Fall Guy

sometimes I'm not sure why, but there's a price. If anyone looks carefully, the cost is visible, the way it had been with Timothy O'Fallon—the evidence of the weight he carried in his eyes, too.
    I looked at the pictures again—teenaged kids, hair all slicked down, dressed up and looking uncomfortable but grinning at the camera anyway. In one of the shots, one of the older boys had put two fingers behind the head of one of the younger ones, making horns, goofing around. They were happy kids, full of life. Three of the boys and the little girl had round faces, fair hair, light eyes, pale skin. They probably had freckles, too, but the pictures were too faded to tell. The other two boys had military-looking short hair, dark, and dark eyes.
    I thought one of those redheads might be O'Fallon, picking up the driver's license again to see if I could tell which one. But in that picture, the picture of the forty-four-year-old man, the cop, the hair was faded, the round face had begun to soften, the eyes looked dead sad, or just plain dead. His eyes were nothing like the merry eyes of any of those kids, kids without the weight of responsibility driving them into the ground, kids who didn't know what cops see, things, even now, the rest of us can't imagine. No wonder O'-Fallon grew up to look so grim.
    O'Fallon's apartment keys were in a little envelope. I could feel them without opening it. There was an address book, too, small and worn, like the wallet. I figured a lot of names would be crossed out, people who had moved or married or divorced or died. Why should his address book be different from anyone else's?
    I read the will next, expecting to find it dull reading, the same legalese as any other will I'd ever read, reiterating the laws, instructions that any debts be paid, indicating a burial place, a few pages of dry and boring language with no surprises anywhere. But that was far from the case. I checked the time, then picked up the phone and dialed the precinct.
    „Now I really don't get why my name is on this will,“ I told Brody when he picked up his phone. „O'Fallon has family. He left his estate to his sister. Why didn't he name her the executor of his will?“
    For a moment he didn't say anything. Then: „He must have had his reasons.“
    „He must have,“ I said, picking up the address book, holding it in my other hand. „Did you notice that this will is brand-new? It's dated two days before he died.“
    „Yes, ma'am.“
    Why wouldn't he notice? Noticing things was what he did for a living. I took a deep breath, a suggestion in an article I'd read on anger management. It didn't work. I was feeling duped, stuck with one of life's most unpleasant jobs when it should have fallen to a blood relative. Which, obviously, he had. I felt as if I was shouting now in my own head, if that's even possible.
    „Did you ever meet his sister?“ I asked. „Did he talk about her? Did she...?“ Too loud, too fast, too everything.
    „Tim had just lost his mother. Perhaps that's why he redid his will. For an unmarried man, it wouldn't be unusual to leave his estate to his mother. And then, when she'd passed on, to change the will and leave the estate to his sister. And, no, I never met her and I don't recall Tim ever mentioning her. Did you want the Department to do the notification? Is that why you called?“
    I took another deep breath, absorbing the news. A stressful job, a code of silence, a recent death in the family, an accidental suicide. Giving Brody the benefit of the doubt. For now.
    „No, no, I'll take care of it,“ I said, thinking about what he'd said earlier when he'd notified me. But I hadn't lost a loved one. I'd lost an acquaintance I barely remembered. That wouldn't be the case for the call I had to make. „As I understand it,“ I said, „it's part of my job.“
    „Is there anything...?“
    „No, Detective. I'll see you tomorrow then, on Horatio Street.“
    „Ms. Alexander?“
    „Yes?“
    „You have the keys. I just want to remind you that the apartment—“
    „It's sealed. I understand.“ Impatient. Still feeling I'd been had.
    Was that what pushed him over the line, I wondered, the loss of his mother on top of the stress of the job? But why leave everything to his sister? What about those other red-haired kids from a couple of decades ago, and the two with dark hair? Didn't he want them to know he loved them, too? Wasn't that part of what leaving a will was all about in the first place,