One False Move

  "Mom."

  "Shush, you, I'm going. Brenda, you'll stay tonight? The guest room is all ready for you."

  "Thank you, Ellen. That would be very nice."

  Mom turned. "I'll leave you kids alone." Her smile was too happy.

  The backyard fell silent. A full moon was the only source of illumination. Crickets hummed. A dog barked. They started walking. They talked about Horace. Not about the murder. Not about why he vanished or about Anita Slaughter or FJ or the league or the Bradfords or any of that. Just about Horace.

  They reached Burnet Hill, Myron's elementary school. A few years ago the town had closed down half the building because of its proximity to high-tension electromagnetic wires. Myron had spent three years under those wires. Might explain a few things.

  Brenda sat on a swing. Her skin glistened in the moonlight. She started swinging, kicking her legs high. He sat on the swing next to her and joined her in the air. The metal apparatus was strong, but it still started swaying a bit under their onslaught.

  They slowed.

  "You haven't asked about the assault," she said.

  "There will be time."

  "It's a pretty simple story," she said.

  Myron said nothing, waited.

  "I came to Dad's apartment. He was drunk. Dad didn't drink much. When he did, it really hit him. He was barely coherent when I opened the door. He started cursing me. He called me a little bitch. Then he pushed me."

  Myron shook his head, not sure what to say.

  Brenda stopped the swing. "He also called me Anita," she said.

  Myron's throat went dry. "He thought you were your mother?"

  Brenda nodded. "He had such hate in his eyes," she said. "I've never seen him look like that."

  Myron stayed still. A theory had been slowly taking shape in his mind. The blood in the locker at St. Barnabas. The call to the lawyers and to the Bradfords. Horace's running away. His being murdered. It all sort of fit. But right now, it was just a theory based on the purest of speculation. He needed to sleep on it, marinate the whole thing in the brain fridge for a while, before he dared articulate it.

  "How far is it to the Bradfords' place?" Brenda asked.

  "Half a mile maybe."

  She looked away from him. "Do you still think my mom ran away because of something that happened in that house?"

  "Yes."

  She stood. "Let's walk over there."

  "There's nothing to see. A big gate and some shrubs."

  "My mother walked through those gates for six years. That'll be enough. For now."

  They took the path between Ridge Drive and Coddington Terrace--Myron could not believe it was still here after all these years--and made a right. The lights on the hill were visible from here. Not much else. Brenda approached the gate. The security guard squinted at her. She stopped in front of the iron bars. She stared for several seconds.

  The guard leaned out. "Can I help you, ma'am?"

  Brenda shook her head and moved away.

  They got back to the house late. Myron's father was feigning sleep in the recliner. Some habits die hard. Myron "woke" him up. He startled to consciousness. Pacino never overacted this much. He smiled good night at Brenda. Myron kissed his father on the cheek. The cheek felt rough and smelled faintly of Old Spice. As it should.

  The bed was made in the downstairs guest room. The maid must have been in that day because Mom stayed away from domestic chores as though they were radioactive. She had been a working mother, one of the most feared defense attorneys in the state, since the days before Gloria Steinem.

  His parents saved toiletry bags from first-class flights. He gave one to Brenda. He also found her a T-shirt and pajama bottoms.

  When she kissed him hard on the mouth, he felt every part of him stir. The excitement of a first kiss, the brand-newness of it, the wondrous taste and smell of her. Her body, substantial and hard and young, pressed against his. Myron had never felt so lost, so heady, so weightless. When their tongues met, Myron felt a jolt and heard himself groan.

  He pulled back. "We shouldn't. Your father just died. You--"

  She shut him up with another kiss. Myron cupped the back of her head with his palm. He felt tears come to his eyes as he held on.

  When the kiss ended, they held each other tightly, gasping.

  "If you tell me I'm doing this because I'm vulnerable," she said, "you're wrong. And you know you're wrong."

  He swallowed. "Jessica and I are going through a rough patch right now."

  "This isn't about that either," she said.

  He nodded. He did know that. And after a decade of loving the same woman, maybe that was what scared him most of all. He stepped back.

