She sighed. "Yeah. What are you in here for?"
It slowly dawned on me that she thought I had been arrested. "Oh, I"m not in for anything. I"m just waiting for someone."
She chortled. "OK," she said, not believing that explanation. "Me, too."
"No, really. I"m just waiting for a detective." Against my better judgment, I asked her, "What are you in for?"
She rolled her eyes. "Stabbing my man. The way he treats me, they should be giving me a f.u.c.king medal, not throwing me in jail." She held up her handcuffed hands and screamed at the desk sergeant. "I told you that these are too tight!"
He looked at her. "If you don"t shut your freaking mouth, I"m sticking you in a cell."
"I haven"t gotten my phone call!" she screamed. "Anyway, I told you that he fell on the knife!"
The sergeant pantomimed playing the violin.
She kept screaming. "I have rights! I"ve been here all f.u.c.king day!"
He came down from around the desk and stood in front of her, a short, sausage-shaped man who looked better behind the high desk than in front of it. "I have rights, too! I have the right to do my job and not get a freaking headache! That"s it! Vasquez!" he shouted toward a cl.u.s.ter of cops standing in front of the men"s room. "Get her out of here! And give her her freaking phone call!"
The Asian lady started babbling in what sounded like Chinese and let out a big laugh as Vasquez-the cop who had picked me up-came over and hoisted the spandex lady off the bench. "You should have kept your mouth shut. Now I gotta take you downstairs," he said, shaking his head sadly.
I held my breath for a minute while Vasquez dragged her off. The woman was nearly twice his size and was flailing about like a giant grouper on the deck of a fishing boat. A couple of cops watched Vasquez struggle for a few minutes before taking pity on him and helping him pull her down to the floor. One of them sat on her midsection and the other held her arms down. I watched this car wreck of police activity for a few minutes and finally had to look away when it became apparent the woman wasn"t wearing any underwear. My cell phone began to ring a minute later, and I nearly wet my pants, the sound of it jolting me back to reality. I reached into my pocket-book, grabbing it before it rang again and flipping it open. Max was screaming into my ear before I even managed to get out a greeting.
"We"re going to lose our table!" she hollered into the phone. "You promised me you were going to be on time!"
"I can"t talk to you right now," I hissed into the phone. "You"re going to have to cut me some slack. I was just kidnapped by Peter Miceli and left in the middle of nowhere. I"m waiting for Crawford at some precinct that apparently has been fashioned after Dante"s seventh ring of h.e.l.l, and I will not be coming to dinner. Got that?"
She continued yelling at me, even though I could hear her perfectly well. "What do you mean you were kidnapped by Peter Miceli?"
"What part of that do you not understand?" I hollered back at her. I was out of patience. As far as I was concerned, if someone tells you they were kidnapped, there shouldn"t be any additional explanation necessary. I was so angry that I forgot to tell her that she might be in danger, too, before I hung up. I looked over at the Asian woman, who was staring at me. "What are you looking at?" I asked, and she turned away. I guess she spoke English after all.
Crawford arrived almost an hour later, during which time I came close to having a nervous breakdown. He walked into the station house, glad-handed a couple of uniformed cops, and greeted the desk sergeant by name. When he was done with his "return the conquering hero" routine, he turned to me, a little smile playing on his lips. I had crossed my arms and legs in an attempt at making myself as small as possible while sitting on the bench and waiting for him. He knew me well enough to know that this was the worst possible place I could be: it was loud, dirty, filled with criminals, and not the place you would usually find someone like me. I don"t even like going to the Port Authority Bus Terminal for precisely the same reasons. He had on a white oxford shirt and jeans, the gold shield hanging over the pocket of the shirt. He came over to the bench, and I stood.
He asked me if I was hurt, and I told him that I was fine except for the sc.r.a.pe on my upper thigh. He looked at the sc.r.a.pe and told me that he would get me some Band-Aids. He smiled. "Let"s go over this again. If someone pulls up next to you on the street and says "get in the car," what do you do?" he asked in a patronizing tone, I guess for the benefit of all of the other cops who were watching the two of us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a couple of the uniformed cops chuckle. I resisted the urge to give the whole lot of them the finger as he took my arm and led me to a staircase next to the high desk.
We walked up a flight of stairs to the detectives" area and went through a swinging door. "He had a gun, Crawford."
"Did he point it at you?" he asked, concerned.
I thought for a minute. "Well, no, but he had one. And it was big."
"As big as mine?" he asked.
"I don"t know," I said, out of patience with him, too. "I haven"t seen yours up close."
