The Odds (34 page)

“Okay. Truth time. We know you know him. We know your father isn’t at work. According to school records, he passed away over two years ago. We know Joel went up to the house where there was a murder. Do you want to tell us what’s going on?”

They looked at each other helplessly.

“How about if you let us look around?”

“You don’t have a warrant,” the boy said. It was the first they’d heard his voice. It had an adult sound.

“True. We could get one. I’d prefer that you help us without any … pressure.”

The boy went still for a moment before he nodded agreement. The older girl looked at him with alarm.

Potocki first checked out the upstairs to be sure there was no one hiding up there. Then he came down and nodded for Colleen to look upstairs. What she found was one crowded bedroom and one empty bedroom. In the empty bedroom, there was nothing except some gauze bandages on the dresser. There were no adult clothes in the closet, no perfumes, jewelry, and, in the bathroom, little in the way of cosmetics— three mostly empty tubes of lipsticks and rouges. Where were the mother’s lotions and potions? Colleen came back down and looked through the kitchen. Sparse. Very little food, no … stock. Some cash on the counter, okay, but something very bad was going on here.

“You need some groceries,” she said mildly.

“I know,” the older girl said.

“Are you … Meg? Your name is first on our records.”

“Yes. Mary Catherine. They call me Meg.”

“I’m going to send child welfare people to look into your situation.”

“No, please don’t. We … we just need to do some grocery shopping.”

“Is there a basement?”

“Yes.”

“My turn again,” Potocki said.

He was down there for a very long time, long enough that Colleen got worried, even though the sounds coming upstairs were fairly soft ones. She called from the top of the steps. “Everything okay down there?”

“There is nobody hiding down here, if that’s what you’re asking, but … wait till I come back up.”

Potocki soon did come back upstairs carrying a trash bag that held the clear shape of a cardboard box. “Got something good,” he said.

“Give us a minute,” Colleen told the kids. She and Potocki walked outside. He gave her a peek into the bag. “What we have in here,” he said easily, “is evidence that is probably going to prove Nick Banks was here. Bloody clothes, a gun.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“You see any evidence of an adult around here?”

“No.”

“Oh, man. I’ll let Christie know we need a few reinforcements.” She dialed up Christie and gave him the news, explaining, “Probably one of us should drive over with the evidence and one of us should stay here. So we’ll need another car eventually. There’s nobody here with the kids.”

“Stay there, both of you. I’ll take care of this. Be right back to you.”

She and Potocki went inside again, Potocki awkwardly carrying the bag that held the evidence. The kids sat on the sofa, waiting.

“We know Nick Banks was here and that he was hurt.” They didn’t answer. “Is he still around?” Colleen asked.

“No,” the boy said quietly. He eyed his older sister, who looked distraught, but she sat forward, readying herself to speak.

“Did he force you to help him?”

“No. It was not like that at all,” Meg said.

“You want to tell us about it? Are you all telling me he didn’t pressure you or threaten you?”

“Yes, it was our choice,” she said definitely.

“When did you last see him?”

“Two nights ago. Um, Friday, I mean.”

“And it started when? A week ago?”

Joel and Meg both nodded.

Colleen addressed Joel. “What were you doing up at that house? Tell us what happened, okay? We aren’t going to hurt you. You found him up there? Or he came here? How did it happen?”

Joel hesitated. “I found him. We … let him come here.”

“But he didn’t force you?”

“No.”

“Where is he?”

“He left.”

“You knew him before?”

“From the pizza shop,” Joel said. “My sister recognized him.”

“Any relationship with him?”

“I just knew him,” Meg said.

“You understand we have to locate him. He’s wanted for questioning.”

Meg said she had to get something that would help them. She went upstairs and came back down with her school backpack, from which she dug out a sheaf of papers. “I was going to mail this to you, anonymously, with the box of evidence. I wasn’t sure I could get away with mailing the gun, and that hung me up.” She handed the papers over.

“How will this help us?”

