There was no conspiracy. Gaines was a junkie, likely killed over whatever drug fiends were killed over.
Stolen stashes. Territory beefs. He wasn't famous, wasn't some rich guy's son. Nobody knew him. Not even his family.
It would get a paragraph, two at most. I wouldn't write it. And unless there were future developments, my brother's death would be just another junkie murder in a city where you'd need a landfill for all his brethren.
Stephen Gaines's death was just as short and seem ingly unremarkable as his life.
I entered my apartment to find Amanda sitting on the couch. She was reading a sports magazine, but didn't seem that interested in it. Her eyes perked up when I entered, then narrowed when she saw that mine did not.
I took a seat on the couch next to her.
Amanda and I had met several years ago. When I was wanted for murder, she was the only person brave enough to help me. She trusted me despite all common sense saying she shouldn't. I fell for her right away. It was easy. I'm a sucker for a beautiful woman with crisp, auburn hair, a smile that will make you stop in your tracks, wit that will keep you laughing all night and a perfectly placed mole by her collarbone that you could trace every night with your finger. Hypothetically.
But despite all that, I nearly lost it all. I had pushed her away, and it wasn't until I spent time without her that I realized just how much I'd lost. She knew that because of the kind of person I was, the kind of job I had, she might be put in harm's way. As long as we faced obstacles together, she'd said, there was nothing we couldn't overcome. Since we'd reconciled, the last few months had been wonderful. We started our rela tionship going backward, in a way. We went out to dinners. We saw movies. I sent her flowers at work, she gave the best neck massages this side of the Golden
Door Spa.
Once we restarted our relationship, I made two promises to her. First, I would tell her everything. Even the hardest things, she would be allowed to judge and decide for herself. And second, every decision would be a joint one. I would never again make a decision about our relationship on my own. That was a hardlearned lesson. One I should have known right away.
So sitting there next to her, I knew she had a right to know about what Detective Makhoulian told me about Stephen Gaines. And she had a right to know about my father.
So I told her. Everything. I told her about seeing Gaines on the street. About the call from Detective Sevi Makhoulian. That Gaines had been murdered, viciously.
And that my father had sired Stephen when his mother, Helen, was just nineteen. I still couldn't wrap my mind around the idea that Gaines was my brother. Certain things you can be told and accept as gospel. This was not one of them.
When I finished, we both sat there. Amanda looked stunned, unsure of what to say. Putting myself in her shoes, I'd be lost for words as well. Finally she got up, went into the kitchen. I heard a few clanking noises, turned to see what was going on, but the door frame blocked my view.
Amanda came out carrying two plastic cups, and a bottle of red wine. She sat the bottle down on the coffee table, peeled off the foil and uncorked it. She did so without a problem. She then poured two generous glasses, handed one to me.
"I thought we might need this," she said.
"It's amazing how you can read my mind even if I'm not thinking something."
She took a healthy sip, and I did the same. Then I sat, twirling the cup in my hand.
"What are you going to do?" she asked. I shook my head.
"I don't know what I can do," I replied. "It's a police investigation. As far as the Gazette, they'll cover it, but nothing more than standard murder reporting unless something else breaks that gives the story legs."
"Do you feel," she said hesitantly, "I don't know… sad?"
I thought about that. "I don't think sad 's the right word."
"So what is?"
"Angry," I replied. "Mad. Pissed off. I want to know why I've lived nearly three decades without knowing any of this. If this is true, how could my father not have told me? I mean I know he's a bastard, but this is a life he chose to ignore. And I want to know why Stephen
Gaines, after all this time, came to me for help. He'd lived thirty years without Henry Parker as his brother, and all of a sudden he decides to have a family gather ing outside my office one night? I don't buy that for a second."
"You didn't know about him," Amanda said. "Do you think he knew about you?"
"I honestly don't know. He knew about me right before he died. I don't know when he learned. If Helen
Gaines told him about his family, or kept him in the dark like my parents did with me. I wish I knew."
"So find out," Amanda said. "At least that much is in your hands."
"What do you mean?"
"You know where your parents live. Where your father lives. Go ask him. Make him tell you the truth."
I stood up, paced the room. "I don't know if I can do that. I haven't seen him in almost ten years. Bend isn't really my home anymore. I don't know if it ever was."
"Your heart might be here, but the truth is there," she said. "Today's Thursday. I can call in sick tomorrow."
"Why would you do that?"
"To go with you," she answered. "We're going to find out how much your father knows."
5
We woke at five in the morning having purchased plane tickets online the night before. We threw a few days' worth of clothing into a suitcase, then caught a cab to La Guardia. The minute the cab pulled away I realized I forgot my toothbrush.
Living in New York had become increasingly diffi cult over the last few years. After some time when it looked like Manhattan would be the only city unaf fected by the subprime crisis, real-estate prices came tumbling down. Of course, we were renting, and there fore unaffected, and inflation was still rising faster than a hot-air balloon. My salary at the Gazette had barely seen a bump in my tenure, and working at the Legal Aid
Society, a not-for-profit organization, Amanda wasn't exactly rolling in dough. At some point we would have to make a decision about our future. Where to live, where we could afford to live.
I didn't want to leave the city, but I also wanted to think long-term. Many reporters commuted. Yet the fantasy of living in New York City always captivated me. It was one of the motivating factors that led me to
the Gazette. And the possibility of working in the big city, seeing things I couldn't see anywhere else in the world, was one of the motivators that kept me going when I could barely stand another day in Bend with my family.
We got to the airport and loaded up on coffee, a fat tening muffin nearly crumbling in my hands as I shoveled it into my mouth. We stopped at the magazine stand, where Amanda picked up her fashion and celeb rity mags and I bought a selection of newspapers.
"I brought something else to read," she said, "but just in case." Amanda wasn't the kind of girl who waited in line at sample sales and had a separate closet for her shoes, but something about reading about the hottest beach bodies made plane rides go by quicker. Maybe I should give Cosmo a whirl.
Sitting at the gate, I leafed through the Gazette. I felt my stomach clench when I turned to page eight and saw the two-paragraph article that started:
Stephen Gaines, 30, found shot to death in Al phabet City apartment by Neil deVincenzo I'd met Neil deVincenzo about a year ago. He covered the crime beat, had some good connections on the force.
Because of my tenuous relationship with the NYPD, they'd often talk to him rather than me. He was a good guy, around forty-five, and in terrific shape. He'd been a boxer in the navy, even had the tattoo of a pugilist on his upper biceps, though only a few of us were privy to the knowl edge, and that only came out after a few rounds of drinks.