Too Quiet in Brooklyn (34 page)

I didn’t say anything for a while, just enjoyed being in my head with a new puzzle.

“Let’s just touch the water and then I’ve got to get back. You can’t tell Robert you’ve seen the Jersey Shore unless you’ve been in the ocean.”

“Not that he’d understand,” Lorraine said.

I wasn’t going to do anything with that remark. So we did, we walked on the hot sand minding the stones and one or two clumps of seaweed and hunted for shells. She stuck her hand in the water and I chased waves.

On the way back, we were quiet.

Jane called as we were crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, thanking me for the information, and asked me how to spell Ralph’s last name. I told her and asked her to hang on and pulled to the side of the road while I read his driver’s license number to her.

“You sure it’s him?” she asked.

“Can’t mistake that face. And it’s a valid New York license. So do me a favor,” I began to ask, but didn’t get far because she cut in.

“I’ll see. Up to my elbows and got a pile of paperwork. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I was going to ask you if you could find the car, the one Ralph used, I can’t think right now …wait, remember we saw it run a red light on Henry? A white Audi, that’s it. Got the tags somewhere.” In a second, she gave them to me.

I knew it. The heat was off. The bad guys were behind bars, and Jane had a fresh plate in front of her. But I didn’t mind, I understood, I’d been there, too. And I knew Jane and I worked well together and would work together again. I told her no problem.

“We’re still on for Vinegar Hill House tomorrow night, aren’t we?” she asked and didn’t wait for my answer but clicked off.

We ran into traffic on the way home, but made it by six. A good thing, too, because Lorraine’s day was just starting.

“Now, what to make for dinner,” she grimaced.

See what I mean about women getting trapped in a marriage? I dropped her off in front of her house. It didn’t look like such a bad house in the waning light of day.

“Maybe you and … Robert would like to join us for dinner one night next week. We could meet at our house and walk down to a restaurant we love. I don’t cook very much.”

“I’d love to.” She thanked me and gave me a big hug, and I told her how glad I was we’d had this time together and we ought to do it more often. I really meant it, too. Now I realized why Denny was so lovable, only I didn’t tell her that. I might not even tell Denny.

“Tell me what you find out about Nanette,” she said. “I’m praying for her. And if I spot a white Audi with New Jersey license plates, I’ll let you know.”

Wrapping Up

I wouldn’t have missed Mary Ward Simon’s funeral, not for anything. I was glad she wasn’t around to know what her daughter had done to her and what kind of a cock up Barbara had made of her life. All the privilege and opportunity in the world and look what she’d done with it. Listen to me, I’m so perfect.

But then I thought of Barbara lying on a cold slab in the morgue with no one to mourn her passing. I thought of the few moments we’d shared, and wished I’d realized sooner what she was doing to herself. I compared myself to Lorraine and found I was a clod in the sensitivity department. Lorraine would have understood Barbara in two seconds. No wonder Denny is such a winner.
All the shattered lives, Mom, when will it end?
Bullets don’t stop with muscle and bone. Bullets whirl through generations—bullets and other kinds of goodbyes.

The weather broke its record of sunshine finally and was suitably droopy for Mary Ward Simon’s funeral. I stood outside Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims, watching the mourners emerge from the mist. My curls frizzed and pulled at my scalp, but the dampness didn’t stop most of the congregation from coming to pay their respects to a fine woman, a woman you’d expect to be a member of a church like Plymouth which has such a long and illustrious history of freedom. I bowed to the statue of Henry Ward Beecher, glad he wasn’t the one eulogizing today because I heard he could speak for hours.

As I approached the front doors, I saw faces I recognized from the old neighborhood. I sat in the back over to the side, a spot reserved for the likes of me. The church was full, people standing in the back as if it was Easter. I figured that for at least one of us, it was.

The minister, the choir, and the organist were about to do their thing when I was tapped on the shoulder. I turned around to see a woman in sunglasses sliding into the pew in back of me.

Marie Connors smiled. “The least I could do is attend the funeral of Charlie’s grandmother. If he asked for her once, he asked for her a thousand times. Really.”

I asked her how she was doing.

