Three-Day Town (20 page)

“Did he take that bronze with him or did someone else?” Lowry wondered aloud.

“Both are possibilities.”

“Horvath told us that Antoine was awake at nine-thirty but just going to bed at eleven when he got up to relieve Jackson early,” Hentz said, keeping his eye on the main ball. “So Clarke was around and awake all evening. And Vlad the Regaler did tell us that there was some animosity between Antoine and Lundigren, if that’s not another of his embellishments.”

“Either way, we definitely need to find Antoine Clarke,” Sigrid said. “This doesn’t look like a premeditated murder to me, so maybe we’ll get a quick confession.”

Dinah Urbanska tossed her empty coffee cup toward the nearest wastebasket. It missed and splashed its last few drops on Tillie’s shoe. Flushing, Urbanska apologized and said, “Um, Lieutenant? I was wondering. Nothing much has been said about it, but do you think Lundigren’s death had anything to do with the fact that she—I mean, that
he’s
a woman?”

“What?”
Tillie stared at her in surprise and Sigrid realized that he had not been with them when the ME relayed that information.

“Sorry, Tillie. When Cohen had the super’s body on the table yesterday, he discovered that Lundigren had all the physical attributes of a female,” she said, and told him of Mrs. Lundigren’s insistence that it was a heterosexual marriage. “And to answer your question, Urbanska, if anyone at his apartment building suspected otherwise, we haven’t heard a whisper. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no reason to make things more uncomfortable for Mrs. Lundigren unless it becomes an obvious factor in this death.”

She referred again to her notes. “Speaking of Mrs. Lundigren?”

“I spoke to Dr. Penny,” Hentz said. “He’s going to send her home today with something to help her cope with her anxiety.”

Jim Lowry looked up from his computer screen. “Here’s the information Mrs. Wall sent us about the elevator man that Lundigren recommended for firing. Want me to follow up on it?”

Sigrid shook her head. “Let it ride for now. I’d prefer that you run the names of those guests with a known art background. See if any of them have priors. And, Tillie, let’s have a list of all the guests who can’t be alibied. We’ll finish up here, then go back after lunch and see if we can speak to the occupants of those eight apartments that weren’t home yesterday.”

A uniformed officer appeared in the doorway. “Lieutenant? There’s a Mr. and Mrs. Rice here with their attorney. I put ’em in interview room A.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. Hentz?”

The Rice attorney was urbane in a charcoal pinstripe suit. He introduced his clients, assured Sigrid and Hentz that they were more than happy to cooperate in this terrible tragedy, then took a seat beside them.

In appearance, husband and wife were almost polar opposites. She was small and dark and impeccably dressed in a designer suit and thigh-high leather boots. He was big and blond and could have stepped out of a Lands’ End catalog—turtleneck beige sweater, brown corduroy pants, and hiking shoes.

In temperament, however, they were mirror images—indignant to be here, irate at having to answer questions, indifferent to the death of a super they felt had thwarted their rights, and clearly irritated that this session necessitated their attorney, whose hourly fee would probably mean one less designer suit for Mrs. Rice.

“I believe your interest in my clients relates to the death of the building’s superintendent?” asked the attorney.

“That’s correct,” Sigrid said. “It seems that there was personal animosity toward him.”

Both Rices started to argue and justify, but the attorney raised a restraining hand.

“Whether or not what you say is true, am I correct in thinking you wish to know if they have an alibi for the pertinent time of the man’s death?”

Mrs. Rice sneered and Mr. Rice huffed at the word “alibi.”

“Correct,” Sigrid said. “Can they prove where they were between nine-thirty and, say, eleven?”

“Certainly.” He drew a sheet of paper from his briefcase. “Here are the names and addresses of four people who dined with my clients from eight till ten-forty over on the East Side, as well as the doorman who let them in and out and who knows them by sight. I have included a photocopy of the receipt from their taxi. You will see that it is time-stamped eleven-oh-eight.”

“Excellent,” Sigrid said. She passed the paper on to Hentz. “Thank you for coming.”

“That’s it?” asked Mr. Rice. “That’s all you wanted to ask?”

Mrs. Rice was similarly stunned. “We dragged our attorney here with us and this is all? Well, why didn’t those detectives tell us that? We could have saved a lot of time and money.”

