“It’s been a long time,” she said.
“I know. But I’ve been thinking about you a lot,” Moth replied. “Lately, I guess, even more. So, how have you been?”
“Not so good,” she replied.
He paused. “Me neither.”
“Why have you called?” she asked. It surprised Andy Candy to be so brusque. She thought it wasn’t like her to be direct and forceful, although she understood she might be completely wrong about that. And just hearing her onetime boyfriend’s voice filled her with so many mingled feelings she wasn’t sure how to respond; but she was alert to the idea that one of these feelings was pleasure.
“I have a problem,” he said. His voice was slow and deliberate, which also wasn’t exactly like she remembered Moth, who was more impulsive and filled with devil-may-care energy. She was trying to detect who he’d become since she last saw him. “No,” he contradicted himself. “I have more than a couple of problems. Little ones and big ones. And I didn’t know where else to turn. I don’t have a lot of people I trust anymore, and I thought of you.”
She did not know if this was a compliment. “I’m listening,” she said. She thought this was inadequate. She needed to say something stronger to get him to continue. Moth was like that. A little nudge, and he would open up wide. “Why don’t you start with-”
“My uncle,” he said quickly, interrupting her. Then he repeated himself: “My uncle.” These two words seemed accented with some despair and weighted with some ferocity that resonated. “I trusted him, but he died.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Andy Candy said. “He was the psychiatrist, right?”
“Yes. You remember.”
“I only met him once or twice. He wasn’t at all like anyone else in your family. I liked him. He was funny. That’s what I remember. How did he…?” She didn’t have to finish the question.
“It wasn’t like how your dad passed away. He didn’t get sick. No hospitals and priests. My uncle shot himself. Or that’s what everyone thinks. Like my whole tight-ass family and the damn cops.”
Andy Candy said nothing.
“I don’t think he killed himself.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“Then how…”
“Only one other possibility: I think he was murdered.”
She was silent for a moment.
“Why do you think that?”
“He wouldn’t kill himself. That wasn’t him. He’d overcome so many problems, something new-if there was something-wouldn’t faze him. And he wouldn’t have left me all alone. Not now, no way. So, if he didn’t do it, someone else had to.”
This wasn’t really an explanation, Andy Candy realized. It was more a conclusion based on the flimsiest of ideas.
“It’s up to me to find the person who killed him.” Moth’s voice had grown rigid, cold, and tough, barely recognizable. “No one else will look. Just me.”
She paused again. The conversation wasn’t at all what she’d expected, though she didn’t know what she had expected in the first place.
“Why, how…” she started, not really expecting answers.
“And when I find him, I have to kill him. Whoever he is,” Moth said. Unexpected ferocity. Not call the cops or even just do something about it, something vague and indistinct and actually appropriate. Andy Candy was shocked, astonished, instantly scared. But she didn’t hang up.
“I need your help,” Moth said.
Help could mean many things. But Andy Candy rocked back on her bed, as if she’d been pushed hard and slammed down. She wasn’t sure she could breathe.
Killer.
Don’t make a promise you can’t keep.
3
He picked a place to meet that seemed benign.
Or, at the minimum, wouldn’t evoke something from their past or say something about what he anticipated for their future-if there was any to be had. He rode a bus and fingered a picture he had: Andy at seventeen. Happy, looking up from a burger and fries. But this memory was crowded aside.
“Hello. My name is Timothy. I’m an alcoholic. I have three days sober.”
“Hi Timothy!” from the gathering at Redeemer One. He thought the entire group appeared subdued but genuinely glad he was back amidst them. When he had sidled awkwardly into the room at the start of the meeting, more than one of the regulars had risen from their chairs and eagerly embraced him, and several had wrapped him in condolences that he knew were sincere. He was sure that they all knew about his uncle’s death and could easily imagine what it had pushed him into. When called upon to testify, for the first time he had the odd thought that perhaps he meant more to all of them than they did to him, but he did not know exactly why.
“Three whole damn days,” he repeated, before sitting down.
Moth put his ninety hours of recent sobriety into a mental calendar:
Day One: He woke up at dawn collapsed on the red-dirt infield of a Little League diamond. He had no recollection of where he’d spent the greater part of the night. His wallet was gone, as was one of his shoes. The stench of vomit overcame everything else. He was unsure where he found the strength to unevenly stagger the twenty-seven blocks back to his apartment, once he’d figured out where he was. He limped the last blocks on a sole torn raw by the sidewalks. Once inside, he stripped off his clothes like a snake shedding a worthless skin and cleaned up-hot shower, comb, and toothbrush. He tossed everything he’d been wearing into the trash and realized that it was two weeks since his uncle died and he had not been home in all that time. He was mildly grateful for the blackout that prevented him from realizing what other baseball diamonds he’d slept on.
He told himself to climb back onto the wagon, but spent the entire day in his darkened apartment hiding, physically sick, stomach twisted, day sweats turning to night sweats, afraid to go outside. It was as if some sultry, seductive siren was awaiting him, right past his front door, and she would lure him into a trip to the liquor store or a nearby bar. Like Odysseus from antiquity and legend, he tried to rope himself to a mast.
Day Two: At the end of a day spent raw and shaking on the floor by his bed, he finally answered a succession of calls from his parents. They were angry and disappointed, and probably concerned, as well, although that was harder to discern. They had left messages and it was clear they knew why he’d disappeared. And they knew where he’d disappeared to. Not specifically. They didn’t need to know the exact addresses of the dives that welcomed him. And he’d learned that he’d missed his uncle’s funeral. This detail had pitched him into an hour-long sobbing jag.
He was a little surprised, when they’d finished talking, that he hadn’t gone out for a drink. His hands had quivered, but he was encouraged by even that small show of addiction-defiance. He had repeated to himself a mantra: Do what Uncle Ed would do, do what Uncle Ed would do. That night, he shivered under a thin blanket, although the apartment was stifling hot and the air moist and humid.
Day Three: In the morning, as his pounding headache and uncontrollable shakes started to diminish, he’d called Susan the assistant state attorney who had given him her card. She didn’t sound surprised to hear from him, nor did she think it unusual that he’d waited so long to call.
“It’s a closed case, or nearly closed, Timothy,” she had gently informed him. “We’re just waiting on a final toxicology report. I’m sorry to have to say this, but it’s designated a suicide.” She did not say why this detail made her sorry, nor did he ask. He had weakly responded, “I still don’t believe it. May I read the file before you put it away?” She had answered, “Do you really think that will help you?” It was clear that her use of the word help had nothing to do with his uncle’s death. “Yes,” he said, with no certainty. He made an appointment to come to her office later in the week.