I'll Eat When I'm Dead Read online

  Birdie, Helen, and Lottie were hammered. Birdie’s poppy-tinted lipstick was smeared all over Lottie’s face; Helen’s unlit cigarette hung from her mouth and white paper flowers dangled haphazardly from her afro.

  “Please tell us there’s chicken,” roared Lottie, her arms wrapped around Birdie’s waist. “I’ll die if I missed it.”

  “Yeah,” chimed Birdie. “If there’s no chicken left, I’m going to cut your fucking throat.” She made a throat-slitting motion. All three girls started giggling and laughed themselves onto the floor.

  “Birdie’s been saying that all night,” said Helen, delight plastered in her eyes as she wheezed with laughter. “She threatened to cut the throats of two bankers, grabbed one of their crotches like he was a bag of dough, and then he sent us home with his driver. In a Bentley!”

  Looking at the three bombed and boisterous tenants, Sigrid, Cat, and Bess felt like elder stateswomen.

  “You’re in luck, you monsters. It’s almost done; we haven’t had a bite,” said Sigrid. “Wash your faces, change your clothes, and drink water; then you can have dinner.”

  Helen wobbled over to the staircase, hiked up her silvery, cocoon-like silk dress, and began to undo the oversized straps on her block-soled jelly sandals. “I’m totally cool,” she insisted.

  Sigrid raised her eyebrows and pointed to the tangle of Birdie and Lottie, who were still slumped on the floor in hysterics. Birdie’s legs poked skyward out of her coral Bermuda shorts; no one made a move to help her get up. Helen looked momentarily sheepish.

  “It was just one of those nights, you know?” Helen said. “Everything was free.” She yawned and stretched out, lying across the width of the staircase with her legs propped up against the wall. “We just need to have some water.”

  “Everything is always free,” said Sigrid as Helen threw her sandals in the general direction of the hallway. “You have that distinct aura of youth. Men just look at you and they feel a vagina tightening around their penises like a phantom limb.”

  Bess’s phone buzzed. “Hey, they ’grammed back.”

  @loch_ness_bess @ragebeauty looks like a custom blend, bring in for exam and we can tell u more. happy 2 help w #beautymystery for #RAGEdetectives

  Birdie poked her head out from under Lottie. “What’s the hashtag mystery? I’m hashtag mysterious. Put me on the case.”

  Bess grinned. “The hashtag mystery is that we found a purse of Hillary’s—”

  “That I’m keeping,” Cat interrupted before the terrible trio could get their hopes up.

  “Cat is trading me for it,” retorted Bess, “but that’s not the point. It had this small bottle of drops in it from Bedford Organics and we Photogrammed them to find out what it is, but they didn’t know from the picture.”

  Helen looked around for the bottle. “Is it small and clear and plastic?”

  “Yes!” they rang out in reply. “What is it?” asked Bess.

  “Eyedrops. Hillary was using them to make her eyes bigger or something. She said they made her look all manga.” Helen was triumphant.

  The oven timer beeped. “Chicken!!” shouted everyone at once.

  “We still have to set the table and it needs to rest out of the oven. Girls, go get cleaned up, okay?” Sigrid, ever the den mother, was helping Birdie and Lottie up and pushing them toward the stairs.

  The three girls bounded up the steps in cheerful thumps and bumps as they scattered to their rooms. Sigrid, Cat, and Bess looked at one another with knowing grins. Once upon a time, they, too, had stumbled through 170 Ocean’s heavy wooden front door after parties, singing off-key and haphazardly shedding their clothes, Matt Keyes hitting the basement ceiling with a broom to acknowledge their arrival home.

  “Should we text Matt, too?” asked Bess.

  “I already did,” Sigrid said. “He’ll be up in fifteen minutes or so.”

  Cat and Sigrid finished the sides of carrots, potatoes, and a huge French-style warm salad, while Bess set the grand rosewood dining table off the kitchen. Just as she was about to light some scattered votive candles, she heard the front door open, and a wry voice rang out.

  “Hello, girls,” Matt called as he locked the door behind him and walked through the dining room doorway. His downy white hair poked out of his head in ten different directions; his tan skin and boiler suit were spattered with paint. But he looked, as always, like the happiest person in the world.