  "Good night," he managed.

  Myron rushed downstairs to his old room in the basement. He crawled under the sheets and pulled them up to his neck. He stared up at the frayed posters of John Havlicek and Larry Bird. Havlicek, the old Celtic great, had been on his wall since he was six years old. Bird had joined him in 1979. Myron sought comfort and maybe escape in his old room, in surrounding himself with familiar images.

  He found none.

  The ring of the phone and the muffled voices invaded his sleep, becoming part of his dream. When Myron opened his eyes, he remembered little. He'd been younger in the dream, and he felt a deep sadness as he'd floated up toward consciousness. He closed his eyes again, trying to claw back into that warm, nocturnal realm. The second ring blew away the fading images like so much cloud dust.

  He reached for his cell phone. As it had for the past three years, the bedside clock blinked 12:00 A.M. Myron checked his watch. Almost seven in the morning.

  "Hello?"

  "Where are you?"

  It took Myron a moment to place the voice. Officer Francine Neagly, his old high school buddy.

  "Home," he croaked.

  "Remember the Halloween scare?"

  "Yeah."

  "Meet me there in a half hour," she said.

  "Did you get the file?"

  Click.

  Myron hung up the phone. He took a few deep breaths. Great. Now what?

  Through the vents he heard the muffled voices again. They were coming from the kitchen. Years down here had given him the ability to tell by the echo in what room of the house a certain sound originated--not unlike the Indian brave in an old western who puts his ear to the ground to calculate the distance of incoming hoofbeats.

  Myron swung his legs out of the bed. He massaged his face with his palms. He threw on a velour bathrobe circa 1978, gave the teeth a quick brush, the hair a quick pat, and headed to the kitchen.

  Brenda and Mom sipped coffee at the kitchen table. Instant coffee, Myron knew. Muy watery. Mom wasn't big on better coffees. The wondrous smell of fresh bagels, however, jump-started his stomach. A bowlful of them along with an assortment of spreads and several newspapers adorned the tabletop. A typical Sunday morning at the Bolitar homestead.

  "Good morning," Mom said.

  "Morning."

  "Want a cup of coffee?"

  "No, thanks." New Starbucks in Livingston. He'd check it out on the way to Francine.

  Myron looked at Brenda. She looked back steadily. No embarrassment. He was glad.

  "Good morning," he said to her. Sparkling morning-after repartee was Myron's forte.

  She nodded a good morning back.

  "There are bagels," Mom said, in case both his eyes and olfactory nerves had shorted out. "Your father picked them up this morning. From Livingston Bagels, Myron. Remember? The one on Northfield Avenue? Near Two Gondoliers Pizzeria?"

  Myron nodded. His dad had bought bagels from the same store for thirty years, yet his mother still felt a constant need to entice him with this tidbit. He joined them at the table.

  Mom folded her hands in front of her. "Brenda was filling me in on her situation," she said. Her voice was different now, more lawyerly, less maternal. She pushed a newspaper in front of Myron. The murder of Horace Slaughter had made page
one, left-hand column, the spot usually reserved for whatever teen had thrown her newborn out with the morning trash.

  "I'd represent her myself," Mom continued, "but with your involvement, it might look like a conflict of interest. I was thinking of Aunt Clara."

  Clara was not really his aunt, just an old friend of the family and, like Mom, an awesome attorney.

  "Good idea," Myron said.

  He picked up the paper and scanned the article. Nothing surprising. The article mentioned the fact that Brenda had recently gotten a restraining order against her father, that she had accused him of assaulting her, and that she was wanted for further questioning but could not be reached. Detective Maureen McLaughlin gave the standard spiel about its being "too early to rule anybody in or out." Right. The police were controlling the story, leaking just enough to incriminate and put pressure on one person: Brenda Slaughter.

  There was a photograph of Horace and Brenda. She was wearing her college basketball uniform, and he had his arm around her. Both were smiling, but the smiles looked more of the "say cheese" variety than anything approaching genuine joy. The caption read something about the father and daughter during "a happier time." Media melodrama.

