The Price of Silence Page 9
“You’ve got a search warrant with you, right?” I said. “What are you looking for? An-ling hasn’t been in our apartment in months and months.” Scottie started pulling at his leash and barking wildly. I jerked him back. “Shut up!”
He can’t stand squirrels.
“Why don’t you just ask Dad? He’ll let you in.We’ve got nothing to hide.” He could even look down in my room in the basement. There was nothing there yet that had anything to do with An-ling.
“Your father has a very poor view of the police.”
Who wouldn’t? They were harassing Mom and then two detectives showed up at Dad’s office without calling first. One of his students came in the waiting room and overheard An-ling’s name and some of the questions and spread the news that the police were questioning Professor Howells in the Asian artist murder case.As a result, three students dropped out of his class; the Dean called him into his office to discuss damage control and now Dad wanted to sue the police.
I’d been asked questions too, after the fingerprinting.
Q: How well did you know An-ling?
A: Not much. I only saw her when she’d come over to see my mother.
Q: Never alone?
A: Once she came down to the basement to see my drum set.
Q: Did you ever go to the studio?
A: No.
Q: Never?
A: No.
Q:Do you have any idea who had a grudge against An-ling?
Did she ever mention how she came to the States? Do you know if she had another name?
No. No. No.
My arm jerked. Scottie was choking on his leash and a squirrel leaped up the tree to safety. “You’re not even close to finding her killer, are you? That’s why you’re coming to our apartment with a search warrant.You’re desperate.”
Sergeant Daniel didn’t even blink.“You should think of becoming a detective when you grow up, but you’re going to be a percussionist, I hear. At least that’s what your mother thinks. Is that how you see it?”
Mom discussing me with a detective? What else did she tell him? “I’m not good enough. I don’t know.”
“Billy Higgins. He made a name for himself playing on Ornette Coleman’s early recordings. Smiling Billy.You ever heard him?”
I shook my head.
“Get one of his CDs and listen good.You’ll learn a lot. He wasn’t one of those show-off players who need people to break out clapping and hooting in the middle of the piece to tell them how great they are. I hope you don’t need that when you play, because in the end it doesn’t serve the music and the music is what playing is all about.”
“Making the music shine,”I said. Playing is also about stepping out of the world and finding you’ve become someone else, like a swimmer when he dives into a pool and starts moving his body through the water and suddenly he’s become this incredibly beautiful fish without any weight to him.“Making the music shine.”
We were walking along the river by now and Sergeant Daniel told me how he loved the smell of sun mixed with water when the weather got warm, how the smell reminded him of eating his mother’s fish stew when he was a boy younger than me.Then he said how sad it must have been for me when Mom left to live with An-ling. How it must have made me angry too.A girl she’d known for just a short time becoming more important to her than her own son.
“It wasn’t like that. Mom only wanted to help An-ling because she was going to be a great painter.Then Mom and Dad started having some problems. Older people, you know, everything becomes a big deal with them. Mom and Dad argued a lot, over what to eat for dinner, what movie to see, where to go on vacation. Mom needed some time off, that’s all. She didn’t leave to be with An-ling.
“And it wasn’t a big deal. I knew she was going to come back and so did Dad. It’s happened to a lot of the kids in my class, except most of their parents get divorced. Mom came back.”
Sergeant Daniel finally did sit down on a bench. “Set your butt down here too. Scottie needs a rest.” I sat down at the other end.
“How many times did you go to Brooklyn, to the studio?”
I wanted to lie again, but his face had turned real serious.
He wasn’t going to take any bullshit.
“Four or five times maybe, but I only went there to see my mother.”
“I thought you only saw your mother for brunch on Sundays in Manhattan?”
“Sometimes I wanted to see her more.”
“Nate! Nate!” Beanpole was running down the path.He was waving his arm, his hand flapping in front of his face like a screw in his wrist had come loose. “He’s home.” My heart started pounding. Glad for the interruption, panicked at what was to come.
By the time we made it back up to Riverside Drive, Mom had come home too. Dad started arguing with Sergeant Daniel. Mom wanted me to go to Mrs. Ricklin’s and stay there.The two men with the satchels headed first for my parents’ bedroom. Dad tried to follow, but Sergeant Daniel blocked the door.
“Why don’t the three of you wait in the living room? Let us get our work done and we’ll be out of here in no time.”
Dad didn’t budge. “What kind of idiot judge issued this search warrant? On what grounds? You’re looking for what? This makes no sense! No goddamn sense! You’re going to take her clothes, her letters, her makeup? What else? Her laptop? You’re going to find nothing and then what? The innocent citizen grins and bears it. Is that it? You can’t really think my wife had anything to do with this, Sergeant. In Fort Greene, just the other day, ten blocks from where the girl lived, some druggie shot three people dead.”
I kept looking at Mom, who hadn’t moved from the front door. I wanted her to tell Dad to shut up. Her eyes kept sliding from Dad to Sergeant Daniel, but her mouth stayed tight.