“Fine. I’m in my apartment now that Ralph has been caught. They had me hiding out in some motel in Queens, used mostly for jury sequestration. Horrible. It had red velvet swags on the windows held up by fake wooden rods and the place smelled of cheap cleaning fluid. Nestled in a sweet little valley by the BQE.”

Marie was getting better. Stupid not to think of it until now, but I asked if she knew Ralph’s last name.

She shook her head. “I saw him for all of five minutes. Winston called him a name, but I won’t pass it on.”

I faced forward again when I heard a claque followed by a low attenuated hum that hit me right in the gut. The organ began a low hum, a bit of hope and grief all rolled into one, the way organs do sometimes, and I saw heads bow.

Shortly before the service began, Charlie and his father walked up the aisle and sat in the front row. There was a hush as he pointed to the casket. His father leaned down to him and picked him up and held him while he took a closer look.

There’s a part of me that expects our priests and ministers to explain everything and make it feel okay, and I’m always a little bit let down when they never quite do it, at least not for me. But the minister was not here to dispel my ignorance. He said he wanted to celebrate Mary Ward Simon’s life and her good deeds, her hopes and dreams, tell a few anecdotes to make some of us chuckle. His words and the music soared, a worthy tribute to a magnificent woman. When it was over, I walked out with Marie.

“I saw my car on Columbia Heights,” she said, as we walked under the church portico. I told her I’d tell the police, they’d been looking for it.

“Funny they haven’t found it, not like it’s hidden. I could have used it, but I didn’t. Tell them if they need the keys, I have a set.”

“If you want to hide something,” I said, “put it where everyone can see it. But I think they were looking in Dumbo close to the apartment Ralph used, not in the Heights.”

“I’m sure they’ll need to have it for a few days for whatever it is they do, but I’d like it back in good order.”

She told me she would keep her apartment and for now, the horse farm. Said she’d grown to love the country and missed a particular horse she’d gotten to know.

“I’m sorry for the loss of your son.” My concern must have been written all over my face because she smiled.

She looked down. “Right now, I’m numb. They say the worst thing that can happen is to lose a child, but I’d lost him a long time ago. Ken was … I don’t know what happened to him, almost like he’d inherited a piece of Winston’s heart and nothing from me. Nothing. The youngest, and we spoiled him.”

“Still, if there’s anything I can do.”

“Don’t worry about me. Winston kept the cars, the farm, and the apartment in my name. And if I lose them, I lose them.”

“Have you seen your husband?”

She shook her head and held her lips tight. I could tell by the look on her face that she was choking back tears. It would be a while before she paid him a visit, she said. I gave her my card and asked her to call me if she thought of something I should know or if she needed me for anything.

“And thank you. I don’t know if I’d have gone through with leaving if it hadn’t been for you. I hope they give you credit. You and I saved a child’s life. I keep holding onto that thought.”

I said goodbye and walked down Henry Street and checked in at Lucy’s. Minnie was staring at her computer, the phone stuck in her ear. She smiled over her half-glasses when I came in.

With the help of Mr. Baggins who kept pawing the disconnect button, I made a few calls, texting Jane to say that Marie Connors found the car.

We’d outsourced as much as possible, accounting, taxes, payroll, interviewing, hiring, and firing, so it was still possible to have Minnie run everything. I could tell by her face that things were going well. As she talked on the phone, she brought out the contract Blake had signed and poked it and made the okay sign. On a notepad she wrote one word, Tonight, underlined and followed by three exclamations.

I scribbled back, “Call if you need me, but I hope you don’t, we’re celebrating.” As I walked out, Mr. Baggins rubbed against my jeans. I could hear him talking to me all the way up the stairs. One of these days I’d speak to Denny about bringing him to Vinegar Hill.

At home, I had some time to kill before I started digging into Nanette’s past. Truth to tell, I had to square it with my conscience. Nanette’s past had no bearing on the case, none at all, but there was a robin-hood-in-drag part of me that thought if I knew more about her, maybe I could help, shrink that I’m not. Was I just being nosey?

