Long Bright River(70)

All morning, the front door swings open and closed, admitting various personnel, most of whom I don’t recognize. Once or twice I think I catch a glimpse of Simon, only to discover it’s a lookalike.

At eleven a.m., however, I spy him: he emerges from the building and, glancing to his left, turns right, toward his vehicle. He’s wearing a nice overcoat. Gray dress pants and shiny black shoes are visible beneath it. His hair is slicked back. It’s a typical look for him since he became a detective.

Instantly, I’m on high alert. The street we’re on is a relatively quiet one, so I’ll wait to start the engine of Truman’s car until after Simon has already departed.



* * *



—

I follow him. He may be on assignment, I think, going to interview someone in the South Division, a person of interest or a victim or a witness. Or he may just be taking an early lunch. He starts out going north on Twenty-Fourth Street. At Jackson, though, he suddenly does a U-turn, and heads south.

He makes a right on Passyunk. And suddenly, I find myself following him onto the highway.



* * *



—

I suppose I know where we’re going even as we go there, but it still takes me by surprise, the way things happen just as you predict them to. The inevitability of the moment.

He takes the exit for 676 East, and then takes the Allegheny exit off 95.

I could close my eyes, practically, and still drive the rest of the way.



* * *



—

The neighborhood is crowded today, and it occurs to me that it’s the beginning of the month. Paychecks have arrived. Customers are out. To my right, a distraught young woman throws her bag to the ground and then sinks into a crouch, crying.

One block from the Ave, Simon pulls over abruptly and parks. I’m forced to drive past him so as not to alert him to my presence. I’m keeping an eye on my rearview, and I’m almost sideswiped by a car emerging from a small street to my right. I turn right onto the Avenue and park as soon as I can find a spot: out front of a soup kitchen, today, where thirty or forty people stand in line, waiting for the doors to open. I exit my vehicle. Then I peer around the corner of the building I’m in front of, seeing whether Simon’s walking my way.

He’s not.

I can see, from here, that his Cadillac is empty. This means he went on foot in one of three directions, all of them away from me.

I jog toward his car.



* * *



—

What is he doing in Kensington at this time of day? His work is in South Philadelphia. All of his cases are there. It is possible—unlikely, but possible—that he’s doing undercover work. But if he were, he’d have dressed down for the day.

When I reach Simon’s car, I look down the side street it’s closest to, and then I jog until I reach another side street half a block away. But I don’t see him on either. I keep going, running now, picking up steam, peering down every small side street I come to, looking for his gray dress coat, scanning houses for open doors. Five minutes go by.

I’ve lost him, I think.

At last, I stop on a side street called Clementine, one of the blocks in Kensington that’s relatively well taken care of, only a couple of abandos, the rest of the houses kept up. In the middle of the block, I put my hands on my hips, winded, disappointed that I’ve lost my chance. Truman, I think, would probably not have lost him. His years of vice training have made him good at tailing people.

When I look up, I find myself in front of a house that, for some reason, looks familiar to me.

Have I made an arrest here before? Have I done a welfare check?

Eventually, I focus on the metal silhouette of a horse and carriage that adorns so many storm doors in this part of Philadelphia. The horse, I notice, is missing its front legs. And suddenly I’m seventeen again, waiting outside this door with Paula Mulroney, trying to get inside, trying to get to my sister.

I close my eyes, only briefly, just long enough to will myself back to that moment: one in which the question of whether Kacey is alive is still unanswered but the answer to it will turn out to be yes. One in which, though I didn’t know it then, I was about to find my sister and bring her home.



* * *



—

At the sound of the front door swinging inward, I open my eyes.

A woman is staring at me. I can’t remember if it’s the same woman who opened the door all those years ago; in my memory, that woman had black hair, and this woman’s hair is entirely gray. But it’s been well over a decade. It could be her.

—You okay? says the woman.

I nod.

—You need something? she says.

I don’t want to waste my money—I don’t have much to spare these days—but I fear the woman will be suspicious if I don’t. Maybe, too, she has information I can use.

Maybe she still knows Kacey.

So I say yes, and the woman opens the storm door with the metal silhouette on it, and then I am back, suddenly, in the first house my sister ever died in.





The last time I was in here, there was hardly any furniture. There were people in the shadows everywhere I looked.

Today, the house is warm and surprisingly well kept. It smells something like cooked pasta. Pictures on the wall: Jesus, Jesus, Mary, an Eagles poster signed by somebody whose signature I can’t read. There are tidy throw rugs on the floor and there’s plenty of furniture, cheap-looking but new.