LA. Franco Mysteries: End Of Watch Part 12

"You gonna stop me?"

"No-o. But if and when this person materializes, are you gonna handle him-or her-like a cop or a daughter?"

"A cop," Frank snapped. "Just a cop."

Lifting a placating hand, Annie calmed, "All right, all right. I had to ask. I'm sorry I brought this up but it's a possibility you gotta look at."

"Yeah, all right, I know."

"I can't have you goin' off on whoever's leavin' this stuff."

"I'm not going off on anybody. Whoever I find I'll treat aem like I'd treat any other wit."

"And of course you'll let me know the minute you find someone."

Frank nodded.

"And you don't confront this person. You can tail her, or him, or whatever, but leave the questions to me. You don't talk to her. You got it?"

"Got it."

Pulling into the station lot, Annie asked, "You got friends here?"

"What?"

"You got friends here in town? Anybody to hang out with?"

"No."

"You got no friends, no family. You're dealin' with your pop's murder and if I may ask, how much are you spendin' a night at the hotel?"

"About eighty bucks."

"Eighty bucks a night for one, two, maybe even three weeks." Nosing into a spot Annie put the car in park, declaring, "That's stupid. I live fifteen minutes away in Tribeca. I got two bedrooms sittin' there empty since my kids left. You're gonna come stay with me. End of discussion."

"Nah, I can't."

"Why ya can't?"

Frank got out of the unmarked.

Annie asked over the top of the car, "You mad about what I said back there?"

Frank sighed, tracing a line through the grime on the hood. "The cop in me wants to slap myself silly for not thinking of that, but the daughter in me wants to slap you silly. I just... it's hard to take in, is all."

"I can see how that would be." Coming around to Frank's side of the car Annie told her, "You just go and keep an eye on the cemetery, huh? Let me worry about the case. You shouldn't have to do that. It's your pops, not some stranger. It's hard to be objective with your pops, huh? Let me do that. That's what the great city of New York pays me for. That's what I got commendations on my wall for, huh?"

"Yeah." Frank stared at the ground. "I'll go be your eyes and try not to think too much."

"That's a girl. And meanwhile, you're comin' to stay with me."

"I can't do that, Annie."

"Why? Why do you keep sayin' that?"

"You don't even know me. How do you know I don't snore and steal loose change?"

Annie grinned. " aCause I'm a detective, cookie, remembuh? Besides, I got ear plugs and can spare some loose change."

"I don't want to put you out."

"How are you puttin' me out? I'm never there. You're gonna be squattin' on a headstone in Canarsie all day. You should have a nice place to come to at the end of the day, not some hotel room."

"It's a nice room."

"Yeah, a nice eighty-dollar room. You come stay with me for nothin'."

Entering the station house, Frank insisted, "I couldn't impose on you like that."

"What impose? You're not listenin' to me. I just said I'm never there. I may as well be payin' a mortgage for a reason. And to tell you the truth, I miss the kids. I don't like comin' home to an empty apartment."

Knowing the feeling too well, Frank asked, "What happened to Mr. Silvester?"

"Psh. He left when Ben was six and Lisa was eight. I never met a man yet that could live with the Job being first, so I stopped lookin'. I was busy enough with the kids anyway, who needed another one? The one good thing, and I gotta say this for him, is what he did to that apartment. It was a loft in an old manufacturing building when he bought it. Let me tell ya, it was fallin' down. Don't think I didn't give him a few choice words about it, either. But, G.o.d love him, he fixed that place up nice. You'll see. And never said a peep about giving it to me and the kids, after all that hard work he done ... So it's just me rattlin' around the place all by myself. Come on, do me a favor. Come stay. If you don't like it I'm sure they'll be glad to give ya your room back at the Seventeen. Whaddaya say?"

Frank was the kind of drunk who liked to be alone, who crawled off into a hole to lick her wounds and feel safe. As uncomfortable as the idea was, she knew it would be healthier to stay with Annie than alone in a hotel room above a bar.

"You sure?"

