Red Cat

4

Forty-eight hours was more time than David wanted to wait for a progress report. I was happy to report what little progress I’d made over the telephone, but David wouldn’t have it. He was typically specific in his other demands too: no stopping by his office, no meetings south of Park Row or anywhere on the Upper East Side, and definitely no house calls- not to his house, anyway. In the end, we met at the Florida Room, an airy, high-concept diner around the corner from my place. It has a lot of jalousies and slow-turning ceiling fans, and enough background noise for private conversation. There’s a row of booths along the back wall and I was in one, working on a bowl of oatmeal, when David arrived. He kept his coat on and sat and stared out the windows at the pedestrians and cars.

“Holly Cade,” he said again, and shook his head. “Never heard of her.” He dug his hands into his coat pockets and seemed to shiver. The waitress came and David ordered orange juice and nothing else.

“How about Jill Nolan?” I asked.

“Not her either,” he said softly.

He was turned out in pinstriped navy, crisp and spotless despite the messy sidewalks. But David also looked smaller today, and older and more distracted too.

“Is this Nolan going to tell her pal about your call?” he asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “Probably. And I don’t expect it will take Holly long to figure out what it was about.”

“That’s fucking great,” David said. “What happened to discretion?”

“You think she’ll be surprised that you’re looking for her? It’s not like she ordered you not to try to find her, after all. Hell, she might even be flattered. Maybe it’ll make her get in touch.”

“Fucking great,” he said again. David’s juice came, but he just looked at it for a while and went back to peering out the window. He looked east and west and east again, searching for something along the length of Seventeenth Street.

“Has she called again?” I asked.

David snorted. “Don’t you think I would’ve mentioned it?”

I was by no means certain, but I nodded anyway. “Did something else happen, then?”

He stiffened and shook his head slowly. “What the hell are you going on about?”

“You seem a little jumpy.”

David stared at me for a long moment, his eyes feverish in his waxen face. “Don’t think you know something about me now, because you don’t,” he said. He tugged at a tiny scrap of skin over his Adam’s apple, a nervous habit he’d had since he was a kid but that I hadn’t seen in years. And I thought of something I hadn’t thought of for at least as long.

I couldn’t have been much older than ten, which made David maybe twelve. It was springtime, I remembered, because the French doors were opened onto the terrace, and a table was set outside with our parents’ breakfast on it, though no one was eating. And I remembered it was a weekday, because Irma, the woman who took care of us back then, was orbiting raggedly around Lauren and me, trying to get us ready for school. But her efforts were in vain that morning; we were even less cooperative than usual, distracted as we were by the tension congealing around us, and the dangerous hum in the air.

It was what happened when the usually simmering border war between our parents heated up to something more overt. We never knew the substance of their conflict, or the particulars that brought things to a boil, but we knew more or less what to expect: lowered voices, raspy whispers, quick footsteps and slamming doors, and a thick, oppressive silence in between. Familiar, but frightening nonetheless.

We hadn’t seen our mother, but only heard her voice in jagged fragments. Our father had made a brief appearance, unshaven and still in his striped pajamas and robe- he’d given up going to the Klein amp; Sons offices years before. He breezed through the kitchen with a bottle of seltzer under his arm and ruffled his hand through my hair. His smile was lopsided and his eyes were unfocused. He breezed off again, in the direction of the bedrooms, and I followed at a distance. I found David outside the double doors to their room, his ear cocked. He turned away as I approached.

“What are they saying?” I whispered. He didn’t answer. “Can you hear?” Again, nothing. I stepped up to the door, to listen myself, and I saw David’s face- the tears in his eyes and on his cheeks. It was the first time I remember seeing him cry.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” he snapped.

“Nothing.”

“Then get out of here.”

“Can you hear?” I asked again. “What are they talking about?”

David wheeled and wiped his arm across his face and shoved me in the chest. “You, you little faggot- they’re talking about what a fucking loser you are, and how they’re sending you to military school. So you better run now, before the Marines show up to take you.”

I stumbled backward until I hit the hallway wall. My eyes were burning. “Fuck you, crybaby,” I whispered.

David stared at me and tugged at a tiny scrap of skin over his Adam’s apple. He looked for a long time and then his fist came up from what seemed like nowhere and split my lower lip.

It was the first time for that too.

I shook my head and shook the thought away and the restaurant din returned. David was still looking at me across the table.