“He’s innocent. I tried to get him to call you, but he doesn’t think anyone will believe him. I questioned him lots of times. What happened up at the house was self-defense. I saved the gun and the clothes because I thought maybe you have people who know how to read the evidence.”

“We do. We have people like that.”

“He’s … I don’t know how to explain this.”

“Go on. Try. I met him once.”

“You did?”

“Up at the pizza shop. I thought he had a nice way about him. Really nice. Kind. Is that what you’re saying?”

Meg nodded. “I think he got himself in terrible trouble and can’t figure out how to get out. There’s a guy after him. I wrote down everything. I knew I’d need it one day.”

“Let me take a moment, see what you wrote here.”

Potocki said to the kids, “Let’s go sit in the kitchen for a bit. I want you to tell me about yourselves. Let’s just relax. We can have a second breakfast if you’re up for it.”

Colleen read a few lines and shook her head to clear it. What she was reading sounded professional, like something a defense attorney would come up with. It was a well-written, organized account of Nick’s involvement in the killing up at the house—and more. Bit by bit the girl had tried to fill in Nick’s background and how he got into trouble once, twice, and then a third time with Markovic, to whom he now owed money.

There were fourteen pages altogether.

Potocki poked his head out. “Everything okay?”

“Keep eating. I have to finish this.”

There was a paragraph at the end that made her head sing. The girl had noted that the lawyer who got Nick released from prison was put on his case by another lawyer from Philly named Mickey Costanzo. And the girl had theorized—and here Colleen did laugh out loud— that perhaps Costanzo was part of the organization that included Markovic, all of them thinking to hire and use Nick for their own purposes.

The kid watched too much TV, she told herself.

But a ripple of excitement went through her. No, the kid had done their work for them. It was the closest thing to a statement from Nick Banks, Nick Kissel, that they could have. And a lead, to boot. The least she could do was run this Costanzo name to Farber, let him check it.

Colleen went into the kitchen. All six of them were gathered in the same place now. “Meg, this is very helpful, very clear. You got him to tell you all this?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I asked a lot of questions.”

“And he was willing to talk?”

“At night. I would bring him tea and make him tell me.”

“Do you know where he went?”

“No.”

“He left two nights ago?”

A small pause. “Yes.”

“Did he mention family, friends, places?”

“No. He didn’t have anyone.”

“Why did you let him stay here?”

“We knew he needed help. We liked him.” Meg broke her gaze and looked at her siblings as if for confirmation, which they gave by nodding.

“And he was sick,” the little girl said.

“How? You mean hurt?” Colleen tapped the papers. “You made a note about his leg. How bad was it?”

“Bad,” Joel said. “Fractured. From the gunshot. I fixed it best I could.”

Potocki was buttering a piece of toast for the little girl. He stopped midgesture. “You fixed it how?”

“Set it.”

“I don’t understand. You set it? How?”

“It’s kind of a long story. I … we lined it up and splinted it.”

“You didn’t do it by yourselves?”

The kids looked at each other, but didn’t answer.

Colleen said, “We’re going to need to learn more about your situation. How long have you been alone here?”

The kids kept catching each other’s eyes, sending silent messages back and forth to stick to the same story.

“Not long. It’s just Alison, our stepmother, had a job interview.”

“She helped set the fracture?”

“Yes,” Meg said while Joel said, “No.”

Colleen sighed. “Look—”

The questioning was interrupted by the sound of a light tapping at the front door.

Both the detectives started for the front room, but so did Meg.

“Let me,” Colleen ordered.

It was Christie and Janet Littlefield at the door. He put Janet Littlefield in the kitchen with the kids and commanded, “Brief me.”

They gave him a telegraphic account of what they knew so far. His expression shifted back and forth between alarm and fascination.

“Go on. Go back and get this evidence in. I’ll call Farber and ask to meet in about an hour.”

They left as he called the kids into the living room and was saying, “This nice lady is going to get you all some lunch. She’ll order in something good. In the meantime, just whatever you can tell me would be a big help.”

Colleen was always surprised when she felt miffed with Christie, but it made her angry that he’d butted in this time. She was getting the dope from the kids, they were coming around. All he could do was ask the same questions again.

