The Girl with the Phony Name (10 page)

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Authors: Charles Mathes

BOOK: The Girl with the Phony Name
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“Okay. Wing look for miracle. Always look for miracle, Rucy. No look, no find, yes?”
Lucy didn't answer.
“Why you so unhappy, Rucy? Something bother you?”
“No. Everything's great. Just great.”
“Okay. You no want to talk, okay. Have to do with your business in city, maybe?”
“Actually it would help if I could have another day off.”
“Sure. You take tomorrow. See, Wing your friend. Care about you. Look out for your interests, yes?”
“Thank you, Mr. Wing. You're very generous.”
“You work next Saturday instead,” Wing announced happily. “By then First Connecticut give us loan and we have new money to spend, yes?”
“Sure,” she said, patting his arm. Saturday was a hundred years away. She could be anywhere by Saturday. Probably in jail.
T
he next morning Lucy hitched a ride into the city with one of the Neat 'n' Tidy station wagons. She didn't really believe that the police would be staking out the ferry and the commuter van the way they did on old TV shows, but why take chances? She nervously looked over
her shoulder the whole way. Mercifully the gurney in the back was empty.
The van driver, Jesus Esteban, rattled on incomprehensibly about cars and music. Lucy pretended to be interested, but was relieved when he dropped her off in the West Eighties before making his pickup.
Jesus said she could just walk across Central Park to the East Side. Lucy had heard how dangerous the park was and didn't want to take any chances. She might be wanted for murder, but God forbid she should risk a walk in the park on a flawless spring day. She knew how silly it sounded, but she still took the crosstown bus.
Twenty minutes later Lucy was climbing the stairs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Even if it wasn't in her possession, the brooch was her only clue to this mess. All the information she had about it had come from Fraser, who was hardly a reliable expert. The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed that Fraser might have colluded with MacAlpin to trick her. Perhaps someone here at the museum could tell her what kind of brooch men might be willing to kill for. It was a long shot, she knew, but she couldn't think of anything else to do.
The Metropolitan's entry hall was even larger than the library's. There were fresh flowers everywhere and hundreds of people. Lucy had never seen so many people in a museum before, and it was only a weekday.
She wandered around for forty minutes, through the caverns of furniture, paintings, treasures of the past. She hated to ask for help, but the museum was just too big for her to find what she was looking for. She finally approached a dark-complected guard in a blue uniform.
“Where is the Pictish art?”
The man stared at her blankly.
“Pickish? No pickish.”
“Pict-ish. Old Scottish. Old British.”
“Try the passage to left of main stairs. Where you first come in,” he said pointing.
Lucy eventually found the little passageway. It was a narrow hall, not more than fifty feet long. Glass cases filled with a miscellany of ancient jewelry, beads, carved ivory, and other small objects lined both walls.
Lucy walked the hall twice before she found the Celtic items. There were a few carvings, some rings, a coin. Then she saw it: a C-shaped brooch like hers, but smaller and less ornate. The piece was numbered and Lucy found a description on the wall.
PENANNULAR BROOCH
Silver, Amber
Pictish, second half 8th century
“Is there somebody around here who knows about this Celtic art?” she asked another guard, a tiny black woman in a uniform two sizes too big.
“You might try Medieval,” said the woman after thinking for a second. “Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
She clucked and shook her head. “You gotta have an appointment.”
“Can't I just talk to someone …”
“No way. You gotta have an appointment. Go call from the desk in entrance hall.”
Lucy walked out into the vast entry hall again. In the center of the room was a round information desk, big enough to hold a dozen volunteers distributing maps and giving directions. It was a moment before one was free to speak with Lucy.
“I'd like to talk with someone in the Medieval Department, please.”
The volunteer, a pale man with a beard, dialed an extension
on a telephone on the desk and handed it to Lucy. She took the receiver.
“Medieval,” said a metallic voice.
“I need some information about the Pictish penannular brooch you have on display.”
“One moment.”
Lucy waited. In a moment another voice answered.
“Dr. Brickwall.”
The name wasn't particularly encouraging. Lucy put a finger in her ear against the din.
“Yes, I'd like to talk to you about the Pictish brooch you have on display,” said Lucy and gave its number.