  “Bless this mess,” he said jovially, gesturing to the table and setting down a bottle of Cabernet. “I brought some vino.”

  Cat and Sigrid popped in and hugged Matt simultaneously. Bess had a final moment of inspiration; she pulled the white ribbon out of Cat’s braid (“Hey!” Cat cried) and tied it around a vase of hydrangeas into a textbook bow, worthy of any puppy.

  “Bow classic,” she said with a sigh. “The table is ready! Let’s eat!”

  Just after midnight, Detective Mark Hutton sat in his vintage Volvo, the door of the limestone at 170 Ocean fully visible through his rearview mirror, waiting for Cat to reemerge.

  He hadn’t meant to stake her out. After visiting Cooper, he’d headed back to the precinct to compare the original Whitney file with his notes. There were no factual discrepancies: everything Catherine Ono said matched what she’d said two months prior. The background checks on the women who Hillary Whitney had reported to—Paula Booth, Constance Onderveet, and Margot Villiers—had come up clean, and so had the checks on other staff members, Elizabeth Bonner, intern Molly Beale, and, finally, Whig Beaton Molton-Mauve Lucas, the interim fashion director. Catherine Ono had been open, accurate, and consistent; he had absolutely no reason to continue pursuing her, though he found himself replaying the afternoon out loud at his desk, repeating the things he’d already said to her, like a lunatic, while he chewed through an entire bag of sunflower seeds and tried to resist googling her.

  All afternoon he’d gone through the other paperwork, including Hillary Whitney’s credit report, most recent credit card statement, and phone records. Nothing stood out, but he shoved them in his briefcase anyway when he left the office at 5:00 p.m.

  From there, Hutton went straight to the police gym, ran eight miles on the treadmill, doubled his ordinary weight-lifting circuit, and sat in the sauna for a while. After a postworkout beer in the Irish bar across the street, chatting idly with the other officers, none of whom he knew very well, he boarded the subway for home.

  The train had been a mess. The air-conditioning was broken in the first car he boarded, so he changed cars at Twenty-Third Street, though pressing up against the glass at the end of the car wasn’t exactly comfortable. At Union Square he saw a tall woman with black hair and black clothes board the same train through the car’s filthy window, holding a large reusable shopping bag, her purse slung over her shoulder, reading a paperback as she leaned against one of the doors. When she reached an arm up to pull a section of hair away from her face, he realized it was Catherine Ono, and he felt suddenly self-conscious, though she didn’t look in his direction once. Sweat dripped down her brow in the hot car; commotion ensued at DeKalb when a rat got on the train. Though she glanced briefly at the rat with disdain, she kept her eyes on her book, and Hutton kept his eyes on her.

  She got off at Lincoln Road.

  He got out, too, following her at a deliberate distance as she exited right, then turned left at the corner. He crossed to the other side of Ocean, ducking behind the park’s stone barrier when she climbed the steps of a large and immaculate limestone, gold paint over the door reading 170 Ocean Avenue. She disappeared inside using her own key.

  He sat on the first bench he found, only a block or so from his own apartment building at 60 Ocean; in fact, his car was just a few feet away. He knew this house, even though he’d been in the neighborhood only two months. Everyone knew this house. There seemed to be an effervescent fountain of youth within, hiccupping out an unending stream of stylish women onto Ocean Avenue every morning. It was noticeable even from wi
thin the running trails in the park, which was where he’d first spied what the barista at the nearby coffee shop called the “Honey Pot.”

  Hutton smiled to himself. Of course she is connected to the Honey Pot. He briefly wondered how many other men had sat on this exact park bench, watching that exact door, then considered his options. It was after eight and she’d had a Whole Foods bag: probably dinner. There was time. He walked to the Lefferts Tavern, ordering a plate of enchiladas and sipping a Lagunitas as he leafed back through the Whitney file.

  Hillary’s credit report listed only one previous address where she had resided from 2002 to 2011: 170 Ocean Avenue, the building Cat had just walked into. No apartment number, just the building. He pulled out his phone and searched the address. Google identified the last recorded sale in 1990 for $92K. It must be worth millions now, he thought.

