Death Will Pay Your Debts Read online

  "I wouldn't call it good," he said. "I'm powerless over money, and my life has become unmanageable."

  "Step One," I said.

  "I hate it," he said.

  "Yeah, it sucks. Okay, what's the next right action?"

  "Listen to you," Barbara said. "Validating his feelings and talking like a sponsor."

  "Hey, you don't have to go misty-eyed over my recovery," I said.

  Jimmy's lip quirked up at the corner.

  "Yeah, we've created a monster."

  "Thank you for sharing," I said. "Answer the question."

  "DA, I guess," Jimmy said. "Oh, God, I am going to hate being a beginner. But I have to. I am not going to let this baby down."

  "Jimmy! You really mean it?"

  "Barb, I swear we'll get through this."

  I got up and went into the kitchen to get us all bottles of designer water and give them time to canoodle and make up. I'm not saying I didn't eavesdrop. She'd been afraid he'd want her not to have the baby. Barbara was a nice Jewish girl who'd come a long way from Queens, but Jimmy was an Irish Catholic boy. Deep down, he still had a guardian angel on his left shoulder and a Sister of Charity running his conscience. There was no way they were not having this baby.

  They unglued themselves when I came back into the living room, smiling at me as I handed around the water.

  "Can I have a glass?" Barbara asked.

  "Sure, princess, I'll get it." He disappeared into the kitchen.

  I took a slug of water straight from the bottle.

  "Now you're going to be a mommy," I said, "you'll have to give up being so high maintenance."

  "I won't mind," she said. "Let me enjoy it while I still can. Can I have a hug? In a few months, you won't be able to get your arms around me."

  Barbara's a good hugger. It felt great until she murmured, "Will you go to DA with him?"

  "Who, me?"

  "Well, I can't do it, can I? Just say yes. I know it's the journey, not the destination, that counts and all that. But I'd be lying if I said the outcome doesn't matter, "

  "You don't think he can get his act together?"

  "He'll need to make big changes. He'll need help. It's not just the money. I want us to get married."

  "Have you talked about it?"

  "Not yet. To tell the truth, I'm afraid to bring it up. It's not only the alcoholic thing. If a wedding isn't a money issue, I don't know what is."

  "Yeah, I can see the problem," I said. "But it's not today's problem. One day at a time."

  Barbara sighed. It was a pretty good sigh for someone whose parents aren't alcoholics.

  "I'll have to tell my parents about the baby," she said. "Preferably before they notice. And the moment I do, they're going to ask."

  "Also not today's problem."

  Jimmy was taking an awfully long time to get that glass. He was probably talking to his sponsor on the phone. I was sure he guessed Barbara and I would be having a heart to heart. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy that he trusted me, knowing she'd tell me stuff she couldn't say to him yet.

  "So you will go to DA with him? Promise?"

  Warm and fuzzy and beleaguered: the story of my life as Barbara's friend.

  "Okay, okay," I said. "I'll just do it to support him, though. You don't think I need DA for myself, do you?"

  "I don't know, sweetie," she said, happy as a clam the way she always was when she got her way. "You'll have to listen and make up your own mind about that."

  Chapter Three: Bruce

  Debtors Anonymous was weird. I had come to appreciate AA, even though I'd stumbled into my first meeting much the way I'd stumbled into bars for all those years: dry but expecting to remedy that shortly. Luckily, as they tell you over and over, sobriety is only for one day at a time. So far, I've managed to do that. Al-Anon works for me too. I went when I needed it bad enough. Everyone has relationships, right? And everyone screws them up, right? So it's kind of normal to belong to a program to deal with that. But everyone doesn't cut up their credit cards the way Jimmy did after our first DA meeting. And everyone doesn't write down every cent they spend, including the dollar they gave the blues guitarist on the subway platform and the quarter that rolled onto the tracks.

  I'd never had enough money to be lavish with. But I suffered from what DA calls terminal vagueness, never knowing what I had. Jimmy would always foot the bill for extras, like the share in the group house in the Hamptons where I'd met Cindy. I'd always thanked him profusely. Turns out you're not supposed to let someone else pay your way. You don't get points for thanks.

