Little Deaths(44)

“You sat outside Beckman’s apartment while they were screwing, on your own time. You think that makes it sound any better?”

“I just . . .”

Friedmann held up his hand. “Shut up, Wonicke.”

He took off his glasses, massaged the bridge of his nose. Replaced them and looked hard at Pete.

“You won’t leave this damn case alone. Well, I’m telling you now, you drop it until I say otherwise. Is that understood?”

“I . . .”

“Is that understood?”

“Yes sir.”

“You are skating on some very thin ice right now, kid. Don’t push it. You come in, you do as you’re told, and you don’t fuck up. And that’s it. No getting your rocks off on Mrs. Malone’s sex life. No playing detective. And no more of this bullshit.”

He screwed the article into a ball, and aimed the wad of paper at the trash can.

“Now get the hell out of my office.”


But Pete couldn’t stay away. He tried to focus on other stories, on other articles, and on deadlines, but every afternoon he found himself on the freeway, heading out to Long Island City to make sure he was at Beckman’s office by five. He watched them leaving together and followed them to whichever restaurant they were having dinner in. Sat in dark parking lots gazing at their figures in bright windows and surrendered to the sensation of her, of how she made him feel. She’d come into his life and shaken it up and made him question everything he’d once taken for granted about himself.

A week later, Ruth moved some of her things into Beckman’s apartment. Pete watched him carry her suitcase inside as the cops on the afternoon shift made a note, and that night, in McGuire’s, he watched Devlin’s reaction.

“If she was my wife, I’d kill her. I’d kill her myself.”

For days, Devlin kept talking about finding Beckman’s limit. What would make him crack and drop her from his life. It was becoming an obsession.

Then one night he came into the bar grinning broadly. He’d figured out Beckman’s weak point.

“The guy hired her, he slept with her, but I bet he won’t let her threaten his marriage, break up his family. So I made some calls, got hold of his home address in Delaware. And I sent his wife a letter. Express delivery. I’d bet money that Mrs. Beckman will be arriving in New York tonight. Let’s see how those two deal with this.”

He was in a celebratory mood. Tipped his soda glass toward Pete. “Got something for you, kid”—and he nodded to Quinn, who passed him a thick manila envelope.

Pete slid his finger under the flap and looked inside. A sheaf of paper, a smaller envelope, and a tape.

Devlin leaned forward. “You got a few photos of the inside of the Malone apartment there. Plus the autopsy report on the girl. And something to go with it.” He winked. “Something that will explain the significance of what the doctor found.”


The next day, Pete watched Beckman and Ruth in the restaurant. Watched him avoid her eyes.

Helen had arrived late the night before, he told her. Had gone crazy, cut up Ruth’s clothes, thrown her makeup in the garbage.

“We fought,” he said, sounding astonished. “She was like a crazy woman. I’ve never seen her like that before. We never fight.”

He rubbed his hands across his tired, drawn face and told Ruth that he’d requested a transfer. That he was going back to Delaware. That he was sorry.

“It’s for the best. The kids. You know.”

He walked away and left her sitting in the booth, and Pete watched her take in the loss of her job, her lover, whatever comfort he’d given her. He watched her order a beer, then another, and he watched her swallow and refuse to cry.

And for the first time, seeing this vulnerable side that she showed to no one else, he wanted to take care of her. She began to pick at her cuticles, and then worried at the torn skin with her teeth. Blood smudged onto her lip and she wiped her mouth in disgust, hard and impatient with the back of her hand, and her eyes were fierce and desperate.

This was the image of her he carried with him for a while. Blood. Revulsion at herself. A complete absence of tenderness.

That night, he watched her walk back into Callaghan’s in a defiantly short dress and tall heels, drinking Scotch Mists fast and hard and flirting with a kind of feverish wildness that he hadn’t seen before.

She recognized the two guys by the door as cops before Pete did. She stalked over to their table and stood squarely in front of them, hands on her hips, shoulders back.

“Having fun, boys? Like what you see?”

Their eyes crawled over her like ants.

“Some job you guys have. Some fucking job you’re doing.”

They just laughed.

“I know you bugged my apartment. You get off on listening to me and my friends? You’re a bunch of sickos. All of you.”

They kept laughing.

Two bright spots appeared on her cheeks and she spat out, “You’ll never find out who killed my kids. You’ll never find out the truth.”

Then she turned her back on their startled faces and made her way unsteadily to the dance floor, grabbing an arm on the way, pulling the man along with her, holding him tight.


Pete was at home, lying on the rug, a beer beside him, rain spattering against the windows. He got up, wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, and began to read the report Devlin had given him.