  Myron turned to page A-9. There was a smaller photograph of Brenda and then, more interestingly, a photograph of Horace Slaughter's nephew, Terence Edwards, candidate for state senate. According to the caption, the photograph had been taken at "a recent campaign stop." Hmm. Terence Edwards looked pretty much as he had in the photographs at his mother's house. With one important difference: In this picture Terence was standing next to Arthur Bradford.

  Hello.

  Myron showed Brenda the photograph. She looked at it a moment. "Arthur Bradford seems to pop up frequently," she said.

  "Yes."

  "But how does Terence fit into this? He was a kid when my mother ran off."

  Myron shrugged. He checked the kitchen clock. Time to meet Francine. "I have to run a quick errand," he said vaguely. "I shouldn't be long."

  "An errand?" Mom frowned. "What kind of errand?"

  "I'll be back soon."

  Mom magnified the frown, getting her eyebrows into the act. "But you don't even live here anymore, Myron," she went on. "And it's only seven in the morning." In the morning. In case he mistook it for being seven at night. "Nothing's even open at seven in the morning."

  Mother Bolitar, Mossad Interrogation.

  Myron stood through the grilling. Brenda and Mom weighed him with their eyes. He shrugged and said, "I'll tell you about it when I come back." He hurried off, showered, dressed in record time, and jumped into his car.

  Francine Neagly had mentioned the Halloween scare. He surmised that this was a kind of code. When they were in high school, about a hundred of their classmates had gone to see the movie Halloween. It was a new movie then, just out, and it scared the piss out of everyone. The next day Myron and his friend Eric had dressed up like the murderous Michael Myers--i.e., in black and wearing a goalie mask--and hidden in the woods during the girls' gym class. They never approached, just popping into sight every once in a while. A few of the kids freaked out and started screaming.

  Hey, it was high school. Cut him some slack, okay?

  Myron parked the Taurus near the Livingston football field. AstroTurf had replaced grass almost a decade earlier. AstroTurf at a high school. Was that necessary? He climbed through the woods. Sticky dew. His sneakers got wet. He quickly found the old path. Not far from this very spot Myron had made out--necked, to use his parents' terminology--with Nancy Pettino. Sophomore year. Neither one of them liked the other very much, but all their friends had paired up, and they'd both been bored and figured what the hell.

  Ah, young love.

  Francine sat in full uniform on the same big rock the two fake Michael Myers had stood upon nearly two decades ago. Her back was to him. She did not bother to turn around when he approached. He stopped a few feet from her.

  "Francine?"

  She let out a deep breath and said, "What the hell is going on, Myron?"

  In their high school days Francine had been something of a tomboy, the kind of fierce, spunky competitor you could not help envying. She tackled everything with energy and relish, her voice daunting and confident. Right now she was balled up on the rock, hugging her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth.

  "Why don't you tell me?" Myron said.

  "Don't play games with me."

  "I'm not playing games."

  "Why did you want to see that file?"

  "I told you. I'm not sure it was an accident."

  "What makes you unsure?"

  "Nothing concrete. Why? What happened?"

  Francine shook her head. "I want to know what's going on," she said. "The whole story."

  "Nothing to tell."

  "Right. Yesterday you woke up and you said to yourself, 'Hey, that accidental death that occurred twenty years ago, I bet it wasn't an accident at all. So I'll go ask my old buddy Francine to get the police file for me.' That what happened, Myron?"

  "No."

  "So start talking."

  Myron hesitated a moment. "Let's say that I'm right, that Elizabeth Bradford's death was not an accident. And let's say there is something in those files that proves it. That would mean the police covered it up, right?"

  She shrugged, still not looking at him. "Maybe."

  "And maybe they would want it to stay buried."

  "Maybe."

  "So maybe they would want to know what I know. Maybe they would even send an old friend to make me talk."

  Francine's head snapped around as if someone had pulled a string. "You accusing me of something, Myron?"

  "No," he said. "But if there's a cover-up going on, how do I know I can trust you?"