“Did you ask the druggie about An-ling, Sergeant Daniel? How do you know he didn’t kill her too? Did you get a search warrant, invade his home, go through his clothes? No, right? Because you blacks stick together. A white middle-class woman, she’s a killer for sure. I know what you’re doing. Don’t think I don’t.You’re getting back at us for—”
I flung my arms around his chest, hugged him hard. “Dad. Please,Dad. Just let them get through with it.”He put his arms on my shoulders real slow, and he started breathing again. I could feel his heart beating hard against my cheek.
“It’ll be okay, Dad.”
The three of us sat in the living room after that. Forty-five minutes later the police were gone.They took some of Mom’s clothes and all three of our laptops.
The next morning Sergeant Daniel’s testimony for the prosecution continues. In his hands he holds two sworn statements dated April 27, 2005 and May 17, 2005, both signed by Emma Perotti. They have been entered into evidence as People’s Exhibits Two and Three.
“Sergeant Daniel, in your May seventeenth meeting with Mrs. Perotti, did you repeat some of the questions you asked in your April twenty-seventh meeting with the defendant?”
“Yes, I did.”
Guzman, his arms folded, rocks gently on his heels. “How did Mrs. Perotti answer the repeated questions?”
“She varied her answer in one instance.”
“Please explain to the jury.”
“On April twenty-seventh I asked the defendant when she had last been in the Tercer Street loft and she stated that she left the loft on March thirtieth and never went back. When I asked the same question on May seventeenth, she stated that she went back to the loft on April seventeenth.”
“Did you ask her why she lied in her first statement?”
Fishkin leaps up. “Objection!”
“Withdrawn. Do you know why the defendant changed her statement?”
“She stated she’d put the April seventeenth visit out of her mind because she was so upset about her friend’s death, and it was only after I showed her the hardware store owner’s statement that she remembered.”
“Did you ask her why she went back to the loft on April seventeenth?”
“Did you ask the defendant to explain why she bought the can of insulation foam on that day?”
“Yes.”
“Please read to the jury her answer from the May seventeenth statement.”
Sergeant Daniel fishes a pair of glasses from his breast pocket. After a quick glance at Emma Perotti, he slips them on.
“‘The last time I visited the loft, on April seventeenth”—his voice is soft, but naturally low enough to carry across the court-room—“ a mouse ran out from under the kitchen sink. I grabbed a broom to kill it, but it got away. An-ling was scared of mice and when I found a large hole under the sink, I went down to the hardware store a few blocks away, bought a can of insulation foam, came back to the loft and plugged the hole.’”
“Thank you, Sergeant.” Guzman walks back to his table and picks up a clear plastic bag containing what looks like a white item of clothing. He gives it to a court officer. “Your Honor, at this point I would like to offer People’s Exhibit Eight into evidence.”
After the court reporter has labeled the exhibit, a court officer takes it to Sergeant Daniel.
“Please remove it from the bag, Sergeant,” Guzman says.
“Show it to the jury.”
Daniel draws the item out, unfolds it with great care and holds it over the railing of the witness stand. It’s a very wrinkled embroidered silk blouse.
“Sergeant Daniel, can you identify that blouse and how it came to be in police custody?”
“Yes. On April twenty-sixth, me and three of my men went to the defendant’s home with a search warrant. I found the shirt in the defendant’s closet. It had her laundry mark on the label at the back of the collar: ‘EP.’ ”
“Did you take all of the defendant’s clothing into police custody?”
“No.”
“Why did you take this blouse in particular?”
“We found it stuffed in a straw handbag at the back of the closet.”
“No further questions.”
Subj: Fairytales and fantasies
Date: 04-09-05 19:42:12 EST
From: Chinesecanary@BetterLateThan Never.com
To: EPerotti@aol.com
The time when you were on the phone with your school for a long time—it was my next visit after Josh told me about Amy—I went to your bedroom and looked through your closet, the drawers of your bedside table. I wanted to find evidence of her. A photo, a stuffed toy, a pair of shoes, something that would tell me Amy had existed. I found nothing.
I went to Mapleton. The Catholic cemetery was near the railroad tracks, a five-minute walk from the train station. I found Amy’s tomb next to a white hydrangea bush, a small stone on the ground. Carved underneath a cross: Amy Celestina Howells, April 10, 1987–October 21, 1989.
Nothing else.
The stone was dirty, the corners covered in moss. No flowers, just the bush, which I decided you had planted for her. I sat down next to her grave and wondered what it’s like for the dead to hear the trains coming and going, footsteps on the path beside them, the sound of the wind in the trees. Do they like the company of the living world, or are the dead angry they have been taken away from jobs not completed? Cleaning out the attic, writing the report, finishing the coloring book, healing the sick child. Do they know who visits them, who doesn’t? Do they give good fortune to those who come, seek vengeance on those who stay away? I wish I knew.
The dirt on the stone told me no one visited Amy. I cleaned and crushed pages of my sketchbook into mourning flowers which I circled around her name. In the bottom of my pocket I found two candies— lemon and grape, covered in lint and bits of tobacco. I cleaned them as best I could and left them, one on each side of the dates, so that the beginning and the end are sweet.