“So where the hell does this Cade live- in Wilton?”

“Somebody named Nicole Cade lives there- the only Cade in town; I don’t know if she knows Holly. But Jill Nolan grew up there, and she and Holly were childhood friends, and-”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah- I get it,” David said, and looked up and down Seventeenth Street some more. “Just call me when you get back.”

The waitress came to refill my coffee cup, and when she left David did too.

Wilton was just over an hour’s drive from the city, north and east on 95 and then north on Route 7- chaotic interstate followed by strip malls followed by pricey clapboard suburbs. Concrete and slush gave way to pines and stone fences and still white snow, and the cars were fewer but more expensive. I turned off 7 onto Route 33, toward Ridge-field, and turned again when I came to Cranberry Lane. It was a quiet road and the houses were large and far-between along it. My rent-a-car fishtailed through two miles of scenic turns before I reached the Cade place.

It was a red-doored, black-shuttered white colonial set well back from the road, and set handsomely in its landscape. The big lindens in front would make for nice shade in summer and nice color in fall, and the conservatory at the south end, while certainly not original, was well proportioned and well matched to the lines of the roof and the flow of the façade. The plantings around the stone foundations were wrapped in neat burlap. Snow lay like cake frosting on the brown bundles and covered the broad front lawn in a pristine blanket that was painfully bright under the noontime sky. The curving drive was plowed to a layer of ice and packed gravel and I took my time driving up, parking in the turnaround by the garage, and walking back down the shoveled flagstone path. The man on the front steps, fussing clumsily with a screwdriver and the hinges of a storm door, watched me the whole way.

He was middle-aged and bulky, and soft-looking all over, and his dark eyes were vaguely nervous behind rimless glasses. He took off his Red Sox cap and his brown hair was messy and thinning underneath. He wiped his brow on the sleeve of his corduroy shirt, and cursed when he dropped his screwdriver into the snow. He stooped to retrieve it and the storm door swung against his hip. I caught him by the elbow before he tipped.

“Thanks,” he said softly. He steadied himself on my arm as he rose. His face was small and bland and fleshy around the jaw. A web of shattered veins darkened the pinched end of his nose, and embarrassment colored his unshaven cheeks.

“Mr. Cade?” I asked.

His mouth puckered in annoyance. “My name is Deering, Herbert Deering. Who are you looking for?”

“Nicole Cade,” I said. Nicole Cade was the name the public records search had returned- the owner of this house, its purchaser six years back from a Fredrick Cade.

The man’s annoyance heightened for a moment, and then was gone. “Nicole’s my wife, but she didn’t say anyone was stopping by. You arewho?”

“John March. Is your wife at home?”

Deering slid the screwdriver into the back pocket of his jeans and wiped his hands on his thighs. “What is it you want to see her about?”

I looked past him through the open door, into the entrance foyer and down the wide center hall. I saw a brass chandelier, cream-colored walls, glossy wood floors, and dark Persian rugs, and I heard sharp footsteps, like blows from a tack hammer. A shadow crossed the hallway near the back, beyond the staircase.

“Holly,” I said. “I’m here about Holly.”

Deering nearly dropped his hat. His voice grew softer and more anxious. “What about Holly?”

A woman’s voice interrupted. It was deep and impatient and something like a wood rasp. It seemed to scare Herbert Deering. “Who is it, Herbert, and what do they want? I’m trying to get some work done, for chrissakes.”

The hard footsteps grew closer and a woman came down the hall. I looked at her and looked for some resemblance to the Wren David had described. The height maybe, and maybe the hair. I didn’t speculate on the tattoo or the birthmark.

She was north of forty, tall and gaunt, with angular shoulders beneath her green turtleneck and thin, hard-looking legs in snug jeans. Her face was bony and weathered, any prettiness there worn down by wind and sun, and carved into a wedge of suspicion. Her arctic eyes peered out from a thicket of lines, and her mouth was a bloodless seam beneath the blade of her nose. She pushed faded red hair behind her ears and folded sinewy arms across her chest. Nicole Cade looked several years older than her husband, and many times more formidable. She tapped a loafered foot on the floorboards and turned her gaze on Deering, who wilted beneath it.

“This is Mr. March, Nikki,” he said, and he took his screwdriver from his pocket and retreated to the front steps. “He’s here to talk to you. About Holly.” With that, Deering scuttled off the steps and down the flagstone path toward the garage.

