The Little Sleep Read online

  I pick up the fully clothed photo. She’s wearing her white T-shirt and skirt. The camera angle is played straight. No ceiling light. There is nothing on the walls behind her, nothing on the bed. There’s the bookcase in the left background. It holds books like a good bookcase should.

  LIT is there, written on that book, across the bottom of its spine. Tim’s signature. Tim’s photograph.

  The bungalow is quiet, the TV dead. Ellen must be asleep. I don’t have a clock in my room. There are no pictures on the walls, only small shelves with assorted knickknacks. I put both photos back in the envelope and go to bed. I shut the light off but I probably won’t be able to sleep. There’s no one to tuck me in, and there are too many monsters in this room.

  TWENTY-THREE

  It’s morning, I think. The sun is out. Good for the sun. I’m walking down the hallway, the corridor of photos, Tim’s memories, everything adding up to a story with some twist ending.

  I can’t stay here today or for the days after. I have to get out soon, back to Southie. Despite everything I learned last night, agreeing to stay here for the rest of the week is a mistake. I’d rather sleep on the rubble of my life back in Southie than spend another night here. At least then I can be a failure in my own home. And I am going to solve this case if for nothing more than to prove to myself that I can do something, something real, something that has effects, repercussions, something to leave a mark. Mark Genevich was here.

  Ellen is in the kitchen sitting with what looks like a week’s worth of local newspapers spread out on the table, splashy circulars all mixed in with the black-and-white text. She cradles one steaming coffee mug in her hands, and there’re two more full mugs on the counter. I hope one of them is mine.

  There’s sunlight everywhere in the kitchen, and not enough shadow. Ellen doesn’t look up. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  I say, “Someone is having a sale on clown pants.” The coffee is scalding hot, as if it knew exactly when I would be awake. That makes one of us.

  Ellen throws a bit of folded-up newspaper at me. I don’t catch it and it bounces off my chest.

  “Hey! Watch the coffee, crazy lady.” The microwave’s digital clock has green digits that flash the wrong time. Ellen never sets the thing. Told you she was crazy.

  She says, “I was just catching up, reading yesterday’s newspaper, and found that.”

  I pick up the front page of the local rag. Headline: OSTERVILLE MAN COMMITS SUICIDE. Included is a head shot, and the article identifies the man as Brendan Sullivan, age fifty. I don’t see that twelve-year-old I was introduced to last night inside the head shot. This Brendan Sullivan is bald, has jowls a Saint Bernard would envy, and thick glasses, thicker than Ellen’s. Apparently, he put a handgun under his chin and pulled the trigger. He leaves behind his wife, Janice; no children. He was an upstanding citizen. Neighbors said he kept to himself, drove tractor trailers, and did a little gardening. Sad story. One that’s impossible to believe.

  I wish I had a shocked reaction at the ready for Ellen, something I kept like a pet and could let out on command. Instead, I give my honest reaction, a big sigh of relief. Yeah, my buffoonery in the DA’s office probably killed this man, but now I have confirmation that Sullivan was the body I saw. And what I saw was what I saw, not a hallucination. That counts for something, right?

  I say, “Isn’t that odd.” I’ve never been very smooth.

  Ellen puts down the rest of her newspaper, the afterthought folded and stacked neatly. This might be her moment of epiphany, bells ringing and seraphim floating in her head. Ellen knows there’s something going on. She might even think I know more than I know. I’ll have to get her on her heels, put some questions out there, keep her from grilling me like a hot dog. I’d crack in record time under her interrogation lamp.

  I say, “Did you know that Sullivan was living in Osterville?”

  Ellen blinks, loses her train of thought, at least for the moment, and says, “What? No, no. I had no idea. The article says he’d bounced around the Cape, but I never ran into him.”

  “Strange.”

  “It gets stranger. I called Aunt Millie to tell her about poor Brendan, and she told me she saw him in Southie last week.”

  I squeeze the coffee mug and it doesn’t squeeze back. “No kidding. Where?”