  She rehugged her knees. "Because there is no cover-up," she said. "I saw the file. A little thin, but nothing unusual. Elizabeth Bradford fell. There were no signs of a struggle."

  "They did an autopsy?"

  "Yep. She landed on her head. The impact crushed her skull."

  "Tox screen?"

  "They didn't run one."

  "Why not?"

  "She died from a fall, not an overdose."

  "But a tox screen would have shown if she'd been drugged," Myron said.

  "So?"

  "There were no signs of a struggle, okay, but what would have prevented someone from drugging her and then dumping her over the side?"

  Francine made a face. "And maybe little green men pushed her."

  "Hey, if this was a poor couple and the wife had accidentally fallen off her fire escape--"

  "But this wasn't a poor couple, Myron. It was the Bradfords. Did they get preferential treatment? Probably. But even if Elizabeth Bradford had been drugged, it still doesn't add up to murder. Quite the opposite, in fact."

  Now it was Myron's turn to look confused. "How do you figure?"

  "The fall was only three stories," Francine said. "A short three stories."

  "So?"

  "So a murderer who pushed her off that terrace could not have counted on that low a fall killing her. More likely she would have just broken a leg or something."

  Myron stopped. He had not thought of that. But it made sense. Pushing someone off a third-floor balcony with the hopes that she would land on her head and die was risky at best. Arthur Bradford did not hit Myron as a man who took risks.

  So what did that mean?

  "Maybe she was hit over the head beforehand," Myron tried.

  Francine shook her head. "The autopsy didn't show any signs of an earlier blow. And they also checked the rest of the house. There was no blood anywhere. They might have cleaned it up, of course, but I doubt we'll ever know."

  "So there's absolutely nothing suspicious in the report?"

  "Nothing," she said.

  Myron raised his hands. "So why are we out here? Trying to recapture our lost youth?"

  Francine looked at him. "Somebody broke into my house."

&nb
sp; "What?"

  "After I read the file. It was supposed to look like a burglary, but it was a search. A thorough one. The place is trashed. Then right after that Roy Pomeranz calls me. Remember him?"

  "No."

  "He was Wickner's old partner."

  "Oh, right," Myron said, "an early musclehead?"

  "That's him. He's chief of detectives now. So yesterday he calls me into his office, something he's never done before. He wants to know why I was looking at the old Bradford file."

  "What did you tell him?"

  "I made up some bullshit story about studying old police techniques."

  Myron made a face. "And Pomeranz bought that?"

  "No, he didn't buy it," Francine snapped. "He wanted to slam me against a wall and shake the truth out of me. But he was afraid. He was pretending like his questions were just routine, no big deal, but you should have seen his face. He looked maybe half an egg sandwich away from a coronary. He claimed that he was worried about the implications of what I was doing because it was an election year. I nodded a lot and apologized and bought his story about as much as he bought mine. When I drove home, I spotted a tail. I shook it this morning, and here we are."

  "And they trashed your place?"

  "Yup. The work of professionals." Francine stood now and moved closer to him. "So now that I've stepped into a pail of snakes for you, you want to tell me why I'm taking all these bites?"

  Myron considered his options, but there weren't any. He had indeed gotten her into this mess. She had a right to know.

  "You read this morning's paper?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  "You see the story on the murder of Horace Slaughter?"

  "Yes." Then she held a hand out as though to silence him. "There was a Slaughter in the file. But it was a woman. A maid or something. She found the body."

  "Anita Slaughter. The victim's wife."

  Her face lost a little color. "Oh, Christ, I don't like the sound of this. Go on."

  So he did. He told her the whole story. When he finished, Francine looked down below them at the patch of grass where she had captained the field hockey team. She chewed on her lower lip.

  "One thing," she said. "I don't know if it's important or not. But Anita Slaughter had been assaulted before Elizabeth Bradford's death."

  Myron took a step back. "What do you mean, assaulted?"

  "In the report. Wickner wrote that the witness, Anita Slaughter, still displayed abrasions from the earlier assault."

  "What assault? When?"