"Are you married?"
"Was, but no more. Now I'm single as a thumb."
"Dad's been married three times."
Frannie opened a desk drawer and took out a pack of Marlboros. "Doesn't surprise me. Your dad was always odder than a Brussels sprout. I guess he still is."
"You can say that again. Now he's dating a woman named Veronica Lake."
"Isn't she dead? Well, it takes all kinds."
"Fuck you, Frannie. Listen, remember Pauline Ostrova?"
"Sure, you pulled her out of the river. The day we all grew up."
"You remember everything about that day?"
"Damn right I do, Sam! How many people get murdered in this burg?"
"How many do?"
"Two, as long as I've been on the force. That's seventeen years. Both marital things. Very pathetic and uninteresting."
"Who did it? Who killed Pauline?"
"Who do they say did it, or who did it?" He lit a cigarette and closed his lighter with a hard snap.
Cass and I looked at each other and waited for him to continue. He didn't.
Smiling, he wiggled his eyebrows. "I should have been an actor. How's that for dramatic tension? I think they should cast Andy Garcia as me in the movie.
"The best part of being chief of police is I get to look in all the old files and see what really went on here when we were kids. There's still a file on you, Sam. Now that you're famous, you think I could get some money telling the world you were once half a juvenile delinquent?"
"Frannie, what about Pauline?"
"The case was open-and-shut. She had a boyfriend from college named Edward Durant. They arrested him, he confessed, they cut a deal with the prosecutor and sent him up to Sing Sing for life. He's dead."
Cass gasped.
Frannie ran a hand through his hair. "This is ugly stuff, Cassandra. You sure you want to hear it?"
She licked her lips, nodded slowly, then quickly.
"As soon as he got up there, the bad boys started using him for a fu – uh, love doll until he couldn't take it anymore and hanged himself in his cell."
"Jesus! How old was he?"
"Twenty-one. Nice-looking boy. Highest honors at Swarthmore. But he didn't do it."
"Who did?" I realized I was breathing too quickly.
"I'm not positive, but I've got my suspicions. You didn't know Pauline did you? She was from another dimension. Why do you want to know about her now?"
"Because I want to write a book about what really happened to her."
Frannie took a long drag on the cigarette and put his hand behind his head. "Interesting idea." He looked at the ceiling. "Come on, I want to show you a couple of things." He stood up and gestured for us to follow.
Out on the street he shot his cuffs and walked over to an unmarked Chevrolet. "Hop in."
Driving down the street in a police car with McCabe at the wheel made me laugh. "Frannie, I wish there was some kind of magic available where I could go back and say to fifteen-year-old me, 'Do I have something to tell you,'
"He'd never believe you. Here, look at this shitty store. You buy a pair of shoes in there, you're barefoot in two months. Remember Al Salvato?"
'Green Light'?"
"Right." He looked in the rearview mirror at Cass. "Al Salvato was a svacim we grew up with. Whenever someone said something he agreed with, he'd say, 'Green light.' He thought it was cute."
"But Frannie didn't. He punched him in the nose for it."
"That's right. Salvato owns three stores here now. This is one of them. He brought cheap shoes, a sex store, and bad Greek food to town. Ran for mayor last year and lost, thank God."
Chief McCabe's tour of Crane's View went up and down and all around. He pointed out who owned what, who of our old friends still lived there, and gave a funny running history of what had happened since I'd left. His information only furthered what I already assumed: New money had moved up from Manhattan, thus terminally yuppifying much of the old homestead. There was a cafe now that served cappuccino and croissants, an Audi dealer, a vegetarian restaurant. What was left existed in a time warp that made the rest of the village look like it hadn't changed a bit. Witness Scrappy's Diner.
Cass asked more questions than I did. From them, I was touched to hear she remembered many of the stories I had told her over the years. She and Frannie chatted away as he drove us around. After a while I tuned them out.
We drove up Baldwin Street and took a right on Broadway. I smiled, knowing where we were going. He stopped the car in front of a well-kept red and white house with a wraparound porch. Large chestnut trees flanked it on both sides. It was in much better condition than when I had last seen it.
"You know this house, Cassandra?"
"No." She was leaning forward, her elbows resting on the seat between Frannie and me.
"This is where your dad lived."
"Really? He never showed it to me. Can we go look?"
We got out and stood on the sidewalk in front. "How come I've never been here before, Dad?"
"Because I haven't been back since you were born."
"But you're always telling me stories about Crane's View!"
I was about to answer when Frannie climbed up on the porch and went to the front door. "You want to look inside?" He held up a bunch of keys and jigged them to show he could get in.
"You have a key?"
"To my own house? Sure! Are you nuts?" Without waiting for our reactions, he opened the door and walked in. I caught up as he was walking into the living room. I wanted to ask a dozen questions, but also wanted simply to stand there and remember.
"You live here? You bought my house?"
"Yeah! I've had it seven years."
"What'd you pay for it?"
He looked to see if Cass was near. "None of your fuckin' business. Bought it when I was married. My wife was an executive producer at NBC so we had a lot of money then. When we split up, she gave me the house."
"Congratulations! Every time 7 got divorced, I had to check to see if I still had all my body parts after the settlement. Can we look around?"
"Sure. You want something to drink? Cassandra, you want anything?"
"Could I have a beer?"
"Sam?"
"Nothing. I'm in too much shock. Frannie McCabe owns my house. You bought it from, who, the Van Gelders?"
"Their son. They moved to Florida and gave it to him." He started for the kitchen. "You wanna look around, go ahead. Go upstairs if you want."
"Dad?" Cass looked at me expectantly.
"You go. I'm going to sit down here a little while."
Frannie was back in a few minutes with a glass of beer in one hand, a glass of milk in the other.
"Milk? You?"
"It's good stuff. Now what's with the Pauline thing? How come you want to write about her?"
"Because it's too interesting to pass up. I've been thinking about it awhile now. Why don't you think her boyfriend did it? You've got to tell me everything because I don't know a thing."
He sat down across from me and cradled his glass in both hands. "I'll show you the files. She and this Edward Durant went out the night it happened. He'd come down for the weekend to be with her. His story is, they went to the river to drink and make out. What he remembered was they drank too much and got into a bad fight. Really bad. They were hitting each other. Then they stopped and drank some more."
"Why were they fighting?"
"Because she wanted to break up. Said she didn't respect him and wanted out. Now, the last thing he remembered was her getting out of the car and him following. She went over to the water and he was right behind her. She said get away. He hit her. Slapped her across the face. She fell down and started screaming. Said all kinds of nasty things and kinda went nuts. Way over the top, even for crazy Pauline. That spooked him, so he went back to the car, hoping she'd cool off. While he was waiting, he kept drinking till he passed out.