  “She saw him in CVS on West Broadway. She said, ‘Hi, Brendan,’ and he just said a quick ‘Hi’ back, but he was in a hurry, left the store, and headed out into that terrible rain last week, remember? She said he started off toward East Broadway.”

  He was walking toward my office. He was coming to meet me but got the narcoleptic me instead. The narcoleptic me accepted his pictures and wrote down notes on a yellow pad but didn’t forward any other pertinent information, especially the promise to not show anyone the photos until I’d found it.

  I make some toast. Ellen has an old two-slice toaster that burns the sides unevenly. The bell rings and the bread smokes. In the fridge is margarine instead of butter. I hate margarine.

  Ellen says, “I’m actually leaving soon because I have a kiddie shoot at eleven. I was going to let you sleep, but now that you’re awake, what do you want to do today? Feel like manning the antiques section for a while? I’ll open it up if you want.”

  I haven’t been here twenty-four hours and she’s already trying to get me to work for her. At least these questions are ones I can answer. I say, “I’ll pass on antiquing.” Don’t know if she noticed, but I have the Sullivan account folded under my arm. I’m taking it with me. “You can drop me at the library again. I’ve got work I can do there.”

  She says, “I didn’t know you brought any work.”

  I down the rest of the coffee, scalding my gullet. A ball of warmth radiates in my stomach; it shifts and moves stuff around. “I’m not on vacation, Ellen, and this isn’t Disney World. I do have clients who depend on me.” I’m so earnest I almost believe it myself, at least until I drop the newspaper. It lands heads with the blazing headline facing up.

  Ellen peers over the table. We both stare at the newspaper on the floor as if waiting for it to speak. Maybe it already has. She says, “I think you can take a few days off. Your clients would understand.” It sounds angry, accusatory. She knows I’m keeping something from her.

  “Sorry, the work—I just can’t escape it.” I take the toast on a tour of the bungalow. The tour ends where it should, with the photo of Tim, the DA, and Sullivan. Ellen is still inside her newspapers so she doesn’t see me lift the photo, frame and all, and slide it inside my coat.

  Finally, I have a plan. No more screwing around. The toast approves.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I’m tired. I’m always tired; it’s part of being me. But this tired is going radioactive. It’s being down here in the Cape away from the city. Even when I’m doing nothing in Boston, there’s the noise of action, of stuff happening, which helps me push through the tired. Down here, there’s nothing but boxes and walls of lost memories.

  I don’t give Ellen a time to pick me up at the library. I tell her I’m a big boy and I’ll make my way downtown eventually. She doesn’t argue. Either the fight has momentarily left her or she’s relieved to be free of my company. I have that effect on people.

  I do an obligatory walk-and-yawn through the library stacks to make sure that I’m seen by the staff, all two of them. It’s a weekday, and only moms and their preschoolers are here. The kids stare at me, but their moms won’t look.

  My cell phone feels like a baseball in my hand, all inert possibility. I have no messages; I knew that before I checked. Then I call Osterville’s only off-season cabbie, Steve Brill. He’s in the library parking lot two minutes later.

  Brill is older than a sand dune and has been eroding for years. His knuckles are unrolled dice on his fuzzy steering wheel. The cab is an old white station wagon with brown panels and rust, I’m not sure which is which. Duct tape holds together the upholstery, and the interior smells like an egg and
cheese sandwich, hold the cheese. A first-class ride.

  I say, “Brill, I want you to drive like I’m a tourist.”

  Although Brill is a regular in Ellen’s antiques store and he’s met me on a couple of occasions, he isn’t much for small talk and gives me nothing but a grunt. Maybe he doesn’t like me. Don’t know why, as I haven’t done anything to him. Yet.

  First, we make a quick trip to a florist. Brill waits in the cab with the meter running. I go small and purchase something called the At Peace Bouquet, which is yellow flowers mixed with greens, the sympathy concoction in a small purple vase I can hold in one hand. Me and the peace bouquet hop into the cab.

  In the rearview mirror, Brill’s eyes are rocks sitting inside a wrinkly bag of skin. The rocks disapprove of something. He says, “What, the big-city PI has a hot date tonight?” Then he cackles. His laughter shakes loose heavy gobs of phlegm in his chest, or maybe chunks of lung. Serves the old bastard right.