Nicole looked me up and down and took in the paddock boots, the black cords, the gray sweater, and the leather jacket. She nodded minutely and glanced at the big runner’s watch on her bony wrist. Her mouth grew smaller. “What’s this about my sister?” she said.

“Would you mind if we spoke inside?”

“In fact, I would. Now what’s this about my sister?”

I took a deep breath and told my little story again, about the accident and the witness. Nicole didn’t consider it long enough for belief or disbelief. “And what is it you want from me?” she asked.

“I was hoping you could help me get in touch with Holly.”

She looked at me for what seemed a long time, tapping her foot all the while. Her face was motionless and set in well-worn lines of distrust. “That assumes I know something about my sister’s life, Mr. March, and that I have some interest in helping you. But neither assumption is true, I’m afraid.” Nicole Cade looked at her big watch again and back at me.

I almost smiled at her rudeness, and at how much it reminded me of David’s. “I suppose I should have called first.”

“Of course you should have- that’s just polite- but it wouldn’t have changed my answer. I haven’t spoken to Holly in some time.”

“Do you have an address for her, or a telephone number?”

“I thought I’d made myself clear: I don’t know about my sister’s life, and I don’t care to. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

“Sure,” I said. “Do you think your husband might know something more?”

“Certainly not,” she said, and looked as if I’d asked about flying pigs.

“How about any friends in town?”

Nicole Cade pursed her thin lips and a hard light came up in her eyes. “Holly’s not in touch with anyone from Wilton,” she said evenly.

“You’re probably right,” I said, “but it never hurts to ask. Maybe I could start with the neighbors.”

The hard light turned speculative, and she tapped her foot for several beats. “Is that a threat, Mr. March,” she said quietly, “that you’ll make a nuisance of yourself, or embarrass me, if I don’t talk to you? Is that the kind of sleazy thing they teach at private detective school?” The anger in her voice was tamped down, and covered with a layer of satisfaction: I’d lived down to her expectations.

I gave her my most innocent smile. “I’m just trying to do my job, Ms. Cade.”

She checked her watch again, more elaborately this time. “You’re lucky I’ve got work to do, and no time for this nonsense,” she said. She walked down the hallway and took a left at the end, and she was back in under a minute, with a black notebook.

“This is the last address I have for her. I have no idea whether it’s still good.” It was an address in Brooklyn and I copied it down.

“Is she still acting?” I asked.

She sighed impatiently. “Acting, writing, video- Holly’s dabbled in a thousand things, and as far as I know not one has taken. I have no idea what she’s doing now.”

“She can support herself doing that- dabbling?”

Impatience morphed into suspicion, and Nicole Cade squinted at me. “Ask Holly, if you can find her- though how it’s relevant to your accident case escapes me. And now goodbye, Mr. March.” The storm door swung shut and the front door closed behind it, and I was left standing in the cold.

I made my way down the path toward my car. I rounded the corner and found all three garage doors open. There was an immaculate Volvo sedan in one bay, a filthy VW wagon in another, and Herbert Deering in the third, standing by a green metal tool cart and fumbling with a socket wrench. He looked up and dropped the wrench on the concrete floor. The clang made him wince.

“Catching up on some chores?” I asked.

He ducked his head nervously and made a small, rueful smile. “Plenty of time for that now- the wonders of outsourcing.” I nodded sympathetically. Deering opened a drawer in the tool cart and picked through whatever was inside. “You through with Nikki?” he asked.

“More like she’s through with me.”

Deering smiled again. “I didn’t think it would take long, not when you said you’d come to talk about Holly.”

“I guess they don’t get on too well.”

Deering shook his head. “They have nothing to do with each other,” he said, and looked up at me. “Is Holly all right?”

“As far as I know,” I said, and I trotted out my accident story yet again. I was getting to like it, and Deering seemed to have no complaints either. “Your wife gave me an address,” I concluded, “but she didn’t know if it was still good.”

Deering nodded vaguely and opened another drawer. “Holly moves a lot, and like I said she and Nikki don’t keep up. It’s one of those things where one says white and the other has got to say black. It’s a thing with sisters sometimes.”

And not just sisters, I thought. I nodded at him. “Is Holly still making a living as an actress?”

Deering thought about it a while and shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know that she ever made much of a living at it.”

“How does she pay the rent, then- waiting tables?”

