Doyle lived in a two-story, twelve-unit apartment building at least thirty years old, its stucco and wood facade showing signs of advanced age and not much TLC. What had once been a front lawn bisected by a cracked concrete path was now two rectangles of brown hay almost tall enough for harvesting. I went into an open foyer and found the mailbox marked: C. Doyle and pushed the the bell button. Nobody answered the ring.
I was about to give it up when a man came clumping down the inner stairs and out through the entrance door. Little guy about my age, who looked as if he’d had the same hard and neglected life as his place of residence: shaggy white hair, untrimmed white beard, yellowish eyes with tiny threads of blood swimming in the whites. He gave me an uninterested glance, would have brushed right on by if I hadn’t moved a little to block his way.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I’m looking for one of your neighbors, Charley Doyle.”
“So?”
“He doesn’t seem to be home.”
“So?”
Like talking to the former vice president. Same snappish, snotty tone. “Would you have any idea where he might be? Some place he goes after work?”
“Why?”
“I need to talk to him. It’s about his aunt.”
“So?”
“Look, I’m just trying-”
“Fat Leland’s,” he said.
“… How’s that again?”
“Bar.”
“Where?”
“Mission.”
“Where on Mission?”
He threw me a go fuck yourself look, stepped around me, and went away.
I said, “So long, Dick,” but if he heard me he didn’t care enough to respond.
Fat Leland’s was less than a mile from Dependable Glass Service. Typical neighborhood blue-collar tavern, moderately crowded and noisy when I walked in. I wedged in at the bar, caught the barman’s attention, ordered a draft Anchor Steam, and when he brought it asked if Charley Doyle was there.
He was. Sitting in a booth with a hefty, big-chested blonde who reminded me of a woman my former partner, Eberhardt, once mistakenly came close to marrying. Schooners of beer, two mostly full, two empty, sat wetly on the table between them. But all they had eyes for at the moment was each other. They were snuggled in close together, rubbing on each other and swapping beer-flavored saliva. They didn’t like it when I slid in across from them, and Doyle liked it even less when I told him who I was and why I was there.
“I don’t know nothing about it,” he said. He was a big guy with a beer belly, loose, wet lips, and dim little eyes. Two brain cells and one of them is usually passed out drunk, Helen Alvarez had said. Good description. “What you want to bother me for?”
“I thought you might have some idea of who’s behind the vandalism.”
“Not me. Old lady Alvarez thinks it’s them real estate people that tried to steal my aunt’s house. Why don’t you go talk to them?”
“I already did. They deny any involvement.”
“Lying bastards,” he said.
“Maybe. You been out to see your aunt lately?”
“Not since I fixed her busted window. Why?”
“Well, you’re her only relative. She could use some moral support.”
“Some what?”
“Comfort. A friendly face.”
“Yeah, well, she’s got Alvarez and her brother to take care of her. She don’t need me hanging around.” He helped himself to a long pull from his schooner, smacked his lips. The blonde nuzzled his shoulder and gave him a vacuously adoring look. “Besides, she gives me the creeps.”
“Your aunt does? Why?”
“She’s about half-nuts. What’s that disease old people get? Al something?”
“Alzheimer’s. But she’s not afflicted with that.”
“Afflicted,” Doyle said, as if it were a dirty word he didn’t quite understand.
“She’s not senile, either. Pretty much in possession of all her faculties, I’d say.”
“All her what?”
I sighed. “Brains.”
“That’s what you think. How many times you talked to her?”
“Once.”
“Once. Hah. Spend time over there, you’ll see what I mean. Babbles on about crazy stuff. Ghosts, for Chrissake. Her dead husband’s friggin’ ghost.”
“Tell me, Mr. Doyle, do you stand to inherit her estate?”
“Huh?”
“Do you get her house and property when she dies?”
His dim little eyes showed faint glimmers of light. “Yeah, that’s right. So what? You think it’s me doing all that crap to her?”
“I’m just asking questions.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like your questions. You can’t pin it on me.”
“I’m not trying to pin anything on you. Trying to get at the truth, that’s all.”
“Told you, man, I got no truth for you. I got nothing for you.” He sucked at the schooner again, dribbling a little beer down his chin this time. “Last Saturday night, when them rosebushes of hers was dug up, I was in Reno with a couple of buddies. And when that damn cat got poisoned, me and Melanie here was together the whole night at her place.” He nudged the blonde with a dirty elbow. “Wasn’t we, kid?”
Melanie giggled, belched delicately, said, “Whoops, excuse me,” and giggled again. Then she frowned and said, “What’d you ask me, honey?”
“Wednesday night,” Doyle said.
“What about Wednesday night?”
“We was together the whole night, wasn’t we? At your place?”
“Oh, sure,” Melanie said, “all night,” and the giggle popped out again. “You’re a real man, Charley, that’s what you are.”
Doyle nodded once, emphatically, and said to me, “There, you see? You satisfied now?”
“For the time being. But I might need corroborating evidence later on.”
“Huh?”
I slid out of the booth and left the two of them sucking beer and rubbing on each other again. Once of those perfect matches, Doyle and Melanie, that you know exist but fortunately seldom encounter. Four tiny brain cells, drunk or sober, united against the world.
Kerry wasn’t home yet-she had a late meeting at Bates and Carpenter, one of many that had become necessary since her promotion to agency vice president-but Emily was there, working on her computer. We’d instructed her to come straight home after school and I didn’t have to ask her if she’d obeyed. When she was told to do something, she did it without failure or question. Always had until this drug business, anyway.
She had a thin little smile for me, but the sadness and hurt still showed in her eyes. I asked her what she was working on; she said research for an American history project. Two minutes on that subject and then we got down to what was on both our minds.
On the way home I’d worked up a different approach than the ones we’d used before-an appeal to her good judgment and common sense. “Emily, I know you hate to break promises, but this cocaine business is different-it’s a serious adult issue. A promise to your parents is more important than one to a friend or schoolmate.”
Her gaze held steady on mine. “I didn’t break my promise to you.”
“Not about using drugs, but bringing cocaine home amounts to the same thing. Unless you had an innocent reason for doing it. Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me what it was.”
“I can’t. I don’t want anyone to be hurt.”
“It’s too late for that. You’re hurt; Kerry and I are hurt.”
“Not as bad as they’ll be hurt.”
“They? More than one person?”
“No. Just… no.”
They. Meaning “he or she.” Grammar was one of Emily’s best subjects; she’d used the plural on purpose, to disguise the person’s sex.
What I said next went against my principles, but if it was the only way to pry the truth out of her, then I was willing to make the sacrifice. Kerry would be, too. You can’t police the entire world, especially the complex and volatile segment inhabited by teenagers. “It doesn’t have to be that way, Emily. I’ll make you a promise. If all you did was bring that box home to protect a friend, and that friend isn’t pressuring you in any way, then all you have to do is tell us who and why and we’ll let the matter drop. No one will ever know you told us.”