  I’m nobody’s joke. I say, “I have a hot date with your mother.”

  Brill shuts off the engine but doesn’t turn around, just gives me those rocks in the rearview. He says, “I don’t care who you think you are, I’m the only one allowed to be an asshole in my cab.”

  “You’re doing a damn fine job of it, Brill. Kudos.” I have a fistful of flowers in my hand and I’m talking tough to Rumpelstiltzkin. Who am I kidding? I’m everyone’s joke.

  He says, “I’ll throw your ugly ass out of my cab. Don’t think I won’t. I don’t need to give you a ride anywhere.”

  He’s pissing me off, but at least he’s getting my juices flowing. I stare at the back of his bald and liver-spotted head. There are wisps of white hair clinging to his scalp, pieces of elderly cotton candy.

  I guess he’s not going to apply for my personal-driver gig. I have to keep this from escalating. I need his wheels today. “Yeah, I know you can. But you’ll give me a ride. Corner of Crystal Lake and Rambler, please.”

  Brill says nothing. I pull out two cigarettes and offer him one. His nicotine-stained hand snakes behind him, those dice knuckles shaking. He takes the stick and sets it aglow with the dash lighter. He inhales quietly, and the expelled smoke hangs around his head, stays personal.

  I say, “Do you know how to get to where I want to go?” I pull out my lighter, flip open the top, and produce my one-inch flame.

  Brill says, “I heard you the first time. And no smoking in my cab.”

  Brill starts up the cab and pulls out of the parking lot. I pocket my cigarette. I won’t argue with him. I’m happy to be going somewhere.

  Our ride from the florist to Sullivan’s house should be short enough that falling asleep isn’t really a worry. Knock on wood. The flowers are bothering my eyes and sinuses, though. I try to inhale the secondhand smoke instead. It’s stale and spent, just like me and Brill.

  He pulls over at the end of Rambler Road, the passenger side of the cab flush up against some bushes. I have to get out on the driver’s side, which doesn’t feel natural. The old man is screwing with me. He doesn’t realize I don’t need this shit.

  Brill still doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t have to. He says, “Sad end for that Sullivan fella.”

  That’s interesting. He could be just making small talk, but Brill doesn’t do small talk. I’m going to play a hunch here. It sounds like Brill has something to say.

  “Ends usually are sad. You know anything about Sullivan?”

  Brill shrugs and says, “Maybe.”

  Even more interesting. I take out a twenty and throw it into the front seat. Brill picks it up quick and stuffs the bill into his front shirt pocket. The shirt is pink. I say, “Talk to me.”

  Brill says, “He was a quiet, normal guy. I gave him a ride a couple weeks ago to and from Lucky’s Auto when his car was on the fritz. He tipped well.” He stops. The silence is long enough to communicate some things.

  “That’s it? That’s all you got?” I say it real slow for him, to let him try on the idea that I’m not amused.

  He says, “Yeah, that’s all I know,” then laughs. “It’s not my fault if you’re playing Mickey Mouse detective.”

  There’s no way this small-town pile of bones is pulling that on me. I may be amateur hour, but I’m not an easy mark. I reach over the bench seat and into his front pocket with my ham-sized fist. It comes back to me with my twenty and interest. I toss the interest back over the seat.

  “You motherfucker, stealing from an old man.” He still hasn’t turned around.

  “You know the language, but you wouldn’t last a day driving a cab in Boston.” It’s mean, but it’s also true. I add, “You can have the twenty back if you earn it.”

  He loses some air, deflates behind the wheel. He’s a small, shrinking old man, and I don’t care. He says, “The day before Sullivan killed himself, he had me pick him up and we just drove around town. I asked him about his car because it was sitting in his driveway, but he brushed me off, seemed agitated, spent most of the time looking out the windows and behind us.”

  Brill stops again, and he’s staring at me. He needs another prompt. I’ll provide. “Yeah, and where’d you go?”