“Well, let's see,” said Dr. Brickwall after a pause. “I can give you an appointment sometime in July.”
“I can't wait that long. Can you just tell me how expensive a brooch like that is?”
“I'm sorry,” said the voice. “We don't go into that sort of thing here. You should try one of the auction galleries.”
“Please,” said Lucy. “It's very important.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Are they very valuable? Can't you just tell me that?”
“We really …”
“Are any worth more than a few thousand dollars?”
“Not silver ones. Look, miss …”
Lucy's eyes had wandered back down the hallway behind the admission booth where she had seen the penannular brooch. Suddenly she saw something that made her knees lock and her pulse race. Coming through the arch at the end of the passageway was Fraser.
Lucy couldn't believe her eyes at first. How had he found her? Then she realized that Fraser hadn't found her at all. He needed more information about the brooch and had had the same idea about the museum. He was a step ahead of her!
Lucy wanted to sink into the ground. Brickwall's voice was still chirping from the receiver. Lucy replaced it in its cradle,
trying not to make any jerky movements that might catch Fraser's eye.
She couldn't believe he would be able to see her from such a distance as she backed slowly away from the desk, but he did. Their eyes met. Both of them froze, then Fraser started down the hall toward her.
Lucy pushed through a group of carefree, laughing kids dressed in spring pastels and smiles. She ran out the entrance, tore down the long flight of stone steps, and headed south down Fifth Avenue, past the fountains and the neat rows of benches. A few heads turned, but no one really seemed to notice her.
She didn't look back until she was at the entrance to the underground parking lot on Eightieth Street. In the crowd she could make out a tall figure on the steps two blocks away. It was Fraser. He was running after her!
Lucy could see the tip of the Empire State Building rising out of the canopy of buds forty-five blocks away. To the right was an entrance to Central Park. The park was suddenly the safest place she could see, certainly safer than the long, straight avenue where Fraser could keep her in plain sight. Lucy made a sharp right turn onto an S-shaped asphalt path. It would be easier to lose him in the cover of trees.
Crisp sunshine bounced off the angled glass wall of the museum to her right. Old men with pipes lined the benches; girls in spring dresses sauntered dreamily; Lucy ran for her life.
She supposed she could scream for help, but then what? If the police came, it was she who would be in trouble. She was the murderer, Fraser was merely a witness. What did he want with her? He already had the brooch.
There was no time to think. Directly ahead were iron bars. Lucy despaired for an instant, thinking she had trapped herself in a dead end, then saw it was merely a playground—the bars were there to keep the squealing, happy children in.
The path continued to the right, around the playground, behind the museum. Lucy, however, made a hard left onto a
path that crossed over the street. She didn't want to lose sight of Fifth Avenue or she might double back in an unintentional circle and collide with Fraser. As long as the limestone façades were on her left, she'd be okay.
Lucy didn't know whether Fraser had seen her turn, but she wasn't about to stop and look. She sped down the path, feeling ridiculous. She hadn't run anywhere for years—espe cially not in stretch pants and flats.
A boarded-up maintenance area loomed on her right. On her left was a small, grassy lawn full of people sunning themselves, tossing Frisbees, playing with their dogs. A few people looked up as she whizzed by, tucking the long ends of her yellow sweater into her fanny pack so they wouldn't slow her down, but no one appeared prepared to intrude on her privacy. She was just another New Yorker taking advantage of Central Park, enjoying May, running for her life.
The day was beautiful, the sky a bold, cloudless blue. The air smelled clean, perfumed with spring. Everything was sunshine, but Lucy had never felt so frightened, so alone. Already she was breathing hard.
Another lawn rose up a hill toward a crown of pine trees to her right. Lucy followed the path toward a little bridge. Two laughing boys hung over the rail, playfully pushing one another. Gray boulders rose out of the grass like giant mushrooms.
Lucy sped under the bridge, dodging children and dogs, momentarily losing sight of Fifth Avenue. Her side was beginning to hurt and she was breathing heavily. Ahead of her the road forked. She took the right leg, afraid the left would take her out of the park onto Fifth.
A little girl with a ball ran after her. The mother ran after the child. Lucy looked over her shoulder. Coming out from under the bridge was Fraser. He was still a good ways back, but he was running at a good pace, his body seemed relaxed, his head turned, searching for her in the crowd. Suddenly he
saw her and began to sprint. Fear gripped Lucy's throat. The man was gaining!
