Lady Vanishes (19 page)

A Hispanic woman who looked as if she ate gravel for breakfast was sitting outside the door to Venus’s room. She stood when I approached, her arm across the closed door. I showed her my ID.

“Lourdes Rivera,” she said. “I heard a lot of good stuff about you from Frank.”

“From Frank? Really?”

“I know what you’re saying,” she told me. “He never told you to your face how good a job you did, am I right? But he tells everyone else, any chance he gets, ‘I had this girl Rachel working for me, walked in off the street, took to it like a golden retriever to water, college grad, too, but okay, you know what I mean? I’d be happy if you was half as good an operative as she was.’ He’s a piece of work, that Frank.”

She was short and thick, big shoulders, muscular legs, a gold tooth right in front, shined at you when she smiled, and a shoulder holster with a gun, her jacket open so you could
see it, stop any thoughts of messing around before they got started.

“Go on in, Rachel. She’ll be happy to see you.”

“Thanks. Glad you’re here.”

“Hey, no problem.”

I opened the door, and Venus grinned when she saw me. Then she winced.

“I feel sooo protected,” she said.

“Would have been nice
before
you got a hole in your head.”

I stood in the doorway, both dogs behind me.

“I’m going to be okay, Rachel. I’m on the mend.”

“I know. I stopped at the nurses’ station. The head nurse told me. She wasn’t going to, but I told her we were sisters.”

“We are.”

“Don’t go all soft and mushy on me, girl. Keep your edge. You’re going to need it.”

She nodded, then frowned. “That still hurts.”

“Nodding?”

“Moving. Blinking. Smiling. Talking. But I am getting better.”

“I have a surprise for you. Might speed up the recovery process.”

I stepped aside and patted my left thigh. The dogs got up from their sit-stays and lunged forward.

“Whoa,” I said, as if they were horses.

Venus squealed, and her hands shot up to her mouth.

“Lady,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears.

I touched the bed, and both dogs landed on it, one on either side of Venus.

“Don’t you even want to know how I got
two
dogs up to your room?”

“No. I want to know where you found her.”

A nurse who looked like Olive Oyl walked in with some pills—one red, two yellow, party time—in the tiniest cup I’d ever seen.

“Don’t tire her out,” she told me, bobbing her funny-looking head on her long, skinny neck. Then, “Oh, a matching dog. Is he her father?” she asked, pointing to Dashiell.

I told her yes, watching Venus’s smile light up the room. She filled Venus’s plastic glass with water and waited until she had swallowed all the pills, closing the door on her way out.

Venus had one hand on Dashiell’s head, the other around Lady, her face buried in the dog’s dreadlocks, impossible to see where one ended, the other began. Except for the bandage.

“Where was she?”

“Samuel had her.”

“Samuel?”

I nodded.

“He was the one who ‘found’ you, Venus, after you were hit.”

She reached up and touched the bandage.

“Are you saying he killed Harry?”

“It seems so. I dropped him off at the precinct. The detectives are questioning him now.”

She pulled Lady a little closer.

“Why?”

“Why is the hardest part of the work I do, Venus, because you and I wouldn’t take the road Samuel took, even if we had identical reasons. Someone convinces himself that killing another human being is okay, how can we expect to understand the why?”

“I’d still like to know. Even if I won’t understand. The man killed my husband, tried to kill me. I have a right to know what he was thinking, what he was after.”

“Yes, you do. He says he took Lady because she was getting all the attention, all the appreciation.”

“Oh, good grief.”

“He said he was working really hard and that he was devoted to the kids and Harbor View, as devoted as anyone, but no one noticed, no one gave him the atta-boys he needed. He thought if Lady weren’t around, maybe he’d be noticed. Maybe Eli would notice him. He said he planned to bring her back. Maybe he thought he’d do that, be a big hero. I don’t know. And he claims he took good care of her, which apparently he did. She’s fine. But whether or not he would have returned her to Harbor View”—I shrugged—“we’ll never know for sure.”

“And Harry?”

“He called him
Uncle
Harry. I guess he expected more from him, maybe an unreasonable amount more, affection, praise, money, respect, all the things he craves and doesn’t feel he gets.”

“So he
killed
him?”

I nodded.

“I told you we can’t understand this. It’s crazy, doing what he did. Someone else would have gotten a job elsewhere, found a niche of his own. But Samuel has spent his life beating his head against the wall, trying to get love out of a stone.”

“I sure wouldn’t want Eli for a daddy. All his energy goes into Harbor View. None of it goes into his own kids. Never did, as far as I can tell. Even with the residents, he’s thoughtful, intelligent, willing to experiment with new things, but there’s no connection.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s a suit. He’s formal. He’s cold. He never touches anyone.” She bent her face to Lady again. When she picked
it up, there were more tears. “Lots of people have inadequate parents, Rachel. They don’t all go out and murder.”

“If he focused his childish needs and expectations on Harry—”

“Because he couldn’t get what he needed from Eli—”

“Then, in a perverse way, it makes sense. Look, Venus, once someone walks away from what’s considered normal, the pattern of their thinking changes. Sometimes they believe they are forced to do the horrible things they do, that the victim asked for it, or left them no choice, or that they had to teach the victim a lesson.”

