They Don't Play Stickball in Milwaukee

Lovesong Lane

We were two hours and three cups of coffee into the trip, just crossing the Tappan Zee, when MacClough began giving instructions. I was to do most of the talking, at least in the beginning. I was just a concerned uncle who had asked an old friend along for the long ride. Johnny would pick his spot and take over, but I was always to stand between him and the investigating detective. John threw the Hench Security file on my lap and told me to look through it. I did.

MacClough was right, Hench was thorough. Not only did the file contain verbatim transcripts of all their interviews, bios, and background material on the interviewees, but there was a copy of the Castle-on-Hudson Police Department report and bios of the investigating officers. It was all so precise and the binding wasn’t bad either. Unfortunately, neither Hench nor the police nor any of Zak’s friends had any idea of his whereabouts or, if they had, they weren’t saying.

“So,” Johnny broke the quiet a few minutes out of town, “how you holding up?”

“Like a straw man.”

“Then we’ll have to keep you outta the wind.”

“Last night, my brother mentioned the Hernan-”

“You know,” he cut me off, “last night after you left, I couldn’t help thinking about the last time I saw my old man. He was in the hospital and he whispers in my ear to get rid of the nurse. When I do, he pulls out two cans of Rheingold from under his damned pillow.”

“No shit! What’d’ydo?”

“I laid into him good.”

“Why, because he wasn’t allowed to drink?”

“No, Klein, because the beer was warm. We never shared much, me and the old man, but at least we shared that Rheingold.”

After a pause, I said: “You know my brother’s not telling us everything.”

“I know. I just can’t figure out what he’s holding back or why. When he got so determined about no press involvement, I knew something wasn’t kosher. We’re here!”

Castle-on-Hudson had once been the exclusive enclave of old moneyed families whose names read like the passenger manifest from the Mayflower. These days, the locals were more apt to be descended from peasants that sailed across the Atlantic in steerage. The most recent arrivals, however, tended to migrate on 747s owned by Air India or All Nippon Air. Still, the majority of lots were zoned for a minimum of two acres and handyman specials went for about half a million.

The police station was an old stone building that looked like a set piece from MacBeth. The police department itself was the typically schizophrenic kind of force you find in wealthy communities. The uniformed officers tended to be young, obedient muscle-heads who liked to write tickets and carry 9 mms. Armed meter maids, MacClough called them. The detectives were a whole ‘nother story. They were mostly retired big city detectives. Some just missed the job. Some were looking for a second pension. They were well paid and happy not have to deal with the bureaucratic bull-shit big city departments serve up in large portions. If MacClough were inclined, he’d have been an ideal candidate.

No one seemed to pay us much mind as we walked through the front doors. There was a flurry of activity in the station house. Packs of uniformed officers ran up and down the twin spiral staircases that stood to either side of the main desk. To our right, three stony-faced state troopers studied a local map. To our left, a small horde of media types waited impatiently outside the police chiefs door.

“What’s going on?” I asked Johnny. “I mean, I’ve never been in here before, but I can’t imagine that Castle-on-Hudson usually attracts much press. And what are the state troopers doing?”

“I don’t-” he cut himself off as we approached the main desk. “See the black band across the sergeant’s badge?”

“Dead cop?”

“Dead cop, probably murdered. The press doesn’t turn out for kidney failure.” He crossed himself. “Let’s just do what we came here to do. You remember the detective’s name, right?”

“Caliparri, retired member of the Detective Bureau of the Newark, New Jersey Police Department.”

“Good.”

The desk sergeant didn’t exactly snap to attention when we approached. That was fine with me. It gave me more time to study the soft lines of her face and imagine how her pulled-back auburn hair might fall against her lightly freckled skin. When she looked up, the corners of her full lips smiled politely, but the corners of her eyes smiled not at all. Eyes shot with blood are never easy to look at. The blue shine of her eyes made the contrast even harder to take.

“How can I help you gentlemen?” she asked, her voice cracking slightly.

“Detective Caliparri?” She went pale. “Your names?”

“Dylan Klein. John MacClough.”

“One moment.” She picked up the phone, punched in a few numbers, and turned her back to us. We could hear her whisper, but not her words. With some color having returned to her cheeks, she faced us and said: “Staircase to your right. One flight up, third door to your left.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. .Hurley,” I read off her name tag. “Sorry for your loss.”

She just bowed her head and waved us up the steps.

“Come,” the answer came to my knock.

By the time MacClough closed the door behind us, my clothes needed washing. The place reeked of cigarettes and a layer of smoke hung in midair like a sleeping ghost. A man, trying hard to look disinterested, sat on the corner of a desk smoking a Kent. He had a kind, meaty face with a nose that twisted more ways than a ski trail. He was dark-skinned, gray-haired, and brown-eyed. His smoke-yellowed fingers were thick and square at the nail. When he finally stopped the disinterested act, he looked right past me: “John MacClough.” His voice was raspy. His tone was equal parts anger and disdain.

“Klein,” Johnny said, “meet Detective Nick Fazio, late of the NYPD.”

I shook his hand. He shook back. Whatever Fazio had against MacClough apparently wasn’t going to be held against me.