  RAGE had certainly been an aesthetically overwhelming environment, but the employees seemed productive and rational. Catherine Ono had left work at a normal-ish hour that evening, clearly had a social life, and appeared to be in good health, if a little pale. Cooper’s tense environment wasn’t a good enough explanation for Hillary Whitney’s stress-induced heart attack, not to mention the postcard with a cryptic note sent the same day she died. There had to be something he was missing.

  He finished his enchiladas, dropped a twenty on the table, and walked back out to the park, keeping his distance from the sidewalk as three women lurched out of a Bentley limousine that had pulled up in front of 170 Ocean. After a few tries they managed to unlock the front door. He sat down on a bench, slightly farther away than his previous perch, and waited. Later a thin, white-haired man emerged from the basement apartment holding a bottle of wine. He, too, unlocked the large front door with his own key. Multiple tenants of the same gender and age range on the upper floor in what appeared to be a single unit; an elderly man in a lower unit. It wasn’t unusual to see so many people occupying the same space, not in New York, not now; but for women like Catherine Ono and Hillary Whitney to live all the way out here, in this house on the bad side of the park, as long ago as 2002, though they likely had the money to live elsewhere…he didn’t understand, which meant there had to be something he was missing. Hutton considered his options. Realistically, what could be resolved by camping out here? He took out his notebook and jotted down 170 Ocean, no sale since 1990? (confirm rec.), keys owned by Catherine Ono, girl with afro, white-haired man in basement. known as honey pot, ask around, H.W. resident 02–11.

  Hutton pulled out a pack of Camels and lit one, taking a long drag. What would Catherine do next? Take a car service home, probably—he couldn’t think of an easy subway route to Bushwick from here. He could contrive to run into her on the street, but it was probably already too late and too dark for that to work. There was no reasonable explanation for him to be on that part of the block; his apartment was in the other direction from the subway. Scaring her wouldn’t help.

  Hutton already had more information than he’d had three hours ago. Time to give up. He walked home, nodded to the doorman, and took the elevator up to his apartment. After flicking on the light switch in the foyer, he threaded his way through the half-empty-box maze left behind by his apathetic, single-serving attempt at unpacking, and settled down on the living room sofa, an extra-long sectional he’d picked blindly out of a catalog after determining it was long enough to sleep on and dark enough to spill beer on.

  Hutton opened his laptop and loaded an old episode from season three of The X-Files, content to fall asleep there. He didn’t care whether he slept in his bed, on the sofa, or upright in a chair; it was all the same to him.

  But two episodes later he was still awake. He reached for his gym bag to pull on his running shorts and shoes before taking a whiff of his rancid T-shirt. The smell was perverse, unwearable. He balled it up and threw it in the corner.

  Hutton told himself that he’d just hit the park loop once and then go to sleep. But after a mere five hundred feet of jogging, he saw that the parlor lights at 170 Ocean were still on, shadows crossing and filtering weakly through the frail wooden shutters.

  The house beckoned.

  His Volvo parked across the street, Hutton couldn’t stop himself. He walked to the car, opened the door, adjusted his rearview mirror, and waited.

  When the door of 170 Ocean opened at twelve thirty, he was bent across the seats pretending to rifle through his glove box, one long, muscular leg half out of the car. He retrieved a sheet of paper before stepping out and locking the door, then turned around to find five wide-eyed women staring at him from the stoop.

  When the plates had finally migrated to the dishwasher, and Matt had long since returned to his garden-level studio, Cat checked the time.

  “Does anyone want to have a cigarette on the stoop? I should call a car,” she’d asked the group.

  “I’m too tired,” said Lottie, “but you guys go ahead. I’ll see you later.” She draped her body over Cat and Bess in a kind of hug, then wearily climbed the stairs.

  When the women of 170 Ocean opened the front door, the old Volvo sedan across the street contained a very tall, mostly naked man. Clad in running shoes and shorts, he appeared to be rooting around in his glove compartment.

  The women leered in unison at his back muscles, dramatically shadowed by the Volvo’s weak interior lighting. One of his long legs stretched into the street—a smooth, perfectly shaped calf, twitching as he stretched farther across the car. His shorts rode up to expose the bottom half of his left butt cheek.