Lucy was nearing a large pond. She veered left toward a weeping willow, hoping it would conceal her course from Fraser. The little clearing teemed with children and she nearly collided with one. She jumped down a step and glanced back. A dozen little girls were sitting in the giant lap of a bronze Alice, the Mad Hatter and the March Hare by their sides, dogwood blooming all around them, Fraser coming up fast in the distance.
Boys with remote devices sailed boats on the pond ahead. Across the water kids were lining up for ice cream. Lucy dashed past a giant bronze statue of Hans Christian Andersen with a duckling looking up at him, its bill rubbed shiny by little hands.
Now she was running toward one of the park drives, where lines of city traffic coursed through the green like blood vessels through body tissue. Majestic spires of buildings jumped out of the trees far ahead of her. Had she turned around somehow? She started to panic, then realized it was not Fifth Avenue she was seeing but Central Park West, the street on the other side of the park.
Lucy followed the twisting path through a short, dark tunnel under the road and up the stairs on the other side. A black–jacketed kid on his bike with a pounding radio almost cut her off. She desperately ran onto a path leading up a short hill. In a moment she was at the top, huge boulders on either side of her. The pain in her side was sharper, nearly unbearable. She couldn't get her breath. From the cover of madly blooming magnolias she looked back, unable to go on.
Fraser was just coming out of the tunnel. He stopped, looked around, then took off down the path in the opposite direction. Lucy watched as he disappeared behind rowboats stacked like fish scales by a boathouse.
After a moment Lucy began running again, panting, exhausted. A horse-drawn hansom cab passed by on the park
drive in front of her. The sun shouted through the greenery. Birds sang all around.
The traffic stopped for a moment and Lucy dashed across the road. She ran and she ran, oblivious to the beds of pale daffodils and bicyclists and trees thick with ivy all around. She saw only MacAlpin's empty, dead eyes. Guilt closed in around her as she trotted down the snaking path toward the Fifth Avenue buildings, holding her side, blinking the perspiration from her eyes. Her black hair was damp. Her muscles screamed. She had lost him. She was safe.
For now.
I
t was two days later. Wing was in his basement workshop. Hewby, the fat basset hound, was snoozing on the sofa. Lucy was sitting at Wing's desk at the end of her rope.
She stopped drumming her fingers for the first time in five minutes, then dug out the Manhattan phone book and looked under Fraser. She couldn't stand it anymore. Maybe he'd be willing to make some kind of deal.
There were half a dozen Michael Frasers in the book. Lucy wasn't even sure that was how he spelled his name. It was hopeless. Besides, she didn't even have anything to bargain with.
Lucy thought briefly about phoning MacAlpin's widow, then dismissed it. What could she say? “I'm sorry to have killed your husband, Mrs. MacAlpin, but did he ever mention having an illegitimate daughter?”
Lucy sat back into Wing's deep armchair. She hadn't gotten any work accomplished for days. Their loan meeting at First Connecticut was tomorrow morning, but Lucy's mind
kept wandering to images of Fraser chasing after her and MacAlpin's crushed skull.
“What am I supposed to do now?” Lucy asked helplessly. Hewby didn't answer, being sound asleep.
Maybe she should just turn herself in. The cops might believe her story. Maybe they would go after Fraser and get her brooch back. Maybe Fraser would know what MacAlpin had been up to. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe they would lock her up and throw away the key.
Lucy nibbled what was left of her thumbnail and tried to think. She was an intelligent person. Surely there was some logical course of action. Why couldn't she see it?
“Because I'm a killer, that's why,” she mumbled to the sleeping dog. “I'm being eaten alive by guilt. I'm ‘Dos–toyevskying' out. Next I'll be hearing hearts beating under the floorboards.”
“You feel okay, Rucy?” said the voice, shattering her reverie. Lucy shook the cobwebs from her mind and bounced up.
“I'm sorry, Mr. Wing. I was just thinking.”
“Sit, sit, sit,” commanded Wing, motioning downward with his hands.
Lucy sank back, blushing, into his big chair. Wing walked to the door, closed it, then sat down facing her in the armchair she usually occupied. Hewby looked up briefly, then went back to sleep.
