Alafair Burke - Long Gone

She pressed her index finger against the buzzer for the fifth floor, this time holding it down for a complete four seconds before breaking into a staccato rhythm of “ah, ah, ah, ah, staying alive, staying alive.”

A pack of four girls stumbling up the street in platform wedges and miniskirts barely attempted to mask their giggles. “Sometimes he’s just not that into you,” one of them said, giggling, after they had passed.

“Gross! He’s my idiot brother, not that it’s your business. And put some frickin’ clothes on. It’s fifteen degrees out. You look ridiculous.”

More giggles. Jesus, she was turning into one of those crazy old New York women who yell at strangers on the street. She leaned on Ben’s buzzer again until she heard his voice over the intercom.

“I told you, just a second, okay? I was in the shower.”

She had tried calling her father as soon as Jeff had dropped the bombshell about Arthur Cronin filing the incorporation papers for ITH. Jeff wasn’t familiar with the attorney’s name, but Alice certainly was. The phone at her parents’ townhouse rang for two straight minutes without an answer, and her father’s cell went directly to voice mail. When she tried the house in Bedford, her mother said her father had flown to Miami to scout locations for his next film.

Alice got the impression that her mother still didn’t know about Drew Campbell’s murder or its aftermath. She had never followed current events that were not related to culture or entertainment, and apparently her husband hadn’t felt the need to fill her in on her daughter’s current crisis. Alice had said nothing to change the situation, simply asking her mother whether she knew about a corporation her father might have used called ITH. Her mother did not, but said she would try to ask her father about it.

In the meantime, Alice had questions for Ben.

She gave a perfunctory tap before opening his unlocked door. She found him in the living room fully clothed. His hair was dry. The apartment was not particularly tidy. He had some reason for keeping her waiting in the cold. She looked into his face, searching for signs of drug use, but she’d never been good at detecting such things. Or maybe he’d always been good at hiding them.

“I need to ask you something, Ben, and I need you to be totally honest with me. Do you know anything about ITH Corporation? Specifically, I mean any connection between it and Dad.” She told him what she had learned from Jeff about Arthur Cronin being the attorney who filed the initial documents for incorporation. “The police must also know about Art’s involvement, because they were asking me whether Dad might be connected to the gallery.”

Ben shook his head. “I told you, Alice, I don’t know anything about it.”

“But you acted weird the other night when I mentioned the company, and now it turns out Art was involved.”

“I wasn’t acting weird. God, not this again. What would Dad have to do with that gallery anyway?”

“I have no idea. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’m starting to wonder whether there’s anything our father isn’t capable of.”

“Jesus, Alice. It’s been a year. Mom’s not going anywhere. She seems fine with him. You’ve got to start forgiving him, too. Lighten up.”

“I thought you said my independence was contagious. You didn’t even call them when you got busted, and now you’re defending them?”

“I didn’t call them because I don’t want them to freak out and worry.”

She plopped herself down on his oversize sectional sofa and threw her feet onto the ottoman. “It doesn’t piss you off that he spent all those years telling us to ignore tabloid lies? It was all true, Ben. All those years. All those women. It’s embarrassing.”

“Of course I’m pissed. And, yeah, that’s part of why I’m not really down with them right now either. But with me, it’s temporary. So the man’s not perfect. He loves Mom. He loves us. He’s just-you know, he’s fucked up and has his baggage, like everyone else. Did it ever dawn on you that maybe he and Mom had an understanding?”

“Oh, gross.”

“Don’t be so provincial, as they’d likely say. They’ve always been a little weird.”

They both knew that her parents’ nontraditional approach to marriage had rubbed off more on Ben than on her. She’d been so eager to have a stable, regular marriage that she had dashed down the aisle with someone who proved to be entirely wrong for her. Ben, on the other hand, had been engaged twice to two wonderful women, who both eventually left when they realized he would never be able to live his life around anyone but himself.

“I’m sorry. I’m not ready to forgive him.”

“Will you ever be?”

“I don’t know. Why are we talking about this?”

“Sorry. I guess I want to see things back to normal with you guys. You’ve always been able to be my sister, even when I was sticking anything I could find in my arm. I wish you’d show the same tolerance with Dad.”

“I can tell you one thing: if it turns out he had anything to do with this gallery and kept it from me, even after all that has happened, I’m done with him. I will never talk to him again.”

“Well, hopefully that won’t be the case, then.”

She pushed her fingers through her hair. “Fuck, if the police know about Arthur they might try to ask Dad about ITH. I can only imagine how that conversation will go. Remember that time the police came to our house after that belated birthday party you decided to throw for yourself?”

“I’m surprised you remember that.”

How could she forget the one time police officers had been called to their home?

It was a Sunday afternoon. Before the drive back into the city, she had been finishing a project for her sixth-grade civics class-a five-minute oral autobiography delivered in the role of the first female Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O’Connor. Her father had knocked on her bedroom door. Two police officers in uniforms stood behind him. She remembered her father looking nervous, but in retrospect, she had probably projected her own reaction onto him. Apologetic for disturbing her, he made a point of telling the officers they were disrupting his daughter’s schoolwork.

She remembered feeling small as she followed them to her father’s private study. She remembered running her fingers across the nap of his new red velvet sofa-push it one way and it’s shiny, then the other way for dull.

“Alice, these policemen have some questions about a gathering your brother had Friday night? Remember we were watching your movie until midnight? They just need to ask you about that.”

Ben had a way of telling his parents he was “inviting a few friends over,” only to wind up hosting a kegger in the backyard. This particular night was precisely one week after Ben’s sixteenth birthday. Ben had wanted to celebrate the actual date with his school friends in Manhattan, but that didn’t stop him from taking a second bite of the apple in Bedford a week later. By then, Ben was nearly an adult in her parents’ eyes. They thought of themselves as too freewheeling to interfere.

The party had proven to be a doozie. Ben would tell her later that one girl got so drunk her parents sent her away to an all-girls boarding school.

It seemed like the police officers’ questions went on forever. How many people were at the party? Could she name any of them? Did she hear or see anything unusual? Where were her parents? She ran her fingers back and forth over that red velvet-shiny then dull, shiny then dull.

She remembered wanting to protect her parents. She remembered hating her brother for putting them in a position of having to answer questions from police officers. She remembered wishing that her father’s friend, Arthur, was still there, but he had already left for the city.