He looked down at me and couldn"t control the urge to laugh out loud. We went down a short hallway, pa.s.sing a couple of detectives, who fortunately did not have prisoners angry about the fit of their handcuffs or otherwise. He asked one of them as they pa.s.sed if they could bring a first-aid kit to Interrogation Room Number One.
He knocked on the door of the interrogation room and, satisfied that it was empty, brought me inside and closed the door. Once we were alone, he wrapped his arms around me, and I let out a couple of the sobs that I had been holding in.
He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to me. "Here."
I sat down at a chair next to the table. "Thanks. You bought a new package of handkerchiefs, huh?" I wiped my eyes with the new, pressed handkerchief.
"Do you want a cup of coffee? Water? A c.o.ke?" he asked, pulling out the chair next to mine. He took a yellow legal pad and a pen from the center of the table and began to write-the date, time, and our names.
I shook my head. "I just want to go home." I noticed two black marks on his clean white shirt and knew that they were from my supposedly waterproof mascara. I blew my nose again. "I"m sorry I had to call you. I didn"t know what else to do."
He grabbed both of my hands in his; his were warm and mine were like ice. He rubbed my fingers. "You did the right thing. Tell me what happened."
I started with the walk down the street toward the train and ended with being dumped out of the car in the Bronx. I told him how Peter said that whether I helped him or not, he "owed" me. I told him that Peter knew that we had gone to the beach, and his sharp intake of breath told me that that wasn"t good news. I managed to get the story out without crying until I got to the part where he threatened first Ray, and then Max.
I had never seen him look alarmed, so the fear and concern on his face now made me nervous. "Where"s Max now?"
"I suppose she"s eating at n.o.bu on Hudson Street. I was supposed to have dinner with her, but I got kidnapped instead."
"You get kidnapped a lot." He stood and went over to a metal credenza against the wall. There was a phone; he picked up the receiver and punched in some numbers, mouthing "Fred" to me. "Hey, it"s me. Yeah." He laughed at Fred"s apparent witty repartee and then turned serious. "Listen, we"ve got a situation." He explained where he was and why. "Miceli kidnapped Alison and has made a threat against the ex and Max Rayfield." He listened for a few minutes and then turned to me. "Where does Ray live?" he asked me, his hand over the mouthpiece.
"Twenty-two-thirty Kappock Street. Apartment five," I said.
He repeated Ray"s address into the phone. "And Max is probably at n.o.bu . . . One-oh-five Hudson Street," he said, as I recited that address and then her home address, which he also gave to Fred. "Send a patrol car," he said. He listened for a minute, "You want to go?" He seemed confused. "OK. Just make sure someone picks her up outside the restaurant. You can tail her or let her know what"s happening. Whatever you think is best under the circ.u.mstances." He hung up. "Fred"s going to get Max. He says he"s not too far from downtown and that it won"t take him long to get down there."
I felt better. At least I knew that if she got mowed down, gangland-style, in front of the restaurant, she would have spent her last moments with her new crush.
"Do you want Miceli picked up?"
"No!" I screamed, startling him. "Don"t pick him up. I don"t want him to know that you know what he did. He"ll kill me for sure then."
He thought about that for a moment. "I think you"ll be safe for a little while. I"m thinking that you are more valuable to Miceli alive than dead. But I"m going to stick a detail on you anyway. I"m sure Miceli will have one on you, too."
Oh, good.
He put a few more notes on the pad. He continued looking down. "I"m your detail for tonight."
I shook my head. "Oh, no, you"re not. You"ve got your daughters for the weekend, and I don"t want to ruin that."
"My aunt Bea lives in the apartment below me, so she"ll take care of them." He ripped a few pages off the legal pad and put them in his pocket.
I could only focus on one thing, having grown up watching The Andy Griffith Show. "You have an aunt Bea?"
He nodded. "And she"s already up in the apartment, engaged in her favorite activity: torturing the girls about why they don"t go to weekly confession." He stood. "See? Everyone wins."
There was a knock at the door and a detective walked in with a first-aid kit. Crawford thanked him and closed the door again, putting the kit on the table. "Let me see that cut."
I stood and turned to the side. My right pant leg, which was in tatters, was stuck to the wound, the blood acting as an adhesive. I winced as he knelt and pulled the flap of my pants away from it and took a good look. "I think you have to take your pants off." Sad face. That was a new reaction to my being pantless.
"Nice try. You going to invite me up to your apartment next to see your etchings, too?"
He shook his head. He was serious.
