Too Quiet in Brooklyn
Read Too Quiet in Brooklyn Online
Authors: Susan Russo Anderson
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Private Investigators, #Women Sleuths, #Brooklyn, #Abduction, #Kidnap, #Murder, #Mystery
Too Quiet In Brooklyn
A Fina Fitzgibbons Mystery
by
Susan Russo Anderson
Copyright © 2014 Susan Russo Anderson
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Too Quiet In Brooklyn
is a work of fiction.
Names, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead
is purely coincidental.
Cover design:
Avalon Graphics
Copy Editing & Proofreading: Angella Graf
ISBN: 978-1497361508
Author’s Website
Readers, I’d love to hear from you:
For Sara Lane & Sophia Grace
Short Blurb:
Fina finds a throttled woman in the heart of Brooklyn Heights. She discovers that the dead woman’s young grandson is also missing and begins a hunt for the strangler-kidnapper, Ralph. During the chase, she resists falling in love with her boyfriend, Denny and uncovers secrets about her own past. In the end, Ralph has a deadly surprise for Fina.
Synopsis
Twenty-two-year-old Fina Fitzgibbons stumbles upon a throttled woman in the heart of Brooklyn Heights and discovers that the dead woman’s four-year-old grandson is also missing. She begins a wild hunt for the strangler-kidnapper, Ralph. During the chase, she resists falling in love with her boyfriend, Denny, an NYPD patrol officer, steps on the toes of Detective First Grade Jane Templeton, and uncovers secrets about her own past. In the end, Ralph has a deadly surprise for Fina.
Thursday
The Tree and the Boy
Charlie grabbed his favorite book, the one about a tree and a boy, and opened the door to the roof garden.
“Wait for me,” his grandmother said, cookies and milk in her hand.
They sat together on the rocking chair.
Pointing to some branches across the way where the breeze hit the leaves and made them shimmer, she said, “Like angel wings.”
Charlie licked the cookie and opened his book.
The sounds of traffic and sirens had long since fled across bridges and into tunnels, streaming along with most adults to their day jobs in the city. In their place, midmorning quiet descended. As she read, the four-year old listened, wrapped up in the world of the story, even though he knew the words by heart.
“‘Once there was a tree.’” She turned the page.
“I want to read it now.” He placed his finger underneath each word and read. “‘And she loved a little boy.’” He looked up at his gran and smiled. The woman stopped so the child could gaze at the drawings of the tree and a boy running to play beneath its branches. She began to turn the page.
“Wait. I haven’t finished looking,” he said, flattening the spread with his hand. “Boy,” he said, sounding out the letters. He pointed to the boy.
The woman heard feet running in the alley below, muffled shouts, and the hollow ring of a heavy object hitting metal. The air stilled.
“Nothing!” someone yelled. “It’s a dud.”
She sat up straighter, cocking her head. Charlie stared at the page, tracing the drawing with his finger.
A deep voice snarled below. “Get down! S’posed to take a sec.”
The child looked up at her and she smiled.
Then it happened—a
flash of light, a searing blast that shook the house. The book dropped from her lap and Charlie buried his face in her chest.
When her senses returned, the woman heard running feet, shouting, laughter, the hissing sound of something hitting the garbage can. She held onto her grandson. “Firecrackers in May?” she said, mostly to herself.
The boy looked up at her. “Is it over?” He hung onto her arm.
She stroked the side of his face before picking up the book and asked, “Can I turn the page now?”
He nodded and settled back in the chair.
Sunlight flashed off the sapphire and diamonds of her ring as she held the book and read, but the smell of cordite and gasoline began to choke her. The child rubbed his eyes. The woman saw a rising cloud of smoke.
“Stay here. I’ll just take a little peak.” She walked to the edge of the terrace, leaned against the rail, and looked down.
“Finish the story,” Charlie said, gulping his milk and stuffing a cookie into his mouth.
She read a few more pages but stopped when she saw flames licking the leaves across the way.
“Let’s go downstairs for a moment. Gran has to shoo those nasty men away or they’ll just keep on with their nonsense. They should be working, not disrupting. We’ll be back in a tick, and after we finish the book, I’ll drive you to your favorite park.”
“What’s a tick?”
“Faster than you can count to ten.” She planted a kiss on the top of his head and swiped a finger at the milk ring above his upper lip.