  In DA, they considered Jimmy a compulsive debtor who needed to get solvent. They had a name for me too. Hi, I'm Bruce, I'm an under-earner. I'd temped as a pink collar office drone on and off since I got sober. It was a recovery job that paid the rent and left me plenty of time for meetings. But DA seemed to think I could do better. Was I afraid of success? Did I cling to feelings of deprivation because they were comfortable and familiar? Was I a money anorexic? Thanks to DA, I was losing sleep over these ugly possibilities.

  Jimmy, who's never met a twelve-step program he didn't love, plunged right in. He got himself a sponsor right away, a leggy blonde woman named Sophia who was a certified hottie. She had him working the DA version of the Twelve Steps from scratch. He also lost no time in getting what they called a pressure relief group: two people, male and female, who would look at his finances in detail and help him formulate a spending plan and an action plan.

  "I'm literally outnumbered," Barbara wailed.

  "Poor bunny," I said. "What's going on?"

  We were jogging around the reservoir in Central Park. It was cherry blossom season on a beautiful spring Saturday afternoon. The runners were out in force on the reservoir track. The road around the park was crowded with runners too, along with bicyclists and tourists. The whole park teemed with people and dogs and food.

  "He's always on the phone with Sophia," she said, "or meeting her for coffee, and if he's not with her, he's with this Dan and Eleanor. His pressure relief group— and they obviously think that I'm the pressure! I thought when I got pregnant, it would be a beautiful time. We'd both be so excited and feel so close, picking names and buying things for the baby. Now if I so much as suggest we look at cribs or changing tables, he says he has to talk to Dan and Eleanor first and see if he can work it into his spending plan."

  "I'm sorry, Barb," I said. "This is tough on you."

  "You're sweet," she said. "And thanks for running with me. I'm terrified of gaining weight. I've got to do my best to stay fit while I still can."

  "You're still going to OA?"

  "Of course. If I eat compulsively, it'll be a nightmare. I've met a few women who've gone through pregnancy abstinent, or I wouldn't think it's possible."

  "I still don't quite get it about abstinence," I said. "It's not like sobriety, where you're either drinking or you're not. You can't abstain from eating."

  "That's why it's harder than staying sober," Barbara said. "As they say in OA, you have to walk the tiger three times a day. Everybody's definition of abstinence is different. Bulimics have to abstain from purging. Anorexics abstain from starving. Compulsive overeaters abstain from bingeing and what we call grazing: treating every day as one long continuous snack. If you're a sugar addict, you abstain from sugar."

  "What about you? What makes you abstinent?"

  "Since I started going to OA, you haven't found me on the floor in the middle of the night with chocolate in my hair, have you? Sobbing because I couldn't stop?"

  "Come to think of it, no," I said.

  "You were there when I hit bottom," she said. "I don't ever want to go back there. But I have such cravings, and it pisses me off that I can't give in and enjoy them."

  "I get it," I said. "If I ever have anything major to celebrate, I'll be seriously annoyed that champagne is out of my life."

  "Are you expecting something major to happen?" Barbara looked hyper-alert, like a prairie dog that's jus
t popped out of its hole, quite a trick while running. "How are things going with Cindy?"

  "Okay, I guess. She works all the time. She got her white shield, which makes her sort of an apprentice detective. If she does a great job and doesn't make any mistakes or enemies, she could be appointed a detective in eighteen months."

  "That's her dream, isn't it?"

  "Her Holy Grail."

  "How did you celebrate her promotion?"

  "In bed. That was pretty nice if I say so myself."

  She dug her elbow into my ribs without losing speed.

  "Showoff. No, that's not fair. Lucky you. Jimmy hasn't touched me since I told him I was pregnant."

  "TMI," I said.

  Barbara sometimes forgets I'm not one of her women friends. The real problem is she doesn't believe there's such a thing as Too Much Information.

