Red Shirt Read online

  The third thing, which I realized had actually been the first thing but had taken time to process, was the temperature. It was cold. Damned cold. A wind that would have barely puffed a sail felt like a raging nor’easter, tearing into my bare arms and setting my chinos like starch. I shivered involuntarily, and at that moment remembered that I had forgotten to bring any kind of sweater or jacket with me. I stood in the cold late-afternoon air looking for my rental car, the hairs on my arms rapidly coming to attention as my earlobes began to throb.

  A woman walked by wearing a coat that looked like it had once belonged to a bear. She glanced at me in my Florida casual and said, “You need a coat.” I gave her a raised eyebrow that suggested I was thankful for her advice and that it would solve all my ills, and then I trudged off to find my car.

  I was thankful to quickly find a silver vehicle with a tag that matched the number on my keyring. I came at it from the side and was unable to tell what make it was from the shape, other than to say it was a sedan. It might have been a Chevy, but it could have been any number of other makes. It was so nondescript a car that I half-expected it be called a Blah, and I didn’t bother to check if I was wrong.

  I threw my bag onto the passenger seat and got in. It was infinitely warmer out of the wind but not warm per se, so I started the car and turned the heat on. Amazingly I had to ratchet the seat forward. I am a good tick over six feet and I have to do that every time I visit my mechanic, and he’s a little Salvadorian called Enrique. I always figured he did it as a joke because his feet are a good six inches shorter than mine. Perhaps he had been messing with my rental car.

  There was a mapping app on my phone but I didn’t use it. The airport signage got me out of the facility, and the signs to CT-15 got me the rest of the way. I crossed into Connecticut and recognized long forgotten road names like Cliffdale and Porchuck and Round Hill, and then I turned onto the Merritt Parkway.

  As I did, something extraordinary happened. Perhaps it was a sign from the heavens, or maybe it was just the prevailing winds breaking apart the cloud cover, but the low, late sun cut through and lit the parkway like a spotlight. All of a sudden the dull gray of the afternoon exploded into flaming reds and oranges and browns. The trees lining the parkway glowed seemingly from within, the leaves announcing both my arrival and their imminent departure, as if ordered by the local tourist board. As far as the eye could see the Merritt cut a tunnel through the iridescent colors of fall. Even though it was past peak leaf season, the beauty of it was staggering. I held my breath, which seemed to have become a thing, as the car banked around and down toward the lanes of the parkway.

  And then, as suddenly as it came, it was gone. The cloud ebbed across the sun and the lights went out, and the reality of merging onto the Merritt Parkway kicked it. It’s a fine road, two lanes each way for most of its length, like a freeway but devoid of trucks and heavy vehicles, which were forced to travel on the interstate instead. It cut though the landscape like a river, the trees either side so thick you couldn’t see the buildings beyond. In some places you couldn’t see the sky for the overhanging branches. But the onramps onto the Merritt are like the starting grid to a NASCAR race. You’re moving, but nowhere near fast enough. It’s like doing a right hand turn and then having 10 yards to hit fifty-five. Might work in a Maserati, or a baby rocket, but not in a Chevy Blah.

  I plastered my foot to the floor and was met with a sound that reminded me of a food processor, and the little car gently edged into its work. I was in the traffic lane before my next breath. Most of the drivers knew the Merritt Parkway rocket launch and were politely ensconced in the left lane, but not the BMW with the Connecticut plates, whose driver laid on the horn, cut around me like a flash of white light and then, as he sped into the distance, took the time to roll down his window and offer me his middle finger as a welcome back to the Nutmeg State.

  Chapter Three

  The sun had called it quits by the time I got to New Haven. I stayed away from the coast and the interstate and came at New Haven from the back. The old neighborhood was to the north of the playing fields that belonged to Yale University. The campus proper was a couple of miles further east.