It was easy enough to get Ralph’s birth certificate from one of the online archives I belonged to. But if I found out Nanette was his mother as I suspected, what would that prove? How would it help his case? Wouldn’t I be violating her privacy? Don’t we have a right to our secrets as long as they’re not breaking the law or hurting others? I considered for a moment, concluded that maybe she needed help, maybe she needed to tell someone, I mean, to break the weight of the secret. I’d begun discussing this with Lorraine, but I just couldn’t let it go. I needed the opinion of my friends and one in particular, Denny.

So instead of going to my computer and pressing a couple of keys, I decided instead to take a look at my study.

When I opened the door, the odor of stale urine bit me hard. No one was working the scene. Yellow tape blocked my way, but when had that ever stopped me. On the other hand, some perversity made me want to keep to the rules so, contrite for all past demeanors and vowing never to overstep the line again, at least for today, I called Jane and fortunately she answered, giving me the chance to rant.

“We’re through, I don’t know why the tape is still up unless the Feds are looking for something.”

I told her Marie Connors found the Audi on Columbia Heights. “It belongs to her.”

Jane told me I was a miracle. I didn’t feel like one, but told her I’d see her tonight.

I had to get to my computer and look at my bank account, I told myself, and what do you know, Barbara’s check cleared. I should have bet with Denny.

My finger was still itching, tempting me to violate Nanette’s privacy, so I got out of the house and did what I hadn’t done in a long while—I took a walk. I mean, a walk just to walk. I walked through Dumbo, feeling the soft rain on my face, every once in a while shaking my curls like a dog and hoping it would take the place of crying. I wasn’t about to leave the smell of urine in my study, so despite the risk to my career, I called Lucy’s and left a message asking Minnie to send over a crew. “My study is a disaster after Sunday night, and if I clean it myself, I’m sure to be a failure or at least gag from the stench. Tell them to wear gloves and masks.”

The Mary Ward Simon case was over. I knew who had strangled her and why. I knew who had killed my mother, but the truth didn’t make me happy. I felt awful. Even the certainty that Charlie was in his father’s safe keep, didn’t comfort me. I felt like I had a week after we found Mom’s body—numb.

Snoop that I am, I took a little detour to Columbia Heights. There, fat and sassy, was the white Audi with Jersey plates, an NYPD tow truck looming toward it.

I cut over to the promenade. Listening to the birds squawking and the fog horns groaning, I looked across the East River to where gulls hung low over a garbage scow making its way to Fresh Kills. From her perch on Liberty Island, the green lady stared back at me. She was barely visible through the mist, but I watched how she slammed her torch into the sky. I hoped Ralph was healing and thought of all the times I’d stood here with Mom talking about what her gran said it was like to leave everything. I remembered her telling me that the eyes of my ancestors saw the statue, probably gazed at the spot where we stood. I felt their spirit giving me strength. Mom’s, too.
I never doubted you, I still need you
, I told her, and peered up at uncertain holes in the cloud cover.

Vinegar Hill House

“Doesn’t your partner get jealous, all the time you spend on the job?” Denny asked.

I didn’t hold my breath waiting for Willoughby to answer. Although the sun came out in time to set, it was still too wet to sit in the garden of Vinegar Hill House, so we gathered around a big table close enough to the window so we could look out on the neighborhood I’d grown to love. Sure our neighborhood wasn’t as glamorous as Brooklyn Heights, but the ghosts of old sailors lurked in the walls of our house, and they had a lot to tell me. Besides, I knew that the cuisine in this restaurant was as close as I was ever going to get to heaven.

“She’s a midwife,” Willoughby said. “Sometimes we don’t see each other for a week.”

So that explained it. A woman who helps to deliver new life chose Willoughby to bring her down from the clouds. I watched him brush crumbs off his tie.

There was a gap in the conversation while they considered the menu. I knew what I wanted, so instead I leaned into Denny and bothered him while he decided. The ending of my first case. We’d already toasted—me, Jane, the crime scene unit, Marie, Willoughby and Denny—who claimed they did nothing—and of course, Cookie. Denny gave a special toast to our new arrival, Mr. Baggins, who after protesting the move by hiding for two days, took over the house.

Jane told me that the CSU found old blood near the drain pipe in Connors’ Dumbo apartment. “Getting DNA from it will be a stretch, but you never know. We think that’s where your mother was murdered.”