Potocki grunted as they left the house. “He does throw his weight around sometimes.”

   THE GREYHOUND LEAKSA burning oil smell, sharp. He closes his eyes, brings the cap down over his face. Hunger and the oil smell and his body moving forward when the driver hits the brakes make his stomach lurch—and it was jumpy enough to begin with. Images of doom keep coming to him—someone plucking his sleeve, slipping into the row behind him, saying, “No use trying to hide,” or, “Hey, man, finally caught up with you.” After about twenty-five minutes, he puts Laurie’s cap back up, hungry to see the world.

On the right is the ramp to the Turnpike, but the bus takes the curve of road to the left that leads to Route 22. Out the window are people in cars and vans going to church or Sunday food shopping. It’s all so … He can almost reach it, the image of a life like that. He thought he had it once, in the early days with his wife, but it wasn’t a quiet life. They argued. She wanted things—clothes and cars and trips—and kept asking until he realized with a jolt she didn’t love him.

Meg, Joel, Laurie, Susannah.

The rhythm of the bus takes over, making his thoughts less anxious. He shifts, trying to get comfortable. His body still aches from the long walk to the bus. It seems … nobody is interested in him. They are reading paperback books or just staring ahead. He shields his eyes once more with the cap and allows himself to sleep. Twice he wakes slightly, half aware each time that the bus stops, people get off and on, the bus starts out again. He drops into the deeper sleep he missed last night.

Finally he’s awakened by a voice. “You okay, buddy?”

His heart thumps as he brings himself back up to the surface. The driver is standing over him; the bus is empty behind him. “We’re here?”

“We’re here.”

“Might need some help getting out,” he says.

“You got it.” They walk toward the front of the bus. The driver reaches out to hold on to him as he descends the steps. “You need anything else?”

“Place to get something to eat here?”

“Doughnut shop. Everybody eats there.” The bus driver points to a place next door.

Doughnuts. He’s down to $3.75. A doughnut and a coffee, anyway. After that, who knows?

It’s twenty minutes after eleven. The day is bright. He can hear a church bell in the distance somewhere.

The people in the doughnut shop—old-timers, mostly—are reading the newspaper and talking among themselves. He pulls the three dollars out of his pocket, orders a coffee, and is about to order a doughnut when something clicks; he hears Meg’s voice telling him, “You don’t make decisions. You let things happen, and then you blame yourself.” There is one practical decision he should have made—a way to get some food and coffee free. The old lady who appears to run the place solo is already pouring a cup of coffee for him. She’s a speedy one, zipping around to refill cups, grabbing sugar wrappers and used plates on the way.

“Does the phone here work?” he asks, referring to the very old phone booth in the restaurant.

“Good as new.”

“I’ll just come back for my coffee,” he says.

“It’ll be here.” She smiles at him. Old and still working—he likes people like her.

In a low voice, he murmurs his request. “I’d like the number for AA.”

The woman on the line tells him a number, but he has nothing to write it down on. “I’ll put you through, sir.”

When a second woman answers his call, he says, “I’m wondering about meetings in … Johnstown, Pennsylvania.”

“Let’s see. Ten thirty this morning at New Visions, Walnut Street,” the woman says. “ ’Course, let’s see, you already missed that. Seven tonight in Westmont. Civic Center.”

“Thank you.”

He looks at his watch and goes back to the woman behind the counter. “Where’s New Visions, Walnut Street?” he asks. “Is it far?”

“Four blocks.” She makes a map with her finger on a napkin. “But you got crutches. You guys,” she calls. “Who can give this soldier a ride over to New Visions?”

“I’m leaving now,” one old fellow says. “You want to go now?”

“You don’t want to get in his car,” another man cracks. “It’s not going to make it.”

He makes a move to pay for his untouched coffee.

“You really want it? I could put it in paper,” the waitress offers.

“Never mind.”

“No charge, then.”

“Very kind of you,” Nick says. As he’s leaving, he can see her consider, then pour what’s in his cup back into the pot.

The man who will take him to New Visions holds the door open for him.