Girls Like Us(23)

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“Well, on a lot of things. But foremost, whether or not I think someone is in danger. If I could prevent harm to someone by breaking privilege, I would. Does that make sense?”

I mull this over. The ice in my drink clinks against the bottom of the glass. I roll my head toward the counter, eyeing the bottle. It’s more than half empty: a surprise. I’ve drunk more than I thought. I’m not in any shape to be confiding in anyone. Especially not a therapist who reports to my boss.

“I think I should stop talking and set up an appointment.”

“That’s fine. Get some rest. Call me when you can, Nell. I’m here.”





7.



I don’t rest. Not well, anyway. I toss and turn until the room begins to brighten around the edges. When it’s officially morning, I hop behind the wheel of my father’s pickup and drive to Riverhead. It’s early and the town is still asleep. I’m still half-asleep myself, propped up only by the two cups of black coffee I drank as my breakfast. The stores are closed and there’s hardly any traffic. I find a parking spot on Main Street, directly across from the address Howard gave me.

Dad’s apartment is on the top floor of 97 Main, a small, boxy building sandwiched between an Irish pub called O’Malley’s and a dusty drugstore with vacant-eyed Victorian dolls lining the window. It’s a three-story building with one apartment per floor. The landlord lives on the ground floor. Dad has been renting out the third floor since June of last summer. From what I can see, the second floor is vacant. The windows are boarded over. It’s not a particularly charming place, but then, Dad didn’t care much for aesthetics. He did like seclusion, however, and so I can see how he’d appreciate a third-story apartment with no neighbors, no one living directly below or above, and a discreet entrance through a parking lot behind the building.

The rent on this apartment is a thousand dollars a month, which is not exorbitant for a two-bedroom apartment in Suffolk County, but it’s not insubstantial, either. I can’t imagine why my father would have committed such a large percentage of his income to a second residence, especially one that’s a fifteen-minute drive from his own. Maybe he used it as an office. But why, then, would he keep an office in his house, as well? Maybe he used it on nights when he wanted to drink at O’Malley’s and stumble upstairs instead of driving home. That seems plausible but extravagant, and my father was not an extravagant man.

The most obvious answer is that he had a girlfriend. Maybe he wasn’t ready to cohabitate with her but still felt some sense of obligation or commitment. Or maybe he’d been planning to move in and put the house on the market and just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Still, I found it strange that there’s no trace of her—or any other visitor, really—at the house on Dune Road. No extra toothbrush in the medicine cabinet, no women’s nightclothes in the bureau, not even a bottle of wine or soda in the fridge. Just my father’s things: my father’s bourbon, my father’s scotch. My father’s clothes, my father’s arsenal of weapons. My father’s house, and his alone.

The landlord, I hope, has some answers. Dad’s separate account at Suffolk County Bank has a balance of $25,000, more than enough to cover a year’s worth of rent and other expenses. After turning it over in my head all night, I’ve decided the right thing to do is track down this woman and give her the money. If for some reason I can’t find her—or if I do and she seems like a terrible person—I can donate it to charity. But if Dad didn’t intend for me to have it, then I don’t want it.

Anyway, I don’t need more money. I hardly spend what I make, and Dad left me plenty, between his life insurance policy and the house. And that’s to say nothing of the Cayman Islands account, which I have yet to explore. I still haven’t decided if I’ll ever explore it. Doing so could cost me my job. Last night, as I drank my fifth and final scotch of the evening, I sat in front of the fire and debated tossing the card with the contact information for Justin Moran into the flames.

I didn’t toss it. I still might. For now, it’s tucked inside the drawer of my nightstand. I have more pressing matters to attend to today. My father’s apartment. His girlfriend. His bike. His case. His life. I’m tired and it’s not even eight o’clock.

I ring the landlord’s bell and listen to the symphony of barking this sets off inside apartment 1. I feel bad disturbing someone at such an early an hour, but not so bad that I stop myself from doing it. It’s going to be a long day, possibly even a long week, filled with dead bodies and mystery. Given that I can’t sleep, I might as well get a jump on things.

I hear feet shuffling, and the dogs quiet down. The locks click: there are three, which seems like a lot. The door opens a crack, the deadbolt chain still in place. A gray-haired man in pajamas and a bathrobe peers at me through the two-inch opening.

“What do you want?” He glares at me. The dogs weave around his feet.

“Good morning,” I say, as brightly as possible. “Are you Lester Simms?”

“Yeah. That’s me.”

“I’m Nell Flynn. My father, Martin Flynn, was your tenant on the third floor.”

The man frowns and strokes his chin. “I wouldn’t say he was my tenant.”