  It was an old area, thick-trunked trees enveloping the streets. New Haven had been called the Elm City for the elms that had once lined every street, but which had died out in the 50s and 60s. Now the canopy was maple and oak and ash. Fallen red and orange and yellow leaves littered the streets a colorful blanket, the bane of every boy and girl whose chore it became to rake them.

  I stopped the car outside the Dunbar residence. There were two types of homes on the street, Colonial and Dutch Colonial. The difference was in the roofline. The rest was semantics. Coach’s house was a regular two-story white colonial with a detached garage at the end of the driveway. The porch light was on and yellow warmth glowed from the windows, and in the darkness the house looked exactly as it had 20 or 30 years before. The lawn was covered in leaf litter and a recent model minivan was parked in the driveway.

  For the longest time I sat there with the engine off, the cold slowly invading the space. I saw myself as a boy, wandering along the street, all gangly arms and legs, up across the lawn, and down the driveway. No one used the front door except the postman. We all came in through the screened porch on the back of the house. I saw the lines of shoes on the porch, sometimes twenty or more, seemingly every boy in the neighborhood stopping by Coach’s house for a glass of lemonade or a hot cocoa.

  I got out and stepped along the path to the front door. It was still but cold, and I shivered, only partly from the temperature. As I reached the steps I heard the front door suck open and the wire screen door squeal. I stopped where I was and watched a woman come out. She wasn’t the person I knew, not on the outside. I had last seen Kerry Dunbar the day she became Kerry Barrett.The day she married her college sweetheart. She had looked younger then, not just because of the passing of time, but perhaps because of events. Her wedding day was all smiles, but I barely remembered how she looked. The memories I had were of a young girl becoming a teen, a teen becoming something more. I remembered she would wear her hair short, only a touch longer than the most daring boy, and her arms and legs were like reeds, her smile gap-toothed and self-conscious.

  Now she turned her eyes on me with a frown. Her hair was longer and darker, and she wore a stylish scarf tied in an intricate knot around her neck, and a long cashmere coat that would have looked at home on 5th Avenue in the City. She took her time looking at me, perhaps because I was in the dark and she the light, then she stepped down from the porch and put out her hands. I took them in mine. She wore no gloves, and her fingers were long and thin, like I imagine a piano player’s to be.

  Kerry looked at me, up and down, and then she smiled. The gaps were all gone, and the years had been kind.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” she said, and she dropped my hands and hugged me tight. I wrapped my arms around her and found I could have almost done it twice. Danielle is thin and athletic, and my arms go around her with plenty to spare, but she somehow felt stronger than Kerry. Perhaps it was a law enforcement thing.

  “I glad you’re here,” she whispered into my ear.

  Then she let me go but she didn’t make to go inside. She looked at me all over again.

  “I knew you’d come.”

  “Of course I came. I just don’t know what I can do.”

  “Being home is a start.”

  I nodded at that, even though it conflicted with what I was feeling. I was certainly back, but was I home?

  “I just want to warn you, about Dad.”

  “You’re making it sound like the end is nigh.”

  “It’s not, he’s fine. Well, he’s not fine. The thing is, this is outside of his comfort zone.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You know him. A physical injury, a broken arm, a twisted ankle—he’d know what to do. Fix it, recover, strengthen. He’d have a whole routine planned out.
Even if he was sick, like a disease or something, he’d see it, he’d understand it, and he’d fight it. Right?”

  “Of course.”

  “But this, it’s more. . . Mental. It’s a psychological thing, as much as anything. And he doesn’t get it. He’s being beat from within, and he doesn’t know how to fight it.”

  “He fights it the way he always fought. He taught us to be strong, to be positive. To fight for the brother beside you.”

  “And that’s the problem. The brother beside him is the problem.”

  “You mean Brett Pickering.”

  She didn’t speak, but she nodded and then she took my hand.

  “I’ll tell you all about it, but first, come and see Mom and Dad.”

  Kerry led me up the stairs to the front porch. As she opened the door I felt the warmth from within, and it made me think about how much warmth I had felt in this very house, regardless of the temperature.

