood before the massive duty desk, but instead of a cop behind the desk there was always a bad guy. Usually a junkie with black holes for eyes. Never a cop in sight, just junkies everywhere, shooting up, sprawled on the nod, vomiting, shaking, pacing .. .

'Fifth. Between First and Second.'

The cabbie nodded and took off. Frank cradled the box in her lap. They crossed the East River and Frank accepted the water's flat metallic smell like the kiss from a loving but homely woman.