“We talk, Rucy Trelaine. Something bothering you. You tell me now.”
Lucy felt the panic welling up in her chest. She wanted to tell him the truth, but how could she?
“I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Wing,” she said guiltily. “I'm fine. Really I am.”
“Wing your friend. Can help, maybe.”
“I don't …”
“You in trouble?”
“No.”
“Need money?”
“No.”
His eyes opened wide. “You pregnant?”
“No! There is something on my mind, but it's … there's …”
She tried to push some hardness into her face, but her lip kept quivering.
“You in trouble, Rucy Trelaine. Yes?”
“Yes,” she answered, startled at how small her voice sounded.
“You tell now what's bothering you, please?”
“You wouldn't understand,” she said desperately.
“I surprise you maybe.”
“Why should you be interested in a poor little orphan girl? Why should anybody? I'm nobody, don't you understand? And I'm practically thirty years old. I don't have a thing to show for my life. Not a goddamned thing.”
Lucy struggled not to cry. She had always prided herself on being so tough, on being able to deal with any situation that came her way. Now she wept at the drop of a hat. What was happening to her?
“Harvard graduate, yes? That something,” Wing said gently.
Lucy stared at the desk top in front of her. She could barely breathe beneath the weight of accumulated shame. Wing was the only person in the world who seemed genuinely to care about her. And here she was, not even telling him the truth.
Lucy looked up. Wing sat with his hands in his lap, smiling expectantly. She might not be able to correct a lifetime of mistakes or bring Robert MacAlpin back to life, but at least she could level with Wing. She owed him that much.
“I didn't graduate from Harvard, Mr. Wing,” she said miserably. “I flunked out. And I've been fired from nearly every job I ever had. I'm sorry.”
Wing's eyes widened. He snorted, frowned, then spoke in a low voice.
“You trick me?”
“I'm sorry, Mr. Wing. I'll go upstairs and pack.”
She started for the door, but Wing rose and held up his hand.
“Wait. Why you trick me?”
“I needed the job,” she said simply.
“You say you orphan?”
“Yes.”
“Wing orphan, too,” he said, still frowning. “Family killed by Japanese in World War II. Have many hard times. Now prospects dim again. Have friends, though.”
They stared at one another for a moment, then Wing stood and walked around the desk to her. Lucy was embarrassed, afraid that he would try to touch her, to give her sympathy. He did. He put his arm around her shoulder and hugged her gently.
“You have friends, too, Rucy. Not need Harvard degree to be big help to me. Everything okay. Okay?”
“Everything's not okay. How can you say everything's okay? You're about to go broke.”
He shrugged. “Just money. You person. Wing live long time. Know what important in life. You important, Rucy.”
Lucy tried to keep her upper lip from pushing down and pressing her mouth into the smile she cried with. She couldn't. Tears began streaming down her face.
“I'm sorry, Mr. Wing,” she sobbed.
“It's okay, Rucy. Wing understand.”
“I just bring bad luck everywhere I go.”
“No, no, no. You good luck. Help with management. Wing not so stupid with bankers anymore. You okay. Wing accept apology. Everything hunky-dunky.”
“Everything not hunky-dunky.”
“No? More problem? Okay, tell what other problem is, please.”
“I can't.”
“Yes, yes, yes.”
“I can't,” she sobbed. Wing pushed her to arm's length so he could look into her eyes.
“You not alone anymore, Rucy Trelaine,” said Wing, patting her gently on the back. “Now please tell what is wrong.”
Suddenly Lucy was spilling the whole story—the orphanage, the foster homes, seeing the ad, the meeting with the lawyer in Pittsfield, the brooch. The more she talked, the more she cried. Shoulders heaving, Lucy described the crash that had killed her mother, Theresa Iatoni's story, and finally the letter from MacAlpin, the meeting, his claim of being her father, his ruined body splattered on the red marble floor, Fraser chasing her through the park.
Wing listened severely, interjecting gutteral
ohs
or
ahs,
patting her gently on the shoulder from time to time.
“Don't you see?” Lucy said finally, pounding the cluttered desk with her fists. “I killed a man. Maybe he was my father, maybe not. It doesn't matter. He was a person and I killed him. And my brooch is gone. And the police are probably looking for me right now. And I don't even have a birthday. God, I want to die.”