  “He had me drive by your mother’s house. Twice. Second pass he told me to stop, so I did. He was talking low, mumbling stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “ ‘Gotta do it yourself, Sullivan,’ that kind of thing. He always talked to himself so I didn’t pay much attention. He never got out of the cab. I thought he was going to, though. Finally, he told me to take him home. He was all spooked and mumbling the whole way back.”

  I say, “Did you tell the police any of this?”

  “No.”

  “How about Ellen?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “They didn’t ask.”

  I say, “You mean they didn’t gild your lily for the info.”

  He doesn’t say anything. Looking for more bang from my buck, I say, “Kind of strange that he’d be casing her house the day before he offs himself.”

  Brill shrugs. “I figured Sullivan was cheating on his wife with Ellen. He was acting all paranoid, like a cheat. You know, the cheats are most of my off-season income. I cart them around to their secret lunches and goddamn by-the-hour motels.”

  Brill paints an alternate scenario in my head, one where Ellen did know Sullivan was living in Osterville and knew him well; secret lunches and other rendezvous. No. That isn’t what happened. I dismiss it.

  Ellen was genuine in her reaction this morning to the news of Sullivan’s Osterville residency and suicide. She has had no contact with him. She wouldn’t have shown me the picture of Tim, the DA, and Sullivan if she was playing the other woman with him. Right? I suppose her motivation behind showing me the photo could be a way to introduce me to her new fling, but that’s not how it happened, did it? No.

  No. The picture was part of her tour, coincidence only. Sullivan came by the bungalow to do his own looking for the fabled it because I hadn’t come through yet. I have to go on that assumption. It’s the only one that fits my case. I don’t have the patience or time for curve balls and red herrings.

  Still, Brill’s cheats spiel shakes me up enough that I’ll lie to him. I say, “Ellen doesn’t know who Sullivan was. I promise you.”

  He says, “Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care what people are up to. I give rides wherever they want to go, and that’s it, and everyone knows it. Now give me my twenty bucks, you motherfucker.”

  I give it to him. Twenty dollars very well spent. I say, “Don’t go driving off too far, Brill. I might not be here all that long.” I slide across the bench seat and get out. The road is narrow and I’m in its middle, exposed and unprotected.

  Brill says, “Are you paying me to wait?”

  “No.” I pay the fare and add a tip. There’s an insistent breeze coming off the nearby water. The individual flowers point in differing directions; they can’t agree on anything.
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  Brill takes my money and doesn’t stop to count it. He says, “Then call me later, fuzz face. Maybe I’ll answer.” Brill spins his rear tires and the station wagon cab speeds away, weaving down Rambler Road. Maybe I didn’t tip him enough.

  Sullivan’s neighborhood is quiet. No one is out. The sun is shining, but it’s cold and there are no signs of approaching spring. It’s still the long cold winter here. I walk the one hundred feet to Sullivan’s house. I have a plan, but I haven’t decided what I’m going to do if his wife isn’t home.

  Looks like I don’t have to worry about that. There are three cars in the driveway. One of them is the blue SUV I saw last time. The other two cars are small and of some Japanese make. Neither of them is red.

  Okay, Sullivan’s wife, Janice, is home but not alone. Alone would’ve been preferable, but I know such a state isn’t likely, given hubby just died. I’m guessing the cars belong to members of the grief squad who swooped in to support her, friends in need and all that.

  I walk down the gravel driveway and my feet sound woolly-mammoth heavy. Stones crunch and earth moves under my rumbling weight. I’m the last of some primitive line of prehistoric creatures on his final migration, the one where he dies at the end of the journey, that circle-of-life bullshit that’s catchy as a Disney song but ultimately meaningless. Yeah, I’m in a mood.

  The house is still white and needs a paint job. I’ll try not to bring that up in conversation. I make it to the front door, which is red, and ring the bell. Two chimes. I hold the flowers tight to my chest, playing them close to the vest. This needs to be done right if I’m to learn anything.

  When she opens the door, though, I won’t take off my hat. No one wants to see that.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  An old woman answers the door. She might be the same age as Brill the happy cabbie. She’s short and hunched, which maximizes her potential for shortness. Her hair is curly and white, so thick it could be a wig.