  We reached the southwest corner of the reservoir, where we'd started out. We hung a right at the gap in the fence and slowed to a walk as we passed the benches and the water fountain. I wet my bandanna in the fountain and ran it over my face and neck.

  "Bruce? Do you think I'm getting fat?"

  Conversation with Barbara was a minefield these days. I refused to have a conversation I knew was loaded.

  "I'm sorry you feel that way."

  "You learned that line in Al-Anon," she said. "Not fair! But Bruce, honestly, am I?"

  "Forget it. You're always beautiful to me."

  "That's what my mother says," she said. "I never believe her."

  We crossed the road, weaving to avoid the bikes and runners. I admit to evil thoughts about the morons who were texting on their cell phones instead of looking where they were going.

  "What's she like, Bruce?"

  "Who, Cindy? You know Cindy."

  "Sophia. Jimmy won't tell me anything about her."

  I wouldn't be doing Barbara any favors if I described Sophia's goddess looks, the tawny hair, the hourglass figure, the never-ending legs, and what Barbara would have called the shiksa thighs.

  "Come on, Barb," I said. "You know Jimmy is a one-woman man. Let's change the subject."

  "When are you getting a DA sponsor?" she asked.

  "Who, me?"

  "What about a pressure relief group?"

  "I'm not there yet," I said. "I don't know if I'll ever be. Do you know they used to call it a pressure group?"

  "That sounds even worse," she said.

  Chapter Four: Cindy

  Cindy took the subway stairs two at a time. She had been on her way back to the precinct when Sergeant Washington, her supervisor on the detective squad, called to tell her to report to Detective Natali at a Starbucks a few blocks away, from which someone had called in a body. She couldn't help hoping it would turn out to be a homicide. She'd always imagined sweeping up to her first homicide with sirens screaming, brakes squealing, and lights flashing. Now, as she trotted down the street, tucking her hair more securely into its clips, she was glad she'd ducked in at home to change out of the blouse with the coffee stain across the front. She'd loved getting out of uniform when she got her white shield, but there were drawbacks. She couldn't afford catastrophe of any kind, from wardrobe malfunction to arresting the wrong man. With a quick prayer that she would not screw up, she greeted the uniformed officers guarding the scene and ducked under the yellow tape.

  The Starbucks was a triple-decker. The street level was packed with people: cops, baristas, and customers who'd been asked to stay until someone could sort them out. A quick glance upward showed her a railed balcony overhanging the counter. The customers up there had been asked not to move either. A high-wattage light had been rigged to illuminate the dark end of the long, narrow space, suitable for lovers with nowhere better to go and grope and writers creating their novels on their laptops.

  "Cenedella." Detective Natali loomed over the rail of a square landing that separated the two flights of stairs. "Come up."

  Natali was slight and olive-skinned, with receding black, curly hair and a prominent nose. His ancestors could have come from anywhere around the Mediterranean. He looked Italian if you knew his name, but he could pass for Greek, Latino, Jewish, or North African. He had worked undercover before joining the squad, but then he'd gotten married. Rumor had it that his wife had told him to give it up unless he wanted to become a cop divorce statistic. They didn't encourage married men in undercover, anyhow.

  "Here." Natali handed her some paper booties and a pair of gloves. "Put these on and take a look."

  "Thanks." She balanced with a hand on the rail as she slipped the booties on.

  Fully suited up, CSU detectives were already beginning their meticulous search for forensic evidence. The landing was a square platform hardly bigger than an elevator. A kneeling crime scene guy was bagging two grande lattes, a croissant, and a half-eaten cranberry scone. The space was filled to bursting: the cops, a small round table, two overstuffed armchairs. A blonde woman with dancer's legs lay slumped in one of them.

  The dead woman wore a short black leather skirt, pantyhose, and a demure ivory silk blouse. Slippery against the fabric of the armchair, the skirt had ridden up as she slid down to an awkward position with her hips at the front edge of the seat, shoulders hunched awkwardly against the lower half of the chair's back, and legs splayed out. One high-heeled pump had come off. It lay on its side a foot or so away like Cinderella's abandoned slipper. Her hands were beautifully manicured, her makeup sophisticated. If not for the overlay of coffee stains and vomit, she would have been the best-dressed woman in the place.