“A lesson!”

“I know it’s bizarre.” I shook my head. “My sister used to love to scare me when we were little, and one time she read me this story, maybe it was Poe, I’m not sure, about some guy who got walled up by his father, I think. Because the old man wanted to teach him a lesson. I couldn’t get that out of my mind, the insanity of it, because as each brick was put in place, he knew, and I knew, he was going to die there. Some lesson.”

“He took Lady to get the positive attention he thought he deserved and that she was getting. And when that didn’t work, he killed Harry?”

“Maybe it was the lesser of two evils.”

“Meaning?”

“That he couldn’t kill the person he was really mad at.”

“His father. So Harry was—”

“A stand-in. I told you it wouldn’t make sense.”

“And me? What was I?”

I reached out and put a hand on Dashiell’s back. He looked at me and wagged his tail.

“I wonder if he thought that if all the people who were appreciated at Harbor View were gone, his father would have to notice him,” I said.

“That’s pathetic.”

If it were true, wouldn’t this still be the beginning? Who would be next? Molly? Me? Even his brother.

“Thank God he’s at the precinct.”

I wondered how far he would have gone to get the attention he was after.

The door opened, and Olive Oyl popped her round head in. “Time to go,” she said. “Doctor’s coming.”

“I’ll just say good-bye.”

Venus took my hand.

“What about Lady? Is there any special way I should introduce her back to the kids?”

She was quiet a moment. “No matter what you do, there’s going to be some confusion. It’s the nature of the beast, so to speak. If you go without Dashiell, Jackson will be upset. Dashiell is the dog that moved Jackson.”

I thought about the bookend, but I couldn’t talk to her about it now. Olive would be back in a minute with Doctor. Anyway, given the circumstances, I guess it could wait.

“Some of them will be puzzled, seeing both dogs, but that’s okay. That’s the way to go.

“You’re not thinking this is wrapped up, are you, Rachel? There’s still the problem of the will. We’re not out of the woods yet. I still need you. And Lourdes.”

I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “I don’t leave until you tell me to leave.”

Out in the hall, I thanked Lourdes and asked her to stay at least two more days. The doctor was down the hall, coming this way. The nurse was trailing two steps behind him, carrying a clipboard. I turned the other way and headed for the stairs.

On Twelfth Street, outside St. Vincent’s, I began meandering west, toward Harbor View, taking my time so that the dogs could read the news of the neighborhood, post their own messages, be themselves before going back to work.

But as I got closer and closer to the way West Village, I found myself going even more slowly, like Dashiell when he wants to stay out and sees I’m heading home.

So I turned south, toward the cottage. I was feeling funny and wanted to be home, even if it was just for an hour. Maybe I was just hungry. I couldn’t remember the last time I had a real meal. So I crossed Hudson Street and stopped at Pepe Verde, getting some pasta and chicken to go, a mixed salad, too, and some of their wonderful bread to go with it.

After unlocking the gate and letting the dogs in first, I picked up the mail, several days’ worth, stopped in the garden, and sat on one of the benches, watching the dogs flirt
and play. Then, without going inside, I opened the bag of food and started eating my salad with the little plastic fork, feeling how empty I was, and how tired.

What was the rush? Surely tomorrow would be a mess, the Pooles and the Kagans finding out about the new arrangements for Harbor View. No more Venus this and Venus that; she’d be pretty much running things as soon as she got out of the hospital. And the shock of it, that she and Harry had fallen in love and gotten married. That ought to take them some time to get used to.

I didn’t know about the Pooles. To hell with them. They had nothing to do with this after tomorrow. But Eli would work it out with Venus, for the sake of the kids. They’d be okay, in time.

Time was all any of them needed, time to adjust to the changes and go on. Time was what I needed, too, I thought, starting the pasta, giving each dog a piece of the chicken, saving a little for myself, feeling so tired I wasn’t sure I could make it upstairs to bed.

Why rush over there tonight? I thought, wondering if they knew about Samuel yet. He wouldn’t show up for his evening sing-along. So what? They’d wonder where he was and put the kids to bed. If I went over, I’d have to tell them the bad news—where he was, and why. A message like that, mightn’t they want to kill the messenger? And who was I kidding? I wasn’t merely the messenger. I was the one who’d dropped Samuel off at the precinct, who told them what he’d done and why. No, better to stay home, look at the mail, let Lady spend the night and take her back in the morning, let her settle in with the kids while the Kagans sat in the lawyer’s office listening to the news, two of them anyway.

I put the remains of dinner into the outside trashcan and secured the lid. Then I unlocked the door, called in the dogs,
and filled two bowls with dry dog food, adding some cottage cheese and yogurt, cleaning and refilling the water bowl. I carried the mail upstairs and took it into my office, dropping it on my desk, opening the top drawer and picking up Venus’s necklace, letting the heart spin in the light from the desk lamp.

When the phone rang, both dogs barked. The sound seemed out of place in the quiet house.