  As I stepped inside, I said, “You look great, by the way.”

  Kerry glanced at me and grinned. “Thanks,” she said, and she closed the door behind me.

  I took a deep breath. The scent was intoxicating. Unique yet common, and instantly familiar. At the front was the aroma of a beef stew, and potatoes, rosemary and red wine. Then something behind it, the hint of cold ash in a fireplace, years of smoke leeching into the paintwork on the walls. The smells of a house in New England. Common to all, and completely different than Florida. But then something even more distinct, perhaps Old Spice and nutmeg and the traces of the people who lived and breathed there, thoroughly human but completely unique. And instantly recognizable as somewhere safe.

  Kerry hung her jacket and her scarf on the wood hooks by the door, and I kicked my shoes off. She watched me do it.

  “You do that in Florida?”

  “I don’t wear shoes much in Florida.”

  She smiled again and then led me into the living room. Not much had changed. The carpet had been replaced and the two La-Z-Boy recliners seemed to be an upgrade, but everything else was in its place. There were fake flowers on the mantle above the fireplace that was only lit for holidays and special occasions, and the rack of Franklin Mint coins that hung on the wall.

  The man in one of the recliners was not the man I knew. He was still built like he could single-handedly take Normandy, but he wore a slack expression, as if the light had gone off inside. He was older, as we all were, but he looked like he had aged thirty years in ten. His square jaw and granite chest were hunched over, and he looked up at me with eyes that made me think of the cloud cover over the Merritt Parkway.

  “Dad, look who it is,” said Kerry.

  I stood before him and let him take his time. I had the awful feeling that he didn’t recognize me, but he nodded sternly and then pushed himself up out of his chair. It took much less effort than I thought it would. We stood eye-to-eye, this man whom I had always thought to be a giant.

  “My boy,” he said.

  “Coach,” I replied.

  He stepped in and wrapped his arms around me, and I reciprocated. Then he slapped my back with a balled fist, grunted, and pulled away. He had never been much of a hugger.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked in his gravelly voice.

  “I came to see you.”

  He frowned like this was an odd thing to say, and I got the sense that this embarrassed him somehow.

  “Me?” he said.

  I looked at Kerry and back. “All of you,” I said.

  This seemed to please him. Then something grabbed his attention, and he looked past his daughter toward the rear of the house.

  “Look who it is, Jen,” he said.

  I glanced back toward the dining room and saw Mrs. Dunbar coming through from the kitchen, dish towel in hand. She held her arms out as she walked toward me, and I saw the tears welling in her eyes.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” she said. She didn’t stop until she hit me, and I was thankful that I was a good six inches taller than her. When I was a boy I had gotten more than my fair share of hugs from her, and they had been all-encompassing and complete. Now she struggled to wrap her arms around me, but she felt exactly the same. Like Kerry, she was a slightly built woman, but I always got the sense that the stuff inside was tougher than regular blood and bone.

  She held on for a long time. I could feel her breathing against me, and I looked at Kerry who just smiled. I didn’t end it and I didn’t rush her, and as I stood there it occurred to me that I owed a good few hugs, and she might well be in need of one.

  When she was good and done, she let go.

  “You’ve gotten wrinkly,” she said as she stepped back to take me in.

  “That Florida sun.”

  “And you’re not wearing a sweater.”

  “I forgot to bring one.”

  Mrs. Dunbar looked at Kerry. “He forgot to bring a sweater.”

  “I guess they don’t get winter down there,” said Kerry.

  “Do you get winter down there?” Mrs. Dunbar asked me.

  “Not like this,” I said.

  Mrs. Dunbar laughed. “Not like this? This is fall, young man. Have you forgotten where you grew up?”

  “I’ve gotten soft, haven’t I?”

  “I’ll say you have. Kerry, get Magnum PI here a sweater. Brian, find a bottle of red for dinner.”

  “Red?” said Coach. “I don’t know if we have any red.”

  “We do.”

  “Where?”