The library was far, almost an hour’s walk from the cemetery. Curiosity carried me.
Why did you, who have been so kind and generous to me, not write anything on the tomb? Why don’t you bring new flowers every week?
When you lost her, was the grief too much to hold inside a few black lines? Is your heart so strong it can keep such pain to itself? These are the things I wondered as I walked.
The death announcement, I wanted to glean it for traces of your feelings. I had the death date, I asked for copies of the local newspaper from that week.
Looking for the death announcement, I found the article. Amy’s death brought shame on you, the way my birth brought shame on my mother.
EIGHT
Emma
ABOVE THE DOWNWARD slope of converted factories and warehouses, the Manhattan Bridge arched blue. Below, jade green in the sun, a swath of the East River. In front of the window I had just cleaned, a fist of paper towel still in my hand, I watched, listened as, on the lower level of the bridge, the train from Manhattan rumbled past the window. I wondered if this was the one An-ling was on, whether she was, at this moment, walking toward this studio.
I’d been waiting in the hot, light-drenched loft for more than an hour.
“I got lost,” An-ling offered, blinking at the brightness of the room from the doorway.In her wrinkled black T-shirt and jeans, she looked no older than Josh.A hot pink plastic satchel hung from a drooping shoulder.Her hair was dirty,uncombed. She looked sullen,put-out to be dragged all the way to Brooklyn from midtown and the Art Students League.
“I got off at the wrong stop.” Her hand clutched the door jamb. She didn’t want this place, a small Brooklyn loft in an area known as DUMBO, which stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. I was the one insisting she take a look at it.At least she’d come.No commitment, no strings attached, I’d promised. Only a simple look at what could be hers for a while.The place belonged to a colleague of mine who had moved to Arizona but hadn’t decided whether to sell it or not. She was letting me have it until June for the price of the maintenance, which was affordable if I was careful. An-ling belonged here, in a clean, airy space filled with light, in a neighborhood of other artists. I saw her blooming here.
I took her arm and pulled her across the concrete floor on which the previous artists had marked their passage with rainbow streaks, swirls, sprinkles of paint. High above us, a patterned tin ceiling held spools of rust.
“They once manufactured bolts and nails in this building,” I said. An-ling remained silent as I walked her along the brick wall covered in a thick crust of white paint.At the center window I watched her take in the view.
“The subway makes a lot of noise and you can barely see the river,” I said.“The ceiling is rusty; the shower leaks; the oven door doesn’t close properly and this floor is a mess and very hard on your feet.”I was taking my cue from Chinese mothers,who, according to An-ling,showered their newborns with insults— ugly,wicked,piglet,toad—to confuse the evil spirits.I pointed out defects to confuse An-ling into accepting.
She turned her back to the window and slid down to the floor. A hand, small, with tidy oval nails that reminded me of translucent shells, dug through the contents of her hot pink satchel.“I’m going native again.” She held up a box of hair dye, her sullenness replaced by a defiance I didn’t understand.
I sat down beside her.“Want my help?”
“How much does it cost?”
“My help? Nothing.”
“The place.” She was looking at the expanse of wall next to the cooking area. It was the only wall in shadow.“That’s the place to paint.Too much light flattens everything and you can’t see true color.A northern exposure is best.”
“We’ll put up blinds.”
She turned to me so that our faces were only inches apart.There was pride in her eyes. “If I accept, what will it cost?”
“I told you not to worry about rent. It belongs to a friend of mine. It will cost me practically nothing.”
She raised a sceptical eyebrow. “I’ll never be able to pay you back.”
“Payback will be to see you thrive, develop
your talent, be happy.”
She inched closer. I could smell the oil paint on her, the cigarettes. “Why do you want to help me? What have I done for you that you’re so generous? What do you get out of this?”
“You’re a special young lady with a great deal of talent and I’d like to help foster that talent.”
“Maybe you are like the fox who can change into many forms. Ghosts ride on a fox. Demons take the shape of a fox.
After dark the fox can turn into a human to tempt you.You don’t act like the other people I know. I don’t know what to expect from you.”
“Why don’t you trust me? I’m your friend.”
“There’s a price to pay for everything we do, everything we accept from others. Maybe now you think there’s no price, but later it’ll show itself clear in your head, and I won’t be able to pay.”
What price had been asked of her in the past? She had received so little from life.“No price.”
“Have you done this before?”
“No.”
“You must know a lot of students who need help.”
“Look, you can’t put my intentions on trial, okay? If you don’t want the studio, fine, don’t take it.” I started to get up.
My sandal slipped on the floor and I fell back against the wall.The intensity of her distrust was unbearable.
“There’s only one me,” I said.“No shape-changing.”
Her eyes widened. “I remind you of someone. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why you’re so good to me.”
She waited.What was the risk of telling her?
“Lady Teachers must always tell the truth.”
I hadn’t told Josh;how could I tell her? “There is someone you remind me of,but it’s only one of the reasons I like you.”
“From China?”
“No,American.White.You don’t look at all alike.That is, she died as a little girl, so I don’t know how she would have looked. Something about you brings her back. I can’t explain it better than that.”