Tess Gerritsen - Peggy Sue Got Murdered

"Papa Earl!" Bella said. "She's here now, isn't she?"

"Yeah, got good 'n' guilty, did she?"

M. J. laughed and took his hand. It felt like bones wrapped in parchment. "How you been, Papa Earl?"

"What you care?"

"Did you get the coat I sent?"

"What coat?"

"You know," sighed Bella. "The down jacket, Papa Earl. You wore it all winter."

"Oh. That coat."

Bella gave M. J. a weary you know how he is look and said, "He loves that coat."

"Papa Earl," said M. J. "I brought someone with me."

"Who?"

"His name is Adam. He's standing right over here."

Gently she turned the old man to face Adam. Papa Earl extended his arm, held it out in midair for the expected handshake. Only then, as the two men faced each other, did Adam notice the snowy cataracts clouding the old man's eyes.

Adam took the offered hand and grasped it firmly. "Hello… Papa Earl," he said.

Papa Earl let out a hoot. "Makes you feel dumb, don't it? Big fella like you callin' a shrimp like me Papa."

Adam laughed. "Not at all, sir."

"So what you got going with our Mariana here?"

"He's just a friend, Papa Earl," said M. J.

There was a pause. "Oh," the old man said. "It's like that."

"I wanted you to meet him, talk to him. See, he's looking for someone. A woman."

Papa Earl's grizzled head lifted with sudden interest. The blind eyes seemed to focus on her. "Why you askin' me? What do I know?"

"You know everything that goes on in the Projects."

"Let's sit down," the old man said. "My bones is killing me."

They went into the kitchen. Like the rest of the apartment, the room was on the far side of used. Linoleum tiles had worked loose below the sink. The formica counters were chipped. The stove and refrigerator were straight from the Leave It to Beaver era. Papa Earl's other grandchild, Anthony, sat hunched at the table, shovelling SpaghettiOs into his mouth. He scarcely looked up as the others came in.

"Hey, Anthony!" barked Papa Earl. "Ain't you gonna say hello to your old baby-sitter?"

"Hello." Anthony grunted and stuffed in another spoonful of SpaghettiOs.

Their personalities hadn't changed a bit, M. J. realized, watching Anthony and Bella, remembering all those evenings she had looked after them while Papa Earl worked. Back in the days when the old man still had his "vision." These two might be twins, they might have the same mocha coloring, the same high, sculpted cheekbones, but their personalities were like darkness and light. Bella could warm a room with her smile; Anthony could chill it with a single glance.

Papa Earl shuffled about the familiar kitchen with all the sureness of a sighted man. "You hungry?" he asked. "You want something to eat?"

M. J. and Adam watched Anthony noisily lap tomato sauce and they said, in the same breath, "Nothing, thanks."

They all sat down at the table, Papa Earl across from them, his snowy cataracts staring at them eerily. "So who's this woman you looking for?" he asked.

"Her name is Maeve Quantrell," said M. J. "We think she's living in the Projects."

"You have a picture?"

M. J. glanced at Adam.

"Yes. As a matter of fact, I do," he said, and reached for his wallet. He placed a snapshot on the table.

M. J. had been expecting to see a version of what he'd described to her, a hellion in black leather and technicolor hair. What she saw instead was a fragile blond girl, the sort you'd find shrinking in the corner at a school dance.

"Bella?" said Papa Earl.

Bella reached for the photo. "Oh, she's real pretty. Blond hair. Sort of shy looking."

"How old?"

"She's twenty-three," said Adam. "She looks different now. Probably dyed her hair some crazy color. Wears more makeup."

"Anthony? You seen this girl around?" asked Papa Earl.

Anthony glanced at the photo and shrugged. Then he rose, tossed his empty bowl in the sink, and stalked out of the kitchen. A moment later, they heard the apartment door slam shut.

"Like a wild animal, that boy," Papa Earl said with a sigh. "Comes and goes when he wants. Don't know what to do 'bout him."

Bella was still studying Maeve's photo. Softly she asked, "Who is she?"

"My daughter," said Adam.

Papa Earl sat back, nodding with instant understanding. "So you lookin' for your girl."

"Yes."

"Why?"

Adam shook his head, puzzled by the question. "Because she's my daughter."

"But she run away. She don't want to be found. Girl like that, you ain't never gonna find her 'less she comes to you ."

"Then I suppose…" Adam looked down wearily. "I suppose I'd settle for just knowing she's all right."

Papa Earl was silent a moment. It was hard to tell what thoughts were going on behind those clouded eyes of his. At last he said, "You'll want to talk to Jonah."

"Jonah?" asked M. J.

"He's the big man now."

"Since when?"

"Year ago. Took over when Berto went down. Anything you want round here, gotta go through Jonah."

"Thanks," said M. J. "We'll follow up on that." She was about to stand up when another question occurred to her. "Papa Earl," she said, "Did you know a boy named Nicos Biagi?"

The old man paused. "I heard of him, yeah."

"Xenia Vargas?"

"Maybe."

"Did you hear she died?"

He sighed. "Lotta people die 'round here. Don't stick in your mind much anymore, people dying."

"They both took the same drug, Papa Earl. This drug, it's moved into the Projects and it's killing people."

He said nothing. He just sat there, his sightless eyes staring at her.

"If you hear anything, anything at all about it, will you call me?" She took out her business card and laid it on the table. "I need help on this."

He touched the card, his bony fingers moving across "M. J. Novak, M.D." printed in black. "You still workin' for the city?" he asked.

"Yes. The medical examiner."

"Don't understand you, Mariana. You a doctor now, and you takin' care of dead people."

"I find out why they die."

"But then it's too late. Don't do 'em no good. You should be in a hospital. Or open your own place out here. It's what your mama wanted."

M. J. was suddenly aware of Adam's gaze on her. Damn it, Papa Earl , she thought. Save the lecture for another time .

"I like my job," she said. "I couldn't stand it in a hospital."

Papa Earl gazed at her with sad understanding. "Those were bad times for you, weren't they? All those months with your mama…"

M. J. rose to her feet. "Thanks for your help, Papa Earl. But we have to leave."

Bella and her grandfather escorted them through the living room. It never changed, this room. The chairs were set in precisely the same places they'd always been, and Papa Earl navigated past them like a bat with radar.

"Next time," he grumbled as Adam and M. J. left the apartment, "don't you wait so long before visits."

"I won't," said M. J. But it sounded hollow, that promise. I don't believe it myself , she thought. Why should he ?

She and Adam headed back down the four flights of stairs, stepping over the same broken toys, the same cigarette butts. The smells of the building, the echoes of TV sets and babies' squalls, funnelled up the stairwell and unleashed a barrage of memories of how she used to play on these steps, used to sit outside her apartment door, her knees bunched up against her chest. Waiting, waiting for her mother to calm down. Listening to the crying inside the apartment, the sounds of her mother's anguish, her mother's despair. The memories all rushed at her as she walked down the stairwell, and she knew exactly why she'd waited three long years to come back.

On the third floor landing, she paused outside apartment 3H. The door was a different color than she'd remembered, no longer green. Now it was a weirdly bright orange, and it had a built-in peephole. It would be different inside as well, she realized. Different people. A different world.