“Look,” I said, “it’s nice that you guys go back. I’m all for reunions, but I’m here to talk to Detective Caliparri.”

“Then I guess you’re gonna have to hold a seance. Caliparri’s dead. Someone broke into his house last night and decided to give him a haircut with a shotgun.”

“Robbery?” MacClough wanted to know.

“The place was ransacked,” Fazio answered, “but the perp left a few grand in cash and jewelery untouched. So whatever he was there for, it wasn’t money. What did you want to talk to him about Mr. Klein?”

“My nephew, Zak Klein. My older brother reported him-”

“Here it is!” Fazio pulled a folder off his desk, waved it at me, stopped and read through it. He looked up and flicked his cigarette butt at MacClough’s feet. “So you’re Jeffrey Klein’s brother.”

“I have that dubious distinction,” I confessed.

“So now I understand why you’re here, sort of. What’s his excuse?”

“He’s a close family friend.”

“Really!” Fazio stood, walked by me, and got right in MacClough’s face. “Geez, and I thought it might have something to do with Hernandez, this being a missing kid and all.”

There was that name again, Hernandez. Ten years we’d known each other and the name Hernandez had only come up in relation to Mets’ baseball. Now, two days in a row, it surfaces in connection with one of MacClough’s cases. Weird. Over the past decade, I thought I’d heard every lurid detail of every big case-good and bad-involving John MacClough. Apparently, one case had slipped his mind. It hadn’t, however, slipped the minds of Jeff Klein or Nick Fazio. On the contrary, the Hernandez case seemed like a very hot topic.

“Show the man some respect, Fazio,” MacClough said coolly. “His nephew is missing and he buried his old man yesterday. You think he gives a shit about us?”

“Sorry about your father,” the detective said, finally facing me. “Look, Mr. Klein, I know the file. I’ll tell you what Caliparri probably told that big macher brother of yours; the kid split. Maybe the pressure of school got too much for him. Maybe he knocked up some girl. Maybe it’s drugs, maybe booze. Maybe it’s all of the above. In this town, the major cash crop is dysfunctional teenagers. Money fucks ‘em up. Now don’t get me wrong. We’ll keep the file open, but he’ll show of his own accord. In this town, they always do.”

I wanted to argue. I didn’t. He made sense. I hoped like hell he was right. I peeked over my shoulder at MacClough, but his expression said nothing to me.

“Thank you, Detective. I hope you don’t mind if I check in with you every few days.”

“Not at all, Mr. Klein. Sorry again about your dad.”

“Sorry about Detective Caliparri,” I said.

He was too busy lighting up to respond. I was by the door, but MacClough had yet to move. He seemed distant, preoccupied.

“Do you think they’re related?” MacClough spoke to Fazio.

“Is what related,” the detective asked rhetorically, “a dead cop and a missing college boy? You been off the job too long. They happened weeks apart. And you’re forgetting, technically the kid went missing all the way the hell upstate in Riversborough. What’s the connection?”

“Just a thought,” MacClough said, “just a thought.”

As I began pulling Fazio’s office door open, someone on the other side pushed it hard. That displeased my right knee greatly.

“Sorry!” It was Sergeant Hurley.

“For chrissakes, Hurley, what is it?” Fazio was impatient.

“Private security firm reports a 1030.”

“Call out the fucking National Guard!” Impatience turned to sarcasm. “I got a dead cop here. On a good day I don’t give a rat’s ass about a 1030. What makes today any different?”

“I think it’s kinda relevant,” Hurley sneered.

“Why? Where’d the break-in happen, at the mayor’s residence?”

“No Detective Fazio, it happened at 5 Lovesong Lane. That’s Mr.-”

I cut her off. “That’s my brother’s house!”

Either Zak’s room had been ripped apart by someone who had a grudge against electronic equipment and wall-board or it had been visited by the world’s most discerning tornado. It even looked worse than most teenagers’ rooms. The rest of Jeffrey’s Victorian nirvana up there overlooking the Hudson had remained untouched.

Before we went in, MacClough said just this: “You know nothing.”

That was a pretty accurate assessment, I thought. But I knew what he meant. Insurance investigators play this game with police all the time. I was to keep private anything I might notice. Fazio and his uniformed minions were to be frozen out, at least for the time being. It was especially easy to play the game that day, for, as I kept reminding the local constabulary: I didn’t live there. I didn’t know where things went. I didn’t know what was missing. It got so tedious, I wanted to run to the nearest print shop and have cards made that read: “My brother will be here shortly. Ask him!”

MacClough had kept his mouth shut until Fazio, frustrated with my inconvenient lack of knowledge and my ban on his smoking in Jeffrey’s house, dismissed us: “You can go.”

“Still think there’s no connection?” MacClough wondered aloud.

“What I think is police business and you ain’t police, not anymore.”

“Same M.O. as Caliparri minus the body?” MacClough guessed.

“Same answer as before. Only now, I’m ordering you to leave.”

When John sensed that I was going to argue, he pulled me out of the house by the arm. He may have been on bad terms with Fazio, but apparently it was important to maintain some measure of goodwill with the detective.

“Where we going?” I asked as we walked to his old Thunderbird.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“And me?”

“You’re going to college.”