"I"m not taking my pants off in front of you in a police station. You do get an A for effort, though." I left out the small detail that I hadn"t shaved my legs in a few days and that the lower half of my body was beginning to resemble that of a woolly mammoth. I opened the first-aid kit and took out a piece of gauze. I stuck it to the cut and tried to wipe off some of the dried blood, but I could see that, in fact, I would eventually have to take my pants off. I gave up and just pressed the gauze to the wound, holding it there until I was sure the bleeding had stopped.
He stood in front of me, his arms crossed, watching me try to take care of the sc.r.a.pe. "You might be the most stubborn person I have ever met."
"Shut up and take me home," I said. I looked at my watch; it was only eight-thirty, but I was exhausted and wanted to go to bed.
Crawford picked up the phone again and dialed out. "Erin? It"s Dad. I"ve got to work tonight. Did Aunt Bea come up?" He waited, smiling as she kept talking. "If I"m not back, take Bea out for breakfast in the morning." He looked over at me. "I"ll see you tomorrow. I love you."
I felt terrible that he wasn"t with them. "I"m sorry, Crawford."
"It"s fine. I was getting on their nerves anyway. They say I"m too strict. And they claim that I interrogate them," he said, and laughed. "Can you believe that? Me? Ask questions? I don"t know where they come up with some of this stuff." He laughed, but I could tell that he was only half-joking. I could only imagine what he put them through during their day and a half together every week. He took his keys out of his pocket. "We"re done here. I"ll follow up with the desk sergeant tomorrow and do a formal report. Let"s get you home."
We drove back to Dobbs Ferry, a half hour or so from the police station. As he pulled the car up the driveway, I asked him if his station house was like the one that I had just spent time in.
"The four-one is a special place," he admitted. "Why do you want to know?"
"It"s h.e.l.l. How do you go to a place like that every day?" I asked. I thought about the woman in the spandex dress and the fact that she had stabbed her "man" but didn"t feel a bit of remorse. And the fact that she went out in public without underwear.
"You get used to it," he said dismissively. It sounded like the subject was closed.
I didn"t believe him, but I let it go. Although he attempted a tough-guy act, I suspected that he was more sensitive than he let on. I had a hard time imagining him being unaffected by what he saw at work every day if the two women I had sat between were any indication of the human flotsam and jetsam that floated in.
I opened the car door and got out, feeling a cool mist cover my face. I saw Jackson in his backyard, calling for Trixie, but he either didn"t see me or didn"t want to talk to me. He never looked up but continued searching around and calling the dog"s name.
Crawford waited until I came around to his side of the car and put his arm around my shoulders. My arm encircled his waist. "You have a neighbor named Trixie?" He pulled me closer. "She"s someone I have to meet. Sounds like the kind of girl who spikes the punch at the prom."
"Trixie"s a dog. A very beautiful and voluptuous dog, but a dog, nonetheless." We went in through the front door. I looked into the living room and saw that the bedclothes on the couch were still there. "I"ll sleep down here tonight," I said.
"No, you won"t," he said. "I was fine down here last night and will be fine down here again." He took off his badge and put it in his pants pocket. "Why don"t you get cleaned up? Are you hungry?"
I couldn"t tell. My stomach was still a little upset. "I don"t think I"m hungry, but I could use a drink. Can you make a martini?" I took off my coat and put it in the closet.
"I think so. Even though the Irish usually stick to things they can drink directly from a can or bottle, we know our way around the back of a bar, too."
I started up the stairs, my bones achy and my muscles tired. My sense of humor was gone. "Find the biggest gla.s.s you can, chill it, and then fill it to the brim with frozen vodka. Can you handle that?"
He gave me a salute. "Got it." He called up after me. "Is there any tiramisu left?"
I told him there was.
"Can I eat it?"
I told him he could. I got upstairs and closed the bedroom door. I gingerly took my pants and shirt off and sat down on the bed in my underwear. I was in shock; it was almost as if Peter had scared the life out of me. After a few minutes, I heard a soft knock at the door.
"Can I come in?" he asked.
The knock shook me out of my fugue state. "Just a second," I called. I got off the bed and pulled on the pajama pants I had worn the night before, which I had left hanging on the bedpost. I called to him that he could come in.
He opened the door and peeked in. "Are you decent?" When he saw that I was clothed, he came all the way in. He had a big martini in one hand and a piece of tiramisu in the other, which he put on my dresser. "I"m serious about that sc.r.a.pe. We really need to disinfect it. I saw some gravel in there." Sad face. "You might need st.i.tches."