  “In the hall closest, dear. Same place that it’s been kept for the last forty-five years.” Mrs. Dunbar looked at me. “You, come and help me set the table. You still like pot roast?”

  “I do.”

  I hadn’t had pot roast in years. It wasn’t a Florida kind of food. But when I lived here I had played or trained for sports almost every waking breath, and I had eaten almost anything and everything put in front of me.

  I helped Mrs. Dunbar set the dining room table with cutlery and placemats and cotton napkins. I didn’t usually go to this much trouble for Thanksgiving dinner itself. Danielle and I ate a good share of our meals on the back patio of our place on Singer Island, and another good proportion at Longboard’s. As I thought about it, I realized I ate a fair bit at my desk or in my car, which sounded more depressing than it was, because I was rarely alone at those times, and Lenny always told me to never eat alone. Occasionally a man needs to drink alone, he said, but never eat alone. And don’t make the drinking alone a habit.

  The four of us sat at the table as pot roast was served with mashed potatoes and peas and carrots. There was no need to designate seating—we just sat down where we always had, decades before. Coach at the head of the table, near the living room so he could hear the football if it happened to be on, Mrs. D at the other end near the kitchen, and Kerry and I on opposite sides, her on the kitchen side, me against the wall. Like old times.

  Mrs. Dunbar did what she always had done, asking questions about my day, except this time my day was ten years long, and there was a bit of mileage to cover. I told her about life in Florida, and the highlights of one or two of my more interesting cases—I skipped over any of the parts that involved mortal peril. I told her how I had survived a hurricane in a 5-star luxury hotel, and how I had caddied at a PGA tournament for one of the best players in the world.

  What I noted mostly was that Coach said very little. It wasn’t that he wasn’t listening. He nodded his head and made eye contact and gave all the outward signs of being interested in the stories, but he asked no questions and gave no replies. Even the PGA thing elicited no verbal response, and I had thought that would be right up his alley.

  After dinner Coach returned to his recliner for a dose of Thursday night football while Kerry and I helped clean up. Then Mrs. D made hot cocoa and the three of us sat out on the screened porch. Kerry found me a sweater with a fierce-looking eagle on the front of it, but not an eagle from Philadelphia. The Eagles had been our high school mascot, but the sweater certainly wasn’
t anything I had owned. Despite being tall by senior year I was still quite lean, and it wasn’t until college that I started really filling out, both through simple biology and plenty of work in the weight room at UM. I had remained a good dose thicker through the chest and biceps than my high school days, and if Danielle was to be believed, a touch thicker through the waist. I pulled on the sweater, and as I did was overcome by the notion that the sweater belonged to the man in the living room.

  “Don’t worry,” said Mrs. Dunbar, noticing my hesitation. “He’s got dozens of them.”

  We sat on the porch and drank cocoa and for the longest time said nothing. Neither Mrs. Dunbar nor Kerry seemed cold, but I had lost feeling in my toes. I started to wonder if Florida life had made me soft, until I realized that I hadn’t put any shoes back on. They had both donned slippers.

  “So does someone want to tell me what’s going on?” I asked, moving the agenda forward.

  “You’re not just happy to see us?” said Kerry with half a smile.

  “Of course I am. It’s great to see you. But I think you’ve got stuff on your mind.”

  “Like I said on the phone, I don’t know where to start.”

  “Like I said, start at the end.”

  “The money?”

  “Sure.”

  I watched Mrs. Dunbar. She wasn’t engaged in the conversation, but she was listening to every word.

  “Mom and Dad had saved up a bit of nest egg, the way you do.”

  “Sure.”

  “Dad invested it.”

  “You mentioned Brett Pickering.”

  “Yes. Brett came around about a year or so ago. He offered Dad a chance to invest in a project he was working on. Some shopping mall in White Plains or something.”

  “He didn’t mention that the time to invest the nest egg is not when you’re about to retire?”

  “Evidently not.”

  “And that people don’t really go to shopping malls anymore?”