  "Suffocated?" Cindy asked. "Choked? She looks very pink."

  "We're waiting for the ME," Natali said.

  "You don't think it's a homicide?"

  "Maybe, maybe not. Let's not theorize until we have the autopsy and toxicology results. A death in Starbucks is bad enough." He grimaced. "I'm glad I don't have to deal with the media."

  "Who does that?" she asked.

  "The captain," he said, "or maybe the lieutenant commander of the squad. If it gets too hot, they might hand it over to DCPI: their job is dealing with the press. Listen, I know you're new, so it's okay if you ask the occasional question. But don't slow me up. I caught the case, and I'm in charge. Your job is basically to go where I send you and do what I tell you. And keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. You wouldn't be here if Sergeant Washington thought you'd be a liability. But when press sees detectives at the scene, they think you know something. You don't. So don't so much as breathe on an iPhone."

  "Got it, boss."

  "Not boss," Natali said, giving her a quarter of a grin. "Save it for the sergeant. You can call me Natali. Not Nutcase or Nutella, or I will make your life hell. Now go get all the customers' names, full contact info, and when they got here. Find out if any of them knew each other, if they noticed the victim, and if they saw anything at all. Check their cell phones and laptops for pictures, phone calls, texts, and emails out in the past hour."

  "Can I do that?"

  "Act like you assume they don't mind," Natali said. "If they refuse, back off, but ask them to wait. I'll talk to them myself after I interview the staff."

  "If they cooperate, what do I do?"

  "If everything's negative," he said, "let them go. Tell them we might get in touch later."

  For the next hour, Cindy scribbled names and data and took a quick shot of everyone she interviewed on her cell phone, hoping Natali would think it showed initiative. None of the customers on the ground floor, where the coffee was made and served, had noticed anything until the body was discovered. All of them denied having made the 911 call. Except for a couple of students and a couple of moms of preschoolers grabbing their coffee breaks together, they all claimed to have come in on their own. She let them all go after asking them to get in touch if they thought of anything else.

  The customers on the upper level, a flight of stairs above the landing, had had a better view of the landing.

  "Nobody admits to taking much notice of t
he victim before she died," she told Natali on the way back to the station, "or seeing anyone in the second chair. Once the commotion began, a few of them snapped photos or shot videos of the scene. Nobody refused to let me examine their phones. They were thrilled when I asked them to email their photos to us, though they didn't like being told not to post them to Facebook or offer them to the press. I asked everybody not to talk about the case and especially not to spread any rumors, since nobody knows yet exactly what happened."

  "A waste of breath," Natali said. "They'll be tweeting about it before we get back to the squad room. Still, you've got to say it every time. It would be nice if they waited till the victim is identified and her family notified of her death. Unfortunately, the fact that they know nothing won't stop them from blabbing."

  "They all assumed it was a homicide," Cindy said. "Do you think it was?"

  "It's a CUPI, circumstances undetermined pending investigation, till the ME makes the call. What else did you get?"

  "The customers seated at the little tables along the rail could look down and see the landing, the cash register, and the line alongside the display cases," she said. "Some of them could also see the other end, the counter where the customers pick up their orders. The ones tucked away in the back claimed they were too absorbed in their writing to notice anything. They were mostly scared we'd confiscate their laptops. I don't know what they thought we'd think they were hiding."

  "Did any of the upstairs witnesses know each other?" Natali asked.

  "One group came in together. They said they were friends from the neighborhood who liked to hang out there. And the writers all knew each other by sight, though not by name."

  "Starbucks gets crowded," Natali said. "That group took the trouble to stake out their spot. We'll question them again. They might remember seeing something they didn't know they'd noticed."

  "The victim must have staked out her spot too," Cindy said. "Those two armchairs on the landing were the best seats in the house. They wouldn't have stayed empty long."

  "We'll ask again if somebody saw whoever that other latte was for," Natali said, "either sitting with the victim or at the counter."