It was Detective Healey and Detective Dobrygowski, and I don’t have to tell you I wasn’t happy to see them. Connie was hovering nearby as though she expected the cops to steal something if left unguarded. They were smiling and making an attempt at small talk. I stood for a second on the top step and swallowed. If they were coming to arrest me, they wouldn’t be trading pleasantries with the maid. They’d told me yesterday it was an accident, and for all they knew it was an accident. They didn’t suspect me of anything. I forced a smile, and started down the steps.
“Mr. Rosenkrantz,” Detective Healey said. And with concern, “Are you all right?”
So much for my smile. “I just need something to eat.”
“Don’t let us stop you.” But they didn’t move any, and neither did I.
I looked at Connie, and they did too, and she got flustered and turned back towards the kitchen.
Healey craned his neck to peer over my shoulder. “Should we follow?”
“Is this going to take long?”
“No, not long, not long,” Healey said.
“We don’t want to put too much strain on you,” Dobrygowski said, “given your loss.”
They both regarded me with blank expressions. There was no way to tell if their sentiments were genuine. I gave up any attempt to hide my exhaustion. As Dobrygowski said, I was in mourning. I should look exhausted and done in.
“Nice place,” Dobrygowski said. “Must be better than staying in a hotel.” That was meant to be a question, but I wasn’t biting.
“The hotel said you gave this as a forwarding address.” Healey’s brow creased again. “Are you sure you’re all right? You don’t look so good, Mr. Rosenkrantz.”
Dobrygowski added, “Tough night? You sleep okay?”
“I slept too well.”
“One of those nights. Sure. You want to shut things out, you just keep to bed so long, dead to the world, as long as you don’t dream.”
“But you always dream,” Dobrygowski said, also looking straight at me.
“Not always,” Healey said. “But, yeah, usually. Usually you dream. Did you have any dreams, Mr. Rosenkrantz?”
I didn’t say anything. Their whole tone was different from yesterday. If they came by just for amusement, I didn’t need to amuse them.
Healey got a guilty look on his face. “I’m sorry, Mr. Rosenkrantz. I know you just lost your wife and boy.”
“My ex-wife,” I said. I don’t know why I felt I had to add that. It was comments like that that would get me in trouble.
“Sure, you lost your ex-wife and son. You’ve got a lot weighing you down. Sleep like that, it’s a blessing. It’s nature’s way of protecting our sanity when things get to be too much. There are plenty of nights where I wish I could sleep right through, dead to the world.”
“How long did you sleep?” Dobrygowski cut in.
“Is that really why you’re here?” I said. “There’s so little for the police to worry about they have to worry if I had a good night’s sleep?”
“No, of course not. We’ve got some other things to talk about, but when we see a man looking down and beaten, we worry. We just want to help out. That’s a policeman’s real job anyway. To help out.”
We all let that sit for a moment to see if any of us believed it, but none of us were that stupid.
“But you must not have gotten much sleep the night before last, right?” Healey went on. He reached into his inner coat pocket and came out with a policeman’s notepad. He flipped it open, paging through. “You said you were at your son’s house around midnight, that you were there maybe half an hour, and then you went back to the Somerset. So you didn’t get to bed until at earliest one, one-thirty?” He looked up at me with a furrowed brow.
“That’s what I said.” This was starting to make me nervous. Why were we going back through my statement? That couldn’t be a good thing. That could only mean they suspected something. But it was hard to think, tired and hungry as I was.
“That seems about right, the man on the desk that night said you came in around 1:15, so that’s about what it would be, right?”
“I don’t understand,” I said, hoping my expression showed confusion, not fear. “We went over all of this yesterday. What’s going on?”
“Why’d you leave the hotel?” Dobrygowski said.
So they did suspect something. “Aunt Alice offered to put me up.”
“Aunt Alice. But she’s not your aunt, is she?” Healey said.
“Quinn, my ex-wife’s great aunt, her mother’s mother’s sister. Why is this important? Gentleman, I’m really—”
“And she just now decided to put you up?” Dobrygowski cut in. A real bleeding heart, that Dobrygowski. This guy just lost his son; we better grill him.
I didn’t say anything. I was sick to my stomach, that ambiguous feeling that could mean hunger or could mean heartburn. I needed to eat, and I needed a drink even more.
“We’re just trying to get things straight,” Healey said, the good cop.
“I’m sorry, gentleman, but Joe got killed two days ago. I just can’t go through this again right now.”
“It’s funny how you say Joe got killed,” Dobrygowski said, jumping on me. “Because if it was just an accident, falling asleep with a lit cigarette, I would have thought you would have said that Joe died, not that he got killed.”
“It’s just a way of talking,” I mumbled.
Healey sighed. He looked at Dobrygowski, but when he spoke it was to me. “The M.E. says that it looks like your son may have been murdered.”
And there it was. A punch in the stomach. It couldn’t have hit me harder than if they were putting the handcuffs on me right then. Then I’d know at least. I almost retched, but managed to turn it into a burp, covering my mouth. I tasted stale alcohol.