I thought about my options. I could go to the emergency room and sit there all night, not do anything, and die of infection, or let him look at the wound and my hairy legs. I went into the bathroom. "Fine. Get in here." I opened the cabinet under the sink and took out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, some Band-Aids, and a washcloth, and handed them to him. "Do your thing. Just make it fast."
He laughed. "That"s not the first time I"ve heard that," he said. When I didn"t laugh, he became serious again. He put the supplies on the counter, along with the martini, which he had carried into the bathroom. "Do you have a tweezer?"
I felt the blood drain from my face. This was going to be worse than I thought. "We need a tweezer?"
I got the sad face and a nod. I opened the medicine cabinet and took out the tweezer and handed it to him. He, in turn, handed me the martini. "Take a big drink," he said. He washed the tweezer in the sink and dumped some hydrogen peroxide on it.
I finished half of the martini and the warmth spread from my throat down to the pit of my stomach. I rolled the waistband of my pants down, sat on one cheek on the closed toilet-seat cover, and looked away, my eyes closed. I winced as I felt his hand on my upper thigh.
"I haven"t done anything yet," he said. He put a washcloth in my hand. "Squeeze this. I"ll try to be fast." He knelt down and put the tweezer into the wound to start extracting gravel. After a few minutes, he seemed to have gotten all of it, and he took the washcloth from me. Tears were rolling down my cheeks. "I"m sorry," he said, and put his arms around me. "We"re almost done." He soaked the washcloth in hydrogen peroxide, washed the sc.r.a.pe, and put a few Band-Aids over it. "Done," he said, and stood. "Do you want me to make you some dinner?"
I wasn"t hungry. "I"m really tired, Crawford. I think I"m just going to go to bed."
We walked back into the bedroom; he carried my drink and the plate of tiramisu over as I got under the quilt. "At least finish your drink first," he said, and handed me the martini. He sat down at the end of the bed and took a bite of dessert.
I took another drink. "How many guns do you have with you tonight?" I asked.
He held up two fingers. "And one of them is really big." He gave me his most lascivious smile and held his hands two feet apart.
I still wasn"t in a joking mood. "That should be enough." I took another long drink of the martini and finished it off. I closed my eyes because I couldn"t look at him. "Please stay up here with me tonight."
He put the tiramisu on the bed, unb.u.t.toned his shirt, and got under the quilt. He grabbed the plate. "Only if I can hold you closer," he said, and fed me a piece of tiramisu.
Twenty-three.
My daytime detail consisted of a large female police officer who made Crawford look like a ninety-eight-pound weakling. She spent the day in a car outside my house until I asked her in for a cup of coffee around three. She told me that her name was Sally Hiney, and being the four-year-old that I am, I couldn"t look her in the eye without choking back a guffaw.
She must have sensed the hilarity bubbling beneath my calm exterior because she mentioned that the last person who had made fun of her name ended up with a black eye, eying me over the top of her coffee mug.
Crawford and Hiney had met up at the precinct earlier that morning and he had given her the Shakespeare papers. She returned them to me that afternoon; I put them in their permanent resting place in my briefcase. He had had them tested by a drug a.n.a.lyst in the police department and had come up empty. No drugs were found on this set, but they still had all of the papers from my prior cla.s.ses to test. He and Wyatt couldn"t get anywhere with Costigan to find out why they had kidnapped me besides the fact that they wanted papers that I had in my possession; his lawyer had advised him to remain tight-lipped, and he was obeying. So, they were back at square one.
I had to go to the awards ceremony that night, and Officer Hiney told me that she would drive me to school whenever I needed to leave. She dropped me off behind the building and parked the car next to the dorm, letting me know that she was there and would keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.
The entire office area was empty, as I suspected it would be late on a Sunday afternoon. It was dark and dreary, the large windows illuminating the rain and fog, and nothing else. The door to my office was closed and locked. I put my things onto the prefect"s table.
I had a little time to kill until Max arrived-Sister Mary had invited her to attend the ceremony as well-so I pulled out the Shakespeare papers and thumbed through them, trying to a.s.sess just how much work I had to do in order to get them back to their respective owners.
Max arrived a few minutes later. She looked beautiful in black, hip-hugging pants and a cobalt blue silk shirt with a wide collar and French cuffs. She carried a bag the size, color, and shape of a pork chop. I must have missed this month"s Vogue because I didn"t know pork had become hot.
She didn"t make eye contact with me right away. "Are we still talking?"
I hugged her. "Of course we are."