“I believe they tried,” Sigrid said coldly. “You refused to listen and told them you had nothing to say.”

“But we thought it had to do with our lawsuit.”

“No.”

“Damn!” said Mr. Rice, his beefy blond face turning an unhealthy red as he glared at their attorney.

Mrs. Rice picked up her expensive leather purse and stood to go. “Living on the Upper West Side is like living among Bolsheviks. The sooner we move back to the East Side, the better.”

When alone in her office, Sigrid dialed her grandmother’s number. Once more the soft-voiced woman answered. Sigrid identified herself and the woman immediately said, “I’m so sorry, Miss Harald. You just keep missing her. She asked me to apologize for not calling you back and to say she’s visiting a sick friend. I did tell her you had concerns about the package she sent your mother. She forgot that Mrs. McKinnon was away and she wants you to open it and do with it whatever you think is best.”

“When do you expect her back, Ms…. I’m sorry, but I don’t know your name. Have we met?”

“I’m Chloe Adams, Miss Harald. I met you when—” She broke off, then continued smoothly, “when you visited Miss Jane back when you were in high school and I was helping out here. That was years ago and I’m sure you won’t remember. Now, I’ll be sure and tell her you called.”

“Wait!” Sigrid said sharply, but she was too late. Chloe Adams, whoever she was, had hung up.

Chloe Adams.
Chloe Adams?
The name almost connected with a long-ago memory that she could not pin down. Troubled, she looked in her address book and dialed another 919 number.

After five rings, Kate Bryant’s cheerful voice said, “You have almost reached the Bryants. Please leave a message.”

Frustrated, Sigrid hung up.

After a lifetime of dealing with her mother’s Southern speech patterns, she had learned that what a polite Southerner says is not always what a polite Southerner means. She mentally replayed her brief conversations with Ms. Adams until she finally pinpointed what it was about the woman’s words that had her puzzled.

“Your grandmother told me to say…”

“Miss Jane said for me to tell you?”

“She asked me to say she’s visiting a sick friend.”

Not a straightforward “she’s visiting a sick friend,” but “she asked me to
say
she was.” The subterfuge of a truthful woman who would not lie herself but would relay the lie? Why was Grandmother avoiding her calls? Was it that maquette? Was there something illegal about how she acquired that thing that made her unwilling to talk to a granddaughter who was also a police officer?

Once more Sigrid scrolled through her address book, and when the connection went through she said, “Judge Knott? Deborah? I’m sorry to keep interrupting your vacation, but could I come by this afternoon? Shall we say around three?”

CHAPTER

17

Snow mingles with the dust, is churned dirty by hoofs and wheels, and, if it melts, soon makes a slush underfoot.

—
The New New York
, 1909

T
hree o’clock will be fine,” I said and tucked my phone back into the pocket of my parka.

“Who was that?” Dwight asked, picking up the glove I’d dropped on the chilled sidewalk when I answered the phone.

“Sigrid Harald. She wanted to know if I’d be in around three.”

“Why?”

“You think she stayed on the phone long enough for me to ask? God must’ve given that woman forty extra words to last a lifetime and I bet she still has thirty-six of them left. We’ll just have to be there at three if we want to know why.”

“Not me. I’m meeting Josh Cho, remember?”

“Oh, right.”

“You sure you don’t want to come, too?”

I was tempted. I’ve never sat in on one of Dwight’s seminars and I’ve been told that he’s a good speaker, but that would mean I’d have to call Sigrid back and sound wishy-washy and indecisive. Besides, I knew he wanted time with his old friend, and more importantly—okay,
most
importantly—there was a shoe store near the apartment that had an enticing pair of red patent leather heels in the window, shoes that would go perfectly with a red-and-black dress I had found at a summer’s end sale last September. All I needed was a little free time without Dwight, and thanks to Josh Cho, this was it. Carpe diem, y’all. While Dwight went to John Jay College of Criminal Justice and spoke to his friend’s students about rural police work, I could pick up a great souvenir of New York.

Hey, shoes beat a plastic Statue of Liberty, don’t they?

We had been out since ten this morning, which was when the snow stopped and a dispirited sun almost made it through the gray sky.