Dobrygowski reached out as though he were going to brace me.
“Are you okay?” Healey said.
I coughed and swallowed, and shook my head, waving my hand to show I was all right, just give me a second, I’m all right.
“I’m sorry to have to bring you more bad news,” Healey said, and I could tell he really was. He wasn’t a bad guy at that. He really cared. And my reaction had been the right one, it turned out. He thought I choked out of parental horror. I choked because I felt the noose tightening. “It’s not definite,” he said. “He had a pretty severe skull fracture at the back of his head. It’s possible that he just fell, and it’s even possible that it didn’t kill him, that he still made it to his bed and lit a cigarette. But it looks suspicious, and so we have to look into it.”
“Is that why you’re checking my story with the deskman?”
“I’m sorry about that. It’s no good. It makes me sick. But we had to come at you with this to see how you took it.”
“Well, how am I taking it,” I said, angry now. Angry that I was so relieved they weren’t putting me in handcuffs. And angry because it meant I had been much more frightened than I had thought.
“I’m sorry,” Healey said again.
“So what happened? Joe was murdered?”
“We didn’t say that. We’re not saying that. We’re just saying that it’s something we need to look into.”
So they were just double-checking my story. They didn’t suspect me of anything. I was just the last person to see him alive, as they always say in the movies. Didn’t mean I killed him. He was my kid. How could I have killed him?
“I’m really sorry we had to ruin another morning for you,” Healey said.
“So am I.” I said it with a little heat behind it. I was entitled to some anger now.
“You will contact us if you think of anything else?”
I sneered. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that.”
My tone seemed to pain Healey, but it made Dobrygowski examine me with more intensity. “Right, then. I’m sorry again,” Healey said, putting his pad back in his pocket. “We’ll let you know if we find anything.”
“You know where to find me,” I said, showing that I had nothing to hide. I was right out in the open.
Healey opened the door, and I stepped forward and held it as they both filed through, and then I closed it behind them. When I turned around, Connie was right there, creeping down the hall from the kitchen.
“Someone killed Mr. Joe?” she said.
“That’s what they’re saying,” I said.
“It sounded like they was giving you the third degree. If I’d a known that, I’d a said you weren’t here, the no-good police hassling a father in mourning. They should be ashamed.” Her indignity was enough for the both of us, hands on her hips, lowered brow, and pushed-out lips. “Well your breakfast is all fixed, so come on back and get something inside you now.”
In the kitchen, she took a plate out of the oven with a towel, and brought it over to the small kitchen table. “You don’t mind eating in the kitchen here, do you? Miss Alice takes all her meals in here with me now. The dining room’s only for company.”
“That’s fine, Connie.” And it was fine. Scrambled eggs, a link of sausage, hash browns, grits, and a toasted English muffin with a container of jam on the side. It was the kind of meal a man deserved on a morning he was hassled by the police. My stomach was still boiling, but I figured it would calm down once I got some grub in me. I dug in, and Connie went about her business cleaning up, not saying anything. She and Great Aunt Alice could probably go whole days without saying a word to one another.
I ate with relish. Once I got the first taste of egg, I knew that my discomfort was more hunger than heartburn, although there was still some of that too.
I reviewed my interview with the police. I had been by turns exhausted and angry, but I didn’t think I’d made any big mistakes. Aside from one or two glances from Dobrygowski, and that crack about me saying ‘killed’ instead of ‘died,’ it seemed like what they said it was, a routine double-check of my statement now that they were approaching it as a murder and not an accidental death. And they said they weren’t even sure if it was a murder, they were just looking into it. No, I was fine. They didn’t suspect me of anything. Why would they? I was Joe’s father. I ran through it again, and I still couldn’t find any other mistakes. I was okay.
I wanted to call Vee, though, or to see her. I wanted to let her know what was happening. But it was exactly the last thing I should do, and she would be mad as anything if I did get in touch. It would call further attention to our relationship than we wanted. For all I knew at the moment, they didn’t even know about Vee, and it was better all around if it stayed that way. Still, I really could have used her reassuring voice.
I finished my meal. Connie had left the kitchen, presumably to check on Great Aunt Alice. I knew I should probably do the same, but even fortified by the food as I was, I didn’t have it in me for another long session in the conservatory. I couldn’t call Vee, and what I’d really have liked was to call Clotilde, but it was too early on the West Coast. The hospital would never put me through to her even if I claimed it was an emergency. Especially if I claimed it was an emergency. They wouldn’t want to do anything that might unduly excite one of their residents.
That left me with the long day ahead and nothing to fill it. Except for thoughts of Healey and Dobrygowski digging around, narrowing their search, closing their net. The idea was too much to bear. I yawned and thought I could really go back to sleep, I was that tired, like the food had weighted me down and I couldn’t even find the energy to stand up. But I made it back up to my bedroom. I collapsed on the bed, and before I knew it I was dead to the world.