"Naw," she chided. "I'm mentally deranged and I just changed my mind. Course I'm sure."

Frank trailed her up the stairs. "That'd be nice."

"Good. I got an extra key in my desk. You can let yourself in."

After checking out of the hotel Frank did just that.

The apartment was a flight up in a renovated loft building on Franklin Street. Turning to lock the door behind her, she was startled by a child-sized statue of the Virgin Mary beside the door. Rosary beads hung from an almost life-size wooden hand and candles encircled the base. Checking out the rest of the apartment, Frank wondered what she'd gotten into. But everything else seemed normal enough. Honeyed wood floors warmed the rooms and high ceilings with big windows made the place feel cozy rather than cramped. Framed photographs and studio portraits hung everywhere and Frank easily spotted family resemblances. She scanned the t.i.tles on a bookshelf, amused they were all romance novels.

Despite the Virgin Mary lurking by the door, Annie's crib was a lot nicer than the hotel. And Frank didn't have to worry about running into Madonna in the bathroom. After stashing her few things in the guest room she found Annie's phone book in the tiny kitchen, using it to figure out subway lines to the cemetery. Done with that, she looked for coffee and made a pot. She filled a china cup and carried it back to the living room on its saucer.

She was intent on taking another look at her father's file, but the statue caught her eye. It was about four feet tall and appeared to be carved from a solid block of wood. Frank wondered how much something like that cost. Sipping her coffee she moved around it. Its imploring eyes followed.

"So?" Frank suddenly asked. "Is it another woman?"

She waited for a sign. When none came, she shook her head and paced the living room. Her briefcase was on the coffee table. Frank popped it open. She pulled the file out and paced some more, finished her coffee. After refilling her cup, she settled onto the couch and opened the folder.

She flipped through years worth of DD5s, past her own statement, the deli clerk's statement, pausing at a list of evidence collected on and around her father's body. The list was short. Khaki slacks, navy T-shirt, navy cardigan, brown leather jacket, white crew socks, leather work boots, white shorts. Eighty-three cents in change, one gold Timex watch, one gold wedding band, a single-bladed pocketknife, a key ring, a pack of Winston cigarettes and a Zippo lighter.

Each item conjured a memory but the last was the most vivid. In the still apartment Frank could hear Frank Sinatra under bar chatter, the click-snap, click-snap, click-snap of her father's Zippo as she opened and closed it. Over and over, while her father and Uncle Al talked and smoked and drank. She waited for them to pull fresh cigarettes from their packs so she could fire up the Zippo. Click-snap, click-snap, click-snap.

She scanned the autopsy report.

"What the h.e.l.l?"

The coroner had described her father's liver as "mildly cirrhotic." Cirrhosis was a nutritional ailment. She'd had autopsies done on kids whose livers looked like fine pate instead of sleek, dark organs. Cirrhosis in those cases was caused by severe malnutrition but in most adults it indicated degrees of alcoholism.

"Christ."

Frank pitched the folder onto the couch. She'd never seen her father drunk but he drank every night. He and Uncle Al would put away pitchers at Cal's and knock back occasional shots. At home her parents always drank wine and beer, martinis and champagne on special occasions. Her father's tolerance for alcohol was prodigious. Just like her own.

She laid her head against the back of the couch. A familiar and comfortable anger welled inside her. She wanted to hold it and warm herself with it, but at this delicate stage of sobriety anger was an indulgence she couldn't afford. Instead she found her cell phone. She was relieved when Mary answered, "Hey, kiddo. How's it going?"

"I'm sober."

"Well, that's good. What else?" Frank told her sponsor about the trip to the cemetery. "When Annie suggested maybe it was another woman visiting the grave I wanted to punch her in the mouth. And I wanted to punch me too. Here I am a homicide cop, right? And I haven't even considered another woman. I still don't think it's true-I don't want to think it's true-but I guess I have to accept it might be. Then on top of that, I'm going through his autopsy report and I read he's mildly cirrhotic. He was a drunk, just like me. And a womanizer. I'm telling you, Mary, I'm not liking this. Not one little bit."