Fina Finds a Body
Mom would call it a 9/11 morning—no sirens, no fights, and a fresh breeze off the ocean wafting all the street gunk away. I knew something bad was about to happen. The feeling followed me most the day, a stillness setting my teeth on edge. That afternoon when my best friend Cookie and I were walking down Henry Street toward the gym, I could feel the monster rumbling inside me.
“Is that a sack of laundry in front of your grill?” Cookie asked, pointing across the street to a dark lump in the middle of the sidewalk a few feet from my front gate.
I’d inherited a brownstone in Brooklyn. Growing up, we had a fine life, living in the parlor and basement, renting out the upper floors, but sometimes garbage cans rattled beneath my bedroom window in the middle of the night. I shook my head. “More like someone’s been rooting through our throwaways.”
I looked up at the leaves, thick with late afternoon light, sensing whatever it was on the sidewalk might be something of consequence, but I continued walking away from it, hoping Cookie’s curiosity would pass and the creepy feeling on the back of my neck would go away.
She tugged at my sleeve. “C’mon, let’s go over and take a look.”
“Forget it. We’ll be late for karate.” I stared at the mass on the sidewalk.
“Instructor’ll never know. Got his head up his own inner space.” Cookie stepped into the street, pulling me along with one hand while she texted with the other.
Sirens roared in the distance and I hauled Cookie back to the curb just in time to avoid inline bladers slaloming down the street. The quiet had been broken, but the heap on the sidewalk hadn’t moved. It lay there, squat and foreboding while I stared at its edges, my skin prickling with the knowledge of what I was about to get into.
I knew whatever lay near my front door was no ordinary debris. For one thing, my curls began pulling at my scalp, a definite sign of trouble. And for another, the pile sat on the exact spot where I’d found Mom’s body five years ago. The lump in my throat was killing me, but I looked around. No sounds except for the pounding in my ears.
As we drew closer, Cookie’s eyes widened. Covering her mouth, she leaned hard against a tree and closed her eyes.
It was woman, or a specter dressed as a woman. She lay in a fetal position, neck and head burrowed into an oversized moth-bitten coat like a turtle hiding in its shell. The coat wasn’t hers, I’d bet money on it. It was black wool fading to bilious green, with padded shoulders and a fake leopard-skin collar. On her feet were patent leather flats that looked like they’d cost the better part of five-hundred dollars. Both heels were evenly worn and there were small creases on the toes, so her shoes weren’t new, just nicely broken in.
My heart pounded. I stepped back, took out my phone, and snapped a few photos. Slipping on evidence gloves, I tapped her shoulder. “M’am?”
No answer.
Then I pushed and pulled at the form until she turned onto her back. My forehead was soaked, but I had to know more. I undid the top buttons of the coat.
“Are you crazy?” Cookie asked. “Don’t touch anything. Denny’ll kill you.”
The dead woman had blonde hair going to gray, pinned into a loose bun on the top of her head, strands falling out, I supposed from a recent struggle or just from someone shoving her into an old coat. All in all, though, well turned out for having just met a violent end. Hard to guess her age, but I’d say fifty at least. I felt for a pulse, but shouldn’t have bothered. By the startled look in her bloodshot eyes and her purple complexion, to say nothing about the bruising around her neck or her protruding tongue, I knew she was dead, and not from natural causes.
I felt such pity for her, such anger and revulsion at whoever had done this to her, to any human being, that I thought I was going to lose it. It was obvious to me she had been throttled somewhere else, wrapped in an old coat, and dumped here. But why here? Weren’t there better places in Brooklyn to get rid of a body? I mean, why use a main street in the Heights? I looked at her violated face, bloated but vaguely familiar.
From what I could see, she wore an expensive-looking black linen suit and, as if dressed for Halloween, yellow rubber gloves, the kind used for heavy scrubbing. I’d come this far, so I removed one of the gloves. Her hand was elegant and veined, folded into itself and fragile like a newborn bird, the fingernails recently manicured but one partially ripped off, a thread or a hair or something dangling from it. In my head I could hear Detective Jane Templeton yelling at me and I wouldn’t blame her, but I couldn’t help it, and anyway they already had my prints and DNA on file from the last time. To my credit, I resisted looking through the woman’s pockets for ID.
“Stop touching her,” Cookie said. But for all her bluster, she bent over the body and stared at the woman, her attention arrested, her face crinkled into a frown, and her shoulders shuddering slightly. “Who’d want to kill an old lady like that? Did you see the rock she’s got on?”