old as I was. As for me, I was decked out in my best baggy gray sweatpants, New Balance sneakers, Yankees tee, and NYU sweatshirt.
“Dressing like a grownup when meeting someone in a public gathering place should at least be attempted,” Father said when I joined the two men at a corner booth.
“Good morning, Phil.”
I held out a hand to the attorney.
“Coffee,” I said to the waitress fast approaching with menu and pad in hand. “Blueberry muffin? Perfect, thanks.”
“You don’t look nothing like those photos I saw in the Post, you sitting like a little mouse in that cruiser,” Phil said. “Geez, you looked like the victim there. Good job.”
“I had just been through a very traumatic experience, thank you,” I said.
“Yeah, your father filled me in on the situation,” Phil explained. “I think you’ll be all right. I’ll just be on call in case they want to question you again. If they do, you let me know and I’ll meet you, and that’ll be that.”
“Really? That will be that?” I asked.
He nodded.
“So, the fact that they found me standing over the body, no problem?”
Another nod.
“And that my manuscript was strewn all over the room, no problem?”
More head bobbing.
“And supposedly people in our group have said that there was bad blood between Neville and me, still there’s no problem that would cause the police to consider me a suspect in this murder? Nothing that I should be worried about?”
“That is correct,” Phil said.
“Did my father tell you anything about the knife stuck in the victim’s throat and its resemblance to one that I used to own?”
Phil looked at his notes, then at my father, at me, and back at his notes. “No, but—it wasn’t yours, was it?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so,” I said.
“Hmmm. Well, it shouldn’t be a problem then,” he said.
“Really?” I said.
I looked at my father, who seemed to be studying his cuticles intently.
“Dad, might we speak outside for a moment? Would you pardon us, Phil?”
I pulled my father out of the booth and down to the entrance. Once outside, I hissed, “Where the hell did you find this guy? Does he even have a law degree? ‘Not a problem?’ Hell, I’d convict me under these circumstances, and he’s not even batting an eye.”
“The talking he should do, it seems for the best,” Father said. “Calming presence here is required to present an aura of innocence and grace.”
“I’ve lost my appetite, and you clearly have lost your mind,” I said. “Let’s just hope to God that I don’t get hauled in for questioning with this clown sitting next to me.”
I turned and started walking west, hoping to catch a cab.
“I’ll call you later, Dad," I said. "Thanks for trying.”
Four
Whatever good he was as an attorney, at least Phil had done something productive for my day by suggesting that the knife had value as a piece of evidence. I hurried to my second home, a storage unit on the West Side Highway that cost more than my rent but held the real contents of my former homes.
Unlike the sparse existence that I presented to Michael and my students, these boxes were filled with lush fabrics and mementos of my dark paneled brownstone in Somerville, collected during the years I spent in Cambridge completing my studies at Harvard and then researching abroad. I’d carefully boxed up and stored everything here as if I was waiting for another trip to be over, so unsure was I of my place in New York. Larger pieces were wrapped tightly in movers’ blankets or wrapped in thick plastic, and I dragged a loving finger over some of my favorite things for old time’s sake. I smiled at a memory of better times in my sleigh bed as I passed the curved wood of the headboard, and moved on to the business at hand.
I knew precisely where the photo albums were, and with them the cataloged boxes of pictures from my research, which was where I’d find the section on weapons. I moved to the wall where stacks of numbered bankers’ boxes were neatly lined up. It was astonishing to my deeply ingrained sense of order that several of my boxes were not where I had left them, however, and the presence of boot tracks in the dust indicated that someone else had invaded my privacy. I made notes of which boxes were missing, and took some quick photos with my cell phone of the interrupted stacks as well as the boot print.
I went back to the steel door and inspected the lock. It didn’t appear to have been tampered with, and probably had been picked open by a pro. No lock was impenetrable, I knew. But of all the things in this room, and there were many to take, why remove my photos?
I smashed the lock back in place and stepped into the elevator, punching the numbers of my cell phone as quickly as the floors dinged past.
“Father, dearest, are you still with Uncle Phil?” I asked. “Good, stay there and order another coffee. I’m coming back, and this time, I’ll be asking the questions.”
When I arrived, the two older men had moved on to lunch and were tackling club sandwiches with gusto.
“Geez, Dad, you’d think you hadn’t eaten for…hours,” I said, slipping into the booth next to him. “Did you at least go for a walk in between meals?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered. “The High Line.”
I waited for him to complete his sentence, never before having heard such a fragmented utterance spoken by my father. I looked at Phil. “What have you done to him? He’s become, I don’t know, illiterate, in a single morning,” I said.
Phil laughed, mouth full. I cringed, putting up a hand.
“Please, Phil, don’t let me interrupt your enjoyment of your lunch. Let me talk. Miss, can I get a glass of unsweetened ice tea with lemon please? Thank you. So, Dad, and Phil, of course, after I left you, I went to look for a photograph of the knife I described to you earlier. And what I found was that my storage unit has been broken into. Yes, it’s such a coincidence, and the only thing that was taken is my carton of photographs cataloging those weapons of interest. I mean, what are the chances? And such considerate bandits, they didn’t disturb anything else in the unit at all. The only thing I noticed was a boot print. The lock on the door wasn’t even damaged. What do you think of that? Dad? Phil?”
My father shook his head and stuck an entire large potato chip in his mouth, averting his eyes from mine. Phil continued to take large bites of his sandwich, his watery blue eyes never leaving my face. The waitress brought my drink.
“You want anything else, hon?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“You guys all