"Aren't you putting the cart a little ahead of the horse?"

"You mean the other woman?"

"Yeah! You have the poor guy drawn and quartered already! And even if he was involved with someone else, how does that affect how he treated you? Did it make him any less of a father? Did it make him love you any less?"

"No," Frank admitted.

"So get off your pity-potty about this womanizer business. One, you don't even know if it's true, and two, if it is, it doesn't change his love for you, which you were d.a.m.n lucky to have. Now. So what that he was a drunk? I know some pretty nice people that are drunks." When Frank didn't answer, Mary probed, "It sounds like you've had him pretty high up on a pedestal."

Frank hid a sigh. As it so often did lately, her rage transformed into sadness. Tears replaced her clenched fists.

Mary continued, "That's an easy thing for a child to do. I'm sure this will come up as you work the steps, but for now just know that your father loved you. That's what you need to hang onto. In the end, love is really all that matters. And he loved you. Right?"

Frank caught the Virgin's sorrowful gaze. She closed her eyes and a tear slipped down her cheek. Mary was silent. Frank wiped the tear away, clearing her throat. "I hate how much I still miss him. Being here, at his grave ... I didn't think after all this time it would be so hard. I didn't think I still cared so much."

"Oh, Frank, honey, of course you care. You have a huge heart. And this is a huge wound that you've never let heal. It scares me that you're doing this so soon in sobriety but I gotta tell you, kiddo, I think you can do it. I think you're ready to open up this scab and air it out, to really let it heal this time instead of just putting a Scotch Band-Aid over it and pretending it's gonna go away. It hurts to scrub out a wound, but that's how to heal it."

Frank had no reply. She'd just have to take it on faith.

"It's gonna be all right, kiddo. You're gonna get through this and you're going to be stronger for having done it. You go ahead and have a good cry. I'd say you're due."

Frank wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "You think?"

"I certainly do. I just wish I could be there with you."

"You absolutely are, Mary. You're here with me right now. Thanks for letting me blow."

"That's what I'm here for, honey. And I'm so happy you called me. You been to a meeting today?"

"No. I'll go tonight."

"Good. You need to stick close right now. It'd be too easy to hide out and crawl into a bottle for a little relief."

"Yeah, I thought about that. The cop I'm working with offered to let me stay at her place and I turned her down. Then I thought it probably wasn't such a good idea to be hanging out alone in a hotel room listening to the bar down below, so I took her up on it."

"Good girl! Where's she live?"

"Got a loft in Tribeca. It's nice. She's a nice lady."

"Well, good for you. I feel better you're with someone. And you know, this will end, Frank. One way or another you'll get through to the other side. Pain doesn't last forever."

"That's what I hear." Frank wasn't sure she believed it, but this too she was willing to give the benefit of the doubt. "Thanks for listening, Mary. You're an angel."

"Oh, honey, I'm just so glad I can be here for you."

"You are. Christ!" Frank slapped her forehead. "I'm so busy thinking about myself I completely forgot to ask how your grandson's surgery went."

"Oh, it went fine. They pinned his ankle and he'll be playing second base as good as new. Thanks for asking."

After she said good-bye Frank was left staring at the Virgin.

"You know what?" she told the statue. "I'm hungry."

CHAPTER 20.

Annie came home, dropping to her knees in front of the Madonna. She crossed herself and mumbled for a minute. Standing, she saw Frank leaning against the kitchen wall, watching her.

"What? You never seen anybody pray before?"

"What do you pray for?"

"In the mornin' when I leave I pray for a safe day and at night when I come home I give thanks that I made it back in one piece."

"You Catholic?"

"No, I'm Jewish. Whaddaya think? Course I'm Cat'lic."

"Hey, for all I know, you could be. I never studied world religions, okay?"

Annie smirked, slipping out of her coat. "My mother wouldn't say I'm Catholic. She walks in here, she gives the Virgin a wide berth. She thinks it's idolatrous."

"Is it?"