  When the mystery exhibitionist closed up his car and turned around, Cat recognized him immediately. He started to cross to their side of the road, then looked up—just in time to catch the women staring with their mouths open. Startled, he stopped in the street, like an animal caught in the headlights of a moving bus.

  “Ohmigod. Hot cop. It’s the hot cop,” Cat muttered quickly under her breath.

  Helen had already seized the moment. “Nice night for a run,” she called out before whispering, “What?” to Cat.

  He walked closer, hopping onto the sidewalk in front of the stoop.

  “Not bad,” he said, flashing a smile at Helen, his teeth large and white. Cat didn’t bother explaining. His eyes scanned the group before settling on Cat.

  “Detective Hutton,” she said. “Hi, it’s me, Cat from RAGE.”

  His eyes widened. “Uh…Hi,” he said a bit awkwardly. “I thought you lived in Bushwick.”

  All five women took note: He knows where she lives.

  “I do. Dinner party,” Cat said, gesturing to her friends. “We’re wrapping up…but to my credit, I’m still fully clothed after midnight, and you’re down to just running shorts.”

  “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” said Helen in an exaggerated aside.

  Hutton’s smile came back. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said deliberately, looking only at Cat. “I went running to burn off the energy, and I had to grab something out of my car…I live down the block, actually.”

  “On Ocean?” Sigrid jumped in, unable to stop herself. “Do you live in the jazz dorms?” The building adjacent to the aboveground subway stop, 100 Ocean, was famous for the never-ending rotation of recent jazz school graduates who lived there, swapping Berklee, UNT, and the New England Conservatory dorms for crumbling prewar studios where—thanks to the ambient noise from the train—they could play all night.

  “No, but is that what you call the building next to the train? That’s funny. No, I’m at 60 Ocean.”

  “Oh!” Sigrid looked shocked. “Are you subletting?”

  “No, it’s a family property,” he said. “I only moved in two months ago.”

  “Oh. Okay, nice to meet you. I’m Sigrid Gunderson. This is my house,” she said and pointed behind her. “I know everyone on Ocean, that’s why I asked. I love that building. The units never go on the market, though.” Sigrid could talk neighborhood real estate for hours. “I’ve been in a few of the apartments and the
y’re all period prewar, original medallions in the ceiling, everything. Someone told me last year that both units on the sixth floor are still classic eights.”

  “They are. I’m on 6. Uh…do you guys want to see it?” he asked. In a different real-estate climate, this would have been an odd question coming from a shirtless man standing on the sidewalk in the middle of the night.

  “Absolutely,” Sigrid said as her face lit up. Birdie, Helen, and Bess were all bobbing their heads enthusiastically.

  Cat froze. “Now??” she asked. “You don’t want to have us over now…”

  Hutton gestured at his body. “You’ve already seen it all,” he joked. “I’m halfway through a renovation, but there’s a full bar,” he said roguishly, flirting with all five women at the same time. It was inappropriate, appallingly blatant, and it made Cat laugh.

  “Okay,” she said. “We’ll come over to your apartment in the middle of the night, but only because I have your badge number, Officer.” Her emphasis on the last word was aimed at Birdie and Helen, who squealed and saluted.

  “Officer!! We’re Birdie and Helen, and that’s Bess,” they chimed in an untidy, alcohol-warmed unison, descending the stoop and sticking out their hands. He leaned up a step and gave all four women firm handshakes.

  “I’m Mark Hutton,” he said, “and yes, I’m in the NYPD. I met your friend Catherine today.”

  “We’re just going to grab our things,” said Sigrid. “We’ll be right back out. Don’t go anywhere.”

  Bess gave Cat a suggestive wink before filing back inside with Sigrid, Birdie, and Helen. Hutton climbed the stoop halfway and sat down; Cat folded herself down a step or two above him.

  She looked down at his body and was unable to stop herself from ogling his suntanned skin, the tiny hairs running down his neck, the line where his shorts banded over his stomach muscles. The tattoo on his arm was a topographical map of something she didn’t recognize. He wasn’t very sweaty. He still smelled clean and sharp. I bet he’s one of those people who exercise for fun, she thought, before realizing she was still holding her cigarette. She lit it, smoking almost unconsciously.