I wondered what in the hell Stephen Gaines was doing here when he was killed. If he lived here, did his habit go unnoticed? When I saw him on the street, he looked as if he was on the tail end of a ten-year bender.
In an area geared toward family, I could hardly imagine he was a welcome sight. Chances were if someone saw him stumbling around like I witnessed him doing, they'd call the cops.
I realized as I approached the park that I had nothing to show people. Not a photo identifying traits, or per sonality quirks. All I knew about Stephen Gaines was the image of him on the street, and then on the slab in the medical examiner's office. I hoped the trusty New
York City newspapers were more up to speed than I was.
I stopped at a small bodega that had a cartful of newspapers out front. I bought three papers-the
Gazette, the Times, and even the Dispatch. When it came to finding my brother's killer, I wasn't above sup porting the competition if it meant getting the informa tion I needed.
Thumbing through the papers, I was pleasantly sur prised to find that the Gazette was the only one that printed a photo of Gaines. It looked like a driver's license shot. He was looking straight into the camera, serious yet a little confused, as though he didn't quite understand what he was doing there. His hair was much shorter than when I'd seen it, and the man looked about ten years younger as well. Clearly he wasn't the kind to show up in a lot of photographs, and I had a feeling combing through MySpace and Facebook likely wouldn't yield many, either.
The article was brief. Though it did mention my father.
Stephen Gaines, 30, was found shot to death in his
Alphabet City apartment late Monday night. At this time one arrest has been made in the killing, one James
Parker of Bend, Oregon. Parker is alleged to be the es tranged father of Gaines, though the police have not made any comment on Parker's motivation or why he was in New York City the night of Gaines's death.
Referred to Detective Sevi Makhoulian of the
NYPD, the officer said simply, "I have no doubt that the district attorney's office will be prosecuting Parker to the fullest extent of the law. As for details of the case, those are pending and will become available as the trial progresses."
There was no photo of my father, and the snippet did not mention me. I wondered if the paper should have done so, or if this was another example of Wallace pro tecting me. I only hoped he knew I'd repay the effort.
I ripped out the picture from the Gazette and tossed the rest of the papers in the trash.
I was no detective. My career thus far had progressed almost solely on instinct. Seeing a thread, no matter how thin or frayed the strand, and pulling on it until something larger unspooled. At this point, though, I had no thread. There was nothing to pull on. No leads, no witnesses. Nothing.
So I started where any reporter or cop would when they had nothing.
When in doubt, talk to everybody.
I walked straight into Tompkins Square Park looking for young families and older pedestrians. I figured those were people most likely to come to the park because they lived in the vicinity. And if they lived nearby, there was a greater chance they might have seen Stephen
Gaines at some point.
But what if they had seen him? That hardly meant they saw him being killed, or even knew who he was, what he did, or anything about him. Still, it was the best shot I had.
Walking around, I noticed a couple in their early thirties sitting on a bench. A baby stroller sat in front of them. I hated bothering nice people who looked like they just wanted to spend their afternoon relaxing with loved ones, but I hoped they'd understand.
Of course not too many people could sympathize with trying to hunt down the man who'd killed your brother, while your father sat in prison.
I approached the couple in as nonthreatening a manner as possible. Smiling, even. They paid no atten tion to me until I got closer and it was clear they were my targets. The husband looked up at me, and I noticed his hand slowly plant itself on his wife's leg. Guarding her. Nobody trusted young people these days.
"I'm so sorry to bother you," I said, putting my hand out in apology. "I was wondering if you happened to have seen this man in the area."
I showed them the picture from the paper. They looked at it long enough and with enough confusion to show they didn't know him.
The wife said, "No, I'm sorry."
I thanked them for their time. Then it was on to the next stop.
I approached an older black man sitting at a chess table. The other seat was unoccupied. He was studying the board, perhaps planning out moves in his head. I crouched down at the other side of his table, cleared my throat awkwardly.
"Excuse me," I said.
"Have a seat, young man," he said, his mouth breaking into a smile. He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a cloth containing numerous chess pieces.
"Pick your poison. Speed chess? I've got a killer Danish
Gambit, so hold on to your hat."
"I'm not looking for a game," I said somewhat apolo getically. "I was wondering if you might have seen this man before."
He looked at the picture, a blank expression on his face. He said he'd never seen Gaines, and I believed him.
I spent the rest of the day questioning every person
I could find in the park, until by the end people started to recognize me as having pestered half the lot and they began to move away before I even approached them.
One couple I asked twice within half an hour.
Nobody had seen Gaines. Nobody had noticed him.
He was a ghost in his own neighborhood. Or at least to these people.
When people asked what I was looking for, I mumbled something about him having gone missing. If they knew I was looking into a murder, they'd clam up faster than a vegetarian at a barbecue.
The sun began to set. So far my efforts had yielded nothing. I took a seat on a park bench. Desperation had come and gone, and I was left holding a crumpled photo of a man I barely knew, who'd lived a life seemingly nobody had known. Several days ago none of this mattered. Work was good. My relationship seemed to finally be on stable ground. And now here I was, bother ing strangers, hoping they might have happened, by some ludicrous hope, to have seen someone other than my father shoot a man in the back of the head. Or at least knew more about Stephen than I did which was next to nothing.
I was searching for a needle in the East River, with no clue which way the current was flowing.
I was about to give up, to try to think of a new angle to attack from, when a shadow fell over me. I looked up to see a young woman, late twenties or so, standing in front of me. She was reed thin, one arm dangling limp by her side while the other crossed her chest, holding the opposite shoulder. Her hair was red and black, mascara haphazardly applied. Perhaps twenty pounds ago she'd been attractive, but now she was a walking, painted skeleton. She was wearing a long-sleeved sweater, but the fabric was dangling off her limbs. It allowed me to see the bruising underneath. The purplish marks on her skin immediately caught my attention. My pulse sped up. Her lip trembled. I didn't have to show her the newspaper clipping. I knew what she was going to say even before she opened her mouth.
"I knew Stephen."
A cup of steaming tea was set in front of me. It smelled like mint. She offered me milk, which I politely declined. I watched her sit down, a cup of the same at her lips. She'd poured both from the same kettle, so I didn't have to worry about being poisoned. I began to think about how much more paranoid I'd become over the years.
"Thanks," I said.
"Don't mention it. I brew three pots a day."
I nodded, took a look around.
This woman, Rose Keller, had taken me up to her apartment after I told her who I was and what I was doing. She seemed apprehensive, but once convinced of my authenticity she was more than happy to help.