“Alexander.”

“Rach. It’s Marty.”

“Hey. How’s it going? Any luck with that bicycle yet?”

“Not yet. That thing’s been out in the weather for two weeks. Whatever wasn’t washed off was rubbed off by other people’s hands. Doesn’t look too promising, but then again, we shouldn’t need it now, should we, now that you solved the case for us.”

“How’s that?”

“Cute, Rach, cute. Like it slipped your mind, the guy you dropped off here.”

“Oh. Him. How’s that going?”

“He confessed.”

“Hey, great. How’d you get it out of him?”

“The usual—hot lights, rubber hoses, beatings, and of course the stun gun. Agoudian’s good at what he does.”

“Nothing out of the ordinary?”

“Completely routine, but I tell you, this one’s an amateur, a real crybaby. Wet his damn pants before five minutes elapsed. Literally. Anyway, we couldn’t have gotten where we are without you, kid.”

“Well, it wasn’t really
me.
Dashiell got real interested in his pants, so I figured he had the dog, and the rest just fell into place. But it was Agoudian who got him to confess. He only owned up to taking the dog when I had him.”

“None of that denial here. He opened his mouth, he didn’t shut up until it was all on the table, good stuff, rich with detail.”

“That’s good. A relief.”

“You bet. Always nice when you can close a case. It makes the captain happy. So, you recovered the dog at his place?”

“I did.”

“Everything okay on that end?”

“Fine. She’s okay. I have her here, Marty. I’m bushed. I thought I’d keep her here tonight, take her back to Harbor View in the morning. That okay?”

“Yeah, Rach. We know where she was. And we know where she’ll be. Besides, he wrote it all down and signed it. We got him on video, too.”

“You need his keys?” I asked. “I have them here. I can drop them off in the morning. In case someone wants to go out to Brooklyn, get him a dry pair of pants.”

“There’s nothing in the budget for that, Rach. His old man can get him some clean pants. Or he can get them himself, come tomorrow.”

“What do you mean?”

“He confessed, all right. We were running out of fucking videotape. He was ready to take responsibility for World War II by the time we finally shut him up.”

I didn’t say anything. I had a strong feeling he wasn’t finished.

“He started out, it looked pretty good. He had a few of the details down pat, stuff he shouldn’t have known, about how the bicycle was obtained, for example.”

“I may have inadvertently—”

“But the more into it he got—” I could picture him shaking his head. “He was real wound up, Rach, talking a mile a
minute, sweating so much his shirt was as wet as his pants. Agoudian, he can be pretty loud when he has to, he’s in his face, asking him how he could have hit the old man with the bike, someone he knew since he was a little kid, and you know what he says? He says, I hit him from behind. I did it so I wouldn’t have to see his face. Couldn’t have done it the other way, he tells Agoudian, like this makes him sensitive, this makes it okay he killed Dietrich, because he hit him in the back, not the front. What this makes him is not guilty, Rachel. What it makes him is nutty as a fruitcake.”

I took a deep breath.

“His father’s a shrink,” I said.

“Yeah, so it figures, right?”

“Seems to go that way.”

“Well, he shouldn’t be running around loose, in my opinion.”

“But he will be? You’re letting him loose?”

“One o’clock. Right after lunch. In case you want to meet him, give him back his keys in person. On the other hand, he might not be too happy to see you, considering. Even after cooling off overnight. Maybe you ought to leave them for him at Harbor View. He might be annoyed with you, bringing an innocent man to the precinct, accusing him of some horrific crimes, only one of which he’s guilty of.”

“Is that why you’re keeping him overnight, to ‘cool off?’”

He didn’t say anything right away.

Neither did I.

“The guys are pissed about what he did, about the nature of the crime, taking the dog away from those poor souls at Harbor View. The dog disappears, wouldn’t they figure any one of them might be next? Must have been a tough time there. So we figured a night of our best hospitality, a couple
of our gourmet meals under his belt, he might think twice in the future.”

I looked up at the bulletin board, the list of people who’d be disappointed once they read the will, thinking, if not Samuel, then who?

“I’m sorry, Marty. I thought—”

“Hey, the dog’s okay, right?”

“Right.”

“Then something good came out of this, didn’t it?”

“Yeah. Thanks for saying that,” I said.

“Don’t mention it,” he told me.

After I hung up, I’m not sure why, I went to the bathroom, got the tweezers, and, sitting at the desk, holding the necklace under the light, I closed the link on Venus’s chain, then slipped it around my neck, fastened the latch, and tucked it under my shirt, the heart that Harry had given Marilyn first and Venus second. I went into the bedroom and crawled under the covers, feeling the bed bounce twice as both dogs joined me a moment later.

But I couldn’t sleep. At first, I was thinking about Samuel Kagan, who, when he couldn’t get positive attention from his father, had tried for some negative attention, confessing to crimes he didn’t commit just so his old man would take some notice of him.

And then I stayed up even longer; whoever had killed Harry and tried to kill Venus was still running around loose. Time was running out, and I didn’t have a clue as to who that was.