“What we know?”
“Yep.”
“I’m sure he does,” I said. “But so far we haven’t any proof, and Lolly Drake has a lot of resources. We can’t just yank her in and sweat her.”
“You know what you’re trying to prove,” my father said. “You got a hitter to look for in both cities.”
“Might be the same guy,” I said. “Same MO.”
“Either way, you got two cities to look for him in. You find him, or one of him, whichever, and you turn him and the whole thing clicks in.”
“And,” I said, “we have Mrs. Markham. She doesn’t have a lot of resources.”
“Can the kid face up to her?” my father said.
“I don’t know.”
“Might be interesting, if she can,” my father said. “Get things stirred up, see what comes to the surface.”
“And,” I said, “I can’t believe that Harvey Delk can stand the heat.”
“Lotta guys like him don’t,” my father said. “Sharp guys, fixers, got a lotta power because they work for important people. Corsetti a tough guy?”
“Oh my goodness, yes,” I said.
“Then they run up against a tough cop who doesn’t care who they are, and all the savvy and secondhand clout dissolves and they’re offering you their soul at bargain rates.”
“That sounds like Harvey,” I said. “I’m not so sure about his lawyer.”
“Lot of lawyers for people like that have spent a lot of time closing deals from power positions — you know, do it our way or Lolly walks? It’s been a while since they banged heads with a street cop who might put their client in the hoosegow.”
“Hoosegow?”
“You gonna be a cop, you ought to talk like one,” my father said.
“It’s a funny case,” I said. “I know who did it, and I know why, but there’s no proof.”
“There is proof,” my father said. “There’s always proof.”
“I know.”
“You say Corsetti’s a good cop. Brian Kelly’s a good cop. You’re an excellent cop. And there’s too many people who got to keep too many secrets. You’re gonna win this one.”
He cut a small wedge of cutlet off and gave it to Rosie. She took it carefully from the fork and ate it.
“Daddy,” I said. “She’s not supposed to eat like that from the table.”
“I know,” my father said. “But I’m her grandfather. It’s permitted.”
I smiled at him. “Excellent?” I said.
“Yeah,” my father said. “You’re an excellent cop.”
He smiled.
“Pretty good daughter, too.”
“Even though I’m not married?”
“Even though,” he said.
“Mom seems to think it matters,” I said.
He gave Rosie another bite of cutlet, then grinned at me.
“Woman needs a man,” he said, “like a fish needs a bicycle.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s what she always says. I would say she needs you.”
My father nodded.
“Em likes slogans,” he said.
“You seem so ill suited,” I said after a little silence. “How have you stayed together so long?”
My father stared at me silently. Had I been a bad girl to ask? Then he smiled at me and patted my forearm.
“For God’s sake, Sunny,” he said. “We love each other.”
56
Sarah and I drove up Route 93 toward Andover. Rosie had assumed her spot, asleep between Sarah’s feet on the floor near the heater.
“You can do this?” I said.
“Yes.”
She looked pale and tight, and she swallowed often and visibly. It was the way I had probably looked on my first day of school.
“You think this will be good for me?” she said.
“This is beginning to wind down, or up, depending on how you look at it. I think the bigger part you play in it, the more you’ll feel as if you controlled your future, rather than things just happened to you.”
“You sound like my women’s studies teacher.”
“Oh, God,” I said. “I hope not.”
It was a bright day, but the landscape was gray and dirty where the snow had melted and acquired dirt and frozen and melted and acquired dirt and frozen. A few moments of lovely white followed by weeks of dirty gray. How metaphoric.
“You think she’s not my mother?” Sarah said.
“We’ll ask her,” I said.
“In some ways, it would be kind of a relief, you know? I mean, she was never very nice to me.”
I nodded. We went past the Academy and left down the hill and parked in front of the Markham house.
“I feel sick,” Sarah said.
“We’re in this together, kiddo,” I said. “We’ll get through it.”
“I wish I hadn’t started all this.”
“You are only asking a question you have the right to ask,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “I wish I didn’t.”
“Anyone would have,” I said.
She nodded and didn’t say anything else. Rosie opened one eye as we got out, saw that she wasn’t coming, and settled back with her heater. We walked to the house where Sarah had grown up.
When she let us in, Mrs. Markham was wearing a flowered housedress and sneakers. The house was silent, and felt closed.
Sarah said, “Hi, Ma.”
Mrs. Markham carefully closed the door behind us and locked it.
“So, you’ve decided I’m your mother again?” she said.
Sarah was silent for a moment.
Then she said, “I don’t know what else to call you.”
Mrs. Markham didn’t bother to invite us in. She simply turned and walked into the living room and sat on the couch with her knees together and her hands clasped on top of them. Sarah and I sat across from her. Mrs. Markham’s age and mousiness seemed to have increased dramatically.
“Are you my mother?” Sarah said.
“I’ve raised you your whole life,” Mrs. Markham said without any affect.
“But did you conceive me, carry me to term, give birth to me?” Sarah said.
Mrs. Markham looked at her for so long in silence that I thought she wasn’t going to speak. Then she seemed to sag suddenly.
“No.”
“That’s why you wouldn’t take the tests.”
“George didn’t take it so as to support me. He thought he was your father.”
“But he wasn’t.”
“That’s what them doctors say.”
“Do you know who my mother was?”
“George told me he got some girl in trouble,” Mrs. Markham said heavily. “He said he’d never strayed before and never would again. I knew he was lyin’. He strayed a lot. But he said the girl didn’t want the baby, and would give us money to take it and raise it like it was ours.”
“And you agreed,” I said.
“Sure. We didn’t have any money, and George wasn’t going anywhere. So we agreed.”
“What was the deal?” I said.
“We move away before the baby’s born and take her when she is born and never tell nobody, and we get money every month, for us and for her. It was a lot of money. I don’t know how much it was. I don’t even know how much she got. Nobody ever told me anything.”
“Did you resent it?” Sarah said.
“Was a good deal. Money was good. Until you started nosing around.”
“She resented it,” I said to Sarah, “and she took it out on you.”
“Well, how was I supposed to feel, stuck with some whore’s daughter? How was I supposed to feel?”
“And you never knew the woman?” I said.
“No. It was part of the deal.”
“Is this deal in writing?”
“No.”
“It was self-enforcing,” I said. “If she didn’t pay, you’d tell, and if you told, she wouldn’t pay.”
“Except the bastard never even told me.”
“Secrets are safest when no one knows them,” I said.