A heavy snowfall is take-your-breath-away poetry in white when left undisturbed. But plowed and shoveled into waist-high walls along every curb, dusted with soot, desecrated by dogs, and churned into gray mush by Monday morning’s heavy wheels?

Sorry. Poetry it’s not.

Despite the usual bitching from its inconvenienced citizens in the outer boroughs, the city was coping rather efficiently, all things considered. Most of the main arteries were cleared, and between the sun and the scattered rock salt, the sidewalks were getting easier to navigate except at the corners where water had pooled or the sewer openings were blocked. We took a bus down to Rockefeller Center, where we leaned on the rail to watch the ice skaters till we were thoroughly chilled, then poked in and out of the shops along the Channel Gardens before crossing Fifth Avenue to warm ourselves in the stately quiet of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

By then we were both in need of a restroom. If St. Patrick’s has any, they aren’t apparent, but there was a hotel nearby. Travel tip: hotel restrooms are spotlessly clean as a rule and some are luxurious marble and mirrored fantasies. Unless you look like a street bum, the staff won’t pay you any attention.

Warmed and, um, shall we say…
rested
?… we wandered back toward Eighth Avenue and stopped for lunch at a nondescript café just off Broadway where we ordered steaming bowls of mushroom and barley soup before catching an uptown bus.

As Dwight got off at Columbus Circle to walk over to John Jay, he reminded me to turn my phone back on.

He knows I hate feeling like I’m tethered to the world and I had switched it off after Sigrid’s call. In that short time, I had missed three texts from Emma, one of my many nieces. Nothing of substance, just lots of exclamation points exhorting me to call before her lunch period was over. Like I even knew when that would be. A final text told me to check my email. If I knew Emma, it was probably some extra-funny joke going around the Internet. Jokes could wait when shoes beckoned.

I had not intended to buy new boots, too, but those flimsy plastic ones had already popped an elastic loop, and when the salesman showed me a pair of sleek calf-high boots lined in natural lambswool, I succumbed to temptation.

“Boots are practical,” I told myself. “A necessity in all this ice and snow.”

“
Boots, yes
,” said my internal preacher, “
but what’s Dwight going to say about those pricey red high heels?
”

“
Bet Dwight won’t say a word if she wears them with that new negligee
,” said the pragmatist.

“Besides, I can truthfully say they were on sale,” I said. Never mind that the sale price was almost twice what I would have paid for an off-brand at home.

The preacher rolled his eyes, but kept quiet as I pulled out my credit card. The very nice salesman wrapped my old shoes without sneering, put them in a bag with the new red ones, and volunteered to dispose of those plastic horrors. “Now don’t forget to wipe your boots with a clean damp cloth when you get home,” he said. “Wet the cloth with a little diluted white vinegar. Rock salt is hell on leather.”

Who says New Yorkers aren’t friendly?

Walking back to the apartment wasn’t too bad even though the temperature had begun to drop. The wind had picked up and felt as if it were blowing straight off the North Pole. I pulled my hat further down over my ears and wrapped my scarf around my face so that only my eyes were unprotected. By nightfall, these filthy puddles of water would be crusted in ice again.

The man on the elevator was the same as had taken us down earlier today. No brass name tag on his brown uniform. It occurred to me that he had the same slender build as the one who had quit yesterday. Could it be that men were hired for their ability to fit into existing uniforms? After all, how hard could it be to operate one of these things?

“Are you filling in for Antoine?” I asked.

“Permanently, I hope,” he said with an easy smile.

He lacked a chinstrap beard, otherwise he could have been the other man’s brother—same light brown skin, same clipped Afro. No facial hair and no Jamaican accent, though. He spoke pure New York without even a hint of the South. No slight softening and slurring of the words, which so many Northern-born blacks pick up from their expatriated elders or from summers with grandparents and cousins who still live below the Mason-Dixon Line.

I longed to ask him how many generations removed from the South he was, but I was afraid he’d take it wrong, so I told him my name and he said that he was Jim Williams. “Actually, all my friends call me James, but if you run an elevator, you get tired of people saying, ‘Home, James,’ so Jim’s what I’ll have them put on my badge if I get this job.”