“Thanks for your time,” I said.
On the way back to the car I phoned Grace.
“No luck at the hospital. You heard anything?”
“Nope.”
“Okay. You know where Stuart lives?”
“I’ve never been there, but I can look it up. Can you hang on?”
I said I could. I could hear her typing away, looking up an address.
“I found it,” she said. She gave me an address. “Let me just check it on Whirl360.” The Web site that gave you an actual image of any location. Some more clicking. “Okay, he told me he lived on top of some kind of repair shop or something and I’m looking at it right now. It’s called Dietrich’s Appliance Repair. There’s stairs on the side of the building. I think they go up to his apartment.”
I was pretty sure I knew the place. I’d driven past it many times. “Can you see Stuart’s car there, on the computer?” I asked.
“Dad,” Grace said wearily, “it’s not a live shot. Duh.”
“Right, okay. I’ll get back to you.”
I got back into the Escape and headed for Naugatuck Avenue. It didn’t take long to find Dietrich’s. I parked across the street, got out, and surveyed the surroundings. It was a stretch of residences and businesses. There was a parking lot next to Dietrich’s that served a short stretch of stores on the other side. The lot was nearly empty. An old VW Golf, a pickup truck, but no huge Buick from decades past.
It was, after all, still very early. The odd car that drove past held someone going to work or school. A lot of people probably weren’t even up yet. I hated to bang on someone’s door at this hour, but this was one of those times when not all niceties could be observed.
I crossed the street and mounted the open-backed stairs that ran up the side of the building, not unlike the steps up to the second floor of Vince’s beach house on East Broadway. When I got to the top, I rapped on the door.
“Hello?”
I waited a few seconds, then tried again.
“Hello! Is Stuart home? I’m looking for Stuart Koch!”
Blinds hung over the window, but they weren’t turned shut. I put my face to the glass and shielded my eyes with my hands to keep out the sun.
The kitchen and living area made up the room that I could see. Two doors on the far wall that were probably bedrooms or a bathroom. No sign of anyone, but Stuart or his father could still be here asleep.
Maybe they couldn’t hear me shouting through the door.
I decided it wouldn’t exactly be breaking and entering if all I did was open the door and stick my head in.
If the door was unlocked.
I tried the knob, and it turned. So I opened it about a foot and leaned my head into the apartment.
“Hello?” I called out. “Anyone home?”
No response.
“Stuart?”
I knew, from experience, that it could take a lot of noise to wake a sleeping teenager. Someone had to be here. People didn’t head off for the day without locking the door.
So I opened the door wider, and stepped inside.
Thirty-two
“What’d you end up doing last night?” Bryce Withers asked as he walked naked from the bed into the bathroom.
Jane Scavullo mumbled something into her pillow.
“What’s that?” he said.
She forced herself to roll over, taking a tangle of covers with her, so he could hear her. “Just stuff.”
“Stuff?”
“Yeah. Nothin’ much. How’d it go last night?”
“This is working into a good gig,” Bryce said. “So many bars these days, they don’t even want to pay the band. But they’re giving us five hundred a night, so that’s a hundred bucks apiece. And all the drinks we want.” He chuckled. “The other guys, I think they’d still do it just for the drinks, but we deserve to get paid. I told you about that other place? They got in touch, invited us to play on Friday and Saturday nights, and I said how much and they said two hundred. And I said, man, we can’t afford to play a gig for two hundred bucks, have to split that five ways, and the guy says no, no, he was going to charge us two hundred to play there. Said it would be good exposure for us, we’d end up getting other gigs through him. If he’d been standing in front of me, I’d’ve kicked his fucking teeth in, I swear to God. The whole world’s turning fucking upside down, thinks the talent should always work for nothing.”
“Hmm,” Jane said without enthusiasm.
“I got in around two and you were, like, totally comatose. So you did nothing? You weren’t here all night, were you?”
“No,” she said.
“What’d you do?”
“Saw Vince.” Soon as she said it, she regretted it.
“That son of a bitch?” Bryce said. “I thought you weren’t talking to him.”
“I don’t want to go over this again. And don’t talk about him like that. It’s okay for me to do it but not you.”
“I’m just saying. He wasn’t there for your mother when she was, you know, when all that shit was going down with her. And then you got screwed over on the house you thought she was leaving to you. He’s an asshole — that’s all I’m trying to say.”
He came back into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed on Jane’s side. He put a hand on her head, stroked her hair.
“I just want you to know I’m looking out for you. If he’s not going to give a shit, I am.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Jane said.
“So why’d you go and see him anyway?”
“He had a problem he wanted me to help him with.”
Bryce twitched. “What kind of problem?”
“Just... something to do with his work. And this girl, a friend of mine. She ran into some trouble and it’s sort of connected to Vince. So I ended up at his place.”
Bryce twitched again and said, “What girl?”
“It’s a long story, Bryce. I just need some sleep.”
“I’m just curious. Was it Melanie? That one who got in touch with you?”
“No, not Melanie. Her name was Grace. Grace Archer. Her dad used to be my teacher, long time ago.”
“Oh yeah,” Bryce said. “You’ve mentioned him. The one who was nice to you. Isn’t he the one whose wife had all that weird shit happen to her back when she was a kid or something?”
“Please stop talking.” Jane tried to fold the edges of the pillow over her ears.
“Why’d this Grace chick want to talk to you? What was her problem and what did it have to do with Vince?”
Jane opened her eyes wide, threw her arms down on the bed, and said, “How come you’re Mr. Twenty Questions this morning? Jesus.”
He pulled his hand away from stroking her hair. “You don’t have to bite my fucking head off. I’m just trying to be interested.”
“Since when?” Jane asked. “You hardly ever ask me anything, except when it has to do with Vince and how you think he’s fucked me over. Well, that’s my problem and not yours, so you can stop worrying about it.”
“I know he doesn’t like me,” Bryce said. “He got something against musicians? Is that it?”
“The whole world doesn’t revolve around you, you know,” she said.
He stood. “Fine. Let me know when you’re not all PMSing and maybe we can have a normal conversation.”
“Oh, good one,” she said. “Every time I get pissed with you it’s because of that and not because you’re being a total asshole.”
He went back into the bathroom and closed the door. Seconds later, she heard water running in the shower.
It was going so well for a while there, she thought. But ever since they’d moved in together, Bryce had started evolving into a total douche.
Always asking her about Vince. What he did, how he made his money, whether he’d ever actually killed anybody. Did what Vince did freak him out, or at some level did he think it was kind of cool?