“No die, no die,” said Wing. “Man killed accidentally. Police not look for you.”
“Fraser will tell them.”
“Not if he want to keep brooch. Yes?”
“I suppose,” she sobbed, afraid to look at Wing, ashamed of making such a fool of herself.
Wing stood silently for a few moments, letting her cry. Then he went around the desk and took out Hewby's leash from a drawer.
“Come, Hewby. We go for walk.”
Hewby raised an eyebrow, then parked his chin back on the sofa. Lucy blew her nose and wiped her eyes with a Kleenex. Wing clapped his hands.
“Come, come, come.”
Hewby sadly raised himself up and jumped to the floor
with a thud. Wing attached the leash and walked him to the front door.
“You come, too,” he said to Lucy. She followed, miserable.
In a moment they were out on the street. Hewby ambled down the sidewalk, sniffing at favorite trees and hydrants. Wing said nothing. He seemed lost in thought.
Lucy felt drained and empty, as if a plug had been pulled. But while some of her guilt seemed to be gone, nothing had replaced it.
After ten minutes Hewby had exhausted the neighborhood smells and was straining at the leash to get back into the house.
“You must go to Scotland,” Wing abruptly announced as they walked up the driveway.
“What would I do there?” said Lucy, struggling out of her daze.
“Check out clues.”
“I don't have any clues. I don't have anything.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” said Wing. “Two clues. One, name of unpronounceable town where MacAlpin was born and which appear on brooch. Two, name of Fingon—‘You Fingons all alike.' So you go to unpronounceable town and look for people name Fingon.”
“I can't,” Lucy said after a moment.
“Why not? You need money? I lend money.”
“Money's not the problem. I have money.”
“So what stopping you?”
“Well, for one thing, I can't get a passport. You need a birth certificate to get a passport, and I don't have one. I'm not a real person. Everything about me is phony.”
Wing opened the door, frowning. Lucy followed him into the hallway. She felt like a bundle of wet rags. Wing bent down to release Hewby from the leash, but suddenly stood up and thumped his head with the palm of his hand.
“There is way! I figure out!”
Hewby woofed indignantly. Wing danced a little jig on the welcome mat. Hewby escaped down the hall, dragging his leash behind him.
“Tina! Tina!”
“Yes, Mr. Wing?” said Tina, appearing from the kitchen, wiping her hands with a dish towel.
“Get travel agent on phone. Quickly. Chop-chop.”
“Sure, Mr. Wing,” she said, heading toward the phone, obviously impressed with his excited tone. Lucy grabbed the little man's arm and pulled him around to face her.
“What are you doing?” she exclaimed.
“Wing help you.”
“I don't want to involve you in this mess,” said Lucy, feeling tears well up again. “I should never have told you. We have to make the loan presentation tomorrow. We should be working.”
“This more important. Must clear your name,” said the little man, bouncing up and down. “Must go to Scotland.”
“Didn't you understand?” said Lucy, exasperated. “I don't have a passport.”
“No problem. You use Tina's.”
Lucy's jaw worked for several seconds before she managed to produce sound.
“You're out of your mind,” she sputtered finally.
“Yes, yes. You same height, same weight. With haircut and brown contact lens, no one know difference.”
“She's just a kid!”
“You Grandma Moses?”
“She has five earrings!”
“Wing pierce her ears, Wing pierce yours. You cut hair, wear Tina's earrings, her glasses, no one know.”
“This is ridiculous. We would
all
end up in jail, instead of just me!”
“No problem. Custom people overworked. Not bother with little Tina. We fool them. Wing know how to talk to English.”
“When are you going to talk to them?”
“I go with you.”
“What?”
“I go to Scotland. With you.”
“Look, Mr. Wing. I'm a big girl. I can fight my own battles.”
“Wing not fight your battles. Wing take business trip. You think U.S. have only banks in world? Wing check out international financing. Scotland good place to start.”
Lucy felt a wave of hysteria approaching, but it quickly passed. She took a deep breath.
“I don't know why I'm getting upset,” she said, managing a smile. “I'm not going to Scotland. And I'm certainly not going to let you go. It's absolutely out of the question, and that's final.”

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