“Oh, the Sullivan boy might have been quite the little celebrity – I think that was what attracted Tommy to him in the first place – but he was always in and out of trouble and he loved nothing better than dragging Tommy along with him.”
“Is he still around.”
“He works at a sub shop on the north side, I think. Which just goes to show, doesn’t it?” She gave me the address.
I glanced at Kimberly and then said, “What about Eddie Dean?”
“Who?”
“A friend of Tommy’s when they were young?”
“I don’t recognize that name. But it’s so hard to keep them all straight.”
“It would have been when they were still just tykes,” said Kimberly.
“There was a little blond boy he played with, a sweet boy, quiet, followed Tommy around like a puppy, but he moved. To California, I think. You said you had some news about my son?”
“Yes,” I said. “I wanted you to know that the police have reopened the investigation into Tommy’s disappearance. I received information of a confidential nature that has caused them to take another look.”
Her face startled smooth. “Can you tell me what you learned?”
“No, I’m sorry,” I said. “It is privileged.”
“He’s my son.”
“I know that Mrs. Greeley and I’m sorry. But anything you can add might be very helpful to the reopened investigation.”
“I told the police what I knew then, which was very little. Just that he hadn’t called in so long and wasn’t answering his phone. He was very busy in Philadelphia, didn’t have much time for us. But I understood, a mother understands these things. Law school was very trying. He was working so hard. It took all his time and concentration to be at the top of his class.”
“Who told you he was at the top of his class?”
“Tommy did, of course. Tommy was always at the top of his class.”
“Okay,” I said. “And you knew nothing about any business ventures he was in?”
“Not really, but he was doing quite well. He always had a nice car, nice clothes. He said he had made money in something to do with publishing.”
“Do you have any idea what happened to your son, Mrs. Greeley?”
“Of course I do. He died,” she said. “What else could have happened? He’s dead. My son is dead. Dead.” Her voice drifted off as she said the last word, and as her voice drifted so did her gaze, toward the small dining area. “Mr. Greeley went down there looking for him. Didn’t find a sign one way or another, but twenty years of nothing is proof enough.”
“I suppose so,” I said. “So after his disappearance you never heard from him in any way?”
“No,” she said. “Never.” But even as she said it her eyes slid again toward the dining area. It was a small dingy alcove, overwhelmed by a dark table, high-backed chairs, a large dark sideboard with a china hutch above it. The hutch doors were ornately carved, with glass panels to show off the dishes. But there weren’t dishes in there, there was something else I couldn’t quite make out.
“Is Mr. Greeley around, we’d like to talk to him too?”
“He’s at the golf course.” Her nose twitched. “The city course. Every day,” she said with a hard smile.
“Is he a good golfer?” said Kimberly, with a bounce of solicitous excitement in her voice.
“No,” she said.
“You don’t happen to have a picture of Tommy, do you?” I said. “Something we could take with us?”
“I might,” she said, smashing out her cigarette and standing unsteadily. “In the other room. I’ll be right back.”
As soon as she left, I stood and meandered over to the dining area, right to that china hutch. I took a quick look around and then opened the doors.
“My God,” I said softly.
There were bottles, the shelves were filled with them, a score of bottles, all clear, all still sealed, all filled with their magic elixir. Gin. Gordon’s Gin. Same brand, stockpiled over the years, you could tell from the varied rates of yellowing on the seals. So much alcohol. Saved up for a rainy day, no doubt. Wouldn’t want to go an hour without. I bet there were bottles stashed all over that house, in the kitchen cabinets, beneath the sink in the bathroom, under the bed, because you never know. And as we talked about Tommy, his mother couldn’t keep her eyes from those bottles, waiting for us to leave so she could slit open a seal, unscrew a top, pour herself a stiff dose of amnesia. It was all too pathetic to bear.
When Mrs. Greeley returned with a photograph, I was again sitting beside Kimberly.
“This is from his college graduation,” she said as she handed it to us. “I expect it will do.”
Tommy Greeley, as his mother surely wanted to remember him, handsome and tall in his graduation robe, a mop of black hair falling from his mortarboard and almost cutting off his eyes. And a smirk that was particularly fulsome. There was an insinuation in that smirk, that this was just the beginning. It wasn’t the kind of smile a politician gives, a false, toothy, trustworthy smile, it was something else. Look what I scored, it said, his smirk, look what I pulled off. Aren’t I something, a geeky Irish boy from the wrong side of Moraine, with a brutal father and bitter drunk of a mother, graduating from Penn, off to Penn Law School, with a million-dollar business on the side? Aren’t I the damnedest thing?
“It’s fine,” I said, standing, anxious to be gone from that house, that woman. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Greeley. We’ll be back in touch if there is any more news.”
“Can I ask something?” said Kimberly.
Mrs. Greeley said, “Of course you can, dear, such a pretty girl. Such lovely skin. I had lovely skin as a girl too. But then you get old and you dry out. Think of an orange squeezed of all its juice. That’s what a husband and a child will do to you. You’ll see, my pretty. So, dear, ask your question.”
“Now think first, before you answer, because this is, like, not a true-false, okay? If your son was an animal, which animal would he be?”
I sighed loudly. “Kimberly,” I said.
“I saw it on TV.”
“I’m sorry for the disturbance, Mrs. Greeley. Thank you for your time. Let’s go, Kimberly.” I was in the process of leading her out of the house when Mrs. Greeley spoke.
“He would be a polar bear, dear.”
“Excuse me?” said Kimberly.
“He would be a polar bear,” said Mrs. Greeley, “because he was always hungry and he roared when he wasn’t happy and he could be very very cold.”
Chapter 52
“I WAS JUST trying to ask a question,” said Kimberly, arms crossed and sulking as we drove through the streets of Brockton, “and you go tripping all over me like I’m telling a dick joke in front of the queen.”
“I thought we discussed this on the plane,” I said. “I would ask the questions. I have much more experience at this. Years in law school, in the courtroom, investigating my cases. That’s why I get paid.”
“You asked me along.”
“Yes, but just to observe. I mean really, what kind of experience do you have? Asking questions at sorority rushes?”
“Rush can be brutal, V.” She made a show of looking me up and down. “You’d last about a minute and a half.”
“That long? But then I don’t dress like a stewardess.”
“You like it?” she said, her hand flying to her hat. She was wearing a sky blue suit with sharp blue pumps and a blue peaked cap. She looked as tasty as a cupcake with extra frosting, an adolescent fantasy come to life.
“Very becoming,” I said, “though I’m not sure becoming to what.”
“Becoming to a vice president,” she said, “and it was a quality question.”
“It was a touchy-feely piece of Baba Wawa nonsense,” I said.
“Maybe I’m a touchy-feely Baba Wawa kind of girl, whatever the hell a Baba Wawa is. Is that, like, from Star Wars?”
“Who, the bounty hunter?”
“No, the big hairy thing.”
“Chewbacca?”