“That’s never been her problem,” Deering said, shaking his head. “Her mom left some money.” He looked around and then looked at me. “You going over there? To Brooklyn?” I nodded. “Well…tell her hi if you see her.”

“Will do,” I said, and I dug in my jacket for the car keys. I found them and thought of one more question for Herb Deering. “Who is Fredrick Cade?”

Herb nearly dropped his wrench again. “Fred is Nikki’s dad- my father-in-law. Where’d that come from?”

“This used to be his house?”

Deering grimaced a little. “The girls grew up here. We- Nikkibought it from him a few years back.”

“And where did he go?”

“North of here, up to Brookfield. He’s in an assisted living setup. Why?”

“Do you think Holly might be in touch with him? Just in case this address is out of date.”

He blanched. “God, no. The one person Holly gets on worse with than Nikki is Fred. No way she’s in touch with him. And even if she was, he wouldn’t know it, not the way he is now.” Herb Deering tapped a forefinger to the side of his head. “Alzheimer’s,” he said.

I nodded and started to thank him, when a knob turned at the back of the garage. Nicole Cade was a rigid silhouette in the doorway, and her voice was colder than the air. “I thought we were finished, Mr. March- in fact, I know we were. What are you still doing here?”

“Getting directions back to town,” I said, “and a recommendation of someplace for lunch.”

“Well, we’re not the auto club, and Herbert has better things to do with his time, I’m sure.”

I smiled to myself and shook my head. The garage doors dropped before I made it to my car.

It was nearly three when I got home. Much of Sixteenth Street lay in shadow, and the slush had begun to refreeze underfoot. The lobby of my building was empty and the hallways were quiet. My apartment was filled with winter light, like a vast gray sheet over the furniture. Nobody home. I put my jacket on the kitchen counter and poured myself a glass of water, and started when I heard music from upstairs.

A lawyer moved in up there a year ago, on a two-year sublease. He’s generally pretty quiet, and even when he’s not his music is inoffensive, but I jumped every time I heard it. Every time, I thought of Jane Lu.

It was two years last November that she’d bought the place upstairs, and shortly after that we’d become lovers. It wasn’t even six months later that Jane had gone away, first on an extended vacation to Italy and then to another of her CEO-for-hire gigs, this time in Seattle. She’d wanted me to go with her, on the vacation part at least, and if I had, she might still be living upstairs. But I hadn’t gone and she hadn’t stayed and maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference, anyway. Maybe it was doomed from the start.

Certainly there wasn’t much left of me by the time I met her. By then it had been three years since my wife, Anne, had been killedshot neatly and precisely and left to die within yards of our front porch, the last of many victims of a man who wouldn’t live to see the end of that day. It was my biggest case by far as a sheriff’s investigator up in Burr County, and my last one, and I’d fucked it up from start to finish. My stupidity and ego had let Morgan Furness run loose for too long, and let him turn the investigation around on me and into an elaborately constructed suicide by cop.

For months afterward I was consumed by chaos- by anger and guilt and annihilating grief, and a hurricane of alcohol and drugs. When the storm passed, I was no longer a policeman and I’d succeeded in burning down most of my life. From the charred bits that remained I’d fashioned something else, something small and simple, made of work and running and solitude. It was modest craftsmanship, but it was all that I could manage.

It was nineteen months since I’d seen Jane last, and listened to her last scratchy message on my telephone.

“I can’t do this, John. I thought I could, but I was wrong. I tried to keep things at arm’s length- tell myself you were like Nick Charles or something, and your work was clever and glamorous, and somehow separate from you. But that’s bullshit, and I can’t pretend otherwise.

“There’s nothing amusing about being followed. There’s nothing witty about beatings and guns and emergency rooms. There’s nothing funny about getting shot. I don’t know why you want that in your life, John, but I know I don’t.

“Maybe it would be easier if I knew what you were looking for from all this- from us. Or maybe there’s no mystery to it. Maybe you’re not looking for anything at all. Maybe your life is already just the way you want it.”

Doomed from the start.

I ate some aspirin and drained my water glass. I took out my notes from Wilton and carried them to the table and started reading. I was dozing over them when the intercom buzzed and I jumped again. I went to the wall unit and watched the grainy image emerge on the tiny video screen. It wasn’t memory that disturbed me this time, but a more surprising visitor: my sister-in-law Stephanie. David’s wife.